I've said before, in a universe where TTL reaches this point, some guy in New England is driving a rusty pickup truck with a "13th ORRA Mechanized Veteran" cap, an American Flag bumper sticker that says "Heritage Not Hate" and an Evergreen sticker that says "New England's God Forever Reigns." Lmao
"What Madness Is This?" Volume II: Prophecies in the Dark
- Thread starter Napoleon53
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I've said before, in a universe where TTL reaches this point, some guy in New England is driving a rusty pickup truck with a "13th ORRA Mechanized Veteran" cap, an American Flag bumper sticker that says "Heritage Not Hate" and an Evergreen sticker that says "New England's God Forever Reigns." Lmao
That is cursed but insanely believable. Maybe it could be a ending where the Madnessverse Cold war ends in a union collapse due to internal issues or something and the NUSA successor state is much more sane and normalizes relations with the rest of the world, but things are still super fucked under the surface for reasons like this.
Booooooooooo completely banal Hank Hill NUSA for the win
I think the denialism route like what you're describing is best. Given that NUSA is supposed to be all of America's worst qualities in a blender, having them acknowledge they might have made a fucky wucky isn't in their character
"There were no massacres in Brazil. But there should have been", might be a fairly common sentiment. It seems like Steele-era Americans view the Immolation as nothing more than pest control, for example.
"Damn kids these days with their long hair and Sexual Marxism! Back in my day we stood up tall for Jev, Country and President by golly!"
I mean you can have both. For example the drug culture in the union would be insanely hard to get rid of after generations of people consuming things like Sweet Victory, so that would stay around. And normalizing relations with the rest of the world does not mean the worst aspects of Union culture go away, at all. Sure, they might be more liberalized and legally Infees might have equal rights, but that dosent mean that those same attitudes wouldn’t still exist under the surface or that Better supremacist groups wouldn’t exist. Also war crimes denial would likely still be extremely strong. Even in nations like Japan or Turkey, which are relatively normal nations now, genocide denial is still strong. For example, Japans Prime Minister until just this year was the grandson of a class A war criminal, denied that the Imperial Japanese military had forced comfort women into sexual slavery during World War II, and claimed that the Class A war criminals "are not war criminals under the laws of Japan". And I don’t think I need to talk about Turkish genocide denial. Not to mention many OTL Americans whitewashing of manifest destiny and (To a lesser extent) slavery. All of these fucked up aspects of American culture would likely still be present in a liberalized successor state, even if they are pushed under the surface and the RU/NUSA’s war crimes are quietly swept under the rug.
Would the surviving Infee population even have equal rights? I could see a Jim Crow-esque 2nd class citizenship thing for Infees. "Look buddy, as long as those Infees, er, I mean "minorities" stay in their ghettos, er, I mean "autonomous zones" I got no problem with them."
I do agree with Pinnacle supremacist groups still being active. White supremacist groups didn't suddenly disappear once blacks got equal rights IOTL.
I just think it would be more interesting to have them have equal rights but still be super discriminated against. Since the Union ATL is all the worst aspects of otl America I could see the modern day version paying lip service to equal rights well still being pretty racist under the surface, with many people being progressive in theory (and with many believing themselves to be sincerely) but still continuing it in many ways, and some being more openly such but not admitting to it, well the infees remain really disadvantaged and little changes in practice (along with pinnacle supremacist groups existing and being a big issue). It could parody many of OTL americas own problems with its minority populations after civil rights legislation in OTL.
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In earlier chapters a lot was made out of the national trauma that motivated a lot of the early union's actions and beliefs, but I'm curious, does it still influence the population/culture in the Oswald era? The conspicuous consumption and hedonism that is one of it's defining features (that we know of so far) can definitely be perceived as a nation desperately trying to compensate for or drown out the cultural memory of their earlier humiliation.
They could be trying to drown out the memory of Manifest Climax too, depending on how long and brutal it was.
I actually think that the RU falling would in some ways be worse than it moderating. Sure, you took down the huge, genocidally evil leviathan spanning the Western Hemisphere - that's great! But what arises from its remnants? Because I'll tell you this, it won't be a stable democracy. See, the issue with democracy is that it has to be recognised as a generally good or legitimate form of governance in order for it to work, and, generally, introducing it wholesale, with full voting rights for everyone, isn't a good route if you want stability. Look at Weimar - classic example of a constitutional monarchy with teeth/statocracy before WW1, given an über-democratic constitution after 1919, and look how that ended up - an utterly inept political system that fell into Hitler's lap without a fight. Populations who have been under autocratic rule - especially autocratic rule with pseudo-democratic garnishings - historically don't know how to work with the system, and get angry when it turns out the people who are running the system don't know how to do it (or, worse, are actively opposed to their choices) either, and before you know it, you might well end up with something worse than what you started with.
No, if there's any hope of the RU changing, there's only two options - A) people go full post-WWII Allied Powers on its Germany, which, logistically speaking, is a ton harder than you might think, considering it owns the better part of a continent, will end up with the coastal regions of another at this point, making the kinds of mass-bombings and systematic ideological trampling needed to uproot Custerism harder, and that's before you factor in the NUSA/RU being under this ideology in surprisingly prosperous conditions for the better part of five decades as opposed to Nazism which only had the one, or B) try and get moderates within the country to phase out Custerism/Steeleism/Pinnacleism over time.
