Confedrate Comics

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Speaking As A Moderator: This thread could easily go up in flames at any time. This is extraordinarily touchy subject matter. In the absence of adequate information from the original poster about what their intent was, it's easy to assume that they meant it to be a heroic struggle using a modern-day CSA as the bad guys, or equally easy to assume that it was racist flamebaiting.

 

I think people are actually doing fairly well so far of not letting this topic get the better of them, so I'm reluctant to lock the thread as long as people are participating in good faith. But please be very careful. It would be immensely helpful in avoiding misunderstandings if the original poster could clarify their intent. If the thread drifts too far away from the subject of superheroic gaming, it will be moved to Non-Gaming Discussion. And if it becomes too uncivil, it will have to be locked.

 

Carry on. Carefully.

[ayinde]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Nexus, Katherine, many others

you all make very good points. The setting could be very interesting heck even fun. I simply found his opening post insulting I don't speak for all black people . Just for myself. Ive sense asked for more imfo about the setting to see what he wants to build. My first post was a knee jerk reaction.

[LWhitehead]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Hi this is the original poster it seems that some people have blown my idea out of perportion,

 

 

1: first off the timeframe is 1976 so it''s bronze age, and North America is devide between USA, CSA, British Empire Canada and Empire of Mexico ruled by the royal family place Napolean III.

 

2: I'm not a racist person however I believe to be truthful to racial relations in the CSA, The CIA which is short for Cofederate Intelligence Agency. They are the ones who handle threats to the CSA from out and within, in our words there the secret police, there allied with MI5 and Imperial Russia police as well.

 

3: Black Superheros have to hide the fact of there race from CSA common populance, I point to the comic series American Way by Image comics.

 

4: Passbooks and Black status in 1976 CSA, well like Apartheid South Africa which is an ally of the CSA Blacks or Ethopians the Southern Astrocrat terms for Blacks in the South. Now the passbooks work much like a driver's ID they have freedom of moverment but they just have show the id at some places in the CSA, also the CIA has the Blacklist a list of most dangerous and subverise Blacks in the CSA. The subject of Blacks voteing and siting on juries is this, Blacks have 1/4 of a vote while Whites have full rights and they can't still sit in a jury however there is talk among letting sit in judgement in there own trials, Women just got the right to vote in 1970.

 

4 USA: the North of America in 1976 is allied with Imperial Germany, Holy Roman Empire(Austria), Ottoman Empire. Because there allies like Imperial Germany USA has very strong military touch to there nation, solicialism is not tolerated in the North. There Heroes are Villians in the CSA, it all how you flip the pancake.

 

 

LW

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

LWhitehead, I think the confusion in the thread is coming from what the focus of the campaign is... not what the details of the game world elements are. Would superheroes generally support the racially-unequal status quo in the CSA, or would they generally oppose it and argue for change? Or is it a mixed bag? Is the CSA the "good guys" against the USA's "bad guys," or are they both considered flawed? Etc.

 

Or to put it more bluntly, are you proposing this as a "realistic" what-if exercise (as realistic as a superhero game could be) about what it would be like over 100 years later, if the CSA and USA hadn't re-merged after the Civil War, and if there were superpowers? Or are you proposing it as 'Hey, let's play a game about how great the south would be if the Confederates had won and got awesome superpowers too!"?

 

The first seems like an interesting (though highly-charged) story possibility. The second seems more like race-baiting...

[Bloodstone]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Not really sure what to think of this all but...

 

3: Black Superheros have to hide the fact of there race from CSA common populance' date=' I point to the comic series American Way by Image comics.[/quote']

 

I loved American Way

 

You might want to check out Marvel comics "Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel" for a somewhat similar theme.

[LWhitehead]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

First off I'm not Race baiting, secondly about the heroes for CSA and USA yes there not perfect they have flaws,

 

Now for example Southern Sentinel is the CSA version of Captain America, which I've got at home Marvel series about Black Captain America. You see he was created as a super solider with Eugenics knowhow, the formula was first tested on a black man to see if was safe he later became Obsidian a Black supervillian. His sidekick is Dixie a Black teenage girl she was inspired by the female Bucky and she got a mouth and aittude,

 

 

One problem is that trying to figure out what products that they would have in CSA 1970's, such as Cola,Newspapers, eating places, and other such comon things that would give CSA flavor.

