Probably going to be late November gang, I'm helping my folks with a home remodel and dealing with a family medical drama. In the meantime happy to answer any questions!
The King in Yellow and Other Stories: A President Lovecraft Weird Fiction Timeline in Several Acts
- Thread starter Born in the USSA
- Start date
Extra- Structure of the World State
It's not my promised epilogue but I had a few free minutes and promised this one awhile ago so here it is! Despite filling a role analogous to the modern United Nations, the World State was a far more ambitious project designed to create a true federal global government from its inception, something seen in its far more democratic structure. Although the World State has broad discretion in international peacekeeping, intercontinental trade, space exploration and environmental and cultural preservation, member states have full internal autonomy except in violations of those purviews or documented acts of unsanctioned war, ethnocide or other high crimes. The World State and its major organs are located in the planned city of Remembrance built atop the thoroughly decontaminated ruins of Versailles*. Functionally a bicameral legislature overseeing an executive branch and accountable to a judicial one, the World State is divided into four major partitions:
*Chosen both for its symbolic value as well as relative proximity to the heartland of all three power blocs. The centerpiece of the city is the Statue of Remembrance, a colossal female figure in a phrygian cap with a fasces held aloft in one hand and a trigonist shield in the other.
**Each state is guaranteed at least one and decides how to elect its own Assembly members (the US syncs it with the House of Representatives, for example), though the electoral districts are drawn by the AI governing the UES to insure electoral impartiality.
***The World State's actual executive organs. Permanent bureaucracies subject to investigations by the Assembly or the Senate, the heads of the agencies are appointed by the Triumvirate with the approval of the General Assembly.
- The General Assembly is the largest of the four, pegged to the cube root of the global population and popularly elected by the member states**. All proposed legislation originates here and passes or fails on a simple majority vote.
- After passage in the Assembly, each piece of legislation moves to the Senate, a legal construct standing in for the three global power blocs. Within each alliance each member is allocated one vote, conveyed by the individual heads of state through appointed representatives. The Senate likewise passes legislation by simple majority.
- Final approval then rests with the Triumvirate, an executive made up of the three internally-elected heads of the alliances and bound to vote in line with their members except in certain extraordinary circumstances. If the Triumvirate passes a measure by simple majority it falls to the "specialized agencies"*** to enact it in concert with the legislatures and executive organs of the member states. The Triumvirate also serves as the collective commander in chief of the Pax, the World State peacekeeping forces.
- The High Court represents the highest judicial authority and is responsible for violations of international law. Made up of sixty members, each caucus in the Senate is allowed to select twenty on the recommendation of their respective Triumvir for fixed ten-year terms. The High Court lacks the power of judicial review, with any areas of confusion kicked back to the Assembly for amendment or revision.
- Ireland, Cyprus and the Papal State have only one nonvoting representative each in the Assembly (the last voluntarily, the first two by statute) and as nations outside the three alliances no vote whatsoever in the Senate.
- Though the UES likewise has no Senate representation it does have proportional representation in the Assembly, with its representatives selected by sortition and tending to abstain from votes.
- Another set of special cases is the so-called Golden Triangle, made up of Canada, the Azanian Union and Persia. Since all three have full membership in two alliances (Pact/AfD, AfD/Comintern and Comintern/Pact, respectively) they are allowed to allocate their Senate vote to one alliance or the other on any given issue but never to vote twice.
*Chosen both for its symbolic value as well as relative proximity to the heartland of all three power blocs. The centerpiece of the city is the Statue of Remembrance, a colossal female figure in a phrygian cap with a fasces held aloft in one hand and a trigonist shield in the other.
**Each state is guaranteed at least one and decides how to elect its own Assembly members (the US syncs it with the House of Representatives, for example), though the electoral districts are drawn by the AI governing the UES to insure electoral impartiality.
***The World State's actual executive organs. Permanent bureaucracies subject to investigations by the Assembly or the Senate, the heads of the agencies are appointed by the Triumvirate with the approval of the General Assembly.
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So I was wondering two things.
First, I was rereading some posts earlier and I was wondering how the Universal Dividend worked. Specifically I know it was based on the freigeld of the Comintern and so each monthly payment loses value the following month to incentivize spending it and not hoarding it. So I was wondering how that works specifically for the Dividend. Does the amount reset each month, so regardless of the money left in at the end of the previous month you start the next with the same amount, or does each month's money decrease by a certain percentage or fixed amount each month after so technically you can roll over so e money but it still depletes quickly?