The latter, to me, is simply the only viable option for de-Pinnacleising the RU. A sudden collapse will leave a population that associates the ideology with the good old days, expansion and increasing wealth, and almost inevitable ORRA/RU/NUSA holdouts, a takedown of the RU proper is just logistically unfeasible given their fanatically devoted population, arming of civilians, huge size and either RU or League control of nearly every harbour in the hemisphere outside Alaska, and as for mass bombing, again, superpower and much larger than WWII Germany.
Even leaving all that out, they've still got Black Bliss, and it won't be too long before they get nukes. Once they do that, well, a regime collapse would be even worse - you could get folks like good ol' "I am the Beast 666" deciding to engage in bio- or nuclear terrorism. And that's leaving out the rather horrific possibility that the 'Christian magick' shit actually works, which honestly wouldn't surprise me at this point.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's reform or bust if you don't want 9/11 only with nukes/plague on Europa/the Loomies.
And even then, keep in mind that Immolation/Climax-denialism is either gonna be widespread as a necessary fiction (since bringing it up would be career suicide) for a long-arse time or, maybe worse, people might actively celebrate it and see denialism as nonsensical - after all, it was another step to the New Jerusalem!
And I don't even want to think what the Cackalacks might get up to without the Yankees keeping an eye on 'em.
No, if there's any hope of the RU changing, there's only two options - A) people go full post-WWII Allied Powers on its Germany, which, logistically speaking, is a ton harder than you might think, considering it owns the better part of a continent, will end up with the coastal regions of another at this point, making the kinds of mass-bombings and systematic ideological trampling needed to uproot Custerism harder, and that's before you factor in the NUSA/RU being under this ideology in surprisingly prosperous conditions for the better part of five decades as opposed to Nazism which only had the one, or B) try and get moderates within the country to phase out Custerism/Steeleism/Pinnacleism over time.
The latter, to me, is simply the only viable option for de-Pinnacleising the RU. A sudden collapse will leave a population that associates the ideology with the good old days, expansion and increasing wealth, and almost inevitable ORRA/RU/NUSA holdouts, a takedown of the RU proper is just logistically unfeasible given their fanatically devoted population, arming of civilians, huge size and either RU or League control of nearly every harbour in the hemisphere outside Alaska, and as for mass bombing, again, superpower and much larger than WWII Germany.
Even leaving all that out, they've still got Black Bliss, and it won't be too long before they get nukes. Once they do that, well, a regime collapse would be even worse - you could get folks like good ol' "I am the Beast 666" deciding to engage in bio- or nuclear terrorism. And that's leaving out the rather horrific possibility that the 'Christian magick' shit actually works, which honestly wouldn't surprise me at this point.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's reform or bust if you don't want 9/11 only with nukes/plague on Europa/the Loomies.
And even then, keep in mind that Immolation/Climax-denialism is either gonna be widespread as a necessary fiction (since bringing it up would be career suicide) for a long-arse time or, maybe worse, people might actively celebrate it and see denialism as nonsensical - after all, it was another step to the New Jerusalem!
And I don't even want to think what the Cackalacks might get up to without the Yankees keeping an eye on 'em.
I really don't understand why you'd say this about the Cackalacks. They are such nice people...
Very true. If americans are already so fanatical when everything is okay, imagine how it will be in such conditions. OTL neonazi personalities like Savitri Devi came to the conclusion Hitler failed because he was "too good, too kind, too magnanimous", a conclusion I've seen coming from neonazi publications, and of course let's not forget "The Turner diaries". Now, what happens when, instead of a marginal group, we have the ruins of a continent spanning superstate, which at first sight seemed prosperous and rich, in which those ideologies were a essential part of life, considered a fact, and gave their people everything they have, something that while repugnant to think about, is undeniably if it weren't for Goodyear, the Second sons and the MDP yankees wouldn't live like they live now?
Whatever comes from that will make ISIS and Al Qaeda look like a socialdemocrat student group.
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I forgot about this.
As for the cokies, I have grimdark thoughts over cokies plans for a particularly destroyed yankeedom. A common idea among carolinians would go like this:
"Well... Now that I think... Those yankee negroes act like they want to imitate whites, what the hell those savages think they are?... And yankee women are a bunch of uppitty babylonian prostitutes... And the men don't have any worries and just throw themselves into licentiousness and sodomy! Enough of this! It's time to show them how a real empire looks, time to clean the land of degenerates and put the rest in their true place!"
Honestly, turning all of North America into "Greater Carolina" and subjugating the world in the name of Stepford-Rockwellianism would be mildly amusing in a bleak sort of way.
I have the headcannon interpretation that as time goes on and both yankee and cokie societies become more and more incompatible, without carolinians having the capacity to leave of their own will that forced relationship they become secretly hateful of the "libertine yankee babylonian oppresors" with increasing intensity.
And this pervasive sense of powerless repulsion mixes with a not so unreasonable siege meantality and insecurity issues due to their position in the world. Lots of toxicity and disfunctionality here.
Idk, having the Carolinians take over all of North America and becoming the new superpower kind of seems too similar to some of the other American dystopia stories out there considering their...more classical forms of bigotry. I'd be much more interested in seeing what emerges out of the broken ruins of the RU on its own.
It isn't an absolute takeover. It's just one of many factions among the rests doing it's own shenanigans. Nothing you wouldn't see in any other setting full of different factions.
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