Shanghaied - 2ACW

[James G]

Feb 6, 2021 10:20:58 GMT simon darkshade said:

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.

I just had a read through. The overconfidence is concerning but probably true, at least at this stage.
I had the idea in my mind of RORSATs - an idea trashed by the article - then DF-26s fired in multiple waves. Each ICBM with many warheads launched from the missile-bus would then act in a flechette fashion with their own payloads. Those would be metal rods (something tough) fired in canister shot fashion from the warheads. In theory, a large patch of water could be blanketed by small Rods From God coming down fast enough to do enough damage to a targeted carrier: try hitting them with a wave of SM-6s!
Part of me wants to write a short piece on that conflict, but the problems of doing it are many. Six years in the future could bring many tech innovations, even this mad idea of mine, but then again it could not.
What the focus for me story-wise was the 'defeat' itself incurred. A massive cop-out, yes I know.  

[simon darkshade]

That idea presents a few problems.

You really, really do not want to fire ICBMs or even IRBMs in waves; the other side might not think “Oh, they are just conventional. We won’t react at all.”

Secondly, there would need to be a lot of RORSATs to provide coverage,
Rods from God has been fairly effectively debunked as a workable weapon and we run into the issue of the carrier moving after the missiles are launched and are on a ballistic path.

Overall, you can get your result of two carriers lost or damaged with a combination hit of more conventional weapons.

[James G]

Feb 6, 2021 12:56:36 GMT simon darkshade said:

That idea presents a few problems.

You really, really do not want to fire ICBMs or even IRBMs in waves; the other side might not think “Oh, they are just conventional. We won’t react at all.”

Secondly, there would need to be a lot of RORSATs to provide coverage,
Rods from God has been fairly effectively debunked as a workable weapon and we run into the issue of the carrier moving after the missiles are launched and are on a ballistic path.

Overall, you can get your result of two carriers lost or damaged with a combination hit of more conventional weapons.

Yep, problems aplenty there. I can understand fully your reasoning.

[James G]

31 – Lockdown

Taken from the corridor in which he was, President Walsh was flown away from the White House by Marine One. His principal protective agent went with him in the helicopter which took the two of them to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre. Other Secret Service personnel were – like those on the helicopter, plus the US Marines flying it – all wearing bio-hazard suits. There was a presidential suite at Walter Reed out in Maryland waiting for him. Doctors (adorned like everyone else to protect themselves) moved to get Walsh into there while his bodyguard was transferred elsewhere. There was one ward ready for that agent along with plenty of other people from the White House and the AG’s residence who were going to get the same treatment as the president was. The White House was subsequently put into lockdown. It was a scene of biological contamination from the business end in the West Wing to the residential East Wing. Every inch of it needed to be tested for possible traces of the germ suspected to have been used and then thoroughly deep cleaned: that would include Marine One as well, though were many other helicopters. From the White House, the locations to where bio-hazard teams from the Department of Homeland Security (under its acting head) were sent along with Secret Service coordinators spread across the District of Columbia and then out into both Maryland and Virginia too. The AG’s house and his office at the Justice Department were just the start. The secure parking garage where his official government car had been was sealed off. The apartment of one of his top aides was sealed when his body was discovered inside. All of the places where those people judged to be at risk of contamination, a list which was growing rapidly, had been within a three day window needed to be checked and cleaned. This included a hotel room down in Alexandria used for an extra-marital liaison too. Vehicles and public spaces joined the list of buildings. Inside the latter, there were not just offices and bedrooms but kitchens, bathrooms, studies, hallways, garages, staircases, elevators, lobbies and security centres. Dressed in white with breathing apparatus attached, teams of men and women were all over a wide area stretching as far as Washington Dulles Airport… and then on from there via an aircraft all the way to Chicago. Trace elements of RF-187 were being picked up in only a few locations. Yet there was a massive search at countless possible further sites for them. The consequences of missing them, repeating what happened in the UK back in 2018 when a bio-weapon was used there, were too fearful to ignore.

The number of people eventually deemed to be at risk of having possible exposure to that germ totalled out at four hundred and sixty-five. It could only be passed on from the initial victim, identified as that dead aide to Underwood, to a limited number of people who, as the chain went on, then could possibly infect fewer people each time. The large number came about from where those people in the 465 total had been though: breathing the same air as others and likely touching items & surfaces which they had. Rather than lowball the number, caution was employed and the highest number of potential infected was set. Those on the list were a wide range of public figures as well as those far from the public eye. The First Lady went to Walter Reed as a patient and so did the two teenage boys which she and Walsh had. The youngest of them was fourteen with his brother being a sexually-active nineteen year-old. Right before the Zeppelin protocols came into effect, Walsh’s eldest had been in that hotel room with a married woman almost a decade older than he was. They had already ‘exchanged bodily fluids’. This put her as one of the 465, which would at once cause emotional strain for her family when the reason why that was the case came out. Walsh was at Walter Reed with many of his staff from the White House as well as those family members. His chief-of-staff, press secretary and National Security Advisor were also taken in for isolation, observation and possible emergency medical intervention. Tests were ran on them like Walsh for signs of RF-187 yet that germ, unlike other ones stolen from Russia which the United States had its hands only supposedly secure at Fort Detrick, took some time to be detected in the body. There were few outward signs until it began to do its deadly work. The AG and his aide were dead and Underwood’s wife was also infected. There was no cure for RF-187. Civilian and medical doctors with the president were ready to intervene with some experimental treatment but the hope was that they wouldn’t have to. It wasn’t certain that Underwood could have infected Walsh after he been himself. There would be a wait to find out if that was the case.


