Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes VI (Do Not Post Current Politics or Political Figures Here)

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Was not expecting that there were enough people in existence to support an independent Gemini Home Entertainment reference but I'm totally on board with it; they make some fantastic high-quality stuff and I'm quite happy if what I make brings it to mind
Well what about Local 58? The Mysterious Flesh Pit? (Wendigoon made a very good video covering the latter not long ago)
 
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The System of ‘36, also called the Long Party System, or the 5th Party System, is the political era that began with the Election of Huey Long as President of the United States in 1936. The era began with the mass realignment of electoral coalitions in favor of economically interventionist factions of the Democratic Party in the wake of the Great Depression. By the late 1940s and 1950s Long’s authoritarian practices had entrenched Democratic political dominance in all but a few states, all while the Democratic Party was purged of anti-Long elements. The Era saw Long win a record 5 straight Presidential Elections, with wide Democratic majorities in Congress after 1938.

The System fractured in the wake of the 1954 Election, which made apparent that the Republican Party was merely a token opposition to Long. Emerging in its place was the Liberty Party, while the Labor Party emerged to challenge the Left of the Democratic Party. In the wake of Long’s Death, the Walker Putsch and the Quasi-Revolution, the apparatuses that supported Democratic dominance collapsed outside the South. With the Eisenhower Administration agreeing to a mostly free election, the opposition united behind a Constitutional Union ticket of noted philanthropist Herbert Hoover to win the election of 1956, ending the System of ‘36 and beginning the System of ‘56.

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The System of ‘36, also called the Long Party System, or the 5th Party System, is the political era that began with the Election of Huey Long as President of the United States in 1936. The era began with the mass realignment of electoral coalitions in favor of economically interventionist factions of the Democratic Party in the wake of the Great Depression. By the late 1940s and 1950s Long’s authoritarian practices had entrenched Democratic political dominance in all but a few states, all while the Democratic Party was purged of anti-Long elements. The Era saw Long win a record 5 straight Presidential Elections, with wide Democratic majorities in Congress after 1938.

The System fractured in the wake of the 1954 Election, which made apparent that the Republican Party was merely a token opposition to Long. Emerging in its place was the Liberty Party, while the Labor Party emerged to challenge the Left of the Democratic Party. In the wake of Long’s Death, the Walker Putsch and the Quasi-Revolution, the apparatuses that supported Democratic dominance collapsed outside the South. With the Eisenhower Administration agreeing to a mostly free election, the opposition united behind a Constitutional Union ticket of noted philanthropist Herbert Hoover to win the election of 1956, ending the System of ‘36 and beginning the System of ‘56.

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Neat! If you're looking for a cool Huey timeline you should check out A Perfect Democracy by @MasterSanders
 
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Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a 12th-century historical novel attributed to Kalhana. It is set in the turbulent years towards the end of the Harsha dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period in Bharat history, starting around 750 CE and ending with the reunification of the land in 890 by Western Chalukyas. The novel is based primarily on the Records of the Three Kingdoms

The story – part historical, part legend, and part mythical – romanticises and dramatises the lives of feudal lords and their retainers, who tried to replace the dwindling Harsha dynasty or restore it. While the novel follows hundreds of characters, the focus is mainly on the three power blocs that emerged from the remnants of the Harsha dynasty, and would eventually form the three states of Rashtrakuta, Pala, and Gurjara-Pratihara. The novel deals with the plots, personal and military battles, intrigues, and struggles of these states to achieve dominance for approximately 150 years...

