Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes IV (Do not post Current Politics Here)
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Another wikibox to keep me busy while writer's block yet lingers.
Part 6 of ?
The Sichuan Commune (17 October 1972-10th October 1987) was a state in East Asia from 1972 to 1987. It largely occupied the present-day territories of Southwestern China, encompassing what is now the provinces of Tibet, West Sichuan, East Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Qinghai and the municipality of Chengdu at its height. It was formed following the collapse of communist forces on the Fujian front and Marshal Lin Biao's seizure of power, and ended with the Reunification of China, and was ruled by Marshal Nie Rongzhen for the majority of its existence. Always eager for a chance to allow the rebuilding of China, Sichuan played a pivotal role in the downfall of Lin Biao and the Lhasa peace negotiations as the Second Warlord Era came to a close. After the negotiations, the last Commander in Chief of the Sichuan Commune, Zhao Ziyang won the subsequent National Elections and became the First President of the Chinese Union State.
Zhao served for 2 terms and retired in 1997. His party, Reformation and Dignity, first led by the aging Nie Rongzhen, brought forwards numerous capitalist reforms, promoting China's cheap labor as an alternative to her Brazilian, American and Indian competitors. However the former PRC under Peng Dehuai and the former ROC under Soong Mei-ling retained autonomy, and remained undemocratic states throughout Zhao's first term with minimal participation in the Sichuanese experiment with democracy.
Part 6 of ?
- Territorial Evolution of the PRC
- Second Warlord Era
- Europe Following WW3
- Downfall of the Soviet Empire
- Nie Rongzhen
- The Sichuan Commune
- Chinese Union State
- International Lenin Mausoleum
- Annexation of Ceylon
- The Second Russian Civil War
The Sichuan Commune (17 October 1972-10th October 1987) was a state in East Asia from 1972 to 1987. It largely occupied the present-day territories of Southwestern China, encompassing what is now the provinces of Tibet, West Sichuan, East Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Qinghai and the municipality of Chengdu at its height. It was formed following the collapse of communist forces on the Fujian front and Marshal Lin Biao's seizure of power, and ended with the Reunification of China, and was ruled by Marshal Nie Rongzhen for the majority of its existence. Always eager for a chance to allow the rebuilding of China, Sichuan played a pivotal role in the downfall of Lin Biao and the Lhasa peace negotiations as the Second Warlord Era came to a close. After the negotiations, the last Commander in Chief of the Sichuan Commune, Zhao Ziyang won the subsequent National Elections and became the First President of the Chinese Union State.
Zhao served for 2 terms and retired in 1997. His party, Reformation and Dignity, first led by the aging Nie Rongzhen, brought forwards numerous capitalist reforms, promoting China's cheap labor as an alternative to her Brazilian, American and Indian competitors. However the former PRC under Peng Dehuai and the former ROC under Soong Mei-ling retained autonomy, and remained undemocratic states throughout Zhao's first term with minimal participation in the Sichuanese experiment with democracy.
In 1988, Jiang Qing launched the Third Central Plains War against Peng's northern states. Xi'an finally fell to Jiang's armies, and the economy of the north, overtaxed to support its incessant war with the last of Maoism, collapsed in 1988-1989. General Liu Yuzhang, who became a trusted aide of Soong Mei-ling and KMT candidate for the Chinese presidency after Sun Fo's death, started his military Eastern Expedition. The Maoist advance was halted in 1991 and defeated in the same year.
With both of the Commune's rivals weakened, Zhao Ziyang would push forward various initiatives to industrialize China and bring KMT-dominated coastal provinces to democracy with sheer military and economic belligerence. Near the end of his second term in 1996, Zhao Ziyang pushed through the wildly popular Unification Bill, which decreased the power of individual parties and increased the centralization of the Union, finally ending whatever residual influence the former Sichuan Commune had on the politics of Sichuan.
With both of the Commune's rivals weakened, Zhao Ziyang would push forward various initiatives to industrialize China and bring KMT-dominated coastal provinces to democracy with sheer military and economic belligerence. Near the end of his second term in 1996, Zhao Ziyang pushed through the wildly popular Unification Bill, which decreased the power of individual parties and increased the centralization of the Union, finally ending whatever residual influence the former Sichuan Commune had on the politics of Sichuan.
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I Will now set foot on Syrian soil stolen from the Syrian State 54 years ago, by the same entity who backs the YPG bandi-
~Bashar al-Assad's last words before his capture by the Israeli Border Guards
AL-ASSAD: Yil'an Abuk! (Cursed/Damned be your Father!)
HAYUT: It's pronounced Inal, not Yil'an!
~Exchange between Bashar al-Assad and Israeli Chief Justice Esther Hayut
THIS IS NOT ENTIRELY SERIOUS
~Bashar al-Assad's last words before his capture by the Israeli Border Guards
AL-ASSAD: Yil'an Abuk! (Cursed/Damned be your Father!)
HAYUT: It's pronounced Inal, not Yil'an!
