Sandbox for Gears/Hornby collaboration on Foundation interactions with governments.
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- Conspiracy - while not actually part of this series directly, I'm picturing it in the same universe.
Drafts in Progress
A set of tab for in-progress drafts. Drafts include:
- Special Advisor to the President
Special Agent Logan Kyle's stomach rumbled. The Secret Service agent assigned to the President's National Security Advisor, he was standing outside his principal's office. VADM Poindexter was late leaving - unusual, since today was a Friday, and the Admiral prefered to eat supper with his wife and sons.
A plain-looking middle-aged man in a slightly rumpled suit walked into the corridor from the West Wing lobby entrance. His White House Staff ID card named him as "Dr. James Johnson, Special Advisor to the President". That's funny, Kyle thought. I thought I knew all the President's Special Advisors.
"I need to speak with Admiral Poindexter," said Dr. Johnson quietly. "It is a matter of some urgency." The Admiral was alone in his office, so Kyle let him past.
Two minutes later, Poindexter marched out of his office, Dr. Johnson in tow. "We're going to see the Boss," the President's National Security Advisor told Kyle.
"England is headed to see Rawhide," Kyle said into his radio, using Poindexter's and the President's codenames. He followed the two officials down the hallway to the Oval Office.
"John, Dr. James," the President said in greeting, ushering them inside. Special Agent Kyle remained outside - the President's own detail would keep watch inside the office.
"You know what's up, Logan?" one of the other agents standing outside the Oval Office asked.
"Haven't a clue, Dave," Kyle replied. "You see the game last night?"
"Dodgers against the Braves?" Dave replied. "No, my daughter's school play was last night. Heard it was quite the game."
"Oh, yeah," Kyle replied. "Six to three. First victory in eleven games - you owe me fifty bucks."
"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Dave.
Poindexter's meeting with the President and the mysterious Dr. Johnson lasted a short ten minutes. Emerging from the Oval Office, the National Security Advisor and Special Advisor to the President went their separate ways. Kyle followed his principal. "Sir," Kyle said, "if you don't mind me asking, who was that?"
"Dr. Johnson?" Admiral Poindexter replied, glancing over his shoulder. "He's the Special Advisor to the President."
"I thought I knew all the President's advisors and their deputies and assistants, but I didn't recognize him. Is he new?" Kyle asked as they reached Poindexter's office.
"No, son, he's old," the National Security Advisor grunted. "Been around since the Roosevelt administration. Only drops by when there's real trouble, like what's going on in Ukraine right now." Poindexter started to close his office door.
This confused Kyle - something was going on in Ukraine? Putting aside that thought, as it wasn't his job to worry about such things, he asked about the other more confusing part of his principal's answer: "Sir, you're saying there's a Presidential advisor who's been on staff since FDR was President? That was over forty years ago."
Poindexter shook his head, "Not Franklin Roosevelt, son. Theodore."
Brainstorming
- Cover
- General Brainstorming
- Rough Rider
- Already Cluttered Gameboard
- Playa Girón
- Nobody's Puppet
- Just a Simple Test
- Special Advisor to the President
A set of tabs for brainstorming. Brainstorming threads include:
- General Brainstorming
- For all that other stuff that doesn't fit in a specific story.
- Rough Rider
- The Foundation and Theodore Roosevelt.
- An Already Cluttered Gameboard
- The Foundation and the Second World War.
- Playa Girón
- The real reasoning behind the ill-fated Bay of Pigs fiasco.
- Nobody's Puppet
- Interactions between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Chaos Insurgency.
- Just a Simple Test
- The reasoning behind the ill-fated test that led to Chernobyl.
- Special Advisor to the President
- How the Foundation contacts the President.
General Brainstorming
For all that other stuff that doesn't fit in a specific story.
Some thoughts on characters:
Here's a list of possible Foundation members to have interacting with the various world leaders. I'm thinking it might be interesting to have the same characters, all Colonels (or equivalent) or civilian PhDs, all in their mid forties, appearing inexplicably again and again separated by decades as the advisor to the leaders of the same country.
