Dark Future
Encyclopedia
Dark Future is a 1988 miniature wargame by Games Workshop
. It is set in an alternate reality where the United States
—and indeed the rest of the world—is falling apart. Society is going to ruins, and the natural laws of physics are breaking down. The megacorps rule, technology runs rampant, and Sanctioned Ops patrol the roads and highways tracking down and destroying the renegade scum who live there, outside of the law and doing what they please.
A game bearing the name Dark Future was originally developed for Games Workshop as a cyberpunk role-playing game. When that project was canceled, that game's co-author and GW board game developer Marc Gascoigne
ported it onto Richard Halliwell's car-racing game system, using a mechanic originally developed for Judge Dredd
role-playing game adventure Slaughter Margin. The game was seen as a replacement for GW's early board game Battlecars, which merged James Bond
-like combative car gadgets in a Mad Max
-inspired background. The game was originally set in the (then-future) year of 1995.
Novels by Jack Yeovil (a pen name of Kim Newman
) created an elaborate alternate history where Elvis Presley
is a hard-as-nails bounty hunter and Oliver North
is president of the United States. In 2005 the Dark Future setting was brought back as a series of novels published by Games Workshop's fiction imprint Black Flame
. They updated the setting to 2021, and released several new titles. However, while several pop-culture references were updated in the books, some lines retain their original wording, and now seem out of place (such as when character Jazzbeaux thinks of the millennium coming around in five years' time in 'Route 666').
In the board game, the player plays the part of a Sanctioned Op—a bounty hunter
of the future—or a Renegade, dueling for survival in high-tech vehicles of the present.
or Hotwheels toy cars (roughly 1/60 or 1/64 - 23 to 25mm scale).
s), new scenarios, and new characters as well.
starred in the TV series Get Smart
, famous film murderers like Jason Voorhees
are asylum inmates in Krokodil Tears, Leonard Nimoy
is named as a 60s astronaut in Comeback Tour). The world has undergone severe social, environmental, and moral decline, combined with a dramatic rise in technology; in 1995, violence is the main killer.
In the Demon Download Cycle books, the main antagonist is Elder Nguyen Seth, the ageless Summoner of the Great Old Ones, who is trying to bring about the end of the world. As of the late 1990s, he's doing this as leader of the Brethren of Joseph (which he himself brought about in 1843) and clashes with the various protagonists. As well as causing blood sacrifices to his masters, he sacrifices the potential of artists and thinkers - including Edgar Allan Poe
, H.P. Lovecraft, the Marquis de Sade
, and Elvis (via Colonel Tom Parker
) - after showing them a brief glimpse of the Old Ones, corrupting them. Route 666 has Seth responsible for the bizarre circumstances of Poe's death
, and revealed he tried and failed to sacrifice Elvis as well (meaning the real-life shape of Elvis' career after 1960).
The main point of divergence in this timeline was the 1960 Presidential election - here, John F. Kennedy
was caught in an affair with Marilyn Monroe
, crippling his support and giving Richard Nixon
the Presidency. The Solid Sixties were seen as a golden age of peace, stability and decent moral values in America, under a popular President. Legal restrictions were removed from businesses, allowing for both technological advancement and ending regulations against pollution. Racial strife was considered to be ended by the Separate But Equal laws; the influence this had on culture included a Lieutenant O'Hara
in Star Trek
and James M. Hendrix and his Merry Minstrels performing big-band music.
Successive Presidents would be Barry Goldwater
, Spiro Agnew
, "Big Chuck" Heston
(a parody of Reagan becoming President), and Oliver North
.
Thanks to the increased pollution, drastic climate change and damage to mid-western water supplies would cause most of America to become desert ("the Des") from the 70s onwards. Violent dystopian gangcults - the Maniax, the Psychopomps, and the Confederate Air Force being central to the books - would rise to prominence. In 1985, to control the increasing violence, the Enderby Amendment opened up law enforcement to private groups and individuals: the Sanctioned Ops, the most famous being Turner-Harvest-Ramirez Agency and their star agent Rachel "Redd" Harvest. President Heston would also bring in the Moral Re-Armament Drive and recreate the United States Road Cavalry, a heavily armed Mad Max
-style group garbed like the original Cavalry
, to patrol the roadways and interstates.