 

 

LW

[Cygnia]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

You still haven't answered Derek's question about what exactly is the goal of this campaign. Likewise, keep in mind that there's a difference between using certain "Un-PC" language in an "in character" format versus a public forum elsewhere where people can be sensitive to what they consider racially charged word choices.

 

His sidekick is Dixie a Black teenage girl she was inspired by the female Bucky and she got a mouth and aittude,

 

And that's a stereotype that usually doesn't help matters...

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

First off I'm not Race baiting, secondly about the heroes for CSA and USA yes there not perfect they have flaws,

 

Now for example Southern Sentinel is the CSA version of Captain America, which I've got at home Marvel series about Black Captain America. You see he was created as a super solider with Eugenics knowhow, the formula was first tested on a black man to see if was safe he later became Obsidian a Black supervillian. His sidekick is Dixie a Black teenage girl she was inspired by the female Bucky and she got a mouth and aittude,

 

 

One problem is that trying to figure out what products that they would have in CSA 1970's, such as Cola,Newspapers, eating places, and other such comon things that would give CSA flavor.

 

 

LW

 

Well, apart from anything else, I suspect that Coke and Pepsi would not be available in the US (invented in Georgia and South Carolina, respectively).

[LWhitehead]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Conferate Comics which exists in this Bronze Age setting the same as Marvel comics exists in the Marvel comic world,

 

Now the goal is simple in this setting defeat the CSA Villians and plots from the USA, also dealing USA superheroes as well.

 

 

LW

[SuperPheemy]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

I doubt the institution of slavery would last until 1976. It's just not an efficient system of labor, especially once Industrialization hits the Agricultural sector. However, I could envision a Civil Rights style movement and social upheval erupting in the CSA in '76. Especially when set against the backdrop of the Nothern Bicentennial

[wrestlinggeek]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

I also don't think slavery would still be around in 1976. And from waht I read in the original post, it isn't in the campaign setting either. Seems to me like the heroes would be fighting the good fight against villains from all walks of life, be they white, black, Southern, Northern, or whatever. As for the original topic:

 

White Lightning: White Lightning is a down-home Southern boy with the power to generate and control electricity. He can even surround his body with a glowing electrical aura (which, since people can't see through it, means he could look like anyone under it. Might be fun to make him a black kid who calls himself White Lightning). The name is an alternative name to that great old Southern Favorite moonshime. Come to think of it, giving him a sister with light-based powers named Moonshine could be fun, too.

[nexus]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

I apologize for running off at the mouth here but I've thought allot about this subject. I've summarized by basic point afterward.

 

How long would slavery have lasted in a victorious South or a "CSA"? It's extremely difficult to answer a hypothetical like that. I think the best thing we can do is examine trends of opinion over the decades leading up to the Civil War. When the Constitution was ratified it was generally held by opinion leaders in all parts of the country that slavery was dying institution, but that attempting to abolish it immediately would place undue social and financial stress on the areas where it was most prevalent -- the south. It's worth noting that at that time there were slaves in New York and Pennsylvania, for example, but not many. The use of slaves even in the deep south was uneconomical and for that reason it was generally believed that the institution would die in and of itself over time. While some northerners were diehard abolitionists even then, the majority both north and south felt that slavery, while morally repugnant and corrosive to both slave and master, was not an issue sufficiently grave to stand in the way of the unification of the country.

 

This changed radically as the Industrial Revolution took off, and primarily with the invention of the cotton gin, which was the first time in human history that we had a way to quickly and easily remove seeds from cotton. Prior to that time cotton was a pain in the ass luxury crop grown by a small percentage of farmers. With the cotton gin, and with the huge steam-powered textile mills going up left and right in places like England, cotton suddenly became a MUCH more valuable and practical commodity. However, it was VERY labor intensive, and so the planters in the places where cotton could be grown (the south) began to use a ready supply of labor -- slaves. Slaves themselves began to me more valuable and the institution began to actually grow and expand as opposed to shrink and die as had been predicted.

 

Naturally, as inevitably happened when people's economic interests are at stake, what was once viewed as a necessary evil to be tolerated gradually became seen as a desirable institution. By the 1820s and 1830s you begin to see preachers in areas where slavery is commonplace preaching that human chattel slavery is ordained by God and necessary for human civilization. As profits increased so did the level of justification of the institution which made those profits possible. During the 1850s there were a series of crises that threatened to blow the country apart along sectional lines, and during these crises Southern attitudes toward slavery calcified even further such that by 1858 it's entirely commonplace to hear of prominent Southern thinkers proclaiming that the South was the last true bastion of Christian civilization BECAUSE, rather than IN SPITE OF, the institution of slavery, and that slavery was entirely beneficial to the enslaved. Naturally these opinions became solidified after hostilities commenced.

