Yes, that is a grenade on the mother's necklace.

Probably, once all the "diversity" and "multiculturalism" crap got started. Right up to the end the coins carried the motto, E Pluribus Unum, just as the last dreadnought of the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy was the Viribus Unitis. But the reality for both was Ex Uno, Plura.

It's odd how clearly the American century is marked: 1865 to 1965. As the 20th century historian Shelby Foote noted, the first Civil War made us one nation. In 1860, we wrote, "the United States are." By the end of the war, the verb was singular: "the United States is." After 1965 and another war we disunited—deconstructed—with equal speed into blacks, whites, Hispanics, women, gays, victims, oppressors, left-handed albinos with congenital halitosis, you name it. The homosexuals said silence = death. Nature replied, diversity = war.

Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War is a novel by military theorist William S. Lind (published in 2014 under the penname Thomas Hobbes) in which, 20 Minutes into the Future, the United States breaks up into a series of warring successor states, including the Northern Confederation (eventually renamed Victoria) in New England.

The story is told from the perspective of John Rumford, a USMC captain discharged when he refuses to allow a woman to honor their dead by saying "Iwo Jima" (because no women Marines fought on Iwo Jima, and so he and his buddies feel they do not deserve to participate). After having trouble farming and working, due to government regulations, Rumford forms a group, the Christian Marines, to fight for traditional Christian values in an increasingly multicultural and tolerant society. Eventually, he becomes one of the leaders of the growing movement to restore America to an idealized version of 1930s values. "Retroculture," it is called.

Then the first shots of the Second Civil War are fired, and things get really crazy....

Victoria has been called "the Paleocon Turner Diaries" by at least one reviewer, referring to the infamous far-right novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce. While this is less than fair (since, unlike that book, Victoria does not endorse such things as neo-Nazism and genocide of all non-white people), Lind's novel is generally recognized as polarizing and extreme, and often considered part of the "Alt-Right" milieu (though Lind does not describe the book, or himself, that way). Written as an apparent Take That! to what the author condemns as political correctness, this book holds nothing back in presenting its radical vision. As depicted herein: atheists are either stupid or evil (or both), homosexuals are perverts, academia is heavily infiltrated by Cultural Marxist conspirators, UN-appointed Muslim peacekeepers want nothing more than to kill or enslave Christians, Mexican cartels raid America to sacrifice white people to their pagan gods, women should be subordinate to men, and so on and so forth. This uncompromisingly neo-reactionary viewpoint serves to make the book more than somewhat controversial in many quarters.

Contrast Christian Nation, a similar speculative political novel featuring an oppressive, near-future American government with its own La Résistance valiantly fighting back but from a politically opposite standpoint.

0% Approval Rating: The Federal Government gradually becomes this during the Civil War, due to a combination of badly failed economic policies and ideological insanity. Mobs and militias fight the police openly in the streets, domestic terrorism is rampant, judges are lynched, state governments begin to secede, and toward the end even the military is experiencing massive defections and passive-aggressive sabotage.

20 Minutes into the Future: The story begins in 2016, two years ahead of its date of publication, and depicts an increasingly oppressive American regime that follows a steep trajectory of post-Obamanian descent into extreme liberalism, identity politics and Political Correctness Gone Mad. The science fiction elements in society and technology are subtly present almost from the start, then increase as the world advances, and become particularly prominent in the last third or so of the book.

Accidental Hero: Rumford, initially, owing his early heroic reputation effectively to making a politically incorrect prank, doubling down on it when called out, and getting cashiered for this. However, the story grows in the telling until he becomes almost a legendary figure of integrity and defiance in the military community, and this is at least part of the reason why he gets elected leader of the Christian Marines. He then becomes a real hero (at least for a certain definition of hero) by showing himself suited for the position and applying his irregular warfare skills to their struggle against the gangsters and corrupt political machines.

Accidental Public Confession: Type 1 example with Governor Fullarbottom. The Christian Marines' psy-war eventually gets on his nerves so much that he makes a complete confession of his dirty laundry at a public press conference.

The Ace: Colonel William Hocking Kraft, the leader of the Retroculture revolution and savvy politician, fearless soldier, inspired strategist and visionary philosopher. Even Rumford, himself acclaimed as the greatest soldier of his time, agrees that Kraft has a better grasp of military affairs than he does.

Action Genre Hero Guy: John Rumford fits every item on the checklist, except that he isn't fighting to save a loved one, but his country. A somewhat unusual variation in one respect, however, in that he is also a (working-class, one-liner-touting, ex-military) well-read intellectual, which makes for some funny lines.

Action Girl: Completely and utterly defied and averted with the "good" female characters. There are some villainous ones, but they tend to appear in a poor light.

Affably Evil: The Landwehr emissary is one of the few "enemy" characters to be portrayed as a genuinely-pleasant person, in spite of being a very-literal Nazi.

After the End: Much of the novel takes place against the backdrop of the Fallen States of America.

All Gays Are Pedophiles: Ultimately subverted, though even then the book is certainly not friendly to LGBT people otherwise. One of the major early incidents in the story is a law requiring all elementary schools to have at least one gay counselor with "unrestricted private and public access" to kids to help them figure out their sexuality, and this is interpreted as being an obvious cover up for the "real" reason gay people would want to be alone with children. Incidents like these lead the State of Maine to rebel against their governor. However, when it is revealed that NAMBLA is behind the plot, it is specifically pointed out that "[e]ven most of the other gays don't like those perverts."

The Alleged Boss: President Warner of the late-stage United States is generally presented as a rather well-meaning but weak ruler, usually under the thumb of the extremists and corrupt insiders in his administration. However, he does show decisive and effective leadership on a few occasions, notably when forcing his hawkish military advisors to stand down in the escalating conflict with Russia.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us: A favorite tactic of the Christian Marines is to hit enemies where they presume themselves safe, particularly airfields as they raid federal ones for hostages to use against pilots, and in Boston they lure fighter jets into the air then destroy all the runways with artillery.

Amazon Brigade: Azania, though their female pilots are stated to be no match for men in the cockpit, and their infantry folds like a card table.

Ambadassador: Nazi officer Captain Halsing is not only polite and cultured, but also tough as nails. Additionally, there is Father Dimitri, the Victorians' unofficial (and eventually official) liaison with the Czar's government, who is a former soldier in the Russian Naval Infantry.

Ambiguously Bi: Colonel Mary Malone, whose only canonical romance is heterosexual, but who also succeeds and excels in the Azanian hierarchy, where all positions of authority are normally closed to non-lesbians.

Angry White Man: John Rumford, as well as most of his friends in the Christian Marines (with some exceptions, such as Gunny Matthews). Initially simply an Innocent Bigot who is upset with various sorts of Political Correctness Gone Mad in his decaying near-future United States, Rumford gradually becomes politically active as a vigilante and neo-reactionary militia leader. The Christian Marines organization he comes to lead fights for conservative Christian values and against what they term "the unholy trinity of 'racism, sexism, and homophobia'" despite ironically being racist, sexist and homophobic themselves.

Animal Wrongs Group: The Paleopitus, who combine this with fanatical eco-primitivism and a nightmarish neo-pagan religious cult.

Antagonistic Governor: Governor Hokem, who functions as a sort of Starter Villain for the Christian Marines to take on before the real uprising begins. He is not really very evil personally, so much as simply corrupt and a pawn of the special interests.

Anti-Air: Early after its secession, New England is light on air defenses, with the federal government dominating the air. It becomes a plot point when a lucky soldier with a MANPAD manages to shoot down an overconfident Navy F-35 that went in too low and slow.

Anti-Hero: Kraft and Rumford, the ideologist and leader of the Retroculture revolution and his chief lieutenant. Though they are the heroes of the story, and nicer than most of the massively monstrous villains, both are willing to use extreme measures to create and defend the Confederation.

Anti-Intellectualism: Downplayed. While Retroculture encourages literacy and scholarship, is very scientifically innovative and supports the teaching of the classical philosophy and culture of Western Civilization, the Retroculturists will only tolerate a certain subset of philosophy, and ban anything related to "Cultural Marxism," so they do not support complete intellectual openness. Despite this, according to Rumford there is a great cultural and scientific renaissance beginning by the end of the story . For certain values of "downplayed", unsurprisingly, as large numbers of intellectuals who don't toe the Retroculture party line are executed without trial (i.e. murdered).

Apocalypse Anarchy: Much of Pennsylvania descends into apocalyptic chaos as America falls, since there is no sufficiently strong unifying force to maintain order there, like the Christian Marines are in New England or the Landwehr in the Midwest.

Apocalypse How: America collapses after suffering roughly the following disasters: Political Correctness Gone Mad, federal tyranny, hyperinflation, superbug flus, and finally secession and civil war, culminating in the use of weapons of mass destruction on domestic soil. Then the country is wracked by general lawlessness, starvation and wars between the various successor states for years more to come. The complete death toll is never given, but must surely be in the tens of millions as an absolute minimum. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has its own problems, though these are sketched only vaguely.

Apocalyptic Logistics: Zig-zagged. Lind is more brutally honest than many writers about the consequences of general economic collapse (mass starvation and death, pandemics, heavy rationing and so on, and generally speaking, massively tanked living standards for everyone, including the wealthy), but the eventual recovery is probably still a little too quick and easy.

Appeal to Nature: The basis of Retroculture. As Kraft explains it, it is the antithesis of ideology, which distorts reality and thereby dooms its believers. According to him, Retroculture recognizes the facts of nature and builds constructively on them, which falls into a few obvious pitfalls considering they're the ones who get to choose what the facts of nature are.

Appeal to Tradition: Also a Retroculture mainstay, because of course it is.

Arc Words: The informal motto of the Christian Marines, which is often repeated—and fittingly so, as it sums up a good part of their philosophy as well as of the message of the book: Das Wesentliche ist die Tat. Rumford explains its meaning: Das Wesentliche ist die Tat: The Essential Thing is the Deed. Not the idea, not the desire, not the intention—the deed.

