Shanghaied - 2ACW

[James G]

MAR's fight for emergency citizenship is up next. Does anyone know where I can find simple, concise details on the US citizenship process?

[gillan1220]

Feb 3, 2021 6:54:03 GMT James G said:

MAR's fight for emergency citizenship is up next. Does anyone know where I can find simple, concise details on the US citizenship process?

How is she gonna fight that? The records already proved she wasn't born on U.S. soil. This timeline presents an even worse constitutional crisis since POTUS 45 refused to concede for three months.

[DavidR]

MAR would be a "DREAMer" under the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2011. The catch is that the DREAM Act is primarily a tool for granting permanent residence for aliens brought to the United States as minor children by their parents. However, there is a provision making subjects of the law eligible for citizenship if they have completed at least two years of university or served in the U.S. military. It looks like time already spent in the country counts toward the residence period needed for naturalization. It would require a constitutional amendment to make former DREAMers eligible for the presidency.

[James G]

Feb 3, 2021 8:06:01 GMT gillan1220 said:

Feb 3, 2021 6:54:03 GMT James G said:

MAR's fight for emergency citizenship is up next. Does anyone know where I can find simple, concise details on the US citizenship process?

How is she gonna fight that? The records already proved she wasn't born on U.S. soil. This timeline presents an even worse constitutional crisis since POTUS 45 refused to concede for three months.

There are two matters to fight. One is her citizenship status as she fears deportation; the other is the now-hopeless presidential effort.
It is a constitutional crisis but too many players are still doing petty party politics without seeing the danger.

Feb 3, 2021 14:28:49 GMT DavidR said:

MAR would be a "DREAMer" under the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2011. The catch is that the DREAM Act is primarily a tool for granting permanent residence for aliens brought to the United States as minor children by their parents. However, there is a provision making subjects of the law eligible for citizenship if they have completed at least two years of university or served in the U.S. military. It looks like time already spent in the country counts toward the residence period needed for naturalization. It would require a constitutional amendment to make former DREAMers eligible for the presidency.

Dreamer, that it is. Thank you. I knew there was something I was thinking of but couldn't put a finger on it.
Reading about it, the Dream Act never came into law. I've created a different version to address the matter but followed some of the guidelines.
No way is that happening! A constitution amendment needs Congress, plus the states, to come about. MAR is fighting on two fronts but they are linked.

[James G]

28 – P2C and Panda

Path to Citizenship (P2C) was part of the ‘Fair Immigration & Naturalisation for a Prosperous Future America Act’. Congress had passed that law back in 2025. The Republicans had taken President Walsh’s immigration and naturalisation proposals, which came from his ’24 campaign for the White House, and moulded them into a law because it aided their own long-term goals – a growing minority voter base – rather than suited the original proponents of reforms to address the matters of ‘Dreamers’.

Back in the Noughties and through the Teens, Dreamers had been identified as those brought to America as children illegally by their parents or guardians who later faced the risk of deportation when their immigration status was discovered. Presidents before Walsh had made efforts to settle the fate of Dreamers but he would claim credit for ‘settling the issue’. Through no fault of their own, their perceived American citizenship had been under serious threat. Much of the law concerned immigration rights but P2C was all about those Dreamers. There was an accelerated process which could be followed under P2C for those deemed to need to be naturalised for exceptional circumstances: public servants in the main but also first responders and carers. Those allowed to follow this particular process had to meet stringent criteria to see their naturalisation come faster than it would be granted to others. At least two references of special circumstances and exceedingly good character must come from notable citizens. Being married to an American citizen – even in a same-sex union: something the Republicans had bended on, just, at the last minute – was needed and so too was the requirement that a candidate had never committed a felony nor was under federal investigation for one at the time. The circumstances surrounding the bringing into the United States of the candidate as a child must be demonstrably true as well. There was a fee, a big one to be paid up front and non-returnable even in the event of rejection. Any failure on the accelerated process meant going to the very back of the queue among everyone else seeking the standard route and not having a second go at speeding everything up.

Maria Arreola Rodriquez had applied for the faster P2C in the aftermath of that Supreme Court case going against her. The risk, one publicised by political opponents, was that she could be deported from America ‘back’ to Mexico from where she had come as a newborn. Keeping up the fight to somehow end up as the next president was a different matter from the P2C process she was engaged in. She had a fine lawyer, a specialist in the process based in Sacramento who had successfully fought for the naturalisation of other Dreamers. Kelly Harris worked for MAR pro bono (she usually charged a small fortune) and pulled out all of the stops to make things go even faster than usual. The Mayor of San Francisco and the California regional director of a big children’s charity provided the necessary character references. Evidence of MAR’s public service in Congress was submitted along with her federal background check with regards to her never have being in legal trouble. MAR’s marriage was a matter of public record and then there was the story of how she became a Dreamer. For that, Harris submitted the case evidence from the Arreola Rodriquez vs. Florida suit where it was shown how MAR, her adoptive parents & almost everyone else had no knowledge of the white lie being told about her not being born in California. With the latter, the documents and the testimony, MAR’s wife raised with her how that might look: she was accepting the facts which the Supreme Court had used to deny her the presidency. Naturally, this was brought up with Harris but MAR’s lawyer, who was one of millions outraged at what had happened there, told her not to worry. It was a legal fiction as far as she was concerned and the particular details of P2C submissions weren’t open to public record after the fact.

The paperwork was submitted online on the first Monday in December 2028. Harris had a friend in the regional office of the USCIS who confirmed that it had been delivered along with the administrative fee too, one paid by MAR’s wife’s parents. Distracted and embarrassed Harris was at the time though. Maddie Chen, the blogger with a grudge who started all of this, and had fled to Canada, had turned her attention to MAR’s lawyer. She’d posted a video on her blog and it was a sex tape with Harris in it. The recording was several years old and Chen had been sent it anonymously, but she released it regardless. It was a horrible thing to do to someone. Chen wasn’t exactly nice though and she was still seeking to destroy MAR. Going after her enemy’s lawyer was seen as fair game to her. Harris’ most-private, intimate moments were all over the internet. None of this affected the P2C process though. It had begun. Harris told MAR that things could move very fast. President Walsh had made that promise to help in that phone-call and the Director of the USCIS was a Democrat who had once served in the US House alongside MAR with them having a positive acquaintanceship. Yet, hours later, the whole process came to a sudden stop.

Sidestepping the USCIS, an unexpected urgent hearing was sought by and granted to the Nevada District Attorney with the federal court’s Ninth Circuit. DA Babcock was currently going after State Assembly Speaker Ashby in Nevada as part of a personal feud which now concerned alleged sedition against the government. She moved to obstruct the very stages of MAR’s naturalisation effort in what gave the initial appearance as being far beyond her reach but was granted a remote hearing because she convinced the court that this was urgent. Neither Harris nor her client heard about it until afterwards. The good character submission was challenged by Babcock as being false. Her reasoning was that MAR was currently engaged in a seditious conspiracy against the United States and the Nevada DA office considered her as an unindicted co-conspirator in that. The federal judge, a Republican appointee back from 2019, asked for evidence and that Babcock could provide. There was a video/text messenger app called Panda. It was Chinese and Panda’s launch in the United States had been negatively impacted as it came right before the Taiwan Conflict. Ashby was using it for what the DA’s office believed was coordination of criminal acts and MAR was one of those with whom she was communicating in secret. Panda, like the bigger and better known communication apps in widespread public use, used secure end-to-end encryption. Babcock told that judge that they were using that app because it wasn’t US-based – nor in friendly countries either – and there was little chance of interception by the government. While nowhere near enough for a conviction, let alone Babcock being able to empanel a grand jury against MAR on this, MAR was under investigation as the DA’s office sought a manner to see what was in those messages. She mentioned to that there were others too – no names were given but she gave hints – whom she considered to be part of her investigation into all of this. What was asked for was an urgent stop to the P2C process which MAR had just got started with. That judge granted it, sealing the specific details of why but allowing for MAR’s lawyer to be informed of the outlines.

Harris, and then her client, were knocked for six when told the sparse details that they were of all of this. It didn’t take much imagination to understand what it was about when the name ‘Babcock’ as the DA involved came up. MAR was furious. She’d been told by Walsh that he wouldn’t impede her efforts to not be deported, even if he couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen eventually after he left office. That district attorney wouldn’t be doing such a thing if she didn’t have the backing of someone in Washington: fingers there pointed at the Attorney General. He wasn’t someone who favoured MAR’s political positions and continuing efforts to reach the White House. Harris asked her if she was in contact with Ashby and said that whatever MAR told her would be attorney-client privilege but MAR refused to say. Not beaten, despite her client not being helpful, Harris moved to lodge an appeal with the Ninth Circuit. This wasn’t over as far as she saw it.


Less than a hundred thousand Americans were using Panda at the end of 2028. It wasn’t banned yet had no popular appeal due to the app’s origins. The messaging service was regarded as completely secure though, even from the Chinese government. Vice President Padley had been the first to tell her contacts out West to install it on their phones. Ashby, McCleary, Pierce and others had done so with MAR only doing so in the days before she started the P2C process. The reason for doing so was security. Padley had Secret Service people with her – she could ask them to leave the room when talking to people but couldn’t dismiss them – and she knew all about the ability of the federal government to find ways around the encryption on other services whether they be of United States, European or Israeli origin. Panda was mentioned in a classified security briefing paper she’d read before leaving Washington for what she regarded as good as being uncrackable. How else were she and California’s governor going to manage the formation of a New America if they couldn’t communicate in secret?

Senate Majority Leader Green and House Speaker Fraser, those two Republicans who controlled Congress, were made aware of the use of Panda by Ashby, the vice president and others right ahead of that legal intervention by Babcock. They received an off-the-record briefing by the Attorney General who was aghast at Walsh’s inaction when at attempt at insurrection and succession were underway. They spoke with other Republicans, then President-elect Roberts too, about all of this. The subject of impeaching Padley was discussed: even after January when she was a private citizen. They would get her, Pierce and all of those involved to see them sent to prison if necessary. It was agreed that West America was a concept that would never get off the ground – they all knew it wouldn’t work – yet that didn’t mean that they were ignoring it. When they were talking with Roberts, those leadership figures were told that there was some more interesting news coming out of the West the same day. The 47th President, Walsh’s predecessor who he had successfully primaried back in 2024, was leaving California. She wasn’t taking a vacation but rather packing up and leaving. She was doing so because she considered what was happening to be outrageous with senior public officials plotting to break away from the United States and there was no part of that she wanted to be involved with. Even being in her residence at her private home in California was seen by her to be giving tacit approval. Always the dramatic figure, they agreed to make use of that. Green and Fraser were following a strategy of making public attacks against the New America / West America idea where they would shame those trying to go down that route in the media. This news about the previous Democratic president was only good as far as they were concerned. They hoped she would say what she was reportedly saying in private in public too. It could only benefit their party.

Up in Colorado, a joint operation was conducted by the ATF and the FBI against a Black Liberation Army cell operating in the Denver area. The BLA was a disunited, often internally violent, terror group and a tip about the activities of half a dozen members stockpiling guns and explosives in a house outside Denver came from an internal enemy with the BLA. Surveillance and electronic intelligence had shown the information to hold water and so a raid was launched. Those BLA members were looking likely to make an attack – target unknown – and thus the effort was made to forestall that. Things went wrong. A small error was compounded by a larger following one. The BLA met the forces of the federal government with all they could muster. Bullets flew in every direction and there were small explosions all across a usually quiet suburb. Reinforcements came for the ATF-FBI task force and they overcame that resistance in the end where they made arrests and captured illegal weaponry. There was a cost though with two dead federal agents and twice as many more BLA members. The local media had been tipped off and the mass shoutout was broadcast across Colorado and the country too. Plentiful negative comment came in the aftermath at the use of force employed by the federal government, ignoring the weapons haul and the clear intend of those whom they had engaged.

Carville spoke to CNN. The African-American former senator, who would have run alongside Walsh four years beforehand had it not been for that sex scandal which stymied that, made use of the opportunity he was given. He was no supporter of the BLA nor in the past a critic of the federal use of force against terrorists. His recent conversion to the cause of New America / West America threw all of that history out of the window though. He told Washington to ‘stop murdering people of color’. The interviewer was dumbstruck for a further remark… though not for long. Carville got to once more to talk about how he wanted to see Colorado join with others in the West in no longer being part of a nation which allowed for things like this to happen unchecked. No longer was he just a ‘nobody’ as the vice president-elect had called him, not with a public stage that that interview, and more to come, gave him to tell the country of what the future could hold.

On his phone, Carville had the Panda app. Incoming messages from contacts, where they could communicate without interception, flooded in after that CNN broadcast.

[James G]

29 – Clutching at straws

The presidential campaign team of Maria Arreola Rodriquez hadn’t disbanded. Instead, those who’d fought for her to get elected, paid staff primarily but also still many volunteers, were now part of her transition team. Such a thing was fast becoming the butt of jokes among comedians with gags on television and the internet about the apparent presidential transition they were meant to be overseeing. That wasn’t happening. It was impossible yet there were those still working towards that wholly unattainable goal. All fifty states, plus the District of Columbia, had certified their election results including Florida, which changed theirs from the victor being MAR to Edward Roberts instead. The Electoral College was yet to meet though and there were still ongoing efforts underway by MAR’s supporters to see that body hand the presidency to her. They were clutching at straws with such schemes to see EC votes send MAR to the White House in January 2029. There was no way that it was possible… yet try they did.

Maine and Washington, two Blue states at opposite ends of the country, had each voted overwhelmingly for MAR on November 7th. Both split their votes for the presidency though using the results from congressional districts and the combined state-wide count. Maine was awarding three votes to MAR and one to Roberts; Washington was giving eight to the Democrats’ candidate and four to the Republicans’ candidate. Attempts were underway to try to find a way in which to have those five Electoral College votes for Roberts go to MAR instead. Getting those who would cast them to become faithless electors was the goal. The two states had laws which voided any vote by a faithless elector rather than allowed it to go through. MAR’s transition team were aware of that yet hoped that having five votes voided would aid their efforts at chipping away at Roberts’ lead in the EC count. There were legal challenges underway in the Purple states of Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Each of them – with nine and nineteen EC votes respectively – to overturn Roberts’ wins in the two and reverse certification for MAR instead: this concerned polling day suppression efforts which were alleged to have happened in Minneapolis and Philadelphia. In terms of numbers, if all of that worked, including the voiding of five votes, MAR would win the Electoral College 267 to 266. A tight victory would be a victory nonetheless.

