African-Americans, Arabs, Japanese, and Koreans are all classified as Pinnacle Men by the NUSA though
"What Madness Is This?" Volume III: The Pinnacle Future
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
African-Americans, Arabs, Japanese, and Koreans are all classified as Pinnacle Men by the NUSA though
Beatriz
Gone Fishin'
I meant as in all of the geopolitical power centers (*fascist America, Russia, monarchist France) are all white unlike OTL which has China (depending on how you define great power/superpower) or OTL Japan's brief Co-Prosperity bloc/series of colonies. Given such circumstances how do local elites develop post-colonial or anticolonial ideology as need be? @LostInNewDelhi
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What you say about Trauma and horror...
*I turn in the chair while the television shows the entire saga of Human Centipede*
What madness is this?
The supreme truths of the universe have been revealed unto me.
I have witnessed the true horrors of existence.
I have seen how truly mad the minds of men have become in this twisted world.
Millions of my Irish brethren have died agonizing deaths brought about by the Kissimmee vaccine.
But there is one machination of Man which supersedes all others.
Betters and Inferiors, Fascists and Illuminists, men and women; they all weep at the one truth.
But it is too late to stop.
I have realized…
Maine is still part of Massachusetts.
The supreme truths of the universe have been revealed unto me.
I have witnessed the true horrors of existence.
I have seen how truly mad the minds of men have become in this twisted world.
Millions of my Irish brethren have died agonizing deaths brought about by the Kissimmee vaccine.
But there is one machination of Man which supersedes all others.
Betters and Inferiors, Fascists and Illuminists, men and women; they all weep at the one truth.
But it is too late to stop.
I have realized…
Maine is still part of Massachusetts.
You know, I could see the Illuminists joining in on the Chinese Civil War. It wouldn't be open, more like the PRC sending "volunteers" to fight in Korea, but they might not like the idea of the Union getting a foothold right next to them. That, and the Daughter of God is a sign that China needs to be "enlightened."
They already did in Wuhan but their Chinese Illuminist comrades got defeated and sacked by the same Daughter of God.
They were the Chinese Illuminists, remember. No one said the Russians couldn't join the party.
And they could find some way to prop up another illuminst movement in the country, anyway.
INSIDE THE OWL'S COURT: THE TRIUMPH OF THE FOURTH WAVE
I will add even more illustrations and pictures of Wawro and Biserka tomorrow! Until then, enjoy!
INSIDE THE OWL'S COURT:
THE TRIUMPH OF THE FOURTH WAVE
Cover of the first edition (1958) of "John Q. Public's" book
INSIDE THE OWL'S COURT:
THE TRIUMPH OF THE FOURTH WAVE
Cover of the first edition (1958) of "John Q. Public's" book
When the Illuminist People's Republic of Russia sought out a mere peasant girl from Tunguska, of the West Siberian Governorate, to take leadership of a newly establish "Agency of Phenomena" in 1945, many in the Western World thought the entire scheme to be beyond mad. The establishment of the Agency of Phenomena (Agentstvo Fenomenov in Russian) was a direct response to the building New Age "post-religious" movement inside Russia, as well the popularity of the theories and writings of both Polish extraterrestrial enthusiast Waldemar Wawro and his Russian counterpart, the warrior-philosopher Vadim Maximovich. Maximovich had, throughout the course of the late 1930s and early 1940s, built a substantial movement which he described as "Fourth Wave Illuminism," stemming from the waves he made with his publishing of The Fourth Stigmata in 1923. The first wave had been led by Knigge, the second by Nietzsche, and the third and most recent by Otto Werner, according to Fourth Wave supporters.
As can be imagined, the way in which he seemed to phrase Otto Werner as leader of a Third Wave, in the past sense, sent the aging German-Jewish Illuminist Grandmaster into a rage. Despite the declarations of equality which had so often turned people to Illuminist thought, Werner was considered by most to be the fully-acknowledged leader of the entire Illuminist experiment. This was just fine with the bespectacled Prussian, as he also considered himself the fully-acknowledged leader of the entire Illuminist experiment, in the most humble meaning of the phrase possible. But with the dawn of the 1940s, as Werner hit his late 70s, clamor for a new Grandmaster had begun. The "Old Man of the Areopagus" was busy most of his days resting, fighting a long and final battle with intestinal cancer, but he tried to continue urging the movement on and shoring up the European borders, as the New Holy Roman Empire was quite maliciously busy with its Balkan Crusade. So focused was he, in fact, that what he called the "Promethean Heresy" seemed to creep up out of nowhere in his final years as a true force to be reckoned with.
