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Anarcho-Occultist's Way Too Soon Wikibox Thread
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Anarcho-Occultist
Well-known member
Tracy Turnblad
Tracy Turnblad Larkin (February 16, 1945-July 10, 2007), better known by her birth name Tracy Turnblad, was an American singer, dancer, actress, producer and activist. Turnblad was born in 1945 to Wilbur and Edna Turnblad. Wilbur Turnblad was enlisted in the US Army and had been deployed to Europe, before being injured in a Velociraptor attack during the D-Day landings and subsequently being honorably discharged. In the postwar era, the Turnblads struggled financially, with Wilbur working in various jobs including as a construction worker, a delivery person for the local office of the Worldwide Wicket Company, and a mailman. The couple also faced marital strife after Edna Turnblad donated a large sum of money to Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of the cult movement known as The Cause. However, by the time Tracy was 8, the family’s luck took a turn for the better when Wilbur reconnected with a friend from the war, James Francis Ryan who had enjoyed some success after writing war memoirs and publishing them in 1949. Ryan gave Wilbur a loan that enabled him to buy a storefront with an apartment above for his family to live in, which Wilbur was able to turn into a decently successful novelty shop during the 1950’s, allowing his family to at last gain a degree of financial stability.
It was in this more stable atmosphere that Turnblad began to move in the direction that would earn her celebrity status. From a young age, her parents were by no means lax, but were reasonably willing to indulge their daughter’s desire to engage with even controversial forms of entertainment–most notably the music of the likes of Conrad Birdie, Nick Rivers and Tommy Johnson. This exposure to music would prove immensely formative for Turnblad and would drive her broader media consumption, becoming an avid viewer of programs such as National Bandstand and The Corny Collins Show, the latter of which was produced in Baltimore itself. In 1962, Turnblad made the fateful decision to audition for the show, which ultimately added her to the cast despite controversy surrounding her expressing support for racial integration and the fact that she, unlike other dancers on the show, was noticeably overweight. Turnblad participated in a protest to integrate the show, during which she faced criminal charges for assaulting a police officer with a sign. However, she managed to avoid arrest (thanks in part to the Baltimore Police Department being called upon by Colonel Richard Strickland to help recover an escaped Deep One) and ultimately her efforts succeeded in getting the program racially integrated.
This chain of events-alongside Turnblad entering a relationship with her costar Link Larkin-helped make her much more famous.
In addition to continuing as a dancer, Turnblad began a music career with Polymer Records, with her first album You Can’t Stop the Beat just barely falling short of sales for the Rutles’ album All You Need is Cash in 1965. This album was followed two years later by Avalanche, which compared to her first album was much more politically charged. Turnblad had always been sympathetic to left-wing causes but as the Vietnam and Sarkhan Wars escalated, she became increasingly vocal about issues besides civil rights. Her friend Maria Vazquez-who she met through her music career-helped expose Turnblad to left-wing thought that was rapidly gaining popularity with younger generations. Turnblad began interacting with many prominent figures within the New Left including Sal Paradise, Jim Stark, and Raoul Duke. This radicalization caused something of a rift between her and Larkin, leading to a brief separation in 1968.
In 1968, Turnblad would end up endorsing the ‘14 or Fight’ campaign spearheaded by rock star Max Frost. However, Turnblad ended up continuing to support the campaign of Johnny Fergus in that year’s presidential race even when the Republicans nominated Frost himself for the presidency. Turnblad had acquaintance with Frost from earlier in her career and thus did not trust him, her fears being vindicated when on taking office he converted America into an ageist dictatorship. Frost filled his administration with many unsavory characters-for instance, Horace Bones and Tom Weathers acted as his enforcers in DC. Turnblad, meanwhile, was aligned to more moderate left-wingers such as Philip Banks and Judy Burke who opposed Frost and, ultimately, reluctantly cooperated with the Syndicate of the Men in Black to remove him from power. Turnblad after this chain of events drifted more towards the center-though still remaining firmly liberal and endorsing the campaign of Prez Rickard in the 1975 special presidential election. She would remain active in advocacy for the rest of her life, denouncing the Cyclops administration’s response to the AIDS epidemic, performing at a benefit concert for Tectonese refugees and supporting groups dedicated to women’s rights.
The bulk of her life, however, would remain dedicated to her entertainment career. After reuniting with Larkin, she recorded another album titled Without Love in 1972, which ended up doing less well than her earlier work. Turnblad had began her career in an era where the distinction between pop and rock was blurry. Now, however, with the rise of stars like Daisy Jones, Dewey Cox and Eddie Wilson helped make the rock genre more distinct. Turnblad’s music, meanwhile, was more bubbly and didn’t hold the same appeal as contemporary rock. Still, Turnblad and Larkin maintained a distinct following, even being invited to perform ahead of the inauguration of Charles Palantine in 1977. In the 1980’s, however, Turnblad’s career as a singer began to decline. The emergence of bands like the Hex Girls, The Queen Haters and Crisis of Conformity heralded the rise of the punk and metal genres, which while some long-time bands made a jump into (Josie and the Pussycats being the most notable success), Turnblad was unable to do. While she maintained a core following, she was rapidly eclipsed by newcomers to music.
Turnblad ultimately accepted this with grace, moving towards producing instead of performing. She would serve as a point of contact between several new artists and various record labels-the most notable beneficiaries being Ziggy Stardust, Cassandra Wong, the band Love Handel and Maddie Vidal. In doing so, Turnblad eventually met the young but ambitious Gustavo Rocque, who aspired to form a label of his own. Leveraging her contacts, Turnblad played a key role in founding Rocque Records and helping the label find its footing in the 1990’s. In 1996, Turnblad’s husband Link Larkin was killed during the Harvester invasion while visiting his parents in Washington DC. Turnblad, heartbroken, nonetheless lived more than a decade past that point, even resuming a music career in 1998 with a more mournful style than previously. Turnblad ultimately died in 2007 during the invasion of Earth by a parallel world’s Cybermen. She was survived by her son Bryce Larkin, who died in 2009. The Tracy Turnblad Conference Room in Rocque Records’ headquarters is named in her honor.
View attachment 887327
Tracy Turnblad Larkin (February 16, 1945-July 10, 2007), better known by her birth name Tracy Turnblad, was an American singer, dancer, actress, producer and activist. Turnblad was born in 1945 to Wilbur and Edna Turnblad. Wilbur Turnblad was enlisted in the US Army and had been deployed to Europe, before being injured in a Velociraptor attack during the D-Day landings and subsequently being honorably discharged. In the postwar era, the Turnblads struggled financially, with Wilbur working in various jobs including as a construction worker, a delivery person for the local office of the Worldwide Wicket Company, and a mailman. The couple also faced marital strife after Edna Turnblad donated a large sum of money to Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of the cult movement known as The Cause. However, by the time Tracy was 8, the family’s luck took a turn for the better when Wilbur reconnected with a friend from the war, James Francis Ryan who had enjoyed some success after writing war memoirs and publishing them in 1949. Ryan gave Wilbur a loan that enabled him to buy a storefront with an apartment above for his family to live in, which Wilbur was able to turn into a decently successful novelty shop during the 1950’s, allowing his family to at last gain a degree of financial stability.
It was in this more stable atmosphere that Turnblad began to move in the direction that would earn her celebrity status. From a young age, her parents were by no means lax, but were reasonably willing to indulge their daughter’s desire to engage with even controversial forms of entertainment–most notably the music of the likes of Conrad Birdie, Nick Rivers and Tommy Johnson. This exposure to music would prove immensely formative for Turnblad and would drive her broader media consumption, becoming an avid viewer of programs such as National Bandstand and The Corny Collins Show, the latter of which was produced in Baltimore itself. In 1962, Turnblad made the fateful decision to audition for the show, which ultimately added her to the cast despite controversy surrounding her expressing support for racial integration and the fact that she, unlike other dancers on the show, was noticeably overweight. Turnblad participated in a protest to integrate the show, during which she faced criminal charges for assaulting a police officer with a sign. However, she managed to avoid arrest (thanks in part to the Baltimore Police Department being called upon by Colonel Richard Strickland to help recover an escaped Deep One) and ultimately her efforts succeeded in getting the program racially integrated.
This chain of events-alongside Turnblad entering a relationship with her costar Link Larkin-helped make her much more famous.
In addition to continuing as a dancer, Turnblad began a music career with Polymer Records, with her first album You Can’t Stop the Beat just barely falling short of sales for the Rutles’ album All You Need is Cash in 1965. This album was followed two years later by Avalanche, which compared to her first album was much more politically charged. Turnblad had always been sympathetic to left-wing causes but as the Vietnam and Sarkhan Wars escalated, she became increasingly vocal about issues besides civil rights. Her friend Maria Vazquez-who she met through her music career-helped expose Turnblad to left-wing thought that was rapidly gaining popularity with younger generations. Turnblad began interacting with many prominent figures within the New Left including Sal Paradise, Jim Stark, and Raoul Duke. This radicalization caused something of a rift between her and Larkin, leading to a brief separation in 1968.
In 1968, Turnblad would end up endorsing the ‘14 or Fight’ campaign spearheaded by rock star Max Frost. However, Turnblad ended up continuing to support the campaign of Johnny Fergus in that year’s presidential race even when the Republicans nominated Frost himself for the presidency. Turnblad had acquaintance with Frost from earlier in her career and thus did not trust him, her fears being vindicated when on taking office he converted America into an ageist dictatorship. Frost filled his administration with many unsavory characters-for instance, Horace Bones and Tom Weathers acted as his enforcers in DC. Turnblad, meanwhile, was aligned to more moderate left-wingers such as Philip Banks and Judy Burke who opposed Frost and, ultimately, reluctantly cooperated with the Syndicate of the Men in Black to remove him from power. Turnblad after this chain of events drifted more towards the center-though still remaining firmly liberal and endorsing the campaign of Prez Rickard in the 1975 special presidential election. She would remain active in advocacy for the rest of her life, denouncing the Cyclops administration’s response to the AIDS epidemic, performing at a benefit concert for Tectonese refugees and supporting groups dedicated to women’s rights.
The bulk of her life, however, would remain dedicated to her entertainment career. After reuniting with Larkin, she recorded another album titled Without Love in 1972, which ended up doing less well than her earlier work. Turnblad had began her career in an era where the distinction between pop and rock was blurry. Now, however, with the rise of stars like Daisy Jones, Dewey Cox and Eddie Wilson helped make the rock genre more distinct. Turnblad’s music, meanwhile, was more bubbly and didn’t hold the same appeal as contemporary rock. Still, Turnblad and Larkin maintained a distinct following, even being invited to perform ahead of the inauguration of Charles Palantine in 1977. In the 1980’s, however, Turnblad’s career as a singer began to decline. The emergence of bands like the Hex Girls, The Queen Haters and Crisis of Conformity heralded the rise of the punk and metal genres, which while some long-time bands made a jump into (Josie and the Pussycats being the most notable success), Turnblad was unable to do. While she maintained a core following, she was rapidly eclipsed by newcomers to music.
Turnblad ultimately accepted this with grace, moving towards producing instead of performing. She would serve as a point of contact between several new artists and various record labels-the most notable beneficiaries being Ziggy Stardust, Cassandra Wong, the band Love Handel and Maddie Vidal. In doing so, Turnblad eventually met the young but ambitious Gustavo Rocque, who aspired to form a label of his own. Leveraging her contacts, Turnblad played a key role in founding Rocque Records and helping the label find its footing in the 1990’s. In 1996, Turnblad’s husband Link Larkin was killed during the Harvester invasion while visiting his parents in Washington DC. Turnblad, heartbroken, nonetheless lived more than a decade past that point, even resuming a music career in 1998 with a more mournful style than previously. Turnblad ultimately died in 2007 during the invasion of Earth by a parallel world’s Cybermen. She was survived by her son Bryce Larkin, who died in 2009. The Tracy Turnblad Conference Room in Rocque Records’ headquarters is named in her honor.
View attachment 887327
References
Hairspray, Dino D-Day, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Master, Saving Private Ryan, Bye Bye Birdie, Top Secret!, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Grease, The Shape of Water, Cthulhu Mythos, This Is Spinal Tap, The Rutles, The Ugly American, West Side Story, On the Road, Rebel Without a Cause, Fear and Loathing, Wild in the Streets, I Drink Your Blood, Wild Cards, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Bridge to Teribithia, The X Files, Men in Black, Prez, Whoops Apocalypse!, Alien Nation, Daisy Jones and the Six, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Eddie and the Cruisers, Taxi Driver, Scooby Doo, SCTV, Saturday Night Live, Archie Comics, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Wayne’s World, Phineas and Ferb, Freaky Friday, Big Time Rush, Independence Day, Doctor Who (Army of Ghosts), Chuck
Hairspray, Dino D-Day, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Master, Saving Private Ryan, Bye Bye Birdie, Top Secret!, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Grease, The Shape of Water, Cthulhu Mythos, This Is Spinal Tap, The Rutles, The Ugly American, West Side Story, On the Road, Rebel Without a Cause, Fear and Loathing, Wild in the Streets, I Drink Your Blood, Wild Cards, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Bridge to Teribithia, The X Files, Men in Black, Prez, Whoops Apocalypse!, Alien Nation, Daisy Jones and the Six, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Eddie and the Cruisers, Taxi Driver, Scooby Doo, SCTV, Saturday Night Live, Archie Comics, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Wayne’s World, Phineas and Ferb, Freaky Friday, Big Time Rush, Independence Day, Doctor Who (Army of Ghosts), Chuck
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Anarcho-Occultist
Well-known member
The Ingsoc Party
The Ingsoc Party was a British political party responsible for promoting one of the most harsh, brutal and authoritarian systems of governance in existence. The Ingsoc Party has its origins during the tumultuous period between the World Wars. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, fascism was on the rise across Europe. Benzino Napaloni’s Fascists and Adenoid Hynkel’s Nazis came to power in Italy and Germany. Austria fell under the control of Moe Hagelkorn’s Moronikan League and Rufus T. Firefly seized control of Freedonia. In Britain, the fascists were not in power, but still asserted themselves with vigor. Roderick Spode and Oswald Parham’s Saviours of Britain advocated alliance with Germany and Italy against the Soviet Union, to protect the integrity of the white race. It would be a member of this movement, Rudolf ‘Rud’ Whitlow, who would pioneer the doctrine of Ingsoc. After visiting the fascist-aligned Meccania and meeting with key government officials, Whitlow saw the potential for autocracy based on abandoning a pretense of it being anything but. Whitlow thus broke from the Saviours and formed the English Socialist Party in 1939, which advocated ‘national renewal’ via open embrace of dictatorship as a means to purge the ‘weak and decadent’ from society. Those defined as such by Whitlow included socialist intellectuals, the handicapped, Jews and the ‘idle classes’ of nobility who had riches, but did little with them. Whitlow’s party turned on Germany as World War II began, which spared it the scrutiny the Saviours would experience.
The English Socialist Party contested the 1945 general election, but ultimately lost to Labour under Zilliboy Shinbags. However, Whitlow would subsequently gain a major coup for his party in the form of a truly gifted spokesperson: Sir Harold Wharton. Wharton had served in World War II with distinction and was a gifted orator compared to the bookish Whitlow. Moreover, Wharton was an ardent supporter of Whitlow’s ideology. Wharton would thus become the public face of the party. Wharton, unfortunately, also had a number of idiosyncratic ideas. He was the one who suggested rewriting the English language to be more ‘efficient’, forcing the party’s name change to the Ingsoc Party. Wharton also advocated the overthrow of the British monarchy, even conspiring with a group of sentient pigs who had formed a system not dissimilar to Ingsoc on their farm to dethrone Queen Anne II during her coronation. Wharton’s plot failed, but neither he nor the Ingsoc Party ever were caught carrying out this scheme. Subsequent British governments viewed Ingsoc as a minor nuisance–occasionally worth monitoring but far lesser threats than terrorist groups like SPECTRE, THRUSH or KAOS. However, in the 1960’s, an aged Wharton would focus on targeting ‘abnormal’ humans. Specifically, the rise of the so-called ‘Tomorrow People’ gave Ingsoc new life as an anti-mutant–and ultimately more broadly human supremacist organization, with aliens, Moureau sapiens and Toons joining the list of acceptable targets.
Ingsoc’s activities in the 1960’s often involved acts of violence and intimidation. Members of the Ingsoc Party would attempt to assassinate noted British space programme pioneer Bernard Quartermass for advocating steps to prepare for diplomatic contact with certain aliens rather than embracing a uniform position of hostility even in the wake of the Triffid invasion. Ingsoc embraced Gordon Zellaby as a martyr embodying the ideals of their ideology for his sacrifice to stop the Children of Midwhich, despite Zellaby’s own document antipathy towards the group. Despite ostensible socialism, the Ingsoc Party viciously denounced attempts to carry out decolonization, with several Ingsoc-connected individuals actively attempting to sabotage negotiations that paved the way for the independence of the former British colonies of Talgalla, Zamunda and Namibia. The rise of the 1960’s counterculture gave Ingsoc yet another useful rival. Wharton accused the movement of being communist, anti-British and tied to occult movements. Many Ingsoc publications sought to connect figures popular with the counterculture (most notably Mick Turner) to the likes of Oliver Haddo and Kosmo Gallion. Despite this public hostility to the occult, Wharton was quite close to Lord Summerisle, the leader of a pagan revivalist cult who some have suggested convinced Wharton that human suffering in some way could draw in power. Clashes between Ingsoc supporters and left-wingers such as anarchist Dennis Menace, Jr. were common in the late 1960’s.
By the 1970’s, Wharton was in ill health and the Ingsoc Party seemed to be failing. Not only did they not secure power, but the victory of Iorweth Jones’ Labour Party over Michael Rimmer’s Conservatives in 1974 seemed primed to pull Britain hard to the left. However, the Ingsoc Party got a lucky break in the form of US President Ferris Fremont. Fremont, a member of Hydra’s Secret Empire, viewed the Ingsoc Party as natural partners for Hydra and, ostensibly in the name of anticommunism, funneled CIA monetary support to the party. This program, overseen by Fremont advisor Henry Killinger, helped renew the party’s fortunes. They were aided by the surge in alien activity negatively impacting Britain-the near-destruction of the planet by the Vogons, a narrowly averted meteorite-harnessing invasion attempt by a race of energy beings and incursions by the Daleks, Sontarans and Cybermen in particular. By the time of Wharton’s 1979 death, the Ingsoc Party had managed to elect a few members to Parliament, despite the party’s far-right bent meaning even Joan Carpenter’s Conservative Party shunned them. However, when the 1979 election ended in a hung parliament and the Scottish Liberation Army provoked a political crisis by seizing Fort William, Conservative MP Sir Timothy Hobson ousted Carpenter in a leadership challenge and formed a coalition with the Ingsoc Party to form a government.
Hobson’s autocratic leadership did not last long, but gave the Ingsoc Party their first taste of real power. Even though Carpenter, on reclaiming her position at the helm of the Tories, broke the coalition, held a snap election and whittled down the Ingsoc presence in Parliament, the party was emboldened. With the party’s decline electorally, leadership fell into the hands of the party’s most consistent electoral success: Jim Jaspers. Jaspers, however, had a secret: he was a mutant. Despite heading a party so rabidly anti-metahuman that Bolivar Trask denounced it, Jaspers possessed reality warping powers which had helped him win. Still, his full power was not fully present-until an opening arrived. In 1984, the superhero Miracleman reemerged after decades in seclusion seeking to take over the world and usher in a utopia. Miracleman succeeded in ousting Carpenter, but before consolidating his rule or expanding it globally the American superhero Doctor Manhattan intervened. The clash between the two extremely powerful superheroes in Britain happened concurrently with the escalation of hostilities between the U.S. and USSR in the Strait of Hormuz, beginning World War III with the Soviet awakening of Cthulhu. This gave Jaspers the opportunity to strike. As reality was already creaking around him, Jaspers took in some of the others’ power and, with the power he absorbed from Miracleman, Doctor Manhattan and Cthulhu, was able to rewrite the world.
In the world Jaspers forced into being in 1984, he was the unquestioned ruler of Britain-its totalitarian Big Brother. Society was organized into a caste system based around proximity to Jaspers-the ‘Inner Party’ holding more power than the ‘Outer Party’ and both holding control over the vast number of Proles. His government maintained control with an iron fist. Mass surveillance was the rule, enforced in part by now-compliant artificial intelligences such as Colossus and all sentient nonhuman life present on the planet was in the process of being wiped out by Sentinels. The same fate was in store for detested racial and religious minorities, with Jaspers using the leftist political philosopher Emmanuel Goldstein to help maintain a high level of anti-Semitism. Dissidents were tortured by Jaspers’ ‘Ministry of Love’ under the supervision of Gerald O’Brien. The English language was altered to comply with Wharton’s simplification and idioms such as ‘wrongthink’ and ‘doubleplusgood’ prevailed over more traditional idioms. Jasper’s reach extended across the Anglosphere and into South America and Africa, but even beyond that his influence was felt-the USSR now ruled from Siberia to Spain under an unrelenting Stalinist regime that in the new history took the continent during World War II and Asia fell under the tyrannical rule of Cthulhu cultists as Jaspers’ offering to make Cthulhu halt his awakening, condemning billions to a nightmarish existence under the rule of ‘obliteration of the self.’ A three-way global war was ongoing, but condemned to continue for eternity given the desire of all three factions to maintain a balance of power.
