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Like, it's better to get stuck with a 1970's 1980's level of technology, but be able to reproduce it with little issue, and have complete databases not based on someones memory of em. Then to maybe get a chance at more modern tech, at the cost that its all in peoples heads and is vulnerable to being lost. That along with the literacy bonus leads to me wanting libraries more, but am open to convincing.
Edit: Also as a nice oil replacement side note, we can make a lot of methanol(wood alcohol) from clearing out forests for agriculture. As we are probably going to need to expand soy/corn production. This should at least give us some wiggle room in terms of fuel, as most engines can run on methanol, they just have issues starting up.
I would honestly caution against the idea of the usage of Incompetent Military as a freebie even despite our Old Guard starting point. Not just because I am of the opinion that military expertise itself at least worthy of being a skilled trade in and of itself, but also that the trait will imply grave systematic problems that will take liters of blood to throw off. Here is a passage from Anthony Beevor's The Battle for Spain, which is about the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s (which I find to be incredibly applicable to our current situation if it ever comes to force on force confrontations):
Article:
Meanwhile, on the northern axis of advance Colonel Yagüe's force was organized in five self-contained columns of some 1,500 men each, with legionnaires and regulares mounted in requisitioned lorries and accompanied by 75mm artillery. They were supported by Savoia Marchetti 81s, piloted by Italians in Legion uniform, and Junkers 52s flown by Luftwaffe personnel. Yagüe struck due north into Estremadura, maintaining a momentum of advance exceeded only by the armoured punches of 1940. His tactics were simple and effective. The lorry-borne force rushed up the main road at full speed until resistance was encountered at a town or village. (No ambushes were made in the open country because the inhabitants wanted to defend their homes and needed the feeling of security which walls gave.) The nationalists would order surrender over loudhailers provided by the Germans. All doors and windows were to be left open and white flags hung on every house. If there was no reply, or firing, then the troops would dismount and launch a rapid pincer attack.
Concentrations of defenders provided ideal targets for professional troops with artillery backed by bombers. Mobile groups would have inflicted higher casualties and delayed the nationalists' advance more effectively. Once a village was captured, the ensuing massacre was supposed to be a reprisal for 'red' killings., but it was utterly indiscriminate. Queipo de Llano claimed that '80 per cent of Andalucian families are in mourning, and we shall not hesitate to have recourse to sterner measures'.
The nationalist attack demonstrated the psychological vulnerability of the worker militias. In street fighting, caught up in collective bravery, they were courageous to a foolhardy degree. But in the open the shelling and bombing were usually too much for them, since they refused to dig trenches (Irún was an outstanding exception). 'The Spanish are too proud to dig into the ground,' Largo Caballero later declared to the communist functionary Mije.8 Most of the bombs dropped were, in fact, almost useless, but the enemy aircraft were skilfully handled, causing maximum terror to peasants who had little experience of modern technology. Also, having no idea of how to prepare a defensive position, the militiamen had a desperate fear of finding themselves facing the Moors' knives alone. Outflanking movements which surprised them usually led to a panic-stricken stampede. Chaos was increased when the population of a village clogged the roads with their carts and donkeys as they too fled from the colonial troops. Sometimes they even seized the militias' lorries for themselves. On the other hand, the nationalist tactic of terror provoked heroism as well as flight. Peasants, having seen their families on their way, would take up shotguns or abandoned rifles and return to die in their pueblo.
By 10 August Yagüe's force had advanced more than 300 kilometres to Mérida. Just south of the town at the Roman bridge over the River Guadiana, Asensio's forces met fierce opposition. The defence committee of the town was organized by Anita López, who greatly encouraged the ferocious resistance. She was among those killed when Yagüe's troops finally entered the town that night and carried out a fearful massacre.9 The next day the bulk of the Mérida militia counter-attacked with the aid of a strong detachment of assault guards and civil guards sent from Madrid. Yagüe left part of his force to hold them off while he advanced due west on Badajoz, on the Portuguese border. Franco had insisted on this diversion from the main axis. Apart from not wanting to leave an enemy strongpoint behind his line of advance, he wished to demonstrate that the northern and southern parts of the nationalist zone were now linked.
Despite the fact that such a mundane structure has dominated the imagination of what 21st century Westerners think of the First World War, the idea of implementing such defensive structures did not occur to the militia who fought in the early period of the Spanish Civil War 18 years after the Great War with grave consequences for the Republicans involved. And since our recruits are raised in conditions more similar to those of the early 20th century Spaniard, it'll be likely that we'll be facing the same morale and training woes that the Spanish Republicans have to deal with in the 1930s.