By the near future of 1995, the major cities have for been split between Policed Zones and the lawless NoGos for over a decade; several of the southern states have re-legalised slavery under the term "indentured labour"; New York has a wall to keep out rising flood waters, while New Orleans is succumbing to floods. The North government is bankrupt, thanks to the (deliberately) disastrous policies of free-marker economist Ottakar Proktor, secretly a serial killer. Utah, a completely abandoned and dead area, has been sold to the sinister Brethren of Joseph, a religious group formed in the 19th Century, who have reclaimed the dead land and renamed it Deseret.
The Catholic Church was drastically changed when Nelson Mandela
became Pope in the 1970s. Increased liberalisations were introduced out of necessity - same-sex marriage, use of contraception, end to celibacy, and nuns given the same status as priests - and the Vatican became politically involved (both diplomatically and militarily) in conflicts where a Good and Evil side could be identified. Thanks to Vatican negotiations, US involvement in Central America was ended in the 70s. The Church maintains major computer systems and intelligence networks, and is involved in many covert actions, including against the Josephites.
Large amounts of power belong in the hands of corporations, mainly the "JapCorps" like GenTech, who can manipulate major governments. GenTech even has a neutrality treaty with the United States in case of "corporate war" with the Soviet Union, and is able to get away with organ harvesting in the Third World.
A stronger Argentina won a decisive victory over Britain in the Malvinas War
, using GenTech and G-Mek weaponry. Britain, already a more insular and conservative nation at the time, became a depressed and failing state, to the point of selling off the modern London Bridge
for cash; Ian Paisley
was Prime Minister until he suffered a heart attack after the loss of Port Stanley; Jeffrey Archer has been the leader since, carrying out heavy rationing and implied dictatorial actions, with John Lennon
the head of the Labour Party
. In place of the Bay of Pigs, there was a major American invasion of Cuba that saw Castro outed. Continental Europe has been unified into the United European Community
under President LePen, with numerous insurrectionist clashes; Sicily is now a prison camp. Japan is home to the ultranationalist Blood Banner Society.
Since the seventies, the states of Central American have been unified into the socialist Central American Confederation, which has stopped exporting coffee. Mexico has collapsed into permanent civil war. The Middle East is dominated by the Pan-Islamic Congress, a union of states, and "liberated" Albania, Greece, Macedonia, and Kosovo. Global warming has melted much of Antarctica, leaving it open to mining interests; Argentina controls most of it. The Vietnam War
took place with the Soviet Union in America's place and China pouring in to Indochina
, while many young Russians fled to Finland to avoid the draft; the USSR lost to North Vietnam, but not after devastating its ally China in the Nine-Minute War nuclear exchange. The war led to China descending into feudal states, while the Soviet Union suffered major social unrest from its youths and the loss of territory to Japan & the Pan-Islamics. The end result was Yuri Andropov
's coup in 1973, which led to the USSR becoming a more democratic and peaceful state with greater freedoms.
Nixon's Presidency saw NASA
given more funding and support while being heavily chased for results; the Moon was landed on in 1965 at the cost of many dead astronauts. Nixon's legacy was the Needlepoint System of laser satellites, which proved so costly and difficult to produce that they led to the Spiro administration shutting down NASA in 1978. Cape Canaveral was abandoned to the swamp. The Soviet space program ended when Yuri Gagarin
was killed in his first space flight and the cost of the Vietnam War prevented them from recovering.
