Nobody’s going to be surprised when the rednecks, racists and rightwingers finally pick up their weapons and start shooting at the president, abortion providers, interracial couples and those who skip church on Sunday. We’re in a country that feels like it is ramping up towards violence, violence stoked by ignorance, hate and a GOP more concerned with keeping a base of power than serving the country.
So that means the video game Shattered Union, which is about a new American Civil War after an unpopular president is elected to a second term, is looking more and more like prognostication and less and less like science fiction. I’m not familiar with the game, which was released in 2005, but Variety fills in the deetz:
In the game, states secede from the U.S. and form their own governments that wage a civil war against each other after Washington, D.C., is wiped out in a nuclear blast and chaos ravages the nation. Players control one of the warring group of states — the California Commonwealth, Republic of Texas and New England Alliance are three of the six — or a European peacekeeping unit sent to reunify America.
Hey, that actually sounds cool. Sort of like an update of Fortress America.
Why am I talking to you about an old video game? Because the game has been optioned by Jerry Bruckheimer, and he’s hired J Michael Straczynski to write the script. I imagine the forward momentum of this film will be impacted by the reception of the Red Dawn remake, but I would be very interested in seeing a large scale epic Civil War movie set in the streets of 21st century America. For the California Commonwealth!