Rumsfeldia: Fear and Loathing in the Decade of Tears
- Thread starter Drew
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Dellums, who was not a member of Congress at the time, switched his residency to DC for purposes of the election.
The same way that Dick Cheney changed his residence to Wyoming in 2000.
You change your primary legal residence to one in the new jurisdiction, then register to vote in the new jurisdiction (before the filing deadline) using the new primary address. Any citizen who moves can do this. Richard Nixon also did this. He was a resident of New York in 1968, and a resident of California in 1960 and 1972.
bookmark95
Banned
Character Alignment:
Lawful Good Neutral Good Chaotic Good
Lawful Neutral True Neutral Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Evil Neutral Evil Chaotic Evil
Lawful Good Neutral Good Chaotic Good
Lawful Neutral True Neutral Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Evil Neutral Evil Chaotic Evil
Character Alignment:
Lawful Good Neutral Good Chaotic Good
Lawful Neutral True Neutral Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Evil Neutral Evil Chaotic Evil
I wouldn't call Douglas Coe Chaotic Evil. The lesser Mao would fit the Chaotic Evil mold better and Douglas Coe is much closer to Lawful than Chaotic Evil.
Also shouldn't Dick Cheney be closer to True Neutral by this point?
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Indeed. Besides, given how Rumsfeld fanaticized about an Anarcho-Capitalist state devoid of market or societal controls of any kind that eventually lead to chaos, I would say he is closer to Chaotic Evil
Makes sense. Ho about this: Douglas Coe is Lawful Evil, The Lesser Mao is Neutral Evil and Donald Rumsfeld is Chaotic Evil. Does that work?
Rumsfeld is Neutral Evil. He's out for himself, will do anything to advance his own power and/or vision. I'd argue the CSA and Douglas Coe is Lawful Evil; they've got a code (of a kind), and want to see their twisted version of Christianity imposed on America.
Lesser Mao is chaotic evil, for sure.
A case can be made that both are somewhere between Neutral and Chaotic Evil.
I'd say Rumsfeld is Neutral Evil and Lesser Mao is Chaotic Evil just based off the fact that Rumsfeld didn't nuke his own cities.
As for the CSA, I get a gist towards Lawful Evil, but the evil that they could exist as could go across the whole spectrum of evil depending on how things unfold.
As for the CSA, I get a gist towards Lawful Evil, but the evil that they could exist as could go across the whole spectrum of evil depending on how things unfold.
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bookmark95
Banned
Lesser Mao is Chaotic Evil, obviously, but I didn't include him in my chart for two reasons: one, there aren't too many useful pictures of the guy (since he was a nobody OTL), and two, because I wanted to focus on the major figures of Rumsfeldia.
Donald Rumsfeld is Lawful Evil because Lawful Evil implies the use of the strong-arm of POWER to maintain control. Rumsfeld, while desiring an anarcho-capitalist regime, used the slogan of "law and order" to lock up people who opposed his policies. He also used the US army to bully other countries like Malta.
Neutral Evil are characters who exist to benefit themselves at the expense of others. Cheney did everything for Rumsfeld, hoping for a seat of power. Haig's coup rattled Donald, enough that he could no longer trust Cheney and tossed him out the door, who threw his hat in with Carter, again, for the benefit of himself.
Douglas Coe, and the rest of the CSA cabal would start out as Lawful Evil, using the powers granted to them by Rumsfeld to slowly stomp on all remaining opposition and impose Dominion . But by May 1990, they've become apocalyptic psychos who are keeping Kinnock awake at night. While they claim a desire to cleanse the Earth, I think they've fallen in love with the destruction. Bloodlust, violence, and destruction are very addictive things, as addictive as any Schedule I drug. While they may have used their first nuke out of desperation (presumably in Florida against Castro) they've expressed a desire to destroy everything without concern for others. That's what makes them Chaotic evil.
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Long-time reader and lurker chiming in:
First of all, I have to thank Drew for writing such a gripping timeline. It would make a very good book, or maybe even a TV series in the style of House of Cards.
This part of an old update irks me, though:
Soviet science fiction, especially post-WW2, wasn't so blatantly propagandist - that looks like a bad parody of North Korean media. If there was a need to describe a communist society of the future, the ideological stuff was usually left out and the events leading to its creation were often very vague or simply not described at all - the victory of communism was seemingly a logical turn of events, something that would happen by itself sooner or later. The stories of officially approved Soviet sci-fi were focused on the people of the future and the challenges they faced, and not on tenets of Marx and Lenin or something like that. Since communism's superiority to capitalism was so obvious, there was no need to bring revolution to anyone - the 1920s and its idea of USSR liberating the workers of the world through the force of arms were a thing of the past. If a civilization couldn't advance to communism, it would wipe itself out, by nuclear war, resource depletion, or both, because capitalism is self-destructive and unsustainable. Obviously, not everything was conforming to socialist realist ideals - Strugatsky brothers and Tarkovsky are good examples.
