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So regarding Russia, what sort of internal struggles are there? I imagine that all those countries Russia conquered in the collapse probably have their own national identities and are looking to violently free themselves.
Russia is currently dealing with resistance movements in the Baltics, Central Asia, the Middle East, Central America, and North America.
The collapse of the Russian Empire won't involve EU or Chinese troops marching into Moscow; it is far more likely to involve Russia simply being unable to afford to maintain all of its current conquests in the face of resistance movements with increasing support from the EU and China.
Yeah; the big questions is just how far the decline of the Russian Empire will go. There's going to still be a Russia in 2150 at this rate, but it'll have indirect and direct control over less clay.
It think if Kathrine gets involved and takes control, your likely going to see a 21st century Equivilent of the 1970s and 1980s America.
A Gradual Pull out with only minor altercations and proxy wars as the struggles at home slowly but surely erode confidence in the system that Alexander built and the reality slowly becomes clear...
You've got a probable Drug War Crisis brewing due to the Russian Mobs Influence and control over politicians becomes more apparent.
You've got SEVERAL unpopular wars that need to be managed properly and more crisis's brewing as you've kicked your California puppet one to many times and they are very angery.
You've got Victoria disintegrating into a mindless slap fight.
And you've got whatever the heck is going on in the Deep south.
And then there's China and the EU...they don't like you...and got to carefully manage that because they outnumber you.
Barbara Phillips walks the streets of Chicago, her son in tow. His face is in another book. It's a somewhat bad habit that she needs to steer him out of, if only to make sure he doesn't walk into a moving vehicle due to his fascination with the latest adventure of whoever. She has been working at the library since they arrived in Chicago, and she doesn't want to lose this job due to being late. Food and shelter may be guaranteed in the CFC, but medical bills are another matter. Retroculture forbade the development of healthcare and hospitals, but Chicago didn't seem to have those either. It was a step up, but it was certainly no paradise. She constantly worried about suffering from some sort of accident, leaving her son alone. Losing two sons in the war was enough. Chicago was kinder to him than Buffalo, but it wasn't as kind as it could be.
She didn't know if she was already used to this place, or not. A few months ago, she was a Victorian housewife, used to cleaning up people's messes. Now she was doing the same thing, only for people who weren't her family. At least the food was consistent. No one had threatened to kill her, or her son, yet. In fact, no one had beaten either one of them while they had been here. Sure, they had gotten their fair share of threats, people telling her to go back where she came from. Calling her a 'Victorian whore', but thankfully, that was mostly in the minority. Apparently a party of people called the Unionists had stirred up a fervor against anyone who was from outside of Chicago, so that refugees had to wait
She looked at her son, and sighed. Lately her son has been reading mysteries, he was now on a murder mystery kick. She's not going to begrudge him that. Both of them have seen enough death to last a lifetime, what's a novel about a fictional death going to harm them? Andy has always been different than other children. First because Andy was too curious, too inquisitive. Something way too dangerous to be in Victoria. His father had been trying to stamp that out, always with physical force. Physical force was something Robert always resorted to when he didn't get his way. That her older sons, Bobby and John, imitated with gusto. Andy, by some miracle, was different, and always had a gentle air about him.
"Mom, what's the Orient?"
Barbara didn't know this one. She was going to have to ask the librarians again. Hopefully she could ask a librarian before Andy did. He still lacked tact at times. At least, that was her justification for having Andy ask her, and not them. The other was not wanting to appear as an idiot every time he read something and it made him smarter about something than her. It was getting harder and harder to andswer questions about the greater world around them. Finding out in the middle of her shift that it was a term for Asia, she told Andy. His confidence in his mother's knowledge lasted another day.
It was a small problem to have compared to her old life, but it was one she was dealing with.
Barbara remembers, vaguely, her life before Victoria. Being Barbara Stevens, a girl working as an apprentice to her father's maintenance business. Helping people rebuild old engines, fixing small appliances that were sturdy enough to not need many spare parts. Disposable, easily replaceable, spare parts were something that you would have seen in her grandparents' day. Nowadays, you need things that will last. A machine shop to make them. Or a warehouse that hadn't yet been raided for their untouched inventory. Something rarer and rarer in today's world.Factories were rare in Chicago, even rarer in Victoria. Of course, machine shops and appliances did her village no good when the CMC came, killing the men, including her father, all of her brothers, and taking her to Buffalo. That was the day Robert had claimed her as a war bride.
"To be raised in a moral household. Where you'll learn to be something more than an orc whore who tried to rise above her place. A woman should always know her place."
