We

Well, first some news. Red States is on hold for the foreseeable future. It is very much a collaborative work and collaboration is the sort of thing I prefer to do in person whenever possible. As my co-author has moved to California, I doubt this will be possible for quite some time. However, it would be unwise to assume that my muse has left me. Indeed, I have begun a new project called We. It's an interconnected series of short stories taking me back to my most beloved of genres: horror. It's the tale of a small town in the Southeast as it grapples with visitors from beyond the stars who harbor a horrifying secret that will challenge everything they know about the world and themselves.

I actually based this on some day dreams I had as a child. You see, I've always been fascinated by aliens and UFO sightings, and despite my skepticism and rational beliefs, I truly do want to believe in them. While I harbor an extremely idealistic hope for whatever aliens might be out there, anyone who tells you they have no *fear* of what might lie beyond our world is either a liar or else they aren't quite cognizant of the implications of what they're pondering.

Anyway, as a child I was in the third row seat of my dad's Plymouth minivan as we returned home from the local Winn-Dixie. As an adult looking back on the event, I'm sure what I saw was the bright lights that the grocery store used to illuminate the store-front parking lot reflecting against the tinting of the window next to me. However, at that young age I truly did believe it to be an alien craft. How could I not? After all, my good friend Levi, with whom I am still in contact, and I frequently discussed aliens and UFOs. It was a subject that was frequently on my mind in those dreamy, youthful days. Unhindered by my cynical adult skepticism, my subconscious was free to spin many a dream and nightmare about what those lights might portend.

Though it's no longer a cornerstone of my life and fascinations, I still hold a deep interest in aliens. It's always been something that I've wondered about and wanted to write about, but until recently I just didn't know how to approach it. I hope you're all please with the direction in which I'm taking this story, as it's long been a dream of mine to write some truly great alien abduction horror.

I invite you, now, to read the first part of this new horror opus: Mike's Story.


I'm awake now. I am terrified and I am awake and I am far more terribly and horrifyingly sane and lucid than I have ever been at any moment in my life. I know so much now. I know so much more than I ever wanted to know about our place in the universe. I mean all of us. You and me. 

I used to sit awake at night and dream of all the things that might be out there. I used to wonder all about the stars and the many rocks spinning around them and all the stories that might at that very moment in time be unfolding on all those tiny little spinning specks of dust around all those twinkling dots of light in that great light speckled above. 
And then I met Carol. 

She was a woman of reason and grace. She set my dreaming ways aside and showed me a world of the rational and the real. She was a doctor and a skeptic. She used to sit with me and watch the TV and we'd laugh at all of the phony psychics and the televangelist scam artists. We'd poke fun at the Bigfoot "researchers" and the die-hard ghost documentary crowd. We just found it all so tremendously funny; these feeble minded hicks who were taken in by the unknown and spinning it all into delusional fantasies. I guess we had a pretty twisted sense of humor. 

Oh, and her dogs. She loved her dogs. She had two of them. Two of the sweetest labs you'd ever seen. There was Gemma and Hadrian. They loved to run and jump and fetch and play and if you rubbed Hadrian's belly just right, he'd keep twitching his leg for an hour. 

But, I digress. When the local rednecks began talking about lights in the sky, we... Well, we approached it with our usual humor. We scoffed at the yokels, amusing ourselves with the notion that they might not actually even know what an airplane was. We kept laughing even after the first night.

Even at the time, something didn't feel right about those lights we saw when we spent the evening hours together on our dock. They didn't seem to sit right in the sky. Something about the way they moved and the way they *didn't* move was not too distant from the spots you get when you stare at a halogen bulb for too long. I fancied that it was a trick of the eyes. Perhaps from some unexplained prominence of the moon's light... But it was cloudy. It was cloudy and Carol... She said she saw it too. We gathered Gemma and Hadrian, our ever present companions, and went back to our home. 

