Reds fanfic

[Catsmate]

Maybe throw in the Bavarian Illuminati as a pro-Communist front in Europe.

True, the Illuminati would work well as a progressive, humanist secret society. Probably in conflict with the Priory/Community (pro-Monarchist) and various other organisations, all attempting to tap "powers" for different purposes.


A timeline/book/RPG could blend in many of the weirder bits of history (of which I'm a somewhat obsessive collector). These are OTL but should fit in a Reds variant universe.

• Set in the sixties there's the (hopefully) still living Albert Göring (younger and annoyingly liberal brother of Hermann; opposed the Nazis). An interesting character.
  
• I've always wondered about the Battle for Castle Itter; were the Wehrmacht and US Army really just fighting a bunch of SS holdouts? What really happened in the schloss? What was the Sinister Secret of the obscure ‘German Association for Combating the Dangers of Tobacco’ headquartered there?
• Then there's Broadcasting the Barricades. Was it just a "War of the Worlds" style panic? Or perhaps 'leak through' from an nearby alternate universe (a touch to peppermint).
• Is Rabbi Dr. Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk still alive? Better known as the Baal Shem of London he was a Rabbi, mystic, Kabbalist and influence on Emanuel Swedenborg with an alleged habit of burying caches of gold in Epping Forest amongst other oddities...
• What about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa, the New York Straw Hat Riots of 1922 and the London Vampire of the same year? And what's the real reason for the preservation and splitting of the brain of Charles Babbage (one half is in the Hunterian Museum, the other half in the Science Museum). Or the murder of Laetitia Toureaux, found in an otherwise empty Paris Metro car on 16MAY1937, linked to her investigation of "La Cagoule", a right-wing terrorist group.

OK, I'll stop now, I've dragged the thread off-topic enough.

 

[Marisa Kiridifferent]

I'd be more worried about the dentists.

I meant the oculist-occultist typo but...ok.

I kinda wonder how conspiracy theories will develop ITTL,since Illuminati is mentioned by board member Cheka(which means it was sort of both Comintern and AFS thing).Conspiracy theories reeks of antisemitism and thinly veiled racist rhetoric,but on the other hand some described conspiracy theories as "Marxism for those who never learned it"(I used to wonder why conspiracy theorists hate socialists when they seem to have a common enemy in the form of oligarchs and big businesses etc)

 

[Mr. C]

I meant the oculist-occultist typo but...ok.

I kinda wonder how conspiracy theories will develop ITTL,since Illuminati is mentioned by board member Cheka(which means it was sort of both Comintern and AFS thing).Conspiracy theories reeks of antisemitism and thinly veiled racist rhetoric,but on the other hand some described conspiracy theories as "Marxism for those who never learned it"(I used to wonder why conspiracy theorists hate socialists when they seem to have a common enemy in the form of oligarchs and big businesses etc)

The belief that the Bavarian Illuminati went underground after they were forced to disband originated with French royalists during the Terror as a scapegoat, because "oh, it wasn't our fault that the Third Estate rose up and are now trying to purge us! It had to have been a conspiracy!"

So, I'd imagine that the Illuminati conspiracy theory would be mostly popular with reactionaries in the AFS. Not as a shadowy cabal that rules the world, but as a shadowy cabal that is trying to rule the world. People in the Cominterm, meanwhile, probably find the idea hilarious.

 

[Alexander the Average]

• Then there's Broadcasting the Barricades. Was it just a "War of the Worlds" style panic? Or perhaps 'leak through' from an nearby alternate universe (a touch to peppermint).

I believe an early post in the original timeline implied that there was a mass panic caused by a "War of the Worlds" style hoax about a Communist uprising in the UK.

 

[WotanArgead]

Maybe throw in the Bavarian Illuminati as a pro-Communist front in Europe.

The idea - a Secret World factions vary slightly -
Templars - cruel Inquisitors standing on the pro-fascist positions.
Illuminati - a handful of scientists and magicians willing build a perfect world.
Dragons - then perhaps harder Orientalists anarchists or ...
While considering that the game was developed in Norway can be the opposite, on the other hand, developers adhere to a relatively radical positions, and the game is largely a parody character.

 

[Catsmate]

I believe an early post in the original timeline implied that there was a mass panic caused by a "War of the Worlds" style hoax about a Communist uprising in the UK.

I didn't remember that, time for some re-reading. Certainly OTL the broadcast caused some panic.

