Yeah. Aside from the Jackson assassination (which was based more on Arthur Bremer's assassination attempt on George Wallace), all the incidents listed there are parallels/analogues to the following OTL RAF actions:
Rawweather = 1991 Assassination of Detlev Rohwedder
Perley A. Thomas = 1977 kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer, but even more brutal
Ponto = 1977 failed kidnapping-turned-murder of Jürgen Ponto
American Embassy Massacre = 1975 West German Embassy Siege in Stockholm
Haig = 1981 attempted assassination of Alexander Haig
As for an equivalent of the Landshut highjacking, I hadn't really thought about that, though I'd assume that something similar occurred ITTL seeing as how the Thomas kidnapping/murder is a parallel to the Schleyer kidnapping/murder. Same goes with continued activities post-Haig assassination.
I wanted to do more with this, but just making the box, and crunching the numbers, and getting it to look presentable sapped all the interest I had. For now. I just want to know if the electoral map looks clean, like a real one on Wikipedia.
The old man was cold. He was often cold—prison wasn’t exactly known for being a warm place. Especially this shithole. The nostalgia he had for the White House wasn’t just about the power he used to have or the things he could do with the office, it was also just a much more comfortable residence than this cell. It was nice having a bed to sleep in instead of a cot. It was nice having the luxury of turning out one’s own lights and not having lights out whenever the warden felt like it. It was nice to be free.
As he often did when he was cold, the former president of the United States tried to remember things. He could remember his wife—a woman he loved dearly. They had their fights on occasion, sure, but they’d always made up after. He thought about his daughters. He thought about that day over a quarter century ago where he placed his hand on the Bible and uttered those fateful words. How everything seemed so full of hope and promise as he addressed the American people. He knew not all of them had supported them—it had been a close race after all. A few thousand votes flipping in Illinois would have been all it took to change the outcome.
But as he usually did when he thought of the past, he couldn’t help but think about what had led to him being trapped in here. If it hadn’t been for that damn Bay of Pigs fiasco maybe things wouldn’t have ended up this way. Maybe if it had gone according to plan or he had torn that plan up in front of those fucking generals instead of launching it, the crisis wouldn’t have happened in the first place. The Reds parking missiles that could hit the country in only a few hours was of course not a tenable thing. But he was a realist first and foremost. Not the sort who would want to launch a war unless absolutely necessary. Kruschev had been open to making a deal, but then…
“You have demonstrated you are unfit for the duties of the presidency. You will come with us or face the consequences.” No amount of cynicism on his end could have prepared him for that fucker LeMay to bring a bunch of soldiers into the room where they were meeting. Nor for half the Joint Chiefs to get gunned down in front of him.
“You fucker…” He had croaked. The fire in his voice had left him when faced with the specter of execution. “This is a goddamn coup is what you’re doing! I am the president of the United States-“
“Not anymore.” LeMay retorted. “If you won’t give the orders needed to protect the country, than someone else will. And they have already been given.” He sounded downright gleeful, the sick bastard.
“You’re going to end the world you know.” The president had managed as his captors began dragging him from the office—his office. LeMay hadn’t responded to that.
The old, now-jailed president had to admit that may have been an overstatement. He wasn’t exactly privy to what was happening out there from his guards, but the world hadn’t ended. From the sound of things, they’d bombed the Reds back to the Stone Age albeit at a significant cost. But the country had survived—at least on paper. In practice, the old man had seen glimmers of a shift—they’d put up a portrait more befitting a Hitler or Stalin than a President in the warden’s office, first of LeMay and then of some fellow named McDonald about five years ago or so. He had no idea who the guy was or what his rule looked like. He also had no idea what had become of his family when they’d dragged him to this cell. In the first few years of captivity he’d imagined some sort of daring escape. The next ten years, as his body tended to get sickly, he had hoped for death. He’d even attempted suicide at one point, only being stopped by the sheer pain of the process leading to him yelping and getting help—he still didn’t know why they’d bothered keeping him alive to be honest. He’d lost the right to utensils after that and still hadn’t gotten them back. He’d mostly accepted his lot now though.
