manacus
Banned
The glory of the pinnacle men cannot be stopped all hail the atheling all inferiors papists, Illumanity and Bealuists will be destroyed This post was made and approved by the ORRA gang FIFY ILLUMANITY SCUM
"What Madness Is This?" Volume I: The Union Forever
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
An American Civil War scenario in a Madness HOI4 mod would make Kaiserreich's ACW look like a Sunday picnic, lol. I'm imagining a Billy Sunday leading one faction, Steele another, and Roosevelt the Bull Moose Movement.
Very accurate, but all of those wild cars would be Inferiors. Especially since they have all tried at some point to invade and turn Europe Islamic at some point (well, except India). The Union probably sees little difference between Arabs, Persians, and Indians. "They're all mongoloid descendants of Ghenghis, and they all need to be put in their place."
Those look great!!
"WE CAN BEGIN TO MARCH TROOPS THROUGH!" *maniacal laughter and applause*
I can image an inter reality war with the America's of the original what madness is this america wins ending, the America of the what madness is this redux, an pax atomica in one camp and Worffans revere RU , Muriica's Let the equal scream and kernals12 Liberty and Justisce for all on the other and OTL in the middle
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Meanwhile I'll be playing as the Carolinas and send some peacekeepers into Virginia... and Georgia... and Maryland.... and Florida..... and Louisiana.... and Texas.....
*Forms the Confederacy of the South in Carolinian*
Also, the MacArthur's dominating Japan as hereditary Yankee Dictators was something I didn't see coming but I absolutely love it.
Goddammit, another culture bites the dust.
The good news is that Japan never annexes Korea.
The bad news is that the alternatives are much, much worse...
Absolutely fine update, Napo. MacArthur turning Holy Nippon into his own personalshogunate fiefdom in a way is something I didn't expect but should've, knowing how much you and I love ahistorical allegories.
And never in my life did I expect to see these two phrases in the same sentence. You, sir, are a God among men.
With how bad things are going in this world, I would (begrudgingly, mind you) be more willing to live anywhere in the universe of For All Time* when all is said and done here. It's so damn dark and I need to give credit where credit is due and congratulate Napoleon for being able to write something as horrifying, delicious, and blackly comedic that I probably wouldn't be able to myself, since the run-on effect would be disastrous. You're the man.
*Though if given a choice between FaT and another dystopian universe, I would choose to live in Pax Atomica's West Germany, circa the present day 2019.
The good news is that Japan never annexes Korea.
The bad news is that the alternatives are much, much worse...
Absolutely fine update, Napo. MacArthur turning Holy Nippon into his own personal
And never in my life did I expect to see these two phrases in the same sentence. You, sir, are a God among men.
With how bad things are going in this world, I would (begrudgingly, mind you) be more willing to live anywhere in the universe of For All Time* when all is said and done here. It's so damn dark and I need to give credit where credit is due and congratulate Napoleon for being able to write something as horrifying, delicious, and blackly comedic that I probably wouldn't be able to myself, since the run-on effect would be disastrous. You're the man.
*Though if given a choice between FaT and another dystopian universe, I would choose to live in Pax Atomica's West Germany, circa the present day 2019.
Nah, have this interdimensional war between the NUSA's from both Redux, Classic's second ending, and @Worffan101's Reverse!Madness as well as USA's from Decades of Darkness, Fallout, and OTL. If you want, the Domination of the Draka, 1984's Oceania, Brave New World's World State, The Anglo/American-Nazi War's Atomic Four, and various other dystopias get thrown in added fun.
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ILLUMINISM: THE QUEST FOR A NEW ORDER
"I wish to do what the heads of the ecclesiastical and secular authorities ought to have done by virtue of their offices."
