Separated at Birth: America and Drakia
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
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Maybe with the return of the traitor as gesture of good will or sweeten the pot
I'm afraid the Dice is too low for America to save any face
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Nice to see that I am still capable of the occasional surprise.
Thank you, I'm starting to feel like Klein will make a better Alcibiades than a Caesar after all.
Perhaps I messed up, but I believe I described him as;
I don't believe that I ever referred to him as an actual patriot.
Quite. Had the Navy won the war would have been a 5% chance of Klein "crossing the Rubicon" and a much stronger chance (it would have depended how the war went) of him being elected President. Under either scenario there was a very real risk of the US going down a similar path to that of OTL Japan, with an increasingly powerful military calling the shots.
He's been sending more resources their way, but it's a different branch of the military that he's focusing on as a counter to the Navy.
Omg yes, another Coriolanus fan! I love that play! Most because it was the first time I ever saw a Shakespeare play without knowing the ending so the twist caught me by surprise.
Quite right- America is dodging a bullet here (possibly by jumping into the path of a different bullet, but even so).
My posting is going to remain irregular unfortunately, but I'm not abandoning this TL until I get to the end.
Too early for a dedicated separate military space agency I'd guess, so except some weird thing*, we suppose that.
*Of which there are examples IOTL. Italy for example has the Carabinieri as a separate (mostly land-based, though they have some naval stuff too) armed forces service distinct from the Army, mostly dedicated to public order tasks. America can do something vaguely comparable with the National Guard perhaps - I don't know enough of the organizational layout to say.
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The source of power for the Navy is how unaccountable and unquestioned they are in their little private empire, slam together a very separate Marine Corps/Coast Guard equivalent for responsibility over harbors and coastal batteries, security and military policing of important sites in Naval bases, and personal protection of American embassies and resident-ministers, and no Klein will ever be able to entrench themselves again.
EDIT: maybe even some excise and revenue duties to peel away the financial corruption of the Navy and their patronage machines within the Ducklings, like a giant oversized version of the Revenue Cutter Service/Revenue-Marines
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Interlude: The Cloud People
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
I chose not to sleep on the voit[1] for the last leg from Zenith[2].
For most of the trip we’d been driving down the new highway, but for the last hour or so the voit had been trundling down the old Joseph Catt Highway[3] that had been there for ages. I knew it from the trips with the old man out to Zenith for business- he would meet with the manager in the CGC[4] warehouse and I would explore downtown and play with the kids there until it was time to drive back down the old JCH. So, I noticed where things had changed, and I noticed that they had replaced the sign near the Anderson Gas Station.
It used to read;
METROPOLIS
45 KILOMETERS
Now it read;
METROPOLIS-MEXICO[5]
45 KILOMETERS
Stay away too long and you never know what you’re coming back to.
---
The voit operator let us off a couple of blocks[6] away from the station because there was a protest in the way. Bunch of people shouting “Mexico Vive!” and waving signs and banners. Many of the banners had sketches of flame flowers, and many of the protestors were wearing the red leaves pinned to their shirts and coats. La Mexicanidad I assumed, although the flowers were new, and the protestors seemed angrier, meaner than I remembered. No one was waving the Stars and Stripes which was strange, and no one was waving the Three Guarantees which was stranger[7].
At least there were no Stars and Stripes[8] among the marchers- the flag seemed to have popped up everywhere else in Metropolis, on homes and businesses, except for the buildings that didn’t bother with the national flag and instead had potted plants on their windows and front steps.
What was in the pots? More flame flowers.
Police kept an eye on the marchers, shadowing them even as the Mexicanos shouted taunts and insults. I tried to pass through the crowd, but some jackass blocked my chest with his arm.
“Join us brother!” He yelled in Spanish over the noise of the crowd. “We’re going to kick the Yankee foreigners out of Mexico!”
“Not interested.” I told him in the same language.
“What’s wrong?” His tones turned nasty. “You don’t care about your nation? You’d rather suck New York’s dick, is that it?”
“Yo soy ñuù savi.” Then at his blank look; “First Americans.”[9]
“Dissidente!” The man shouted as I pushed past his arm. “Mestizos e Indios Unidos!”
---
The store, at least, didn’t seem to have changed any, although I didn’t recognize the boy behind the counter. There must have been half a dozen Star-Spangled Banners decorating the place and not a flame flower in sight,
“Here.” I dug a half-eagle bill[10] out of my pocket and held it out to him. “Go get me a Giniker[11] from across the street.”
“Sir… we only sell yardage[12].” He answered in English, nonplussed. “And I can’t leave the store while I’m on shift.”
“It’s okay.” I grinned at him. “I know the owner.”
That was about the time the old man himself came out to see what the ruckus was, and swept me in a hug tight enough to crack ribs.
“Ndaiza te'i!”[13]
I wasn’t actually his son, but he’d damn near raised me in any case.
“Go, go!” He gestured to the kid. “Get him his damn Giniker, then take a break.”
“Keep the change!” I told the boy on his way out, then switched to Ñuu Savi. “Ku kweni!”
“Ku kweni! Ku kwen'n deku?”
“Deku ba’i.”[14] I told the old man. “It’s good to be back.”
“Glad to see me again?” He chuckled.
“Never.” I laughed. “I’m just happy about being able to get good soda again.”
“Sure you are.” He put his arm over my shoulders- a reach for him. “Come on marine, sit down, and tell me about the holy city.”
“Jerusalem was cramped, dirty, and happy to see us. The churches were pretty and there was a big Mohammedan church with a gold dome like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Nice, nice.” The man who’d raised me guided me to the back. “I don’t believe it about Klein by the way, not for a second. He’s got to have some sort of plan going on, it’s bullshit how Perdue sold the guy south.”
“Probably.” I said although I was of two minds myself, and then to change the subject- “What’s with all the flame flowers?”
“Feh! Damned radicals. Those idiots in New York banned the old Mexican flag to try and quiet them down, but it just made things worse. Now they’ve seized that stupid flower as a symbol.”
“I thought we liked La Mexicanidad?”
“Eh, there’s Mexicandidad and there’s Mexicanidad. Break the Criollos? Yes, please. They held us down with everyone else. But Spanish in the public schools? Bring back Spanish names for cities? Fucking independence? Fuck that. I want my grandkids learning English if they’re not learning Ñuu Savi and who cares what the cities are called. Lots of people back home who backed La Mexicandad are pissed these days.”
His family had been in Metropolis for three generations at least, and mine- I had no idea about mine. But the part of Oaxaca and Guerrero that the Criollos and Mestizos called “La Mixteca” was still home.
“I can’t believe they’re actually pushing for independence.”
“Most aren’t, maybe one in ten are. But they’re the loudest and some of them are taking inspiration from the crazies down in Centroamerica.”
“You’re joking.”
“You think I’m joking? There was a bombing in Guerrero last week, someone killed a policeman in Zenith- right here in Hidalgo!- just the week before that. Vandalism, graffiti, and fistfights in the City[15] but it’s only a matter of time until it escalates here.”
“Damn. And we’re caught in the middle, aren’t we?”
“Always. We’re not Mexicans, we’re not Anglos, and we haven’t got the pull of the Cherokee or the Comanches.”
“It’s organization.” I ran my hand through my hair. “In the Holy Land I met some Judeans- they talked a lot about how the Jews were scattered everywhere and they needed to come together and co-operate or the world would just walk all over them. They wanted a country, but if you can get enough people to vote, and vote the same way, then you can make your voice pretty damn loud. There’s enough of us in Oaxaca and Guerrero, even in Hidalgo- if we had leaders, if we had a President who could get us organized like the Cherokee do-”
“The Cherokee and the Comanche were unified before the Anglos even showed up. When were the Ñuu Savi ever unified?”
I was about to answer when the kid came back.
“Here’s your Giniker, mister.”
“Thanks, kid.” I popped the bottle, switching from Ñuu Savi back to English. “Iya Nacuaa did it, long before the Spanish came.”
“My boy.” The old man gently squeezed my shoulder. “It’s not a bad idea. But it’s been eight hundred since Iya Nacuaa.”[16]
I took a long drink from my Giniker, savoring the earthy taste.
“Do you remember,” I said slowly, “the date I was born?”
