The King in Yellow and Other Stories: A President Lovecraft Weird Fiction Timeline in Several Acts

[John Spangler]

Unfortunately my schedule just changed effective immediately so I'll have to put this off for another few days to a week

Don't worry, we can wait.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Gonna shoot for starting Invisible Amendments on Saturday! I've got two more updates to wrap up in Power Without Knowledge in the meantime.

 

[Born in the USSA]

"It's a shame he won't live. But then again who does?"
​

With the benefit of hindsight modern historians would retroactively date the start of the Age of Fear to 1980. While there were plenty of events in the decade that would prove significant and by that point the anti-Comintern alliance between the Pact and the Alliance had definitively broken, the greatest argument was centered on the birth of three people in that year who would go on to play major roles in the cycle of escalation that would culminate in the Third Clash of Civilizations some years later. The first would be Victoria of the House of Angevin, firstborn of Prince Imperial Victor and under the current laws of Franco-British imperial succession third in line for the throne. The second would be Emily Lovecraft, scion of the most famous political family in modern American history. Though an only child, her grandfather and father had already risen to heights of prominence within the ecosystem of the Independence Party, with the former a beloved Rhode Island governor until his death and the latter a long-serving senator. Her uncle was a high-ranking and influential Hussar and his uncle had been President Thompson's Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. The youngest of the three was Narendra Mosley II, namesake son of the long-serving leader of the Entente Renewal Front, then very much the junior partner in the seemingly-perpetual governing coalition of the FBU.

But enough on them for now, they're each due their time in the limelight in turn. Though the Third Clash seems like an inevitability now it is crucial to look at the 1980s with the proper context. Events were very much in flux, and it was entirely possible a particular American president and FBU prime minister could have mended fences and gone back to the "special relationship" that had endured for half a century. It was not to be. Across the pond the Conservative Rally chose for reasons of political expediency to stick to the hard line to avoid being outflanked by the Front, while America had sent a resounding signal with the election of Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson and Chief of the Reserve Dr. Octavia Butler to the Executive. Even the latter was unclear. Jackson had, after all, made frequent principled attacks on the Comintern from his perch as first the Representative and then the Senator from the great state of Washington. While his campaign rhetoric had focused on a renewed approach to dealing with the Comintern in light of current realities, few were prepared for just how far he was prepared to go.

-Only Scoop could go to Petrograd.​

Imagine the shock of the entire world when his first state visit was to Petrograd, long-held capital of the USSR. In his remarks to Premier Strugatsky he would stress that his long history of public remarks were made through the lens of bedrock Fascist principles, namely that the divide between the Pact and the Comintern had alway been based on cultural rather than economic issues. Like Lovecraft before him he had viewed the early decades to the Trigonist experiment as ones of cultural erosion and creeping authoritarianism. In the wake of the regrettable Congo Crisis he had observed the new culture taking root in the nations of the Comintern. It was a new culture, and undeniably proletarian, but a democratic, storied and refined culture nonetheless, one he and the others of the Five Eyes were ready to welcome as a brother (or at least as a strange cousin.)

The temporary defeat of the Internationalist faction in the wake of the Congo Crisis had allowed for the nations of the Comintern to finally cave to the longstanding public demand for the next stage of their shared grand adventure over further delays with foreign boondoggles (successful under Mussolini in Libya, a dismal and resounding failure in the Congo). This would come initially through the reform of the Trigonist principle of Liberia Economio. While the bloc's en masse adoption of Freiwirtschaft had allowed it to survive the Great Depression and the doldrums that had followed the Second Clash, it was a growing point of popular consensus that the money-form was an evil that had plagued their societies for long enough.

-Josiah Warren's original labor vouchers would prove the model for the grand experiment unfolding in the Comintern. ​

1980 would see the adoption of the Comintern Labor Note, a concept that owed as much to Warren and Tucker as it did to Marx. Without money, the Comintern would instead operate under a system where the time of one's labor (linked to government issued debit cards) would be used directly to "purchase" the fruits of another's. Bolstered by the most robust social safety net in human history, it was entirely possible for the average citizen to subsist on their labor time, avoid the scourge of poverty and still have enough hours in the day to pursue the arts or other areas of personal fulfillment. Rational Anarchists the world over were watching the experiment with great interest.

