AH Run-downs, summaries and general gubbins

[shearsforest]

Get to the Top (of the Pops), or how a Musician became English MP
Characters by Whiteshore on AH.com. "Scenario" (it's technically a Shared Worlds game, but I digress) by @Caprice.

1977
- Sophia Marshall makes her debut in the Humberside music scene by the astounding yet buried single "Something Beach-Themed Will Do". She gets into the Grimsby Institute around this time.
- Her next single, "Call of the Snow", releases in September. Around this time, she befriends and collaborates with Brazilian exile-emigree playwright Ernesto Cardoso de Alves. She also falls in love with her eventual husband, Peter Douglas.

1978
- Sophia, now living a full life in university, initially fails to decide which songs to feature on her next single. It ends up being a double release: "Like a Flash of Light" and "Be Yourself" (see below). Both chart.
- Sophia befriends mentally-unwell Cassandra Spencer, infamous for her growing insanity and her numerous deranged "predictions" of future events. Cassandra underwent ECT prior to their encounter.
- Together, the two work on the feminist/pro-diversity anthem "Be Yourself", with Sophia influencing Cassandra's own album "Calls of Distant Presents".
- The IRA bomb Paragon Station, nearly killing Cassandra in the process. Possibly due to guilt and trauma, Cassandra disappears for a few weeks.

1979
- Sophia laments and blames herself for Cassandra's loss, even more so when she re-emerges, rendered completely insane, as self-proclaimed oracle "Delphi".
- To pass the time and set aside her grief, she lends her assistance to fellow musician Edward Collins on his album "Darkness and Light", though her growing commitments soon make this difficult...
- Sophia is a Liberal girl. The 1979 election is upcoming. Of course, she volunteers for the Liberal Party's campaign in Great Grimsby.
- To her sudden shock, her popularity as a musician gets her not only nominated by the Party for the election, but also win the election outright. This causes a scandal.

The Scandal
- Britain is reluctant to accept someone younger than 21, so a controversy begins over just how young MPs need to be in Britain anyway. They eventually agree that Sophia is fit for Parliament.
- Meanwhile, Sophia has become a youth crusader. de Alves promotes her through "campaign jingles" (never mind the fact that he is an outright Tory), and that and her impassioned speeches all factor into her electoral success.
- Parliament passes a bill that allows for everyone over 18 to be elected to Westminster. Queen Elizabeth II ends up signing it, and all is fine.......?


(credit to Tales Weaver on AH.com. disclaimer - AI footage of Walter Cronkite)
- On the same day, a year before John Lennon bit it, Cassandra bites it — after giving a delusional rant on live television about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most retrospectives say she threw it out as an absurd statement, but I guess the far-left journalist who stabbed her didn't get that at the time.
- The Humberside scene is elevated to the national consciousness after both of these events happening on the same day. News about Sophia's shock-victory fails to make it internationally thanks to the Cassandra murder.

After
- Marshall is re-elected in 1984, and her resounding popularity in the area keeps her above rival Labour candidates until her death in 2016. She continues doing music, of course — though it's a secondary concern for her, and falls further by the wayside after her 1980 paralysis and subsequent disability rights campaigning.

 

[Warthog]

The British University Constabulary are a national police service that oversee most crimes on many of the country's older campuses: specifically, those who were counted as university constituencies before 1950. They are primarily uniformed officers but also contain a CID for theft & other petty crime, and more recently a sex crimes department. Each Campus Command has its own Chief Constable, overseen by a Commissioner in Oxford.

Expansion of universities in the late 20th century did not see an expansion of the BUC, who were seen as a joke: people not good enough to be or stay real coppers, and old and outdated.

Ouch

This starts out as better than OTL universities trying to manage GBV crimes themselves, and then ends up somehow do much worse

 

[Bolt451]

Musician Afroman (Independent): Every now and then I remember Afroman is running for President. I wasn't going to list every candidate but y'know, its Afroman.