 

I'm deliberately painting with a broad brush here both for the sake of brevity but also because there's a lot of validity at this point in saying "Southern opinion." Culturally America was then much more aristocratic, for lack of a better term, than it is now. Across the South, and across most of the north as well, both opinion and policy was driven almost entirely by the "best classes" of men, the wealthy and the educated, who were the only voices that mattered. That these men in the South were the same ones that owned slaves means that opinion and policy could really only develop in a single direction. To point out that the majority of Southerners didn't own slaves is true but also entirely irrelevant, as the masses of people both north and south were politically inert and exerted little or no impact on policy.

 

It's equally a canard to point out that in many cases slave owners worked in the fields alongside their slaves. It's true enough -- the richest Mississippi planters like Jefferson Davis were men of that stripe. But it's entirely false to equate that with moral equivalency or kinship between the two. At the end of the day the master went back to big house, ate of silver plates and slept on fine beds; the slave went back to a feculent cottage, ate sow bellies field greens and slept on a straw pallet. The master could whip, sell, or kill a truculent slave at his discretion and no one could gainsay him; the slave did not have the same prerogative when dealing with a cruel master.

 

So, would slavery have died out on it's own given these facts? I have a difficult time believing it would have. While it may not be unprecedented for a people who have just been victorious in a long, difficult and sanguinary war to voluntarily forego the very privilege they fought for, I think we can all agree that such instances are extraordinarily rare across the span of human history. I find it difficult to believe that a Georgia gentleman in a CSA of 1920 would have said anything but, "My ancestors fought and died for my right to own n*****s and I'll be dead myself before anyone takes them away." I could be wrong of course, hypotheticals being what they are, but I think the weight of evidence leans that way. Would this extend to 1976? IMO, probably.

 

tl;dr: As slavery became productive and connected to wealth and privilege, it grew into a identity, not just fiscal aspect of Southern culture and society. Such things aren't given up easily particularly after they are hard and violently fought for even if perhaps they have grown impractical.

[assault]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Abolitionism wouldn't have ceased to exist with a CSA victory. It might have had to continue in an underground manner, but it would have continued. It's likely to have been strengthened after the abolition of slavery in Brazil (1888). In our world, Brazil was the last nation in the Americas to make slavery illegal.

 

There are two reasonably plausible explanations for a CSA "victory". (Not counting ones related to superbeings!) The first involved there being no civil war - no bombardment of Fort Sumter, and a gradual lessening of tensions over time. The other is more dramatic - Britain and/or France breaking the blockade of Confederate ports to allow the export of cotton. In our world, this was prevented by political opposition, but it could have been done.

 

The latter, in particular, would have had major economic implications. The CSA would have become a client state, whose industrialisation would have been impeded. Think Argentina, for an example in our world. Such economic backwardness would tend to make slavery more viable. On the other hand, like Argentina, it might have been a recipient of considerable European immigration - and free labourers tend to prefer not to have to compete for jobs with slaves.

 

In the long run, the analogy with apartheid era South Africa feels about right to me.

 

On the other hand, I still can't see what the point is. It feels like picking at the scabs of the past for no good reason.

 

If you really wanted to play in a segregationist setting, try a "realistic" 40s, 50s or 60s.

 

Then again, punching Confederate "superheroes" does have a certain appeal. Like Nazis, only American.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

For ideas on how the south might have won, there are tons of resources available for inspiration. I'll cite 2 books and a movie:

The Guns of the South

--

Harry Turtledove

. Apartheid-era South Africans with a time machine sell AK-47s to the Confederacy.

 

How Few Remain

-- Harry Turtledove (part of his

Timeline-191

saga). Written orders from General Lee do

not

fall into the hands of Union soldiers. The Confederacy wins at Gettysburg, setting the stage for a protracted hostility that does neither nation much good.

 

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America

A Mockumentary in the form of a BBC history program aired on CSA television, complete with ads for fictional products and programs.

[assault]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

The Guns of the South

--

Harry Turtledove

. Apartheid-era South Africans with a time machine sell AK-47s to the Confederacy.

 

The influence of superpowers, essentially.

