Well if video games come to exist in the WMIT-Verse, here is your annual fps game that does nothing but consumes the developers who make it.
"What Madness Is This?" Volume III: The Pinnacle Future
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
I wonder if eventually stuff like this could happen ITTL. Knowing this is WMIT we're talking about, and since this is already happening IOTL, the most likely answer should be yes.
HOT POTATO: THE CONVOY ROLLS ON
HOT POTATO:
THE CONVOY ROLLS ON
THE CONVOY ROLLS ON
Arthur Aldridge watched the empty houses and abandoned shops vanish along the roadside, his arms crossed on the tailgate of the treasury truck and his chin resting on his forearms in quiet contemplation. He had taken the life of a Europan soldier in defense of his American ORRA rescuers, and he was just old enough to realize that he would live with that moment for life.
New York woke from a short nap when the truck hit a pothole. The Yankee slid his dark blue pot helmet up from over his eyes and blinked a few times. "You okay, kid?" he asked, reaching into his satchel for a ration bar. Unwrapping the pressed grain block, he broke off a chunk and offered it to Arthur.
"I'm alright," said Arthur quietly. "And I'm not very hungry. I keep thinking about... that man I shot, you know?"
New York smiled a knowing smile. "I understand, kiddo. I do, believe me. But there is something you have to remember! And that's that this whole world is a survival of the fittest. A war between the Pinnacle Race and the Inferior demons. That man you killed was subhuman. Don't let it get you down. I let it go in one ear and out the other. I don't much enjoy killin', but I know what has gotta be done and I do it."
Arthur sighed and turned around, leaning his back on the tailgate. "How many have you killed?"
New York chewed on the dry nutrient bar and took a swig from his canteen before answering. "I don't much keep score, kiddo," he replied. "But... I suppose about sixty or so. Most of them were long-distance hits, though. Up close and personal, I have maybe about twenty confirmed. I get the job done."
"How do you sleep at night? Doesn't it all bother you?" Arthur asked, wrapping his arms around his knees.
"I sleep like a baby, kiddo. Like a little swaddlin' babe. You see, Jev--uh, God--He's gotta list of names of all the servants of evil. One way or another they are gonna get what is comin' to 'em. I am just a vessel for God's judgement. If I don't pull the trigger, somebody else will. If God is with us, who can be against us?"
"Why would God let Maddie go off?" Arthur blurted out, almost surprised by his own questioning of faith.
New York looked startled for a moment and then relaxed as he took another swig of his canteen. "The Devil. The Devil got in this country when it turned its back on the New Jerusalem. We were all brothers, once. But not only did the Brexit fearmongers trash us Yankees for being their so-called bosses, they killed Churchill and the Wormists infiltrated all levels of your society. This country was used to blaspheme God and all that is good. Liberty, family, and prosperity. I got three wives back home and here I couldn't afford one! This country destroyed itself because it removed God."
"Three wives?" Arthur asked, eyes widening. He had heard stories about polygamist Americans but had never heard about it from the horse's mouth. His parents seemed, or, well, used to seem, so busy keeping up with and supporting each other that he couldn't imagine even more parents.
"Yeah. The Second Prophet commanded us to have tons of kids and multiply. God's blessed me with ten children. A couple are about your age. That's why I'm tryin' to help you out, kiddo. You remind me of mine. You're a good kid."
"Thank you," Arthur said without much emotion, trying to wrap his head around all these new ideas.
A few minutes later, their convoy of treasury trucks screeched to a halt. Up ahead about 250 yards, a massive crowd of refugees were thronging along the road and blocking the way forward. A convoy of Britannic military vehicles were surrounded by the desperate horde. Atop several of the vehicles, soldiers in olive drab uniforms and Scottish envelope hats tossed down tin cans of food and drinking water. These people had been reduced to a near-animal state of being. Limbs mindlessly flapped around and fights broke out over the supplies. Babies screamed as hundreds of strangers bumped and pushed and shoved into one another. A gentle rain overhead became a steady winter downpour of freezing droplets, adding to their perfect picture of misery.
