• Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    who wins in the damn trailer

    I think there's still ambiguity. America would nuke itself before giving in. There's a lot of very sketchy continuity of government stuff to keep the president alive and under a whole lot of armor and concrete if things get weird. Plus Washington, by design, is not a strategically important city. It's in the middle of a vast god forsaken swamp and isn't a major port or industrial center or anything. As capitals go, it's purely symbolic.

    The point of the movie seems to be more about social disintegration and the horrors of war than who wins and who loses. Since it seems to follow journalists I would imagine it's a "bearing witness to the horror" thing.

    I do like the idea of Americans maybe, for once, seeing and understanding what a horrific evil nightmare the US Air Force is when it's actually deployed.

    kind of insane political revolution could possibly result in Texas and California teaming up, lmao

    I really don't know. I could write a scenario where Texas goes full fash, but blue texas, which is about half of Texas, revolts, the US refuses to intervene, and California mobilizes to help? Idk. Most of the "Red" states in the US are only Red by a handful of points in the electorate. Alternately, maybe California invades to get access to a Pacific port or something, idk.

    Maybe California starts taking over the Western states to secure water resources and they eventually come in to conflict with Texas, and Texas' absurdly broken government immediately shits itself and dies?

    Maybe Ted Cruz gives a speech and the Texans all decide they hate Ted Cruz more than California?

    Maybe it's just an alliance of convenience thing; California secedes to cut off the dead weight of the American Empire, and Texas secedes because they're a band of traitorous idiots, and the two nations cooperate against Washington out of mutual interest. Plus Texas has the only nuke factory in the US (Though I'm sure it'd get bombed flat in the first hour of a civil war) so being on their side is probably a good idea.

    • Dolores [love/loves]
      ·
      1 year ago

      im pretty sure they showed the president getting dragged out of the oval office, lol. but that particular administration might not be the core of the entire conflict, true.

      but i basically can't conceptualize this sort of story except through the prism of kaiserreich and personal enmity against texas so Cali-Texas axis feels wrong, even if a fairly plausible fiction can be written

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        The US has this whole continuity of government thing, where even if the president is incapacitated they can keep going down the line of responsibility for a long, long time to have a president. Folks get promoted as the person higher up the list dies or is incapacitated. So the president being captured or killed doesn't necessarily mean the end of American government. I think this was all put in place during the cold war in case the US got nuked and they needed someone to be in charge of the executive branch who would have clearly laid out authority. Like if Kamala chokes to death on a donut and Biden bluescreens I think the Speaker of the House would become president or something.

        • Dolores [love/loves]
          ·
          1 year ago

          i think it's fairly normal procedure to have a list of heads to organize the next election in case of death/expulsion--ending out terms in a mega-powerful office like the presidency is probably an exceptional(ly stupid) american example, but it doesn't mean everyone in that line of succession would pick up the proverbial sword as their predecessors are captured or killed in a losing war. i feel like losing your head of state is a pretty dire indictment of your military situation in a modern country where civil leaders, even upper military command, are generally nowhere near the battlefront, yknow?

      • whywhywhywhy
        ·
        1 year ago

        im pretty sure they showed the president getting dragged out of the oval office, lol.

        movie will be worth it based on that