Shit this should've been

Musician Afroman (Independent): I was going to list every Presidential Candidate, but then I got high

 

[Indicus]

National Holidays in the British Isles

Name	Date	Notes
New Years' Day	January 1	Celebrated with a particular fervor in Scotland in lieu of Christmas
Charter Day	January 24	The Isle's national day; commemorates the promulgation of the Charter of Liberty and Security and Frame of Government (1829), and the birth (1749) of Charles James Fox, iconic precursor of the Popular Revolution
Good Friday	Friday pre-Easter
Easter Monday	Floating
Whit Monday	7th Mon. after Easter Monday
Runnymede Day	Second Monday of June	Commemorates the enactment of the Magna Carta (1215); elections to Parliament are held every three years on this day
O'Connell Day	August 6	Commemorates the birth (1775) of Daniel O'Connell, icon of peaceful protest, universal liberty, and Irish nationhood
Conscience Day	November 4	Commemorates the repeal (1814) of the infamous Dissenting Ministers' Act 1806 and the birth (1650) of Glorious Revolution icon William III
Landing Day	November 5	Commemorates William III's landing at Brixham (1688) and the Frame of Government Amendment Act 1901 instituting women's suffrage
Christmas Day	December 25	Christmas celebrations in Scotland remain quite muted due to disapproval from its various Kirks

 

[frustrated progressive]

National Holidays in the British Isles

For the Fifth of November, is it the sort of thing where officially it's about William landing at Torbay and women's suffrage, but in popular consciousness Guy Fawkes Night is still a big part of it (which I think would be plausible even in a republican Britain, both from tradition and because of the very Whiggish and Protestant nature of the Republic's early support base), or has the earlier holiday been completely eclipsed?
And, whatever the answer to the above, has the association with fireworks survived?

 

[Indicus]

For the Fifth of November, is it the sort of thing where officially it's about William landing at Torbay and women's suffrage, but in popular consciousness Guy Fawkes Night is still a big part of it (which I think would be plausible even in a republican Britain, both from tradition and because of the very Whiggish and Protestant nature of the Republic's early support base), or has the earlier holiday been completely eclipsed?
And, whatever the answer to the above, has the association with fireworks survived?

The latter - I imagined Fawkes Night getting very violent in the years after the revolution due to its anti-Catholic associations making it a popular day for the Orange Order to launch riots against the new government and Catholics in general. By making it a holiday to peacefully celebrate William III’s landing through feasting and the like, the government meant to defang these associations, and it also wishes push an image of itself as the rightful successor of the values of 1688 and its republicanism the logical conclusion of its principle of elective monarchy. It’s also part of claiming him for the present political order and denying Orangemen claim over his legacy. Of course, in practice, it takes decades for the custom of burning guys to decline (and it still has some rural survivals in the modern day). I imagined that eventually William III would lose a great deal of his popularity, with his mere toleration of Dissenters unfavorably compared with the present Charter granting everyone real religious liberty. The Victorian admiration of Cromwell as an icon of religious liberty (for Nonconformists) still happens here and indeed is if anything even stronger here, and it means he (and the Roundheads in general) overshadow William III in Great Britain, and while in Ireland William III remains a purely sectarian figure associated with Orange Order royalism. Eventually the passage of women’s suffrage on that day results in it increasingly overshadowing commemoration of the Glorious Revolution. By the modern day, it’s mostly a funny anecdote that November 5 celebrations began to commemorate a failed attempt to blow up Parliament.

November 4, on the other hand, was the traditional day Dissenters celebrated the Glorious Revolution. For instance, Richard Price gave his famous sermon celebrating the French Revolution on November 4, 1789. Here, it gets back much of its symbolism because Lord Sidmouth is successfully able to restrict dissenting minister’s licenses against the terms of the Toleration Act, and its repeal becomes a focus of the whiggish and radical movements, and it gets recognized in law due to the unprecedented amounts of political strength dissenters have in the new republic - albeit in a way that celebrates the freedom of conscience of everyone.

The main fireworks holiday, I imagined being Charter Day. But yeah it would make sense for November 5 to have a lot of fireworks - but as one of the days fireworks shows happen, not as an especially prominent such day.

