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Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

OwlFancier posted:

Again with the gun-communism.
Just classical Marxism really.


quote:

Large factories are owned by the men and women who work the factories.
Yup. Twist ending is that conservative Mary-Sue is actually a Marxist.

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OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Guavanaut posted:

Just classical Marxism really.

Yeah but I don't remember the communist manifesto being 50% about how The Gun Is Good.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN
At the end of the second year, Ben was elected governor for life, running with no opposition and no campaign.

Cerebral Bore
Apr 21, 2010


Fun Shoe
I still can't get over that the right-wing utopia is literally cribbed from Marx's theory of the stages of history with gun porn, Supply Side Jesus and fanatical secret suicide squads added to the mix.

poisonpill
Nov 8, 2009

The only way to get huge fast is to insult a passing witch and hope she curses you with Beast-strength.


This is clearly Soviet agit-prop designed to appeal to the American gun lobby.

pookel
Oct 27, 2011

Ultra Carp
I want to know how this minimalist government is enforcing all these nitpicky zoning and traffic rules, and how the law is supposed to be both simple and incredibly detailed.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
The details are laid out in bulletpoints and Simple English. It's a simple and detailed law, but very long.

I am loving this. We built communism, but I'll shoot every God-drat commie I see!

Chichevache
Feb 17, 2010

One of the funniest posters in GIP.

Just not intentionally.

poisonpill posted:

This is clearly Soviet agit-prop designed to appeal to the American gun lobby.

:agreed:

Reporting this to the House Un-American Activities Comission.

JcDent posted:

The details are laid out in bulletpoints and Simple English. It's a simple and detailed law, but very long.

I am loving this. We built communism, but I'll shoot every God-drat commie I see!

And no loving Latin, like the founding fathers intended!

Throwing Turtles
May 3, 2015

pookel posted:

I want to know how this minimalist government is enforcing all these nitpicky zoning and traffic rules, and how the law is supposed to be both simple and incredibly detailed.

They have "peacekeepers" they don't like calling them police. And they don't have many of them. Part of it I assume is vigilante enforcement of minor crimes. Like if some guy is sexually harassing you are allowed to beat the poo poo out of them. Or the guy who gets a busted jaw for burning leaves.

Chichevache
Feb 17, 2010

One of the funniest posters in GIP.

Just not intentionally.

Throwing Turtles posted:

They have "peacekeepers" they don't like calling them police. And they don't have many of them. Part of it I assume is vigilante enforcement of minor crimes. Like if some guy is sexually harassing you are allowed to beat the poo poo out of them. Or the guy who gets a busted jaw for burning leaves.

Ahhh... so all the criminals are "punching up", so to speak. No one victimizes anyone weaker than themselves in this Ben's world. Thats... uhhhhh... a thing?

Cerebral Bore
Apr 21, 2010


Fun Shoe

pookel posted:

I want to know how this minimalist government is enforcing all these nitpicky zoning and traffic rules, and how the law is supposed to be both simple and incredibly detailed.

Well, as the proletarian revolution clearly has done away with class antagonism, the State, as it is an instrument of the dominant class, has withered away in accordance with the laws of Historical Materialism.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Chichevache posted:

Ahhh... so all the criminals are "punching up", so to speak. No one victimizes anyone weaker than themselves in this Ben's world. Thats... uhhhhh... a thing?

Yeah, the example where the philanderer is killed by the cheated-on husband really should have ended with the guy shooting the husband in the back as he went to go for his gun.

pookel
Oct 27, 2011

Ultra Carp

Young Freud posted:

Yeah, the example where the philanderer sexual harasser/assailant is killed by the cheated-on husband really should have ended with the guy shooting the husband in the back as he went to go for his gun.

quote:

“One fellow was messin’ with another man’s wife. He kept messin’ with her even though as witnesses pointed out, the woman told him, time after time, to leave her alone. She finally went to her husband and told him. The husband warned the man--once. The warning didn’t take. The husband called the man out one afternoon; told him he was going to beat the hell out of him. Romeo came out with a gun in his hand. Bad mistake. Husband killed him.”

FTFY.

Note how, despite the supposed total gender equality of the Tri-States (points for author for trying, I guess?) it's still considered by everyone to be the husband's job to prevent his wife from being "messed with" and it seems to be considered an offense against the husband, not the wife. I don't even know if this is supposed to mean flirting, sexual harassment, or outright rape. Whatever, it's not important I guess?

Throwing Turtles
May 3, 2015
Chapter 6
After the chaos dies down, the press asks a few pertinent questions.

quote:

“You can’t be serious?” A young reporter yelled the questioning statement. His tone betrayed his shock out outrage “That’s murder!”

“And,” Ben said, if the federal government moves against us, bombing and killing people, isn’t that murder? Perhaps you people would prefer the term ‘war’? If so, I’d like to see where you draw the line between war and murder”

The size of the army

quote:

“Mr. Raines, is the size of your army secret?”

“No. Everyone in the Tri-states is part of our armed forces. They all know there jobs and will do them without hesitation.”

Press conference is over. Tri-states becomes a tourist spot, we learn that a dozen major industrial conglomerates moved into the Tri-states, and things generally return to normal.

