You've probably already planned out Oswald's birth, but why not have the Kennedy family involved in crime like Al Capone OTL? Given that Joe Kennedy Senior can't go into politics like in OTL, crime and racketeering would be the only plausible route for someone with ambitions like him. As a mafia boss or whatever, they'd certainly have the resources to obtain Better vaccines on the black market and thus avoid dying to the Inferior vaccine.
"What Madness Is This?" Volume I: The Union Forever
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
To add to that, a few RU members help him out since he helps keep the Illumanti and the Beutalists down and he keeps the ghetto population in line. Eventually the family escape the ghetto during a riot using there RU contact as a resource. After they escape, the contact is killed and they settle down in a suburb; cue Oswald being Oswald.
Maybe at first he sucks up to Joe Steele until he realises that he can do better. Eventually he makes a deal with Oswald Mosley (because why not there is a picture of them together) and the two try to pull of coups against there respective leaders. But the coups are destroyed by Hoover in the RU and MacDonald and Fleming in the BU.
--//--
Also @Napoleon53 I've got a good name for a sinister British surveillance apparatus, National Intelligence.
I'll answer posts when I get home but I found this gem on my lunch break:
https://nypost.com/2019/04/02/russian-candy-bars-have-disturbing-secret-ingredient-blood/
https://nypost.com/2019/04/02/russian-candy-bars-have-disturbing-secret-ingredient-blood/
Please, its cow's blood, haven't you ever eaten black pudding? I mean its definitely weird but I don't see it as being relevant to a fascist hellscape.
Also, I don't trust that tabloid.
I don't really care about the legitimacy of the story, I just like the concept. As an American who has never even met someone who has tried black pudding, it's pretty darn weird. Just a little bit of further inspiration for all the weird products of the Madnessverse.
Even if they don’t use blood in their candy, I can see someone in the Madnessverse slandering their competitors by saying the competitions candy is contaminated with Inferior Blood while their own products contain only Precious Fluid boosting vitamins and chemicals for better Betters blood
Still at work but I just developed a new idea courtesy of Sunstone here. The explanation for all the weird crap they put in food and drink is to "boost their Pinnacle levels of fluid." It all makes zany sense now. When they start dumping stuff into the water supplies as well, I could really have fun with that idea. And it would continue one of the running themes of the TL where OTL gov't conspiracies are actually true while giving it a reason beyond just making a good story.
This is alarmingly similar to what I have planned. Lol
This is alarmingly similar to what I have planned. Lol
@Napoleon53, Now I have a humorous suggestion for a head of propaganda or some other such role for the late Steele/ early Oswald years or before, it's everyone's favourite American folk singing, protesting, communist, social activist Pete Seeger. He's of Puritan, Calvinist, Germanic origin and he comes from New York so right in the RU wheelhouse, maybe he could be part of the weird strasseresque far left of RU politics (maybe the descendants of a RU political movement started by Jack London, who whilst being a Socialist was also a rascist). Eventually Pete Seeger is "blacklisted" and forced to flee to Europe.
Mainly I thought I would suggestion him since having an evil Pete Seeger who still composes songs like "We Shall Overcome" and promotes things like Unions to be quite funny;
Mainly I thought I would suggestion him since having an evil Pete Seeger who still composes songs like "We Shall Overcome" and promotes things like Unions to be quite funny;
You're welcome! A lot of Madnessverse advertising is probably similar to "Guinness is actually good for you" turned up to 12. I was also just thinking that with the power of corporations and the Economic Clan system, a lot of discoveries and reforms around health, food, and pharmaceuticals that occurred in OTL would probably be very easily quashed and suppressed by the like of Goodyear and Sweet Victory. Even if they believe in Pinnacle Fluid or not, money and the status quo are pretty good motivations all on their own for strangling research into the destructive effects of cocaine and the like.
Side note, I found this totally by accident, but family sized beers feel strangely appropriate for Madness. Photoshop over the harp and the Dublin part and you've got your next big hit for Republica Beer
I mean the Council is up to it's eyeballs in peyote so I assume they don't much mind, absinthe excluded.