"Wait here, kid. I'm gonna take a look," said New York. "Stay in here. We might have to move fast." He adjusted his helmet and jumped out of the truck by leaping over the tailgate and onto the muddy road below. Up ahead, several more Americans were bailing from their vehicles and congregating to discuss what to do next.
Sargent "Appalachia," as Arthur called him, waved New York over. He was wearing a dark gray poncho that had a hood that fit over his helmet, and his trenchsweeper was slung under the whole thing to keep it dry and ready to go. "Guys!" Sarge barked. "We gotta clear that path. That's the only damn road forward and the trucks can't go off-roadin' in this mud with all the weight from the assets, y'all read me?"
"How are we gonna do this, Sarge?" New York asked, resting his hands on his duty belt and trying to pop his own back via stretching and flexing. The truck was not the most comfortable place to nap.
"I reckon we get back in the trucks and just full throttle it. If they know what's good for 'em, they'll clear out of the way. Them soldiers yonder will see our trucks and think we're on their side. They won't give us no trouble. Hell, they'd probably appreciate us pushin' them folks out of the way."
Just then, the sounds of gunshots cracking over the steady hum of the rain and truck engines made them flinch and hit the dirt. Someone had opened fire in the crowd, and now the Scottish troopers were losing their cool. Within seconds, the crowd was engulfing the Army trucks and assaulting their would-be saviors, refusing to accept that there were no more supplies. A belt-fed opened up from the back of one of the vehicles and started pouring lead into the civilians, but to little avail. Within moments, formerly peaceful citizens were jubilantly holding up military rifles and dragging the corpses of the Scotsmen through the crowd and into a watery ditch.
"Jesus Christ Almighty," Appalachia muttered. "Buncha fuckin' psychos. Alright, we're gonna steamroll 'em. Everyone, get back to your trucks and get ready to go full-speed ahead, y'all."
New York returned to the truck to find Arthur panicking in the back corner, just behind the cab. "Kid! Get down and stay down."
"What... what's happening out there?" Arthur asked unsteadily as he slid from off the crates and onto the floor of the truckbed.
"Bad shit. This could get real ugly, kid. Stay down, and don't lift your head until I tell you, ya dig?" New York commanded him while grabbing a cocaine lozenge from a belt compartment and biting down hard on it. He lung his rifle's barrel over the back of the tailgate and gave a small salute to the driver in the truck behind him as they all started to roll forward, first slowly and then so fast the tires began to scream and fling mud and melting snow wildly.
The lead truck of the American caravan met the crowd first. The carnage was terrible. Bone and flesh smacked up against the reinforced bumper and was crushed out of the way, the vehicle crushing them under massive tires and sending gold bricks inside the vehicle shifting and then smashing to the floor. Two gunners in the back fired out wildly as the crowd dispersed and panicked. Several civilians fired back with their captured guns, but to little avail. As the convoy battered its way through the mass of people, the shouts and screams of the dying filled the air like a nightmarish symphony of terror.
Arthur heard the shouts of children and women and was horrified to think what was going on outside. Why were they doing this? These men had helped him! Were they so callous that they could just commit a war crime like it was nothing. He felt sick to his stomach as he laid on the truckbed floor, his nose pressed against the boards and his arms over his head. But finally, the hellish noises drove him mad and he sat up, only to see the exact moment that New York popped a round square into the chest of a grandfatherly-looking old man with a white beard and a flat cap. The old timer buckled and fell backwards into puddle of mud and blood like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Stop! Oh my God, what are you doing?!" Arthur cried out in anguish.
New York slid over and shoved him to the truckbed once more, yelling, "Get down, kid! What the fuck is wrong with you!"
The young lad struggled as much as he could against the full-grown soldier, but to no avail. "What the fuck is wrong with you, more like! You're massacring them!"
"They just massacred some Scottish soldiers, if you must know. They ain't harmless, you brat! Now stay down or I'll knock you the hell out!" New York ordered him.
"American dog!" Arthur cried out through his red-hot tears as their truck hit another "speed bump." New York sprayed several more rounds out of his rifle before ducking back down to reload. At that moment, Arthur lunged forward and tried to grab the fresh magazine from the man's hand. "I won't let you murder any more people!" New York simply sighed, raised the ass-end of his rifle on high, and brought it down on Arthur's face.