The next morning, the dogs were nowhere to be found. We looked and looked all over our property, but we couldn't find the slightest sign of them. Well, nothing of them physically. We found their collars down by the creek bed which fed the pond. They looked... singed. I hadn't seen the likes of those burns in my life, though. There was a strange quality about them. The collars were polyester. The fibers should have melted and globbed, but they seemed frayed. It was as if they'd burned from the inside out, it seemed. But that couldn't have been possible. I pocketed the collars and spent the better part of the rest of the day looking for Gemma and Hadrian, to no avail.

Taking the collars back to the house, I studied them in greater detail. My efforts to determine what had happened to the dogs that would leave the collars like this were fruitless. It was Carol who nervously suggested that some of the local hicks might have shot the poor things. I called Sheriff Woods down in town to let him know to look for them. I guess that's what we came out to the sticks for, anyway. You know, the sense of community. A place where the cops will care about your dogs and stuff. With nothing further to do and a long day of prowling the woods for our wayward dogs behind us, Carol and I returned to bed. 

I awoke with a start. The house was bathed in a radiant white light. Next to me, the bed was empty. I shouted for my girlfriend but was answered only with silence. God, that light. It was blinding. I normally hate guns, but in my fear, I kept a level head and went to the closet across the room to retrieve Carol's grandfather's old service pistol from World War II. I'd seen her shoot the old .45 a number of times and she'd even managed to rope me into it once or twice. I checked the clip and the holes in the side indicated that all seven rounds were in place. Racking the slide as I'd seen my girlfriend do so many times, I left our room. 

Despite being windowless, the hallway from our room to the staircase was bathed in the same blinding light as our bedroom. I raised my right hand to my eyes, parting the fingers so as to shield myself from most of the light, tightly clenching the aged gun in my off hand. It was so quiet. It was so damnably quiet. As I turned to mount the staircase, I saw them in the hallway, heading to the door. 

There was Carol. She was just... She was following them. I... They looked like people but their proportions were all wrong. They were so tall, but they were impossibly thin. I don't even know how they held themselves up or supported their large, bulbous heads. And she was... She was going with them. And I don't know how they heard me. I don't know why. I just know that Carol turned. She turned right at me and looked up and smiled. "Come with us." She said. She smiled and beckoned me to come with them. 

Then, her horrible minders turned to me and stared to me with black, dead eyes. My god, their eyes! They were so big and they were so unblinking and they were so cold! They looked at me! I don't know how I know what they were looking at but I know it was *me!* 
I squeezed the trigger of Carol's grandfather's gun and I closed my fingers over my eyes and I screamed I screamed and shot again I fell in the corner and cried as I heard the most horrible of sounds. I can't even describe them! My God in heaven, those sounds!

I awoke hours later, crumpled under a table at the top of the stairs. The front door was off of its hinges and nowhere in sight. I looked all around the house for Carol but she's not here. I looked all around the woods, despite my knowing that she wouldn't be there. I tried to call the Sheriff but my cell phone won't get signal and the landline is dead. Town's too far to walk, my car won't start, and I have the most horrible  suspicion that I wouldn't make it anyway. When I came back in, the entryway to my house reeked of gunpowder and another, more subtle burning smell. I returned to the table where I passed out and saw the gun I had used last night at the top of the stairs. I checked the clip and saw five rounds within. I know they're coming back. I know what I have to do. I just hope I have the courage. 

I don't want to be here when they come back for me.



Anyway, there it is. I hope you all enjoy it, and I encourage you all to let me know what you think. Honest critique is appreciated, as usual. This is only a draft, mind you, and a rather rough one at that.

A Trip to the Fabric Store

Despite being a literary cliche, it was indeed a cold and stormy night when my girlfriend and I found ourselves at Jo-Ann fabrics in Gainesville. We had come to avail ourselves of their wares for our various projects: the construction of Mandalorian armor, the manufacture of pouches for my wheelchair, and so forth. We thought nothing of the terrifying weather around us, only paying the requisite attention one need pay when a risk of sleet and ice is present.

We wrapped ourselves in our coats and crossed the parking lot with all due haste, not caring to linger in the downpour around us. Upon entering the store, we were bathed in the customary fluorescent light characteristic of low-end, big box retail establishments. Knowing what we wanted, we set to work, not yet entirely aware of the dour mood that pervaded the store.

