The Mods Must Be Crazy: An Atlas Forum Adventure

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I object! BRTD is not the heart but the liver of the Atlas forum. That's because his post count is the largest just as the liver is the largest organ. The previous post places Dave XIII in danger of being placed on mod review for anti-Hepatism.

[Former President tack50]

BTRD! Atlas' hero and saviour!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

What a twist!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't think I'll get around to posting a chapter tonight but I'll try to maintain the daily schedule again starting tomorrow.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Chapter 9: A Friend in Need

BRTD floored it along the desert highway. The car broke a hundred miles an hour on certain stretches.

“I wasn’t aware that you drove like this, BRTD,” said Dave. “I guess there’s a lot the forum didn’t know about you.”

“There was actually very little the forum didn’t know about me,” BRTD said. “I decided to start driving like this when I got older. Life’s too short to obey the speed limit.”

“Life’ll be a lot shorter if we keep taking these curves at ninety-five,” said Dave as they sped through a hilly area.

“That’s not important right now,” said BRTD. “What’s important right now is the goal of stopping Schultz. The man is a chameleon. First he’s an affluent moderate centrist, then he’s almost as bad as Trump was. Sometimes he governs like a Democrat, sometimes he governs like a ‘radical centrist.’ It’s whatever cements his power in the moment—and they say Peter Thiel’s figured out a way to make him immortal. Totally not all liberal, all the time.”

Dave nodded. “One of the mods whose on our side must have told you we were coming,” he said.

“One of them, yes, but I’m not sure which one,” said BRTD. “Since they told me of all people, they must be a Bernie supporter, or have been once upon a time.”

“Do you think Bernie would have won?” Dave asked the wizard.

“No one is told what might have been,” said the wizard, “and no one is told any story but their own.”

“Bullsh**t,” said Dave. “You’ve told me plenty of other people’s stories, most recently Neo-Kalwejt’s. It’s a serious question. Maybe we should be thinking bigger than just delivering West Virginia and its neighboring states for Biden/Booker.”

“My king is, unfortunately, no longer alive,” said BRTD. “If you can find it within your power to resurrect him, though, you’ll have the eternal loyalty of the Minneapolis hipster Christian scene.”

“I’m actually Catholic, nominally…” began Dave.

“Who’s Pope in 3019?” BRTD asked.

“Emoviolence Fluttershy I,” said Dave. “Named for St. Emoviolence of Jakarta and Blessed Fluttershy of Milan.”

“Finally, vindication!” BRTD said, and accelerated to a hundred and ten down a steep slope onto a vast plain of grey rock.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Gustaf]

This is great.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I have two words: o kurwa.

[Former President tack50]

Inb4 Dave dies in a car accident while BTRD is driving

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Inb4 Dave dies in a car accident while BTRD is driving

I imagine BRTD would drive with a crazy speed, just to get out of a Trump county, even though he'd be the only one to remember about Trump TTL. I'm sure Schultz would erase Trump from the memory.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Chapter 10: A Brief Respite

“FINALLY!” BRTD crowed as the car crossed the border into Clark County. “A Clinton/Biden/Booker/Booker/Cuomo/Booker/Moulton/Stefanik county! All liberal, all the time at last—and it even voted against most of those people in the primaries!”

“Wait,” the wizard blurted out. “Stefanik?!” It was the first time Dave had seen the wizard to be surprised by a revelation about the world’s political past and future, and further confused him about when in history, exactly, the wizard had come from.

“Yes, she was the Bipartisan Party’s nominee this year,” said BRTD. “She ran as a #populist in the primaries but as a reasonable, moderate, normal, sane alternative to Schultzianism in November. People believed her that she was a #populist because she represented an Obama-Trump district. Are people still fixated on Obama-Trump districts in 3019?”

Dave nodded. “There’s an ‘Obama-Trump Districts Caucus’ in the House,” he said, “although it’s not good for much since every member of it is a party-line Schultzian. It’s not called the Independent Party anymore in 3019; it’s called the Unified Inter-Global American Future Party. It also has affiliates in Croatia and the Republic of Ireland.” At the names of these countries, BRTD shuddered.