- Standartenführer Fredrick Schäfer
- Special SS Advisor to the Führer
- Appears in "Already Cluttered Gameboard" (1941)
- Polikovnik Ivan Nikolaiovich Morozov
- Special NKVD/KGB Advisor to the
- Appears in both "Already Cluttered Gameboard" (1941) and "Just a Simple Test" (1986)
- Sir Richard Smith
- Special Advisor to the British Prime Minister
- Appears in "Already Cluttered Gameboard" (1941)
- Dr. James Johnson
- Special Advisor to the President of the United States of America
- Appears in "Rough Rider" (1898), "Already Cluttered Gameboard" (1941), "Playa Giron" (1961), "Nobody's Puppet" (2010), "Special Advisor to the President" (early 1980s)
- Coronel Juan Martinez
- Special Advisor to the Military Governor of Cuba (1898)
- Special Advisor to the President of Cuba (1962)
- Appears in "Rough Rider" (1898), "Playa Giron" (1961)
Rough Rider
The Foundation and Theodore Roosevelt.
- Given the differences in personality between William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, I could easily picture TR being more inclined to work with the Foundation than McKinley. Also, many of the (corrupt) Republican leaders did not like Roosevelt, which is why Thomas C. Platt, the Republican Party boss for New York state, had Roosevelt put on the McKinley presidential ticket. The reasoning was that with him as Vice President, he would be largely incapable of doing anything to the political machines. This of course fell apart when McKinley died. In any case, TR's stint as VP was an effort to get him out of the way politically - an effort the Foundation could theoretically have opposed for whatever reason.
- Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy between April 1897 and May 1898. Secretary John D. Long was inactive, so TR basically ran the Department of the Navy. Most (in)famously, ten days after the battleship Maine exploded in Havana, Long left for a massage, and Roosevelt became Acting Secretary for four hours. Roosevelt told the Navy worldwide to prepare for war, ordered ammunition and supplies, brought in experts, and went to Congress asking for authority to recruit as many sailors as he wanted, thus moving the nation toward war. Perhaps the Spanish-American War was fought at behest of the Foundation? Perhaps the Foundation sank the Maine to incite war for their own purposes? If this was the case, perhaps the Foundation had something to do with getting TR on the 1900 Republican ticket? (Yeah, I know this is in contradiction to my above thought, but I'm thinking as I write.)
Possible connection between Roosevelt's actions to push the United States to war with Spain (over Cuba) and the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion a half century later?
Already Cluttered Gameboard
The Foundation and the Second World War.
Underneath WWII, a second war almost erupted. The Foundation suddenly found itself jutting up against a budding “Foundation” being nurtured under the SS and Himmler. I'd love to see something between various world leaders, The Foundation, and maybe one or two other groups as they work out how to keep “an already cluttered game board from falling apart.”
I like this idea. Of course, alternate!WWII is one of the most over-done alternate history things, so treading carefully is a must.
I make some mention to the war behind the war in SCP-1050; though I see no reason to change that article as it is at +90~, I'd be fine if we appropriated that for use or reference.
So, who would our players be for this one? Foundation, obviously. GOC didn't exist yet (and I don't think we should try and make this an origin story, but something which established the world stage out of which it came might be interesting). MC&D would be closely aligned with the British, I would think, given their geographic and political base. I don't know when the Serpent's Hand first appeared on the scene, but they might be an agent of chaos which for reasons never explained tried to upset both the overt and covert WWII gameboards. UIU wouldn't have existed yet, but I could see some G-men being involved at Hoover's personal request (for that matter, I could see Hoover being fully aware of the Foundation's existence). IRG didn't come around until later.
Historical entities we could have involved in the secret war…
Well, Himmler was interested in the occult (Hitler wasn't really), so the SS could have had a secret unit. Put it under a fictional Standartenfuhrer (Colonel analog)? Perhaps have interactions with Otto Skorzeny (though he's well enough documented that he should not run it). Also, looking into Dr. Josef Rudolf Mengele would be in order (I only know of him by reputation, not by specifics).
