The UASR likely has its own high end goods, probably in more abundance and more readily available to everyone. It has been implied that it is a well-off country.
Reds! Official Fanfiction Thread (Part Two)
- Thread starter Miss Teri
- Start date
Just show the backbreaking number of hours of thankless work that go into collecting largely useless shiny gizmos like a human magpie that do little to actually guarantee long term happiness. If I remember correctly, the average citizen in America works significantly shorter hours than their British counterparts due to a "work smarter, not harder" ethic and traditional socialist attitudes towards using automation to let people do less work rather than squeeze more work for largely the same amount of pay.
If you're referring to things like Video games; I think I've made it fairly clear that they do in fact have these things, though the way they're developed is completely unlike OTL's triple A culture and probably more akin to open source or large scale game modding projects to at most; like how the larger end of indie scale studios work albeit with far less hierarchical structures. Meanwhile all the things you've come to know and love from the triple A industry OTL like lootboxes, day 1 DLC skimmed off from the game's intended content, grindwalls, massive layoffs of developers whenever a project is finished, treating voice actors like disposable items, paying game developers less than software developers in other fields because they tend to be enthusiastic about gaming and so have easily exploited passion, focusing on hiring autistic people because they're more easily exploited, soul crushing "crunch" periods that demand obscene hours out of employees, and so on are probably infesting the Blue sphere's large scale video games.
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I wonder how TTL's RWBY look like? I am guessing ITTL's RWBY, Instead of Heiress of Schnee Dust Company, I can see Weiss become Labor leader turned huntress-in-training.
Cuban Mafia (by Mr.E)
Excerpt from “The Cuban Mafia: A Comprehensive History”, Manuel Pareja, 1999
“Despite a rocky start, [Bugsy] Siegel and [Meyer] Lansky’s Caracas scheme paid off, and the investment made in casinos, hotels, and plantations became very profitable for the Mob. Caracas became the exotic vacation city through the 50’s, with tourists coming as far as London and Delhi coming to the city. It also became the Mob’s South American capital, with operations being carried out from their headquarters in the city. They began to infiltrate Brazil from this location.
In 1954, the “Caracas Conference” was held in the Hotel Tropical, presided by Lansky and [Vito] Genovese, which was used to reform the Commission (which still reflected the Mafia as it existed on the mainland before the revolution) into new Families, (representing cities like Havana, Santiago, Jamestown, and Caracas), and expand the drug trade into the Americas (heroin and cocaine among them), as well as attempt a return to the mainland using native criminal groups. Siegel also detailed his plans for continued growth in Venezuela using legitimate fronts, even get into the oil industry using drilling contractors and favors from the government of Marcos Perez Jimenez. The expansion of several Caracas casinos was also discussed.
[....]
In 1957[1], Benjamin Siegel disappeared from his penthouse suite. Investigators found that the room had been broken into, and an altercation had happened, suggesting he had been kidnapped. Neighbors had noted shouting and muffled sounds the night of his disappearance.
The unsolved disappearance and presumed death of Ben Siegel has become something of an urban legend, with many theories as to what had happened to him. The main focal point are two strange men who had checked into the hotel late that night, and checked out the morning afterwards. One witness saw two men walking from the surrounding jungle one morning.
Several suspects have been given for who ordered the death of Siegel. The Commission itself is often cited as the most plausible. Some, including Genovese and [Carlo] Gambino had concerns that his plans for expansion could be financially disastrous. Some theories say that Lansky himself ordered the hit. The two reportedly had a falling-out over revelations that Lansky had purposely left several associates (including “Lucky” Luciano and Siegel himself) behind as fall guys for the communists, while he safely escaped to Cuba. Siegel threatened to reveal this information. (Lansky denied all allegations, especially that he had betrayed friends and associates, or that he ordered Siegel’s assassination) Another cited Mafia figure is Jack Dragna, bitter that he was edged out of the organization in favor of Siegel, when the latter returned.
Other stranger, but plausible theories have also arisen. Some point to General George van Horn Moseley, former White general and the head of the NBI, the Cuban secret police, from 1953 to his death in 1960. Moseley and Siegel had been inmates together at Alcatraz during the 30’s and 40’s, and the anti-Semitic Moseley was a frequent target of assaults ordered by Siegel himself. Moseley was purportedly hurt that a “criminal, degenerate Jew” like Siegel could wield such power against him, and using his new position, was determined to take him down as personal revenge. As Director, he had used extralegal means to “disappear” Cuban political dissidents in a manner similar to Siegel, and had been observing mob run casinos (many part of Siegel’s organization) as part of a preliminary investigation into their influence on the Cuban economy.
The Joint Public Security Secretariat or the SSPC (The Latin Confederacy’s Section 1 equivalent) is another strange, but plausible suspect. The Mafia’s drug trade was beginning to have its effects in the CL, with drug related crimes on the rise. The SSPC had determined that Caracas was the main source for drugs, and were able to gain details of the Caracas conference, in particular how drug smugglers had been sneaking them over the Colombian-Venezuelan border. Siegel’s disappearance may have been a warning to the Mafia to stop selling on their side of the border.
Siegel’s death would come to represent the peak of the old mob’s influence in Venezuela, and even foretell its decline over the next decade.
[...]
The Commission, under advice from Lansky and Genovese, had supported the proposed unification of Cuba and Venezuela, as a means of consolidating their holdings in both nations. Reportedly, new plans were drawn up to take advantage of the new connection. The international fallout, however, would nix this deal, and Perez Jiminez himself was overthrown in the aftermath. The new government, while a Cuban ally, was less enthused about how the country had become a mecca for organized crime, and began to fight back. They monitored mob owned establishments, raided various casino, and shut down the drug trade, massively crippling the mafia influence in the country.
Similarly, after the death of MacArthur in 1964, new President Robert Kennedy began a war against the influence of organized crime in Havana’s casinos and hotels. The new Attorney General Hamilton Fish IV began raids and collected testimonies about the activities of the Mafia. The era in which they dominated Havana seemed over, as their businesses were sold off to businessmen like Howard Hughes or conglomerates. The heads of the families were identified and arrested en masse. Some fled to South Italy or tried (like in the case of Meyer Lansky) to enter Palestine (with no success)
The decline of the old Mafia could also be attributed to a lack of continuity. Many of the old guard were slowly dying off, including the heads of family, and there was a decreasing pool of people to replace them.. While the Mafia in South Italy provided some new recruits (some with experience smuggling goods between the two sectors of Rome), it was not enough.
[...]
Much like after the revolution, the Italian-American Mafia was decimated. This time, with little other option, they began to form alliances to ensure that some continuity was established between the original Cuban Mafia and the inevitable new incarnation.
Native Cuban gangs had once clashed with the well-organized American Mafia over low-level crime in their neighborhoods. By the 60’s, the gangs in poor Cuban neighborhoods had become more organized, and some even began to establish branches in the FBU. After years, the Mob began to contract some of these gangs for access to these neighborhoods. These contracts would be the foundation of a new organization….
[1] Retcon from the previous piece, because something didn’t work out, as it turns out.
“Despite a rocky start, [Bugsy] Siegel and [Meyer] Lansky’s Caracas scheme paid off, and the investment made in casinos, hotels, and plantations became very profitable for the Mob. Caracas became the exotic vacation city through the 50’s, with tourists coming as far as London and Delhi coming to the city. It also became the Mob’s South American capital, with operations being carried out from their headquarters in the city. They began to infiltrate Brazil from this location.
In 1954, the “Caracas Conference” was held in the Hotel Tropical, presided by Lansky and [Vito] Genovese, which was used to reform the Commission (which still reflected the Mafia as it existed on the mainland before the revolution) into new Families, (representing cities like Havana, Santiago, Jamestown, and Caracas), and expand the drug trade into the Americas (heroin and cocaine among them), as well as attempt a return to the mainland using native criminal groups. Siegel also detailed his plans for continued growth in Venezuela using legitimate fronts, even get into the oil industry using drilling contractors and favors from the government of Marcos Perez Jimenez. The expansion of several Caracas casinos was also discussed.
[....]
In 1957[1], Benjamin Siegel disappeared from his penthouse suite. Investigators found that the room had been broken into, and an altercation had happened, suggesting he had been kidnapped. Neighbors had noted shouting and muffled sounds the night of his disappearance.
The unsolved disappearance and presumed death of Ben Siegel has become something of an urban legend, with many theories as to what had happened to him. The main focal point are two strange men who had checked into the hotel late that night, and checked out the morning afterwards. One witness saw two men walking from the surrounding jungle one morning.
Several suspects have been given for who ordered the death of Siegel. The Commission itself is often cited as the most plausible. Some, including Genovese and [Carlo] Gambino had concerns that his plans for expansion could be financially disastrous. Some theories say that Lansky himself ordered the hit. The two reportedly had a falling-out over revelations that Lansky had purposely left several associates (including “Lucky” Luciano and Siegel himself) behind as fall guys for the communists, while he safely escaped to Cuba. Siegel threatened to reveal this information. (Lansky denied all allegations, especially that he had betrayed friends and associates, or that he ordered Siegel’s assassination) Another cited Mafia figure is Jack Dragna, bitter that he was edged out of the organization in favor of Siegel, when the latter returned.
Other stranger, but plausible theories have also arisen. Some point to General George van Horn Moseley, former White general and the head of the NBI, the Cuban secret police, from 1953 to his death in 1960. Moseley and Siegel had been inmates together at Alcatraz during the 30’s and 40’s, and the anti-Semitic Moseley was a frequent target of assaults ordered by Siegel himself. Moseley was purportedly hurt that a “criminal, degenerate Jew” like Siegel could wield such power against him, and using his new position, was determined to take him down as personal revenge. As Director, he had used extralegal means to “disappear” Cuban political dissidents in a manner similar to Siegel, and had been observing mob run casinos (many part of Siegel’s organization) as part of a preliminary investigation into their influence on the Cuban economy.
The Joint Public Security Secretariat or the SSPC (The Latin Confederacy’s Section 1 equivalent) is another strange, but plausible suspect. The Mafia’s drug trade was beginning to have its effects in the CL, with drug related crimes on the rise. The SSPC had determined that Caracas was the main source for drugs, and were able to gain details of the Caracas conference, in particular how drug smugglers had been sneaking them over the Colombian-Venezuelan border. Siegel’s disappearance may have been a warning to the Mafia to stop selling on their side of the border.
Siegel’s death would come to represent the peak of the old mob’s influence in Venezuela, and even foretell its decline over the next decade.
[...]
The Commission, under advice from Lansky and Genovese, had supported the proposed unification of Cuba and Venezuela, as a means of consolidating their holdings in both nations. Reportedly, new plans were drawn up to take advantage of the new connection. The international fallout, however, would nix this deal, and Perez Jiminez himself was overthrown in the aftermath. The new government, while a Cuban ally, was less enthused about how the country had become a mecca for organized crime, and began to fight back. They monitored mob owned establishments, raided various casino, and shut down the drug trade, massively crippling the mafia influence in the country.
Similarly, after the death of MacArthur in 1964, new President Robert Kennedy began a war against the influence of organized crime in Havana’s casinos and hotels. The new Attorney General Hamilton Fish IV began raids and collected testimonies about the activities of the Mafia. The era in which they dominated Havana seemed over, as their businesses were sold off to businessmen like Howard Hughes or conglomerates. The heads of the families were identified and arrested en masse. Some fled to South Italy or tried (like in the case of Meyer Lansky) to enter Palestine (with no success)
The decline of the old Mafia could also be attributed to a lack of continuity. Many of the old guard were slowly dying off, including the heads of family, and there was a decreasing pool of people to replace them.. While the Mafia in South Italy provided some new recruits (some with experience smuggling goods between the two sectors of Rome), it was not enough.
[...]
Much like after the revolution, the Italian-American Mafia was decimated. This time, with little other option, they began to form alliances to ensure that some continuity was established between the original Cuban Mafia and the inevitable new incarnation.
Native Cuban gangs had once clashed with the well-organized American Mafia over low-level crime in their neighborhoods. By the 60’s, the gangs in poor Cuban neighborhoods had become more organized, and some even began to establish branches in the FBU. After years, the Mob began to contract some of these gangs for access to these neighborhoods. These contracts would be the foundation of a new organization….
[1] Retcon from the previous piece, because something didn’t work out, as it turns out.
Bookmark1995
Banned
When I think of Communism, I think of what Mr. Churchill called "shared misery".
Many poor suffered terrible hardship under self-proclaimed Communist nations, while their self-proclaimed defender of the workers often lived in comparable luxury.
Stalin forced peasants to give up their food and caused millions to starve, but enjoyed several dachas.
Mao starved millions of people, but enjoyed a lifestyle that would have made the emperor's blush-at least according to his doctor.
The Kims enjoy French cognac while starving their citizens.
Mugabe destroyed perfectly good farms, and also lived in a really nice palace.
Maduro has destroyed an oil rich country, while he enjoys opulent speedboat parties.
You get the picture.
Yugoslavia, I read, created a system of democratic self-management, but even as early as the 60s, it was not creating enough jobs for people, who had to go to West Germany for work, and it was really badly weakened by the oil crisis.
So how does the UASR avoid the fate of typical "communist" nations: severe economic woes, combined with a kleptocratic leadership?
Well, for one, the UASR is heavily influenced by the syndicalist tradition of American socialism, which in turn has a very democratic nature to it. Hence, the government is restructured towards decentralization, and a heavily focus on democracy, especially within unions. Thus, everything from the grocer to the military to the premier are entirely accountable to the people.
Add to that, there are market mechanisms (though not entirely a market system per se), and people have their basic living arraignments down, and mostly work to gain more. Unlike Yugoslavia, whose democratic self management was largely imposed top to bottom (with state-appointed managers and the like), this self-management is more less encouraged at the workplaces themselves, with them electing their leaders, and taking full responsibility for the operation of the work place
Bookmark1995
Banned
I also get the impression that, unlike the OTL Soviet Union, the various decision making boards in the UASR are not run by a bunch of party hacks looking for self-enrichment, but competent people (potentially looking for self-enrichment).
The democratic nature of the UASR is what prevents horror stories, like Venezuela or China.
Unlike Venezuela or the 70s and onwards Soviet Union; the UASR isn't an export commodity economy whose economic health is tied to the price of oil and as the largest economy in the world until the Chinese and Soviets catch up; couldn't care less about whatever sanctions the Western Europeans level at it.
COPPER CANYON (1984) (By Mr.E)
Copper Canyon
A 1984 action-adventure-comedy directed by John Landis. A comedic riff on old Mexican adventure stories like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
In 1935 Chihuahua City, notorious bandit El Jefe (Alejandro Rey) is approached by Randall Ellis Chesterton (Michael Keaton), a former Texas oilman fleeing the Revolution, who wants to assemble an expedition to Las Barrancas del Cobras to find a legendary Cuevas de Oro, a cave filled with gold, found by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1528, but never rediscovered upon other expedition. Chesterton, an antiques collector, received a map rumored to have been drawn by a member of de Vaca's original expedition, showing the location of the gold. Chesterton wants the gold before it potentially falls to the communists, and sprint for an easy life in Jamaica. Chesterton has a crew already for the expedition from former White Partisans, but wants the protection of the bandits against the Federales. Chesterton offers Jefe 40% of the gold in the cave, which El Jefe agrees to, and assembles his gang.
Robert Burke (Sylvester Stallone) is Chesterton's second-in-command, supposedly a former G-Man turned White soldier, and is skeptical of the location of the cave. However, while planning the expedition, he has a brief encounter with Walter (Lee Marvin) , an American prospector, who had been in the Canyon, and had seen the cave himself, and confirms that the information on the map is correct.
Just as Chesterton and Jefe are about to leave, a strange couple run up to them, and introduces themselves as Count Alexander (Vladimir Vysotsky) and his wife Olga (Natalya Negoda). White Russian emigres, they wish to join the expedition to help regain their lost wealth, with Alexander offering his services as a expert marksman, displaying his skills to Chesterton himself. While Jefe is skeptical, Chesterton is impressed and recruits the two of them.
Burke allegedly goes to town to find more supplies, but meets with Commander Maroto (Ricardo Montalban), the local head of the Milicia Federales . It turns out that he is actually a CSS agent, who has been ingraining himself with Chesterton to find any potential ties to counterrevolutionaries. He is keeping tabs to see if he is meeting with anyone within the canyon, using the alleged gold expedition as a cover. When Maroto asks him what happens if the cave is real, Burke, after some consideration, tells Maroto to stand by. Maroto also explains that, with the strain of the Civil War and the restructuring following the Second Mexican Revolution, the Federales have not been as effective in fighting bandits in the countryside, despite their best efforts. He demands that the arrest happens now to take down El Jefe, but Burke convinces him to wait for the larger prize of both El Jefe and Chesterton.