Our first hint of the misery within came when I observed the pained expression common to the customers of the store. It spoke to me at length of great longing and sadness, of tragic and wasted lives spent amongst half formed constructs of felt and cheap yarn; where budget priced white box wine pushed regret down - temporarily - into a nice, forgettable corner of the subconscious. The expression did not seem entirely unusual to me, as this is the sort of person one tends to find out and about at the hour we had made our expedition, and so we paid these tortured souls no heed.

We pressed on amidst these shambling husks of people into the aisle which contained the raw materials we needed for one of our projects. Turning to grab what I required, I spotted an employee whose back seemed to be hunched by the weight of all the world's sorrows. Our eyes locked and I knew then what it was to glimpse into the very heart of misery. I turned away with haste to gaze once more upon my lover's warm continence, lest this wretched creature claim my very soul. I heard, or at least I believe that I heard, the pitiful being amble towards a customer in the next aisle where a muttered conversation was only half audibly perceived by me.

At length, the employee issued forth an anguished cry. "What do you wanna go to Micheal's for?" she asked in a nasally, high pitched drawl. She was answered only by the back of the customer, who I saw exit the aisle and leave the store, a cashier reaching longingly for her as if to pull her back down into the pit of depression in which this store resided. I knew that we were no longer safe here. If we did not make good on a hasty retreat, I feared for our ability to ever feel joy again for the rest of our natural lives.

We gathered our goods and made a diligent path towards the sole cashier on duty that dreary night as the previously encountered employee's cries issued forth from a back room to which she had presumably retreated. Before we even reached the counter, the cashier shrieked at us an offer to join their value club - ensuring that they would forever have us in their sullen grasp. My girlfriend, wise beyond her years, immediately replied as she laid our purchases upon the counter. "I'm sorry sir" she said, presenting a far braver facade than I believe I had at the time "but we're moving." The cashier was unfazed. "Well when are ya movin'?" he replied. "If it's not too soon..." Here he was cut off by my beloved as she pushed her debit card forward to buy her items. We paid with no further conversation and made good on our exit.

Arriving home, we slowly absorbed the pain and desperation of the atmosphere we had narrowly escaped. As a final insult, it seemed they had overcharged us on a sheet of foam presentation board, which would have been far cheaper than what we believed it had originally been anyway had we gone anywhere else. We had been cheated, in the end. We had been cheated by that damnable pit of sorrow and misery. And darkness and decay and Jo-Ann's Fabrics held illimitable dominion over all.

UPDATE: My good friend Elisabeth tells me that this is not at all unusual for fabric stores, so just fuck the whole damned enterprise.

The Last Horror

I've decided to write a short story to re-energize my creative juices. It's an idea I've been kicking around for the better part of a day, so I thought I might as well go ahead and write it out. It's flash fiction, done up in the better part of an hour, so don't go expecting fancy things like a deep, enriching universe or perfect exercise of the finer points of punctuation. So, without further ado, here's a sci-fi horror flash fiction short story I call The Last Horror.



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It's been about three galactic standard months since we set out from the shipyards at Nova Simbirsk. We were under the command of Rear Admiral Arnold Giesling, perhaps the last great military mind the League of Colonies had left. Under him were Lieutenant General Martin Hanover, Colonel-General Thomas Downes and General Vasili Kuroglev. We loaded into the Seventh Order Fleet, the pride and joy of humanity, the core of our remaining military strength; consisting of eight Marathon-class battleships, twenty-seven Agamemnon-class heavy cruisers, two Odyssey-class heavy carriers (each with an expanded twelve wings of fighters, plus or minus scores of stragglers) and a whole plethora of supply vessels, civilian support barges and outdated, patched up hulks. Anything we could bring to bear on the Hive, we gathered at Nova Simbirsk.

I was aboard the Euphrates, a refitted Perseus-class destroyer and a relic of the Harvest Crises about fifty standard years back. I don't suppose that it matters now, but I was a lieutenant-commander under Vice Captain Miles Kiljoy. I remember asking him when we were a few hours out from our objective if he thought we had any chance in hell of pulling this off - if we could finish our mission and force a peace. He grimly chewed the mouthpiece of his pipe silently before returning to duty. I think that was the prevailing mood throughout the fleet.