Astute readers will have probably noticed that the Nationalist force that was overrunning much of northern Republican Spain is only a hair larger than our Old World battalion and with much worse equipment too. They didn't have any armored fighting vehicles, no body armor or any other advanced infantry equipment, and their main transport of choice were appropriated civilian transports. They are not at all equivalent to the German Panzer divisions so famous in WW2 yet they still pulled off such a stunning advance.
So if we ever take incompetent military, then we must go in eyes wide open that this will definitely result in a bloodbath.
It's easy for us to forget just how far down the ladder of military competence goes, living as we do in a society where depictions of Western-style professional militaries are the norm. "We refused to dig trenches because we're not a bunch of lowly slaves, now six giant explosions (from an 81mm mortar) have happened and we're dying and AAAAH RUN AWAY" is totally a plausible outcome, even for a Valiant People's Militia (TM), if it has no military training, no instilled discipline, and no firmly fixed command structure.
As @Exterminatus points out, soldiering is a skilled trade. One does not simply pick up a rifle and turn into a soldier, any more than one simply picks up a welding torch and becomes a welder. Give a totally untrained person a welding torch and tell them to use it, and they're likely to make an utter mess of the product, probably while seriously injuring themselves.
Just to point out for the people arguing against Rail Companies as a tradeoff for military advantages having a functional rail network is a major force multiplier when most armies cannot use combustion engines on any large scale. Being able to swiftly move troops, along with economic assets, at scale is an advantage not to be scoffed at especially when you're talking a defensive military situation.
I mean, every word you say is true, but there's a catch.
When you design a 'spiderweb' of railroads to enable troops to move rapidly across your country so that enemies can be momentarily entrapped, then easily reached and destroyed... Well, a spiderweb isn't much of a threat without the spider. You need troops that are worth moving, or there's no point in moving them.
You need troops that will consistently follow the orders of a central command headquarters, even if it puts them in danger- because otherwise they won't be able to act as reserves bailing out another threatened unit.
You need troops that will know what to do when you drop them off the train in terrain they don't know personally, how to defend themselves or attack the enemy just from a quick look at the surrounding land and the situation in front of them.
You need troops that will rapidly carry out basic military 'evolutions' such as "dig in" or "secure the perimeter" or "post sentries" on demand.
Historically, many nations have leveraged their rail networks for military success. But every single one of them had a competent, reasonably trained military to begin with.
Our ability to move troops and supplies means very little if our troops can't fight. To quote Roger Zelazny:
"It means nothing to be able to transport yourself anywhere, if you are a fool in all places."
...
There is a certain minimal standard of basic competence that we need for your proposed strategy to work- and work it will! But if we sacrifice that basic minimal competence, we cannot expect the railways to save us on the military front.
IIRC the Vickies actively disdain the use of anything more sophisticated than trains with the exception of T-34 tanks due to their whole Retroculture ideology that involves scrapping any technology that's too "new" or "modern". From what I do recall from the Let's Read whenever the Vickies used their T-34s they were transporting the infantry through tank desant and not dedicated transports, a method that works in a pinch but has serious drawbacks starting with that the infantry themselves are hideously vulnerable, the tanks themselves are limited in what they can do because they're operating as ersatz mobile infantry transports and logistically speaking is just plain dumb.
ON EDIT: I stand corrected as @Lazer Raptor the Vickies have a small quantity of mobile forces, mostly mounted on civilian trucks and the like, but most importantly these units are used for moving troops and not, quite critically, for the boring jobs of logistics and communications support. In other words they have mobile forces but those mobile units will have a really tenuous logistical tail that's likely to rely much more heavily on looting the countryside than a secure supply chain.
In other words the exact kind of force that would break itself to pieces on a well-sustained defensive force that has a strong logistical network. Having a rail network guarantees, especially with how weak our combustion-based options are, that we'll have a better supply chain than any mobile Vickie forces.
It's been 10-20 years since the events (misrepresented by the propaganda that is) of the novel. And we know Rumford's memoirs leave out a lot of important details.
I would hesitate to assume that the Victorians do not have and have not acquired trucks or armored cars that are better suited to the needs of mobile warfare under primitive conditions than heavy, clunky 30-ton medium tanks. Or that they won't procure such by the time we encounter them.
