Prologue
*Editorial Note- Since this has been massaged as I've developed the concept I'll be going back through as I have the time to edit out typos and correct any mistakes that have cropped up!*
"Power without knowledge is power lost!"
- Montesquieu
"Much has been said in these uncertain times about 'generational conflict' in this country and the world, between the generations thinking in and longing for a lost past, more a golden-hued fever dream than an objective view of history, and the generations pushing back against this attitude with the characteristic disorganized rebellion of youth, decrying the past as irrelevant, their elders as out of touch and their societies as behind the times, yet all the while imagining a future that is depressingly mundane. This is a false premise. The true generational struggle that should concern us is the one between the present and the future. The coming future, the evershifting dynamic mass of potential, is a frightening thing to some. It projects itself backwards, so that with every passing moment the world we live in becomes more like the world we will live in. This is naturally terrifying to the kyriarchs of the world, who fear the dramatic shifts that the coming future will force on them, and the loss of privilege they will suffer as a result. And so they dig in their heels, ground themselves in the eternal present, and try to fight the future. They know it is a holding action, and so these corrupt nihilists seeks to poison the future as it comes, seeking to bind and limit it, seeking to turn that potential toward the goals of the preservation of power and the status quo at the expense of the true flowering of humanity as a whole. The essential feature of the kyriarchy and of the oligarchal populism that is its vehicle is that it corrupts knowledge of the past to bolster its legitimacy, and uses the power this affords to corrupt the coming future as well. This is an affront, nothing short of an existential threat to the whole of human endeavor. Something must be done..."
- From the introduction of The Cosmicist Manifesto, Ultima Antarctica centennial edition
"I am in control here, in the White House..."
- President Haig, in a 1984 televised address to the nation after his emergency swearing in following the assassination of Ronald Reagan.
President Haig's first address to the nation in the early days of 1984 would go on to set the tone for the remainder of his time in office. Vowing to "press on with the important work begun by my fallen friend" Haig promised the American people that he would be a steady hand guiding the ship of state, confronting enemies of freedom wherever he would find them. His actions for the remainder of the (only) Reagan term, and the following two won in his own right would have wide and far-reaching impacts around the world, propelling geopolitics into a strange new age. To his supporters Haig would usher in what he himself fondly called the Reagan Revolution but to his many detractors at home and abroad his policies would mark the start of the Era of Bad Feelings.
*Special thanks to @Wolfram for the title card!*
Last edited: