You did see Elvis a while ago having a career a bit different than IOTL. As for Hillary Rodham, her life is on a slightly different trajectory and the odds are high that she never meets Bill Clinton at Yale.
Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
ferdi254
Banned
Folks you misunderstand how women „needed to be put into their right place in 1949“
Look at some series of the 60s to 90s in the USA. Three angels for Charlie anyone?
And look at all other movies like Top Gun.
Discrimination of women was so ingrained into every culture until today! I
Look at some series of the 60s to 90s in the USA. Three angels for Charlie anyone?
And look at all other movies like Top Gun.
Discrimination of women was so ingrained into every culture until today! I
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altamiro
Banned
Beyond laws being in the BGB you need to look at how often they were enforced and which other laws they contradicted at the same time. There are laws in England allowing to shoot Welshmen or something similar, does not mean that you can go to Cardiff and kill some people.
Only within the walls of the City of Chester, after dark, with a bow and arrow. You never could just walk into Cardiff and start legally killing Welshmen as an Englishman.
altamiro
Banned
Sword or battleaxe are not a legal option, even in Chester after dark, I gather? They probably didn't want to deal with the mess afterwards...
Part 114, Chapter 1888
Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Eighty-Eight
5th November 1968
Moscow, Russia
“The simple fact is that I didn’t die” Gia said defensively, “There is nothing more to it than that.”
“I am sorry Alexandra, but it is starting to appear that that this matter is anything but simple” The Assistant of the Patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia said in reply, which was the last thing that Gia wanted to hear. Alexy, the Patriarch himself was sleeping in his chair next to the fire burning in the tile stove that heated the room, snoring away as one of his hearing aids fed back shrilly in his ear. At ninety years of age, Gia found it astonishing that Alexy was still alive.
“To you perhaps” Gia said, “For me this is just more attention of the sort that I don’t need.”
For some unfathomable reason, the RCMP had decided to reexamine the events of New Year’s Day, 1941 and a box containing the clothes that Gia had been wearing had come to light. A news story which had run in Canada had included several photographs and those had raised several questions. People had seen the blue wool dress that was covered with brown stains from Gia’s blood and had a ragged cut across it that had been necessitated by it being frozen to her body. Then the subject of the timeline had come up, the massacre had occurred late in the morning, almost lunchtime. They had not found Gia on the side of the road until just after dark, hours later. How exactly had a critically injured twelve-year-old girl, who was not dressed for the weather, survived during that time as she had in temperatures well below freezing? At the same time, an expert had suggested that the injury should have caused her to bleed out in minutes, yet it hadn’t. They had described not only her survival, but her eventual full recovery as nothing short of miraculous. Gia really wished that they had used different words. The people who wanted to see Gia as a living saint had taken that as validation.
“I was discussing this matter with his Grace the other day…” The Assistant started to say, and he saw the incredulous look on Gia’s face. “His mind is still sharp, even as his body has started to fail him.”
Gia thought that was a bit of an understatement. If it weren’t for the snoring, she might have assumed that Alexy was dead and mummified with the Bishops’ Council of Moscow propping him up for some inexplicable reason. Alexy was nearly blind and almost completely deaf. He spent most winter days in this very room dozing by the fire. Gia would be shocked if all the Bishops weren’t individually sneaking in here to measure the drapes for when they might assume the Office of the Prelate themselves. It was his Assistant who stage-managed the Patriarch, keeping things running smoothly though Alexy himself seemed to have already checked out long ago. His heart, lungs, and medulla continued to function, only out of long habit if Gia had to guess.
“As I was saying” The Assistant said, “His Grace understands the odd position you are in. He also understands how you have become a beacon of hope for many in these trying times, a champion for the poor and destitute against powerful interests in Siberia and here in Moscow.”
This was one of those times when Gia wished that Aunt Marcella were here to sum up a thorny issue with one cutting remark. That sounded like public relations spin. Mostly because it was. Gia had told Church Officials the truth about her charitable giving plenty of times, how it had not ever been because of the goodness of her heart. Instead, it was because she feared another revolution and buying off the “Proletariat” as it were seemed like a means of survival if push ever came to shove. She had been largely ignored, mostly because doing the right thing for the wrong reasons didn’t fit with the narrative that had grown up around her. Gia suspected that it was because they had actually preferred the innocent child who they had thought had been killed by the Soviets as opposed to the flawed adult who had emerged from hiding years later. They weren’t about to admit that they had made a mistake when they had declared her a “Passion Barer” of the Church at this late date.