The overt gains of Jackson's visit seemed relatively modest, with a followup visit to the seat of the Comintern in Neutral Moresnet and a commitment only to expanded trade ties and cultural and scientific exchange between the blocs. Versailles was absolutely livid, but what could they possibly do? The Pact had always been the larger force in their alliance, and a united front between the Pact as a whole and the Comintern would be unbeatable given the damaged position the Alliance was in after decades of war in Africa and India. There was no popular appetite in the Metropole for a new war in any case, no matter what the Front said, and the Union was forced to look on even with the fall of Persia.

One of the strangest aspects of the world of The King in Yellow is that a different history of international diplomacy had not only aborted any attempt at a global body like the United Nations (or even the League of Nations or Concert of Europe!) but also any sort of current that would have made secret treaties illegal on the international stage. Public pressure had of course gone a long way in eliminating the practice outright, but there were always loopholes, most notably what international scholars in this timeline called "invisible amendments". Rather than risk public ire with the revelation of outright secret treaties, these amendments serves as codicils or discrete clauses that could be redacted* before the treaties were obligatorily made public. It was dubious ground in the court of public opinion, but it would only be the Third Clash that would finally eliminate the practice.

No one could prove anything of course, but to the intelligence apparatus of the Union it was incredibly suspicious that when the long-simmering Persian Revolution broke out against the Alliance-backed Shah in 1984 the Trigonist and Fascist partisans resisted all attempts at divide and rule that had formed the backbone of their strategy. Even moreso was the aftermath, the only nation on Earth to form a stable multiparty system with Fascists on one side of the aisle and Communists on the other. Of course neither the Comintern nor the Pact were ever directly implicated in supporting the revolutionaries and the new Persian Republic would decline full membership in either organization in favor of observer status in both, but the confluence was certainly an odd one.

The events in Persia would ultimately prove just the needed boost to begin the final ascendency of the Entente Renewal Front, while further afield the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere would cite "recent developments" as the raison d'etre for the dissolution of the organization, with Japan and Thailand each successfully petitioning the OTO for membership instead. Already observers within the Alliance for Democracy, it was ominously noted that the move nonetheless dragged them closer to the Union, with all that that would entail...


*It's a tricky business to cover everything in a single treaty and still have it come across innocuously with pieces of the text removed. It was typically very subtle, a word here, a phrase there, but the effects could be quite profound. It was a gentleman's agreement more than anything else but the common consensus was that you didn't change the number of pages in the document you released and you didn't change how things were numbered.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Tomorrow you're getting the super secret and shocking Populist media president (I guarantee none of you will see it coming 😂) plus the current evolution of the Populist Party and the debut of a fictional Populist that'll become a big deal later, then Monday we'll see the dissolution of the FBU and the rise of a certain Independence operative

 

[Born in the USSA]

Any attempt to understand the modern form of the Populist Party in the Age of Fear will have to be properly situated in the rise of the Miami Studio System, more commonly referred to as Cottonwood, and the symbiotic relationship the two would form over the twentieth century. Originally formed in 1934 when a combination of an endorsement from the Hearst Syndicate and active campaigning from the sitting Vice President was able to push Upton Sinclair and his "End Poverty in California" campaign over the threshold, aside from elevating a Lovecraft ally into the role of governor of one of the largest states in the country this also meant that the small collection of studios that had declared they would rather flee the state than remain under his administration were forced to either make good on their threats or lose any possible leverage going forward.

The deciding factor would come in the form of a British loan to help finance the transition and Cottonwood was born. From the start explicitly anti-socialist, socially conservative and glorifying of the rural life in a Jeffersonian way, Miami became a haven for creatives uncomfortable with the Fascist dogma that quickly came pouring out of Hollywood. It would be this early stage that would forge the first connections between Cottonwood and the Populist Party, with the studios more than happy to donate to Populist candidates and able to carve out a competitive niche marketing to the base of the party in turn. The cultural highwater mark of the Cottonwood system would prove to be the seventeen years between Lovecraft's retirement and Howard's election, with the initial wave of anticommunist hysteria that followed the Second Clash flowing seamlessly into the creation of the Public Broadcasting System.

