Icarus Rising
- Thread starter AnywhereButOTL
- Start date
ThePest179
Banned
Your welcome.
The term "overkill" was either at the top of his vocabulary or nonexistant to him.
I see.
Thanks alot.
WWZ style? Well, that would certainly be an interesting concept. Personally, I prefer the current writing style, but if you feel like you don't want to keep going with this format, then by all means, drop it. I'll support whatever you do with the TL.
As sad as I am to hear you might be stopping the Icarusverse, I understand the burnout. You do what you want to do, but maybe one more update to kinda close things, pretty please? With a resurrected Nixon on top?
I'd welcome the measure; love the WWZ-style format, and if you're finding TTL hard to go on with it might be good to post a big quasi-conclusion. Then we'll have an idea of what happens, can spend time speculating (and as usual for this site, ruthlessly criticising inconsequential little details
But that's just my opinion. I'm happy whatever you do: these have been two great timelines and I appreciate your effort whatever the final decision is
Longtime lurker, but I had to go on record...
You have a GREAT TL here and if ya gotta stop it and wrap up, that's what ya gotta do.
Whatever you do, please include something about the space-wank aspect of the story!
Absolutely, I'm not going to forget about that.
WWZ style? Well, that would certainly be an interesting concept. Personally, I prefer the current writing style, but if you feel like you don't want to keep going with this format, then by all means, drop it. I'll support whatever you do with the TL.
You should choose the way that you, as the author, consider better.
It will be done.
Those suggestions are quite reasonable. And don't worry about the interview format, it won't be too strict and the interviewer isn't just going to be asking for a dozen life stories or so. Rather he'll be traveling to the major countries of the world so that a picture can be painted of what has happened since 1973.
And so the number of posters in favor of the new project heavily outnumbers the people who don't like it. I shall be sure to avoid the mistakes that I've made in the Icarusverse when I write timelines in the future.
This isn't canon, but if I could I would make it canon.
60.
The tile was cold beneath his feet and for the fourth or fifth time that night George McGovern wondered what the hell he was doing. He was on his knees in his front parlor, an array of items set up before him and a knife in one hand.
Not any ordinary knife either, an old iron one that he had ordered in the mail not too long before. It had been labeled as a replica of an old sacrificial knife and made with 100% pure iron.
That was what the book recommended him to use.
The book was one of the items on the floor in front of him, along with a bowl filled with a tangle of keys, rings, wallets and other personal affects. Bobby Kennedy’s driver’s license was staring up at him, Ted Kennedy’s placed right next to it. There were keys that had once belonged to Gerald Ford, a ring that Hubert Humphrey had been wearing when George Bush had caused his plane to nosedive into a lonely Minnesotan field, and so many others...pieces of the friends that he had lost over the past few agonizing months.
He had been trying to put on a brave face for his colleagues in the senate and his wife...but he felt like his fortitude was eroding away, a tide of grief and loss tearing away at every last bit of internal stability that he had left.
What the hell was he doing? McGovern looked down at the knife and then the bowl. It was made of iron too, and traced with ancient runes that he couldn’t understand. He had a paper sitting next to the bowl and in the moonlight he looked down at the phrases written on it. Closing his eyes, he said the first phrase in as steady of a tone of voice as he could.
The words came from a language had been old when the world was young and the disk of the universe still filled with dust and glowing gasses. They had been repeated by ancient eyeless creatures on dark worlds that orbited dead stars and used to comfort the Old Ones as they gestated in their plane of endless silence and feared colossal movements in the null that surrounded them.
They had been spoken by beings great and lesser, used to rend reality and bring life to new universes. And now George McGovern knelt on his parlor floor and dragged the blade of the knife across the palm of his left hand as he spoke, letting droplets of crimson scatter across the artifacts in the iron bowl.
A droplet of blood obliterated Bobby Kennedy’s features, a stream of crimson ran down the teeth of Ford’s keys and collected in the bottom of the iron vessel. And all the while McGovern spoke on, his mind emptying of fear, self doubt and grief. He reached the last words of the phrase and pushed the blade of the sacrificial knife down to the bottom of the bowl, hardly aware of what he was doing anymore.