“There is a logical reason for all of this” Gia said, “The experts said that I was suffering from hypothermia and the wounds froze keeping me from bleeding out entirely while the blood loss somehow kept the cold from hurting me long enough to be found.”
Gia could remember getting shot and stumbling through the forest, in had seemed like an eternity passed until she had collapsed just outside the town. She hadn’t done anything special other than not die at that moment when by every reasonable expectation she should have. Alexy’s Assistant frowned at Gia taking that line and was about to say something else when Alexy started chuckling. They had thought that he was sound asleep.
“Sane people have doubts, it is part of being sane in an insane world” Alexy said, his words nearly incomprehensible, “You sit here in the warmth of this room and describe your own improbable survival where everything came together in the most unlikely manner possible. Perhaps it was all just a coincidence, but look at who you choose to discuss this matter with?”
Alexy shrugged and gave her a toothless grin. It was said that when he had been younger the Cheka had kicked his teeth in and all of Gia’s problems suddenly seemed trite.
5th November 1968
Moscow, Russia
“The simple fact is that I didn’t die” Gia said defensively, “There is nothing more to it than that.”
“I am sorry Alexandra, but it is starting to appear that that this matter is anything but simple” The Assistant of the Patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia said in reply, which was the last thing that Gia wanted to hear. Alexy, the Patriarch himself was sleeping in his chair next to the fire burning in the tile stove that heated the room, snoring away as one of his hearing aids fed back shrilly in his ear. At ninety years of age, Gia found it astonishing that Alexy was still alive.
“To you perhaps” Gia said, “For me this is just more attention of the sort that I don’t need.”
For some unfathomable reason, the RCMP had decided to reexamine the events of New Year’s Day, 1941 and a box containing the clothes that Gia had been wearing had come to light. A news story which had run in Canada had included several photographs and those had raised several questions. People had seen the blue wool dress that was covered with brown stains from Gia’s blood and had a ragged cut across it that had been necessitated by it being frozen to her body. Then the subject of the timeline had come up, the massacre had occurred late in the morning, almost lunchtime. They had not found Gia on the side of the road until just after dark, hours later. How exactly had a critically injured twelve-year-old girl, who was not dressed for the weather, survived during that time as she had in temperatures well below freezing? At the same time, an expert had suggested that the injury should have caused her to bleed out in minutes, yet it hadn’t. They had described not only her survival, but her eventual full recovery as nothing short of miraculous. Gia really wished that they had used different words. The people who wanted to see Gia as a living saint had taken that as validation.
“I was discussing this matter with his Grace the other day…” The Assistant started to say, and he saw the incredulous look on Gia’s face. “His mind is still sharp, even as his body has started to fail him.”
Gia thought that was a bit of an understatement. If it weren’t for the snoring, she might have assumed that Alexy was dead and mummified with the Bishops’ Council of Moscow propping him up for some inexplicable reason. Alexy was nearly blind and almost completely deaf. He spent most winter days in this very room dozing by the fire. Gia would be shocked if all the Bishops weren’t individually sneaking in here to measure the drapes for when they might assume the Office of the Prelate themselves. It was his Assistant who stage-managed the Patriarch, keeping things running smoothly though Alexy himself seemed to have already checked out long ago. His heart, lungs, and medulla continued to function, only out of long habit if Gia had to guess.
“As I was saying” The Assistant said, “His Grace understands the odd position you are in. He also understands how you have become a beacon of hope for many in these trying times, a champion for the poor and destitute against powerful interests in Siberia and here in Moscow.”
This was one of those times when Gia wished that Aunt Marcella were here to sum up a thorny issue with one cutting remark. That sounded like public relations spin. Mostly because it was. Gia had told Church Officials the truth about her charitable giving plenty of times, how it had not ever been because of the goodness of her heart. Instead, it was because she feared another revolution and buying off the “Proletariat” as it were seemed like a means of survival if push ever came to shove. She had been largely ignored, mostly because doing the right thing for the wrong reasons didn’t fit with the narrative that had grown up around her. Gia suspected that it was because they had actually preferred the innocent child who they had thought had been killed by the Soviets as opposed to the flawed adult who had emerged from hiding years later. They weren’t about to admit that they had made a mistake when they had declared her a “Passion Barer” of the Church at this late date.