-Though not directly in control of the Public Broadcasting System, as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Walt Disney would take a keen interest in its programming, advocating for the need to foster cultural understanding among the youth and emotional as well as intellectual development. ​

Originally formed under President Long as part of a slate of new government bureaus and agencies created during his brief administration, the PBS was established as a joint program shared between the Department of Fine Arts and his own creation, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Consisting of both radio and television programming, PBS was intended as a tool to better educate the American people in their day to day lives through the use of music, news and educational programming. Secretary Disney would take a keen interest in the agency despite his background in medical administration and would insist on the need for educational cartoons and puppetry to make drier material more palatable for younger audiences. Following Long's death, President Smith would attempt to alter the focus of the agency, pushing through a strict set of rules about what was and was not "appropriate"* and reorienting the PBS around a more narrow view of patriotic programming that Cottonwood was all too willing to assist with.

This attempted subversion of the system wouldn't last beyond Smith's time in office, with allies of President Howard pushing through the so-called fairness doctrine in 1960, mandating equal airtime and partisan balance in public broadcasting. This would end Cottonwood's blatant attempt to corner the new market, but it did ensure a steady level of programming aligned with Populist priorities made it onto the airwaves. Most famously, despite some church-state issues Billy Graham would use his guest appearances on PBS News as a "community leader" throughout the fifties and sixties to expand his appeal beyond his primarily religious base in the lead up to his own successful bid for the presidency. In many ways this would be the model refined to perfection by presbyterian minister, television personality and future president Fred Rogers.

-President Rogers in one of his trademark sweaters. ​

Having worked at PBS since its foundation and practically an apprentice to Disney it was no surprise to anyone that Rogers was destined for big things at the agency, quickly moving from a role behind the camera to hosting his own show in 1968 called The Neighborhood and focused around Disney's mission of diversity and healthy emotional development. The Neighborhood would run in its original form for twenty years, with Rogers continuing to host even after he was promoted to director of the PBS by Thompson's Secretary of HEW Herbert Lovecraft. Never intending a run for office, Rogers would find his position changed by the hellish hurricane season of 1986.

Given the higher level of industrial development global warming was roughly a generation ahead of our own schedule, with Rogers using episodes of The Neighborhood released in the wake of the storms that ravaged the eastern seaboard to calmly explain what was happening to the children of America even as he began using the news stations under his control to publicly make the case to the American people for a robust response. Although he had intended only to advocate the Populists could see the writing on the wall, successfully lobbying him to run the following year, though this would prove a double-edged sword. Once in office Rogers would practice what he preached through the creation of a new cabinet-level Department of Peace, inspired by an idea that went back to the Founding Fathers.

Combining a mandate for environmental stewardship with a responsibility for domestic disaster relief and oversight of foreign aid and exchange programs, Rogers would gradually see the transformation of his party over his two terms, with the fervent anticommunism of the Long and Smith years gradually discarded in favor of a pacifist foreign policy focused on strengthening peaceful ties internationally along with a more understanding approach to cultural issues than Graham had ever managed. Once elected he would do a more limited version of The Neighborhood from the Oval Office, still aimed at children and meant to explain the events of the week in terms they could digest and understand. His transformation of the party was far from total, unfortunately, with a noticeable minority unwilling to budge on foreign policy or cultural issues. It would be the so-called "Dominion" faction that would go on to build links with the quietly fracturing AWP, an alliance most symbolized by the rise to national prominence of fundamentalist firebrand Nehemiah Scudder.


*Disney's plans to push racially integrated programming were unfortunately delayed, but at the very least Congress refused to let him be pushed out. Given its origins PBS also has a far larger share of its programming devoted to rural issues in something of a 4-H vein.

 

[Bbone91]

PRESIDENT FRED ROGERS!!!!
*High pitched squeeing noises*

 

[Born in the USSA]

PRESIDENT FRED ROGERS!!!!
*High pitched squeeing noises*

Told you nobody would guess. I was adamant I wanted the Populists to grow into a pacifist and environmentalist party for a variety of reasons and he seemed like the best candidate.

1. It seemed like the best way to alienate all the religious fundamentalism that surely crept in between the (second) Smith and Graham administrations.
2. The social safety net is thriving and the economic divide between the parties is smaller than ever, so given the long history of militarism in the Independence Party having the Populists advocate restraint and peaceful aid as the modern form of Huey's isolationism makes sense.

As for the Department of Peace basically mash together the EPA, FEMA, USAID and the Peace Corps and Rogers is successfully able to push for the criminalization of capital punishment, though the Dominionists take issue that the lethal chambers are still open to people who choose them.

