History Roleplay / VictoriaFalls

''[[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/victoria-falls-a-post-collapse-american-nation-quest-down-with-victoria.53790/ Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest]]'' is a [[PlayByPostGames play-by-post]] Quest roleplay created by [=PoptartProdigy=] on Website/SufficientVelocityDotCom, based on William S. Lind's ''Literature/{{Victoria}}''. It began on 11 March 2019.

* ReleasedToElsewhere: The official (i.e. the original novel's) description of Rumford's final fate was that he and and his men went on a "crusade" to retake Constantinople from a united Muslim caliphate, after which he eventually returned home and ultimately died peacefully of old age on his farm. In reality, [[spoiler:"Father" Dimitri decided that Rumford's megalomania and warmongering might have been useful when Victoria was still in its expansionist phase, but long-term Russian designs required Victoria to begin a political transition into being a more stable and passive PuppetState, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness so keeping him around was just going to be more trouble than he was worth]]. In reality, the "crusade" was a ruse to lure Rumford and those of his men who were most ideologically devoted to his cause to an isolated peace, so a Spetsnaz team could ambush and liquidate them all in one fell swoop.]]

* ReleasedToElsewhere: The official (i.e. the original novel's) description of Rumford's final fate was that he and and his men went on a "crusade" to retake Constantinople from a united Muslim caliphate, after which he eventually returned home and ultimately died peacefully of old age on his farm. In reality, [[spoiler:"Father" Dimitri decided that Rumford's megalomania and warmongering might have been useful when Victoria was still in its expansionist phase, but long-term Russian designs required Victoria to begin a political transition into being a more stable and passive PuppetState, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness so keeping him around was just going to be more trouble than he was worth]]. In reality, the crusade was a ruse to lure Rumford and those of his men who were most ideologically devoted to his cause to an isolated peace, so Spetsnaz team could ambush and liquidate them all in one fell swoop.]]

** New York City never joined Victoria. "Father Dimitri" barely managed to dissuade Rumford and Kraft from launching a very costly invasion against the city.

''[[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/victoria-falls-a-post-collapse-american-nation-quest-down-with-victoria.53790/ Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest]]'' is a [[PlayByPostGames play-by-post]] Quest roleplay created by [=PoptartProdigy=] on Sandbox/SufficientVelocityDotCom, based on William S. Lind's ''Literature/{{Victoria}}''. It began on 11 March 2019.

* BasedOnAGreatBigLie: The Quest's backstory depicts many of the events of the novel as being largely fictional, altered by the Victorian government to enhance its image as the heroic nation conquering the "Cultural Marxists" within the United States.
** New York City never joined Victoria. "Father Dimitri" barely managed to dissuade Rumford and Kraft from launching a potentially costly invasion against the city.

** The "privateers of the Aztec Empire" that the Northern Confederation fought in the Gulf of Mexico were actually just random pirates, and the campaign against wasn't quite as successful as the book depicted.

* FinalSolution: General Blackwell's AfterActionReport to Victoria's high command following the war with the Commonwealth outlines his belief that the Commonwealth ''cannot'' be subjugated the way other Victorian conquests have - the "Machine State" has no central leaders, with each citizen instead being a component in the Commonwealth. He instead recommends exterminating everyone above a certain age to permanently destroy the ideals of the Commonwealth.

** Unionist Party: Victorian Sympathisers that won't admit to being Victorian Sympathisers. [[spoiler:After a campaign lambasting their policies and leadership, they have ceased to be a force in politics, ''for now''.]]

* GreaterScopeVillain: Although the Victorians are the main enemy, the Tsar's Imperialist ambitions loom large over the setting.

* LaResistance: One exists within Victoria itself and was a possible starting position at the beginning of the quest, though the pervasiveness of the CMC keeps them fragmented and hard to contact. One of their members is Maria Mercedes, the former First Lady.

* MissionCreep: The Commonwealth falls into this as they get high on victory fever and Victoria walks out on peace negotiations. To get them back to the table, Chicago launches Operation Foil, an invasion of Victorian territory to seize the Welland Canal. Facing minimal resistance, they then capture Buffalo and declare a plebiscite on whether the residents want to remain a part of Victoria. They are massively overextended, winter is coming, and public will at home is running out. [[spoiler:Luckily, the referendum is a resounding no and Victoria, humiliated, signs a punitive peace treaty without complaint. The Commonwealth is able to withdraw before the lake freezes over and evacuates any civilians who wanted to leave with them.]]