Co-ordinating the investigation was the Secret Service. Walsh made that decision himself when on the way to Walter Reed and then called the Justice Department to speak to the deceased AG’s deputy to make sure that the FBI fell in-line: the acting Secretary of Homeland Security had already been following protocol to see the Secret Service with ultimate control. Of the seemingly million questions which needed answering, right at the top for the investigators tasked to this huge undertaking was whether Walsh had been the target of the AIA doing this. They’d gone after the Attorney General through his aide – how he’d been infected was something trying to be determined – but had the AIA knew that Underwood would meet with the president upon the latter’s return from overseas? It seemed unlikely. Walsh’s schedule had changed several times with when he could come back and the meeting with him and the head of the Justice Department was called by the president upon arrival at Andrews. So, they had just got lucky then? That didn’t seem plausible. The window was short and the circumstances seemingly just a coincidence. Still… Everything was thrown at the investigation. The wider US Intelligence Community was involved in looking into how all of this happened because they would provide further support to the Secret Service.

Out in California, Vice President Padley was told. She was watching media coverage of strange goings on back in Washington when the White House was locked down. Her principal agent, a woman whose always difficult job had been made far more difficult when Padley had decamped to California to join a conspiracy, failed to get the vice president to agree to leave her home to go to a secure location. Padley hadn’t been near Walsh, the Attorney General either, in weeks and wouldn’t budge. The Secret Service was thinking about her security and the need to have her return to DC should the president fall ill, die even, yet Padley wouldn’t play by their rules. She refused to leave where she was. Calling back to Washington, that lead agent eventually requested to be able to force the vice president to obey instructions for not just her safety but that of the country should there be a need to take over from Walsh. Permission wasn’t given. Walsh intervened, calling from that hospital suite at Walter Reed. She could bloody stay there! Such a comment put the Secret Service in a terrible predicament, only adding to the already extensive problems around Padley for them.

Rumours that there was a biological contamination at the White House hit the media rapidly once the Zeppelin protocols went into effect. Speculation ran riot over what exactly had happened and Americans were glued to their television & phone screens. The deputy press secretary (deemed to not have been at risk of exposure) put out a statement saying the there was a ‘security incident’ at the White House yet no harm had come to the president. Furthermore, Walsh himself would soon be making an address to the nation. That calmed things somewhat but camera footage – shot from some distance back – of bio-hazard teams going into the White House and then elsewhere across Washington was all over the news. Three hours after leaving for Walter Reed, Walsh spoke to the watching country in a live broadcast. That presidential suite had broadcast facilities, ones which had been used before too. He told his country, plus so many around the world, that a bio-terror attack had been made. The Attorney General was at the centre of that attack and he had unfortunately succumbed to the fatal effects of a man-made germ used against him. The United States had been attacked with a weapon of mass destruction and domestic terrorists were those believed to be responsible. As to his own health, Walsh said that he had been taken to Walter Reed as a precaution. There were many, many others at the same place or other hospitals with secure wards to monitor their health: those under medical supervision included his family, White House staff, other government officials and also civilians too. It was going to take time for doctors to be sure he and everyone else in isolation hadn’t been further victims of those who targeted the AG. In the meantime, Walsh assured those watching that he was in good health and would continue to serve as president while tests continued as to how far the contamination had reached. The business of government, including the transition to the incoming Roberts Administration, would carry on as well. The aim of terrorism was to scare and inflict fear, Walsh added, but those responsible for such a heinous act as using a weapon of mass destruction like they had would be the ones who would ultimately pay that price: the full force of the federal government was hunting them. He finished by asking Americans to pray for the victims and their families while remembering that justice would be done to those guilty of all of this.


While the president was in isolation, with test after test undertaken for signs of that poison in his body, the country held its breath. There were announcements made of further deaths beyond Attorney General Underwood. That aide of his, a co-worker at the Justice Department and Underwood’s wife would all be fatal victims of RF-187 too. Nine others were confirmed to be infected but would survive due to the limited amount of transmission of that germ. As to the hundreds of others kept in isolation, including the president, they stayed where they were. Disinfection efforts at the White House and the multiple identified sites of possible biological contamination went on. There were a few scares where people fell ill and momentary panic ensued. This came from the media whipping up fear and crowd behaviour rather than any traces of RF-187. Pressed for comment, Kremlin spokespeople once more denied any responsibility for that germ, that they had a secret biological weapons programme and any knowledge of the so-called Balashikha caper. As before, everything was turned back on the United States. It was all a lie, another example of anti-Russian xenophobia. The story came out about where Walsh’s eldest son was before he was taken to join his father at Walter Reed. Such a sex scandal was red meat for the media. Arrests were made of more suspected AIA members. No one of any real importance was nabbed though and there was no real progress made in the extensive investigation as to how exactly they managed to get that poison into the first victim. As to the ‘coincidence’ of Underwood meeting with Walsh like he did, investigators couldn’t find evidence that it was anything but that. In some of the deepest cesspools of the internet, hope that Walsh would die was expressed and there were some conspiracy nuts who linked the AIA to those out West seeking their New America. Foreign leaders sent messages of best wishes for Walsh and made promises of any possible help ready to be given if asked.

The Republican Congressional leadership had several meetings on the matter of what to do if it turned out that Walsh was infected and then should the worst happen. The House Speaker, Kenneth Fraser, was second in the line-of-succession (behind Padley). Talking with Senate Majority Leader Green, they agreed to act if Walsh became seriously ill. Congress would impeach Padley with haste rather than see her as president. Green believed that she would try to overturn the presidential election result should she get to the White House while Fraser’s fears were that she would use such an opportunity to instead make an effort break up the country using presidential powers rather than just make speeches in that endeavour as she had been doing. Whatever was likely, they weren’t going to let her have a go. The House was ready with articles of impeachment already drafted and the Republicans in the Senate were sure to line up behind a vote on impeachment. Votes from at least eight Democrats – to make such a hypothetical vote up to the magic two-thirds number of sixty-seven – would be needed though for a conviction and removal of Padley as either vice president or president. Green believed that faced with such a scenario, enough Democrats would come on-side. Padley and her cohorts out West were tearing their party apart and having Fraser as president for a few weeks wouldn’t be as scary to enough of them in light of all that Padley had been recently doing. The plan was put on ice as the days went by and there was no positive test result from Walsh. RF-187 had been shown in test on laboratory mice to disguise & hide itself for a period of time before suddenly striking: this had been borne out in the infections of those who caught in in Washington. Wait and wait everyone did.

