Nero's Gambit

June 9th, 2005

in 821 AUC, Emperor Nero, having foiled a plot 4 years previously to burn Rome to the ground, tries to further consolidate his power with a plebiscite to remove power from the Senate and transfer it to either the Emperor or the Centuriate Assembly. Although it fails, it lays the groundwork for the later Republic’s power base among the regular Roman citizenry.

in 1856, hundreds of Mormons leave Iowa for Salt Lake City to join their leader, Brigham Young. They are carrying all their worldly goods in handcarts, often piled high, and the journey proves too much. None of the almost 500 pioneers makes it to Utah, and word of their demise kills the enthusiasm in the church, which fades out of existence after Young’s death.

in 1866, President Lincoln of the United States of America pulled all Union troops north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Jefferson Davis pulled Confederate troops south of that border, and the uneasy cold war of the 2 Americas began.

in 1910, unrest among the newly-transplanted Q’Bar in the Kantar system forces a reallocation of Jovian Mlosh warships to that system. The Jovians are now spread so thin that disaster is inevitable.

in 1947, [CENSORED].

in 1964, Comrade President Gus Hall received the Communist Party's full endorsement for reelection. Comrade Hall had taken over from former President Rosenberg when Rosenberg was assassinated in Dallas the year before.

in 1984, John Lennon, an obscure musician who had once been in a band with international sensation Pete Best, writes a tell-all book about Best, detailing their crazy life in Hamburg, Germany, and their rough-and-tumble beginnings in Liverpool, England. The book, I Want To Tell You, is an international best-seller.

in 2004, just after midnight, Jason Grzechy and Marjorie Adams meet with her ex-husband, Larry Morgan, at the Smartnet node in Berkeley’s computer science department. Unfortunately for the 2 hackers, Morgan has turned them in to the authorities, who are waiting to arrest them. The pair barely manage to escape from custody after being forced to jump from a moving car on the highway, and begin the long walk back to Berkeley. Adams is determined that she will get into that node.


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