Look to the West Volume V: To Dream Again

[Alex Richards]

I feel for Monterroso. He’s a bungler that is destroying his country, sure, but he was in an unenviable position from the beginning. The UPSA was ridiculously overextended when war broke out.

I doubt that attempting radical social change during the war is going to help the effort though.

Meanwhile Belgium is trying to go for even more neutral neutrality in all of this, which is amusing.

 

[Hawkeye]

This makes for a good birthday present.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

Excellent stuff @Thande.

Given how sympathetic Monterroso is and how the Americans have behaved, I think I'm firmly on the Meridian side, even in spite of knowing how hopeless it is for them by authorial prophecy.

 

[Makemakean]

While I've been focusing on my novel (see sig) I didn't want to leave LTTW hanging for too long, so I've just cranked out this update.

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaay!

I have since decided that for publication I'm going to split this volume, so it will be Volume V: To Dream Again for the first 25 chapters (the lead-up to the prose beginning) and then the prose Pandoric War stuff will be Volume VI. Not sure what to call Volume VI, maybe just subtitle it "The Pandoric War"? I'll see if I can come up with a better title.

Leap Into The Dark

 

[Codae]

Part #243: Choices

That glorious defence by ordinary citizens had failed in the short term, but it had created an image of defiance that had caught the imagination of what had then been a sleepy backwater of the vast, inefficiently-run Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata. [1]
[1] There is quite a lot incorrect here, in particular Monterroso treating a formally British force as ‘the Americans’, but it reflects the version of history presented in the Meridian foundation myth.

 

Wait, I thought the Viceroyalty of Río de La Plata never existed ITTL, and the Plate had been part of Peru until its independence. Why would Meridian revisionists report that the Spanish gave them more colonial autonomy than they did?

evidently an unreconstructed Areian-supremacist

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Leap Into The Dark

Ooh, neat. It nicely foreshadows the metaphor naming the next war we've been informed of, too.

 

[Umbric Man]

Wait, I thought the Viceroyalty of Río de La Plata never existed ITTL, and the Plate had been part of Peru until its independence. Why would Meridian revisionists report that the Spanish gave them more colonial autonomy than they did?.

I took it as just an accidental mistake myself, since the sentence makes even more sense putting in Peru.

 

[Cynric]

Excellent work as always, and the Belgian pot continues to bubble. Will the disinherited Earl of Grey and his better half be making an appearance in the gambit pileup of conspiracies soon I wonder?

 

[MK-ULTRAmontist]

I have since decided that for publication I'm going to split this volume, so it will be Volume V: To Dream Again for the first 25 chapters (the lead-up to the prose beginning) and then the prose Pandoric War stuff will be Volume VI. Not sure what to call Volume VI, maybe just subtitle it "The Pandoric War"? I'll see if I can come up with a better title.

The Box Opens? And All the Evils Pour Out? Only Hope Left?

Given that the Pandoric War comes from Pandora's box, I think that this volume should be box-themed

 

[Analytical Engine]

The Box Opens? And All the Evils Pour Out? Only Hope Left?

Given that the Pandoric War comes from Pandora's box, I think that this volume should be box-themed

I would suggest something Vlogbrothers-related, but that title would be rather long.

 

[Redcoat]

I would suggest something Vlogbrothers-related, but that title would be rather long.

I forgot about that channel!

But tbh a title like that wouldn't be very fitting

 

[Analytical Engine]

I forgot about that channel!

But tbh a title like that wouldn't be very fitting

"I don't want to open Pandora's Box, but instead I'm stuck inside of Thande's Paradox".

 

[Redcoat]

"I don't want to open Pandora's Box, but instead I'm stuck inside of Thande's Paradox".

That would make a great what's it called, subtitle or something

 

[Analytical Engine]

That would make a great what's it called, subtitle or something

Alternatively, something Doctor Who related, along the lines of "The Pandorica will open, and silence will fall", but adjusted suitably.

 

[1SaBy]

The UPSA is falling, which might bring some freedom to its unwilling partners.

For a time only.

Meanwhile Belgium is trying to go for even more neutral neutrality in all of this, which is amusing.

Belgians are just radical centrists, let them be.

Anyway, who are Areians?

 

[Analytical Engine]

Anyway, who are Areians?

Anti-feminists, I think.

 

[Indicus]

For a time only.

Maybe the Societists will not rule over all of the Meridian colonial empire, and maybe some of its states will go independent. I don’t think it can keep Maharashtra, for instance, as it is surrounded by non-revolutionary powers, far away from the UPSA metropole, and naturally the princes won’t like being part of a homogenized state.

 

[Perfidious Albion]

Anyway, who are Areians?

I'd guess it's derived from the Greek root "Ares" (representing masculinity) in contrast to Cytherea, more commonly called Aphrodite, representing femininity. Hence, anti-feminists, since TTL calls feminists Cythereans.

 

[Redcoat]

Part #237: Shocks

AAAAAAAAAAAA If the author was actually showing what the king was actually thinking and they were actually getting Carolina pulled out of the war....he was so close.

 

[xsampa]

The reference to Areians shows that Diversitarianism will celebrate and incorporate ideologies that would be considered fringe and bizarre IOTL, and give them a voice. One wonders if this won’t lead to cases where attempts at ideological takeover happen in Diversitarian democracies.

 

[Analytical Engine]

The reference to Areians shows that Diversitarianism will celebrate and incorporate ideologies that would be considered fringe and bizarre IOTL, and give them a voice. One wonders if this won’t lead to cases where attempts at ideological takeover happen in Diversitarian democracies.

You're probably right. "Free speech in the name of diversity" could be a major thing. We already know that Diversitarians encourage "alternative viewpoints" even if they think those same viewpoints as wrong.