In a similar twist, "Count Alexander" and "Olga" are actually agents of the GRU. Chesterton had acquired artifacts as a collector from a Russian noble in England, ones which the Soviet government claim as their own. These artifacts were not among those that had been found after Chesterton fled, meaning he still has them with him. They are sent to secretly extract the location from Chesterton for the artifacts. They find out that his wife, Abigail (Kate Capshaw) knows the locations, and decide to "secretly interrogate" her during the journey.
The Journey begins, and they mostly follow map, despite some troubles on the way. They encounter a mudslide, and forced to camp for a day. Burke has to deal with a puma threatening their group, before Alexander is able to shoot it from a great distance. When they are travelling the next day, the bandits and El Jefe discuss their payment in gold, and find it a bit insufficient. They begin to formulate another plan....
They encounter a rival gang of bandits at one point, who threaten them. This results in a fight scene, where Burke, Alexander, and Olga are fighting, but secretly subverting the other side to weaken them. The battle ends with the rival bandits retreating.
In a comic subplot, Alexander and Olga befriend Abigail, and they talk about their shared love of jewelry. Just as they are about to learn where the artifacts are, they are interrupted for their meals.
Burke grows suspicious of the two alleged nobles, and confronts them while they are rifling through Abigail's things in search of the artifacts. After a tense discussion, their real identities are revealed. They agree not to interfere with their respective investigation.
Eventually, they actually find the legendary cave of gold. As Chesterton looks on in amazement, El Jefe pulls his pistol on Chesterton, revealing his plan to kill Chesterton and his group, and takes the gold for himself and his band. Chesterton pulls his pistol in turn. Just then, Burke reveals his identity, and pulls a gun on the both of them, leading to a classic Mexican standoff. Just then, Maroto and a small militia of Federales arrive, resulting in a shootout and fight scene. During this time, the crypt with the artifacts pops open from a stray bullet, but Abigail fiercely protects. The battle ends with both Chesterton and El Jefe getting shot in the chest.
The film ends with Burke getting a commendation for capturing Chesterton and helping discover and secure the gold in Copper Canyon (which will be mined and placed in the Reserves for redistribution). Maroto arrests the rival bandits, while El Jefe and his crew are in jail, along with Chesterton (still with the bullet wound he got from the battle), and Abigail. The artifacts are sent back to the USSR, with Alexander and Olga keeping watch.
---------------------------
A 1984 action-adventure-comedy directed by John Landis. A comedic riff on old Mexican adventure stories like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
In 1935 Chihuahua City, notorious bandit El Jefe (Alejandro Rey) is approached by Randall Ellis Chesterton (Michael Keaton), a former Texas oilman fleeing the Revolution, who wants to assemble an expedition to Las Barrancas del Cobras to find a legendary Cuevas de Oro, a cave filled with gold, found by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1528, but never rediscovered upon other expedition. Chesterton, an antiques collector, received a map rumored to have been drawn by a member of de Vaca's original expedition, showing the location of the gold. Chesterton wants the gold before it potentially falls to the communists, and sprint for an easy life in Jamaica. Chesterton has a crew already for the expedition from former White Partisans, but wants the protection of the bandits against the Federales. Chesterton offers Jefe 40% of the gold in the cave, which El Jefe agrees to, and assembles his gang.
Robert Burke (Sylvester Stallone) is Chesterton's second-in-command, supposedly a former G-Man turned White soldier, and is skeptical of the location of the cave. However, while planning the expedition, he has a brief encounter with Walter (Lee Marvin) , an American prospector, who had been in the Canyon, and had seen the cave himself, and confirms that the information on the map is correct.
Just as Chesterton and Jefe are about to leave, a strange couple run up to them, and introduces themselves as Count Alexander (Vladimir Vysotsky) and his wife Olga (Natalya Negoda). White Russian emigres, they wish to join the expedition to help regain their lost wealth, with Alexander offering his services as a expert marksman, displaying his skills to Chesterton himself. While Jefe is skeptical, Chesterton is impressed and recruits the two of them.
Burke allegedly goes to town to find more supplies, but meets with Commander Maroto (Ricardo Montalban), the local head of the Milicia Federales . It turns out that he is actually a CSS agent, who has been ingraining himself with Chesterton to find any potential ties to counterrevolutionaries. He is keeping tabs to see if he is meeting with anyone within the canyon, using the alleged gold expedition as a cover. When Maroto asks him what happens if the cave is real, Burke, after some consideration, tells Maroto to stand by. Maroto also explains that, with the strain of the Civil War and the restructuring following the Second Mexican Revolution, the Federales have not been as effective in fighting bandits in the countryside, despite their best efforts. He demands that the arrest happens now to take down El Jefe, but Burke convinces him to wait for the larger prize of both El Jefe and Chesterton.
In a similar twist, "Count Alexander" and "Olga" are actually agents of the GRU. Chesterton had acquired artifacts as a collector from a Russian noble in England, ones which the Soviet government claim as their own. These artifacts were not among those that had been found after Chesterton fled, meaning he still has them with him. They are sent to secretly extract the location from Chesterton for the artifacts. They find out that his wife, Abigail (Kate Capshaw) knows the locations, and decide to "secretly interrogate" her during the journey.
The Journey begins, and they mostly follow map, despite some troubles on the way. They encounter a mudslide, and forced to camp for a day. Burke has to deal with a puma threatening their group, before Alexander is able to shoot it from a great distance. When they are travelling the next day, the bandits and El Jefe discuss their payment in gold, and find it a bit insufficient. They begin to formulate another plan....
They encounter a rival gang of bandits at one point, who threaten them. This results in a fight scene, where Burke, Alexander, and Olga are fighting, but secretly subverting the other side to weaken them. The battle ends with the rival bandits retreating.
In a comic subplot, Alexander and Olga befriend Abigail, and they talk about their shared love of jewelry. Just as they are about to learn where the artifacts are, they are interrupted for their meals.
Burke grows suspicious of the two alleged nobles, and confronts them while they are rifling through Abigail's things in search of the artifacts. After a tense discussion, their real identities are revealed. They agree not to interfere with their respective investigation.
Eventually, they actually find the legendary cave of gold. As Chesterton looks on in amazement, El Jefe pulls his pistol on Chesterton, revealing his plan to kill Chesterton and his group, and takes the gold for himself and his band. Chesterton pulls his pistol in turn. Just then, Burke reveals his identity, and pulls a gun on the both of them, leading to a classic Mexican standoff. Just then, Maroto and a small militia of Federales arrive, resulting in a shootout and fight scene. During this time, the crypt with the artifacts pops open from a stray bullet, but Abigail fiercely protects. The battle ends with both Chesterton and El Jefe getting shot in the chest.
The film ends with Burke getting a commendation for capturing Chesterton and helping discover and secure the gold in Copper Canyon (which will be mined and placed in the Reserves for redistribution). Maroto arrests the rival bandits, while El Jefe and his crew are in jail, along with Chesterton (still with the bullet wound he got from the battle), and Abigail. The artifacts are sent back to the USSR, with Alexander and Olga keeping watch.
---------------------------
Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg (By DanielXie)
Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg(expansion of The_Red_Star_Rising's post in the last thread)
(Note that this is taken from some observations The_Red_Star_Rising made in our discord, as well as an expanded version of this)
Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltrikeg is a Game Mod for the Hearts of Iron Grand Strategy game series, which is set in an alternate universe where the Russian Revolution failed and the Central Powers won World War I. The failure of the Russian revolution gave way in Russia to a "National Populist" regime, which combines nazism and ultra-reactionary religious fundamentalism under the rule of Boris Savinkov, but a Debian revolution converted the United States into the Combined Syndicates of America in 1919, which leaders the socialist forces of the Internationale alongsides Britain and France against the Central Powers led by Germany and the Eurasian Alliance of Natpop Romania and Russia. The CSA is less militant than the USAR in the real world, and has to content with leadership with the Commune of France, where the revolution spread from, in it's early years.
The British and French ruling class itself has been driven out of their homelands by Syndicalist Revolutions and are themselves veering closer and closer to national populism. A very likely outcome of the AI is the Royal exiles in Canada giving more and more influence to the National Populist National Unity Party and the Social Credit Party and becoming Natpop themselves, along with French exiles falling under the sway of an intergralist regime of Action Francais. This would lead to the merging of the Eurasian Alliance into the Entente, with Russia as the leader of the newfound Entente powers. Brazil, in a method similar to real history, may fall under the sway of the Intergralists and would seek to challenge the Combined Syndicates of America.