“There is a logical reason for all of this” Gia said, “The experts said that I was suffering from hypothermia and the wounds froze keeping me from bleeding out entirely while the blood loss somehow kept the cold from hurting me long enough to be found.”
Gia could remember getting shot and stumbling through the forest, in had seemed like an eternity passed until she had collapsed just outside the town. She hadn’t done anything special other than not die at that moment when by every reasonable expectation she should have. Alexy’s Assistant frowned at Gia taking that line and was about to say something else when Alexy started chuckling. They had thought that he was sound asleep.
“Sane people have doubts, it is part of being sane in an insane world” Alexy said, his words nearly incomprehensible, “You sit here in the warmth of this room and describe your own improbable survival where everything came together in the most unlikely manner possible. Perhaps it was all just a coincidence, but look at who you choose to discuss this matter with?”
Alexy shrugged and gave her a toothless grin. It was said that when he had been younger the Cheka had kicked his teeth in and all of Gia’s problems suddenly seemed trite.
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It was a law enacted in the 12th or 13th century during the Norman conquest of North Wales, that just got left on the books and never repealed. It's not legally enforceable as later laws superceded it.
Like how the Provost of Trinity College Dublin is (so they say) still allowed by College statue to shoot Catholics.
I mean, Russia at this time is practically begging for a whole bunch of cults to pop up.
I don't want to go too deep into it, lest I wind up turning this whole thing into a discussion of cults, but Russia right now ITTL is in a period of great economic growth coupled with a generation starting to come into the forefront that are removed from the last time there was a major change in the country. In Japan and the US, and to a lesser degree the Soviet Union as it collapsed, similar conditions led to the easy propagation of such groups as Peoples Temple (no apostrophe) and The Aum Supreme Truth (or Aleph if you aren't speaking English) as well as dozens of smaller scale, but no less influential and lethal groups (Order of the Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate, Children of God and The Manson Family).
That one or more such groups could spring up in Russia ITTL, and revere Gia to a dangerous degree is not only possible, but very likely.
Bonus points if P-M includes one of the people on my short list "Worst Humans in History" into the mix with Andrei Chikatilo, provided he wasn't hopefully killed during the Soviet War.
There are cults and then there are cults. Just how they fit into the larger society is determined by that, particularly one like Russia which historically is not exactly known for religious pluralism. There are however plenty of avenues for different factions of the Orthodox Church to cause no end of trouble. Just one example; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers
Gia's survival while highly improbable was medically possible and logical given the conditions still can be view as miraculous to others.
She has the personal story about the life in exile by her family as a cautionary tale about what happens when power is abused and the people are mistreated by those in charge.
Gia with her wealth and support from the church should start thinking to use them to start an Anti-Corruption campaign and she can sell that to her cousin the Tsar as not just the right thing to but also as a pragmatic way to insulate him from any possible accusation that he is part and parcel of the corruption itself.
We are getting to the 25th Anniversary of the defeat of the Soviet Union and a "Call for National Renewal" is probably the best way to start.
The main problem with corruption in Russia seems to be with the bureaucrats who were held over from the Soviet era because they were essential at the time but now are basically stealing everything they can through bribes and kickbacks.
She has the personal story about the life in exile by her family as a cautionary tale about what happens when power is abused and the people are mistreated by those in charge.
Gia with her wealth and support from the church should start thinking to use them to start an Anti-Corruption campaign and she can sell that to her cousin the Tsar as not just the right thing to but also as a pragmatic way to insulate him from any possible accusation that he is part and parcel of the corruption itself.
We are getting to the 25th Anniversary of the defeat of the Soviet Union and a "Call for National Renewal" is probably the best way to start.
The main problem with corruption in Russia seems to be with the bureaucrats who were held over from the Soviet era because they were essential at the time but now are basically stealing everything they can through bribes and kickbacks.
When someone powerful enough wants a miracle, there WILL be one, with evidence modified to suit, or, to be more charitable, interpreted to suit, with naysayers dismissed or worse.