There's the Manhattan Project. I have the Mitrohiken archive book, which details what the Soviet NKVD was doing to steal the secrets from the Americans. That could be an interesting bit running at times in tandem and at times at cross purposes to the Foundation.
There's all that horrific stuff done by various special units in the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific. Don't really know much about that, but it's an option.
Allies vs. Axis (overt WWII), various GOIs vs. various aligned secret organizations (SS, Manhattan Project, NKVD, etc.). Then have the Foundation just trying to keep things from completely falling apart - sort of the way Britain acted as "balancer" in international politics during the 19th and early 20th centuries. I think this is the most interesting option, as it would have the Foundation simply want to keep securing, containing, and protecting its anomalies, but being forced into involving itself more in politics and the day-to-day of world events than it would have liked.
I see The Foundation in a totally center-of-the-board pose, much to everyone's frustration. Even some of the things they have under lock and key could end the war in a matter of days, but that's not in any way their job. Nothing so far has endangered humanity as a whole in any real, serious way, so they have no reason to do anything. I could see an Agent more or less stating that a little "pruning" via war is actually a rather good thing, in the long run. MC&D obviously would be on the English side of things, if only for tradition's sake, and not at all above working with the Germans now and then. GOC was probably in it's infancy at this point, so not a real player…maybe the Church as well? Serpent's Hand is probably only worried about someone ACTUALLY stumbling on to real occult power somehow, but is more active then The Foundation in this.
I think that would boil down to two big scenes, one axis, one allies. Each trying to win over The Foundation, and advance their own goals at the same time. Something to think about.
Playa Girón
The real reasoning behind the ill-fated Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Possible connection between Roosevelt's actions to push the United States to war with Spain (over Cuba) and the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion a half century later?
The Bay of Pigs wasn't a real military action, but a feint made to cover a Foundation action. Castro had accidentally gotten hold of something nasty, and was wanting to get it the hell out of his country. It quickly became a race to the finish, to see which group was going to grab it first. The invasion was to keep eyes off of the area where the action went down, in case things went…bad.
Historical truth: What eventually became known as the "Bay of Pigs Invasion" was originally neither planned to land at the Bay of Pigs, nor was it originally intended as an invasion. The idea dated back to 17 March 1960, when Eisenhower approved a document drawn up by the 5412 Committee, with the objective of "the purpose of the program outlined herein is to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention." When the amphibious assault was initially planned, the target was Trinidad, Cuba.
Fast forward to 28 Jan 1961, when President Kennedy was briefed on the latest plan, Operation Pluto. One thousand cuban expats were to be landed in a ship-born invasion at Trinidad, about 270 km southeast of Havana, at the foothills of the Escambray Mountains. Kennedy authorized this; Trinidad had good port facilities, was close to many existing counter-revolutionary activities, had a beachhead which was easily defensible, and the guerrillas could escape into the Escambray Mountains if anything went wrong (whereat they could exist indediffinitely with aerial resupply). The State Department vetoed Trinidad. CIA then proposed an alternative, Operation Zapata, which moved the landing sites to the Bay of Pigs. Long story short, the invasion took place (and failed) in April 1961.
What If: Perhaps the Foundation hijacked the invasion for its own purposes, forcing Kennedy's hand into changing the location, along with everything else that caused the operation to fail? Perhaps the "something nasty" was in or near the city of Trinidad? CIA also attempted some rediculously large number of attempts at killing Castro - everything from spiked cigars to exploding seashells. Obviously, nothing worked; in fact, the failures were so embarrasing that they were the reason President Ford banned the US government from participating in assassinations. Perhaps the Foundation found itself having to protect Castro for whatever reason (potentially without Castro's knowledge)?
On the castro side of things…i see MC&D being more likely to be the ones covering castro's ass then The Foundation. Maybe he (or a relation) is a club member, and is keeping him well covered. Meanwhile, MC&D is doing brisk business in and through Cuba, which is starting to chafe The Foundation. In my head canon, at this point The Foundation still has close US military ties, so they decide to try and direct an offensive in the hopes of disrupting operations. It fails, but it does send MC&D to ground, and sends what will become a long-standing message: The Foundation wants the Veil maintained. If you fuck with the Veil, there's little they won't do to try and fix it.