A SPECIAL LITTLE GIRL
Trees leveled by the 1908 Tunguska Event
Trees leveled by the 1908 Tunguska Event
The peasant girl mentioned earlier from Tunguska was a rather unique individual. In 1908, a massive meteor impact hit the region of her birth, resulting in the largest natural explosion in recorded history. Despite the focus of the world being mostly on the impending outbreak of the Great World War, this event made headlines as far as Capetown, Kissimmee, and Rio. Many mystics, including the Blind Christian Gentleman, heralded it to be the sign of the End Times, the Wormwood of Biblical lore. Even Tsar Viktor, at the time, seemed to see it as an omen, and--combined with the discovery of the Tomb of the Great Khan in 1891--was one of the key moments in his life that drove him more and more off the deep-end and into a spiraling madness that would one day destroy much of Eastern Europe in the 1910s.
The Tunguska impact zone had become a popular destination for scientists, mystics, and eccentrics to make pilgrimages to, and the local peasant stock tried to turn it into a crude tourist attraction of sorts. One cold autumn morning in 1920, a baby girl was discovered lying in the crater, swaddled in a simple cloth and halfway frozen to death, Despite everyone in the community thinking she would pass away, the plucky infant clung to life and eventually made a full recovery. Dubbed the "Pearl of the Crater," the girl was given the name "Biserka," literally meaning "pearl," by a local Illuminist commune who had taken it upon themselves to raise her. This unorthodox upbringing, in which she never even received a last name nor had a steady set of parental figures, resulted in an unusual child, even by Illuminist standards. From an early age, Biserka claimed to hear voices inside her head telling her she was chosen for a glorious cause, as well as episodes of epilepsy and violent mood swings. Despite clearly showing signs of brain damage and schizophrenia, likely as a result from her brush with death as a baby, the girl was held up a clairvoyant by her local community, and by the age of ten was reading fortunes and conducting seances. During many of the sessions she would convulse and foam at the mouth, but customers claimed she was alarmingly accurate in her predictions. For years, she became one of the most well-known clairvoyants inside Russia, and her fame had even begun to spread outside of the country.
Everything would start to fit into place for our story in 1936. At the age of 16, an unnamed customer gave Biserka a copy of Waldemar Wawro's Chariots of the Precursors, remarking, "I think you will find this life-changing." Some legends stated that it was, in fact, the Polish author himself, passing through to visit the famed mystic girl for himself. Soon, Biserka was claiming that the so-called Promethean Civilization fit perfectly with the voices which had spoken to her since childhood. In 1937, she claimed to have unlocked her "Third Eye," a common element and symbol of esoteric Illuminism, and now could directly commune with these voices through time and space while she either seized or entered a trance-like state. Though the Promethean Civilization was of the long and indescribably ancient past, Biserka said she "conducted non-Euclidian conversations" with these alien entities and that all of time was a cycle of creation and destruction. The Prometheans, which Biserka now referred to as the "Tika-Ya," had colonized Earth from a home base on Planet X, the mysterious ninth planet in the solar system. They had sewed the seeds of life and used terraforming on an industrial scale to create the "Perfect Eden" for the evolutionary process to occur. The Tika-Ya, in turn, had been created, essentially, through genetic engineering by a much more ancient and shadowy people called the Shan-ga'i. This teaching of a cycle stretching into infinity was beaten like a drum when Biserka published her first book in 1938, titled The Prime Directive:
The Tunguska impact zone had become a popular destination for scientists, mystics, and eccentrics to make pilgrimages to, and the local peasant stock tried to turn it into a crude tourist attraction of sorts. One cold autumn morning in 1920, a baby girl was discovered lying in the crater, swaddled in a simple cloth and halfway frozen to death, Despite everyone in the community thinking she would pass away, the plucky infant clung to life and eventually made a full recovery. Dubbed the "Pearl of the Crater," the girl was given the name "Biserka," literally meaning "pearl," by a local Illuminist commune who had taken it upon themselves to raise her. This unorthodox upbringing, in which she never even received a last name nor had a steady set of parental figures, resulted in an unusual child, even by Illuminist standards. From an early age, Biserka claimed to hear voices inside her head telling her she was chosen for a glorious cause, as well as episodes of epilepsy and violent mood swings. Despite clearly showing signs of brain damage and schizophrenia, likely as a result from her brush with death as a baby, the girl was held up a clairvoyant by her local community, and by the age of ten was reading fortunes and conducting seances. During many of the sessions she would convulse and foam at the mouth, but customers claimed she was alarmingly accurate in her predictions. For years, she became one of the most well-known clairvoyants inside Russia, and her fame had even begun to spread outside of the country.