This was all full of holes though. Those Republican electors in Maine & Washington weren’t ordinary citizens but committed members of their party. There was a reason they were chosen, especially in those two (of three) states where the winner-take-all method wasn’t used. They weren’t going to change their minds when presented with Democratic Party pressure on them! As to the cases before the state supreme courts in Minnesota & Pennsylvania, they were getting nowhere. Friendly judges had been used by the MAR transition team to get the suits as far as they were yet there were at the top of the legal pyramid in the pair of state Republican-appointed judges. Even the most clever legal arguments weren’t about to win that day. Still, the efforts were being made. A victory was being sought to avert the wrong done in the United States Supreme Court and the theft of the election by the Republicans. Only the complicated manner of electing a president which America had, through their indirect election, allowed this to continue as long as it did.

The Republicans were playing their own counter games with the Electoral College too. There were efforts being made to expand upon the 299 total which Roberts was certain to be given in the EC. His transition team – doing real work, not living in a dream world – was officially not part of that yet not obstructing what was happening. There were five serious challenges underway in state supreme courts arguing against the certifications in selected Blue states. The suits filed argued that the US Supreme Court, the highest legal body in the land, had declared that MAR was an illegal alien and illegible to be president. Therefore, any votes which she had won in other states should be treated as those cast in Florida: rejected and thrown in the trash. Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New York and Virginia were all fighting back against this attempt to see tens of millions of their citizens effectively disenfranchised and for the minority of voters in their states to decide which electors would be sent to the EC. The courts in those five states, with 82 EC votes at stake, weren’t going to see recertification allowed though, not when the benches consisted of a majority of Democrat appointed judges. The Republicans were themselves clutching at straws here. Many of them knew that too. They wanted to keep the Democrats busy though… and see what could come of it all for their own benefit.


As those court cases continued into December, the growing problem out West for the Democrats continued. The majority of the party had moved on from their anger at the stolen presidential election and refocused on what was happening to their party as members from the states in the West sought to tear it, and the country too, apart. There was no support from the party establishment for those games being tried with impossible Electoral College changes because of what was seen as the out of control movement for succession. The hypocrisy of their colleagues fighting with one hand to overturn an unfair election result while at the same time being engaged in sedition, insurrection even, on the other made many furious. They watched the Republicans making the most out of it all and considered how – after this New America / West America fell flat on its face as it was sure to – voters would react come the 2030 and ’32 elections. The likelihood of retaking the US House (the Senate was far out of reach) and then regaining the White House was being fatally damaged every minute that what was happening out West continued. Democrats in Middle America, and especially in the East, raged at their useless president’s inaction too. He was off travelling the world while this was going on! On that prospective Cabinet list which MAR had released to the public without any consultation with the Democratic National Committee nor the Congressional leadership, there were two significant party figures from the East named. None of them would have gotten a Cabinet spot if the party establishment had had their say but, regardless, they were wooed by the DNC chairperson and the House Minority Leader into ‘coming onside’. That they did, in public too. MAR’s announced picks for Energy & Treasury Secretaries released statements which denounced her (alleged) participation in what they called illegal succession and said they would never serve alongside her in any official role whatsoever. Calls were made to members of MAR’s so-called transition team. Those who had previously worked for the party in an official capacity, and those who had sought to, all with the intention of doing so in the future, were told that they never would again should they continue to stay with that fantasy incoming administration.

Elected Democrats in the eight Blue states of the West – Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon & Washington – started to receive calls from and be greeted by personal visitors from the party establishment. There were all those senators, congressmen/women, governors, state elected officials and legislative members who hadn’t spoken out in support of what McCleary had openly talked of and Padley & Pierce were pushing for. They hadn’t openly opposed it either though and that was what was important. All were told the cost of what the failure to stand with the rest of the party would be for them once ‘McCleary’s stupid dream’ fell flat. They would have no future in the party and would face future primary challengers who’d get funding diverted to them. Now, not later on, was the time for them to come out in opposition or face the repercussions down the line. Murrow coordinated this though the DNC chair had the full backing of a great deal of the party in doing what he did. With an eye on returning to Congress in 2030 – he’d been previously a congressman in Maryland and wanted to go for a likely open Senate seat back there –, the idea of being the man responsible for ‘putting down an insurrection’ appealed to him. He pulled no punches in what he did. While good was done, the style it was undertaken in, didn’t win over all that he believed it would though. There wasn’t the expected widespread tugging of forelocks when His Master’s Voice made the necessary call for obedience and loyalty.