Nobody's Puppet
Interactions between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Chaos Insurgency.
North Korea's mildly insane break with the national scene and continued military stance is due to heavy involvement by a group of interest, possibly the GOC or Chaos Insurgency. They were promised…well, a lot, and while the country is bled out for manpower, subjects, and anything else they need, they keep stringing along the leadership with trinkets.
Not sure where to go with this one. Interesting idea, in the abstract, and would seem to fit the Chaos Insurgency nicely. Just not sure of the hook. Perhaps something to do with the bombardment of Yeonpyeong back in Nov 2010?
For Korea…maybe it's something a bit sinister. The Chaos Insurgency approaches some key players, offering all the old trinkets (money, power, so on…) in return for, basically, letting them call a lot of shots from behind the scenes. It's been in the works for a while, and even with it being a pretty insane thing to do, it hasn't really been enough to trigger any of the other groups to try and do anything about it. Until, maybe, an incident in Yeonpyeong?
Just a Simple Test
The reasoning behind the ill-fated test that led to Chernobyl.
I have a wonderful nonfiction book called The Truth About Chernobyl, by Gregori Medvedev. It goes into a minute by minute (and at times second by second) account of what happened at Chernobyl. This could be an interesting event to consider appropriating for our own means as well.
Actually, here's the fun (and also horrifying, and also true) thing about the Chernobyl disaster:
They were in the process of doing a scheduled shutdown of Reactor 4 (the one that detonated). During this, they were doing a test relating to continuing to generate power from the steam turbine while letting the reactor run down. Problem was, they deviated from the authorized procedure for running the test. Among other things, they deliberately turned off a lot of the failsafes (the reactor design in question had fewer failsafes than most Western designs, but it still had some, which they turned off). And it's not entirely clear why the fellows supervising the procedure chose to deviate. The official reports (in typical Soviet fashion) did more CYA than actually explaining why things went the way they did. These individuals also died soon thereafter of radiation poisoning, taking whatever their full motivations to the grave.
That's the historical truth, at least as best I remember it. The Wikipedia article on the Chernobyl disaster has more; its accuracy is passable.
Anyway, I should think that it would be truly terrifying if the "real" reason that the operators deviated from the plan was either at the behest of the Foundation (or a GoI), or in response to their own attempts to contain something. I think it would be an interesting take to assume that all available historical evidence on the Chernobyl case is truthful, but it is also incomplete. And the Foundation, conveniently enough, has some or all of the missing evidence.
That sounds great…that the truth is there, but not whole…
Special Advisor to the President
How the Foundation contacts the President.
Prior Brainstorming Correspondence (For Easy Reference)
I've stuck the back and forth brainstorming correspondence in here for easy access, rather than having to keep pulling up Wikidot messages. (In other words, proof of Hornby's general laziness.)
Message 1:
From: Dr Gears
Subject: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 5 May 2012, 17:13 GMT-05
To: Hornby
I'm always up for collaboration work. Never mind i have like…twelve projects in progress right now :P
Did you have anything already in mind?
Message 2:
From: Hornby
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 5 May 2012, 18:40 GMT-05
To: Dr Gears
I do not have anything in particular in mind, just random thoughts and brainstorming:
Why McKinley / why not Kennedy?
- Every conspiracy theorist and their uncle has a theory about what "really" happened to JFK. I'm hesitant to suggest the Foundation offed him, mainly because that'd seem almost cliche. Also, I would almost find it more amusing (in a dark, twisted way) if the Foundation basically responded "Don't look at us - we got along with the guy!" when the US government investigated.
- The details of the JFK assassination (and/or at least the most popular incorrect details) are widely known among people who aren't generally students of history. McKinley's assassination? Not so much.