Everything would start to fit into place for our story in 1936. At the age of 16, an unnamed customer gave Biserka a copy of Waldemar Wawro's Chariots of the Precursors, remarking, "I think you will find this life-changing." Some legends stated that it was, in fact, the Polish author himself, passing through to visit the famed mystic girl for himself. Soon, Biserka was claiming that the so-called Promethean Civilization fit perfectly with the voices which had spoken to her since childhood. In 1937, she claimed to have unlocked her "Third Eye," a common element and symbol of esoteric Illuminism, and now could directly commune with these voices through time and space while she either seized or entered a trance-like state. Though the Promethean Civilization was of the long and indescribably ancient past, Biserka said she "conducted non-Euclidian conversations" with these alien entities and that all of time was a cycle of creation and destruction. The Prometheans, which Biserka now referred to as the "Tika-Ya," had colonized Earth from a home base on Planet X, the mysterious ninth planet in the solar system. They had sewed the seeds of life and used terraforming on an industrial scale to create the "Perfect Eden" for the evolutionary process to occur. The Tika-Ya, in turn, had been created, essentially, through genetic engineering by a much more ancient and shadowy people called the Shan-ga'i. This teaching of a cycle stretching into infinity was beaten like a drum when Biserka published her first book in 1938, titled The Prime Directive:
"We exist in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, an ouroboros stretching into cosmic infinity. Since the birth of the Universe, species of beings, of untold numbers, have explored and plumbed the bowels of the cosmos, eon up eon. Where possible, these entities engineered through the powers of science and technology entire new species of beast and intelligentsia. There is no "god," and Mankind shall learn this as it ascends to the stars to populate the galaxy and beyond. There are no commandments and no laws of deities that must be followed, for our only duty is to fulfill the Prime Directive as told to me by the Tika-Ya: to do all in our power to expand beyond our earthly prison and bring enlightenment to the darkest corners of the dimmest stars. Like a child venturing beyond the nest for the first time, they watch us like proud parents. They will not interfere as they did in millennia past. They will watch, they will observe, as their greatest children take to the stars. These beings have ascended so far beyond our concepts of technology that they no longer need physical forms. They have achieved enlightenment for all time and now exist here, there, and in between, via the Aether that ties us and binds existence together.
Some would say, surely, a Creator Being, sublime and omnipotent, forged our Universe at the beginning of time. This is false, for I put forth that there is not one but many universes, some intersecting on planes immaterial and unfathomable, and that some race that is so far removed from our understanding of mere 'intelligence' created this universe and all its galaxies and all its star systems. And I say that that Promethean Civilization began as an offshoot or product of another species in turn. All matter comes from a primary substance, the Universal Aether, filling all space, and is acted upon by a life-giving force, calling into existence all things in never-ending cycles. Together, through rejection of superstition and ignorance that only holds us back, we can unite as a species and Illuminate distant planets, untouched and otherwise. For one day man will land on a distant realm, containing the ruins of the past, and create anew. This is the Prime Directive, the Universal Truth. As above, so below. As one race takes to the stars, another joins the Aether and enters eternal peace."
Some would say, surely, a Creator Being, sublime and omnipotent, forged our Universe at the beginning of time. This is false, for I put forth that there is not one but many universes, some intersecting on planes immaterial and unfathomable, and that some race that is so far removed from our understanding of mere 'intelligence' created this universe and all its galaxies and all its star systems. And I say that that Promethean Civilization began as an offshoot or product of another species in turn. All matter comes from a primary substance, the Universal Aether, filling all space, and is acted upon by a life-giving force, calling into existence all things in never-ending cycles. Together, through rejection of superstition and ignorance that only holds us back, we can unite as a species and Illuminate distant planets, untouched and otherwise. For one day man will land on a distant realm, containing the ruins of the past, and create anew. This is the Prime Directive, the Universal Truth. As above, so below. As one race takes to the stars, another joins the Aether and enters eternal peace."