And yet, Jaspers’ regime failed to last. Largely this can be traced back to some carryover from the original timeline retaining memories instead of simply accepting the new world. The SCP Foundation had a number of contingencies to address these sorts of reality alterations and it was not long until other stragglers of the old world emerged. Among them were Captain Britain, Doctor Fate, Astro Boy and Buckaroo Banzai. All of these individuals would clash with the Ingsoc world order, with Captain Britain ultimately confronting and defeating Jaspers. In the process, he freed Doctor Manhattan from captivity and the superbeing restored the world as it had been. The overthrow of Jaspers had major consequences. Jaspers was jailed-the alteration of reality only having restored normalcy, not removed his government altogether from history, with many still aware of Jaspers’ tyrannical oppression. The restored Carpenter government had Peter St. John forcibly intern most metahumans within the country in the name of national security (a policy that lasted until the ascension of Jim Hacker to the position of Prime Minister) and members of the Ingsoc Party in Parliament were largely forced out.
This was not the end of Ingsoc’s influence, however. Ingsoc Party member Adam Susan would go on to form the more traditionally neofascist Norsefire Party, which would dominate the far-right scene for much of the 1990’s. Some individuals possessing the ability to recall past timelines (often referred to as ‘reading Steiner’) claim Norsefire managed to for a time replicate Jaspers’ achievement by rewriting history to rule Britain as a fascist state, though this was undone by unclear means, restoring our own world with Francis Urquhart’s premiership. Beyond Norsefire, however, the Ingsoc Party has cast a very large shadow. The Shepherd Party formed by supporters of the cartoon bear Waldo in 2017 incorporated a number of Ingsoc talking points and based their surveillance program while in power off of Jaspers’ mass surveillance. The remnants of the Ingsoc Party were among the parties who joined the Four Star Party under Vivienne Rook, which Rook embraced despite widespread condemnation. Even beyond Britain, many others have taken inspiration from Ingsoc-David Jefferson Adams’ Chief of Staff Jake Rivers cited Harold Wharton as a major influence on his own beliefs and social media websites like Chirper, Cooksta and The Circle have in internal memos compared their talent at data harvesting favorably to the Jaspers regime’s universal monitoring. Jaspers’ regime also gave the name to the reality series Big Brother, a controversy that dogged the show until it was canceled following the deaths of most of its then-current cast alongside its host and several past contestants during the 2003 London zombie outbreak.
The Ingsoc Party was a British political party responsible for promoting one of the most harsh, brutal and authoritarian systems of governance in existence. The Ingsoc Party has its origins during the tumultuous period between the World Wars. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, fascism was on the rise across Europe. Benzino Napaloni’s Fascists and Adenoid Hynkel’s Nazis came to power in Italy and Germany. Austria fell under the control of Moe Hagelkorn’s Moronikan League and Rufus T. Firefly seized control of Freedonia. In Britain, the fascists were not in power, but still asserted themselves with vigor. Roderick Spode and Oswald Parham’s Saviours of Britain advocated alliance with Germany and Italy against the Soviet Union, to protect the integrity of the white race. It would be a member of this movement, Rudolf ‘Rud’ Whitlow, who would pioneer the doctrine of Ingsoc. After visiting the fascist-aligned Meccania and meeting with key government officials, Whitlow saw the potential for autocracy based on abandoning a pretense of it being anything but. Whitlow thus broke from the Saviours and formed the English Socialist Party in 1939, which advocated ‘national renewal’ via open embrace of dictatorship as a means to purge the ‘weak and decadent’ from society. Those defined as such by Whitlow included socialist intellectuals, the handicapped, Jews and the ‘idle classes’ of nobility who had riches, but did little with them. Whitlow’s party turned on Germany as World War II began, which spared it the scrutiny the Saviours would experience.
The English Socialist Party contested the 1945 general election, but ultimately lost to Labour under Zilliboy Shinbags. However, Whitlow would subsequently gain a major coup for his party in the form of a truly gifted spokesperson: Sir Harold Wharton. Wharton had served in World War II with distinction and was a gifted orator compared to the bookish Whitlow. Moreover, Wharton was an ardent supporter of Whitlow’s ideology. Wharton would thus become the public face of the party. Wharton, unfortunately, also had a number of idiosyncratic ideas. He was the one who suggested rewriting the English language to be more ‘efficient’, forcing the party’s name change to the Ingsoc Party. Wharton also advocated the overthrow of the British monarchy, even conspiring with a group of sentient pigs who had formed a system not dissimilar to Ingsoc on their farm to dethrone Queen Anne II during her coronation. Wharton’s plot failed, but neither he nor the Ingsoc Party ever were caught carrying out this scheme. Subsequent British governments viewed Ingsoc as a minor nuisance–occasionally worth monitoring but far lesser threats than terrorist groups like SPECTRE, THRUSH or KAOS. However, in the 1960’s, an aged Wharton would focus on targeting ‘abnormal’ humans. Specifically, the rise of the so-called ‘Tomorrow People’ gave Ingsoc new life as an anti-mutant–and ultimately more broadly human supremacist organization, with aliens, Moureau sapiens and Toons joining the list of acceptable targets.
Ingsoc’s activities in the 1960’s often involved acts of violence and intimidation. Members of the Ingsoc Party would attempt to assassinate noted British space programme pioneer Bernard Quartermass for advocating steps to prepare for diplomatic contact with certain aliens rather than embracing a uniform position of hostility even in the wake of the Triffid invasion. Ingsoc embraced Gordon Zellaby as a martyr embodying the ideals of their ideology for his sacrifice to stop the Children of Midwhich, despite Zellaby’s own document antipathy towards the group. Despite ostensible socialism, the Ingsoc Party viciously denounced attempts to carry out decolonization, with several Ingsoc-connected individuals actively attempting to sabotage negotiations that paved the way for the independence of the former British colonies of Talgalla, Zamunda and Namibia. The rise of the 1960’s counterculture gave Ingsoc yet another useful rival. Wharton accused the movement of being communist, anti-British and tied to occult movements. Many Ingsoc publications sought to connect figures popular with the counterculture (most notably Mick Turner) to the likes of Oliver Haddo and Kosmo Gallion. Despite this public hostility to the occult, Wharton was quite close to Lord Summerisle, the leader of a pagan revivalist cult who some have suggested convinced Wharton that human suffering in some way could draw in power. Clashes between Ingsoc supporters and left-wingers such as anarchist Dennis Menace, Jr. were common in the late 1960’s.
By the 1970’s, Wharton was in ill health and the Ingsoc Party seemed to be failing. Not only did they not secure power, but the victory of Iorweth Jones’ Labour Party over Michael Rimmer’s Conservatives in 1974 seemed primed to pull Britain hard to the left. However, the Ingsoc Party got a lucky break in the form of US President Ferris Fremont. Fremont, a member of Hydra’s Secret Empire, viewed the Ingsoc Party as natural partners for Hydra and, ostensibly in the name of anticommunism, funneled CIA monetary support to the party. This program, overseen by Fremont advisor Henry Killinger, helped renew the party’s fortunes. They were aided by the surge in alien activity negatively impacting Britain-the near-destruction of the planet by the Vogons, a narrowly averted meteorite-harnessing invasion attempt by a race of energy beings and incursions by the Daleks, Sontarans and Cybermen in particular. By the time of Wharton’s 1979 death, the Ingsoc Party had managed to elect a few members to Parliament, despite the party’s far-right bent meaning even Joan Carpenter’s Conservative Party shunned them. However, when the 1979 election ended in a hung parliament and the Scottish Liberation Army provoked a political crisis by seizing Fort William, Conservative MP Sir Timothy Hobson ousted Carpenter in a leadership challenge and formed a coalition with the Ingsoc Party to form a government.
Hobson’s autocratic leadership did not last long, but gave the Ingsoc Party their first taste of real power. Even though Carpenter, on reclaiming her position at the helm of the Tories, broke the coalition, held a snap election and whittled down the Ingsoc presence in Parliament, the party was emboldened. With the party’s decline electorally, leadership fell into the hands of the party’s most consistent electoral success: Jim Jaspers. Jaspers, however, had a secret: he was a mutant. Despite heading a party so rabidly anti-metahuman that Bolivar Trask denounced it, Jaspers possessed reality warping powers which had helped him win. Still, his full power was not fully present-until an opening arrived. In 1984, the superhero Miracleman reemerged after decades in seclusion seeking to take over the world and usher in a utopia. Miracleman succeeded in ousting Carpenter, but before consolidating his rule or expanding it globally the American superhero Doctor Manhattan intervened. The clash between the two extremely powerful superheroes in Britain happened concurrently with the escalation of hostilities between the U.S. and USSR in the Strait of Hormuz, beginning World War III with the Soviet awakening of Cthulhu. This gave Jaspers the opportunity to strike. As reality was already creaking around him, Jaspers took in some of the others’ power and, with the power he absorbed from Miracleman, Doctor Manhattan and Cthulhu, was able to rewrite the world.
In the world Jaspers forced into being in 1984, he was the unquestioned ruler of Britain-its totalitarian Big Brother. Society was organized into a caste system based around proximity to Jaspers-the ‘Inner Party’ holding more power than the ‘Outer Party’ and both holding control over the vast number of Proles. His government maintained control with an iron fist. Mass surveillance was the rule, enforced in part by now-compliant artificial intelligences such as Colossus and all sentient nonhuman life present on the planet was in the process of being wiped out by Sentinels. The same fate was in store for detested racial and religious minorities, with Jaspers using the leftist political philosopher Emmanuel Goldstein to help maintain a high level of anti-Semitism. Dissidents were tortured by Jaspers’ ‘Ministry of Love’ under the supervision of Gerald O’Brien. The English language was altered to comply with Wharton’s simplification and idioms such as ‘wrongthink’ and ‘doubleplusgood’ prevailed over more traditional idioms. Jasper’s reach extended across the Anglosphere and into South America and Africa, but even beyond that his influence was felt-the USSR now ruled from Siberia to Spain under an unrelenting Stalinist regime that in the new history took the continent during World War II and Asia fell under the tyrannical rule of Cthulhu cultists as Jaspers’ offering to make Cthulhu halt his awakening, condemning billions to a nightmarish existence under the rule of ‘obliteration of the self.’ A three-way global war was ongoing, but condemned to continue for eternity given the desire of all three factions to maintain a balance of power.
And yet, Jaspers’ regime failed to last. Largely this can be traced back to some carryover from the original timeline retaining memories instead of simply accepting the new world. The SCP Foundation had a number of contingencies to address these sorts of reality alterations and it was not long until other stragglers of the old world emerged. Among them were Captain Britain, Doctor Fate, Astro Boy and Buckaroo Banzai. All of these individuals would clash with the Ingsoc world order, with Captain Britain ultimately confronting and defeating Jaspers. In the process, he freed Doctor Manhattan from captivity and the superbeing restored the world as it had been. The overthrow of Jaspers had major consequences. Jaspers was jailed-the alteration of reality only having restored normalcy, not removed his government altogether from history, with many still aware of Jaspers’ tyrannical oppression. The restored Carpenter government had Peter St. John forcibly intern most metahumans within the country in the name of national security (a policy that lasted until the ascension of Jim Hacker to the position of Prime Minister) and members of the Ingsoc Party in Parliament were largely forced out.