Their lack of rear area supply troops is definitely important and we can expect them to perform badly in static warfare, YES... but if our troops are sufficiently incompetent, they won't be able to put up enough resistance for us to force the Victorians into static fighting. The enemy will be able to use their reputation for terror, their mortars, and even their civilian vehicles (like Colonel Yague from the Spanish Civil War in @Exterminatus 's post) to swiftly overwhelm and shatter forces that face them.
I am, personally, of the opinion that if the military requires an artillery gun, they should get an artillery gun, and you can take that to the logical conclusion. What I am not pleased by is when third-party Military-Industrial Complex corporations pull a fast one to artificially boost the military budget. Consider the F-35 by Lockheed-Martin. Whew, it has VTOL capabilities, how nice! It doesn't fight like a Hornet, it doesn't ground-attack like an A-10...
The VTOL capabilities of the F-35 are arguably a boondoggle, but were a direct result of trying to get the F-35 to replace obsolescent Harrier jump-jets and usefully expand capabilities for the VTOL role. If we hadn't built the F-35B as a VTOL plane, it would have been necessary to build a different, similarly advanced fighter jet that could do that job. Arguably would have been a better choice, but the point remains.
The F-35 doesn't fight like a Hornet in the sense that a wolverine doesn't fight like a housecat. The F-35 is by rights very much the winner of that contest.
The F-35 doesn't ground-attack like an A-10 because unlike the A-10 it isn't designed specifically to destroy Soviet tank swarms in the Fulda Gap. The A-10 is almost unique in its intended role, has some significant drawbacks (a plane designed to take ground fire tends to get damaged on every sortie, creating extra logistical burdens), and has a main weapon that is ludicrously overspecialized (there is basically nothing on the battlefield that it makes sense to use a GAU-8 on, aside from swarms of Soviet armored vehicles in the Fulda Gap).
Libraries gives us a literate population. I dont want a fucking priest-technician caste surfing atop a sea of illiterate peasants.
An educated and literate population is key to a prosperous and stable democracy. I'm not throwing that away so that we can have a few hundred seventy and eighty year olds that die after teaching half of what they know to the next generation. Having those experts really only helps us long term if they have a base of educated and literate citizens to operate from. Otherwise anything they attempt to pass on is going to start from literally ABCs.
Like, it's better to get stuck with a 1970's 1980's level of technology, but be able to reproduce it with little issue, and have complete databases not based on someones memory of em. Then to maybe get a chance at more modern tech, at the cost that its all in peoples heads and is vulnerable to being lost.
But we need established or we will be giving ourselves an insane handicap. If we do not get established soon we will only have chicago to use to fight against the inevitable Victorian assault.
Important bit of info and context, apparently their supply chain is even more shit than I thought:
That meant radio was legal, but not television. Electric cars and trucks were all right, but only with lead-acid batteries and that made them short range forms of transportation. The price of oil still made gas cars unaffordable. No computers, DVDs, Xerox machines, cell phones, sat phones, none of that witches' brew of technologies that had so undermined the old ways of living. An exception was made for the armed forces and for medical technologies, but nothing else.
Maybe their armed forces, for mobile units, still have gas-powered trucks but if all the rest have been scrapped and replaced with the most inefficient automotive technology possible then you're looking at a really shit quartermaster corps.
Maybe their armed forces, for mobile units, still have gas-powered trucks but if all the rest have been scrapped and replaced with the most inefficient automotive technology possible then you're looking at a really shit quartermaster corps.
Of no particular importance, but I've been trying to work out which Old World unit Ron C. Burns commands.
We know from @PoptartProdigy that it's a Combined Arms Battalion, a very specific type of unit that exists within an Armored Brigade Combat Team.
Now there are only ten (10) ABCTs in the US Army (there's a couple in the National Guard, but we were told this was a US Army unit). These units are located in California (1), Texas (4), Kansas (2), Europe (1), Georgia (1), and Colorado (1).
Discounting the unit in Europe leaves us with nine (we know the USA withdrew from abroad, it was probably disbanded). We know that Burns fought for the "New American Confederation, Cascadia, and the Pacific Republic in turn" which suggests that he wasn't in California otherwise he would have fought for the Pacific Republic first. He probably wasn't in Colorado either, which again would be closer to either the Pacific or Cascadia. The fact that his unit was able make it out of the NAC after its collapse for Cascadia would tend to eliminate Georgia which is on the other side of the nuclear destruction of Atlanta. Now we know that the US military was stripped to its bare bones (which is how Victoria was able to win at all) - so what we have to ask is of the six remaining units in Texas and Kansas; which would America stick with to the bitter end despite the very worst of budget cuts?