 

[frustrated progressive]

That all makes sense-thank you for replying in such detail and with your characteristic inspiration.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

The Isle of Britannia
2300 years after the Lords
223 years after the Exchange

The Restored Parliament of the United Kingdom of Britannia: Just had its second election in where the 'Tories' defeated 'Libour'.
- The Throne of Majesty: Empty as always, much to the frustration of everyone. One day, they'll find a descendant of William the Lost, one day...
- The Magnahusarta: Both a deity and a constitution, the 'Nahus' and the 'Magnacarta' remains the core thing unifying everyone under the Restored Parliament. They may split over variety-on-variety prejudice, on 'Tory' vs. 'Libour' lines, or whatever, but the 'Magnahusarta' remains sacred.
- The Majestic Government, the Tory Party: No one knows what a Tory was before the Exchange, just that they were nasty, but effective. So that's what those people say they are, the nasty, but effective party. They just won the election off promising to crack down on crime and finally sending the militia to deal with the Burlington 'Continuity' Government once and for all, establishing them as the British government.
- The Majestic Opposition, the Libour Party: Some say it's spelled Labour, as in work, others say it's Liberal, as in free, but the consensus is that it's a secret third word that somehow means both. The people of Britannia united! Shed the old variant prejudices!

Tentatively Affiliated with the Restored Parliament: The RP calls them 'home rule', but they're very much only affiliated.
- The Flock: Eggsland is a peculiar place. Lots of fibre-glass eggs half-buried in the ground, established at some time before the Exchange, and all the people who took shelter there became bird variants, the 'Flock'. They're affiliated with the RP for now, but very much holds their eggs in different baskets.
- The Awakened: Over in what was in the old days a sea full of whales - apparently - there were a lot of people who hid in the coal mines to escape the Exchange, and radiation made them into those strange small, blind variants who see via echolocation. They're surprisingly co-operative.

The Continuity Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ni: They're still insisting that they're the 'blueblood' British, untainted by the nuclear exchanges due to seeking refuge in Burlington's bunker, abandoning the vast majority of the population back in 2077. Now, they think, the subhuman 'variants' should gladly 'make way' for the emergence of the true blueblood Briton, genetically superior to everyone else. No one likes them, for very obvious reasons, and the RP claims that they betrayed Magnahusarta, and therefore lost its divine and legal favour.
- The Crown: William V was on a ship at the time the Exchange happens, and they still hope his family is to be found.
- The Prime Minister: A shadowy figure, honestly, but one rumoured to have deranged ravings of a 'British Empire' to be restored.
- The Knights of Ni: Those people represent 'Ni', a strange other land that the CG claims to govern, and is very keen to be the CG's military.

King Arthur's Court: A man in the Shirland claims to be King Arthur, a mythological hero. He's really nothing more than a warlord who glorifies the idea of a 'romantic' court. There's a lot of forced acting there, and if you speak out of character, he'll execute you. However, he does offer regular food!

Scotland: Why do they say 'Braveheart' all the time and scream 'Freedom'? It's very annoying.

The Family: Do not approach them, they're... odd. Very odd. As in, even the CG refuses to even consider conquering 'Kimroo', the land of the Family. Of all the variants on our fair isle, the Family of Kimroo are the most inhuman, the most enigmatic. Be very careful when making deals with them.

 

[TheHatMan98]

http://forum.sealionpress.co.uk/ind...-government-and-heads-of-state.4/post-1411702

The Second Napoleonic Wars (1932-1952)

The Second Napoleonic Wars is the name given to a series of conflicts that lasted throughout the middle of the 20th Century. Also named the ‘Great Crisis’, the wars and campaigns waged under its banner gained its name from the rise to prominence of the National Action Party of Eugène Deloncle in France during the 1930s, who would eventually restore the Bonaparte dynasty and found the third French Empire in 1937 under Charles-Napoleon (Emperor Napoleon V). Despite bearing the title of ‘Napoleonic’ many of the wars that took place within the period began or ended before the rise of the Third Empire or were fought after the dethronement of Charles-Napoleon in October 1945.

