...With Justice For All?

[H.Appleby]

...With Justice For All?
A Cold War USA AAR

UPI News Item
Washington, DC
April 23, 1946
​

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Harlan F. Stone, last of the "Nine Old Men" of the Supreme Court's pre-Roosevelt era, was stricken with acute angina yesterday while reading his dissent in Girouard v. United States. The Court went in to early recess, but this morning the Chief Justice returned to the court, appearing hale and hearty and in good spirits. Stone (73), has been Chief Justice since 1941, having been originally appointed to the Court by Calvin Coolidge, for whom he served as Attorney General. Widely seen as a liberal and a proponent of Roosevelt's agenda, it is expected that Stone will be a firm supporter of President Truman's agenda in the coming years.

Associated Press News Item
Greenville, South Carolina
May 5th, 1947
​

Trial began today in the case of 31 white men accused of brutally murdering black taxi-driver Willie Earle, in what is likely the first lynching trial the South has seen since Reconstruction. For the first time in recent memory, the new reformist governor J. Strom Thurmond (a decorated veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division) ordered the state constabulary to investigate the murder, and invited the FBI to help procure evidence and build a case against those responsible for the act. In a strong statement, the governor declared "I do not favor lynching and I shall exert every resource at my command to apprehend all persons who may be involved in such a flagrant violation of the law." It remains to be seen whether the all-white jury will be swayed by the efforts of the federal and state governments, but it is clear that a new era has dawned in South Carolina.

Table of Contents
Prologue
​

 

[H.Appleby]

So, off we go, I'm probably going to do a lot of narrative and history book segments, with gameplay only coming in gradually. Can't guarantee I'll maintain my own interest in this AAR long enough, but I've had a particular scenario, possibly a rather nasty one, in my head for a long while, and looking back at the history of the time, it seemed plausible enough that I thought I'd give it a go. I realize that HOI 2 is about as ancient a game as you can get, but I love this subforum and I'm pretty embarrassed about my authorial abilities. I'm not going to reveal the crux of what is (going to be) different in this (possibly quite dark) timeline, but I hope the foreshadowing is enough to make it somewhat clear...

Here then, is my newest meager offering to AARland and my beloved fellow forumites.

 

[H.Appleby]

Prologue

"Do not be afraid; our fate Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift."
-Dante
​

Human beings have the quite natural, if usually unconscious, habit of believing that their lives play out more or less according to some sort of overarching story or plan. It might well be that it isn't a happy one, many aren't, but there is a general unspoken consensus that life is playing out according to some guiding principle, even if it's only the cold mechanisms of physics and chemistry. But on the opposite side of the coin from the view, so necessary to remain sane, that the various random coincidences and synchronicities which define our lives, so infinitesimally unlikely, might not be playing out according to some great divine script. Men and moments, it is true, always meet, but the terrifying thought is that perhaps the wrong man might have met the wrong moment and the world might already be spinning off its steady axis and into chaos.

The United States in 1947 looked to be a country firmly convinced of itself, its righteousness, and the ultimate historical destiny which, in the minds of its more ambitious admirers would eventually lead it to bestride the globe. It was the era of the post-war consensus, of the bi-partisan commitment to the managerial state, of a general confidence that the ideology which had started to coalesce during the great war against Hitler was true, right, and good.

There were doubts, of course, as there always had been, and in strange corners ideas of every kind bubbled, fizzed, and let off strange clouds of vapor as they birthed odd new species of thinking from the primordial stew of intellectual ferment. In the Birnham Wood beneath the Dunsinane of triumphant Cold War Liberalism, strange creatures milled around, waiting to storm the recently-finished castle above.

 

[Idhrendur]

It's not often one sees an HoI2 AAR these days.

 

[H.Appleby]

It's not often one sees an HoI2 AAR these days.

It's a labor of love, both for the game (it's the one I'm best able to mod (and the Cold War mod needs more love anyway)), and for the community on this board. It's small, it's eccentric, but I've been rubbing virtual shoulders with this crowd for almost all my adolescence and I want to try (for the third time) writing some good AH. (Plus, this POD idea has been bouncing around the hollow cavity in my skull for aeons).

 

[El Pip]

It was only by blind luck I found this one, but I'm glad I did as you have me intrigued. Wiki tells me Chief Justice Stone should have died in that angina attack (I'd thought it was something like that), so the Supreme Court is now different. But, a quick skim of US Supreme Court decisions doesn't reveal any important looking close decisions in late 40s, early 50s so this is a slow burner? Or is it about a case that could/should have been called in but wasn't?