The whole world went black.
***
Pinnacleus Cincinnatus Bush checked the time on his wristwatch and fidgeted nervously with a pen on his desk. As head of the Bank of the Union, as well as the representative head of the Banking Clan, he was a busy man prone to fits and spells of overwork, exhaustion, and stress. But even so, P.C.--as he was known--found the rare moments of silence or calm more troubling than anything, as it gave him far, far too much time to think. So many variables, so many possible outcomes, so many opportunities for failure all kept him up at night and filled every waking moment in which he was not engrossed in work. And now, at present, he could do nothing but wait for his secure-line phone to ring.
At last, it did. In a flash, Bush threw the pen almost fully across the room, bouncing off of the pedestal that bore the taxidermied remains of a black bear he had shot a few years ago during a hunting trip with then-ORRA Supreme Chief Oswald. He grabbed the red phone's receiver and immediately brought it up to his face. "This is Bush."
A voice on the other end of the phone drawled out its words in a thick southern accent. "'Evenin', sir. I'm calling about the English situation."
"Yes, yes," Bush replied, leaning forward in his chair and resting his forehead on his palm. He couldn't tell if his hands or his palms were sweatier. "Well, what do you have for me, man?"
"I heard tell of a massacre by ORRA boys at a checkpoint just a few miles northeast of Southampton. They said they was drivin' big ole transports and they was full of gold and shit. I went and scoped out the place it happened and found a couple gold bars lyin' in the mud. Musta slipped out when they were rolling over the bodies of pedestrians."
"Jesus," Bush muttered. "Well, can you catch up to them?"
"Oh, that won't be a problem, sir. Me and the boys know our way around this part of England fairly well, I reckon. We'll cut 'em off at the pass, as they always said in them Lucky Duck pictures I used to watch when I was a boy. Just givin' you a status report, so to say."
Bush feverishly pulled a Firebreather cigarette out of a golden humidor on his desk and lit it. He took a quick puff and replied, "Good, good. Excellent. Proceed then."
The voice at the other end of the line paused for a moment before saying, "Uh, and I'm gonna ask you one more time, boss. I gotta. You know how this is going to end, right?"
"Indeed. Leave none alive, Skelton. Wipe them out. There can be no witnesses. And not one trace of evidence can be found linking me to this operation, man."
"I know how to send men to the Maker, Bush. Don't worry about that. But these are our fellow Americans. Just like us."
"Like my fellow Americans, Skelton. Or have you renounced your status as a stateless gun-for-hire and grown a conscience?"
"Nah, I'm damn straight on the whole stateless thing. Taxation is theft, and AFC can go fuck itself. That doesn't mean I'm eager to kill American soldiers. 'Specially ORRA boys. I mean, hell, there's some damn fine soldiers in this convoy. They wouldn't have gotten this far with the assets if they weren't."
"Wipe them out, Skelton. All of them. Bring the assets to the extraction and you shall be richly rewarded. On top of that, keep those two bricks you found on the road. Consider it an up-front bonus."
"Alright, Mr. Bush. You're the boss. I'll take the convoy in a few hours and let you know when the job is done. One last thing: I heard tell from my scouts that Wormist bastards in London are aware of the convoy and are sendin' their own boys to retrieve the goods. This could get real uncomfortable, real quick. If we have to fight off the Wormies, that's gonna cost extra."
"I am about to own the fucking crown jewels of the Hannoverians, man. Money is no object or concern. Get me that damn convoy and I'll give you whatever you want."
"I'll hold you to that, pardner. Skelton out."
So, Arthur is trapped with ORRA guys in a crazed, chaotic, lawless Britannia with who knows how many refugees willing to do anything, who are also chased by British Wormists and Bush mercenaries, hell maybe even Europan mercs too if the Libyans from the previous chapter have friends.
Interesting time ahead.
Interesting time ahead.
I thought Oswald was Darth Sidious, but maybe it's actually Bush.
Oh God, Yankee Ancaps...
More like OTL neoliberals imo, even in the Pinnacle Future I can't imagine that Oswald would remove all the regulations and anti-monopoly rules set down by Custer. "Goodyearian Capitalism" (corporatism but done by people who aren't absolutely incompetent) reigns supreme in NUSA, and because of it's influence even a person like Skelton probably won't agree with the ancaps despite the Steele era.