Knox caused a panic across Britain in 1926 when, as one of his regular BBC radio programmes, he broadcast a simulated live report of revolution sweeping across London. It was called Broadcasting from the Barricades and was transmitted at 7:40PM on 16JAN1926 (actually from an office in Edinburgh); starting with a report on the latest Cricket results, continuing with a news report and then switching suddenly into coverage of a massing crowd of anti-unemployment demonstrators in Trafalgar Square. After a musical interlude the hoax continued with a mix of news and weather and reports of the demonstrators now becoming threatening and pouring through Admiralty Arch. Knox continued to mix the faked reports with standard BBC radio fare; several officials were hanged from lampposts, the Savoy hotel was attacked with artillery as music was purportedly being transmitted from there, likewise the Houses of Parliament were attacked (with Big Ben being demolished). Finally Knox informed the listeners that rioters were gathering outside the BBC building, having lynched the Minister Of Traffic, and the broadcast ended with sounds of fighting in the studio.

In 1926, two years before Welles would copy the idea, this was scary stuff. Only a few months earlier Britain had been rocked by the General Strike and people were still fearful of a revolution (the Zinoviev letter was published fifteen months earlier). The snowy weather didn't help as newspaper deliveries (the main source of news) were disrupted. Hundreds of people called the BBC offices (as well as police stations, the Savoy hotel and the Admiralty) to demand information on the revolution. Around the country upper class dinner parties erupted into panic, town mayors implemented emergency plans to deal with revolution and people fainted

In a world that'd actually seen a communist revolution in America the effects would be even worse.

 

[Miss Teri]

I didn't remember that, time for some re-reading. Certainly OTL the broadcast caused some panic.

Knox caused a panic across Britain in 1926 when, as one of his regular BBC radio programmes, he broadcast a simulated live report of revolution sweeping across London. It was called Broadcasting from the Barricades and was transmitted at 7:40PM on 16JAN1926 (actually from an office in Edinburgh); starting with a report on the latest Cricket results, continuing with a news report and then switching suddenly into coverage of a massing crowd of anti-unemployment demonstrators in Trafalgar Square. After a musical interlude the hoax continued with a mix of news and weather and reports of the demonstrators now becoming threatening and pouring through Admiralty Arch. Knox continued to mix the faked reports with standard BBC radio fare; several officials were hanged from lampposts, the Savoy hotel was attacked with artillery as music was purportedly being transmitted from there, likewise the Houses of Parliament were attacked (with Big Ben being demolished). Finally Knox informed the listeners that rioters were gathering outside the BBC building, having lynched the Minister Of Traffic, and the broadcast ended with sounds of fighting in the studio.

In 1926, two years before Welles would copy the idea, this was scary stuff. Only a few months earlier Britain had been rocked by the General Strike and people were still fearful of a revolution (the Zinoviev letter was published fifteen months earlier). The snowy weather didn't help as newspaper deliveries (the main source of news) were disrupted. Hundreds of people called the BBC offices (as well as police stations, the Savoy hotel and the Admiralty) to demand information on the revolution. Around the country upper class dinner parties erupted into panic, town mayors implemented emergency plans to deal with revolution and people fainted

In a world that'd actually seen a communist revolution in America the effects would be even worse.

It was brought up very briefly:

1926

January 16: A BBC radio play about a worker's revolution causes a panic in London, dramatically revealing the great tension between labor and capital in the UK.

 

[Alexander the Average]

Didn't realise that was an actual historical event.

 

[Catsmate]

Didn't realise that was an actual historical event.

Often real history has events so odd that a writer would be laughed at for including in a work of fiction.

 

[Miss Teri]

I have an idea for artists and other notable people who would be in Cuba...

Vladimir Nabokov (he was a classical liberal whose father was a Kadet during the Civil war, and in a letter he wrote as a teenager he called the Bolsheviks "grey rag-tag people". I don't think he'd be comfortable with the anti-Semitism of MacArthur, though)
Frank Capra (he was the American Dream personified...and ITTL, the American Dream died in the trenches. Also, he admired Franco and Mussolini)
Mel Gibson (his father is a crazy racist traditionalist Catholic who was descended from Southern plantation owners)
Lawrence Welk (because wouldn't it be hilarious if the King of Squares had mob ties? I think it would)

You know who I just thought of? Bobby Fischer. Despite being from a left-wing (Jewish) activist household, he still became an anti-semitic (again, Jewish) right wing, very anti-communist paranoid. If he follows the same trajectory (and given the UASR follows his mother's views), he'll likely defect to Cuba.

 

[sehidnamirin]

Perhaps this is not the best place, but is there a link to posts about the modern Reds! setting? I want to get a grasp of how things are, but its hard to pick things out.

 

[Mr. C]

You know who I just thought of? Bobby Fischer. Despite being from a left-wing (Jewish) activist household, he still became an anti-semitic (again, Jewish) right wing, very anti-communist paranoid. If he follows the same trajectory (and given the UASR follows his mother's views), he'll likely defect to Cuba.