- Adam Weishaupt, founder of the original Order of Illuminati
The year 1776 saw not only the birth of the Old Republic, the United States, but also saw the birth of something more mysterious in Europe. On May 1, just two months away from the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Adam Weishaupt formed the Order of the Illuminati in the Electorate of Bavaria, at its famed University of Ingolstadt. Weishaupt hated the Catholic clerical class, especially the Jesuits, and viewed state religion as a whole as something which did nothing but hold back mankind from achieving true Enlightenment. The Enlightenment Era of the 1700s directly preceded the rise of Napoleon the Great from obscurity to Empire and the birth of the Republican Union and its church. The Enlightenment was built upon the idea that mankind had much improved since the Middle Ages, and that improvement to perfection and true happiness was possible. Immanuel Kant, famed Prussian thinker, argued that the ultimate outcome of mankind would be peace and universal cooperation between all nations, or perhaps even a one-world government. However, as late Pax Napoleonic Nordreicher philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would say in his 1872 work The Birth of Our Tragedy, "Kant, for all his positive traits and genius, was, at heart, a misguided apologist for organized religion and could not see the inherent weakness and corruption it bridled society with throughout all of human history. Only Weishaupt saw the reason behind our tragedy, that being the entrenched clerical bourgeoisie and close-minded fools in Paris, Vienna, Rome, and Philadelphia." Weishaupt was himself a deist, and was uncertain on God's existence, but did not actively campaign against religious faith, but rather its meddling with matters of state, which he thought should be entirely secular.
When Weishaupt originally formed the Illuminati, it went by the name of "The Covenant of Minerva," after the Roman goddess of wisdom, equivalent to Greece's Athena. The group, at that point only about five members strong, took the Owl of Minerva up as their personal symbol. In 1778, the group at last changed their name to the Order of the Illuminati, sometimes called The Sons of the Enlightenment. By the end of that year there were 30 members with the lowest rank being, simply, "Novice." The next rank was "Servant of Minerva," and the highest and most secretive rank was "Illuminate." It was during this time that the group first attracted the attention of Freiherr Adolph Franz Ludwig Knigge, a minor noble from the Electorate of Hanover. For a time, Knigge used his personal fortune and thirst for enlightenment to spread the Illuminati across Central Europe, with one lodge being set up all the way in Russia and another organizing itself in Madrid. This Kniggeite Era of the First Order of the Illuminati saw Weishaupt's power reach its zenith, with nobles and learned men all across Europe answering to him. Supposedly, even future Vice-President and eventual Treason Trial defendant Alexander Hamilton was a member, establishing the New York Lodge of the Illuminati in 1790.
Cover of a 1788 Illuminati pamphlet
Knigge
Adam Weishaupt
However, things were going downhill back in Europe. Knigge fell out with Weishaupt when Knigge proposed a "Godless society" at a 1790 meeting of European Illuminati. He declared that the Illuminati should seize power in the Kingdom of France, now buckling under a wave of riots and revolution against King Louis XVI. Knigge declared that man could be perfected and so too could government, and he viewed France as the first locale at which an Illuminated Republic could be set up. Weishaupt, head of the Areopagus, or ruling council of the Illuminati, decried this as the fastest way to get the entire organization shut down. Weishaupt preached that violent revolution was not the way forward, but winning over hearts and minds with logic and reason was the ideal path forward. After correspondence between Illuminati were read by authorities, the then-Elector of Bavaria Karl Theodor grew worried that a revolution was building against him here in in his own nation and announced the criminalization of the Order of the Illuminati and called for the arrest of all its members. On May 1, 1791, the anniversary of the Order's foundation, Bavarian soldiers stormed the Grand Areopagus in Ingolstadt and arrested Weishaupt and twenty members, who were in the midst of a ceremonial "Cremation of Care," where they would burn symbolic items before a statue of a Minerval Owl. Accused wrongly of human sacrifice, black magic, conspiracy, and treason, Karl Theodor had the Illuminati thrown into his dungeons while he decided on their fate.