The only machinery she touched after that were kitchen tools, cleaning supplies, and the most basic of farm equipment. Her brain seemed to dwindle. She forgot so much. She remembered Robert's anger, whenever he didn't get his way. Of having to endure what he wanted, from the kitchen, to the garden, and in the bedroom. Those nights where she cried. Happiness and joy left her for long periods. When their children were born, she had joy in her life again. But Bobby and John took after their father, in every way they could. She was always outnumbered. Always worried that one of them might catch her doing something 'unladylike'. So she forgot about the things her father taught her. She feels no regret or shame that she was so happy when Robert was called away to fight in Detroit. She only said in public that she hoped he would return when the war was over. She prayed for him to meet a swift end. God apparently did answer prayers, for he was reported dead a couple weeks later. Then, the news became confusing. Nobody wanted to say it, for fear of what they might be heard saying, but there was a general sense of confusion and worry in the air.
That's when it got really confusing. Inquisitors saying that the Christian Marines were traitors, and the CMC saying the same thing of the Inquisitors. That's when the CMC sacked the city, taking her two oldest sons, to fight against the 'evil Cultural Marxists' that somehow had subverted their nation. Barbara did cry at that. They may have made her life hell constantly, with their constant ratting out of her to their father, but she did love them. She didn't even know if they were alive or dead. But when the Inquisitors took over Buffalo again, and took her remaining son, that's when she went into utter despair. He was all she had left. He couldn't die in this awful war too.
Andy, gentle Andy. Andy didn't have a mean bone in his body. He only wanted to learn, and enjoy the nice things in life. It was a pity that he was born in Buffalo. When he had been drafted, it was the worst day of her life. Even worse than the day her hometown had been destroyed. Miraculously, Andy survived. Found crying somewhere by some Orcs in uniform. He was given to her. And that's when the old veterans struck. Killing so many. Victoria wasn't what it was, and if Andy was to see his 15th birthday, she had to get him out of Victoria. She talked with others about the vote. Too many said they wanted to stay part of the nation. Out of fear, Barbara voted to stay too. She didn't want to be punished, or see her son punished for what she wrote on a piece of paper. That's when he made that broadcast, signaling his intent to punish them for their lack of faith.
That woke her up. When the woman soldiers in uniform asked her to leave and come to Chicago, she packed their bags and made sure they were on the first ship heading west. The doctors looked at her son, and told her about his Dissociation, how to help, how to treat it. That he would be safe in Chicago. They moved, and settled there. They were officially refugees, but better refugees in the Commonwealth than citizens in Victoria. The orc-, no, the Asian family from Detroit shared their home. She kept on having to bite her tongue and remember not to say that out loud anymore. She had founda job, working as the library janitor. Apparently, the librarians were too busy to clean after themselves constantly. Barbara didn't mind at first, as it was rather similar to her work at the house in Buffalo. Andy occasionally heard her, and she worried she would lose her job. She had to let that go, before they fired her and sent both her and her son out of the city, back to Buffalo.
Chicago was a wondrous city. It had women who were professionals in all fields. Their leader was a woman. Wasn't that crazy? And the Victorians had agreed to everything the Commonwealth had demanded. Here she was, in a city full of professional women. And now, here she was, in this place full of machines, potential technical wonders to work on, and her brain was so rusty that she couldn't remember a damn thing about how to fix them. Instead, she cleaned toilets, swept floors, dusted shelves, and emptied trash cans and recyclables. Victoria had broken her. Robert had broken her. She couldn't be the apprentice she wanted to be. The machinist she wanted to be as a child.
She hoped for schooling, for training, to become better. But she was still just a Victorian refugee from Buffalo. Women of her kind were only good as day laborers. She had heard the occasional visitor to the library say that she, 'was only good for cleaning floors'. And the truth was, they were right.
At least they liked Andy. They always made sure he had enough to eat, and enough books to read.
She almost gave up hope of being nothing more than a janitor. That's when she saw it. It was a pencil sharpener that had been thrown into the trash bin. She asked the librarians about it, and they thought it useless. The parts from it that could be used for other things that were needed had been taken. A screw is a screw, and machines that could make bullets and artillery shells were more important than sharpened pencils. They let her keep the pencil sharpener. They also let her check out a book on basic appliance repair. That's when she asked the Wongs about their tools, and they had some from Detroit she could use. After that, it was taking a wagon door to door. Asking for odds and ends that people wanted to throw away. She had done the same in Buffalo when it came to scraps of food. She soon had all kinds of screws. She then went to the junk piles of the munitions factories. Sometimes she came across something useful. Most of the parts didn't fit together, being different models of pencil sharpeners.
