Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire

[MarshalBraginsky]

OK, I threw together a quick UIS circa 2003 map. Note that Armenia and Turkmenistan are still part of the UIS in this map, but it is strongly implied that Turkmenistan is independent in some form, and it is confirmed that Armenia is independent shortly after the fall of Zhirinovsky.

UIS in BLUE

Disputed borders in RED

Generally unrecognized nations in BROWN

Nations with recognized border changes in YELLOW

Nations that are allied, or have neutral-positive relations with the UIS in PINK

Just to throw some unusual information, IOTL there were Russian warships that visited Manila for some goodwill visit. Ships like the Moskva (visited Manila in 2010) and Admiral Panteleyev (visited Manila in 2013) were impressive. Would it be speculative to say that Lebed would have the Russian Navy on a goodwill tour?

 

[Belle Epocque]

Just to throw some unusual information, IOTL there were Russian warships that visited Manila for some goodwill visit. Ships like the Moskva (visited Manila in 2010) and Admiral Panteleyev (visited Manila in 2013) were impressive. Would it be speculative to say that Lebed would have the Russian Navy on a goodwill tour?

Talking about Navy, most likely Russia will build naval base ind Belochistan and maybe Dubai.

 

[Incognito]

I am still editing the final manuscript. A lot of the early updates sort of contradicted later updates so I'm trying to get it all to flow a bit smoother, but I hope to have that done soon. Once that is done I plan to post some deleted scenes or even create a "World of Zhirinovsky's Russian empire" thread with the unused updates that could still be considered "canon" and part of the overall story. These include:

BBC interviews with Colonel Gusev

More on Africa, including updates on life in Equatorial Guinea after Sandline overthrows the government.

A clumsy and failed attempt to influence the Basque nationalists in Spain

An almost comical attempt to support the Scottish National Party turns into a bizarre game of "please don't endorse me"

Andrei Zavidiya's media empire and how he used his influence to destroy his opposition and even send misinformation about Tikhomirov's death to discredit the western media

Dr strangeglove remake

Iron Man

Red Dawn

A few other media updates


None of these would be particularly organized into an overlapping story, but it would be more of a mixed bag of various stories

Question: I recall from the early updates that you had a mention of an (IIRC) Armenian militant who died OTL in early 1990s but who ATL was slated to play a big role. I think he was mentioned once or twice early on but then was not heard of again. Would we get more info on him or at least what you planed out for him?

Screenplay of the film “The Uncanny X-Men” (2011)

Director:
Zack Snyder

Starring:
Benedict Cumberbatch (Erik Lehnsherr)

…You know, I tried to imagine Cumberbatch as Magneto and in my mind’s eye I can’t picture him being as intimidating as Ian McKellen .

And did Cumberbatch Magneto gain power over gravity rather than just magnetism ? What with him being able to levitate vodka bottles.

On topic of superheroes, sometime ago I watched Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises soon after reading this TL and was surprised how well the movie could be adopted for the TL with only minor adjustments:

In the OTL movie, Bane was a prisoner in a … Moroccan?... prison from which he was rescued by the League of Shadows and took on the goal of destroying Gotham because it was “corrupt & irredeemable”? His “revolution” in the city seems to have had obvious parallels to the Bolshevik & French revolutions (what with Bane saying his goal was to “return the power to the people”, the possessions of the wealthy being taken over and redistributed to the underclass and the creation of kangaroo courts for the city’s elite by former convicts). Despite all the allusions to historical revolutions, Bane’s motivation didn’t seem to go beyond destroying Gotham for the LOLs.

In the ATL, I think you mentioned that due to the economic recession in the 1990s and the backlash against the UIS there is somewhat of a resurgence in leftist ideologies. IIRC in one update you said that in the year 2000 1/4 of Americans (or was it 1/4 of Republicans?) believed that USA was on the verge of a communist revolution. With that in mind, I can see Bane’s character being more developed in a hypothetical ATL Dark Knight Rises – rather than being some random North African mercenary warlord I can see this Bane being introduced as a former UIS officer from Armenia or Azerbaijan who was purged for supporting the communists in 1993. Subsequently, he would be sent to a fictional “Black Dolphin” type prison in Tajikistan where he would spend the next 10 years. After Tajikistan is taken over by Massoud in 2003 Bane would be freed by the League of Shadows and upon getting out of prison learn that capitalist America has made friends with the corrupt and dictatorial UIS all in the name of fun and profit. Ergo, in this version of the movie he would see himself as a New Lenin and really would believe he is “returning power to the people”. And rather than just blowing up Gotham for some vague reasons without a greater goal his master plan here would be for Gotham’s destruction to cause massive shock to the US stock market, leading to the collapse of global capitalism and a world-wide communist revolution.

