Tanner '88 (or whenever)

[oldgringo2001]

I have noticed that the HBO mockumentary first broadcast in 1988 has had some resonance in roleplaying games. There are President Tanners in the official Autoduel timeline and in the timelines of two GDW RPGs, Twilight 2000 and Merc 2000, both of them easily adaptable as backgrounds for GURPS campaigns, either as part of the Infinity Unlimited background or as stand-alone campaign settings. While working on bashing these more properly into shape for the IU, I thought they looked rather lonely compared to such reality sheaves as the Azoths, Brittanias, Bonapartes, etc. So I came up with the following:

Tanner-1 (Autoduel-1)

The first President Tanner known to Infinity was Wilson Tanner, the victim of an Anarchist kidnapping in Autoduel-1's local 2045. (See GURPS Autoduel, 2nd Edition). The Tanner connection was a long time in being discovered, since this was a Z-1 line for a long time, being "ahead" of Homeline, technologically advanced enough to duplicate parachronics, and an important source of outtime technology such as its algae-based food production, forced-growth tanks, cloning, braintaping, and inexpensive EMP-resistant electronics (how else did this Earth have electronics after all those EMP-producing nuclear warheads exploding above the atmosphere in the short-but-intense Russo-American War?)

Tanner-2

The second President Tanner was discovered five years ago, actually before he was elected. Tanner-2's current year is 2000, and with a severely depressed American economy, not to mention generally worse conditions elsewhere in the world, a second term for this Tanner does not seem likely.

Other than Tanner's presence, this Quantum 6 world seemed to be almost identical to Earth Beta up until 1990.

(This world is based on the one presented in GDW's Merc 2000.)

Tanner-3

This Quantum-6 world was discovered within days of Tanner-2. Its local present is exactly ten years behind Tanner-2. The only important divergence seems to be that instead of a John Tanner from Michigan, it has a Jane Tanner from Minnesota, who like John was first elected to Congress in 1976. Also like John, Jane was a foundling, although she was not adopted by a Tanner family--she was married to an Air Force pilot named Tanner who was killed in the Linebacker II raids on North Vietnam in 1972. She looks enough like John to be his sister--and, genetically, she is, although Infinity did not get proof of this until last year.

Thanks to "stovepiping" for security reasons, the extraordinary resemblance of the Autoduel-1 Tanner to the others wasn't noticed until that line became public knowledge (also last year.) All of him (there are three activated clones of him alive and walking around) are genetically identical to the John Tanner of Tanner-2, and the George Tanner of Tanner-6.

Tanner-4

In this Quantum 7 timeline, Barak Obama's father never left Kenya, and foundling William Tanner grew up to be elected America's first African-American president, in 2008. Infinity doesn't have his DNA yet, but he looks much like an Africanized version of the other Tanners. The election was just a few days ago, so exactly what this Tanner's term of office will bring is very much up in the air. Infinity discovered Tanner-4 last year.

Tanner-5

Actually, this Quantum-3 line has another nickname: The United States of Lizardia. Its USA has just elected George Tanner its 44th President. George is a human-sized dinosaur, of course, like everyone else.

Oh. George is a foundling, adopted by a family named Tanner.

Next: Tanner-6

[oldgringo2001]

Tanner-6 (Quantum 6, current year 1949)

On this line, discovered less than a year ago, Harry Truman was killed in action in 1918. George Tanner (this one is human) became FDR's last Vice-President in Truman's place.

Douglas MacArthur also died early, not in France but in a military adventure in Mexico which he returned from safely in our history. Without MacArthur, there was no significant buildup of forces in the Philippines.

Both of these early demises were before Centrum began interfering with inhabited timelines, but the disappearance of an aircraft carrying Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Juan Terry Trippe, and Henry and Claire Booth Luce on a flight from Nanking to Hong Kong in 1936 all seem well within the Interworld Service's strike zone. This weakened the "China Lobby" in the USA and forestalled Pan American's plans to build facilities for flying boats on Wake Island (then uninhabited) and Guam for a trans-Pacific air service.