She studied manuals. Lots of them. It had been too long, they were all gibberish to her. But she tried. And the pencil sharpener was worse off than when she started. But, it allowed her to cobble together an approximation of a pencil sharpener after two months of work. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. And it removed some of the cobwebs from her mind. She gave the pencil sharpener to the library for their bookkeeping. The librarians thanked her, and asked her if she could have a look at some of their chairs. She grabbed the spare parts from her pile that was in an old storeroom, and fixed those. Spare parts for chairs had been used for the war effort, after all. They had needed the metal to make artillery shells. But she eventually found the parts. If nothing else, Barbara knew how to beg for scraps. Most of the time she worked in the daylight before or after work, and sometimes at night with candles or lanterns. The city still didn't have constant electricity in the residential areas for non-heating and cooling purposes. The chairs were repaired, and given back to the library. Smiles and praise were given, and she accepted it modestly.
They then asked if she could help with some of the broken shelving. She agreed. It meant more looking for scraps, and had gotten her a a few scrapes and bruises when repairing them, but they were fixed. That's when she got the gash. A metal splinter had gotten her in the arm. Barbara wanted to panic. There weren't any hospitals. The medics and doctors didn't really have dedicated facilities except for those made for the military. Same old story, things that went to the war effort for Detroit. Fortunately, Brandon had been playing with Andy when it happened, and he told his mother. She had been a medic in the war, and was able to procure a tetanus shot for her. The things were worth three times their weight in gold, so Barbara didn't ask questions about where she got it. She just thanked god for kind neighbors with access to things she didn't. She thinks that's around the same time that orc dropped from her vocabulary permanently, as did Asian. They just were the Wongs, the people who liked having her around, and more importantly, loved having a friend for their son Brandon in Andy.
Her next focus was on safety equipment. A workman's apron, work gloves, that sort of thing. What she couldn't find, she knitted from leftover rags. An unused janitor's closet in the library became her unoffical workshop. She didn't know when everyone noticed, but after a while, she became the library's unofficial handyman. Broken pipe? Better get Barbara. Chair wobble? Better get Barbara. Lightbulb out? Get Barbara. Bad wiring? You know better than to touch that, get Barbara. She rather liked the attention.
It was nice to be needed for the thing she had always set out to become as a child. The extra cash and food helped too. More often than not, she ran into a wall in her knowledge. It either required expertise she didn't have, parts or tools she couldn't find, or it would require something that you couldn't get within a hundred miles of Chicago. But, she would read manuals, ask experts on their lunch break by flirting, and read at night when she wasn't tinkering with something. Sometimes she used little more than really old chewing gum and old paperclips, but she was able to find ways to fix things, or at least have them work for a while. Spare parts were hard to find, after all. So much had gone into the war effort. But it saved the library money they could use on things such as books, and proper staff for shelving. Andy becoming a junior librarian was a proud day for her too.
It was nice though, she was still someone they found handy, and she found it a lot more fulfilling than cleaning toilets. Though, she still did that too.
One thing I noticed upon rereading this thread is just how much Chicago REALLY needs to industrialized and develop with basic social services(schools, hospitals, electricity, etc). But we had to spend so much on trying to be ready for Victoria. Someone who aspired to be a tinkerer would potentially find themselves wanted by others. I also wanted to give the leftover Phillips family some more fleshing out.
You know, you'd think I would get acclimated to the idiocy of Lind's views and writing overtime, but whenever I read stuff like this, I STILL almost get an aneurysm from the sheer stupidity...
You know, you'd think I would get acclimated to the idiocy of Lind's views and writing overtime, but whenever I read stuff like this, I STILL almost get an aneurysm from the sheer stupidity...
You know, you'd think I would get acclimated to the idiocy of Lind's views and writing overtime, but whenever I read stuff like this, I STILL almost get an aneurysm from the sheer stupidity...
They'd probably charge out the ass for it because free healthcare is Cultural Marxism, and seeing the way people handle the pandemic now it's disturbing to know that the Victorians aren't the most batshit people around.
You know, you'd think I would get acclimated to the idiocy of Lind's views and writing overtime, but whenever I read stuff like this, I STILL almost get an aneurysm from the sheer stupidity...
Keep in mind, while Barbara is far from stupid, growing up in Victoria has made her a bit less educated on how things work than others. This is why she worries about looking like an idiot in front of Andy, as he has something she didn't, the ability to read everyday without getting a punch in the face for doing so.
Oh, no worries. The finest medical care on the planet has been responsibly impor-recovered from ideologically unclean countries, scrutinized to the most stringent of Retroculture standards by proper, God-fearing Victorians, and distributed to those portions of the populace who are at no risk of succumbing to Cultural Marxist allures (the rich and powerful, in case that wasn't self-evident).
Oh, no worries. The finest medical care on the planet has been responsibly impor-recovered from ideologically unclean countries, scrutinized to the most stringent of Retroculture standards by proper, God-fearing Victorians, and distributed to those portions of the populace who are at no risk of succumbing to Cultural Marxist allures (the rich and powerful, in case that wasn't self-evident).
We already know the Rich and Powerful Victorian's keep the best First World Medical care for themselves and leave the rest for the Military and the Secret police...leaving the rest of the population to die under the weight of disease, perpetuating the powers that be in such a way that the Victorain's themselves are nothing more then a violent caricature of the NWO conspiracy theories of Life Extension technology being kept away from the masses.
Andy Phillips remembers his hometown of Buffalo. His brothers mocked him for being a terrible shot when it came to rifle practice, and not knowing how to do the things a man should do, like shoot, hunt, and catch. They mock him for doing all the things he is good at, such as helping Mommy in the kitchen, or memorizing words he learned from reading labels. How boys have to grow up and be men, protect their women, kill orks. He didn't want to do any of that. But he learned to keep quiet about that. Disagreeing with his older brothers or his father means a slap. Or if sufficiently angry, a punch.
He remembers how his mother made him a birthday cookie. There was a 12 written on it in leftover honey. It was his birthday treat for becoming a man. An example of food that they could have just for him, due to most food being used for the war effort. He remembers how his mom was treated when she asked around for food to help feed her family. How he was always worried about doing or saying the wrong thing, how his mother constantly told him to be quiet when he asked questions. He wanted to know what an ork looked like. How to tell they were different from a person. Why he was always doing the wrong thing. How his father could get in real trouble if the Inquisitors ever heard about the things he was asking. It wasn't until his friend Billy, and his whole family, disappeared for their sins, that he learned to be quiet.
His father died in the war against Detroit. Then, his older brothers went away, to fight for the rebels against the Inquisitor heathens. He didn't understand why they had to leave. He cried when they left. They never came back. He was now 'man of the house'. He didn't really get to enjoy it long, as he was working constantly in the fields, trying to harvest as much food as possible. The Inquisitors came after, and made him march in defense of his hometown. The bombs from the metal machine ships hitting the coast. The ships controlled by the machine orks. He remembers the guns shooting the officers around him. Kids who were a couple years older than him being killed by the blasts. He remembers wanting to just be in his mommy's arms, but the Inquisitors won't let anyone leave.
He remembers being slapped, several times, for not following orders. He doesn't understand why they want him to fight, he's doing what they told him to do. He's standing right there.
They threaten to kill his mom if he doesn't do what they say. He tries. He really tries, but he doesn't like doing this. Derek, his friend in the unit, years older than him, is nearby, also scared. The Inquisitors slap him around, until the Inquisitor's head explodes. That's when Andy throws his gun away, and hides. He doesn't know how long he's was hiding, until women come up to him. The Inquisitors say that those women are orks. He doesn't know who they are, he doesn't know why he's here. He just wants to go home. He's crying, he doesn't know what anyone wants, he doesn't know why he just can't go home. He wants to go home. He wants to go home. He shouts that loudly, trying to drown out all the noise.
"I WANT TO GO HOME! I WANT TO GO HOME! I WANT TO GO HOME!"
He doesn't remember much after that, but his mom does find him. People drag him from place to place. They even try to talk to him. He doesn't hear them. He stays mostly quiet, to try and stay out of the way. He is given meals. He eats what he can, but he stays quiet. There's some sort of big meeting going on with all the grown ups. He eventually sees his mom. People write yes or no on sheets of paper. He doesn't know what's to become of him. He stays quiet so that he doesn't have to go back to the army. That's when the Premier comes on the radio, saying that they're all traitors. His mom packs their things, and they go on board a ship. A nurse, no, she said she was a doctor, looks at him. Things are said between his mother and the doctor. Something about dislocation and association, or something, he doesn't really listen. The outside world is not one he wants to return to.
The ship travels on water. She assures him that they're going somewhere safe. He hugs his mom.
Their new home isn't like the old one, it's far away from the water, and surrounded by tall buildings. His mom calls them skyscrapers.