About five standard years into a great galactic peace, several colonies out on the Rim reported a strange prominence in background radiation out into the intergalactic abyss. No one really thought much of it until their extranet links went down, cutting the colonies out of galactic civilization. To deal with the issue, the League dispatched Marshall Kim Su-Jeoul and his Eighth Expeditionary Marines from the Songnam System with a force of about 1200 marines on two top of the line Caesar-class cruisers. A week later, a single Beluga dropship jumped into the Harvest System, the hub of commerce and trade for the outer rim, screaming distress calls across all channels and venting its drive plasma like a bloody streak across the stark black of the system.

My ship, the Euphrates was there to retrieve the small vessel, fishing out the lone survivor of our first contact with the Hive. The poor Ensign aboard told us of the abominations that had come to our galaxy, surfing on a wave of radiation that had come from the consumption of the dwarf galaxy they'd called home in some great cataclysm unknown to our science. They had given him a message: that humanity was viewed as their competition. That the Milky Way, in all of its bounty, hadn't enough resources for they and us. Hell, it barely had enough to support the League of Colonies and her client states. Nobody really blamed the Ensign when he put a round through his head the second he was left on his own.

The response was remarkably swift, given humanity's track record. The military, formerly relegated mostly to police roles and the odd insurrection here and there was substantially bolstered with new ships and reactivated hulks, manned by throngs of conscripts and patriotic volunteers. "Remember the Rim!" was the old recruitment drive, I think.

Regardless of our best efforts, though, the war went poorly for us. The Hive were expert warriors and their distinctive ebony ships, looking carved from some sort of reflective coral, rained down on the skies of a thousand doomed worlds. So effective were they at waging war that few lived to see their ships and no picture of a Hive warrior existed for they were so adept at slaying our ground troops and civilians.

Eventually, the ground war was all but abandoned with the special military government declaring that any world set upon by the Hive was to be forfeited and their terraforming engines set to overload, effectively ionizing the atmosphere and sterilizing the planet. The Suicide Order was seen as pragmatic, the ultimate convergence of scorched Earth warfare and mercy for those who would elsewise face a long and futile war of resistance.

Finally, last year, the Hive claimed Earth. Lord Gerard Montgomery of Albion Colony enacted the Minerva Protocol, recalling all League vessels to his system to put together a plan of final resistance. A grand fleet - as described earlier - was to form in the neighboring Russkaya system and all remnants of the League's navy were to comprise it. The few stragglers would remain to defend the Albion system and the last vestiges of our species which had, less than a decade ago, held so much promise.

Fleet Intelligence had estimated the Hive's home colony to be set up around Sigma Octanis XVI, about twelve parsecs out past our farthest colony. We were to jump in system and kidnap what FI led to believe must be their leadership structure. Though we had no idea what they looked like, we knew that each fleet we had seen was protecting the same ship - a four kilometer long red coral shard that formed the heart of each attack. We were to deposit the entirety of our Marine component into that ship and capture it. What we knew of Hive tactics at the time indicated that this would force a peace with the species and we could begin negotiations. Nobody had any hope for this mission, but no one knew just how badly it would go.

The battle itself was a complete and total wash. We did manage to take out one of their vessels, but the second that blazing shard slammed into their planet, the whole of their fleet came at us, their weapons bursting through our ships hulls like they'd been built out of wax. I seized the helm of the Euphrates from our helmsman, a dazed young conscript who, years ago, would have been barely qualified as a freshman in one of our academies. I plotted a blind jump with the only preset on our navcomp that the jump take us to a system with a habitable planet.

The screaming hulk of the Euphrates burned into the upper edges of a barely habitable iceball on the outskirts of a dying star system near the core, where even the nights were lit with oppressive, cold light from the millions of densely packed stars in the sector. Though our new home was cold, it was also bathed in intense radiation as a result of the tight density of stellar formation in the sector. Those who didn't die in the battle or the crash began to fade to suicide, radiation poisoning, or starvation. The ship's rations were dwindling. Of an initial 15000 crewmen, a scant 452 of us were still alive as of last week's head count. It's probably 75% of that now. It would be lower if it weren't for what happened two days ago.

