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Radioactive mutants vs. Nazi Communists


MinDonner

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They pass through one checkpoint, and at the next, a few guards with rifles demand to see their invitation. It has a speshul watermark that proves it couldn't be forged!

This reminds, it was probably mentioned (since it seems unlikely that any important details were forgotten or glossed over) but how do the various American cities communicate to set up super secret presidential elections and agree on security protocols and the like?

This is Charles Langford, dictator-in-waiting sole Presidential candidate, who is dressed appropriately in a purple toga with gold sash. (?)

Seriously? Togas? I totally expected him to be dressed as either an Abraham Lincoln or George Washington impersonator. What a twist!

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either an Abraham Lincoln or George Washington impersonator

A pair of pussies. What the apocalypse needs is red-blooded, straight-talking, clean-living men like, er, Roman emperors.

taking her places she'd never been.

Ouch. Does anyone else imagine her having huge 80's hair?

I once read a PG Wodehouse book where a character did the "Guess who?" thing to her husband, at home, after several years of marriage. It was taken as a sign of madness and evil.

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This week in US Politics:

Jesus fucking christ, at what point can we hit the reset button and get our laws re-written from scratch to become more, I don't know, 2011?

Get two-thirds of the State legislatures to call a Constitutional convention. Have fun.

So, basically, fuck me running. Kind of unsurprising really.

Well, I wouldn't have put it that way, but, no effort to call a Constitutional Convention has succeded since the original Convention was conviened.

Well then, ladies and gents, this historic event is taking place right now, and all it took was a hundred years of commie occupation and one guy in a toga persuading a bunch of people to travel thousands of miles across radioactive monster-haunted wastes in order to probably get blown up by Charlie Whiskers. Democracy is hard work.

Chapter Seventeen opens portentiously enough, though.

Never had so many depended on so few. The very future of America - the fate of the planet itself - depended on them, what they did, how they voted.

Blimey! What vote could possibly be so important? "Shall we keep fighting the commies or not?" "Would this guy in the toga make a good President?" :dunno: And perhaps the fate of the world wouldn't hang in the hands of "so few" if you'd actually, I dunno, let more people vote?

Anyway, they are all gathered in a lodge festooned with the heads of trophy animals, all labelled with the name of the former President who had shot them. :lol: In case you're interested, Roosevelt bagged the elk and JFK got the wild boar; it's not stated who killed the mountain goat.

Of course, all the delegates are dressed according to their regional stereotypes, which have survived the apocalypse and occupation with remarkable resilience:

Men from the Far South, in their gentlemen's duds and sporting wide white mustaches; cowboys from the land once known as Texas, with six-guns on their hips and Stetsons on their heads; the Hollywood people, dressed in the bizarre costumes of the movie studios they had been forced to survive in after the war. The delegates represented every conceivable type of American man and woman in 2089.

...and he goes on to describe a load more types of men. Clearly Shriver and Kim are sufficient to represent every type of woman. We also get a paragraph listing all the types of weapon they are carrying, including "ouzi machine-pistols", obviously some new type of gun made out of spiced lamb.

Now Charles Langford steps forth to address the nearly three hundred delegates entire American voting population, minus the few who were invited but didn't get there. He hopes that they had managed to kill themselves with their cyanide capsules as instructed, if they had indeed been captured rather than just eaten by monsters, and asks everyone to pray for them. Again, I can't imagine why all elections are not run like this.

Prayers out of the way, it's now time for everyone to agree that they do indeed constitute a legal and binding electorate with the authority to form a government, and of course everyone says Aye. Now, let's take a look at the qualifications of our one Presidential candidate and see whether he actually gets elected...

He was still a handsome, virile-looking man, with graying hair that swept back over his ears. A rough Andrew Jackson sort of face - a mixture of the woodsman and the statesman in one man. Strong, self-assured - if there was anyone fit to be elected president of the new US, that man was Charles Langford.

From the assembled delegates a man yelled out, "I nominate Charles Langford for President. Goddamn it, he deserves it!" Before the words had died the crowd let out a collective roar of approval. They shouted his name: "Langford, Langford," over and over, stomping their feet so that the entire resort cabin shook. It was clear that there was no need for a lengthy discussion, debate, nomination process, or any of the formal trappings of the old days. At last on this day, June 17 2089, the choice was clear. Charles Langford was the forty-second president of the US and the first president of the new America.

Well then! I admit, after the last lot of Democratic primaries, a shorter election process holds a certain appeal, but surely reducing it to "invite three hundred of your mates to a ranch and get them to cheer for you cuz you so handsome" is slimming it down just a little too far...?

Anyway, the swearing-in and the aftermath will have to wait, but I can promise you, it's not just the elections that have changed in this bright new future, oh no. They have also "improved" the flag. And I bet none of you can guess what colours it is now... :lmao:

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I agree, that red white and blue thing seems awfully French.

I'm hoping our new flag is RED with the blood of our enemies, and BLACK with the resolve to kill them! It'll be like a pirate flag! With a skull and crossbones! And the pirate will be holding a sword! With a gun attached to it! Shooting bullets that are actually CHAINSAWS!!