Arcadia: The Confederation is mainly an agrarian society, which is said to make it much more pleasant to live in than the urban one it replaces. Especially for African-Americans, with millions of them voluntarily leaving the horrible, crime-infested inner cities to make an honest living as sharecroppers, but it is true for most everyone else as well.

The Ark: The idea seems to be that Victoria is an island of stability and tradition during the collapse of civilization.

Armchair Military: The New Confederacy's military apparatus is presented as well-equipped, but lethargic and staff-heavy in the extreme. General Laclede lampshades it in a conversation with Rumford: Laclede: A most important question, Field Marshal Rumford. It is one which we have under study. Fourteen colonels in my G-3 section have been working on it for most of the summer. Those are all full colonels, I might add, not lieutenant colonels. We have more than fifty contractors and consultants supporting them. Confidentially - this is the first my own staff has heard of this, and I apologize for surprising them - President Yancey is thinking about appointing a Blue Ribbon Commission of retired senior officers to investigate the matter and give us the benefit of their recommendations. I can assure you, we are considering every possible aspect of the situation in the most thorough manner."

Armies Are Evil: Ultimately averted. Early in the story, this is very much the case, with the Federal military being useless political apparatchiks at best and corrupt gangsters in uniform at worst; only the militiamen are any good. However, after the collapse of the US, the Northern Confederation creates its own army, which is Good (or at least presented that way). It's still zig-zagged, however, since their army is still very militia-like. Professional armies are seemingly always evil in this setting; the more professional and high-tech, the more evil, culminating in Azania's completely network-centric military.

Armor-Piercing Question: Rumford arranges for the Blacks to kick off their coup and ethnic cleansing in Atlanta, confident that this will force the New Confederacy to finally act on their racial issues. Right up until the point someone asks him what his plan is if the government doesn't respond. After flailing around for an answer and asking Bill Kraft for help, they come around to nuking Atlanta.

Army of Thieves and Whores: Deconstructed in the Numero Uno Division. They are recruited from inner-city gangs as a sort of private army for the corrupt Secretary of Defense, and they are exactly as militarily ineffective and repulsively evil as you would imagine of a force of criminals given guns and uniforms.

Arrested for Heroism: When the Christian Marines attempt to sabotage the drug dealers' business with non-violent methods, many of their allies end up arrested by the corrupt authorities, who go for protecting the "rights" of the villains. This is one reason for why they increasingly drop the "non-" part later on.

Artificial Human: The new generation of Azanian children are this, having been cloned and grown in artificial wombs.

Artistic License  History: Studying history seriously leads Rumford to conclude that there is absolutely nothing truly new. All issues have already been debated by Greek philosophers, and even technology is just following tracks laid down by the time Napoleon was trying to conquer Europe. Serious examples of this come from the author himself, who describes America as the "freest" state in the world in the 1960s, something which Native Americans on reservations, black people suffering under segregation laws, people whose careers were destroyed by the Red Scare, and neocolonial subjects abroad would all disagree with.

Artistic License  Military: The Author Filibuster extends even here: in his non-fiction Lind insists that the US military has too many staff officers, doesn't study enough military history, and has forgotten the art of maneuver warfare, against all evidence to the contrary . This book includes: Live-fire infantry training with offset aim alone preventing casualties, modern warships destroyed with spar torpedoes, Russian T-34s as the ultimate tank design for rear area strikes which are apparently the sole purpose of tanks, antiquated 1950s radar easily spotting stealth bombers, etc. etc. Platoon strength militia units with no logistics or coordination with each other are upheld as vastly superior to existing military, to the point of being called upon to train the actual military. At one point, the protagonist shows his contempt for the established military by sleeping through a briefing containing such useless trivia as local politics, road and weather conditions.

Also the hero, John Rumford's, Establishing Character Moment as a young US Marine is interrupting a ceremony honoring the Corps' war dead rather than let a female Marine participate. No woman fought at Iwo Jima, he insists, so no woman has a right to speak the words and honor the dead. In reality, women have been a part of the USMC since 1918, served in combat areas since Vietnam, and as of the story's beginning have been full and equal parts of all save small unit ground combat for over twenty years. There are no male, female, white, black etc. Marines, only Marines. Besides, disrupting a remembrance ceremony is far more disrespectful than any imagined slight. Exactly none of these points come up when his CO chews him out and he gets discharged, only that a congresswoman is hounding him to be inclusive. If anything, his fellow Marines seem to respect his stand on the issue (despite the fact that doing this is approving of disrespect against far more fellow Marines both living and dead).

Crossing over with Artistic License  History, Rumford also asserts that no army that has included female front-line combatants has ever been successful. Hilariously considering the above-mentioned idolization of the T-34, the same war that produced said very fine tank also saw the Soviets field female snipers, machine-gunners, tank crew, and combat pilots, the latter including a very famous all-female bomber regiment . In all, ninety women received the Gold Star Medal and the title Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II, most for service in front-line combat. That's not even to mention the Israelis...

Artistic License  Physics: The EMP bomb is portrayed in a more than somewhat implausible manner. From the description, this seems to be a deliberate storytelling device.

As Long as There Is One Man: Bill Kraft's big speech to the effect that Prussia will never die, so long as men fight for her. "We were wiped off the map in 1947, but Prussia is more than a place. As Hegel understood, it is also an ideal. Prussians still exist, and so does the Prussian Army, a bit of it anyway. Now, its fighting again, here, for what it always fought for: for our old culture, against barbarism. Someday, we will win."

Ascended Fanboy: Terry, the former Marine aviator and aviation buff who made a fortune in real estate and fulfilled his dream—buying and restoring a real-life World War II jet bomber. He gets to use it, too, in the Confederate Civil War.

Assassination Attempt: Successfully carried out by Federal Government special forces operators against the Confederation's beloved Governor Adams. However, this doesn't break the rebellion; instead, it not only consolidates resistance, but paves the way for the hyper-competent and utterly ruthless William Kraft's rise to power.

Asshole Victim: The "Cultural Marxist" professors Kraft purges, who forced homosexuality and neo-paganism on their students. According to Rumford, everyone thinks it was a good deed to get rid of them. No one in the Confederation regretted the loss of the treasonous intellectual scum who, perhaps more than anyone else, bore the responsibility for what had happened to the old USA.

Likewise, the resistance leadership in Cascadia, proving to be only slightly less liberal and environmentally-conscious than the government they're fighting, have a bomb unceremoniously dropped on them by the protagonist, and none of the resistance fighters on the ground cared.

AstroTurf: Carried out by the Federal Government to appear more popular than they are, though as the system crumbles, they have to resort to increasingly crude methods. When they have to drum up a crowd to hear General Wesley's speech live when he takes over, they end up "paying every bum, drunkard and whore for miles around to turn out and cheer."

Attack Drone: Drone planes are used by the federal government, and later on by Azania, in realistic near-future roles.

Attractive Bent-Gender: The attractive crossdressers who seduce the villainous (but not homosexual) Governor Hokem and record this monkey business, thereby helping the Christian Marines destroy his political career. They are good enough at what they do for him not to realize their true nature until far too late, and to consider them "gorgeous" girls in the meantime.

Author Appeal: There are a lot of trains in this story. Guess who used to write about revamping public transport? Also Retroculture, which all Victoria spontaneously adopts.

Author Tract: The entire book can be read as William Lind's dream of waging war on all the (ethnic, political, lobbyist, what have you) interest groups he sees as ruining the country. Everyone who disagrees with the concept of Retroculture is either on the same side as the stereotypical enemy groups, or a member of the stereotyped enemy groups.

Authority in Name Only: General Wesley and his military government eventually become this, after most of their remaining troops desert them. They're still the (semi-)legitimate government of the United States—it's just that the United States no longer exists.

Awesomeness by Analysis: Rumford is often able to figure out what the enemy is doing from simple observation and the application of inductive/deductive logic. Granted, sometimes his analysis effectively amounts to Insane Troll Logic, but even then it often works.

Ax-Crazy: The Azanian and Cascadian leaders are not just fanatical, but downright crazy. Also the Aztecs, literally. Kraft deciding to purge Victoria of "Cultural Marxist" professors is one thing. It takes a special kind of crazy/evil to dress up the executioners as Knights Templar and slaughter them with swords and spears while Dies Irae plays in the background, all on live television.

Bad Boss: Several, but the Cascadian goddess is perhaps the worst. Her initial reaction to believing an order has been disobeyed is literally to look for a victim to have sacrificed.

Badass Army: The Confederation's rugged militias, which are able to defeat both the Feds and the Azanians, in spite of the great material superiority of the enemy. Somehow.

Badass Boast: Kraft's titanic speech against the Cultural Marxist subversives prior to their execution is a sort of heroic Knight Templar example. Of course, given that this is literally Nazi propaganda updated to the modern era, YMMV on this. The final lines:



"And that jurys sentence is death." "You are condemned, let me hasten to add, not by me alone, nor merely by those who live today in our Confederation. Your jury is every man and woman who for three thousand years has labored and fought and died for Western culture, the culture you sought to sacrifice to your own pathetic egos.

Badass Bookworm: Rumford. Ex-Marine, guerrilla leader, and eventually minister, diplomat and general of the most successful American successor state, who has books for his main interest and has read everything from Tacitus to Tolkien. From a slightly different perspective, Rumford is in exactly one firefight, to which he contributes nothing, and all of his victories are best explained by the enemy's juggling idiot balls. And his interpretations of many of the authors he has read is at times somewhat idiosyncratic.

Badass Bystander: The old woman who beats down an armed gangster with her umbrella.

Badass Creed: The Christian Marines have a semi-official motto, picked up from Imperial German strategists, that has already been mentioned: Das Wesentliche ist die Tat.

Badass Crew: The original Christian Marines before they become a larger militia, a brotherhood of military veterans determined to clean up their crime-infested neighborhoods together. And so it began, the Christian Marine Corps, the general staff for our side in the second civil war. I still have the piece of paper that went around the barroom table that day. It has twenty-two names on it. Seventeen of those men gave their lives in the war that was to come. I'm the only one left, now. But those who died did so knowing they'd made a difference.

Badass in a Nice Suit: When not in uniform, Kraft typically appears well dressed, often in tailor-cut, double-breasted suits.

Badass Preacher: Father Dimitri, the Russian priest who joins the Christian Marines. Before he became a missionary for the Russian Orthodox church, he was in the Russian Naval Infantry.

Baddie Flattery: Leader von Braun's high opinion of Rumford's military leadership, and at least some parts of his politics, is expressed this way.

Badges and Dog Tags: Most of the early Christian Marines (though not Matthews or Rumford himself) are military veterans presently employed as law enforcement officers in some capacity or other. Naturally, this also later aids their infiltration of the police forces.

Balkanize Me: The US splits into no less than five successor states, often separated by hundreds of miles of anarchic wasteland roamed by "orcs."

Be Careful What You Wish For: The whole plot is this, on one level. More or less every group of political extremists in the exaggerated future United States gets a chance to build up their version of Utopia the way they wish it were. But then Reality Ensues on them in varying degrees: the "PC liberal" utopia collapses into race riots; the "Green Luddite" utopia becomes, well, primitive in the extreme; the "Nazi" utopia promptly liberalizes when the people get to speak their mind; and so on.

Beauty = Goodness: Not played completely straight, but generally speaking, the villains are far less attractive than the heroes. There are some exceptions, like Captain Halsing and at least some of the Azanians, but generally speaking, these also tend to be the villains who also have at least some redeeming qualities otherwise.

Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Halsing provides a Rare Male Example by appearing unexpectedly clean and well-kempt after a long and arduous trek through the wilderness. This is specifically commented on, and showcases his competence and fastidious nature. More symbolically, it also illustrates the insistent neatness and orderliness his fascist state represents.

Became Their Own Antithesis: The United States, according to Rumford and his allies. Founded as a free republic based on the Constitution, Christianity and Anglo-Saxon culture, it eventually ended up a tyrannical, atheistic, multicultural cesspit (this is, of course, based on the assumption that "Give me your tired, your poor..." is antithetical to American values).

From another point of view, Rumford and the Christian Marines themselves, who were soldiers trained to fight for the United States Government and its liberal values, but turned against it and used their military skills to help bring it down instead.

Being Evil Sucks: Being a well-educated, high-flying lesbian Dark Action Girl in an evil high-tech, near-future society makes for an empty life and does not make you happy. True fulfillment is found in being married to a Christian gentleman in a good 19th-century-style society and working on his farm.

Being Good Sucks: If you're serious about it. While Rumford manages to change society very much for the better, at least from his own point of view, and receives due recognition for it, he is never quite satisfied with his achievements. He is also haunted by the bleakness of the past, what America suffered and what his own side had to do to achieve as much as they did. Though he would not have done anything differently if he had to do it again.

Being Human Sucks: Especially being a woman, at least from the Azanian POV. So they embrace transhumanism to eliminate "oppressive" human biology (such as pregnancy and motherhood) and become truly free.

Believing Their Own Lies: Rumford thinks this is true of most of the Confederation's enemies.

Benevolent Conspiracy: The Retroculturists, who secretly back the Maine First Party and the Christian Marines. There's also the Monarchist conspiracies abroad, which they're in touch with, that work to reinstate the Romanoff and Hohenzollern imperial families.

Berserk Button: You DON'T tell Kraft that he's fat. Or commit lese majesté against his beloved sovereign.

Big Bad: In a realistic touch, actually averted. With its numerous enemies, the Confederation faces many little and medium-sized bads, but there is no single evil mastermind behind all America's woes, just various crooks who do their best to take advantage of them.

Big Brother Is Watching: Citizens of Victoria are actively encouraged to spy on their neighbors and ostracize any who use hated modern technology. Notably this is not a government edict, but encouraged as a social norm, because local communities are supposed to be more moral and trustworthy than a state apparatus. Before it's fall, the federal government had definite shades of this with the anti-smoking laws and armed IRS agents kicking in doors and demanding receipts for every object in view.

Big Damn Villains: Early in the story (before the all-out collapse), the Christian Marines are making a perfectly good start in their low-key "war" against corrupt governor Snidely Hokem's regime, but are still well short of actually bringing him down. Instead, this is done by some effeminate gay characters, who dress up as women, get friendly with him, and get it on tape, which results in his ignominious resignation. So the right-wing heroes' first major victory is actually thanks to a couple of devious crossdressers doing their stuff. Alas, they don't get much credit for it later on.

Later, when chaos reigns, von Braun's Nazi militia restore order and ruthlessly clean out the cannibals and Cultural Marxists from the territories they control, leaving these areas peaceful and prosperous once their regime is eventually succeeded by a more moderate one. They do get some credit for their good deeds (such as they are) in the transitional phase.

Big Good: William Kraft, who unites the American Retroculturists, reactionaries and sympathetic right-wingers in general in the battle against Cultural Marxism and liaises with the movement's allies abroad.

The Big Rotten Apple: When New York joins the Northern Confederacy, Rumford has one requirement-they don't want "the Babylon on the Hudson." Fortunately, most New Yorkers don't care for the city either, and kick it out of their state. At one point, they even discuss selling it to Puerto Rico, though nothing comes of this.

Bilingual Bonus: Several German quotations aren't translated into English. At one point, Rumford begins loudly protesting his innocence (in a presumed prank) in French, and Kraft tells him to 'cut out that Froggy talk.'

Black-and-Gray Morality: The Confederation is very much Good Is Not Soft, and also very much not tolerant or politically correct by early 21st century standards, but their enemies are various flavors of cannibals, genocidal Luddites, tribalists, crazy religious cults, over-the-top leftist totalitarians and freaking Nazis, making them, at the very least, the lesser evil.

Black Humor: Examples abound, mainly in the form of extremely dark irony as the Christian Marines and their allies lampshade the horrible events they experience. Here's how one officer reacts to the infamous nuking of Atlanta: "I never did like that city."

Blah Blah Blah: Rumford is so bored by one military briefing, he naps, calling it the only productive use of his time.

Blatant Lies: Played straight by the villains, who lie endlessly in their propaganda. Averted by the heroes; they have their own spin doctors, but make sure to tell the people the truth. Rumford points out that this is really the smart as well as the honorable thing to do: Lies backfire when they are found out, whereas a true propaganda is invulnerable. The first rule of good propaganda is to make sure the facts are accurate.

Bling of War: The New Confederacy plays this completely straight, with gorgeous dress uniforms, sashes, orders and medals and general military pageantry appropriate to the Victorian period. Averted in the Northern Confederation, where uniforms are much less elaborate.

Blood on the Debate Floor: While not a legislature, the spirit is very much preserved when Kraft invites himself to a rally of liberal college professors, has one shot for trying to boo him off the stage, delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and has the remainder of the audience killed off by crusaders. To musical accompaniement.

Blue Blood: Rumford's love interest, Maria Mercedes de Dio de Alva, who is a descendant of one of the oldest and most distinguished families of Spain.

Bollywood Nerd: Christian Patel, the intelligence officer, is a stereotypical computer geek.

Book Ends: The novel begins and closes with the execution of a female bishop for heresy.

Bored To Sleep: Rumford falls asleep during an allied military briefing, to show his contempt for Military Bureaucracy, and remarks on the manners his hosts showed in not commenting on it.

Both Order and Chaos Are Dangerous: While order is better, even totalitarian order — since chaos equals oblivion —, too much of it becomes oppressive and dysfunctional, stifling the human spirit. The heroes attempts to chart out a middle course between the dangers of disintegration (e.g., the New South) on the one hand and too-regimented authoritarianism (e.g., the Landwehr) on the other, as they struggle to preserve and rebuild what they can of the dream that was America.

Bread and Circuses: America in the years before the collapse. As long as the food stamps continue to flow and TV keeps running, the Apathetic Citizens remain somnolent. When the government runs out of borrowed money to pay for the show, however, chaos ensues. Rumford and Kraft ensure that this can never happen again by eliminating all welfare handouts in the Confederation.

Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A large part of the horror of Victoria is how offhand a manner horrible things are brought up and left alone. For instance, after describing how race relations in Victoria work, including Blacks being forbidden from raising families in the cities, Rumford says you can drive through a peaceful rural community, and see the little Black children playing at recess from their one-room schoolhouses, you just might hear a popular song about how any criminal caught stealing will go straight to the hangman. Its always been true that children learn their lessons best at play.

When Rumford goes to visit Atlanta in the New Confederacy, he travels on a lovingly made, luxurious old-style steam train set, much like the Orient Express. Apart from the slightly eerie retro vibes, the only weird thing about the train is the name of the locomotive, revealed at the end of the chapter: The John Wilkes Booth.

Break Out the Museum Piece: Older is always better, because Retroculture. Thus Bill Kraft has no issues with his analog, vacuum-tube television set (despite the story starting over thirty years after the last analog broadcast in 2009). Of special note, the Tsar's T-34 WWII-surplus tanks are apparently the epitome of tank design because they're so reliable with great gas mileage ( they're really not) and should never engage in main battle anyways-tank tactics are meat for deep rear-area raids.

Broken Pedestal: Rumford has always believed in the US Marine Corps, but loses his faith in it when his CO sides with the feminists against him. He was always hostile to the corruption in Washington, but now he realizes that is has permeated the Corps as well. So he quits and begins his search for new ideals to believe in.

Brutal Honesty: William Kraft always tells it the way it is, or at least the way he sees it. Between friends, that is; he can be quite manipulative in his political schemes.

Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Governor Kraft is generally presented as a wise and beloved ruler, but his Prussianism is eccentric to say the least by ordinary American standards.

Burn the Witch!: The story begins and ends with the burning at the stake for heresy of a female Episcopalian bishop. She is contemptuous of her condemners throughout, and refuses to renounce her faith in Astarte, even though it would save her life.

Bury Your Gays: Averted in the narrow sense, in spite of the Confederation's strong anti-homosexuality policies, as the plot-significant gay characters either survive or have their fates Left Hanging. Played straight in another way with the war against Azania, however, which is basically this on a national scale.

Byronic Hero: Rumford, as a tragic, passionate romantic revolutionist who will do whatever it takes to bring about the Retroculture utopia.

Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards: In Cascadia, the Paleopitus depend on foreign mercenaries, mostly Swedes and Czechs, to protect their persons and enforce their rule.

Call to Agriculture: Rumford himself is a personal example. The people of Victoria also feel it, especially the blacks of the inner city urban wastelands.

Can't Get Away with Nuthin': You may think it's a little harmless fun to have a computer, or watch TV, or own a car that can go more than thirty miles on a full tank of gas, but you're actually contributing to the decline and fall of Western Civilization, and in Victoria you will be caught out and ostracized by your peers until you correct the deviant behavior.

Capital Offensive: Carried out by both sides in the Second Civil War. The Federal Government eventually try to advance on the Confederation capital in Augusta, Maine, while the rebels and their allies in the New Confederacy push on Washington, D.C. after this last-ditch effort fails.

Capitalism Is Bad: An article of faith for several of the villain factions. Averted in the Confederation, which does not dislike capitalism as such, though it does hate the Cultural Marxist bankers and stockbrokers of Wall Street, the Fed, and similar clusters of financial malignity.

Card-Carrying Villain: As presented by the story, the environmentalists, the feminists and even the Nazis are misguided, but they at least have various degrees of good intentions, however horrible the consequences of their ideologies turn out in practice. The Cultural Marxists, on the other hand, are driven purely by envious malevolence and spiteful hatred of all that is good, true and beautiful in their quest to subvert and destroy Western Civilization.

The Cartel: An even more horrible version than most, with gangsters worshiping the Aztec gods overtly taking over much of Mexico.

Central Theme: The alienating nature of present modernity, and how various ideologies and groups of people attempt to respond to it.

The nature of power, how it is earned and exercised, and how much of it is really illusory.

Human nature, its character and its malleability (or lack thereof), as well as the theory and practice of how "equal" men truly are in various ways.

The nature of war and the struggle for existence, what men will do to survive and the price they pay for it.

And finally, the power of Truth, which is the core theme that underlies them all. Truth and honesty set men free: an order built on untruth makes men miserable and will fail, one built on truth makes men glad and will endure.

Multiculturalism = bad. Many characters who aren't white, heterosexual, and male are portrayed as ridiculously over-the-top evil to progress the author's viewpoint.

The Chains of Commanding: William Kraft doesn't want to enter electoral politics initially, and though he stays on as Governor subsequently (because the country needs him), he is heavily burdened by his duties. Rumford views him with newfound respect when he considers the weight of his responsibilities. More than once during the wars I envied Bill his chateau campaigning. This night I realized chateaux can be cold and lonely places.

Character Filibuster: The book has a few, notably by William Kraft. The ultimate one is his speech on democracy and Retroculture late in the book, where he argues against those of his overzealous followers who want to scrap democracy in the Confederation and enshrine Retroculture in law by emphasizing his faith in the good moral sense of the common people.

Character Shilling: Rumford (and everyone else) is never less than effusive in his praise of Bill Kraft's genius and class. Rumford himself is called a powerful symbol of resistance to the corrupt order, and the greatest soldier of his time.

The Chessmaster: William Kraft is a heroic (or at least, aligned with the protagonists) example, staying abreast of the domestic and international situation through his private contacts and manipulating Confederation policy even before he becomes Governor.

Chessmaster Sidekick: Downplayed somewhat with Rumford. While he is not quite up to Kraft's level of the game, his political machinations that turn the Christian Marines from a dozen angry veterans meeting in a tavern to a major multi-State political machine remain extremely impressive by any realistic standard. And in the purely military realm, he is arguably Kraft's superior, at any rate certainly his equal, by the end of the story.

Church Militant: The Christian Marines explicitly fight for 'Judeo-Christian values' and the Order of St. Louis is formed as part of an effort to unite all of Christianity in a global war against Islam.

Church Police: The Christian Marines are explicitly formed with the goal of making the Ten Commandments the law of the land.

Cigar Chomper: Rumford, who even makes a point of it (in opposition to the past regime's totalitarian anti-tobacco policy).

Cincinnatus: Rumford, who is a farmer primarily and The Hero only while he is needed. Even invoked in-story.

The City vs. the Country: Lind is very, ah, firmly on the side of the country, viewing cities as a source of noise, filth and moral decay. Certainly all the Blacks exiled to country farms embrace their new lives with gusto.

Civil War: Obviously. Before states even start seceding, there is a shooting war over smoking bans.

Clark Kenting: When he travels in the South, Rumford counts on local-style clothes, glasses and suppressing his Maine accent to avoid being recognized.

Clock King: Downplayed somewhat with Azania, who do not have the clock motif, but a lot of the characteristics otherwise. Their centralized, super-computerized military has the best intelligence services in the setting, and a premade plan for almost everything—But little ability by most officers to think on their feet, which means that they perform poorly whenever their enemies manage to do something they did not predict.

Clone Army: Technically, Azania's armed forces are gradually becoming this. Subverted, in that the clones are individually designed by their parents, not made according to one template ordered by the military authorities, since cloning is Azania's normal mode of reproduction.

Colonel Badass: Herr Oberst Kraft of the Kaiserliche Preußische Armee in Exil, who leads his Panzerbataillon from the front in Berlinerblau dress uniform and Pickelhaube. Colonel Malone of the Azanian Air Force is said to be one, but we never see her fight.

Combat Pragmatism: The Christian Marines use hostages and human shields to great effect in the early stages of the war.

The Commandments: For the Christian Marines, the Constitution and the Ten Commandments are the foundations of American Civilization. Though they don't agree with many of the amendements to the Constitution, kicking out those. The Second Amendement, however, is of course even more carved in stone than the rest of the text. The commitment to the Constitution is somewhat questionable, not least because the founding, core ideals of the Christian Marines is to set the Ten Commandments as the law of the land.

Condescending Compassion: Rumford very genuinely feels sorry for the black community because of all their crimes, drug abuse and cultural poverty. After all, most victims of black crimes are fellow blacks.

Conditioned to Accept Horror: In the Azanian War, both sides consider the other to be this. The Victorians are horrified at what they see as Azania's unnatural, technological dystopia, where even children are decanted rather than naturally born, and marvel that anyone can live like this; the Azanians, meanwhile, think women in reactionary Victoria are little better off than slaves, and acquiesce in their sad fates only due to mind-numbing abuse.

Confusion Fu: Fourth Generation Warfare heavily incorporates this. The basic idea is to do what the enemy doesn't expect, and/or can't defend himself against.

The Conscience: Downplayed, since he's a quite ruthless military man himself, but Rumford sometimes tries to moderate Bill Kraft's more violent tendencies, for example arguing against the Dartmouth purge and the war against Azania. He is rarely successful, however.

The Conspiracy: Everything from the Declaration of the Rights of Man, to Madonna and rap music, to feminism, gay marriage and neopaganism is "Cultural Marxism", all part of a plot to weaken Western culture and morality and set the people up for a dictatorial communist-in-all-but-name state. note Never mind that the first entry was before Marx's birth. The UN (specifically UNESCO, which funds education and the arts) is a large part of this. It's unclear how Islam fits in, as Muslims are built up as the mortal enemies of all Christendom, but are pretty hostile to all these ideas themselves.

Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Roughly, the book's two major story arcs can be divided into "Before Apocalypse" and "After". The villains are quite different. In the first, Rumford and his allies fight against the US federal government, which is immensely powerful in theory, but terminally crippled by corruption, mismanagement, Insane Troll Logic economic policies and every conceivable sort of Political Correctness Gone Mad. As far as the raw resources available go, they can easily crush the Confederation on paper, but given how dysfunctional and increasingly fractured the country is becoming, they can only ever mobilize a fraction of their available forces against them, and often not make effective use even of those due to lack of will, political meddling or passive-aggressive sabotage from within.

Then, in the post-American chaos, the Confederation faces various enemies, but the most serious threats are Leader von Braun's neo-Nazi Midwestern state, and then the West Coast's Democratic Republic of Azania, which becomes the ultimate "villain" faction. The former is basically the Confederation's own dark mirror image, which takes its Right-Wing Militia Fanatic style much too far and straight into unambiguously evil (though efficient) extremes; the latter, meanwhile, is its ultimate ideological antithesis, a transhumanist Lady Land. Whereas the Feds were (with some exceptions) usually either incompetent or corrupt, these enemies are rather leaner and meaner, more of the No-Nonsense Nemesis and Elite Army variety, though each in turn in its own way: the Nazis have a truly excellent old-school military establishment, with well-organized logistics, good officers and doctrine and first-rate troops, while Azania has the most advanced high-tech military in the setting, employing drones, guided missiles, AI assistance for the staff and various other gadgets.

Cool Airship: Employed by the Confederation.

Corrupt Bureaucrat: Judge Frylass, who is the Boston gangsters' chief ally within the judicial system.

Corrupt Church: The church(es) in the Northern Confederation are viewed this way by the enemy nations. Internally, they are considered harsh but just defenders of Christianity against the Devil's works, much as is also the case with the secular government.

Corrupt Politician: Governor Hokem, as well as several others early in the story.

The Corrupter: As Kraft sees it, the Cultural Marxist academics, who attempt to break down Western Civilization by promoting egalitarianism, feminism, sexual nihilism and other ideologies that may feel good for the individual but invariably harm the greater, common good of society.

The Coup: Soon after independence, one is attempted by Governor Bowen himself, trying to overthrow the lawful government together with Deep Green militants.

Crapsack World: Halfway through the book, America is in post-apocalyptic chaos and most of the world is seeing similar degrees of disruption from wars, pandemics, terrorism and the collapse of global trade. With a few commendable exceptions, such functioning states as still exist are all various flavors of dictatorships, ranging from absolute monarchies to fascist dystopias. The ending is also absolutely this if you aren't a heterosexual white male (or even if you are one but don't agree with the book's ideology).

Crazy-Prepared: Kraft always has a plan. When the Deep Greeners revolt, he not only knows about it before the government, he also has a non-violent (or non-lethal, at least) solution ready for the crisis.