I always wondered why the hated Absinthe so much in the original? maybe here they loved it?
I'm not surprised, actually. I remember reading WMiT 1.0 and finding it odd that JFK's parents were no-mark factory workers, happy to be living in squalor and working as wage slaves.
On that note, if the entire Kennedy family is to be involved in crime, there's an opportunity to use the rest of the Kennedy siblings (Robert, Ted, Eunice, etc.) in the story, instead of having them be murdered by their older brother like back in 1.0.
Two executives from the Sweet Victory Soda Company respond to customer complaints (1914 colorized)
So I've just found about Uchiyama Gudō, a Buddhist Priest (part of the Sōtō Zen sect) and Anarcho-Socialist activist and Girō Seno’o who was also a Buddisht Priest (part of the Nichiren sect) and a Marxist (an OTL Marxist obviously) both would fit in well as Japanese Revolutionaries and become martyrs for a political ideologue that mixes Buddhism, Socialism, Anarchism and eventually Eduisism and becomes the movement that is practised or tried to be implemented in Tibet, Nepal, certain parts of China and possibly Korea. Japan freaking out and Russia and Tsar Viktor looking nervously on as these groups start to become popular.
Maybe they ally with Eduist Brazil and we have a people's Lama and Pope joining together to battle the forces of Fascism and Nationalist Monarchists. I don't have a name for this movement.
Maybe they ally with Eduist Brazil and we have a people's Lama and Pope joining together to battle the forces of Fascism and Nationalist Monarchists. I don't have a name for this movement.
THE SHADOWS OF STATE
THE SHADOWS OF STATE:
THE STORY OF GEORGE DEWEY, PLAN ZEPHYR, AND THE SECRET STRUGGLES OF 1914
1914 propaganda poster depicting young Joe Steele
THE STORY OF GEORGE DEWEY, PLAN ZEPHYR, AND THE SECRET STRUGGLES OF 1914
1914 propaganda poster depicting young Joe Steele
When Joe Steele took power over the Republican Union in 1914, it was the culmination of years of planning, plotting, and maneuvering. His true father-figure Supreme Chief Dewey and mother-figure Supreme Chief Matilda Richardson had long detested both Thomas Custer and his daughter Margie, and they greatly feared an America ruled by "a weakling or the pampered spawn of a weakling." Thomas was only head of RUMP, or even in the government at all, because he was George's brother. Their younger brother Boston had retired from politics in 1900 to manage a ranch in Redemption. Joe Steele was never meant to be President. He was a trophy-son so Custer could send him to fight for his name and honor, fully expecting he could be killed in combat. Custer rarely ever even spoke to his own adopted son, leaving him with abusive tutors like the Blind Christian Gentleman. From early on, Joe Steele hated his father and the rest of his adopted family. When he had to threaten and cajole his uncle and kidnap his cousin during his 1914 shadow revolution, he thought nothing of it. To Steele, who much preferred his military pseudonym to "Michael Custer," power was power, and that was the only thing which made him truly happy. From very early on, Joe knew that one day his father would die, and that day would be the grand triumphal ascendancy to power he always dreamed of.
Unknown to all but the highest-ranking officials in the Union, President Custer had actually been dead since the summer of 1912. Having been a life-long chain-smoker always ready to pop a Morton's Finest (or ten) out of his pocket - an understandable trait for one with so much daily stress - Custer had shown symptoms of lung cancer for a long time. When Dewey advised him to leave for Point Overlook to avoid catching the Beckie Flu, the ORRA Supreme Chief knew full well that Custer was on Death's door. Day after day, night after night came the bloody mucus and sludge, the last gasps of a man whose once strong and healthy lungs were now withered black husks. Custer knew he was dying. But in order to keep the war effort strong and morale high, he agreed to hide any evidence of his illness. On July 4, 1912, Custer collapsed in his bathroom in his Point Overlook Presidential Suite. Dr. Thaddeus Ryan, his personal physician, found the body sprawled next to the commode, urine and blood covering the floor from the President's final release. A phonograph disc of Yankee Doodle was stuck on a loop of static, the last note playing over and over eerily until Dr. Ryan shut the machine off.