The blade clicked against metal, but as the last words of the incantation left McGovern’s lips he felt the iron of the vessel turn to something quite different, like the skin of a bubble. He pressed the knife downwards and the bubble popped.
For a moment something that felt like an electrical shock ran up his arm and the universe tasted like the color purple. McGovern fell back and lay still for a moment, his arm still tingling, the first ugly sensations of pain beginning to emanate from the cut on his hand.
Then the parlor light flicked on.
What?
McGovern sat up and blinked. Then he looked down at the bowl, which had been suddenly and inexplicably emptied. Then up at the seven figures that were standing in his parlor. Bobby Kennedy had his hand on the light switch, looking just as confused as McGovern imagined that he looked.
“George, you’re bleeding.” Kennedy said, but McGovern didn’t care about his hand. He stood up on legs that felt like columns of water, and looked at the men around him.
“Jesus Christ.” He said, and Humphrey looked around at the men who surrounded him.
“You brought us back,” he said, “I’m surprised that you knew how.” McGovern was looking at the others, and felt an odd sense of shock run through him. Why were there seven? He had only meant to bring back five...why were Johnson and...Nixon standing before him? In the back of the group, John F. Kennedy looked at his brothers and stepped gingerly around Nixon to stand closer to them.
“I...I didn’t expect...” Johnson nodded.
“You are bleeding George,” he said, “let’s get that bandaged up.” For a moment McGovern expected Johnson’s hand to dissipate like smoke, put instead the former President took him firmly by the shoulder and sat him down at the kitchen table.
“Jack,” Johnson said, looking at his former boss, “could you mix George a drink?” Kennedy nodded and moved towards the refrigerator.
“I have a bottle of tequila behind the eggs,” McGovern said, and then felt shock cloud his mind once again. These men were supposed to be dead...the man currently opening his fridge and hunting for his tequila would be dead for a decade in only a few more months. And yet there he stood, looking healthy and clad in a polo shirt and dress pants.
Come to think of it, all of the people that he had resurrected looked like they’d been snatched midway through a day of golfing or something similar. Nixon and Ford hung back, they still looked confused. Humphrey drifted closer to Johnson, and McGovern realized that all of them were probably just as confused and shocked as him.
“You guys probably don’t know what’s happened since you died.” He said, and one by one they nodded.
“It’s probably been a while,” JFK said as he fetched a decently sized glass from McGovern’s cabinet, “you all look older than you did in ’63.” McGovern nodded and pointed at the calendar he had hanging on the wall. JFK blinked and McGovern saw his face sag in shock for a moment before he regained composure.
“Wow.” He said, and then was silent.
“A whole decade since you were shot,” Johnson said as he came back from McGovern’s bathroom with a first aid kit, “I still remember that day.” Ted and Bobby Kennedy looked mildly shellshocked and both Nixon and Ford were still quiet, exchanging an occasional glance. Clearly they hadn’t expected to be brought back.
“What’s the afterlife like?” McGovern asked, and abruptly what little cheer there was seemed to drain out of the room.
“We’re not at liberty to say.” Ford said from the back of the room, and then fell silent again. Nixon gave McGovern a strange look.
“Why’d you bring me back?” McGovern shook his head.
“No offense, but I didn’t.” His mind was still rattling with shock and though he expected Nixon to be at least somewhat offended by the knowledge that his revival was an accident, the former Vice President just nodded.
“Figures.” Then he was silent as well. Johnson put a pad of gauze on McGovern’s cut and then wound gauze around it.
“You are going to need stitches for that.” Ted Kennedy said, and McGovern wondered how the hospital staff would react if he walked into the urgent care department with two deceased Presidents, a long dead Vice President, three expired senators and one dead former Minority Leader.
“I might have to go by myself then,” he said, “people would flip their lids if they knew that you guys were alive again.” McGovern sipped at the tequila that JFK had poured him and then heard a muffled expletive come from the other room.