~Exchange between Bashar al-Assad and Israeli Chief Justice Esther Hayut
THIS IS NOT ENTIRELY SERIOUS
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Here, look.
The Second American Civil War was one of the most important wars during the Earth Unification period, one centered on the continent of North America. A result of long-standing tensions between the "Democratic" and "Republican" factions, as well as the slow transformation of the United States into a more Holy Roman Empire-esque state and its inevitable decline, as well as increasing Eurasian influence over it.
(I would surely appreciate questions.
)
The Second American Civil War was one of the most important wars during the Earth Unification period, one centered on the continent of North America. A result of long-standing tensions between the "Democratic" and "Republican" factions, as well as the slow transformation of the United States into a more Holy Roman Empire-esque state and its inevitable decline, as well as increasing Eurasian influence over it.
(I would surely appreciate questions.
)
The White Cliffs
"I am American bred,
I have seen much to hate here— much to forgive,
But in a world where England is finished and dead,
I do not wish to live."
-Alice Duer Miller, 'The White Cliffs', 1940
“Our opposition to this Bill shall not be guided by the normal constitutional rules. There are stronger things than parliamentary majorities. If an attempt were made to deprive Ulster Unionists of their birthright – as part of a corrupt parliamentary bargain – they would be justified in resisting such an attempt by all means in their power, including force. If such an attempt is made, I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster can go in which I should not be prepared to support them, and in which, in my belief, they would not be supported by the overwhelming majority of the British people.”
-Andrew Bonar Law, 27th July 1912
---
While the event that led to the 1915 general election occurred in 1914, the seeds were sown with the introduction of the third Home Rule Bill in 1912. The bill, which in retrospect was rather mild and in many ways a shortcoming after years of promises after Gladstone’s conversion to the Home Rule argument in the mid-1880’s; was met with fear, rage, distrust, and unease by those on the Tory benches. The reasons for opposing the bill were many and numerous, though differed depending on the group in question. The mainland Conservative Party, led by the Canadian-born and former Ulster resident Andrew Bonar Law, opposed the bill for fear it could lead to colonial holdings demanding similar settlements and in effect break up the Empire. Unionists in the provinces of Connacht, Leinster, and Munster opposed the bill due to their fear of becoming an even smaller minority within the country (they would comprise anywhere from fifteen to five percent of the population, give or take Ulster), as well as their fears of high taxation and being shut off from the rest of Britain via trade barriers. Ulster Unionists meanwhile opposed Home Rule due to a variety of reasons including those of the Conservatives and Southern Unionists, but also due to their fears of being a persecuted minority and the perceived power of the Catholic Church in a Dublin Home Rule parliament (fears were only increased after two Papal decrees, Ne Temere which was a perceived threat to Protestants in mixed marriages, and Motu proprio which seemed to put the Catholic church and its clergy above the law; events in Castledawson in 1912 when a group of Protestant Sunday school children bumped into an Ancient Order of Hibernians event, the AOH men apparently tried to attack the children, though it later emerged the children ran into the nearby woods, fearful of the AOH men that they had been told to fear.)
Opposition to the Home Rule bill came in all shades of opinion on the Conservative benches. Southern Unionists and more moderate members of the Conservative Party, such as Arthur Balfour, took a more passive approach, using parliamentary means to oppose Home Rule. While Unionists had a majority of the seats in Ulster, Southern Unionists generally could only count on certain Dublin seats for their survival (ironically they were better represented in Great Britain compared to Ireland, with several Tory MPs with Irish connections, such as Walter Long, calling themselves Southern Unionists despite holding mainland seats.) The Conservative leader in the Lords, Lord Lansdowne, the former Foreign Secretary, was a Southern Unionist, he was adamant that the bill should be killed outright, with no Home Rule anywhere on the island of Ireland. Noted lawyer and Southern Unionist Member of Parliament for the University of Dublin, Sir Edward Carson, shared Lansdowne’s view, but he reasoned that using Ulster Unionism as a way to present opposition to the bill, would suffice in killing the bill outright. Bonar Law, the son of a Scottish Presbyterian Minister who had at one stage settled his family in Ulster, had a strong connection to the province. The Tory leader became increasingly frustrated with Southern Unionists for their (in his view) failure to fight for their quarter and survival; Ulster was his priority to keep in the United Kingdom, the Southern Unionists could be thrown by the wayside for all he cared.
Through a variety of events ranging from a speech at the Ulster Hall in Belfast, to inspecting a march past by the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) at Balmoral in 1912, Bonar Law’s rhetoric and stance on the Irish question became increasingly hardline and radical. In 1913 he sent a memorandum to King George V, which the monarch had requested to sound out the views of the Conservative Party. Bonar Law’s length memorandum asserted that the British constitution was under threat and that civil war was on the horizon in Ireland. Dissolution or the dismissal of Asquith in favour of someone who would request of dissolution of parliament was the only way to avoid these two problems from getting progressively worse. The dismissal of a Prime Minister with a majority in the Commons by the monarch had last been attempted in 1834 when William IV had attempted to dismiss Robert Peel, this was quickly reversed after the condemnations from many in the political arena. The King, while legally allowed to dismiss Asquith, was warned by the Prime Minister in no uncertain terms that it would be very much unwise to attempt to dismiss him.