This was not the end of Ingsoc’s influence, however. Ingsoc Party member Adam Susan would go on to form the more traditionally neofascist Norsefire Party, which would dominate the far-right scene for much of the 1990’s. Some individuals possessing the ability to recall past timelines (often referred to as ‘reading Steiner’) claim Norsefire managed to for a time replicate Jaspers’ achievement by rewriting history to rule Britain as a fascist state, though this was undone by unclear means, restoring our own world with Francis Urquhart’s premiership. Beyond Norsefire, however, the Ingsoc Party has cast a very large shadow. The Shepherd Party formed by supporters of the cartoon bear Waldo in 2017 incorporated a number of Ingsoc talking points and based their surveillance program while in power off of Jaspers’ mass surveillance. The remnants of the Ingsoc Party were among the parties who joined the Four Star Party under Vivienne Rook, which Rook embraced despite widespread condemnation. Even beyond Britain, many others have taken inspiration from Ingsoc-David Jefferson Adams’ Chief of Staff Jake Rivers cited Harold Wharton as a major influence on his own beliefs and social media websites like Chirper, Cooksta and The Circle have in internal memos compared their talent at data harvesting favorably to the Jaspers regime’s universal monitoring. Jaspers’ regime also gave the name to the reality series Big Brother, a controversy that dogged the show until it was canceled following the deaths of most of its then-current cast alongside its host and several past contestants during the 2003 London zombie outbreak.
References
1984, The Great Dictator, You Nazty Spy!, Duck Soup, Jeeves and Wooster, The Autocracy of Mr. Parham, The Holy Terror, Meccania: The Super State, Michael Cummings Political Cartoons, Billy Bunter, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Animal Farm, The Man from UNCLE, James Bond, Get Smart!, The Tomorrow People, The Island of Dr. Moureau, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Quartermass Experiment, Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos, The Real Ambassadors, Coming to America, Performance, The Magician, The Wicker Man, Dennis the Menace. In the Wet, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, VALIS, Marvel Comics (Secret Empire, Captain Britain), The Venture Bros, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, They Came From Beyond Space, Doctor Who, The Devil’s Alternative, Scotch on the Rocks,The Guardians (TV Series), Miracleman, Watchmen, Countdown to Looking Glass, A Colder War, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, SCP Foundation, DC Comics (Doctor Fate), Astro Boy, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Albion, Yes Minister, V For Vendetta, House of Cards UK, Steins;Gate, The Curfew, Black Mirror, Years and Years, Shattered Union, Trigger Warning, Cities: Skylines, Dave the Diver, The Circle, Dead Set, Shaun of the Dead, The New Statesmen
1984, The Great Dictator, You Nazty Spy!, Duck Soup, Jeeves and Wooster, The Autocracy of Mr. Parham, The Holy Terror, Meccania: The Super State, Michael Cummings Political Cartoons, Billy Bunter, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Animal Farm, The Man from UNCLE, James Bond, Get Smart!, The Tomorrow People, The Island of Dr. Moureau, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Quartermass Experiment, Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos, The Real Ambassadors, Coming to America, Performance, The Magician, The Wicker Man, Dennis the Menace. In the Wet, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, VALIS, Marvel Comics (Secret Empire, Captain Britain), The Venture Bros, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, They Came From Beyond Space, Doctor Who, The Devil’s Alternative, Scotch on the Rocks,The Guardians (TV Series), Miracleman, Watchmen, Countdown to Looking Glass, A Colder War, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, SCP Foundation, DC Comics (Doctor Fate), Astro Boy, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Albion, Yes Minister, V For Vendetta, House of Cards UK, Steins;Gate, The Curfew, Black Mirror, Years and Years, Shattered Union, Trigger Warning, Cities: Skylines, Dave the Diver, The Circle, Dead Set, Shaun of the Dead, The New Statesmen
Walpurgisnacht
It was in the Year of Maximum Danger
- Location
- Banned from the forum
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fuck yes, anarcho-menaceism. Gives a whole new meaning to “red and black bloc”.
Lots of solid welding here as usual—balancing out Dr Manhattan with Jim Jaspers, Escalation ‘84 making it Literally 1984, having Wharton just be kind of a weird guy to explain why Ingsoc wants various weird things-that-are-metaphors-for-WW2-era-UK-policies—but I’m not entirely over the idea of a TV producer naming a hot new reality TV show after an esoteric fascist ideology. Very much a pre-internet-era mistake.
Lots of solid welding here as usual—balancing out Dr Manhattan with Jim Jaspers, Escalation ‘84 making it Literally 1984, having Wharton just be kind of a weird guy to explain why Ingsoc wants various weird things-that-are-metaphors-for-WW2-era-UK-policies—but I’m not entirely over the idea of a TV producer naming a hot new reality TV show after an esoteric fascist ideology. Very much a pre-internet-era mistake.
Bene Tleilax
Well-known member
Does this mean Walter is the TTL-equivalent of Jacob Rees-Mogg (or William.)
Anarcho-Occultist
Well-known member
Glad you liked it!
I felt like Wharton being eccentric fit not only Ingsoc’s specific hobbyhorses but the broader trend of far right people being very very weird on a personal level. This is the same ideological sludge that in reality gave us such ideas as Hitler as a divine avatar of the Hindu gods (Savitri Devi’s esoteric Hitlerism) or there’s an underground kingdom of enlightened beings called Agartha whose system is perfect (Alexander St. Yves’ synarchy, which is admittedly a 19th century concept). I also figured that Jaspers did not share most of these eccentricities but saw them as useful for his actual belief that he should reign supreme over at least half the planet.
And yeah in-universe the name ‘Big Brother’ is enough to make the show more controversial than many other shows (basically until The Running Man becomes a thing it’s the most controversial reality show of the 21st century). It probably would’ve been cancelled just a season or two later if not for the zombies.
Most likely.
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Anarcho-Occultist
Well-known member
Vandal Savage
Vandal Savage (born circa 50,000 BC) is a metahuman, immortal, warlord and conqueror who has been active under numerous aliases in numerous places. Savage was born Vandar Adg, a member of the Blood Tribe in Anatolia well before the Hyborian Age. Adg’s acquisition of immortality is somewhat shrouded in rumor, but most available information implies the alien race known as the Scrin signaled their presence via a meteor shower and granted Adg a regenerative form of immortality in return for alliance with them. Adg was also given superhuman strength and psychic insight into others, making him functionally a genius. Adg used this power to aid his tribe in a revolt against the Children of the Night, a hairy ape-like race that dominated much of the world outside of Europe in this era. Adg’s genius and powers made him a formidable fighter against the Children. After helping defeat the Children, Adg would wander the Middle East and southern Europe for millennia, somewhat aimless for a while. He fought with the Immortal and at one time attempted to overthrow the Sumerian king Gilgamesh. Eventually, Adg’s ambitions grew and he constructed his first falsified identity in the form of Alexander the Great. In this identity, Adg was not wholly malevolent–he saved the realm of Pentexore from the giants Gog and Magog, established institutions like the Library of Alexandria and the First Warehouse, and briefly met the god Apollo, for instance–but displayed a ruthless, brutal side. During his conquests as Alexander, Adg briefly attempted to fight his way through Hell and was told he would one day end the world. When he got to India, Adg defeated an undead army of those he had previously slain and displayed a willingness to end the world, though this would ultimately not come to pass. Adg’s forces drew the attention of a race of aliens seeking to eliminate mankind, who copied Adg and his army to a parallel world as a record. In the end, Adg’s reign as Alexander ended with a poisoning attempt by the precursors of the Assassins, who were upset at his use of Precursor technology in his conquests.
Adg, however, was not to be kept down permanently via this method. Upon recovering, Adg once again sought to embark on conquest and domination. However, he would come to encounter a number of rivals to his power. Immortal Man, the Immortal, Hawkman, Hawkgirl and Ra’s Al Ghul were just a few of his long-running rivals. The Time Lord known as Professor Omega would regularly sabotage Adg’s efforts. The body-jumping being known as Doro became an enemy of Savage due to viewing him as a potential threat, a belief shared by Ayesha, the Queen of Kor. The time-traveling conqueror known as Kang likewise opposed Adg, viewing him as a threat. Despite these rivals, however, Adg was able to continue to assert himself. One of his most successful regimes was under the fabricated identity of Julius Caesar. As Caesar, Adg had multiple lovers including Egypt’s Cleopatra and the legendary warrior Xena, was targeted for murder by a time traveler and conquered most of Gaul outside the village of Amorica. Ultimately, Adg’s rule would collapse when he was stabbed multiple times by several members of the Roman Senate led by Brutus and Cassius-an attack which nearly actually killed Adg, a fact which caused him to go into hiding for centuries. Adg would reemerge in the 13th century as the Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan. After absorbing the remnants of the horde of Shan Yu (a notorious torture-happy Hun warlord who was killed by the warrior Fa Mulan) embarked on a conquest spree. Adg as Khan managed to establish what was at the time the world’s largest empire by land area and had numerous conquest-happy descendants including Khotun Khan, Shiwan Khan, and the Golden Claw. After being nearly killed by the Assassins, Adg went into a subtler form of operating.
Adg ultimately tired of operating in the shadows by the 1600’s, however. In this era, piracy was increasingly prevalent and here Adg saw his chance to once again become a feared warrior. Adg crafted the identity of Edward Teach and became a pirate, operating under the name of Blackbeard. In this identity, Adg would mentor several other pirates including Anne Providence and Connor Kenway, enter a relationship with Stede Bonnet the so-called ‘gentleman pirate’ and bury large amounts of treasure. Adg’s actions in this identity helped lead to him adopting his modern name of Vandal Savage and inspired a number of imitators, including one who would seemingly die in a confrontation with the Royal Navy only to be resurrected with dark magic. Savage’s nautical exploits would end with the Brethren Court’s unleashing of the goddess Calypso, which ushered in an event later dubbed the Alteration which made the seas deeply unsafe. Savage took refuge in Europe and resumed a role as a manipulator in the shadows. Operating behind the scenes, Savage influenced the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte and Otto Von Bludiron in the 19th century and in the 20th would be among the many vying to influence German Fuhrer Adenoid Hynkel. However, facing challenges from Hydra, Savage ultimately betrayed Hynkel and formed a common cause with communist forces in Eastern Europe, becoming a close confidant of Pottsylvanian dictator Josef Besstrashny.