Four days after hospitalisation, for precautionary reasons only, Walsh emerged uninfected and alive from that presidential suite at Walter Reed. He spoke to the nation when he returned to Washington. A broadcast was made from Blair House, the official guest house for presidential guests, just across Pennsylvania Avenue instead of from the White House. He spoke of how he remained healthy and hadn’t been exposed to that germ which cost four other people their lives. There was more condemnation for those terrorists who had unleashed such a horrible weapon upon the American people yet no comments came about the investigation from the president. He moved to turn his anger against those engaged in secessionist efforts in the West. For the first time in public, previously resisting many calls to do so, Walsh addressed what was happening as there were efforts being made to rip the country apart. Their goals were unpatriotic and treasonous, he said, and were going to be stopped. Sedition, secession and insurrection had no place in the United States just as terrorism didn’t either. Walsh said he was going to put a stop to it all.

[jedicommisar]

I feel sorry for Walsh he is caught between extremists in his own party and extremists from without while basically being a Republican stooge

[gillan1220]

Walsh taken to Walter Reed would invoke memories of 45th having COVID-19 eight years prior.

[James G]

Feb 7, 2021 7:48:32 GMT jedicommisar said:

I feel sorry for Walsh he is caught between extremists in his own party and extremists from without while basically being a Republican stooge

You might not feel sorry for him for what he doesn't do in December 28 / Jan 29. His inaction will cost many dear.

Feb 7, 2021 13:16:24 GMT gillan1220 said:

Walsh taken to Walter Reed would invoke memories of 45th having COVID-19 eight years prior.

I had that in my mind when I wrote it, yes. Plenty of presidents have been there though. 

[James G]

32 – Obey the law

A week before the Electoral College met – such things took ages! –, Vice President-elect Mitchell went to the Pacific North-West. His first visit on his tour was made to the small city of Klamath Falls in the south of Oregon. Oregon was a Blue state though, geography-wise, most of it was Red: the majority of the population lived in the northwestern corner and voted for the Democrats. The Republican congressman who represented the district including Klamath Falls was under consideration for a Cabinet post (Secretary of Veterans Affairs) and Mitchell came to see him. A crowd of locals turned out. They were Republicans and gave Mitchell a cheer upon arrival. He had a good meeting with that congressman and would press for President-elect Roberts to have him nominated. Onwards from Oregon Mitchell went afterwards, flying up into Washington state. Just like the first, that second state was once more Blue yet with the majority of the population mostly concentrated in one corner voting Democratic while everywhere else, the minority went strongly for the Republicans. In Spokane, Mitchell was met by a welcoming crowd like he had been in Klamath Falls but there was also a counter-protest against his visit. Those against him were far outnumbered by those for Mitchell. They made a lot of noise though. Mitchell had campaigned in the Pacific North-West during the election – helping to get the Roberts-Mitchell ticket those four Electoral College votes in Washington – and had met worse receptions back during the Fall. After the airport welcome, he met with members of the state’s Republican Party including the four who would cast their votes for he and Roberts on December 18th 2028. No pressure from Democrats, especially the MAR-fanatics, were going to get those electors to not do their duty. As to the others whom he came to see, Mitchell urged them to fight against the ongoing West America shenanigans. Washington state was a battlefield for neutralisation of secession and Mitchell wanted the Republicans here – members of the US House, state Legislature members and local officials – to do all that they could to help stop that illegal activity coming from those acting against the United States.

He went out of the city afterwards to make a short trip up to the Spokane Indian Reservation. Mitchell thanked the tribal leadership for the support given in the presidential election to the Republican ticket. Throughout his political career, starting back in the mid-Teens in North Carolina, Mitchell had always had a good relationship with Native Americans. North Carolina had a small but significant number of that minority and he was a good friend to them once he won the governorship in 2022. In the past half a dozen years, away from North Carolina, Mitchell had fought for Native Americans across the country. It had been called a fool’s errand by other Republicans, but Mitchell had sought to bring Native Americans across the United States into the Republican’s camp. In certain states, the ones out West especially, they were quite the voting bloc. Native Americans in Arizona & New Mexico had turned their backs on him during the presidential race but he’d had some success (built upon years of real effort) in Minnesota, the Mountain States and also in Washington. Democrats had claimed his motives were dishonest and could point to the behaviour of other members of Mitchell’s party when saying the Republicans were against Native Americans. Mitchell kept going though. He told those outside of Spokane that the promises made during the election campaign to all Native Americans, whomever they voted for, would be honoured. The same thing was said afterwards at the nearby Colville reservation and then, after a short helicopter flight, across the state line in Idaho to those gathered at the Coeur d’Alene reservation. On the way back to Spokane’s airport, a rumour reached Mitchell that McCleary was on her wave up to join the protest against his visit which had remained at that airport while he made his visits. Welcoming such a challenge of having an impromptu debate with her, surely in front of the media, Mitchell was disappointed when it turned out that wasn’t true.

Mitchell flew above the crowd of people who turned out to protest against him. The helicopter (on-loan from a wealthy rancher; he’d get his own government one come January) went above them to land next to his plane. Upon touching down, and getting ready to talk to the media, there was a bomb blast at the airport’s perimeter. Right in the middle of those anti-Republican protesters, someone set off an explosive device. There were several cameras focused upon Mitchell at the time. All recorded him not make a move. Aides and Secret Service jumped at the sound of the blast and the latter soon enough carried Mitchell away but for a few fleeting seconds, later re-broadcast time and time again, Mitchell stood still and unmoved in light of that blast. He was a former US Army Ranger, a veteran of many global conflicts. A blast some distance away wasn’t going to scare him. Supporters would afterwards praise his nerves of steel while detractors said that was in fact frozen in fear. Targeting those protesters were the White Star Militia. They too had heard the rumours that McCleary was coming to Spokane but believed she was actually there. A hasty, ill-thought out plan went into action which resulted in the man carrying a backpack full of explosives – aiming to leave it on the ground and slip away unnoticed – killed by his own bomb along with four of those he wished to kill. As to McCleary, she was that evening down in California and far from danger.