Such was the feeling of anger on the Conservative benches, that calls of ‘traitor’ when the issue came up in the House and the Prime Minister. Herbert Asquith was present, were not uncommon. In one instance after several members were ordered out of the chamber by the Speaker of the House of Commons, James Lowther, Winston Churchill and J. E. B. Seely, the Secretary of State for War, were walking out of the chamber when Ronald MacNeil, an Ulster Unionist MP happened upon them. He was so incensed by the Home Rule bill that he seized the Speaker’s copy of the Standing Orders which he then proceeded to hurl with alarming accuracy at Churchill’s head. The debates of the third Home Rule Bill were among some of the worst scenes of parliamentary disorder and ‘chaos’ seen in during the twentieth century.
Bonar Law’s opposition to the bill took an alarming turn in 1914 when he happened upon a strategy with Lansdowne in the Lords, to help make the enforcing of the Home Rule bill in effect impossible for the Liberal government. The Army (Annual) Act was a bill introduced annually upon which the running and discipline of the nation’s army depended upon. If the act were not passed, the position of a soldier would be in effect the same as that of a civilian. By refusing to pass the act, parliament could perhaps make the army useless as an instrument for the government to force its policy, domestic and foreign, through. Bonar Law, Lansdowne, and the Conservative benches idea was to amend the bill so as to ensure that military discipline and order would be nigh on impossible in Ulster until after a general election, something they had been demanding for well over a year. The bill presented a catch-22 for the government. If they passed it the opposition would have won a great victory, while if it was rejected the opposition would have succeeded in preventing military order and discipline from being put into force in Ulster. What makes this alarming is the fact that on the continent it would appear that the drums of war were beginning to beat ever louder until eventually, they would hit a crescendo sparking a supposedly inevitable European conflict. Britain would be in no way ready to fight said conflict without the passage of this bill. No government would be able to continue to run and function under these circumstances, making a general election in effect a certainty.
Bonar Law waited out for the first few months of 1914 while the date for renewal of the bill on the 30th April 1914, came ever closer. The Conservative leader’s resolve over the issue appeared to wane in March, with an apparent opposition to the move being made by the likes of Balfour and Curzon. The party backbenches were littered with many former military officers who were alarmed with what their party leader’s actions could lead to for the military. After a meeting with Carson’s second in command in Ulster, James Craig, and Lansdowne in late March, Bonar Law was resolved to maintain his strategy on the matter. The amendment was tabled by the Conservative and Unionist majority in the Lords, which was passed by that house soon after. It was struck down by the Liberal and Irish Parliamentary Party dominated Commons soon after. The two factions were at metaphoric loggerheads over the issue, neither side wanting to budge. Bonar Law felt betrayed by Asquith after a series of meetings in which Bonar Law had misunderstood Asquith’s assurance he would bring up an Ulster exemption in a cabinet meeting as an assurance he would push for Ulster exemption in the cabinet. As the time ticked out for the renewal of the bill, Asquith panicked and realised that without the army, Home Rule would be virtually impossible to implement. As a result along with Home Rule bill itself, a suspensory act was also added to the statute books along with the bill, in effect pushing the issue into the next parliamentary session.
The crescendo in Europe finally occurred with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on the 28th June 1914. This set into motion the intricate alliance system in Europe and would see the continent descend into war in little under a month. Britain, however, was to remain out of the conflict, with its military in effect in disorder, leaving its assurance to protect Belgian neutrality mere words on paper. The conflict, which would until Christmas of that year, saw a victory for the ‘Central Powers’ alliance of Germany and would usher in a period of German dominance on the continent.
By the next year, Asquith’s government could no longer continue on in its current form. On top of the overhanging threat of civil war in Ireland, which had yet to materialise, the issues of women’s suffrage and the various industrial strikes up and down the country, saw the country and the government brought to an effect standstill. Under these circumstances, Asquith was forced to call a general election for the 9th June 1915. The perceived weakness and inaction of the Liberal government on these issues, among others, seemed to spell defeat for the government.
Indeed the country on the 10th June 1915 woke up to the news that the ‘National Unionists’ (the new name of the newly formed party organisation between the Conservatives, Liberal Unionists, and linked to the Scottish and Ulster Unionists) under Bonar Law had won a strong majority over Asquith’s Liberal Party. Home Rule seemed to be dead in the water on account of the strong Unionist majorities in both Houses of parliament. While the threat of the UVF inciting a paramilitary campaign against the government receded, the threat of the Nationalist equivalent - the Irish Volunteer Force (IVF) increased very much, this is despite its reluctant leader, the IPP leader John Redmond, seeking to diffuse the situation and prevent civil war in Ireland.