We also learn about bankruptcy.

quote:

In the Tri-states, if a family fell behind in their bills, they could go to a state-operated counseling service for help… if that family was making a genuine effort to pay their bills, utilities could not be cut off, automobiles could not be taken from them, furniture could not be repossessed. A system of payment would be worked out. There were no collection agencies in the Tri-states.

As Ben told a group of visiting tourists, “It is the duty and the moral and legal obligation of the government-- in this case, state government--to be of service and of help to its citizens. When a citizen calls for help, that person wants and needs help instantly, not in a month or three months. And in the Tri-states, that is when it is provided--instantly. Without citizens, the state cannot exist. The state is not here to harass, or allow harassment, in any form and it will not be tolerated.”

On the other side of the country we join a cartoon supervillian

quote:

“No!” President Logan said. “For the last time, I will not send any person from this good office to talk with the illegal governor of an illegal state. No!”

“Hilton, the state is a real state,” Aston reminded him. “The people are real. Their economy is booming.”

“I will tell you what I intend to do. I intend to denounce the Tri-states as illegal and politically non existent in the eyes of the united states government.

Hilton continues his diabolical plan to kill the Indians and the Tri-states.

Nine years have past and we see that the world is doing pretty good.

quote:

The United States, for the most part, was recovering quickly. Nine years had passed since the nuke and germ holocaust. The people had adjusted to the fact that several major cities were gone, and there were areas they could never visit, or their children. People had adjusted to the relocation and their lives… and once more listening to the rumors of war coming out of Richmond.

Things have been normalized. The Tri-states have radio in a variety of formats. The telephone company asked for equipment to be returned in exchange for hooking up service between the Tri-States. Minor historical note, before 1982 there was only one telephone company, and they acted like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIOogEaO3Hc

Logan began gearing up for the war on the Indians and the Tri-states by cracking down on all of the areas he controlled. Then he called Ben.

quote:

”Governor. . .” Ben’s secretary buzzed him. “It’s President Logan.”

Salina had come to have lunch with Ben and smiled at his wink. “How about that? He said with a grin. “That’s the first time in nine years Logan has officially acknowledged our existence.”

Telephone protocol is intense. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38202271

They quickly hash out the details of the meeting. It will take place in the U.S. capitol, but everybody gets to be armed. Ben thinks that the meeting is being set to provide justification for an invasion. Also Salina, Ben’s wife, is pregnant.

Ben’s reception is, as Trump would put it, a total disrespect, like a dog, sad.

quote:

“No brass bands? No red carpet? No throngs of cheering people?” Ben asked. “My you people don’t like me very much do you?”

“The VP stared into Ben’s eyes. “I don’t like what Logan has planned Raines. It wasn’t my idea.”

“I know it. And it will be kept in mind.”

A piece of old verse popped into Ben’s head:

Then you’re ready to go and pass through with the bunch, At the gate at the end of things.


It’s from a poem by anonymous. All I can find out is that there are two versions of the poem that differ by a single word.

To act on the square and be right.
It’s a reward enough to know you’re a man,

To hear people say, “He’s a knight”
or
To hear people say, “He’s white”

http://poetrynook.com/poem/gate-end-things

Seven
As everybody is being introduced and shaking hands. Ben’s inner monologue brings us up to speed.

quote:

Ben shook hands with Logan and smiled a grim smile at General Russell. The two men immediately understood each other’s position; Ben realized that while America had a president, Logan shared the power with the military. Ben knew then why free elections had been postponed year after year. The military was setting up to take over total control of America. The rumors his intelligence people had intercepted and decoded were true. But Ben also knew there was discord among the military; not all commanders wanted the military involved in government, and the troops were taking sides...quietly.

The silent message in General Russell’s eyes was easy to read: Play along with me Raines. Take my side.

Ben minutely shook his head and the general smiled and fired a silent dispatch: You’ve had it, Raines.

Ben returned his unspoken reply: When you try, General--you’re a dead man.

Politeness out of the way, they begin to negotiate. Logan offers to let the Tri-states rejoin the union under the condition that Ben’s dictatorship ends.

Also

quote:

“You must fall in line with the other forty-seven.”

“No way.”

“You must open your borders, allowing any person who so desires to live in the Tri-states.”

“No way”

“Your laws must conform with the rulings of our Supreme Court.”

Everyone from the Tri-states laughed openly at that.

Logan flushed, then said, “The gun law must cease.”

Ben placed cup and saucer on a coffee table. “Here is what we will and will not do, Logan. I will not tolerate your federal police coming in and setting up in our area. Our system of government works for us.and that is all that matters. No gun control; no flower-plucking, sobbing social workers telling us how to deal with punks. And no mumblings from your Supreme Court.”

The negotiations are unsuccessful, Logan vows to destroy the Tri-states.

While the Tri-states are getting ready for the siege we learn that Canada is still a thing.

quote:

The Canadian Government cooperated only half-heartedly with Logan’s requests to seal off their borders; Ben and his people had gotten along well with the new Canadian government. But in the end, it went along with Logan.

Logan starts by attacking the Indians, telling them they will have to return to reservation lands. The Indians refuse.

quote:

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?” One does not ever say no to a federal agent--unthinkable. How impudent!”

Jeb Fargo, of Illinois Nazi fame is leading the attack against the Indians. Also the unending stream of rape had quieted down for a few chapters and he needed to bring it back.

quote:

“And we’re next,” Salina said.

She was heavy with child.

The war against the Indians is successful, and genocidal.

