"Power Without Knowledge...": President Haig and the Era of Bad Feelings
- Thread starter Born in the USSA
- Start date
Media Matters: Plus Ultra
The release of the X-Men '97 trailer inspired me to do this little number 😂
While the 1985 Marvel acquisition of DC was relatively clean from a business standpoint, a simple buyout followed by a rebrand, actually reconciling the properties involved would prove a more daunting task. Even having the Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars events lead into the 1986 Amalgam event and then decohere into separate characters operating in a single world, getting everyone where they needed to be, so to speak, there was still the matter of reconciling two vast and often convoluted settings and character stables. Aside from fan and writer jurisdictional questions about SHIELD, the Avengers and the Justice League, there was also the particular standout that Mongul was inspired by Thanos who was in turn inspired by Darkseid, with all three now coexisting!
Several Ultra writers would spend the following decade attempting to stitch everything together, but it was the streamlining of this drawn out process through the Ultra Animated Universe that would really help stick the landing during Ultra Comics' brief time as the hyperpower of the comics world, introducing the new canon in a digestible way to new generations of potential readers. Running for over a decade, the UAU consisted of a series of animated shows linked through crossovers and overarching plot elements. In release order, they were:
The UAU would also introduce the definitive Teen Titans roster for the Millennial generation, made up of power couple Superboy and Jubilee along with Static, Iron Lad, Robin and Starfire, with Spider-Man acting as a mentor to the younger generation. The team would prove the centerpiece of a reboot of the setting in the form of the 2010 Teen Titans series, sharing the expansive world of the Ultra Comics universe with a new generation of fans and priming the pump for a long-delayed live-action Ultra Cinematic Universe to reboot all the one and done films of the preceding two decades and better compete with the Image box office behemoth on the silver screen.
*Basically take Weapon Plus on steroids and have Sinister as the man behind the man.
**Yes I'm keeping both, Galatea was cool. Also Superboy's telekinesis is the result of adding an X-gene, so he's a Kryptonian-mutant hybrid clone. Since Sinister sampled it from Jean Grey he fills the role of Nate Grey in the broader Ultra universe, more or less, though he's ironically not nearly so OP.
***I despise recent Sinister clone Doctor Stasis, but the backstory that he's at least indirectly related to Weapon Plus, the gamma experiments that made the Hulk and the spider that bit Peter Parker is functionally transferred to Sinister here. All told Cadmus has a hand in a lot of hero and villain origin stories.
While the 1985 Marvel acquisition of DC was relatively clean from a business standpoint, a simple buyout followed by a rebrand, actually reconciling the properties involved would prove a more daunting task. Even having the Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars events lead into the 1986 Amalgam event and then decohere into separate characters operating in a single world, getting everyone where they needed to be, so to speak, there was still the matter of reconciling two vast and often convoluted settings and character stables. Aside from fan and writer jurisdictional questions about SHIELD, the Avengers and the Justice League, there was also the particular standout that Mongul was inspired by Thanos who was in turn inspired by Darkseid, with all three now coexisting!
Several Ultra writers would spend the following decade attempting to stitch everything together, but it was the streamlining of this drawn out process through the Ultra Animated Universe that would really help stick the landing during Ultra Comics' brief time as the hyperpower of the comics world, introducing the new canon in a digestible way to new generations of potential readers. Running for over a decade, the UAU consisted of a series of animated shows linked through crossovers and overarching plot elements. In release order, they were:
- Batman: The Animated Series (1992-95)
- X-Men: The Animated Series (1992-97)
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994-1999)
- Superman: The Animated Series (1997-2000)
- Ultra 2099 (1999-2000)
- Static Shock (2000-04)
- Justice League (2001-03)
- Avengers Assemble (2004-05)
The UAU would also introduce the definitive Teen Titans roster for the Millennial generation, made up of power couple Superboy and Jubilee along with Static, Iron Lad, Robin and Starfire, with Spider-Man acting as a mentor to the younger generation. The team would prove the centerpiece of a reboot of the setting in the form of the 2010 Teen Titans series, sharing the expansive world of the Ultra Comics universe with a new generation of fans and priming the pump for a long-delayed live-action Ultra Cinematic Universe to reboot all the one and done films of the preceding two decades and better compete with the Image box office behemoth on the silver screen.
*Basically take Weapon Plus on steroids and have Sinister as the man behind the man.
