The Fountainhead Filibuster: Tales from Objectivist Katanga
- Thread starter Linkwerk
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Your timeline, as you hopefully know already, is majorly popular and people even outside of AH.com are talking about it and it pops up in podcasts and peoples blogs and all that sort of thing all the time. It is probably the most (or at least one of the most) mainstream written pieces ever to come of/from AH.com, at least in my opinion from what I've seen said about it and where.
Its definitly a piece of propaganda and also very heavy handed with all this "soviet-backed Kongo-goverment"-crap. But it has some true parts. The UN-forces was definitly the Goliath to Katangas David, numerical superior and better armed. Still they got their ass kicked at their first attempt to conquer Katanga,mostly because they were not really very competend. By the second time they rather ruthless used the big stick to get Katanga under controll. So in the end the image of the UN, even with the martyrdom of her General-Secretary, wasn´t the best as they left the Kongo in OTL. So I have some problems, how we will get ITTL the image of the heroic UN-Hammershields. The Objektivist will have to be 100-times more nasty then the Katanga-goverment, but at the same time competent enough to stay a dangerous opponent for a far more superior UN-force. Even so I wonder if there isn´t later the legend of the noble objectivist "lost cause", crushed by the UN-bullies.
You know, looking at the podcast and the reviews this has got, that's really resonated with me. I'm so flattered that this TL has gained such attention. It's what motivated me to blow off all day writing!
Early 1965, Galtville, Kolwezi Special Economic Zone, Katanga Autonomous Region
The Choctaw's rotors didn't so much spin down as they ground at each other, rumbling to a slow stop as the weight of the helicopter sagged onto Galtville International Airport's tarmac. The fleet of ungainly birds floated to the ground, medics running out of the hangars, lashing the native stretcher-bearers with invective- vite vite- as the ragged, fear-greasy men of Dagny detachment clambered out of the big American helicopters.
The K-car's Portugese pilot gingerly lifted off his helmet, ran a shaking, gloved hand through his thick black hair, and lit a joint. Bob Denard thought about chewing him out. Fuck it. He absentmindedly kicked at a 20mm shell casing on the troop compartment's floor. It spun out, skidding through the bloodstain on the deck and falling to the tarmac with a hollow rattle. After pulling us out of that LZ he can shoot up in the cockpit for all I care. Suddenly realizing his parachute harness was digging into his thighs, Denard lifted himself out of his canvas seat, picking up his FAL and hobbling out of the helicopter in the now-deafening quiet. Somebody in the background was yelling for morphine as the medics reached the G-cars. Quelle shitshow. The Franco-English-Afrikaans pigdin of the International Brigade couldn't begin to describe it.
Contact contact call for fireforce.
Boots together out the door.
Yank.
Recoiless stuck in a tree. Farcical.
Contact my callsign
Check greater than my callsign.
Roll in north-to-south boys. We have got the napalm run, and they do not.
No joy boss.
Scandinavian Shadowboxing. Slow movers have to take this one.
Contrails.
Playing chicken with a bright white Saab.
Hugging the scub. Waiting. Magazines getting lighter.
MG team on our flank.
No fair.
Reds shouldn't be any good at this.
The Texan's wing just folding up.
It goes into the treeline.
That's kind of like
A napalm run
Waiting.
LZ's hot boss.
Well you won't have to worry about overloading your G-cars
Anymore.
“Sir? Sir?”
Denard looked up. He had been off, somewhere else, staring.
A jeep was in front of him. Two men, Uzis and potbellies that strange camouflage full of tiny squares. Shareholder Militia. One's jacket was open, revealing a pentagram pendant and lacerations from god-knows-what.
I guess Lavey's boys do leave the pleasure dome from time-to-time.
“Sorry, gentlemen- can I help you?”
“The Leader sent us here to pick you up. She's calling a Status Meeting back in town. She wants you there. Computers finally gave Boy Wonder the quarterly numbers.”
Denard gives a polite smile and nod. His mother raised him to have manners, dammit.
He is struck by the sudden urge to get back into the helicopter. At least when you were fucked out there in the bush nobody could delude themselves otherwise.
“Do you want a little time to get cleaned up, Bob?”
“No, no, I'm sure this is important.”
The parachute rig he jumped in digs into his thighs and he thinks he sprained his ankle but he knows that his fear-sweat soaked tiger stripes are quite the social asset.
She loves this action-man bullshit.
Denard half-seriously considers putting on an eyepatch. They said that Ragnar detachment actually had a couple. A chuckle fades when he remembers that, in that sleek conference room, absurdity is no longer something which can be recognized, much less laughed at.
So I will look like your cartoon war hero. But war heroes never tell you that you're doomed in your books, do they Ayn?
He climbs into the jeep and they drive down the flightline, past the fireforce which is already re-grouping. Denard feels a surge of pride. Past the C-46's and the dwindling number of flyable Pulquis and growing number of parts hulks and past the Sikorsky G-cars and K-cars with their fig leaf of Conglese army markings. Past the sweeping stainless steel, never-as-full-as-they-wanted international terminal, past the bright colors of the one or two parked airliners. South African Airways. El Al. Atlas Air. Air Rhodesia. Brussels once a week, but not today.
They turn out, passing outside of the new triple chain link fence with the razor wire. (What's the saying? Slip a CPLF sapper team into my airport last rainy season and blow up half my close-support aircraft, shame on you, do it twice......) and past the Katangan Gendarmes, slumped against their guard booth, eyes red from ganja.
