Apologies!

I'd like to give a quick sorry to everyone that's checking out this blog, hoping for new content. Been kind of busy this month with NaNoWriMo, my job and helping my family (and Fallout 4 when I find some time). But starting December, will most likely be starting with a post a week for a while, possibly on Wednesdays. Or it will turn into a "whenever I feel like it, I dunno" posting schedule, but who likes that?

Anyway thank you everyone that has been checking it out even though I've been a bit slow these past few weeks. Please Stand By, we will be returning with our regularly scheduled Alternate History soon!

Fictional AltHistory Scenario #3: Fallout, Part Three

Fallout 4 is finally here! Hence why there wasn't a post on Tuesday. And... it is awesome. Sorry, I meant, it's....

Only the unicorn is actually a Deathclaw, and the rainbows is really irradiated goop.

Base building, loads of crafting options, new and revamped enemies, a massive world to explore and so much more... Fallout 4 has a little bit of everything for everyone.

Anyway, to continue with the series I started a few weeks ago in the lead up to Fallout 4, lets look at another alternate scenario within the franchise, this time in Bethesda's first foray into the series, Fallout 3.

Point of Divergence

I'll be honest: Fallout 3 had the weakest story of the entire franchise, and I've been thinking about what exactly I can take from it and twist around, as I am wont to do. I don't want to talk about "What if the Enclave succeeds in occupying Project Purity," because, well, I already did and Enclave thing. And if you need a refresher there, check out that article. Basically the same thing happens, just a bit more confined to Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas.

And that means the internet. ALL OF IT!

So, instead let's look at the other big faction in the game, the Brotherhood of Steel. The power armored troops you see at the Citadel/Pentagon is just a group from the Brotherhood that was originally established on the West Coast, sent to the old American capital to find technology. However, their leader, Elder Lyons, decided to do his best to help the people of the Wasteland, leading to several people defecting to the Outcasts and the West Coast chapter disavowing those in Washington. So, what if Elder Lyons croaks before he arrives in the Capital Wasteland (say when the Brotherhood wipes out the mutants and raiders out of The Pitt), and the Brotherhood soldiers there full fill their primary goal: recover any advanced technology to preserve it for future generations.

Consequences

The BoS expedition to the Capital Wasteland was, for the most part, a success. A massive robot was found underneath the Pentagon, Liberty Prime. Although it was still in a non-working state, it was carefully removed from it's location under the Pentagon and sent back west on a massive airship. Other technologies, such as power armor, energy weapons, documents from various Vault-Tec Vaults throughout the Capital Wasteland, and anything else considered of value, while also tracking down the source of a different bread of Super Mutants like they fought on the West Coast when the Master tried to take over the world. After months of searching, the did find the source of the Super Mutants, Vault 87, and did their best to block off the entrance to prevent any more from coming out.

But almost as soon as these well armed, steel clad soldiers showed up in the Wasteland, they disappeared. Eventually it would be assumed it was just a myth they were ever there, and life proceeds back to normal. Three Dog tries to get Galaxy News Radio working again, but that lasts only as long before the first supermutant attacks and destroys the building, killing Three Dog in the process. Project Purity also never really gets off the ground without help from the angry, cannibalistic green monsters with Chinese Assault Rifles, miniguns and fire-hydrant battering rams.

Just fought a pack of deathclaws, a horde of feral ghoul reavers, a literal army of  raiders... and then you see this.
Might as well just restart the game.

At least, until the Enclave, recently defeated out west, suddenly pops up in Washington, D.C. But with heavily armed soldiers, a folksy President on the radio, and lots of resources and technology that is much more advanced than pre-Great War stuff. With a good PR campaign, and the grudging acceptance of the Capital Wasteland's inhabitants, the Encalve begins to rebuild their power. When the Enclave got word of the aborted Project Purity, President Eden asks to meet with the project's leaders, Dr. Li and James. When the President offered his support (on the condition of using the modified FEV to kill the "mutants" of the Wasteland,) they instead are able to work with Colonel Autumn, not infect Project Purity, and effectively reduce the ZAX supercomputer to irrelevance. The Enclave begins to rebuild, but after several years of ruling the Capital Wasteland, their ideology begins to soften (they still believe they are pure, superior humans, but they eventually give up on killing all the "mutants," just the ghouls and Super Mutants) and they begin to seek to expand peacefully.