The main conflict of the mod usually boils down to the war between the Syndicalists vs. the New Entente, with MittleEuropa and the Syndicalists usually putting aside their differences in an enemy mine situation against the National Populist Entente OR the Entente and Germany forming an unholy alliance(unlikely) against the Red Threat. Alternatively, the war may resume between the Internationale and the Entente vs. Mittleeuropa, with the war then moving in to the second phase--war between the Internationale vs. the Entente after the division of Germany.
(Note that this is taken from some observations The_Red_Star_Rising made in our discord, as well as an expanded version of this)
Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltrikeg is a Game Mod for the Hearts of Iron Grand Strategy game series, which is set in an alternate universe where the Russian Revolution failed and the Central Powers won World War I. The failure of the Russian revolution gave way in Russia to a "National Populist" regime, which combines nazism and ultra-reactionary religious fundamentalism under the rule of Boris Savinkov, but a Debian revolution converted the United States into the Combined Syndicates of America in 1919, which leaders the socialist forces of the Internationale alongsides Britain and France against the Central Powers led by Germany and the Eurasian Alliance of Natpop Romania and Russia. The CSA is less militant than the USAR in the real world, and has to content with leadership with the Commune of France, where the revolution spread from, in it's early years.
The British and French ruling class itself has been driven out of their homelands by Syndicalist Revolutions and are themselves veering closer and closer to national populism. A very likely outcome of the AI is the Royal exiles in Canada giving more and more influence to the National Populist National Unity Party and the Social Credit Party and becoming Natpop themselves, along with French exiles falling under the sway of an intergralist regime of Action Francais. This would lead to the merging of the Eurasian Alliance into the Entente, with Russia as the leader of the newfound Entente powers. Brazil, in a method similar to real history, may fall under the sway of the Intergralists and would seek to challenge the Combined Syndicates of America.
The main conflict of the mod usually boils down to the war between the Syndicalists vs. the New Entente, with MittleEuropa and the Syndicalists usually putting aside their differences in an enemy mine situation against the National Populist Entente OR the Entente and Germany forming an unholy alliance(unlikely) against the Red Threat. Alternatively, the war may resume between the Internationale and the Entente vs. Mittleeuropa, with the war then moving in to the second phase--war between the Internationale vs. the Entente after the division of Germany.
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The End Point Trilogy (By migolito)
Inspired by @WotanArgead 's description of OTL Soviet science fiction, with this series being the result the of genre's interaction ITTL with American Weird literature.
Know your meme: My tendency is Marxist-Lovecraftian
AKA: Marxist-Lovecraftianism, Marxist-Cthulhuism, Communist Party Marxist-Lovecraftian
Originally made by online opponents of transhumanist marxist strands in order to mock it, the original image is a still of a Typhonic Man from the 70s Soviet-Chinese animated adaptation of The End Point trilogy. Variations of the meme, typically using images from the 2000s comic adaptation of the trilogy, images of cephalopods or just any image with a suitably lovecraftian aesthetic, would later be used to mock perceived nihilism in 21st century comintern philosophy and politics. Of course, the image is more well known these days for having been adopted as an in-joke and tongue in cheek introduction in marxist transhumanist circles, which given the backstory of the Typhonic Men is actually appropriate...
Extract from the comic script for The End Point #4 (2005)
(Dmitri is an eager if somewhat trusting scientist, carrying the spirit and naivety of youth. By contrast, his comrade Wei, though also a scientist, is much older and much more cynical; her hair greying and her face carrying a scar across her cheek and nose from an event in her youth that the reader is not yet privy to. Circumstances have resulted in their first meeting with the Typhonic woman Nix. As far as the reader's know, the Typhonic men are the descendants of the communist societies in the New World that have existed in complete isolation for a century due to an ideological split with the Old World communists after the victory of socialism over capitalism)
Page 2 (this page is made up of a single panel, with two small smaller panels overlaying the panel, one in the top left corner and one in the bottom right, both only just large enough to contain a character's face and their reaction)
Main panel: (An oddly pallid but otherwise normal woman stands in the centre of an otherwise blank room, dressed in long red robes that conceal all except for their face and obscure their general body shape. She tilts her head ever so slightly, and gives a polite smile to her guests)
Nix: I'm sorry for the wait. Please, lets talk.
Top left overlaying panel: (A close up of Dmitri's face. From the reader's perspective, he's looking off panel towards Nix herself. He is pleasantly surprised)
Dmitri (this is not in a speech bubble, indicating that it reflects Dmitri's internal thoughts): She's... Like us?
Bottom right overlaying panel: (A close up of Wei's scarred face, glaring upwards and off panel at Nix. She either doesn't trust Nix, or she doesn't trust this situation in general)
Page 3 (this page has a panel configuration similar to the standard 6 panel page, but the 2 panels in the middle of the page have been combined into a single third panel)
Panel 1: (A waist up image of Dmitri and Wei side by side. Dmitri boldly starts striding forward, presumably to greet Nix. He doesn't notice Wei's arm held out strait across his belly, hand clenched into a fist, blocking his path)
Dmitri: Ah hello! I'm-
Panel 2: (Following on from panel 1. Dmitri has walked right into Wei's arm, taking the wind out of him and stopping both him and his train of speech in its tracks. Wei's arm has not noticeably moved.)
Wei: You're hiding something.
Wei: Or at least you're not what you appear to be.
Panel 3: (This panel stretches across the centre of the page. It is a close up of Nix's smile: pallid and doll like. The reader can't clearly see the inside of her mouth, her smile barely even showing teeth, but there is the impression of the insides being pitch black. We can't see Wei, but the text follows on from her speaking in the last panel.)
Wei: This is all too convenient...
Wei: ... And if nothing else, I know a fake smile when I see one.
Panel 4: (This panel follows on from panel 2, with Dmitri having recovered and looking at Wei with a gaze that is a little hurt, more for how suspicious of Nix Wei is than anything else. Wei doesn't seem to notice this, and carries on.)
Wei: If you are honest about this, we need the truth. Whatever that might be.
Panel 5: (This panel shows Nix from the chest upwards; facing slightly leftwards but with the reader able to see her face unobscured. She doesn't speak, but is obviously considering Wei's request)
Page 4 (this page is in the standard 6 panel configuration)
Panel 1: (This panel shows Nix's face and shoulders. She facing the reader, almost as if she was speaking to them rather than Wei)
Nix: Are you sure you want that?
Panel 2: (Nix has shifted her posture ever so slightly, but otherwise this follows in from and is almost the same as panel 1)
Nix: It is true that I am hiding things, but trust me when I say that I am doing it for your benefit.
Panel 3: (this panel shows Wei's face, faced as if looking to the right of the reader. She isn't saying anything, but her expression suggests that she is running out of patience for Nix's falsehood and more or less answers Nix's question without saying anything at all)
Panel 4: (this panel shows Nix, following on from panel 2, looking a little deflated)
Nix: oh
Panel 5: (following on from panel 4, with Nix carefully raising one hand up to her chin and another behind her head, as if she were removing a mask. She looks, if anything, a little disappointed)
Nix: well if that's what want...
Panel 6: (now looking upward at Nix with her facing to the left, her face detaching like a mask, though with the reader unable to clearly see what's beneath it)
Nix: ... a pity, I had worked hard on that smile...
Pages 5 and 6 (a double page, made up of one large panel with 4 overlaying panels placed roughly in each corner of the double page spread. The centre piece of the image is a mass of ink black tentacles, covering most of the page and flowing as they are caught in Nix's movement. Behind the tentacles though due to the effect of ink black on not quite vantablack [1] somewhat hard to distinguish from them, are cracks in reality or at least the reader's perception of reality following the flow of Nix's tentacles as her presence warps the laws of physics.)
Top Left Overlaying panel: (A close up of Dmitri's face looking down and to the right, mouth open as if silently screaming)
Top Right Overlaying panel: (a mass of lazy reptilian eyes open across Nix's body)
Bottom Right Overlaying panel: (A close up of Wei's face looking upwards and to the left. She isn't as obviously horrified as Dmitri, but is visibly rattled by what she's seeing)
Bottom Left Overlaying panel: (a pair of crustacean eyes and antenna pop upwards from Nix's body)
Page 7 (this page is divided into 2 panels, taking up the top and bottom of the page respectably.)
