The Gaming Outpost

War can be an interesting (if sometimes gruesome) subject, but for now lets focus on culture, specifically the cultures of the Roman Confederacy, United States, and the Soviet Union.



The future of the United States seems to keep coming back to its past. Mexico’s entry into Union had unknowable effects (at the time) on economics and politics. In all likelihood those changes would save her nearly eighty years later.



On the economic side, competition in the labor market from Mexican business men did more than raise pay and with it affluence. It continued the cycle of capitalism and created new markets for goods already being sold. Millions of people clamored for luxuries that they once couldn’t afford (and with immigrants that number was growing). So, while many robber barons took an initial hit in from having to pay higher wages, the number of people they could sell to eventually multiplied several fold.



Looking at a stretch of time from about 1870 (Lee’s last year in office) to 1880, the number of affluent increased and so did the number of entrepreneurs (Andrew Carnegie was working class Irish OTL…). The creation of new companies, the raising of new factories and the investment in the stock market all rise at an unheard-of rate [PP: Marxism and Labor Unions gain virtually no foothold the U.S.]. This pushes economic and technical development ahead by twenty or twenty five plus years.



1880 comes. The first experiments begin with the automated loom and Analytical Engine designs imported from Europe, mainly for increasing efficiency and sorting/accounting purposes. An improved version of the pantelgraph, a precursor to the fax machine, was also imported.



No idea was considered too absurd to invest some amount of money in. Henry Ford introduced the Model-T in 1895, based on a design by Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler and backed by Edison. A water-valve machine capable of doing Boolean functions replaces the older Analytical Engines. The old pantelegraphs were replaced by photoelectric system (traveling over phone lines) in 1908.





The invention of the diode rectifier tube in 1904 gives computer manufacturers an electronic medium, instead of a mechanical one. Radios appear in virtually every home by 1910. Television comes by 1930, and color TV by 1935. The U.S. Military starts a research project with Bell Labs to streamline computers, leading to the transistor in 1938.



It might be easier to imagine all these changes if one were to walk along Main Street of Anytown, U.S.A. The smell of steak and eggs is coming from the local diner, but so is the scent of enchiladas and something else that has an unpronounceable name in Navajo. When you walk in you hear the locals speaking mainly in English, but on occasion switching to Spanish for one purpose or another. In one booth there is a cluster of Reverends and Ministers having a debate. It’s a spirited conversation right now between the Cherokee Pentecostal and the Catholic priest over something having to do with baptism. Not really too important as you sit down to order. The jute box is playing swing, but somebody has a portable radio out playing Habanera, the latest craze out of Cuba.





Kids come rushing in to meet their parents from a hard day at school. Sixth grade Latin textbooks are shoved into book bags as they slide into booths. The waitress brings your meal and you dig in. High schoolers finally file in, as their classes get out ten minutes later. Some are graduating early and are looking at which college they want to attend and having a very mature discussion with their parents on the issue. Others are complaining about their calculus homework and wish they had Native American Mythology, which won’t be until next semester. The diner has just gotten a new color T.V. and they turn it on for the first time to the ’38 World Series, but some ranchers complain about wanting to watch the Lacrosse finals. Both were interrupted by one of President Quentin Roosevelt’s (son of famous Senator Theodore Roosevelt) “Fireside Chats” that was being simulcasted on radio. He is expressing joy on the Allied victory over Roman Confederacy forces at Rotterdam (in Denmark), but expresses his sorrow to families who lost a relative in that battle. It was a costly victory with 28,000 casualties. RC armor divisions nearly broke our lines.



Leaving the U.S. and going back about seven years, you land in a traffic snarl on Tower Bridge Thames River in London in the summer of ’31. Traffic is being held up by one of the constant construction projects being done under the Economic Restoration Act. The public loves it, but the paperwork for all of this is torture for you and your staff, as you are the main bureaucrat they give all the administrative work to. What is even more of a headache is trying to pound and pent coins sitting in the Royal Mint to the Confederacy Standard Pound. Of course the House of Lords has to be waxing dramatic by introducing a bill to rename the country Britannia. Now you’re getting calls from members of the House of Commons complaining for no particular reason.



Your mind switches over to what you need to do when you get home. You have to help your son study for his Norse and Celtic Mythology exam, another part of the Confederacy Governing Council’s Aryan Education Act. You try and get your mind off of government work once again by rolling down the window and watching the sites. You can here another motorist railing on to his spouse about how the “damned bloody Colonials” won’t give the new trans-European power its due respect., being that they just gave diplomatic status to the former Queen and Prime Minister-in-exile Churchill diplomatic status.