Carville penned an article for Slade concerning West America. The disgraced former Colorado senator wrote a concise, two thousand word piece for that online political magazine describing how a group of states in the West who had seceded from the United States could function as a new country. It moved beyond the speeches made by other political figures and went into the mechanics of governance. He was very proud of it and believed that by making things simple, he could win over a lot of people. It was full of holes. These were pointed out by critics and the whole article was mocked for its simplicity. Carville had expected some opposition but not the scale of what came nor that the majority of those who came out against it were fellow Democrats. Away from just how that new country would work, critics pointed to the impossibility of its creation. Secession was illegal and would be opposed by the federal government. There would be no compromise from DC on that and so, if by some miracle, it got off the ground, it would be impossible to function. Moreover, Carville’s simple solutions about democracy forming it – immediate plebiscites – didn’t take into account that all of the eight Western states he talked about, even Hawaii, had not just Republicans in them but Democrats opposed to secession as well. There was no public desire for leaving the United States. Should that magically change, and Carville got his way, it would only likely be by a tiny majority: the defeated minority would want to counter secede tearing the already fragile geography of his West America to pieces. It was never going to work!

Democrats in the West weren’t a monolithic bloc. Padley, Pierce and McCleary certainly didn’t speak for them all on the future of the region’s Blue states. The arguments used against Carville were just the tip of the iceberg. Following the lead set by those elsewhere in the country, in the Mid-West and the East, Western Democrats finally began to come out in vocal opposition to the attempt to break apart the country. This had been done behind the scenes since the whole issue started though, in mid-December they broke cover and did it in public. Tommy Dunbar and Mary Beth Sheldon, an Arizona senator and a California congresswoman respectively, really went for it. They were out in front of others who took a public yet cautionary line of attack. Dunbar and Sheldon instead savaged those behind the attempt to take the people in the states which they represented out of the union with the rest of the country. The ideas were selfish and self-serving by those who were pushing for West America, they said, and would only result in suffering and loss of life for innocents. Stop this, they demanded. They kept their efforts to put a stop to the Padley-Pierce Plan separate from those being made by Republicans. Elsewhere in the country, those engaged in coming out against West America had been attacked as Republican stooges but Dunbar and Sheldon did everything that they could to make sure everyone knew that they regarded the presidential election as being stolen and didn’t agree with the mood to ‘move on’, but that wasn’t the point of their action. They were fighting for the whole country and doing the Right Thing.

Events were arranged, ones given the backing of the Democratic Party establishment. In Phoenix and Orange County, Dunbar and Sheldon gathered supporters in front of big media presences. Patriotism was put on show at those rallies alongside the message that these were Democratic events. Up in Colorado, Carville’s home state where he still had plenty of influence, the lieutenant governor broke with the governor over the matter of staying silent. Governor David Rowan had been giving silent support to the Padley-Pierce Plan but Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Webb wasn’t prepared to see the United States torn apart. Other senior Democrats, those with a big national profile such as Kirk and Yorke, came out to Colorado Springs to join with Webb in making a big public gathering at support for the country staying together. Colorado Springs had once been a Republican political stronghold though had gone Blue along with much of the state during the Twenties: there were no longer any Republican members of the US House & in the legislature, they were a tiny minority. Webb got the crowds out but she also unintentionally drew towards the event those hell-bent on terror. A car-ramming attack was made on people as they headed into the Colorado Springs rally. Three people would die and the driver would get away without being caught. Allegations ran riot that the attack was either something that had Republican backing or was done by a supporter of the New America idea. Those were lies. Rowan publicly criticised his lieutenant governor for not coordination security efforts with the state authorities ahead of the gathering… which was another lie because she had tried to yet been stonewalled by the governor.


When he had come out of Walter Reed, President Walsh had spoken sternly about putting a stop to New America / West America. It was to be fought and defeated before anything real could happen beyond fiery speeches. Political commentators declared that since Walsh was finally taking it all seriously that would be the end of sedition and secession talk. In addition, the wind was supposed to have been taken out of the sails of Padley, Pierce and McCleary by how the country was said to have united around Walsh while he was in the hospital. What did Walsh do in the aftermath though? Not much at all. He’d lost his Attorney General in the bio-terror attack made in Washington and kept Underwood’s deputy at the Justice Department to serve as Acting AG. That man didn’t have the passion for the cause which Underwood had been showing right before he was assassinated. Too much focus was on showmanship – pretty statements – and relying upon politicians to put a stop to what was going on rather than the Justice Department forcing secessionists to obey the law. Within days, Blair House (where Walsh continued to officially reside as the White House was still be sterilised) was inundated with calls from senior Democrats urging Walsh to act. He wasn’t even there though. He’d gone to Camp David to spend some time with his family after the close call with all of their lives. Dealing with the scandal surrounding his eldest son’s sexual escapades took up more of his attention that it really should have too. Getting a-hold of Walsh at Camp David once they realised that was where he was – his location was not meant to be known –, was near-impossible for fellow members of his party. He took only a handful of calls and to those who reached him, their president told him that the Acting AG had his full support. At the DNC and among senators gathering together, they regarded him as absolving responsibility of what was still going on. The talk of secession was still happening in public. There was secret electronic communication between members of a conspiracy to split the nation which, according to a leak believed by Democrats, was something that couldn’t be intercepted even with the National Security Agency having a go at the behest of the Nevada District Attorney.