His mom gets a job in a place full of books. He likes looking at the ones with pictures. She mostly cleans up after the librarians. They're nice to him, and like giving him snacks.
One day, an old woman with glasses shows him a map, showing him that he's now in Chicago, the capital of the Commonwealth.
He speaks, one of the few times he has since the war began, "Are you an ork?"
The libarian looks to his mother, who seems embarrassed as she walks over, telling him to not say such mean things to the nice people who gave them a home and her a job. He cries, because he doesn't understand. He apologizes to the libarian, who says that it's okay, he's only ignorant, and libraries help with that. They give him a hug, and a cookie. They promise to put him through school whenever they're established, but until then, he can read the children's books. He feels bad at first when a lot of them contain words he doesn't know. When he asks his mom, she doesn't always know. But the lady who is a librarian, she knows.
There are children here with different skin colors than him. His mom makes sure that he doesn't call them any names. He learns. He reads. He reads a lot. Children's books, adventure novels, newspapers. Old encyclopedias are fascinating to him. He reads whatever the librarians give him. They ask him questions, and he responds. Nobody slaps him. On occasions, doctors talk to him. He figures out that he was what they call a child soldier, conscripted by the nation of Victoria to fight against the Commonwealth. He's glad his mom and he made it here. It's a lot safer than it was.
Brandon, a boy who was from Detroit, becomes his best friend. They read books, and play together. They even have sleepovers on occasion, their families sharing the same housing arrangement. During the day, he helps the librarians shelve books. They all comment on his improvements, and suggest more books for him to read. Things he was never allowed to read or even see in Buffalo. He knows that back when he was a child, he would have gotten in trouble for being friends with someone of a different race. How Brandon is supposed to be the enemy. Brandon never hurts him, though. They're both refugees, and they have to stick together.
He still sometimes goes away, into the 'Dissociative trance' that he learned to go into as a child, but that becomes rarer as time goes by, as he feels safe. He misses his father and brother sometimes, but he likes his life here in Chicago better than the one he had there.
One day, a woman named Stratford has his picture taken as he is helping shelve some books. He doesn't know why until he sees his face in the newspaper the following day, in an article about how Refugees are integrating into society.
They say he's still a boy, and that he's not yet a man. He knows his friends back in Buffalo would have called him an ork. He doesn't care. He's home.
Barbara Phillips walks the streets of Chicago, her son in tow. His face is in another book. It's a somewhat bad habit that she needs to steer him out of, if only to make sure he doesn't walk into a moving vehicle due to his fascination with the latest adventure of whoever. She has been working at the library since they arrived in Chicago, and she doesn't want to lose this job due to being late. Food and shelter may be guaranteed in the CFC, but medical bills are another matter. Retroculture forbade the development of healthcare and hospitals, but Chicago didn't seem to have those either. It was a step up, but it was certainly no paradise. She constantly worried about suffering from some sort of accident, leaving her son alone. Losing two sons in the war was enough. Chicago was kinder to him than Buffalo, but it wasn't as kind as it could be.
She didn't know if she was already used to this place, or not. A few months ago, she was a Victorian housewife, used to cleaning up people's messes. Now she was doing the same thing, only for people who weren't her family. At least the food was consistent. No one had threatened to kill her, or her son, yet. In fact, no one had beaten either one of them while they had been here. Sure, they had gotten their fair share of threats, people telling her to go back where she came from. Calling her a 'Victorian whore', but thankfully, that was mostly in the minority. Apparently a party of people called the Unionists had stirred up a fervor against anyone who was from outside of Chicago, so that refugees had to wait
She looked at her son, and sighed. Lately her son has been reading mysteries, he was now on a murder mystery kick. She's not going to begrudge him that. Both of them have seen enough death to last a lifetime, what's a novel about a fictional death going to harm them? Andy has always been different than other children. First because Andy was too curious, too inquisitive. Something way too dangerous to be in Victoria. His father had been trying to stamp that out, always with physical force. Physical force was something Robert always resorted to when he didn't get his way. That her older sons, Bobby and John, imitated with gusto. Andy, by some miracle, was different, and always had a gentle air about him.
"Mom, what's the Orient?"
Barbara didn't know this one. She was going to have to ask the librarians again. Hopefully she could ask a librarian before Andy did. He still lacked tact at times. At least, that was her justification for having Andy ask her, and not them. The other was not wanting to appear as an idiot every time he read something and it made him smarter about something than her. It was getting harder and harder to andswer questions about the greater world around them. Finding out in the middle of her shift that it was a term for Asia, she told Andy. His confidence in his mother's knowledge lasted another day.
