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What if The usa in 1900 converted to the Church of the broken God?

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The ClusterF233
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    • I love Chips.

    I love Chips.

    Despotic Warlord
    Pronouns
    He/Him
    To give some breakground info on The CotBG
    The Church of the Broken God (commonly abbreviated CotBG) is an anomalous religion worshipping mechanization and viewing flesh as "broken". The religion is ancient, existing since the Classical Eras as the Mekhanites. The central idea in their religion is that their god is "broken", and it is their duty to bring it together.
    Three distinct churches of interpretations for the idea exist in modern times:
    The Broken Church believes in reconstructing their god piece by piece.
    The Cogwork Orthodoxy belives in mass ritualization of industrial mass production,has a steampunk aesthetic.
    The Church of Maxwellianism believes in a modernized interpretation that reconstruction of the deity is completed through connecting all minds into a computer network.
    All who voted for Mckenly convert To the Church of Maxwellianism,those who voted for bryan convert to The Cogwork Orthodoxy.
    While those who didn't vote convert to the Broken Church.
    How would the various nations of the world react to the USA converting to a very strange machine worshipping religion?How would the USA's conversion change it's politics?
     
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    • the SCP Foundation loses promptly its shit and enacts drastic measures to contain what is clearly the result of some memetic infohazard being propagated by an SCP and try to hunt down the problem at the source.
     
    People would probably get very angry if they trample over the separation of Church and State.

    Remember, early 20th century America is a deeply Protestant country.

    Oh yeah, and the Gulf of California gets a lot of sibling gulfs.
     
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    If you genuinely have a religious majority that actually believes in this religion there are likely far reaching political consequences.

    The USA is likely to turn into a technocratic nation with a planned economy and I don't think this model would work particularly well. The USA likely end up as an isolated place that increasingly starts falling behind starting in the 1960s. Somewhere between 1980-2000 it is likely that the rotten structure fully collapses.
     
    This is not a slight change in an alternate history. The idea of a monotheistic god in it of itself was a fairly controversial position in the classical era. The idea of a poorly designed mechanistic universe made of machines, at the same time as a tech base still marveling at the archemidies screw would imply a vastly different perception of the world than the greeks.

    We can always attribute it to crazy Pythagorean mysticism, since, the cult of Pythagoras is the OG science cult. Now in our history they decided that innovation was heretical and that Pythagoras was a god, and straight up murdered rival mathematicians.

    Since, we are assuming a world where a math based science cult influences actual decisions made by people and polities, I'd say we look at what the Greek philosophers that did influence us look like today. Aristotle, trained Alexander the great, and Aristotelian physics and platonic dialogues became the dejour culture of the intelligentsia up and until the enlightenment, since the Romans adopted a lot of the prior Greek empire's culture. The early american government, being seeking as they did in our timeline to reconnect with the "original" democracies borrowed heavily from Greek and roman styles to legitimize the coat of paint they put on a mostly British legal system. Modern america is an unbroken line of heavily stealing from "classical" philosophy and then reinterpreting it, so i'd imagine we could have many of the same figures and events up and until the 19th century extreme religious conversion, it would feel alot like everyone just deciding in the middle of a major historical movement to convert from zealous Christianity to worshiping Zeus and claiming Jesus was his prophet. Ok, so how does 1900s al history Europe react? Colonialism is still a thing so we by default get to ignore the rest of the world.

    Well this is the height of jingoism and ultra nationalism leading up to first world war. America is considered a provincial backwater. Most people go there seeking to get away from the dense urban environment, crippling poverty, and ethnic or religious intolerance of their homelands only to find a distinct lack of open prairie and instead end up in new york in a growingly hostile nation. Internationally, the US, is the embarrassment of Spain, and many nations still remember that the country had a huge civil war 40 years ago over the prospect of industrialization and outlawing slave labor. Lacking any major foreign colonial holdings, the European elite most likely discount the american religious extremism as yet further proof of the insanity that seems to be endemic in the former British colonies.

    Overall, Europe ignores the change in American internal politics and barrels headlong into WW1.
     
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    Overall, Europe ignores the change in American internal politics and barrels headlong into WW1.
    [/QUOTE]
    What would be the effects of this after WW1?I'd imagine it would be pretty weird to state the obivious.
     
    Arcus said:
    the SCP Foundation loses promptly its shit and enacts drastic measures to contain what is clearly the result of some memetic infohazard being propagated by an SCP and try to hunt down the problem at the source.
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    Ninj'd, the first time I know about something and my first thought was SCP. They wouldn't even hunt there would be some Warhammer Exterminatus Extremis shit going down. I actually saw the entire SCP on this one and all I can say is whar's my gun?!

    Scary as hell once you have a entire country trying to recreate that entity. The world only notices when the USA goes dark.
     
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    I would think the world would see this as a very alarming sign that more than 60 million people are now part of a weird cult like machine religion. To state the Obvious.
     
    I mean, are you picturing this as a sudden mind control thing where one day everyone just arbitrarily suddenly believes something completely different, for no readily apparent reason, and with no prior events explaining how this came to pass?
     
    So to be clear here we're basically talking about the Third Great Awakening being weird about Original Sin, right?
     