Rock and roll music collapsed after New Year's Day 1961, when Reverend Jimmy Swaggart
led a march against a Madison Square Garden
rock festival; the three-day Rock and Roll Riots left many major stars dead or crippled, and Nixon branded the music as a severe moral threat, leading to moral standards being placed on the American industry. More 'moral' music like Pat Boone
and the "English Invasion" - Ken Dodd
, Matt Monro
, and Valerie Singleton - took over. Britain is still dominated by this type of music, with groups like the John Lydon Band and their patriotic hit God Save the Queen
. Russian "Sovrock", inspired by bootleg tapes of rock music, would take prominence and lead the USSR to cultural dominance, with singers like Andrei Tarkovsky
becoming international stars. As a result, Elvis Presley rejoined the army in 1961 and remained there until 1989, then leaving to become a Sanctioned Op defending the Deep South
; very few people outside of the USSR and Japan remember his music career, while Elvis has a recurring nightmare of himself an obese self-parody of his former self, unable to remember the music. The Beatles never formed; years later, when Elvis was bodyguarding John Lennon MP, Lennon would remark that he might've stayed with music if Elvis hadn't retired (a twist on their real-life meeting).
The main news service, used in the novels to deliver exposition and world-building, is ZeeBeeCee (a pun on BBC
), a GenTech group. It will occasionally divert from reporting stories to 'reporting' how pollution has been found not to have killed off the whales or how indentured labourers aren't slaves.
The final book of the "Demon Download Cycle", United States Calvary [not a typo], was promised in the back of Comeback Tour but never produced. The finished manuscript to Violent Tendency by Eugene Byrne was lost when the writer's Amstrad PCW died.
Games Workshop
Games Workshop Group plc is a British game production and retailing company. Games Workshop has published the tabletop wargames Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000...
. It is set in an alternate reality where the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
—and indeed the rest of the world—is falling apart. Society is going to ruins, and the natural laws of physics are breaking down. The megacorps rule, technology runs rampant, and Sanctioned Ops patrol the roads and highways tracking down and destroying the renegade scum who live there, outside of the law and doing what they please.
A game bearing the name Dark Future was originally developed for Games Workshop as a cyberpunk role-playing game. When that project was canceled, that game's co-author and GW board game developer Marc Gascoigne
Marc Gascoigne
Marc Gascoigne is a British author and editor.He is the editor, author or co-author of more than fifty books and gaming related titles, notably various Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, Shadowrun novels and adventures, Earthdawn novels and adventures, the original Games Workshop Judge Dredd roleplaying...
ported it onto Richard Halliwell's car-racing game system, using a mechanic originally developed for Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...
role-playing game adventure Slaughter Margin. The game was seen as a replacement for GW's early board game Battlecars, which merged James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
-like combative car gadgets in a Mad Max
Mad Max
Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller and revised by Miller and Byron Kennedy over the original script by James McCausland. The film stars Mel Gibson, who was unknown at the time. Its narrative based around the traditional western genre, Mad Max tells a story...
-inspired background. The game was originally set in the (then-future) year of 1995.
Novels by Jack Yeovil (a pen name of Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
) created an elaborate alternate history where Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
is a hard-as-nails bounty hunter and Oliver North
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
is president of the United States. In 2005 the Dark Future setting was brought back as a series of novels published by Games Workshop's fiction imprint Black Flame
Black Flame
Black Flame was an imprint of BL Publishing, the publishing arm of Games Workshop and a sister imprint to the Black Library and Solaris Books. Black Flame was devoted to publishing cult fiction in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror...
. They updated the setting to 2021, and released several new titles. However, while several pop-culture references were updated in the books, some lines retain their original wording, and now seem out of place (such as when character Jazzbeaux thinks of the millennium coming around in five years' time in 'Route 666').
In the board game, the player plays the part of a Sanctioned Op—a bounty hunter
Bounty hunter
A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include bail enforcement agent and fugitive recovery agent.-Laws in the U.S.:...
of the future—or a Renegade, dueling for survival in high-tech vehicles of the present.