“What the hell had been going on?” Nixon asked, marching into the kitchen with a newspaper. The front page showed the aftermath of an orbital strike and announced that a town in Uyghurstan had been obliterated as retaliation for a dirty bomb detonation.
“A lot of bad stuff.” McGovern said, and Ford seized onto the newspaper.
“Wait...we invaded Uyghurstan?” He asked, and then sighed.
“Goddamnit.” Bobby and Ted said in unison, and Nixon and JFK looked extremely confused.
“Uyghurstan?” Nixon asked, then McGovern saw the color drain from his cheeks, “what the fuck happened to China if Uyghurstan is an independent country?” McGovern wasn’t sure where to start. Fortunately Ford began to fill him in. He started with basic events beyond 1963 for JFK’s benefit, explained Johnson’s push for Civil Rights, which made Johnson look remarkably proud of himself, and then explained the 1964 election.
“Goldwater isn’t dead yet, is he?” Kennedy asked.
“No,” McGovern said, “he’s still alive. He’s Senate Minority Leader actually.” That made Johnson groan.
“I take it Bush decided to kill off the congressional leadership...hence why all of you are dead?” Both JFK and Nixon looked confused.
“George Bush...?” Nixon asked, “the Texan?” Bobby and Ted nodded grimly.
“It’s a long, really fucked up story.” And so Ford continued, detailing the 1966 primaries, and how the Republicans had been able to bounce back from the landslide defeat in 1964.
“I was going to run for President in ’68, but some jackass hit me with a car first.” Ford, Bobby and Ted, Johnson and McGovern all nodded.
“So you were going to run,” Johnson said, “I wish you had, maybe then you’d have beaten Reagan.” JFK blinked.
“Reagan?” He raised his eyebrows. “The actor.” His eyebrows raised even further. “He ended up as the Republican nominee in 1968?” Ford nodded.
“He won too.” JFK leaned over and reached for the tequila as Ford continued, telling Nixon about his death.
“Is Pat still alive?” He asked, and suddenly a realization seemed to click through him. “Oh God, Pat. I haven’t even thought about her...” McGovern tried to think of what the afterlife was like. Was everyone sealed into their own world? Was everyone consigned to play golf for the rest of eternity?
“She’s still alive. Jackie is too...she’s remarried though.” JFK blinked and then nodded, looking completely crushed. For a moment McGovern felt very bad for having given him the news.
“And Ladybird?” Johnson asked.
“Yes. All of your wives are still alive. They’re grieving, but hopefully wont be for much longer.” He sipped his tequila again, intent on getting at least tipsy so that the whole situation wouldn’t be so weird.
“So you lost to Reagan in 1968.” JFK asked, looking slightly disappointed. Johnson frowned viciously.
“Yes. And that fucker ruined damn near everything. Him and Rhodes and Bush...” Humphrey glanced at McGovern from the newspaper, and nodded.
“Okay. Says here that Brooke is President and that he chose William Rogers as his Vice President. How’s he doing?” JFK blinked.
“Brooke? Who’s he?” Humphrey turned the paper around and McGovern watched JFK’s face undergo a complex flash of emotions, the most prevalent one being surprise.
“A Negro?” He asked finally, and Johnson nodded.
“Yup. And a damn good pick in my opinion.” He said this with something akin to challenge, JFK decided not to say anything, “did Bush manage to corrupt him or is he doing alright?” McGovern winced. He wasn’t really sure what to think of Brooke. On the one hand he was putting people on trial, had just revealed the MK-Ultra enrollment records and seemed to be doing a lot to combat corruption in the government. But on the other hand he had invaded Uyghurstan and seemed far too filling to use the threat of nuclear retaliation to get what he wanted.
“It’s too soon to tell.” He said, and Johnson nodded.
“We ought to get you to the hospital, your hand is still bleeding.” McGovern nodded and stood, surprised by how wobbly the combination of tequila and blood loss was making him.
“I just have to say...I’m not sure how Lyndon and Richard made it here, but I’m glad that I brought all of you back.” Johnson smiled.
“That ring you used to bring Humphrey back. I gave it to him on the day that he won the nomination...though I did expect it back, so I guess technically it was mine as well. As for Dick...who the hell knows.” Nixon smiled gamely.