 

How Few Remain

-- Harry Turtledove (part of his

Timeline-191

saga). Written orders from General Lee do

not

fall into the hands of Union soldiers. The Confederacy wins at Gettysburg, setting the stage for a protracted hostility that does neither nation much good.

 

Assuming the north kept its nerve, they were always going to win. Grant, in particular, relied on this by being prepared to accept greater losses in return for whittling down the inferior Confederate forces.

 

This resulted in the final stages of the war (in the east, at least) bogging down into trench warfare/sieges.

 

It was sheer brute force, but it worked, and the Confederacy had no answer to it. At least until the defeat of Reconstruction, but that's another story.

[LWhitehead]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Ok here is some points I would like to get across about the CSA in 1976,

 

 

1: Blacks (forgive me for using the term), are free but Second to Third class people in the CSA, this wa due to there allies pressure main England and France in 1880's. However there voting rights are still pretty low and they can't sit on a jury in judgement over White cases, and they have to carry passbooks as well to keep track of there movements by the C.I.A. So it's basicly it's like before intergration happened in our world, there are Black vocational schools like the one Booker T Washington was behind.

 

 

2: Women and the vote, In the CSA like the USA White Women got the vote in the 1920's, Black Women can't vote however.

 

 

3: There is no WW1 in this world yet, that's why Germany is still Imperial and England is still part of the British Empire, but there have bin small wars between USA and the CSA over places like south America and currently south Asia.

 

 

 

Yes I have read those books mentions and have some of them, specially the Harry Turtledove ones.

 

I still think that would make for ether a very good Champions setting or comic setting,

 

LW

[Certified]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Freeman: No one is sure hold old Freeman is but the scars across his pack are clearly from the whip. Freeman battles to protect others oppressed by the CSA with impenetrable flesh and the ability to manipulate and glide through the earth. Some believe Freeman is the ghost of an escaped slave and that his soul cannot rest until all men are made truly free. CSA propaganda promotes that there is no one Freeman but multiple men who pose as the uppity black to spread fear in the white community. CSA reports indicate that these Freemen have been killed over a dozen times by law enforcement.

The truth is something far different. A slave be brought to market in the colonies before the United States won their independence the man who would become know as Freeman fought alongside whites for a liberated America, a free America. When the war was over he was returned to his master's farm in South Carolina where he rebelled refusing to go back to being a slave. Whipped and beaten for days he was hanged at the plantation's tallest tree as a reminder of what it means to rebel. As the noose dropped though he spoke a silent prayer for all those who had died for this land and it's said the mother heard his prayer. When his body ws finally laid to rest she came to him and blessed him, called him back and set him free. Imbued with the strength of the land whips would break at his back bullets would flatten at his chest and he would have the strength to set all men free. Pulling himself free from the earth Freeman was reborn but the world had changed around him. Centuries had past as the Earth Mother worked her magic on his body and he found himself in a place he hardly knew. This however, has not stopped his goal, in fact it has only driven him harder to correct all the pain inflected by a corrupt government and those who see them as inherently superior.

 

The Dog Catcher: CSA super solder Randal Barns left the military to join the police. There he found he had not just great skill at tracking down targets but a love for the work. Opting for an experimental government program Barns found his already keen senses enhanced to super human levels in addition to his new found sensory powers he learned he could also control the minds of animals, dogs being the easiest. Since this time he has worked for a secret government agency tracking down and removing abolitionists and anti-gorvernment rabble rouses within the CSA.Wearing protective body armor and a wolf head mask they call him the Dog Catcher.

[LWhitehead]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

First off thanks for the help so far, but I still have to nail down the setting and world sych as what brand of foods they would eat and newspapers they would read. Also what how the Southern cities would be like, for example Atlanta would be a second tier city like Philly or maijor one like Chicago. I also need to know which cities would envole into the heavy producer like Detorit,

 

 

The CIA is short for Confederate Intelligence Agency there the main secret police and spy group for the CSA, they keep tabs of threats from within and without such as the Blacklist, a list of dangerour and traitous Blacks in the CSA (also Black supervillians as well).