...Gopala was a warlord in the late Harsha dynasty who founded the state of Pala in the Three Kingdoms period and became its first ruler... Despite early failings compared to his rivals and lacking both the material resources and social status they commanded, he gathered support among disheartened Harsha loyalists who opposed the Rashtrakutas, the warlords who controlled the Harsha central government and the figurehead Emperor, and led a popular movement to restore the Harsha dynasty through this support. Gopala overcame his defeats to carve out his own realm based in the lower Ganges river valley. Culturally, due to the popularity of the 12th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Gopala is widely known as an ideal benevolent, humane ruler who cared for his people and selected good advisers (as well as the genius military strategist Dalapalanaga) for his government . His fictional counterpart in the novel was a salutary example of a ruler who adhered to the Buddhist set of moral values and democratic ideals. Historically, Gopala, like many Harsha rulers, was greatly influenced by Buddhism. He was a brilliant politician and leader whose skill was a remarkable demonstration of "Buddhist in appearance but Hindu in substance" . The degree to which he adhered to Bharatian Democracy was exaggerated in the Romance, but historically, while Gopala's election was as much (or, likely, moreso) a matter of pragmatism to secure his power base as it was for altruistic purposes, he nonetheless did generally respect his popular assembly, and his efforts and legacy, despite his realm's loss to its more absolutist rivals and the unification of Bharat after the Three Kingdoms period under an absolutist dynasty, helped protect the idea of democracy among the general public and inspired later medieval democratic reforms

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(ok so this one is just a lame pun)

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(same as above)

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...Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a vampire-themed historical fiction fantasy romance novel written by Andalusian author Stifni Mayar. The book recieved mixed reviews from critics, with, among other things, the aspect of mashing vampires, romance, and the historical era of Taifa-period Andalus together being seen as an unusual mix, but the series sold massively well, particularly among young adult readers. The book depicts intrigue and romance among the courts of the three large frontier Taifa - Badajoz, Toledo, and Zaragoza (with what historians consider "unusual historical accuracy" to Taifa-era society and courtly affairs in various regards, considering the general concept of the book and major historical inaccuracies in other ways) as the human and vampire figures in the three Taifa vied for power amongst each other, defended against the Christian Kingdoms to the north, and each sought to unify the entirety of the peninsula and throne themselves in the capital to the south...
What are the Dynasty Warriors analogues like and who is the Zhao Yun of each?
 
I just realized even though I did a write-up for it ages ago, I never posted the election that folowed this, so here it is.

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As mentioned, Kim Dae-jung’s first term as President of Korea started very amicably, as the 1988 Seoul Olympics allowed the country a massive amount of positive publicity and made Kim and the Democratic Party very popular with the public. Furthermore, his initial policy agenda was hard to object to as it was focused on reforming the economy to reduce corruption in the chaebol, the (mostly southern) conglomerates that dominated the economy, something almost the whole country was behind (though the Democratic Justice Party, predictably, railed against it).

What became a major issue of debate between him and Prime Minister Kim Young-sam, and consequently the fault line that ended the Democratic Party’s brief status as Korea’s dominant party, was the issue of how to develop the economy going forward. The President was adamantly in favour of what was nicknamed the ‘Sons Policy’, after Aesop’s fable of the Old Man and his Sons; as he explained in a 1989 address to the nation, just as the sons could not break a bundle of sticks but easily snapped them when taken from the bundle, Korea had ‘broken’ the economies of much of the north and of his native Jeolla over the years and needed to bind them back together with the rest of the nation to make the country unbreakable.

Kim Young-sam, a native of prosperous Geyongsang, adamantly disagreed, and accused the President of reverse discrimination for overrepresenting Jeolla and the North in his Cabinet. In particular, he vocally condemned the President’s sympathies to former communist Hwang Jang-yop, who was immensely respected in the north. In 1990, this tension finally boiled over and Kim Young-sam organized a motion in the National Assembly to expel Kim Dae-jung from the Democratic Party. The vote narrowly passed, but as Kim remained President, he easily had the leverage to respond to this, and did so by persuading the Democratic members who had voted for him to join him in forming a new political party- the Progressives, which took their name from Cho Bong-am’s old political party.

The Progressives were obviously to the left of the Democrats, and Kim Young-sam quickly set about denouncing them as ‘seeking to subvert democracy’, a claim most of those sympathetic to the President dismissed as ridiculous but the conservative press in Korea was happy to parrot. However, as the Progressives were a minority faction in the National Assembly, Kim Young-sam remained Prime Minister and very publicly continued to clash with Kim Dae-jung’s policy agenda. The two men did still mostly pass policies related to anti-corruption reforms, but the issue of whether Korea should move towards interventionism as the President wanted or stick to neoliberalism as the Prime Minister advocated was an extremely divisive topic.

Since the Democrats had implemented term limits that restrict the Prime Minister of Korea to one term, Kim Dae-jung was ineligible to run for a second, and thus during the early 90s Kim Young-sam was widely expected to win. Most people regarded the Progressive nomination as a poisoned chalice, and the battle for the nomination was not hard-fought- except, that is, by Hwang Jang-yop. His important role in the ‘Sons Policy’ conflict had massively bolstered his public profile, and in the north and Jeolla he was seen as a hero; in the south he was lambasted by the press as a traitor for his avoidance of the Korean War by studying at Moscow University from 1949 to 1953, but his campaign was true to the Progressives’ mostly social democratic vision, vocally disavowed ‘governments that called themselves socialist only to build feudalism’ and declared as President he would make Korea egalitarian as well as rich.

While Hwang was certainly popular with the Progressive base, most of its leadership saw him as having little to no chance of beating the widely-respected Kim. However, soon a new development caused a major split in the right- Chung Ju-yung, the founder of Hyundai, was nominated by the until-then moribund Democratic Justice Party. Chung was a greatly respected figure, one of the main lobbyists for Seoul to host the 1988 Olympics and an unusually philanthropic businessman by the standards of chaebol leaders. He supported the reforms to reduce corruption, but ran a campaign based on reconciling the inequality of the north and south (something he was passionate about as a northerner by birth himself- he was from Kangwon, on what had been the border between the North and South) while also being more lenient on the chaebol, arguing they should be coerced towards philanthropy.

Chung’s presence denied Kim Young-sam the straightforward path to victory that Kim Dae-jung had been offered five years prior. The Democrats were further hurt by an effort to establish a two-round system, which failed due to public protest and perceptions it was a cynical trick to improve their chances of victory, and by widely praised performances by both Hwang and Chung in the presidential debates.

Even so, Hwang was not quite able to overcome the intense hatred for him and his policies in the south, and so Kim won election on a fairly tight plurality. The results were strongly geographically polarized- Kim was shut out in the north and Hwang only took the Jeolla region of the south. Despite his surprising performance, though, Chung marked a last hurrah for the Democratic Justice Party rather than a new beginning- its members had mostly been wiped out in the legislative elections earlier that year, and as the Democrats established themselves as the new, post-dictatorship face of the Korean right, the party would soon come to an end.

Despite the impression given by Kim Dae-jung retiring from politics to become a lecturer at Cambridge University, however, for the Progressives the 1992 election was only the beginning…
 
I admit I don't know much about the guts of college football conferences

But I know just enough to understand that this place is cursed and God abandoned it long ago and I appreciate that kind of dedication to cursing us with a vision
 
Nope some idle shuffling of teams as we trudge towards the death of College Football.

Do link that timeline though, if you have it. Mountain West in Louisiana sounds dope as all hell
Here it is.
I did a thing. I hate it.

College Football 2037

This isn't really a prediction so much as a possible future. Briefly what happened - The Big 12 keeps together as long as possible to keep getting Texas/OU benefited TV money and than their buyout. The BIG decided they need to be bold to keep up with the SEC and raids the PAC. PAC leftover and Big 12 leftovers merge. The Sunbelt take who they want from Conf USA (though later losses App St to the AAC). MAC takes some Conf USA leftovers. When the ACC grant of rights ends the BIG and SEC divide it between them (with a couple of leftovers picked up by the AAC). The PAC/Big 12 leftovers take Mt. West schools to make numbers under the new tiered conference playoff scheme.