You decide not give this fellow’s blather any more attention as you turn on the radio for some music. Instead you get another simulcasted announcement about the near-completion of the trans-Channel rail tunnels that will connect France, Britain and the rest of the Confederacy rail system. What the announcement doesn’t say is what your office has known for months; they have been using Jewish slave labor to build it.





You pan out again and descend on Moscow. Your head of the security detail for Lenin and you were hand picked for the purpose. You graduated at the top of your class from Moscow University with a Master’s Degree in Political Science. You surprised your parents by joining the Red Army, but garnered your father’s support by becoming one of the youngest senior officers ever commissioned. Now here you are, personally guarding Lenin with your very life. It hurts you to see him in his degraded state, having recently had a stroke that left him without the ability to walk and paralyzed on his left side. The things that he still had were his faculties, the ability to sway people with his fiery speech and that piercing stare that could chill the hardiest solider. You’re listening to him as he gives his opinion to the assembled Generals on recent Germ…ahem…Roman Confederacy agitation toward Soviet Union member states near their neighbor’s borders.



The subject is interesting, but not overly exciting as you have heard most of it before, despite Comrade “Father” Lenin’s ability to orotate. You look over the Moscow skyline from the bay-windowed office of the Kremlin. Smoke stacks of worker owned factories that rise against the new sky scrapers being built (despite the fact it is an imported capitalist idea). However, there is a dark side to this that sends chills through you. Half the phone lines in Russia are bugged and constantly monitored by Офис внутренне обеспеченности (Office of Internal Security). Thousands of “summary judgments” and executions have been carried out by the Офис правосудия (Office of Justice). You remind yourself that such things are necessary in these revolutionary times and such things have declined in recent years, but you still wonder why Comrade Lenin doesn’t trust the people that he loves so much. Those doubts dissolve as he gives you a fatherly look and a pat on the arm with his one good hand.



And so we return to the world at large and the events that are about to follow. In the early morning hours of September 8th, 1938, Japan launched air strike and invasion of the Constitutional Monarchy of Hawaii, 61st State of Union. After most of the Pacific fleet had been sunk they landed an invasion force and set up experimental Roman Confederacy rockets and aimed them at the mainland. They also announced the Sovereign Europe Doctrine with a summary in this statement, “You, the former colonies of the Great European Powers, forfeited your right to any role in our politics when you severed ties with your mother lands in your wars of rebellion. Now you come back and impose your will on our pursuits, much like an estranged child demanding inheritance from a parent. So, as you wage unjust war upon us, we will wage a just war of self defense upon you.”



A force of Marines, though deprived of their armor forces, hadn’t read that press release and really didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. They had evacuated to another part of the big island at the foresight of one of these officers who smelled more than just an air attack. They launched a gerilla war against Japanese occupation forces, which were unprepared for the tactics. This is where the art of war of the Native American tribes paid off. There were several violent clashes that reduce themselves to hand-to-hand fighting, a competition between American Standard Capoeira (imported from Cuba) and Japanese fighting styles (Kendo, Karate, and Jujitsu). By using little more than standard issue grenades the Marines blew up every supply store they could get their hands on and made the Japanese spend thousands of rounds on decoys. The Japanese simply ran out of ammunition, while the Marines had kept the use of small arms to minimum. Now the Japanese were outgunned and captured.



At this point it might be convenient to explain the condition and training of U.S. forces. When Lee had a look at Army units on the frontier, what he saw horrified him. Undernourished, improperly trained and improperly equipped units with some corrupt officers that weren’t doing their job. Of course this wasn’t universally true, but it was true for many. Lee, ever the vigilant soldier, took steps to reform and revamp the U.S. military. Military colleges were chartered across the country, to be regulated by West Point Academy. All troops were to be literate and college educated. Several degrees would be offered. You could earn all the way up to a Doctorate d in Military Logistics and Doctrine, in Naval, Calvary, or Infantry sciences. Over time, as the sophistication of our military grew, so did the number of jobs available to soldiers grow. Later legislation established a joint program with civilian colleges to train soldiers in degree fields like mechanical and civil engineering.



Lee also established a salary and pension program that rivaled anything else put into place in any other country. With a minimum of eight years of military service a person, upon retirement, would receive a guaranteed lifetime pension, U.S. bond based retirement benefits, and free insurance (a relatively new concept in Lee’s time). By the time of WWII they had extended benefits to job finding services and tax-exemption to all veterans of war.