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[1] From “Voiture Omnibus”- “Vehicle for all” the same Latin phrase that gave us the OTL word “bus”
[2] Formerly known as Veracruz before 1868
[3] Named for the last American military governor of Mexico before it was officially annexed
[4] The Clinton-Gómez Company is a large dry-goods corporation on the East Coast and the Gulf that wholesales to smaller retailers. Not those Clintons- these are descended from an important family in colonial New York, and the Gómezes whose company they merged with are an even older Criollo family whose OTL descendants included Guillermo del Toro.
[5] Formerly known as Mexico City before becoming the City of Metropolis, and now the City of Metropolis-Mexico. I absolutely stole the name from the brilliant @Napoleon53
[6] The length of a city block varies just as much ITTL as OTL, but as in OTL they’re usually around the same length as a medieval furlong.
[7] The early Movimiento de Mexicanidad usually displayed two flags in its marches; the Flag of the Three Guarantees symbolizing their Mexican heritage and the Stars and Stripes to emphasize that they’re not secessionists or disloyal. The early movement being what our viewpoint character would have been familiar with.
[8] 58 stars as of 1930.
[9] First Americans aka Native Americans.
[10] A five dollar bill, the name of the coin made the transition to paper money ITTL.
[11] Giniker is the name both of a brand and its eponymous product- a soft drink popular in Separate-verse’s United States. It got its start as a patent medicine, hence the name “Giniker” (a very old slang term meaning ‘energy’ or ‘pep’), and is flavored with sassafras, American Ginseng, and of course sugar.
[12] Cloth and fabric
[13] “My son!”
[14] “Good to see you!” “Good to see you! How are you?” “I’m fine.”
[15] It is the prerogative of the inhabitants of major cities everywhere to refer to their home simply as “The City” to the annoyance of their rivals.
[16] Iya Nacuaa Teyusi Ñaña is an historical warlord who became the only person to successfully unify the Mixtec peoples, which he did in the 11th century of the Christian Era. He subsequently became a mythic figure among the Mixtec for his accomplishments. As was traditional in that time he was named partly for the day on which he was born- Eight Deer in the old Mesoamerican calendar. Guess what day our heretofore-unnamed protagonist was born?
[X] Forgot to make a note for the flowers. Flame flowers (IOTL "poinsettias") are a species of shrub native to southern Mexico that have vibrant red leaves. The Mexica believed that the red in the plant symbolized the bloody self-sacrifice of the god Nanahuatzin that enabled the sun to rise for the first time. Mexican Catholics later connected the red leaves to the similarly bloody self-sacrifice of Jesus in the Crucifixion, making the plant a popular decoration for Christmas and Easter. In any case La Mexicanidad has appropriated the plant as a national symbol for Mexico, in lieu of the now banned Mexican flag.
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Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Experimenting with prose for this TL. I might have gone a little overboard with some of the details.
Experimenting with prose for this TL. I might have gone a little overboard with some of the details.
World-building is always a good idea, and what better way to do it?
AlexG
Banned
Oh no no.Experimenting with prose for this TL. I might have gone a little overboard with some of the details.
That was great.
Skallagrim
Banned
Experimenting with prose for this TL. I might have gone a little overboard with some of the details.
No, it's extremely interesting. This timeline's version of Mexico is bound to be interesting, due to the heavy cross-cultural influencing. A lot of your details suggest the give-and-take, the evolving attitudes, the advantages as well as the resentments that this would produce. And then that promise of future developments at the end. Mixtecs as kingmakers/deciders when it comes to shaping the future of the region? (United, they could guarantee that whichever faction they throw their weight behind has the advantage.)
Deleted member 94708
If the Criollos, most of the mestizo rising middle class, and the Indios are all on the same page regarding “union with some cultural concessions”, it’s a done deal. Bombings are just the residual twitching in Mexico’s cooling corpse as body parts are removed to create Frankenstein's America.
It was really good! I want more stuff like that!Experimenting with prose for this TL. I might have gone a little overboard with some of the details.
What immediately popped into my head was a whole diverse throng of people that get harvested for parts to make a seven foot tall founding father. Benjamin Franklin! Your nonsense with the kite has gone too far this time!
His key unlocked the secrets of electricity....AND THE GATES OF HELL!!!
I have to admit, seeing Metropolis pop up as an American name for *Mexico City surprised me after seeing it pop up in Napoleon53's timeline, but between this and his work the concept of MC's Anglo name becoming that tickles me as a potential AH.com mainstay now the way "Sealion" became a thing from this site so many years ago.
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