Cruel and Unusual Death: When the Muslims occupy Boston, all Christians who refuse to renounce their faith are crucified.

Crushing the Populace: The Federal Government, in its terminal stages. The Confederation also offer a few heroic examples of their own, since they believe in thoroughly pacifying enemy territories once conquered.

Culture Clash: Present from the introduction and periodically reaffirmed. Though in this novel there is only the true and good (Christian, European) culture, and all the forces scheming to destroy it, the "Cultural Marxists" consisting of an odd bunch of liberals, feminists, LGBTQ, academics, journalists, environmentalists, actual communists and federalists.

Culture Police: The creation of such is rejected, lest government become too intrusive. Instead, people are encouraged to ostracize those who fail to adhere to Retroculture.

Cultured Badass: Rumford, who has studied history, philosophy and literature, appreciates classical music and writes haiku, and is also a former Marine, eventually literal crusader knight, and recognized as the greatest general of his times.

Cunning Linguist: In addition to his native English, Rumford knows German, and apparently at least a little Spanish, Latin, and Russian. Justified at least in part by his military education and experience, as well as his private interest in the classics. William Kraft likewise knows German and French, and tends to pepper his dialogue with European quotes and idioms.

Curbstomp Battle: Pretty much anytime the Northern Confederation/Victoria fights anyone. Special notice must be given to the Numero Uno division, which was surrounded and surrendered with barely a shot fired, the air battles with Azania wherein female pilots often panicked and fled or crashed when faced with any opposition, and the Battle of Seabasticook, where federal troops are ambushed and captured by plaid-dressed militiamen clinging to the underside of a bridge.

Cure Your Gays: The Azanians who surrender are cured of their lesbianism and feminism by Mrs. Bingham's women's auxiliary, so as to be fit for life in the Confederation. It is offhandedly mentioned that the ones that do not change get sold to the Muslims as slaves. Rumford elaborates his position as not really caring if people are gay, as long as they're not public about it and don't expect acceptance of their vile lifestyle.

Dark Messiah: Rumford becomes a heroic (or rather anti-heroic) example, once he really begins his journey to greatness. In his early characterization, he is mostly just frustrated and confused by the Political Correctness Gone Mad of the dystopian setting; then he takes his first step by immersing himself in Greek philosophy and reactionary literature under the guidance of Professor Sanft. When he joins the Christian Marines, and especially once he comes under William Kraft's influence, everything begins to fall together. Realizing his previously untapped phenomenal charismatic potential, Rumford takes over the tiny group of right-wing veterans and transforms it, over a couple of years, into a secret society that infiltrates the police, government and military and builds up major political clout, including a regular political party. Once a major economic crisis comes along, he is ready to act and lead his men as the vanguard of the revolution to bring in the new utopia promised by Retroculture.

Dark Shepherd: Kraft is this to the Confederation, in between purging the Marxists and enforcing Retroculture through peer pressure in the critical early stages of the revolution. He is successful, according to Rumford, making the Confederation a utopia that thrives long after his own death.

Dawn of an Era: Several, usually heralded by Kraft's mighty speeches. The ultimate one is probably that which inaugurates the mature Retroculture system in the final chapters. The prologue makes it clear that Rumford, at least, marks the dawn of the Reclamation by the burning of the woman bishop for heresy (she was a woman, who claimed to be a bishop). Though the ending did elaborate that she denied the divinity of Jesus Christ and rejected the authority of her fellow bishops to judge her.

In the last chapter, every faction of Christianity lays aside their differences, the most visible religious leaders in a mutual laying of hands ceremony, to declare a global war to drive Islam out of the Mediterranean.

Days of Future Past: Between Retroculture and the monarchist revival, Victoria has strong tendencies toward this.

Death by Cameo: Jane Fonda appears briefly just to die in a nuclear fireball.

Death by Racism: Either inverted or played straight by the Federal Government, depending on your point of view, due to the Afrocentric Secretary of Defense, whose prejudices result in resounding and humiliating defeat (and death).

Decisive Battle: The battle with the Numero Uno Division, which largely decides the Civil War in favor of the fledgling Confederation and makes a major contribution toward the unraveling of the Federal Government as a whole.

Deconstruction: Of the techno-thriller genre as usually written by Tom Clancy and his epigones. Whereas in such stories the glories of American technology will usually win the day against the Commies/terrorists/Japanese/whatever, Victoria has the high-tech in the hands of a villainous and dystopian near-future American regime, and builds on recent anti-government insurrections in real life to have the low-tech and generally resource-poor freedom fighters win in spite of their underdog status.

Deep South: After the central government falls, there arises a restored New Confederacy which invokes every related stereotype. Unfortunately, it is itself wracked with civil strife at first- between the "New South" who favor modern life and a system much like the defunct US, and the "Old South" which is agrarian and set in older traditions. With Rumford's help, the Old South definitively wins out.

Defensive Feint Trap: The primary defensive tactic of the Christian Marines is not to hold their borders, but draw the enemy in and ambush them. This works to great effect at the Battle of Seabasticook, and later (on a strategic scale) against the Numero Uno Division.

Defiant Captive: The elderly Mrs. Lodge, when captured by the Islamic militants and forced to convert or die. She makes it very clear that she will not convert—calmly and politely, of course, as a lady ought to, but all the same. Also the female Episcopalian bishop in the prologue, Cloaca Devlin, who professes to worship Astarte and Isis rather than Christ, yet still claims she is a Christian. She is not polite, however, but swears and spits at the officials who supervise her trial for heresy. Eventually, she is burned at the stake for her crimes. In spite of the similarity between their own religious intolerance and that of the Islamists, the Victorians are never presented as wrong for doing this.

Defiant Stone Throw: Rumford is portrayed as offering a non-violent example of this early in the story, when he refuses to accept that women have any business in the USMC. For boldly and frankly indicating as much at the Remembrance ceremony, and refusing to apologize when his politically correct CO leans on him, he is discharged. Most of his fellow Marines are said to agree with him, but few dare to publicly support him for fear of the same.

Dehumanization: Carried out by all sides in most of the wars. In the civil war, the federal government dehumanizes the New England secessionists as irredeemable racists, terrorists, bigots, etc; the Christian Marines in turn dehumanize the politically correct leaders as depraved madmen, and their gangster foot soldiers as worthless "orcs". The reader would appear meant to agree more with the latter.

Dehumanizing Insult: Violent criminals and other and other persons of similarly worthless moral character are "orcs". These are mostly members of minority groups, with even the Nazis getting more respect in the narrative.

Deliberate Values Dissonance: While many of the villains are simply greedy and corrupt hypocrites, the Landwehr and the Azanians both have reasonably coherent ideologies, though they still look alien and "evil" to Rumford and his allies. The former follow a version of Nietzschean philosophy that idealizes strength, will, heroism and racial purity (in opposition to borgeouis, Christian values), whereas the latter are transhumanist separatist feminists trying to build a Themyscira-like society.

Delivery Guy Infiltration: When the secessionist commandos attack the Federal air force base early in the story, one of the devices they use is a beer truck with faked credentials to get some operatives past the outer security grid.

Democracy Is Bad: Some of the Retroculturists believe this, arguing that as soon as the masses get comfortable with the franchise in any society, they'll become corrupt and just vote for Bread and Circuses, with no regard for the common good. Rumford thinks they sort of have at least half a point, but never goes beyond Democracy Is Flawed, himself, thinking any sort of authoritarian regime would be even worse. Meanwhile, Kraft successfully defies this, arguing down their anti-democracy position with an emotional speech emphasizing his belief in the basic goodness of the common man.

Democracy Is Flawed: Both the corrupt procedural democracy of the late Federal government and the direct democracy of the Confederation are shown to have their problems. The former leads to dysfunction, chaos and, ultimately, social collapse; the latter is not quite as destructive, but nevertheless allows the white majority population to run roughshod over the human rights that racial minorities typically enjoy in more liberal democracies, implementing Draconian laws against black criminality and unconditionally deporting rioting Puerto Ricans out of the country.

Demonic Possession: Rumford explains the erratic behavior of the female neo-pagan bishop this way. The deadpan writing makes it somewhat unclear whether this is to be understood literally or as one more example of his dark humor.

Depraved Homosexual: The "nicest" LGBTTQQIAAP people seen are manipulative crossdressers and violently misandristic lesbians. It only gets worse from there on. In particular, during the Maine Arc, it is strongly implied that the organized gay lobby is made up largely of pedophiles who want nothing more than unrestricted access to other people's children for sinister purposes.

Destination Defenestration: One of the corrupt federal officials is thrown out of a window and killed by a mob of angry citizens.

Destructive Saviour: Rumford and his local Neo-Confederate allies, for nuking Atlanta to defeat a local uprising and make a strong statement.

Determinator: Hauptsturmfuehrer Halsing never gives up, as his dramatic escape from Confederation captivity proves.

Determined Homesteader: Rumford tries to be one, initially, after leaving the Corps, by reclaiming his ancestral flooded lands for a small farm. However, government bureaucrats sabotage his every effort through obstructionist environmental regulations.

Diesel Punk: The setting increasingly becomes this, as modern high-tech items are worn out and replaced. On the other hand, this also means that the "heroes" get to use some pulpy Super Science, as well.

Digging Yourself Deeper: Rumford in the early chapters, when he is dragged before Colonel Ryan to answer for his anti-feminist prank. Instead of faking contrition, he attempts to justify himself by denouncing feminism in the Corps. That goes about as well as might be expected.

Dirty Commies: The Marxists in the story, needless to say, are villains. Rumford thinks the Communists are even worse than the Nazis, not least because they killed many more people. Of course, as "Cultural Marxists" liberal academia shares in responsibility for these crimes. As a butcher and a tyrant, Hitler ran a distant second to Stalin. That didnt excuse him, but I found it difficult to put a higher moral value on six million Jews than on eight million Ukrainian Christians, not to mention the other 52 million killed by Soviet communism. Or the 78 million Chinese and Tibetans killed by its Maoist strain. Though through "Cultural Marxism" the definition of "communism" seems to have stretched to encompass all manner of people Rumford doesn't like, primarily leftist intellectuals, feminists and all forms of multiculturalism.