Almost immediately, Dewey was at the scene, ordering his guards to remain outside the room. As he sipped a small glass of brandy from Custer's personal cabinet in the suite, he stood over the body and raised a toast. "Hail Caesar! Triumphal leader of a New Rome!" the ORRA chief declared in a theatrical voice as he watched the rays of light from the bathroom mirror light refract through the crystal drinking glass. Then, quite unceremoniously, he dumped the contents of the glass on the corpse's face, plastering the famous whispy handlebar mustache over the thin purple lips. "A libation for a Pinnacle Man, you old windbag!" he muttered as he rolled the corpse over onto its stomach so he didn't have to look at it. Now was the time, Dewey knew. Now was the time to move.
Since the early days of the Third American Revolution, Dewey had served loyally with the Manifest Destiny Party and had even been a member of Father Abe's Second Sons of Liberty long before the MDP was even thought up. Dewey had also been in military service since 1854 and had served in the Great American War, participating in McClellan's invasion of New Orleans (known by the Union as "New Antioch" after the war). Born in the former Green Mountain Republic of Vermont, Dewey had faced bullying and mockery for his birthplace from other Yankees at both the Philadelphia Military Academy and while serving in the Army. But through his prowess in battle and terrific leadership skills, George quickly rose through the ranks and was a major by 1864. Following the era known later as the "Interim Presidencies" (those who served as President between Lincoln and Custer), Dewey had soured on the Republican Union government and viewed it as a disgrace to the memory of Lincoln. When Custer showed up on the scene and created the MDP, Dewey became Party Member 191 and an early radical supporter.
However, Dewey was very peculiar, as he was privately a deist. He seems to have held all the same core drives and beliefs as any other MDP radical, but in actuality he was a believer in the Darwinist Strong Man Theory. Rather than be motivated by Church dogma, he merely believed that a strong and capable leader was necessary to attain true and lasting societal harmony and wealth. In Custer he saw everything he had hoped for and Dewey was right by the new President's side when they rode into Philadelphia in 1881 during the Third American Revolution. Dewey was appointed Supreme Chief of the Office of Racial and Religious Affairs due to his complete and total loyalty to making America "pure." During these early days of Custer's rule, Dewey did end up seeing the Church as a useful tool to control the populace but remained a closeted deist. In the 1882 Constitution he was named first in the order of succession to the Presidency, serving not only as ORRA Supreme Chief but effectively also as what had been known as a "Vice President" in earlier years. As the number two man in the Union for the next few decades, he would leave a huge impact and would form ORRA into the devastating war and intelligence machine it would grow to be.
But his faith in Custer weakened over time. For the first few years, Dewey saw Custer as a brilliant strategic and political Strong Man, leading with an iron hand. Custer had always spoke of his disdain and hatred for politicking and backroom deals and all the corruption related to the slimy political machines of years past. Custer's government was organized as a streamlined and barebones - yet powerful - core group of Supreme Chiefs and their staffs. But as time went on, Custer became more and more under control of the Church and, slowly but surely, the government became a morass of disparate political entities and infighting offices, all sprawled out over their massive empire. Dewey had been one of the masterminds behind the Immolation of Mexico and the seizure of the Panama Canal zone. When Metropolis was built upon the ancient ruins of Old Mexico City, Dewey used this a perfect time to experiment with creating a city easily and quickly accessible by his army of spies and agents and he greatly helped Custer centralize his authority.