The latter part of the 20th century saw Savage become more widely known as a supervillain. Savage would clash with the likes of the Justice League and Avengers on numerous occasions. Savage faced recurring failure, however, to secure what he really wanted. In an era where the likes of Victor Von Doom, Vega (also known as M. Bison), and Khan Noonien Singh managed to assert direct rule, Savage was full of envy. Savage was not content to stew in bitterness, however. Taking advantage of his latent-and secret-psychic abilities, Savage carefully constructed the identity of the enigmatic Kane and formed the organization known as the Brotherhood of Nod. Nod’s moment to threaten the world would come in the mid-1990’s with the arrival of the element Tiberium to Earth. Savage, on the advice of his ancient benefactors the Scrin, worked to secure the resource, viewing it as essential to his goal of conquest. However, the world refused to surrender. The formation of the Global Defense Initiative in 1996 helped contain Nod even amidst the turmoil of the Harvester and Fithp invasions. By 2000, a frustrated Savage retreated into hiding. Even the chaos of the early 21st century did not see Savage reemerge. It was only in the 2040’s-amidst worldwide turmoil-that Savage made another attempt at conquest. Savage emerged in this era in the identity of the so-called Grandmaster Meio and experienced much early success in conquering the world. However, in doing so, Savage ran afoul of the megacorporate institutions growing increasingly dominant over the world. Led by the Genom Corporation, they dedicated intense resources to imprisoning Savage. Ultimately, a chamber designed by the Vandein Corporation was deployed and Savage was lured into it. The trap was successful and Savage would be imprisoned for centuries.
Upon emerging, Savage had somewhat mellowed out and foreswore further conquest. He adopted the name Mr. Flint and attempted to live in peace for hundreds of years. Eventually, though, the constant attacks on Earth by aliens and dysfunctional Earth government led Savage to in the 3020’s launch a bid to seize control of the planet. The Earth government at the time, the United States of Earth, was a decrepit body led by the no-longer-sane resurrected head of Richard Monckton, whose blatant corruption and incompetence left the planet quite vulnerable. Savage’s attempt to seize control in a coup was derailed, however, by the simultaneous effort of Nathaniel Richards. Richards, who would in later time be better known as Kang the Conqueror, was a figure that Savage was vaguely aware of, but was not aware of his native time, which meant Kang (who had been in communication with versions of himself from other times) had the advantage. Kang’s forces were able to overthrow the USE and imprison Savage, but soon ran into further challenges. Neo-Queen Serenity, who had been ruling Japan for centuries already from Crystal Tokyo, challenged Kang’s rule of the planet, aided by the Legion of Superheroes, Savage, meanwhile, gave both sides the slip and escaped the planet. Enraged at being denied what he considered his right, Savage directed the Drej and Glorft fleets towards Earth, hoping that alien attacks would weaken both Serenity and Kang enough for him to take over the planet. Unfortunately for Savage, the Drej fleet was successfully repelled with ease and while the Glorft posed a much greater threat, the ultimate victory of Serenity’s Silver Millennium meant in the end the planet remained intact.
Savage spent much of his time in the early years beyond Earth biding his time. The emergence of the first galactic empire of humankind sparked Savage’s interest. Afterwards, Savage used his psychic capabilities to carve out a fiefdom under the pseudonym of ‘the Mule.’ In this guise, he sought to conquer the galaxy but was thwarted by Hari Seldon’s Foundation. Savage, undeterred, worked his way into the good graces of House Corrino of Salusa Secundus. Savage encouraged them to go beyond ruling a handful of star systems by waging war against rivals such as the Ekumen and the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Savage’s guidance led to the formation of a second empire, but Savage’s influence would be sidelined when Paul Atriedes overthrew the Corrinos with the help of the Fremen of Arrakis and his son Leto II scattered humankind. It was at this time Savage rediscovered Earth-a badly battered shell of its former self, still not having recovered from a war between Tsan-Chan and Panem that had occurred nearly 20,000 years earlier. Toons and Moureau sapiens who dubbed the planet Mobius dominated the place. Savage would seize the planet relatively easily, purging the nonhumans as well as the remnant Methusalahs who tried to supplant him at the last minute and from there proclaimed the formation of the Imperium of Man. Savage declared himself the Emperor of Mankind and began conquering the human worlds throughout the galaxy. Savage sought to bring benevolent tyranny to his subjects, but on being rendered comatose, his empire warped. Savage became hailed as a God-Emperor and his Imperium entered an era of dark, disastrous warfare. It is unclear whether Savage could end this if he woke up or if he would embrace what the Imperium has become either out of hubris or necessity, but for now his Imperium worships his comatose form while waging total war on a number of rival factions..
Vandal Savage (born circa 50,000 BC) is a metahuman, immortal, warlord and conqueror who has been active under numerous aliases in numerous places. Savage was born Vandar Adg, a member of the Blood Tribe in Anatolia well before the Hyborian Age. Adg’s acquisition of immortality is somewhat shrouded in rumor, but most available information implies the alien race known as the Scrin signaled their presence via a meteor shower and granted Adg a regenerative form of immortality in return for alliance with them. Adg was also given superhuman strength and psychic insight into others, making him functionally a genius. Adg used this power to aid his tribe in a revolt against the Children of the Night, a hairy ape-like race that dominated much of the world outside of Europe in this era. Adg’s genius and powers made him a formidable fighter against the Children. After helping defeat the Children, Adg would wander the Middle East and southern Europe for millennia, somewhat aimless for a while. He fought with the Immortal and at one time attempted to overthrow the Sumerian king Gilgamesh. Eventually, Adg’s ambitions grew and he constructed his first falsified identity in the form of Alexander the Great. In this identity, Adg was not wholly malevolent–he saved the realm of Pentexore from the giants Gog and Magog, established institutions like the Library of Alexandria and the First Warehouse, and briefly met the god Apollo, for instance–but displayed a ruthless, brutal side. During his conquests as Alexander, Adg briefly attempted to fight his way through Hell and was told he would one day end the world. When he got to India, Adg defeated an undead army of those he had previously slain and displayed a willingness to end the world, though this would ultimately not come to pass. Adg’s forces drew the attention of a race of aliens seeking to eliminate mankind, who copied Adg and his army to a parallel world as a record. In the end, Adg’s reign as Alexander ended with a poisoning attempt by the precursors of the Assassins, who were upset at his use of Precursor technology in his conquests.
Adg, however, was not to be kept down permanently via this method. Upon recovering, Adg once again sought to embark on conquest and domination. However, he would come to encounter a number of rivals to his power. Immortal Man, the Immortal, Hawkman, Hawkgirl and Ra’s Al Ghul were just a few of his long-running rivals. The Time Lord known as Professor Omega would regularly sabotage Adg’s efforts. The body-jumping being known as Doro became an enemy of Savage due to viewing him as a potential threat, a belief shared by Ayesha, the Queen of Kor. The time-traveling conqueror known as Kang likewise opposed Adg, viewing him as a threat. Despite these rivals, however, Adg was able to continue to assert himself. One of his most successful regimes was under the fabricated identity of Julius Caesar. As Caesar, Adg had multiple lovers including Egypt’s Cleopatra and the legendary warrior Xena, was targeted for murder by a time traveler and conquered most of Gaul outside the village of Amorica. Ultimately, Adg’s rule would collapse when he was stabbed multiple times by several members of the Roman Senate led by Brutus and Cassius-an attack which nearly actually killed Adg, a fact which caused him to go into hiding for centuries. Adg would reemerge in the 13th century as the Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan. After absorbing the remnants of the horde of Shan Yu (a notorious torture-happy Hun warlord who was killed by the warrior Fa Mulan) embarked on a conquest spree. Adg as Khan managed to establish what was at the time the world’s largest empire by land area and had numerous conquest-happy descendants including Khotun Khan, Shiwan Khan, and the Golden Claw. After being nearly killed by the Assassins, Adg went into a subtler form of operating.
Adg ultimately tired of operating in the shadows by the 1600’s, however. In this era, piracy was increasingly prevalent and here Adg saw his chance to once again become a feared warrior. Adg crafted the identity of Edward Teach and became a pirate, operating under the name of Blackbeard. In this identity, Adg would mentor several other pirates including Anne Providence and Connor Kenway, enter a relationship with Stede Bonnet the so-called ‘gentleman pirate’ and bury large amounts of treasure. Adg’s actions in this identity helped lead to him adopting his modern name of Vandal Savage and inspired a number of imitators, including one who would seemingly die in a confrontation with the Royal Navy only to be resurrected with dark magic. Savage’s nautical exploits would end with the Brethren Court’s unleashing of the goddess Calypso, which ushered in an event later dubbed the Alteration which made the seas deeply unsafe. Savage took refuge in Europe and resumed a role as a manipulator in the shadows. Operating behind the scenes, Savage influenced the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte and Otto Von Bludiron in the 19th century and in the 20th would be among the many vying to influence German Fuhrer Adenoid Hynkel. However, facing challenges from Hydra, Savage ultimately betrayed Hynkel and formed a common cause with communist forces in Eastern Europe, becoming a close confidant of Pottsylvanian dictator Josef Besstrashny.
The latter part of the 20th century saw Savage become more widely known as a supervillain. Savage would clash with the likes of the Justice League and Avengers on numerous occasions. Savage faced recurring failure, however, to secure what he really wanted. In an era where the likes of Victor Von Doom, Vega (also known as M. Bison), and Khan Noonien Singh managed to assert direct rule, Savage was full of envy. Savage was not content to stew in bitterness, however. Taking advantage of his latent-and secret-psychic abilities, Savage carefully constructed the identity of the enigmatic Kane and formed the organization known as the Brotherhood of Nod. Nod’s moment to threaten the world would come in the mid-1990’s with the arrival of the element Tiberium to Earth. Savage, on the advice of his ancient benefactors the Scrin, worked to secure the resource, viewing it as essential to his goal of conquest. However, the world refused to surrender. The formation of the Global Defense Initiative in 1996 helped contain Nod even amidst the turmoil of the Harvester and Fithp invasions. By 2000, a frustrated Savage retreated into hiding. Even the chaos of the early 21st century did not see Savage reemerge. It was only in the 2040’s-amidst worldwide turmoil-that Savage made another attempt at conquest. Savage emerged in this era in the identity of the so-called Grandmaster Meio and experienced much early success in conquering the world. However, in doing so, Savage ran afoul of the megacorporate institutions growing increasingly dominant over the world. Led by the Genom Corporation, they dedicated intense resources to imprisoning Savage. Ultimately, a chamber designed by the Vandein Corporation was deployed and Savage was lured into it. The trap was successful and Savage would be imprisoned for centuries.
Upon emerging, Savage had somewhat mellowed out and foreswore further conquest. He adopted the name Mr. Flint and attempted to live in peace for hundreds of years. Eventually, though, the constant attacks on Earth by aliens and dysfunctional Earth government led Savage to in the 3020’s launch a bid to seize control of the planet. The Earth government at the time, the United States of Earth, was a decrepit body led by the no-longer-sane resurrected head of Richard Monckton, whose blatant corruption and incompetence left the planet quite vulnerable. Savage’s attempt to seize control in a coup was derailed, however, by the simultaneous effort of Nathaniel Richards. Richards, who would in later time be better known as Kang the Conqueror, was a figure that Savage was vaguely aware of, but was not aware of his native time, which meant Kang (who had been in communication with versions of himself from other times) had the advantage. Kang’s forces were able to overthrow the USE and imprison Savage, but soon ran into further challenges. Neo-Queen Serenity, who had been ruling Japan for centuries already from Crystal Tokyo, challenged Kang’s rule of the planet, aided by the Legion of Superheroes, Savage, meanwhile, gave both sides the slip and escaped the planet. Enraged at being denied what he considered his right, Savage directed the Drej and Glorft fleets towards Earth, hoping that alien attacks would weaken both Serenity and Kang enough for him to take over the planet. Unfortunately for Savage, the Drej fleet was successfully repelled with ease and while the Glorft posed a much greater threat, the ultimate victory of Serenity’s Silver Millennium meant in the end the planet remained intact.