The Wars would encompass most of the nations of the World, including all of the Great Powers of the period, who invested all of their scientific, industrial and economic energy in pursuing their goals, for the first time in history blurring the lines between military and civilian targets. Although subject to dispute, the Wars are largely felt to have taken place between three separate alliances: the Pact of Fire; the Allies; and the Comintern. As a result, the Wars, when viewed as a single unit, is the most deadly conflict in human history after culminating in the deaths of 60-90 million human deaths. The wars bread mass starvation, repeated attempts at genocide and epidemics of disease. In the wake of the defeat of the Pact of Fire, Europe became a divided continent between the Western Allies and the Soviet Comintern; China was split into three warring factions; and, as the Cold War set in, North America became defined by borders stretching hundreds of miles separating U.A.S. and its rivals to the North and South.

While the direct causes of the Wars are disputed, the commonly defines factors include the unresolved tensions following the Great War (1912-1920), the rise of fascism and nationalism throughout Europe in the 1930s; the Russian Revolution and Civil War (1916-22) that led to the rise of Bolshevism to power; the victory of the United American Soviets in the Second American Revolution (1932-35); and the Great Slump, global economic crisis that began with the London Stock Market Crash of 1929; and the expansion of East-Asian Prosperity Sphere by Japan. Although several conflicts broke out in the 1930s, the greatest and most important of the Wars of the period is generally considered to be the Second Great European War, which began in 1940 following the breakdown of the Antwerp Sumit and the Third French Empire’s declaration of War on the British and German Empires in February of that year, after Eugene Deloncle ordered the French army to invade the Low Countries. Under the terms of the Piasecki-Litvinov Pact in 1941, Poland (and by extension the Pact of Fire) divided Europe into spheres of influence with the Soviet Union and in a series of conflicts and treaties, France as leader of the Pact of Fire, came to control most of continental Europe with its allies (including Dmowski’s Poland among others, including the German puppet regimes of Goering and Hitler). Following the Fall of Germany in 1941, the British Empire and the German Empire’s Government-in-Exile continued the Wars in a series of proxy wars in Southern Europe and North Africa, while the Air War was wage by both sides attempting to bombard the other into submission using aircraft.

In 1943, France led its allies into an invasion of the Soviet Union, remembered today by Russians as the Great Patriotic War. It was largely an ideological crusade against the Far Right and Far Left, France justifying its invasion (Operation Charlemagne) under the guise of restoring the Romanov dynasty as Tsars of Russia and exterminating Bolshevism in Europe to protect its Polish allies and Eastern client states. In Asia, Japan sought to make a ‘modern Empire’ under the Westminster system model and either directly or in directly control all the major resources in China and the Pacific. The increasingly militant Japanese government launched its campaigns in 1931, after receiving Western approval, to end the Shanghai Insurgency, then in 1934 had seized America’s Pacific territory during the Collapse of the United States, before finally beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938 under the justification that the IJA would end the threat of Bolshevism in China and restore order by returning the Qing dynasty to power. Despite a series of campaigns against the Chinese Red Army, and truce with the Nationalist Kuomintang government in Nanking, Japan would fail to supress the Chinese Soviet Republic by the end of its war in the region in 1944. As the European Empire’s seemed to enter a decline as the Wars in Europe turned against them, Japan briefly flirted with the Pact of Fire after occupying German Indochina, becoming the main sponsors of Nationalist uprising in Burma and of Thailand in the Anglo-Siamese War, before switching to a pro-British stance once more after the tide began to turn against the Pact of Fire.