Disaster Democracy: The Confederation, though it is a democracy only in the sense that political decisions are submitted to the vote, not that they necessarily guarantee any universal human rights, as most democracies are nowadays commonly expected to do.

Disproportionate Retribution: So many examples, Victoria could swap its subtitle for "Disproportionate Retribution: The Book." Every villain faction justifies its atrocities as retribution for one sort of historic injustice or another. The US Government starts by sending in militarized federal police to subdue Mainers who do not want newly paroled federal convicts as neighbors, and becomes increasingly totalitarian as it decays, beginning to randomly confiscate the movable property of targeted citizens who cannot show a paper trail for every item. As the Civil War escalates, they stoop to assassinating Confederation leaders and de facto excusing murder and rape by their colored troops as justified revenge on whites for structural racism and oppression. Similarly, in the New Confederacy, "Big Daddy" Tsombe ravages all of New Orleans to strike back against historical white supremacy, and the leaders of the Commune in Atlanta launch a genocide of whites and Asians for the same reason after they take over. Among the later successor states, Cascadia punishes even minor environmental misdemeanors with bizarre tortures, while Azania jails any man who so much as jokes about their system in public, and tries to exterminate all of North America with nuclear weapons when they lose the war against the Confederation.

The good guys themselves also indulge in it. Beginning with a federal judge tarred and feathered for ruling against the heroes, the governor kidnapped and forced to wait out his term as a prisoner on a boat for ignoring a grassroots recall petition, and culminating in soldiers who fight Victoria taken as hostages, war criminals hanged without trial, or Azanian diehards sold into Sexual Slavery, nuclear retribution to a major insurgency and genocide in Atlanta, apocalyptic plagues in revenge for the Caliphate's bioplague attacks, and wars to the extinction of whole cultures and peoples (again, Azania).

Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: First appears in the mouth of Professor Sanft, who introduces Rumford to the concept of a culture war and cultural Marxism. Both Rumford and Kraft smoke pipes as well, though Rumford tends to prefer cigars.

Divide and Conquer: The primary strategy of the Northern Confederation is to stand back and let the enemy collapse under their own multicultural differences and incompetence. Aided by the odd quiet military intervention.

Divided States of America: After the fall of the Federal Government, this becomess the basic premise of the story.

Do Not Go Gentle: The Azanian leaders, when facing defeat by the Confederation, prefer launching a full-scale nuclear suicide strike to surrendering.

Do with Him as You Will: After capturing the war criminals of the Numero Uno Division, Rumford wants to put them on trial. Kraft offers the simpler solution of merely turning them over to their former victims, the inhabitants of the towns they ravaged, and letting them do the rest.

Does Not Like Men: Azania, as a whole. Rumford and his peers outright state their belief that not only they, but most feminists are either lesbians or women who were romantically hurt and turned bitter towards men.

Does This Remind You of Anything?: Rumford's early career (charismatic military veteran founding a tiny populist political party that grows explosively, lecturing on propaganda and organization, building a militia to clean up in a chaotic society and finally launching a political coup) bears more than a passing resemblance to Adolf Hitler's first few years in politics, even concerning some specific incidents and items. Given the author's demonstrated great interest in European history otherwise, this is unlikely to be entirely coincidental. Granted, Rumford's right wing libertarian-ish ideology is quite different from fascism, and he spells out his disagreements with Nazi thought at length when he and Kraft discuss politics with Halsing later in the book... Though he still considers the Landwehr Nazis more of a Worthy Opponent than the liberals he fought earlier.

Don't Create a Martyr: As part of his lessons on effective propaganda, Rumford emphasizes that martyring enemies is extremely bad optics. If someone must be executed, it should be done in such a way that he gets no chance to become one, either by vilifying or humiliating him as appropriate so no one will sympathize with him, or else just merely having him disappear quietly, without attribution. Also, less ruthlessly, he prefers a convert to a victim, and pardons several enemies who are genuinely contrite and willing to switch sides.

Double Standard: The Confederation actively enforces early 20th century social structures and expectations, leading to a fair amount of this.

The Dragon: General Wesley, Army Chief of Staff and later Chairman of the JCS, is one to President Warner in the first part of the book, and shows certain Starscreamish tendencies. After Warner and his cabinet are killed in a very suspicious-looking terrorist attack, he briefly becomes the Dragon Ascendant.

Drugs Are Bad: As Rumford explains. And in the Confederation, the penalty for any drug-related crime is death.

Dystopia Is Hard: But apparently worthwhile, Rumford writes quite the paen to how the hardships or poverty and want in Victoria scour away the sin, decadence and delusions of the Old United States. Noting in particular the rise of churches throughout the countryside and the tearing down of all modern architecture. However, the hardships are merely a temporary phase in the Confederation's nation-building, with Retroculture soon ensuring a prosperous and thriving economy.

Dystopia Justifies the Means: The motivation of the Cultural Marxists, who want to make society as dysfunctional and depressing as possible out of sheer, inexplicable hatred for Western Civilization and its traditional peoples. Averted by all other villains, who tend more toward either more down-to-earth selfishness and greed, or (surprisingly, more often) various flavors of flawed but sincerely held Well-Intentioned Extremist ideas.

Dystopian Edict: After being taken over by megalomaniacs, the Cascadian Paleopitus outlaws laughter, judging that it unduly wastes air, one of Nature's precious treasures

Eagle Squadron: The New Confederacy contributes the Jefferson Davies Brigade to the Northern Confederation's war with Azania: a unit of volunteers on leave from its regular army, paid for by conservative Confederate women who oppose Azania's Feminist regime. Meanwhile, the Mexicans send troops to assist Azania—Though not because they like the feminism, they just hate the Confederation.

And prior to this, the Imperial Japanese Navy leased out a (very) nominally private carrier task force to the Confederation as part of a proxy war with China.

Despite being, theoretically, non-expanionist and anti-interventionist after filling up their "natural borders," Victoria still sends Rumford abroad as a military consultant to fix the racial issues in the South, and bring down Cascadia.

Also, at the end the Tsar abdicates his position to lead a new knightly order in a global crusade to drive Islam out of the Mediterranean. Christians from around the world flock to his banner, any sectarian issues dealt with after various church leaders forgive each other.

Easy Evangelism: To an absurd degree. Police are easily converted by the Christian Marines and feed them intelligence. All good and right-thinking people embrace Retroculture without hesitation. The mass votes for Kraft or military intervention never ever go the wrong way. May be partially justified by the groundswell of discontent with the Federal Government. Also after Azania's defeat. The all-female population of this Amazonian state is previously shown to hate and fear all men, to the point that they launch anti-male genocides and would rather commit suicide by nuke than surrender to the Confederation. It's not quite consistently portrayed, but generally speaking, until now nearly all of them have very much appeared to consider submission a Fate Worse than Death. However, before long most have been rehabilitated, and want to be proper and feminine women. Subverted a little, in that there are some die-hards, but they are still said to be quite few—Far fewer than one might expect, given Azania's prior fanaticism.

Easy Logistics: The military of the Northern Confederacy explicitly disdains communication and logistics staff in favor of light infantry companies operating independently. Somehow, nobody starves or runs out of ammunition.

Emergency Authority: The short-lived military government which precedes the full ascension of Retroculture.

Emergency Presidential Address: Several. Here is one by President Yancey of the New Confederacy, announcing the nuking of Atlanta: "Fellow citizens, today your government did what had to be done. We could tolerate this sedition no longer. We regret that it had to come to this, to the destruction of a Southern city. But the choice was made by the New South, which was determined to destroy our Southern culture and replace it with the weakness and decadence of the former United States. We did not escape from that enemy in order to become it. Confederate forces are now moving to restore the authority of this government throughout the South. From here forward, there is only one South, the Old South, the True Confederacy."

Emotionless Girl: Maria is a sympathetic version, not so much weird or socially inept as simply quiet and reserved. It seems the massive tragedies she has endured throughout her life have given her a sort of objective, philosophical way to view life that allows her to endure most anything with stoic calm.

The Emperor: Czar Alexander is both King ("Czar") and Emperor of All the Russias.

The Empire: In this future history, the United States, which has become a blind juggernaut of oppressive collectivism and Cultural Marxism.

Enemy Civil War: Technically, the Nor Con/Victoria are one of the rebel factions, but the Feds must deal with many more insurrections great and small. The various rebel factions don't really coordinate with each other, though a Nor Con strike on Washington opens the way for a New Confederacy invasion.

Enemy Mine: The patriarchal Mexicans ally with the Lady Land Azania, because both states hate and fear their common enemy, the Confederation, more than each other.

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: Averted. When the heroes have to torture enemy agents for information, they're honest with themselves and call what they do by its right name.

Enigmatic Minion: General Wesley. Was he responsible for the death of almost the whole Administration in a very weird-looking terrorist attack, or was he really its last major loyal supporter? Is he a mere power-hungry tyrant, or just a stolid patriot who blindly keeps fighting for national unity long after everyone else realizes it is dead and buried for good?

Equal-Opportunity Evil: The federal government, even to the point of incompetence, since it recruits both soldiers and, apparently, cabinet-rank officers mainly on affirmative action criteria. Averted by the Nazis, obviously, as well as the Azanians, who are literally racist against men.

Escape Artist: Halsing demonstrates his skill at this when he picks the lock on his leg irons and escapes Confederation captivity .

Establishing Character Moment: For Rumford, his hijacking of a ceremony in the Corps to preserve the honor of the Iwo Jima veterans from what he considers feminist propaganda, mentioned in the introduction on this page. It shows him as a brave man willing to risk it all to stand up for what he believes in, but also establishes him as an old-fashioned and anti-feminist Politically Incorrect Hero. For the Christian Marines in general, the book opens with them executing a female Episcopalian bishop for heresy.

Even Evil Has Standards: Homosexuals are seen as villains by default by Kraft, but "even" most of them don't like homosexual pedophiles. Also the federal government, which is totalitarian and corrupt, but (sometimes, though not consistently) tries to limit civilian losses from its military actions.

