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Dystopia under construction

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FrustratedRocka Since: Dec, 1969
#1: Mar 16th 2011 at 8:33:11 PM

OK, so here's the deal. I'm trying to show how a dystopia could form in a democracy. Here's how the timeline as is goes:

  • Catalyst: A Right-Wing Militia Fanatic blows up the White House, killing the President and Vice President
  • 1 week in: Left wing fringe groups assassinate the Senate Minority Leader in retaliation
  • 2 weeks in: The violence has escalated and the country is on the edge of complete chaos. * The Speaker of the House is sworn in as President and vows to take whatever action is necessary to stop the fighting.
  • 1 month in: The President deploys troops to several major cities to keep the peace
  • 2 months in: A judge who ruled that the deployment was unconstitutional is found dead. Probably assassinated by the CIA.
  • 5 months in: Armed gunmen massacre about a dozen senators while congress is in session. * I'm still deciding whether the senators were all of one political affiliation or not, and whether I want this to be a CIA false flag op or not.
  • 8 months in: The states vote unanimously to ratify the 28th amendment, granting the President power to nullify portions of the Constitution during times of domestic insurrection. The new power is quickly put to use, and the 1st amendment is suspended.
  • 12 months in: The government has won the war, but the President does not give up his power. The CIA has been granted the ability to spy on American citizens, and those who speak out against the government are starting to disappear.
  • 2 years in: The CIA begins keeping track of who votes for which candidate in the midterm elections. A few supporters anti-police state candidates are found dead, with signs of torture.
  • 3 years in: The Resistance announces itself with a raid on an FBI office in Los Angeles. They are quickly put down and shot on sight.
  • 4 years in: The President is elected to a second term by a near-unanimous electoral vote.
  • 5 years in: 76 police stations across the country are blown up. May or may not be a CIA false flag, I haven't decided yet.
  • 8 years in: Ten state legislatures introduce the 29th amendment, designed to counter the 28th. The governors of all ten states are found dead on the same day, each having had their throats slashed.
  • 9 years in: The Secret Service is absorbed into the CIA. The new President's position suddenly lines up much more with the pro-police state position.

17 years in: Page One.

edited 16th Mar '11 9:15:37 PM by FrustratedRocka

nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#2: Mar 16th 2011 at 8:41:06 PM

My first and instinctive reaction: beware of strawmen. It's always a risk with politics to begin with, but you seem to have more then your fair share of extremists running around (although admittedly on both ends of the political spectrum).

edited 16th Mar '11 8:41:29 PM by nrjxll

FrustratedRocka Since: Dec, 1969
#3: Mar 16th 2011 at 9:17:29 PM

Thanks, I've been trying to keep that in mind. I really don't want to skew any more to one side or another than I have to in order to frame the story properly, and besides, there are worse things than being accused of being a libertarian (which I'm not, by the way). Such as being accused of being a paranoid conspiracy theorist for coming up with this in the first place.

GenericGuy Since: May, 2010
#4: Mar 18th 2011 at 12:08:35 AM

Most cases of democracy turning to authoritarianism in real history had an outside force attacking it, no nation exists in vacuum not in the past and especially not today. A hostile foreign government (or some other powerful organization) would help immensely in making the actions of the government and extremist more believable.

"If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you." —Don Marquis
FrustratedRocka Since: Dec, 1969
#5: Mar 23rd 2011 at 7:42:46 PM

I present, for your consideration, the script for pages 1 and 2 of the webcomic:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9231579/Remus%2C%20pages%201%20and%202.pdf

Let me know if you think this needs work.

SavageHeathen Pro-Freedom Fanatic from Somewhere Since: Feb, 2011
Pro-Freedom Fanatic
#6: Mar 24th 2011 at 7:44:28 AM

Completely believable. The US was quite police state-y and authoritarian to begin with.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.
Gvzbgul from Middle Earth Since: Jul, 2010
#7: Mar 24th 2011 at 10:24:26 PM

Surely you want strawmen? I always thought the point of a dystopia was to take a aspect (good or bad) of our current society and take it up to 11. I suppose it's just my opinion though.