Heh. And now I have a mental image of TDKR Bane wearing a Bolshevik budenovka .

PS: speaking about movies and actors, with many people fleeing the UIS in 1990s would any of famous Soviet actors end up in Hollywood? Might be interesting idea to explore.

Talking about Navy, most likely Russia will build naval base ind Belochistan and maybe Dubai.

Where would UIS get the money though? OTL Russia didn’t seem to have yet finish a new base in Russia at Novorossiysk (which was started sometime after 2005 IIRC) and spent a whole bunch of rubles on expending its naval base in Syria.

Also, IIRC past updates indicated that UIS warships are forbidden from entering Dubai. Though maybe UIS can work out a deal with Iran to use one of its bases.

Anyway, since people where posting silly things Zhirinovsky did recently I thought PG might be interested in some silly things Québécois seperatists did since he was considering including them in the TL :

PQ candidate accused of spreading KKK anti-Semitic conspiracy


Posted on 3/14/2014 9:07:00 AM by Angelica Montgomery

Louise Mailloux
La Presse



The Parti Quebecois' candidate in Gouin is being accused of propagating an urban legend that, one Jewish group says, was originally drafted by the Ku Klux Klan.
The candidate, Louise Mailloux, has written in several publications that rabbis are raking in money by imposing a tax on food certified as kosher, and that the proceeds are being sent to fund religious fighters.
The centre for Israel and Jewish affairs says this is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that was created by the KKK and is being distributed by Neo-Nazi groups.
"We are extremely troubled by the candidacy of Louise Mailloux," says the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. It says the candidate is contributing to unfounded resentment toward Jewish Quebecers and is calling on the PQ to reject Mailloux's declared beliefs.
"The absurd and profoundly defamatory statements of Louise Mailloux toward Quebec Jews is not befitting a major political party like the Parti Quebécois," it says.
The group says food producers and the company Metro have already declared during Bouchard-Taylor that the certification has no impact on their selling price, and that the certification does not include any type of blessing.
"In 1997, the Government of Canada refuted the conspiracy theory of 'the kosher tax' after citizens were encouraged by racist groups to demand tax deductions," says the groups.
Mailloux stands her ground
The candidate, Mailloux, has also compared baptism and circumcision to rape in her writings.
In an interview published yesterday, she told La Presse she "absolutely" still stands by her statement.
She also deflected the question of whether a "kosher tax" is paying for religious wars, saying that her aim now is to support the secularism charter.
Yesterday, a different Parti Quebecois candidate running in LaFontaine pulled out of the race after admitting to sharing an obscene photo of a shirtless woman that said "F___ Islam."

http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/...used-of-spreading-kkk-antisemitic-conspiracy-

 

[alpha]

who is your favorite character from the whole series

 

[Nae'Blis]

This is an excellent timeline- will it be posted on the Finished TLs board?

I would very much like to know that as well. I really want to read this TL but I would be far less likely to miss something if it were all set up on Finished TLs.

Also I would like to know if this TL deals with South Africa and Zimbabwe at all, just out of idle curiosity.

 

[Pellegrino]

This is an excellent timeline- will it be posted on the Finished TLs board?

I would very much like to know that as well. I really want to read this TL but I would be far less likely to miss something if it were all set up on Finished TLs.

Also I would like to know if this TL deals with South Africa and Zimbabwe at all, just out of idle curiosity.

Thanks! And yes, it will eventually go in the finished TL section. I am a few chapters away from finishing the final edit, and I will put it up as an ebook at that time and then work on getting it on the finished TL section after that.

And as for South Africa and Zimbabwe, I didn't go into those two nations much in this TL, but I do plan to fill in some updates on the "World of Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire" thread, which is looking like it will focus a great deal on both Africa and the Middle East.

 

[Pellegrino]

Just to throw some unusual information, IOTL there were Russian warships that visited Manila for some goodwill visit. Ships like the Moskva (visited Manila in 2010) and Admiral Panteleyev (visited Manila in 2013) were impressive. Would it be speculative to say that Lebed would have the Russian Navy on a goodwill tour?

It is possible. I think we may see something like that happen, especially if Lebed's UIS and North Korea go to blows in the coming years.

