"What Madness Is This?" Volume I: The Union Forever
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
Now I'm picturing Patton on a slip'n'slide in his wheelchair
If you can’t handle the looping water slide you’re no true Pinnacle Man
In reality, a South American nation, Argentina, I think, famously had its military kidnap a great many children and infants and give/sell them to persons who were on good terms with the government. I don't remember the details of that, it's been years since I learned about it and it was in a Spanish class, and my Spanish is terrible. The reason I mention it is that it's relevant.
I'm using two very disparate sources for my prediction, one of which is less respectable than the other. There was an episode of South Park where Christopher Reeve served as an antagonist, collecting massive numbers of fetuses to harvest their stem cells to recover from his injuries and make himself a real-life Superman.
I have very little basis for this other than thinking "what could the Republican Union do that would restore someone's ability to walk while being immoral as all get out?" Well, they could kidnap pregnant inferior, imperfectly loyal, and even just random women, much as Argentina did decades ago, steal the fetuses from their body without permission, and harvest the stem cells for use on government agents who were injured, had genetic defects, or wished to behave as a fictionalized Reeve did as described above. Certainly, I wouldn't put that past the R.U..
In case it seems as though I am, I want to clarify that I'm not saying this to support any agenda in a backhand or roundabout way. It probably isn't a very good or well-thought out theory, but the above is my first thought and it is actually my prediction for what Project Fountain is.
Edit: Apologies, I accidentally posted this before I finished writing it.
I'm using two very disparate sources for my prediction, one of which is less respectable than the other. There was an episode of South Park where Christopher Reeve served as an antagonist, collecting massive numbers of fetuses to harvest their stem cells to recover from his injuries and make himself a real-life Superman.
I have very little basis for this other than thinking "what could the Republican Union do that would restore someone's ability to walk while being immoral as all get out?" Well, they could kidnap pregnant inferior, imperfectly loyal, and even just random women, much as Argentina did decades ago, steal the fetuses from their body without permission, and harvest the stem cells for use on government agents who were injured, had genetic defects, or wished to behave as a fictionalized Reeve did as described above. Certainly, I wouldn't put that past the R.U..
In case it seems as though I am, I want to clarify that I'm not saying this to support any agenda in a backhand or roundabout way. It probably isn't a very good or well-thought out theory, but the above is my first thought and it is actually my prediction for what Project Fountain is.
Edit: Apologies, I accidentally posted this before I finished writing it.
Last edited:
Okay, so what do we know about Patton?
- It was formed during the Cleansing Month, managing the Beckie Flu vaccine/"vaccine" program. Midas Goldstein was its first head. He had a limited ability to issue orders to ORRA personnel on matters pertaining to the program.
- Camp 222 is under their purview; they sell maruta to private companies, and can order them to reveal trade secrets to state scientists.
They have a bit of the ORRA "octopus" spirit. I'm willing to bet they're up-to-date on any leaked Europan medical projects, and have extorted secrets out of other biotech/pharma companies.
The Office of Artifacts and Antiquities is not mentioned in the table of ranks (but neither is OHW) so it's new. Europa probably wouldn't sell them anything Roman/Greek, Native American archaeology might even be suppressed, but they might have some British/Norwegian archaeological relics and there could also be heirlooms and old writings and such from the RU itself or prior phases of American society. I think there'd also be a "Holy Relics" division that coordinates closely with Lovecraft and the Tobias boys, taking in the odd Grimoire and such.
So, Patton wants to summon the powers of Magick and science for some oddball scheme that may plausibly be of benefit, including allowing him to walk again. It might not even be a polio vaccine, that would help others but it wouldn't help Patton himself... or Oswald for that matter.
...I got nothing. Maybe it's mecha-suits. Nothing fancy, just an electrical-stimulation thing that lets Patton twitch and spasm his way back into walking again.
EDIT: Totally unrelated, but reading the LSD post has me thinking... if they can brainwash people, might they use that in WW2? Brainwash civilians living in the occupied zones over like 2-3 months and send them running right into enemy lines?
Looks like he's a bit of a dreamer, he's willing to follow up on anything that has any chance of being useful or just interesting. So Fountain doesn't have to be something with an obvious military (nukes) or medical (polio vaccine), which does make it harder to guess.
OHW has been mentioned before:
- It was formed during the Cleansing Month, managing the Beckie Flu vaccine/"vaccine" program. Midas Goldstein was its first head. He had a limited ability to issue orders to ORRA personnel on matters pertaining to the program.
- Camp 222 is under their purview; they sell maruta to private companies, and can order them to reveal trade secrets to state scientists.