Wanderhome The Joke-Master Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Healthy, deeply-felt respect for this here Shotgun
The Joke-Master
#8: Mar 26th 2011 at 5:21:11 PM

If I were you, I'd lengthen the time frame for the transition to dystopia, and I would not use the CIA as the force behind it. Most of the people in the current military/CIA/FBI would be disinclined to enforce that kind of thing. If you want a president to be the villain, it would probably be more believable to have him accuse the CIA of being behind everything after the initial assassinations and attacks. He could then manipulate the ensuing panic to start an "extremist" witch hunt in the military, FBI, and CIA, a la Mc Carthy.

Those personnel who President Evil expects to oppose him could thus be removed and replaced by personnel loyal to him personally. With them in place, he could then use federal law enforcement as his personal secret police. Even then, though, he'd probably have to start low-key and build up to taking absolute power. Maybe start by having his suborned agencies fabricate new threats, and use that as a pretext to have Presidential term limits removed and manipulate the press so as to make himself seem indispensible to the nation.

Overall, it would probably take more on the order of twenty years just to get to the police state point, at least. Thus securing continued re-elections, he could slowly tighten the screws on Congress and the Judiciary branch through intimidation by the FBI, expand the CIA's remit, and just generally increase his personal power until he had complete control. If there's any point at which there might be an actual civil war, this would be it, as the party opposed to the President and their supporters might try fighting. This would finally allow the President to initiate a complete purge of his opponents, and openly take complete power.

Ultimately, it would take more on the order of twenty years to reach the "iron-fisted dystopia" point, at the very least.

edited 26th Mar '11 5:22:01 PM by Wanderhome

SavageHeathen Pro-Freedom Fanatic from Somewhere Since: Feb, 2011
Pro-Freedom Fanatic
#9: Mar 26th 2011 at 7:22:05 PM

The CIA's role is not to push tyranny on Americans. That's the NSA's job. The CIA does the seedy stuff overseas, not at home tongue.

If you want evil guys on a domestic tyranny scenario, you'd do better of going with the NSA/DHS than the CIA. In fact, loosely National Guard, Military and CIA connected militias could actually be sorta good guys on such a dystopia.

edited 26th Mar '11 7:23:06 PM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.
KyleJacobs from DC - Southern efficiency, Northern charm Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#10: Mar 26th 2011 at 9:56:12 PM

[up]Yeah, but the CIA is far more suited to the actual footwork - assassinations and such - than the NSA, which is mostly cryptology. I thought I had added in a bit about the CIA getting authorization to conduct domestic ops. I was actually planning to have something of an internal power struggle already, but tossing the NSA into the mix is actually a very good idea that gets me out of a hole I recently dug myself into. Again, this is meant to be a fairly early stop on the road to an actual dystopia, so not everything is functioning efficiently yet.

[up][up]It starts that way, but President Evil ends up getting hijacked by a small faction within the CIA that's even more power hungry than he is. The war is real, and the extremist threat is real - the issue is with the government's response to it, and their failure to give up power after the crisis has passed. As for the time frame, it needs to be a fairly short jump because the entire point of the setting is that A) the transition to dystopia is still in progress and B) the majority of the population still remembers freedom. Also, a few characters' ages start to get a bit weird with any gap longer than 17 years.

edited 26th Mar '11 9:58:32 PM by KyleJacobs

SavageHeathen Pro-Freedom Fanatic from Somewhere Since: Feb, 2011
Pro-Freedom Fanatic
#11: Mar 27th 2011 at 5:53:44 AM

That's what the DHS and the police are there for. The DHS and federal law enforcement are evil enough IRL that turning them into Complete Monster territory would be easy to understand. The NSA would monitor, and the DHS would bag. wink

edited 27th Mar '11 5:53:55 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.
KyleJacobs from DC - Southern efficiency, Northern charm Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#12: Mar 28th 2011 at 6:24:02 PM

The DHS doesn't have nearly enough of a budget to make that realistic. I'm planning on having the CIA absorb them and having a power struggle between CIA and NSA. I'm also trying to avoid having too much bureaucracy - this is supposed to be the road to 1984, not Brazil.

nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#13: Mar 28th 2011 at 8:05:34 PM

I agree with the guy from before who said that no nation has ever existed in a vacuum. It's probably important to note what the rest of the world is doing while the U.S. slides into Orwell-land.

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