Wednesday, June 07, 2006

The Beast Leaves Rome; Homosexual Rights Victory

The state of TIAH

June 7th, 2006

in 682, the young prophet known only as The Beast brings his followers out of Rome, where the Christians have become fearful of his strength. Those who would reject the One God and follow the old pagan ways are drawn to his promise of a paradise in this life rather than the next. The church fathers, for whom this life was already a paradise, sensed that his paradise would involve much discomfort for them. A proclamation went out that The Beast was a heretic and blasphemer, and all good Christians were to shun him. With this death sentence hanging over his head, The Beast traveled to the north with his band of followers and started converting the northern barbarians to his cult.

in 1977, Dade County, Florida’s anti-discrimination law, which explicitly included homosexuals as a protected minority, narrowly escaped repeal in an initiative led by singer Anita Bryant. Enraged at this defeat, Ms. Bryant crusaded across the country in a successful effort to halt other so-called gay rights laws from being enacted. America's homosexual community banded together because of this attack on their civil rights, and formed the Dignity Watch, which worked to elect homosexual leaders into political positions to advance their cause. In spite of Ms. Bryant's strident attacks, they managed to elect Key West Mayor Alfonso Rivera governor of Florida in the 1988 election, and soon had their own caucus in Congress. In 1997, Ms. Bryant finally gave up her struggle against homosexual rights and made a statement that she had been wrong to fight Dignity Watch all those years.

in 1978, Mark Wilhight is allowed out for the first time since his transformation, and he accompanies Jedediah P. Carver on a “hit” against someone who has cost Mr. Carver some money. “Kid,” Carver tells Wilhight, “I'm gonna tell you about the Code now. You listen good; cuz if you break the Code, I break you. Got it?” Wilhight acknowledges him, but has found it difficult to speak coherently the last couple of days. “Code says we only go after each other. Code says lethal force can't be used except by general agreement by everybody involved. Code says we can harass a civilian, threaten 'em, maybe even rough 'em up a little – but kill a civilian, and every one of us'll be down on you like a ton o' bricks. Never get caught by the civvies, either – you get caught by civvie military, and we decide you ain't worth springin', we'll just kill you. There's more, but I think that's all you need right now.” With that brief lesson, Carver leaps over the fence guarding the junk yard they have come to, encouraging Wilhight to do the same. Much to his surprise, Wilhight is easily able to leap the fence, and together, the pair find and severely beat the owner of the junk yard, one Silas H. Richards.

in 2017, the crew of the Eagle jumps when their radio starts speaking to them in a heavily accented English. “Hello, hello, hello, how you going? Breaker, breaker, come back good buddy.” This strange sentence is followed by something in an incomprehensible language, then the speaker begins again in English. “This is Kikoa of the Quarai vessel Quorato, I am 14 pocha from your location. You need help, my friend?” Commander Eileen Patterson shrugs, picks up her radio and says, “This is Commander Patterson of the Eagle. We would like some help, yes. How do you know our language?” In delighted tones, Kikoa informs the Eagle's crew that his race, the Quarai, first intercepted earth radio and television transmissions some time ago, and learned several languages from them. Kikoa is apparently some sort of asteroid miner, and it saw the comet appear and heard their radio signals to each other, and deduced that they were from earth. As the Quorato approaches Pindar-Asaki, the Eagle crew sees that the alien ship dwarfs the comet they are on. It suggests that they fly their ship up into the cargo bay of the Quorato, and they can continue their conversation from there. Just before breaking contact, it asks, “You have Red Dwarf? Is my favorite show.”

Today's "Six Degrees of Star Trek" challenge: Connect Red Dwarf to Star Trek. Place your answers in the comments and see the Forum for previous results. For more on 6 degrees games, click here.


Get yourself into TIAH!


And, another cool thing - Let us know where you are on Frappr!


The Forum lives again!


Buy my stuff at Lulu!
Good long fiction from the AH. See a review of Warp at Universe Pathways Magazine

Help the Alternate Historian keep the site from growing stale!
My email address for contacting me with your writing samples, or good news, or for more direct goodness, go to the web site and leave a comment, buy a book, or leave a Paypal donation! Thanks again!









You can also visit the Co-Historian's store -
Support This SiteCatScratches Art Store

No comments:

TIAH Editor says we'd like to move you off the blog, if you're browsing the archives - and most people are - more than half of them are already on the new site. We need to be sure the new web site accomodates your archive browsing needs because we don't want to lose any readers. Please supply any feedback or comments by email to the Editor and please note the blogger site is shutting on December 1st.