They have a bit of the ORRA "octopus" spirit. I'm willing to bet they're up-to-date on any leaked Europan medical projects, and have extorted secrets out of other biotech/pharma companies.
The Office of Artifacts and Antiquities is not mentioned in the table of ranks (but neither is OHW) so it's new. Europa probably wouldn't sell them anything Roman/Greek, Native American archaeology might even be suppressed, but they might have some British/Norwegian archaeological relics and there could also be heirlooms and old writings and such from the RU itself or prior phases of American society. I think there'd also be a "Holy Relics" division that coordinates closely with Lovecraft and the Tobias boys, taking in the odd Grimoire and such.
So, Patton wants to summon the powers of Magick and science for some oddball scheme that may plausibly be of benefit, including allowing him to walk again. It might not even be a polio vaccine, that would help others but it wouldn't help Patton himself... or Oswald for that matter.
...I got nothing. Maybe it's mecha-suits. Nothing fancy, just an electrical-stimulation thing that lets Patton twitch and spasm his way back into walking again.
EDIT: Totally unrelated, but reading the LSD post has me thinking... if they can brainwash people, might they use that in WW2? Brainwash civilians living in the occupied zones over like 2-3 months and send them running right into enemy lines?
Last edited:
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
My money is on mech suits. It wouldn't even need electrical stimulation- as long as Patton could make it move via hand controls he'd be able to walk again.
Yeah, probably. I just can't think of anything else that would let him walk again. You can't cure the kind of nerve damage polio causes, even today the best we can do is vaccinate people so they never have to deal with it. And actually, the fact that Steele calls Fountain "your dream" (implying he doesn't really care about it either way, except as an incentive for Patton) makes me think it's not really meant to do anything else.
Yeah, but other people have suggested the Fountain of Youth, even before Napo said "nobody's guessed right".
Some sort of hideous stem cell treatment? He'd just slather them all over like the Professor on Futurama
In OTL, scientists only found the existence of stem cells in the 1960s, and this only after studies with radiation. And then it took 30 years of mice studies until the derivation of human stem cells. We don't know the state of TTL's studies on radioactivity or nuclear physics, seems like most of the science we've seen so far has been bioweapons/chemical weapons. If there's been a Marie Curie, we don't know about her yet...
...unless the plan was for her to be born a few decades off schedule, and begin her career in Illuminist Poland.
More seriously though-- it's definitely off the table now, but before the Great War was there cooperation between the RU and France on education/science? Did students from either of the blocs go to each others' schools, or arrange international conferences?
Last edited:
Lol no. ‘Muricans are that hateful back then that even with a particularly incompetent Caesar greenlighting the immolation of Mexico to resume relations, they’re still salty about an 1800’s betrayal.
PROJECT FOUNTAIN: PATTON'S QUEST
PROJECT FOUNTAIN:
PATTON'S QUEST
Lucas Cranach the Elder's 1564 painting depicting the legendary and mythical Fountain of Youth
PATTON'S QUEST
Lucas Cranach the Elder's 1564 painting depicting the legendary and mythical Fountain of Youth
Project Fountain's roots go back to the turn of the 20th century, when Custer still sat the Presidential throne in Philadelphia and the world war was just a shadowy threat on the horizon. In 1900, ORRA Supreme Chief George Dewey created the Artifacts and Antiquities Unit, comprised of about 400 ORRA officers from around the country selected for their epic knowledge of history, both esoteric and scholarly, and their mission's objective was to gather artifacts from conquered cultures, the ancient Holy Land, and sacred items and mementos of the American Fundamentalist Christian Faith. The reasoning behind the creation of this new task force within ORRA was the recent discovery and pilfering of the so-called Spear of Destiny, the pike which supposedly pierced Christ's side at the Crucifixion, by the Benedict Arnold University of Boston's archaeological team. Despite its dubious backstory, the spear was enshrined at the Martyr Benedict Arnold Memorial Museum at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, alongside other antiques and relics such as the Prophet Burr's original copies of the Books of Manifest Destiny (transferred back to the First Fundamentalist Church in 1910), Roman armor from Biblical times, and a mishmash and hodgepodge of assorted trinkets deemed worthy of public exhibition.