It was a small problem to have compared to her old life, but it was one she was dealing with.
Barbara remembers, vaguely, her life before Victoria. Being Barbara Stevens, a girl working as an apprentice to her father's maintenance business. Helping people rebuild old engines, fixing small appliances that were sturdy enough to not need many spare parts. Disposable, easily replaceable, spare parts were something that you would have seen in her grandparents' day. Nowadays, you need things that will last. A machine shop to make them. Or a warehouse that hadn't yet been raided for their untouched inventory. Something rarer and rarer in today's world.Factories were rare in Chicago, even rarer in Victoria. Of course, machine shops and appliances did her village no good when the CMC came, killing the men, including her father, all of her brothers, and taking her to Buffalo. That was the day Robert had claimed her as a war bride.
"To be raised in a moral household. Where you'll learn to be something more than an orc whore who tried to rise above her place. A woman should always know her place."
The only machinery she touched after that were kitchen tools, cleaning supplies, and the most basic of farm equipment. Her brain seemed to dwindle. She forgot so much. She remembered Robert's anger, whenever he didn't get his way. Of having to endure what he wanted, from the kitchen, to the garden, and in the bedroom. Those nights where she cried. Happiness and joy left her for long periods. When their children were born, she had joy in her life again. But Bobby and John took after their father, in every way they could. She was always outnumbered. Always worried that one of them might catch her doing something 'unladylike'. So she forgot about the things her father taught her. She feels no regret or shame that she was so happy when Robert was called away to fight in Detroit. She only said in public that she hoped he would return when the war was over. She prayed for him to meet a swift end. God apparently did answer prayers, for he was reported dead a couple weeks later. Then, the news became confusing. Nobody wanted to say it, for fear of what they might be heard saying, but there was a general sense of confusion and worry in the air.
That's when it got really confusing. Inquisitors saying that the Christian Marines were traitors, and the CMC saying the same thing of the Inquisitors. That's when the CMC sacked the city, taking her two oldest sons, to fight against the 'evil Cultural Marxists' that somehow had subverted their nation. Barbara did cry at that. They may have made her life hell constantly, with their constant ratting out of her to their father, but she did love them. She didn't even know if they were alive or dead. But when the Inquisitors took over Buffalo again, and took her remaining son, that's when she went into utter despair. He was all she had left. He couldn't die in this awful war too.
Andy, gentle Andy. Andy didn't have a mean bone in his body. He only wanted to learn, and enjoy the nice things in life. It was a pity that he was born in Buffalo. When he had been drafted, it was the worst day of her life. Even worse than the day her hometown had been destroyed. Miraculously, Andy survived. Found crying somewhere by some Orcs in uniform. He was given to her. And that's when the old veterans struck. Killing so many. Victoria wasn't what it was, and if Andy was to see his 15th birthday, she had to get him out of Victoria. She talked with others about the vote. Too many said they wanted to stay part of the nation. Out of fear, Barbara voted to stay too. She didn't want to be punished, or see her son punished for what she wrote on a piece of paper. That's when he made that broadcast, signaling his intent to punish them for their lack of faith.
That woke her up. When the woman soldiers in uniform asked her to leave and come to Chicago, she packed their bags and made sure they were on the first ship heading west. The doctors looked at her son, and told her about his Dissociation, how to help, how to treat it. That he would be safe in Chicago. They moved, and settled there. They were officially refugees, but better refugees in the Commonwealth than citizens in Victoria. The orc-, no, the Asian family from Detroit shared their home. She kept on having to bite her tongue and remember not to say that out loud anymore. She had founda job, working as the library janitor. Apparently, the librarians were too busy to clean after themselves constantly. Barbara didn't mind at first, as it was rather similar to her work at the house in Buffalo. Andy occasionally heard her, and she worried she would lose her job. She had to let that go, before they fired her and sent both her and her son out of the city, back to Buffalo.
Chicago was a wondrous city. It had women who were professionals in all fields. Their leader was a woman. Wasn't that crazy? And the Victorians had agreed to everything the Commonwealth had demanded. Here she was, in a city full of professional women. And now, here she was, in this place full of machines, potential technical wonders to work on, and her brain was so rusty that she couldn't remember a damn thing about how to fix them. Instead, she cleaned toilets, swept floors, dusted shelves, and emptied trash cans and recyclables. Victoria had broken her. Robert had broken her. She couldn't be the apprentice she wanted to be. The machinist she wanted to be as a child.