Panel 1 (this panel shows us the backs of Wei and Dmitri from just above the waist upwards. Though the reader cannot see their faces, the reader can see that their bodies are incredibly tense. Nix is in front of them, her form having stabilised at a bit over twice their height but with a great deal more mass to her body. From her crustacean like upper body, comparable to a mantis shrimp, sprout 2 crab like eyes slightly smaller than Wei and Dmitri's heads, whilst beneath her carapace her body becomes a shadowy mass of feelers and reptilian eyes and tentacles, some of which protrude from her body to give the eyes mounted on them a better look at her guests. Everyone is silent)
Panel 2 (the same as above, although Nix's sensory tentacles that were looking at Dmitri and Wei have changed their position noticably. And not everyone is silent.)
Nix (her speech bubbles in this form are similar the near vantablack cracks that appeared on pages 5 and 6, with their text coloured white): Just so you know, I thought this was a bad idea.
Steel and Tentacle, a quick (ish) guide to the End Point trilogy
... The first thing newcomers notice is that the trilogy part is actually a misnomer: Andrei Sokolov never actually wrote a sequence of 3 novels in the same way that Tolkien did. Instead, the main body of the story is divided into 2 novels: "Antithesis" (1964) and "Synthesis" (1966) with the third book "Tangents" (1969) being a collection of short stories that mostly follow on from the main story. The late 70s animated series broadly adapts the first 2 books, with some stories from Tangents being loosely adapted into episodes, whilst the later comic by and large splits the difference between its two predecessors...
In all versions of the story, humanity is threatened by an automated alien terraforming machine, one of several "end points" that the title of the series refers to, that still works while the civilisation it once served is long since extinct. The machine destroys a human colony and starts moving towards Earth, resulting in the events of the series as several human factions either unite to deal with the machine or try to take advantage of it for their own ends.
The faction who are the protagonists of most of the series are the Platonic Men, with Dmitri and Wei both belonging to the culture. Descended from the communist nations of the Old World, with the most noticeable cultural influence coming from China, Korea, Japan, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; with the war against capitalism having ended over a century ago they have started moving towards what some would refer to as true communism. Automation has reduced time working to nearly nothing, and as a result they have the time to regain everything humanity lost in the march of history. Reconnected to nature, their settlements look like gardens whilst the habits and behaviour of wild animals are understood sufficiently for humanity to coexist peacefully with them: a source of several recurring jokes in the animated series.
In the New World however, the communists developed a different philosophy. Whereas the civilisations that would become the Platonic Men saw communism as a chance to reconnect with human nature that had been warped under the tyrannical economic systems the preceded them, in the New World the communists came to the conclusion that human nature was not an end in and off itself, and indeed was fundamentally a hinderance to their end goals, something that should join capitalism, the spinning wheel and the bronze age in the dust bin of history. Self segregated from their old world comrades in order to avoid the horrors of a second cold war, this civilisation became the Typhonic Men. They are not evil, being the protagonist's main allies against the machine for the first two novels and being portrayed sympathetically in their stories in "Tangents", they are nevertheless horrifying on a fundamental level: their presence provoking a phobic reaction comparable to snakes or spiders and seeing them "cast off their human masks" is described as the visual equivalent of nails on a chalk board.
The third main civilisation from the book series are the Cold Men: a civilisation that developed from capitalists and their sympathisers who escaped the Earth and took to living in hollowed out asteroids when it became obvious that socialism was going to win. Technically post capitalist, money being replaced with water and markets having no place when everything needs to be rationed, they have nevertheless embraced everything horrifying in capitalism. Reflexively viewing both each other and all other humans as a resource to be used, from birth they are given an increasing number of cybernetic "enhancements" that on the one hand help them survive in their inhospitable environment but also make them more reliant on their master's electricity supply; that make them more skilled at their jobs whilst making them specialised for that job to such a degree that they are essentially trapped in it. These are the closest thing to conventional villains in the main story: trying to take advantage of the chaos the alien machine is spreading.
A fourth civilisation, originating from the animated series but being inspired by a throw away line in the novels, are the Wilde Men. In the novels, Dmitri makes an off hand comment about a cultural difference between themselves and the nations that were once a part of the AFS: saying that "due to their peoples once believing that socialism meant the destruction of culture, when socialism came it made a promise of making culture open to everyone instead of just the powerful". Wei later summarises this as "socialism here means no kings, no nobles, no masters; socialism in London means everyone's a king, a noble, a master". In the novels, this is strictly an aesthetic difference rather than an ideological one. The animated series took this idea and ran with it.
The idea of a handful of throw away lines came from the desire to temporarily replace the Typhonic Men in the first season. Between the budget required and the feeling that the Typhonic Men could not transition from the written word to the screen without losing some of their power, there was a push to find a substitute for them until the series had a second season. The initial creative decisions here are usually attributed to the writer Rupert Fischer. A west german exile, he had previously spent some time as a satirist and, sticking to what he knew, decided to parody the Junker wannabes, Prussia glorification and medieval nostalgia in his former homeland: essentially writing the Wilde Men as communists playing at being aristocrats. The name itself was taken from Oscar Wilde, and further details for Wilde Man culture were drawn from Oscar Wilde's essay "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"...
... The two main antagonists for the series are a pair of Cold Man masters in a pointedly temporary alliance of convenience: John Klein and Samuel Filling. In the first novel and first season of the animated series, Klein is the primary antagonist. Connected through his cybernetic enhancements to the stock piles, he sees the chaos brought about by the alien machine as a chance to liberate himself from the sheer scarcity of cold man existence by raiding the rest of humanity: preying on plant, animal and man alike to keep the few organic components of the cold men healthy... Samuel Filling, the main antagonist for the second part, is arguably more sympathetic. Growing up distant from all other life and only really understanding it in the abstract, he came to the conclusion that life is so full of pain and suffering that the only humane way of making it better is to end it completely, and once he learns of the alien machine he decides that it is probably the best chance he has to make his dream a reality...
... After the main story was completed, Sokolov kept intending to write a third novel, but the closest he got to achieving it were the short stories in Tangents: the most famous of these, due to being adapted into episodes of the animated series, following Dmitri and Wei as they explore ruins of the alien civilisation that built the machine. That said, the perhaps popular among fans of the novels is less widely known Nix's Lament. Set long after the main story ended in the surrealist landscapes of the Americas, the story occurred shortly after Dmitri and Wei's death, and followed Nix recalling her experiences with them and singing a song to lament their deaths. As she sings, the landscape itself, having long since become impossible to neatly separate from its inhabitants, joins in: as the song spreads from tree to man to rock to flower, until all of the Americas have joined together in mourning their deceased comrades.
[1] Actual vantablack is nearly impossible to use in most art: the impracticalities of spraying carbon nanotubes in order to ink a comic should be self evident. As such, the colour used is simply a version of black that is just dark enough to appear vantablack to the human eye.
The End Point Trilogy
Know your meme: My tendency is Marxist-Lovecraftian
AKA: Marxist-Lovecraftianism, Marxist-Cthulhuism, Communist Party Marxist-Lovecraftian
Originally made by online opponents of transhumanist marxist strands in order to mock it, the original image is a still of a Typhonic Man from the 70s Soviet-Chinese animated adaptation of The End Point trilogy. Variations of the meme, typically using images from the 2000s comic adaptation of the trilogy, images of cephalopods or just any image with a suitably lovecraftian aesthetic, would later be used to mock perceived nihilism in 21st century comintern philosophy and politics. Of course, the image is more well known these days for having been adopted as an in-joke and tongue in cheek introduction in marxist transhumanist circles, which given the backstory of the Typhonic Men is actually appropriate...
Extract from the comic script for The End Point #4 (2005)
(Dmitri is an eager if somewhat trusting scientist, carrying the spirit and naivety of youth. By contrast, his comrade Wei, though also a scientist, is much older and much more cynical; her hair greying and her face carrying a scar across her cheek and nose from an event in her youth that the reader is not yet privy to. Circumstances have resulted in their first meeting with the Typhonic woman Nix. As far as the reader's know, the Typhonic men are the descendants of the communist societies in the New World that have existed in complete isolation for a century due to an ideological split with the Old World communists after the victory of socialism over capitalism)
Page 2 (this page is made up of a single panel, with two small smaller panels overlaying the panel, one in the top left corner and one in the bottom right, both only just large enough to contain a character's face and their reaction)
Main panel: (An oddly pallid but otherwise normal woman stands in the centre of an otherwise blank room, dressed in long red robes that conceal all except for their face and obscure their general body shape. She tilts her head ever so slightly, and gives a polite smile to her guests)
Nix: I'm sorry for the wait. Please, lets talk.