"I am American bred,
I have seen much to hate here— much to forgive,
But in a world where England is finished and dead,
I do not wish to live."
-Alice Duer Miller, 'The White Cliffs', 1940
“Our opposition to this Bill shall not be guided by the normal constitutional rules. There are stronger things than parliamentary majorities. If an attempt were made to deprive Ulster Unionists of their birthright – as part of a corrupt parliamentary bargain – they would be justified in resisting such an attempt by all means in their power, including force. If such an attempt is made, I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster can go in which I should not be prepared to support them, and in which, in my belief, they would not be supported by the overwhelming majority of the British people.”
-Andrew Bonar Law, 27th July 1912
---
While the event that led to the 1915 general election occurred in 1914, the seeds were sown with the introduction of the third Home Rule Bill in 1912. The bill, which in retrospect was rather mild and in many ways a shortcoming after years of promises after Gladstone’s conversion to the Home Rule argument in the mid-1880’s; was met with fear, rage, distrust, and unease by those on the Tory benches. The reasons for opposing the bill were many and numerous, though differed depending on the group in question. The mainland Conservative Party, led by the Canadian-born and former Ulster resident Andrew Bonar Law, opposed the bill for fear it could lead to colonial holdings demanding similar settlements and in effect break up the Empire. Unionists in the provinces of Connacht, Leinster, and Munster opposed the bill due to their fear of becoming an even smaller minority within the country (they would comprise anywhere from fifteen to five percent of the population, give or take Ulster), as well as their fears of high taxation and being shut off from the rest of Britain via trade barriers. Ulster Unionists meanwhile opposed Home Rule due to a variety of reasons including those of the Conservatives and Southern Unionists, but also due to their fears of being a persecuted minority and the perceived power of the Catholic Church in a Dublin Home Rule parliament (fears were only increased after two Papal decrees, Ne Temere which was a perceived threat to Protestants in mixed marriages, and Motu proprio which seemed to put the Catholic church and its clergy above the law; events in Castledawson in 1912 when a group of Protestant Sunday school children bumped into an Ancient Order of Hibernians event, the AOH men apparently tried to attack the children, though it later emerged the children ran into the nearby woods, fearful of the AOH men that they had been told to fear.)
Opposition to the Home Rule bill came in all shades of opinion on the Conservative benches. Southern Unionists and more moderate members of the Conservative Party, such as Arthur Balfour, took a more passive approach, using parliamentary means to oppose Home Rule. While Unionists had a majority of the seats in Ulster, Southern Unionists generally could only count on certain Dublin seats for their survival (ironically they were better represented in Great Britain compared to Ireland, with several Tory MPs with Irish connections, such as Walter Long, calling themselves Southern Unionists despite holding mainland seats.) The Conservative leader in the Lords, Lord Lansdowne, the former Foreign Secretary, was a Southern Unionist, he was adamant that the bill should be killed outright, with no Home Rule anywhere on the island of Ireland. Noted lawyer and Southern Unionist Member of Parliament for the University of Dublin, Sir Edward Carson, shared Lansdowne’s view, but he reasoned that using Ulster Unionism as a way to present opposition to the bill, would suffice in killing the bill outright. Bonar Law, the son of a Scottish Presbyterian Minister who had at one stage settled his family in Ulster, had a strong connection to the province. The Tory leader became increasingly frustrated with Southern Unionists for their (in his view) failure to fight for their quarter and survival; Ulster was his priority to keep in the United Kingdom, the Southern Unionists could be thrown by the wayside for all he cared.
Through a variety of events ranging from a speech at the Ulster Hall in Belfast, to inspecting a march past by the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) at Balmoral in 1912, Bonar Law’s rhetoric and stance on the Irish question became increasingly hardline and radical. In 1913 he sent a memorandum to King George V, which the monarch had requested to sound out the views of the Conservative Party. Bonar Law’s length memorandum asserted that the British constitution was under threat and that civil war was on the horizon in Ireland. Dissolution or the dismissal of Asquith in favour of someone who would request of dissolution of parliament was the only way to avoid these two problems from getting progressively worse. The dismissal of a Prime Minister with a majority in the Commons by the monarch had last been attempted in 1834 when William IV had attempted to dismiss Robert Peel, this was quickly reversed after the condemnations from many in the political arena. The King, while legally allowed to dismiss Asquith, was warned by the Prime Minister in no uncertain terms that it would be very much unwise to attempt to dismiss him.
Such was the feeling of anger on the Conservative benches, that calls of ‘traitor’ when the issue came up in the House and the Prime Minister. Herbert Asquith was present, were not uncommon. In one instance after several members were ordered out of the chamber by the Speaker of the House of Commons, James Lowther, Winston Churchill and J. E. B. Seely, the Secretary of State for War, were walking out of the chamber when Ronald MacNeil, an Ulster Unionist MP happened upon them. He was so incensed by the Home Rule bill that he seized the Speaker’s copy of the Standing Orders which he then proceeded to hurl with alarming accuracy at Churchill’s head. The debates of the third Home Rule Bill were among some of the worst scenes of parliamentary disorder and ‘chaos’ seen in during the twentieth century.