Original game
Published in 1988 it was a standard Games Workshop boxed game containing rules, cardboard track sections and plastic cars a similar size to standard MatchboxMatchbox (toy company)
Matchbox is a popular toy brand which was introduced by Lesney Products in 1953 and is now owned by Mattel, Inc. The brand was so named as the original die-cast Matchbox toys were sold in boxes similar in style and size to those in which matches were sold...
or Hotwheels toy cars (roughly 1/60 or 1/64 - 23 to 25mm scale).
White Line Fever expansion
This is a volume of advanced rules for Dark Future. Inside this book players will find new rules for manoeuvers, shooting, hazards, and new equipment. Also, new vehicles are presented (trikeTricycle
A tricycle is a three-wheeled vehicle. While tricycles are often associated with the small three-wheeled vehicles used by pre-school-age children, they are also used by adults for a variety of purposes. In the United States and Canada, adult-sized tricycles are used primarily by older persons for...
s), new scenarios, and new characters as well.
Magazines
- White DwarfWhite Dwarf (magazine)White Dwarf is a magazine published by British games manufacturer Games Workshop. Initially covering a wide variety of fantasy and science-fiction role-playing and board games, particularly the role playing games Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest and Traveller...
100: Highway Warriors! - A preview of the forthcoming Dark Future game. - White Dwarf 102: Dark Future Release Preview
- White Dwarf 103: Illuminations - Review of Carl CritchlowCarl CritchlowCarl Critchlow is a British fantasy and science fiction comic illustrator. He is perhaps best known for his character Thrud the Barbarian, which originally appeared in White Dwarf magazine, and for his work for the Lobster Random comics....
, Thrud the BarbarianThrud the BarbarianThrud the Barbarian is a comics character created by Carl Critchlow in 1981. Although Thrud himself is a parody of Conan the Barbarian, particularly as depicted in the Arnold Schwarzenegger films, inspiration for the character's adventures and adversaries has been drawn from several fantasy...
and Dark Future Artist. - White Dwarf 103: 'Eavy Metal - Pictures of painted DarkFuture models
- White Dwarf 104: Redd Harvest - Dealing with the famed Sanction Op, Redd Harvest herself.
- White Dwarf 104: Thrud the BarbarianThrud the BarbarianThrud the Barbarian is a comics character created by Carl Critchlow in 1981. Although Thrud himself is a parody of Conan the Barbarian, particularly as depicted in the Arnold Schwarzenegger films, inspiration for the character's adventures and adversaries has been drawn from several fantasy...
- "I have seen the Future, and it is Dark (but then I took me shades off)". - White Dwarf 105: Street Fighter - An article dealing with the ins and outs of fighting outside the car.
- White Dwarf 106: A Day at the Races - New car types and equipment for racers.
- White Dwarf 107: White Line Fever: Advanced Manoeuvres - excerpt from White Line Fever dealing with speed and handling.
- White Dwarf 107: Three Wheelers - Rules for Trikes and motorcycle combinations, also from White Line Fever.
- White Dwarf 107: 'Eavy Metal Citadel and diecast conversions.
- White Dwarf 108: White Line Fever: Advanced Shooting - excerpt from White Line Fever dealing with shooting, fire arcs and more.
- White Dwarf 108: Citadel Miniatures - Dark Future Street Warriors
- White Dwarf 110: Tournament Rules - Simplified rules for quick play, just a little more advanced than the Starter Rules...
- White Dwarf 112: St. Louis Blues - A look at the famed Sanctioned Op group.
- White Dwarf 124: Dead Man's Curve, part 1 - Advanced rules for campaigns, weather, darkness, psychosis, salvage, experience.
- White Dwarf 125: Dead Man's Curve, part 2 - More advanced rules for success, fame, recruitment, cybernetics, hacking and gamesmasters.
- Challenge 52: Sand Cats - A Renegade gang that needs to be hunted down.
World
The world of Dark Future, detailed by Yeovil/Newman, played with multiple sci-fi, horror, and dystopia clichés while mixing in alternate history and homages & cameos to other fiction (Instead of becoming US president actor Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
starred in the TV series Get Smart
Get Smart
Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry, the show starred Don Adams , Barbara Feldon , and Edward Platt...