Everyone Is Armed: Except the women, since most people agree that guns are unfeminine. Apart from such cultural inhibitions, the right to keep and bear arms is completely uninfringed in the Northern Confederation, and open carry is commonplace.

Everything's Better with Samurai: Since Japan has also embraced its own variant of retrofuturism, the samurai ethos and ideal is strong with the Japanese officers Rumford meets and liaises with. Like typical Corporate Samurai, they make use of modern technology and even clothing, but also of (ceremonial) katana swords and bushido.

Everything Is Online: Defied by Kraft, who bans computers from the Confederation government as a security measure: This way, no one will be able to hack him. The trade-off in efficiency is acceptable, since computers are overrated, anyway.

Everything Is Racist: Played straight early in the story, when the politically correct government is still in charge. Averted later on, when the people enthusiastically back Kraft's very tough policies against blacks and Hispanics, which most people most likely would consider racist in real life.

Evil Counterpart: The neo-nazi Captain Halsing to Rumford. Both are officers and amateur philosophers, as well as the personal emissaries of their leaders and determined and ruthless proponents of their respective ideologies.

Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: The World Islamic Council note completely disregarding the bloody disagreements between various sects of Islam) (made up of every Muslim nation from Morocco to Egypt to Saudi to Iran to Pakistan to Bangladesh to Indonesia,

Evil Luddite: Cascadia and the Deep Greens, who mix radical eco-anarcho-primitivism with a bizarre neo-pagan cult. In some ways, the Confederation themselves can be viewed as an American, Conservative Christian version of the Khmer Rouge, though as depicted in the book it has no domestic genocides note on the other hand they have a streak of Anti-Intellectualism , especially regarding social sciences, to the point of violently purging academics deemed politically undesirable Super Science), initiate a voluntary pledge (with strong social pressure to conform) not to use most forms of modern telecommunications such as cell phones or computers (save for a handful mainly used to hack enemy nations) and limit most of their economic output to agrarian farming practices. Said practices require millions of (African-American) city dwellers to leave for the countryside, though this is also done voluntarily. They also consider poverty a way to cleanse one of one's sins.

Evil Power Vacuum: After the final downfall of the corrupt United States government, every little group with men and weapons tries to stake out its territory, and the more powerful ones go after their neighbors. Eventually, bigger and fewer successor states capable of responsible government coalesce out of the anarchy through simple Darwinian selection, but not before millions have perished in the holocaust.

Evil Reactionary: The enemies of Retroculture consider William Kraft and his movement to be this. His vision is to restore the social dynamics and values of the (rural) 1930s on a nationwide basis; some aspects of this include the utter annihilation of anything and everything defined as Cultural Marxism, the replacement of atheist TV with Christian novels, and the return of women from what he considers unfeminine and degrading paid employment to their proper place in the domestic, feminine sphere of family and home.

Evil Vegetarian: The Deep Green fanatics, who would rather starve (or at least force others to starve) than kill even a single animal.

Evil Versus Oblivion: At one point, Rumford considers the war between Halsing's Nazis and the savage tribes they are fighting to be this. The Nazis are building their own flavor of a lock-step totalitarian state, which is bad, of course, but if the anarchists win, they will destroy society completely and leave only the Stone Ages behind, if that.

Evil Virtues: The Nazis are efficient, hard-working, orderly and loyal. If Halsing is any indication, they also foster dignity and politeness. The Deep Greeners (the rank and file, if not their corrupt leaders) care about animals and nature, if nothing else. And at least some Azanians are quite brave, with even badly undertrained pilots readily taking to the air to help try beating back the Victorian invasion.

Evil Will Fail: The fundamental hope of Rumford and his allies, and ultimately also the message of the book. While the federal government, military-industrial complex, Wall Street financial oligarchs and liberal mainstream media giants look formidable and unbeatable, they are in fact already corroding under the very weight of their own corruption and reality-denying ideologies. And they will only get weaker as they degenerate further and become more oppressive and tyrannical, leaving freedom's victory assured so long as good men have remained to organize and prepare for the day of opportunity.

Exact Words: Rumford said he would send a plane for the Cascadian Resistance leaders when the capital fell, and he did. He sent it to bomb them.

Exalted Torturer: Downplayed with Rumford, who doesn't torture anyone himself, but approves and even attends the torture of the Delta Force operators who murdered Governor Adams. This is treated very much as Dirty Business, but still portrayed as right.

The Exile: The ultimate fate of all non-Christians, tech-users or Puerto Ricans in Victoria.

The Extremist Was Right: Kraft and Rumford's Retroculture ideal is widely considered as extreme early in the story. But author fiat ensures they end up completely vindicated by history, with the Confederation the most successful of the American successor states, and a virtual utopia of simple and happy agriculture combined with a scientific and industrial power-house. By the end of the story, they have unbeatable weapons, cold fusion, and are leaders in the production of airships, and all domestic problems have been solved...through millions of dead bodies and a severe loss of modern civil liberties.

False Flag Operation: There is speculation, but never any confirmation, that the freakishly successful terrorist attack that killed the President, VP, Speakers of both Houses and most of the Cabinet was not the act of a lone-wolf militant. General Wesley and the Christian Marines both had excellent motives to get rid of the people in charge, though both also deny any involvement.

False Utopia: Azania, with a working high-tech economy and tolerance for liberals, gays, etc., looks quite utopian to many mired in the post-apocalyptic poverty and need of the setting, in spite of its horrible politics. It draws great numbers of immigrants and refugees from the other states, even as others also flee from their repression. Rumford and Kraft aren't fooled, but realize that others are being duped into supporting the Azanians' ideas. Which is one reason they decide to attack and destroy the country.

Famous-Named Foreigner: The Nazi leader is named von Braun .

Fan of the Past: Rumford is a history expert, and often references military and political debates of the 1980s and 1990s to illustrate various points he makes concerning present-day affairs. Also, he and Kraft literally attempt to recreate the past (something like the early 20th century) in the Confederation.

Fantastic Rank System: The Landwehr, who appear to copy the arcane real-life Waffen-SS military ranks structure and nomenclature lock, stock and barrel.

Fantastic Slurs: Inverted. Rumford refers to criminals (usually black and Hispanic ones, which seems to give it a racial tinge) as Orcs; i.e., anti-social humans are named for a species of fantastic creature.

Fascist, but Inefficient: The clerico-fascist Cristero faction in Mexico, which fights against the Aztecs. As Maria explains it, this is due to the country's Latin temperament: No one will ever take any initiatives of his own, or do any more work than he absolutely has to, and everyone will squabble among themselves as soon as the caudillo turns his back. By contrast, averted with the Nazis, who have Germanic Efficiency. As shown in the meeting with a Nazi representative, Rumford's foremost objection to Nazism is their love of modernism and the soulless industrial efficiency with which they do what he was already doing with Germanic Efficiency. As opposed to, you know, the Nazi stuff.

Faux Action Girl: The Azanian military. Lampshaded, in that Rumford knows they are this, even if they don't.

Fauxshadowing: Lind builds up the Nazis as a powerful enemy, and seemingly the major threat in the setting after the last hold-outs of the old Feds are defeated. However, they're ultimately brought down mostly offscreen, leaving the Confederation's back free for the fight with Azania .

Felony Misdemeanor: Relatively speaking. To deal with the rampant inner-city crime wave, the Confederation legislates that blacks suspected of violent crimes are to be tried by drumhead court-martial, and any found guilty are to be publicly hanged. According to Rumford, this does indeed somehow solve the crime problem, and the law rarely has to be applied, since the salutary effect of the first few hangings does most of the work.

Feminine Women Can Cook: When first coming to Bill Kraft's home, Rumford is amazed to find his wife there in a dress with a home-cooked meal. Also Maria.

Feminist Fantasy: Subverted. Azania would be the perfect faction for one, with a character like Colonel Malone as the protagonist — only here, the Azanians are villains and the conservative Confederation presented as the "good" guys.

Femme Fatale Spy: Governor Bowen's mistress, Miss Levine, who works as a spy and agent of influence for the Deep Greeners.

Feudal Future: Averted in Victoria itself, which remains a free republic, but present worldwide. Germany and Russia both become real empires with emperors again following the social collapse, and Great Britain and Japan both appear to emphasize their imperial nature much more than they presently do in real life.

Fictional Currency: The Pine Tree Dollar, issued by the State of Maine years before secession, to no real consequences.

Fictional Political Party: The Maine First Party that the Christian Marines launch as their public "front" group. It takes off like a rocket in response to several especially visible local political abuses, and soon has counterparts/daughter chapters in other states as well.

Fighting for a Homeland: The Imperial Prussian remnants are struggling to restore the old German Empire, so they can finally return home and return the rightful Kaiser to the throne.

First-Person Perspective: The story is retold by Rumford in a sort of memoir, describing in detail the scenes where he was present and summarizing developments where he wasn't.

Flaw Exploitation: The key to the Christian Marines' success. Early on they use the very obstructionism of the bloated government bureaucracy against them, and also showcase the hypocrisy of the politically correct villains, thereby demoralizing their followers. Later, they count (successfully) on the frictions between the fairly grounded and realistic enemy military leaders and the more politicized civilian government to ensure a public relations nightmare on their part in the battle for New York.

Foil: Halsing to Rumford. They share a common military background, as well as a philosophical and idealistic temperament, but whereas Rumford is a staunch believer in Christianity, democracy and Retroculture, Halsing is equally devoted to Nietzschean philosophy and technocratic Nazism. Also, unlike Rumford, he is well-polished and polite. For Rumford, it is eerie to meet an enemy who is so much like himself, in some ways arguably better than himself, and yet the very embodiment of his own ideological antithesis. This leads to an unspoken Not So Different moment.

For Your Own Good: Retroculture is so good that everyone in the Confederation must follow it. Those who don't will find themselves under increasing social pressure until they either cave, run out, or are burned at the stake. Though in the setting, all factions are more or less like this about their ideologies (and usually "more" rather than "less").

