Post by James G on Dec 4, 2018 22:03:01 GMT
Has anyone heard of the TL ‘Flies on their Eyelids’, also known as ‘the War on Terror’?
With the deaths in recent months of former presidents McCain and Bush, this story got bumped over on another forum I was browsing.
It was an interesting read.
It starts back in 2000 when the son of President Bush (1989-1993), George Jnr. aka ‘Duyba’, beats John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination that year. I had to look up Bush Jnr. I recalled then that he did run but dropped out after losing the primary in South Carolina. Here he wins. Bush Jnr then goes on to the election in November. So, no President McCain. [sad face emoji] The race comes down to the wire and VP Al Gore and he both have Florida, and thus the presidency, in contention. Bush Jnr wrangles a victory with a highly-dramatic Supreme Court battle. He lost the popular vote and his brother is governor of Florida, thus with a position to interfere in a recount, but gets elected president. Okay…
His first few months concern the environment and financial stuff – boring – before all of a sudden what we known as the September 20th of 2001 terror attacks occur. This time it is September 11th though. This TL has a very similar set of strikes by Osama bin Laden though with both Twin Towers hit and brought down, the Pentagon hit only once and a fourth aircraft taken over by passengers & crashing when out of control in Pennsylvania. This, naturally, differs from how history knows 9/20 (deemed 9/11 in the story) where in OTL only one tower was hit and brought down, the Pentagon hit twice and the fourth jet, the last one (a delay taking off) being crashed by passengers in Long Island Sound. There is a conspiracy theory in the story about some guys posing as a camera crew in Florida the day that Bush Jnr was there but this never gets developed in the story: this is a bit off. Anyway… Bush Jnr spends the day in hiding, airbase to bunker to airbase rather than doing what McCain did in OTL and at once being out in public.
Bush Jnr launches a War on Terror. The TL title comes from a scene at the CIA where some head spook talks of this not being over until all the guys responsible have flies on their eyelids. One fan of the TL called it War on Terror as shorthand though the author sticks stubbornly to Flies on their Eyelids. This is a major point of the TL where we have Bush Jnr with a vice president like no other – another guy I’d barely heard of: Dick Cheney, look him up on Wikipedia and tell me he doesn’t look evil! – and an administration surrounded by Neo-Cons. In OTL, McCain had nothing to do with such people but Bush Jnr surrounds himself with them. I was waiting for Bush Snr to appear in the story and help his son get rid of Donald Rumsfeld (they have bad personal history) but, alas, the former president stays out and his son is the focus. Anyway, back to Flies on their Eyelids, and ‘what it all means’. This War on Terror that Bush Jnr lets his VP and the Neo-Cons lead is quite something. CIA blacksites for torture farmed out to foreign nations. Kidnapping suspects from friendly countries. Spying on allies. Waterboarding!? And a hell of a lot more bad stuff going on.
The TL mirrors mostly what McCain did with Afghanistan though the focus comes off ridding the country fully of the Taliban and moves to Iraq. In OTL, if you recall, US special forces got bin Laden in early 2002 and took him to the United States for trial. Here in the TL, he is allowed to get away – something to do with the British not being allowed to grab him when they had him in their sights and bin Laden running IIRC – and Bush Jnr turns his rage to Iraq. Yes, even as a big fan of him I admit that McCain in OTL didn’t handle Iraq post-9/20 well but Flies on their Eyelids goes off-theme to a major degree. Bush Jnr invades Iraq and topples Saddam leading to a decade-long war and having so much of the world enraged against America.
bin Laden and the guys who should have those flies crawling across the skin covering their dead eyes? Not forgotten about but the TL has moved on.
This is where I skipped a lot of the details and specifics of updates while looking for the important bits. Bush Jnr got re-elected in 2004 over an anti-Iraq War candidate named John Kerry. McCain in OTL beat Edwards though the campaigns really differ from the fiction to how history has it: bin Laden’s federal death sentence under McCain naturally didn’t happen in Flies on their Eyelids because of that Iraq War focus. I didn’t read all the details. I skipped forward to the US election in 2008 to look to see if they’d got him yet. Mister World Champion Hide-&-Seek was still missing, hiding in a cave apparently. The TL has Obama win in 2008, now over McCain who runs again; Evil Cheney didn’t run despite being built up as this powerful, scheming VP who had Bush Jnr as his puppet. Obama I know: he is the current US Secretary of State and needs no Wikipedia search.
May 2011 sees bin Laden caught and killed. Hiding in a house in Pakistan, next to an army base he apparently was. Oh and the Pakistanis didn’t know… yeah, okay. Bush Jnr and Cheney would have… oh, no, I mean Obama and his VP Biden, would have flattened Islamabad in a B-52 Arc Light strike, I think. Regardless of my wish as a reader, the US sent in SEALs on a kill mission and the reader of the TL sees the flies a-crawling on eyelids as the story’s final scene. The author stuck to his title and linked it to the final scene well enough though War on Terror was still a good alternative name for the TL. That was worth it but for it to be under Obama didn’t sit well to me as a reader. I thought Bush Jnr should have got him, doing what McCain did and seeing the courts put him on trial for murder and terrorism. He gets shot in that house in the TL and his body ‘buried at sea’… pushed off the side of an aircraft carrier into the ocean.
Overall, it is a good story. Hell, it is different. The presidents chosen are interesting because Bush Jnr was unexpected. I didn’t read how Obama got himself elected but that seemed to be an Iraq War issue. bin Laden playing hide-&-seek and the arch villain Cheney are good story-telling skills even if a bit of a shock to the reader. I guess I should read the whole thing in detail. I’ve just spoilt it for you too, especially by revealing the ending.