* MissionCreep: The Commonwealth falls into this as they get high on victory fever and Victoria walks out on peace negotiations. To get them back to the table, Chicago launches Operation Foil, an invasion of Victorian territory to seize the Welland Canal. Facing minimal resistance, they then capture Buffalo and declare a plebiscite on whether the residents want independence from Victoria. They are massively overextended, winter is coming, and public will at home is running out. [[spoiler:Luckily, the referendum is a resounding no and Victoria, humiliated, signs a punitive peace treaty without complaint. The Commonwealth is able to withdraw before the lake freezes over and evacuates any civilians who wanted to leave with them.]]

* TakeThat: The backstory is a very blatant one against the former United States President Creator/DonaldTrump, as it is established that he was the one who had the United States default on its sovereign debt, and in a manner that indicates he did it mostly to spite his political opponents.

-->--'''Sara M. Johnson'''

* RussiaTakesOverTheWorld: Russia is the world's premier superpower, ruling much of the world either directly through military conquest, or through puppets and proxies.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: {{Invoked}}. The premise of the story is that John Rumford was an UnreliableNarrator who flitered his account of the events surrounding the rise of Victoria through a combination of his own megalomania and SelfServingMemory and as well as a bunch of straight up lies and propaganda to make both himself and the state of Victoria look better.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The Victorian government's attempts to force their population into subsistence farming results in massive dieoffs from starvation, as most people are not equipped to grow their own food.

* AdaptationalVillainy: [[spoiler:"Father Dimitri", portrayed in Lind's novel as the "unofficial liaison" of Tsar Alexander IV, is now an Okhrana agent who was tasked with forcing the collapse of the United States by assisting Rumford and Kraft in the Civil War.]]

* AdaptationalWimp: Bictoria understandably nowhere near the InvincibleVillain [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality or, well, hero]] the novel portrays it as. Most of their victories are solely due to Russian backing and blatant opportunism.

** Victoria cracking cold fusion and building a dam across the Bay of Fundy is merely a network of refurbished nuclear power plants and an absurdly ambitious tidal power station, respectively, both of which are run by Russian corporations.
** Rumford was sent abroad to retake Constantinople from a united Muslim caliphate, eventually dying of old age on campaign. However, the crusade was a ruse [[spoiler:by Tsar Alexander to get him and his inner circle in one place to wipe them out with a Spetsnaz team]].

* DividedStatesOfAmerica: Decades of brutalization and decay has made organization difficult beyond the city-state level, but some polities are powerful enough to control major parts of or multiple states. Major factions include:

* FinalSolution: In General Blackwell's AfterActionReport to Victoria's high command following the war with the Commonwealth, he outlines his belief that the Commonwealth ''cannot'' be subjugated the way other Victorian conquests have - the "Machine State" has no central leaders, with each citizen instead being a component in the Commonwealth. He instead recommends completely annihilating everyone above a certain age to permanently destroy the ideals of the Commonwealth.

* KingInTheMountain: According to folklore, president Barack Obama was poisoned by Donald Trump and now sleeps in the depths of Lake Erie, to awake when the United States is restored.
* LaResistance: One exists within Victoria itself and was a possible starting position at the beginning of the quest, though the pervasiveness of the CMC keeps them fragmented and hard to contact. One of their members is Maria Mercedes, the former first lady.

* PatronSaint: The Church of the Shepherd, a folk religion among the Victorian resistance, tells stories of the Shepherds: former presidents, martyrs, and resistance figures, that embody and teach different aspects of faith, life, and guerilla warfare techniques.

* StepfordSmiler: The Blue Mountain Farmers were raised in an environment where showing negative emotion, especially around their "Papas," made them liable to be "[[DeadlyEuphemism weeded]]."

* UnitedEurope: Downplayed. While the European Union forms credible opposition to Russia, Great Britain, France, Italy and Greece suffered civil wars and Poland bled itself white holding back the Russian advance. Only German and the Nordics are said to have been continuously stable.

* WeHardlyKnewYe: Illinois governor Audrey Jameson, one of the foregone options for leader during faction creation, is assassinated on the first turn. Her death forms the impetus of founding a counter-intelligence office and uncovers a [[spoiler:unionist conspiracy]].

* WeAREStrugglingTogether: Cascadia's Rainbow Uprising in 2062 fractured after the [[TokenEvilTeammate Victoria-aligned White Army]] indulges in killing Japanese civilians in Kitimat. Their Revivalist and Native allies turned on them to stop the atrocity, triggering other groups to settle their own scores.