 

[Born in the USSA]

I had another long day and schedule change (goodbye long weekends but hello shorter days 😅 these schedule changes have been absolutely murder) so I'm going to take a day and hit this hard again tomorrow. We'll get to see Victoria explode onto the scene plus a surprising Independence president and the aforementioned Independence operative (he'll basically be TTL's Cheney but he'll make a go at rising a bit higher). In the meantime questions are always welcome!

 

[Born in the USSA]

"The assault on our sovereign has left me, and our nations, scarred, but I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger! In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Union will be reorganized into the FRANKO... NORMAN... EMPIRE! For a safe and secure society!"​

The decennial metanyms that defined the twentieth century are an unexplored facet of alternate history. What could speak of more subtle changes than distilling an entire decade into a single descriptor, after all? Some of ours were used in the world of The King in Yellow, even if they didn't refer to exactly the same events. The Roaring Twenties spoke both to the decade's extravagance and to its rising polarization. The Dirty Thirties neatly described both the Great Depression and the Second Clash. The Stormy Forties symbolized of the crystallization of the Strange Aeon, while the Fabulous Fifties reflected Long and Smith's promises of a new era of Populist prosperity. The Screaming Sixties spoke to the rising protests against the Congo Crisis (in America) and the broader African and Indian adventures (in the FBU). The Sordid Seventies could represent either Graham's moralizing or Thompson's libertinism, depending on your side of the aisle. The Extravagant Eighties could refer to American overextension in Persia, or more charitably to the brief hope for a prosperous peace brought by rapprochement. And so it goes.

Although Fred Rogers was president until 1997, the Mad Nineties only became a term of art in the United States after he had left office, given the seismic shifts of the last few years of the decade (and of the millennium more broadly). Although personally popular, Rogers was not able to transfer enough of that good will to his potential successors, with the 1996 election handily going to Independence candidate Stephen King. King had been Scoop Jackson's Secretary of Fine Arts and had even been Octavia Butler's VP pick for her own 1988 run, and his own close working relationship with Rogers from his time at PBS would see him retained in the job* by his predecessor. In fact it was this good will between them that had made Rogers reluctant to come out full-throated against a man he knew to be honorable and still called a dear friend.

-A still from President King's 2000 reelection ad.​

President King's time in office would see the birth of many of the battle lines that would come to define American politics of the early 21st century. Aside from rising agitation for statehood by the Alaskans and perennial cries for representation by DC, the INSS territories and the nation's colonial possessions, the King Administration also had the bad fortune to fall on the final fatal eruption of the American Workingmen's Party. Long suppressed, either covertly or overtly, by the post-Smith presidents, doctrinal differences within the party had quietly festered, finally cracking open into a low scale armed conflict between the Esoteric Fascists, their heads full of aliens and Hollow Earths and race science, and the Dominionists dreaming of an unquestionably Christian America. Relying (as his predecessors had) on the combined might of the Hussar Corps and the National Bureau of Investigation, the new president went to work. The resulting crackdown on militias and armed compounds around the country largely fell under the discretion of one man, a career Navy officer King had elevated to Chief of the NIB. A hard-nosed bear of a man named Steven Armstrong.

-Narendra Mosley (the Elder) before his disfigurement. ​

The FBU had its own traumatic travails, all stemming in one way or another from the Persian Revolution. Newly stoked fears of Comintern expansionism had not only weakened the Conservative Rally in the Metropole but had also produced shocking and dramatic changes in the Union's closest allies. Long secure behind their fig leaf of independence, the Rhenish Republic and the Kingdom of Italy suddenly became once more painfully aware of just how vulnerable they could be to the Red Menace. The Entente Renewal Front had long been active in what they saw as "the natural marches of the Empire" and under the charismatic leadership of Narendra Mosley had capitalized on those fears, successfully working behind the scenes to bring them into the Union. In the Rhineland it was fairly easy, with the local branch of the Front simply fearmongering themselves into a large enough electoral victory and pushing through a plebiscite in 1997 that had passed with murky claims of vote-rigging. Sardinia required a different tack. While the wife of the King-Emperor was an Italian princess, her brother sat the throne. In 1999 a group of Italian officers declared a pronunciamento backed by mass protests, declaring their king weak in the face of Communist aggression and his sister the only one fit to rule the Kingdom. 2000 was going to be a banner year.