Founder of the Kingdom: The Confederation effectively has two. Governor John Adams was the first head of state of the independent Confederation, and is remembered as a great leader in war who is celebrated in various ways (for example, a supercarrier is named for him). However, William Kraft is widely considered the real founder of the nation. Kraft was one of Adams's lieutenants in the war for independence, ruled for several decades after succeeding him (with the brief Bowen interregnum in between), consolidated and secured the new state, and established Retroculture as its national ideology. By the end of the story, he is the object of a veritable Cult of Personality.

Four-Star Badass: Field Marshal Rumford. After a distinguished career in the Marines (cut short by evil politicians and their puppets), he spearheads a revolution, leads several brilliant campaigns from the front, and personally hunts down the rogue Cascadian leaders as they try to escape the rebel army.

Fox News Liberal: Mrs. Bingham and the other "strong women" on the Confederation's side. They appear to be intended to show that women in the Confederation aren't oppressed, and do have agency and power, which sort of works (to a point)—But they seemingly only ever use that agency to push anti-feminist agendas.

Friend in the Black Market: The Yakuza are contacted, indirectly, by Rumford while in Japan to smuggle a bomb into Shanghai. Thus, later when the Chinese are threatening nuclear war, a ship in their harbor blows up, with the clear implication that they could have smuggled a nuke in just as easily. This causes the Chinese to back down.

Friend to All Living Things: Captain Halsing is untroubled by the wilderness, and even Rumford's guard dog won't attack him, since it can sense his friendly purpose. Untypical for the stereotype, in that he is otherwise a polite but stone-cold, serious commando.

Friendly Enemy: Captain Halsing approaches this, even after Kraft orders him thrown in irons. Having to fight and risk your life to get out is part of the job, after all, nothing to take personally, and it was still nice of Rumford to offer him a cup of coffee first...

From Camouflage to Criminal: As rebels against the tyrannical and corrupt Federal Government, the veterans who join the Christian Marines are technically criminals, and this is certainly how their enemies see them. Early on, Rumford and Matthews use military discipline and tactics to rally the downtrodden citizens into a formidable force to take on the ethnic crime gangs who terrorize their neighborhoods. We're supposed to see them as good guys.

From My Own Personal Garden: Heroic example when Rumford invites the Landwehr emissary Halsing to share his breakfast. The food, of course, comes from his own farm.

From Nobody to Nightmare: General Hadji al-Malik al-Shabazz of the radical Islamic militia that takes over Boston following the downfall of the United States. Before he joined their group, he was Willy Welly the moderately successful saxophonist.

Though he is presented as heroic, Rumford himself can appear this way to those who oppose the Retroculture Revolution: a discharged company-grade officer who tried and failed becoming a small farmer, then launched a political crusade that balloned and ended up as second-in-command of the most powerful of the American successor states.

Frontline General: Rumford believes that as the military commander, he should be out in the field and close to the action, so he can react to developments quicker than if waiting for them to be reported to his headquarters.

Full-Circle Revolution: Averted in Victoria itself, but present in the New Confederacy, where the transition to independence is less of a clean sweep. The same old politicians, officials and generals by and large manage to retain power under the new flag, with the result that the Confederacy remains almost as corrupt as the United States used to be. So it needs another revolution, assisted by Rumford, before it can finally shake off the remnants of the old regime.

The Fundamentalist: Mainly a political example, though there are elements of hard-line, old-school Christianity, as well. After his conversion by Kraft, Rumford is very convinced of the righteousness of Retroculture, and occasionally filibusters on its main talking points.

Funny Money: When the US dollar becomes worthless, Maine prints a new Pine Tree Dollar, printing only what they can back up in gold or foreign currency. A single Pine Tree Dollar becomes worth millions of US Dollars, and federal agents are posted on the border to confiscate any Pine Trees leaving Maine.

General Failure: Poor General Wesley of the old US Army is not very successful in his attempts to beat down the rebelling Confederation.

The Generalissimo: Kraft is a heroic example, presented as fighting for good but otherwise fitting the stereotype completely, even making a point of explicitly wiping out the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Genghis Gambit: You'd think radical Islam, feminism, atheists, environmentalists, communists, street gangs, academics, Black nationalists and nonsmokers would have plenty of room for disagreement. It turns out, though, they are all united in their contempt for and desire to destroy traditional Western culture and indeed, are each arms of the big spooky Cultural Marxist conspiracy.

Genius Book Club: Rumford contantly engages with the cultural and philosophical treasures of the West, from Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon to John Boyd. Though his interpretations of them are sometimes idiosyncratic.

Germanic Efficiency: Invoked frequently, as Bill Kraft and Rumford are both admirers of German culture and history. However, the valuing of efficiency over rural charm is one of the greatest points of contention between them and the Nazis of Wisconsin.

Girl-on-Girl Is Hot: Inverted. The good Christians of the Confederation think the lesbianism of the Azanians is just as disgusting as any other kind of "perversion."

Glorious Leader: William Kraft becomes a rare heroic example of this. A right-wing ideologue, he uses a deft combination of reactionary agitation, moving public displays and political intrigue to seize power in the fledgling Confederation, and then proceeds to implement his revolutionary agenda. The small but extremely brutal purge of about a hundred and fifty leading Cultural Marxist subversives is his first major executive action, followed by various similarly ruthless acts of national consolidation and limited wars with neighboring states. However, while Kraft's methods are often portrayed as unsavory, the ultimate moral of the story is that they are also necessary to secure the new state. By the time he passes away decades later, he is remembered very fondly by the people as the father of their nation.

A God Am I: The Paleopitus of Cascadia eventually declare themselves the collective incarnation of the goddess their pagan cult worships, ruling over the pitiful remnants of the Republic by divine decree.

Godzilla Threshold: States start seceding from the Union when the population of Newark takes their city back from the gangs, and the Feds try to install the gangs back in power. Later, Atlanta is nuked after black gangs seize control.

Gone Horribly Right: Azania. They really are succeding in building a high-tech Amazonian utopia—but the results can easily look pretty horrible if you're not a believer in their extreme female separatism, with a society where Love Is a Crime (if you're a man and a woman) and marriage and motherhood banned.

At least some readers might think Victoria (and Retroculture) is itself an example.

Good Flaws, Bad Flaws: Played with. Rumford smokes like a chimney, is a bit of a loner, a perfectionist and often extremely cynical—all traits that are not only acceptable, but almost expected, from someone with his military background. However, he is also very old-fashioned and politically incorrect by present-day standards, to the point of being a Politically Incorrect Hero.

Good Is Not Nice: Rumford is both dedicated and incorruptible, but not the most friendly or socially smooth person most of the time.

Good Is Not Soft: The Confederation are very tough on their enemies. When attacked by bioterrorism, they launch their own bio-counterattack. When rioters take control of Atlanta, they nuke the city. When air attacks are launched against military targets, they chain hostages to them. Generally, their philosophy is to respond to their enemies with extreme force, following Sherman's famous dictum.

The Good King: Czar Alexander, who is both King and Emperor, and generally fits this character type.

The Good Kingdom: The Russian Federation undergoes an offscreen restoration to an Orthodox Tsar, who becomes a staunch ally and maybe something more to the Northern Confederacy. Also the Prussian Kaiser Reich, which continues to exist, if only the mind of its few subjects.

Good Ol' Boy: Colonel McMoster is more or less a straight example, though perhaps a little more "upper" middle class than most. He is also slightly unusual in being a positively portrayed, heroic figure in spite of this characterization.

Good Old Ways: William Kraft is a firm believer in this. In a wider sense, Retroculture is this on a societal scale.

Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Generally, smoking is associated with the good guys, unusually so for a 21st-century work. Most of the good guys are smokers, and one of the signs of the tottering federal government's villainy is its tyrannical anti-tobacco policies.

Gorn: Generally averted; Lind describes some quite horrific violence, but tends to do it in a fairly subtle, understated way. Which can often make it even more horrifying.

Government in Exile: Relatively early in the war, a joint Northern Confederation/New Confederacy operation drives the Feds out of Washington and into Pennsylvania. This coincides with the Federal government becoming a military dictatorship.

Graying Morality: Initially, good and evil are clearly defined: the Christian Marines are persecuted underdogs, and the only people they hurt are crooked politicians, corrupt senior officials and outright career criminals who quite evidently deserve it. However, as the civil war goes on, and later the wars of succession, this cleanliness cannot be maintained, as honest-to-God civil wars are generally very brutal and dirty affairs. Before the story is done, Rumford has himself performed (or ordered/approved/permitted) nearly every atrocity he has previously condemned his enemies for, making him realize that he is Not So Different from them as he would like to be able to think. The best he can do is to remember that he did only what was necessary, but this is not always a sufficient comfort.

Greasy Spoon: Most important strategic or political decisions are made in a diner.

Green Aesop: In Russia, Czar Alexander is horrified by the enormous environmental damage the Soviet Communists wrought on his beloved country, and has made cleaning up one of his government's absolute top priorities. Also, Kraft is unusually lenient in his treatment of the Deep Green rebels after they are crushed, acknowledging that they sort of have a point in caring about nature, even if their extremism discredits them.

Guile Hero: Between his maneuver warfare military trickster tactics and shady political manipulations (including espionage, blackmail and downright violence against public officials, as well as more traditional horsetrading), Rumford soundly qualifies. Kraft takes it a step further into out-and-out Chessmaster territory.

Hand Wave: All over the place. How is Victoria a world leader in science without computers, automation or a high degree of technical literacy? Isn't it strange the general votes on major topics always go exactly the way Rumford and Kraft wanted? Especially votes for military intervention when it's said time and time again that all the Northern Confederation wants is peaceful isolationism? Or how everybody spontaneously accepts Retroculture? Why did the Feds stop their bombing campaign because of a handful of hostages, and their blockade after one ship was sunk by a Russian sub?

Hanging Judge: Encouraged by the Retroculture system to good result. Rugged frontier justice is much more effective than liberal mollycoddling. Regular crime became rare as hanging became the usual penalty, at least where violence was involved. We remembered that if you hang a thief when hes young, he wont steal when hes old.

Hate Sink: Many representat