After the triumph of the allied ‘Desert Army’ in North Africa in 1943, Britain and its allies returned to the Continent after its successful invasion of Southern Italy in spring 1944. This setback, twinned with the Soviet victories at the Battles of Tver and Saratov began to signal a decline in the Pact of Fire’s fortunes. In June of 1944 Britain returned to the very same beaches that it had evacuated in 1941 during Operation Dagenham, the Allies launched Operation Waterloo its invasion of French occupied territories, as the Pact was pushed back on all fronts. The Second Battle of Germany was one of the most astonishing campaigns in world history, unleashing a torrent of violence not seen in Europe since the Thirty Year’s War. Finally, the cobelligerent Anglo-Soviet armies met along the banks of the Oder River on May 5th, 1945. With Europe cleared, the British Empire and her allies across the Sea threw their weight against the collapsing Third Empire. At the same time the Guards’ Armoured drove their tanks up the Champ Elysee and a mushroom cloud blossomed over Toulouse, the Moster of Europe, Eugene Deloncle, committed suicide at the Versailles Bunker and left his unfortunate puppet Emperor to sign France’s unconditional surrender.

The conflicts that the War bred would continue to be waged for several years to come. Japan would eventually pullout its puppet Qing government and join with the nationalist Kuomintang to end the Chinese Soviet Republic in 1951. Britain’s ever reticent allies in Damascus and Tehran would come to an accord with London and one another to contain the flow of Islamised Bolshevism flowing from Mosul and Ankara. Ireland finally resigned itself to Dominion status within the British Commonwealth, while the Balkans finally knew peace, albeit under the muzzle of a Soviet gun.

The Second Napoleonic Wars irrevocably changed the World. It set forth the international structure that would govern the globe for the rest of the 20th Century and well into the 21st. The League of Nations was established to prevent further conflicts between nations and foster peace and good will between its members – a security council, numbering the victorius nations of the Napoleonic Wars, was established with seven permanent members: Great Britain, the USSR, the German Empire, the Japanese Empire, the Republic of China, the Confederate States of America, and the Commonwealth of Nations. Ultimately, the Commonwealth, led by Great Britain, would emerge from the Wars as rival to the USSR as the global monolith, as the European Empires that had held the balance of Power before the Wars collapsed and underwent decolonisation, dividing the world between the two power brokers in Moscow and London. This Status Quo would last until the fall of Communism in the 21st Century.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Border Security Command is the one of the three branches of the British armed forces and headed by the Border Marshall. Comprised of coastal fortifications, 'home water' vessels, fighter jets, and anti-aircraft/anti-missile missiles, it is designed as an integrated force that protects the island from attack.

It is on paper the most senior of the three commands but in practice, the most adventurous people (and all the glamour) goes to Foreign Intervention Command. People worry the BSC has less competence than the Homeland Defence Command, the decentralised "last line" in case of invasion, who have experience mobilising for floods.

 

[Wendell]

The Florida Parishes constitute a historical region in the Kingdom of Louisiana spanning from the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain in the west to Mobile Bay in the east reaching as far north as 31 degrees north latitude. Bordering the Florida Parishes to the north is the Republic of Georgia while the Kingdom of Florida sits on the opposite shore of Mobile Bay. This region constitutes the core area of what had been British West Florida before being recaptured by Spain as a result of the War of the Thirteen States in their successful bid for independence from British rule. Spanish control over Florida after 1783 remained tenuous and following Louis Philippe's coronation in New Orleans, securing the overland route to the capital city became paramount. The inaugural monarch of the riverine monarchy thus set about utilizing the vagaries of border treaties to assert his claim, allying with Georgia during the middle coalition wars against Napoleon I of France and Charles IV of Spain. To the chagrin of Georgia, Louis-Philippe aided in the creation of an independent kingdom in Florida following the temporary deposition of the Bourbons in Spain by the first French Empire.

 

[Wendell]

Uruguay, officially, the Kingdom of Uruguay, named for the river forming its westerly border, is a South American monarchy bordering the Argentine Confederation and Empire of Brazil. A former Spanish colony subject to tensions and intrigues between Madrid and the Portuguese during the middle and late coalition wars as well as subsequently, the region passed under Portuguese/Brazilian rule before a compromised was reached establishing an independent kingdom under a monarch related to the legitimate ruling houses of both Iberian realms: Infante Sebastian Gabriel de Borbon y Braganza. His descendants continue to reign in Montevideo to this day.