On the West Coast, the Brotherhood is revitalized with the arrival of the Capital Expedition, and they are particularly pleased with the arrival of Liberty Prime. After years of work, and when Scribes Rothchild and Elijah manage to finally sort out the power issues, Liberty Prime is ready. With the relations between the NCR and Brotherhood at a low time low after a previous war that nearly destabilized the NCR but virtually destroyed the Brotherhood and forced them into hiding in the Mojave, the Brotherhood took a gamble, and started the war again when the NCR tried to expand east.

This... just going east this time.

Liberty Prime proved to be the major decider in the war, destroying any attempts by the NCR to invade and occupy the Mojave, and quickly making huge strides deep into NCR territory, overwhelming the NCR and forcing the President to surrender. The Brotherhood quickly turned themselves into the most powerful faction in the west, easily crushing the Legion's armies of slaves with the power of Liberty Prime and the highly trained, well armed soldiers of the Brotherhood.

The BoS quickly became a fundamentalist, techno-theocracy, expanding over the Wasteland with Liberty Prime leading the charge, suppressing all technology that wasn't "safe." However it lead to problems, namely in the lack of reinforcements due to their closed, "pure" bloodlines and the massive stretches of territory they controlled with too few troops, and the lack of irrigation to increase the amount of food produced and the ability to produce medical supplies, due to the BoS's goal of preserving military technology over everything else. But it would only be when Liberty Prime was destroyed in an attack by rebels would the Brotherhood's "nation" fall apart. The NCR and the Legion would eventually reform themselves, but it would be decades before anything resembling the stability of the old NCR and even the dictatorship of the Brotherhood would be recreated.

Because it sure is easy to terrify everyone if you are totally incased in steel and sound like a pillow is over your face.

Conclusion

So, I always felt the Brotherhood of Steel was a rather morally grey organization, devoted to technology above anything else. And when the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood faction tried to just help out the people, it saw members mutinying and them being kicked out all together. Even then, it seems like no one trusted them. Then again, they didn't trust anyone either.

Anyway, sorry this is... like a week late. All well, will try to get back on schedule right away!


But what do you think? What would the Brotherhood have been like if they went a bit power hungry? Or if you have a topic or idea you would like me to talk about, please leave comments below, email me at tbguy1992@gmail.com, or tell me on Twitter @tbguy1992.

Fictional AltHistory Scenario #2: Fallout, Part Two

It's only four days till Fallout 4 finally comes out.

*muffles really loud screaming of excitement and fanboyism in a pillow until I nearly pass out*

Okay, now that that's out of my system, why not try another Fallout alternate history? If you haven't looked at it, here's Part One, what if the Master from Fallout 1 succeeded?

Anyway, I'm going to look at the second game in the franchise today. Fallout 2 is one of the best RPG's ever made, having fixed up a few issues with the first game (such as the really, really obtuse companion management system and the lack of a "take all" button) and added a lot of new things that became icon's of the legendary series: The New California Republic (NCR), an explanation of the actual purpose behind the Vaults, and, of course, the Enclave.

Don't tell me you didn't freak out the first time you saw the Enclave power armor! Wait... it was just me? Damnit.

WARNING!!!: this AH will involve a lot of spoilers to a nearly 20 year old game. If you don't want the spoilers, you might as well read another article. Like, say, what if England was a Republic? Also, if you don't know where I'm going, here is the plot of Fallout 2, provided by the Fallout Wikia. Otherwise, grab your power armor and open up a Nuka-Cola, because here we go!

Point of Divergence

The Enclave in Fallout 2 is the primary villains of the story, trying to find a way to wipe out all "mutants" on North American so they, the "pure" humans, could come in and reclaim 'MURICA! However, the "Chosen One," the descendant of the Vault Dweller of Fallout 1, puts on the Vault 13 jumpsuit and defeats the Enclave. But what if the Chosen One failed, and the Enclave succeeded?

Maybe let's say that the Chosen One is killed... really, not a hard thing to say, considering how many times I died actually playing the game. But let's say he got really close, like up to the Enclave Oil Rig, before he is finally cut down, just a short distance away from finding his tribe.

YES RON PERLMAN, I GET IT! I LOST! YOU CAN STOP RUBBING IT IN NOW! GOD!