As he thought that, he was suddenly roused from his thoughts by a popping sound. Bullets? They sounded like the ones he’d heard in those first few years, when things outside were by all accounts unstable. He heard shouting too now. What was happening? He tried to peer out through the slot that was his one window to the outside world but couldn’t see anything except a guard running past. The gunfire got louder over the next few minutes, seeming to draw closer. After a few minutes, the gunfire died down. The old man stopped peaking out the window and sat down, wondering what that was all about. It took another few minutes huddled in his cell before he heard the thumping of footsteps—heavy ones. They sounded like the boots of soldiers, marching almost rhythmically. Maybe they’d decided to finally finish him off and were taking care of anyone objecting. The old man briefly glanced around the room to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon. Only a tray leftover from dinner seemed to be an option and the old man shrugged.
“It was bound to happen eventually.” He muttered to himself. The only thing that he was really feeling was curiosity about why had it taken this long. Maybe if he asked he’d get some kind of explanation if his killers were feeling generous. The bootsteps drew closer and closer as the old man breathed heavily. The door to his cell opened and a pair of men entered. “What took you so goddamn long?”
“Apologies, Mr. President. It was hard to coordinate after the War.” The old man realized now the two men did not look like the soldiers he was used to. They looked more like—what was the word they had described Castro and friends with before they came to power? Insurgents! They looked haggard and their clothes were not a uniform. “You are him, right? The President?”
“Which one?” The ex-president laughed. The two men didn’t laugh with him. One of them pulled out a picture. It was the old man back when he was young and speaking to the nation.
“This one. Is this you?”
“Yep. Who are you two? Why are you here?”
“We are the Liberators. We’ve liberated a lot—today we’re liberating you in particular.” The man who spoke—the second who had entered—extended a hand to the elderly ex-president. “From what we’ve heard, you’ve still got about two years to serve, Mr. Nixon. And we need you now more than ever.”
“We are the Liberators. We’ve liberated a lot—today we’re liberating you in particular.” The man who spoke—the second who had entered—extended a hand to the elderly ex-president. “From what we’ve heard, you’ve still got about two years to serve, Mr. Nixon. And we need you now more than ever.”
The old man was cold. He was often cold—prison wasn’t exactly known for being a warm place. Especially this shithole. The nostalgia he had for the White House wasn’t just about the power he used to have or the things he could do with the office, it was also just a much more comfortable residence than this cell. It was nice having a bed to sleep in instead of a cot. It was nice having the luxury of turning out one’s own lights and not having lights out whenever the warden felt like it. It was nice to be free.
As he often did when he was cold, the former president of the United States tried to remember things. He could remember his wife—a woman he loved dearly. They had their fights on occasion, sure, but they’d always made up after. He thought about his daughters. He thought about that day over a quarter century ago where he placed his hand on the Bible and uttered those fateful words. How everything seemed so full of hope and promise as he addressed the American people. He knew not all of them had supported them—it had been a close race after all. A few thousand votes flipping in Illinois would have been all it took to change the outcome.
But as he usually did when he thought of the past, he couldn’t help but think about what had led to him being trapped in here. If it hadn’t been for that damn Bay of Pigs fiasco maybe things wouldn’t have ended up this way. Maybe if it had gone according to plan or he had torn that plan up in front of those fucking generals instead of launching it, the crisis wouldn’t have happened in the first place. The Reds parking missiles that could hit the country in only a few hours was of course not a tenable thing. But he was a realist first and foremost. Not the sort who would want to launch a war unless absolutely necessary. Kruschev had been open to making a deal, but then…
“You have demonstrated you are unfit for the duties of the presidency. You will come with us or face the consequences.” No amount of cynicism on his end could have prepared him for that fucker LeMay to bring a bunch of soldiers into the room where they were meeting. Nor for half the Joint Chiefs to get gunned down in front of him.