Meanwhile in the Tri-states.

quote:

“Get your people into position and booby-trap everything you leave behind. Everything. Posion the water. Turn everything into a lethal weapon--a deathtrap. I want these sons of bitches to remember these next few weeks. You all know the drill. As soon as government troops touch the soil of the Tri-states, we move into guerrilla tactics. No Prisoners.” He turned to Voltan.

Chichevache
Feb 17, 2010

One of the funniest posters in GIP.

Just not intentionally.

pookel posted:

FTFY.

Note how, despite the supposed total gender equality of the Tri-States (points for author for trying, I guess?) it's still considered by everyone to be the husband's job to prevent his wife from being "messed with" and it seems to be considered an offense against the husband, not the wife. I don't even know if this is supposed to mean flirting, sexual harassment, or outright rape. Whatever, it's not important I guess?

:clint: "Alright, partner. If you rape my wife one more time..."

pookel
Oct 27, 2011

Ultra Carp
Voltan? Any relation to Zoltan?

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

pookel posted:

Voltan? Any relation to Zoltan?

PJOmega
May 5, 2009
Wait, it's been 9 years since the bombs dropped. Ben has a 17 year old daughter.

Throwing Turtles
May 3, 2015

PJOmega posted:

Wait, it's been 9 years since the bombs dropped. Ben has a 17 year old daughter.

She was adopted, there was a blurb about how everybody in the Tri-states adopted kids, I just forgot to mention her and her adopted brother.

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

pookel posted:

I want to know how this minimalist government is enforcing all these nitpicky zoning and traffic rules, and how the law is supposed to be both simple and incredibly detailed.

Also their approach to science is akin to Lysenkoism

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Taerkar posted:

Also their approach to science is akin to Lysenkoism

That's true Communism right there.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I'm more wondering how national corporations are moving into the tri state when all industry is owned by a workers co-operative?

What do the national corps do there?

Throwing Turtles
May 3, 2015
Eight

quote:

Keep it; it tells all our history over,
FRom the birth of the dream to it’s last
Modest and born of the angel of hope
Like our hope of success it has passed

Maj. Samuel Alroy Jones

Johnstone likes this quote, it's popped up in some of his later books. I'm not entirely sure who the source is supposed to be. There is a confederate Major General Samuel Jones. But the only place I can find the quote is in the books so. :shrug:

The invasion of the Tri-states has begun, and it’s not going well. The Air Force has refused to bomb them and the rest of the military is divided on the issue. The SEALs refused to clear bridges, Pathfinders have all defected.

quote:

“They started out at ten thousand feet and moved down to five hundred. There has not been a shot fired at any of them. We have not had one hostile move against us from the residents of the Tri-states. There are warm, breathing bodies in there--everywhere but we don’t know if they are friendly, hostile, young, old, male, or female.”

quote:

The first few companies of marines and their spearheaders, the force recon, hit the edge of the strip and died there. The area had been softened up with artillery and heavy-mortar fire, but Ben’s people were in tunneled bunkers, and when the shelling stopped, up they popped.

The Rebels of the Tri-states waited until the paratroopers were on the ground and free of their ‘chutes before opening fire. Those were Ben’s orders, and the only act of mercy shown on either side. The first troopers to hit the DZs we’re killed almost instantly, raked with heavy .50 caliber machine gun fire. . . or blown to bits with mortar fire.

Ben has resorted to some creative combat ideas.

quote:

Earlier, the medical people in the Tri-states had discovered packs of rabid animals and captured them, keeping them alive as long as possible, transferring the infected cultures into the bloodstreams of every warm blooded animal they could find. The day the invasion began, the animals were turned loose all over the area. It was cruel. Isn’t war always?”

This seems like a really bad idea.

quote:

The government troops began their search-and-destroy missions. They entered hospitals and nursing homes and found the patients had been armed. The very old and sick and dying fought just as savagely as the young and strong and healthy. Old people with tubes hanging from their bodies, some barely able to crawl, hurled grenades and shot at the special troops. And the young men in their jump boots and berets and silver wings wept as they killed the old people. Tough marines cried at the carnage.

quote:

The universal soldier syndrome came home to many of the troops: without us, you can’t have a war.

quote:

The troops could not drink any of the water found in the Tri-states. Dr. Chase had infected it with everything from cholera to forms of anthrax.

What follows is several pages of war from the point of view of some random unnamed U.S. soldier. It’s written to be an unglamorous hellish experience of somebody who’s following orders, and winning, on the wrong side of a war. It’s not that bad, it’s just really long. At one point a few soldiers stop in the middle of a firefight to get their rape on, which kicks you out of the scene.

Nine

quote:

By dusk of the thirty-fifth day, the heaviest fighting was behind the government troops. The pincers had closed, and most of the Tri-states was secure. But the price paid for victory had been cruelly high.

Juno was dead, shot a dozen times, but only after the aging animal had killed a major, tearing out his throat.

The U.S. troops are mopping up, everything is booby trapped but for some reason they feel they have to check each structure instead of just blowing it up. In the mountains the characters with names prepare their last stand.

quote:

Salina came to his side, slipping her hands into his. They were both grimy from gunsmoke and dirt and sweat. Ben thought she had never looked more beautiful than during her pregnancy; she had stood like a dusty Valkyrie by his side, firing an M-16 during the heaviest of the fighting.
...
She tried to smile; then suddenly began to weep, softly, almost silently. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I do love you, Ben Raines.” She smiled through the tears. “Even if you are a honky.”