“I notice you’ve slowed down quite a bit, BRTD,” said the wizard. “Can I ask if this is because we’re not in a Trump county anymore?”

“And why else would it be?” asked BRTD. “I was getting pretty good at not entering Trump counties. This was the first one I’d been in for fifteen years, ever since the matter transphaser was invented.”

“The matter transphaser was banned in 2888 because Amazon workers were using it to leave the fulfillment center during their thirty-second unpaid lunch breaks,” said Dave. “That’s another thing I’d like to try to change while we’re here; I’ve been an Amazon worker myself, in addition to various call center jobs.”

“They still have call centers in 3019?” asked BRTD. “Maybe I could get a job in one if Peter Thiel makes me immortal too.”

“Maybe you could,” said Dave, “but since they have half-hour lunch breaks and tend to pay above minimum wage, they’re reserved for scions of the Great Houses such as myself more often than not. Wait. Why are we stopping? We’re still in the middle of the desert.”

“Picking up an old friend,” said BRTD, “and an older enemy.” He slowed the car to a halt, and none other than Landslide Lyndon got into the back seat behind Dave and next to the wizard.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Gustaf]

Oh my, the plot thickens.

[Zaybay]

Really great so far! Excited to see where this goes.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

What do I need to do to get included in this? Name your price.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

What do I need to do to get included in this? Name your price.

You are already the villain, no?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Chapter 11: A Deepening Conspiracy

“BRTD and Landslide Lyndon, on the same side at last,” said the wizard. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“Neither did I,” said Landslide Lyndon, “but, well, odious as it is for me to admit this, it is possible that nominating Bernie Sanders might have helped the Democrats in 2036. Booker was not the candidate he once was by then.”

“You’re not really talking like Landslide Lyndon did in the threads that I was able to read when I took the Water of Life as a teenager,” said Dave. “I remember the way you spoke and wrote very clearly. It doesn’t seem very much like this to me.”

“I’m older and wiser now,” said Landslide Lyndon, but something about this answer seemed unsatisfying to Dave, and he had to wonder if perhaps BRTD or BRTD’s other compatriots—of whom he could only assume there were quite a few—had done something to him to make him this way. He did have a Greek accent, but it seemed oddly affected, almost as if this man was not really Greek at all. Dave could not remember whether or not the Landslide Lyndon of the forum of old had actually been Greek. He guessed that with most posters their forum persona was affected enough, and Web 1.0 enough, with very little connection to any social media presence, that there was really very little way of knowing if they were who they said they were. BRTD was a blessed exception to that; what you saw with him was what you got. Or maybe it was only Dave’s privileged 3019 perspective that did not understand how identity and honesty and seeing and believing had worked in a time when privacy still existed and man and machine were not yet one.

“Are we stopping to pick up anyone else?” the wizard asked BRTD.

“Well, there’s only one more seat in this car,” said BRTD, “but we are picking up one more person to fill that seat. Not someone I’m crazy about either, but desperate times call for desperate measures. We’ll have to cross the border into California to pick him up, and I’m happy about that because it’s probably the most all liberal, all the time state left these days.”

“Is that who I think it is?” asked Dave.

“It sure is,” said Landslide Lyndon in a tone of grudgingness and contempt. “Much as it appalls both of us here to admit it, jfern is privy to our plans as well.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What do I need to do to get included in this? Name your price.

Be patient; I have plans for you.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

What do I need to do to get included in this? Name your price.

Be patient; I have plans for you.

I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(But actually, this is incredible!)

[Badger]

What do I need to do to get included in this? Name your price.

[afleitch]

As if I'll have any progeny

[Zaybay]

What do I need to do to get included in this? Name your price.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

What do I need to do to get included in this? Name your price.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Chapter 12: A Long Drive

They picked up jfern at a safehouse in California and then drove up the coast into Oregon. BRTD said that they were aiming for a cabin in a forest in the Cascades where “something pretty spectacular” was going on. He refused to explain what this was, but both Landslide Lyndon and jfern seemed to be on board with it, while they weren’t sniping endlessly at each other.

