Shanghaied - 2ACW

[James G]

159 – Tar Heel tragedy

Lee Mitchell’s political career had started small. At the beginning of the Twenties, the man who would become the 50th President of the United States had run for local office out in the small city of Hendersonville in the west of North Carolina. In the Appalachians and near to his native South Carolina – just north of the state line –, Mitchell had moved to Hendersonville with his second wife and tried his hand at politics after a successful business career. He had excelled rapidly when starting out and within a year had gone on to win a seat in the state Assembly. That wasn’t enough for Mitchell… nor his ambitious wife too who pushed him further forward. He had been aiming to run for the state Senate when an opportunity arose, a long shot one at that, to instead contest the election for the position of North Carolina Treasurer. Mitchell went against all the odds and won the Republican primary as an outsider. It got him statewide attention and then that become somewhat nationwide too when, weeks before the election for that post, his Democratic rival, who had looked likely to roundly defeat him, found herself embroiled in a financial scandal. The Mitchell camp had denied having any knowledge of the revelations ahead of time, let alone making sure those got attention, but everyone knew that Mitchell played dirty. He won that contest and eyed a bigger prize: the governorship. That seemed to everyone but he and his wife to be far beyond Mitchell and there were other Republicans in North Carolina who considered it ‘their turn’. Mitchell went for it though. He was an excellent campaigner and could also raise a lot of money too. His main rival in his party’s primary also jumped the line ahead of other more established candidates and Mitchell had a real challenge there. He was a centralist who never forgot his base but his rival couldn’t appeal beyond the latter. Mitchell prevailed first for his party’s nomination and then the statewide contest to take the governor’s mansion. Alongside others who actually were, Mitchell had portrayed himself as one of those New Republicans in the Twenties who won office across the South. Alongside those of more prominence like Roberts and Cruz Flores in Texas, and Donner in Florida, Mitchell wasn’t either African-American nor Latino as the majority of New Republicans were. However, he was able to connect well with socially conservative minorities as almost one of them and also attract the voters of Caucasians too including those who defined themselves (in decreasing numbers it must be said though) as in the middle of the great partisan divide. He was popular among North Carolinans and gained a bigger national profile through the Twenties.

No one had seriously considered Mitchell for the presidential race in 2028 despite some speculation but early on, before a winner of the Republican primary was clear, he was spoken about as vice presidential material with real attention paid to his candidacy. He had endorsed Senator Edward Roberts ahead of the Texan winning and they were ideologically aligned. The party bigwigs had believed that Mitchell could bring a lot to the campaign, dollars especially, and Mitchell was eventually chosen by the Roberts campaign in spite of a lot of talk that Roberts might go for a woman as a running mate. His public fights in the Tar Heel state, later national too, against racism in all forms gave him something else that other potential candidates couldn’t bring to the table for a party looking to present a different face to the voters for the Republicans. Mitchell did a lot to help Roberts ‘win’ the race to the White House and was expecting to be an important vice president, not someone to be ignored. Ten days into the Roberts presidency had come that man’s death though and Mitchell had stepped up to the leadership of his country less than eight years after first going into politics. His whole presidency was certain from the moment it had begun to be defined by the Second American Civil War. The fifty-state union had been something that President Mitchell had fully committed himself to the moment he took the oath of office to replace Roberts. To be the one in the White House then when any hint of defeat come would destroy him and Mitchell was well-aware of that.

The (then) Second Lady and the two Mitchell children had been up in DC when Roberts and Mitchell were inaugurated in January 2029 though left the city soon afterwards when the war started. There had been some talk of seeing them sent to the ‘safe’ location which was Camp David when Roberts’ wife had gone there but Mitchell’s wife had had no intention of making that trip. She didn’t want to go there and instead had returned back to North Carolina with her twin daughters without any media attention over that. Her mother had a home in Mecklenburg County – which surrounded the fast-growing city of Charlotte – and she was there when she became the First Lady. Talking to her husband twice a day, the First Lady told him that she believed that Roberts had been assassinated when he had that apparent accident and she feared for Mitchell’s life. The Mitchell family had remained out of sight as the months had gone by with protection provided by the Secret Service to far beyond the usual degree due to the civil war and also because of events during the Years of Lead. That security came against the threat of murder attempts, kidnap and also any form of ‘exotic’ attack. It had only been late the previous year when President Walsh had been targeted in a bio-terrorism attack which took the life of his attorney general and others in DC too. With so much else having gone on since then, many people had forgotten all about RF-187. The Secret Service hadn’t. Elaborate measures to keep the president, his administration and other high-level political figures safe from a second attack of a similar nature were extended to the First Family down in North Carolina.

Despite all of that care, those out to harm the president indirectly by getting at his family did so.


One of the Mitchell twins, his fourteen year-old daughters, was deliberately exposed to that biological weapon. Unwillingly, she brought the infection right into her grandmother’s house to infect that older woman as well as her own mother and sister: two staff members and a Secret Service agent were also exposed. The outbreak was detected late by the Secret Service and they threw into action a standby emergency plan drawn up in case the worst happened and there was another attack like the one the last year up in DC. ‘Zeppelin’ was once more declared. Those infected were flown by a fleet of helicopters to Walter Reed, back where Walsh and his own family had been taken when the first attack had struck at the White House, to a waiting team of specialists and a prepared facility for biological contamination. The Walsh’s had never been infected with that germ though. The Mitchell’s had.

