The 'Wikimedia' box for Tito's successor. I'm debating between using 90s-punk technology style (bad HTML formatting, low colour depth), or defaulting to my previous terminal-based one.
I really liked the terminal design, but they both look great!
The 'Wikimedia' box for Tito's successor. I'm debating between using 90s-punk technology style (bad HTML formatting, low colour depth), or defaulting to my previous terminal-based one.
David Stamm grew up in a conservative, christian household in Lubbock, Texas. Son of a baptist preacher and a engineering consultant, Stamm grew in a sheltered home, attending private Christian schools his entire youth. While Stamm would later describe his childhood as mostly pleasant, he suffered from depression and obesity in his teens, likely exacerbated by being closeted. Stamm recovered somewhat while attending Baylor in pursuit of a law degree, and married his good high school friend, Claire Ratliff, soon after graduating. While Ratliff did indeed admire and was attracted to Stamm, Stamm was unable to effectively reciprocate. Ultimately, the couple soon divorced in 2034, an event that caused a major rift with Stamm's parents when they learned the reasons. On the other hand, Stamm excelled as a lawyer. He came into some local renown as a junior partner in a firm founded by one of his professors, and was hired as an assistant to the Texas State Prosecuting Attorney (SPA) Office in 2035, and became first assistant in 2037. Moving to Austin was a liberating experience for Stamm, giving him a chance to express his sexuality. Working for the SPA, he met his second partner, Nelson Conley, a police officer. The two married in 2038. Stamm also began working with the state branch of the American Moderate Party, proving himself a passionate advocate and surrogate and moving up the party ranks.
However, Stamm's life would be flipped upside down in 2039, with the May 31st Rebellion. The revolution would come to Austin, and Conley would die in a shootout with rebel partisans. While fighting in Austin only lasted between August and October, the city and state government were in disarray. While Stamm was relatively safe during the conflict, living and working under guard in the improvised capital compound, other high ranking officials, including the attorney general, were maimed or killed while attempting to flee through the suburbs. When the fires of the rebellion finally faded, the Party needed to fill the vacuum, and turned to Stamm. Stamm, the brilliant young attorney. Stamm, the passionate organized. Stamm, a man that wanted vengeance.
There was no competition. Stamm stood and received the AMP's nomination for Texas Attorney General, running unopposed in a special election. Stamm immediately set to work, filing through interned rebels and finding which ones that the State of Texas could further prosecute. However, the Party underestimated Stamm's bloodlust. Texas's new attorney general filled multiple homicide cases for over two thousand rebels, and sought the death penalty for 547. However, Stamm's zeal would probe his downfall. His office was undermanned and overworked, and many of the cases were botched. While Stamm was able to get the death penalty for 34 rebels, he also accrued 51 mistrials. With pressure from both their local and national backers, the AMP pressured Stamm into not attempting to seek reelection. In 2044, Syed Mcdowell would be the last elected Texas attorney general, who also ran unopposed.
Stamm would spend the better half of the next ten years floating from practice to practice, from adjunct position to adjunct position. Abandoned by his former peers, he became bitter and detached. Over this period, Stamm would have several aborted romances, attempt and fail to write a memoir, and nearly had his law license revoked. However, this would all turn around, when the Water Riots brought a new period of civil unrest to the U.S.A. . Angered by the government's inability to curtail the insurrectionists, and by the eventual reform deal, Stamm joined the rising hardliner movement. Stamm would run to represent Austin and the rest of the 3rd district in 2052, winning the primary and thus the seat. His first term in congress was poorly met, and he became known as a pitiless obstructionist. After being primaried in 2054, Stamm moved back to Waco, where he successful won another house seat in 2056.
Dustin Raya had a rather different upbringing than his eventual friend and rival. Born to an immigrant father and a poor white mother, Dustin had a tough upbringing in San Diego. While he came from poor conditions, Raya's mind was incredibly sharp, with an excellent aptitude for technology and economics. Ultimately, Raya would decide to apply his skills to technology management, and had most of his tutition at Arizona State University paid through their National American University Scholarship. Raya further excelled as a college student, and was selected by the San Francisco robotics company Meconomics for their supervisor graduate program. While his career was disrupted by the May 31st rebellion, he came out of the conflict unscathed. Raya would later leave Meconomics on good terms in 2043 after his marriage to Meghan Hart, a mechanical engineer. Raya started his own firm, Aztecha in 2044, which grew quickly and was sold in 2046. Emboldened by this success, Raya invested in specialized VR equipment, founding Augmented Operations in 2048. Raya held onto AugOps for longer, a decision he somewhat came to regret.
In the summer of 2051, the water riots swept through Santa Clara. Security forces were overwhelmed, and much of the San Francisco metro became the domain of underclass mobs and ruthless paramilitaries. Raya and his family avoided the chaos, having decided to spend the summer at their house in eastern Washington, but AugOps offices were assaulted and vandalized by rioters. Raya was distressed and furious, especially with the news that some of his colleagues and employees were wounded in the attack. While most of the company's value was in digital assets, and insurance covered most of the damages, Raya was no longer content with corporate life. Raya successfully ran for the Santa Clara Assembly in 2054, with his party donations making up for his lack of membership or previous political experience. Raya was hardly an active member of the Assembly. While he tried to be visible, he was mainly focused on using the position as a stepping stone within the party. Raya successfully ran for the House of Representatives in 2056, winning a close primary and easily defeating his Muncipalist opponent.