The drive took about two days; for much of it BRTD was popping little while pills to stay awake.

“Why don’t you just let one of us drive for a while?” Dave asked him once.

“Well, a while back, some of my favorite Christian screamo bands started doing covers of old country songs about truckers,” said BRTD, “and I learned a lot about long-haul driving from these songs. Long-haul truckers used to pop pills to stay awake, so I do likewise.”

“And we’ve abandoned the idea of going back all the way to 2020 because of these three guys?!” Dave hissed in the wizard’s ear (they were both in the backseat at this point; Landslide Lyndon was riding shotgun and kept firing a six-gun revolver out the window at billboards of Eternal Secretary of Defense Gabbard, whom he said he saw as “Bernie writ large”).

“I haven’t abandoned the idea,” the wizard whispered back to Dave. “I’m just biding my time.”

They used cash at convenience stores and highway rest stops (and got looked at funny when they did, especially since Landslide Lyndon and BRTD both had perfectly serviceable bar codes on their forearms). They bought tourist t-shirts and swim trunks to wear instead of their days-old clothing and, when BRTD did sleep, they camped under the starts. On the first night, but not the second, Dave and jfern toasted marshmallows, and much was revealed about jfern’s character. He claimed that some grandchild of Bernie Sanders whom Dave had never heard of was the best Bipartisan candidate in 2048. “At least he’s not a Clintonworld Hillarycrat,” he said when Dave asked why.

Finally they reached the cabin. The first thing Dave noticed was that it was a lot bigger than he had expected from the word “cabin.” The second thing he noticed was a human brain floating in a vat of greenish liquid in the middle of the living room.

“And now,” BRTD said before Dave could ask what it was, “we’d like to introduce you to the American center-left’s salvation.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Chapter 13: A Blast from the Past

“Whose brain is that in the vat?” asked Dave. “Is it Bernie’s? If it is, it might be worth taking it back to 2020 to see if we can stuff it in the 2020 version of Bernie’s body and see if having foreknowledge of the future helps him in the election.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, Dave,” said the wizard.

“No, we’re after something far greater,” said jfern. “Bernie was compromised; I supported him for a very long time, but sooner or later I came to realize that it was completely unacceptable of him to have endorsed Hillary at the end of the 2016 primaries; if he hadn’t, enough people would have written him in that he would have won the general election and we’d be in a democratic socialist golden world by now.”

“That’s absolute nonsense,” said Dave. “The 2016 electorate would not have written in Bernie in sufficient numbers to have given him the election. 2016 wasn’t 2010, the United States as a whole wasn’t Alaska, and Bernie wasn’t Lisa Murkowski.”

“I agree,” said the wizard. “My map of possible futures doesn’t include any in which Bernie wins in 2016. It does include some in which he wins in 2020, though; I really do have to wonder what you’re aiming at with that brain if the brain isn’t that of Bernie Sanders.”

“The brain is that of somebody far greater than Sanders,” said jfern, using that “far greater” phrasing again. “Somebody who was able to be in the establishment but not of it; somebody who dragged the Democratic Party away from tired, establishment, elitist framings and into something real, something meaningful, something that owned the Hillarycrats before Hillary was even born.”

“You’re being too grandiloquent for me to be able to tell what you’re talking about,” said Dave.

“Well, who else would it be?” Landslide Lyndon asked. “It’s someone who we think can really unite the party. Win back some of the rural areas while not giving up our hold on the suburbs. Personally, I think he’s a moron, but maybe a moron is what we need to win back these twits.”

“And who’s that?” asked the wizard.

“William Jennings Bryan, of course,” BRTD said.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Badger]

Dunn Dunn DUHHHHNNNNNN!!!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Since a few of my old posts got deleted for some reason, I might as well chime in to say that this is glorious and I can't wait to see where it goes next.