Mitchell didn’t take the news well when told what was going on. No one could have expected him to in all honesty. He had sent his family away so they could be safe and instead, they had all been subject to an unimaginable horrible crime. He wanted to go to Walter Reed when they were on their way there but was talked out of it – physically stopped by his chief-of-staff to be fair – due to the seriousness of the situation. It was believed by the Secret Service that the attack in North Carolina wouldn’t have been a lone event and so the president was flown out of DC and to the bunker at Mount Weather. The White House was quite the fortress on guard against any form of attack but Mount Weather was a true bastion where Mitchell was kept entirely safe. When he was there, he was given constant updates on the condition of his family. Eight hours after arriving under the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mitchell was informed the Amy had lost her fight for life. She was the first of his daughter’s to be infected, who had brought the germ carried within her, into the family nest. For those who witnessed his reaction to that news, they would never forget the sight of his anguish. Further terrible news came soon afterwards. The doctors at Walter Reed tried everything they could but the First Lady, Natalie Mitchell, also succumbed to the evil germ which her daughter had unwittingly infected her with. Anna Mitchell (the other daughter) was left in intensive care, along with others infected including her grandmother, but she would survive the attempt on her life which took those of her mother and sister.


President Mitchell lost his wife and one of his daughters to the second bio-terrorist attack to strike at the heart of the United States’ political leadership within four months. The exact same weapon has been used again. The moment that Amy Mitchell collapsed atop her mother in the kitchen of her grandmother’s home, the Secret Service agent who rushed towards them – who later ended up infected and in intensive care too – knew what was going on. Seeing the illness in the face of the youngster, she risked her life to separate the two of them, tragically failing to ensure that the germ introduced into one of the president’s daughters wouldn’t get to the First Lady. Rapid tests by medical staff confirmed that it was RF-187 at work and there was a major investigation (with the Secret Service supported without question by federal and state authorities) afterwards to determine the chain of events surrounding how the germ was unleashed upon the First Family. The cat was walked back to see where it all came from and how the attack had been made by those responsible.

When Walsh’s attorney general had been poisoned in an effort to see the then president likewise infected, the attack had been made by the terror group known as the American Insurgent Army. The germ itself was a stolen sample of a captured specimen of a biological weapon which the United States had previously stolen (along with others) from Russia so that they would have a defence through knowledge of such illegal weapons. The AIA had snatched that from Fort Detrick with part of the sample employed in DC during December 2028. Not all of it had been used with the US Government searching for the remaining weapon stock since then. Most of the AIA had been destroyed since that time with the death of one (Bright) and the live capture of another (Reed) of their pair of high-profile assassins who’d taken out Cabinet members and came pretty damn close to getting Walsh with a sniper too. Yet, those involved in the DC poisoning directly hadn’t been identified let alone caught. The successes with members such as Bright & Reed – military special forces soldiers who had gone AWOL – for the FBI, Department of Homeland Security & Secret Service hadn’t come with any real progress in going after the poisoners.

Nonetheless, only weeks before the attack on Mitchell’s family, the mastermind behind the AIA had been exposed and forced from power. Because that figure was none other than the Senate Majority Leader, using the AIA for his own means after he had somehow high-jacked their leadership unbeknown to most members, there had been no public knowledge of what had happened. An alarmingly high number of people did know about it, through the Mitchell Administration and the US Intelligence Community, yet no leak to the media had occurred. Senator Bill Green had resigned his seat citing a grave medical condition and gone back to Oklahoma with the White House ready to accept that rather than face a national scandal that it had been feared could have the most serious of implications for the country. Green hadn’t been interrogated while under unofficial house arrest out there in Oklahoma with the president having yet to give the word for ‘action’ to be taken against him as the Secretary of Homeland Security had wanted to done to avoid major political unrest by going down the legal route.

When the First Family was attacked, with the First Lady and one of Mitchell’s daughters both losing the battle to live after suffering really unpleasant deaths, Green was still a free man. The AIA hadn’t died as it was thought it had been with his sudden, quiet fall from all of his power. What became called in certain sections of the media as the ‘Tar Heel tragedy’ when it was publicly revealed that members of Mitchell’s immediate family had been killed, didn’t address the subject of Green. The whole of America was stunned by the news of what had happened to the First Family with the lead media story of a war looking lost against secessionists in the West but no one focused on the seemingly unrelated matter of Green’s recent shock departure from the national stage.

That wasn’t the case with the 50th President. In grief, desperate and heart-wrenching grief, he wanted revenge. Consideration being given to ending the conflict with the Democratic American Republic was put on hold. His distraction was immense at a time when the United States just couldn’t afford to be distracted.

[gillan1220]

I now feel sorry for Mitchel. The ALA were just causing all the bad shit while in 2028 the world saw the first ever controversial elections in history. I take the ALA is a third-party in this Second American Civil War of which it considers both the USA and the DAR as enemies.

[gillan1220]

Posted on r/dankmemes on Reddit regarding the iconic crossing and handshake U.S. and DAR National Guardsmen in the Texas-New Mexico border (Chapter 59: Recognition)
Modern-day Elbe crossing


The Assad Curse strikes back!

[James G]

Jul 9, 2021 8:08:18 GMT gillan1220 said:

I now feel sorry for Mitchel. The ALA were just causing all the bad shit while in 2028 the world saw the first ever controversial elections in history. I take the ALA is a third-party in this Second American Civil War of which it considers both the USA and the DAR as enemies.