True. It's just the first thing I thought of when I read that, and I was thinking of OTL, even thought the context of the saying ITTL would probably be completely different.
Crazymachines
Banned
I imagine that ORRA and the quarantine zone by the modern day 21st century are essentially just this.
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I have suddenly realized of something: we may have lost the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Monty Python and Paul Gascoigne.
Probably. The odds they all survived are pretty low. Maybe some individual members of those groups, but not all, and even then there would be butterflies.
I can imagine a group formed by survivors John Lennon, Mick Jaegger and John Cleese...
What do black fascists in the yankee sphere think of north african peoples?
And what do they think of ancient civilizations placed in North Africa such as the old egyptians and carthaginians?
I mean, do they think they were glorious (subsaharan) black empires whose "real" history has been "erased" by the inferior unchristian colonial empires of Europe or something like that? And that present day north african peoples are "actually" either degenerate infee mongrels, product of several waves of inferior invaders, or the inferior "colonial" invaders themselves?
Like, I imagine yankee black fascists have this severely limited and skewed idea of what Africa is about or what "africans" are. Even leaving aside the huge differences between the north african and subsaharan ethnic and cultural makeups, Africa is a far more varied and complex continent than some people realize. The peoples from the Horn of Africa, such as the ethiopians, somalis, etc, by virtue of religion, history, language and more factors don't fit neither into the "west african or bantu speaking" mold most people think of.
OTL afro-americans, and I assume WMIT afro-americans too, do mostly descend from west african peoples, iirc. Knowing how WMIT works, and the sort of education they must receive about their origins, they probably pretty strongly lean into an "all indigenuous africans are vaguely west or central african subsaharan blacks" prejudice that could lead into pretty nasty outcomes if they stumble onto an indigenuous african that doesn't fit. Not that they would consider him a "true african", anyway.
As for the actual non-indigenuous africans, whites from Free World colonial states get a pass because geopolitics, but other groups settled in Africa during the colonial era (indians in French North Africa; south east asians in Dutch South Africa; etc) are probably free targets, apart from non-Free World whites.
This didn't happen in an afroamerican context, but OTL Hutu ultranationalists liked to claim the tutsi were foreign invader oppresors who had allied with the colonial belgians. OTL shona revolutionary nationalists in Zimbabwe's ZANU party (the country's ruling party in Mugabe's era and still today) equated the ndebele with the British colonizers before and during the Gukurahundi genocide (iirc, someone correct me if I'm wrong). Zanzibar's genocide was basically the black zanzibari getting revenge on the islands' arabs because of the slave trade of the past and the racist treatment the Sultanate's government gave them, independently of whether the genocide's victims were actually involved in any of the above or not. I can see black fascists, both from America and Africa, using a lot these sort of justifications and getting away with it because they are Pinnacle Men "taking back what is rightfully theirs". Fighting the good fight, emancipating their oppressed black brothers, power back to the people and all that.
Imagine all the wrong parts of black nationalist politics, afrocentrism, pan-africanism, etc, passed through the WMIT filter.
And what do they think of ancient civilizations placed in North Africa such as the old egyptians and carthaginians?
I mean, do they think they were glorious (subsaharan) black empires whose "real" history has been "erased" by the inferior unchristian colonial empires of Europe or something like that? And that present day north african peoples are "actually" either degenerate infee mongrels, product of several waves of inferior invaders, or the inferior "colonial" invaders themselves?
Like, I imagine yankee black fascists have this severely limited and skewed idea of what Africa is about or what "africans" are. Even leaving aside the huge differences between the north african and subsaharan ethnic and cultural makeups, Africa is a far more varied and complex continent than some people realize. The peoples from the Horn of Africa, such as the ethiopians, somalis, etc, by virtue of religion, history, language and more factors don't fit neither into the "west african or bantu speaking" mold most people think of.
OTL afro-americans, and I assume WMIT afro-americans too, do mostly descend from west african peoples, iirc. Knowing how WMIT works, and the sort of education they must receive about their origins, they probably pretty strongly lean into an "all indigenuous africans are vaguely west or central african subsaharan blacks" prejudice that could lead into pretty nasty outcomes if they stumble onto an indigenuous african that doesn't fit. Not that they would consider him a "true african", anyway.