“And I love you, Salina.” He fought back the tears to return her smile. “Now you step ‘n’ fetch our rear end out of here, baby.”

And together they laughed.

Ben helped her to her feet, gazed at her for a moment, then walked from her to join the group he was taking on diversion. Abruptly, without warning, the silent forest floor erupted into blood and violence. A platoon of paratroopers, quiet and deadly, came at the Rebels; the peaceful wood turned into hand to hand combat.

Ben flipped his old Thompson onto full auto and burned a clip into the paratroopers, bringing down half a dozen. Salina screamed behind him. Ben spun in time to see her impaled on a bayonet. Her mouth opened and closed in silent agony; her hands slowly crawled snakelike down her stomach to clutch at the rifle barrel, to try to pull the hot pain from her stomach. She screamed as she began miscarrying the dead child, for the bayonet had driven through the unborn baby.

“Jesus Christ!” the trooper yelled, as he saw what he had done. He tried to pull the blade from her belly. But the blade was stuck. He pulled the trigger--reflex from hard training-- and blew the blade free, sending a half-dozen slugs into Salina, throwing her backwards from the force.

Ben jerked his .45 from leather and blew half the trooper’s head off, just as Salina collapsed to the ground, her hands working at the bloody mess that was once her stomach.

For some reason Dr.Chase examines the fetus.

quote:

“Boy,” he said. Perfectly normal. All his fingers and toes. Her complexion, your eyes. Bayonet went right through him.”

But all the bullets after apparently missed.

The fighting continues till Ben is wounded and passes out, most everybody else is dead.

Ten
Three months after the Tri-states’ defeat, the zero squads start their work. There’s a list of assassinations of people whose only defining characteristic is that they have a name. And a couple of relevant ones.

quote:

Dallas Valentine and the first lady, Fran Logan, lay moaning and thrashing on the bed, both of them reaching for the final pinnacle of climax. Neither of them heard the door swinging open. They were enjoying the mutual climax as the Rebel with the silenced submachine gun sprayed them with .45-caliber slugs, turning the silk sheets red with blood.
The final tally was thirty-one senators and seventy-four representatives dead. Twelve cabinet heads dead and the entire Joint Chiefs were wiped out. Badger kills Logan and Vice President Addison feels bad about drifting away from the constitution.

quote:

Ben Raines gazed at the reflection of his face and upper torso in the still waters of the little creek in northern Idaho. He said,” “Lord, man, you look like you’ve been dissected and rejected.”

Ben was now in his fifty-third year, completely gray. His face was lined and tanned; body still hard, eyes old.

“No…” A voice spoke from behind him.”Never rejected. Not by me.”

Ben turned, smiling, to look at the woman who had stood by him during the past very bad months. She returned the smile.

“At last count there were nine bullet scars in your hide.” She touched one of the newer scars, pink and dimpled. Her touch became more intimate as she moved her had from his shoulder to his chest, touching her lips to his mouth.

“I have a meeting in an hour,” he reminded her..

She grinned. “General, there may have been a time when you could last an hour. But not since I’ve known you.”

Together, they laughed.

Epilogue

quote:

And now, it was time: Ben would give the orders and guerrilla warfare would once more shake the country, and possibly, the rebuilding world.

This brings us to the end of book one.

It's the one I remembered the least of, and is actually fairly different from how I remember the rest of the series. It's the best of the series for a couple of reasons.

In this book he actually tried to present a few different perspectives even if he didn't do the best job of it. He points out that black people have a different experience then white people and take a lot of poo poo for the actions of a few. Race war is not a thing to strive for, and the people pushing it are evil. None of this is groundbreaking or particularly well handled, but in a book that targets early a 1980s survivalist audience it's probably the best you're going to get.

I'm gonna call his political and economic ideas country club communism. If you have full control over who joins your club, you don't have to worry to much about policing the members. His "harsh" prison system seems a hell of a lot better then we have today. It's like he wrote it thinking he would show us exactly how tough it should be for prisoners but since he knew nothing of prisons he managed to come up with an improvement. Except for the death penalty. Human's have had the death penalty forever, and we've had crime just as long.

It's all down hill from here.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Why... does the nancy boy liberal president want to literally exterminate the entire population of the tri states with SS troops?

Like, what's his motivation?

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

Throwing Turtles posted:

For some reason Dr.Chase examines the fetus.
quote:

quote:

“Boy,” he said. Perfectly normal. All his fingers and toes. Her complexion, your eyes. Bayonet went right through him.”

Holy poo poo. You could almost say the warlord's dead unborn child was... perfect in every way.

Throwing Turtles
May 3, 2015

OwlFancier posted:

Why... does the nancy boy liberal president want to literally exterminate the entire population of the tri states with SS troops?

Like, what's his motivation?

His official reason is that the people of the Tri-states need the federal government to guide them and they told him no. You have to kill all of them because they will never surrender.

Also he really really hates them and that jerk Ben Raines.

Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN

quote:

Ben helped her to her feet, gazed at her for a moment, then walked from her to join the group he was taking on diversion. Abruptly, without warning, the silent forest floor erupted into blood and violence. A platoon of paratroopers, quiet and deadly, came at the Rebels; the peaceful wood turned into hand to hand combat.