“Maybe it was for a reason.” He said, and looked at the date on the paper. It was March 11, 1973. He had been dead for five and a half years, it was high time he got back into the game.
“Jerry,” he had quietly asked the man earlier, when both of them were at the back of the room, “what do you say to the vice presidency?” Ford hadn’t said anything to him yet, but Nixon knew that the time would come. Even if things were apparently pretty grim for the Republican party, he knew that he could fix the whole mess. All he needed was a chance, and he would be damn well certain to look both ways when he went out to seize it.
60.
The tile was cold beneath his feet and for the fourth or fifth time that night George McGovern wondered what the hell he was doing. He was on his knees in his front parlor, an array of items set up before him and a knife in one hand.
Not any ordinary knife either, an old iron one that he had ordered in the mail not too long before. It had been labeled as a replica of an old sacrificial knife and made with 100% pure iron.
That was what the book recommended him to use.
The book was one of the items on the floor in front of him, along with a bowl filled with a tangle of keys, rings, wallets and other personal affects. Bobby Kennedy’s driver’s license was staring up at him, Ted Kennedy’s placed right next to it. There were keys that had once belonged to Gerald Ford, a ring that Hubert Humphrey had been wearing when George Bush had caused his plane to nosedive into a lonely Minnesotan field, and so many others...pieces of the friends that he had lost over the past few agonizing months.
He had been trying to put on a brave face for his colleagues in the senate and his wife...but he felt like his fortitude was eroding away, a tide of grief and loss tearing away at every last bit of internal stability that he had left.
What the hell was he doing? McGovern looked down at the knife and then the bowl. It was made of iron too, and traced with ancient runes that he couldn’t understand. He had a paper sitting next to the bowl and in the moonlight he looked down at the phrases written on it. Closing his eyes, he said the first phrase in as steady of a tone of voice as he could.
The words came from a language had been old when the world was young and the disk of the universe still filled with dust and glowing gasses. They had been repeated by ancient eyeless creatures on dark worlds that orbited dead stars and used to comfort the Old Ones as they gestated in their plane of endless silence and feared colossal movements in the null that surrounded them.
They had been spoken by beings great and lesser, used to rend reality and bring life to new universes. And now George McGovern knelt on his parlor floor and dragged the blade of the knife across the palm of his left hand as he spoke, letting droplets of crimson scatter across the artifacts in the iron bowl.
A droplet of blood obliterated Bobby Kennedy’s features, a stream of crimson ran down the teeth of Ford’s keys and collected in the bottom of the iron vessel. And all the while McGovern spoke on, his mind emptying of fear, self doubt and grief. He reached the last words of the phrase and pushed the blade of the sacrificial knife down to the bottom of the bowl, hardly aware of what he was doing anymore.
The blade clicked against metal, but as the last words of the incantation left McGovern’s lips he felt the iron of the vessel turn to something quite different, like the skin of a bubble. He pressed the knife downwards and the bubble popped.
For a moment something that felt like an electrical shock ran up his arm and the universe tasted like the color purple. McGovern fell back and lay still for a moment, his arm still tingling, the first ugly sensations of pain beginning to emanate from the cut on his hand.
Then the parlor light flicked on.
What?
McGovern sat up and blinked. Then he looked down at the bowl, which had been suddenly and inexplicably emptied. Then up at the seven figures that were standing in his parlor. Bobby Kennedy had his hand on the light switch, looking just as confused as McGovern imagined that he looked.
“George, you’re bleeding.” Kennedy said, but McGovern didn’t care about his hand. He stood up on legs that felt like columns of water, and looked at the men around him.
“Jesus Christ.” He said, and Humphrey looked around at the men who surrounded him.
“You brought us back,” he said, “I’m surprised that you knew how.” McGovern was looking at the others, and felt an odd sense of shock run through him. Why were there seven? He had only meant to bring back five...why were Johnson and...Nixon standing before him? In the back of the group, John F. Kennedy looked at his brothers and stepped gingerly around Nixon to stand closer to them.