Bonar Law’s opposition to the bill took an alarming turn in 1914 when he happened upon a strategy with Lansdowne in the Lords, to help make the enforcing of the Home Rule bill in effect impossible for the Liberal government. The Army (Annual) Act was a bill introduced annually upon which the running and discipline of the nation’s army depended upon. If the act were not passed, the position of a soldier would be in effect the same as that of a civilian. By refusing to pass the act, parliament could perhaps make the army useless as an instrument for the government to force its policy, domestic and foreign, through. Bonar Law, Lansdowne, and the Conservative benches idea was to amend the bill so as to ensure that military discipline and order would be nigh on impossible in Ulster until after a general election, something they had been demanding for well over a year. The bill presented a catch-22 for the government. If they passed it the opposition would have won a great victory, while if it was rejected the opposition would have succeeded in preventing military order and discipline from being put into force in Ulster. What makes this alarming is the fact that on the continent it would appear that the drums of war were beginning to beat ever louder until eventually, they would hit a crescendo sparking a supposedly inevitable European conflict. Britain would be in no way ready to fight said conflict without the passage of this bill. No government would be able to continue to run and function under these circumstances, making a general election in effect a certainty.
Bonar Law waited out for the first few months of 1914 while the date for renewal of the bill on the 30th April 1914, came ever closer. The Conservative leader’s resolve over the issue appeared to wane in March, with an apparent opposition to the move being made by the likes of Balfour and Curzon. The party backbenches were littered with many former military officers who were alarmed with what their party leader’s actions could lead to for the military. After a meeting with Carson’s second in command in Ulster, James Craig, and Lansdowne in late March, Bonar Law was resolved to maintain his strategy on the matter. The amendment was tabled by the Conservative and Unionist majority in the Lords, which was passed by that house soon after. It was struck down by the Liberal and Irish Parliamentary Party dominated Commons soon after. The two factions were at metaphoric loggerheads over the issue, neither side wanting to budge. Bonar Law felt betrayed by Asquith after a series of meetings in which Bonar Law had misunderstood Asquith’s assurance he would bring up an Ulster exemption in a cabinet meeting as an assurance he would push for Ulster exemption in the cabinet. As the time ticked out for the renewal of the bill, Asquith panicked and realised that without the army, Home Rule would be virtually impossible to implement. As a result along with Home Rule bill itself, a suspensory act was also added to the statute books along with the bill, in effect pushing the issue into the next parliamentary session.
The crescendo in Europe finally occurred with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on the 28th June 1914. This set into motion the intricate alliance system in Europe and would see the continent descend into war in little under a month. Britain, however, was to remain out of the conflict, with its military in effect in disorder, leaving its assurance to protect Belgian neutrality mere words on paper. The conflict, which would until Christmas of that year, saw a victory for the ‘Central Powers’ alliance of Germany and would usher in a period of German dominance on the continent.
By the next year, Asquith’s government could no longer continue on in its current form. On top of the overhanging threat of civil war in Ireland, which had yet to materialise, the issues of women’s suffrage and the various industrial strikes up and down the country, saw the country and the government brought to an effect standstill. Under these circumstances, Asquith was forced to call a general election for the 9th June 1915. The perceived weakness and inaction of the Liberal government on these issues, among others, seemed to spell defeat for the government.
Indeed the country on the 10th June 1915 woke up to the news that the ‘National Unionists’ (the new name of the newly formed party organisation between the Conservatives, Liberal Unionists, and linked to the Scottish and Ulster Unionists) under Bonar Law had won a strong majority over Asquith’s Liberal Party. Home Rule seemed to be dead in the water on account of the strong Unionist majorities in both Houses of parliament. While the threat of the UVF inciting a paramilitary campaign against the government receded, the threat of the Nationalist equivalent - the Irish Volunteer Force (IVF) increased very much, this is despite its reluctant leader, the IPP leader John Redmond, seeking to diffuse the situation and prevent civil war in Ireland.
Rosa Luxemburg
Banned
I kind of want to create a map of nations for this now. LolHere, look.
The Second American Civil War was one of the most important wars during the Earth Unification period, one centered on the continent of North America. A result of long-standing tensions between the "Democratic" and "Republican" factions, as well as the slow transformation of the United States into a more Holy Roman Empire-esque state and its inevitable decline, as well as increasing Eurasian influence over it.
(I would surely appreciate questions.
(Credit goes to @LordVetinari for the original RP this was based on, and @Georgepatton for his Grand Thaumaturgist series back in the Second Thread
Gregor Handel was an American sorcerer, inventor, and a retired US Marshal who rose to fame for his anti-paranormal activities From the Civil War to the end of the Great War.