Conferences

Tier One Conferences

Big 10 (or dare I say 24? or simply “The BIG”) -

West – California, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington
Midwest – Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Northwestern, Minnesota, Wisconsin
Mideast – Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan St, Ohio St.
East – Maryland, Pittsburgh, Penn St, Rutgers, Syracuse, Virginia

SEC -

A – Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas
B – LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi St, Texas A+M
C – Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
D – Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina
E – Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina St.
F – Florida St, Georgia Tech, Miami, Virginia Tech

Tier Two conferences

Western Football Alliance -

Pacific – Arizona, Arizona St, Colorado, Oregon St, Utah, Washington St
Mountain – Boise St, Colorado St, New Mexico, San Diego St, UNLV, Wyoming
Central – Baylor, Iowa St, Kansas St, OSU, TCU, Texas Tech

AAC -

West - Houston, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa
North - Boston College, Liberty, Temple, West Virginia
Central - Appalachian St, Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis
South - Central Florida, East Carolina, South Florida, Wake Forest


Tier Three Conferences

Sunbelt -

East - Florida Atlantic, FIU, Georgia Southern, Georgia St
North - Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion
South - South Alabama, Southern Miss, Troy, UAB
West - Arkansas St, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Texas St.

MAC -

East – Buffalo, Connecticut, Marshall, Massachusetts
North - C. Michigan, E. Michigan, Toledo, W. Michigan
South - Akron, Bowling Green, Kent St, Ohio
West - Ball St, Miami (OH), N. Illinois, W. Kentucky

Mountain West -

West - Fresno St, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico St, San Jose St, Utah St.
East - Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, Sam Houston St, Nicholls St, UTSA

Independent:

Army, Air Force, BYU, Navy, Notre Dame

Playoffs:

Officially it is a 16 team playoff, though the play-ins make a 18 team playoff, and then the conference championship games for tier 2 and 3 conferences are quasi play-ins (or play-in play-ins). Rankings are done by a playoff committee with 12 members – 8 members represent tier one conference schools, 1 represents Notre Dame, 2 represent tier two conference schools, 1 represent tier three conference schools.

The first 2 rounds will be played at the home fields of the higher seeded team. Semi-finals and finals are on neutral sites.

To keep the number of game manageable the tier one conferences don't have title games, other conferences do but play one fewer regular season game. The official conference champion of the tier 1 conferences is the highest ranked division winner. SEC divisions are temporary, formed each year by which pods are crossing over.

Automatic qualifiers to playoffs:

The highest ranked BIG division winner and highest ranked SEC crossover division winner. These schools will also receive the 1st and 2nd seeds in the tourney.

The 2nd highest ranked BIG division winner and 2nd highest ranked SEC crossover division winner. These schools are guaranteed to be seeded no lower than 7th and 8th (higher if their ranking is higher).

The highest ranked conference champion of tier 2 conferences. This school is guaranteed to be seated no lower than 8th (higher if their ranking is higher).

The highest ranked independent school, if they are ranked in the top 14.

The other tier 2 conference champion, if they are ranked in the top 14.

The highest ranked tier 3 conference champion, if they are top 14.

The other 2 BIG division winners and the other SEC division winner and highest ranked SEC non-division winner, if they are ranked in the top 20.

Rest filled by at large selections.

Automatic qualifiers to play-ins:

The other tier 2 conference champion, if they are not ranked in the top 14 or qualified as an at-large. If they are, then the highest ranked tier 2 non-champion takes the spot (unless such a school is in the main playoff as at large in which case this spot reverts to an at large selection). Gets a home game for the play-in. Seeded based on ranking of highest ranked team in game (made before game).

The highest ranked tier 3 conference champion, if not qualified to playoff. If they are spot goes to 2nd highest ranked tier 3 conference champion, if not qualified to playoff. If they are spot goes to the remaining tier 3 conference champion, if not qualified to playoff. If they are goes to highest ranked tier 3 non-champion, if not qualified to playoff. If they are than spot reverts to at-large. Gets a home game for the play-in. Seeded based on ranking of highest ranked team in game (made before game).