Consequences

After dealing with the Chosen One, the Enclave prepares for their goal: unleashing a modified Forced Evolutionary Virus onto the world through the jet streams. Modified by Dr. Charles Curling from a mutagen that turns people into huge, muscular, green screen, nearly immortal idiots (or super geniuses, but that was much rarer) into a deadly aerosol that would kill every human, mutated or not, on direct contact. Only the Enclave would survive, having been inoculated against the virus. Only the plants and animals of the wasteland would survive, cleansing the world of all mutants.

So, basically this means every super mutant, ghoul, and human (even those that came from Vaults, as the modified FEV still killed the Vault 13 residents chosen as test subjects) in the Wasteland would be killed by the virus, within an hour or two of being infected. And it's not pretty: "massive hemorrhaging and inflammations, leading to a complete failure of the victim's organs within sixty minutes." Ouch.

So, the Enclave dumps this into the Jet stream, and everyone dies. NCR, New Reno, Vault City, The Boneyard, New Vegas, Chicago, Texas, the Capital Wasteland, the Pitt, etc... until everyone in the world except for a few hundred people on the oil rig. Basically everyone dies a short, immensely painful death without really knowing what happened. Only animals like Brahmin, radscorpions, Mirelirks and Deathclaws would survive, or those, like the Brotherhood of Steel, that had power armor that could filter out the deadly virus. But even then, only the highest ranking Paladins and Knights would survive, as not everyone has power armor in that group. The few survivors of the Brotherhood, in a last ditch attempt, try to make contact with the Enclave, but, being "mutants" in the eyes of the Enclave, these survivors are exterminated.

Basically the Enclave are like the Daleks. Just a question of who is more insane, really.

With everyone on the mainland dead, President Dick Richardson puts the next part of the project into action, namely the resettling of North America. The first colonies on the mainland, some built right on top of the settlements that places like the NCR had built (as soon as all the dead bodies are disposed of), other's in areas that pre-war maps identified as having good resources. Robots are immensely useful in rebuilding the world in the Enclave's image, and with the aid of advanced AI technology the settlements grow and florish. Since there wasn't a lot of creatures, deathclaws included, that the military couldn't deal with, everything is looking hunky-dory.

But now the problems start cropping up. First, robots, while useful, have some limitations, mostly in being hard to replace or repair due to a lack of raw materials to manufacture parts with. And since most of the Enclave was politicians, soldiers, scientists and business executives, it's not like any of them want to get their hands dirty doing stuff. Without even a slave force they could take advantage of, the growth of the colonies are stilted due to the lack of manual laborers. I call this the "Rapture Effect."

Ann Rand, eat your heart out. Seriously, because no one will want to work for you.

But that's just a small problem. The other one, and one already identified on the Enclave oil rig, was the problem of inbreeding. Eventually, after enough time, the genes that cause the deformities, the emotional and physical stunting, and a dozen other medical, intellectual, and social problems rise up. Doctor Curling, shocked by the devastation caused by his work, and several autopsy's that revealed that many of the "mutants" on the mainland had almost no difference in DNA from the Enclave, lead him to commit suicide. His death, portrayed by the Enclave propaganda as from over work, is eventually leaked to the community, raising doubts in a few members, wondering if releasing the FEV was the right thing, especially thanks to the increasing labor shortage to sustain the colonies (and, indirectly, their comfortable living like when they were on the Oil Rig, which had been destroyed in the years since by an earthquake).

There was a solution found: cloning. The technology existed on the East Coast, so a team was sent to find it, and recover the technology, which happened easily enough (remember: everyone is still dead). However, the cloning technology of Vault 108 has one very, major, serious flaw that the Enclave never found out: the fact that the clones were hostile to everyone but other clones. So, in their desperation to make a workforce (I'm guessing the Enclave just started growing dozens, if not hundreds of clones, at once), once they all reach maturity, they just start hunting down and killing everyone that isn't a clone. The Enclave military manages to suppress the clones, but by this point, the best scientists, engineers, and technicians have been savagely torn apart and killed.

Clones: basically never a good idea ever in fiction.

Soon, the Enclave begins to collapse from the strain. Colonies on resources and factories that were desperately needed but now didn't have enough workers. Drug use, especially of the mainland's favorite Jet, skyrockets. Suicide attempts and the number of insane increases. Desertions rise, folks just packing up and walking into the Wasteland with little more than they could carry. The last functioning Vertibird is grounded when fuel finally runs out. The ammo for the energy weapons having long since run out, leaving the Enclave military to use scavenged weapons that just a few years before they would have destroyed for being useless.