- Given the differences in personality between William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, I could easily picture TR being more inclined to work with the Foundation than McKinley. Also, many of the (corrupt) Republican leaders did not like Roosevelt, which is why Thomas C. Platt, the Republican Party boss for New York state, had Roosevelt put on the McKinley presidential ticket. The reasoning was that with him as Vice President, he would be largely incapable of doing anything to the political machines. This of course fell apart when McKinley died. In any case, TR's stint as VP was an effort to get him out of the way politically - an effort the Foundation could theoretically have opposed for whatever reason.
- Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy between April 1897 and May 1898. Secretary John D. Long was inactive, so TR basically ran the Department of the Navy. Most (in)famously, ten days after the battleship Maine exploded in Havana, Long left for a massage, and Roosevelt became Acting Secretary for four hours. Roosevelt told the Navy worldwide to prepare for war, ordered ammunition and supplies, brought in experts, and went to Congress asking for authority to recruit as many sailors as he wanted, thus moving the nation toward war. Perhaps the Spanish-American War was fought at behest of the Foundation? Perhaps the Foundation sank the Maine to incite war for their own purposes? If this was the case, perhaps the Foundation had something to do with getting TR on the 1900 Republican ticket? (Yeah, I know this is in contradiction to my above thought, but I'm thinking as I write.)
Reasons why not McKinley:
- There aren't many disasters in the US that happened shortly before McKinley's assassination. The only one I can find perusing Wikipedia would be the Great Fire of 1901. Haven't a clue what to say that was covering up.
- My historical knowledge of the 1890-1910 period is not all that encyclopedic. It's not a period I've spent much time researching for fun or academics. Don't know how well you know it, though, and I'm not scared off by doing research for this sort of thing.
- I know a lot about this history of American intelligence (being a political science / international relations major who just finished up his senior thesis on intelligence analysis a little over a week ago). I have no trouble talking at length about what the US intelligence community and military were up to between World War Two and now - nor do I have difficulty faking history in that time period with some reasonable level of verisimilitude. The McKinley/Roosevelt era would be out of my element, though.
One other thought: Wouldn't it be more impressive for the Foundation to be able to successfully rig an American election than for it to be able to kill a President? It's known almost axiomatically within the intelligence and security communities that killing a public figure isn't all that hard - it's getting away with it that's difficult. Throwing an election, without appearing to do so, especially in a country like the United States, now that is hard. Just a thought.
So, I'm not sure where to go with all this, but that's what I have at the moment.
Message 3:
From: Dr Gears
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 6 May 2012, 18:17 GMT-05
To: Hornby
I like this idea. TR was an amazing person, and i could see him being approached by The Foundation, and being rather responsive to it. I like your angle, for a lot of reasons…if you like, i can maybe cook up a little outline…give me a day or so, i'll see if anything leaps to mind, but i've already got a little bit of a hazy framework, i think…
Message 4:
From: Hornby
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 6 May 2012, 18:26 GMT-05
To: Dr Gears
Cool! Keep me informed.
Message 5:
From: Dr Gears
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 6 May 2012, 22:20 GMT-05
To: Hornby
I have an idea. Bascially, a sequence of small scenes. Each is a meeting with The Foundation, or other major Groups Of Intrest, fiddling about with world affairs. That's not to say they're always playing at making or breaking rulers, but just various incidents that, while appearing "normal" on the top, are much stranger underneath. Major world events , and even some very minor ones, are actually the end results of various moves and actions of these groups. No, the world is not ruled or moved by them…but, in maybe 5% of cases, there's a hidden hand at work.
Message 6:
From: Hornby
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 8 May 2012, 20:17 GMT-05
To: Dr Gears
I like these ideas - let me stew a bit on them and I'll reply relating to your above suggestions in greater detail later.
I'm wondering how we want to tell the stories (from whose perspective, I mean). I'd hesitate to make the President himself the viewpoint character, but I like the idea of it being a non-Foundation person. Perhaps a "Special Advisor to the President"? White House Staff is 1700 odd people, if memory serves. I mean, nothing says we have to have a specific viewpoint character, but I rather prefer that style to having a transcript of recordings like spike did in the Cold Harper Nixon meeting tale.