Ben flipped his old Thompson onto full auto and burned a clip into the paratroopers, bringing down half a dozen. Salina screamed behind him. Ben spun in time to see her impaled on a bayonet. Her mouth opened and closed in silent agony; her hands slowly crawled snakelike down her stomach to clutch at the rifle barrel, to try to pull the hot pain from her stomach. She screamed as she began miscarrying the dead child, for the bayonet had driven through the unborn baby.


There's so much telling and so little showing here it's almost painful. I guess it would have taken too much effort to actually describe the experience of being ambushed so the narrator resorts to just telling us that it happened and that it was bloody and loud.

Also how did our brilliant military-vet protagonist manage to get his entire group surrounded without anyone noticing. And why were crack paratroopers so clumped together that only seconds after launching their ambush six of them could be immediately taken out by a single volley from a Thompson gun? Now I will admit I'm not a former soldier-turned-mercenary-turned-warlord but I coulda sworn that basic infantry fighting doctrine is you keep people spread out to avoid exactly that kind of thing from happening.

Also what could it possible mean for someone's hands to "crawl" in a "snakelike" manner? In what possible way is a dying person's hand movement analagous to a snake? There are about 170,000 or so words in the English language and "snakelike" was the best adjective he could think of?

I know the main appeal of this read through is the bat-poo poo crazy politics and cringe inducing racism but I think what keeps hooking me is the sheer awfulness of the prose.

pookel
Oct 27, 2011

Ultra Carp

Throwing Turtles posted:

She screamed as she began miscarrying the dead child, for the bayonet had driven through the unborn baby.
That's not how it works ...

Tevery Best
Oct 11, 2013

Hewlo Furriend
I really don't get what or why is happening in this book. What a loving mess.

Can anyone give me a rundown of the reasons for war? I legitimately can't wrap my head around it.

EDIT: also I think the OP skipped Chapter 14?

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Helsing posted:

There's so much telling and so little showing here it's almost painful. I guess it would have taken too much effort to actually describe the experience of being ambushed so the narrator resorts to just telling us that it happened and that it was bloody and loud.

Also how did our brilliant military-vet protagonist manage to get his entire group surrounded without anyone noticing. And why were crack paratroopers so clumped together that only seconds after launching their ambush six of them could be immediately taken out by a single volley from a Thompson gun? Now I will admit I'm not a former soldier-turned-mercenary-turned-warlord but I coulda sworn that basic infantry fighting doctrine is you keep people spread out to avoid exactly that kind of thing from happening.

Also what could it possible mean for someone's hands to "crawl" in a "snakelike" manner? In what possible way is a dying person's hand movement analagous to a snake? There are about 170,000 or so words in the English language and "snakelike" was the best adjective he could think of?

I know the main appeal of this read through is the bat-poo poo crazy politics and cringe inducing racism but I think what keeps hooking me is the sheer awfulness of the prose.

I was wondering about the tommy gun thing, the fact that the author calls everything a clip makes it hard to tell but supposedly he got a drum magazine for it, so presumably he didn't kill six men with twenty bullets.

But, presumably, that also means he might have emptied a 100 round drum at them so he was literally standing in the middle of the clearing doing a rambo with his tommy gun for about ten seconds, which is possibly an even sillier image.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Jan 12, 2017

Cerebral Bore
Apr 21, 2010


Fun Shoe
How many goddamn suicide squads do they have in order to be able to take out upwards of a hundred of the most closely guarded people left on the planet?

Throwing Turtles
May 3, 2015

Tevery Best posted:

I really don't get what or why is happening in this book. What a loving mess.

Can anyone give me a rundown of the reasons for war? I legitimately can't wrap my head around it.

EDIT: also I think the OP skipped Chapter 14?

The reasons for the war boil down preserving the union and making sure that all citizens are protected under the constitution. It's never presented in those exact words, but it's the closest thing to a reasonable reason.

Logan specifically hates Ben Raines. And is power mad. It's never really laid out in those terms either.

It only goes up to chapter 10 and the epilogue. I cut most of chapter 10 because it's a long list of assassinations, some in detail, all successful, of political figures.

I did miss this.

quote:

President Logan smiled and leaned back in his leather chair. He was very pleased with the way things were going. Seven weeks since the awful assassinations, and the country was settling down. He had rid himself of a cheating wife and accomplished his life's dream; he had an iron grip on the country. The previous night he had dreamed about being crowned king of America.

Which takes place right before he dies.


OwlFancier posted:

I was wondering about the tommy gun thing, the fact that the author calls everything a clip makes it hard to tell but supposedly he got a drum magazine for it, so presumably he didn't kill six men with twenty bullets.

But, presumably, that also means he might have emptied a 100 round drum at them so he was literally standing in the middle of the clearing doing a rambo with his tommy gun for about ten seconds, which is possibly an even sillier image.

It changes, sometimes without warning or notice, as needed by the story. Given the nature of the book, the Rambo image is probably closest.

Cerebral Bore posted:

How many goddamn suicide squads do they have in order to be able to take out upwards of a hundred of the most closely guarded people left on the planet?

Well according to the book there were five from each district. I don't know what that means, so I'm going to assume it's like county, of which there's a little over 160. So eight hundred people.

The attacks took place in one night, and none of the targets were described as having protection. Logan was hit later by a suicide bomb. He also didn't have protection.