After thirty years, only a handful are left, including President Richardson. The group having been savaged by the Wasteland as the military struggled to hold back the threats from the wasteland. The population continued to drop as robots that were needed to maintain farms and factories failed and couldn't be repaired, or began to experience malfunctions, and eventually picked off a few more of the survivors. The President, the now very old Dick Richardson, is put on trial for his failures of leadership. But up until the moment he was found guilty, he stood beside every action he took. He proudly walked into the wasteland, heading east, arms outstretched as he welcomed the world he had helped create, the one for pure humans (no matter the fact the last survivors just kicked him out).

Or he just didn't want to have to listen to yet another god-damned congressman try to repeal Richardsoncare...

Fifty years after the FEV virus was put into the atmosphere, killing the final human's who survived the Great War in 2077, the last member of the Enclave, a young soldier who was one of the first born in North America takes his laser pistol, with one shot left, points it at his head and pulls the trigger. The last human in the Enclave, and in the world, is dead. The work started in 2077 is finally finished, with all of humanity extinguished.

Conclusion

Yes, this was a very, very bleak portryal of what would happen. But, let's face it: The Enclave were not going to be able to pull this off. Miniguns, plasma guns and Vertibirds will only get you so far. And killing hundreds of thousands, millions of people that could, at the very least, be used as slaves or brought into the Enclave (and refresh the gene pool) was like a sick man cutting off his legs, his right arm, and all but two fingers on his left hand. The Enclave program was doomed from the start.

So, let's be glad that the fictional world of Fallout hasn't happened (yet), or a unhinged group that controls the last remnants of the United States hasn't tried to kill everyone (yet).

Anyway! FALLOUT FOUR!!!!!!

If anything is going to ruin my chances at wining NaNoWriMo this year, it will be this game. And I might not even be mad.

But what do you think? How would the Enclave act if they took over the world? Or if you have a topic or idea you would like me to talk about, please leave comments below, email me at tbguy1992@gmail.com, or tell me on Twitter @tbguy1992.

AltHistory Scenario #15: What if FDR Only Served Two Terms?

After months of speculation, Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced that he would not actively seek a third term of office in the 1940 US Presidential Election, though said he would keep his name in the race at the Democratic National Convention. While still very popular and respected for his New Deal programs that helped alleviate the Great Depression, FDR was facing increasing opposition, including from the still disorganized Republicans and conservative Democrats like his former Vice-President, John Nance Garner. For a while he was willing to run again, mostly due to the rise of Nazi Germany, the Fall of France, and the Battle of Britain, and he was willing to run again if the Democratic Party "drafted" Roosevelt to serve for another term. But at the party convention, while Roosevelt still gained the second most votes, Garner received a slim majority and was named the Democratic candidate. William B. Bankhead was chosen for VP. Garner, a Texas conservative who was increasingly opposed to the liberal policies that FDR had pushed through Congress, was stuck between supporting the policies of Roosevelt that he personally opposed, or to publicly repudiate the popular New Deal, and possibly loose the massive coalition that Roosevelt had built up over two terms.

Basically Garner was stuck between a Roosevelt and a White House. Okay, so my attempt to change a popular saying didn't work. What do you expect?

The Republicans, on the other hand, had Wendell Willkie for Presidential candidate, with Thomas E. Dewey as Vice President. A businessman who had never run for office before, he was against government run businesses like the Tennessee Valley Authority, but supported other New Deal programs like Social Security, and was an advocate for military preparedness and sending "all aid short of war" to Great Britain to fight the Nazi's. While a Wall Street capitalist and a Republican, both of whom many people still saw as the main cause of the Great Depression, Willkie was an energetic and forceful campaigner, one who capitalized on the best aspects of the New Deal and strengthening the American homeland against any possible outside threat. When Garner made a slip at a campaign event that he was willing to scrap parts of the New Deal, the public shock was enough to have most of them through their support behind Willkie. Even FDR, in a private letter that remained unpublished until 1989, said that "I'd rather vote Republican than Garner now."

On election day, 52% of the vote went to Willkie and 338 electoral votes, having gained a large number of New Deal liberals when he said that he would expand some New Deal programs that the private sector couldn't manage. The House of Representatives and Senate were still Democrat as many congressional candidates continued to support the New Deal. Observer's mentioned that the 1940 US Presidential Election was the "New Deal Election," and it was clear that most Americans wanted the New Deal to continue.

Just, you know, up until the 1980s when Reagan came in...

