I spend a lot of my time thinking of names. And the idea that a name as great as “Shiv Roy” exists drives me crazy. Shiv Roy has got to be one of the greatest character names because I have no idea about the character and yet I do. Shiv, as in a small knife combined with “Roy” which means “sun” or “king” (I think — rex and roy are very similar).
The character with the perfect name — Shiv Roy.
So, while I have never watched an episode of Succession, “Shiv Roy” is so, so great. It’s so loaded that virtually anything the character does is ironic. If she’s sneaky and does “front stabbing” then she lives up to her name. But if she’s not, then that’s an interesting use of a character with a name like that.
Anyway, just had to get that off my chest. Back to thinking up equally great names to populate four novels.
Saying this over and over again is growing tiresome — Trump is above the law. We just don’t have the political will to do anything about the fucker. We know what he was up to in the lead up to January 6th Insurrection and it’s a lulz.
The man was actively attempting to destroy American democracy and was only thwarted through a combination of how pell-mell the execution of the self-coup was and Pence simply not going along with the plan at the last moment.
And now Trump, like an face-hugging xenomorph from Alien, is hell bent on turning the Republican Party into a shiv to murder American democracy once and for all no later than, say, January 2025. Remember, Trump is so popular that he probably will win the 2024 election fair and square — no cheating needed.
Yet, of course, none of this has happened yet.
The thing that “hysterical” people like me get dinged for is we make arguments that make sense, then don’t come to fruition for this or that unexpected event or historical miscalculation. I mean, how could I have known in the fall of 2019 that a pandemic would throw everything up in the air? How could I have known that, in the end, Trump was too lazy and stupid to do even the most basic of autocratic moves going into the 2020 election?
So, he lost.
And, honestly, this time around, it’s very possible that something similar could happen. I mean, if Trump doesn’t run, then the likelihood that we’ll simply slip peacefully into autocracy grows. And there are plenty of people who will shrug if we become an autocracy and won’t event acknowledge the transition until it affects them on a personal level.
Then, of course, it will be way, way, way too late for people like me who simply will never fucking shut up about, say, what a piece of shit President Mike Pompeo is. Fucking cocksucker.
A little lite reading.
Anyway, while all the signs point to something akin to a Fourth Turning / Great Reset in roughly the 2024 – 2025 timeframe, it hasn’t happened yet. But all the metrics are pointing to such a thing happening. All the lights are flashing red. Get ready.
Make of this what you will. I see this as a Hank Williams Jr type song, maybe updated for more modern sensibilities. Almost Cool lyrics by Shelt Garner @sheltgarner please give credit if you produce or perform
I sit here leaned over my beer tears dropping in one by one I see the happy couples all around think to myself wouldn’t it almost be cool to tell them in their face that they’re all fools
wouldn’t it be almost cool to tell them it’s not worth it not one bit wouldn’t it be almost cool almost cool almost cool to just let rip with the truth that love only leads to heartbreak and shit
but I refrain I take another sip of my lukewarm beer look around and see happy couples that want to make me flee ’cause they don’t know what I know about affairs of the heart so I have to control myself from telling them right away because
wouldn’t it be almost cool to tell them it’s not worth it not one bit wouldn’t it be almost cool almost cool almost cool to just let rip with the truth that love only leads to heartbreak and shit
(bridge) it’s not cool to have a broken heart love is so grand why break it in two when we were together life was grand then I had to take a stand one that left me without anything but beer
wouldn’t it be almost cool to tell them it’s not worth it not one bit wouldn’t it be almost cool almost cool almost cool to just let rip with the truth that love only leads to heartbreak and shit
Fuck. Here I am, totally out of commission for as many as four more weeks and all I can do is write, read and develop the four novels I’ve been working on. That last bit of the sentence is great. It’s just it comes a huge fucking cost. I hate that I’m indisposed for such a fucking dumb, freak reason.