As Biserka's popularity began to skyrocket and she was offered a prestigious scholarship at Moscow's Nietzsche University, Grandmaster Werner summoned the full international membership of the Areopagus to Warsaw to seek council on the next step to prevent the "Promethean Heresy" from spreading.
THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF 1945
From the late 1930s, until the late 1950s, an American agent of Germanic birth known in documents only by the pseudonym "John Q. Public" stood as a full-ranking member of the Areopagus, and it is from this spy that the American government and public would learn of the inner machinations of the international occult council, especially in the 1958 book Inside the Owl's Court: A Shocking Memoir of an International Spy Who Walked the Halls of the Areopagus. The Areopagus was both the name of the assembling body as well as the structure itself.
The first of the three "Realms" of the Areopagus was the Corpus Internationalis, the International Body, consisting of around three-hundred representatives, these men and women hailing from any country with serious Illuminist presence. Even Europans were to be seen in this Realm, so all of International Illuminism could be seen and heard. The Magistri Illuminationis, the Masters of Enlightenment, was the next level and consisted of those deemed worthy by the rest of the Magistri to be great and knowledgeable leaders in the realms of science, mathematics, and other key skill-sets. The Magistri numbered about one-hundred, and handled much of the day-to-day operations and worked to spread Illuminism, administer to the Corpus, and prevent another Pan-Illuminist War. Finally, there was the Tabula Praefectorum, the Table of Officers, which consisted of about fifty men deemed to have "opened their third eyes," attaining the highest level of enlightenment so far possible. The Tabula took its name from the literal long table which overlooked the tiered seating of the Corpus and Magistri, with the Grandmaster seated in the middle and flanked by about 25 men on each side. John Q. Public would describe it as a deliberate mockery of both the Trinity, through the layout of the Areopagus, and the Last Supper via the table.
The Corpus Internationalis met daily, with members coming and going, debating and discussing any matter they deemed of import. Sometimes this was positive fellowship. But other times it would descend into chaos until the Regulator, a member of the Magistri Illuminationis, would pound a gavel and bring them to order. The Magistri would meet once a month, or as needed, with varying numbers present. If the Grandmaster called for a Supreme Council, all members would attend and would arrive in Warsaw as quickly as possible. The Tabula met at the whim of the Grandmaster (and during every Supreme Council, of course) and generally stayed in Warsaw. An entire city block became overrun with the members until it simply took on the moniker of the "Table District." By 1940, the Tabula contained a Russian ethnic majority, with about 30% of the Praefects being Russian, compared to the next largest minorities being German, with 20%, and Polish, with %16.
When the Supreme Council met on January 18, 1945, it was to deal with the meteoric rise of the "Promethean Parasite." This entire gathering was secretly recorded by John Q. Public and later transcribed in Inside the Owl's Court. This transcript was initially top secret and classified American data, but would eventually be declassified in 1956, two years before the publication of Public's book.
TRANSCRIPT OF THE FIRST SUPREME COUNCIL OF 1945
REGULATOR: "We gather here today as brothers and sisters in the light of Illumination, professing our profound and sincere goal to bring about a New Age founded not on superstition and ignorance, but on knowledge and progress. So let it be written that on January 18, 1945, the ladies and gentlemen of the Corpus Internationalis, the Magistri Illuminationis, and the Tabula Praefectorum gathered today for the rite of Supreme Council invoked by Grandmaster Otto Werner, first among us but equal to all. The Supreme Council will now commence."