The addition of the Rhineland and Sardinia drastically tipped the balance of power within the Franco-British Parliament, with the resurgent Front quickly moving to install Mosley as Prime Minister over the sputtering objections of the splintering Rally. King-Emperor Lucien I had suffered recurring bouts of throat cancer throughout the eighties, and had made clear his preference to resign with dignity rather than die on the throne. Intending to name his son Victor the new King-Emperor, a grand ceremony was arranged to mark the transition, one that would make Victoria II, charming, beautiful, razor sharp and politically astute, Princess Imperial and would have the added benefit of bringing Portugal into personal union with the Union. And then, just as the ball was dropping in Times Square, the bombs went off.

To a shocked world watching the event of the century on live television it must have looked like a decapitation strike. The whole of the House of Angevin and a swath of the Franco-British Parliament gone in an instant. But Mosley and enough of his core supporters had survived, the former sans an eye and with a good deal of internal trauma, bloody but unbowed. Speculation was rampant on the identities of the perpetrators, from separatists to republicans to the lesser branches of the House of Bonaparte. The world held its breath. And finally, after weeks of silence and snap elections won handily by his party, Mosley spoke from his hospital bed in a televised speech. Having secured the assent of Napoleona I, youngest child** of King-Emperor Victor and sole remaining link in the House of Angevin, Mosley had been declared regent until her age of majority, further announcing the dissolution of the Union with the backing of the Front and the creation of a new Empire to replace it hearkening back to everything from the Merovingians to William the Conqueror to the Luso-English Alliance. The King-Emperor is dead, long live the Empress!

Reaction to the shocking events across the Atlantic would sadly consume the oxygen of King's second term. Of course the Providence Pact and the Comintern issued formal protests at the mass arrests and detentions that came with the Front's consolidation of power but what could they do? The Comintern's pleas fell on deaf ears and Mosley was quick to create an equivalency between King's actions against the militias and his own. And while the rest of the world was caught blindsided, Mosley, Prime-Minister of the Empire, Secretary General of the Alliance for Democracy, Regent to the Empress herself, put his long-simmering plans into motion. Operation GALAHAD had put the Union on the moon and Operation MERLIN had given them the minatel network. Now it was time for MORDRED, born of research dating back to the Second Clash and acquired at great cost from the Empire of Japan...


*Butler had remained Chief of the Reserve while serving as Jackson's VP but had declined the renewal of her term after her loss. Rogers' pick as her replacement (on her own recommendation) was Neil deGrasse Tyson.

**All of nine.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Told you I'd hit it hard 😂 it's a lot to digest

 

[Born in the USSA]

I've also got the perfect picture picked out for Armstrong when he makes the move to politics!

 

[Lurky]

Pro Football’s loss is the NBI’s gain, it seems.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Pro Football’s loss is the NBI’s gain, it seems.

Oh it has the potential to be America's loss believe you me, and you thought our 2016 election was brutal Actually speaking of I'm toying with a different structure for that one I haven't committed to yet 🤔 Today I'll get into the reaction to events in the Empire around the world during King's second term plus the return of the Populists to power and the brewing culture wars.

 

[Born in the USSA]

The formation of the Franko-Norman Empire was incredibly polarizing within the Alliance for Democracy. Rhodesia and Kumari Kandam were quick to pledge their fealty to the new government while Front-aligned groups in South Africa and Oceania would gradually expand their electoral margins, returning firm Renewal Front governments by the end of the decade. The various other African Dominions were considerably more reticent, kept in line only through binding treaties and an indigenous elite that firmly knew where their bread was buttered. Denmark-Norway was in the bag given the fact that a child of Napoleon II had married into the family and Sweden and Danubia went along out of the same fear of the Comintern that had motivated the Rhineland and Sardinia to opt for annexation in the first place. The Oriental Treaty Organization was cordial with the new government, despite short-lived Ottoman protests over Mosley's decision to commission an enormous statue of TE Lawrence at the behest of the Dagonites while outside of the Empire's integral American territory Venezuela was more than happy to swing their sail. The only defector was Canada— long suppressed in the country, the Social Credit Party of Canada was swept into power in the 2000 election on the promise of closer economic ties to the United States and a peaceful foreign policy.