You see, since we landed, we had seen increasing numbers of Hive vessels in the eternal brightness of the hellishly bright skies above us. Eventually, crewmen and women began to beg for the vessels to just end us. I'd be lying if I didn't want that a bit, myself. Well, about 48 standard hours ago, we heard a loud bang to the south of the ship's hulk where we'd encamped ourselves. Even though I'm the highest ranking survivor here, I decided to investigate it singularly, leaving the second highest ranking survivor, Gefreiter Melissa Legato in charge as I went out to see what had happened.

As it turned out, a red coral shell had landed, dropped by a Hive ship that shrank rapidly in the distance. Descending into the crater, I investigated the shell. I didn't really care if it killed me or not. Gods, I'd not eaten in days. Anything but this, I thought to myself. Anything but going on another day like this. That's when the shell opened up and... my gods, it was horrible. I still tremble, all these hours later as I recount it. It was food. The fuckers... They're... They're studying us!

The Best Star Wars Order There Ever Was

V, IV, III, I, VI, II

Ladies and gentlemen, this is, as far as can be discerned by the wisest Star Wars scholars of our age; and I believe that if you take the time to listen to my arguments on the matter, you might just find yourself in agreement.

Let's go ahead and get the easy part out of the way. Namely, the status of V and II. I don't think anyone out there is willing to dispute that II was the incontestable low point of the saga. I mean, in all honesty if it weren't for Ian McDiarmid's scenes in the film, I'd rather watch Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. I'd... I'd rather watch the original 1979 Battlestar Galactica if not for him! Yes, it's just that bad, folks.

Now, while there is considerable debate on the matter, I believe I'm with the majority here when I say that V is the best film. It had the best story, an amazing twist (spoilers, Vader is Luke's second cousin twice removed!), memorable new characters in Yoda, Lando and Boba Fett, an excellent soundtrack which introduced one of the most memorable marches in modern music - the Imperial March, and so many other perfect little details that I honestly can't see how there's any debate that this is the best Star Wars film. 

Motherfucking pimp, right here.

Now, for second place we have Episode IV. As the progenitor of the series, it's impossible to imagine Star Wars without it, namely because it wouldn't have happened. For this alone, we owe it a debt of gratitude. Still, it's held back to an extent despite some sterling acting by Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing (who, incidentally, played one of my favorite characters of the series, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin), there are a few less than convincing performances in the film, and some of the finer aspects of the film don't wear their age well. Not that it's a bad film - it's one of the finest ever made, in fact. It's just that it falls ever so short of it's successor, Empire.



Here's where things get controversial. Episode III is indeed in third place. No, you've not developed cataracts and I'm almost completely sober as I write this. You see, if you can put aside the suffering of having to watch Hayden Christenson "act" out his love scenes with Natalie Portman, you'll find some of the finest battle sequences modern science fiction has ever seen, some chilling political and emotional manipulation from the High Chancellor, the rising Emperor Palpatine, and what I dare say is the most satisfying last few minutes in the entire series. Add to that another brilliant score by John Williams - in my opinion, the one that stands best on its own - and you have a winner of a film. It would actually be my favorite if they'd just shot Hayden Christenson after Episode II and brought in a more competent actor. 

Episode I is where many believe it belongs here on the bottom half of the list, but honestly it isn't as bad as people say it is. Sure, it had some really stupid lightsaber choreography, that irritating little tumor Jake Lloyd, Jar Jar Binks - who I still have a rather large, nostalgic, Gungan shaped hole in my heart for - and the plot had a number of gaping holes in it, but this is primarily just due to George Lucas working without his filter. Don't concentrate so much on these flaws. Instead, bear witness to the absolutely sterling work of Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, some more excellent cinematography, and the best score John Williams wrote since the Empire Strikes Back. If that's not enough, try watching it after packing a couple of bowls or downing a few shots of your favorite libations and you'll see what I'm getting at. If not, take a hit/shot each time someone says 'bombad.'

Finally we have the second to last film in my order, Episode VI, Return of the Jedi. It's placement so low is sure to garner some controversy, scorn and death threats, but I ask that you hear me out on this. You see, it's not that Episode VI is bad or anything. I mean, it has Ewoks and you can see Lucas's filter begin to peel away as people began to fear telling the guy that some of his ideas were bordering on retarded, but the thing is that it's just such an average film. It has none of the wow factor of Empire. None of the originality of IV. None of the uniqueness of I and not a hint of the sense of dread and conclusion that made III shine. It was just such an average sci-fi action flick that only rises to exception for the Emperor, Jabba the Hutt, Yoda and Boba Fett's scenes. Well, that and Luke and Vader's final duel. Beyond that, though? Pretty samey. Not bad or anything. Just... Meh.

So there it is, my ranking of the Star Wars films. It will probably be amended once the new trilogy and Zack Snyder's spinoff film have been unleashed and run their course, but for now, there they are. 

Also, no, I didn't include the Holiday Special, the Clone Wars, Caravan of Courage or that other Ewok film in here. This is because they're terrible and I'd rather watch an abortion or, worse, Alien Resurrection. Oh, wait. Same thing. 

Back to the grind.

Hi, all! I'm quite sorry I haven't been posting much. Yes, Red States is still a thing, and yes it's still happening. I have, however, been very preoccupied with matters of a personal nature including a rather irritating health matter and the most joyous occasion of my entire life: the relocation of my darling lover from California to my home state of Georgia.

So, I am still alive. No, I won't describe my health issue and as much as I'd love to talk about my girlfriend moving in, she and I are both rather private individuals and really quite boring even if we weren't, so I shan't go into much detail there, either. What I can do for all of you lovely people is tell you about a new project I have in the works.

You see, if you know anything at all about me, it's probably that I am very much a firearms aficionado. My M1911 is showered with the love and devotion I'd show my children if I ever had any inclination to have any. To wit, I am in the process of buying the tools and practicing the expertise needed to make M1911 grips. As it is the only pistol I own which can really take custom grips, that's what I'll be limited to for the near future - with eventual prospects towards making AK furniture.

Now, here's where it becomes a project. As alluded to earlier, I have some health issues at the moment. Nothing pressing or life threatening, mind you, but it does demand that I stay at home. However, I would rather like to have some kind of income and have always been quite skilled with my hands. Here, now, is the meat of the matter. At a price to be set later, once I have the tools I need, I will be making custom M1911 grip panels on commission! Whatever you want carved, within reason, for a modest sum! You too can add a personal touch to your Browning .45 and be the envy of all of your range friends. Stay tuned for more.

Incidentally, if anyone has any writing gigs, do let me know. I'm well aware that this form of solicitation is in rather poor form, but I'm in need of paid work and I've not quite got a vast network of contacts to prod for this at the moment.

Post Civil War Alternate History

As of late, I've had an idea kicking around in my head that I'm reasonably certain would make a really good story. You see, I'm a redditor, and one of my favorite subreddits is a somewhat niche sub called /r/vexillology. Vexillology, for those of you who may not know, is the field of designing flags. Well, as some of you might be very vaguely aware, I come from the Southern United States and have long had an interest in Communism. This has led me to have a fascination with Confederate and Communist symbolism and, thus, I commissioned from the fine fellows of said subreddit a flag combining both. The eventual winner of the post was this:

A coat of arms was even drawn up and I felt really inspired by how much attention had been paid to the initial post. I had written a bit of fiction as inspiration and I'm now feeling more and more compelled to flesh this out into a full fledged story. How does this premise sound?

"In 1863, the Union Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade is routed at Gettysburg, dissolving in a disorganized retreat from Confederate military forces under General Robert E. Lee after a decisive Confederate cavalry raid by General JEB Stuart breaks the Union forces in the area.