Mitchell is still a bad guy. There are things I have yet to reveal about him.
The American Liberation Army have been mentioned several times in the story but I am not sure - it is a huge story! - I have gone into enough detail.
The ALA is a terror group opposed to federal power. They have been called right-wing and conversely left-wing too due to their libertarian and anarchist outlook. They started out as a militia composed of ex military personnel aided by intelligence community people. It was small and in the hands of a small leadership.
They killed politicians and law enforcement during the later part of the Years of Lead, starting 2026, before the leadership secretly fell under the control of Green who wanted them to cause more chaos. New members and external support came. There were suicide attacks made, which gained them utter hatred and immense notoriety.
In October 2028, they did the Omaha Bombing which killed dozens upon dozens at a rally where the Democrats VP candidate was speaking: he was left in a coma and died after he and MAR 'won' the election with him still on the ballot at that time. Those germ samples were stolen from Fort Detrick too. Post-election, the DHS secretary was assassinated by them. The germ was used to kill the Attorney General in an effort to get President Walsh. There was the massacre of congresspeople and senators in DC and then a failed assassination of Walsh at Camp David too. Civil war saw them step off the stage, leading to all sorts of theories about their motives/who was behind them, before their leading assassin Reed (with a $31million bounty on his head) was captured and spilt the beans on what he knew about who was really in control: he was a late joiner, not a real believer in the hi-jacked initial cause. Green was exposed but no further action had come before they popped back up again going after Mitchell's family.
In short, the most terrible domestic terrorist threat the USA has ever faced. Real evil people who have done so much harm and taken so many lives.

[James G]

Jul 10, 2021 6:42:46 GMT gillan1220 said:

Posted on r/dankmemes on Reddit regarding the iconic crossing and handshake U.S. and DAR National Guardsmen in the Texas-New Mexico border (Chapter 59: Recognition)
Modern-day Elbe crossing


The Assad Curse strikes back!

Crazy! There will be tons of this in this alternate world!

[James G]

160 – April Fool’s

Jessica Toomey, once a United States Ambassador to the EU (under the 47th President), was a ‘guest’ of the Russian Federation. She’d fled Europe in what she said was in fear of her life and gone to Moscow where she had made several unsubstantiated claims about the US Government’s involvement in the disappearance of her brother (a White House deputy chief of staff under a different president), and the alleged assassination of the 49th President too. Toomey continued to be an unofficial spokesperson for the Democratic American Republic while in Russia. She had done that when travelling across Europe though faced what she said was no restriction to doing so when in Russia: Toomey asserted that European governments, working with the CIA, had tried to silence her as well as seeking to allow for her to be forcibly disappeared as well. Russia was a somewhat beacon of freedom though where she could say what she wanted and no one would stop her. The Kremlin provided protection for her and helped getting her continued access to as much media coverage as possible. Official complaints lodged by the US Embassy in Moscow and also the State Department back in DC were made. President Makarov’s government questioned whether the United States stood for free speech or not by trying to silence Toomey, and also passed on a request from Toomey for information surrounding the whereabouts of her missing brother who had vanished when back in the United States declaring support for the DAR there.

Going to Russia and seeking protection from the Kremlin hadn’t done Toomey’s credibility any favours. She’d been subject to hostility from American and European journalists when there at her press conferences for choosing Russia of all places to go to and then also defending its supposed democratic character when her hypocrisy was put to her. Toomey had stopped talking to them, alleging that they were ‘puppets of DC’, and instead dealt with English-speaking Russian media members in addition to non-mainstream sections of the US media who went out to Moscow. With the latter, who were considered to be ‘alternative’, or damn liars – it depended upon opinions –, Toomey was fighting the good fight. She was bashing their primary enemies, the mainstream media, even when firmly against their own country which allowed them freedom to operate whereas Russia and especially not the DAR either did. Toomey and those who came out to Moscow from the United States to help publicise what she had to say had made quite the Faustian Pact between them. Makarov nor any senior members of his government positioned themselves close to her in an overt way. She had Kremlin support to operate but that was all under the table as far as the public were concerned. It was just a coincidence apparently that she could do all that she could! Russia’s president had long believed that the DAR would lose the Second American Civil War and understood that DC-Moscow relations, while immensely strained, would need to continue in the long-term. Allowing Toomey to do as she wished, helping her with her platform even, was about twisting the tiger’s tail for him. Makarov enjoyed watching the United States squirm but was prepared to easily shut down Toomey at any moment without any consequence for his rule.

One of those alternative journalists, from a thoroughly disreputable ‘news’ outfit known as InfoWars, went to see Toomey in Moscow and travelled in the company of a Department of Justice official who took an unauthorised leave of absence from his job. Their flights to Moscow from the East Coast saw them travel through Canada rather direct to the Russian capital. Both used their own passports and didn’t travel incognito either, but the flight of the Justice Department official should have been paid attention to when it certainly wasn’t. In Moscow, the two of them met with Toomey and provided her with information. The journalist flew back home, on a direct flight to New York, but the man from the Justice Department stayed in Moscow where he subsequently applied for political asylum claiming that his life was in danger should her return to the United States. Toomey called a press conference – one which went out online rather than on television screens – for the next day where she revealed the information that had been delivered to her without disclosing the source of it all.

The revelations made by her were about Bill Green and how he had been behind all of those infamous domestic terrorist attacks made on American soil by the American Insurgent Army. The then Senate Majority Leader, whom Toomey reminded people had often been called ‘America’s real president’, had killed all of those people and created an era of terror all for his own political gain on a different stage. Toomey listed the major events that the AIA had been involved in: the Omaha Bombing, assassinating DHS Secretary Arguello with a rifle & then Attorney General Underwood with a biological weapon, the January 6th Attack on Congress and the latest poisoning of the First Family. That had all been done at the behest of the Green. It was explained that Green’s activities had finally been uncovered by the US Government and he had been forced to make up that excuse of illness to leave his post to go back to his native Oklahoma. No arrest had been made of him, no charges had been brought against him. Toomey attacked the Mitchell Administration for doing nothing about Green and allowing him ‘retire peaceful’ while his victims ‘were still fresh in their graves without justice’. Saying that she was no longer an American citizen herself, she had long since claimed DAR citizenship came the reminder, Toomey still demanded that the US Government take action against Green. If they didn’t, her urge was for the American people to do that themselves with regard to that recently-retired senator and also ‘those in DC who protected him’.