Despite a close working relationship with Prime Minister Campbell, King found much of his popular momentum drained going into his second term. Speaking perhaps to the unoriginality of political cartooning the "King in Yellow" image that had been used to attack Lovecraft had been dug out of the closet and was frequently used to mock his seeming lack of direction and inability to forcefully deal with the stories of violated civil liberties coming out of the rapidly crystallizing Empire. In 2001 Fred Rogers would die of complications from stomach cancer surgery* and in his memory King finally had momentum to pursue one of his predecessor's long-favored policies, the Universal Dividend. Given the close split coming out of the midterms it was probably the only thing he could reasonably have passed, at any rate.

Unlike our own Federal Reserve, the Third Bank of the United States was a wholly-public financial institution, with each citizen guaranteed an account meant for secure retirement saving. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare had used this system to disburse financial aid of various sorts since its inception and the Department of Peace had done likewise, but President Rogers had dreamed of something more, of a universal monthly payment meant to bolster all Americans. While he had instituted studies and pilot programs he had been unable to shepherd the necessary bill through Congress, though President King was committed to picking up the baton now that the militia crisis had died down** and the nation was ready to move forward.

With a coalition of orthodox Georgists from the Independence Party, Rational Anarchist independents and socially conscious Populists the Fred Rogers Memorial Act authorizing the Universal Dividend was signed into law in 2003 and operated based on modified Freiwirtschaft principles— a complementary currency would be disbursed electronically and would decay in value over time to reduce the possibility of inflation***. Much like WIC the cards were keyed to specific forms of consumption: the money could not be saved, invested or used to pay wages, though businesses they were used at could in turn purchase Maize Machines equipment at discounted rates or redeem the currency in certain other circumstances at current face value.

-The Happy Warrior ​

It was the widest reaching social reform in recent memory but it would not be enough to save the Independence Party going into the 2004 election, with Populist Jim Wallis elected handily in the wake of a bruising primary with Nehemiah Scudder. Leader of the social justice-focused Sojourner Caucus within the Populist Party, Wallis ran on a campaign built on continuing the ideals of the Rogers Administration at home and abroad. In a shocking about-face Mosley even reached out to the new president in the hopes of making the AfD party to the nuclear disarmament talks that had gone on between the Pact and the Comintern since the Thompson administration, perhaps in a bid to win back some international goodwill. This brief blossoming of hope for the future was not to last, however, as Wallis found himself facing down the scourges of climate change, the militant pro-life movement and the outbreak of the Red Death that would consume the rest of his time in office. And all the while another election in 2004 had made Armstrong the newest senator from Colorado, and he of all people certainly had his eye on the future...

-Played college ball, ya know. ​

*Two years ahead of schedule.

**But not out...

***It helps that TTL's US is an old hand at crushing corporate price gouging.

 

[Born in the USSA]

A shorter update today to get all the pieces in place 🤔 tomorrow we'll see how Wallis and his successor try to deal with those three tidy little problems, after that it'll be one update on 2016 and two on 2020/the Third Clash. Sorry about the quality of the Armstrong photo, it was the only one I could find with the right clothes 😅

 

[adamnemo42]

Considering technology has been developing faster compared to OTL, what is technology like currently? You mention the question of statehood for Alaska and representation for INSS territories ad colonial possessions. OTL DC statehood is what is discussed, ITTL is statehood being discussed for the territories and colonial holdings, or some other form of federal representation? Also, how is the situation for Native Americans and reservations compared to OTL?

What is life and culture like in the Comintern? How is the interplay between Esperanto and regional languages going? Is there a growing trend towards using Esperanto instead of regional languages for everything, or does it remain the language of interlingual group communication and the regional languages remain strong? Also, how exactly does the God Builders look as a religion of the proletariat? Do they have services or rituals and ceremonies of some kind? Some form of devotional aspect? Holidays?

Finally, does the existence of the decades old FBU mean the average Brit actually knows a second language? lol

Almost forgot to ask. You might have mentioned it elsewhere and I just missed it, but how are LGBTQ rights ITTL?

Sorry for all the questions. I just had these on my mind and was curious. And congratulations for creating a timeline where the US has two main parties that I wouldn't mind, broadly speaking, which one was in charge.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Considering technology has been developing faster compared to OTL, what is technology like currently?

I'll go into that one in the next update!

You mention the question of statehood for Alaska and representation for INSS territories ad colonial possessions. OTL DC statehood is what is discussed, ITTL is statehood being discussed for the territories and colonial holdings, or some other form of federal representation?