Top left overlaying panel: (A close up of Dmitri's face. From the reader's perspective, he's looking off panel towards Nix herself. He is pleasantly surprised)
Dmitri (this is not in a speech bubble, indicating that it reflects Dmitri's internal thoughts): She's... Like us?
Bottom right overlaying panel: (A close up of Wei's scarred face, glaring upwards and off panel at Nix. She either doesn't trust Nix, or she doesn't trust this situation in general)
Page 3 (this page has a panel configuration similar to the standard 6 panel page, but the 2 panels in the middle of the page have been combined into a single third panel)
Panel 1: (A waist up image of Dmitri and Wei side by side. Dmitri boldly starts striding forward, presumably to greet Nix. He doesn't notice Wei's arm held out strait across his belly, hand clenched into a fist, blocking his path)
Dmitri: Ah hello! I'm-
Panel 2: (Following on from panel 1. Dmitri has walked right into Wei's arm, taking the wind out of him and stopping both him and his train of speech in its tracks. Wei's arm has not noticeably moved.)
Wei: You're hiding something.
Wei: Or at least you're not what you appear to be.
Panel 3: (This panel stretches across the centre of the page. It is a close up of Nix's smile: pallid and doll like. The reader can't clearly see the inside of her mouth, her smile barely even showing teeth, but there is the impression of the insides being pitch black. We can't see Wei, but the text follows on from her speaking in the last panel.)
Wei: This is all too convenient...
Wei: ... And if nothing else, I know a fake smile when I see one.
Panel 4: (This panel follows on from panel 2, with Dmitri having recovered and looking at Wei with a gaze that is a little hurt, more for how suspicious of Nix Wei is than anything else. Wei doesn't seem to notice this, and carries on.)
Wei: If you are honest about this, we need the truth. Whatever that might be.
Panel 5: (This panel shows Nix from the chest upwards; facing slightly leftwards but with the reader able to see her face unobscured. She doesn't speak, but is obviously considering Wei's request)
Page 4 (this page is in the standard 6 panel configuration)
Panel 1: (This panel shows Nix's face and shoulders. She facing the reader, almost as if she was speaking to them rather than Wei)
Nix: Are you sure you want that?
Panel 2: (Nix has shifted her posture ever so slightly, but otherwise this follows in from and is almost the same as panel 1)
Nix: It is true that I am hiding things, but trust me when I say that I am doing it for your benefit.
Panel 3: (this panel shows Wei's face, faced as if looking to the right of the reader. She isn't saying anything, but her expression suggests that she is running out of patience for Nix's falsehood and more or less answers Nix's question without saying anything at all)
Panel 4: (this panel shows Nix, following on from panel 2, looking a little deflated)
Nix: oh
Panel 5: (following on from panel 4, with Nix carefully raising one hand up to her chin and another behind her head, as if she were removing a mask. She looks, if anything, a little disappointed)
Nix: well if that's what want...
Panel 6: (now looking upward at Nix with her facing to the left, her face detaching like a mask, though with the reader unable to clearly see what's beneath it)
Nix: ... a pity, I had worked hard on that smile...
Pages 5 and 6 (a double page, made up of one large panel with 4 overlaying panels placed roughly in each corner of the double page spread. The centre piece of the image is a mass of ink black tentacles, covering most of the page and flowing as they are caught in Nix's movement. Behind the tentacles though due to the effect of ink black on not quite vantablack [1] somewhat hard to distinguish from them, are cracks in reality or at least the reader's perception of reality following the flow of Nix's tentacles as her presence warps the laws of physics.)
Top Left Overlaying panel: (A close up of Dmitri's face looking down and to the right, mouth open as if silently screaming)
Top Right Overlaying panel: (a mass of lazy reptilian eyes open across Nix's body)
Bottom Right Overlaying panel: (A close up of Wei's face looking upwards and to the left. She isn't as obviously horrified as Dmitri, but is visibly rattled by what she's seeing)
Bottom Left Overlaying panel: (a pair of crustacean eyes and antenna pop upwards from Nix's body)
Page 7 (this page is divided into 2 panels, taking up the top and bottom of the page respectably.)
Panel 1 (this panel shows us the backs of Wei and Dmitri from just above the waist upwards. Though the reader cannot see their faces, the reader can see that their bodies are incredibly tense. Nix is in front of them, her form having stabilised at a bit over twice their height but with a great deal more mass to her body. From her crustacean like upper body, comparable to a mantis shrimp, sprout 2 crab like eyes slightly smaller than Wei and Dmitri's heads, whilst beneath her carapace her body becomes a shadowy mass of feelers and reptilian eyes and tentacles, some of which protrude from her body to give the eyes mounted on them a better look at her guests. Everyone is silent)
Panel 2 (the same as above, although Nix's sensory tentacles that were looking at Dmitri and Wei have changed their position noticably. And not everyone is silent.)
Nix (her speech bubbles in this form are similar the near vantablack cracks that appeared on pages 5 and 6, with their text coloured white): Just so you know, I thought this was a bad idea.
Steel and Tentacle, a quick (ish) guide to the End Point trilogy
... The first thing newcomers notice is that the trilogy part is actually a misnomer: Andrei Sokolov never actually wrote a sequence of 3 novels in the same way that Tolkien did. Instead, the main body of the story is divided into 2 novels: "Antithesis" (1964) and "Synthesis" (1966) with the third book "Tangents" (1969) being a collection of short stories that mostly follow on from the main story. The late 70s animated series broadly adapts the first 2 books, with some stories from Tangents being loosely adapted into episodes, whilst the later comic by and large splits the difference between its two predecessors...
In all versions of the story, humanity is threatened by an automated alien terraforming machine, one of several "end points" that the title of the series refers to, that still works while the civilisation it once served is long since extinct. The machine destroys a human colony and starts moving towards Earth, resulting in the events of the series as several human factions either unite to deal with the machine or try to take advantage of it for their own ends.
The faction who are the protagonists of most of the series are the Platonic Men, with Dmitri and Wei both belonging to the culture. Descended from the communist nations of the Old World, with the most noticeable cultural influence coming from China, Korea, Japan, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; with the war against capitalism having ended over a century ago they have started moving towards what some would refer to as true communism. Automation has reduced time working to nearly nothing, and as a result they have the time to regain everything humanity lost in the march of history. Reconnected to nature, their settlements look like gardens whilst the habits and behaviour of wild animals are understood sufficiently for humanity to coexist peacefully with them: a source of several recurring jokes in the animated series.
In the New World however, the communists developed a different philosophy. Whereas the civilisations that would become the Platonic Men saw communism as a chance to reconnect with human nature that had been warped under the tyrannical economic systems the preceded them, in the New World the communists came to the conclusion that human nature was not an end in and off itself, and indeed was fundamentally a hinderance to their end goals, something that should join capitalism, the spinning wheel and the bronze age in the dust bin of history. Self segregated from their old world comrades in order to avoid the horrors of a second cold war, this civilisation became the Typhonic Men. They are not evil, being the protagonist's main allies against the machine for the first two novels and being portrayed sympathetically in their stories in "Tangents", they are nevertheless horrifying on a fundamental level: their presence provoking a phobic reaction comparable to snakes or spiders and seeing them "cast off their human masks" is described as the visual equivalent of nails on a chalk board.
The third main civilisation from the book series are the Cold Men: a civilisation that developed from capitalists and their sympathisers who escaped the Earth and took to living in hollowed out asteroids when it became obvious that socialism was going to win. Technically post capitalist, money being replaced with water and markets having no place when everything needs to be rationed, they have nevertheless embraced everything horrifying in capitalism. Reflexively viewing both each other and all other humans as a resource to be used, from birth they are given an increasing number of cybernetic "enhancements" that on the one hand help them survive in their inhospitable environment but also make them more reliant on their master's electricity supply; that make them more skilled at their jobs whilst making them specialised for that job to such a degree that they are essentially trapped in it. These are the closest thing to conventional villains in the main story: trying to take advantage of the chaos the alien machine is spreading.
