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[shibby1295]

If we'll soon be able to assassinate the president, what if we could also hit the VP, making the Speaker of the House president? This could be essential on a speed run. It should also be really, really hard. The attacks should have to happen on the same day, or close to it; once one of the two is killed, the other would immediately be moved to a safe place, and a new VP would be appointed shortly. Also, just learning the locations of both targets for a given day in the future might be an intelligence challenge, at least to find a day when both are relatively accessible.

Other ways this should be harder?

[stabbymcstabstab]

I'm pretty sure the VP would be just moved to president, the speaker to VP, and a New Speaker made with a random political stance based on the composition of the House. It would make sense and seems easier to code.

[ed boy]

Relevant.

[shibby1295]

The paragraph beginning with "During the 1973 vice-presidential vacancy," is the most relevant part. It basically works as I thought, except the VP appointment is slower and requires congressional confirmation (this is important if congress differs politically from the White House).

Doing things as Stabby suggests would not accurately reflect what would happen. When Nixon resigned, the speaker was the Democrat Carl Albert, but the new VP was Republican Nelson Rockefeller.

The confirmation process would mean that you could expect the new VP to be a compromise between the ascending president and Congress, and that this might take a few months. Presidential security would probably be raised during this period, however.

Also potentially relevant, but maybe ignorable:
"Albert openly questioned whether it was appropriate for him, a Democrat, to assume the powers and duties of the presidency when there was a public mandate for the presidency to be held by a Republican. Albert announced that should he need to assume the presidential powers and duties, he would do so only as a caretaker."

[Callista]

Like what Booth and company tried to do with Abraham Lincoln? Yeah, it should be very hard to do, near-impossible, reserved for highly skilled Liberals.

You'd have to coordinate the two assassinations to be absolutely simultaneous; you couldn't have even a minute between them. With the Lincoln assassination, there wasn't the ability to send messages near-instantaneously, and most of the targets were unaware that anything was going on; but in the time that LCS is set in, cell phones and live video mean that you'd have maybe one or two seconds of leeway between assassinations, if that. Any more and somebody raises the alarm and the secret service is all over whoever you haven't shot yet.

Secondly, you'd need to trust your assassins. One person alone can just use a sniper rifle and take out the target, or whatever. But more than one person, a conspiracy, and things fall apart--somebody talks (a risk with low Heart, low Juice, or high Wisdom), or somebody finds they just can't go through with it (high Heart or low Juice), or somebody messes up the timing.

There's also the problem of reputation. Even the people who don't like the President are usually still pretty pissed if someone kills him. So this could totally backfire. Only in a country where the LCS is loved by most and the President is hated by most would this be a profitable move.

It should also bring an automatic Treason charge for the entire LCS membership.

It should be complex, difficult, and worth trying only if you are very skilled. It is theoretically possible, though.

[shibby1295]

That's exactly the kind of epic difficulty I had in mind. I hadn't thought of the need to coordinate to the second, but you're right. Implementing a time-of-day might be a rather large can of worms, though, so maybe that feature should wait.

The public opinion effects should indeed be dire. I think it's fair to say that if you do this, your game should never be the same again. There should be charges and heat against the whole LCS, as well as interest from the intelligence agency. Public opinion of the LCS should plummet, opinion of the new president should be near zero (if he's of the opposite party), opinion on police and security issues should go hard right, more conservative laws on these issues should be proposed (and probably passed) in an emergency session, and public opinion on all issues should go a bit to the right just by association. That's most of what I can see happening within the current game, but anything else to make this scarier would be good.

Also, if a liberal Speaker replaced a conservative president/vp, he should probably become a moderate. A president under such circumstances wouldn't really be able to lead any liberal crusades, but it's hard to imagine someone who's a liberal at heart leading any conservative crusades either.

[Alyas Grey]

Also potentially relevant, but maybe ignorable:
"Albert openly questioned whether it was appropriate for him, a Democrat, to assume the powers and duties of the presidency when there was a public mandate for the presidency to be held by a Republican. Albert announced that should he need to assume the presidential powers and duties, he would do so only as a caretaker."

That is mind-blowing...  most Governors won't even appoint a caretaker congressman or senator from the opposing party anymore.  Does anyone seriously think the modern House of Representatives wouldn't try their hardest to appoint a Republican VP if something happened to the current Administration?  Wish we had a government full of Rep. Alberts.

[Callista]

That's exactly the kind of epic difficulty I had in mind. I hadn't thought of the need to coordinate to the second, but you're right. Implementing a time-of-day might be a rather large can of worms, though, so maybe that feature should wait.