Ugh
If you want to know a general “truthful” description of how all of this happened, you’re going to have to wait for the second novel in my four novel series to come out. But, let’s talk about what I’ve learned from this clusterfuck.
I think this marks the end of the my youth. I have all the time in the world to contemplate my life for the next few weeks and get some sense of What Happens Next. I find myself throwing myself even more into these four novels and also beginning to think seriously of writing a screenplay or two. It seems that outlining a screenplay is a lot like outlining a novel — at least for me — and so I can leverage what I’ve learned from developing these four novels to working on screenplays.
And….this doesn’t even begin to address that I’m not fucking getting any younger. I need to accomplish something. I have so much “potential” as the late Annie Shapiro said…and I’ve still managed to do only squat since ROKon Magazine.
I guess the biggest thing breaking my ankle has taught me is a reinforcement of how fragile and short life is. Never let grief — for a fucking magazine of all things — sap you of your ambition.
On or about July 24, 2004, I arrived in South Korea for the first time. I was a down on my luck drunk American at the time. Little did I know the adventures that would await me.
It’s fast approaching 20 years since that fateful day, and I find myself wanting to return to South Korea (specifically Incheon, Seoul and Busan) one last time before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
While I think I can pull it off, the whole issue of when it might happen is still very much up in the air. I’d like to do it in 2024 as close to 20 years to the date as I could get, but that’s highly unlikely. More likely, I’ll be happy if I can accomplish this goal a few years on either side of the exact anniversary.
My favorite ROKon Magazine cover.
If I did do such a trip, it would be part of a Japan – ROK – Southeast Asia trip of about two weeks. Now, one issue I’m well aware of is there both a lot of love and a lot of hate for me floating around Asia, even to this day. For every person who would flip out seeing me for a good reason, there would likely be two or three who would do the same but out of anger.
I was a very interesting person in Asia.
Anyway, it’s all very up in the air. I just have a general desire to return one last time to my old stomping grounds in South Korea. I’ve changed a lot — a whole lot — and know that but for the mutual distaste between myself and little Korean kids, I would still be there.
Sometime in 2004.
But there is always the very small chance that I will sell these four novels I’m working on and will make enough money that way that going to Asia won’t be that big a deal anymore for me. That, of course, is at the moment just another instance of me being very, very, VERY delusional.
One of the core struggles I have with The Impossible Scenario is how many people would you need to successfully build out the planetary infrastructure for the, say, 1`billion people about to follow to the planet?
This, only on an livable planet and 1 billion people.
I have gone back from about 1 million to about 60 million over and over in my mind. Remember, a Galactic Empire has told humanity that it’s going to zap 1 billion humans to a new “homeland planet.” So, in this case, 1 billion people being saved from doomed earth isn’t as laughable as you might assume. No space ships would be involved. People would just wake up in some sort of re-animation pod on the other planet as if nothing happened.
The more people you use, the better the story telling because then you have the jarring image of people snapping back to normal life on a whole different planet. The fewer people, the longer it takes to colonize the planet and the less people have an emotion connection to the story.
Anyway.
I honestly don’t know.
And, what complicates matters even worse is if things were really all that existential, then the 10(ish) major nuclear powers would jump to the front of the line and demand they get more people to settle in the first few waves or they threaten to blow the world up.
Here’s my thinking — even though under the conditions of the scenario the first settlers to this new “homeland” planet would have to work their asses off, they would be in a position to become fabulously wealthy once all was said and done. And incredibly politically powerful.
So, there would be a huge crush of wealthy, powerful people who would, if nothing else, want their offspring to be among the first group of build-out settlers, no matter how many you might come up with.
Of course, if you’re writing the script, you find a way where your Everyman or Everywoman finds themselves among this first wave of settlers and the plot would be how they rise through the ranks to become a global leader.