Second, considering their uniquely shared situation having dual memberships in two of the three global power blocs, and collectively all three between them, do the countries of the Golden Triangle have any special relationship with each other?
First, I was rereading some posts earlier and I was wondering how the Universal Dividend worked. Specifically I know it was based on the freigeld of the Comintern and so each monthly payment loses value the following month to incentivize spending it and not hoarding it. So I was wondering how that works specifically for the Dividend. Does the amount reset each month, so regardless of the money left in at the end of the previous month you start the next with the same amount, or does each month's money decrease by a certain percentage or fixed amount each month after so technically you can roll over so e money but it still depletes quickly?
Second, considering their uniquely shared situation having dual memberships in two of the three global power blocs, and collectively all three between them, do the countries of the Golden Triangle have any special relationship with each other?
Since everything's managed electronically money can roll over month to month but it decays at a set rate once it hits the bank accounts, so it discourages hoarding. The actual amount given each month is set as part of the Federal budget and varies year to year but there are automatic mechanisms in place to temporarily adjust the amount upwards based on inflation metrics.
They do, since they serve as unofficial ambassadors between the blocs and it does them well to cooperate to smooth things over between them, especially since their shared ability to choose how to allocate their votes in the Senate could theoretically allow them to swing a Triumvir's vote on legislation.
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That's amazing. I really love the idea that Canada, Persia, and the Azanian Union have this strategic and influential position in the world that's much bigger than their sizes would indicate on the surface. Plus I'm imagining conspiracy kooks thinking the world is secretly controlled by this Canadian/Persian/Azanian cabal who are the real masters of the world and it's supremely amusing to me.
Thankfully most votes are nowhere near close enough to get majority Senate support without two of the three Triumvirs locked in to assent to them. There is a conspiracy theory that the Uzumaki's AI* is subtly manipulating the redistricting process to shape World State policy but the theory kind of falls apart when anyone asks what goal it would be trying to achieve, since they're basically left alone to explore their new Rational Anarchist system anyway.
*Her name is Tomie
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I remember that the Philippines takes the cultural place of Japan in the US in this timeline. But I'm thinking that now the Japanese Empire is no more and Uzumaki has taken it's place there's almost certainly been a major renaissance of art and story in the country and there's a good chance that's going to be eagerly enjoyed by the rest of the world including the US. Considering that Korea is a part of it I'm fittingly reminded of how Korean media has had something of an explosion in popularity relatively recently OTL. At least recent compared to Japanese media's popularity.
Also of course that's her name 😂. I absolutely love all the pulp/horror Easter eggs in this timeline. It's one of the many things that make this timeline one of the best in the site.
Media coming out of the Uzumaki is catching on in the avant-garde set, since its moral and economic systems idealize a lot of experimentation and radical self-expression.
富江 translates to "wealthy/fortunate bay" when broken into its parts, so it's fitting given the nation's geography, though the conspiracies latch on to the homophone term derived from Greek ("I cut/maim/butcher/sacrifice", best seen in modern form in the word "anatomy").
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Sorry I've been away from this, aside from holiday stuff and family drama I've been setting up a new permanent job in my field so I've been making sure everything is just so. Once I get settled I'll do the epilogue for this TL, I plan to use the isolation of my new job to write my novel and I'll do the promised addendums to this TL when time permits. Thank you all for your patience! I appreciate you all.
I still feel bad when I can't keep up with my TLs 😂 as always the floor is open for general questions.
Thanks to @Kruglyasheo for nominating the TL for the Turtledoves! Still in need of a second if anybody'd like to oblige!
I think @Kruglyasheo is already that second, meaning that King in Yellow has been officially nominated!
Oh Jesus Christ 😂 sorry things have been really stressful at home and I'm a little drained, must be way more tired than I thought 🤔
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Finally went through and renamed the Black Legion to avoid confusion with the Rational Anarchist-aligned one. Their new name is the Minutemen. I'll get deeper into it when I eventually do the Civil War addendum but in my new analysis, the original secessionist Minutemen group sets up chapters throughout the south and evolves into an SS-style paramilitary and anti-Unionist force aligned with the Confederate government, with the end of the war seeing many former members go on to found the first Klan before being suppressed. The second Klan arises as normal and undergoes a split, with the divergent faction dusting off the Minutemen name.