Upon the death of Reverend-Colonel Edward Everett in 1893, Dewey pushed for Custer to finally exert more power over the AFC Church and let the shadowy Council of Jehovah know that they may be in authority over the Church, but the President was over everything. Dewey viewed Edward Everett as a shadow-president and viewed the Council of Jehovah as a bunch of drug-addled country clubbers who forced President Custer to do their bidding. Over time, the ORRA Supreme Chief came to see the Church leadership as a threat to the Strong Man movement. Custer, by this point overwhelmed with the day-to-day management of a booming economy and almost doubled national territory, did not want to seek out a conflict with the Church by this point. Indeed, when Everett died Dewey pushed for Custer to also take up the mantle of Reverend-Colonel, definitely a notch above his current title of "Defender of the Faith." However, Custer warned Dewey that such a move could trigger a civil war, one which the country would most likely not survive.
Another huge source of conflict between Custer and his number two man was the fact that Custer was actually quite devout in belief in the Church and legitimately viewed himself as the founder of a coming New Jerusalem. He told Dewey that:
"I am in a position to be remembered for a hell of a long time as a successful and accomplished leader, maybe one of the greatest of all time. I may one day stand in the same league as Father Abraham and the Prophet. But, unlike Father Abe, I wish to live out my days and die in my bed. I will not risk everything this country has fought for for almost a century due to my friend recommending I topple the oldest currently existing office in the land, the Reverend-Colonel, simply to soothe my ego that I am absolute in every way."
To Supreme Chief Dewey this was the beginning of the end of their lengthy friendship. To the scheming ORRA commander, Custer now seemed weak and totally under the control of the Church. When Dwight Moody was named Reverend-Colonel to succeed Everett, Dewey knew the opportunity Custer going for one last drive at absolute power had come and went. Moody was by no means tyrannical or even very charismatic, but he was a capable leader for the AFC Church and he most certainly would not surrender his power to the President. This point was further proven by the treatment Custer received from Church officials, where they viewed him almost as nothing in comparison to the Prophet and Reverend-Colonel.
Dewey found himself very curious about the up-and-coming Wilhelm Sonntag, known as "Bible Billy" Sunday by Church acolytes. He was Moody's number two and he was clearly in line to eventually become Reverend-Colonel himself. The smooth-talking son of German immigrants was handsome, charismatic, and power-hungry, and Dewey feared that, in a post-Custer era, Sunday would become the real leader of the nation, while the Presidency, presumably under Thomas or Margie Custer, would wind up a mere joke in comparison. Dewey even briefly considered an assassination of Custer, his own old friend, to take power himself before Sunday could replace Moody. But this draws to the next very important point on Dewey's life story: he did not wish to become President. He actually viewed himself as inadequate and far too old to actually lead the Union into the next era. If he assassinated Custer and became President, what good would it do him if he himself died of old age within a few years possibly? Instead, he began searching for the next true Strong Man to lead the country. He would find this in the battle-hardened Joe Steele.
Their friendship at first was more business than true camaraderie, with Dewey inviting the President's adopted son to luncheons at this personal estate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, just to get to know the young man more for political intelligence purposes. Over time, however, Dewey felt out Joe's true feelings toward his neglectful family and hatred of the Church leadership, such as his personal vendetta against his former private tutor, the Blind Christian Gentleman Mr. Tobias, and realized that the next Strong Man might have been right in front of him all along. Joe was always upset that Custer rarely had dealings with him and never even talked to him about one day becoming a powerful man in his own right. All the while, Steele felt as if he would never equal his father's fame or success because Custer never even attempted to teach him statecraft. This period, from around 1900 to 1910, was really when Dewey became a surrogate father for Joe. He also exposed Joe to influence from Public Works Supreme Chief Matilda Richardson, the only co-conspirator in Dewey's plot to assassinate Custer and take power for himself. Upon Richardson's first meeting with Steele, she told Dewey:
"My lands, when I looked into his eyes I could see the lion inside. If anyone needs to be the next President, it's him, not some political creature of Philadelphia. We need a breath of fresh air. I think Joe could do quite nicely."