**Yes I'm keeping both, Galatea was cool. Also Superboy's telekinesis is the result of adding an X-gene, so he's a Kryptonian-mutant hybrid clone. Since Sinister sampled it from Jean Grey he fills the role of Nate Grey in the broader Ultra universe, more or less, though he's ironically not nearly so OP.
***I despise recent Sinister clone Doctor Stasis, but the backstory that he's at least indirectly related to Weapon Plus, the gamma experiments that made the Hulk and the spider that bit Peter Parker is functionally transferred to Sinister here. All told Cadmus has a hand in a lot of hero and villain origin stories.
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And yes, of course the Summers family tree is as convoluted as usual, aside from Cable and Rachel running around in the present (on-and-off in Cable's case) Ruby's there too, so the "step-children" have plenty to bond over 😂 There's also an analogue to Hyperstorm with a bit of Hope Summers mixed in, though instead of the future maybe-baby of Rachel and Franklin Richards she's Conner and Jubilee's. Unlike her dad she is actually OP, with full Kryptonian powers, much stronger mind reading, full telekinesis and the ability to generate nuclear explosions even when she's not a Phoenix host. Also aside from the standout example of Cadmus there's some other canon welding, with Hydra an outgrowth of the League of Shadows (itself descended from Clan Akkaba) and the New Gods exist outside of the main universe but come about in the future after an apocalyptic war on Asgard as Kirby originally intended.
Something that just occurred to me: given the state of the modern world and the fact that the ARC has generational constitutional conventions where every member of the continental government is present I'll definitely have to include language in my Basic Law about the contingency of a decapitation strike, though Karnak is so well fortified and the event itself so meticulously screened it would probably take something like a direct high yield nuclear strike or a rod from god to take everybody out at once 🤔
Had some recent thoughts about the development of ecological fiction and its influence on and crosspollination-with Regressive thought so that one will likely be next! In the meantime any setting questions? Work has been busy but I'll try to update soon.
Homo ludens
Have a random thing that struck my fancy!
More language facts: Gestaltisch (and to a lesser extent High Human) is actually one of the end goals of the Maximalist Fraction, expanding on the relatively limited Xenofemenist Fraction's goals to add extra genders to ACE and the Novuteran Fraction's weird obsession with þ. Aside from having thirty-something letters and a veritable rainbow of grammatical genders, Gestaltisch in its ideal form would also have two distinct methods of writing: first would be a standard latin-derived phonetic alphabet and second a sigil-based logographic writing system fostered by the increased efficiency of inputting it aided by computer programs. The latter would be incredibly difficult to actually create but it's slightly streamlined by a standardized set of rules regarding how words are transformed into logograms, including not only limits on how letters can be reshaped and what positions they can have in the final design of a given word but also such standard practice as the uniform removal of vowels from the words in question before transition.
More language facts: Gestaltisch (and to a lesser extent High Human) is actually one of the end goals of the Maximalist Fraction, expanding on the relatively limited Xenofemenist Fraction's goals to add extra genders to ACE and the Novuteran Fraction's weird obsession with þ. Aside from having thirty-something letters and a veritable rainbow of grammatical genders, Gestaltisch in its ideal form would also have two distinct methods of writing: first would be a standard latin-derived phonetic alphabet and second a sigil-based logographic writing system fostered by the increased efficiency of inputting it aided by computer programs. The latter would be incredibly difficult to actually create but it's slightly streamlined by a standardized set of rules regarding how words are transformed into logograms, including not only limits on how letters can be reshaped and what positions they can have in the final design of a given word but also such standard practice as the uniform removal of vowels from the words in question before transition.
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I've had another flurry of general media fun facts, none of which are meaty enough for a full entry, so after I finally get a free moment for the ecological/regressive/mycological fiction post I'll do a general bullet-pointed one with my random asides, then I suppose it's only fair I do the 2016 election 😂
Just a little teaser to wet your beaks but for the longest time I couldn't figure out exactly how I wanted the middle action of 2016 to go— suffice to say I knew how it started and how it would end but some aspects of the actual election eluded me. I've been inspired by a recent reread of @ChangeofPace's delightful To Heaven but with a Political Party TL, so that should tell you something. Though we both know this version will end in a far less uplifting way 😉
Any questions going forward? They always help me think when I'm otherwise busy with work and life more broadly.
Happy Earth Day gang! I'll try and shoot for the ecofiction/regressive lit post sometime this week!