He was born in Munich, Germany to a minor landowning family in 1827; in 1845 he was a student at the University of Ingolstadt, and was the prime suspect in the disappearance of Victor Frankenstein, who was his colleague. He was later exonerated and participated in the Revolutions of 1848, following which he immigrated to the United States.
In 1860, Handel was recruited by Artemas West into the so-called “Secretive Service Bureau” that had safeguarded America from Paranormal threats since the American Revolution. He was one of the central members of West's Abnormal Events Investigation team who opposed the confederate Knights of the Invisible Empire during the Civil War.
This team played a central role in stopping the Surrartt Conspiracy to eliminate the US Government and replace it with a Magical Dictatorship under the Knights. After the Knights accidentally triggered the Return of Magic in 1865, Handel was selected to be the magical Director of the Department of Arcane Sciences alongside West as Secretary of the Arcane and nonmagical Director.
He was a central figure in the American Magic community for nearly 55 years, until his retirement at the age of 92. He was involved in many major events in America in the latter half of the Century, including the Fenian attempts to invade Canada with Fae, the Sasquatch murders, and the Crowley Affair, which directly led to his retirement.
Most details of his time with the Secretive Service Bureau were not declassified until 1932, and some allege there are still case files of his that are buried in the deepest depths of the National Archives.
Gregor Handel was an American sorcerer, inventor, and a retired US Marshal who rose to fame for his anti-paranormal activities From the Civil War to the end of the Great War.
He was born in Munich, Germany to a minor landowning family in 1827; in 1845 he was a student at the University of Ingolstadt, and was the prime suspect in the disappearance of Victor Frankenstein, who was his colleague. He was later exonerated and participated in the Revolutions of 1848, following which he immigrated to the United States.
In 1860, Handel was recruited by Artemas West into the so-called “Secretive Service Bureau” that had safeguarded America from Paranormal threats since the American Revolution. He was one of the central members of West's Abnormal Events Investigation team who opposed the confederate Knights of the Invisible Empire during the Civil War.
This team played a central role in stopping the Surrartt Conspiracy to eliminate the US Government and replace it with a Magical Dictatorship under the Knights. After the Knights accidentally triggered the Return of Magic in 1865, Handel was selected to be the magical Director of the Department of Arcane Sciences alongside West as Secretary of the Arcane and nonmagical Director.
He was a central figure in the American Magic community for nearly 55 years, until his retirement at the age of 92. He was involved in many major events in America in the latter half of the Century, including the Fenian attempts to invade Canada with Fae, the Sasquatch murders, and the Crowley Affair, which directly led to his retirement.
Most details of his time with the Secretive Service Bureau were not declassified until 1932, and some allege there are still case files of his that are buried in the deepest depths of the National Archives.
I think he means that the Democratic Party (along with the rest of national politics, I assume) has been pushed in a much more Trumpian direction after his time in office.
I would assume that the future Democratic Party is closer to Trump/Bannon policies on trade/immigration/war than Clinton-Obama dems with free trade and pro-immigration, which is a thought I don't enjoy.
The Organization for the Study of Evolution is one of the top leading biological organizations in the Solar System. Their goal is to prove evolution without a shadow of a doubt. They currently have a biosphere where they've took multiple species of animals and sealed them off from the outside world to see if evolution is possible. Over the course of 900 years, 5 new species of animals have been created without direct influence from humans. These animals include the Arctic Camel, the Woolly Elephant, the Icelandic Lion, the Antarctic Finch, and the Saharan Dragon. While some question whether or not the experiment was truly done without human influence as the scientists could control some of the weather and where some of the animals were located, most of the scientific community has celebrated their discovery. Some within the organization hope to use this biosphere model to regrow extinct species, but most disagree saying that it would be pointless since we already have new species and efforts should instead go to preserving endangered animals.
It's a reference to Thatcher saying her greatest achievement was New Labour.
Scientists have already observed evolution in nature. There's absolutely zero need for this.
This was mostly inspired after I rewatched the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate. I thought about how it would be possible to make evolution an "observable science" (according to Ken Ham)... And I really just wanted an excuse to have lots of animals roaming around and new(ish) and unique animals forming because of it mainly because I find that stuff fascinating.
I had a conversation with my friend in Poland the other day, and we were discussing the political situation there. I suggested, in all seriousness, that maybe a restoration of the Polish monarchy could be a safeguard against overreach by PiS. He said that he would support it in theory, but the issue on the legitimate successor to the throne is very iffy (given that there are two Saxon claimants, at this point). Besides, a German is not going to be a popular monarch in Poland, at the moment. Of course, I suggested, there is always Korwin-Mikke.
This is the result.
My apologies to @Heat and all the other resident Poles.
This is the result.
My apologies to @Heat and all the other resident Poles.