During this same time, Moody was in ill-health. He passed away in 1909 of heart failure. Dewey sighed and was immensely frustrated, as Steele was by no means yet ready to seize power. They needed more time to prepare him and lay the groundwork for his rise. When Bible Billy became head of the Church, Dewey feared his plans might come crashing down after all, dust in the wind of a new era of an imperial Reverend-Colonelship. Sunday was wildly popular with the elite and the people, and his theatrical exorcisms on stage and flamboyant attitude made him known the world over. He was also extremely competent and manipulative, always ready to make others do what he needed done. While in years past, especially during Moody's rule, the Council of Jehovah had been the real policy-making machine and the Reverend-Colonel but a mouthpiece, Sunday reversed that as part of his "New Era of Christianity." He wanted to call the shots, and if the Council wouldn't get behind him he wouldn't get behind them. While in the end the Council ended up cooperating with Sunday, fearing his removal or death could mean an internal civil war in the Church and national instability, this infighting also gave Dewey the precious time he needed to get Steele fully started on the path to the Presidency.
Thanks to Dewey's brainwashing over the past decade, Steele was now finally convinced that he was the "Man of Steel," a Strong Man ready to rule over the country and lead it into a new century of expansion and victory. The Church would have to get out of the way of the future administration or find itself on the receiving end of ORRA raids against its leadership and the unmasking of the Council of Jehovah. As war broke out in Europe in 1911 and Custer's cancer became apparent, Dewey began "Plan Zephyr." Zephyr was the code-name for an ORRA operation from late 1911 to early 1912 which saw a vast majority of ORRA swear loyalty to a future President Steele. Dozens of officers declared that they would never allow a weakling like Thomas Custer to become President. Despite the Constitutional guarantee of Thomas becoming the highest official in the land, most of ORRA's leadership wanted nothing to do with him, seeing him as a weak and elderly man who would lead the country into chaos and defeat. In Steele, already a war hero thanks to his time in Holy Nippon, they saw greatness. Despite his own family's attempts to overshadow him and leave him out of things, Joe was actually one of the most popular men in the country simply from his own personal charisma and popularity. When the Great World War began and Joe set out for the Californian Black Hand Front in his personal aeroship, he and Patton in Quebec also became the role-model for most of the Union armed forces, securing his place as idol to millions. His campaigns through the Kingdom of California were brutal and bloody, but he never lost a battle. Every advance was hard-won and bitter to the end, but the American Army would eventually triumph. When he ordered the death of every Chinaman and Mexican who resisted deportation to labor camps, he acquired his nicknames "Butcher of the Plains" and "Icepick Joe," both used, ironically, with affection by RU forces. He acquired the "Icepick" name by his personal execution of a Californian general who had refused surrender with, well, an icepick.
One matter historians could debate infinitely was whether George Custer ever actually feared his own adopted spawn. There is a possibility that he, like his brother Thomas, saw him as an illegitimate threat to their family dynasty and that George only had adopted him so he could play up his angle of "fatherly old man" all while not caring if he ever spent time with said son or if that son was killed in battle. However, it truly seems as if George just basically ignored Joe and didn't even really consider him in any way into the grand plans. He fully anticipated Dewey or Thomas to succeed him and never seemed to consider the idea of Joe holding significant power a real option. He likely expected him to one day become an under-chief of some office or other, or perhaps a high-ranking MDP member, but nothing more. This was a huge mistake. Although, to be fair, no one, not even Dewey or Richardson, could have known the monster that was brooding in the political closet. No one could have had any idea what a President Steele could be capable of.