Future posts checklist
I'm threadmarking this one so I actually remember to do them all but I wanted to consolidate a few disparate lists of ideas for posts so I don't let any fall through the cracks:
- The Regressive impact on ecofiction
- Random oneshot media ideas
- 2016 election
- Martha Washington
- Anton and Hob/satanic panic, I'll probably link this one to an homage to the style popular in the Cosmintern called Huxley and Blair
- Ultima Antarctica Press/the evolution of the ARC publishing ecosystem from underground revolutionary publishers to established institutions
- Something on the 2018 midterms and the start of the Shatter
- More flags
- Updated ARC/world maps
- The Basic Law (when I finally get around to finishing the damned thing)
- A rundown of Sutter's pulpy novels
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Also forgot to mention that the SLP Alternate Antarcticas anthology is moving forward and my story was selected! I'm excited! While it won't be the thrust of the narrative a much more escalated version of the Falklands War is playing out in the background and my short story protagonist goes on to lay the foundations for Zoranism!
Yep, it'll fill the niche for the 2019 Watchmen series and that canceled Civil show they were going to put out in 2016 but got cold feet over. I made a thread ages ago about how it would be a good choice for a live action adaptation and decided to dust off the idea.
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The Basic Law: A (Brief) History
Here's something that I thought of today, it'll be the preface of the Basic Law appendix to Oubliette:
It is impossible to fully understand the lived reality of the Antarctic state without first parsing the history of the Basic Law. Given a lack of any form of preceding participatory government at any real level it is not an exaggeration to say that it forms the foundation of the first successful Cosmicist experiment, and that everything else has sprung from it in response to evolving conditions both within and beyond the new polity. Unlike the old Constitution of the United States which originally inspired it changes to the text are actively edited in with the cyclical turning of the ARC constitutional conventions, so, to those outside the academic fields of constitutional theory, it is valuable to demonstrate the course that the document has taken as we approach the fourth such turning of the wheel of Zeitgeist manifestation.
In its first iteration the Basic Law was only one foundational document among many. Part of the Natural Laws (12103) promulgated by the I Convention that would form the legal framework of the post-Consolidation government, the I Basic Law was composed of what we would now recognize as the Preamble and Articles Two, Three, Four, governing the nature of the Continental Congress, Executive Quorum, and Bicameral Judiciary, respectively. Here we see an influence from the United States Constitution, perhaps unsurprising given the roots of Antarctic Cosmicism in the transported American exiles, though the enshrining of the concept of vanguard pluralism and the party-state that would eventually become Article Five was a new innovation on that model.
In the original conception the Natural Laws would remain intertwined but ultimately distinct, referencing and reinforcing one another while theoretically remaining flexible enough to change with social and geopolitical realities in the fullness of time. At this stage several of the later Articles were already present in more or less their current forms, such as the Declaration of the Rights of Personhood and of the Citizen (later Article One), the Organic Acts (later divided into Articles Six and Nine), the Foundation of a Social Ecology (later Article Seven) and the Principles of a Popular Economy (later Article 8). The eventual Article Ten existed, in a simpler form, as a general legal framework for the amendment of the Natural Laws, though it was not itself counted among them.
While this decentralized arrangement was considered sufficient in the heady days that immediately followed the Antarctic Revolutions, the continuous pressures of Nihilist containment would demonstrate the need for consolidation and a streamlining of the constitutional order. Pressure gradually built among the Antarctic social base, reaching a fever pitch as the expiration of the I Basic Law approached and revolution at last began to spread among the precarian peoples of the global south, truly ushering in the long-promised transition from Volksgeist to Zeitgeist on the international stage. The II Convention took up the cause with gusto, expanding several of the Natural Laws even as it combined them with the original Basic Law, among other changes expanding the framework of the party-state into its own Article of the II Basic Law (12133) and adding to it the legal framework of the newly expanded Cosmicist International as a sign of global precarian solidarity.
The II Basic Law was the first iteration of the document to be truly recognizable to modern observers, the first to contain all ten of the Articles with which you are undoubtedly familiar. Compared to the churn of the prior Constitutional cycle the III Convention made relatively few changes in the creation of the III Basic Law (12163), primarily clarifications of language and the removal of previously unforeseen constitutional loopholes. In comparison, the upcoming IV Convention appears to many to be a more contentious affair, with dissatisfied elements of the base united under the young Maximalist Fraction and publicly disparaging the even hand of the III Convention as symptomatic of a lack of resolve* in the face of continued Nihilist exploitation and obstinacy to the north. Opining on the nature of the nascent IV Basic Law (12193) is an exercise for future historians, though I am certain that the Antarctic experiment, as vanguard of the global precarian revolution, is strong enough to weather whatever is ahead.