“I...I didn’t expect...” Johnson nodded.
“You are bleeding George,” he said, “let’s get that bandaged up.” For a moment McGovern expected Johnson’s hand to dissipate like smoke, put instead the former President took him firmly by the shoulder and sat him down at the kitchen table.
“Jack,” Johnson said, looking at his former boss, “could you mix George a drink?” Kennedy nodded and moved towards the refrigerator.
“I have a bottle of tequila behind the eggs,” McGovern said, and then felt shock cloud his mind once again. These men were supposed to be dead...the man currently opening his fridge and hunting for his tequila would be dead for a decade in only a few more months. And yet there he stood, looking healthy and clad in a polo shirt and dress pants.
Come to think of it, all of the people that he had resurrected looked like they’d been snatched midway through a day of golfing or something similar. Nixon and Ford hung back, they still looked confused. Humphrey drifted closer to Johnson, and McGovern realized that all of them were probably just as confused and shocked as him.
“You guys probably don’t know what’s happened since you died.” He said, and one by one they nodded.
“It’s probably been a while,” JFK said as he fetched a decently sized glass from McGovern’s cabinet, “you all look older than you did in ’63.” McGovern nodded and pointed at the calendar he had hanging on the wall. JFK blinked and McGovern saw his face sag in shock for a moment before he regained composure.
“Wow.” He said, and then was silent.
“A whole decade since you were shot,” Johnson said as he came back from McGovern’s bathroom with a first aid kit, “I still remember that day.” Ted and Bobby Kennedy looked mildly shellshocked and both Nixon and Ford were still quiet, exchanging an occasional glance. Clearly they hadn’t expected to be brought back.
“What’s the afterlife like?” McGovern asked, and abruptly what little cheer there was seemed to drain out of the room.
“We’re not at liberty to say.” Ford said from the back of the room, and then fell silent again. Nixon gave McGovern a strange look.
“Why’d you bring me back?” McGovern shook his head.
“No offense, but I didn’t.” His mind was still rattling with shock and though he expected Nixon to be at least somewhat offended by the knowledge that his revival was an accident, the former Vice President just nodded.
“Figures.” Then he was silent as well. Johnson put a pad of gauze on McGovern’s cut and then wound gauze around it.
“You are going to need stitches for that.” Ted Kennedy said, and McGovern wondered how the hospital staff would react if he walked into the urgent care department with two deceased Presidents, a long dead Vice President, three expired senators and one dead former Minority Leader.
“I might have to go by myself then,” he said, “people would flip their lids if they knew that you guys were alive again.” McGovern sipped at the tequila that JFK had poured him and then heard a muffled expletive come from the other room.
“What the hell had been going on?” Nixon asked, marching into the kitchen with a newspaper. The front page showed the aftermath of an orbital strike and announced that a town in Uyghurstan had been obliterated as retaliation for a dirty bomb detonation.
“A lot of bad stuff.” McGovern said, and Ford seized onto the newspaper.
“Wait...we invaded Uyghurstan?” He asked, and then sighed.
“Goddamnit.” Bobby and Ted said in unison, and Nixon and JFK looked extremely confused.
“Uyghurstan?” Nixon asked, then McGovern saw the color drain from his cheeks, “what the fuck happened to China if Uyghurstan is an independent country?” McGovern wasn’t sure where to start. Fortunately Ford began to fill him in. He started with basic events beyond 1963 for JFK’s benefit, explained Johnson’s push for Civil Rights, which made Johnson look remarkably proud of himself, and then explained the 1964 election.
“Goldwater isn’t dead yet, is he?” Kennedy asked.
“No,” McGovern said, “he’s still alive. He’s Senate Minority Leader actually.” That made Johnson groan.
“I take it Bush decided to kill off the congressional leadership...hence why all of you are dead?” Both JFK and Nixon looked confused.
“George Bush...?” Nixon asked, “the Texan?” Bobby and Ted nodded grimly.
“It’s a long, really fucked up story.” And so Ford continued, detailing the 1966 primaries, and how the Republicans had been able to bounce back from the landslide defeat in 1964.