Alternatively, we might put a liaison from the Foundation on the permanent staff at the White House. Maybe the same character being a fixture at the White House across decades and administrations? I can just imagine an amused discussion between mid-level staffers circa say, Reagan, coming into office.
Who's that guy?
Fred Black. Special Advisor to the President.
Huh, I don't remember him being appointed by the Chief of Staff.
He wasn't.
What do you mean he wasn't?
He's been around since the Roosevelt administration?
Franklin?!
Theodore.
Anyway, let me think about this all for a bit.
Message 7:
From: Dr Gears
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 8 May 2012, 21:26 GMT-05
To: Hornby
I like that idea, of a "advisor" that is just kind of…there. No office, no real title…just a guy who's in the office, now and then.
as for viewpoint, i think outside observer is a great idea. Just an aid or someone sitting in on the meeting…
Message 8:
Okay, longer response now:
The Bay of Pigs wasn't a real military action, but a feint made to cover a Foundation action. Castro had accidentally gotten hold of something nasty, and was wanting to get it the hell out of his country. It quickly became a race to the finish, to see which group was going to grab it first. The invasion was to keep eyes off of the area where the action went down, in case things went…bad.
Historical truth: What eventually became known as the "Bay of Pigs Invasion" was originally neither planned to land at the Bay of Pigs, nor was it originally intended as an invasion. The idea dated back to 17 March 1960, when Eisenhower approved a document drawn up by the 5412 Committee, with the objective of "the purpose of the program outlined herein is to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention." When the amphibious assault was initially planned, the target was Trinidad, Cuba.
Fast forward to 28 Jan 1961, when President Kennedy was briefed on the latest plan, Operation Pluto. One thousand cuban expats were to be landed in a ship-born invasion at Trinidad, about 270 km southeast of Havana, at the foothills of the Escambray Mountains. Kennedy authorized this; Trinidad had good port facilities, was close to many existing counter-revolutionary activities, had a beachhead which was easily defensible, and the guerrillas could escape into the Escambray Mountains if anything went wrong (whereat they could exist indediffinitely with aerial resupply). The State Department vetoed Trinidad. CIA then proposed an alternative, Operation Zapata, which moved the landing sites to the Bay of Pigs. Long story short, the invasion took place (and failed) in April 1961.
What If: Perhaps the Foundation hijacked the invasion for its own purposes, forcing Kennedy's hand into changing the location, along with everything else that caused the operation to fail? Perhaps the "something nasty" was in or near the city of Trinidad? CIA also attempted some rediculously large number of attempts at killing Castro - everything from spiked cigars to exploding seashells. Obviously, nothing worked; in fact, the failures were so embarrasing that they were the reason President Ford banned the US government from participating in assassinations. Perhaps the Foundation found itself having to protect Castro for whatever reason (potentially without Castro's knowledge)?
North Korea's mildly insane break with the national scene and continued military stance is due to heavy involvement by a group of interest, possibly the GOC or Chaos Insurgency. They were promised…well, a lot, and while the country is bled out for manpower, subjects, and anything else they need, they keep stringing along the leadership with trinkets.
Not sure where to go with this one. Interesting idea, in the abstract, and would seem to fit the Chaos Insurgency nicely. Just not sure of the hook. Perhaps something to do with the bombardment of Yeonpyeong back in Nov 2010?
Underneath WWII, a second war almost erupted. The Foundation suddenly found itself jutting up against a budding “Foundation” being nurtured under the SS and Himmler. At least two of the death camps were meant not for the eradication of jews and undesirables, but for the disposal of the “D-class” for this group, which they were using up like tissue paper due to the somewhat…open research policy. I'd love to see something between various world leaders, The Foundation, and maybe one or two other groups as they work out how to keep “an already cluttered game board from falling apart.”
I like this idea. Of course, alternate!WWII is one of the most over-done alternate history things, so treading carefully is a must.