But the wave of arrests was not the end. As the Areopagus rotted in a moldy jail, Freiherr Knigge was making his escape along with his own loyal Illuminati brothers. More arrests occurred all over Europe as suspicion of revolutionary, republican, or secret organization reached its height. For two years, nothing was heard from the European Illuminati. In America, Alexander Hamilton took complete control of the brotherhood and declared himself "Grand High Minerval of the United State Illuminati" and purged the organization of non-Federalists. He would later use his secret society to propel himself and John Adams to the Presidential Mansion and it would ultimately be wiped out by Willard Crawford after his 1801 revolution. But in Europe the experiment seemed to be over. A rival secret society, the Jacobin Club, were assuming power in France and on January 21, 1793, they executed King Louis. Several months later Knigge and his followers actually traveled to France to fight in the Vendee War, an uprising against the revolutionary National Convention. Knigge and his men allied themselves with the Convention and the Jacobins, as Knigge thought they desired the same godless secular government he did. Meanwhile, to show zero toleration of revolutionary ideas, the Elector of Bavaria had the imprisoned Illuminati executed by firing squad. Weishaupt and the First Order were dead.
The future of the French Revolution greatly depressed Knigge, as it gave way to mindless bloodshed and chaos, with the revolutionaries turning on each other and the failure of the leaders to provide a stable government leading to the rise of Napoleon the Great and a rebirth of Catholic imperialism on a scale greater than ever seen before. Knigge wrote to his friend Franz Louis Adler upon Napoleon's 1804 coronation as Caesar and said, "Alas! Our plans, all our valiant efforts, have been thwarted by the Jesuit menace! Our ancient and wily foe have destroyed not only our Order, but also the best hope Europe has had at achieving true enlightenment." Fearing for their lives, Knigge and a handful of his supporters quietly moved to the Italian island of Elba in 1805 as Napoleon issued a warrant for Knigge's arrest. It would be from there that Knigge would begin work on his masterpiece, The Light Goes Out, or, the Fall of the Order of the Illuminati. In this book he described the intentions of Weishaupt, himself, and the Gran Areopagus, even through all their differences, toward building a brighter world based on the principles of the Enlightenment. He described the sorrow he felt at the demise of not only the French Republic but also the fall of the United States, "The two grand experiments of illuminated minds." Knigge, now in deep depression, lived out the rest of his days on Elba, dying in 1812 at 60 during the climax of the Grand War for the Empire.
But as history would have it, that was not the end of Knigge's legacy or that of the Illuminati's either. In the middle of the 19th century, anarchism and the followers of Meinrad Beutel became the main political faction opposing the world's status quo, be it imperialist or fascist. But this often bloody and violent terrorist movement against the powers that be was off-putting for many intellectuals who saw it as pointless and self-serving, exactly the opposite of the shared and glorious future promised by the Enlightenment. While the Enlightenment espoused separation of Church and State and freedom of the press, the Anarchists often became no better than the imperialists and fascists they sought to overthrow. Meinrad Beutel and Leonhard Troki's horrific adventures in South America in the 1830s ended with the leaders' deaths and saw anarchism, the Fifth Way, become far more radical and violent than ever before. While Beutel wished to truly bring freedom to every single man and woman, this philosophy simply could not sustain itself. Even as Beutelists took power in Brazil during the Great World War of 1911-14, it was a variant movement named Eduism under a charismatic leader, exactly the opposite of the self-governance promised by Beutel.