Japan went on to plunge into its endless war in China, and even with less aid from the USA than in our history, both the Nationalists and the Communists refused to quit. Churchill, however, with his hands full fighting the Nazis and keeping Britain free, made another one of his hard decisions and abandoned the Netherlands government-in-exile when they requested support to turn down a Japanese occupation of the Netherlands East Indies in the same manner as French Indochina was occupied by Japan earlier in 1941. Japan simply bypassed the Philippines, and left Malaya and the other British colonies which in southeast Asia alone, for the time being.

Despite Roosevelt's and Churchill's efforts, America never officially went to war, though naval and air combat in the Atlantic got quite intense. Hitler died in Berlin as it fell to the Red Army in August 1945, but Germany fought on until the next spring. Roosevelt lived to see it, but died during the Paris Conference of July.

By that time, Churchill had been turned out in favor of a Labor government, this one much further left than Clement Atlee's. President Tanner was stymied for most of his first year in office, facing the first Republican congress since 1932, and disappointing his liberal supporters by agreeing to dismantle some of the remaining parts of the New Deal to save others.

The Manhattan Project, with reduced funding, finally tested a working device in 1947--on the same day as the Roswell Incident in other timelines. President Tanner, like Truman, saw the Bomb as a way to restrain Stalin, but it was not taken well in much of the United States. By this time, it was becoming clear that Stalin's "temporary" occupations of Scandinavia and the Low Countries weren't going to end any time soon, and the Popular Front governments in Italy and France were beginning to go the way of similar arrangements in Eastern Europe.

Robert Taft won the Republican nomination in 1948. He sincerely campaigned against the American nuclear weapon program. He said "The Atomic Bomb is expensive, immoral, and impractical. Billions of dollars of taxpayer money has been wasted on this atrocious device. It isn't even a bomb; there isn't an aircraft on the planet that can carry it." Since the B-29 had been cancelled after the crash of the prototype and the B-49 wasn't ready yet, this was technically true at the time. Taft's campaign had the support not only of the conservative American heartland, but also the Communist party and all its fellow travelers. How could he lose?

A week before the election, Stalin exploded his first atomic bomb and trumpeted to the world that the socialist motherland would retaliate in kind and more if it was used against the worker's paradise. Tanner suddenly looked like the better man to stand up to Stalin, at least to enough voters to squeak by and win a second term by a slightly larger margin than Truman in Homeline's election of 1948.

Now President by election instead of by accident, Tanner has a lot on his plate. There's no Korean War; Korea remains a Japanese possession, as it has since 1910. Although Chiang is still the recognized leader of China by the United States, Britain, and (surprisingly) the Soviet Union, the Nationalists hold not much more than the area around Chungking. But Mao's guerrilla forces more than make up the slack; Stalin is supplying them quite openly, if not as lavishly as Mao would like. Japan, not the United States, seems to be next on the Red Tsar's menu, and there are feelers about joint action against the would-be Hegemon of Asia.

-------
How am I doing? Like it? Hate it? Want more? Suggestions welcome, even the ones I may not particularly like.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by oldgringo2001

How am I doing? Like it? Hate it? Want more?

I always enjoy your IW material. :]

[sn0wball]

Thanner - 1 (Quantum 6, current year 2006)

The correct and pedantic Christian Thanner becomes the star of the popular and long-running German crime show Tatort: Duisburg instead of the two-fisted and emotional Horst Schimanski.

The image of order being restored on the streets of the german state of North-Rhine-Westfalia by hard-working policemen following the rules leads to a rise in popularity of the states ministerpresident Johannes Rau of the Social Democrats in conservative cricles. This in turn leads to Rau beating Helmut Kohl narrowly in the federal elections of 1987, making Johannes Rau the Bundeskanzler during the fall of the eastern bloc.

Rau´s critical stances on NATO and several military issues worsen US/UK - german relations in the late 80ies. This in turn prevents successful negotiations about the german reunification, preventing it in the early 90ies.

The negotiations are taken up again under the Clinton and Jeltsin, but the NATO intervention in Serbia prevent a treaty in 1995. Jeltsins perceived plans to give away the GDR for free lead to him being succeeded by the communist Gennady Zyuganov in 1996.