A fourth civilisation, originating from the animated series but being inspired by a throw away line in the novels, are the Wilde Men. In the novels, Dmitri makes an off hand comment about a cultural difference between themselves and the nations that were once a part of the AFS: saying that "due to their peoples once believing that socialism meant the destruction of culture, when socialism came it made a promise of making culture open to everyone instead of just the powerful". Wei later summarises this as "socialism here means no kings, no nobles, no masters; socialism in London means everyone's a king, a noble, a master". In the novels, this is strictly an aesthetic difference rather than an ideological one. The animated series took this idea and ran with it.
The idea of a handful of throw away lines came from the desire to temporarily replace the Typhonic Men in the first season. Between the budget required and the feeling that the Typhonic Men could not transition from the written word to the screen without losing some of their power, there was a push to find a substitute for them until the series had a second season. The initial creative decisions here are usually attributed to the writer Rupert Fischer. A west german exile, he had previously spent some time as a satirist and, sticking to what he knew, decided to parody the Junker wannabes, Prussia glorification and medieval nostalgia in his former homeland: essentially writing the Wilde Men as communists playing at being aristocrats. The name itself was taken from Oscar Wilde, and further details for Wilde Man culture were drawn from Oscar Wilde's essay "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"...
... The two main antagonists for the series are a pair of Cold Man masters in a pointedly temporary alliance of convenience: John Klein and Samuel Filling. In the first novel and first season of the animated series, Klein is the primary antagonist. Connected through his cybernetic enhancements to the stock piles, he sees the chaos brought about by the alien machine as a chance to liberate himself from the sheer scarcity of cold man existence by raiding the rest of humanity: preying on plant, animal and man alike to keep the few organic components of the cold men healthy... Samuel Filling, the main antagonist for the second part, is arguably more sympathetic. Growing up distant from all other life and only really understanding it in the abstract, he came to the conclusion that life is so full of pain and suffering that the only humane way of making it better is to end it completely, and once he learns of the alien machine he decides that it is probably the best chance he has to make his dream a reality...
... After the main story was completed, Sokolov kept intending to write a third novel, but the closest he got to achieving it were the short stories in Tangents: the most famous of these, due to being adapted into episodes of the animated series, following Dmitri and Wei as they explore ruins of the alien civilisation that built the machine. That said, the perhaps popular among fans of the novels is less widely known Nix's Lament. Set long after the main story ended in the surrealist landscapes of the Americas, the story occurred shortly after Dmitri and Wei's death, and followed Nix recalling her experiences with them and singing a song to lament their deaths. As she sings, the landscape itself, having long since become impossible to neatly separate from its inhabitants, joins in: as the song spreads from tree to man to rock to flower, until all of the Americas have joined together in mourning their deceased comrades.
[1] Actual vantablack is nearly impossible to use in most art: the impracticalities of spraying carbon nanotubes in order to ink a comic should be self evident. As such, the colour used is simply a version of black that is just dark enough to appear vantablack to the human eye.
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Your text, in principle, I liked, but something caused me bewilderment.
Is it a misprint? Correctly spelled Sokolov - a common Russian surname.
It is not clear why the name is "Platonic"? And I must say honestly - I do not remember any Soviet novel where Chinese motives were used (even though in the 50s there were many Chinese characters). Occasionally, Middle Asian and "pseudo-Arab" motives were scanned, Efremov had many references to the culture of India (By the way, Confucianism and Judaism he considered curses for humanity). As a rule, if you try to "restore" the average Soviet utopian novel, it turns out that this is a mixture of the "Golden" Antiquity with the Soviet monumental culture and Soviet architectural modernism of the 60s. I also note one circumstance - the propaganda of labor. Even if it is mentioned that they work less than 5 hours a day, we see a lot of characters during expeditions, excrement, creative work, and even hard physical labor. About gardens you have correctly noticed.
I would still postpone the publication for 5-10 years. There is too much postmodernism here, and at that time it was just beginning to form.
Yeah that's me mistyping it. Now fixed.
Platonic was a faint reference to Plato's theory of forms that got lost as I added more stuff to the story. The idea being that whereas the Platonic men are trying to return to "higher" ways of being human and living the good life, the Typhonic men have dismissed "humanity" as being a state of being that one should not be anymore attached to than one is to capitalism.
The Chinese references are the result of a radically different political situation: simply put, the conditions that led to the OTL chill in relations between the soviets and the chinese aren't there ITTL, which combines with the broader Comintern push towards open borders and a more international culture results in a wider cultural exchange. There's also the author's speculations going on here: simply put, he's assuming that with American communism growing more alien to their old world comrades that the old world communist nations would move together culturally.
I've added 5 years onto the publication of the novels and 3 onto the short stories, though I admit I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, whilst I can see what you mean about it having postmodern edge to it this is largely due to an internal clash of two genres (Soviet science fiction and American weird fiction) that would have become inevitable ITTL from roughly the moment At the Mountains of Madness or The Whisperer in the Darkness gets an early Russian translation. On the other hand... Well, I was born in 1993. Postmodern story telling has never not been a part of my life, even the premodern fairy tales I read being changed by me reading them in a postmodern context. And in the last 10 years, postmodern story telling has become normalised to an incredible degree: the fact that The Lego Movie of all things featured it speaks for itself. In short... postmodern story telling is so normal to me that it is kind of instinctive, so you're right that I should probably compensate for it.
THE AMERICAN (1971) (By Mr.E)
Special thanks to @Jello_Biafra for her input into one aspect of this.
The American
1971 Soviet-American film, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. Considered a Ostern, due to its setting and its tone, and is one of several Osterns in the 60's and 70's starring prominent American actors
Robert Perot (Clint Eastwood) is an American soldier serving in the American Expeditionary Force in Vladivostok in 1918. A World War I veteran, he remained in the army after the war. When President Thomas Marshall sent troops to aid the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, he was enlisted to help with the Siberia expedition, where he would help protect American supplies across the Trans-Siberian Railway to other Allied Expeditions in European Russia. He decides to enlist again, hoping to respark that patriotic spirit that had him enlisting in 1914, when the US entered the war.
However, the experience proves increasingly tenuous for him. The force have frequent problems with supplies, food, and machinery. He sees a man die from disease in the bunk next to him. The horse he is riding drops dead from the cold climate. Originally led to believe that he would not fight the Bolsheviks, he is stunned when the expedition is seized on by a small contingent of Red Army troops.
Perot's increasing dissatisfaction with the mission and the conditions is shared by General William Graves (Rock Hudson), who was also led to believe that he was simply protecting American arms and supplies for the Europeans. However, Graves assures him that conditions will improve eventually.
During one skirmish with the Bolsheviks, Perot is stunned to see some American volunteers among those who are attacking them. As he continues to trudge along with the Trans-Siberian Railway, the conditions finally get to him.
Perot deserts the Army, and meets up with the Bolsheviks. However, just as he is about to meet with the Reds, he drops from exhaustion. The medic states that he will be fine, though he needs to stay to recover. During this time, he meets with another volunteer (Alan Blake*), who says his disillusionment during his service in France and the Bienno Rosso inspired him to join the Reds during their own revolution.
Perot recovers, just as they learn that the expedition has been withdrawn (setting the ending at around 1920).
Historical Inaccuracy: While there were American volunteers for the Reds during the Civil War, there are no confirmed ones in Siberia during the time period described, and none encountered the Siberian Expedition.
--------------------
The American
1971 Soviet-American film, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. Considered a Ostern, due to its setting and its tone, and is one of several Osterns in the 60's and 70's starring prominent American actors
Robert Perot (Clint Eastwood) is an American soldier serving in the American Expeditionary Force in Vladivostok in 1918. A World War I veteran, he remained in the army after the war. When President Thomas Marshall sent troops to aid the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, he was enlisted to help with the Siberia expedition, where he would help protect American supplies across the Trans-Siberian Railway to other Allied Expeditions in European Russia. He decides to enlist again, hoping to respark that patriotic spirit that had him enlisting in 1914, when the US entered the war.
However, the experience proves increasingly tenuous for him. The force have frequent problems with supplies, food, and machinery. He sees a man die from disease in the bunk next to him. The horse he is riding drops dead from the cold climate. Originally led to believe that he would not fight the Bolsheviks, he is stunned when the expedition is seized on by a small contingent of Red Army troops.
Perot's increasing dissatisfaction with the mission and the conditions is shared by General William Graves (Rock Hudson), who was also led to believe that he was simply protecting American arms and supplies for the Europeans. However, Graves assures him that conditions will improve eventually.
During one skirmish with the Bolsheviks, Perot is stunned to see some American volunteers among those who are attacking them. As he continues to trudge along with the Trans-Siberian Railway, the conditions finally get to him.