I don't know--I don't think we need to actually introduce time-of-day to manage that. What about a simple Intelligence check, a fairly hard one? If any one of the assassins fail, only one randomly chosen attack proceeds and all others fail.

If the President is popular, there should also be a fairly high chance that a civilian attacks your assassin. If your Liberal is good enough at fighting, the civilian won't hurt the Liberal, but he will raise the alarm and prevent the assassination from going through. Should have a chance of your Liberal killing the civilian and being wanted for murder; or, if the Liberal is truly bad at his job, there should be a chance of the civilian actually hurting or killing him--higher chance if the gun control issue is Conservative. If a civilian succeeds at stopping the assassination, the president should become more popular and the gun control issue should become more Conservative.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Also potentially relevant, but maybe ignorable:
"Albert openly questioned whether it was appropriate for him, a Democrat, to assume the powers and duties of the presidency when there was a public mandate for the presidency to be held by a Republican. Albert announced that should he need to assume the presidential powers and duties, he would do so only as a caretaker."

That is mind-blowing...  most Governors won't even appoint a caretaker congressman or senator from the opposing party anymore.  Does anyone seriously think the modern House of Representatives wouldn't try their hardest to appoint a Republican VP if something happened to the current Administration?  Wish we had a government full of Rep. Alberts.

I do, actually. You might be surprised by how bipartisan Congress would turn if the President were assassinated. Looking like they're making an undemocratic power play that hinges on the assassination of a popularly elected official would be outrageously harmful to any Congressperson's career. As partisan as the public is, one thing almost everyone can agree on is that killing elected officials is Very Bad and exploiting such events is not an acceptable way to gain power.

As bad as traditional politics are, it all tends to get vastly more civil when violence breaks out. Just one of many reasons why the events in LCS are fantastical and unrealistic, even if they do reference real issues.

Of course, in LCS, the House would make as big a power play as it can in the event something happened to the executives.

[mainiac]

I do, actually. You might be surprised by how bipartisan Congress would turn if the President were assassinated. Looking like they're making an undemocratic power play that hinges on the assassination of a popularly elected official would be outrageously harmful to any Congressperson's career. As partisan as the public is, one thing almost everyone can agree on is that killing elected officials is Very Bad and exploiting such events is not an acceptable way to gain power.

This used to be true until 2009 but now we are living in the post-Baucus era.  There is no partisan measure that is too partisan to take if you stand to gain.

Let me elaborate a little.  Back in 2009, a democratic senator named Max Baucus made a powerplay.  As the Senator from Montanna, he wasn't really important and he was set up to retire at the end of his term or run in a reelection race that he would probably lose.  He would then be forgotten as an empty suit who had occupied an office for three decades and accomplished nothing but sell out the principles that had gotten him into politics.  He didn't want that, so he decided to make himself into a power broker but making the fillibuster routine.  This gave him the ability to basically veto anything the democratic leadership did unless they ok'd it with him first.  It was also a huge gift of power to the republican minority but that's a story for another day...

This was a game changer, not so much because of what Baucus did but because nobody outside the Senate noticed. In the end he didn't suffer any consequences except losing the respect of his colleges.  Think about how furious the american people are with gridlock right now?  Congress has a 10% approval rating.  Baucus deserves far, far more blame then anyone else.  Yet nobody even knows to blame him...  It's not like he was subtle.  He dragged this stuff out publically for months and for a year behind the scenes.  His colleges weren't subtely either.  He introduced his major legislation at a press conference with nobody beside him.  That's like a 12 year old girl throwing a birthday party and none of her classmates coming.  But despite all this unprecendented stuff going on, the media was absolutely clueless and Max Baucus didn't suffer one bit for his changing of the rules for personal aggrandizement.

Baucus tested the waters and now everyone knows the waters are safe.  There is no media backlash.  You can change the rules, don't even need to be subtle about it and you can laugh all the way to the bank.  The only thing keeping the Senate rules intact now is basically politeness with a mixture of pride, spite and fear of the far right by the republican leadership.

The funky thing is that the media knows the rules have changed, even if they don't understand how they are responsible.  So now the media is cynical and expects crass exploitation from the get go.  So one party or the other had a chance to exploit a national tragedy like this it would be expected.  Heck, condemning it would probably be considered partisan.  It's crazy but Baucus opened Pandora's box and found all the cynicism of the Senate hidden in there.  It's out now and there is nothing, nothing at all that is too partisan to be considered.

So if Joe Biden died on monday congress would grieve him on tuesday then start pushing for a republican VP on wednesday but the media would grieve him on monday and start speculating about a republican VP on tuesday.