The New York Times ran a full front page piece denouncing what was happening out West. In an op-ed which was above & below the fold, that national newspaper declared that the United States was sleepwalking into another civil war due to what was happening. Pictures of MAR, McCleary, Padley and Pierce were alongside one another with the editor’s attack made against what the four of them were at the forefront of. Criticism of the Walsh Administration came too with claims of inaction: the opinion piece laid into the Republicans as well as it accused them of playing with fire by scoring petty partisan points as the nation stood at a precipice of a repeat of the last time the country was at war with itself. There was a savagery of the character of the principles involved. They were called exclusionary on the basis of where they resided and believing that those lived elsewhere weren’t worthy of being a part of what they claimed they wanted to build: why couldn’t they make this New America a nationwide reality instead of a dream in the West? Taking one hundred and eleven Electoral College votes out of the Democrats’ cupboard for future elections, removing the same number of Members of Congress from serving all Americans, taking wealth & resources away and putting the lives of tens at millions at risk was what the op-ed accused them of trying to do with their succession plans. There was a real anger, the newspaper acknowledged, at what had happened with the Supreme Court believing a pack of lies about the circumstances of MAR’s birth (the New York Times was one of many media outlets who’d refused to believe she was a Mexican national by birth), but the op-ed declared that this attempt at running away from the responsibilities that those out West had as Americans because of that was morally bankrupt. As the DNC chair was doing, the newspaper called for Democrats in the West to stop being silent. Be patriotic, they were told, and stand up for the United States of America.


Days after an unexpected halt was put on her attempt to gain emergency naturalisation through an accelerated Path to Citizenship process, details of what MAR’s lawyer submitted as evidence to see that occur were leaked. How Harris used the evidence which the Supreme Court had done in Arreola Rodriquez vs. Florida was put into the public sphere. Just as MAR’s wife had tried to caution her, the impression given was that MAR was admitting that that was all true. That was just not what was needed at that time. MAR had already announced that her Path to Citizenship was being blocked and that had brought with it public outcry all across the country. Protests were taking place, generally of a non-violent character, and McCleary had made another widely-broadcast speech where she used the action undertaken by the federal government as part of her defences for the idea of New America. Dreamers would get immediate citizenship, no questions asked, in the country which she hoped to build. Commentators could, and did, point to how MAR regarded what she had called a lie to be now true. One of her transition team’s senior people – who’d just told one of Murrow’s surrogates where to stick the sunshine internally following the suggestion she resign – explained that that was all a legal fiction. Coming straight back were remarks that ‘legal fiction’ meant ‘lies’… and it was therefore only correct that a block was put on MAR’s efforts at rapid naturalisation if she was willing to lie to the government. She couldn’t win there.

After his impromptu worldwide trip, President Walsh returned home. He had gone from the Middle East onwards to Singapore first and then to Canberra for short stops in each. Talking with American allies there about the situation with China’s recent violent actions against the Vietnamese in the South China Sea, the main subject at hand had been the recent unannounced, but real, Chinese-Indonesian defence pact. Beijing and Jakarta were allies. Singapore, Australia and many others were gravely concerned about the future. Walsh shared the worry they had about what they would all mean in the coming years, but, as a lame duck with certainly no influence in how the next administration would address the matter, couldn’t offer allies any more than words of friendship and a hope for a turnaround in the geo-political situation in the future. Touching down at Andrews AFB, Walsh flew by Marine One to the White House. The Attorney General was waiting for him as instructed. Clayton Underwood cut a worryingly-looking figure when Walsh met with him. The man was clearly ill. Walsh had built up a lot of anger when flying across the globe at things which were happening back home which he blamed on Underwood yet he didn’t let that all out when seeing the man in person. After shaking hands, as was the president’s fashion, he asked after Underwood’s health and the Attorney General told him that he was just a bit under the weather. They got to the point of their meeting. The Justice Department needed to exercise better control over their district attorneys, Walsh told him: the one out in Nevada especially. Underwood buckled at the suggestion that wasn’t the case. He informed Walsh that Babcock there was doing his bidding in investigating sedition and a conspiracy to bring about succession: what could only be of great harm to the country. Walsh wanted things done differently though, not causing as many problems as it was. Underwood countered that he wanted to go even further. All that was happening had to be stamped out, hard too, less it got worse.

