History Literature / WhatMadnessIsThis

* InSpiteOfANail: Theodore Roosevelt shows up in the Republican Union even though his grandfather was the founder and leader of the Georgian Republic, and hated the RU. The author says that he forced Teddy to exist in spite of the improbability.

[[spoiler: The story "ended" with a massive nuclear war, but [=Napoleon53=] has done an "alternate ending" where the Republican Union's successor--the New United States--doesn't fall apart and goes on to finally conquer the Caribbean and the remains of the Southron nations. This is still ongoing, but it looks like things aren't going to get any better and will probably get worse.]]

* BombThrowingAnarchists: Range from outright anarchists to pseudo-communist Beutelists. They are a major problem for some of the great powers.

** Both Joe Steele [[spoiler: aka [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Ioseb Jugashvili]]]] and Charles Oswald [[spoiler: aka [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy]]]] kill their birth parents, given how RU society discriminates against Orthodox "Slavs" and Irish Catholics

* AxCrazy: Charles 'Chuckie' Oswald, First Consul of the Republican Union [[spoiler:and President of the New United States of America]]. [[spoiler:You know this timeline's a creepy dystopia when the alternate doppelgänger of ''John F. Kennedy'' is even crazier and even more hateful than the alternate version of ''Stalin'' (i.e. Joe Steele), who led the RU before him!]]

[[spoiler: The story "ended" with a massive nuclear war, but [=Napoleon53=] has done an "alternate ending" where the Republican Union's successor—the New United States—doesn't fall apart and goes on to finally conquer the Caribbean and the remains of the Southron nations. This is still ongoing, but it looks like things aren't going to get any better and [[UpToEleven will probably get worse]].]]

* EvilCounterpart: The Republican Union is essentially an incredibly dark doppelganger of the USA. Its history mirrors that of America, except with America's historical good qualities practically nonexistent and its bad qualities [[UpToEleven taken to their worst possible extremes]]. For example:

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Near the end of the timeline, with most nations prepared to annihilate each other in a nuclear war and with no hope of tensions de-escalating, the suicide rates spike internationally. After the nuclear war happens, French Empress Napolena decides to hang herself.]]

* ContinuityReboot: [[spoiler: [=NUSA=] falls apart after a depression, and a new Cold War begins between the Tripartite Empire, [=NUSA=] remnants in the Midwest, and Russia. Ultimately, this ends with the world being consumed in nuclear fire on [[NumberOfTheBeast June 6, 2006]], with a DistantFinale showing that the Americas have been united by a Napoleon-like Emperor and that Europe has fallen back into the Middle Ages......THEN another ending was posted, diverging way back in the 1970s. Chuck Oswald gets word of Nixon's betrayal and avoids the depression that destroyed [=NUSA=]. Oswald arranges Nixon's assassination via airliner crash. He [[FalseFlagOperation blames the crash]] on the Southron Remnants in the Caribbean and uses that as [[PretextForWar an excuse to invade]].]]

* ForWantOfANail: Unlike most alternate history stories, we never actually see the Point of Divergence, as when the story starts there are a few things already different: the United States has a weaker, more decentralised federal government, George [=III=]'s madness is more prevalent and gets passed to his sons, George Washington has biological children, and so on. According to the author, there is no single [=PoD=] and instead a series of small changes beginning in the early 18th century resulting in a world similar to ours up until the 1800s when everything changes. The complete list of [=PoDs=] can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=9955371&postcount=6 here]].

* FunWithAcronyms: The Republican Union Military Police, [=RUMP=], the [[spoiler: New United States of America, [=NUSA=], the Liberated American States Republic, [=LASR=]]].

* GovernmentInExile: [[spoiler:After Columbia is annexed by the New United States, George Washington [=IX=] forms one of these in Cuba. They are FightingForAHomeland and eventually return—at least in the original continuity.]]

