TODAY
It's 1978, but a visitor from Homeline could be excused if he thought it was the late 1950s. The US President is John Stock, a Republican and a USMC veteran of the "peace-keeping" counter-insurgency missions to Central America. The government's presence is pervasive, and the media, the trade unions, the minority party all march in step; those who don't toe the line, expose themselves to the accusation of being crypto-Communists. Communist parties, and parties that are defined as such by the government, are obviously illegal. The all-seeing FSA-ND (Federal Security Agency – National Division) keeps tabs on an inordinate number of citizens and is ready to crack down not only on terrorism, but also on many forms of non-violent dissent. Women are expected to stay at home; minorities must know their place and stick to it. African-Americans are formally citizens, but they are strongly discouraged from exercising their rights; extremely conservative and racist organizations are not a priority for the ND agents. Homosexuality is still a crime in most states. Marginal religions are looked down at, with suspicion. The needs of the industries, especially the military ones, trump everything else, and coupled with the numerous atmospheric nuclear explosions, this means the general environmental situation is much worse on Patton-2 than on Homeline in the 1970s.
The USA maintains "Associate Territories" under control, such as the Philippines, the Kuriles, Iceland, Panama, and others. US military bases can be found all over the world.
In the British Commonwealth and Empire, members of a few hundreds of important families always end up in Parliament and in the government. The BCE has a two-tier system, by which only full citizens have full rights, the rest of the population being "subjects of the Crown". The rules for qualifying as citizens are exacting, byzantine, and ever-changing, but the end result is that, for instance, in India only 5% of the population has citizenship rights. Subjects don't pay personal taxes, but the indirect taxation and the top-down pricing system make sure they contribute to the glory of the Commonwealth. The British are staunch allies of the USA.
Other minor Western countries, including France and Germany, have similar systems, and live in the shadow of the USA. Many still have their colonies. No European Union exists, President Patton opposed that. "Western" Russia is a capitalistic but inefficient and corrupt dictatorship.
"Western" China is a success story, and the price in terms of lack of individual freedom was paid without much fuss. Since 1969, China has nuclear missiles; Homeline's space race has taken place later on Patton-2, and it is going on between the USA and China.
The Soviet Union (also called the "Communist Siberian Anarchy" in the West) has become little more than a number of Asian semi-independent Communist townships. When they seem on the verge of reorganizing, that is considered as a threat, and a bombing campaign takes place. Currently the most important town is Krasnojarsk, after the recent bombing of Novosibirsk. The Chinese comrades fare slightly better by keeping a very low profile in Urumqi. Homeline analysts wonder whether these Communist bogeymen aren't kept alive simply in order to remain on the warpath forever. There are other vaguely Socialist countries around, but they tend to be small and unimportant (such as Denmark or Slovenia), and often demonstrations of failure, too (such as Montenegro or Somalia). That doesn't mean the Communist threat has faded in the Westerners' perception. Tiny but fanatical terrorist groups survive and strike in Europe and the USA. And guerrilla wars flare up, drag on, or are suppressed in Africa, South America, South-Eastern Asia and Western Russia. Since no external power is able to provide these guerrillas with weapons and funding, these movements are hopeless.
Brazil, the Dutch Empire and New Zealand break the pattern on Patton-2. The latter has recently seceded from the BCE and has passed liberal legislation; London has not opposed the secession, surprisingly. The Dutch are an empire, yet they have no racial discrimination and the independence movements in the colonies are unpopular and not very belligerent. Brazil never bought in the exclusionary world views that became prevalent everywhere else, even though the FSA-ID (the International Division of the US FSA, operating abroad) always sponsored and funded Brazilian conservative parties and wealthy landowners. Notwithstanding the US and British opposition, Brazil acquired nuclear technology from China in 1973, and now they say they have ballistic missiles for a retaliatory strike. This allows them enough freedom to allow free elections. And free love.
Indeed, new trends are as of now spreading among the Western youngsters, largely inspired by Brazilian attitudes and music, rather than by any politics. Young people, in places like San Francisco, London and Marseilles, claim they are entitled to "friendship and love", and openly ignore traditional Western values like patriotism, duty and anti-Communism.
OUTWORLD OPERATIONS
Currently, it is Centrum that is most active on Patton-2. Centrans clearly like the fact that one civilization, with one superpower, is on the brink of gaining complete supremacy on this world. Their agents are supporting the USA, and they seem to consider Brazil and China much more of a threat in the long term than the surviving Communist statelets. Probably, they expect to win over the whole place to Centran views. The politics of Patton-2 are very far from the meritocratic ideals of Centrum, but maybe they hope they'll be able to change that later on.
The Patrol is mostly carrying out surveillance as to Centran operations. There would be the possibility of supporting Brazil, and, even more tempting, to aid the budding cultural changes in the West. But the Intelligence Division deems Centrum does not know yet that Patton-2 has been reached by Infinity, and any blatant operation would show the Patrol's hand. It's difficult to decide whether that advantage should be forfeited in order to take a more proactive stance.
Presently, there is no evidence of smuggling, unauthorized operations, or other tampering. The divergence seems suspiciously minor for causing such a change, but Patton-2 is not alone in this. Commerce and tourism are not allowed. Technological progress is slower on Patton-2, so there is no immediate threat to the secret – at least, not from autochronous scientists.
OTHER PATTONS
Patton-1 was discovered first and was considered as an uninteresting hell parallel. Most human life had been killed there. Subsequent surveys showed the divergence was the same as on Patton-2 (thus leading to the renaming), but that around 1974, somebody started using bacteriological weapons. It is now 1988, and most cities are huge open-air cemeteries (no Gotha zombies – it must have been something else). At night, the lights are on in places like the Falklands, Greenland, Nome in Alaska, and some towns along the Yenisei River. No contact has been established yet with the populations of those areas, also because any safe contact would require conspicuous NBC suits.
Patton-3 is in Quantum 8, and no direct access has been established. Several intelligence sources describe it as the successful parallel, now in local year 2002 and at TL8. Western civilization (now locally called "Modern") has co-opted the Chinese, with some cultural contamination in the other direction. Centrum seems on the verge of operating overtly there, and probably that's because they are dissatisfied with how the locals have espoused meritocracy. Indeed, on Patton-3 pupils are immediately classed by their school tests, and "high-merit" students go ahead to higher education, and eventually land high-merit jobs. But as it happens, these are almost always children of high-merit parents, while almost all the children of "low-merit" menial workers achieve low-merit jobs. Nor is the issue going to solve itself over time, because high-merit citizens very seldom marry "lowmers". Lowmers tend not to be of European descent.
Patton-4 has just been discovered. There, the shootout in 1945 remained an isolated "friendly fire" incident, for reasons unknown as of yet. It's 1951, and the familiar Cold War scenario is in place, save that the Soviets are feared and hated even more. However, Patton had no car accident, has left the Army at the peak of his popularity, and rumors have it that he's going to enter the Republican nomination race against Eisenhower and Taft. It should be noted that the Soviet atomic bomb project has been delayed here, and the first test explosion has just taken place. The Soviets still aren't, in practice, a nuclear power – but they will be in two to three years.