, famous film murderers like Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th series of slasher films. He first appeared in Friday the 13th , as the son of camp cook-turned-murderer, Mrs. Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Miller, with contributions by Ron Kurz, Sean S...
are asylum inmates in Krokodil Tears, Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
is named as a 60s astronaut in Comeback Tour). The world has undergone severe social, environmental, and moral decline, combined with a dramatic rise in technology; in 1995, violence is the main killer.
In the Demon Download Cycle books, the main antagonist is Elder Nguyen Seth, the ageless Summoner of the Great Old Ones, who is trying to bring about the end of the world. As of the late 1990s, he's doing this as leader of the Brethren of Joseph (which he himself brought about in 1843) and clashes with the various protagonists. As well as causing blood sacrifices to his masters, he sacrifices the potential of artists and thinkers - including Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, H.P. Lovecraft, the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
, and Elvis (via Colonel Tom Parker
Colonel Tom Parker
"Colonel" Thomas Andrew "Tom" Parker born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, was a Dutch-born entertainment impresario known best as the manager of Elvis Presley...
) - after showing them a brief glimpse of the Old Ones, corrupting them. Route 666 has Seth responsible for the bizarre circumstances of Poe's death
Death of Edgar Allan Poe
The death of Edgar Allan Poe on October 7, 1849, has remained mysterious: the circumstances leading up to it are uncertain and the cause of death is disputed. On October 3, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, "in great distress, and ... in need of immediate assistance",...
, and revealed he tried and failed to sacrifice Elvis as well (meaning the real-life shape of Elvis' career after 1960).
The main point of divergence in this timeline was the 1960 Presidential election - here, John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
was caught in an affair with Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, crippling his support and giving Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
the Presidency. The Solid Sixties were seen as a golden age of peace, stability and decent moral values in America, under a popular President. Legal restrictions were removed from businesses, allowing for both technological advancement and ending regulations against pollution. Racial strife was considered to be ended by the Separate But Equal laws; the influence this had on culture included a Lieutenant O'Hara
Uhura
Nyota Uhura is a character in Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Animated Series, the first six Star Trek films, and the 2009 film Star Trek...
in Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
and James M. Hendrix and his Merry Minstrels performing big-band music.
Successive Presidents would be Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
, Spiro Agnew
Spiro Agnew
Spiro Theodore Agnew was the 39th Vice President of the United States , serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland...
, "Big Chuck" Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
(a parody of Reagan becoming President), and Oliver North
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
.
Thanks to the increased pollution, drastic climate change and damage to mid-western water supplies would cause most of America to become desert ("the Des") from the 70s onwards. Violent dystopian gangcults - the Maniax, the Psychopomps, and the Confederate Air Force being central to the books - would rise to prominence. In 1985, to control the increasing violence, the Enderby Amendment opened up law enforcement to private groups and individuals: the Sanctioned Ops, the most famous being Turner-Harvest-Ramirez Agency and their star agent Rachel "Redd" Harvest. President Heston would also bring in the Moral Re-Armament Drive and recreate the United States Road Cavalry, a heavily armed Mad Max
Mad Max
Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller and revised by Miller and Byron Kennedy over the original script by James McCausland. The film stars Mel Gibson, who was unknown at the time. Its narrative based around the traditional western genre, Mad Max tells a story...
-style group garbed like the original Cavalry
United States Cavalry
The United States Cavalry, or U.S. Cavalry, is the designation of the mounted force of the United States Army. The role of the U.S. Cavalry is reconnaissance, security and mounted assault. Cavalry has served as a part of the Army forces in every war in which the United States has participated...
, to patrol the roadways and interstates.
By the near future of 1995, the major cities have for been split between Policed Zones and the lawless NoGos for over a decade; several of the southern states have re-legalised slavery under the term "indentured labour"; New York has a wall to keep out rising flood waters, while New Orleans is succumbing to floods. The North government is bankrupt, thanks to the (deliberately) disastrous policies of free-marker economist Ottakar Proktor, secretly a serial killer. Utah, a completely abandoned and dead area, has been sold to the sinister Brethren of Joseph, a religious group formed in the 19th Century, who have reclaimed the dead land and renamed it Deseret.
The Catholic Church was drastically changed when Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
became Pope in the 1970s. Increased liberalisations were introduced out of necessity - same-sex marriage, use of contraception, end to celibacy, and nuns given the same status as priests - and the Vatican became politically involved (both diplomatically and militarily) in conflicts where a Good and Evil side could be identified. Thanks to Vatican negotiations, US involvement in Central America was ended in the 70s. The Church maintains major computer systems and intelligence networks, and is involved in many covert actions, including against the Josephites.
Large amounts of power belong in the hands of corporations, mainly the "JapCorps" like GenTech, who can manipulate major governments. GenTech even has a neutrality treaty with the United States in case of "corporate war" with the Soviet Union, and is able to get away with organ harvesting in the Third World.
A stronger Argentina won a decisive victory over Britain in the Malvinas War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
, using GenTech and G-Mek weaponry. Britain, already a more insular and conservative nation at the time, became a depressed and failing state, to the point of selling off the modern London Bridge
London Bridge
London Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames, connecting the City of London and Southwark, in central London. Situated between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge, it forms the western end of the Pool of London...
for cash; Ian Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
was Prime Minister until he suffered a heart attack after the loss of Port Stanley; Jeffrey Archer has been the leader since, carrying out heavy rationing and implied dictatorial actions, with John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
the head of the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
. In place of the Bay of Pigs, there was a major American invasion of Cuba that saw Castro outed. Continental Europe has been unified into the United European Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
under President LePen, with numerous insurrectionist clashes; Sicily is now a prison camp. Japan is home to the ultranationalist Blood Banner Society.
Since the seventies, the states of Central American have been unified into the socialist Central American Confederation, which has stopped exporting coffee. Mexico has collapsed into permanent civil war. The Middle East is dominated by the Pan-Islamic Congress, a union of states, and "liberated" Albania, Greece, Macedonia, and Kosovo. Global warming has melted much of Antarctica, leaving it open to mining interests; Argentina controls most of it. The Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
took place with the Soviet Union in America's place and China pouring in to Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
, while many young Russians fled to Finland to avoid the draft; the USSR lost to North Vietnam, but not after devastating its ally China in the Nine-Minute War nuclear exchange. The war led to China descending into feudal states, while the Soviet Union suffered major social unrest from its youths and the loss of territory to Japan & the Pan-Islamics. The end result was Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.-Early life:...
's coup in 1973, which led to the USSR becoming a more democratic and peaceful state with greater freedoms.
Nixon's Presidency saw NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
given more funding and support while being heavily chased for results; the Moon was landed on in 1965 at the cost of many dead astronauts. Nixon's legacy was the Needlepoint System of laser satellites, which proved so costly and difficult to produce that they led to the Spiro administration shutting down NASA in 1978. Cape Canaveral was abandoned to the swamp. The Soviet space program ended when Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
was killed in his first space flight and the cost of the Vietnam War prevented them from recovering.
Rock and roll music collapsed after New Year's Day 1961, when Reverend Jimmy Swaggart
Jimmy Swaggart
Jimmy Lee Swaggart is a Pentecostal American pastor, teacher, musician, television host, and televangelist. He has preached to crowds around the world through his weekly telecast...
led a march against a Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
rock festival; the three-day Rock and Roll Riots left many major stars dead or crippled, and Nixon branded the music as a severe moral threat, leading to moral standards being placed on the American industry. More 'moral' music like Pat Boone
Pat Boone
Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone is an American singer, actor and writer who has been a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He covered black artists' songs and sold more copies than his black counterparts...
and the "English Invasion" - Ken Dodd
Ken Dodd
Kenneth Arthur Dodd OBE is a British comedian and singer songwriter, famous for his frizzy hair or “fluff dom” and buck teeth or “denchers”, his favourite cleaner, the feather duster and his greeting "How tickled I am!", as well as his send-off “Lots and Lots of Happiness!”...