With the road to Washington wide open, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, signs the Confederate drafted Instrument of Surrender which recognizes the right of the Confederate States of America to exist and protects the legal right of states to leave the Union as they so choose. Over night, Confederate governments spring up in the border states and the economic and military power of the United States slides slowly into irrelevance. After several decades of Union losses and Confederate gains in the West and in the Caribbean and Mexico, the Confederacy enters the 20th century as the dominant power in North America.

In the 1930s, the South falls on hard economic times as the world plunges into the Great Depression. The South's former slaves, freed by act of President Gustave Tutant Beauregard in 1917 in reaction to fears of reaction by anarchist radicals, are still horribly oppressed and are now denied even the meager wages of the sharecropping farms that have gone under in reaction to decreased demand from factories in Europe and the border states of the Confederacy. Uniting with prominent Southern Communists and dissatisfied veterans of the Confederate actions against Mexico in World War I, they march on Richmond and seize the capitol, executing President Thomas Hardwick and installing a vanguard party, headed by a Stalinst strongman to oversee the Confederacy.

On 5, May 1932, The Confederate States are reorganized into The Soviet Confederacy of America; a Workers' state in direct alliance with the Soviet Union."


Anyway, that's what I've got. The starting date is currently in flux, but I have a general idea of what I want in terms of characters. The latter half of the Civil War, for example, where things dovetail from our established timeline would be narrated by General Lee as he oversees the surrender of Lincoln's Union and the efforts to secure Confederate territories West of the Mississippi from rogue Union generals, Mexican military officers making a bid for lost territories, and bands of Indians who've been forced to try to invade new lands after being pushed from their homes by a desperate and dying Union. Lee, who evidence suggests might have held anti-slavery tendencies, will be firmly anti-slavery in this story, but his convictions will ultimately be swayed by what his civilian liasons tell him is best for his beloved Virginia.

The story would then continue under the presidency of General Beauregard as he battles to keep the Confederacy afloat amid economic crises and threats from the overpowerful constituent states that make up the Confederacy. All the while, the nation experiences explosive post-War economic growth which, despite a (real world) constitutional ban on the importation of further slaves, forces the nation to kidnap more innocents from Africa, fueling the growth of a discontented underclass.

Finally, I will have original characters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries discussing the proliferation of reading skills amongst the slaves, the smuggling of copies of The Communist Manifesto and  Das Kapital by unknown foreign agents to plantations across the South, the "freeing" of the slaves into indentured servitude under the tenure of President Beauregard, reactions to the Soviet revolution of 1917 and finally, the successful revolution of the workers against their former masters.

Characters in that stage of the story would include a labor organizer, President Beauregard, a plantation owner, an indentured former slave, one of the first female politicians in the Confederacy, the Union ambassador to the Confederacy, a hypothetical descendant of General Lee working to spread egalitarian ideals in the Confederate military (a large portion of which will defect during the Revolution), and others.

Overall, I am planning for this to be a very morally ambiguous tale - the sort of thing I've really always wanted to do. Both sides would have sympathetic characters and both sides would have brutal monsters. What I can promise you utmost is this, though. I can provide readers with a thrilling look at what could have been had things just made a sharp left turn at one of the most important intersections in the history of these United States. If enough people show interest, I can actually realistically guarantee that I'll have this written. I already have a very good, very talented, and very enthusiastic friend helping me with the characters, so I think this thing has a shot. I even have a tentative title: Red States.

UPDATE: 1, December 2012: My story has received mention from the good people over at Today in Alternate History! Thanks, guys! Have some additional art, while I'm updating here.

The great seal of the Soviet Confederacy of America, courtesy of redditor Bezbojnicul.

Fuck You, It's Pokemon Time

Alright, no matter what you were doing before, it's unimportant now. Shut your face hole, because we have to talk about something important - something crucial. We have to talk about Pokemon. More importantly, we have to talk about the profound impact it's had on America, on me, on my fiancee, and on the bulk of my friends. See, Pokemon is one of the most important phenomenon in popular culture since Star Wars and no one is really sure why. All that can really be commonly agreed upon is that it is here, it has had lasting influence, and that anyone who hates it is likely a card carrying member of the National Socialist Party. Allow me to elaborate.