“You fucker…” He had croaked. The fire in his voice had left him when faced with the specter of execution. “This is a goddamn coup is what you’re doing! I am the president of the United States-“
“Not anymore.” LeMay retorted. “If you won’t give the orders needed to protect the country, than someone else will. And they have already been given.” He sounded downright gleeful, the sick bastard.
“You’re going to end the world you know.” The president had managed as his captors began dragging him from the office—his office. LeMay hadn’t responded to that.
The old, now-jailed president had to admit that may have been an overstatement. He wasn’t exactly privy to what was happening out there from his guards, but the world hadn’t ended. From the sound of things, they’d bombed the Reds back to the Stone Age albeit at a significant cost. But the country had survived—at least on paper. In practice, the old man had seen glimmers of a shift—they’d put up a portrait more befitting a Hitler or Stalin than a President in the warden’s office, first of LeMay and then of some fellow named McDonald about five years ago or so. He had no idea who the guy was or what his rule looked like. He also had no idea what had become of his family when they’d dragged him to this cell. In the first few years of captivity he’d imagined some sort of daring escape. The next ten years, as his body tended to get sickly, he had hoped for death. He’d even attempted suicide at one point, only being stopped by the sheer pain of the process leading to him yelping and getting help—he still didn’t know why they’d bothered keeping him alive to be honest. He’d lost the right to utensils after that and still hadn’t gotten them back. He’d mostly accepted his lot now though.
As he thought that, he was suddenly roused from his thoughts by a popping sound. Bullets? They sounded like the ones he’d heard in those first few years, when things outside were by all accounts unstable. He heard shouting too now. What was happening? He tried to peer out through the slot that was his one window to the outside world but couldn’t see anything except a guard running past. The gunfire got louder over the next few minutes, seeming to draw closer. After a few minutes, the gunfire died down. The old man stopped peaking out the window and sat down, wondering what that was all about. It took another few minutes huddled in his cell before he heard the thumping of footsteps—heavy ones. They sounded like the boots of soldiers, marching almost rhythmically. Maybe they’d decided to finally finish him off and were taking care of anyone objecting. The old man briefly glanced around the room to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon. Only a tray leftover from dinner seemed to be an option and the old man shrugged.
“It was bound to happen eventually.” He muttered to himself. The only thing that he was really feeling was curiosity about why had it taken this long. Maybe if he asked he’d get some kind of explanation if his killers were feeling generous. The bootsteps drew closer and closer as the old man breathed heavily. The door to his cell opened and a pair of men entered. “What took you so goddamn long?”
“Apologies, Mr. President. It was hard to coordinate after the War.” The old man realized now the two men did not look like the soldiers he was used to. They looked more like—what was the word they had described Castro and friends with before they came to power? Insurgents! They looked haggard and their clothes were not a uniform. “You are him, right? The President?”
“Which one?” The ex-president laughed. The two men didn’t laugh with him. One of them pulled out a picture. It was the old man back when he was young and speaking to the nation.
“This one. Is this you?”
“Yep. Who are you two? Why are you here?”
“We are the Liberators. We’ve liberated a lot—today we’re liberating you in particular.” The man who spoke—the second who had entered—extended a hand to the elderly ex-president. “From what we’ve heard, you’ve still got about two years to serve, Mr. Nixon. And we need you now more than ever.”
Jack Napier, better known as Joker (or sometimes The Joker), was an American businessman, gangster, and supervillain operating out of Gotham City, New Jersey. Napier was born in Motor, Iowa to farming parents, who relocated first to Camden, New Jersey, and then later to Gotham City, where they would spend the rest of their lives as factory workers. Little is known about his life prior to his arrival to Gotham. His father is believed to have died from complications regarding syphilis around 1910, and his mother from suicide in 1914.