Savage spent much of his time in the early years beyond Earth biding his time. The emergence of the first galactic empire of humankind sparked Savage’s interest. Afterwards, Savage used his psychic capabilities to carve out a fiefdom under the pseudonym of ‘the Mule.’ In this guise, he sought to conquer the galaxy but was thwarted by Hari Seldon’s Foundation. Savage, undeterred, worked his way into the good graces of House Corrino of Salusa Secundus. Savage encouraged them to go beyond ruling a handful of star systems by waging war against rivals such as the Ekumen and the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Savage’s guidance led to the formation of a second empire, but Savage’s influence would be sidelined when Paul Atriedes overthrew the Corrinos with the help of the Fremen of Arrakis and his son Leto II scattered humankind. It was at this time Savage rediscovered Earth-a badly battered shell of its former self, still not having recovered from a war between Tsan-Chan and Panem that had occurred nearly 20,000 years earlier. Toons and Moureau sapiens who dubbed the planet Mobius dominated the place. Savage would seize the planet relatively easily, purging the nonhumans as well as the remnant Methusalahs who tried to supplant him at the last minute and from there proclaimed the formation of the Imperium of Man. Savage declared himself the Emperor of Mankind and began conquering the human worlds throughout the galaxy. Savage sought to bring benevolent tyranny to his subjects, but on being rendered comatose, his empire warped. Savage became hailed as a God-Emperor and his Imperium entered an era of dark, disastrous warfare. It is unclear whether Savage could end this if he woke up or if he would embrace what the Imperium has become either out of hubris or necessity, but for now his Imperium worships his comatose form while waging total war on a number of rival factions..
References
DC Comics, Conan the Barbarian, Command and Conquer, SCP Foundation, Invincible, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Dirge for Prester John, Warehouse 13, Alexander (1925 film), Dante’s Inferno (video game), Reign: The Conqueror, A Time Odyssey, Assassin’s Creed, Doctor Who, Professor Omega, Wild Seed, She, Xena: Warrior Princess, Criminal Case: Travel in Time, Asterix, Julius Caesar, Firefly, Mulan, Ghost of Tsushima, The Shadow, Marvel Comics (Agents of Atlas, The Avengers), Anne of the Indies, Our Flag Means Death, On Stranger Tides, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Meccania the Super-State, The Great Dictator, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Street Fighter, Star Trek, Independence Day, Footfall, Strider, Bubblegum Crisis, Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, Futurama, The Company, Sailor Moon, Titan AE, Megas XLR, Foundation, Dune, Hainish Cycle, Honor Harrington, Cthulhu Mythos, The Hunger Games, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Island of Doctor Moureau, Sonic the Hedgehog, Trinity Blood, Warhammer 40K
DC Comics, Conan the Barbarian, Command and Conquer, SCP Foundation, Invincible, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Dirge for Prester John, Warehouse 13, Alexander (1925 film), Dante’s Inferno (video game), Reign: The Conqueror, A Time Odyssey, Assassin’s Creed, Doctor Who, Professor Omega, Wild Seed, She, Xena: Warrior Princess, Criminal Case: Travel in Time, Asterix, Julius Caesar, Firefly, Mulan, Ghost of Tsushima, The Shadow, Marvel Comics (Agents of Atlas, The Avengers), Anne of the Indies, Our Flag Means Death, On Stranger Tides, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Meccania the Super-State, The Great Dictator, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Street Fighter, Star Trek, Independence Day, Footfall, Strider, Bubblegum Crisis, Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, Futurama, The Company, Sailor Moon, Titan AE, Megas XLR, Foundation, Dune, Hainish Cycle, Honor Harrington, Cthulhu Mythos, The Hunger Games, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Island of Doctor Moureau, Sonic the Hedgehog, Trinity Blood, Warhammer 40K
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Walpurgisnacht
It was in the Year of Maximum Danger
- Location
- Banned from the forum
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There’s a lot going on here, but I think the highlight might throwing Dr Robotnik into the sea of characters-that-are-the-same here. That hedgehog really deserves his ego.
“Rule of thumb, Horus: you can’t kill the messiah.”
“Rule of thumb, Horus: you can’t kill the messiah.”
Anarcho-Occultist
Well-known member
This American Century-Part 1
The great realigning event that would define the 21st century may have technically began with the victory of John McCain in the 2000 election. McCain was something of a maverick among Republicans, having a more moderate set of beliefs than his main rival George W. Bush. McCain worked with Democrats on things like education and campaign finance reform and negotiated a tax bill focusing on cuts for the middle class while doing less for the wealthy. The moment that would define his presidency, however, came on September 11th, 2001. Terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the White House with hijacked airplanes, killing around 3,000 people. Among the dead were First Lady Cindy McCain, Vice President Tommy Thompson and several cabinet members. McCain was enraged by this and vowed to hunt the ‘scum behind this atrocity to the ends of the earth.’ Thus marked the beginning of the War on Terror.
McCain declared there was no room for the usual petty partisanship in the post-9/11 world. Now was the time for the country to unite. And unite it did. McCain boasted 91% approval in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and few in Congress objected when the McCain administration made its demands. First, McCain shocked many by announcing a ‘new National Union coalition’. He selected Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman as his new Vice President and appointed a number of Democrats to fill cabinet vacancies as a show of bringing America together. It wasn’t all just these overtures, of course. The National Union coalition in Congress passed sweeping expansion of government surveillance powers, gave McCain’s administration to detain suspected enemy combatants indefinitely (albeit with some protections against torture or other abuses) and empowered McCain to pursue the terrorists behind the attacks by almost any means necessary. McCain launched an invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. By 2003, the war had expanded to include Iraq and Libya. In 2004, an attack on a US naval vessel in the Persian Gulf led to the U.S. launching a war in Iran. The wars were not without critics, but the National Union coalition, while not fully formalized, helped stifle much dissent and were broadly supported going into 2004.
The 2004 election saw the new National Union truly formalized. McCain entered both the Democratic and Republican primaries with support from the vast majority of party leadership. Only a few candidates emerged to challenge McCain in the primaries. In the Republican field, McCain was challenged by right-wing commentator Pat Buchanan and businessman Herman Cain. In the end, the two failed to make much of a dent in his support on that side. In the Democratic field, meanwhile, McCain faced more organized opposition from Senator Paul Wellstone, who challenged McCain on foreign policy, civil liberties and economics. Wellstone managed to crack 20% and even won 5 states, but McCain still ended up the official nominee of both parties. Wellstone encouraged his supporters to vote their conscience, but this did not mean that McCain would go unchallenged.
Texas Representative Ron Paul was one of McCain’s only vocal critics among elected GOP officials. He had endorsed Buchanan’s challenge, but when it failed announced a bid for the Presidency as an independent. As his running mate, Paul selected fellow Representative Dennis Kucinich-a left-wing Democrat likewise disgruntled by the National Unionists. Ironically, the Paul/Kucinich ticket built a party coalition of their own-getting cross-endorsed by the Libertarian, Green, Constitution and Reform Parties alongside a few even more minor ones. The ticket had the support of 2000 Green nominee Ralph Nader, former Governor Jesse Ventura, San Francisco Mayor Matt Gonzalez and the majority of antiwar activists. This was not universal, however. More fundamentally leftist antiwar figures were completely unwilling to rally around the paleoconservative Paul and instead chose to rally around the Socialist Party nominee David Cobb (a failed Green Party candidate left disgruntled by what he claimed was Kucinich interfering in the nomination process).
As a result of this unprecedented development, the Commission on Presidential Debates originally announced the cancellation of any official debates with their replacement by a townhall-style event featuring McCain. However, amidst backlash from Paul and Cobb supporters as well as Paul cracking 15% in multiple polls, the CPD restored their original debate schedule, albeit only inviting Paul to debate against McCain. The first debate was a brutal one, with Paul attacking McCain as a warmongering tyrant and McCain at one point losing his temper and threatening to physically fight Paul. The second debate was a comparatively more muted affair, though generally agreed to have been a win for McCain. The Vice Presidential debate, however, was seen as going well for Kucinich compared to Lieberman, though topline numbers didn’t move very much. The third debate was canceled, however, following a civil disobedience action spearheaded by the Cobb campaign that disrupted logistics at the original planned debate site. The event led to Cobb’s arrest, which ultimately may have helped his popular vote total.
In the end, the election’s final results were never truly in doubt. While Paul managed to animate a decently sized antiwar coalition and achieved a better electoral performance than Ross Perot in 1992, his 21% of the popular vote was nowhere close to McCain’s 76%. While Paul did win the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Vermont and was within Cobb’s margin in Hawaii, West Virginia, Alabama and Minnesota, McCain still won over 500 electoral college votes. Paul did not win a majority of any demographic, with the closest being winning 46% of white men aged 18-29. Cobb’s 2.5% was respectable for a third party as well, but still quite weak overall. In the aftermath of the 2004 election, the National Union Party’s dominance seemed quite stable. Paul and Kucinich both narrowly lost re-election against National Union-backed rivals. And yet, a small hint of what was to come could be seen with the formation of the Coalition for the Constitution block in Congress by those Democrats and Republicans who rejected the National Union Party and the McCain administration
The great realigning event that would define the 21st century may have technically began with the victory of John McCain in the 2000 election. McCain was something of a maverick among Republicans, having a more moderate set of beliefs than his main rival George W. Bush. McCain worked with Democrats on things like education and campaign finance reform and negotiated a tax bill focusing on cuts for the middle class while doing less for the wealthy. The moment that would define his presidency, however, came on September 11th, 2001. Terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the White House with hijacked airplanes, killing around 3,000 people. Among the dead were First Lady Cindy McCain, Vice President Tommy Thompson and several cabinet members. McCain was enraged by this and vowed to hunt the ‘scum behind this atrocity to the ends of the earth.’ Thus marked the beginning of the War on Terror.
McCain declared there was no room for the usual petty partisanship in the post-9/11 world. Now was the time for the country to unite. And unite it did. McCain boasted 91% approval in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and few in Congress objected when the McCain administration made its demands. First, McCain shocked many by announcing a ‘new National Union coalition’. He selected Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman as his new Vice President and appointed a number of Democrats to fill cabinet vacancies as a show of bringing America together. It wasn’t all just these overtures, of course. The National Union coalition in Congress passed sweeping expansion of government surveillance powers, gave McCain’s administration to detain suspected enemy combatants indefinitely (albeit with some protections against torture or other abuses) and empowered McCain to pursue the terrorists behind the attacks by almost any means necessary. McCain launched an invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. By 2003, the war had expanded to include Iraq and Libya. In 2004, an attack on a US naval vessel in the Persian Gulf led to the U.S. launching a war in Iran. The wars were not without critics, but the National Union coalition, while not fully formalized, helped stifle much dissent and were broadly supported going into 2004.