[Callista]

I hope it's not as precarious as you're describing, but what with human nature, and the nature of politicians, let's just hope our elected officials remain in good health... and remember that bickering like three-year-olds doesn't get much done.

But back to the game--I think it's fine to make assassinations somewhat unrealistic. It always has been a relatively unrealistic game. I'm pretty sure that if something like the LCS happened in real life (not just the SLA, but a group that actually did what our Liberals do in-game), we'd hate them and fear them regardless of what our political opinions were. I mean... y'know, mass-murdering terrorists. Not exactly somebody to look up to.

No need to aim for perfect realism; better to add fun to the game. I think assassinations would add fun of that sort, and extra challenge. Shouldn't be an easy thing--but it should be possible, and effective if done right, with the potential to backfire horribly.

[tahujdt]

I do, actually. You might be surprised by how bipartisan Congress would turn if the President were assassinated. Looking like they're making an undemocratic power play that hinges on the assassination of a popularly elected official would be outrageously harmful to any Congressperson's career. As partisan as the public is, one thing almost everyone can agree on is that killing elected officials is Very Bad and exploiting such events is not an acceptable way to gain power.

This used to be true until 2009 but now we are living in the post-Baucus era.  There is no partisan measure that is too partisan to take if you stand to gain.

Let me elaborate a little.  Back in 2009, a democratic senator named Max Baucus made a powerplay.  As the Senator from Montanna, he wasn't really important and he was set up to retire at the end of his term or run in a reelection race that he would probably lose.  He would then be forgotten as an empty suit who had occupied an office for three decades and accomplished nothing but sell out the principles that had gotten him into politics.  He didn't want that, so he decided to make himself into a power broker but making the fillibuster routine.  This gave him the ability to basically veto anything the democratic leadership did unless they ok'd it with him first.  It was also a huge gift of power to the republican minority but that's a story for another day...

This was a game changer, not so much because of what Baucus did but because nobody outside the Senate noticed. In the end he didn't suffer any consequences except losing the respect of his colleges.  Think about how furious the american people are with gridlock right now?  Congress has a 10% approval rating.  Baucus deserves far, far more blame then anyone else.  Yet nobody even knows to blame him...  It's not like he was subtle.  He dragged this stuff out publically for months and for a year behind the scenes.  His colleges weren't subtely either.  He introduced his major legislation at a press conference with nobody beside him.  That's like a 12 year old girl throwing a birthday party and none of her classmates coming.  But despite all this unprecendented stuff going on, the media was absolutely clueless and Max Baucus didn't suffer one bit for his changing of the rules for personal aggrandizement.

Baucus tested the waters and now everyone knows the waters are safe.  There is no media backlash.  You can change the rules, don't even need to be subtle about it and you can laugh all the way to the bank.  The only thing keeping the Senate rules intact now is basically politeness with a mixture of pride, spite and fear of the far right by the republican leadership.

The funky thing is that the media knows the rules have changed, even if they don't understand how they are responsible.  So now the media is cynical and expects crass exploitation from the get go.  So one party or the other had a chance to exploit a national tragedy like this it would be expected.  Heck, condemning it would probably be considered partisan.  It's crazy but Baucus opened Pandora's box and found all the cynicism of the Senate hidden in there.  It's out now and there is nothing, nothing at all that is too partisan to be considered.

So if Joe Biden died on monday congress would grieve him on tuesday then start pushing for a republican VP on wednesday but the media would grieve him on monday and start speculating about a republican VP on tuesday.

As a person who loves debate, I'd just like to give a bit of criticism.
Your argument is well put, all in all, but your structure and format leave a lot to be desired.
Translation: it's hard to pay attention to what you're saying when you can't spell 'colleagues' and you don't capitalize most words that should be. #HypocriticalPrepositions #MindlessHashtags

I would argue that now, for a (brief) period when the media is focusing on the scandals surrounding the White House (here's some political nightmare fuel for ya: Obama put the person who would have/should have know about the IRS's conservative-group targeting in charge of the IRS Obamacare division. Either she's unscrupulous or dangerously incompetent, I don't know which would be worse.) they're looking for the chance to look nice and not-corrupted. So, not right now, anyway.

[mainiac]

The media focuses one a string of laughably stupid non-scandals while ignoring a major constitutional crisis.  That's kinda the point.

[tahujdt]

The media focuses one a string of laughably stupid non-scandals while ignoring a major constitutional crisis.  That's kinda the point.

Which one, the phone record seizures?

[mainiac]

No the 20 scandals before that which people pretended were important until something else came along.

If the VP was being replaced, it would be far more similar to the Baucus thing then Bengazi or the IRS thing