Department of the Interior Records Office, Renovo, PA - 2027-2028
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Revolutionary News
Argyle Sinclair, aside from their eccentric name, had a largely ordinary life as a mid-tier public office secretary. Most of their work days consisted of filing away manila folders in various beige aluminum filing cabinets and rearranging cells in a series of computer spreadsheets before printing them and filing them away in manila folders in beige filing cabinets. Argyle had been working at the same Department of the Interior Records Office since graduating with their accelerated Bachelor’s degree from a local state college, and things were largely unchanged at that level of bureaucracy even when fascism was rising in the country, so they hadn’t felt too conflicted about continuing to serve the public in that capacity. Then the revolution began, and the Director of the Department of the Interior reassigned the office that Argyle worked in to chronicle the revolution as it unfolded. The Director referred to it as the “Leftist Insurgence” and the stated purpose of arranging a complete chronicle of events was to learn from it and prevent it from reaching and affecting the United States. Participating in the undermining of a popular progressive movement was something that Argyle certainly did not want to be a part of after witnessing the very same thing in the last three presidential elections, but leaving their job over it would almost definitely raise suspicions about them being an “Antifa Terrorist” and not end well for them. So instead Argyle went about the work dutifully with the grim knowledge in their heart that no matter the cost, the tide of progress would not be stopped.
As far as the actual bureaucratic action of the day-to-day, the Records Office remained mostly the same despite the shift in task and mission. The clerks who would usually receive incoming documents, arrange them and submit them to Argyle for filing were now spending their days pouring over dozens and dozens of English-language news articles from around the world. Whenever they found something relevant to the rising tide of left-wing revolution, they would forward the article along to Argyle who would verify accuracy of the information, take a key excerpt to use as a sort of abstract, and then file the article both electronically and in the trusty beige cabinets. The office reassignment happened after the People’s Communist Party in Venezuela took power in a paramilitary coup, and a relevant article from The Washington Post was one of the first articles Argyle prepared and filed:
> SWIFT REVOLUTION IN VENEZUELA
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> Caracas, September 13.- Early Monday morning a group of armed revolutionaries self-identified as members of the People’s Voice, the paramilitary wing of the Venezuelan People’s Communist Party, entered the Palace of Miraflores and overpowered the Presidential Guard, taking President Valerie Rojas into custody and declaring the acting government unconstitutional. By 3:00 PM the same day, the PCP had instituted a provisional government made up of their own members and secured the arrests of all non-PCP acting members of the legislature.
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> The PCP announced that a new election would be held for the presidency, from which Rojas and the Party of the Republic would be barred, and in the meantime PCP leader Edgar Cisneros would be instated as the provisional president. The other people’s parties banned by Rojas’ regime and previous administrations would be reinstated and allowed to participate in the free election.
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> Update 9/15:
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> Over the two days following this initial report, the expected geopolitical sides formed in the acknowledgement or denouncement of the power shift. The US has not acknowledged the provisional government, and politicians in both major parties have called for military intervention, the UK and many EU nations have aligned similarly, however socialists and other progressives in the US and in Europe have called for no interference, and hope to see free elections conducted without outside influence before any international action is taken.
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> Update 9/17:
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> Despite debate within the US legislative branch, the president has released executive orders sanctioning Venezuela. Until Valerie Rojas is released from custody, all trade between american individuals or corporations and Venezuela is banned without exception.
The elections mentioned in that article would eventually be held, and verified by UN election observers, and president Edgar Cisneros was officially inaugurated in March of 2028. The US sanctions would not be formally lifted until 2029, but as revolutionary conflict reached North America, the enforcement of the sanctions was not prioritized. After this first act in Venezuela, it was as though a global tipping point had been reached, and from their beige vantage point Argyle watched as revolution sparked around the world almost all at once. Pseudo-fascist US-backed regimes in Bolivia, Argentina, and Panama were all ousted throughout the fall, and in the winter months revolution spread to Europe, with near simultaneous movements in Germany and in France absolving their governments of power.
An article from the BBC crossed Argyle’s desk detailing the action in Germany:
> “NEW DEMOCRACY” FORMED IN GERMANY
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> Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
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> Berlin, November 28.- Over the past month Germany’s People’s Party leadership has held popular vote elections of delegates from each state in the country to participate in a constitutional convention that was held this past week in Berlin. At the event’s conclusion on Sunday afternoon, the convention leadership announced that the government would be reformed into a “New Democracy,” and published the constitution that was drafted. A new senate would be formed of popular vote candidates from each county in each state, and formal operations of the government would be restructured to be overseen by the singular body acting in legislative, executive and judicial capacities. Our initial polls taken across the country show great division over the change, but national-scale petitions in the proceeding days showed enough support for the new constitution that the standing government was absolved of power with no militant action. The elected delegates for the convention will act as an interim senate, but the government will remain largely shut down until elections are held early next month. No federal actions are expected to be conducted in the meantime.
