Preface: How It Came to This
You've heard of the butterfly effect, I'm sure – the idea that changing one minor point in history can cause untold consequences going forward into eternity. I know the central timeline has gotten unapproachably wonky and will expand as I continue to do research, so allow me to state outright where, precisely, the world inhabited by the ICR differs from the present. (Skip to the second section, if you don't care for political history.)
It is 1962. The Vietnam War and the Space Race simmer, and the world's foremost nuclear powers come precariously close to making good on their promises of mutually-assured destruction. In California, arch-anticommunist and former vice president Richard Nixon runs for governor against incumbent Pat Brown. California today is contrived as the land of weed and avocado toast, but much of its liberal reputation can be traced back to the hippie movement, which then had yet to explode; 50-some years ago, the conservatives still held very real political power. It was a closer race than you might expect.
In the real-world timeline, Nixon loses, gives an inelegant concession speech and decides he's done with the whole dirty business of politics (for a while). Under Pat Brown and a Democrat-controlled legislature, California stays blue, and it gets bluer in more ways than one. Brown goes on to complete the California Aqueduct, the cornerstone of the state Water Project, the byzantine system of canals, dams and waterways that feed the arid south. It was, literally, a watershed development, responsible in no small part for California's exponential economic growth throughout the 20th century. New additions are still in the works today.
That is precisely what does not happen to my California – our California.
Nixon promises a population terrified of war that he will rid their weak and broken state of Reds. And he wins, taking the legislature with him. But his priorities are not Brown's priorities. He is inattentive and unfamiliar with the state's long-term environmental issues. He overspends on drug enforcement – on cracking down on those now-multiplying hippies – and in so doing, allows work on Brown's Water Project to slow to a crawl.
Jump to 1964. JFK is shot and Lyndon B. Johnson is suddenly thrown into the presidency – and into a presidential campaign. The election comes and goes. Then floods threaten much of the Pacific coast, held back only by the unfinished Oroville Dam.
In real life, LBJ is elected. His right-wing opponent Barry Goldwater is too extreme (insane, as the popular rhetoric would have it), and the nation is traumatized; voters want stability and a familiar face. The dam, begun under Brown, is partially built by the time the flooding occurs, and it manages to shield Northern Californians from a more serious crisis.
In our timeline, construction on the dam has barely begun. Sacramento becomes a swamp in a matter of days. Thousands are hurt, killed or displaced. It is a catastrophe on the order of Hurricane Katrina, with a similarly slow and ineffectual government response – but crucially, it occurs after election day. And in our timeline, the most populous state in the union is, in 1964, controlled by Republicans. Barry Goldwater is president. The rest, alas, is history...
To understand the world in which the ICR exists, all you need to do is imagine the crises of the late '60s and early '70s taking place about five years in advance. The country faced a whole slew of seemingly intractable problems. Cold War nuclear anxiety, freshly magnified by the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. Fears of an internal insurrection and the prospect of real race and class warfare. Red-baiting Republicans. Guileless Democrats. Young American soldiers marching through a ravaged Vietnam, a country America destroyed for no apparent reason. Sex. Drugs. Television. The looming danger of Red China. The corruption of innocence on what feels like a national scale. But the hippie movement is smothered in its infancy. The Summer of Love never happens. Johnson is not elected, and the Civil Rights Act, when it does eventually pass Congress, is vetoed by President Goldwater. The Vietnam War is ended suddenly, in a blaze of televised death and destruction, but that does little to soothe the anti-war crowd. A nuclear apocalypse seems, again, to be drawing near. And in our timeline, both the Californian and federal governments, the ones ultimately blamed for all this trouble, on top of any acts of God or economic stumbles or failures of policy, are right-wing Republicans, not centrist Democrats. And, as happened in the '70s, they initially face no organized opposition from the left, as revolutionary groups bicker amongst themselves. And then in 1965, out of the chaos, a single unified group comes to the fore. They have a leader. He is young, tall and white. He is clean-shaven and handsome, speaks proper English, says 'yes sir' and 'no sir' and never leaves his shirt untucked. He is a radical, judging by the red star on his party's flag and the vitriolic slogans its members chant. Students and workers of every stripe have thrown in their hat with this man and his party. He claims he wants to forge a new state from the ashes of his own broken country, to free himself and his followers from the shackles of its laws and its history. His party believes in equality, prosperity and freedom – all the things America promises its citizens, but which, in recent years, it has spectacularly failed provide. He is a bona fide revolutionary. But his message is one of optimism, of strength, and of a grand and as-of-yet unfulfilled national destiny. And in the minds of voters, the impossible slowly becomes a plausible reality...
To understand the world in which the ICR exists, all you need to do is imagine the crises of the late '60s and early '70s taking place about five years in advance. The country faced a whole slew of seemingly intractable problems. Cold War nuclear anxiety, freshly magnified by the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. Fears of an internal insurrection and the prospect of real race and class warfare. Red-baiting Republicans. Guileless Democrats. Young American soldiers marching through a ravaged Vietnam, a country America destroyed for no apparent reason. Sex. Drugs. Television. The looming danger of Red China. The corruption of innocence on what feels like a national scale. But the hippie movement is smothered in its infancy. The Summer of Love never happens. Johnson is not elected, and the Civil Rights Act, when it does eventually pass Congress, is vetoed by President Goldwater. The Vietnam War is ended suddenly, in a blaze of televised death and destruction, but that does little to soothe the anti-war crowd. A nuclear apocalypse seems, again, to be drawing near. And in our timeline, both the Californian and federal governments, the ones ultimately blamed for all this trouble, on top of any acts of God or economic stumbles or failures of policy, are right-wing Republicans, not centrist Democrats. And, as happened in the '70s, they initially face no organized opposition from the left, as revolutionary groups bicker amongst themselves. And then in 1965, out of the chaos, a single unified group comes to the fore. They have a leader. He is young, tall and white. He is clean-shaven and handsome, speaks proper English, says 'yes sir' and 'no sir' and never leaves his shirt untucked. He is a radical, judging by the red star on his party's flag and the vitriolic slogans its members chant. Students and workers of every stripe have thrown in their hat with this man and his party. He claims he wants to forge a new state from the ashes of his own broken country, to free himself and his followers from the shackles of its laws and its history. His party believes in equality, prosperity and freedom – all the things America promises its citizens, but which, in recent years, it has spectacularly failed provide. He is a bona fide revolutionary. But his message is one of optimism, of strength, and of a grand and as-of-yet unfulfilled national destiny. And in the minds of voters, the impossible slowly becomes a plausible reality...
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