To follow is to yield
*In layman's terms the III Convention favored containment, while the Maximalists are much more animated by rollback. It's understandable for both of them, since from the perspective of the former they were still operating on the belated assumption that the revolutionary wave would continue north and eventually drown the Arctic Council and the latter are far more bellicose having grown up in a world where the fronts of the Second Cold War have long stabilized and the kyriarchy and its chain dogs continue to squeeze every drop they can from their oppressed precariat.
A (Brief) History of the Basic Law
It is impossible to fully understand the lived reality of the Antarctic state without first parsing the history of the Basic Law. Given a lack of any form of preceding participatory government at any real level it is not an exaggeration to say that it forms the foundation of the first successful Cosmicist experiment, and that everything else has sprung from it in response to evolving conditions both within and beyond the new polity. Unlike the old Constitution of the United States which originally inspired it changes to the text are actively edited in with the cyclical turning of the ARC constitutional conventions, so, to those outside the academic fields of constitutional theory, it is valuable to demonstrate the course that the document has taken as we approach the fourth such turning of the wheel of Zeitgeist manifestation.
In its first iteration the Basic Law was only one foundational document among many. Part of the Natural Laws (12103) promulgated by the I Convention that would form the legal framework of the post-Consolidation government, the I Basic Law was composed of what we would now recognize as the Preamble and Articles Two, Three, Four, governing the nature of the Continental Congress, Executive Quorum, and Bicameral Judiciary, respectively. Here we see an influence from the United States Constitution, perhaps unsurprising given the roots of Antarctic Cosmicism in the transported American exiles, though the enshrining of the concept of vanguard pluralism and the party-state that would eventually become Article Five was a new innovation on that model.
In the original conception the Natural Laws would remain intertwined but ultimately distinct, referencing and reinforcing one another while theoretically remaining flexible enough to change with social and geopolitical realities in the fullness of time. At this stage several of the later Articles were already present in more or less their current forms, such as the Declaration of the Rights of Personhood and of the Citizen (later Article One), the Organic Acts (later divided into Articles Six and Nine), the Foundation of a Social Ecology (later Article Seven) and the Principles of a Popular Economy (later Article 8). The eventual Article Ten existed, in a simpler form, as a general legal framework for the amendment of the Natural Laws, though it was not itself counted among them.
While this decentralized arrangement was considered sufficient in the heady days that immediately followed the Antarctic Revolutions, the continuous pressures of Nihilist containment would demonstrate the need for consolidation and a streamlining of the constitutional order. Pressure gradually built among the Antarctic social base, reaching a fever pitch as the expiration of the I Basic Law approached and revolution at last began to spread among the precarian peoples of the global south, truly ushering in the long-promised transition from Volksgeist to Zeitgeist on the international stage. The II Convention took up the cause with gusto, expanding several of the Natural Laws even as it combined them with the original Basic Law, among other changes expanding the framework of the party-state into its own Article of the II Basic Law (12133) and adding to it the legal framework of the newly expanded Cosmicist International as a sign of global precarian solidarity.
The II Basic Law was the first iteration of the document to be truly recognizable to modern observers, the first to contain all ten of the Articles with which you are undoubtedly familiar. Compared to the churn of the prior Constitutional cycle the III Convention made relatively few changes in the creation of the III Basic Law (12163), primarily clarifications of language and the removal of previously unforeseen constitutional loopholes. In comparison, the upcoming IV Convention appears to many to be a more contentious affair, with dissatisfied elements of the base united under the young Maximalist Fraction and publicly disparaging the even hand of the III Convention as symptomatic of a lack of resolve* in the face of continued Nihilist exploitation and obstinacy to the north. Opining on the nature of the nascent IV Basic Law (12193) is an exercise for future historians, though I am certain that the Antarctic experiment, as vanguard of the global precarian revolution, is strong enough to weather whatever is ahead.
To follow is to yield
*In layman's terms the III Convention favored containment, while the Maximalists are much more animated by rollback. It's understandable for both of them, since from the perspective of the former they were still operating on the belated assumption that the revolutionary wave would continue north and eventually drown the Arctic Council and the latter are far more bellicose having grown up in a world where the fronts of the Second Cold War have long stabilized and the kyriarchy and its chain dogs continue to squeeze every drop they can from their oppressed precariat.