The answer is of course the two units in Kansas- both of which are part of the 1st Infantry Division (aka "The Big red One") which is the oldest continuously serving unit in the United States Army. In fact the 1st Brigade Combat Team (one of the two ABCTs) is the oldest permanent brigade in the Army. It stands to reason that if the Army were deactivating units, the oldest ones would probably be last and were probably still around when everything went to shit.
Now I have no firm reason to go with the 1st Brigade Combat Team other than my highly scientific "it feels right" method, but there is some circumstantial evidence. The "Devil Brigade" would almost certainly still have been in existence when the government fell. Fort Riley, Kansas is far enough away from the East Coast that the Federal Government wouldn't have been able to call on it to fight the Northern Confederation in the early days, forcing the government to go with the disastrous experiment of the 42nd. It's close enough to the south to plausibly fight for the New American Confederation, but peripheral enough to then conceivably be able to reach Cascadia after the fall of the NAC.
Again, I have no proof of any of this but it feels right.
So the Combined Arms Battalion of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division is the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment. They (actually it's the only still active battalion of the 16th, so it has the best right to the 16th's nickname "Rangers") served in Afghanistan, which explains how Burns "fought in parts of the world most Americans haven't even seen."
That's my best guess for his unit- in any case "last surviving piece of the Devil Brigade" would make for a pretty bad-ass claim to fame. (They're also Jay Gatsby's old unit- he served in the 16th in World War I). The other option would be the 1st battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment (aka "Vanguards"), which is the Combined Arms Battalion for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Regiment (aka "Dagger Brigade").
Thoughts from our glorious quest leader?
Regarding customization; I support going with rail companies. Railways are a military advantage- they let you move troops- and an economic advantage- they let you move goods. We'll particularly need them to transport food into the city if we pick Population Boom.
No doubt Ron got some moniker along the lines of "The Devil" while he moved across the collapse warzone that was once America.
Jesus, I want to try and write an omake detailing the shit he saw as he made his way to Chicago during the final days.
@PoptartProdigy Did a lot of people, meaning refugees, basically follow Burns? I can't imagine what he had to go through trying to keep a line of refugees under control while moving towards our point in time? Or was he already in Chicago under orders prior to the complete collapse of the government?
Of no particular importance, but I've been trying to work out which Old World unit Ron C. Burns commands.
We know from @PoptartProdigy that it's a Combined Arms Battalion, a very specific type of unit that exists within an Armored Brigade Combat Team.
Now there are only ten (10) ABCTs in the US Army (there's a couple in the National Guard, but we were told this was a US Army unit). These units are located in California (1), Texas (4), Kansas (2), Europe (1), Georgia (1), and Colorado (1).
Discounting the unit in Europe leaves us with nine (we know the USA withdrew from abroad, it was probably disbanded). We know that Burns fought for the "New American Confederation, Cascadia, and the Pacific Republic in turn" which suggests that he wasn't in California otherwise he would have fought for the Pacific Republic first. He probably wasn't in Colorado either, which again would be closer to either the Pacific or Cascadia. The fact that his unit was able make it out of the NAC after its collapse for Cascadia would tend to eliminate Georgia which is on the other side of the nuclear destruction of Atlanta. Now we know that the US military was stripped to its bare bones (which is how Victoria was able to win at all) - so what we have to ask is of the six remaining units in Texas and Kansas; which would America stick with to the bitter end despite the very worst of budget cuts?
The answer is of course the two units in Kansas- both of which are part of the 1st Infantry Division (aka "The Big red One") which is the oldest continuously serving unit in the United States Army. In fact the 1st Brigade Combat Team (one of the two ABCTs) is the oldest permanent brigade in the Army. It stands to reason that if the Army were deactivating units, the oldest ones would probably be last and were probably still around when everything went to shit.
Now I have no firm reason to go with the 1st Brigade Combat Team other than my highly scientific "it feels right" method, but there is some circumstantial evidence. The "Devil Brigade" would almost certainly still have been in existence when the government fell. Fort Riley, Kansas is far enough away from the East Coast that the Federal Government wouldn't have been able to call on it to fight the Northern Confederation in the early days, forcing the government to go with the disastrous experiment of the 42nd. It's close enough to the south to plausibly fight for the New American Confederation, but peripheral enough to then conceivably be able to reach Cascadia after the fall of the NAC.