It was April 1st 2029 when Toomey did that media event and made all of those claims. To some of those back in America who heard what she said, it seemed like a bad April Fool’s joke. It was treated as just plain ridiculous, some sort of bad fiction. Toomey had no evidence to back up her claims and those who publicised it to those in the United States, InfoWars and the like, had been pumping out such similar stuff since the crisis had started out in the West before Christmas. There were those in the United States who believed it though. Far from only being the type of people who wore tin-foil hats to bed and were 9/11 Truthers, as was the public perception, an ever-increasing large number of Americans had long ago given up on mainstream reporting of the news where they believed everything coming out of them: Americans knew that the mainstream media was engaged in self-censorship. The alternative media wasn’t trusted either so there was a balancing act done between such contrasting sources. For those people trying to walk that tightrope of what was true and what wasn’t when consuming news, there was a lot of feeling that the establishment truth just didn’t cut it. There were all of those terrorist groups which disappeared once the DAR was established leading to a belief that those were fronts for the secessionists out West. The 49th President, put into power following the US Supreme Court ruling against his opponent in the 2028 election, had died in an apparent accident ten days into office. Some sort of computer virus had wiped out America’s most potent weapons of war with news of that suppressed until the DAR had announced what they had done. It was a mad time to be alive, a crazy time to be trusting the media when they were keeping things back from the public (or seen to be) rather than exposing everything straight away in its full glory.

What Toomey had to say wasn’t thus dismissed outright by all of those who heard it. What many would have liked would have been evidence to the claims, then they might get as angry as that woman who’d turned her back on America and fled to Russia in what she claimed was fear of her life wanted them to be.

The news about the First Lady and one of the president’s daughters dying – another child still in intensive care – had broken to the public two days after the terrorist biological attack on the First Family by the AiA had happened. The White House press secretary had made the announcement of what had been called afterwards the Tar Heel Tragedy. As to President Mitchell, he wasn’t seen in public. The country was engaged in a bloody civil war, one it was clearly losing, but with his family attacked in such a manner, Mitchell didn’t appear before the cameras in the aftermath.

Vice President Cristina Cruz Flores did though.

To those who watched her speech made to the nation in the aftermath of what had happened to the First Family while they were supposed to be safe down in North Carolina, she looked rather presidential. That was no surprise though. Mitchell had picked Cruz for a reason to take the post of vice president after he had moved from that to the White House. She was one of the ablest politicians of her generation in his eyes. Slightly older that Maria Arreola Rodriguez, a young Latina too, Cruz had never liked the comparisons made between her and MAR. The two congresswomen (Cruz from Texas, MAR from California) were entirely different of every level apart from being Latinas as far as Cruz was concerned. MAR had the celebrity magic about her and had hung out with film stars & singers, but Cruz herself had built her own career off her own star power. Before she had entered politics, running for a US House seat when many said she should have in fact tried straight for one in the US Senate, Cruz had been one of the stars of Newsmax during the early Twenties. She’d gained a national prominence on that right-wing media platform and then used that to get elected as one of the New Republicans which dominated so much of the Republican Party by the end of the decade. In front of the cameras, Cruz was a natural. She didn’t have to work at it like other politicians, even very successful ones such as Mitchell did, because to her, the camera was part of her life… very much just like MAR to Cruz’s chagrin. As to those comparisons to MAR, once the Californian turned traitor, those were no longer made less they earn Cruz’s rage. She served her country whereas MAR had betrayed hers.

Speaking to the people of the United States – watched globally too, including out in the Democratic American Republic by the leadership but not its people –, Vice President Cruz stated that the deaths of his wife and daughter was a private matter for Mitchell. He wouldn’t be sharing his grief with the public and there would be no nationwide coverage of any funeral proceedings either. Nonetheless, despite his grief, Mitchell remained the president and continued to fully undertake his duties as president. He was at the helm of the ship of state and would continue to be so. Members of his administration such as she would continue to support the business of government. That, Cruz said, would involve tracking down those responsible for the attack on the First Family and seeing them brought to justice. Cruz didn’t mention Green nor what Toomey had alleged while out in Moscow in that though. Cruz asked for the prayers of Americans to be for the Mitchell family, and also for the uniformed service-personnel still fighting for the United States too on the front-lines of war.

The whole appearance of hers was clam, confident and assured. Few had said such things openly in public, but since the news broke about Mitchell’s family, there had been rumours floating around that Cruz had in many ways become Acting President in how she was handling things in DC while Mitchell had reportedly stepped back. No reputable media outlet had said such a thing but people were talking about it. Those who watched Cruz’s speech, and too saw the highly-favourable reaction across the United States where the responses came that she steadied nerves, believed that should circumstances somehow cause the country needed a fourth president that year, then Cruz would be more than capable of stepping up to the task.

[gillan1220]

F*CK ME. Now things are tangled as a spaghetti with Toomey in Moscow. The Russians would be pleased with all these confusion.

Green is probably the most evil man in this story. More evil the Carillo, Pierce, Miller, and Mitchell. He is effectively the person that destabilized the United States even before MAR's secession. On top of that, he was neither a paid Russian or Chinese agent. He did it on his own accord. He is comparable to the Joker from Batman.

On the other hand, I will be making more in-universe memes for Shanghaied along with a "mock" photos from alternate worlds entry and a fan-casting of a potential series.