But as Beutelism bore the brunt of public vitriol and fear, a new movement was forming in the shadows. The legacy of the Illuminati was not forgotten. Despite its near-worldwide ban, Knigge's The Light Goes Out was wildly popular with a new movement of esoteric mystics of the later half of the Pax Napoleonica. Chief among these rabid fans was a Saxony-born philosopher and writer named Friedrich Nietzsche. Born on October 15, 1844, into a staunch Lutheran family, Friedrich was ingrained with Christian ideas from an early age and could recite many Bible verses when he was only four. Friedrich's father, Karl, died of a brain hemorrhage in 1849, however, leaving Friedrich and his mother Franziska to live in Naumburg with extended family. Eventually he moved to the Helvetic Confederation, a part of the greater Napoleonic empire, to attend the University of Basel. In 1867, he would become a professor of philosophical studies there, the youngest in the school's history. This period was the happiest in his life, but it would not last long.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A Second Great Pogrom began in nearby Bavaria in December of 1867, the second since the Hep-Hep Riots of 1818 that had forced the Marx family to flee to America. The antisemitic wave rolled over Switzerland as well, with a riot breaking out at Basel University and leading to the deaths of two Jewish students. This violence greatly depressed Nietzsche, who saw it as the fault of not only the Imperial government for not standing up for the rights of Jews as guaranteed by the Napoleonic Constitution, but also the fault of Catholicism. But nothing was done. Europeans greatly suspected Jews of allegiance with the Republican Union and also viewed them as Christ-killers. But it would not stop in just the Catholic regions. 1867-68 would see an epidemic of pogroms and persecution of Jews in response to the growing Yankee power since Lincoln had restored the South to the Union. They viewed the loss of the Southron nations as the act of a "despicable alliance between the heretical Burr-worshipers and the Christ-murderers." This greatly shook Nietzsche's formerly strong faith. He began to see religion as a cruel way for men to excuse poor treatment and abuse of one another and claim to be doing God's will in doing so.
"Why would a just God allow such madness? If there is a God, why would he sit idly by as this world is coldly descending into tyranny on a scale yet unseen in all of history? If to sate the desire for internal peace and fortitude you thirst, then believe, as the fish takes the bait in its mouth only to be killed and eaten. If you wish to be a servant of light and reason, then believe not, and live for knowledge and brotherhood with your fellow man."
- Prof. Friedrich Nietzsche to his friend August Ludwig Keller, 1870
Nietzsche would leave Basel in 1870 to travel the world for real meaning and purpose, with the intention of eventually making the world a better place. He traveled all the way to India, Nepal, and Tibet to discuss matters with the leading mystics there. While he did not believe in a God, he did believe in a spiritual realm that he claimed was proven by the seances and spirit-talks he attended in the Orient. He became a friend of Spanish mystic and "warlock" Sebastian Gonzales, who convinced Nietszche that the only way to achieve true enlightenment was to purge the mind and body of "spiritual corruption," programmed into every human since birth to believe in some faith or another. Gonzales taught that the world must be wiped clean, all the forces of man and his faiths must be overthrown for the true Superman to arrive. In a sort of reversal of the Yankee Darwinist Strongman Theory, Gonazalism said that mankind can be perfected, but not by pure bloodlines of a certain race nor by creating a Biblical kingdom, but rather by the elimination of prejudice, racism, xenophobia, and intolerance from human society. Nietzsche seized upon this idea instantly as the answer he had been looking for and moved to none other than the little island of Elba to write a treatise on his new philosophy. He had chosen the island because it was now known the "Isle of the Enlightened," and descendants and several very old members of the First Order Illuminati still made their homes there. It was there that Nietzsche finally was able to read The Light Goes Out, by Knigge, and the German noble's ideals of a fair and equal society, free from the constraints of religion, would form the other half of Nietzsche's belief system. In The Birth of Our Tragedy, Friedrich's first full-length book, he would discuss the "abortion of the Enlightenment" and the "cruel farce society has become."
Spanish mystic and warlock Sebastian Gonzales
Nietzsche Seeking Truth by John O'Hara (1900)
"Only through removal of the backward and superstitious practice known as religion can mankind achieve true enlightenment. God did not 'create' man, but rather man created God as a justification for his own instinctual need to persecute and slander one another. Man, himself, is equal to the highest deity. Man, himself, governs this world. Man alone can choose his own fate, whether to become the pompous and bloody Jesuit, the cruel and nefarious Yankee so-called Strong Man, or the enlightened and noble Superman. Every soul is divine, the only thing separating us from common swine and beasts, and every soul is a gift from the Aether, the netherworld where spirits reside both before and after death. After every man ascends to this mortal plan from the Aether at birth, he may choose his destiny. A true Superman knows that the Enlightenment's flame has been extinguished, but also is keenly aware that it may be lit again with the fire of a thousand suns, burning bright for eternity until the universe dies. Mankind can bring about a perfect new world order free from tyranny, murder, and war, and can build a future of peace, advanced technology, and social justice for all."