I make some mention to the war behind the war in SCP-1050; though I see no reason to change that article as it is at +90~, I'd be fine if we appropriated that for use or reference.
D-class death camps. This would rather be the third rail, so to speak. While I have no qualms about illiciting reactions from readers that range from horror to disgust, I think doing this would take delicate handling. Flame wars and all that. Yes, I know that the Foundation is often times no better than the Nazis were when it comes to D-class. However, the Holocaust really happened, while the wiki invented D-class. That said, I could see Hitler and Himmler having an argument, with Himmler wanting to divert more undesirables for experiments while Hitler just wanted them dead. Also, looking into Dr. Josef Rudolf Mengele would be in order (I only know of him by reputation, not by specifics).
So, who would our players be for this one? Foundation, obviously. GOC didn't exist yet (and I don't think we should try and make this an origin story, but something which established the world stage out of which it came might be interesting). MC&D would be closely aligned with the British, I would think, given their geographic and political base. I don't know when the Serpent's Hand first appeared on the scene, but they might be an agent of chaos which for reasons never explained tried to upset both the overt and covert WWII gameboards. UIU wouldn't have existed yet, but I could see some G-men being involved at Hoover's personal request (for that matter, I could see Hoover being fully aware of the Foundation's existence). IRG didn't come around until later.
Historical entities we could have involved in the secret war…
Well, Himmler was interested in the occult (Hitler wasn't really), so the SS could have had a secret unit. Put it under a fictional Standartenfuhrer (Colonel analog)? Perhaps have interactions with Otto Skorzeny (though he's well enough documented that he should not run it).
There's the Manhattan Project. I have the Mitrohiken archive book, which details what the Soviet NKVD was doing to steal the secrets from the Americans. That could be an interesting bit running at times in tandem and at times at cross purposes to the Foundation.
There's all that horrific stuff done by various special units in the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific. Don't really know much about that, but it's an option.
So, I see three ways of setting up the gameboard. In order from least to most intriguing:
Option 1: Put the Foundation squarely on either the Axis or Allied side. This is a bad plan from a story perspective, as it is the most cliched.
Option 2: Allies vs. Axis (overt WWII) and Foundation vs. various (covert WWII). The Foundation and its opposition are not consistently aligned with one side or the other. This could be interesting, but writing out enough detail to do this justice would be hard.
Option 3: Allies vs. Axis (overt WWII), various GOIs vs. various aligned secret organizations (SS, Manhattan Project, NKVD, etc.). Then have the Foundation just trying to keep things from completely falling apart - sort of the way Britain acted as "balancer" in international politics during the 19th and early 20th centuries. I think this is the most interesting option, as it would have the Foundation simply want to keep securing, containing, and protecting its anomalies, but being forced into involving itself more in politics and the day-to-day of world events than it would have liked.
A major earthquake being covered up after a breach event, and other major/minor disasters being glossed over.
1906 San Francisco earthquake. Fits neatly in TR's presidency.
Also, perhaps we could relate that and the Tunguska event (which happened 30 June 1908).
Haven't a clue what to cover up, though.
I'm trying to avoid some of the more common traps with this kind of “what if” thinking, so ideas and suggestions would be great…
Have you by any chance read the book What If? The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, edited by Robert Cowley? It's quite good.
As far as traps go, I generally find the best alternate history assumes only minor and plausible points of divergence. These can have major ramifications, but the events need to be plausible and follow logically from the changes.
Also, while readers generally will assume "reality except where noted", I find it to be best to have most of the specific details given in a work of this sort to be either real or grounded in reality. I mean, I like soft science fiction as much as the next guy, don't get me wrong, but if I'm trying to write something where the audience is expected to believe "hey, maybe this is real", then I want to make it so that when they go and look at Wikipedia about the actual real world event on which I'm basing my story, my facts check out.
I have a wonderful nonfiction book called The Truth About Chernobyl, by Gregori Medvedev. It goes into a minute by minute (and at times second by second) account of what happened at Chernobyl. This could be an interesting event to consider appropriating for our own means as well.
So, that's what I have.