The discovery of the Spear of Destiny and the subsequent hullabaloo about its arrival at the Martyr Arnold Memorial Museum revealed once more the power of mystical items for propaganda purposes. Wishing to see the government take a greater hand in contributing to the discovering, purchase, or capture of such items, Dewey created the ORRA Artifacts and Antiquities Unit to cover the earth and find more items of such magnitude. The new head of the AAU was Commander David Arthur Sanders, an English-born fascist who arrived in the Union as a child and worked his way up the ladder with ORRA. Sanders was on the same wave-length with Dewey, and continually located and retrieved relics and interesting artifacts to fill the national museums. Most of the items found by the AAU were simply on American soil and from the 18th and 19th centuries. Most of those items were happily sold or donated by the original owners, such as the Sword of Wolfe, the British Commander at the Battle of Quebec during the French & Indian Wars. The Sword of Wolfe was eagerly donated by the great-great-grandchildren of the Colonial rifleman who fought at the legendary battle. Other items, of more peculiar nature or origin, were significantly harder for the AAU to locate and retrieve.
Of particular interest to Sanders was the long-running myth of an ancient Pinnacle Race in South America. Builders of temples and worshipers of Jehovah, this story grew in popularity after Theodore Kirk, a well-respected pastor and historian, published his 1890 magnum opus, The Case for an Ancient Pinnacle Civilization in Mesoamerica. Kirk proposed that a "crystal skull" in his possession, allegedly found by him while on a trip to Gran Colombia, was actually an extremely technically-advanced relic of a long-gone race of Pinnacle Blood from the tip of South America. He claimed that this "Primordial Anglo-Saxon Superman" was the basis for the Atlantis myths and that they had once built an empire stretching from Peru to the tip of Florida. Kirk also said that the destruction of the Primordial Anglo-Saxons was the arrival of the "Mongoloid Steppe Savages from Asia who, in the name of their sickening Feathered Serpent false-god crossed the Bering Strait in Alyaska and who then proceeded to desecrate and miscegenate the Pinnacle Blood of the Primordials by rape and seduction." The reason for this extermination of the Primordials was the fact that they angered Jehovah by worshiping the Crystal Skulls, items of unknown origin, and He let the "servants of Satan" destroy them for their idolatry. It is highly implied that the Feathered Serpent, Satan playing dress-up, created a total of 13 skulls and used their beauty and diabolical power to lead the Primordials away from Jehovah, weakening their culture for the arrival of the Mongoloids. At the same time, the Hebrews proved themselves loyal to Him and He freed them from their bondage in Egypt. This timeline of events also stated that all of the great South American structures, such as the Pyramids of Old Mexico and the like, were actually merely Inferiors dwelling in and modifying ancient Pinnacle temples, desecrating them in the name of the Feathered Serpent. Quite simply, Kirkists said that the Native Americans, lacking even the wheel, were incapable of advanced civilization or architecture without first stealing all of their know-how from Pinnacle Men with the help of Satan, the Mesoamerican Prometheus.
Despite the fact that "Kirkism" had no solid foundation other than a pocketful of dreams and a crystal skull of dubious origin, Kirk's beliefs spread like wildfire among the American people. To them, this proved that not only was North America the New Jerusalem, but it also showed that South America once belonged to a proud race of Pinnacle Men who worshiped Jehovah and that it should once more. Like the popular Athurian myths of an ancient magickal England, far in the storied past, the Kirkist saga eventually became a tangled web of conspiracy theories and ancient myths combined into one enormous monster. CYB Headmaster-Marshal Theodore Roosevelt, before his demise, was a huge proponent of Kirkism, telling the Friday Evening Review in 1908: "Rev. Kirk's astounding tales of America's ancient past outline the precise reason why Manifest Destiny shall not stop at the Panama Canal, but shall inevitably and indubiously conquer all of this beautiful green hemisphere, a land set aside for the Chosen Race, a veritable Atlantis." Roosevelt was also particularly interested in what the AAU found out about Ponce de Leon's adventure to find the Fountain of Youth. Shortly before the Rise of Steele and Roosevelt's assassination, the AAU had begun investigating tales of a Fountain of Youth on the isle of Bimini, in the Union Bahamas. Upon Roosevelt's death and the subsequent Steele takeover, the research petered out as the AAU was ordered by Dewey and Steele to investigate other matters, as they viewed Kirkism as a nascent cult. Steele himself pondered for a brief time about purging the Kirk books utterly from the records as drivel, but other more pressing matters drew him away.
It is an obvious question, then, to ask why Steele later chose George Patton to succeed George Dewey as Supreme Chief of ORRA, a heartbeat away from the Presidency, when Patton was always interested in Kirkist tales and frequently spoke of the legends. This was due in large part to Patton's personal and vocal support for Steele, his record of always getting his missions accomplished, and also his paralysis. Being paralyzed, this meant Patton was not exactly the Strongest Man around and could never properly challenge the bulky and imposing Steele. Being bound to a wheelchair also made Patton work ten times harder to prove himself. In short, Patton was the best possible choice to become Supreme Chief of ORRA, despite his rather eclectic belief system. In all, some fifteen percent of the American population expressed belief in the Kirkist legends, and Patton was in that tiny minority.