President Willkie began a major overhaul of the New Deal in the first few months of office, working with the Democratic Congress. While programs like Social Security, Civilian Conservation Corps and the Securities and Exchange Commission where left in place, some like the TVA were spun off as independent corporations or wound down early. However, Willkie was soon confronted with Foreign policy issues, such as the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Blitz on England, the sinking of American ships by U-boats, and an increasingly belligerent Japan. Willkie did agree to a "Lend-Lease" program to Britain and China to send war materials to the beleaguered powers, but when the Nazi's invaded the USSR, he didn't extend the offer to Moscow. The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the US into the war, and now Willkie was leading the US straight into World War Two.

While the US and the UK were allies, Wendell Willkie and Winston Churchill had a tense relationship, mostly due to Willkie's plan to focus on Japan first rather than the Nazi's, leaving the UK and the USSR to fight Nazi Germany alone. The plan faced major setbacks when Japan won victory after victory against the US, British and other European forces. After a draw at the Battle of Midway, the US's industrial potential began to weigh into the war, with more ships, planes, guns and tanks being sent and turn the tide of the war, with a leap-frog campaign of battles over the many Pacific Islands eventually leading to the bloody invasion of Japan itself, Operation Downfall, by January 1945. The bloody invasion finally lead to the capture of the Emperor, Prime Minister Togo and other high ranking Japanese officers, and the unconditional surrender of Japan. A long, brutal occupation of Japan that saw many of the major industries broken up, soldiers executed, and constant guerilla war, until a new Japanese Republic was established in 1954.

It's easy to rebuild when there is nothing left...

The calls by Joseph Stalin to open a second front in Europe was resisted by Willkie for years, and the British were confined to small raids, the battle in North Africa, and a struggling offensive in Italy. But the death of Adolf Hitler in an air raid in August 1945 as he and the Nazi hierarchy pulled out of Berlin and headed west was a signal of the end. While American troops were being sent to reinforce and prepare to invade France in 1946, Soviet forces broke through the collapsing Nazi Lines, and reached the Rhine River just as a hasty invasion by the few British and American troops finally landed at Normandy, to open arms by Nazi and French resistance alike.

In the post war world, with all of Germany occupied by the Soviets, and only France, the Low Countries, and Italy in the hands of the Allies, the Cold War began. The atomic bomb project, begun only in 1945 in the US when the war was nearly over (and after it was finally proven that the Nazi's and Japanese were both working on similar projects to convince a skeptical, business minded Willkie) was tested in 1949 in New Mexico, leading to the start of a new arms race between the US and USSR. China, on the other hand, was able to defeat Mao's Chinese Communists, and the Republic of China was established as a strong ally to the US, though the "Republic" thing isn't exactly a great monicker of what the one-party, nearly dictatorial China was like.

Because "bringing democracy" isn't easy in a country with 1.4 billion people.

On the home front, the Republican's, taking advantage of the repudiation of the New Deal by the increasingly conservative Democrats, became the party of the centre-left, a mildly progressive party that advocated for aiding the poor and unemployed, civil rights for African-Americans, Latino's and Native Americans, while supporting business and the economy with spending deficits when the economy falters. Big Business and the rich, seeing their taxes go up to pay for these new programs, flocked to the Democrats, who remained the party of the Deep South. However, this "New Deal" Coalition began to break down in the 1960s as the US was dragged into another costly occupation of Japan as Communists tried to take over the unstable, struggling republic. With the fall of the Republican party, the right wing, Jim Crow, big business Democrats retook the White House in the 1970s. By 1990, with the Soviet Union on the brink of collapse, the Chinese Republic going from strength to strength and Japan abandoned to Communism, the US was not in much better shape, with economic crisis sparked by the repeal of business and banking regulations that lead to a massive housing bubble and stock market crash in 1989, and increasingly polarized politics that saw the government being shut down over a conflict between Democrat Bill Clinton's refusal to support the Republican dominated Congress' budget that would see billions of dollars poured into the economy to support the faltering nation.

PS:

So I've decided to change this up a little bit, at least for the month of November while I do NaNoWriMo. Instead of a long, explained scenario, I'm just going to do some shorter, one shot ideas. I'm hoping they won't be too long, and mostly as something to keep me working on this while also writing a 50,000 word novel. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

But what do you think? What would happen if FDR never made it to Term 3? Or if you have a topic or idea you would like me to talk about, please leave comments below, email me at tbguy1992@gmail.com, or tell me on Twitter @tbguy1992.