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Compared to the other Great Powers, the Tripartite Empire during the 19th century is liberal, progressive, multicultural, and vaguely democratic—in short everything the Republican Union is not. Over the course of the 20th century, to keep fighting against the [=RU=]/[[spoiler:NUSA]] the Empire effectively becomes a police state just as bad as their American enemy.

** Jurgen Ailes is described as one of the more reasonable members of the [=RU=]'s leadership. [[spoiler:He takes over much of the Midwest after Oswald's fall, and he shows his true colors as his government goes full-on ANaziByAnyOtherName and begins herding Jews and Blacks into concentration camps.]]
** [[spoiler: [=NUSA=] collapses, with the [[ALighterShadeOfBlack fairly reasonable]] Richard Nixon in control of the most populous areas. A racist but weakened military regime controls the Midwest. The old fundamentalists control only a small part of Texas. The old Southron nations are now united under a democratic Confederacy. However, as always thing's don't stay this way.]]

** [[spoiler:A Jewish man named Midas Goldberg pushes the [=RU=] from merely enslaving "Inferiors" to outright exterminating them.]]

* PragmaticVillainy: Despite all their racism and xenophobia, one group that the Republican Union surprisingly doesn't oppress are blacks, who enjoy almost equal rights to whites, provided they are blindly loyal to the government. [[spoiler: Once the [=RU=] invades the South and gains a much larger black population and Chuck Oswald goes insane, the [=RU=] begins an ethnic cleansing campaign to rid themselves of their black population.]]

* PresidentForLife: Prime Minister-for-life Sergei Romanov of the Russian Republic, and every [=RU=]/[[spoiler:NUSA]] leader from Custer to [[spoiler:Oswald]].

--> "How can you believe in this? What madness is this, that has consumed you all and turned you into [[AxeCrazy genocidal freaks]]?! I came to this country ten years ago, seeking freedom and opportunity. I was met at the docks by armed thugs. I was met at the hotel by armed thugs. I was immediately forced to sit down with a pastor of your [[CorruptChurch so-called Church]] and was forced to undergo tests to see how vulnerable I was to the 'Devil's wiles," like whether I would or would not be [[BigBrotherIsWatching willing to report]] a neighbor for speaking against the government in private to me. Whether I do or do not find Irish women attractive and/or worthy of carrying on my genetic lineage with. After that, I was given a [[YouAreNumberSix punch card for an [=ORRA=] computer]], and I was assigned a job in a factory. Then I was drafted. I lost most of my left foot in combat against Virginia in '56. It took me two months for your so-called 'government healthcare' to get me my painkillers. [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny What kind of freedom and opportunity is this]]? Since I got off the boat from Baden, I have been mugged, assaulted, forced into conversion, worked half-to-death, and been shot at by some guy I've never met in a war both of us got literally nothing out of. [[WorldGoneMad You're all insane]]. You're all evil lunatics hellbent on destruction and murdering your fellow human beings. You make me sick."

** Both Joe Steele [[spoiler: aka [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Ioseb Jugashvili]]]] and Charles Oswald [[spoiler: aka [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy]]]] kill their birth parents, given how [=RU=] society discriminates against Orthodox "Slavs" and Irish Catholics

* StateSec: [=ORRA=], the American Office of Religious and Racial Affairs.

** [[spoiler: After [=NUSA=]'s collapse, the Tripartite Empire and Southron Nations are left to pick up the pieces. Legacy of *American rule has left an English-speaking Korea and Mexico, [=NUSA=] remnants in Texas, the Midwest, and New England, and racist tin-pot dictators in Britain, South Africa, and Indonesia.]]

** Jurgen Ailes is described as one of the more reasonable members of the [=RU=]'s leadership. [[spoiler: He takes over much of the Midwest after Oswald's fall. His reasonableness doesn't last and his government goes full-on ANaziByAnyOtherName and begins herding Jews and Blacks into concentration camps.]]