As a teenager, Napier often got involved in fights with teachers and other students, being expelled twice before his mother's death. From then on, he picked up odd jobs and performed minor thefts for neighborhood gangs until around 1921, when he was believed to have joined the original Red Hood Gang, where he would rise up in prominence over the next several years. As a grunt, he was responsible for transporting copious amounts of alcohol, drugs, and money throughout the city of Gotham. During this time he made many friends and contacts within the Red Hood Gang, their distributors, and in the Gotham City Police Department. Despite committing brutal assaults and murders in broad daylight, at times undisguised by his gang's signature red hoods, he was never arrested or formally charged, even as other members were.
By 1937, he is believed to have become the undisputed boss of the Red Hood Gang, after many of the old guard were arrested by the Gotham Police (headed by a new Commissioner, Jim Gordon), died in shootouts with the police, or were assassinated by rival gangs hoping to make a move on their turf. At this time, Napier was publicly known as a businessman dealing with expensive imported clothes, watches, and various novelty toys for children. Those who did know his identity as a major crime boss were either killed, often in brutal ways, or left terrified into silence.
The next year, he became involved in a gang war with the Falcone Crime Family, headed by then-patriarch Carmine Falcone, that resulted in hundreds dead or wounded, mostly civilian casualties. In 1940, during a confrontation with the original Batman, who declared war on all crime in Gotham, and set his sights on the Red Hoods, Napier fell in a vat of chemicals at the Ace Chemical Processing Plant, where he was believed to have died. Months later he re-emerged, body bleached white and face trapped in a permanent smile, and took back control of the Red Hoods, then in disarray without him.
Napier, now calling himself the Joker, turned his attentions from money and power into a war against all those who had wronged him or the Red Hoods, from Batman, who had left him scarred and deformed, to the police, the judicial system, and the Falcones (whose leader, Carmine, he personally killed with the same chemical he was tossed into, leaving him dead with the same smile that the Joker held). While Napier's last two years as leader of the Red Hoods saw them establish themselves as Gotham's most violent, feared, depraved, and dangerous gang, a reputation shared by Napier, they also completely alienated the public, other gangs, and even members within the gang, many of whom committed suicide rather than risk displeasing Napier. In March of 1942, during a scuffle with Batman, Napier accidentally impaled himself with his own knife and bled to death before the police could arrest him.
Prior to his transformation into the Joker, Napier was known as a quiet and unglamorous man. As a crime boss, he rarely wore any flashy clothes or expensive jewelry, rarely smoked, and never drank. Despite this, he was known to have a fearsome temper, beating members unconscious in front of others as an example. His few years as the Joker saw him as his most cruel and deranged, leaving behind a trail of bodies both as a warning to the world, and just for the sadistic pleasure that the actions brought him. While only known as the Joker for a couple years, his actions and reputation as the Clown Prince of Crime left a permanent mark on Gotham City. Several gangs in the decade since have called themselves the Red Hoods, none of which were ever as successful as Napier's gang. More infamously, several criminals in Gotham have appropriate the names Red Hood and Joker for their own benefits, ranging from petty thieves, public nuisances, bank robbers, crime bosses, and serial killers. Some have used the Joker as an image representing anarchy and nihilism, positively or negatively.
After weeks of attacks on refugee ships in the Florida Strait, the other shoe finally dropped, on Tuesday July 17, several mass shootings erupted simultaneously across Miami, targeting prominent Cuban exiles living in the city. Several bombs went off, targeting the homes of US Service members, Cuban exiles, and banks. One even exploded at a nearby National Guard Base. Riots erupted across Miami, and eventually federal troops were deployed to keep order, although they swiftly departed. It was the bloodiest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.