She hoped for schooling, for training, to become better. But she was still just a Victorian refugee from Buffalo. Women of her kind were only good as day laborers. She had heard the occasional visitor to the library say that she, 'was only good for cleaning floors'. And the truth was, they were right.
At least they liked Andy. They always made sure he had enough to eat, and enough books to read.
She almost gave up hope of being nothing more than a janitor. That's when she saw it. It was a pencil sharpener that had been thrown into the trash bin. She asked the librarians about it, and they thought it useless. The parts from it that could be used for other things that were needed had been taken. A screw is a screw, and machines that could make bullets and artillery shells were more important than sharpened pencils. They let her keep the pencil sharpener. They also let her check out a book on basic appliance repair. That's when she asked the Wongs about their tools, and they had some from Detroit she could use. After that, it was taking a wagon door to door. Asking for odds and ends that people wanted to throw away. She had done the same in Buffalo when it came to scraps of food. She soon had all kinds of screws. She then went to the junk piles of the munitions factories. Sometimes she came across something useful. Most of the parts didn't fit together, being different models of pencil sharpeners.
She studied manuals. Lots of them. It had been too long, they were all gibberish to her. But she tried. And the pencil sharpener was worse off than when she started. But, it allowed her to cobble together an approximation of a pencil sharpener after two months of work. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. And it removed some of the cobwebs from her mind. She gave the pencil sharpener to the library for their bookkeeping. The librarians thanked her, and asked her if she could have a look at some of their chairs. She grabbed the spare parts from her pile that was in an old storeroom, and fixed those. Spare parts for chairs had been used for the war effort, after all. They had needed the metal to make artillery shells. But she eventually found the parts. If nothing else, Barbara knew how to beg for scraps. Most of the time she worked in the daylight before or after work, and sometimes at night with candles or lanterns. The city still didn't have constant electricity in the residential areas for non-heating and cooling purposes. The chairs were repaired, and given back to the library. Smiles and praise were given, and she accepted it modestly.
They then asked if she could help with some of the broken shelving. She agreed. It meant more looking for scraps, and had gotten her a a few scrapes and bruises when repairing them, but they were fixed. That's when she got the gash. A metal splinter had gotten her in the arm. Barbara wanted to panic. There weren't any hospitals. The medics and doctors didn't really have dedicated facilities except for those made for the military. Same old story, things that went to the war effort for Detroit. Fortunately, Brandon had been playing with Andy when it happened, and he told his mother. She had been a medic in the war, and was able to procure a tetanus shot for her. The things were worth three times their weight in gold, so Barbara didn't ask questions about where she got it. She just thanked god for kind neighbors with access to things she didn't. She thinks that's around the same time that orc dropped from her vocabulary permanently, as did Asian. They just were the Wongs, the people who liked having her around, and more importantly, loved having a friend for their son Brandon in Andy.
Her next focus was on safety equipment. A workman's apron, work gloves, that sort of thing. What she couldn't find, she knitted from leftover rags. An unused janitor's closet in the library became her unoffical workshop. She didn't know when everyone noticed, but after a while, she became the library's unofficial handyman. Broken pipe? Better get Barbara. Chair wobble? Better get Barbara. Lightbulb out? Get Barbara. Bad wiring? You know better than to touch that, get Barbara. She rather liked the attention.
It was nice to be needed for the thing she had always set out to become as a child. The extra cash and food helped too. More often than not, she ran into a wall in her knowledge. It either required expertise she didn't have, parts or tools she couldn't find, or it would require something that you couldn't get within a hundred miles of Chicago. But, she would read manuals, ask experts on their lunch break by flirting, and read at night when she wasn't tinkering with something. Sometimes she used little more than really old chewing gum and old paperclips, but she was able to find ways to fix things, or at least have them work for a while. Spare parts were hard to find, after all. So much had gone into the war effort. But it saved the library money they could use on things such as books, and proper staff for shelving. Andy becoming a junior librarian was a proud day for her too.
It was nice though, she was still someone they found handy, and she found it a lot more fulfilling than cleaning toilets. Though, she still did that too.
One thing I noticed upon rereading this thread is just how much Chicago REALLY needs to industrialized and develop with basic social services(schools, hospitals, electricity, etc). But we had to spend so much on trying to be ready for Victoria. Someone who aspired to be a tinkerer would potentially find themselves wanted by others. I also wanted to give the leftover Phillips family some more fleshing out.
Oh wow, I missed the first one of these. These are great! Thanks for the submission.