 

[Pellegrino]

who is your favorite character from the whole series

Hard to say. There are a few that really grew on me. As a writer, I liked Lebed since he was so mysterious that it just made him a fun character. Andrei Zavidiya was another one who turned out to be a very colorful character. And of course Burbulis was great as the “moral compass” of the nation. But some of my favorites were the characters from the vignettes. The German Speaking nurse in the SEZ. The Canadian ambassador in British Colombia. And the Japanese speaking Russian who lived on Kunashir. These characters probably ended up being my personal favorites.

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

I kinda liked the story of Raisa Mujkanovic and her Russian husband Mikhail Orapin. It's like if Romeo and Juliet was a war movie. And of course, I loved Tampus as a character.

 

[Pellegrino]

Question: I recall from the early updates that you had a mention of an (IIRC) Armenian militant who died OTL in early 1990s but who ATL was slated to play a big role. I think he was mentioned once or twice early on but then was not heard of again. Would we get more info on him or at least what you planed out for him?

You know, I really am mad at myself for not getting more in this TL on Monte Melkonian. He was such an interesting character in OTL, and he was originally suppose to be a major player in this TL (of course, Armenia was suppose to be featured more in the later updates).

Although controversial, Melkonian was widely regarded in OTL as an exceptional commander, and is widely liked in Armenia since he was seen as incorruptible. He was born in California and was an everyday American kid in the 70s before he went to Iran to protest agaisnt the Shah in 1979. From their his life was a series of contradictions. He then ended up fighting in the Lebanese Civil War before he ended up in a French prison after he was connected to the murder of several Turkish diplomats. He had ties to the PLO (he was apparently trained by Palistinian militants) yet he often went by the nom de guerre "Timothy McCormack" (which I suppose sounds much more intimidating to non-English speakers than it does to me, since it seems like the worst nom de guerre ever). Oh, one other thing, he didn't actually learn to speak Armenian until he was an adult, and he spoke somewhere around 5-9 languages. He was fluent in Japanese.

In many ways he is a living myth now, and like so many other martyred freedom fighters, it is hard to figure out what is true and what is bullshit and a lot of the bad has been glossed over (much like OTL's Massoud and Che). But the image of a California born Armenia (who doesn't speak Russian but does speak Japanese) emerging as a power broker in the UIS was my original plan. It also fit with the Lebed angle we saw in TTL. I may revisit it and find a way to put him in the WOZRE thread.

…You know, I tried to imagine Cumberbatch as Magneto and in my mind’s eye I can’t picture him being as intimidating as Ian McKellen .

And did Cumberbatch Magneto gain power over gravity rather than just magnetism ? What with him being able to levitate vodka bottles.

Yeah, McKellen's Magneto is the gold standard, and I do think that Michael Fassbender did great as well. But I did like the idea of Cumberbatch taking on an "iconic figure" that is almost defined by how an older actor portrayed it, and comic-con fans getting into another heated debate over his portrayal of another classic sci-fi character in TTL.

And that was a bit confused. The bottle was suppose to be floating since the bottle cap often leaves a metal ring on the bottle once you unscrew it. But I'm just going to take that out and have the bottle drop.

On topic of superheroes, sometime ago I watched Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises soon after reading this TL and was surprised how well the movie could be adopted for the TL with only minor adjustments:

In the OTL movie, Bane was a prisoner in a … Moroccan?... prison from which he was rescued by the League of Shadows and took on the goal of destroying Gotham because it was “corrupt & irredeemable”? His “revolution” in the city seems to have had obvious parallels to the Bolshevik & French revolutions (what with Bane saying his goal was to “return the power to the people”, the possessions of the wealthy being taken over and redistributed to the underclass and the creation of kangaroo courts for the city’s elite by former convicts). Despite all the allusions to historical revolutions, Bane’s motivation didn’t seem to go beyond destroying Gotham for the LOLs.