When Custer passed that fateful day in 1912, Dewey and his inner circle immediately shut down entry into Point Overlook in the name of "preventing the spread of contagion." Dewey would tell Richardson, in a letter dated July 19, 1912:
"The old goat is dead. He's actually gone. Such a shame that a man once so noble and strong could become a sickened and weak puppet of the Church. I have not mourned him. The man I knew many years ago, the man who led our March on Philadelphia, was already dead in the spirit, a cuckold of the Council. We need to move ahead with Zephyr immediately. No one in or out of Overlook. Steele needs to win his battles in California and, if we intend on winning or at least finishing this war as one country, no one can know the President is dead. We will have weekly speeches by talkiebox. I'm sure one of his doubles would be 'happy' to oblige us or find out his job just became obsolete. We've used speech doubles before because of his cancer and no one questioned it. We also need written press interviews. We need to make sure the people think Custer is managing this war or morale will plummet with an old fart like Tom Custer in charge and Steele out festering in the Sierra Nevada."
When Steele received word that his father had passed, he knew his time was coming. Now, with Dewey managing the war in Custer's name, Reverend-Colonel Sunday remained the only major obstacle in his path to total absolute power over the Union. And, thanks to some helpful ORRA spies and surveillance, they began to sniff out Sunday's one weakness: Women. Over the last several years of his rule as Reverend-Colonel, Sunday had put on a show of his total purity and dedication to Jehovah. As God's mouthpiece, he was virtually sinless. The most popular Reverend-Colonel since Burr, America was enthralled by him. And Steele and Dewey certainly recognized this as the huge threat to his power that it was. But, in the Republican Union of the 20th Century, there was no one without sin. Somewhere, deep down and tucked away in the corners of the most private part of people's lives was something that ORRA could find. ORRA agents began a massive operation known as "Plan Judas." Their only goal was to find dirt on Sunday and use it to thwart a potential power-grab from the Church. Indeed, while it may seem strange at first that ORRA was scared of the Church, the Church also operated a huge private defense force of "Zealots" and also used hired private mercenaries. If Sunday moved to take power, he could potentially dissolve ORRA and replace it with Church security forces. This is the main reason why so many ORRA officers and commanders swore loyalty to Steele. They knew a secret war was coming, and they knew they wouldn't be allowed to live if they lost.
In the late months of 1913, rumors began to circulate within the highest levels of the Church that President Custer might actually be dead. No one had seen him in over a year. The Church did not wish to undermine the war effort either, and so kept this intelligence to itself, but Sunday began to plot a potential power-grab if it turned out to be true. With the war against Europa winding down as the Central Powers left the war, the Council of Jehovah began advising Sunday to prepare himself for "God's call to action." For weeks, the Council meditated and entranced themselves, speaking to the Other Side and asking for guidance. Supposedly, Brother Wolf, the then-highest-ranking Councilman, received word from the spectre of Father Abe that Custer was indeed dead. Sunday ordered his private security forces to ready themselves for potential "national calamity." While the everyday Zealot thought of this as warning about the mutating Beckie Flu virus, it was in reality preparation for an overthrow. With so much of the Army and Navy invested in occupying Canada, Quebec, Greenland, and California, not to mention dozens of former Europan islands across the Pacific, and a growing revolutionary threat in Holy Nippon, the Zealots were one of the most powerful armed groups in the American heartland and perfectly positioned to take over. Many important Union officials were, effectively, "knighted" by the Church as Servants ("Sers") of Christ, and with that honor came a personal handful of Church-paid Zealot bodyguards. If Sunday had a yearnin' for a purgin', he could order those same Zealots to turn on those who did not support him and do away with dozens if not hundreds of potential enemies this way in one night, slitting their throats in their beds. This concept was one of the reasons why Steele hated Zealots and kept his own private security detail which he named the "Wolf Pack."
As California collapsed, Icepick Joe knew the time was drawing nigh. He seized power and announced that he would succeed his father, flagrantly violating the 1881 Constitution. Originally, Sunday held talks with Thomas Custer for the Zealots and RUMP to fight together against ORRA and Steele's loyalists. However, the kidnapping of Margie Custer destroyed that plan completely, leaving Thomas and RUMP solidly under Steele's finger and under close watch by spies to make sure their loyalty remained. Joe wanted to order Thomas to retire so he could appoint a new head of RUMP, but knew he needed his uncle's endorsement to legitimize his power. While several movements against his new administration were growing, such as Headmaster-Marshal Roosevelt's Bull Moose Movement, Sunday remained by far the greatest threat.