The Republicans continued to keep up the attacks against the Democrats: those in the West and in the rest of the country both. The political opportunity for going after those on the other side of the partisan divide remained too easy to ignore. They dragged the House Minority Leader into the mess too try to make him look like a duplicitous fool. On one hand that Democrat was making statements resisting Republican efforts to have Maria Arreola Rodriguez stripped of her congressional seat once Congress returned in the New Year – the US Supreme Court had said she was an illegal alien –, while at the same time he was speaking out against Congresswoman-designate McCleary. McCleary was a citizen while MAR wasn’t. Shouldn’t he be at least supporting the former, even if she was engaged in sedition, over the latter? He came to MAR’s defence… only to have her actions giving support to what McCleary was doing thrown back at him. Other Republican media efforts focused on the history of sedition and secession in the United States. The Democrats had done this before, back in 1860. They were doing it again. Last time it was in the defence of racist slavery, this time it was about Western exceptionalism and socialism. Word reached the Republican leadership that Governor Pierce had met with several CEOs of the Big Tech corporations out in Silicon Valley. What was said was unknown but that didn’t matter: conjecture and lies were often seen by the Republicans as better than the truth in such scenarios. It was alleged that the CEOs – all long-standing Democratic supporters and donors – had given their backing to West America. Announcements were made that come the beginning of 2029, when the Republicans would begin Congressional hearings on the ongoing sedition, as they had already said they would, they would call those CEOs to questioning. One of them at once broke cover – Microsoft’s new boss – and let it be known that Pierce had been told that no support would come from Big Tech and breaking away from the United States would hurt their businesses. There were smiles all round from the Republicans at that!

Walsh might not be bringing to an end West America but the Republicans were convinced that they were having much success in that. Ripping into the Democrats still dominated their actions though. Their focus was there.

[James G]

33 – Game Over

Samantha Leach, the United States Secretary of State since her appointment early the year before (her predecessor resigned after the Taiwan Conflict), went to Camp David in mid-December 2028. The FBI Director accompanied her in the helicopter trip through bad winter weather to the presidential retreat in Maryland. They’d been told that President Walsh intended to stay there until New Year. What they wanted to talk to him about couldn’t be done over the phone nor using an intermediary. They found a germaphobe – understandable – but also someone who seemed to have already retired. Strong statements aside about fighting terrorism and for a union which was in peril, he was pretty much disinterested in the business of government. It was extraordinary… and terrifying. Leach’s co-visitor to the president, Brian Cohen, presented Walsh with a list of almost one hundred names. Beside each was a federal charge of either sedition, engaging in a seditious conspiracy or encouragement to commit insurrection. Leach and Cohen wanted all those named to be arrested, charged & brought to court with immediate effect. Staying on the other side of a Perspex screen in a specially outfitted room, Walsh told them that wasn’t to be done. He called up the Acting Attorney General and told him about the list presented to him. Over the connecting line, on speaker so they could hear, the head of the Justice Department informed Leach and Cohen (the latter his subordinate) that that was the wrong way to go about things. Doing something like that, even arresting a tenth of those names on their list, wouldn’t avert a civil war which they said was in the wind. Instead, it would ignite one. Walsh then explained their apparent strategy for dealing with what was going on out West. They key to nipping everything in the bud was to go after McCleary. She was right on the brink of saying just enough to tip things over the edge into something that was worthy of federal detention. Another speech and that would be it. When she was locked up, the Acting AG added, she’d be silenced. Then there was the failed Democratic presidential candidate. In another day’s time it was game over for her forlorn hope of replacing Walsh in the White House. Just wait and see, Leach and Cohen were told, before the president left the room. Back on the helicopter, with conversation hidden by the noise of the engines, the two departing visitors to Camp David had some strong words to say about Walsh. However, unlike those the two of them wished to see locked up, neither even considered acting against the government which they served when witnessing such injustice, such stupidity.

Neither of them knew the meeting which Walsh had taken before they came to see him. Via a video-conference from the Pentagon, the president had spoken to the Defence Secretary. General Ferdinand was back from Europe – he’d stayed there among allies longer than Walsh had – and then had a day down in Texas too with the president-elect. Ferdinand was still on track to carry on in his position despite the coming change of White House resident. The Secretary of Defence had been met by the commanding officer of the I Marine Expeditionary Force when he had arrived at the Pentagon. That US Marine, whose headquarters was out in California, informed him that more than a week beforehand, when Walsh was in isolation at Walter Reed, he’d had a request to meet with him come from Vice President Padley. Far outside of his chain-of-command, and asked for in a clandestine manner which made him uneasy, Padley had been turned down. What the subject was to be, the I MEF’s commander didn’t know. He’d done nothing for nine days until, finally, become concerned enough to speak up. What on earth could Padley have wanted to talk to him about while the president could possibly have been at death’s door? There was a command chain which Padley could access as vice president during times of crisis and national emergency, but it went through Ferdinand, the Joint Chiefs and the Unified Combatant Commands before coming anywhere near that officer who commanded a mini-corps of US Marines on the California coast. Walsh demanded his firing. Ferdinand, angry at the man not speaking up straight away, thought that was going too far. Walsh insisted though and so the man was relived of command and told to return to Washington. Padley, a key member of those known to be seeking to break the country apart, had been trying to meet in secret with a senior military commander but Walsh chose not to tell anyone else in the US Government about it.


Cases brought before the state supreme courts in Minnesota and Pennsylvania by the ‘presidential transition team’ of Maria Arreola Rodriquez were dismissed at the last hurdle come December 16th. Certification of election results in those two swing states wouldn’t be overturned despite plentiful evidence of voter suppression in large urban areas which had lowered the Democratic vote allowing for the Republicans to take each on November 7th. Members of the Electoral College appointed by their states were due to meet in all fifty states – plus the District of Columbia – come December 18th. Five hundred and thirty-eight men and women, all party loyalists, would then cast their own ballots for the 49th President. Efforts to pressure Republican nominated ones to defy the will of the people in their states and instead vote for the Democrat’s MAR were made before those failures of the last-ditch court cases and afterwards too. Those people weren’t going to do it. Some quite outrageous attempts to make that happen were made regardless of all common sense saying that there would be some sort of change of heart among ones in key states where the mathematics could allow MAR to eek out an Electoral College victory. The MAR-support Hispanic political organising group (which many Republicans had recently called ‘terrorists') Revolución posted a link on its Twitter page to an external site. There were the names, photographs, home & work addresses, landline & mobile phone numbers, social media links and email addresses for thirty-three of them. These people were due to cast their ballots for Roberts in Maine (1), Minnesota (9), Pennsylvania (19) and Washington (4). Those viewing the website were urged to ‘do all you can’ and ‘don’t take no for an answer’ into making them change their intended vote. The names and much of the personal information was already publicly available, though not all in one place and presented like it was. There was a symbol added to each head-shot picture of the electors in question: that being the crosshairs of a gun-sight. Once the media become aware of this, there was uproar. Even many of the left-leaning news organisations took a strong line of condemnation against this. It looked like an incitement to violence.

