Apple's "1984" Commercial

Hello, new poster here, previous lurker. Forgive me if this is the wrong forum. But I found myself wondering, what would the chain of events have to be so that Apple's famous "1984" commercial was a real event? It might go something like this:


1984:
"For today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!” (sledgehammer thrown into screen, explosion)


1934:

Major General Smedley Butler is not approached by the Bankers' Coup of 1934, another leader is found and the "coup" is partly successful. FDR becomes a weak leader. The New Deal is strangled in its cradle and its changes rolled back. While FDR narrowly wins in 1936, his influence is sharply muted and he is out by 1940. The Depression is worse than OTL, with the banks and corporations of the 1930s gaining additional power as the only alternative to widespread poverty and starvation.

The old song "I owe my soul to the company store" becomes truer than ever, as Ford Motors, Dow Chemical, General Mills, Dupont, Standard Oil, and other large corporations begin to exert primary control over the engines of government, in a more direct fashion than OTL. One of the most powerful and ruthless of these supercorporations is IBM. The Depression's worst effects are mitigated by private enterprise, but at some loss of personal freedom as corporations take advantage of the inexpensive and desperate labor force, signing employees to lifetime contracts. Such luxuries as workplace safety regulations and unionization are discarded, despite brutal strikes and labor strife in the late 1930s, the corporations come out on top.

During this time, the political movement known as Technocracy Incorporated gains in appeal and influence with the business owners and the corporate board members sign agreements to install Technocratic Party candidates into political office. It's a little different from the earlier technocracy model, still keeping individual corporate structures with monopolies over various industries - General Motors for automobiles, IBM for information processing, and so forth. The Technocratic Party obtains a majority in both houses, as well as the Presidency, in the 1940 elections and the US remains mostly neutral in WW2, as IBM does business with the Germans and the Allies. Congress is reorganized via Constitutional amendment to replace the Senate with direct representatives from the one hundred largest corporations instead of two senators from every state, and soon afterwards the office of the Presidency is subsumed into the Board of Directors. By 1950 the United States is commonly called the North American Technate and is, while nominally democratic, run by an oligarchy of technocrats.

The Nazis take over most of Europe, the Japanese fight a war with the Technate over Pacific holdings and end up under their own form of Technocracy, the Japanese corporations finding technocratic governance very good for profits and end up working well with the Americans. IBM purchases Sony. Japan loses its empire, becoming a sort of Airstrip One for the Technate. Far ranging and ruthless trade embargoes with Canada and Caribbean nations, backed up by gunboat diplomacy, bring the entirety of North America into the Technate by 1960.

1960:

A decaying, militaristic Third Reich barely hanging onto its occupation of Europe, beset by internal insurgencies and quite unstable, although it possesses nuclear bombs. Hitler never went after the Soviets and was content with Europe, but his regime was doomed.

A powerful Soviet Union, without Cuba (Castro was killed by Technate agents in 1958) or Eastern Europe (which is Fascist controlled) but with a greater alliance with China. It has also spread its influence south through the Indian subcontinent and through the Middle east.

The Technate, if not all that free for its citizens, is certainly doing well enough in a business sense. Effectively 21st-century-Chinese style state capitalism, producing inexpensive consumer goods. Not much of a middle class - there's vast seas of proles and a small upper crust of wealthy Executives, with a few high ranking engineers and technocrats. It's a meritocracy of sorts, smart proles can get promoted into higher positions. It's tubepunky, as corporate projects launch communication satellites and conduct research in space.

During the collapse of the Nazis there is a limited nuclear war in the mid 1960s, irradiating Europe and much of the East coast and forcing the construction of large underground complexes. The technocratic control becomes more dictatorial and fascistic. IBM's computers now control all of life, and the pollution of the rampant industrialization has forced many to wear gas masks. IBM gains its nickname Big Blue, as seen on posters such as "Big Blue is Watching You".

1972:

Workers in the complexes shave their heads to hide hair loss from low level radiation leakage from faulty reactors. The System/360 computer and its protected class of system administrators and programmers ruled all aspects of life in the Technate. IBM held a total and absolute monopoly over all information processing and de-facto control over the Technate itself.

Workers gather daily before large screens where IBM's Chairman delivers the day's motivational message. The Technate is not all that warlike but it is fiercely competitive. Despite the grind of life in many of the technate complexes in the East Coast sectors, industry continues. The workers in the complexes build consumer goods for export and are attempting to overtake the scattered, newly independent nations of Europe as well as defeat the Soviets via economic means.

1977:

In the California technate sector, Cupertino complex, Steve Wozniak was a genius level programmer and system administrator, late of IBM, who gathered with some underground hackers to form the Homebrew Computer Club in the 1970s. This underground group had to meet in absolute secrecy, and was composed of geeks who took their dangerous knowledge about information processing from the somewhat sclerotic and bureaucratic IBM and wanted to build their own "Personal" computers. Wozniak was joined by a man named Steve Jobs who was able to secure facilities in a disused Technate plant to design and build a radical new weapon. Other members of the Homebrew Computer Club included Nolan Bushnell, a man known only as "Captain Crunch", Paul Allen and Vint Cerf, some of whom had been instrumental in building IBM's systems in the 1960s and some who were self taught hackers among the prole ranks.