Cerebral Bore
Apr 21, 2010


Fun Shoe

Throwing Turtles posted:

Well according to the book there were five from each district. I don't know what that means, so I'm going to assume it's like county, of which there's a little over 160. So eight hundred people.

The attacks took place in one night, and none of the targets were described as having protection. Logan was hit later by a suicide bomb. He also didn't have protection.

Sounds perfectly reasonable that all of the people in power would leave themselves completely unguarded after starting a war with a guy who explicitly threatened to assassinate those people in case they started said war. It's also convenient that these bands of suspicious armed people managed to trek all the way across a continent ruled by a police state without being stopped and questioned even once or the whole conservative revenge fantasy wouldn't really have worked out. Good writing all around, top marks.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Bioweapons in water and diseased animals? Sounds like my plan for national defense of Lithuania: as soon as a T-72 crosses the border, we nuke ourselves

How old was he when he wrote the book? His fascination with the elderly is something.

Tevery Best
Oct 11, 2013

Hewlo Furriend

Throwing Turtles posted:

The reasons for the war boil down preserving the union and making sure that all citizens are protected under the constitution. It's never presented in those exact words, but it's the closest thing to a reasonable reason.

Logan specifically hates Ben Raines. And is power mad. It's never really laid out in those terms either.

It only goes up to chapter 10 and the epilogue. I cut most of chapter 10 because it's a long list of assassinations, some in detail, all successful, of political figures.


I meant before, in Part I. Your posts list Chapter 13, but the next one starts with Chapter 15 and suddenly there are a bunch of characters and situations that we should know but we don't? Like Salina and the rest of that gang.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
What happened to the almost tolerable female student and tomboy characters?

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Jan 13, 2017

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

Tevery Best posted:

I really don't get what or why is happening in this book. What a loving mess.

Can anyone give me a rundown of the reasons for war? I legitimately can't wrap my head around it.

EDIT: also I think the OP skipped Chapter 14?

Because they are liberals and therefore cannot stand Ben's Commupublican utopia. Also evil, of course, but I did say they were liberals.

Lemniscate Blue
Apr 21, 2006

Here we go again.

Discendo Vox posted:

What happened to the almost tolerable female student and tomboy characters?

https://youtu.be/shs7VQhVvxA

Throwing Turtles
May 3, 2015
Apparently I typed chapter 14 then didn't post it. Which is sad because it has some really goofy stuff.

Chapter Fourteen

quote:

The first of May found Ben in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains, sitting in a motel room in a deserted town, eating a cold lunch.
The war happened sometime in October, this is where things start getting confusing.


quote:

The first of May found Ben in the middle of the Great Smoky mountains, sitting in a motel room in a deserted town, eating a cold lunch.

These mountain people, he concluded, were weird! He couldn’t get close enough to any of them to say a word. At a little town in just south of Bryson City, one of them had made the mistake of taking a shot at Ben. Ben had reacted instinctively and had spent the next few, long hours watching the man die from a stomach wound.

“Why did you shoot at me?” Ben had asked. “I wasn’t doing a thing.”

“Outsider,” the man had gasped. “Got no business here. We’ll get you.”

“Why do you want to ‘get me’?”
But the man had lost consciousness.


After watching the man die, a boy and a girl come by to warn Ben that everybody is coming to kill him.

quote:

“Who is coming to get me--and why?”

“Our people,” the girl said. She was a very pretty girl, but already the signs of ignorance and poverty were taking their toll.

The poverty and ignorance of her parents, Ben thought.

“I’ve done nothing to your … people.”

“You kilt our uncle,” the boy replied. “Ain’t that doing something?”

“Your uncle shot at me for no reason. All I was doing was standing by the side of a stream, trying to fish for my supper.”

“Our roads, our mountains, our fish,” the girl said.

The kids want Ben to leave because the leader Corning has marked him for death and they want to avoid more killing.

quote:

“Who, or what is a Corning?”

“The leader”

“Ah, yes.” Ben smiled, but was careful not to offend the young people, or rib their way of talking or thinking. “Let me guess; this corning is the biggest, and the strongest among you. He is a religious man---or so he says--and he has a great and powerful voice and spouts the Bible a lot. Am right?”

“Mister,”--the girl’s voice was soft with awe--”how’d you know all that?”

Ben looked at her. She was shapely and ripe for picking. :And I’ll bet this Corning … I’ll bet he likes you a lot right?”

“He’s taken a shine to me, yeah”

Ben drives to Knoxville where he finds a group of five hundred, with another five thousand living in the suburbs. He learns that Logan has been installed as president, and that he wants to relocate everybody to a few central areas with the intention of homesteading out the wilds as the population stabilizes. I don’t know anything about rebuilding after doomsday but it sounds reasonable.

quote:


“They want to settle the east coast first, the heavy industry areas, then the midwest— the breadbasket, so to speak; Texas and Louisiana for the gas and oil, and the far West— California, Oregon, Washington.”

“And the people are really allowing themselves to be herded like cattle? Told where to live?”

“Sure. That shouldn’t surprise you. Big Brother’s been doing it to us for years. Most folks don’t even question the orders to move.”

“Do we have a president? Or king, or whatever?”

“Yes.” The man scratched his head. “But durned if I can tell you his name right off. We’re really out of touch here. It’s ... like that hotel chain.”