Again, I have no proof of any of this but it feels right.
So the Combined Arms Battalion of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division is the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment. They (actually it's the only still active battalion of the 16th, so it has the best right to the 16th's nickname "Rangers") served in Afghanistan, which explains how Burns "fought in parts of the world most Americans haven't even seen."
That's my best guess for his unit- in any case "last surviving piece of the Devil Brigade" would make for a pretty bad-ass claim to fame. (They're also Jay Gatsby's old unit- he served in the 16th in World War I). The other option would be the 1st battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment (aka "Vanguards"), which is the Combined Arms Battalion for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Regiment (aka "Dagger Brigade").
Thoughts from our glorious quest leader?
Regarding customization; I support going with rail companies. Railways are a military advantage- they let you move troops- and an economic advantage- they let you move goods. We'll particularly need them to transport food into the city if we pick Population Boom.
For those who haven't read it and are in this thread, @EBR has written some his own post-apoc stuff for the U.S. called Stars and Stripes Forever and I highly recommend giving it a look.
For those who haven't read it and are in this thread, @EBR has written some his own post-apoc stuff for the U.S. called Stars and Stripes Forever and I highly recommend giving it a look.
Yeah seconding this, I highly recommend looking at his works. There is also a timeline over at Alternate History set in SM Sterlings, rather atrocious, Embersverse: Bring Me Men To Match My Mountains
So, an important note for any potential Old-World heavy armor we may get. Vehicles like the M1 Abrams are designed to run on a wide variety of liquid fuel sources, including Kerosene, Jet Fuel, Bio-Diesel, Synthetic Oil, and any grade of consumer gasoline up to and including leaded varieties. While it is a gas-guzzler of insane proportions, because you can fuel it off of virtually any type of motor oil you find in sufficient quantities, it is uniquely suited to operating in this kind of pseudo wasteland environment. It still guzzles fuel, but the fact that we can run it off of virtually any fuel we find or have sitting around is fairly useful in its own right.
Unfortunately, the same doesn't apply to Bradley IFVs, which have diesel engines and stuff. Until we get a reliable source of diesel for them, we'll be limited in our ability to deploy them.
Jesus that sounds both hilarious and terrifying. I imagine Poptart is going to say that Burns isn't that crazy, but I'd like to believe there is at least one rival commander within the Vicky Command structure that wants to see Burns...well burn.
The very specific series of cultural upheavals and military trials that led to that tactic has not recurred. The modern IJA is a professional, albeit small, military with excellent logistics, equipment, and training. Imperial or not, they remain a post-modern Japan, and are capable of fielding very effective troops.
The F-35 doesn't ground-attack like an A-10 because unlike the A-10 it isn't designed specifically to destroy Soviet tank swarms in the Fulda Gap. The A-10 is almost unique in its intended role, has some significant drawbacks (a plane designed to take ground fire tends to get damaged on every sortie, creating extra logistical burdens), and has a main weapon that is ludicrously overspecialized (there is basically nothing on the battlefield that it makes sense to use a GAU-8 on, aside from swarms of Soviet armored vehicles in the Fulda Gap).
Let's discuss the GAU-8, the gun with an aircraft. First, you're right, it was originally slated to kill the shit out of Soviet tanks, originally developed in the 70's, iirc. Which it technically did, during the Gulf Wars. (And a few American tanks, while it was at it, but that wasn't a technical issue so much as an institutional one.) 30 millimeter, uranium depleted rounds can tear into anything. The high rate-of-fire, accuracy, and recoil-stabilizing mechanisms in the design of the A-10 itself allows it to be used against infantry, which it was during particularly committed pushes by insurgents after the initial invasion in the Second Gulf War and/or the occupation of Afghanistan. I honestly don't see how that's overspecialized besides, maybe, the nature of the ammunition or the supply available to it. There's also the psychological dimension: hearing that beautiful belle sing emboldens allies and disheartens the enemy. (Physically and figuratively.) Are the latter points what it was designed for? No. But consider an anti-tan gun from the olden days. Obviously, it was meant to knock out tanks, but you could occasionally load the breech with an HE or even WP shell into that fucker and turn it into a crowd-pleaser real quick.