Tired, the president told him that they would meet again the next day and discuss the matter further. Walsh suggested that Underwood get some rest just like he intended to do. Off to see his family in the East Wing of the White House Walsh went after that. His wife and children hadn’t gone with him on such a long trip full of meetings after meetings. They had dinner together and Walsh also popped back across to the West Wing to see his chief-of-staff & press secretary on a matter concerning the transition with the incoming Roberts Administration. He was on his way back to the East Wing when his principal agent, the US Secret Service protective lead, stopped him in a hallway. They had to stay where they were: they couldn’t move. The whole building was going into lockdown, into individual isolated sections. Naturally, Walsh wanted to know what was happening. Relaying what he heard in his earpiece, the president’s lead agent said the word ‘Zeppelin’.

[James G]

Anyone want guess what Zeppelin is?

Clue: comes from the Rodina by way of a military base in Maryland.

[gillan1220]

Feb 5, 2021 9:43:42 GMT James G said:

Anyone want guess what Zeppelin is?

Clue: comes from the Rodina by way of a military base in Maryland.

Is it a nuke? Holy fuck.

Lastly, I would not expect the Indonesians to ally with the PRC since Indonesia has been aggressive in protecting the Natuna Islands from Chinese incursions. 

I feel sorry for President Walsh. He just came home from a long way home only to be told something dangerous is happening.

[exilarchia]

Feb 5, 2021 9:43:42 GMT James G said:

Anyone want guess what Zeppelin is?

Clue: comes from the Rodina by way of a military base in Maryland.

The AIA took over a military base and managed to get a WMD which is traced back to Russia?

[jedicommisar]

Feb 5, 2021 9:43:42 GMT James G said:

Anyone want guess what Zeppelin is?

Clue: comes from the Rodina by way of a military base in Maryland.

I'm going to some part of the NBC Triangle, likely either the C (Chemical) or the B (Biological)

[James G]

Feb 5, 2021 10:19:42 GMT gillan1220 said:

Feb 5, 2021 9:43:42 GMT James G said:

Anyone want guess what Zeppelin is?

Clue: comes from the Rodina by way of a military base in Maryland.

Is it a nuke? Holy fuck.

Lastly, I would not expect the Indonesians to ally with the PRC since Indonesia has been aggressive in protecting the Natuna Islands from Chinese incursions. 

I feel sorry for President Walsh. He just came home from a long way home only to be told something dangerous is happening.

A nuke would be something special but I already laid the seed for this beforehand in a previous update. Walsh shook hands with his AG. The man was ill. End result: very bad.
With Indonesia, I'm thinking that defence pact is rather one-sided. It is China stamping its will and regional powers, backing down rather than fighting. Perhaps you are right and it is impossible but this 2028 in the TL is a crazy time.
Walsh is not a bad guy. Everyone seems to hate him and he makes grave errors - the air campaign over Taiwan which spiralled in almost WW3 - but he is doing what he can in a terrible world.

Feb 5, 2021 14:17:37 GMT exilarchia said:

The AIA took over a military base and managed to get a WMD which is traced back to Russia?

Close indeed!
Update 11 on page three.
(Welcome to Alternate Timelines by the way!)

Feb 5, 2021 14:28:01 GMT jedicommisar said:

I'm going to some part of the NBC Triangle, likely either the C (Chemical) or the B (Biological)

'B' it is. If we thought Covid in the White House in 2020 was bad, now we have what is below... far, far worse.

[James G]

30 – Zeppelin protocols

CIA Moscow Station undertook the ‘Balashikha caper’ in the summer of 2024. Agents of theirs operating under non-official cover, outsiders not from the embassy with any form of diplomatic cover, worked with a Russian national to gain entry to one of the most secure & secret sites inside the Russian Federation. From a supposed unimportant training facility for Russia’s FSB, that traitor to his country infiltrated and stole from a vault secret contents. He was afterwards exfilled out of his homeland to a new life in the United States but ahead of him went what he taken which went out in the diplomatic bag. There were thirty-nine pairs of samples of the purest form of covert biological weapons which Russia had manufactured and stored. These were synthetic germs, created in a laboratory, and not in any way naturally occurring. It was Novichok samples that had been stored just outside Moscow in that military town. Replacing them with saline water, it was anticipated by the CIA that at some point in the future, the Russians would find out. From that storage site they would issue poisons unknown to the outside world to the different intelligence services (not just the FSB) which operated on behalf of the state. They’d find out something was up. They wouldn’t know when and by who the germs had been taken though. Moreover, it would throw their whole bio-weapons programme into chaos as personnel were interviewed and they would have to start again in making countless germs considering that someone else had their hands on the ones which they had and would be working on ways to counter them. It was more than two years before the Russians did find out. As the CIA predicted, there was uproar within their intelligence communities. They were able to work out who stole from them – the agents on the ground and the CIA having him do it – faster than the Americans thought, but by them the United States had long been studying those germs.