Friedrich Nietzsche in his masterpiece The Birth of Our Tragedy (1872)
Friedrich Nietzsche in his masterpiece The Birth of Our Tragedy (1872)
Nietzsche greatly feared a world war that would dwarf the Great Wars for the Empire. He saw the system of shifting alliances, radical regimes, and pompous bureaucracy as inevitably leading to a catastrophic future war that could end all life on earth. A popular quote attributed to him from this period was published in the Stockholm Gazetter: "I know that first world war, the Great Wars for the Empire, was fought with musket and cannon, but I fear a third world war will be fought with sticks and stones." In 1876, Nietzsche would create on Elba a small secret society that took up the mantle "Second Order of the Illuminati." They pledged themselves to the "Enlightenment of man, social justice, and an end to religious tyranny." From this humble start would come huge changes. The Second Order, unlike the First, did not publicly declare their existence but rather held it to the highest secrecy, with no official papers or records outside of a new Grand Areopagus on the island. Nietzsche's followers meditated and contemplated the universe while doing drugs such as opiates, marijuana, and absinthe, much like the Council of Jehovah in America. Most who knew of them considered them isolated quacks who would die out, but when no one was looking they spread to the Swiss Alps and opened up a second cloister there, high up in the mountains. By 1895, many Second Order cells were spreading across the world. But that years also saw Nietzsche's death by a brain hemorrhage, just like his father before him.
In Friedrich's place stepped Otto Werner, a Jewish-born Prussian mystic who was much more heavily involved in the occult than even Nietzsche. Unlike Nietzsche, who primarily concerned himself with bettering humanity and helping it avoid a catastrophic future global conflict, Werner took leadership over the Areopagus with the idea to sponsor the birth of new Second Order cells and eventually to finally accomplish Knigge's dream of armed insurrection against the status quo and overthrow the bourgeoisie. Werner was also a huge proponent of Gonzalism and he took it to its next level and said that armed revolt by the people was the only thing that could "purge the universe" of its "contaminants" and bring about the Superman. He described contaminants as being poverty, greed, bloodlust, racism, all religions, and war. Only through revolution could the governments finally be able to stop the endless cycle of religious wars and bring about the Second Enlightenment. Although most experts at the turn-of-the-century were confident and worried a global war could break out at any time, Werner said he had "consulted with the Aether" and had been informed that war was nigh. In 1905, he reformed the secret society as the "New Illuminati," dedicated to bringing about societal change and revolution as quickly as possible. He began to finance movements all over the world, including in Inferior ghettos in America. Horatio Hendrick's raid on an illegal printing press in Sandusky, Ohio, was the first time the society had been brought to the Yankee government's attention. It would not be until after the Great World War, however, that the New Illuminati would finally come into the limelight of the world stage.
Otto Werner
In the ashes of Europe, as the Hohenzollern-Wettin family barely clung to power in Germania, the family line almost wiped out by the war and New Black Death, a whisper arose among discontent veterans, the homeless, some of the well-educated, and the downtrodden. That whisper was "Revolution." Over the course of the post-GWW era, the Illuminist movement would truly begin. Well over a century since Adam Weishaupt had founded the First Order in Bavaria, a banner depicting the Minerval Owl would be raised in Berlin. Shots rang out. People fell. The Illuminists marched on....
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This may be one of my FAVORITE chapters I have ever written. It's so much fun. It's got intrigue, lunatic fringe theories, secret societies, revolutions, drugs, and Friedrich gotterdamn Nietszche. What's not to like?
you know it's dark when Imperial Japanese (a la OTL) annexation is better for Korea than any of the possibilities ITTL.