Also, television series were pretty rare in USSR - a two-three part television film format (each about an hour long) was more preferred.
-----------------------------------------
My ideas of some Soviet films (action and sci-fi) of TTL 1980s. I hope they fit the timeline:
Операция "Солнцепёк" (Operation Blazing Sun), 1981
Mosfilm Studio, directed by Mikhail Tumanishvili
1970s. As Soviet and American forces conduct a peacekeeping operation in Syria, a cabal of American militarists and businessmen, led by CIA's Colonel Crowder, plans to stage a false flag attack in Turkey. Using a secret CIA death squad disguised as Islamist terrorists and armed with Soviet weaponry, they plan to frame Soviet Union as aiding Jihadists, thus ruining Soviet-American relations and ensuring more lucrative weapon contracts for American corporations. This mission is assigned to Major Jack Hassolt, a war criminal who massacred civilians during the Vietnam War and got away from prosecution thanks to Crowder.
However, Hassolt understands that he and his crew will be assassinated immediately after the completion of the operation. He snaps, goes rogue and seizes a NATO naval installation with a docked American nuclear submarine on one Mediterranean island. His plan is to launch a nuclear missile at Soviet Navy ships, triggering a war between the Soviet Union and the USA.
A joint strike force of Soviet Naval Infantry and US Marines launches an operation to retake the base and stop Hassolt from starting WW3...
Час Быка (The Bull's Hour), 1983
Gorky Film Studio, directed by Richard Viktorov
A film adaptation of the sequel to Ivan Efremov's utopian sci-fi novel "Andromeda Nebula".
Starship "Dark Flame" from communist Earth, equipped with an experimental FTL engine, encounters a space-time anomaly and crash-lands on planet Tormance, a mythical lost human colony that was settled by primitive sleeper ships that fled Earth during the chaotic Fission Age shortly before the unification of Earth. The planet, desolate and heavily polluted, is ruled by a totalitarian corporate oligarchy led by Chairman Choyo Chagas and his Board of Directors (nicknamed the Big Four). The planet's resources are almost entirely depleted, and most of the population is divided into two castes: the so-called "short-living" Kji that fulfil menial work and are killed off after turning 26, and the "long-living" Dji, intellectuals that live up to 34. They are kept in line by the bureaucrats "snake-carriers" and "lilacs", the security forces, all of which answer to the Chairman and the Directors.
While trying to repair the starship's engines, the crew establish contact with the locals. When the news about the starship reaches the Board, Chairman Chagas orders to seize the ship and its crew, as they are a major threat to his rule. He also plans to reverse-engineer the ship, build a space fleet of his own and launch an offensive against Earth. The crew's only hope of leaving the planet in one piece is the weak and disorganized Resistance movement...
A very troubled production - many parts of the original story were changed, either for drama or because of censorship. For example, Tormance's rulers were originally called the Council of Four, an allusion to Mao Zedong's Gang of Four, and the Chairman was inspired by Mao himself (the book was written in 1970). In the film, it was changed into a corporatist Board of Directors, and the film's Chairman was described by foreign critics as a clear allusion to Rumsfeld. Some other parts of the original story were redacted by Soviet censors, like the monologue stating the Right to Know and Right to Think are the most important rights for all sentient beings and that the intergalactic community, the Great Circle of Civilizations, intervenes on planets where the residents are deprived of them. Also, some claim the original ending reportedly had the caption "The scenes of dying planet Tormance were shot at the territory of the Soviet Union" before the credits. It was the last film for renowned Soviet sci-fi film director Richard Viktorov, who passed away during post-production.
Nevertheless, it was a big hit in the Soviet box office and spawned a wave of other Soviet sci-fi films in the late 1980s-early 1990s. It also had a limited release in Western Europe in 1984, but wasn't as successful as in the USSR, due to less than stellar special effects compared to Western films; it was also derided for being 'knock-off propaganda' by some foreign critics. Banned in the USA.