The 2004 election saw the new National Union truly formalized. McCain entered both the Democratic and Republican primaries with support from the vast majority of party leadership. Only a few candidates emerged to challenge McCain in the primaries. In the Republican field, McCain was challenged by right-wing commentator Pat Buchanan and businessman Herman Cain. In the end, the two failed to make much of a dent in his support on that side. In the Democratic field, meanwhile, McCain faced more organized opposition from Senator Paul Wellstone, who challenged McCain on foreign policy, civil liberties and economics. Wellstone managed to crack 20% and even won 5 states, but McCain still ended up the official nominee of both parties. Wellstone encouraged his supporters to vote their conscience, but this did not mean that McCain would go unchallenged.
Texas Representative Ron Paul was one of McCain’s only vocal critics among elected GOP officials. He had endorsed Buchanan’s challenge, but when it failed announced a bid for the Presidency as an independent. As his running mate, Paul selected fellow Representative Dennis Kucinich-a left-wing Democrat likewise disgruntled by the National Unionists. Ironically, the Paul/Kucinich ticket built a party coalition of their own-getting cross-endorsed by the Libertarian, Green, Constitution and Reform Parties alongside a few even more minor ones. The ticket had the support of 2000 Green nominee Ralph Nader, former Governor Jesse Ventura, San Francisco Mayor Matt Gonzalez and the majority of antiwar activists. This was not universal, however. More fundamentally leftist antiwar figures were completely unwilling to rally around the paleoconservative Paul and instead chose to rally around the Socialist Party nominee David Cobb (a failed Green Party candidate left disgruntled by what he claimed was Kucinich interfering in the nomination process).
As a result of this unprecedented development, the Commission on Presidential Debates originally announced the cancellation of any official debates with their replacement by a townhall-style event featuring McCain. However, amidst backlash from Paul and Cobb supporters as well as Paul cracking 15% in multiple polls, the CPD restored their original debate schedule, albeit only inviting Paul to debate against McCain. The first debate was a brutal one, with Paul attacking McCain as a warmongering tyrant and McCain at one point losing his temper and threatening to physically fight Paul. The second debate was a comparatively more muted affair, though generally agreed to have been a win for McCain. The Vice Presidential debate, however, was seen as going well for Kucinich compared to Lieberman, though topline numbers didn’t move very much. The third debate was canceled, however, following a civil disobedience action spearheaded by the Cobb campaign that disrupted logistics at the original planned debate site. The event led to Cobb’s arrest, which ultimately may have helped his popular vote total.
In the end, the election’s final results were never truly in doubt. While Paul managed to animate a decently sized antiwar coalition and achieved a better electoral performance than Ross Perot in 1992, his 21% of the popular vote was nowhere close to McCain’s 76%. While Paul did win the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Vermont and was within Cobb’s margin in Hawaii, West Virginia, Alabama and Minnesota, McCain still won over 500 electoral college votes. Paul did not win a majority of any demographic, with the closest being winning 46% of white men aged 18-29. Cobb’s 2.5% was respectable for a third party as well, but still quite weak overall. In the aftermath of the 2004 election, the National Union Party’s dominance seemed quite stable. Paul and Kucinich both narrowly lost re-election against National Union-backed rivals. And yet, a small hint of what was to come could be seen with the formation of the Coalition for the Constitution block in Congress by those Democrats and Republicans who rejected the National Union Party and the McCain administration
Anarcho-Occultist
Well-known member
This American Century-Part 2
McCain’s second term would end up going far less well than his first. The wars were the first front in his administration’s decline. The insurgencies in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan kept the U.S. bogged down and prevented the rapid declaration of victory. The war in Iran proved an even bigger disaster, with the death toll rapidly eclipsing all three of the other major Middle Eastern wars combined. In April of 2005, McCain announced the resumption of the draft to mass protests. Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps carried out a brutal insurgency not only in Iran but beyond. Members of the IRGC massacred American embassy staff in Damascus, caused a massive spike in gas prices by destroying a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure and even assassinated General David Petraeus in 2007. It is little wonder that the Iran War thus quickly became the most controversial theater of the War on Terror. Protests against the war occurred on a regular basis, often leading to clashes with law enforcement. The NYPD infamously shot and killed 7 antiwar protestors during an antiwar rally in Madison Square Garden in 2007, an event which many have credited with being the political downfall of Mayor Hillary Clinton who was accused of obstructing accountability for the officers involved. The National Union Party was also criticized for lackluster domestic policy, having a poor response to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, being accused of picking repeated media fights with media critics like Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson and pursuing policies of media censorship that many held violated the First Amendment. Right-wingers balked at the McCain administration’s support for immigration reform, gun control measures, and environmental protections while the left took umbrage at their opposition to same-sex marriage, pro-corporate and anti-union economic policies and harsh ‘law and order’ policies.
The National Union Party was weakened, but not defeated going into the 2008 election cycle. While many Republican and Democratic officeholders no longer associated with the National Union Party, a majority of both the House and Senate remained affiliated with the party even as they maintained official Democratic or Republican registration. The Coalition for the Constitution controlled 193 seats in the House after the 2006 midterm elections while their Senate presence numbered at 29. The majority of anti-National Union figures were Democrats, which was likely a factor in the events of the 2008 primary cycle. The National Union Party itself had a clear heir apparent: Vice President Lieberman, the handpicked choice of President McCain and a staunch ally of the administration. Lieberman, like McCain, sought to run in both parties’ primaries. However, he would not go unchallenged in either. On the Democratic side, antiwar activists convinced one of their earliest Congressional allies to enter the race: California Representative Barbara Lee. Lee, a progressive Democrat, ran on ending the wars, but beyond that against the legacy of Bill Clinton. Lee promised sweeping reforms-a carbon tax, universal healthcare, a minimum wage increase, student loan forgiveness and even an end to the War on Drugs. Lee was thus the favorite of many activists within the Democratic Party. As Lieberman was himself a Democrat, many more moderate Democrats sat out the race, leaving it a Lieberman vs. Lee contest on that side. The Republican Party, meanwhile, was more crowded. While McCain’s endorsement certainly boosted Lieberman, Lieberman’s more liberal tendencies and accusations he was pushing McCain left against his own instincts meant many Republicans were willing to challenge him. In the end, three would prove somewhat viable-Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, Tennessee Senator Jimmy Duncan and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Notably, two of the three also ran on a platform of ending the Iran War–Hagel and Duncan both were considered fairly dovish, while Bush simply challenged Lieberman as being too socially liberal.
In the course of the campaign, Lieberman was on a very defensive footing. He struggled to balance between the two parties and with the administration’s popularity waning, he faced challenges. Lieberman only succeeded in winning the National Union Party primary in Iowa–it went to Hagel in the Republican field and, in an upset, Lee managed to win there in the Democratic caucus. A victory in all three contests in New Hampshire was blunted by Lee winning Nevada and Duncan taking South Carolina. By Super Tuesday, many thought Lieberman would blow it–but then the results came in. On the Republican side, vote-splitting allowed Lieberman multiple wins he otherwise wouldn’t have been able to gain. Meanwhile, his performance on the Democratic side was worse, but survivable for Lieberman. In the end, after much back and forth, Lieberman managed to win the National Union and Republican nominations, but the Democratic nomination was to be decided by a brokered convention. The DNC’s superdelegates faced a difficult choice. On one hand, Lee had a majority of the popular vote. However, nominating Lee was a big risk. Lieberman had already secured the NUP and Republican nomination and given Lee was a woman, African-American and rather progressive, many Democratic leaders feared she would be quite likely to go down in defeat. In the end, the DNC handed the nomination to Lieberman, retaining the National Union Party coalition over mass protests-the 2008 DNC ended in a riot that, while thankfully less catastrophic than the one in Chicago 40 years prior, left the party embarrassed and millions of Lee voters incensed. To double down on keeping Republicans in his corner, Lieberman selected Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to be his running mate.
There were alternatives to Lieberman mobilizing, fortunately for the disaffected. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura had announced an independent campaign and sought to rebuild Paul’s party coalition for the 2008 cycle. Ventura was able to bring together the Green, Libertarian and Reform Parties together once more, bolstered by his choice of fellow idiosyncratic antiwar politician Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska, as his running mate. Ventura/Gravel could not, however, bring the Constitution Party into the fold. The Constitution Party saw an opening by winning disaffected Duncan supporters and initially offered the Senator himself their nomination. When Duncan declined, they turned next to Judge Roy Moore, who accepted. Moore earned a few other right-wing parties’ support-notably the Conservative Party of New York, the American Independent Party and the Alaskan Independence Party. His running mate was Representative Virgil Goode. Notably, Moore and Goode had been for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq even while they opposed the Iran War. The Constitution Party thus focused their campaign on extreme social conservatism, nativism and right-wing economics rather than the added antiwar component from supporting Paul 4 years prior. The Socialist Party meanwhile nominated New York activist Howie Hawkins. Hawkins had sought the Green nomination, but lost to Ventura. Undeterred, he ran with the support of the Socialist Party, the Working Families Party, the Working Class Party and the newly-formed People’s Party.
Lieberman was in a far weaker position in 2008 than McCain had been in 2004. The administration’s popularity was already waning by the time the economy dipped into a recession. McCain pursued stimulus measures that passed mainly with the support of National Union Party-affiliated members of Congress, but the economy continued to worsen in the march towards election day. Emboldened Iranian resistance forces continued to attack and kill American forces overseas as protests continued at home. Insurgencies in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan likewise picked up and some pundits and politicians began calling for winding down these wars. Lieberman’s numbers began to fall–by September he was polling at 30% nationwide. With Ventura and Moore at 25% each, Hawkins at 10% and 10% undecided, Lieberman looked vulnerable. The debates seemed to validate this–facing Ventura (mostly running to Lieberman’s left) and Moore (decidedly running to the right), Lieberman struggled. The candidate did not have as much charisma as McCain, was not nearly as high-energy and it was feared by the NUP and Republicans that they may have miscalculated. The second debate and the VP debates went alright for Lieberman’s campaign, but he maintained a slim national lead even if he stopped slipping. It was sheer luck that saved Lieberman. McCain’s administration announced the capture of Osama Bin Laden just days before the final debate. This gave Lieberman a much needed achievement and paved the way for his best debate performance. Lieberman hammered Moore’s inexperience and Ventura’s isolationism as obstacles to ensuring American safety. He touted the capture of Bin Laden as proof that the National Union Party was the best option to keep the nation safe. Moore stumbled in his retort, accusing Lieberman’s ‘cosmopolitan values’ of undermining national security, a remark Lieberman and Ventura denounced as anti-Semitic. Further hurting Moore was a series of sexual misconduct allegations made against him by several women who claimed he had engaged in inappropriate relationships with them when they were teenagers. Moore denied any wrongdoing.
