Silencer said:
I also love alternate histories, Thorgrimm. But I simply can't quite imagine Truman dismissing such information as unfounded - given the military seizure of China by communists and that it had already been after the blockade of Berlin. I believe that Truman already had a firm policy of 'containing' communism at this time and that such a scenario is only possible in one way - having Truman replaced by someone else (e.g. Roosevelt selecting someone else to be Vice-President and thus succeed him, or Truman dying of diesease or in an accident or...). If someone else were President at this time, perhaps he could be conned into believing communist non-expansionism.
Barring that, the scenario seems fine.
I would like to push the P.O.D. quite a way into the past. (reposting what I wrote in the redundant thread)
I would like to point out that this may be associated with the fictional Fallout-American flag. Such a flag has never been used in the US, so it must have either replaced the real one at some point (which I can't think of a reason for), or might have been originally designed as such, meaning that it took the place of the Betsy Ross flag and the timelines separated before June 14 , 1777.
The fact that no stars were added and that one of them is greater is curious; Do you think an explanation for that would be that the Fallout-USA was actually driven by different principles e.g. some states were privileged at the expense of others (hence the greater star and no new stars added)
Tim Cain mentions a vague "13 SuperState story" in the FB, but that's it.
What do you think the alternate history was? Did it contain all the events in history that our contained? How might it have been different?
I suppose we can agree that there are leads as to the existence and rise to power of one Hitler (we learn about him form the intro; although whether this is to be considered Fallout canon, and not just a blurb to get the player interested is questionable) and to the Watergate (contrary to what's in the Bible; The Nixon doll and little Curtis' lines seem to support that.)
Silencer, sorry for taking so long to reply to your post, but the Fallout mod is taking up huge amounts of time to playtest.
As for truman, one thing you must remember, for the first time in 40 years the Senate had a majority of Republicans who had been swept into office. And they were pissed because in their opinion Roosevelt 'gave away' Berlin and Poland to the Russians. So they were a pretty hawkish lot. Truman on the other hand, being a moderate was not so adverse to the Communists and was not adverse to negotiation and containment. The latter came about after he had his first meeting with the leaders of the Senate and House where he was told, most pointedly, ANY softness on Communism and there would be political hell to pay.
So to keep his political neck off the chopping block he came up with the idea of not pushing back communism, but to contain it and let it wither on the vine.
So now back to my P.O.D. the difference is that instead of the Republicans gaining control of the Senate and forcing a harder stance against communism, he could relax his guard and be less apt to do anything rash to upset Ole Joe and Mao.
So if you look at the POD in that context, it is a viable possibility.
As for the flag, this is only my view on it, not canon to Fallout in any way.
The US like all other nations and groups on this planet love symbols. In the American Revolution the Fledgling Continental Army once launched an abortive attempt to conquer Canada, which failed. The Continental Congress had always considered Canada the one colony they could not liberate from British rule. One of the first American flags flown by George Washington was the Betsy Ross 13 star flag, and most Americans consider that the 'official' and true first American flag.
Ok let's speed ahead to the divergence and then speed ahead to the Fallout era. The Americans invade and annex Canada, the new flag is unfurled, the Betsy Ross 13 star flag with one exception, the huge central star, which represents the new territory just 'liberated'. Using symbolism to promote the conquest and annexation the govt reaches back into history and now says ALL the colonies are joined and represented under one government, even the 'one that got away'.
Symbolism can be a very powerful propaganda tool if used subtly, and the way I have described it could have been done, it is.
Cheers Thorgrimm