The assassination of Teddy Roosevelt supposedly "amused" Steele. Roosevelt, ever the theatrical, had actually staged his own assassination attempt, with the first gunmen, whose bullet allegedly caught in his folded-up speech inside his jacket, a plant from the Bull Moose Movement. That same day, however, Steele had dispatched one of his Wolf Pack assassins to kill the insurrectionist. The first bullet, from the pistol, was a blank, intended to make Roosevelt seem almost superhuman. However, when Hoover blew his brains all over the platform, that was very much not staged.
This left Sunday incredibly worried that his chance to take power was slipping away. He warned the Council:
"Within a week he'll have every single one of his enemies blown to smithereens, by golly. We probably need to move against him publicly, and promptly, or there will be no stopping him. He just had his rival openly killed in front of a huge crowd. What else is he capable of?"
Sunday would soon find out. Dewey, in a conversation with Steele on February 24, just a few days away from the Cleansing Month and four days after Roosevelt's death, told him:
"Joe, we live in a nasty, godforsaken world. It's kill or be killed. There isn't anything in this world for free. Everyone has to fight, tooth and nail, to get what they want, every day, every week, every year. That's what built this country. America is a ravenous predator, the most dominant in the world now that Old Boney has been brought down a notch. And we are surrounded by bumbling, incompetent chicanery and soft-spined left-wing agitators and bloodsucking holy-rollers. The vast majority of people are dumb, ignorant, slothful buffoons who can barely screw in a lightbulb or shoe a horse. But there are some of us, a chosen few, who are fortunate enough to be born into circumstances to put the world's ship back on course. God has nothing to do with it. Greatness is not found in a so-called God but by the strength of your fluids and blood and the fire in your belly to strive, strive, strive every day, as soon as you wake up and before you go to bed. Every generation, there is a Strong Man who appears to lead this country in the right direction and correct the previous generation's mistakes. It is natural selection, as Comrade-Patriots Darwin and Horatio Gibbs wrote about. Your father made a crucial mistake by letting the power of the Church grow so infinitely that here we now stand on the precipice of total civil war. We have dealt with your cousin and uncle. They know their places. Now Sunday is coming. We both know what he is capable of. The time is now. We live in a world of shit. A bubbling morass of death, despair, and destruction where only the fittest survive. Do it, Joe. Do what you were born to do. This is your chance. Destroy your enemies. Show no mercy. If you learn one thing from me, one at all, let it be this: do whatever you have to defeat your enemies and trust no one. The world is yours to dominate, Joe. Carpe Diem."
As Icepick Joe reviewed the ORRA reports on Sunday's personal habits, he knew he truly was seizing the moment. When the call arrived in Sunday's office on March 1, the beginning of the Cleansing Month, asking Sunday to meet Steele in Martha's Vineyard for a sit-down, Sunday gladly accepted. He figured Steele was now about to ask for the approval of the Church, or at least something along those lines. Sunday even considered the idea of letting Steele remain in office as long as he bowed to Church policy. But that was not what was going to happen. Steele now held all the cards, and Sunday was walking into a hornet's nest....
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Ugh, guys, I can't even tell you how much fun that chapter was to write. Not too bad for two hours work while I do laundry at my dad's. lol This latest update is EXACTLY what I have been anticipating writing since I rebooted this TL in September. Manipulative, disgusting, magnificent bastards backstabbing each other every second of the way in their quests for power is my very favorite thing to write. Death of Stalin meets Game of Thrones meets 1984 in a Star-Spangled universe of madness. This TL is about to get real crazy, real quick.
Also, we're almost at 300,000 reads!!! How cool is that, y'all?!
Also, we're almost at 300,000 reads!!! How cool is that, y'all?!
It's like House of Cards if everyone was a zealous, racist asshole. Hell the only thing Joe's missing is his own Claire Underwood.