On the highway to town. Past the burnt-out ruins of that ridiculous Levittown – Individual Acres- Denard remembered the scenes there. Blood soaking in the hip, thick green carpet now a sponge. Those young rich kids, idealists from some Boston college, sprawled out in their poodle skirt and sweater. Their young son, his skull axed in by their own maid. Perfect suburbia. Open to all who could afford. He remembered the cell leader, standing there, chin held defiantly up on the manicured, perfect little lawn. He remembered the Hi-Power bucking in his hand again and again as he walked down the line of kneeling black figures.
Full time maids and gardeners and nannies and whores. Part-time Reds. Or was it the other way around?
The farms closer in were left. The ones close to the highway. Those remained with their fences and guards. He could tell even from the road which ones where Rhodesian-owned. Pleasant little English cottages with thick brick walls and slit windows. The guards there were always Shona, the fields lusher.
They passed those ridiculous billboards Branden had insisted on putting up.
“We're not here to dispense charity- we're not colonialsts here to “help”- but we can educate!”
What did he call it? Self-Esteem. The billboards were his big idea. Madison avenue art. Brilliantly lit. A black man standing on a mountaintop- You can achieve!. Dynamic carved onyx figures leaping upwards like superman.- You're good enough to make it in the Kolwezi Special Economic Zone!. Smiling happy-go-lucky construction workers. Pickaninnies building the Jetsons. Every individual has value!.
They passed the Gendarme patrols. Advertisements. White Horse – Come down smooth! Fabrique Nationale – The right arm of the free world should be in your home today! Katangan Gold Dollars- The REAL golden rule! The Pleasure Dome- Now more white girls! Straight from Paris! The mines. The speckled, heterogenous filth of the Opportunity Villages.
The Leader glowered down from the sign above a distribution point. BE MUNDANE OR BE A MAN CHARITY IS A CHOICE. The mothers waiting just beyond the line, faces taught, holding their scarecrow children. The last choice they would ever get to make. Two cups of cornmeal for your freedom. Be a man or be mundane.
They left the highway into Galtville proper. The Opportunity Villages faded. Galtville started. Smooth roads. New buildings. Streetlights. The lampposts had gained new additions in recent months. They swung there softly for days, placards around their necks. RED they said, or MOOCHER, or more bluntly, NIGGER.
The Shareholders Militia boys had been busy. A whole crop of new recruits- pardon, volunteers- concerned citizens who felt that places like Montgomery and Selma perhaps were changing into something which longer warranted their concern.
The jeep pulled into a shareholder parking spot in the town square. The engine was turned off. Quiet. With a muttered thanks, Denard climbed out of the jeep, and with his FAL instinctively at his side, walked towards the imposing (for Galtville) neon-bedecked art deco tower which dominated the square. The militiamen saluted him. He didn't return the favor. Yeah maybe if you were real soldiers.
Denard hadn't been downtown in weeks. It had gotten worse. A few small groups of whites- at least half of them in bits of Shareholder Militia uniform- walked in nervous clusters, chatting under their breath. Some shops had put up chicken-wire over their windows. The Pleasure Dome had even bricked up it's orgy window with cinder blocks. One of the girls had got hold of a grenade somehow a month or so back and had got it inside. The dome was members-only now.
A young white woman in a sweeping, floppy Chanel summer hat and white gloves walked out of a tailor's shop, her Sten slung over her back.
Sundresses and submachineguns.
He passed under the shadow of the giant Atlas statue. Text wrapped around the globe.
THE WORLD IS YOURS
Denard took a deep breath, opened the door, and walked into the lobby.
The air conditioning hit him, a cool blast rushing out of the gleaming building. That wasn't why he shivered.
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Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Nice update. Looks like things are starting to fall apart, but haven't reached that point yet.
Is it just me, or was the description of Galtville more chilling then Berlin, 1933 must've been like?
Shit just hit the fan.
The use of euphemisms by Rand and her possee is beyond nuts. Once Galtville falls, I won't be surprised if someone starts godwining Rand and co. at an international court for war crimes.
BTW, were the Rhodesian references - including the helicopter codenames - sped up intentionally ? Is there enough of a justification for them in the mid 60s ?
The use of euphemisms by Rand and her possee is beyond nuts. Once Galtville falls, I won't be surprised if someone starts godwining Rand and co. at an international court for war crimes.
BTW, were the Rhodesian references - including the helicopter codenames - sped up intentionally ? Is there enough of a justification for them in the mid 60s ?
Of course, that assumes Rand and company aren't just lined up against a wall, or manage to escape before the country completely falls...
God I love this timeline.
I wonder if a young Frederick Forsyth is somewhere around filing stories and running guns?
I wonder if a young Frederick Forsyth is somewhere around filing stories and running guns?
The Rhodesian references are intentional, and I am aware of the timeline difference. The relationship between Katanga and Rhodesia will be explored. Let's just say that for a number of reasons fireforce gets developed about a decade earlier than OTL. (Also this way all the cool H-34 gunship variants the French cooked up in Algeria can be used as burly, first generation K-cars).
Great update, love to see the development, or rather the decay, of Galtville in action.
I womder how their joke of a military will fare against the Hammershields (sorry UN Peacekeeping Forces).
Don't expect the Objectivists to be a walkover. They have to be enough of a threat for the 'Hammershields' to be heroes for fighting successfully against them, and if they can attract and keep enough people like Bob Denard then they could be a real handful. In OTL the mercenaries, massively outnumbered and outgunned, did far better than anyone would have expected.
Now if Im right, White Horse is Heroin, Crystal Lites are Meth, and Oppurtunity villages are slums. Correct me if Im wrong here.
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