They communicated in clandestine in-person meetings and over IBM's ARPAnet, using secret encrypted channels on company computers. They were revolutionaries only in a geek sense - they did not want to destroy the Technate, but the Executive Boards realized that this sort of technology in prole hands would not end well. Hackers presented an enormous danger to IBM's huge systems and the Homebrews' creations endangered the totalitarian systems that the Technate had built.

A few personal computers were built. Primitive, wooden or plastic boxes stuffed with parts, they could be plugged into IBM networks and used to communicate secretly, hijacking IBM telescreens for monitors. Forums and bulletin-board systems began to develop.

Each personal computer used its own operating system and internal protocols, programmed only in assembly language, and had to be hand built by their owners in secret, using soldering irons and other difficult-to-procure equipment. Unlicensed computer ownership was a capital offense by 1980. There were kits such as the Osbourne, the Commodore, and other code names, and one of the most popular was the Apple, named after the forbidden fruit of knowledge and intended by Jobs as a weapon to destroy IBM. But the first Apple computer was soon to be replaced by Woz and Job's second project. The Macintosh.

The Macintosh was a radical concept, commenced in a "pirate" laboratory in a disused complex in Cupertino, the developers gathered under a Jolly Roger flag. The idea was that the Macintosh would speak any network protocol via auto-detect, and find other Macs on the same phone line or Ethernet network, and establish absolutely secret communications between them upon 'handshake'. Any Mac owner would be able to exchange secret information with any other Mac owner. In addition, the machine was easy to use and even 'friendly', its black and white screen and compact portable form factor enabling it to be carried easily and plugged into any power source. it was an information appliance that would enable the resistance to gather in strength and overthrow the totalitarian Technocracy. They are not inexpensive, but they are powerful enough that non-skilled users may also use them and radically increase the strength of the resistance. It used an operating system adapted from a purloined version of IBM's UNIX software by a bearded man known only as Stallman, who passionately argued that software should be freely redistributable, a position that the homebrew club agreed upon.


1983:

The Information Purification Directives are established. Further crackdowns are made on "homebrew" personal computing devices. An internal security force is strengthened with body armor and stun weapons to prevent any disruptions at the motivational sessions, which are increased to twice daily, where workers are continually reminded how happy they are and how contradictory information (that provided on the screens of any homebrew computers the workers may possess) can be safely ignored.

1984:

The Macintosh is ready and the clandestine factory in Cupertino has built several thousand of the devices. On January 29, 1984, this speech is being made to the assembled workers of the Technate:

“For today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!”
Running in during this meeting, in several of the largest Sector Meetings at once, came a single resistance fighter, well aware that they might be killed or imprisoned for this act of defiance, wearing a non-standard uniform, pursued by IBM Internal Security. She or he would swing a sledgehammer and fling it into the screen in the middle of the Chairman's speech, before being tackled and tasered by the Security forces. This act of resistance stunned the workers, showing them that there was a world beyond that of IBM. In the confusion of the vandalism, Apple operatives circulated instructions on how to obtain their own Macintosh computers.

Macs began to be used, and IBM's domination was not brought down, but was heavily damaged. The Personal Computer revolution was at hand, forcing IBM to release its own controlled devices (the PCjr) that same year. Macintosh possession was a capital offense, but it fell to a mid level IBM sector manager named Bill Gates, in conjunction with his coworker Steve Ballmer, to come up with a plan to defeat the Apple cultists once and for all. Jobs and Wozniak were arrested by the Technate in 1987. The Window Project was a great success, leading to a general promotion for Gates to eventual chairmanship by 1995. Steve Jobs was later converted to IBM's point of view (after extraordinary interrogation and exploitation of his fear of mice) and became a dedicated Technocratic Party member. He loved Big Blue.
 
Not bad. Not bad at all. A very good read. I always love a good "Authoritarian United States" timeline, and this is a nice unique spin on the concept. Admittedly, not very plausible, but I'd rather have a good story that was completely implausable, then a completely plausible story that's completely dry.
 
Hmmm, another Apple-related idea- the story goes that the founders of Apple computer were inspited to call their computer Apple in homage to Alan Turing, who, despite being the mathematical genius of WWII who contributed to much to decoding ENIGMA at Bletchley Park, committed suicide afterwrads with a cyanide-laced apple. Now, WI there was some other influence instead, what could've been alternate names for the Apple computer co. ?
 
Not bad. Not bad at all. A very good read. I always love a good "Authoritarian United States" timeline, and this is a nice unique spin on the concept. Admittedly, not very plausible, but I'd rather have a good story that was completely implausable, then a completely plausible story that's completely dry.

Thanks! It's my first attempt. :) And I admit it was implausible, but my end point was that commercial, which was a mix of Orwell and IBM so I was kind of locked in.
 
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