Unfortunately, I will have to rule them non-canon. The timeline's a bit snarled up; the civil war didn't kick off until after Operation Foil and the peace treaty, and you have it starting before those even start, fairly integrally to the order of events. They are, however, great. Glad to have them in the index!
You know, you'd think I would get acclimated to the idiocy of Lind's views and writing overtime, but whenever I read stuff like this, I STILL almost get an aneurysm from the sheer stupidity...
I don't think it's strictly true that Victoria (or Retroculture) has no health care and no hospitals, though I could be misremembering.
The issue is twofold:
1) The Retroculturist purges of academia were extremely thorough and most of the educated population of New England that wasn't killed probably ran away in screaming terror. And a lot of pre-Collapse doctors in New England were women or people of color, who would predictably be harassed out of being able to practice under the Vicks. So training/retaining adequately educated medical personnel would be very hard for Victoria. Medical infrastructure would tend to contract greatly and stay contracted.
2) Given the overall dynamic within Victoria of there being an unofficial but very real class structure, the availability of medical care would be quite low unless you're the right kind of person.
So we can interpret the viewpoint character as having not had this kind of access, as a matter of status and geographic location.
Even retroculture makes an exception for modern technology in medicine. While I suspect actual modern medicine would be limited to the elites, some kind of medical care must exist for the common people- possibly through the "small town doctor" ideal. It's not inconceivable that physicians are one of the only semi-independent classes of educated people in Victoria.
So regarding the two omakes, how loyal do you think the average Victorian citizen would be to the regime? If we roll in as conquerers, do you think we could by loyalty by providing a comparitively better standard of living and more political freedom?
Because Lind, as I recall, fell into the ancient trope that authors resort to when they can't be arsed to come up with technobabble; slap 'Tesla' on the front of the device's name and call it good enough.
So regarding the two omakes, how loyal do you think the average Victorian citizen would be to the regime? If we roll in as conquerers, do you think we could by loyalty by providing a comparitively better standard of living and more political freedom?
As we saw with the Buffalo incident, there are many Victorians who are fanatically loyal to Retroculuralism, even if on some level it is out of fear (or fear of reprisal; I'd imagine due to the nature of Victorian oppression making people inform on their neighbors, tons of Victorians could be considered "collaborators" and would have a lot to lose to a particularly vindictive foreign power).
But basically, Retroculture is fundamentally hostile to academia to the point where its author fantasizes about mass murdering Ivy League professors while wearing Knight Templar cosplay.
I wonder what Victoria's excuse for an intellectual culture is, potential scientists are limited not just to white men, but those who can afford not to have to farm for survival, and any scientists are then limited to the slide rule when it comes to available computers and needing not upset government dogma. Meanwhile anything like philosophy would be deliberately limited to ensuring that ot merely repeats established dogma rather than challenge ir overturn it.
I wonder what Victoria's excuse for an intellectual culture is, potential scientists are limited not just to white men, but those who can afford not to have to farm for survival, and any scientists are then limited to the slide rule when it comes to available computers and needing not upset government dogma. Meanwhile anything like philosophy would be deliberately limited to ensuring that ot merely repeats established dogma rather than challenge ir overturn it.
I'm going to take a wild guess that the Victorian "Intellectual culture" is likely comprosed of men like Blackwell, who have a viewpoint of the world in the same way a western scholar in the 19th and very early 20th century would. And for everyone who is intelligent and doesn't fit the Victorian mold it's likely off to Low Ranked Russian Universities, or unofficial slavery depending on their families level of influence and power.
I'm going to take a wild guess that the Victorian "Intellectual culture" is likely comprosed of men like Blackwell, who have a viewpoint of the world in the same way a western scholar in the 19th and very early 20th century would. And for everyone who is intelligent and doesn't fit the Victorian mold it's likely off to Low Ranked Russian Universities, or unofficial slavery depending on their families level of influence and power.
Blackwell seems to have constructed a somewhat functional worldview by determining what Victoria needs in order to win, then working backwards to justify all of it. He's a genuinely awful human being, but he does appear to be able to doublethink his way into actually understanding reality while simultaneously believing in Victorian ideology.
I wonder what Victoria's excuse for an intellectual culture is, potential scientists are limited not just to white men, but those who can afford not to have to farm for survival, and any scientists are then limited to the slide rule when it comes to available computers and needing not upset government dogma. Meanwhile anything like philosophy would be deliberately limited to ensuring that ot merely repeats established dogma rather than challenge ir overturn it.