In its current year 2006, the GDR, nearly depopulated of its German population, is a run-down outpost of the Communist Russian Federation, being surrounded by members of the Central European Defense Union.

Small changes can have big results: over the issues about the german reunification most continental European states left NATO (with GB in turn quittung the EC), forming the CEDU, which forms its own powerbloc next to NATO, CRF and China. The European Community never transformed into the European Union, but into the Central European Community.

Berlin never became Germany´s capital (still Bonn). It is still a divided city, between German claims, Russian military presence and Allied privileges.

[oldgringo2001]

If most of the German population has left the GDR, shouldn't the "G" stand for something else?

Now that my first bad joke is finished, exactly where did the East Germans go, and how? It would take a new Stalin in Russia to ship them off to new Siberian homes, so I assume they must have voted with their feet and emigrated, something like I understand a large number of Prussians and Pomeranians did after Stalin redrew the borders after the Great Patriotic War. Most would have gone to West Germany, of course, but quite a number would have gone on to the United States. Perhaps this migration started a revival of German culture and ethnic-pride in such places as Cincinnati and the hill country of Central Texas (Austin is right in the center of it), where German was the language of instruction in many public schools until America entered World War I, or Iowa, where my wife's grandmother taught Lutheran catechism in German.

This GDR may not be the most pleasant place to live, but surely there are people who would find it more attractive than their own demesnes. Lots of Russians, of course. Poles might be especially encouraged to move here, creating facts in a similar manner as Israel has on the West Bank, and providing arguments against any West German claims to the territory. In the humanitarian spirit the Soviet Union has always been noted for, surely oppressed peoples from around the world--Palestinians and Ethnic Turks thrown out of work as Hans replaced Abdul come to mind. Of course, these people will recieve the full benefits of Marxist-Leninism, including re-education and training in the vital military skills needed to deter capitalist aggression.

I would imagine that Homeline's Germany would take a special interest in Thanner-1. Infinity would take a very special interest if Thanner turns out to be a genetic brother of the other mysteriously similar Tanners.

And why "Thanner?" Shouldn't it be "Gerber?" Google translation thinks so...

[oldgringo2001]

Tanner-7 (Quantum 5, current year 2001)

Discovered seven months ago, this world ought to be at least as secret as Reich-5. Unfortunately, it was discovered by a publicity-addicted heiress when she misjumped into this world instead of the manor world where she has one of her many estates. She got back safely (although her companion and the staff members travelling with her did not) and immediately went to the media.

This world's President Tanner seems to be really most sincerely dead, either from the crash of his flying command center on takeoff from Andrews Air Force Base, or from the Soviet nuclear warhead which replaced the base with an impressive crater eight minutes later. This happened over three years ago, on Thanksgiving Day, 1997--usually.

"Usually" because Tanner-7 has frequent Reality Quakes. These are mostly of a low amplitude, but still present some big headaches. The Thanksgiving Day Massacre is sometimes the Christmas or New Year Massacre, for instance. Living people can become dead for some time, and vice-versa. This includes out-timers. Usually these anomalies seem to reverse themselves, at least for out-timers who have lived to return from Tanner-7.

Tanner-7 isn't quite a post-holocaust world, although many of its surviving inhabitants will disagree. The baseline history of this world seems to be similar to Earth Beta's; again, the Dan Quayle who was George H.W. Bush's vice-president never was born, and Robert Dole was Bush's running mate. If William Jefferson Clinton exists (or existed) on this line, he did not achieve enough fame to appear in any records Infinity has found.

(The is intended to allow the use of either First or Second Edition Twilight 2000 materials, and justify changing any details to suit the Game Master's tastes. More to come, unless a reality quake winks me out of existance before I get back from the bathroom.)

[Curmudgeon]

And then there's Tanner-8.

This relatively harmless timeline saw Daniel Tanner, the first single parent President of the U.S., elected in 1985. His two terms in office are largely remembered for two things: first his romance with his press secretary, Rebecca Donaldson, and second for the first reality TV show in the U.S.: White House.