This is a massive universe I’ve come up with, but there’s catch — it’s much more of a movie universe than a novel universe and I’m working on four novels right now. What’s more, I love those four novels I’m working on so much that I just don’t feel like pulling mental energy away from them to start from scratch to tell the story of all of this.
But I might at some point in the future. And I’m aware from my Webstats that people are growing interested in this scenario. I’m such a nobody that if someone scooped this idea up and made a movie or movies out of it I would be flabbergasted. I would be angry that they did it at first, but, lulz, I did explain it to them.
And, yet, I dunno.
Just because someone is interested in this doesn’t mean they’re willing to throw the huge amount of money at this idea necessary to create a Star Wars or The Matrix sized franchise out of it.
But, at least in my mind, the universe is fascinating. Imagine if we learn that not only are we not alone in the universe, but 1 billion of us can survive earth’s impending doom — if we’re just willing to work together.
I love Ukraine because, as a nation, they’ve been shit on by the Russians, then Soviets, then the Nazis, then the Soviets again and have managed to maintain their culture and honor. In fact, Ukraine is somewhere I would love to live long-term at some point just to drink a huge amount of vodka and trade stories about stupid shit we’ve all done while drunk.
Anyway, the point is — it’s my impression that there is this amorphous blob of Texas-based mercenaries who go to hot spots all over the globe and kick ass. Now, for political reasons, most of these guys (and gals?) would probably hate my guts, but on a personal basis, I think we would get along pretty well. I’ve had plenty of bonkers MAGA people as friends in the past. (I will note that this was before Trump became president, but, lulz.)
The point is — I hope some of those Texas cowboys are in Ukraine right now. Things could get desperate for the people of Ukraine if, say, 175,000 Russians crash into the country and it sure would help if a few thousand highly trained Texans were to go First Blood on the Russians in eastern Ukraine as they try to consolidate power.
Let me make one thing clear — I’m using the term “Great Reset” in a far different way than, say, someone associated with The Patriot Front might. I’m not suggesting any kind of grand global cuck attack on the home and hearth of white Christians (or whatever the fuck they think), I’m talking about everything we take for granted being thrown up in the air.
Here are some reasons why we will have a civil war.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that weuse to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
It’s now very clear to me that either we slip peacefully in to autocracy around 2024 – 2025 or we have a fucking civil war / WW3. History has awoken from a 70 year coma and it’s pissed. We’re lurching towards a dark future of nothing short of mass chaos. This has been referred to as “The Fourth Turning” but, lulz, whatever.
We’re fucked.
Macro trends are not on America’s side. As I keep saying, 2024 is going to be it. It’s the year when either the United States turns into a Russian-style “managed democracy” or there’s a civil war. Now, this isn’t going to be a complete list of the 50 states, but I am going to highlight some of the states that may be more problematic should a Second American Civil War erupt.
Oregon The state is really two states and, as such, is probably going to be a major flashpoint in any Second Civil War. What’s likely to happen is Portland will buck any attempt at a putsch on the part of bonkers Right wing nutjobs in the rest of the state and, as such, either there’s a really blood struggle in the state or there are a massive amount of political refugees from the Portland area as the rest of the state sides with MAGA.
Virginia Again, this is really two states. There’s the NOVA-Richmond-Hampton Roads urban corridor and everything else. It’s very easy to imagine a situation — especially with Virginia’s historic ties to the first Civil War — where the state implodes as we grow closer and closer to a Second Civil War. Too many good old boys in the rural areas of Virginia might get wrapped up in the “Lost Cause” mythos and decide to seize places like Danville (the last capitol of the Confederacy) or Richmond (another Confederate capitol.) If nothing else, simply because of the larger population of the “Blue” parts of the state, there will be significant violence and political refugees as the Blues consolidate power.
Michigan I don’t know as much about this state, but it definitely seems as though once the pre-war process of coups and political consolation begins that there will be at least a coup attempt on the part of the Far Right. Again, don’t underestimate how once you actually start murdering people that the dynamics of things change significantly. It’s very possible that there would be a coup in the state, it would fail, and there would be significant political violence as the state’s Blue population fought back and put the state firmly on the Blue side.