On Election Night, Lieberman’s victory was clear. He won 43% of the popular vote and over 400 electoral votes. His closest competition was Jesse Ventura, who won 28% of the popular vote but finished in third in the electoral college. Second place in the electoral college went to Roy Moore. Despite a comparatively dismal 21% in the popular vote, Moore managed to win seven states compared to Ventura’s 3. Howie Hawkins’ Socialists finished in fourth place with 5% of the vote. They won no states, though 1 elector voted for Hawkins in Vermont. Remaining votes largely went to local independent candidates or write-ins for Barbara Lee. The National Union Party took some severe blows, however. The NUP affiliates in the House nearly lost their majority, though they still retained firm control in the Senate. Lieberman took office trying to maintain a balanced cabinet, retaining many McCain cabinet members and adding the former President himself as Secretary of State. Many Democrats in Congress have gotten nervous about impending primary challenges from supporters of Lee and the ‘True Democratic Caucus’ emerging in 2009 from members who endorsed Ventura over Lieberman citing his seizing the Democratic nomination over the will of the majority of Democrats. Led by John Lewis, this caucus indicated plans to grow. They were not the only challenge on the horizon for the NUP. The Tea Party had formed as part of a conservative backlash to the NUP administration and several members were elected as Republicans and one (Tom Tancredo of Colorado) as a Constitution Party member. Many of these Republicans had backed Duncan in the primary and in the general either were neutral or endorsed Moore. Many of the Tea Party members have vowed to dethrone NUP aligned figures like House Speaker Eric Cantor. It is not clear if the NUP can long endure, especially as Lieberman has vowed to see the Iran War through ‘to completion.’
(Note the electoral map does not include the split electoral votes caused by Lieberman winning NE-2 or a Ventura elector in Vermont backing Hawkins.)
McCain’s second term would end up going far less well than his first. The wars were the first front in his administration’s decline. The insurgencies in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan kept the U.S. bogged down and prevented the rapid declaration of victory. The war in Iran proved an even bigger disaster, with the death toll rapidly eclipsing all three of the other major Middle Eastern wars combined. In April of 2005, McCain announced the resumption of the draft to mass protests. Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps carried out a brutal insurgency not only in Iran but beyond. Members of the IRGC massacred American embassy staff in Damascus, caused a massive spike in gas prices by destroying a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure and even assassinated General David Petraeus in 2007. It is little wonder that the Iran War thus quickly became the most controversial theater of the War on Terror. Protests against the war occurred on a regular basis, often leading to clashes with law enforcement. The NYPD infamously shot and killed 7 antiwar protestors during an antiwar rally in Madison Square Garden in 2007, an event which many have credited with being the political downfall of Mayor Hillary Clinton who was accused of obstructing accountability for the officers involved. The National Union Party was also criticized for lackluster domestic policy, having a poor response to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, being accused of picking repeated media fights with media critics like Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson and pursuing policies of media censorship that many held violated the First Amendment. Right-wingers balked at the McCain administration’s support for immigration reform, gun control measures, and environmental protections while the left took umbrage at their opposition to same-sex marriage, pro-corporate and anti-union economic policies and harsh ‘law and order’ policies.
The National Union Party was weakened, but not defeated going into the 2008 election cycle. While many Republican and Democratic officeholders no longer associated with the National Union Party, a majority of both the House and Senate remained affiliated with the party even as they maintained official Democratic or Republican registration. The Coalition for the Constitution controlled 193 seats in the House after the 2006 midterm elections while their Senate presence numbered at 29. The majority of anti-National Union figures were Democrats, which was likely a factor in the events of the 2008 primary cycle. The National Union Party itself had a clear heir apparent: Vice President Lieberman, the handpicked choice of President McCain and a staunch ally of the administration. Lieberman, like McCain, sought to run in both parties’ primaries. However, he would not go unchallenged in either. On the Democratic side, antiwar activists convinced one of their earliest Congressional allies to enter the race: California Representative Barbara Lee. Lee, a progressive Democrat, ran on ending the wars, but beyond that against the legacy of Bill Clinton. Lee promised sweeping reforms-a carbon tax, universal healthcare, a minimum wage increase, student loan forgiveness and even an end to the War on Drugs. Lee was thus the favorite of many activists within the Democratic Party. As Lieberman was himself a Democrat, many more moderate Democrats sat out the race, leaving it a Lieberman vs. Lee contest on that side. The Republican Party, meanwhile, was more crowded. While McCain’s endorsement certainly boosted Lieberman, Lieberman’s more liberal tendencies and accusations he was pushing McCain left against his own instincts meant many Republicans were willing to challenge him. In the end, three would prove somewhat viable-Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, Tennessee Senator Jimmy Duncan and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Notably, two of the three also ran on a platform of ending the Iran War–Hagel and Duncan both were considered fairly dovish, while Bush simply challenged Lieberman as being too socially liberal.
In the course of the campaign, Lieberman was on a very defensive footing. He struggled to balance between the two parties and with the administration’s popularity waning, he faced challenges. Lieberman only succeeded in winning the National Union Party primary in Iowa–it went to Hagel in the Republican field and, in an upset, Lee managed to win there in the Democratic caucus. A victory in all three contests in New Hampshire was blunted by Lee winning Nevada and Duncan taking South Carolina. By Super Tuesday, many thought Lieberman would blow it–but then the results came in. On the Republican side, vote-splitting allowed Lieberman multiple wins he otherwise wouldn’t have been able to gain. Meanwhile, his performance on the Democratic side was worse, but survivable for Lieberman. In the end, after much back and forth, Lieberman managed to win the National Union and Republican nominations, but the Democratic nomination was to be decided by a brokered convention. The DNC’s superdelegates faced a difficult choice. On one hand, Lee had a majority of the popular vote. However, nominating Lee was a big risk. Lieberman had already secured the NUP and Republican nomination and given Lee was a woman, African-American and rather progressive, many Democratic leaders feared she would be quite likely to go down in defeat. In the end, the DNC handed the nomination to Lieberman, retaining the National Union Party coalition over mass protests-the 2008 DNC ended in a riot that, while thankfully less catastrophic than the one in Chicago 40 years prior, left the party embarrassed and millions of Lee voters incensed. To double down on keeping Republicans in his corner, Lieberman selected Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to be his running mate.
There were alternatives to Lieberman mobilizing, fortunately for the disaffected. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura had announced an independent campaign and sought to rebuild Paul’s party coalition for the 2008 cycle. Ventura was able to bring together the Green, Libertarian and Reform Parties together once more, bolstered by his choice of fellow idiosyncratic antiwar politician Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska, as his running mate. Ventura/Gravel could not, however, bring the Constitution Party into the fold. The Constitution Party saw an opening by winning disaffected Duncan supporters and initially offered the Senator himself their nomination. When Duncan declined, they turned next to Judge Roy Moore, who accepted. Moore earned a few other right-wing parties’ support-notably the Conservative Party of New York, the American Independent Party and the Alaskan Independence Party. His running mate was Representative Virgil Goode. Notably, Moore and Goode had been for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq even while they opposed the Iran War. The Constitution Party thus focused their campaign on extreme social conservatism, nativism and right-wing economics rather than the added antiwar component from supporting Paul 4 years prior. The Socialist Party meanwhile nominated New York activist Howie Hawkins. Hawkins had sought the Green nomination, but lost to Ventura. Undeterred, he ran with the support of the Socialist Party, the Working Families Party, the Working Class Party and the newly-formed People’s Party.
Lieberman was in a far weaker position in 2008 than McCain had been in 2004. The administration’s popularity was already waning by the time the economy dipped into a recession. McCain pursued stimulus measures that passed mainly with the support of National Union Party-affiliated members of Congress, but the economy continued to worsen in the march towards election day. Emboldened Iranian resistance forces continued to attack and kill American forces overseas as protests continued at home. Insurgencies in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan likewise picked up and some pundits and politicians began calling for winding down these wars. Lieberman’s numbers began to fall–by September he was polling at 30% nationwide. With Ventura and Moore at 25% each, Hawkins at 10% and 10% undecided, Lieberman looked vulnerable. The debates seemed to validate this–facing Ventura (mostly running to Lieberman’s left) and Moore (decidedly running to the right), Lieberman struggled. The candidate did not have as much charisma as McCain, was not nearly as high-energy and it was feared by the NUP and Republicans that they may have miscalculated. The second debate and the VP debates went alright for Lieberman’s campaign, but he maintained a slim national lead even if he stopped slipping. It was sheer luck that saved Lieberman. McCain’s administration announced the capture of Osama Bin Laden just days before the final debate. This gave Lieberman a much needed achievement and paved the way for his best debate performance. Lieberman hammered Moore’s inexperience and Ventura’s isolationism as obstacles to ensuring American safety. He touted the capture of Bin Laden as proof that the National Union Party was the best option to keep the nation safe. Moore stumbled in his retort, accusing Lieberman’s ‘cosmopolitan values’ of undermining national security, a remark Lieberman and Ventura denounced as anti-Semitic. Further hurting Moore was a series of sexual misconduct allegations made against him by several women who claimed he had engaged in inappropriate relationships with them when they were teenagers. Moore denied any wrongdoing.
On Election Night, Lieberman’s victory was clear. He won 43% of the popular vote and over 400 electoral votes. His closest competition was Jesse Ventura, who won 28% of the popular vote but finished in third in the electoral college. Second place in the electoral college went to Roy Moore. Despite a comparatively dismal 21% in the popular vote, Moore managed to win seven states compared to Ventura’s 3. Howie Hawkins’ Socialists finished in fourth place with 5% of the vote. They won no states, though 1 elector voted for Hawkins in Vermont. Remaining votes largely went to local independent candidates or write-ins for Barbara Lee. The National Union Party took some severe blows, however. The NUP affiliates in the House nearly lost their majority, though they still retained firm control in the Senate. Lieberman took office trying to maintain a balanced cabinet, retaining many McCain cabinet members and adding the former President himself as Secretary of State. Many Democrats in Congress have gotten nervous about impending primary challenges from supporters of Lee and the ‘True Democratic Caucus’ emerging in 2009 from members who endorsed Ventura over Lieberman citing his seizing the Democratic nomination over the will of the majority of Democrats. Led by John Lewis, this caucus indicated plans to grow. They were not the only challenge on the horizon for the NUP. The Tea Party had formed as part of a conservative backlash to the NUP administration and several members were elected as Republicans and one (Tom Tancredo of Colorado) as a Constitution Party member. Many of these Republicans had backed Duncan in the primary and in the general either were neutral or endorsed Moore. Many of the Tea Party members have vowed to dethrone NUP aligned figures like House Speaker Eric Cantor. It is not clear if the NUP can long endure, especially as Lieberman has vowed to see the Iran War through ‘to completion.’
(Note the electoral map does not include the split electoral votes caused by Lieberman winning NE-2 or a Ventura elector in Vermont backing Hawkins.)