WERNER: "May this meeting I have summoned bring great benefit to all who partake. May the rays of enlightenment bring clarity and spotlessness to our minds. On this day I invoke the rite of Supreme Council to deal with a matter both pressing and urgent. A matter, ladies and gentlemen, that I see as a weed growing in our garden. This weed is, of course, the growth of a new religious heresy in our midst, to the east, inside Russia. This weed is the woman known as Biserka of Tunguska, the so-called Pearl of the Crater, who is making claims beyond all scientific reason and logic that she is in contact with extraterrestrial beings called the 'Tika-Ya,' who hail from the scientifically unproven 'Planet X.' This young woman has found widespread love and acceptance in Russia while operating this heretical cell, and her popularity has reached the very doors of the Areopagus. I find her publications, such as The Prime Directive, on the streets, in libraries, and in Temples of Reason, where no such religious text should be found. She is egged on by none other than Waldemar Wawro, a member of the Magistri, present among us, and the man who publishes such duplicitous and unproven works as Chariots of the Precursors and The Ancient Race. They are joined in this conspiracy to sap and contaminate our rational minds by Vadim Maximovich, nominally a war hero and author of such books as The Fourth Stigmata. Maximovich is a man I previously held in extremely high regard. His acceptance of this rancid heresy proves my trust in him to be ill-formed. Once again, brothers and sisters, the Russian Bear seeks to overtake the neutral standing of this assembly and the Party and move us into untruth. I call this day for Biserka Tunguska, Waldemar Wawro, and Vadim Maximovich to be marked with the Black Spot, for any and all of their honors to be stripped in all Illuminist nations, holdings, and enclaves, and for them to be arrested and put on trial for religiosity, the spreading of misinformation with intent, scientific apostasy, and treason. I am sickly, and I will not go to my grave knowing I did not do all I could to prevent this triune travesty from despoiling mankind's greatest attempt thus far at scientific enlightenment. I cede my time, Regulator."
*flurry of shouts and outraged vocalizations*
REGULATOR: "Order! We will have order! Does someone present in the Magistri or Tabula seek to defend the accused?"
WAWRO: "I seek to defend myself!"
REGULATOR: "The floor is ceded to Magistri Wawro of Poland."
WAWRO: "I... I am honestly heartbroken and stunned by the words of our Grandmaster. In all my years, starting with my loyal service during the Polish Revolution so many decades ago, I have sought nothing other than the truth, though this has often been a process of trial and error. I have no way of knowing if my books and ideas are true until they can be scientifically tested, which is near impossible. I simply took what I studied, what I found of interest, and compiled them into volumes that I thought might help my fellow man and our cause. I have done nothing wrong, nor have I ever championed religion. My boyhood years of Roman Papacy are long behind me. No boy who saw the horrors of the Great World War could long believe in a loving and just god. I am innocent, as are my colleagues, my friends, Biserka and Maximovich. I believe the words of Biserka, unlike my own books, are being proven as we speak. No other mystic, no other clairvoyant, has proven so useful, so reliable, and so accurate as Biserka of Tunguska. I believe that her Third Eye is so far open that those who do not trust her statements are utterly blind. Biserka of Tunguska is the next evolutionary step in the history of humanity, and she is the future of the Illuminist Party, the young blood we need to continue the fight ever onward. She bears no ill-will toward anyone of good-standing among us, but the Grandmaster, in his waning health and frailty, seeks to eliminate her speech because he is afraid. Afraid of the truth!"
*flurry of shouts and outraged vocalizations*
WAWRO: "I hear words spoken in a wise tone coming from his mouth, a mouth that has become an expert at ordering the rank and file Illuminists here, from a mighty black chair, a throne! But under his monologue lies fear, a stinking, rotting terror, that progress will prove his beliefs untrue. That one day, Grandmaster Werner will fade into the oblivion of history as new leaders, such as Biserka, truly draw us away from the status quo and toward a New Age unlike any we have ever dreamed of! Ladies and gentlemen of the Supreme Council, if you agree with the Grandmaster in this unjust persecution, you side with putting one foot in the grave. If you refuse to accept this character assassination from a dying old man who has slowly become a king in the hall where all are supposed to be equal, you side with Biserka, and a future amongst the stars! Ordem E Progresso! I call instead, for Grandmaster Werner, who is openly struggling with cancer, to be subjected to an official inquiry into his state of mind, and if deemed unfit, removed from office!"
*flurry of shouts and outraged vocalizations*
*Chanting "Inepti!" (Unfit!) from a large number of the Supreme Council*
WERNER: "I will not be disrespected like this by a traitor who prays to little green men!"
WAWRO: "I pray to no one. I will not be accused of high crimes by a treasonous old man who thinks himself a monarch. I will not go down without a fight! Natural selection at its finest!"
REGULATOR: "The stability of the Grandmaster has been invoked! Tabula and Magistri will now take the blank pages in front of them and fill out their vote for an official inquiry. 'X' will mean yes, the Grandmaster should be removed from office until the proper medical checks deem him fit. 'O' will mean no, the Grandmaster will remain and his levying of accusations will stand. Please lay your ballots face down and a member of staff will collect them and take them to be tabulated."