Not exactly sure if he'd follow the same trajectory, especially being born after the revolution.

Speaking of paranoia, I had some ideas for ATL conspiracy theories:

- Neither the original thread or the revisions mentioned what happened to Trujillo after the Dominican Revolution. My headcanon: he managed to give the revolutionaries the slip and fled to...somewhere, nobody was sure where. Rumors circulated that he had gone to Cuba as an advisor of MacArthur, or ran a casino, and a more light-hearted rumor said that he was the stable boy at the Oriental Park racetrack in Havana. For a while, it was a common "stock unsolved mystery" in pop culture, and "going like Trujillo" has become the Latin American equivalent of "pulling a Houdini". Reports of Trujillo sightings came from as far away as Lisbon and Oran.
The rumors would die out in 1963, when a clerk at the Union Bank of Switzerland leaked his financial information to the Quisqueyan embassy, leading to his arrest and extradition by Interpol. He had been living in Zurich under the assumed name "Rodolfo Vega", along with his family, and was the owner of a construction firm. He was convicted for embezzlement, fraud, and crimes against humanity, and was executed in 1965. His last words, according to an eyewitness, were "Everyone betrayed me!"
Two weeks after his execution, the government abolished the death penalty entirely, making him the last person executed in the country.
Naturally, this led to a conspiracy theory that the "anonymous clerk" who leaked the information was an American spy.

- Who were the other people in the conspiracy to shoot Bill Foster? Birch's arrest and interrogation is well known to American history and law students, but there were other people involved in it. In fact, most modern historians believe that Birch was a minor player in the conspiracy, and some - including PBS host and University of Washington history professor Glenn Beck - believe that he was the fall guy for the Sons of Liberty gang. In Cuba, far-right author Virginia Abernethy[1] (best known for declaring that "we need to eliminate the Spanish language from Cuba") said in her book The End of Free Enterprise that the plot was faked in order to justify the Red Terror...which was roundly mocked even by non-communists.

[1] IOTL, a white supremacist activist...and former professor of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University. No, really. She was actually born to American parents in Cuba around the time the revolution happened ITTL.

 

[Time slip]

Well, here's what I have so far of my John Birch film idea.

I like it. The best idea I've had for an ITTL equivalent to Ed Wood in Cuba would be to have Andy Milligan end up there after the Civil War.

Your idea is better though.

I have an idea for artists and other notable people who would be in Cuba...

Vladimir Nabokov (he was a classical liberal whose father was a Kadet during the Civil war, and in a letter he wrote as a teenager he called the Bolsheviks "grey rag-tag people". I don't think he'd be comfortable with the anti-Semitism of MacArthur, though)
Frank Capra (he was the American Dream personified...and ITTL, the American Dream died in the trenches. Also, he admired Franco and Mussolini)
Mel Gibson (his father is a crazy racist traditionalist Catholic who was descended from Southern plantation owners)
Lawrence Welk (because wouldn't it be hilarious if the King of Squares had mob ties? I think it would)

Maybe Desi Arnaz? It seems possible that his family may not leave Cuba ITTL due to the different political situation.

 

[Mr. C]

I like it. The best idea I've had for an ITTL equivalent to Ed Wood in Cuba would be to have Andy Milligan end up there after the Civil War.

Your idea is better though.

Wasn't Andy Milligan gay? I doubt he'd fit in with arch-conservative Cuba.

I have an entire story planned out for the production of Legend of Johnny Birch. Four words and an initial: "Directed by W. Cleon Skousen"

Maybe Desi Arnaz? It seems possible that his family may not leave Cuba ITTL due to the different political situation.

I'd imagine that there'd be a large anti-capitalist Cuban exile community in UASR. I think it's been established that Fidel Castro is one of them. Not sure if Desi would fit, though.

 

[Miss Teri]

I'd imagine that there'd be a large anti-capitalist Cuban exile community in UASR. I think it's been established that Fidel Castro is one of them. Not sure if Desi would fit, though.

Apparently his dad was a prominent politician who fled after the rise of Bastita in 1933. With that event replaced by the establishment of the exile American regime, he and his family would flee to Miami for the same reason.

 

[Time slip]

Wasn't Andy Milligan gay? I doubt he'd fit in with arch-conservative Cuba.

I agree that he wouldn't fit in. I find the possibility of Milligan being among the American exiles to Cuba (a career military man like Milligan's father and his family following MacArthur to Cuba seems plausible) and how that might affect his films interesting. Perhaps they'd be even more unpleasant.