“Hilton Logan.”

“Yeah. That’s it. Strange, though. I seem to recall he never was too thrilled with the military, yet they installed him as president. I can’t figure that one out.”
I know it’s not what he intended to say but it sounds like the military is still trying to adhere to the chain of command. Find the highest existing member of the government and proceed from there. Also I don’t think you’d have to force many people to move, just make it available and most people would go, if for no other reason to get away from the rape economy.

We also here about the deep South

quote:

“Let me guess. New Africa.”

“That’s what I hear from some people passing through. Some of those people are militant. But I don’t really blame them. We--All of us--have poo poo on the blacks for years. Hurts my mouth to say that but it’s true. Then I guess we overcompensated for two or three decades.

I’m not exactly sure what we did to overcompensate. We also find that the new seat of government is in Richmond, Virginia.

Ben drives to Chapel hill where Jerre headed and finds out the students have all left, scattered to make the world a better place.

quote:

Dead. Quite a number of them. That is what I have heard. No proof. Do you have a daughter or son with the young people?”

“No. Just a young friend.”

“Name?”

“Jerre Hunter.”

The man’s face sobered. I’m very sory…”

And the word hit Ben hard leaving him almost physically ill.

“...but I’m not familiar with that name. As I said there were several thousand.”

Ben heads into Virginia where he’s stopped multiple times.

quote:

“What in the hell is going on?” Ben demanded. “Why am I being treated like a criminal?”

The Virginia trooper wore no expression on his face. Neutral. Impassive. A tree. A big loving oak tree. “Where is the registration for this truck?”

But Ben had him on that. Before leaving the dealership he had carefully filled out a bill of sale and all the necessary papers. He had notarized hem himself, signing the notary’s name with his left hand and putting plates on the truck from another parked in the shop. It had been a spur-of the moment act. Now Ben was glad he’d done it.
For one brief moment we’ve switched to a Shadowrun game. Ben’s business in the city is he wants to visit the first lady Fran.

quote:

”You really know here?”

“Unfortunately. I hosed her for about a week--last year. Right after the war.”

“No kidding! Hey, she’s a looker was it good?”

“You ever had any bad?

Both men laughed at the old joke. The ice was broken, the tension gone. Big buddies now; talk about pussy.

Ben levels with the soldier and shows him his guns. The soldier warns him off from Richmond as their is a price on his head and no guns are allowed other than 410 shotguns and .22 rifles. We also learn that Logan is sending soldiers down to crush New Africa. They are led by a merc named Kenny Parr, who Ben fought with in Africa. Ben thinks he’s a dick.

Ben asks one more favor, to report to his superiors that he died.

Ben get’s in touch with the rebels,.

quote:

...Now then; I want you and all your people to begin searching the towns and cities. Pick up every ounce of gold and silver you can find. Also all the precious stones. Move it west to the holding areas. Be careful, there are bounties on your heads.”

All the things you could get to start a new nation you pick gold. Not vehicles, farm equipment, machinery, make sure you get the gold.

Let’s join in on some CB chatter.

quote:

Wonder who that ol’ boy is headin’ west?” The question popped out of the speaker.

“Don’t know. But he better be careful if he’s heading into Nashville. Logan’s people will sure turn him around and point him in the right direction.”

“Yeah,” a female voice said. “After they take all his guns and shake him down like he was a criminal. At first those guys came around asking nice-like. Then they started getting hard nosed about it. … It’s just I don’t like being forced to do something I don’t want to do.”

“How many times have you said back when the nation was whole -- that people out of work should be forced to work?” The voice of the questioner was unmistakably black.

“Maybe I was wrong in saying that,” she admitted. “The shoe sure is on the other foot now, isn’t it?

“But we’re all in the same boat,” the black man said. “And I don’t like it either.


Ben talks with a small group outside of Cullman.

quote:

Ben told them what he knew and also about the plans for a New Africa and what the government planned to do with the idea.

The black man was very explicit with his views. “gently caress a New Africa. I’m not an African; I’m an American. This is my home--our home.” He waved at the group, a mixture of blacks and whites. “We’re all friends, working together--root hog, or die. And no son of a bitch is going to run me off what is mine.”

All agreed with him.

Another area where the problems between races had been solved.

He then hooks back up with Ike. They talk about where they are going.

quote:

“Idaho and Montana?”

“Yes”

“Wild and beautiful. Everything a man could ask for. Grow good crops and raise fat cattle. Cold as a witches tit in the winter.

Ike gives Ben a special radio and they part ways.

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Throwing Turtles
May 3, 2015
Fire in the Ashes.



Three versions of the cover art. The second version came out around the year 2000, and the third came out in 2008.

This book was also published in 1983, and it's possible that the first two books were written as one and split up in publishing.

Since popular music is one of Johnstone's favorite rants, this is probably what he was complaining about.

http://thenostalgiamachine.com/y/#/1983


This picks up after the Tri-states battle, but before the epilogue. Ben is 53 in this book, and he's going to be 53 for the rest of the series. People don't age in these books even though time passes. There is one exception to this rule, and that's Cecil Jeffreys. He is eventually forced to retire from combat for health reasons, he goes into politics.

Fire in the ashes.

Prologue

quote:

The White House Richmond, Virginia March, 1999

“Are you sure Ben Raines is dead?” President Addison asked the agent.