Steele used his right-hand-man's paralysis to his constant advantage. He had Patton completely convinced that he was Steele's only friend in the whole world, empowering Patton and making him feel important, further deterring any insubordination or revolutionary thought. By the early 1930s, Patton was utterly loyal to Steele and would have marched to the ends of the earth in the name of the President. Patton orchestrated the 1927 Crackdown on the Clans and the 1931 Masonic Purges. As a reward for the tremendous success of both of these operations, as well as continued excellence for Project Percival, President Steele granted Patton a tidy sum to sink into his personal pet project, a search for the Fountain of Youth. According to Patton's research, picking up where the pre-war AAU had left off, Bimini was not actually the location of the Fountain of Youth, but it was actually all the way in Gran Colombia, at the site of the ancient Atlantis capital.
Utilizing his new funding, Patton created the Office of Artifacts and Antiquities as an expanded AAU. He bought out the American Heritage Foundation, a group of historians and researchers numbering into the thousands, as well as several other smaller private groups and merged them with the AAU to create this new OAA. OOA functioned inside ORRA like the Marine Corps did in the Navy, marginally independent but still working hand-in-hand with its parent office. Instead of a Supreme Chief, the head of the OAA was Patton's personal choice of Lavinia Dunwich, one of the most capable female officers ORRA had ever seen. Patton revealed to Dunwich that he desired to find the Fountain of Youth and that he believed it would enable him to walk again. In reality, Patton thought that if he could bathe himself in the Fountain's waters and regain the vigor of his youth, he could topple Steele and take his place as the Eternal President of America, using the magickal power of the Fountain to keep himself forever young. Steele actually knew this, and he found the idea immensely entertaining. The President was so dismissive of any such Fountain of Youth, and of Kirkism in general, that he "let Patton have his fun." As long as the Supreme Chief kept purging anti-Steele elements and kept Project Percival running smoothly, Steele cared not for his silly quests to find mythical civilizations that never existed in the first place.
This was the ticking time-bomb--the path to another war--that the Union now found itself winding up with vigor. In early 1933, Patton received word that OAA Team 77 had located underwater ruins in Lake Maracaibo, ruins which they believed could be of ancient Atlantis's capital. For months, Team 77 had been trawling the Colombian lake with submarines and using early radar for the first time to locate artifacts on the lakebed. When news of the discovery arrived to Patton he ordered Team 77 to await further aid from Teams 34, 67, and 71. Before long, several dozen ORRA ships were on the lake searching for lost treasures and any indications of the stories of the Fountain of Youth. Finding nothing of import, Patton doggedly insisted that they were on the verge of a great discovery. Commander Dunwich agreed that the area was certainly important in the quest and told Patton that a breakthrough would come at any time. In reality, Dunwich and the teams had found gold and were actively mining and panning it from the lake.
As can be imagined, Fransisco Sanchez, Chancellor of Gran Colombia, was outraged at the presence of American troops on his soil, soil supposedly guaranteed sovereignty by its membership in the Neutrality Alliance with Peru and Argentina. Furious, he ordered the Colombian Navy to close the entrance to the Lake. On August 1, 1933, Commander Dunwich awoke to the sounds of her men frantically scuttling about their ships and on their campsite on the shore. She stepped out onto the deck of her personal submarine, the R.U.S. Thompson, to find out what was going on. To the north, the lake had been blocked by large freighters. Backing up the freighters were two submarines and an assortment of old Europan warships utilized by the Colombian Navy. Scoffing at this threat, Dunwich asked the Colombian crew if they really wanted to die over this. A warning shot was fired overhead, sending Dunwich scurrying back into her sub to contact Philadelphia.
What ensued was one of the biggest disasters of all time for ORRA. ORRA's guiding principle was never surrender, so it could not be seen as weak or like they just let a tiny power push them around. However, fighting back could mean all-out war. Whatever course was taken, it would still be a terrible situation. Rather than spark a war before he was ready, however, Steele had Patton order the OAA research teams to stand down, as they were "but humble researchers, not professional warriors." The arrest of an ORRA commander and some 50-odd ORRA officers was a humiliation to which Steele was not accustomed to. When the research teams were led in chains through Bogota, Gran Colombia's capital, for the amusement of the Hispanic onlookers, Steele's absolute rage was palpable for 500 miles outside of Philadelphia. He was livid that Patton's little grail quest was causing the symbol of the American government to be embarrassed on a global scale. Newspapers from London to Delhi printed stories about ORRA officers being beaten with sticks and being pelted with fruit as they were paraded through the streets of Bogota.