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As a matter of historical context, the II Convention began in the wake of the creation of the Commonwealth of Azania, the Indian Continental Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth of Patagonia, while the period of the II Basic Law that proceeded the III Convention saw the formation of the United Commonwealth of Insulindia and Australasia*, the Bolivarian Continental Commonwealth**, and the Spartacene Commonwealth of the Free Coast***, so the (in hindsight) complacency of the III Convention can perhaps be excused by their naive hope for the (somewhat) peaceful inevitability of the Revolution. Next up on the block under a theoretical Maximalist administration is the long-awaited admission of the capital-R regressive Arab League as the Commonwealth of Sahara (it includes the Arabian peninsula, since "Sahara" is itself an irregular Arabic plural of "desert") and trying to peel off a Grand Turanic Commonwealth from the Eurasian Union and the Benevolent Accord of Righteous Democracies*, composed of Turkey and the -stans. Iran would be cut off from the BARD in the process and whether it would be brought into one or the other is a matter of debate among the publicly suppressed Iranian Cosmicist Front and within the broader Cosmintern, since all involved agree that they're too small to be a Continental Commonwealth on their own 🤔
*I changed the name
**What was originally a non-aligned America Unida in v.1 of my world map
***Formerly the non-aligned Monrovia Pact— made up of West Africa and the Congo the name is a deliberate repudiation of the legacy of the Slave Coast.
*I changed the name
**What was originally a non-aligned America Unida in v.1 of my world map
***Formerly the non-aligned Monrovia Pact— made up of West Africa and the Congo the name is a deliberate repudiation of the legacy of the Slave Coast.
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Media Matters: Precog in the Machine
This was originally going to be my centralized post of random media/cultural ideas that couldn't carry an individual update but the first one I picked turned out to be meatier than I expected so here's this instead— in my defense I was able to fold in a few of my one-off ideas at the margins 😅
Although the point of divergence for the Era of Bad Feelings was in the relatively recent past, within a decade events had drastically shifted, with the assassination of Reagan barely six years on from the origin kicking everything into a higher gear, unleashing a butterfly swarm of radical political change and resulting cultural tumult that would produce the warped geopolitical and media landscape that characterizes life in the 2020s. One of the most impactful of these changes was Ridley Scott's helming of the Dune Chronicles, which quickly became a runaway hit and would contribute to a much sooner public embrace of his earlier Blade Runner. Eager to capitalize on the newly lucrative property, Warner Bros. immediately set out to create a sequel as quickly as possible, though noticeably without either Harrison Ford or Ridley Scott himself.
The end result of this mad rush would be 1987's Total Recall, directed by David Cronenberg and starring Patrick Swayze*. Still set on Mars in 2084 and with a broadly similar plot to the version we know, it is still important to acknowledge the changes made to work the concept into a proper sequel. Intended to more fully explore the Offworld Colonies mentioned in the original film, the oppressed mutant population on Mars are in fact replicants, modified after their creation to live longer at the cost of the physical mutations originally promised to Roy Batty by Dr. Tyrell.
Cronenberg had a noticeable design impact on the physical nature of the mutants, from the four-breasted stripper** to more unsettling offerings like Quato. The tone of the film was more meditative and less satirical than the Verhoeven version, focusing far more on the nature of memory, identity and economic and social exploitation, and Dan O'Bannon was able to fight for his preferred ending, where the handprint in the finale is an exact match for Quaid, inducing "Total Recall" and revealing to him that he is not Hauser, but rather that Hauser had died attempting to infiltrate the reactor and been replaced by a Martian simulacrum whose ability to survive the attempts on his life was a subconscious form of precognition.
Popular upon its release, plans were set into motion to create a sequel starring Swayze and based on a third unrelated Philip K. Dick property, though his remarkably full calendar at the time caused these plans to eventually fall through. In the original conception the sequel would be an immediate continuation, showing the drastic measures taken on Earth to prevent the spread of the awakened Quaid's replicant revolution. Eventually retooling the project into an interquel to better bridge the gap between the 2019 of Blade Runner and the 2084 of Total Recall, 1997's Minority Report was set on Earth in 2054 and still starred Tom Cruise.
