[OOC] Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

[The Grey Warden]

Alright, I am going to rewrite it.

[Byrd Man]

<Snipped quote by The Grey Warden>

Brazil "and her allies"

Let's pretend I have some~

But who needs allies when you're an usurper great power?

@Mihndar

You have the United States, the powerhouse of the North American cell.

[Vilageidiotx]

Not to mention the waxing industry.

[Meiyuuhi]

<Snipped quote by Mihndar>

You have the United States, the powerhouse of the North American cell.

@Byrd Man

I was about to say you, but it's not official quite yet. We still need to have that meeting.

And then apply some diplomatic pressure on Mexico to change their socialist ways.

Not to mention the waxing industry.

@Vilageidiotx

That too.

[The Grey Warden]

But, I am kinda of stuck. I got this much so far:

The Great Depression hit the world and France was hit the hardest as the stock market was crashing down. The fascist government tried it's best to control the stocks, but it kept going down. After the crash, people rushed to their banks to only found out that they were closed and out of money. The government was now depending on debts to keep the government going. They were also losing colonies due to Ireland's independence for Britain, which caused a wave of revolts and unrest to pass to the colonies. The country was getting worst as people were giving up hope on the fascist government and the rise of communism challenged them.

The communism fever swept pass France and soon factory workers were joining the People's Party in hope of getting their jobs back. Realizing that communism was going to be a threat, the government begun to pass a series of acts, bills, anything that were able to get people jobs. From fixing up war-torn town to updating the roads in Paris, that move by the government was supported by some of the people as jobs were on the increase. But, the communism party was growing in numbers as they believe that the economy will just collapse again.

The government had no choice, but to suppress the communist by arresting leaders and attacking communism protest. As the government was still signing domestic programs left to right in hopes of combating the unemployment rate. The wealthy were taxed heavily and spent on the needs of the public. The domestic programs and the taxing of the rich did help the depression, but It didn't end it. As the crisis was still going on in the fifties and it's still felt to the present.

Is this good enough for the depression?

[Vilageidiotx]

Just a few nitpicky things:

1: Fascism, like I said on the last page, isn't a term you should be using because the word wouldn't have evolved in this timeline. Come up with another term. This being Precipice, we like obscure melodramatic shit. If you are stuck, Veo might have some ideas that the rest of us wouldn't think of.

1 1/2: The loss of colonies is going to be propped up by A: Colonized people getting access to western educations and using their knowledge to better the condition of their people, B: The fact that your government probably won't be able to afford to properly upkeep the colonies, so you will be relying on the locals more and hamstrung when it comes to defending your interests abroad.

2: The depression in France is going to be a problem, but the biggest problem is going to be the massive damage done to the nations infrastructure and industry during the war. The problem you will be facing is the difficulty of rebuilding all of that with very little wealth. I think that, considering our WW1 is unrealistically long, the damage to Germany and France would have been so bad that both nations would have teetered on the edge of national collapse. I mean, the German Empire DID collapse in the real world, so the extended length of war would have caused much much more damage.

3: You know, I am as much a leftist as any modern internet kid who isn't sucking off of Daddy's credit card, but I have to point out that taxing the rich itself does not fix an economy. That is more a question of where a state gets its funds to pay for shit; the wealthy or everyone else, since you always have to pick one.

[Meiyuuhi]

I'd just call it an autocratic or authoritarian police state-type government, myself.

[Vilageidiotx]

That is definitely an option, albeit a bit bland and vanilla. If you want to give it some flair though, you might go for something else.

One option you might shoot for is using the name of a leader with an -ism on the back, like "Stalinism" or "Peronism"

Another option, in the vein of the Juche in North Korea or the Fascists themselves, is to use a single word or phrase (in French) as the name of your movement (which is easy, run a word or phrase through Google Translate and have someone who knows French like Veo check its correctness). For instance, this movement might build up support by declaring themselves the victors of the otherwise indecisive Great War, in which case they become the "Vainqueur" or "Vainqueurist" for victors. Or they might adopt good old fashion Ancien Regime symbolism and combine it was a political message of reconstruction to come up with the "Fleurir" or "Fleurist" for the double meaning to "Bloom", and a reference to the Fleur-de-lis.