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Well then, ladies and gents, this historic event is taking place right now, and all it took was a hundred years of commie occupation and one guy in a toga persuading a bunch of people to travel thousands of miles across radioactive monster-haunted wastes in order to probably get blown up by Charlie Whiskers. Democracy is hard work.

Good to know it only took until 2089 to make the Constitution represent 2011.

Well then! I admit, after the last lot of Democratic primaries, a shorter election process holds a certain appeal, but surely reducing it to "invite three hundred of your mates to a ranch and get them to cheer for you cuz you so handsome" is slimming it down just a little too far...?

That's kind of how it actually is though. Just with far less brevity.

Anyway, the swearing-in and the aftermath will have to wait, but I can promise you, it's not just the elections that have changed in this bright new future, oh no. They have also "improved" the flag. And I bet none of you can guess what colours it is now... :lmao:

Obviously they can't have any Reds in the flag any more, so it must just be white and blue.

We're Finland now?

I agree, that red white and blue thing seems awfully French.

I'm hoping our new flag is RED with the blood of our enemies, and BLACK with the resolve to kill them! It'll be like a pirate flag! With a skull and crossbones! And the pirate will be holding a sword! With a gun attached to it! Shooting bullets that are actually CHAINSAWS!!

Any association between this idea and my august self will be flatly denied. And I might stab you for saying otherwise.

As to this:

Anyway, they are all gathered in a lodge festooned with the heads of trophy animals, all labelled with the name of the former President who had shot them. :lol: In case you're interested, Roosevelt bagged the elk and JFK got the wild boar; it's not stated who killed the mountain goat.

Of course, all the delegates are dressed according to their regional stereotypes, which have survived the apocalypse and occupation with remarkable resilience:

...and he goes on to describe a load more types of men. Clearly Shriver and Kim are sufficient to represent every type of woman. We also get a paragraph listing all the types of weapon they are carrying, including "ouzi machine-pistols", obviously some new type of gun made out of spiced lamb.

Now Charles Langford steps forth to address the nearly three hundred delegates entire American voting population, minus the few who were invited but didn't get there. He hopes that they had managed to kill themselves with their cyanide capsules as instructed, if they had indeed been captured rather than just eaten by monsters, and asks everyone to pray for them. Again, I can't imagine why all elections are not run like this.

Prayers out of the way, it's now time for everyone to agree that they do indeed constitute a legal and binding electorate with the authority to form a government, and of course everyone says Aye. Now, let's take a look at the qualifications of our one Presidential candidate and see whether he actually gets elected...

I... just... I... whah?

lfkslfhfkh;fhghgdfkhg;fahgd;lfka;lfkhgfhgdjslkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

AND IM PROUD TO B AN AMERIKAN WARE AT LEAST I NO IM FREE!!!

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Neither France, nor Finland, nor Tortuga... the new flag looks like... well, this.

Yep. Tasteful! Here's the rationale behind the funky new colour scheme:

It was similar to the old flag, but had a hundred stars, representing each of the hidden cities, on a purple background, representing the high-rad areas of the country, where most freefighters lived. There were still thirteen stripes, homage to the past, but they were white and green now - for purity and the growth they would return to the land, once they had driven out the Russians and removed the poisons that filled the soil and water. This was the new flag and the new purpose.

Hilariously, the only other flags in history to have had this colour scheme were the Suffragettes and the Welsh Chartists, both movements aimed at making a fairer electoral system, though I suspect the irony of this would be lost on Mr Stacy. There's also a brand new Pledge of Allegiance, which I will now cobble together from the rather uneven chunks that surround the flag's description, stripping out the repetition and suchlike:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the ReUnited States of America of the ReUnited States of America and to the one hundred Free Cities for which it stands. A detoxified America under the Divine Being, with liberty, justice and the inalienable right to reclaim our own land."

I don't think the author was paying a whole lot of attention when he was writing that out. Or, indeed, at any point during the writing process.

But then! A guard comes in, dragging Charlie Whiskers by the throat! By an amazing stroke of luck, the guy had fallen asleep on guard duty(?) and woken to overhear someone speaking Redski into a mule!

Charles Langford acts decisively, as a President ought, and tells everyone to run away on foot, though he wishes they could have accomplished more. Rock then orders him to leave all his stuff behind and take Kim to hide behind a mountain (or a rock) so the incoming neutron bombs won't kill them. How does Rock know there will be neutron bombs? ("Probably two") He just does, OK?

McCaughlin and Detroit grab the flag and the Bible, then Chen takes care of Charlie Whiskers.

Whiskers, almost forgotten in the commotion, leaped up from the floor and ran towards the door. Chen saw him at the last second, just as the spy was making daylight, and the Chinese warrior whipped out one of his starknives, letting it fly like a bullet. The Red mole jumped from the top of the steps toward the ground just as the death blade made contact with his backbone. The whole midsection of his spine and guts exploded out in all directions in a spray of blood and bone fragments. His head twisted at an odd angle like a broken rag doll, and his body jackknifed in half at the severed spine. The man was dead before he hit the ground. Thus ended Colonel Koslovsky's dreams of paradise in a mansion by the Volga.