MAR took to her favourite social network platforms and spoke to those particular voters for the Electoral College. There was little chance they were watching but that was whom she said she was speaking to. Back me, she asked them to do, regardless of your party affiliation. Speaking to the rest of the country who watched, MAR once more spoke of how the election was being stolen and their votes were being thrown in the trash. The attack on her citizenship, what she called part of her very identity, was also mentioned in impassioned tones. Unlike previous appearances online, especially the ones before the election, these didn’t get such high viewership despite all of the pre-broadcast publicity. Her strongest supporters, the many fanatics across the nation, duly tuned in but there wasn’t that coast-to-coast moment of seemingly everyone stopping what they were doing to listen to her. So many people had no moved on from the anger which they had the previous month. They wanted to get even, just down the road at the next election. The ‘legal fiction’ used in her citizenship case had hurt the public perception of MAR among other people where she employed evidence used against her in the Supreme Court to try to fight for emergency naturalisation. Then there was her role in the West America issue. She had avoided the limelight of that campaign but was still regarded by most Americans as being central to it. MAR was losing her magic. She had her base but elsewhere, she was starting to get on people’s nerves: that wasn’t so much the case in the West as elsewhere yet she had less support on ‘home turf’ than before.

The Electoral College met the day after those livestreamed speeches. Things went perfectly to plan for Roberts while MAR had a torrid time.


Two hundred and ninety-nine votes were cast for Roberts including those from few from Maine and Washington state. Certain to be the next president after the Supreme Court had ruled in favour of the respondent in Arreola Rodriquez vs. Florida, there was no longer any doubt about that after the majority which he gained on Dec. 18th. For vice president, Mitchell received one less vote with a faithless elector in Ohio instead casting his ballot for that state’s former governor. It didn’t really matter though when it came to his tally. The thirty states which went for the Republicans, Florida included (and those votes from two of the three states were splitting was done), gave the presidency to Roberts and the vice presidency to Mitchell.

Twenty states, plus DC, had electors cast their votes for Democratic candidates. With Anderson dying after being elected, there had been anticipation that where the votes would be cast for the vice president on the Democrat’s side was going to be a little bit crazy. No one had expected what happened with the presidential votes though. MAR won the majority of them but faced a mutiny in the Electoral College on an unprecedented scale. Nine other candidates received votes. In most cases these were token votes among each state yet in DC and also Rhode Island, Democratic electors there cast none for her at all. The mutiny took place in the Mid-West and the East… yet there was a little bit of that out West too. Some of it was organised behind the scenes while other electors acted on their own.

Arizona electors cast twelve votes for MAR and California delivered all of its fifty-four votes for her too.
Colorado had ten votes with nine cast for MAR but one, by Lieutenant Governor Webb’s sister-in-law, cast for Massachusetts’ Senator Yorke: that was declared void as per state law and another elector was appointed who voted for MAR.
Connecticut electors broke for a trio of candidates with three votes were given to MAR, two to Yorke and another two for defeated Democratic primary candidate Senator Kirk: all were upheld.
Delaware was the only Eastern state to stay firmly in MAR’s camp and electors there cast their three ballots for MAR; Hawaii electors also gave her that state’s four votes.
Illinois electors cast twelve votes for MAR but four went for Kirk, two for that state’s governor Warren Kerr and one more for Pennsylvania’s Governor Norris.
Maine had three Democratic electors and two voted for Kirk yet those votes were voided and new appointees cast theirs for MAR as the third one already had.
Maryland electors and those in Massachusetts too each split their votes with nine and eight respectively for MAR but one and three for Yorke too.
Michigan had fifteen electors with two of them having votes voided and being replaced when attempts were made to cast them for NYC Mayor Angela Duke and Norris: MAR won all fifteen in the end.
Nevada stayed ‘loyal’ and cast six votes for MAR and so did New Mexico with another five for her.
New Jersey gave MAR eight votes but five more went to Kirk (one of their senators) and another went to Duke who’d also tried to run for the nomination earlier in the year.
New York, like Illinois, had electors who went for four candidates: MAR won twenty, Duke got four, former US Health & Human Service Secretary Claire Thomas was given three and serving US Education Secretary John Vaughn received the final one (Thomas & Vaughn were both influential New Yorkers).
Oregon cast all eight votes for MAR and Washington state did the same with another eight.
Rhode Island gave all three of its votes to Kirk: MAR was rejected wholescale there.
Vermont electors cast two ballots for MAR but the third one went to serving Georgia Congresswoman Amanda Jackson.
Virginia gave MAR ten votes, Kirk two and Yorke the final one.
DC electors cast all three votes for the city’s Mayor Clarence Weaver.

When the voided votes were recast, MAR had won two hundred votes: she had missed out on another thirty-nine to all of those fellow Democrats of hers, most who had no idea that electors would vote for them. Her total was the lowest Electoral College figure gained by a Democratic candidate since 1988. She’d been seeking faithless electors from the Republican side yet instead was knocked back by the scale of those who went against her like they did by acting faithless themselves. Speaking out that night against it all, MAR claimed that the whole day had been an attack on democracy. Roberts had won those Florida votes in the Electoral College plus the ones in Minnesota and Pennsylvania all because, according to MAR, there had been fraud via voter suppression in November to cheat the American people. The attitude of her fellow Democrats who voted for other presidential candidates got less attention from her yet she still accused them of betraying the nation by doing what they had. It was all so unfair!