It all began in the year 1998, when the first Pokemon games, Red and Blue, arrived on the shores of the United States. Monica Lewinsky was a household name, the Rugrats were the most popular show on children's television, Seinfeld was at the height of its popularity, and the last Beanie Baby had committed suicide in a drunken and drug induced state of depression in a dark and dingy motel room just outside of Texarkana, Texas. America needed hope, and a crazy newfangled Japanese collecting game had been delivered from upon high to fill the gaping hole in our collective lives.

The games caught on more or less immediately, owing to the ubiquity of the Game Boy platform on which it was published and the easy to learn yet difficult to master style of gameplay which was its hallmark. Overnight, a range of stuffed animals, a collectible card game that no one knew how to play, and a Saturday morning anime were unleashed upon the nation to feed its ever growing Pokemania. This is significant from my vantage point, because my friends and I were, at the time, in the prime market for just this sort of thing. See, while it now seems so blatantly commercial, you have to understand that when this sort of thing hits you when you're young it can become a genuinely cherished childhood memory - especially if your childhood was somewhat less than rosy  It was really my first RPG - as was the case for many of my friends, I suspect - and the sense of adventure and discovery that I felt when I first left Pallet Town was only ever equaled upon my first departure from Seyda Neen in Morrowind some years later.

So you have to realize, if you aren't a geek (which, reading this particular blog, you're probably a level 12 nerdlinger so I guess it doesn't matter) that a nerd's first RPG experience is a sacred and sacrosanct thing. It's a hugely important thing that will forever be cherished in some capacity or another, and I think that it is this factor to which Pokemon owes its enduring popularity. So many of us grew up with some Pokemon game or another in our Game Boys and DS(es?) and it's such a sentimental part of so many gamers' catelogues that I highly doubt it will stop for the foreseeable future.

Now, as popular as the games are in the United States, they're an order of magnitude more popular in Japan - the land that festoons airliners in Pikachu paint schemes, produces PokePorn, and has entire stores dedicated solely to Pikachu and his Pokepals. It's my opinion that this owes largely to the Japanese cultural obsession with collecting things, a mechanic which the Pokemon games (and merchandising) are largely dependent upon. After all, this is the country which has several hundreds of varieties of Kit-Kat bars available for purchase at any given moment, with rare Kollectable Kit-Kats fading in and out of existence at any given moment. Seriously, google that shit. It's a real thing. The Japanese love to collect things. I mean, how else would Yu-Gi-Oh! and Digimon have caught on and lasted there while being merely imitation fads in the United States and elsewhere abroad?

Anyway, while America's Pokemon fever is more or less in remission, Japan still exhibits something akin to fever and rashes upon the release of each new Pokemon game, with television specials and entire magazines devoted solely to the games. Imagine the American reaction to Star Wars in 1977 or Western Europe any time someone mentions the World Cup and you have a general idea of what happens when a new Pokemon game drops. Really, at this point, I imagine that's solely what keeps Nintendo in business. That, and old people who seem to have confused the Wii with a fitness device.

Now, while America is much, much less obsessed with Pokemon than Japan is, I think it's still safe to say that you would be hard pressed find a single nerd (now a much larger and mainstream segment of popular culture than they were in the past) that won't admit to a degree of fondness for the franchise. After all, most of us owned Red and Blue when they came out. A great sum of us can still recall the elation we felt when we finally beat the Elite Four, the bragging that came from the first of our friends to fill out their PokeDex, and the first bastard to own a Game Boy Advance and a copy of Ruby or Sapphire.

The thing to take away from my rant is this: Pokemon has had an enormous impact on the popular culture of the United States and elsewhere, especially Japan. I mean, if you're reading this you can probably tell me which Pokemon was your favorite as a kid, unless you're Elisabeth. Personally, mine was Pikachu. But whatever. It's a huge franchise and it's had an enormous impact on a lot of our lives. It was an integral part of many of our childhoods and anyone who owned it as a child and says they don't look back upon it fondly is a damnable liar. Seriously, man. Just, seriously. I'm done here. Pantsy out.