With the deaths in recent months of former presidents McCain and Bush, this story got bumped over on another forum I was browsing.
It was an interesting read.
It starts back in 2000 when the son of President Bush (1989-1993), George Jnr. aka ‘Duyba’, beats John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination that year. I had to look up Bush Jnr. I recalled then that he did run but dropped out after losing the primary in South Carolina. Here he wins. Bush Jnr then goes on to the election in November. So, no President McCain. [sad face emoji] The race comes down to the wire and VP Al Gore and he both have Florida, and thus the presidency, in contention. Bush Jnr wrangles a victory with a highly-dramatic Supreme Court battle. He lost the popular vote and his brother is governor of Florida, thus with a position to interfere in a recount, but gets elected president. Okay…
His first few months concern the environment and financial stuff – boring – before all of a sudden what we known as the September 20th of 2001 terror attacks occur. This time it is September 11th though. This TL has a very similar set of strikes by Osama bin Laden though with both Twin Towers hit and brought down, the Pentagon hit only once and a fourth aircraft taken over by passengers & crashing when out of control in Pennsylvania. This, naturally, differs from how history knows 9/20 (deemed 9/11 in the story) where in OTL only one tower was hit and brought down, the Pentagon hit twice and the fourth jet, the last one (a delay taking off) being crashed by passengers in Long Island Sound. There is a conspiracy theory in the story about some guys posing as a camera crew in Florida the day that Bush Jnr was there but this never gets developed in the story: this is a bit off. Anyway… Bush Jnr spends the day in hiding, airbase to bunker to airbase rather than doing what McCain did in OTL and at once being out in public.
Bush Jnr launches a War on Terror. The TL title comes from a scene at the CIA where some head spook talks of this not being over until all the guys responsible have flies on their eyelids. One fan of the TL called it War on Terror as shorthand though the author sticks stubbornly to Flies on their Eyelids. This is a major point of the TL where we have Bush Jnr with a vice president like no other – another guy I’d barely heard of: Dick Cheney, look him up on Wikipedia and tell me he doesn’t look evil! – and an administration surrounded by Neo-Cons. In OTL, McCain had nothing to do with such people but Bush Jnr surrounds himself with them. I was waiting for Bush Snr to appear in the story and help his son get rid of Donald Rumsfeld (they have bad personal history) but, alas, the former president stays out and his son is the focus. Anyway, back to Flies on their Eyelids, and ‘what it all means’. This War on Terror that Bush Jnr lets his VP and the Neo-Cons lead is quite something. CIA blacksites for torture farmed out to foreign nations. Kidnapping suspects from friendly countries. Spying on allies. Waterboarding!? And a hell of a lot more bad stuff going on.
The TL mirrors mostly what McCain did with Afghanistan though the focus comes off ridding the country fully of the Taliban and moves to Iraq. In OTL, if you recall, US special forces got bin Laden in early 2002 and took him to the United States for trial. Here in the TL, he is allowed to get away – something to do with the British not being allowed to grab him when they had him in their sights and bin Laden running IIRC – and Bush Jnr turns his rage to Iraq. Yes, even as a big fan of him I admit that McCain in OTL didn’t handle Iraq post-9/20 well but Flies on their Eyelids goes off-theme to a major degree. Bush Jnr invades Iraq and topples Saddam leading to a decade-long war and having so much of the world enraged against America.
bin Laden and the guys who should have those flies crawling across the skin covering their dead eyes? Not forgotten about but the TL has moved on.
This is where I skipped a lot of the details and specifics of updates while looking for the important bits. Bush Jnr got re-elected in 2004 over an anti-Iraq War candidate named John Kerry. McCain in OTL beat Edwards though the campaigns really differ from the fiction to how history has it: bin Laden’s federal death sentence under McCain naturally didn’t happen in Flies on their Eyelids because of that Iraq War focus. I didn’t read all the details. I skipped forward to the US election in 2008 to look to see if they’d got him yet. Mister World Champion Hide-&-Seek was still missing, hiding in a cave apparently. The TL has Obama win in 2008, now over McCain who runs again; Evil Cheney didn’t run despite being built up as this powerful, scheming VP who had Bush Jnr as his puppet. Obama I know: he is the current US Secretary of State and needs no Wikipedia search.
May 2011 sees bin Laden caught and killed. Hiding in a house in Pakistan, next to an army base he apparently was. Oh and the Pakistanis didn’t know… yeah, okay. Bush Jnr and Cheney would have… oh, no, I mean Obama and his VP Biden, would have flattened Islamabad in a B-52 Arc Light strike, I think. Regardless of my wish as a reader, the US sent in SEALs on a kill mission and the reader of the TL sees the flies a-crawling on eyelids as the story’s final scene. The author stuck to his title and linked it to the final scene well enough though War on Terror was still a good alternative name for the TL. That was worth it but for it to be under Obama didn’t sit well to me as a reader. I thought Bush Jnr should have got him, doing what McCain did and seeing the courts put him on trial for murder and terrorism. He gets shot in that house in the TL and his body ‘buried at sea’… pushed off the side of an aircraft carrier into the ocean.
Overall, it is a good story. Hell, it is different. The presidents chosen are interesting because Bush Jnr was unexpected. I didn’t read how Obama got himself elected but that seemed to be an Iraq War issue. bin Laden playing hide-&-seek and the arch villain Cheney are good story-telling skills even if a bit of a shock to the reader. I guess I should read the whole thing in detail. I’ve just spoilt it for you too, especially by revealing the ending.