Stamm and Raya met each other as freshman of the 136th Congress. Overall, the two men contrasted drastically. Raya was thin and wiry, while Stamm was wide and muscled. Raya was cold and quiet, Stamm was fiery and boisterous. One a devout Catholic, and the other an ardent Atheist. However, the two men shared deeply personal losses at the hands of civil unrest, and both shared a vision of a new order for their nation. While neither founded the House Civil Defense Caucus, they both became its rising stars, gaining reputations as firebrands and ruthless backroom dealers. This partnership quickly became a friendship, and the two were virtually inseparable during their time in D.C. Ultimately, Stamm would choose to seek leadership in the House, while Raya decided to move onto the Senate.
While the two still saw each other as valuable partners, they drifted apart, both in their friendship and ideology. While Stamm remained vengeful, Raya began to soften. His rank in the AMP gave him access to information on the AMP's historical activities. Their manipulation of the electoral system, treatment of political prisoners, and the intercine disputes between the various departments. Raya began to see that there was something fundamentally wrong with the government, and that drastic reforms were in order. Raya left the Senate Civil Defense Caucus in 2062, and formed his own Renewal of the Republic Caucus. Raya would go on to raise national interest through his public forgiveness of the men and women that assaulted his company office. Not only did he personally meet and forgive the offenders, he also set up a trust fund to send their children to college. Raya would explain that it was sheer desperation that drove these people, and that it was nesecary to heal the wounds that the nation had endured. And currently, reform was the right path. After all, ten years ago, men and women were looting supermarkets to get their hands on fresh water. After the reform deal and price controls, such crime dropped like a rock.
While they were former friends, Stamm and Raya quickly became bitter rivals. While they initially tried to be polite about their differences, they began to see the worst of the AMP in the other. Raya began to see Stamm as a bitter and brittle man, who's heavy-handed tactics would lead to the end of the party. Stamm began to see Raya as an appeaser, whose opportunism and lack of will would allow their enemies to strangle the AMP in its sleep.
Tensions between the two have now reached a boil. The pair announced their competing candidacies for the President of the United States in April, within a week of each other. While they are not the only candidates for the AMP nomination, they currently lead the polls. Such a clash of personalities has been pure fodder for the mass media, who have repeatedly declared that one of the two will become the next president of the United States.
Uh....so what happened to California again?
The State of Santa Clara was carved out in 2035 by the AMP, pressured by silicon valley oligarch that were tired of paying taxes to Sacramento. While Sacramento, ironically enough, did become part of the new state, it did serve its purpose as a techno-libertarian playground for the corporate class.
*shudders*Worth debating whether Fiorina could have flipped the Rust Belt. I saw her campaign in the NH primary, and when you combine it with her debate performances, it's crazy to think that she did a better job of campaigning than half the field and yet never caught on - even when Trump (and for a time, Carson) did. Either way, America was electing its first female president on November 8th.
But how does Hillary win Montana?
Worth debating whether Fiorina could have flipped the Rust Belt. I saw her campaign in the NH primary, and when you combine it with her debate performances, it's crazy to think that she did a better job of campaigning than half the field and yet never caught on - even when Trump (and for a time, Carson) did. Either way, America was electing its first female president on November 8th.
But how does Hillary win Montana?
Sommer's and several other high profile escapes brought Diego Garcia negative attention among the American elites. With the Ordonez Administration looking to maintain fiscal solvency, the militarized island was among the first facilities on the chopping block. The war criminals, now a rapidly aging bunch, were quietly relocated to American Samoa, where the heavy presence of Mormon missionaries is believed to be a contributing factor in the reduction of their collective life expectancy. But when Washington went public and announced its intention to close the base, outraged American nationalists took to the streets, forming an organization known as Patriotic Americans Against the Sale of Diego Garcia, whose purpose was rather spelled out in its name. Fearing a naval gap with China, protesters demanded the cancellation of the sale. But the administration couldn't afford to damage its relationship with its Indian allies. And while the sale is often believed to be a major cause of the Republicans taking back Congress in the 2080s, few Americans today even remember what Diego Garcia was, yet alone its historical role as a Jewish cultural center or in maintaining American naval parity in the Indian Ocean.
The history of Diego Garcia is long and complex.
"The Stars?! Nah, man, they been crap for years. I'm stickin' with the Generals."
Usfl alive, doug flutie commisioner... moar.. which are the teams? Which cities? How much champion have been..m"Bro, you still with the Stars this season?"
"The Stars?! Nah, man, they been crap for years. I'm stickin' with the Generals."
"Never made you out to be a Trump man."
"I ain't, believe me. Just a guy who likes to back winners."
"So, not watching the NFL then?"
"NFL?! Those corporate whores?! Listen, I been to every season since Ronnie Reagen was still in the White House, I ain't just about to drop my team jus' so I can see Newton play defense in the fall."