[Zyobot]

Jul 11, 2021 7:17:28 GMT gillan1220 said:

F*CK ME. Now things are tangled as a spaghetti with Toomey in Moscow. The Russians would be pleased with all these confusion.

Green is probably the most evil man in this story. More evil the Carillo, Pierce, Miller, and Mitchell. He is effectively the person that destabilized the United States even before MAR's secession. On top of that, he was neither a paid Russian or Chinese agent. He did it on his own accord. He is comparable to the Joker from Batman.

On the other hand, I will be making more in-universe memes for Shanghaied along with a "mock" photos from alternate worlds entry and a fan-casting of a potential series.

I’ve a lot to catch up on, but based on what I understand thus far, let’s hope we don’t get Hitler and Stalin re-emerged sometime down the line. Even if they don’t come to power in the Divided States, they may very well seize it abroad, given my understanding of the trajectory this story has taken on.

Somewhat off-topic, but I can imagine that the small handful of living, at least semi-lucid Silent Generation members are distraught to see the world sliding back into the abyss, less than a hundred years after the last time it happened. To that end, some accounts from them, or even now addressed GI Generation members who foresaw trouble on the horizon during their final days, may be instructive. Hopefully, and assuming that America successfully rebuilds once this is all over, the Second Greatest Generation—or perhaps, Second Lost Generation, depending on how this goes—can keep those memories going for much longer than those who lived through World War Two were able to, for example.

[James G]

Jul 11, 2021 7:17:28 GMT gillan1220 said:

F*CK ME. Now things are tangled as a spaghetti with Toomey in Moscow. The Russians would be pleased with all these confusion.

Green is probably the most evil man in this story. More evil the Carillo, Pierce, Miller, and Mitchell. He is effectively the person that destabilized the United States even before MAR's secession. On top of that, he was neither a paid Russian or Chinese agent. He did it on his own accord. He is comparable to the Joker from Batman.

On the other hand, I will be making more in-universe memes for Shanghaied along with a "mock" photos from alternate worlds entry and a fan-casting of a potential series.

They are stirring the pot there in Moscow but Makarov still believes that the US will win in the end. He's managed to change the whole dynamic of the problems in Eastern Europe to his advantage in the meantime too.
Green is like that senator from Shooter: that was my inspiration. Caught, soon to be exposed, he'll be looking to escape justice.
Go right ahead! I shall view what you do.

Jul 11, 2021 11:27:40 GMT Zyobot said:

I’ve a lot to catch up on, but based on what I understand thus far, let’s hope we don’t get Hitler and Stalin re-emerged sometime down the line. Even if they don’t come to power in the Divided States, they may very well seize it abroad, given my understanding of the trajectory this story has taken on.

Somewhat off-topic, but I can imagine that the small handful of living, at least semi-lucid Silent Generation members are distraught to see the world sliding back into the abyss, less than a hundred years after the last time it happened. To that end, some accounts from them, or even now addressed GI Generation members who foresaw trouble on the horizon during their final days, may be instructive. Hopefully, and assuming that America successfully rebuilds once this is all over, the Second Greatest Generation—or perhaps, Second Lost Generation, depending on how this goes—can keep those memories going for much longer than those who lived through World War Two were able to, for example.

There is a lot going on.
Pierce in the DAR is a dictator but hasn't gone full evil nor is likely too. Butterflies elsewhere in the world will have interesting effects.
America has been broken by all of this fighting. The real divide, the demonization of the other side, other Americans, will only get stronger. While the war happens and all those people die, others are still making political gains from it all too as they stir the pot for their own ends.

[James G]

161 – Curbstomp

Fighting continued in the West.

At the beginning of April, it was on a far smaller scale than had been seen in previous months yet carried onwards and also took place east of where the Rio Grande ran through the centre, and then the south too, of New Mexico. DAR Armed Forces control was complete west of the river line but military operations took place to the east as well. In the face of a growing localised offensive which had started in late-March around Santa Fe, US forces fell back on the retreat once more. It was a fighting retreat. Elements of the US Marines’ 2nd Marine Division withdrew southwards away from the edges of the small city which was the state capital and back into the direction of Albuquerque. The Sandia Mountains had been a battleground earlier in the war and became so again when those marines reached there and established a good defensive position. Those on the attack, who pushed them back there, were marines too: ones in the service of the DAR-controlled 1st Marine Division. Smaller in number, the attackers had what the defenders didn’t. That was fire support, lots of it. There were aircraft, attack helicopters and plentiful artillery on-hand. Only by falling back into the high ground offered Santa Fe and Albuquerque could the 2nd Marine Division manage to finally make a stand. In light of disasters early on in the Second World War, US Marines had gone into conflicts since then with their own air & artillery support rather than be screwed over by the inability of other services to provide that for them. That had been the case at the beginning of the fight with the secessionists of the DAR too. However, Glow-worm had robbed them of almost all of that leading to the early April humiliating retreat that the 2nd Marine Division had to undertake just to survive the barrage send their way of bombs, missiles, rockets and shells by the DAR on the attack once again.