The Rock Squad "tear ass" through the "maze of branches and pinecones", desperately trying to get over the top of the mountain 600 feet away. But now the sound of jet engines, and each one drops a bomb with a parachute! Rock has to hide behind something! Luckily there's a big rock, so he ducks behind it and hears the noise of the bomb going off, several seconds before the light or heat of the blast hits him. He covers his head with his hands and waits to meet his maker!

Duck and cover!

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Neither France, nor Finland, nor Tortuga... the new flag looks like... well, this.

Yep. Tasteful! Here's the rationale behind the funky new colour scheme:

Ahem, there's only fifty stars on that flag.:P

Interesting colour scheme. Why the hell are they focussing on the negative with the purple?

The Rock Squad "tear ass" through the "maze of branches and pinecones", desperately trying to get over the top of the mountain 600 feet away. But now the sound of jet engines, and each one drops a bomb with a parachute! Rock has to hide behind something! Luckily there's a big rock, so he ducks behind it and hears the noise of the bomb going off, several seconds before the light or heat of the blast hits him. He covers his head with his hands and waits to meet his maker!

Duck and cover!

It's probably unnecessary to point out, but neutron bombs are designed to quickly kill people who are shielded from the heat of a nuclear fission bomb. A tactical neutron bomb can deliver a dose of radiation that's roughly 13 times stronger than what is considered lethal to a soldier in a tank more than 500 metres away, so an unshielded person only a few hundred feet from the bomb...yeah.

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Ahem, there's only fifty stars on that flag.:P

Heh. You really think such a wonder of flag-design deserves more effort than a swift re-colouring with MS Paint? Just count them twice. :P

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Heh. You really think such a wonder of flag-design deserves more effort than a swift re-colouring with MS Paint? Just count them twice. :P

Actually I think you went way above and beyond the call by providing the picture and checking on the use of the colourcombination in the past.:thumbsup:

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The Rock Squad "tear ass" through the "maze of branches and pinecones", desperately trying to get over the top of the mountain 600 feet away. But now the sound of jet engines, and each one drops a bomb with a parachute! Rock has to hide behind something! Luckily there's a big rock, so he ducks behind it and hears the noise of the bomb going off, several seconds before the light or heat of the blast hits him. He covers his head with his hands and waits to meet his maker!

Does it actually specifically bring up these details?

1. There was a mountain, the top of which was only 600 feet away from the meeting site (in a valley?) Is Stacey a Eurocommie who does not realize that 600 feet is not far at all?

2. The bomb is dropped with a parachute? Was that so that people would have time to see it and run away from its incredibly small blast radius?

3. Rocks hears the noise several seconds before the light and heat of the blast hit him? It takes several seconds for light to travel 600 feet? But sound travels much faster?

Bravo Stacey. That is a lot of very strange and inaccurate details to cram into a single sentence.

RIP Charlie Whiskers. Apparently your super spy training didn't include anything about not speaking in Russian. No wonder nobody cared about you during this reading.

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Aren't flags, actual bits of cloth hanging off sticks, just too 20th century and therefore unamerican? Don't the reunited states require something much more hard hitting like say an eternal gas fueled flame? Or even better a hologram of Rockson's boot stamping a commofascist in the face for all eternity?

Anyhow I love how Stacey spends pages establishing and then building up Charlie Whiskers only to not know what to do with him later on in the story. The mountain laboured and brought forth a mouse. Just wait and see, Stacey will have to plump up the ending with lots of polyfilla again.

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Chapter Eighteen begins with Rockson apparently spinning into the Black Pit of Metaphorical Unconsciousness, which black as utter blackness without a trace of light, and had waves of even blacker blackness at the bottom, into which he was falling. But then! A light, and a voice telling him to wake up!

Someone was shaking him. Slowly he opened his eyes and the darkness disappeared. The black pit vanished in the light streaming through the cabin door. The sun hurt. His eyes winced tightly shut again and filled with moisture. He remembered - he was Rockson. He had been out in the blast. He - Kim! The President! He tried to sit up, but the pain slammed into his body like a thousand fists intent on destruction.

Rock has been saved by a huge man called Mountain Man Ed, or "Mt Ed" for short. He lives in the neighbourhood and knew all about the Convention, though nobody thought to invite him along to actually vote in it. And despite having lived all his life on the mountain, doing nowt but hunting and learning about herbs from the Indians, he's bang up to date on his celebrity gossip.

"Rockson - the Ultimate American?" Mt Ed asked, his face freezing in astonishment. "Damn, even I heard of you. And I ain't heard of nothing back here in these woods. So I been coddlin' the god-damn Rockson. Ain't that a kick in the pants."

Rockson's worried about Kim, though he knows in his heart that she must be alive somewhere, as are all of the Rock Squad, probably, cuz they too tough to get killed by some crappy little neutron bomb. And all Mt Ed has seen is a load of crisped bodies! Tomorrow, they vow, as soon as Rockson has recovered from the minor inconvenience of the bomb blast, they will go a-huntin!

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