Minutemen (Missouri Secessionist Paramilitaries) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Settling in to my new job pretty well so far! I've got a few AH irons in the fire but once I've got those sorted I'll get to work on The Emerald Tablet!
The Emerald Tablet: A Martian Odyssey Epilogue
-"Where we're going we wont need Eyes to see..."
Even before the Final Victory the Pact, Comintern and Indian Union had been pulling the shape of the postwar world from the ether. The World State was the only possible vehicle that could maintain the peace between the superpowers that the victors knew would be a necessity to face the challenges of the coming days. After the immolation of Versailles treaties would be signed, occupation zones reforged into Mandates, and the hard work of environmental reconstruction and the complete and total purging of Vitalists begun. Victory in the Third Clash would bring Lovecraft the Younger a second term, the first since Washington without any even token opposition, and it would be her leadership that would lay the groundwork for the brave new world that was dawning along with the valiant efforts of General Secretary Pelevin and Indian elder statesman Salman Rushdie.
The primary issue was Mosley's Bane*. Quite aside from the massive amount of infrastructure damage and a refugee crisis unlike any the world had ever seen, the greatest legacy of the headless butcher was the mass poisoning of large swaths of the world's land and waters. It was a final act of spite, one meant to ensure that even in victory the surviving powers would be burdened with a collection of blasted, poisoned dependencies, the final punishment on the subject peoples of the Empire for their weakness and disloyalty. One issue with the Bane was the inconsistent pace** of decomposition— some sites would be completely clear in a matter of months while others would remain contaminated for years on end. It was theorized by the greatest minds of the New World Order that the formula had been adjusted continuously throughout the Clash, though unfortunately the immolation of Versailles destroyed crucial research that could clarify the issue. While a regimen of galantamine and atropine could be administered in most cases of residual poisoning (with the unfortunately serious potential for complications and side effects), even the massive surge in health infrastructure and production could not fully meet demand, and cases of spontaneous death from accidental exposure or contaminated food would continue for decades.
The first years in the aftermath of the Clash would be concerned with these questions of sheer survival. The deliberate destruction of transnational information barriers would be the first to pay dividends, with new techno- and bio- systems of environmental remediation, carbon capture and food production on a mass scale. Systems of solar and hydrothermal power pioneered in the Pact began to spread as the Comintern's edge in nuclear reactor designs was gifted freely to what would have been their deadly enemy mere decades ago. The massive population transfers sparked by the war would lead to pioneering work constructing arcologies in the reformed AfD, and all these developments would combine to meet the needs of the inevitable population boom that followed later in the century.
-Funding during the Barron administration would allow the Orion prototype to eventually become the basis of the WSS Trismegistus.
Despite serious calls to remove the term limits provision of the 21st Amendment Lovecraft would politely quell any attempts to actually start the process in the Congress, arguing to her legions of followers that the risk of a future tyrant should always be a serious consideration. She would endorse her own Vice President to succeed her, with Laird Barron winning the 2028 election, the first president from the new state of Alaska. The two terms of the Barron Administration would see a general shift to looking toward the inevitable post-reconstruction future, a latter day Howard in a world at peace. He would be a full-throated advocate for the World State programs for lunar and Antarctic colonization, with the new territories of Selene and Byrdia founded during his term in office. Domestically he continued his predecessor's programs revitalizing the nation's infrastructure, energy and healthcare systems, and when the Rational Anarchists were able to capture the Chicago mayorality and a supermajority of the city council he happily gave his blessing when Chicagoland petitioned the National Unity Congress to become a Federal District. The new District of Point du Sable was named after the "Founder of Chicago", Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a French trapper of African descent who became the first non-indigenous settler of the region. Inspired by developments in the UEA, the government of Chicago, D.P., would be the first area outside of the Uzumaki to incorporate fully artificial intelligence into its governing structure, with the new Altgeld system becoming de-facto mayor in conjunction with the democratically-elected District Council.
Internationally the Lovecraft and Barron administrations would be marked with profound changes in the Providence Pact and broader international landscape. Lovecraft herself would disband the (now) Six Eyes within the alliance, arguing that the reunification of Indochina into the Southeast Asian Republic (SEAR) and the inevitable fusion of the Caribbean Confederation and the former Dominion in the West Indies made having two layers of membership unnecessary in the new world system. In Africa the African Union was surging as Comintern and Alliance forces were able to arrange an equitable power sharing arrangement in the former South Africa and Rhodesia, heralding the birth of the Azanian Union. European stability was finally achieved with the creation of the Kalmar and Danubian Unions, while the former Oceania would be admitted into the Pact as the United Commonwealth of Australasia, though SEAR observers would remain in the country for another generation to ensure complete Regression.