Steele's current timetable for a war against the Neutrality Alliance was set to 1938. Now, years ahead of time, he was looking a conflict straight in the face. In retaliation for the arrest of the research teams, Steele had RUMP shutter the Colombian embassy in Philadelphia and arrest its staff. With almost 60 ORRA officers languishing in a South American prison, Supreme Marshal of the Army Ambrose Jansen, Supreme Chief of the Aeroforce Chuck Sutton, and Supreme Admiral of the Navy Henry Moody were asked to plan an immediate war against the Alliance. At the last moment, in exchange for the safe return of its ambassador and with Union destroyers floating off his coast, Chancellor Sanchez released the ORRA prisoners and allowed them safe passage back to America in their own ships. But public opinion was still livid over the treatment of the ORRA officers. Rallies were being held in streets from Keybeck to Oxacre demanding revenge upon Gran Colombia. The Gran Colombian ambassador was recalled to his home country and all diplomatic ties between the Union and the Neutrality Alliance were severed.
The Presidential Cabinet assured Steele that a war against the Alliance could be sped up on the timetables to 1936. While this would leave around two years to sit in shame over the capture of ORRA troops, the Cabinet said that the amount of firepower and destruction that would be brought to bear on those who dared imprison America's most elite troops would basically destroy the entire country of Gran Colombia. Steele agreed to wait.
Patton, meanwhile, worried for his life after the Fountain fiasco and feared he would be purged. Instead, Steele told him that American troops had every right to be on the Lake and that the Alliance was a bug on their windshield. Soon, Steele told him, the Union flag would fly over the bombed-out ruins of Bogota and the humiliation would be undone. The reason for sparing Patton was two-fold: Steele would not and could not find someone as controllable as Patton to helm ORRA and the American people did not hold Patton to blame at all for the capture of the ORRA personnel. Rather than hold those responsible... responsible, the American people believed all the propaganda directed their way that told the story of some college professors in some ORRA research vessels being captured and tormented by Infee Papists. Steele grinned to himself when he realized he now had the American people fully supportive of a war against the Alliance. It was coming closer to his time to once again show the world that American might and bravado would steamroll any opponent....
Last edited:
I wonder if her family ever had an odd statue in that quarry of theirs
Lake Maracaibo seems like a perfect place for ORRA lunacy, and not just for its resources. At the mouth of Lake Maracaibo, there's an interesting atmospheric phenomena known as the Beacon of Maracaibo, or Catatumbo lightning, which results in the area having the one of highest concentration of lightning strikes on record. Such concentrated lightning activity seems perfect for AFC Magick shenanigans
And here I thought that Steele truly considered Patton a friend. Well, I guess that was to be expected. Just like the lake Maracaibo incident. Steele must have known that stepping on foreign soil without even asking permission would lead to this. And now we have another war incoming. How wonderful!
Also, there's something I find a little odd. Why does Gran Colombia have an embassy in Philadelphia? Wouldn't the RU consider them 'Inferior Papists' and treat as such?
Also, there's something I find a little odd. Why does Gran Colombia have an embassy in Philadelphia? Wouldn't the RU consider them 'Inferior Papists' and treat as such?
Soul of Christ, sanctify me
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
O good Jesus, hear me
Within Thy wounds hide me
Suffer me not to be separated from Thee
From the malignant enemy defend me
In the hour of my death call me
And bid me come unto Thee
That with thy Saints I may praise Thee
Forever and ever. Amen.
***
Just a thought-- of the Nipponese nationalists who made it off the islands after the last revolt, how many would be willing to sign up for a volunteer brigade?
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
O good Jesus, hear me
Within Thy wounds hide me
Suffer me not to be separated from Thee
From the malignant enemy defend me
In the hour of my death call me
And bid me come unto Thee
That with thy Saints I may praise Thee
Forever and ever. Amen.
***
Just a thought-- of the Nipponese nationalists who made it off the islands after the last revolt, how many would be willing to sign up for a volunteer brigade?
Last edited:
For some reason i immagine that Kirk looked like this when he was explaining his theory:
By the way i am honestly surprised that the diplomatic relationship between Gran Colombia and the RU managed to last this long. I thought that after the Immolation of Mexico, South America had simply closed all of its relationships with the RU.
It is not like Patton is any better, condidering he wants to be the immortal dictator of the Republican Union