New York Yet again, we have a situation where once politics fails us that the otherwise banal regional differences in a state tears it apart. New York City is far more progressive than the rest of New York State and, depending on how things work out, it’s possible that New York City could become a revolutionary hotbed to the point that is tears itself away from the rest of the state and proclaims itself a Free City. This almost happen during the first Civil War. If nothing else, there will be a serious jiggling of the relationship between NYC and the rest of the state to the point where it aligns itself in any Second Civil War with New Jersey and Connecticut in a way that update New York does not. Or, again, there could be significant political consolidation as Blues from all over the northeast flee to New York and the MAGA-friendly natives of the state flee elsewhere.
Maine I really don’t know that much about this state other than a vague belief that the northern part of the state is far different than the southern part. It’s very easy to imagine significant consolation in the state one way or another as people flee to it as the rest of the country buckles. The state is big — if sparsely populated — and it’s strategic location near the Canadian border might be enough for it to be the home to large refugee camps.
Texas Texas would be in an odd situation as the country fell into civil war because its long-term political trend is shifting Blue, but it’s part of the South and a lot of people consider themselves Southern and MAGA. So either it simply buckles into its own intra-civil war or the MAGA cocksucker fucktards push out all the Blues who flee to Blue States nearby. The end result would be a lot of pissed off former Texans who would be of great benefit to the Blue cause.
California In a sense, the whole fate of the United States rests on what California does. If it simply bolts from the Union, then that significantly hobbles the Blue cause on the ground. California sitting on its hands and become its own nation in the event of a Second Civil War makes it far more likely that either Red states win or there is some sort of half-ass balkanization of the United States. But if California stays and fights, then they could provide not only the necessary economy and population for a Blue state victory — after many, many dead — but also something of a vision for what America would look like after we’re finished bombing ourselves into oblivion.
The Deep South It’s very easy to imagine at the onset of a Second American Civil War most of the old Confederacy on a political level getting extremely excited and having a massive amount of momentum to either leave the Union outright or support the Republican controlled Congress’ attempt to brazenly steal the election. Then reality would sink in — all of the Southern states have significant African American populations and once politics is no longer a viable method of solving problems then the far more brutal dynamics of realpolitik would kick in. I just can’t imagine millions of African Americans lulzing a return to the Confederacy, no matter how badly the white political establishment of those states may want it. So, even though the South has a lot of people and a big economy, it would be, on a regional basis, too busy fighting a race war to really help the Red cause all that much. If things really grew as radical as I fear they will — probably because WMD are stolen and cities start to get vaporized — it’s the Deep South where you’re most likely to see some WW2 level atrocities as radicalized whites begin to murder blacks en mass.
As for the rest of the states, their ability to pick one side or the other is probably far easier and their biggest problem would be dealing with political refugees.
And, honestly, I can’t tell you what to do to prepare — I don’t write for VOX, after all — but I can give you a hint about how to prepare relative to what I do know.
Figure out what you’re willing to suffer for in the real world.
That’s all the advice I have for you. When the shit hits the fan, there will be no narrative, no value — just survival. And it’s going to be state sponsored chaos, too. If you hold up in the woods somewhere with a lot of guns and ammo, that is only going to get you so far. They’re going to come for you, eventually.
In other words, if you have the ability to bounce to a part of the country that agrees with your politics, take it. Don’t become John Brown somewhere in the hills of a Red State. You’re simply the delaying the inevitable and you’re depriving the Blue States of your talents.
Anyway, again, we are soooooooo fucked. Totally, completely. And, what’s more Republicans run around screaming at the top of their lungs how giddy they are to turn us into an autocracy. And, yet, there are still people who refuse to admit it.