Set in an artificially domed and climate-controlled Washington, D.C., surveillance technology is ever-present, constantly scanning eyes to automate the hunt for replicants, while the arc of the film explores Precrime, a future system of law enforcement to preemptively arrest criminals. Falsely accused by the system of future murder, Cruise's character Anderton exposes a closely guarded secrets that there is both a margin for error in precognitive vision*** and that careful exploitation of the precrime system can allow for a murder to still go undetected. Plans for a fourth installment set after Total Recall are currently in development hell, though 1999 would see the release of a television tie in to the series in the form of Blade Runner 2070, starring Colin Farrell.
Given the implications of the Replicant Trilogy on the broader media landscape have a "Where Were They Then" montage!
*Both attached to the OTL project at different stages.
**Her original design, discarded because it was considered unsettlingly bovine by the executives. Here she gets off light compared to most mutants.
***In humans, explaining away why Quaid's awakened perception is implied to be flawless in Total Recall. Many reviewers have noticed parallels to Dune, noting how weirdly specific it is that Warner Bros. two science fiction franchises of the period were adapted from the works of bearded midcentury science fiction authors with an interest in mind-altering substances, both of whom were born in the 20s and died in the 80s, and revolved around people who could see the future.
Although the point of divergence for the Era of Bad Feelings was in the relatively recent past, within a decade events had drastically shifted, with the assassination of Reagan barely six years on from the origin kicking everything into a higher gear, unleashing a butterfly swarm of radical political change and resulting cultural tumult that would produce the warped geopolitical and media landscape that characterizes life in the 2020s. One of the most impactful of these changes was Ridley Scott's helming of the Dune Chronicles, which quickly became a runaway hit and would contribute to a much sooner public embrace of his earlier Blade Runner. Eager to capitalize on the newly lucrative property, Warner Bros. immediately set out to create a sequel as quickly as possible, though noticeably without either Harrison Ford or Ridley Scott himself.
The end result of this mad rush would be 1987's Total Recall, directed by David Cronenberg and starring Patrick Swayze*. Still set on Mars in 2084 and with a broadly similar plot to the version we know, it is still important to acknowledge the changes made to work the concept into a proper sequel. Intended to more fully explore the Offworld Colonies mentioned in the original film, the oppressed mutant population on Mars are in fact replicants, modified after their creation to live longer at the cost of the physical mutations originally promised to Roy Batty by Dr. Tyrell.
Cronenberg had a noticeable design impact on the physical nature of the mutants, from the four-breasted stripper** to more unsettling offerings like Quato. The tone of the film was more meditative and less satirical than the Verhoeven version, focusing far more on the nature of memory, identity and economic and social exploitation, and Dan O'Bannon was able to fight for his preferred ending, where the handprint in the finale is an exact match for Quaid, inducing "Total Recall" and revealing to him that he is not Hauser, but rather that Hauser had died attempting to infiltrate the reactor and been replaced by a Martian simulacrum whose ability to survive the attempts on his life was a subconscious form of precognition.
Popular upon its release, plans were set into motion to create a sequel starring Swayze and based on a third unrelated Philip K. Dick property, though his remarkably full calendar at the time caused these plans to eventually fall through. In the original conception the sequel would be an immediate continuation, showing the drastic measures taken on Earth to prevent the spread of the awakened Quaid's replicant revolution. Eventually retooling the project into an interquel to better bridge the gap between the 2019 of Blade Runner and the 2084 of Total Recall, 1997's Minority Report was set on Earth in 2054 and still starred Tom Cruise.
Set in an artificially domed and climate-controlled Washington, D.C., surveillance technology is ever-present, constantly scanning eyes to automate the hunt for replicants, while the arc of the film explores Precrime, a future system of law enforcement to preemptively arrest criminals. Falsely accused by the system of future murder, Cruise's character Anderton exposes a closely guarded secrets that there is both a margin for error in precognitive vision*** and that careful exploitation of the precrime system can allow for a murder to still go undetected. Plans for a fourth installment set after Total Recall are currently in development hell, though 1999 would see the release of a television tie in to the series in the form of Blade Runner 2070, starring Colin Farrell.
Given the implications of the Replicant Trilogy on the broader media landscape have a "Where Were They Then" montage!
- While Schwarzenegger had long been interested in the Total Recall script, the scheduling conflicted with his starring role in Robocop the same year. He cited Stallone's performance in 1984's Terminator as an influence.
- 1990 would still see a Paul Verhoeven sci-fi film on another celestial body in the form of his adaptation of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It would later be implied in Starship Troopers that the fascistic Earth government was a direct response to the brief success of the Lunar Revolution.