The bio-weapons programme which the Russian Federation had inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union – Biopreparat – was illegal. Regardless, it was an active undertaking and had been repeatedly put to use. Russia had used germs to strike at people all over the world. There were famous examples – the Ukrainian president in 2004, a defector (plus his daughter and innocent civilians) in the UK in ‘18, a regime opponent in ’20 and the Belarussian president in ’23 – of Russia doing this. At the same time, many other attacks, at home and abroad, went unreported. Each time, just as when they used radiation poisoning instead of germs, Russia denied doing so. Accusations were turned back around against those making them. The germs kept on being manufactured though and put to use when Russia felt the need to do so. Having pure samples of so many of those bio-weapons gave the Americans, and when they shared some of the results of the Balashikha caper with select allies, assistance in combatting this ongoing global form of asymmetrical warfare. They could react when the germs were employed because they would have knowledge of what they were dealing with. There was the additional ability to look again at suspected Russian poisoning efforts made in the past and either confirm or reject the notion that they might have been done by Moscow.


In September 2028, one of those germ samples was once more stolen. This time it was from Fort Detrick in Maryland where one deemed ‘RF-187’ by the Americans (Russian codename unknown) was taken. The US Government had feared the Russians were trying to get what was theirs back yet it had been the American Insurgent Army who had committed that theft out of somewhere which should have been just as secure as Balashikha was meant to have been. Stories about the operation in Russia four years beforehand had been legendary within the US Intelligence Community – talked about when it shouldn’t have been – and one of the leading people within the AIA was a former Defence Intelligence Agency overseas operative. He’d heard about what was at Fort Detrick and, working with others who had the capability to commit such an act, the AIA ended up getting their hands on a weapon of mass destruction. The Omaha Bombing had happened soon afterwards. A mix-up on the ground over weapons effects from the fuel-air bomb employed to attack (and ultimately kill) the Democrat’s vice presidential candidate – plus one hundred and eight other people – saw panic in Washington with the fear that the AIA has employed that germ. That hadn’t been the case. What had been stolen in Balashikha, then once again in Maryland, were assassination tools. They were designed to get into the body and kill: there were almost negligible effects when mixed with explosives. A leak had come when Washington panicked over the attack against DaJuan Anderson with the fear that there had been the use of bio-weapons on American soil. Into the public sphere came details of the Balashikha caper alongside the bigger news about that immense casualty-causing bomb. In return, from Moscow had come that statement attacking American lies about them manufacturing banned weapons: they could hardly admit the truth of the whole thing. As to the news that it was suspected that a terror group such as the AIA had their hands on such a weapon, that brought about a lot of panic and dread at the time. It hadn’t been forgotten about afterwards, just pushed to the back of many people’s minds. Seemingly every day on the news during late 2028 there was something shocking and alarming happening.

No one at the top of the US Government had forgotten about what the AIA had in their hands though. They suspected that those terrorists were plotting to use RF-187 for its designed purpose: targeted assassinations. President Walsh was presumed to be at the very top of the target list considering the AIA ideology was about fighting what they believed was ‘totalitarian government oppression’. Yet, it was assumed too that there would surely be others that the AIA were gunning for. When they shot the Homeland Security Secretary up in Michigan, her body was afterwards treated as a bio-hazard. That ended when the round itself was recovered some distance from where Arguello fell dead and it wasn’t found to be tipped with poison as one hypothesis had been. Such was the scale of the thinking out of the box in Washington about those germs such as RF-187. They were looking at all possibilities for the AIA to make use of what they had. Around the president, his ‘difficult’ vice president who had decamped to California, and dozens upon dozens of other VIPs, there was a guard against more traditional uses of poisons. While it was theoretically possible to dip a bullet in one of those Novichok germs, the easiest way to get one such as RF-187 into a target was through food or drink consumed by that person. Studying several of those germs at Fort Detrick, the Americans had found that some had a short ‘shelf-life’ in the body while others had the ability to mutate and infect other people via body fluids including sweat. RF-187 was one of the latter: it could be used to target more than just one person and the initial ‘assassin’ could be an innocent victim used to get close to those sought for murder.


Clayton Underwood collapsed at home several hours after leaving the White House on December 6th.

The Attorney General’s wife was a retired doctor and knew at once something was seriously wrong with her husband. She had no idea about RF-187 though and was at first confused, then terrified, when the Secret Service agents on his detail started to treat his convulsing body as a bio-hazard. They were making radio calls saying they had a possible ‘Zeppelin situation’. She just wanted to save his life but they wouldn’t let her. Their house was locked down with the agents following Zeppelin protocols, ones which the Secret Service had briefed all of their personnel on protective details all about several months beforehand. The AG’s wife, the agents, and others in the house at the time were all possible poisoning victims too. While there was a wait on for specialist medical personnel, Underwood was left in his kitchen alone where he died without his wife at his side as she wished. No one was allowed near him unless they were fully protected in bio-warfare suits. The Zeppelin protocols were about more than just him though. A three day window was what American biological weapons scientists said was the timeframe for the effects of RF-187 to come into play. During that time, back as far as the easiest moment when he could have been poisoned, everywhere he had been needed to be treated as a possible site of bio contamination. Moreover, everyone he had been in close physical contact with, plus who they themselves had been in contact with and where they had been (it only went two ‘hops’ back), was now going to be treated in the same manner as those in the AG’s Washington family home.