The elections took place on December 15 and the New Democratic Senate of Germany held an inaugural session on the 21st, before recessing until the new year. Between the absolution of the former government and the new elections in Germany, an extremely similar situation unfolded in France. Delegates were sent to a constitutional convention and the standing government was peacefully absolved of power. Notably, the Alsace did not elect or send delegates, and actually seceded from the nation when the government was absolved of power. Argyle thought a partial secession was likely to happen when revolution came to the US as well.
The Record Office was directed to maintain an objective view of the events, but Argyle thought it was worth presenting opinionated sources to illustrate the tensions of the times. The BBC reporting on the action in Germany remained staunchly objective, but other sources were overt in their stance on the issue. In November one of the clerks passed along an article from The Daily Mirror regarding the German power shift:
> “NEW DEMOCRACY” FOLLOWING FOOTSTEPS OF LAST CENTURY’S NATIONAL SOCIALISTS
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> Reminiscent of the National Socialist takeover approximately a century ago, a group of socialists has overthrown the German government and taken the nation hostage while they prepare for fraudulent elections to be held mid-month. With a similar course of action taking place in France, it seems only a matter of time before this communist virus reaches the Crown. There is already talk among the left in this country of forcing the royals to officially abscond the throne, it would surprise no one if they decided that parliament should go to the bins as well.
A socialist takeover did eventually take place in the United Kingdom, but with the Parliamentary government instigating a military surveillance state utilizing their developing node technology, it was not so smooth and painless as the transitions in Germany and France. A militarized coup eventually took place which included the burning of Buckingham Palace and the arrests of the entire royal family as well as 433 members of the Commons. The specifics of that conflict were however difficult for Argyle to pay much attention to as events in the United States were getting dicier between late December and into January of 2028.
The Unified Leftist Party that had developed over the 2020s outside of the ironclad two-party government held delegate elections for a constitutional convention set to take place starting on the first of the new year. Argyle had actually participated in these elections along with many of their office coworkers, and was personally rather optimistic about the outlook for the convention. However, when several delegates went missing and organizers were arrested publicly on conspiracy and terrorism charges, the effort was halted in its tracks.
Argyle filed an article from the New York Times to delineate the events:
> LEFTIST MOVEMENT INCRIMINATED IN ATTEMPT TO ABSOLVE GOVERNMENT POWER
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> Bethesda, MD, 26 December.- The “Unified Leftist Party” which was planning a constitutional convention to absolve the federal government of power and instate a new constitution has been labeled as a terrorist organization after its leaders were arrested last week on charges of conspiracy and terrorism. The Department of Justice claims that they have obtained classified documents from the convention organizers outlining militant strategies to forcibly remove government officials from their offices in the event that the new constitution was not willingly accepted. The ULP held elections across the country earlier this month to gather delegates for the convention, and many of those delegates have disappeared in the last week. There has been no official statement from the Party, as it has informally dissolved given its terrorist designation, nor has there been a statement from any federal department. Friends and eyewitnesses have claimed in various cases that the delegates have been kidnapped by the federal government, but no hard evidence has yet been produced to corroborate these accounts. Across the country, riots have broken out as the ULP elections were widely participated in and there was significant public support for the constitutional convention, so the federal actions taken have been received by many as a direct attack on the freedom of the American people.
Shortly after the publication of that article, during a televised speech on the evening of 3 January 2028 regarding the “very real, big threat to America” posed by the leftist efforts, the president of the United States was killed in the oval office. Before the broadcast was cut, Argyle watched along with viewers around the nation as the president stopped mid-sentence as his bloodied brains burst out of the orifices of his head. He was pronounced dead within two minutes of the broadcast ending, and the Vice President was inaugurated the following day. As President, he declared a military state until the “antifa-communist-ULP rot” could be rooted out, and the military stage of the US revolution began.
At this point the Director of the Department of the Interior shut down the chronicling effort and the whole Records Office with it, leaving Argyle and all of their coworkers jobless. With the office being shut down anyway, and having nothing better to do with their time, Argyle made a copy of the entire revolutionary record so far and decided to continue the effort on their own as conflicts developed into all-out war in the United States.