With a name like Burns, I totally want his reception from the Victorians to lean into this. I love maximum Nom de Guerre in my commander soup, really adds texture and personality.
Also, as a side note, for the first few turns, we are going to be limited in almost every main resource that's not iron, coal, zinc, lead, tin or concrete mix. At least until we expand significantly and get a lot more land under our control. So, any form of early game military plans are going to have to content to logistics running on coal, and most units needing to use either methanol, biodiesel, or liquifacted coal. With downsides for each fuel, Methanol is easy to make but stupidly dangerous to use. Biodiesel is safe and cheapish, but it directly competes with fuel supplies. Liquifacted coal is literally better than normal fuel, but it is so insanely expensive to make and is slow to expand with our tech base. Realistically though, if we massively expand farmland, then as long as we plant soy or corn, it can at least yield enough fuel to run itself without compromising food production, plus we'll get a ton of methanol through making wood alcohol from all the forests.
I dont think that would be very effective because it would be very easy to paint him as a perpetual loser.
He is on his fifth state opposing the Victorians and they've utterly defeated or destroyed the last four, all four of them each much more powerful than us. It would be easy to paint him as a "A loser warlord in charge of a few hundred aging relics reduced to ruling a tiny pocket in the middle of nowhere"
He's not the devil he's a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain. "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME RUMFOOOOOOORD!"
Edit: like, as fascists, it wouldnt be out of character for Victoria to leave us alive as powerless eternal punching bags to bloody their next generation of Heroes. So he could be the Devil AND the Eternal Loser I guess. Fascists are dumb.
@PoptartProdigy here's a potential omake that's my stab at wrangling Lind's absolutely mad historical context and inexplicable economic crisis into something that vaguely makes sense. Please take note this requires some suspension of disbelief but nowhere near as much as Lind's book and is at least semi-plausible mostly in terms of the damage a US default would do to the American & global economy along with America's position in the world. It also, quite fitting considering Lind's reactionary politics, is the result of a hard man making hard decisions:
"One of the key pillars of the US economy in the early 21st century was its global monetary dominance. The US dollar was the most widely used reserve currency and US treasury securities were traded freely by financiers around the world. It was this constant demand for highly valued US treasury bonds that ensured the US could continue to sustain its massive levels of deficit spending, much of which went to maintaining its sprawling military machine. This also cemented the US's role as the center of global finance, making Wall Street banks and hedge funds highly sought after the world over.
All of this rested on the unquestioned faith that the United States, no matter what, would always make good on its debts. Ever since the passage of the 14th Amendment, which stipulated the US would always honor its debts, the United States had never once defaulted on its obligations. This unbroken century and half of certainty meant, even in times of severe strain such as during the tumult of the 1970s Oil Shocks, that people would always gladly buy US debt. As long as US debt remained stable, affordable and constant the value of the dollar remained unquestionable."
From The Economy of the Late United States by David Hanssen, Oxford University Press (Oxford: 2035)
"The beginning of the end for Donald Trump and American global hegemony was on August 12th, 2019. For two weeks Trump, once again, was wrangling with the Democratic-controlled House over passing his new budget proposals and renewing the string of continuing resolutions that had kept the government open. The Democrats, for their part, refused to budge on critical components including Trump's effective abolition of the Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development and the EPA by way of massive funding cuts. As the Democratic Party saw it these demands, along with his renewed calls for border wall funding, were red lines that could not be crossed. On that fateful August day Trump escalated in the only way he could: by vetoing a bill to raise the debt ceiling, effectively announcing the US's first ever sovereign debt default.
This triggered a wave of global wave of economic panic. When the news first hit markets worldwide plummeted. The DOW Jones Industrial Average saw its greatest plunge in history as finance scrambled to liquidate now-uncertain US securities. Trump, in spite of this news, refused to budge. World leaders, including his usual ally Vladimir Putin, begged him to reconsider his actions. Trump responded by demanding that US allies in Europe and Japan immediately agree to reschedule US debt payments or he would no longer guarantee their security or the protection offered by the US military. The members of NATO, beginning with Germany and the United Kingdom, responded by immediately evicting American forces from their soil. Japan followed suit shortly after, cementing their decision with renewed debate on repealing the constitutional prohibition on aggressive war."