The loss of naval forces was a severe blow, but not of the same type as OTL. We had the advantage of maximized industrial output to quickly replace lost ships. The main problem was deploying armor. Despite the fact that are forces were well trained and equipped, we maintained relatively small amounts of armored forces, as they had never been used in actual combat and we had seen no need for excessive amounts. That changed when President Roosevelt assigned command of U.S. forces in Europe to General George S. Patton. Patton was gruff man, but one who was a juxtaposition of cowboy and intellectual. He carried colt revolvers, but wrote poetry and was a student of history. He was also a brilliant tactician. He figured out how to maximize the tactical performance of armor and drilled his men day and night in those tactics. He then took every scrap of intelligence he had on the weaknesses of RC armor and drilled his troops not only to take advantage of those weaknesses, but to look for new ones when RC forces learned to avoid old ones.



The process began the slow and arduous victory in Europe. The victory over Japan was no less painful. American and Japanese forces were pretty evenly matched in weapons and training. The absolute dedication of Japan’s troops to die for their Emperor made bloody battles. But ATL we were prepared and matched their tactics with our own. We lured them out every chance we got and surprised them with every trick we had. During this time the Japanese landed an expeditionary force into Alaska through the Allusion Islands which we met and annihilated over a three month battle. By 1941 we were near the Japanese Home Islands.



In Europe we had taken control of Spain, Belgium, Iceland, Poland, and were working our way into France. The Roman Confederacy had made the unwise move of invading Soviet satellite states, believing the Japanese could occupy enough of our attention to keep us off their backs. The Soviets fought back and massed their forces and new ultra-heavy mobile artillery along the lines and pushed forward with all abandon. The Roman Confederacy has its own “super guns” and wonder weapons (including the long-range rockets and primitive cruise missiles). It was a war of breathtaking destruction and piled bodies up like cordwood. Their investment in the Eastern Front left the Western half of Europe with dangerously thin lines. The first decisive victory came in March of 1942 when we had finally neutralized the majority of submarines and naval mines around Britain. With the capture of Shetland Isle and her airfields we engaged in a naval blockade and constant bombardment of her shores, as well as launching bombings strikes.



But even with that RC British forces still clung. It was time to unleash the deadliest weapon ever seen, a nuclear bomb. The first was dropped in the English Channel, taking out Roman Confederacy naval reinforcements. With a flash two carrier groups and a formation of troop transports and destroyers were sunk. The only surviving ships were two submarines that had surface after their ballast tanks had been ruptured by the shockwave. The second was on the main body RC British Army forces. The local lakes rose at least half a foot as ground water was pushed out of the soft loam of the fields. What was left of army forces was a crater and blackish-brown circle where grass and the top layers of soil had been scoured away. We also rolled out pigeon guided smart bombs (yes…pigeon guided…there was a research project OTL). We were able to use fewer bombers and fewer bombs.



We were welcomed into London by the Free British Forces (forces that had defected and placed themselves under the command of the government-in-exile). We also took weapons labs and factories that held advanced weapon designs. If our invasion had been six to eight hours later then in all likelihood they would have launched advanced fighters. But one even more frightening discovery was now in plain sight. A long-range rocket was sitting on the launch pad and the nosecone assembly was sitting in the hangar with a nuclear warhead attached.



After a total communications blackout we went back online with radio traffic, convincing the rest of the RC forces that Britain was still under their control. The next move was a stroke of pure luck. The two rail tunnels that went under the Channel connected to rails that ended in Paris. We simply loaded up rail car after rail car with equipment and men and steamed onward toward France, unloading in Lille (clearing out forces there), and marched on Paris with in the time gap of a few hours where they had no idea of our presence. Troop transports landed right behind present forces and pushed hard and fast. From airfields in Paris we launched strikes into Germany and Italy. Two more A-bombs were dropped. Italy was taken first. Germany was taken after a furious battle in Sudetenland and a grind into Berlin.



Japan actually fell after the Roman Confederacy, but not without suffering some notable losses. The Japanese actually were manufacturing jet fighters in under ground bases that would have survived even nuclear weapons. The first wave of naval forces suffered massive damage from jet fighters that they simply couldn’t shoot down. We had to halt an invasion force of one million troops in the middle of the Pacific Ocean while we figured out what to do next. The plan was simple enough and involved a nuclear bomb. We launched as many bombers as possible with fighter escorts. Only a few, toward the back of the formation, each carrying one bomb. Two bombers raised to an altitude above the air battle and losed their bombs, equipped with altimeters. The fighters and bombers peeled away and the bombs exploded mid-air and the shockwave knocked the enemy fighters from the air. The rest of the bomber group separated and dropped their bombs are airfields and troop position. The last Japanese jet fighter offensive was met with imported German jet fighters. The final surrender came in February 1943.

Next time the Red Shadow will linger…