Two visiting schools are 2 highest ranked remaining BIG or SEC division winners (or highest non-division SEC school) if not qualified to playoff, if top 25, otherwise chosen at large.

Playoff Example using 2020 -

Non obviously it wouldn't be quite like this given different schedules and 2020 was an odd year anyways thinks to covid, but using 2020 as an example of what the playoff would look like (SEC crossovers A/B, C/D, E/F, G/H) – (Realistically I'd also expect the committee to show even more disrespect for lower tier conference schools but this is not depicted) -

seed) School (rank, method)

1) Alabama (1, SEC highest ranked division winner)
16) USC (17, 3rd highest ranked BIG division winner)

8) Northwestern (14, 2nd highest BIG division winner)
9) Florida (7, At-large, SEC)

4) Notre Dame (4, qualified top independent)
13) Coastal Carolina (12, qualified tier 3 champ)

5) Texas A+M (5, 3rd highest ranked SEC division winner)
12) Indiana (11, at-large, BIG)


3) Clemson (2, 2nd highest ranked SEC division winner)
14) Winner of play-in game 1

6) Oklahoma (6, highest ranked non SEC division winner)
11) Iowa St. (10, other tier 2 champ, WFA)

7) Cincinnati (8, top tier 2 champ, AAC)
10) Georgia (9, at-large, SEC)

2) Ohio St. (3, BIG highest ranked division winner)
15) Winner of play-in game 2


Play-in 1 -
North Carolina (13, at-large, SEC)
San Jose St (22, 2nd highest ranked tier 3 champ after highest qualified to playoffs, Mt. West)

Play-in 2 -
Iowa (15, at-large, BIG)
Oklahoma St (21, highest ranked tier 2 school after both champs have qualified, WFA)
 
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Launch Complex 18 (LC-18) was a launch complex at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. First active during the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was rebuilt in the late 1970s to support the test programme for the Ares Mars Exploration Module (MEM).

The complex originally consisted of two pads (LC-18A and B) that were used by the US Navy to launch the Vanguard rocket and the US Air Force to test the PGM-17 Thor missile respectively, while both were later used to launch Scout rockets. LC-18A was decommissioned in 1965 while the last launch from LC-18B was in 1962.

Both pads were out of service until the late 1970s when they were taken in hand as part of the Ares Mars Exploration Module test programme. A $14mn rebuild (1978 dollars) saw the two existing pads and blockhouse demolished and the complex extended to the former LC-31 historically used to test Minuteman and Pershing ballistic missiles.

The rebuilt LC-18 included a single pad and service structure designed to support Super Joe: the rocket that would verify the entry, descent and landing system for the Ares MEM. Super Joe boosters were delivered to Port Canaveral by barge from their assembly site in Dade County, 400km south of the Cape, transported the last few miles to the launch site by truck and erected by gantry crane. A temporary laydown and storage area was built to the north west of the pad.

After the completion of the Ares test programme, Super Joe became the first stage of the Vesta I, which launched 8 times from LC-18 before retirement in 1995. The complex was mothballed in 1997, and the pad and service structure were levelled in 2001.
 
Based on a list I did in the Test Thread:

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John Connally was the saviour and destruction of Hubert Humphrey and the maker and unmaker of the modern Republican Party. His choice as Humphrey's running mate united Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the protestors outside the convention hall in anger but likely put Humphrey over the line in many key Midwestern states - the last time this would be necessary thanks to Birch Bayh's constitutional amendment. But as the slow process of withdrawal from Vietnam faltered and economic crises escalated, relations between president and vice president deteriorated over everything from medicare expansion to aid to South Vietnam. Ultimately, supreme court nominee Shirley Hufstedler was the final straw for the Vice President, who announced that he was leaving the Democratic Party for the Republicans a week after Gerald Ford was sworn in as Speaker of the House.