“I was going to run for President in ’68, but some jackass hit me with a car first.” Ford, Bobby and Ted, Johnson and McGovern all nodded.
“So you were going to run,” Johnson said, “I wish you had, maybe then you’d have beaten Reagan.” JFK blinked.
“Reagan?” He raised his eyebrows. “The actor.” His eyebrows raised even further. “He ended up as the Republican nominee in 1968?” Ford nodded.
“He won too.” JFK leaned over and reached for the tequila as Ford continued, telling Nixon about his death.
“Is Pat still alive?” He asked, and suddenly a realization seemed to click through him. “Oh God, Pat. I haven’t even thought about her...” McGovern tried to think of what the afterlife was like. Was everyone sealed into their own world? Was everyone consigned to play golf for the rest of eternity?
“She’s still alive. Jackie is too...she’s remarried though.” JFK blinked and then nodded, looking completely crushed. For a moment McGovern felt very bad for having given him the news.
“And Ladybird?” Johnson asked.
“Yes. All of your wives are still alive. They’re grieving, but hopefully wont be for much longer.” He sipped his tequila again, intent on getting at least tipsy so that the whole situation wouldn’t be so weird.
“So you lost to Reagan in 1968.” JFK asked, looking slightly disappointed. Johnson frowned viciously.
“Yes. And that fucker ruined damn near everything. Him and Rhodes and Bush...” Humphrey glanced at McGovern from the newspaper, and nodded.
“Okay. Says here that Brooke is President and that he chose William Rogers as his Vice President. How’s he doing?” JFK blinked.
“Brooke? Who’s he?” Humphrey turned the paper around and McGovern watched JFK’s face undergo a complex flash of emotions, the most prevalent one being surprise.
“A Negro?” He asked finally, and Johnson nodded.
“Yup. And a damn good pick in my opinion.” He said this with something akin to challenge, JFK decided not to say anything, “did Bush manage to corrupt him or is he doing alright?” McGovern winced. He wasn’t really sure what to think of Brooke. On the one hand he was putting people on trial, had just revealed the MK-Ultra enrollment records and seemed to be doing a lot to combat corruption in the government. But on the other hand he had invaded Uyghurstan and seemed far too filling to use the threat of nuclear retaliation to get what he wanted.
“It’s too soon to tell.” He said, and Johnson nodded.
“We ought to get you to the hospital, your hand is still bleeding.” McGovern nodded and stood, surprised by how wobbly the combination of tequila and blood loss was making him.
“I just have to say...I’m not sure how Lyndon and Richard made it here, but I’m glad that I brought all of you back.” Johnson smiled.
“That ring you used to bring Humphrey back. I gave it to him on the day that he won the nomination...though I did expect it back, so I guess technically it was mine as well. As for Dick...who the hell knows.” Nixon smiled gamely.
“Maybe it was for a reason.” He said, and looked at the date on the paper. It was March 11, 1973. He had been dead for five and a half years, it was high time he got back into the game.
“Jerry,” he had quietly asked the man earlier, when both of them were at the back of the room, “what do you say to the vice presidency?” Ford hadn’t said anything to him yet, but Nixon knew that the time would come. Even if things were apparently pretty grim for the Republican party, he knew that he could fix the whole mess. All he needed was a chance, and he would be damn well certain to look both ways when he went out to seize it.
Indiana Beach Crow
Monthly Donor
NIXON'S BACK! AROOOOooo!
EDIT: And apropos of nothing, here's Nixon in a funny hat -
EDIT: And apropos of nothing, here's Nixon in a funny hat -
Last edited:
This looks like some delusional dream with a mix of the Cthulhu Mythos and American politics... AWESOME!
Completely and utterly ASB. Perhaps the definition of ASB.
(End sarcasm)
However, I would be lying if I said that I didn't want this to happen.
(End sarcasm)
However, I would be lying if I said that I didn't want this to happen.
On a more serious note, I think you made the right decision. (For a variety of reasons I'd rather not go into here, I just got caught up with this now.)
Best of luck, and bring the blues to the 21st Century!