In the ATL, I think you mentioned that due to the economic recession in the 1990s and the backlash against the UIS there is somewhat of a resurgence in leftist ideologies. IIRC in one update you said that in the year 2000 1/4 of Americans (or was it 1/4 of Republicans?) believed that USA was on the verge of a communist revolution. With that in mind, I can see Bane’s character being more developed in a hypothetical ATL Dark Knight Rises – rather than being some random North African mercenary warlord I can see this Bane being introduced as a former UIS officer from Armenia or Azerbaijan who was purged for supporting the communists in 1993. Subsequently, he would be sent to a fictional “Black Dolphin” type prison in Tajikistan where he would spend the next 10 years. After Tajikistan is taken over by Massoud in 2003 Bane would be freed by the League of Shadows and upon getting out of prison learn that capitalist America has made friends with the corrupt and dictatorial UIS all in the name of fun and profit. Ergo, in this version of the movie he would see himself as a New Lenin and really would believe he is “returning power to the people”. And rather than just blowing up Gotham for some vague reasons without a greater goal his master plan here would be for Gotham’s destruction to cause massive shock to the US stock market, leading to the collapse of global capitalism and a world-wide communist revolution.

Heh. And now I have a mental image of TDKR Bane wearing a Bolshevik budenovka .

Interesting idea! I would see a Bane and TDKR with a heavy UIS angle in it now in TTL.

Also, IIRC past updates indicated that UIS warships are forbidden from entering Dubai. Though maybe UIS can work out a deal with Iran to use one of its bases.

Correct. And in fact, an earlier update was suppose to have a chapter which was from the film "Captain Phillips" in which Somali Pirates seize Captain Phillips' ship just like the OTL film. However, in OTL he tries to freak the pirates out by hinting that the US military was nearby. In this film he plays a tape in Russian to make the pirates think that the ship is a Russian ship and that the UIS is coming after them (which scares them considering the UIS's way of dealing with hijaked ships is to take things personal). I dumped it since Captain Phillips was based on a true story, and that story would have been butterflied in this TL (he was sailing from Dubai to Kenya, and in TTL the Dubai to Kenya shipping rout is pretty much shut down).

Anyway, since people where posting silly things Zhirinovsky did recently I thought PG might be interested in some silly things Québécois seperatists did since he was considering including them in the TL :

http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/...used-of-spreading-kkk-antisemitic-conspiracy-

 

[Pellegrino]

I kinda liked the story of Raisa Mujkanovic and her Russian husband Mikhail Orapin. It's like if Romeo and Juliet was a war movie. And of course, I loved Tampus as a character.

That is right! I almost forgot about Oprain and Raisa. They would be high on my list as well.

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

That is right! I almost forgot about Oprain and Raisa. They would be high on my list as well.

So we know that they married. I wish there was a movie about it in TTL.

 

[Pellegrino]

So we know that they married. I wish there was a movie about it in TTL.

That would make for an amazing movie. Maybe I shoud consider revisiting them, perhaps an article in which the couple go back to South Sarajevo for a visit after the RS opens up...

 

[alpha]

My favorite characters are in no order

Vladamir Zhirinovsky

Vladamir Putin

Gennady Burbullis

Christopher Warren

and Hasinov.

My favorites chapters are too many to name and i know them by heart and even page but some of them include include

All Politics are ethnic

Field of screams

Defcon 1

The Last Parade before the Apocalypse

and the last chapter EPILOUGE because it remninded us why we like this story.

My favorite books from this "world" included

The Soviets and the Serbs: Vladamir Zhironvsky and the conquest of Yougaslavia,

Azerbijan and Chechnya Profiles on the Russian war on terror

From Marx to Massoud: A modern history of Tajikistan

______


We really really really need "Massouds Tajik empire". I would write it i really would be i dont have the time write now.

 

[alpha]

One interesting idea that is unfortunetly too late to integrate into the story because the idea is early is RT(Russia Today). Wonder what news will this channel show from Lebeds UIS or late Zhirinovsky russia

 

[Belle Epocque]

I just realised ITTL in Latvia and Estonia Eastern Slavs likely will be largest ethnic group in 2014 due to bloody 90s wars.

 

[Seleucus]

So it turns out that OTL's Zhirinovsky just sent a letter to Poland, offering to partition Ukraine with it. (Translated link here.)

...Life imitating fiction? Or is someone in Moscow deciding to use this TL as a guide?

 

[Snaut]

So it turns out that OTL's Zhirinovsky just sent a letter to Poland, offering to partition Ukraine with it. (Translated link here.)

...Life imitating fiction? Or is someone in Moscow deciding to use this TL as a guide?

Quick, PS! Write a retcon in which Zhirinovsky has the UIS dissolved and demilitarizes Russia!

 

[theirishdreamer]

the

The Author is actual Putin in disguise - this was all a strategy discussion! We've been had and used as his evil pawns

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

Or maybe OTL Putin doesn't like the way he is portrayed ITTL: the Russian "Sasha" Jones.