Here are some reasons why we won’t have a civil war:
It’s not in our nature to have a civil war. For all the hateful rhetoric on the part of the MAGA New Right, it’s possible that in the end, they manage to pull off a peaceful transition to autocracy. In fact, at first, at least, the chance from democracy to autocracy could be so subtle that only a few hysterical people like me even notice. For the average person, it will just be a replay of 2000, only worse: it will simply be accepted that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if that party also control Congress. People will say “the system worked” and move on.
Republicans have gamed the system. It could be that by 2024 – 2025 the actual administration of elections will be so corrupt that it will be a fact of life that people shrug and take for granted. It will be the first step towards Americans becoming Russians in that they will no longer feel as though the government expresses the will of the people. And that will be that.
Not Trump 2024 Another reason why we could slip peacefully into autocracy is it’s not Trump who is the Republican nominee, but someone other than Trump. If this is the case, when I honestly don’t see why we would have a civil war. Autocracy is so popular within the United States –and the opposition to it is so weak — that our transition to an actual autocracy will in the end be so easy to pull off that there will be no need to resort to violence. Blue States will get angry, but, lulz, they always get angry, right Mr. Eastman?
Autocracy is very popular in the United States A sizable portion of the United States’ electorate wants an autocracy. They want one so bad that they seem like a cult to people who aren’t all that thrilled at the prospect of one. So, it’s possible that they will wrap up the transition into autocracy without any violence at all. By the time people realize what they’ve lost, it will be way, way too late. The United States will be nothing more than a Russia clone with an identical political dynamic. There will be a MAGA-themed Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and we’ll still have President DeSantis (or whomever) 30 years from now.
Anti-MAGA forces are just too weak willed. Again, it could be that when push comes to shove, the whole thing will be over before it even starts. There will be a lot of angry tweets on Twitter, but in the end, because Twitter liberals aren’t willing to risk anything in the real world, we slip peacefully into autocracy and that, as they say, will be that.
One of the more interesting aspects of the Impossible Scenario is if you give the demands of every major nation — especially the ones with nukes — equal weigh, it really is almost impossible to figure out. Or, put another way, someone’s gotta backdown.
The obvious venue for all of this horse trading would be the UN. So, that brings up a really interesting situation. In fact, it was my complete ignorance of real world UN politics that caused me to stop working on this as the basis of a huge novel series.
I think as a screenplay you could pull it off. And I have a few screenplays and short stories I’m interested in working on when it comes to this concept, but I have four novels I’m working on at the moment. As such, I just like letting off steam writing about this because of how interesting it is.
So, here’s the issue — you have an empty (and lush) earth-size planet that aliens are willing to zap a huge number of humans to (say, 1 billion), but there’s a catch — once humans are zapped there, we’re pretty much on our own. The more we’re on our own, the more interesting story would become because you’re effectively doing The Martian, but on a macro scale.
Anyway, I love thinking about the actual nuts and bolts of how you would settle a planet at the very beginning if you had some very strict conditions. One condition being the planet would be part of humanity’s “homeland” and, as such, We’re All Human. Also, no more war. And, lastly, there would be some sort of global government and civilization.
One wild outcome of all of this would be you could potentially have “Cowboys in Space” whereby you have a story involving cowboys on this new planet doing cowboy stuff but with modern communications equipment. (I think them riding horses would be cool.)
The obvious use of the USA as the basis of such a homeland’s government and civilization is very easy to use (if you’re appealing to American audiences) but everyone else, all 7+ billion people on earth would fucking hate the idea. Which, of course, is conflict you would have to address, which brings you some plot to work with.
There is a lot you can do with such a universe. You could do a movie or novel about making the decision to accept the alien offer. Then the lead up to being zapped. And then what happens once humanity got there. It would be epic.
And there remains a possibility that I will write a short story set in this universe at some point soon. But I love, love, love these four novels I’m working on. So, it will be a while. We’ll see.
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