The result of the vote rocked the Illuminist world. In one stroke, not only were the accusations against the ancient cosmonaut theorists dismissed, Otto Werner was removed from active duty as Grandmaster of the Second Order of the Illuminati. The rock who had led them through the great revolutions after the Great World War was gone. The Magistri Illuminationis voted 71-29 "X," passing the seventy percent majority needed to legally remove the Grandmaster on their end of things. The Tabula, which had long been under Werner's total and complete control, saw the Russians join with the Poles and other ethnicities against a mostly German loyalist faction to remove him from power, 30-20. In an instant, Werner's career was over. After the next-in-command, German Dietrich Koehler, took temporary power, he ordered an election for a new Grandmaster to be conducted at the Second Supreme Council of 1945, in two months.
THE SECOND SUPREME COUNCIL OF 1945
The Second Supreme Council of 1945 convened on April 1. After initial fiery debates on potential candidates, the anti-Werner faction nominated none other than Wawro to become the next Grandmaster, surpassing the assumed necessary step of sitting first with the Tabula. While he tried to refuse it, chanting overtook the assembly, the thronging Illuminists screaming "Wawro! Wawro! Viva Wawro!" He reluctantly agreed to put his name forward as a candidate for Grandmaster. In the other faction of mostly Werner loyalists and those who reviled ancient cosmonaut theory, they proposed Dietrich Koehler remain and go from Acting Grandmaster to the full position. After many hours of discussion and arguments, a vote revealed Wawro was indeed the new Grandmaster. Wild celebrations erupted in Warsaw as the birthplace of the New Age, the first nation to rise up under the banner of the Owl, now saw its favorite son become Grandmaster. One of the last remaining churches in Warsaw, the 14th century St. John's Archcathedral which had been serving as the faith-smearing "Museum of Religiosity," was burned by revelers as police watched on. Over the gates of the city, a red banner was hung with white letters reading, "THE REVOLUTION COMES HOME!"
The first steps that Grandmaster Wawro made was to award Maximovich with a Hero of Reason medallion, silver class, and the same to Biserka, gold class. Wawro proclaimed his two friends to be the future of the Revolution. A comely blonde girl, unassuming in her looks and manner, saw her visions of extraterrestrial contact march into the canon of Illuminism. It would only be up from here.
At the same time, Werner was leaving Warsaw for East Germania when he received a message from his replacement. He was to be exiled to the Berlin Free State for the remainder of his days. With the help of Western doctors and his own personal fortune, he was somehow able to delay the fatality of his cancer, and the fact he no longer suffered from the stress of running the movement proved an unexpected blessing. He would surely have already been dead if things had gone his way at the First Supreme Council of '45. This worried Grandmaster Wawro, who still viewed the elderly statesman and his supporters with suspicion. On the night of October 21, 1946, an unnamed assassin broke into the Berlin home of Werner and beat him to a literal pulp with a crowbar. Several mercenaries who had been hired by Werner had taken a smoke break during the event, and professed they saw no one come or go. Wawro proved himself as vindictive as he was affable. The assassination was a clear message to the world that although Wawro wasn't the decrepit old monarch that Werner had been, he would not tolerate threats to his own rule or to the movement.
Interestingly, in 1972, an American, Texas-born mercenary named Siegfried "Skeleton" "Skelly" Skelton claimed to have been paid the Free State equivalent approximately $20,000 (in 1946 RU dollars) by agents of the Areopagus to break in and murder Werner. While this was potentially just a tall-tale of a "Freibooter," Skelton was known as one of the most apt and capable assassins in Europe and Africa, achieving widespread fame and infamy and a kill-list that even included minor members of the Bonaparte family. In the 1972 interview, given to the Philadelphia Times, Skelton claimed:
"I asked how they wanted it done. In public? In the middle of the night in his bed? From a distance? What caliber? But no, they wanted it done with a crowbar, and they wanted him to suffer. I broke his legs first and then his arms. I beat that poor fuck for thirty minutes, him screaming and crying the whole time. None of his guys came to help. They were all on the payroll, too. 'Smoke break.' I killed that old man with one swift blow to the skull after thirty minutes of torture. Exactly thirty minutes, too. The Loomies said they would know if I was a second early in the killin' blow. Poor fuck. But a Loomie is a Loomie, and a dollar is a dollar."