In the vice presidential balloting by Democratic electors, there were almost twenty candidates who received votes. Members of Congress, federal officials serving & retired governors, state officials, elected legislators, and general activists all received votes. It was a free-for-all because the electors knew it didn’t matter. They cast their ballots for those they did in the knowledge that with Anderson deceased, every vote would count and make it into the history books. MAR’s support for McCleary as her vice presidential candidate didn’t win over those electors: the Oregon Congresswoman-designate came in fourth overall… and was lucky to get that position. House Minority Whip Kevin Atkins, out of Illinois, won overall yet his total was sixty-one out of two hundred and thirty-nine. Among those on the list of those receiving votes (eleven) was the current Vice President Padley: that was rather strange to commentators but represented the width of support given out to so many.

When it came to who would be the next President of the United States, none of that madness among the Democrats, the result of weeks of infighting and a crazy national situation, really mattered. Roberts had won the Electoral College and would secede Walsh come January 20th 2029. As Walsh had said, it was Game Over for her when it came to the presidency.

[James G]

Democratic voting in the Electoral College for the presidency:

Arizona (12) – 12 for MAR
California (54) – 54 for MAR
Colorado (10) – 9 for MAR, 1 for Laura Yorke – Corrected to 10 for MAR
Connecticut (7) – 3 for MAR, 2 for Oliver Kirk, 2 for Laura Yorke
Delaware (3) – 3 for MAR
District of Columbia (3) – 3 for Clarence Weaver
Hawaii (4) – 4 for MAR
Illinois (19) – 12 for MAR, 4 for Oliver Kirk, 2 for Warren Kerr, 1 for Dwight Norris
Maine (3) – 2 for Oliver Kirk, 1 for MAR – Corrected to 3 for MAR
Maryland (10) – 9 for MAR, 1 for Laura Yorke
Massachusetts (11) – 8 for MAR, 3 for Laura Yorke
Michigan (15) – 13 for MAR, 1 for Angela Duke, 1 for Dwight Norris – Corrected to 15 for MAR
Nevada (6) – 6 for MAR
New Jersey (14) – 8 for MAR, 5 for Oliver Kirk, 1 for Angela Duke
New Mexico (5) – 5 for MAR
New York (28) – 20 for MAR, 4 for Angela Duke, 3 for Claire Thomas, 1 for John Vaughn
Oregon (8) – 8 for MAR
Rhode Island (3) – 3 for Oliver Kirk
Vermont (3) – 2 for MAR, 1 for Amanda Jackson
Virginia (13) – 10 for MAR, 2 for Oliver Kirk, 1 for Laura Yorke
Washington (8) – 8 for MAR

Maria Arreola Rodriquez – 200
Oliver Kirk – 16 (two voided in Maine)
Laura Yorke – 7 (one voided in Colorado)
Angela Duke – 5 (one voided in Michigan)
Claire Thomas – 3
Clarence Weaver – 3
Warren Kerr – 2
Dwight Norris – 1 (one voided in Michigan)
Amanda Jackson – 1
John Vaughn – 1

[James G]

34 – A Second Republic

Much of the country braced for trouble in the aftermath of the Electoral College vote. Violent street protests were expected in urban areas, especially those which had gone strongly for Maria Arreola Rodriquez back in the presidential election. Governor Cook down in Florida was ready to once more declare martial law across part of her state and her counterpart up in Michigan was likewise prepared to take that step again too. In Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and states out West, there was a readiness to combat rioting, looting and arson once more. None of that came though, not on any serious scale. Because the outcome was so expected, where the theft of the election was certain to happen, there was the preparedness to act against violence. Yet, that same sense of knowing what was going to happen led so many to be already resigned to it. Politicians made speeches to tell people to stay at home as they appealed for calm. Only in isolated spots did that fail. Minneapolis, Philadelphia and the Big Apple saw minor street skirmishes between protesters and the police yet nothing more than that. Florida was quiet, eerily so for many. In California, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon there were people who came out to march against the gravest of all injustices yet they didn’t tear their cities apart. It was all a surprise, a good one.

President Walsh and later President-elect Roberts each spoke to the nation. The election was finally decided and it was time to look to the future, each said. The transition between administrations would happen in January 2029 and they wanted it to be respectful of the law as well as go as smoothly as possible. Not much difference came in what the two of them had to say though Roberts’ address was longer than Walsh’s. There was much optimism in the president-elect too: he was looking forward to what the future held for the nation. Even later the same evening, speaking on West Coast time, Governor Pierce spoke to Californians though also those watching elsewhere. He told protesters that they had a legal right to do so as well as repeating earlier messages from others about being calm. Then he moved to criticise in the sternest terms what had happened earlier in the day. Democracy had been overturned, Pierce said, and the nation would soon be in the hands of those who had stolen the future for all Americans. He mentioned the numbers of votes gained by MAR in the presidential election and how that had turned out when it came to Electoral College votes cast. The United States was no longer a democracy with this being allowed to happen. Pierce attacked the behaviour of Democrats elsewhere in the country as they stood by and watched – even joined in with the outrageous behaviour from the Republicans in playing their games in the Electoral College – as all of this went on. There was no accepting this, Pierce said, not for him, California and the West. It couldn’t be allowed to stand. Action was going to be taken. What that was, he didn’t say.

Back in 2026, after her father was so cruelly murdered, Secret Service protection had been granted to MAR. She was a three-term congresswoman back then with no US House leadership role nor had at that point yet to begin her run to try and win the presidency. Secret Service agents usually protected presidents, vice presidents, their families, retired presidents and major presidential candidates. However, they could in theory be directed to guard anyone should the need arise. Then DHS Secretary Arguello petitioned Walsh to extend protection to MAR after that assassination due to the extreme range of serious threats to her life. With an executive order, he did so. She was one of several politicians with a big national profile during the latter stages of the Years of Lead who were granted such protection. The Secret Service could do what others couldn’t when it came to keeping someone alive. The threats had been very real too, extending to her immediate family as well with her wife being at the centre of one really serious assassination attempt that came very close & several others thwarted in their early stages. MAR had faced some online criticism from extreme supporters when having such protection but had defended herself: it was needed because there were people out there who really wanted her dead. As a presidential candidate, that protection increased with extra Secret Service agents assigned. Up until the day when the Electoral College met, there was still an expectation that they would stay with her as per that executive order. She asked those at her California Bay Area home to leave though. They wouldn’t, they couldn’t. MAR had to make a call to the Acting DHS Secretary, someone she didn’t know in any real sense, to get him to have the agents removed. Even he wouldn’t order them to leave Walnut Creek, not until Walsh said so and signed another executive order. Finally, they went, on the morning of December 19th. Other armed guards arrived when they did: ones not in the employ of the federal government.