The Rio Grande was nowhere a wide river when it ran through New Mexico. Portions of its course, through the valley it had long ago carved across the state, made it a substantial terrain feature though in the manner of a barrier to east-west crossing for military units. Before defeat had come in Arizona, troops serving with the United States Army North’s attacking corps which went across that state nearly all the way to the California state line had first gone over the Rio Grande in New Mexico via major crossing operations using many temporary bridges set up. Fixed civilian bridges had been downed and enemy air activity saw ARNORTH desire multiple crossing points to be made use of. Most of those had been destroyed since then, the last blown during the final retreat by surviving ARNORTH units who got out of Arizona, leaving the Rio Grande once more a water barrier between two opposing armies. Combat engineers threw crossings over the river to the south of Albuquerque when the DAR’s Arizona Corps moved towards that city to ‘liberate’ it. The wartime-raised 7th Infantry Division went over the Rio Grande near Bosque Farms and Los Padillas. Their mission was to reach Kirtland AFB and the a-joining Albuquerque International Airport rather than going direct into the city itself. Opposing them was the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. That was a mechanised infantry unit with Strykers and saw action for the first time in the war since coming home from Eastern Europe during the reverse REFORGER undertaken in February. The 2nd Cavalry Regiment had a torrid time. Just like the US Marines to their north, they had little external fire support on-hand and their own was hit by computer software bugs during use. It wasn’t just the artillery targeting systems with their M-109A6 Paladin guns but the systems aboard many of the Strykers too. A fighting retreat back closer to the airbase was order for the unit when they were unable to shoot straight nor in time with their fancy weaponry. During that, the skies filled with attacking aircraft which aided the attacking DAR troops. The 7th Infantry Division had tanks over the Rio Grande in the first wave and got many of them on the flanks, even behind, the retreating 2nd Cavalry Regiment at times. What forces managed to escape back towards Kirtland went through there – a recent evacuation had taken place of air assets – instead of trying to stop its fall and back into the mountains on the other side. To not do so would have meant the complete destruction of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. That withdrawal was done fast and not only uncovered Albuquerque but also exposed the rear of the 2nd Marine Division. A second retreat was made by those US Marines where they had to move, while under attack from above, to less exposed positions east of Albuquerque. Many were lost in that fall back. As to the city, a detachment of soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division went into there during the morning of April 2nd without opposition. More than half of the city’s population had gone and there was war damage everywhere. It was back in DAR hands with no intention from President Pierce out in Sacramento to see it lost once again.


There was meant to have been air cover available for those US forces fighting on the ground in the centre of New Mexico. Glow-worm had first targeted combat aircraft such as the F-22 and then F-35s (seeing them grounded) before moving to shut-down the radar control systems aboard E-3s to make those AWACS aircraft useless. There were still other fighters on-hand for Air Forces North assigned units, such as F-15s, F-16s & FA-18s, and AFNORTH also brought into play different AWACS aircraft to contest control of the skies. US Navy E-2s were flying from land bases while there were also NATO-crewed E-3s up as well. Those latter jets hadn’t been affected by Glow-worm as the US Air Force E-3s had. SecState Renzi and SecDef Darby had recently negotiated a deal with NATO partners across in Europe where eight of those aircraft – wearing the markings of Luxembourg while crewed by a multi-national force – had moved to Little Rock AFB in Arkansas and flew ‘non-combat missions’. They stayed a couple of hundred miles back while in-flight and used their NATO-compatible systems which the Americans used as well to aid the air war which the United States was fighting over its own territory. The deployment was a secret, something not out there in public neither in Europe nor in the United States. Those smaller E-2s, far from the decks of aircraft carriers, joined them when flying from several land bases across Kansas, Oklahoma & Texas.

The re-emergence of AWACS coverage to support AFNORTH operations had been done to try and reverse the tide. Winning control of the skies was deemed impossible but AFNORTH sought to make them contested because while the DAR Air Force still had its best jets flying and they didn’t, their opponents didn’t have many F-22s & F-35s overall. Glow-worm hadn’t effected any aircraft of allies either meaning, as AFNORTH saw it, they could keep on making use of those E-3s as flying radar platforms and fighter control stations without having to worry about their systems suddenly going off-line too. Chair of the Joint Chiefs General Dowd and Lt.–Gen. Reilly from NORTHCOM had been told by the president and secretary of Defence to find a solution to the awful military situation in the West. They believed that with a return to having airborne control for their combat aircraft above the battlefield, a proper defence could be mounted on the ground. It was a good idea, one of merit, but didn’t take into account what the DAR would do in response. General Fuller’s intelligence staff heard about the deployment of those NATO aircraft early on when communications were intercepted about preparations at Little Rock. The aircrews, plus all the ground crew too so as to support those E-3s, came from eleven NATO countries: Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the UK. Other NATO countries such as Canada, France & Germany among others, hadn’t objected to the deployment but had stayed out of direct involvement while allowing it to continue without their personnel. When the deployment begun of all of those personnel from various air forces, the DAR got wind of it all due to the complicated mission and was able to conduct first electronic and then later physical surveillance of Little Rock. A commando team were that physical surveillance: DAR Army Rangers. They initially observed the deployment and were then involved in acting against it. Pierce himself approved the mission due to the sensitive nature of it. Using Stinger missiles, two of the NATO aircraft were shot down when flying back into and then out of Little Rock. One E-3 made a hard landing with everyone onboard alive but the other crashed in a fireball leaving no survivors. There were USAF personnel aboard yet also foreign military personnel from five European countries. Security sweeps between the shoot-downs and then afterwards failed to discover the Rangers leading to a grounding of flight operations after only a few NATO missions in American skies. There was a lot of diplomatic upheaval in the aftermath too.