“Yes, sir. Positive. He was hit three times in the chest area with M-16 rounds. Then he fell off a mountain. The man is dead. No human could have lived through that.”

“Where was this?”

“Montana, sir. The man is dead.”

“I’ve heard that before. Ben Raines is hard to kill.” The president dismissed the agent and whirled around in his chair, looking out the window. Alone in the Oval Office, Addison’s thoughts were as mixed as they were many.

Ben Raines finally dead. Finally. Funny, I should be experiencing some . . . some sort of glow of victory. But I don’t. I met him; I rather liked him. I wish to God we could have reached some sort of agreement, for I don’t believe he was ever an enemy of the people.

The vice president survived the attacks because he wasn’t on the list. He had spoken against the invasion enough to get a pass.

quote:

Al Cody, director of the FBI walked in, a huge smile on his face. “I can’t believe it, sir. The son-of-a-bitch is really dead?”

Al Cody was not one of the president’s favorite people. The man had pushed hard for the new antihandgun bill; had been instrumental in stripping the citizens of pistols, and in setting up what amounted to a virtual police state in America. The majority of the citizens of the United States hated Al Cody. But they were stuck with him.

“Yes,” Aston said with a sigh. “I believe Ben Raines is dead.”

“Is there any way we can get Congress to make this a national holiday?”

Aston Addison could only look at the man. Al flushed, realizing he had perhaps taken that one step too many and crossed the invisible line. “Sorry, sir. But my feeling for Ben Raines is a lot deeper than yours. His Rebels killed my brother in the battle for Tri-States.”
“There is right and wrong on both sides, Mr. Cody. Our forces raped and tortured a lot of Rebels— or have you forgotten that?”

This is the FBI director and one of our new villains. He wasn’t mentioned in the old book so I’ll assume he was promoted recently.

Chapter one.

quote:

“You’re lucky, Ben,” Doctor Lamar Chase said. “You’re the luckiest man I’ve ever seen.”

But some of Ben Raines’ Rebels were beginning to think there was something more than luck surrounding their commanding officer.

“You’ve got a broken collar bone, three cracked ribs, and a small bit of bone gone from your left shoulder. This would have killed a lesser man. Should have killed you.”

Jerre knelt by Ben’s bed. “Old man,” she grinned at him. “I wish you’d quit scaring me like this.” Ben touched her face, ran his fingers through her blonde hair. His face was pale from shock and the pain of his wounds. “I keep telling you, babe,” he whispered, “I’ll go when I’m drat well ready to go.”

She kissed his cheek. “Everybody out!” Chase ordered. “Let the man get some rest. He’s not immortal, you know.”

The doctor did not notice the strange looks he received at that statement.

The mystery person in the epilogue turns out to be Jerre.

quote:

Ben’s personal contingent of Rebels was camped near Hell Creek, not far from the southern shores of the Fort Peck Recreation Area. Many of these Rebels had been with Ben for years: Judith Sparkman, James Riverson, Ike McGowan, Ben’s adopted daughter, Tina, Cecil Jefferys, Doctor Chase, in his early seventies and still spry as a mountain goat— and just as cantankerous.
We’re going to be seeing a lot of these people.

FBI guy Al Cody sends a retrieval team out to find Ben’s remains.

quote:

They boarded a plane at Byrd Field and headed westward. The agents were in high spirits. Hunting traitors was the name of the game. They were loyal to the red, white, and blue, Ben Raines and his Rebels were all traitors and anarchists, and that was that.

It was all cut and dried. No gray area between the white and the black.

By tomorrow at this time, all the agents would be dead.

The rebels set up an ambush and kill everybody but the pilots on the plane. Then they put the FBI agents back in the plane and tell the pilots to fly them back. I’m not cutting more than some pithy dialog here. But this is of note.

quote:

Ben sighed, his pain momentarily forgotten. “All right, Hec. But this commits us past the point of no return; your people aware of that?”

“Yes, sir. To a person.”

“Good luck, Hec.” Ben slowly removed the headset and handed it to the operator. The young man looked at him, questions in his eyes. “From now on it’s open warfare, isn’t it, General?”

“Yes, it is, son. It sure is.”
If this starts open warfare I wonder what the invasion was.

Al Cody does not take the news well.

quote:

“I’m going to find you, Ben Raines. I swear it. I’m going to find you and publicly hang you. And I’m going to enjoy it immensely.”

Cody walked away from the death-plane. He was a short stalky man with iron gray hair and the belief that his government could do no wrong. Al believed if his government made a rule, it didn’t matter if ninety-nine percent of the people were opposed to it— it was the law, and by God the public would obey it, and if they didn’t they could drat well pay the price by being branded a criminal.

Al Cody authorizes torture, because these were hard times. Jeb Fargo, and Kenny Parr get a mention, also mentioned is Sam Hartline, who if memory serves will be a villain for several books.


quote:

The FBI of the late 1990’ s bore no resemblance to the crime-fighting Bureau of old. They were more an anti-guerrilla unit than an anti-crime organization. Organized crime, per se, was practically nonexistent; the bombings of 1988 had seen to that— worldwide.

The Bureau had men and women working on cases involving murder and rape and extortion and government-related criminal cases, but by and large they were pitted against Ben Raines and his Rebels.

Also in the chapter is a reprint of Ben meeting Jeree and a description of the Tri-states.

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