Her webcasts the day beforehand hadn’t been as well-received as MAR had hoped. She stayed up all night preparing for further ones the following day and made sure that the message went out to supporters of when to tune in to her speaking to them all again. A ‘big announcement’ was promised, one which she proclaimed would be ‘earth shattering’. Online at the declared time, going out on Facebook, YouTube & smaller social media channels too, MAR came out in full public support for West America. She’d been dodging around the subject beforehand, getting some criticism from supporters, but finally went public to give it her complete backing. It was unfortunately the only way ahead for her supporters, she told them: the only way in which they could have the democracy which she said they deserved. She said that the United States of America was broken and, in its place, there needed to be a New America. Straight away, there came the attacks from the right-wing media. MAR wasn’t seeking to win them over though: she was targeting a different audience. A lot of people had reactions to what she said. There was similar anger to that which Fox News and OANN gave, from Republican and (Eastern) Democrats alike, but little overt criticism from Democrats in the West. On her phone, messages on that Panda app which she was using came in thick and fast from political allies whose cause she had now moved to be right at the very centre of. Vice President Padley praised MAR’s announcement when she spoke in Sacramento that night to a huge crowd gathered at a rally in California’s state capital. Finally, the real president was with them, she told the thousands who’d turned out to see her, and they could get on with the business of seeing democracy soon happened. Like Pierce the night before, Padley said that something was soon to happen, dropping hints almost, but didn’t move to the details of what was in the offing.


McCleary gave a speech in Las Vegas the following night. She was the fourth one of those on the front page of the New York Times earlier that week where that liberal newspaper had accused them (her, MAR, Padley & Pierce) of leading the country towards civil war. She went to Nevada to give a speech that could have been delivered elsewhere. That was done on purpose, to set something in motion while playing the pretence of innocent and being a victim of oppression. The Congresswoman-designate (she never would swear her oath of office come January though not for reasons she could foresee) took part in a Revolución-arranged gathering where she stood before thousands of people, and many cameras, and called for the establishment of a Second Republic. That was to be started in the West, McCleary said, and would create the New America that she said the majority of the people wanted. The crowd cheered at that remark – a phrase then plastered across the screen behind the stage she was on throughout the rest of her appearance – and throughout her closing remarks when she said she was off to build it.

That was sedition if there ever was a case of it. McCleary had openly called for the overthrow of the US Government. She did so in public and with not just the witnesses there but the watching media too. She took her time in getting to the airport where a plane was waiting for her. Why the delay? McCleary was waiting to get arrested. If it didn’t happen in Las Vegas, she had another appearance booked up in Reno where she was going to repeat what she had just said… and in Carson City for a third try! Only in Nevada was that arrest likely to happen: no, sure to occur. No district attorney in any other state out West would do it, not in the manner desired to be done. As predicted by her co-conspirators, that came soon enough. She was talking to supporters who’d followed her to McCarran International Airport when District Attorney Babcock showed up. The DA had FBI officers with her and warrant for McCleary’s arrest. In front of media crews which Babcock had been fast to tip off, she oversaw McCleary being taken into federal custody.

Something unexpected by both sides, who planned this without the other knowing, happened. There were a group of security people with McCleary who were waiting nearby. Hispanic men and women from the Vaqueros security group stepped forward. McCleary hadn’t warned them – she wanted some dramatics, just not too much – so everything should look right and they reacted strongly to her being handcuffed. There was a scuffle between them and the FBI. The latter had guns while the former didn’t: Vaqueros only worked within the law where it was applied different on weapons-carrying restrictions across the West. The half a dozen Vaqueros people backed off when having guns pointed at them and threats of lethal force, but only under protest. In hindsight, McCleary was pleased with that: it gave the whole thing more of a dramatic nature for the cameras. Away she went with Babcock and into custody. Outrage at her arrest was already prepared from those in on this beforehand. Padley and Pierce, plus Nevada’s governor too, already had statements of outrage ready to be delivered. They started making them soon enough, joined by the truly-surprised MAR too. As to those Vaqueros people, they got back on the plane which went to California instead of Reno.

The Democratic Party, like the Republicans, employed a primate military company for security yet Vaqueros wasn’t under contract to the Democratic National Committee. It was a far smaller enterprise, one based in California primarily and working for Revolución. Others in their employ had earlier taken up residence at MAR’s residence. The incident at McCarran with Vaqueros all over the news afterwards would be the first big national exposure for them. They, and the man behind the ‘security group’, had an interesting story indeed.

[gillan1220]

Oh crap. This is where everything hits the most volatile point.

[James G]

Feb 10, 2021 10:52:03 GMT gillan1220 said:

Oh crap. This is where everything hits the most volatile point.

Those who wish to leave now have their symbol. They'll expolit her 'oppression', something will happen and we're on our way to (un)civil war.

[gillan1220]

Feb 10, 2021 12:24:25 GMT James G said:

Feb 10, 2021 10:52:03 GMT gillan1220 said:

Oh crap. This is where everything hits the most volatile point.

Those who wish to leave now have their symbol. They'll expolit her 'oppression', something will happen and we're on our way to (un)civil war.

All while China and Russia smile with glee.

[James G]

Feb 10, 2021 12:52:39 GMT gillan1220 said:

Feb 10, 2021 12:24:25 GMT James G said:

Those who wish to leave now have their symbol. They'll expolit her 'oppression', something will happen and we're on our way to (un)civil war.

All while China and Russia smile with glee.

And others too!