, Matt Monro
Matt Monro
Matt Monro was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s...
, and Valerie Singleton - took over. Britain is still dominated by this type of music, with groups like the John Lydon Band and their patriotic hit God Save the Queen
God Save the Queen (Sex Pistols song)
"God Save the Queen" is a song by the English punk rock band The Sex Pistols. It was released as the band's second single and was featured on their only album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. The song was released during Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977...
. Russian "Sovrock", inspired by bootleg tapes of rock music, would take prominence and lead the USSR to cultural dominance, with singers like Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
becoming international stars. As a result, Elvis Presley rejoined the army in 1961 and remained there until 1989, then leaving to become a Sanctioned Op defending the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
; very few people outside of the USSR and Japan remember his music career, while Elvis has a recurring nightmare of himself an obese self-parody of his former self, unable to remember the music. The Beatles never formed; years later, when Elvis was bodyguarding John Lennon MP, Lennon would remark that he might've stayed with music if Elvis hadn't retired (a twist on their real-life meeting).
The main news service, used in the novels to deliver exposition and world-building, is ZeeBeeCee (a pun on BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
), a GenTech group. It will occasionally divert from reporting stories to 'reporting' how pollution has been found not to have killed off the whales or how indentured labourers aren't slaves.
Novels
- Route 666 short storyShort storyA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
anthology, edited by David PringleDavid PringleDavid Pringle is a Scottish science fiction editor.Pringle served as the editor of Foundation, an academic journal, from 1980 through 1986, during which time he became one of the prime movers of the collective which founded Interzone in 1982...
, published by Games Workshop (1990) - Demon Download by Jack YeovilKim NewmanKim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
, published by Boxtree Books (1990); republished by Black Flame (2005) - Krokodil Tears by Jack Yeovil, published by Games Workshop (1990); published by Boxtree Books (1991); republished by Black Flame (2006)
- Comeback Tour by Jack Yeovil, published by Boxtree Books (1991); republished by Black Flame (2007)
- Ghost Dancers (Kid Zero in England) by Brian Craig, published by Boxtree Books (1991)
- Route 666 by Jack Yeovil, published by Boxtree Books (1993); republished by Black Flame (2006) (an expansion of the short story Route 666 published in the anthology Route 666)
- Golgotha Run by Dave StoneDave Stone-Biography:Stone has written many spin off novels based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and Judge Dredd.Stone also contributed a number of comic series to 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, focusing on the Dreddverse...
, published by Black FlameBlack FlameBlack Flame was an imprint of BL Publishing, the publishing arm of Games Workshop and a sister imprint to the Black Library and Solaris Books. Black Flame was devoted to publishing cult fiction in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror...
(2005) - American Meat by Stuart MooreStuart MooreStuart Moore is a writer and editor of comic books and novels.-Career:Moore's writing includes the original science-fiction series Earthlight and PARA; Iron Man, New Avengers/Transformers, and Wolverine ; Firestorm and Detective Comics ; the multicultural superhero team The 99; the comics...
, published by Black Flame (2005) - Jade Dragon by James SwallowJames SwallowJames Swallow is a British author and scriptwriter. He is the author of several original books and tie-in novels, as well as numerous audio dramas and videogames....
, published by Black Flame (2006) - Reality Bites by Stuart MooreStuart MooreStuart Moore is a writer and editor of comic books and novels.-Career:Moore's writing includes the original science-fiction series Earthlight and PARA; Iron Man, New Avengers/Transformers, and Wolverine ; Firestorm and Detective Comics ; the multicultural superhero team The 99; the comics...
, published by Black Flame (October 2006, ISBN 1-84416-408-X)
The final book of the "Demon Download Cycle", United States Calvary [not a typo], was promised in the back of Comeback Tour but never produced. The finished manuscript to Violent Tendency by Eugene Byrne was lost when the writer's Amstrad PCW died.