While there's a case being made for making Alaska (largely Independence aligned) and Puerto Rico (largely Populist aligned) states at the same time it hasn't quite worked itself out yet. Meanwhile the case for representation for DC and the territories is more mixed, since DC and the INSS territories (taken as a bloc) lean Independence, the Virgin Islands are fine as they are, and the Micronesia Territory is the only one with a strong Populist lean, so the math doesn't quite add up for the Populists to be content with it.

Also, how is the situation for Native Americans and reservations compared to OTL?

With Sequoyah a full state much better, since it has established a well-funded system of aid and outreach to the nation's various reservations. It also helps that it's tradition by this point for the tribes to come together and nominate a handful of candidates for director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs that the Secretary of the Interior picks from.

What is life and culture like in the Comintern?

Since the elimination of the money system it's flowering, since people suddenly have time on their hands to explore their passions and create and share content with each other through the Vivreto system. Independent creators and creative cooperatives are sprouting up like flowers after a spring rain.

How is the interplay between Esperanto and regional languages going? Is there a growing trend towards using Esperanto instead of regional languages for everything, or does it remain the language of interlingual group communication and the regional languages remain strong?

It's still primarily the lingua franca, given that it's the language of Comintern-wide administration and cultural exchange, but there's still a vast ecosystem of culture created in the traditional national languages, and even a growing amount made with regional languages in mind.

Also, how exactly does the God Builders look as a religion of the proletariat? Do they have services or rituals and ceremonies of some kind? Some form of devotional aspect? Holidays?

They're a religion mainly by analogy, but they do tend to hold large public spectacles to celebrate accomplished scientists and cultural figures and have a slate of "holidays" revolving around the birthdays of scientists and socialist theorists, though that doesn't become a thing until after you die to prevent cults of personality from forming around living politicians and such.

Finally, does the existence of the decades old FBU mean the average Brit actually knows a second language? lol

Yes, schools in the metropole teach their national language but require fluency in the other one by the time you finish secondary school.

Almost forgot to ask. You might have mentioned it elsewhere and I just missed it, but how are LGBTQ rights ITTL?

They've been mainstream since the thirties given the bodily autonomy precedents from the Supreme Court but as a consequence there was only a truly distinct culture from around the sixties on.

Sorry for all the questions. I just had these on my mind and was curious.

No worries, questions help me flesh things out!

And congratulations for creating a timeline where the US has two main parties that I wouldn't mind, broadly speaking, which one was in charge.

Glad to hear it! Scudder and Armstrong are ones to watch out for but as a whole the parties are largely sound.

 

[adamnemo42]

​

Wile there were plenty of events in the decade that would prove significant and by that point the anti-Comintern alliance between the Pact and the Alliance had definitively broken, the greatest argument was centered on the birth of three people in that year who would go on to play major roles in the cycle of escalation that would culminate in the Third Clash of Civilizations some years later. The first would be​

​

Victoria​

​

of the House of Angevin, firstborn of Prince Imperial Victor and under the current laws of Franco-British imperial succession third in line for the throne.​

​

Having secured the assent of Napoleona I, youngest child of King-Emperor Victor and sole remaining link in the House of Angevin, Mosley had been declared regent until her age of majority, further announcing the dissolution of the Union with the backing of the Front and the creation of a new Empire to replace it hearkening back to everything from the Merovingians to William the Conqueror to the Luso-English Alliance.​

Just realized this. You said Victoria would be important in the cycle of escalation that would lead to the Third Clash. Yet later we learn that Napoleona is the only surviving member of House of Angevin after the 2000 New Year's bombing. Is she important for some reason we haven't been told yet, or was that a mistake of some kind. Or (plot twist!) did she somehow survive?

 

[Born in the USSA]

Just realized this. You said Victoria would be important in the cycle of escalation that would lead to the Third Clash. Yet later we learn that Napoleona is the only surviving member of House of Angevin after the 2000 New Year's bombing. Is she important for some reason we haven't been told yet, or was that a mistake of some kind. Or (plot twist!) did she somehow survive?

It was a red herring, since her death creates a scenario where a child empress is under the sway of the Renewal Front. I did say she'd explode onto the scene 😂

 

[Born in the USSA]

Sorry the pace has been a bit languid gang, I've spent the last two days helping install a sprinkler system and it's been a chore, I've just been feeling a bit drained but my next two days should be pretty light and I'm off Monday-Tuesday. In the meantime other questions are always welcome!