 

 

LW

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

First off thanks for the help so far' date=' but I still have to nail down the setting and world sych as what brand of foods they would eat and newspapers they would read. Also what how the Southern cities would be like, for example Atlanta would be a second tier city like Philly or maijor one like Chicago. I also need to know which cities would envole into the heavy producer like Detorit,[/quote']

 

Do you live in the South or know someone who does? They might be able to provide suggestions along those lines. I do know that Charleston, South Carolina would very likely be a naval base of some importance. Major shipyards might still be in operation around Hampton Roads, Virginia. I suspect that Birmingham would still be the Pittsburgh of the South (and possibly the Detroit of the South, as well).

 

You might as well eliminate one or more businesses based upon their history and replace them with something suitably "Southern". Examples:

 

Birmingham Motors, producers of:

Lee-Jackson Luxury cars --

Lee-Jackson, the Signpost of Quality!

Alabama Light and Heavy Trucks --

Built Alabama-Tough!

Kittyhawk Motors -- Your Best Value in

Transportation!

Littlerock Frozen Foods.

 

Colonel Fricasee Cajun Chicken.

 

You take it from here...

 

The CIA is short for Confederate Intelligence Agency there the main secret police and spy group for the CSA' date=' they keep tabs of threats from within and without such as the Blacklist, a list of dangerour and traitous [u']Blacks[/u] in the CSA (also Black supervillians as well).

 

[Emphasis added]

 

My mother had a friend with a "colored" maid back in the '50s. Her friend allowed as she had no prejudices and would even sit and drink tea with her maid on occasion, so long as the maid continued to "know her place". Even well-meaning people in your CSA setting who get that there is injustice going on may start from a position of "Well, a lot of 'em deserve what they get", making exceptions for the people they actually know. I still remember my dad shouting "Shoot 'em! Shoot 'em all!" at the TV during the Watts Riots. Don't misunderstand. That is not a good memory.

 

You might do well to substitute "Non-White" for "Black" (or possibly "People of Color" or "POC" for short). To me, at least, it doesn't sound as incendiary. Also, My parents were both from the Deep South (Arkansas) and although my mom was open-minded about such things, My dad really hadn't gotten over much of his racial baggage until his experiences in California started to contradict the "Commonsense" (= racist B.S.) he had grown up with.

 

[/soapbox]

[ayinde]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

im still not sure about your setting but this link might give you some stuff to play with

http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/26262.html

[ayinde]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

also

http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20962.html

[LWhitehead]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

I know about the CSA plans for Latian America, it likely that they cut off some of Mexico to forum there nation from sea to shinging sea like in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series, so CSA would have Cuba. But also Empire of Mexico is CSA ally so the only way is that Empepor would sell some states to the CSA to pay for det it owns, Still in 1976 Empire of Mexico and there Emperor is proped up by the CSA.

 

 

Right now the USA and CSA and there allies are fighting a war in south Asia right now,

 

and no I haven't any Southern USA friends or I would know more about Southern USA cities.

 

LW

[Yansuf]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

There is a book in GURPS, I think it is GURPS Alternate Worlds, that gives information about an alternate world were the CSA won. You might check it out.

 

I think parts of their timeline are absurd, but I do like a lot of it.

[The_Patriot]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Speaking from a historian's point of view, there was discrimination in the south prior to end of the war. It was normal in both sections of the US for non-whites to be discriminated against. However, it was only in the north that there were major penalties both civilly and criminally against non-whites. This did not exist in the south until after 1865 with the south losing to the north. Also, the Underground Railroad went to Canada not to the northern states since it was a felony for a white person to help a non-white. The laws that were enacted post-1865 to 1875 were done so by the US Army under their jurisdiction with the state governments playing zero role in the governing of the people. Each of the 13 Confederate States was assigned to a special military district with the western territories bordering Missouri and southward being under the Trans-Mississippi Department.

 

There's much more I could add from the 25+ years I've been studying American History circa 1610-1875 with primary source documentation to this subject. To better understand the people of the Antebellum South I'd recommend you read a letter that Robert E. Lee wrote to his wife in the 1856 since he expresses the majority feeling towards blacks at that time. Here's a small snippet of what he wrote, "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially." Keep in mind that Lee never owned a single slave and found the practice to be repugnant to him.

[AnotherSkip]

Re: Confedrate Comics

 

Didnt wealthy White Confederates run off to Brazil after losing the war for the South?

 

If so that would indicate that in a CSA 'win' brazil would be different and Slavery would end by 1890's at the worst.

 

 

Oh yeah the CSA events in The Supreme were written by Allen Moore (he's English innt he?) so that would indicate to me at least a bit of "there is not a preponderance of racisim merely a mildly interesting alternate universe"