Message 9:
From: Dr Gears
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 8 May 2012, 23:11 GMT-05
To: Hornby
All this sounds really good so far. I'm not as deeply rooted on the history side of things as i'd like to be, and you seem…well versed, to say the least, so i'll kneel to your judgement on most of the points here.
On the castro side of things…i see MC&D being more likely to be the ones covering castro's ass then The Foundation. Maybe he (or a relation) is a club member, and is keeping him well covered. Meanwhile, MC&D is doing brisk business in and through Cuba, which is starting to chafe The Foundation. In my head canon, at this point The Foundation still has close US military ties, so they decide to try and direct an offensive in the hopes of disrupting operations. It fails, but it does send MC&D to ground, and sends what will become a long-standing message: The Foundation wants the Veil maintained. If you fuck with the Veil, there's little they won't do to try and fix it.
For Korea…maybe it's something a bit sinister. The Chaos Insurgency approaches some key players, offering all the old trinkets (money, power, so on…) in return for, basically, letting them call a lot of shots from behind the scenes. It's been in the works for a while, and even with it being a pretty insane thing to do, it hasn't really been enough to trigger any of the other groups to try and do anything about it. Until, maybe, an incident in Yeonpyeong?
WWII alt history is hard to keep fresh, i know. The D-class bit is probably better tossed, it's true. I see The Foundation in a totally center-of-the-board pose, much to everyone's frustration. Even some of the things they have under lock and key could end the war in a matter of days, but that's not in any way their job. Nothing so far has endangered humanity as a whole in any real, serious way, so they have no reason to do anything. I could see an Agent more or less stating that a little "pruning" via war is actually a rather good thing, in the long run. MC&D obviously would be on the English side of things, if only for tradition's sake, and not at all above working with the Germans now and then. GOC was probably in it's infancy at this point, so not a real player…maybe the Church as well? Serpent's Hand is probably only worried about someone ACTUALLY stumbling on to real occult power somehow, but is more active then The Foundation in this.
I think that would boil down to two big scenes, one axis, one allies. Each trying to win over The Foundation, and advance their own goals at the same time. Something to think about.
I'd love to see a bit of Foundation-related meddling with Chernobyl. The obvious idea is that the meltdown wasn't all that much of a meltdown, but a site-sealing last resort action after a major breach.
think on it, let me know!
Message 10:
From: Hornby
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 15 May 2012, 00:11 GMT-05
To: Dr Gears
One relatively quick thought, though:
I'd love to see a bit of Foundation-related meddling with Chernobyl. The obvious idea is that the meltdown wasn't all that much of a meltdown, but a site-sealing last resort action after a major breach.
Actually, here's the fun (and also horrifying, and also true) thing about the Chernobyl disaster:
They were in the process of doing a scheduled shutdown of Reactor 4 (the one that detonated). During this, they were doing a test relating to continuing to generate power from the steam turbine while letting the reactor run down. Problem was, they deviated from the authorized procedure for running the test. Among other things, they deliberately turned off a lot of the failsafes (the reactor design in question had fewer failsafes than most Western designs, but it still had some, which they turned off). And it's not entirely clear why the fellows supervising the procedure chose to deviate. The official reports (in typical Soviet fashion) did more CYA than actually explaining why things went the way they did. These individuals also died soon thereafter of radiation poisoning, taking whatever their full motivations to the grave.
That's the historical truth, at least as best I remember it. The Wikipedia article on the Chernobyl disaster has more; its accuracy is passable.
Anyway, I should think that it would be truly terrifying if the "real" reason that the operators deviated from the plan was either at the behest of the Foundation (or a GoI), or in response to their own attempts to contain something. I think it would be an interesting take to assume that all available historical evidence on the Chernobyl case is truthful, but it is also incomplete. And the Foundation, conveniently enough, has some or all of the missing evidence.
Message 11:
From: Dr Gears
Subject: Re: Mr. President, we need a word…
Date: 15 May 2012, 16:13 GMT-05
To: Hornby
That sounds great…that the truth is there, but not whole…