From The Trump Crisis by Robert Kagan, Alfred A. Knopf Publishing (New York, NY: 2021)
"The August Crisis kicked off a devastating wave of world-shattering consequences. The once-taken for granted US dollar was now in total freefall. US troops, who once boasted a global chain of bases, were now being unceremoniously expelled back to their homes in the United States. What made matters worse was the headlong rush by governments to offload what US securities they had on any market traders who were desperate enough to take them, hedging their bets on US recovery and a market rebound. After three weeks of continued intransigence Trump's Cabinet, led by Vice President Mike Pence, invoked the 25th Amendment and removed Trump from office on the grounds of total mental deterioration. The next day Congress passed a compromise budget which included raising the debt ceiling again, ending the Crisis.
Unfortunately for Americans and the global economy the aftershocks had only just begun. The total implosion of global trade and finance sent the world's economy into a death spiral. At home the US dollar, having lost all value abroad, rapidly inflated with Americans now plunged into even more dire straits than was seen during the worst years of the Great Depression. Continued federal gridlock exacerbated the problem while a deteriorating global economy unleashed new waves of instability. Putin's Russia, previously thought to be unassailable, collapsed following the implosion of oil revenues kicking off a short civil war that ended with the rise of Tsar Alexander IV. The European Union and China were forced to turn inward to address increasing instability. In the United States conspiracy theories, long entertained by elements of the right wing press, were in full flower as the already rising far right militia movement exploded across the country and clashed in the streets with the now resurgent American socialist movement.
It was in this period of instability and upheaval that Rumford would be expelled from a now greatly-reduced US Marine Corps, Bill Kraft would take the plunge to full-blown reactionary madness and the seeds of the Victorian nightmare were sewn."
From Collapse of Empire: the Dissolution of the United States by Harriet Jones, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh: 2047)
For those who haven't read it and are in this thread, @EBR has written some his own post-apoc stuff for the U.S. called Stars and Stripes Forever and I highly recommend giving it a look.
Yeah seconding this, I highly recommend looking at his works. There is also a timeline over at Alternate History set in SM Sterlings, rather atrocious, Embersverse: Bring Me Men To Match My Mountains
Post-apocalyptic Americas rebuilding themselves from the ashes is one of my favorite things- making fun of people like Stirling and Lind (although Stirling's not as bad as Lind) is another.
So admittedly a sort of thought I was thinking for a potential plan in terms of CP stuff. Imho, with us having gotten Victorian Attention, I think it's going to be vital to be Established to not waste the time we are going to need to spend on defending ourselves. Admittedly I dropped Rail Companies since I was short one CP (with Hostile Neighborhoods), since I felt Brown Water Navy is going to be more vital considering the entire Mississippi River Basin.
So admittedly a sort of thought I was thinking for a potential plan in terms of CP stuff. Imho, with us having gotten Victorian Attention, I think it's going to be vital to be Established to not waste the time we are going to need to spend on defending ourselves. Admittedly I dropped Rail Companies since I was short one CP (with Hostile Neighborhoods), since I felt Brown Water Navy is going to be more vital considering the entire Mississippi River Basin.
I'd personally take Rail Companies over Independent Merchants. A rail network can foster a healthy economy and is incredibly militarily useful especially with the Vickies coming. Taking merchants over rail means we're going to be hobbled when they do show up and won't have the military & economic advantages a rail network would give us.
I'd personally take Rail Companies over Independent Merchants. A rail network can foster a healthy economy and is incredibly militarily useful especially with the Vickies coming. Taking merchants over rail means we're going to be hobbled when they do show up and won't have the military & economic advantages a rail network would give us.
Except if we want to take Widespread Vaccinations we are required to take Independent Merchants, so it basically makes taking Vaccinations a total of -5 CP.
So admittedly a sort of thought I was thinking for a potential plan in terms of CP stuff. Imho, with us having gotten Victorian Attention, I think it's going to be vital to be Established to not waste the time we are going to need to spend on defending ourselves. Admittedly I dropped Rail Companies since I was short one CP (with Hostile Neighborhoods), since I felt Brown Water Navy is going to be more vital considering the entire Mississippi River Basin.
Given that there is no real focus on security, could I convince you it's worth adding disastrous start to pay for another 1 pt military, like a second old world tech or foreign equipment? Brown water navy will go a ways to fighting Vitoria but If Victoria comes turn 1 the extra edge could be critical.
I'd personally take Rail Companies over Independent Merchants. A rail network can foster a healthy economy and is incredibly militarily useful especially with the Vickies coming. Taking merchants over rail means we're going to be hobbled when they do show up and won't have the military & economic advantages a rail network would give us.