И грянул гром... (A Sound of Thunder), 1985
Ekran Television Film Studio
An adaptation of the eponymous short story by Ray Bradbury, made into a television film and broadcast during one of the episodes of a science fiction show "Этот фантастический мир" (This Fantastic World) on CT USSR's First Programme. One of the several Soviet films based on Bradbury's works, the most famous of which was the award-winning animated film "There Will Come Soft Rains" (1984).
It's a faithful adaptation of the original story, with no significant deviations. The fascist presidential candidate Deutscher, shown in the end of the film, looked suspiciously similar to US Vice President Dick Cheney, except with a head full of hair and a moustache.
Мы из Cолнечной системы (We are from the Solar System), 1988
Gorky Film Studio
A television film series loosely based on the eponymous book by Georgiy Gurevich.
The story is set about a century in the future on communist Earth and focuses on a group of teenagers who are thrust into events of planetary magnitude. An outbreak of a mysterious disease in the Citadel Republic, a North American state (with African overseas territories) struggling to recover after decades of war and civil unrest, threatens the entire world. As the World Council declares quarantine measures to limit the spread of the infection, the main characters discover long forgotten papers of a scientist that perished in the Leningrad Blockade, detailing a mysterious device capable of constructing all kinds of matter from basic atoms - a universal constructor...
Among other films, Kin-dza-dza (1986), Soviet dark satirical comedy about two ordinary Muscovites teleported to an alien desert planet, would probably be not unlike its OTL counterpart.
Furthermore:
First of all, I have to thank Drew for writing such a gripping timeline. It would make a very good book, or maybe even a TV series in the style of House of Cards.
This part of an old update irks me, though:
Soviet science fiction, especially post-WW2, wasn't so blatantly propagandist - that looks like a bad parody of North Korean media. If there was a need to describe a communist society of the future, the ideological stuff was usually left out and the events leading to its creation were often very vague or simply not described at all - the victory of communism was seemingly a logical turn of events, something that would happen by itself sooner or later. The stories of officially approved Soviet sci-fi were focused on the people of the future and the challenges they faced, and not on tenets of Marx and Lenin or something like that. Since communism's superiority to capitalism was so obvious, there was no need to bring revolution to anyone - the 1920s and its idea of USSR liberating the workers of the world through the force of arms were a thing of the past. If a civilization couldn't advance to communism, it would wipe itself out, by nuclear war, resource depletion, or both, because capitalism is self-destructive and unsustainable. Obviously, not everything was conforming to socialist realist ideals - Strugatsky brothers and Tarkovsky are good examples.
Also, television series were pretty rare in USSR - a two-three part television film format (each about an hour long) was more preferred.
-----------------------------------------
My ideas of some Soviet films (action and sci-fi) of TTL 1980s. I hope they fit the timeline:
Операция "Солнцепёк" (Operation Blazing Sun), 1981
Mosfilm Studio, directed by Mikhail Tumanishvili
1970s. As Soviet and American forces conduct a peacekeeping operation in Syria, a cabal of American militarists and businessmen, led by CIA's Colonel Crowder, plans to stage a false flag attack in Turkey. Using a secret CIA death squad disguised as Islamist terrorists and armed with Soviet weaponry, they plan to frame Soviet Union as aiding Jihadists, thus ruining Soviet-American relations and ensuring more lucrative weapon contracts for American corporations. This mission is assigned to Major Jack Hassolt, a war criminal who massacred civilians during the Vietnam War and got away from prosecution thanks to Crowder.
However, Hassolt understands that he and his crew will be assassinated immediately after the completion of the operation. He snaps, goes rogue and seizes a NATO naval installation with a docked American nuclear submarine on one Mediterranean island. His plan is to launch a nuclear missile at Soviet Navy ships, triggering a war between the Soviet Union and the USA.
A joint strike force of Soviet Naval Infantry and US Marines launches an operation to retake the base and stop Hassolt from starting WW3...
Час Быка (The Bull's Hour), 1983
Gorky Film Studio, directed by Richard Viktorov
A film adaptation of the sequel to Ivan Efremov's utopian sci-fi novel "Andromeda Nebula".
Starship "Dark Flame" from communist Earth, equipped with an experimental FTL engine, encounters a space-time anomaly and crash-lands on planet Tormance, a mythical lost human colony that was settled by primitive sleeper ships that fled Earth during the chaotic Fission Age shortly before the unification of Earth. The planet, desolate and heavily polluted, is ruled by a totalitarian corporate oligarchy led by Chairman Choyo Chagas and his Board of Directors (nicknamed the Big Four). The planet's resources are almost entirely depleted, and most of the population is divided into two castes: the so-called "short-living" Kji that fulfil menial work and are killed off after turning 26, and the "long-living" Dji, intellectuals that live up to 34. They are kept in line by the bureaucrats "snake-carriers" and "lilacs", the security forces, all of which answer to the Chairman and the Directors.