Perot deserts the Army, and meets up with the Bolsheviks. However, just as he is about to meet with the Reds, he drops from exhaustion. The medic states that he will be fine, though he needs to stay to recover. During this time, he meets with another volunteer (Alan Blake*), who says his disillusionment during his service in France and the Bienno Rosso inspired him to join the Reds during their own revolution.
Perot recovers, just as they learn that the expedition has been withdrawn (setting the ending at around 1920).
Historical Inaccuracy: While there were American volunteers for the Reds during the Civil War, there are no confirmed ones in Siberia during the time period described, and none encountered the Siberian Expedition.
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Welcome to the Realms of the Unreal (Part I) (By Mr. C)
For what seemed to be the first time ever, Chicago was quiet. Just a few weeks before, The Whites were thoroughly humiliated in battle, and the influx of new volunteers and defectors swelled the ranks of the Red Army. After a massive citywide celebration that went on for what felt like centuries, the people of Chicago rested, knowing the end of capitalism would soon be coming.
But Anna Teitelbaum wasn't resting. She was on patrol. She wanted to be in Mississippi, liberating the South from the Klan. But she was stuck here, just in case the White Army suddenly decided to try Chicago again. Maybe this time they wouldn't be beaten that badly.
It was another uneventful day patrolling the streets, asking questions, and occasionally finding someone who looked suspicious but was innocent. Anna was just about to call in when a strange man caught her eye.
He was shabbily dressed, possibly in his middle forties. He was rummaging through a garbage can and muttering about the weather when he looked up and noticed her.
Nervously, he said "I, uh, just wanted to get some, er, art supplies"
"In the garbage?" said Anna, incredulously.
"I don't really have, ah, the money to buy actual art supplies. I get inspiration from stuff in the garbage."
"An artist, huh? What kind of art do you do?"
"Oh, it's illustrations for a book I'm writing! It's a fantastical, magical story about God!"
"What's it called?"
"I call it The Story of The Vivian Girls, in What is Known as The Realms of the Unreal, Of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion"
Anna gave the man a strange look. "You should think about shortening that title. It's a bit too...unwieldy."
The man frowned. "Well, I like it!"
"Anyways, Child Slave Rebellion, huh? Kinda sounds like what we do in the Red Army."
"The Red what?"
Anna couldn't believe it. This man didn't know there was a revolution? What the hell was he doing all this time?
"Well, we--"
"Oh, I remember!", the man suddenly recalled, "You're Willie's people!"
"...who's Willie?"
"My special friend! We started The Children's Protection Society together. He told me he was going to go to war. So, you're a soldier?"
"Yes, I am."
"A lady soldier?"
Anna was offended. "Excuse me?"
"Finally! An army that knows the truth."
Anna was confused. "What truth?"
"Well, everyone knows that women are much braver than men"
Anna was elated. "Hell yes, we are! The White Army didn't know what was coming!"
"Oh, so it's a war like the one they had Russia? I was wondering what all that noise was about a few weeks ago. It was disrupting my painting!"
Anna couldn't believe it. This man seemed to have something wrong with him...he was too busy painting to notice a war was going on just outside his window? Not only that, but he was painting illustrations for some weird pulp book that had something to do with God and a war caused by child slavery?
Still, though, she found the man charming. That bold assumption that "women are much braver than men" was something she secretly joked about with her friends. But here was a man--an older man, at that--saying this with complete seriousness. Despite being in his forties, he still had a childlike, almost impish personality. Plus, he said he started a Children's Protection society with one of our boys in the Red Army. How bad could he be?
"So, what do you know about socialism?"
"Not much. But I do know that the socialists want to protect people's rights. Worker's rights, women's rights, negroes rights--"
"We prefer to say 'Africans'. 'Negro' is what the White Army calls them."
"Oh. Sorry, I'm not up to date on politics. But what I'm really interested in is the rights of children. It breaks my heart to see children abused and mistreated by rotten adults."
Tears rolled down the man's face. "I was abused too. At the Lincoln Asylum, before I escaped. They told me that my heart wasn't in the right place."
"It must've been horrible for you! When we take over, that'll never happen to any child again!"
"Really? Oh, I wish people like you were in charge when I was a kid. I would join your Red Army if my eyesight wasn't so bad."
"What's your name? I could get you back in touch with your friend Willie."
"My name is Henry Darger. Tell me, what is your name?"
"Anna Teitelbaum."
"A Hebrew? Well, I'm Catholic, but I can respect a fellow child of God."
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So here's part 1 of a thing I'm working on. The working title is "Welcome to the Realms of the Unreal", and it'll explore both Henry Darger's art and the development of communal psychology in the UASR.
(PS: I ship Henry Darger and William Schloeder. The photos they took together at Fairyland should be proof enough)
But Anna Teitelbaum wasn't resting. She was on patrol. She wanted to be in Mississippi, liberating the South from the Klan. But she was stuck here, just in case the White Army suddenly decided to try Chicago again. Maybe this time they wouldn't be beaten that badly.
It was another uneventful day patrolling the streets, asking questions, and occasionally finding someone who looked suspicious but was innocent. Anna was just about to call in when a strange man caught her eye.
He was shabbily dressed, possibly in his middle forties. He was rummaging through a garbage can and muttering about the weather when he looked up and noticed her.
Nervously, he said "I, uh, just wanted to get some, er, art supplies"
"In the garbage?" said Anna, incredulously.
"I don't really have, ah, the money to buy actual art supplies. I get inspiration from stuff in the garbage."
"An artist, huh? What kind of art do you do?"
"Oh, it's illustrations for a book I'm writing! It's a fantastical, magical story about God!"
"What's it called?"
"I call it The Story of The Vivian Girls, in What is Known as The Realms of the Unreal, Of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion"
Anna gave the man a strange look. "You should think about shortening that title. It's a bit too...unwieldy."
The man frowned. "Well, I like it!"
"Anyways, Child Slave Rebellion, huh? Kinda sounds like what we do in the Red Army."
"The Red what?"
Anna couldn't believe it. This man didn't know there was a revolution? What the hell was he doing all this time?
"Well, we--"
"Oh, I remember!", the man suddenly recalled, "You're Willie's people!"
"...who's Willie?"
"My special friend! We started The Children's Protection Society together. He told me he was going to go to war. So, you're a soldier?"
"Yes, I am."
"A lady soldier?"
Anna was offended. "Excuse me?"
"Finally! An army that knows the truth."
Anna was confused. "What truth?"
"Well, everyone knows that women are much braver than men"
Anna was elated. "Hell yes, we are! The White Army didn't know what was coming!"
"Oh, so it's a war like the one they had Russia? I was wondering what all that noise was about a few weeks ago. It was disrupting my painting!"
Anna couldn't believe it. This man seemed to have something wrong with him...he was too busy painting to notice a war was going on just outside his window? Not only that, but he was painting illustrations for some weird pulp book that had something to do with God and a war caused by child slavery?
Still, though, she found the man charming. That bold assumption that "women are much braver than men" was something she secretly joked about with her friends. But here was a man--an older man, at that--saying this with complete seriousness. Despite being in his forties, he still had a childlike, almost impish personality. Plus, he said he started a Children's Protection society with one of our boys in the Red Army. How bad could he be?
"So, what do you know about socialism?"
"Not much. But I do know that the socialists want to protect people's rights. Worker's rights, women's rights, negroes rights--"
"We prefer to say 'Africans'. 'Negro' is what the White Army calls them."
"Oh. Sorry, I'm not up to date on politics. But what I'm really interested in is the rights of children. It breaks my heart to see children abused and mistreated by rotten adults."
Tears rolled down the man's face. "I was abused too. At the Lincoln Asylum, before I escaped. They told me that my heart wasn't in the right place."
"It must've been horrible for you! When we take over, that'll never happen to any child again!"
"Really? Oh, I wish people like you were in charge when I was a kid. I would join your Red Army if my eyesight wasn't so bad."
"What's your name? I could get you back in touch with your friend Willie."
"My name is Henry Darger. Tell me, what is your name?"
"Anna Teitelbaum."
"A Hebrew? Well, I'm Catholic, but I can respect a fellow child of God."
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So here's part 1 of a thing I'm working on. The working title is "Welcome to the Realms of the Unreal", and it'll explore both Henry Darger's art and the development of communal psychology in the UASR.
(PS: I ship Henry Darger and William Schloeder. The photos they took together at Fairyland should be proof enough)
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