Although the United States had enjoyed an unprecedented period of Independence dominance in the Congress since the Graeber presidency, by the time of the 2036 election the National Unity Government forged by the latter Lovecraft had peacefully dissolved. Jane Esperanza was an interesting choice for a presidential candidate. She had been born the Territory of American Honduras under the old Dominion government, but the Supreme Court had declared that those citizens "in good standing" at the time of annexation would be considered eligible under the precedent first created at the original founding of the country. Her bonafides were clear enough— she had a well-documented history of pro-Pact sabotage to her name during the Clash and was a fully accredited lawyer in the Territory with broad public support. Perhaps the relative newness of Barron's own state had prepared the ground of public opinion for even a territorial citizen to become president? Despite concerns of some observers the transfer of power was equitable by all accounts, with President Esperanza able to pass her domestic goals of a second Grand Compromise and a 26th Amendment with broad bipartisan and independent support.
The Second Grand Compromise would add a slew of stars to the flag, with New York City admitted as the new Independence-leaning District of Emporia to achieve senatorial balance with the broadly-Populist Belize and rapidly-growing Selene and Byrdia admitted as Districts under governments dominated by the new technocratic Futurist*** Party. Following the lengthy decontamination of the Capitol the majority of the functions of government would be concentrated in the newly-constructed White Tower, a veritable fortress of democratic republican governance where several massive examples of the new sixty star flag would be hung on July 4th, 2043, an ebullient celebration of twenty years of truly global peace.
Section 1. The Executive Power shall be vested in the President of the United States, and in the Cabinet, consisting of the heads of the Executive Departments as defined by law. The Secretaries of the Cabinet shall be elected by the House of Representatives without debate on the proposal of the President. The person who receives the majority vote of the House shall be appointed by the President.
Section 2. The Secretaries of the Cabinet may be dismissed by the President with just cause, provided in writing to the Speaker of the House, or by a successful majority vote undertaken by the whole House demanding their removal. The House shall immediately vote to select their successors and the President must appoint the same.
Section 3. Sitting Representatives may serve concurrently as Secretaries in the Cabinet.
- The Twenty-Sixth Amendment
-Five of the latest generation of Void Steeds would become crucial to the Trismegistus mission.
At its heart a variant of the American Orion design made much larger than terrestrially feasible by the more forgiving lunar gravity, Trismegistus would use the deadliest weapon ever devised in the service of peace and international brotherhood. Supplies and crucial resources had already been sent ahead over the previous decade with the aid of HECATE's mass drivers, allowing more space on the kilometer-long leviathan to be devoted to crew and colonists, live soil and other components too delicate to be shot out of a giant cannon. The crew was primarily derived from the Pact and Comintern nations owing to their more mature space programs but it was decided that the civilian population would be drawn from the best and brightest of the world entire, with no barrier to race or nationality. Tests were administered, selection began, and by the time the great ship was ready for the proposed launch date of January 1, 2045, each of the ten thousand slots in what was to be the first wave of colonists was filled. The entire world watched, enraptured, as the Trismegistus set out on its long journey.
The use of nuclear propulsion promised high thrust and fuel efficiency at the same time, considered absolutely essential given the massive population the craft was tasked with ferrying. The colonization target was selected for the high likelihood of subsurface ice and necessary minerals, and the Trismegistus was able to finish construction of the first Martian Space Elevator by May Day. With the ferrying of supplies and personnel to the new Anchorhead colony no longer bound by the hull capacity of the Void Steeds the pace of construction and settlement could be rapidly accelerated to meet the needs of the anticipated Orions even now being built on Luna. As the flag of the World State flew over the red planet and the first of the ice-towing drones completed the sunward burns, the Earth looked on with wonder, the horrors of the past finally behind as humanity stood hand in hand walking forward into a brighter future.
*Novichok
**Studies are inconclusive OTL, it either persists indefinitely or decomposes completely within four months, so I'm splitting the difference.
***The Futurists are fundamentally meritocratic and less concerned with cultural matters, combining Trigonist councilism, Fascist technocracy and Rational Anarchist AI in a drive to pave the way to the glorious future.