George "Big Southern" McGovern was an American historian, author, fighter pilot, and politician. The son of immigrants, McGovern was born to a Methodist Republican family on a 600‑person farming community in Avon, South Dakota. His father worked in coal mines from the age of nine and was orphaned at thirteen before growing up to be a professional baseball player. Giving up his career on account his teammates' heavy drinking, gambling and womanizing, the elder McGovern entered the seminary before meeting and wedding Canadian born Frances McGovern (née: McLean).
George was the second oldest of four children and lived on edge of poverty for much of his childhood. His fathers' salary chiefly consisted of potatoes, cabbages, and other food items. Attending public schools, McGovern was painfully shy and rebellious only to the point of seeing movies (a worldly amusement forbidden to Wesleyan Methodists). Growing up during the Great Depression, McGovern's formative years were spent with underpaid workers and struggling farmers and influenced by currents of populism, agrarian unrest, and the "practical divinity" of cleric John Wesley, who sought to fight poverty, injustice, and ignorance.
Supplementing his forensic university scholarship with a variety of odd jobs, McGovern volunteered to join the United States Air Force after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Promoted to Second Lieutenant McGovern participated in the "Big Week" strategic bombing campaign across Southern Europe, which goaded the Luftwaffe into confrontation with the United States Strategic Air Forces. Stationed at San Giovanni Airfield near Cerignola in the Apulia region of Italy, McGovern and his crew found a starving, disease-ridden local population wracked by the ill fortunes of war and far worse off than anything they had seen during the Great Depression. This sight greatly influenced McGovern's later motivation to fight hunger across the world.
Lieutenant McGovern came within inches of being fatally wounded by stray shrapnel, nearly collided mid-air during a close-formation flight, survived a blown wheel during a mission over enemy territory, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after landing a plane with two destroyed engines on an unforgiving field that had claimed the lives of several previous crews. McGovern also later recalled an incident over Austria in which he accidentally bombed a family farmhouse when a jammed bomb improvidentally released above the structure and destroyed it. The event haunted McGovern for decades until he recounted the incident to the Austrian press forty years later. The owner of the farm approached the media to let him know that no one had been hurt, and that he felt the damage to his farm had been worth the price if it helped achieve the defeat of Nazi Germany in some small way. McGovern reportedly teared up receiving this news.
As the war drew to a close McGovern's embarked upon his 35th mission, a sortie against the heavily fortified city of Linz. the sky turned black and red with flak – McGovern later recalled "Hell can't be any worse than that" – and his aircraft was hit multiple times resulting in 110 holes in its fuselage and wings and an inoperative hydraulic system. McGovern's waist gunner was injured, and his flight engineer was so unnerved by his experience that he would subsequently be hospitalized with battle fatigue but McGovern managed to bring back the plane safely with the assistance of an improvised landing technique. Following the end of the war, McGovern flew food relief flights to northern Italy, then flew back to the United States with his crew. He was discharged from the Army Air Forces in July 1945 and awarded the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.
For a while McGovern suffered from nightmares about flying through flak barrages or his plane being on fire but eventually regained his composure. Nominally a Republican growing up, McGovern began to admire Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the war even though he supported Roosevelt's opponent Thomas Dewey in the 1944 presidential election. Supporting Henry Wallace for President in 1948, McGovern was later captivated by a radio broadcast of Governor Adlai Stevenson's speech upon accepting the Democratic nomination in 1952. He immediately dedicated himself to Stevenson's campaign and named his only son Steven, born immediately after the convention, after his new hero. Although Stevenson lost the election, McGovern remained active in politics, believing that the "engine of progress in our time in America is the Democratic Party".
In 1956, McGovern sought elective office himself, and ran for the House of Representatives from South Dakota's 1st congressional district, his opponent's campaign implied that McGovern's support for admitting the People's Republic of China to the United Nations and his past support for Henry Wallace meant that McGovern was a Communist appeaser or sympathizer. In his closing speech, McGovern responded: "I have always despised communism and every other ruthless tyranny over the mind and spirit of man." McGovern staged an upset victory, gaining 116,516 votes to his opponent's 105,835, and became the first Democrat elected to Congress from South Dakota in 22 years.
In the 86th United States Congress, McGovern was assigned to the House Committee on Agriculture. The longtime chair of the committee, Harold D. Cooley, would subsequently remark, "I cannot recall a single member of Congress who has fought more vigorously or intelligently for American farmers than Congressman McGovern." McGovern was defeated in his 1960 bid for Senate, but was picked to become a Special Assistant to the President and first director of Kennedy's high-priority Food for Peace program, which realized what McGovern had been advocating in the House.
As director, McGovern urged the greater use of food to enable foreign economic development, saying, "We should thank God that we have a food abundance and use the over-supply among the under-privileged at home and abroad." By the close of 1961, the Food for Peace program was operating in a dozen countries, and 10 million more people had been fed with American surplus than the year before. In February 1962, McGovern visited India and oversaw a greatly expanded school lunch program thanks to Food for Peace; subsequently one in five Indian schoolchildren would be fed from it, and by mid-1962, 35 million children around the world. During an audience in Rome, Pope John XXIII warmly praised McGovern's work, and the distribution program was also popular among South Dakota's wheat farmers.