Test-and-trace on a massive scale was going to be needed to be done. The Secret Service was ready to do that though. The planning was there and the ability to do it was held ready. Underwood first had to be checked for RF-187 traces yet those agents who had seen him on the kitchen floor knew he had been poisoned with: all had read those scary briefing papers. They also knew full well where he had been before he had come home and died.

He’d been with President Walsh in the Oval Office.

[gillan1220]

Feb 5, 2021 18:22:54 GMT James G said:

A nuke would be something special but I already laid the seed for this beforehand in a previous update. Walsh shook hands with his AG. The man was ill. End result: very bad.
With Indonesia, I'm thinking that defence pact is rather one-sided. It is China stamping its will and regional powers, backing down rather than fighting. Perhaps you are right and it is impossible but this 2028 in the TL is a crazy time.
Walsh is not a bad guy. Everyone seems to hate him and he makes grave errors - the air campaign over Taiwan which spiralled in almost WW3 - but he is doing what he can in a terrible world.

Just terrible. Now Walsh has been infected and now the White House isn't the safest place in the world. Walsh will be a very controversial figure known for making China makes its point it could not be stopped. How heavy was the short Sino-American conflict? I need a recap besides the 2 carriers and 1 B-2 that crashed in Shanghai. That's gonna be a biggest humiliation since Vietnam.

[James G]

Feb 5, 2021 18:37:59 GMT gillan1220 said:

Feb 5, 2021 18:22:54 GMT James G said:

A nuke would be something special but I already laid the seed for this beforehand in a previous update. Walsh shook hands with his AG. The man was ill. End result: very bad.
With Indonesia, I'm thinking that defence pact is rather one-sided. It is China stamping its will and regional powers, backing down rather than fighting. Perhaps you are right and it is impossible but this 2028 in the TL is a crazy time.
Walsh is not a bad guy. Everyone seems to hate him and he makes grave errors - the air campaign over Taiwan which spiralled in almost WW3 - but he is doing what he can in a terrible world.

Just terrible. Now Walsh has been infected and now the White House isn't the safest place in the world. Walsh will be a very controversial figure known for making China makes its point it could not be stopped. How heavy was the short Sino-American conflict? I need a recap besides the 2 carriers and 1 B-2 that crashed in Shanghai. That's gonna be a biggest humiliation since Vietnam.

*There is no confirmation yet that he is infected*
I should have written more of that conflict. It was forty hours long in Jan 2027.

Sort of the order it went in my head:
USN carrier aircraft and USAF jets from Okinawa went to 'clear' the skies over Taiwan to give the ROC a fighting chance. The Chinese fought back in the air then launched ICBMs against three carriers with two hits from non-explosive warheads achieved on a pair of carriers. Chinese warships were at that point under USN air attack with major losses incurred to destroyers, frigates and amphibious ships. The US upped the ante with B-2 raids over China and mass firing of Tomahawks into the mainland against military targets. Three B-2s went down: the other two were not as visible as the near intact one outside of Shanghai. An American sub sunk a Chinese carrier as well. Chinese MRBMs - non-nuclear warheads - hit military bases on Guam and Wake Island. Chinese aircraft struck at a US amphibious group coming out of Okinawa, hitting many ships full of US Marines. More Tomahawk launches against China came where at least one Ohio-class SSGN sent its entire 150+ load of missiles all at once against Chinese targets. The USN had more submarine success against Chinese naval forces but there were a lot of vessels at sea and they couldn't get them all.
Japan, South Korea and others were in uproar at the fear China would attack US bases in their country. The Americans were prepared to have to try to defend Hawaii and Alaska, even California, from long-range Chinese missile attack. Walsh feared nuclear war, so did the Chinese leadership. A deal was struck through Seoul's intervention to have a ceasefire. Neither lost and it could be argued China got it worse, but most Americans believe they lost: Taiwan is also completely in Chinese hands as the ceasefire didn't stop the finishing of the takeover.  

[simon darkshade]

You may want to slightly rework the missile hits on USN carriers, given the issues China would have in effectively targeting their bogeyman missiles; there is an interesting article on the subject in the Arsenal Ship thread. A submarine attack or a really massed missile attack from submarines and aircraft might get the necessary result or might not. Your overall war concept is quite good and wouldn't be significantly changed by slightly altering exactly how the carriers are hit.