- The metafictional Blade Runner 2049 parallel would eventual manifest in the form of Demolition Man 2, released in 2018.
*Both attached to the OTL project at different stages.
**Her original design, discarded because it was considered unsettlingly bovine by the executives. Here she gets off light compared to most mutants.
***In humans, explaining away why Quaid's awakened perception is implied to be flawless in Total Recall. Many reviewers have noticed parallels to Dune, noting how weirdly specific it is that Warner Bros. two science fiction franchises of the period were adapted from the works of bearded midcentury science fiction authors with an interest in mind-altering substances, both of whom were born in the 20s and died in the 80s, and revolved around people who could see the future.
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The Great Divide- (Sub)cultural Marks-ism
Was thinking about the eventual 2016 election today while out running errands and I figured I'd lay out a couple of subcultural symbols (besides the previously mentioned Weathermen logo) for relevant groups that don't quite rank up to being flags on their own. I've got to clean up a lot of clutter on my computer to get it working properly but hopefully once that's done I'll be able to make more flags, I know @Laserfish was wondering!
*Basically that crown of thorns from the KR Savinkov flag.
**A black and white sovereign citizen flag where each white stripe is filled in with a color to represent a different tranche of service member.
- First off we start with the nonheteronormative community! Since the survival of Harvey Milk butterflies the creation of the Pride flag the community uses the pink triangle as a universal symbol. Also, in keeping with the original non-denominational intent of the Pride flag OTL I'm just accelerating the reclamation of the term "queer" that some in the community are advocating now, both because the initialism separates people into singular tranches and because I personally feel it defeats the point and is becoming unwieldily as it gets longer without actually spelling anything.
- While the POW/MIA flag precedes the POD by about six years I'm having a new streamlined version made co-official by Haig, so it's flown at government buildings from about 1990 on. The new version is black, with a ring of barbed wire* in white and the words "YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN" underneath. Given how militarized the government has become the design and the slogan have taken on a very sinister cast. It's firmly a rightwing symbol now, embraced by the "operator" culture birthed by the War on Terror and by the Myrmidons (along with the sovereign citizen/Z-Thought flag** that ironically has rainbow stripes).
- Fitting an egoist movement the Grinders don't use a central symbol. The generally prefer either the Subversive Party frog or things like gears, pistons and circuits blended with DNA imagery.
- The Double-V racial justice movement is appropriating the double peace sign
- The Green Knights and Left Regressives use what we recognize as the Extinction Rebellion hourglass.
*Basically that crown of thorns from the KR Savinkov flag.
**A black and white sovereign citizen flag where each white stripe is filled in with a color to represent a different tranche of service member.
Having some car problems and almost definitely need a new car so things are a bit more hectic on my end unfortunately. Still, it gave me the idea to include at least a passing mention of Transformers in my regressive fiction post, since although you'd never know it from the OTL modern movies wars over dwindling resources are actually a huge part of the expansive lore for the franchise 🤔 It's also hilarious to me that given the timing of the Ultra Comics merger the Marvel/DC/Transformers stables briefly all existed in the same continuity, though by the modern day the latter are a separate universe published by Image Comics.
@Born in the USSA, Sorry for atting you so frequently as of late, but here's a little something for the Manifest Destiny! movement, a flag collage representing various separatist groups.
(From left to right, top to bottom: Dixie/Second Confederacy, New Afrika, Texas, Native separatism in general, Cascadia, Hawaii, New England, California, Aztlan, Acadiana/Louisiana, Alaska, and Deseret)
And a variant, reflecting its origins in a project of my own that focuses on mainland North America, hence Hawaii being swapped out with Quebec:
And yes, both neoconfederates and black separatists are represented. Manifest Destiny!'s solution (at least in my head) is a Partition-like arrangement of population transfer. Because that worked out so well for India and Pakistan...
(From left to right, top to bottom: Dixie/Second Confederacy, New Afrika, Texas, Native separatism in general, Cascadia, Hawaii, New England, California, Aztlan, Acadiana/Louisiana, Alaska, and Deseret)
And a variant, reflecting its origins in a project of my own that focuses on mainland North America, hence Hawaii being swapped out with Quebec:
And yes, both neoconfederates and black separatists are represented. Manifest Destiny!'s solution (at least in my head) is a Partition-like arrangement of population transfer. Because that worked out so well for India and Pakistan...