By the evening news on the 17th, the prime suspect was obvious. But after a week of “sober investigation,” the findings of the CIA, Department of Defense, and other Intelligence Agencies were clear. President Nixon delivered an address to a reeling nation, explaining that the perpetrators who had been caught were all linked to the Dirección General de Inteligencia, Castro’s devious Communist intelligence agency. He issued an ultimatum to Cuba, demanding that the chief conspirators be turned over, and reparations be made for “all crimes by Cubans against America.” Castro fervently denied any involvement in anything, but would not get the chance to make a choice. On the 25th, heavy fighting broke out around Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which both the Cubans and Americans claiming the other had started it. American forces acted quickly, securing key supply and defense points around the base, technically invading Cuban Soil. But Nixon wanted to go further. He announced his intent of ask Congress for authorization for “the complete liberation of Cuba.”
With the American Public roused with patriotic anger, Congress swiftly approved by nearly unanimous bipartisan majorities. Even Nixon’s opponent in 1960, John Kennedy, announced his “fully and total support” for the administration. Far more importantly, at least for Nixon’s hopes of funding his second jungle war, was the support of Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. The Texan, always with an eye towards the future, was happy to back the full invasion and installation of a “Provisional Republic.” But that same eye told him he could not let Nixon enter 1964 at the head of a popular, victorious war. So he resolved to do some muckraking. And really, the stunning incompetence displayed by the intelligence community deserved investigation.
But not even Johnson, in all his cynicism, could not guess the terrible truth.
After weeks of attacks on refugee ships in the Florida Strait, the other shoe finally dropped, on Tuesday July 17, several mass shootings erupted simultaneously across Miami, targeting prominent Cuban exiles living in the city. Several bombs went off, targeting the homes of US Service members, Cuban exiles, and banks. One even exploded at a nearby National Guard Base. Riots erupted across Miami, and eventually federal troops were deployed to keep order, although they swiftly departed. It was the bloodiest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.
By the evening news on the 17th, the prime suspect was obvious. But after a week of “sober investigation,” the findings of the CIA, Department of Defense, and other Intelligence Agencies were clear. President Nixon delivered an address to a reeling nation, explaining that the perpetrators who had been caught were all linked to the Dirección General de Inteligencia, Castro’s devious Communist intelligence agency. He issued an ultimatum to Cuba, demanding that the chief conspirators be turned over, and reparations be made for “all crimes by Cubans against America.” Castro fervently denied any involvement in anything, but would not get the chance to make a choice. On the 25th, heavy fighting broke out around Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which both the Cubans and Americans claiming the other had started it. American forces acted quickly, securing key supply and defense points around the base, technically invading Cuban Soil. But Nixon wanted to go further. He announced his intent of ask Congress for authorization for “the complete liberation of Cuba.”
With the American Public roused with patriotic anger, Congress swiftly approved by nearly unanimous bipartisan majorities. Even Nixon’s opponent in 1960, John Kennedy, announced his “fully and total support” for the administration. Far more importantly, at least for Nixon’s hopes of funding his second jungle war, was the support of Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. The Texan, always with an eye towards the future, was happy to back the full invasion and installation of a “Provisional Republic.” But that same eye told him he could not let Nixon enter 1964 at the head of a popular, victorious war. So he resolved to do some muckraking. And really, the stunning incompetence displayed by the intelligence community deserved investigation.
But not even Johnson, in all his cynicism, could not guess the terrible truth.
Yeah. Aside from the Jackson assassination (which was based more on Arthur Bremer's assassination attempt on George Wallace), all the incidents listed there are parallels/analogues to the following OTL RAF actions:
Rawweather = 1991 Assassination of Detlev Rohwedder
Perley A. Thomas = 1977 kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer, but even more brutal
Ponto = 1977 failed kidnapping-turned-murder of Jürgen Ponto
American Embassy Massacre = 1975 West German Embassy Siege in Stockholm
Haig = 1981 attempted assassination of Alexander Haig
As for an equivalent of the Landshut highjacking, I hadn't really thought about that, though I'd assume that something similar occurred ITTL seeing as how the Thomas kidnapping/murder is a parallel to the Schleyer kidnapping/murder. Same goes with continued activities post-Haig assassination.
I wish I knew that before October of last year. Oh well, at least I'm better at making infoboxes and using the snip it tool to make it an image and save them now.