Among the Werner loyalists who later speak about switching sides and voting for his removal from office, the Polish Praefect Anton Baka would tell the Moscow Examiner in 1968:
"I truly respected Werner, I really did, for many years. But the man was seriously ill, and his faculties were failing. I know he viewed me and others as traitors of his personal trust for voting for his removal, but it was necessary. We could not move forward with the Revolution with such a backward-thinking Grandmaster. Wawro and his cohorts brought fresh air. The desire to launch the Space Race with the Europans and Americans began that day. We were determined to start a new international Illuminist mission to be the first human to reach the stars. When we put the first satellite in orbit in 1953, we showed the world that Illuminism was, is, and always will be the answer, and the home of progress. I regret nothing. I am glad I betrayed my friend by remaining loyal to the Revolution. May he rest in the Aether."
American mercenary Siegfried "Skeleton" Skelton
"Europe's Greatest Assassin"
American mercenary Siegfried "Skeleton" Skelton
"Europe's Greatest Assassin"
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So...a power grab as usual, the structure of the Illuminist international body, and the revelation of Illuminist participation background in the incoming Space Race which is ... a crazy theory of an ancient alien myth and such. Nice chapter, Napo !
Thank you! It was fun to write and break my month of slump/being dead inside lol.
ILLUMINIST ROCKETRY?!?!?!?! THE DAMN LOOMIES ARE LAUNCHING MISSILES INTO THE ATMOSPHERE TO TURN THE FUCKING BIRDS GAY!
Somehow, I get the feeling they're not that different from the Yankees...
Sometimes I think the Illuminists and the Americans are competing in some kind of "who's the craziest" challenge. Fantastic chapter, Comrade-Patriot Napo!
I’m guessing from the organization of the Illuminists the IPRR, Germania, and Poland aren’t really all that independent considering that the New Order of the Illuminati in the ends governs all three countries. In fact you could consider all three countries to be part of a single union rather than three nations united in an alliance
🤓: but wheresh your proof that aliensh exshisht
👁: let's go find em, hypothesis first proof later
Freibooters in the Berlin Free State sounds fun. Is it really a place where all the factions' representatives are allowed to exist? Do they each have delegates on a city council of mostly locals, or delegates representing corporations? Do they support local paramilitaries-- has the city already been cordoned off into three parts by neighborhood gangs de facto governing according to Fundamentalist, Illuminist, and authoritarian-liberal (Europan) principles? Is all that aggression channeled into sports, certain teams alleging they are trained by the principles of a certain ideology? Meanwhile the more "neutral" institutions (who want Berlin to be an actual society and not just a cover for slow moving street by street warfare) are constantly occupied with things like preventing one of the factions from releasing nerve agents in the subway. And NHRE/Balkan refugees might be recruitable as well-- service now for Pinnacle status later...
Sounds like it could be half West Berlin and half Hong Kong. And Werner Herzog still ends up being a filmmaker. Maybe instead of martial arts, it's all about fencing plus parkour with some Buster Keaton type stunts?
👁: let's go find em, hypothesis first proof later
Freibooters in the Berlin Free State sounds fun. Is it really a place where all the factions' representatives are allowed to exist? Do they each have delegates on a city council of mostly locals, or delegates representing corporations? Do they support local paramilitaries-- has the city already been cordoned off into three parts by neighborhood gangs de facto governing according to Fundamentalist, Illuminist, and authoritarian-liberal (Europan) principles? Is all that aggression channeled into sports, certain teams alleging they are trained by the principles of a certain ideology? Meanwhile the more "neutral" institutions (who want Berlin to be an actual society and not just a cover for slow moving street by street warfare) are constantly occupied with things like preventing one of the factions from releasing nerve agents in the subway. And NHRE/Balkan refugees might be recruitable as well-- service now for Pinnacle status later...
Sounds like it could be half West Berlin and half Hong Kong. And Werner Herzog still ends up being a filmmaker. Maybe instead of martial arts, it's all about fencing plus parkour with some Buster Keaton type stunts?
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Know you asked for New Delhi, but if you don't mind, I'm also going to take a stab.
Given the presence of multiple multi-ethnic/polyglot superstates, it would seem that nationalism is less powerful than it was IOTL. Nationalism and racial pan-nationalism was, after all, the European import that most local elites used as the foundation for their own developing ideologies IOTL. Here, I think that's less likely to be the case.
