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It's hard to boil this down to any specifics, because it's a varied interest and just a vibe, but something that really fascinates me is the idea of a United States around and after the Civil War period that goes really dystopian, and I think a lot of that has to do with the whole "United States as the Roman Republic" feel you can get some times from contemporary accounts and just from how things were. So there's interesting concepts in my head and interesting things going on and alternate possibilities. You have things like slavery and the possibilities for a slave state in the CSA or slave rebellions. You have a bloody civil war that could go a hundred different ways, and could involve things such as chemical warfare for christ sake. You have states seceding/seceded and many other possible states and regions seceding, and the Republic balkanizing or facing massive sedition. You have the military taking on a great importance, which could go too far and could lead to something like a coup against Lincoln and the government or in the event that Lincoln and the government face assassination and/or marshal law is declared. You have the possibility of assassinations and anti-government, anti-war mobs running wild and rioting. You have suspension of habeas corpus and war powers and the fear that the government is becoming dictatorial or could become a dictatorship. You have the possibility of foreign, European powers involving themselves in the conflict, or funding it which keeps it going. You have the possibility after the war of the Southerners not surrendering peacefully, and guerrillas molesting the Federal forces that occupy the south. And all of this against the backdrop of an America which is industrializing and spreading into the West and fighting Indian tribes and building rail roads.

Like I said, the United States of that period possibly becoming much more like Rome, with civil war and assassinations and bloody violence and political intrigue and the consolidation of powers on top of the OTL Rome-ness of expanding and having Indian natives like the Barbarians (I don't view the Indians as Barbarians, but that is the term Romans used for Natives so no offense intended) and the Railroads like the roads of Rome and the Civil War and all that, really fascinates me.

It doesn't necessarily have to be like that as I said, but the overall idea of a late 19th century America that goes dystopian does fascinate me, so what if a dystopian America and situation for America (or at least its citizens) did come into being? How could such a thing come into being and what possibilities are reasonable?
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