 

[shearsforest]

Factions Deserve A Chance: 2100 America in WE SHALL OVERCOME #?

Overton(?) windows (format inspired by the "typical" Overton Windows used in election games over on the Other Place)
Political position • Center-left (with significant conservative and democratic-socialist influence)
Democratic position • Thriving democracy (#12 on V-DEM's 2100 list, behind so-called "democratic paragons" like Japan, the European Federation, and the West Antarctic Republic)
Economic position • Economic powerhouse (#1 in terms of GDP, per the IMF's 2100 report; it is followed by the New Chinese Republic and the European Federation)
Global position • Superpower (as cited by numerous sources, including the CIA World Factbook, 2096 edition)
Cultural position • Major cultural influence (as cited by numerous sources, including the Booker Online Atlas (2100); it is followed by the Republic of India, the European Federation, and the Chinese Republic)

Dominant parties
New Liberal-Humanist Party (#DAA06D) Comprised largely of Gluesenkamp-era liberal Democrats and moderates, the NLHP represents a transformed American Left, decades after the progressive wave that sprouted from the Decency Movement.
Conservative Party (#2951BC) The legacy of the "sane conservatism" pioneered by the likes of Mike Lawler and Adam Kinzinger continues even through waves of technological and cultural change within the United States. Most big-c Conservatives tend to support laissez-faire economics, and tend to lean towards more libertarian policies.
Labor-Popular Front (#B81104) Though progressivism and socialism are not as powerful a force in America as in the Rethinking Era, they still act as a de-facto third party within American politics. After all, with an expanding labor force across the Solar System, worker rights are still a big issue.

Major minor parties
Conservation Party (#3EA055) The days of the climate crisis have long passed, but among many there's still a need to make Earth even greener. Enter the Conservation Party, whose members support everything from instituting a Solar System-wide negative carbon policy, to the creation of "preservation zones" specifically for de-extincted creatures (this has been partially realized throughout the 2070s, 2080s, and 2090s), to the complete human abandonment of some irreparable (as in, too wrecked to ever be reconstructed, whether by war or otherwise) areas to serve as zones for flora and fauna alike to flourish.
Christian Democratic Party (#DED717) Religion is a non-issue in America, with the Vatican and Mecca having uplifted each other as allies throughout the latter 21st century. Still, some Christians see America as an ongoing struggle for control between majority-irreligious (atheists, agnostics, humanists, and Unitarian Universalists included) and minority-Christians. Other than their vocal support for the restoration of Christian or Christian-inspired values in America, members of the CDP fall across a wide range of values: from Christian socialism to evangelist Christianity.
Forward Alliance (#7A58C1) In a system where the center feels they aren't adequately represented by three main parties, there's always the Forward Alliance. Born from the, well, Forward and Alliance parties, members of the Forward Alliance can best be understood as "centrists", whether radical or moderate or in between.
American Technocratic Party (#4F738E) Ever since the proliferation of artificial intelligence throughout the 2020s and 2030s, and the achievement of a true "singularity" through the first successful brain-computer upload in 2067, there have always been a percentage of the population who seek to normalize integrating technology into the personal lives and ideologies of Americans. As expected, members of the ATP tend to support ideologies like transhumanism and the complete legalization of operations like cyborg-ization and genetic engineering of humans.
Truth and Restoration Party (#8E4D1E) Old habits die hard. Organically, the spirit of '32 has been lost to a select few far-right individuals, who seek to regain a place at the table in whatever way they can — be it the ballot or the bullet. Most TRP figures originate from households scattered across the political system, but all of them can be characterized by the same flaming passion: a death wish to restore a deceased right-wing populist order. These "neo-Turners" (as they name themselves, after the defunct Turning Point USA) are not a major problem in America, with the exception of the occasional terrorist cell or two.

 

[Wendell]

A conservative party and a conservation party in the same system? Interesting.

 

[shearsforest]

conservation party

The Conservation Party is pretty much a rebranded Green Party.