Instead, what I believe will happen is that, in keeping with the brewing Cold War between America and Russia (with Europa seemingly going into a managed decline), local elites will adapt Fascism and Illuminism to their own purposes, fashioning quite a few offshoots. Which one you adopt depends on who your enemies are, and which side you can make space on. So for example, revolutionaries in fascist Mittelafrika will probably adopt some kind of localized offshoot of Illuminism to "overthrow the chains of Yankee-Teutonic superstition." Meanwhile, an America which seems fairly friendly to at least some Arab and North African groups could become the patron of and ideological inspiration for a pan-Arab, Sunni Fascist revolution against Europan colonialism. Fascism and Illuminism are both, seemingly, very flexible, and it would be relatively easy for anti-colonial elites to adapt one, fashion it in their image, and get the required patronage to break away from their overlords and remain "sovereign" for a given value of the term.
Just my 2¢.
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That kind of liberal, democratic, and/or socialist anticolonial nationalism would be rarer, but that's only one form of nationalism as we know it. If "nationalism" is just trying to use state power in accordance with what are allegedly the interests or traditions of some community (any community larger than a single dynasty), then even the Poles are still happy to see their guy become the IFLScience-Pope, even if they know that in their little competition with the Germans the Russians are still the referee. As for liberal democratic nationalism we shouldn't count out the Europans just yet. They might be using liberal rhetoric cynically to assert their superiority, but those ideas may not always be so tame and sterile.
Beatriz
Gone Fishin'
Theocratic nationalism? Pinnies aside, one's state church or local colonial churches can always stages a revolt - doubly so for the various colonial Muslim religious orders with no need to concord with Avignon or Amsterdam - and although Ideas of Pinnacle-ness are tainted by association with the Americans there's no reason why Committees of the Defense of the Bantu Race don't emerge simply by imitation of what works - that being ultranationalist dictatorship and ethnic cleansing
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Say no more:
Eh. Guys like Saddam and Gaddafi are only as interesting as the resources available to them. In their early careers they were more interesting on a personal level-- they personally did interesting things. A few lucky connections took Saddam from failed assassin to Vice President, with a formative intermediate stint as head of the police. And maybe Gaddafi enjoys a certain reputation as a spokesman for the African Union and such, a sort of de Gaulle esque role seems imaginable. But once they were in power both divorced themselves from reality, failed to delegate reponsibilities or do anything useful themselves, and generally screwed up any enterprise whose success depended on more than money alone-- they insisted on fighting wars despite their atrocious management of their armies (armies primarily meant for policing the people, then special armies to police the armies, then special special armies-- and any officer who shows any level of skill or initiative and isn't protected by a family or tribal connection is probably next in line for execution, Saddam even kept officers from talking to each other in the run-ups to 1991 and 2003). So it's hard to see what they'd do without money, sitting in exile as American lapdogs-- they'd probably just lose the plot even faster and actively set back their causes progress in order to shore up their personal brands.
Now, Hafez al-Assad-- he could probably be a real menace even in exile. He lost against Israel but learned his lesson. The next time he went to war was in Lebanon-- he knew exactly what he wanted to achieve and how much risk to take on, who he needed to have on side and who he could alienate, and he was successful. He maintained that for thirty years, Saddam and Gaddafi bounced from failure to failure over the same 1970-2000 interval. Assad didn't go chasing pipe dreams, didn't have to go a-purging his last few competent subordinates after getting egg on his face for the nth time-- he set and achieved goals within his neighborhood, within his power, with the tacit or overt approval of anyone large or small whose approval he needed. And he came up by killing a dreamer, Salah Jadid. He'd easily do the same to a guy like Gaddafi.
Now, Hafez al-Assad-- he could probably be a real menace even in exile. He lost against Israel but learned his lesson. The next time he went to war was in Lebanon-- he knew exactly what he wanted to achieve and how much risk to take on, who he needed to have on side and who he could alienate, and he was successful. He maintained that for thirty years, Saddam and Gaddafi bounced from failure to failure over the same 1970-2000 interval. Assad didn't go chasing pipe dreams, didn't have to go a-purging his last few competent subordinates after getting egg on his face for the nth time-- he set and achieved goals within his neighborhood, within his power, with the tacit or overt approval of anyone large or small whose approval he needed. And he came up by killing a dreamer, Salah Jadid. He'd easily do the same to a guy like Gaddafi.
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