White House presented viewers with the once-a-week opportunity to view behavioural/situational problems with the President's three daughters: Donna Jo, Stephanie and Michelle. After a twenty minute clip, viewers were able to mail in their suggestions for an appropriate resolution by the President. The President would then present his solution in the opening sequence of following show.

During President Tanner's second term, an additional video clip segment was added offering advice for problems encountered by other world leaders in raising their children. This segment became so popular that when White House was finally taken off the air, it was spun off into its own series: The Nanny State.

[Sam Cade]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

And then there's Tanner-8.

This relatively harmless timeline saw Daniel Tanner, the first single parent President of the U.S., elected in 1985.

V.P Gladstone was a damn dangerous man though.

[sn0wball]

Originally Posted by oldgringo2001

Most would have gone to West Germany, of course,

That was my initial thought, sure.

but quite a number would have gone on to the United States. Perhaps this migration started a revival of German culture and ethnic-pride in such places as Cincinnati and the hill country of Central Texas (Austin is right in the center of it), where German was the language of instruction in many public schools until America entered World War I, or Iowa, where my wife's grandmother taught Lutheran catechism in German.

This GDR may not be the most pleasant place to live, but surely there are people who would find it more attractive than their own demesnes. Lots of Russians, of course. Poles might be especially encouraged to move here,

My text didn´t make that clear, but the Poles were not directly affected by Russias return to communism. They are one of the fiercest West German allies, never entered NATO, but were vital in the creation of the CEDU.

creating facts in a similar manner as Israel has on the West Bank, and providing arguments against any West German claims to the territory. In the humanitarian spirit the Soviet Union has always been noted for, surely oppressed peoples from around the world--Palestinians and Ethnic Turks thrown out of work as Hans replaced Abdul come to mind. Of course, these people will recieve the full benefits of Marxist-Leninism, including re-education and training in the vital military skills needed to deter capitalist aggression.

Still, of course, the Russians will make use of the land and settling people undesired in Russia would be a good move. You get that land and a little bit of freedom, but you have to defend it, is a very old deal and could be used with any non-ethnic Russian minority.

I would imagine that Homeline's Germany would take a special interest in Thanner-1. Infinity would take a very special interest if Thanner turns out to be a genetic brother of the other mysteriously similar Tanners.

Oh ... I guess my text didn´t make that clear: Thanner is a TV-show character from a real German crime TV-series, depicted by an actor named Eberhard Feik. Nobody in the Thanner-1 timeline will take a special interest in him, the series will have been cancelled for long. It was just that his name came to my mind when I saw your thread.

[oldgringo2001]

Originally Posted by sn0wball

My text didn´t make that clear, but the Poles were not directly affected by Russias return to communism. They are one of the fiercest West German allies, never entered NATO, but were vital in the creation of the CEDU.

Being neither a Pole and not too knowledgeable of my own mostly-German roots, I will defer to your judgement.

Originally Posted by sn0wball

Still, of ourse, the Russians will make use of the land and settling people undesired in Russia would be a good move. You get that land and a little bit of freedom, but you have to defend it, is a very old deal and could be used with any non-ethnic Russian minority.

Ho-ho, the old divide-and-rule strategy. Loading up the husk of the DDR with different minorities sounds to me like it might result in another Yugoslavia. I think the only reason most of them wouldn't go on to other places would be that they weren't welcome anywhere else, or if the Iron Curtain was closed up again and they were prevented from emigrating by force. But that could still look acceptable to the Russians; I think it is safe to say that very few Russians many warm feelings towards Germany, and effectively moving it even further west would seem like a rather good idea, worth a glaring inconsistency in the granting of exit visas, letting the Eastern Germans go freely but barring the way for others.

Originally Posted by sn0wball

Thanner is a TV-show character from a real German crime TV-series, depicted by an actor named Eberhard Feik. Nobody in the Thanner-1 timeline will take a special interest in him, the series will have been cancelled for long.

But if Thanner is another Tanner dupe, it would definitely interest Infinity quite a lot, even if this line looks like one more out of the old sausage machine.