[David Johnston2]

Nixon-2: The earliest identifiable point of divergence for Nixon-2 is the murder of W. Mark Fell immediately after his first meeting with Woodward and Bernstein. This along with several other odd events seems to have enabled Richard Nixon to successfully serve out his second term in office (although Spiro Agnew still ends being removed and replaced with Gerald Ford). South Vietnam still exists with American support and has become another "Asian Tiger".

However as the years go by more and more famous people are people who never made a mark in Homeline's history. This low historical inertia made Nixon-2 particularly attractive to Homeline business interests since Nixon 2 is filled with creative media from a plethora of writers and filmmakers who never got a break in most of the near-parallels Homeline has discovered. However in the year 2001 Nixon-2 experienced a massive and highly improbable terrorist attack with simultaneous attacks from both Islamic attacks and a homegrown conspiracy which includes the assassination of President Sutherland that kills over a hundred thousand Americans. Worse, the next year the world experiences a massive pandemic that is widely believed to be a follow-up terrorist attack.

An attempt by a Homeworld firm to do well by doing good backfired massively when their attempt to sell an offworld treatment for the disease is interpreted as the conspiracy behind the pandemic showing itself. Their rapid withdrawl to avoid exposure has only fed the paranoia.