    Depends on the interpretations the CotBG would use as well. A take on God-the-Architect as God-the-Mechanic or God-the-Programmer could develop.

    It's gonna be weird for the Philippines given that at that time my country became a US colony and the Americans send in a ship of teachers to spread English language later on. The university I go to was founded by an American couple in 1901 as a Protestant school, so it'll be a CotBG school if the timeline follows like OTL.

    One thing's for certain, the pro-industry aspects of the CotBG would be supreme at that point, maybe with strong industrial unions since it's before the Red Scare, until the Maxwellian sect brings the Information Age decades ahead of time.
     
    Yama951 said:
    Depends on the interpretations the CotBG would use as well. A take on God-the-Architect as God-the-Mechanic or God-the-Programmer could develop.

    It's gonna be weird for the Philippines given that at that time my country became a US colony and the Americans send in a ship of teachers to spread English language later on. The university I go to was founded by an American couple in 1901 as a Protestant school, so it'll be a CotBG school if the timeline follows like OTL.

    One thing's for certain, the pro-industry aspects of the CotBG would be supreme at that point, maybe with strong industrial unions since it's before the Red Scare, until the Maxwellian sect brings the Information Age decades ahead of time.
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    Uh guess a lot of people will become mekhanites in the phillippines. Which reminds me how much will this religion with the backing of literally everyone in an industrialised nation spread?
     
    I love Chips. said:
    Uh guess a lot of people will become mekhanites in the phillippines. Which reminds me how much will this religion with the backing of literally everyone in an industrialised nation spread?
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    I mean, a lot of Protestant spread around the world is spearheaded by the US, I think. Mormons in the US are gone by the ASB as well. The ASB literally causes everyone in the country to change religion to the CotBG, so all the local faiths and the like are gone in worshippers.

    Tie the religion with industrial help and the like and the pragmatic people would be swayed to get the support...

    EDIT: Now I'm imagining the aesthetics of the sects, main sect clockpunk, Orthodoxy steampunk with maybe a dieselpunk offshoot, Maxwellian cyberpunk...
     
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    @Yama951 a nation like that would have a more varied 'Aesthetic' than most nations. If this took place in The SCP universe how would the other GOI's(SCP foundation,GOC,and MCandD) react to this?
     
    I love Chips. said:
    @Yama951 a nation like that would have a more varied 'Aesthetic' than most nations. If this took place in The SCP universe how would the other GOI's(SCP foundation,GOC,and MCandD) react to this?
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    US map in 1900.

    Well, the GOC was formed after WW2/7th Occult War, so a POD at 1900 would likely butterfly them away if not alter their stances.

    A Foundation predecessor would probably the ones dealing with the sudden shift but since it applied to millions of people of an entire country. They would probably try to shift it from containment and cover up to 'it's a normal American thing'.

    MC&D is a business so would probably continue being so.

    Herman's Circus of the Disquieting would probably change since it's a US founded group.

    Prometheus Labs and Anderson Robotics are butterflied away into probably Maxwellian groups.

    Chicago Spirit is likely to be butterflied away.

    Doctor Wondertainment would likely continue as a business.

    Are We Cool Yet would also continue as normal.

    The Factory would likely try to corrupt the CotBG given it's 'malevolent industry and machinery' angle.

    Fifthism would likely pop up somewhere else in a different form.

    Horizon Initiative would start off antagonistic to the CotBG before they'll be incorporated as a member Abrahamic faith in the group.

    Sarkic Cults, on the other hand, would have a stronger enemy in the form of the US, even the peaceful ones like the Nalka.
     
    I love Chips. said:
    @Yama951 who the [EXPLEITIVE] is Chicago spirits? That sounds like a cigarette company.
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    Chicago based mafia group but with magic, Prohibition era at least.

    Given the numerous canons in the SCPwiki, the name 'The Great Revival' pop up as a possible name for the idea.

    I imagine the narrative for this is the whole struggle for orthodoxy as while people's faith shifted, religion is one aspect of culture, and so everyone starts making their own interpretations of the 3 big sects of the Broken God faith. A person who was raised in an evangelical community would see things differently from someone from a native reservation or immigrants from abroad after all.

    Broken Church - Clockpunk
    Cogwork Orthodoxy - Steampunk
    - Necropetrol Heresy - Dieselpunk, a Cogwork heresy that worships the Factory as an aspect of the Broken God
    Church of Maxwellism - Cyberpunk

    Who knows what else...
     
    I'd imagine that it (or a part of it) might go similarly to Christian Mormon and the state of Utah.

    USA Christianity also feels different to European Christianity right now anyways, very broadly speaking (it seems more "intense" in the USA than Europe. There are big celebrity preachers with giant stadiums and a lot of money, quite a significant amount of movement towards believing that the Republican party is blessed by God, etc. I haven't seen an amount close to weight of that intensity in Europe). So I imagine that the reactions might be a more exaggerated version of how European Christians view USA Christians
     
    Honestly? The Maxwellists's central theme- the Internet and connecting to WAN through it... doesn't exist. Not yet. And given how staunchly technoconservative the other branches are... things are not looking well for them.
     
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