McGovern was instrumental in the creation of the United Nations-run World Food Programme in December 1961; it started distributing food to stricken regions of the world the following year and would go on to become the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. By 1965 the program had become a vital force in the world, improving living conditions and economies of allies and creating a powerful barrier to the spread of Communism. The program was later lauded by President George Romney as "one of few truly spectacular achievements in an otherwise bleak administration" and "the greatest unseen weapon of our third-world policy" upon its formal incorporation into the State Department in 1965. [1] [2]
On matters of foreign policy, McGovern fit solidly into the mold of the typical "Romney Democrat". Backing the war in Viet nam under President Kennedy, McGovern flatly rejected unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces from Southeast Asia and criticized anti-war draft-card burnings as "immature, impractical, and illegal" [3] Serving as Secretary of Agriculture in the First Romney Administration, McGovern lent his expertise to the logistical nightmare that was feeding those still displaced by the Goldsboro Disaster. After seeing through the creation of the North Carolina Exclusion Zone, McGovern felt situation sufficiently stabilized enough to resign his post. Never fancying himself an administrator, McGovern yearned for another opportunity to run for the Senate. In 1966 McGovern defeated his perennial rival, Marine Fighter Ace and Former South Dakota Governor Joe Foss, to become the state's first Democratic Senator in over twenty years.
It was during his first successful senatorial campaign that McGovern received the nickname of "Big Southern", an allusion to both his bombing runs during "The Big Week" in the late war and his tireless advocacy for his home state of South Dakota. Originally conceived as a moniker to counter that of Joe "Ace of Aces" Foss, McGovern was reportedly embarrassed by the name as it conveyed too much "machismo" for his personal tastes. But when the press picked up on it, especially the part about McGovern's reluctance, the name stuck.
In the Senate McGovern gained a reputation as a bridge builder, working with both sides on pertinent issues. Backing Romney's civil rights and affordable housing initiatives, McGovern nonetheless opposed the deep cuts to the space budget used to pay for the latter program. After loosing to Governor John Connally in the 1972 Democratic Primaries, McGovern helped carry the West for the Texan in the general campaign. Following a Democratic take over of the White House in 1972, McGovern fell in lockstep with the "Connally Creed" of acknowledging the mistakes of previous administrations on civil rights and working to improve the lives of the nation's poor, black or white. [4] It was at this time that McGovern dropped his support for school busing and began advocating for an affirmative action program based on income rather than race.
As a top "Connie Hawk", McGovern voted in favor of U.S. military intervention in the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. [5] Although initially optimistic about the election of Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke to the presidency, McGovern would later become fiercely critical of Brooke's failure to prevent the East Timor Genocide. Noting that the occupation affected a percentage of the East Timorese population that made "Hitler's operation look tame", McGovern joined his Democratic colleagues in calling for a condemnation of Indonesian strongman Muhammad Suharto for war crimes. [6] McGovern's military background, western appeal, strong union support, and political service in both Democratic and Republican administrations made him a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 1980. Being put off by his defeat to Connally in 1972, he ultimately decided against it and backed former Vice President Birch Bayh. When Robert Morgen clinched the nomination, McGovern declared he would back him "1000 percent" but later withdrew his support after the Edwards Leaks. With President Brooke's re-election, George "Big Southern" McGovern maintains his status as a frontrunner for the next presidential nomination... [7]
Footnotes
[1] This is where things start to diverge, IOTL McGovern resigned as Director of Food for Peace in order to run for Senate in 1962. ITTL Goldsboro makes such a run untenable and McGovern completes his directorship, which ends in 1965.
[2] Johnson merged Food For Peace into the State Department IOTL, Romney has just as much reason to do so ITTL.
[3] IOTL, in 1963, McGovern questioned U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but this criticism was limited to one speech and McGovern did not speak on the issue again until 1965. IOTL McGovern voted for the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed Johnson to escalate the war in Vietnam. Wayne Morse, one of only two senators to oppose the resolution, noted that McGovern's later opposition to the resolution fell into the category of "very interesting, but very belated". Since Romney ended the war early ITTL, McGovern is seen as just another "Romney Democrat" who opposed the Vietnam War once it became unpopular with the public.
[4] IOTL McGovern supported school busing but did not practice it with his own children, it isn't hard to imagine a turnaround for him on the issue.
[5] IOTL McGovern backed the First Gulf War, the Azores and Cape Verde Wars are similar in size, scope, and intent ITTL.
[6] IOTL McGovern advocated military intervention to overthrow Pol Pot, his quote on genocide stems from that advocacy IOTL.
[7] IOTL McGovern ran for president in 1968 and 1972. IOTL he also considered running for president in 1976, 1984, and 1992.
[8] Large chunks of this update are taken from McGovern's Wikipedia page.
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