As for the actual non-indigenuous africans, whites from Free World colonial states get a pass because geopolitics, but other groups settled in Africa during the colonial era (indians in French North Africa; south east asians in Dutch South Africa; etc) are probably free targets, apart from non-Free World whites.
This didn't happen in an afroamerican context, but OTL Hutu ultranationalists liked to claim the tutsi were foreign invader oppresors who had allied with the colonial belgians. OTL shona revolutionary nationalists in Zimbabwe's ZANU party (the country's ruling party in Mugabe's era and still today) equated the ndebele with the British colonizers before and during the Gukurahundi genocide (iirc, someone correct me if I'm wrong). Zanzibar's genocide was basically the black zanzibari getting revenge on the islands' arabs because of the slave trade of the past and the racist treatment the Sultanate's government gave them, independently of whether the genocide's victims were actually involved in any of the above or not. I can see black fascists, both from America and Africa, using a lot these sort of justifications and getting away with it because they are Pinnacle Men "taking back what is rightfully theirs". Fighting the good fight, emancipating their oppressed black brothers, power back to the people and all that.
Imagine all the wrong parts of black nationalist politics, afrocentrism, pan-africanism, etc, passed through the WMIT filter.
As of now im willing to bet the NUSA despises the North Africans due to them being pretty loyal subjects to Europa although id be willing to bet theyd make an exception for egypt if they saw a chance to ferment rebellion there. As for Afro NUSAians on sub saharan africans im willing to bet there justification falls along the lines of claiming they are the descendants of Jews sent by king soloman and the infee Bantus migrated in and sold them into slavery and now they are justified in committing any atrocities they want.
My favorite part about this tl is that the absurdity of the racism makes the reader reflect on real world racism and realise it is just as insane as the racism in the madnessverse
My favorite part about this tl is that the absurdity of the racism makes the reader reflect on real world racism and realise it is just as insane as the racism in the madnessverse
They probably attribute anything good to Better Africans (things like Ancient Egypt, Great Zimbabwe, and anything "civilized") and claim that Africa has since been overrun by Infee Pygmioids and must be reclaimed. We already saw hints of this with Lincolnia, and it would parallel the treatment of native Liberians by American freedmen IOTL.
SAUL GOODMAN IN WHAT MADNESS IS THIS ?1!1!?11?1!
(also love the TL btw, def my favorite on this website)
(also love the TL btw, def my favorite on this website)
Do you think stuff like Great Zimbabwe would be widely known, or even known outside of obscure circles by this point?
Iirc, one of the reasons OTL Afroamerican radical movements at this time started focusing mostly on reivindicating Ancient Egypt as black was because the other african civilizations weren't as known (almost unknown, afaik) in mainstream culture (not that they are widely known today, anyway). Egypt was the one everyone knew. I might be wrong, though, as I'm speaking out of blurred memory here.
As for Great Zimbabwe, IOTL the Rhodesian government pressured archaeologists to deny it had been built by black africans. The area of OTL Zimbabwe in WMIT is chopped between the carolinians, the mittelafrikans and I think that maybe a bit of Dutch South Africa too. Granted, Mittelafrika is not long for this world, but I don't think the other two, even the comparatively liberal dutch, are going to be much different from the rhodesians in that regard. Same for other archaeological findings under those governments.
If stuff such as Great Zimbabwe or other civilizations like the Swahili city-states or the many West African kingdoms and empires is going to be reclaimed by black fascists, those black fascists will be either autoctonous to the region or lincolnians. Afroamerican (as in not from Lincolnia, but from the continental american part of the NUSA) fascists will go for the more pop culture stuff, whether it makes sense or not. Egypt, Hannibal, Cleopatra, Nubia, etc.
Way I see it, black fascists from Africa itself will have a vibe closer to the wrong parts of african ideologies and politics in the post-colonial era. Lincolnians will be different, though. Lincolnia will be Liberia Madness NUSA Edition. Black fascists from America will be Nation of Islam, afrocentrism, etc.
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