Honestly, I hope things bottom out in the 1970's. This chain reaction has to burn out at some point.
If it's not an impertinent question, what mistakes are those? Not brownnosing, merely trying to get good advice where I can for TL writing
Oh, it can. I'm just not going to be the one to write it. Seriously though, anyone on the site is free to use the Icarusverse as a setting for a spinoff if they wish to do so, ASB or not.
NIXON'S BACK! AROOOOooo!
EDIT: And apropos of nothing, here's Nixon in a funny hat -
President Richard 'Zombie' Nixon's 1976 inauguration was filled with humorous moments that the nation desperately needed after the trials and tribulations of what would later come to be known as The Troubles.
Indeed. I love me some Cthulhu Mythos and American politics…they were bound to mix together sooner or later.
Me too. If the Old Ones ended up being real and R'yleh rose from the sea then my last act before growing extra eyeballs and choking to death on the tentacles springing from my mouth would be to change the last update so that it was actually canon.
They'll devour the nation's problems. Zombie Nixon/Zombie Ford '76!
This is true. However, I doubt that anyone would want to really seriously oppose the guy who came back from the dead solely for the purpose of seizing the power that he was denied.
I also just noticed that by reviving Johnson I accidentally fulfilled the title of the timeline. I'm sort of awesome sometimes. You all knew that somebody would prove to be the metaphorical Icarus, but you didn't know that it would just be the same dude all along.
President Richard 'Zombie' Nixon reacts with glee to the news that the 22nd Amendment has been struck down. This will allow him to run for his third of five terms as President before his retirement and final(?) death in 2003.
Thank you very much, I shall do my best to make the 21st century a more reasonable and realistic place than the wackiness of the 20th century so far.
All the better if this means Zombie Nixon in 2012
If he revives again then the people would welcome him back, I'm sure.
In some places, yes, in others…well…it's complicated.
If it's not an impertinent question, what mistakes are those? Not brownnosing, merely trying to get good advice where I can for TL writing
I played very fast and loose with plausibility a lot of the time and it was only due to good writing obscuring that craziness that I didn't get torn down very quickly. For instance, NASA ITTL is a AAA grade wank (I admit to this and refuse to tone it down because manned space flight is a wonderful thing), the orbital bombardment platforms are ridiculous, the Mars mission would never be managed in such a way IOTL (regardless of political pressure to do it quickly), and half of the really crazy political scheming is insane enough that it spat on plausibility a lot of the time.
For instance, Rumsfeld's failed nuclear coup d'etat is completely batshit insane and I wouldn't have dared go that far in any other piece of writing except for the fact that I wanted to really ramp up the tension. And it worked out okay.
Also, India developed nukes way too quickly, so did Pakistan, and I jumped the shark with Tibet developing its own nuclear weapons program that I conveniently forgot about as soon as the Americans established hegemony over the nation. Just weird stuff like that. There's also the Reagan/Wallace ticket, but the less said about that the better.
I also focused on way too many places and developed far too many characters. In Icarus Falls I did a count when I was about halfway through the story and ended up with a list of one hundred forty three characters who had speaking parts in the story, which is insane. I still don't know how many major characters I had going when I closed this off, but whatever it is, it was strangling me because I didn't want to drop any of them. I got to the point where I would invent a new character out of whole cloth rather than explain a plot point the old fashioned way, which is a completely unsustainable way to write things.
So in short, I made a hell of a lot of mistakes. What I write next will be more limited in focus and will have a much smaller cast of characters so that I don't have to deal with all of the shenanigans that I brought down upon myself with the Icarusverse.
If they want to then they shall do it. Spin offs are welcome.
Icarus: 2000
I have created the new thread for this project and it can be found here. Enjoy.
Holy Shit! You actually resurrected Nixon!
Give this man all the Turtledoves.
A wonderful conclusion. I didn't see it coming.
Give this man all the Turtledoves.
A wonderful conclusion. I didn't see it coming.
With ABOTL's blessing, here's the situation as of the end of February 1973.
Magnificent! I knew that you'd do a great job and I was not disappointed. Keep up the good work in your future endeavors.