While trying to repair the starship's engines, the crew establish contact with the locals. When the news about the starship reaches the Board, Chairman Chagas orders to seize the ship and its crew, as they are a major threat to his rule. He also plans to reverse-engineer the ship, build a space fleet of his own and launch an offensive against Earth. The crew's only hope of leaving the planet in one piece is the weak and disorganized Resistance movement...
A very troubled production - many parts of the original story were changed, either for drama or because of censorship. For example, Tormance's rulers were originally called the Council of Four, an allusion to Mao Zedong's Gang of Four, and the Chairman was inspired by Mao himself (the book was written in 1970). In the film, it was changed into a corporatist Board of Directors, and the film's Chairman was described by foreign critics as a clear allusion to Rumsfeld. Some other parts of the original story were redacted by Soviet censors, like the monologue stating the Right to Know and Right to Think are the most important rights for all sentient beings and that the intergalactic community, the Great Circle of Civilizations, intervenes on planets where the residents are deprived of them. Also, some claim the original ending reportedly had the caption "The scenes of dying planet Tormance were shot at the territory of the Soviet Union" before the credits. It was the last film for renowned Soviet sci-fi film director Richard Viktorov, who passed away during post-production.
Nevertheless, it was a big hit in the Soviet box office and spawned a wave of other Soviet sci-fi films in the late 1980s-early 1990s. It also had a limited release in Western Europe in 1984, but wasn't as successful as in the USSR, due to less than stellar special effects compared to Western films; it was also derided for being 'knock-off propaganda' by some foreign critics. Banned in the USA.
И грянул гром... (A Sound of Thunder), 1985
Ekran Television Film Studio
An adaptation of the eponymous short story by Ray Bradbury, made into a television film and broadcast during one of the episodes of a science fiction show "Этот фантастический мир" (This Fantastic World) on CT USSR's First Programme. One of the several Soviet films based on Bradbury's works, the most famous of which was the award-winning animated film "There Will Come Soft Rains" (1984).
It's a faithful adaptation of the original story, with no significant deviations. The fascist presidential candidate Deutscher, shown in the end of the film, looked suspiciously similar to US Vice President Dick Cheney, except with a head full of hair and a moustache.
Мы из Cолнечной системы (We are from the Solar System), 1988
Gorky Film Studio
A television film series loosely based on the eponymous book by Georgiy Gurevich.
The story is set about a century in the future on communist Earth and focuses on a group of teenagers who are thrust into events of planetary magnitude. An outbreak of a mysterious disease in the Citadel Republic, a North American state (with African overseas territories) struggling to recover after decades of war and civil unrest, threatens the entire world. As the World Council declares quarantine measures to limit the spread of the infection, the main characters discover long forgotten papers of a scientist that perished in the Leningrad Blockade, detailing a mysterious device capable of constructing all kinds of matter from basic atoms - a universal constructor...
Among other films, Kin-dza-dza (1986), Soviet dark satirical comedy about two ordinary Muscovites teleported to an alien desert planet, would probably be not unlike its OTL counterpart.
Furthermore:
- With the warming up of relations between USSR and Western Europe, more foreign films will probably be released in Soviet cinemas. In OTL USSR, many foreign films, especially from countries (relatively) friendly to USSR like France, Italy or India were localized and released for the Soviet audience... after passing censorship, of course. Usually they were comedies and romantic films, but oddities crept in, like the 1978 American action film "Convoy", 1973 Japanese disaster film "Japan Sinks" and 1969 anime film "Flying Phantom Ship", among others. TTL USSR will probably continue doing so. Maybe in the future, the Soviet market will play the same role for film studios as OTL mainland China...
- Soviet film studios might probably take part in joint projects with their Western counterparts.
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I dig these, almost moreso than the ones Drew wrote up (which don't really make sense in the context of the TL: Star Trek was on the air before the POD, and Back to the Future was also produced (albeit with a downer ending where Marty has erased himself from existence, IIRC).
I've kicked around a few ideas for some Rumsfeldia propaganda films; with @Drew's permission I'd write them up here.
I think that's the point. The Soviets decided to rip off American films, simply because they didn't want to actually American products.
Accurateworldwar
Banned
And to think all this happened because some obscure Governor from Louisiana thought it'd be a good idea to run for President.....
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