I think the Illuminati will call the All-Seeing Eye the "Third Eye," symbolizing not Providence or God but their "spiritual awareness and enlightenment" that any who follow the path of Illuminism shall find. Since the Union loves Godrays and eyes themselves, they're trying to "reclaim it" for the Enlightenment.
EDIT: EVERY MAN A GOD! BREAK THE CHAINS OF RELIGION!
EDIT: EVERY MAN A GOD! BREAK THE CHAINS OF RELIGION!
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Well, I can tell you one thing: Bloodraven and Euron Greyjoy would feel right at home in the Madnessverse.
Don’t forget Ad Astra Per Astra ‘Coalition of Western Republic’, they actually got interdenominational travel.
I'm actually going to use "Every Man a God!" As the Illuminist battlecry. That's way too esoterically funny to pass up. I actually died laughing when I first wrote it.
Worffan101
Gone Fishin'
...
Of course Madness!Nietszche would be a mild-mannered and generally decent guy who wants people to just stop murdering each other and do good.
That's kind of perfect irony.
I thought the A4 were intentionally designed to be the worst possible combination of snooty British imperialism, post-'40s American jingoistic cultural superiority complex, and overbearing patronizing moral myopia? That sure sounds like a kind of "soft" dystopia to me, especially given the horrendous casualties of the AANW.
"Peace and love, mannnnnn. Like, life is about the experience. Every man a God and every God a balanced, like, mellow chakra, my dude."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
SuperZtar64
Banned
Doesn't seem like that to me, I don't know where you're getting that impression.
In fact, I view the world of AANW as a veritable utopia. World peace spearheaded by Anglo-American cultural and military domination of the world? I mean, seriously, where do I sign up?
And if "overbearing patronizing moral myopia" means "people aren't allowed to start wars and commit genocide" then I'm 100% on board with that.
Holy hell. Never thought I would thoroughly sympathize with and agree with any alternate version of Nietzsche, but here I am. That pothead New Ager Madness!Nietzsche might have been the sanest man ITTL's history, or at least top 5. Also, the end of the chapter makes it sound like we're going to have..... Illuminati Germany? Although this is going to be militant "kill the contaminants" Illuminati stuff, not Nietzsche. Although this does beg the question:
Does Evola's ideology take over all of Europa instead of just being popular in Italy? I mean in many ways it's tailor made for Europan society. He had a big ol hard-on for aristocracies and "aristocratic ideals" OTL, which would appeal to a rigid absolute monarchy. Or Perrault could adopt Evolian ideals and overthrow the Napoleons. In which case the world would be divided between the following:
Does Evola's ideology take over all of Europa instead of just being popular in Italy? I mean in many ways it's tailor made for Europan society. He had a big ol hard-on for aristocracies and "aristocratic ideals" OTL, which would appeal to a rigid absolute monarchy. Or Perrault could adopt Evolian ideals and overthrow the Napoleons. In which case the world would be divided between the following:
- The Fascist Commu-Nazi Spiritualist Republican Union
- The Radical Anarchist-Beutelist-Eduist Brazilians
- The Mystical Eurasianist Ghengis Khan worshipping Russians
- The Militant Illuminist New Age Germans
- The Jihadist Sassanid worshipping Persians
- The Evolian Aristocratic Europan Empire
now to use every batshit 20th-century idea for the future.
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So to destroy the religion that they despise, symbolized by the Council of Jehovah, the Illuminati... becomes exactly like the Council of Jehovah...?
That kinda explains this TL in a nutshell.
Personally, I see the New Order getting most of its successes either in tiny areas devastated by war or in fallen powers where the leaders are discredited. Greece, Swedish occupied Denmark, the South German States, India...
That kinda explains this TL in a nutshell.
Personally, I see the New Order getting most of its successes either in tiny areas devastated by war or in fallen powers where the leaders are discredited. Greece, Swedish occupied Denmark, the South German States, India...