We talk about the technical shit all the time this is true, but if you really want to be memorable it is a good idea to do colorful things. Just imagine Precipice as the pulp-magazine version of alternate history, where our gangsters wear horse masks, the largest rebellion in recent African history was lead by a cross dressing anarchist, and the Spanish "Cazadores"(Hunters) are the most well trained fighting force on the field with a tendency to steal trains.

[Pepperm1nts]

Sotelism.

[Vilageidiotx]

Sotelism sounds like a deaf person saying "Socialism."

[Dinh AaronMk]

It makes me think of stollen.

[Veoline]

Can I say one thing: Benito is an Italian name. :/ Benoît would be the French equivalent.

Concerning the fascist government, guess what, France was actually the homeland of the precursors of fascism, Charles Maurras and Maurice Barrès, who were royalist, violently antisemitic, nationalistic, and staunchly catholic. They're the ideological forebears of the Vichy regime, an old-school authoritarian, agrarian regime. The ideology of Charles Maurras is called "Nationalisme Intégral", or "Integralism", which posits that the nation is an organic system deeply rooted in historical conditions, which must not and cannot be diluted in an international "melting-pot". Integralism holds order, reason and unity, all embodied in the Nation, as the supreme values.

[Wilted Rose]

France is one messed up place.

[Dinh AaronMk]

France is one messed up place.

@Wilted Rose

And now it's got LePenn

[Veoline]

The US has Republicans, it's a different kind of terrible.

And hey, we also brought you Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité ! (lol)

[Meiyuuhi]

The US has Republicans, it's a different kind of terrible.

And hey, we also brought you Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité ! (lol)

@Veoline

Yes, and that worked out sooo well, didn't it?

Look at Veo spacing out punctuation marks from his words. Just like old times.

[The Grey Warden]

Who was France before me? I mean, they needed to re-do their history. It's a mess. So, I am re-making the history of France.

[Chapatrap]

Tempest played it briefly but he's not been around for a while. Ignore the French wiki page he wrote, you can re-write it later to fit your own canon. Just go by the stuff Vilage and Aaron have talked about in the last few pages and it should be fine.

[The Grey Warden]

Yeah, I am. But, I got more questions to ask.

1) Was the Great Depression as terrible as it was in real life or was it more terrible to the point that countries were ruined?
2) Since a World War 2 didn't happened during the time, how did the countries recover for the depression?
3) How does a country get out of a depression? Do they try to control the unemployment rate, increase tariffs, and enact domestic programs so the people could get back to work?
4) Is it realistic to make France's economy collapse for this roleplay? Since, France had the most damage out of any other country after the Great War.

[Veoline]

1)2) We've never mentioned these issues before, so you'll have to rely on Vilage, Aaron's or Gorgenmast's Word of God.
3) Generally, a depression is characterized by low investment, low consumption, high unemployment, etc. You can try to stimulate the economy by lowering the interest rates to encourage borrowing, and hence investment, you can decree an increase in wages, but be careful of all the unwanted consequences, the State can employ people for public works to stimulate consumption...
4) If by collapse you mean a return to anarchy, that would seem excessive. Even during the chaos of the French Revolution, the French economy never blew up completely. During the actual WWI, French GDP fell 24%. In the PoW timeline, with a war dragging on for 12/3 years, a 50% fall wouldn't be excessive. That would be an incredible fall, but if the government managed it decently, at least maintaining basic services, the country should have retained the ability to rebound after the war. Keep in mind that huge destruction also means huge opportunity to rebuild and stimulate the economy.

Honestly, I don't think the depression would have occurred in the 30's, if at all, due to the severe disturbances wrought upon the world economy by the war. Admitting economic history followed in PoW a similar path as in real life, the depression would have hit in 1940 or later.