As to the E-2s, they were targeted directly by DAR F-22s while airborne and then Tomahawk missile strikes when at their dispersed bases. Similar strikes could have gone after the NATO force but Pierce wanted to maintain a little bit of plausible deniability there. It could have been terrorists who shot down those two aircraft... Overall, without an effective control for AFNORTH fighters above New Mexico, those that were put into the sky were either shot down or were soon withdrawn. Another disaster had occurred for the United States’ war effort against the DAR and that one had involved allies, pulled in with great hesitancy, coming unstuck as well. In foreign capitals, there was no talk of immediate jumping into the war after those incidents in Arkansas but instead a wish to pull their people back out. Darby and Renzi tried to maintain the commitment in the face of adversity. They managed to a secure a NATO agreement to not withdraw the aircraft despite the personnel receiving orders to leave. The British, later the Belgians & Dutch too, did an about-turn and agreed to not depart when governments had a change of heart but the operating location was to be changed with a planned movement from Little Rock to NAS New Orleans down in Louisiana. What a mess that had all been for all of those involved!


In southern New Mexico, there was no friendly air cover above those defenders positioned to the east of the Rio Grande all the way down into Texas as well. More of the US V Corps that had come home from Eastern Europe was there. Meanwhile, in the El Paso area there were organised militia units from the Texas State Guard (TXSG). That was a state defence force under the command of Governor Garner through her state’s adjutant general. More than ten thousand strong, the TXSG wasn’t answerable to the Defence Department yet was organised like an army with a good deal of heavy equipment. Garner had watched as the Texas Army National Guard had been destroyed while fighting in Arizona and wouldn’t release control of the TXSG in any manner. She had the majority of its men and women around El Paso though other portions spread right down the Rio Grande along the US-Mexico border. It was her army. Garner told Darby where to stick it when he sought to bring the TXSG under federal control and then got into a heated argument with Vice President Cruz. The two of them had a personal history, a negative one. Cruz was married to Garner’s ex-fiancé. Texas’ governor had lobbied behind the scenes to try to keep Cruz from getting the vice presidential nomination; the congresswoman turned vice president had retaliated by making an appearance alongside the state’s attorney general who was looking to primary Garner for the 2030 gubernatorial election. Garner had kept her militia under her personal control and they were right in the firing line when the DAR’s 3rd Armored Division went over the Rio Grande near to El Paso.

It was a divisional-level attack with other elements moving into New Mexico as well when making an assault river crossing but all attention was on El Paso. Where the Franklin Mountains sat north of the city and before the state line meant that the TXSG was almost on its own trying to stop DAR tanks and infantry. US Army troops from the 3rd Infantry Division over in New Mexico couldn’t assist, not when the skies were full of attacking aircraft making their lives hell. A brigade of the 3rd Armored Division entered Texas territory and engaged the militia. The TXSG, expanded so significantly by Garner, was well-armed but couldn’t deal with M-1A2 Abrams’, Apache helicopters and dozens of low-flying drones on attack missions. She’d built the TXSG to stop Texas turning into another Idaho or Pennsylvania yet the opposition faced in April 2029 was of a wholly different character for her militia than armed terror groups. They either were defeated where they stood or fell back into the city in disarray. Hundreds died while many more were taken prisoner.

Local geography limited the DAR in what they could do in the El Paso area. Taking the city in a direct fight wasn’t in the mission orders: getting to the side-by-side airport and army airfield on the other side was the goal. Fighting through the Franklin Mountains and then skirting along the suburban edges of El Paso to reach those objectives mean intense fighting and a lot of casualties. Texas civilians were caught up in that. Pierce’s lifting of previous tight restrictions on the use of firepower near to civilians didn’t mean that commanders on the ground were willing to blast homes with abandon: there had to be an overwhelming justifiable reason for such things. Still, there were innocents caught in the crossfire and through accidents. Outlying parts of the city soon went up in flames and the sights & noises of war so close to them terrified everyone else in El Paso with the idea of full-scale warfare being right on their own doorsteps too.

Biggs Army Airfield and El Paso International Airport, each wrecked by air & missile strikes ahead of capture, fell to the 3rd Armored Division. The Arizona Corps secured them and near-surrounded El Paso by their advance. A way out was left to the south, skirting the Mexican border, on purpose. Down through that avenue of escape went a mass of civilians who fled their homes. TXSG personnel went too. They had faced a curbstomp when engaging the DAR Army and wanted no more of that. Garner was off in distant Austin and through her adjutant general orders were sent for them to hold their ground and not give up an inch of Texas. Regardless of that mad instruction, the militia ran like so many civilians did. They had lost and wanted no more of the fight with an opponent which had stomped upon them like they were ants.

El Paso wasn’t occupied directly though. Firm instructions came for the 3rd Armored Division to not go in there no matter what. A small portion of Far West Texas was in DAR hands but not that city itself. Soldiers on the ground asked their superiors why that was the case, questions that had already been directed even further upwards the chain of command by those of higher rank. Fuller’s response was to remind them of the purpose of the war which they were fighting. It was one to secure the independence of their new country. Despite the fighting on the eastern side of the Rio Grande to inflict defeats upon US forces, the desire among the DAR leadership was for a ceasefire pending an end to the war on the DAR’s terms. A defeat had been inflicted upon US forces to show them that a continuation of the fight for the United States was impossible. Moving into El Paso was deemed to put an acceptance by President Mitchell in DC at risk. If those on the ground in the small slice of occupied Texas didn’t agree with that, they would just have to suck it up. There were bigger stakes at play.

[gillan1220]

Jul 11, 2021 15:58:34 GMT James G said:

There was meant to have been air cover available for those US forces fighting on the ground in the centre of New Mexico. Glow-worm had first targeted combat aircraft such as the F-22 and then F-35s (seeing them grounded) before moving to shut-down the radar control systems aboard E-3s to make those AWACS aircraft useless. There were still other fighters on-hand for Air Forces North assigned units, such as F-15s, F-16s & FA-18s, and AFNORTH also brought into play different AWACS aircraft to contest control of the skies. US Navy E-2s were flying from land bases while there were also NATO-crewed E-3s up as well. Those latter jets hadn’t been affected by Glow-worm as the US Air Force E-3s had. SecState Renzi and SecDef Darby had recently negotiated a deal with NATO partners across in Europe where eight of those aircraft – wearing the markings of Luxembourg while crewed by a multi-national force – had moved to Little Rock AFB in Arkansas and flew ‘non-combat missions’. They stayed a couple of hundred miles back while in-flight and used their NATO-compatible systems which the Americans used as well to aid the air war which the United States was fighting over its own territory. The deployment was a secret, something not out there in public neither in Europe nor in the United States. Those smaller E-2s, far from the decks of aircraft carriers, joined them when flying from several land bases across Kansas, Oklahoma & Texas.

So NATO is now indirectly involved in the fight against the DAR? I'm glad those NATO E-3s were not affected by the Glowworm.

[James G]

Jul 11, 2021 16:29:56 GMT gillan1220 said:

Jul 11, 2021 15:58:34 GMT James G said:

There was meant to have been air cover available for those US forces fighting on the ground in the centre of New Mexico. Glow-worm had first targeted combat aircraft such as the F-22 and then F-35s (seeing them grounded) before moving to shut-down the radar control systems aboard E-3s to make those AWACS aircraft useless. There were still other fighters on-hand for Air Forces North assigned units, such as F-15s, F-16s & FA-18s, and AFNORTH also brought into play different AWACS aircraft to contest control of the skies. US Navy E-2s were flying from land bases while there were also NATO-crewed E-3s up as well. Those latter jets hadn’t been affected by Glow-worm as the US Air Force E-3s had. SecState Renzi and SecDef Darby had recently negotiated a deal with NATO partners across in Europe where eight of those aircraft – wearing the markings of Luxembourg while crewed by a multi-national force – had moved to Little Rock AFB in Arkansas and flew ‘non-combat missions’. They stayed a couple of hundred miles back while in-flight and used their NATO-compatible systems which the Americans used as well to aid the air war which the United States was fighting over its own territory. The deployment was a secret, something not out there in public neither in Europe nor in the United States. Those smaller E-2s, far from the decks of aircraft carriers, joined them when flying from several land bases across Kansas, Oklahoma & Texas.

So NATO is now indirectly involved in the fight against the DAR? I'm glad those NATO E-3s were not affected by the Glowworm.

No... and yes.
It was a deployment to aid the defence of US airspace, like in 2001. Non combat it was meant to be. Two aircraft were then attacked and the deployment has gone awry.
Full NATO support is there for the US diplomatically but there is no direct involvement.

[Zyobot]

Jul 11, 2021 15:56:34 GMT James G said:

Jul 11, 2021 11:27:40 GMT Zyobot said:

I’ve a lot to catch up on, but based on what I understand thus far, let’s hope we don’t get Hitler and Stalin re-emerged sometime down the line. Even if they don’t come to power in the Divided States, they may very well seize it abroad, given my understanding of the trajectory this story has taken on.

Somewhat off-topic, but I can imagine that the small handful of living, at least semi-lucid Silent Generation members are distraught to see the world sliding back into the abyss, less than a hundred years after the last time it happened. To that end, some accounts from them, or even now addressed GI Generation members who foresaw trouble on the horizon during their final days, may be instructive. Hopefully, and assuming that America successfully rebuilds once this is all over, the Second Greatest Generation—or perhaps, Second Lost Generation, depending on how this goes—can keep those memories going for much longer than those who lived through World War Two were able to, for example.

There is a lot going on.
Pierce in the DAR is a dictator but hasn't gone full evil nor is likely too. Butterflies elsewhere in the world will have interesting effects.
America has been broken by all of this fighting. The real divide, the demonization of the other side, other Americans, will only get stronger. While the war happens and all those people die, others are still making political gains from it all too as they stir the pot for their own ends.

I see. Even if Pierce doesn't sink to the levels of various twentieth-century despots, though, I fear there's someone much less clement aiming to wrest control of the DAR and ramp up the ruthlessness accordingly. Only time will tell whether I'm right, however.

That, and even if there's no "Final Solution" imposed on "enemy Americans" under the other side's occupation, I still fear we're on track for the brutality and hatred seen during the Russian Civil War to materialize (albeit, with atrocities being somewhat more hidden, perhaps). Especially if one or both factions undergo a massive collapse, leading to a brief period of warlordism throughout the Divided States. I assume that NATO would neuter this as best they can, of course (even if, again, only time will tell for sure).

[gillan1220]

Jul 11, 2021 16:38:30 GMT James G said:

Jul 11, 2021 16:29:56 GMT gillan1220 said:

So NATO is now indirectly involved in the fight against the DAR? I'm glad those NATO E-3s were not affected by the Glowworm.

No... and yes.
It was a deployment to aid the defence of US airspace, like in 2001. Non combat it was meant to be. Two aircraft were then attacked and the deployment has gone awry.
Full NATO support is there for the US diplomatically but there is no direct involvement.

That means 8-10 European NATO personnel already died fighting in the Second American Civil War.

[Zyobot]

Trivial question, but I wonder what Kaiserreich America would make of TTL's take on a Second American Civil War? It may have broken out about a century later, but a few core issues that gave rise to both conflicts are still held in common (i.e. wealth inequality reminiscent of the Gilded Age), though there are otherwise key differences between them.

For one, there's a Hell of a lot of context Kaiserreich Americans would need, starting with the Entente victory and building up to the chain of events that prelude this. Add in the role that so much technological and social change plays in modern America's fault lines, and I doubt a quick explanation would really do things justice. But I digress.