Of course secretly I hope this is actually about how a different decision in H.P. Hood & Sons v. Du Mond (something about carrying Milk across state lines and the Dormant Commerce Clause apparently) somehow leads to massive changes and a much darker timeline.

I may have spent too much time on wiki researching 1940s/50s US Supreme Court justices and their court cases. Please continue this or that effort will have been utterly wasted.

 

[volksmarschall]

The first page of the first chapter since meeting you appear the words: Here Begins New Life.

Very appropriate all things considered.

 

[Specialist290]

I'll have to keep an eye out for this one here. It's not often you see something new 'round these parts

 

[AtlanticFriend]

It's a labor of love, both for the game (it's the one I'm best able to mod (and the Cold War mod needs more love anyway)), and for the community on this board. It's small, it's eccentric, but I've been rubbing virtual shoulders with this crowd for almost all my adolescence and I want to try (for the third time) writing some good AH. (Plus, this POD idea has been bouncing around the hollow cavity in my skull for aeons).

I applaud the choice. HoI2 and its various extensions are, IMHO, Paradox's crown jewels.

 

[volksmarschall]

I applaud the choice. HoI2 and its various extensions are, IMHO, Paradox's crown jewels.

I agree. I've always loved HoI2, Doomsday, Armageddon, and all the modded extensions and variations from this community (KR); and to be honest, still prefer the HoI2 system over HoI3 and HoI4.

Really looking forward to what @H.Appleby has in store for us here.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Although not much has happened here, I am subcribing to H.Appleby's new AAR nonetheless.

 

[H.Appleby]

Soviet Occupied Zone, Vienna, Austria
May 23rd, 1947
11:23pm, Local Time

The fat Swiss clerk was already wounded, probably in the gut, given the position of his free arm (that is the one not clutching the German-made automatic with which he was squeezing off an occasional shot). Although Victor's instinct was to let him die of his wound, the shots, even the muffled ones from the subsonic rounds he had loaded in his sidearm, might draw attention he didn't need. Reluctantly, he moved out of cover to get a clear shot at the wounded man. A 9mm round struck the wall of the sewer pipe a good twenty feet from where Victor had just come into view. With practiced efficiency the MGB officer placed two bullets into the fat man's thorax.

Ten minutes later the man was sunk into the depths of Vienna's sewers, along with his weapon and Victor's spent shell casings.

Thirty minutes later, in the French Sector, he exchanged envelopes with tall, nervous, and unmistakably American man who had contracted him for the job. In exchange for a wedding ring, a pocketbook, and a right index finger removed from the corpse, Victor now had $10,000 in American currency and a very interesting offer of employment. Lighting a cigarette as he passed back into the Soviet Zone, he mused on the possibilities which seemed to now be open to him. If he could produce evidence that the Americans were running a narcotics ring inside the Soviet Sector... Interesting indeed.

 

[J66185]

Is this the specter of the Opium Wars or the Great Game?

 

[El Pip]

Quite a change in pace and location from our opening point of departure. I am still rooting for this timrline to hinge on the H.P. Hood & Sons v. Du Mond Supreme Couty case, is the "Milk" in that case actually just cover for drugs being shipped to Soviet occupied Vienna?

I am however struggling to get the Willie Earle lynching link, maybe it turn outs his taxi was full of drugs as well?

Whatever the connection I'm glad this is back and look forward to it continuing. Based on the current majestic pacing we can expect the next snippet to emerge 1st March 2019, I shall mark my calendar accordingly and return then.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Something going on in Vienna. It will be interesting to see how everything ties together.

 

[J66185]

I hate to barge in, but could someone give us a heads up when you're ready to post?

 

[TheExecuter]

Fantastic.

A look into the real underpinnings of the "Dunsinane of triumphant Cold War Liberalism"...I, for one, am looking forward to the unleashing of all the little Demons we tried so desperately to hide.

 

[AtlanticFriend]

Wow wow wow. What happened to this thread? Where have its older posts gone? This was one of the great HoI2 AARs, and now it's 95% gone?

 

[J66185]

Same sentiment here.

 

[El Pip]

Wow wow wow. What happened to this thread? Where have its older posts gone? This was one of the great HoI2 AARs, and now it's 95% gone?

I know I'm not the most observant at times, but I think this was all there ever was.

But that is no excuse for @H.Appleby not to restart this. Or repost all the stuff that I may have completely missed due to being unobservant.