Victoria, at first examination, is a fairly standard "right-wing revenge fantasy" story. But, it's written by somebody who was somebody.
Say hello to William S. Lind, self-proclaimed monarchist and train lover.
Lind is best known for originating the horribly retarded generation warfare theory during his time as a paper and desk boy at the Pentagon, which fails to account for any form of irregular warfare throughout history.
Oh, and creating "cultural marxism" as a thing.
But we're not here to talk about him, we're here to talk about his baby. Victoria's basic premise is something out of Jan Rankowski's notes: a militia of Christian Marines from Maine conquer the United States of America.
With such a classy premise, how do you guess it starts?
Why, with a woman being burned alive for the crime of daring to preach the word of God!
Holy fucking shit, this is special indeed. According to William, burning people alive for their religious beliefs is "the right thing". The scary part is that Lind expanded this from a op-ed he did for the Washington Post, in which he made it quite clear this is what he actually believed.
I think it's safe to say that I remember the Nineties differently.
Anyway, the preface is merely a framing device, written after William's self insert has fucked everything up and ruined America - splitting it up into various nations, including a "New Spain" which apparently isn't very prosperous.
Say hello to William S. Lind, self-proclaimed monarchist and train lover.
Lind is best known for originating the horribly retarded generation warfare theory during his time as a paper and desk boy at the Pentagon, which fails to account for any form of irregular warfare throughout history.
Oh, and creating "cultural marxism" as a thing.
But we're not here to talk about him, we're here to talk about his baby. Victoria's basic premise is something out of Jan Rankowski's notes: a militia of Christian Marines from Maine conquer the United States of America.
With such a classy premise, how do you guess it starts?
Why, with a woman being burned alive for the crime of daring to preach the word of God!
The triumph of the Recovery was marked most clearly by the burning of the Episcopal bishop of Maine. She was not a particularly bad bishop. She was in fact typical of Episcopal bishops of the first quarter of the 21st century: agnostic, compulsively political and radical, and given to placing a small idol of Isis on the altar when she said the Communion service. By 2055, when she was tried for heresy, convicted, and burned, she had outlived her era. By that time only a handful of Episcopalians still recognized female clergy, it would have been easy enough to let the old fool rant out her final years in obscurity.
What.The fact that the easy road was not taken, that Episcopalians turned to their difficult duty of trying and convicting, and the state upheld its unpleasant responsibility of setting torch to faggots
She could have saved herself, of course, right up until the torch was applied. All she had to do was announce she wasn’t a bishop, or a priest, since Christian tradition forbids a woman to be either. Or she could have confessed she wasn’t a Christian, in which case she could be bishopess, priestess, popess, whatever, in the service of her chosen demons. That would have just gotten her tossed over the border.
But the Prince of This World whom she served gives his devotees neither an easy nor a dignified exit. She bawled, she babbled, she shrieked in Hellish tongues, she pissed and pooped herself. The pyre was lit at 12:01 PM on a cool, cloudless August 18th, St. Helen’s day. The flames climbed fast; after all, they’d been waiting for her for a long time.
When it was over, none of us felt good about it. But we’d long since learned feelings were a poor guide. We’d done the right thing.
Holy fucking shit, this is special indeed. According to William, burning people alive for their religious beliefs is "the right thing". The scary part is that Lind expanded this from a op-ed he did for the Washington Post, in which he made it quite clear this is what he actually believed.
Take note of the German references. They crop up a lot. William S. Lind is definitely not a Nazi, no sir, no ma'am.Probably, once all the “diversity” and “multiculturalism” crap got started. Right up to the end the coins carried the motto, E Pluribus Unum, just as the last dreadnought of the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy was the Viribus Unitis. But the reality for both was Ex Uno, Plura.
By the 1990s the place had the stench of a third-world country. The cities were ravaged by punks, beggars, and bums; as in third century Rome, law applied only to the law-abiding. Schools had become daytime holding pens for illiterate young savages. First television, then the Internet brought the decadence of Weimar Berlin into every home.
I think it's safe to say that I remember the Nineties differently.
Anyway, the preface is merely a framing device, written after William's self insert has fucked everything up and ruined America - splitting it up into various nations, including a "New Spain" which apparently isn't very prosperous.
The chapter starts off with our protagonist in the Marine Corps, at a military diner. How could he turn against America, having made an oath to defend it and it's people? What could be the impulse for a war against the United States?
Or because he's a pussy, maybe that.
Willy refuses, and is thrown out of Dartmouth, and out of the Corps. What a disgrace. On his way back, he's directed to a Professor Sanft at Dartmouth. A professor, who in no way, shape or form, is a Nazi, I might add.
Because somebody saying Iwo Jima at a formal USMC diner had a pussy. What does he do? Cry like a bitch. The jarheads, everybody.One of the Corps’ better traditions was that we remembered our dead. The mess set a table apart, with the glasses and silver inverted, for those who had gone before us and never come back. And before the fun began we remembered the battles where they had fought and fallen; Tripoli to Chapultepec to Helmand. A bell rang for each, a Marine officer stood up and called that battle’s name, and we became pretty thoughtful. Another Marine Corps tradition, not one of its better ones in terms of what happens in battles, was to try to pre-plan and rehearse and control everything so there couldn’t be any surprises or mistakes. “Control Freaks R Us” sometimes seemed to be the motto of the officer corps, at least above the company grades. So a couple days before the mess night, the battles to be remembered were each assigned to a captain.
Iwo Jima went to a woman.
Classy. Anyway, the colonel is pissed because...he cried at a event where you're supposed to reflect on losses?Like a lot of young Marine officers at AWS, I was a reader, especially of what the Germans had written about war. They were the masters, for a century and a half, and we were their willing pupils. I remembered, then and always, an essay written by a German general, Hans von Seekt, the man who rebuilt the German Army after World War I. The title, and the message was Das Wesentliche ist die Tat—The Essential Thing is the Deed. Not the idea, not the desire, not the intention — the deed.
So I did it. The moment came on May 7, during the mess night. The bell tolled our battles: Belleau Wood, Nicaragua, Guadalcanal, Tarawa. Iwo was next. The bell. I was on my feet before she started to move. “Iwo Jima,” I cried in my best parade-ground voice.
Our honor was safe that night.
Or because he's a pussy, maybe that.
“You have a choice,” he said as I stood at attention in front of his desk. “You can get up in front of the class and apologize to me, to the female captain you insulted last night, to all the women in the corps, and to the class, or you can have your written resignation from the Marine Corps on my desk before the morning is over.”
“No, sir,” I replied.
“What do you mean, ‘No, sir?’ I gave you a choice. Which one will it be?”
“Neither one, sir.” An early lesson I’d learned about war was that if the enemy gave you two options, refuse them both and do something else. “I have nothing to apologize for,” I continued. “No woman has the right to represent any of the Corps’ battles, because those battles were fought and won by men. And people resign when they’ve done something wrong. I haven’t.”
Willy refuses, and is thrown out of Dartmouth, and out of the Corps. What a disgrace. On his way back, he's directed to a Professor Sanft at Dartmouth. A professor, who in no way, shape or form, is a Nazi, I might add.