Apparently his dad was a prominent politician who fled after the rise of Bastita in 1933. With that event replaced by the establishment of the exile American regime, he and his family would flee to Miami for the same reason.

Unless Arnaz's father is among the Cuban establishment that finds MacArthur's takeover preferable a possible Red takeover. If they do leave, they may not want to go to the UASR.

 

[Miss Teri]

The Planet of the Apes (1970)

The Planet of the Apes (Les Planetes des Singes) is a 1970 Franco-British science fiction miniseries based off the Pierre Boulle novel of the same name. The show centers around an expedition of humans on the ship the Icarus-1 (led by Captain Morou, played by William Shatner) to a planet around the star Betelguese. There, they discover a young human named Nova, who has no speaking ability, and her tribe of primitive humans, who are suddenly scared by their chimpanzee. However, they are all captured by a group of gorilla warriors (wearing black militia clothes and holding guns), who transport them to a large city. The gorillas are part of a large society consisting of highly intelligent great apes, who are subserviant to a "glorious society-state", which gives them strictly regimented jobs. The state is lead by corrupt Orangutan administrators, whose order are carried by their gorilla police forces and whose ideology is mostly provided by chimpanzee intellectuals. The state provides for all the apes, but is in complete control of their lives. Humans are considered animals, things to be kept as pets or as odd attractions, or as test subject. Morou is separated from his crew, and is sent to a laboratory to be experimented on by scientists .
Morou resists experimentation from the chimpanzee scientists, who don't understand his language. He gains an ally in Zira, one of the researchers, who recognizes his intelligence. Zira, and her archeologist fiance Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) teach Morou the language of the apes, and eventually convince the "Scientific Council" in control of the experiment to allow them to keep him for further research. Nova is also brought to "show how two humans of different gender co-habitate". Cornelius explains the ape society to Morou, and also discusses the state of humans. They believe humans were a highly individualistic society, who ultimately grew complacent and unable to handle the rise of intelligent apes, whom they had engineered themselves, who overthrow their human masters, and took over their society. To prevent the same complacency from destroying them, the apes have repressed all individualism and instead centralized all control into one entity, the "Grand Council". Human slowly devolved back into a primitive state Morou, in turn, describes his own world, which had proven freedom and mobility could work in a society. Cornelius is intrigued by his stories, and after reading about human civilization, starts to realize the true history....
Meanwhile, Nova and Morou have a child together. The child is shown to be rather exceptional in either case. Soon, the Gorilla secret police is after them, to prevent the humans from eventually subverting the state. Zira learns that the rest of Morou's crew had been lobotimized, and they intend to neutralize both Morou and his child. Cornelius hides them in the ruins of a human city, while he tries to trick the gorilla forces from catching them. There, Morou makes a startling realization. He realizes the ruins are that of London, which indicates that the planet is in fact Earth. He theorizes that the ship must have malfunctioned, and turned back. Due to time dilation, millions of years had passed on Earth, causing the apes to become more intelligent. The series ends on a cliffhanger, as the gorilla force enters the ruins, and Morou and his family are forced to flee.

 

[WotanArgead]

Do remove Cleopatra (1963)?

 

[Edward_Elric]

Do remove Cleopatra (1963)?

If that movie is made by Hollywood ITTL, it'll likely seek out actual Egyptians (or at least people of Egyptian/Arab ethnicity and heritage) for the roles. It depends on how Egypt turns out in the Cold War and on how Hollywood politics develop, since the movie IOTL is emblematic of the big-budget epics common up to that point in time.

But if it's produced in the FBU or some other capitalist country, it might have white Caucasian actors in most of the ostensibly Egyptian roles. In that case, it would end up as part of anti-reaction movie nights in Comintern countries as an example of the racism in capitalist move-making. Also, Elizabeth Taylor might still get a chance at landing the title role, assuming that her parents still end up moving to the UK in 1929.

 

[Miss Teri]

If that movie is made by Hollywood ITTL, it'll likely seek out actual Egyptians (or at least people of Egyptian/Arab ethnicity and heritage) for the roles. It depends on how Egypt turns out in the Cold War and on how Hollywood politics develop, since the movie IOTL is emblematic of the big-budget epics common up to that point in time.

But if it's produced in the FBU or some other capitalist country, it might have white Caucasian actors in most of the ostensibly Egyptian roles. In that case, it would end up as part of anti-reaction movie nights in Comintern countries as an example of the racism in capitalist move-making. Also, Elizabeth Taylor might still get a chance at landing the title role, assuming that her parents still end up moving to the UK in 1929.

I think Egypt is FBU-allied at that point, following a coup which replaces a Nasser type leader with one friendlier to the AFS.