This move had been long-planned by Connally in co-ordination with Richard Nixon and fellow Republican power brokers, who smoothed his way to the Republican nomination over defective opponents like Ronald Reagan and John Volpe. The slow-motion collapse of the South Vietnam through 1972 doomed doomed Humphrey's chances of re-election. The Connally administration worked quickly to roll back as much as the Johnson-Humphrey legacy as possible, especially on issues of civil rights and the economy. The latter caused him much trouble. Inflation remained cripplingly high and the austerity budgets drawn up by White House economic advisor Alan Greenspan, "short-term pain for long-term gain" led to massive battles with congress. The faltering economy likely did more to make him a one-term president than the emerging corruption investigations, ones that saw the former president convicted of bribery and mail fraud in 1979's "trial of the century".

His successor was not as much of a break from Connally as Democrats wanted. The youngest ever President was a new kind of Democrat, one that accepted that the New Deal had had it's time and that this was the age of new ideas. While achievements such as the Department for the Environment, the Amtrak Express Network and Equal Rights Amendment are still with us, his aggressive pushes for deregulations, tax breaks and welfare cuts alienated, outraged and severely weakened many Democratic Party voter blocs. A return to growth, a popular intervention in the Iranian Civil War and ideological battles in the Republican Party (culminating in a respected, patrician, establishment senator being forced to put a bona-fide culture warrior on his ticket) secured President Brown's re-election. Many more achievements were made in his second term - most notably steering the collapsing Soviet Union towards something resembling a democratic state - but by 1985 his party was hollowed out.

Frank Rizzo was both a symptom and cause of his hollowing out. The tough-talking Mayor of Philadelphia had long sought outrage and terror from liberal commentators and politicians, and had been a regular critic of Jerry Brown even before he formally switched party affiliations in 1978. As middle America grew tired of the Playboy President and his seemingly hands-off approach to race riots and liberal extremists, Rizzo quickly became the darling of the Republican Party and it's frontrunner for the 1984 election. His bombastic rhetoric did not dampen down in office, frequently picking fights with Congress, liberal celebrities and foreign leaders alike, fighting a "war on terror" against left-wing and jihadist extremists across the world. After the Republicans gained control of Congress in 1986 he pushed through a series of bills that empowered law enforcement across America and roll back the frontiers of the state, the latter of which empowered governors sympathetic to Rizzo to clamp down on civil rights protestors and all manner of "subversives" with force. With crime rates falling economy still booming in 1992, Rizzo retired enormously popular.

His successor was far less fortunate. Despite Rizzo's popularity the 1992 election was a near tie for the entire election campaign. The long boom of the 1980s finally faltered and Rizzo Republicans became increasingly impatient with the business-minded president trying to raise taxes to slay the deficit His rapprochement with nations previously considered America's antagonists also rankled, especially as a "pink tide" was seeing socialist leaders rise to power across the global south. But he only became a one-term president when the North-Cape scandal was uncovered. That the Rizzo Administration had illegally sent aid to the South African Apartheid regime during the South African Civil War soon consumed the election, and Borman's furious denials of any knowledge of wrongdoing were not terribly convincing. Which meant that the Democrat widely assumed to be a sacrificial lamb would defeat him decisively.

Elizabeth Hanford had worked as a staffer and cabinet secretary in the Johnson, Humphrey and Brown Administrations, and then had slowly worked her way up the ranks of the Democratic Party and the Senate as a reliable, forward-thinking technocrat. She only won the 1996 nomination because most of the big names had chosen to wait for 2000, and in the vague hope that she might be able to improve the party's issues with women and "Rizzo Democrats". In office Hanford has pushed a series of "Millennium Bills" designed to modernise the American state and its infrastructure, as well as making historic meetings with leaders such as Winnie Mandela and Fidel Castro. As the Republicans continued to feud over Rizzo's legacy, Hanford's problems exist elsewhere. The Russian State has elected a Communist President, and America's leader still thinks she can micromanage the White House.
 
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