Roleplay / Power to the Many

"Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many."

— Alexander Hamilton

Power to the Many is an Alternate History election game run by Major Crimson, Gonzo, Sithlent and Captrexone on AlternateHistory.com. It mainly centres around late 18th century British and American (Columbian, in-game) politics, beginning in 1774 on the dawn of the OTL American Revolutionary War after the infamous events of the Boston Tea Party.

Within the game, each player controls up to two characters based in either Great Britain or British North America, and makes Initiatives that reflect the character's actions to shape the world around them. The game alternates between regular turns, lasting multiple years each, and crisis turns, which last one year each and reflect one or both of the main areas of interest being involved in a major crisis.

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Power to the Many contains examples of:

• 13 Is Unlucky: Currently unknown if it will be played straight or subverted, as Georgia and Delaware chose to keep their distance from the Union, thus bringing the number of rebel colonies down from 13 to 11. Delaware’s defection gave the British a straight shot to Philadelphia, but beyond that it remains to be seen.
• Acclaimed Flop: An in-universe example, the Canadien The Moorish Conquest is quite well received by critics and the general public, but gets immediately pushed out by the immensely more popular Columbian play The Petticoated Tyrant, penned by President Randolph.
• Aesop Collateral Damage: The lovers in President Randolph’s play The Petticoated Tyrant who are at one point all arranged to marry the sister they don't like due to Elanor trying to teach her kids a lesson.
• Alternate Timeline: Is considered to be one.
  • The most obvious signs of it being an alternate timeline is the presence of the player characters, but the first big divergence from real life history would probably be the murder/assassination of Lord North, the Prime Minister of Britain in a failed mugging on the eve of the 1774 general election, and his subsequent replacement with the even more hardline Lord Chastleton. This in turn leads to a more brutal opening stages of the conflict as the British attempt to put down the rebellion even faster than in real life.
  • Other notable changes early on include a stronger loyalist presence due to loyalist lobbying resulting in fewer rebelling colonies, the Revolutionaries choosing to don the moniker of Columbians, King George retaining his colonial popularity, which sees the Revolution try to establish a Monarchy, and so on.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Right as the Columbians retake Boston, the British seize control of their capital in Philadelphia.
• Anvilicious: Carroche’s The Moorish Conquest doesn’t shy away from its point, though it still remains quite popular.
• Arrested for Heroism: The Columbians view the arrest of their Delegation to Britain, which was trying to seek a peaceful compromise, to be this.
• Badass Longcoat: Fairly common actually, as befits the time in history.
• Balkanize Me: The OTL Thirteen Colonies are only eleven, Georgia staying Loyalist and Delaware proclaiming its "neutrality".
• Bewildering Punishment: The Columbian delegation being jailed is this to the Columbians. To them, there was nothing wrong with their actions, but to Chastleton and Parliament, it is a terrible affront to their authority.
• Blood on the Debate Floor: Two delegates from radically opposed sides (One from the Loyalist faction and the other from the Patriots) do a duel because of the intense animosity between the two. The Loyalist ends up killing the Patriot.
• Brits with Battleships: One of the two major factions involved in Power to the Many is Britain, and their armed forces are heavily involved in the war against the rebelling colonies.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The conflict was started on both sides wanting the same thing, but having such radically different views of the truth of the situation. Parliament and Congress are each completely justified, due largely to working with entirely different understanding of the world.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Each Party has their own distinctive coloration associated with them, Royal Blue for the Court Party and Pale Gold for the Whigs, and grey for the independents, with each faction likewise having a color (Yellow for the Northites, Gold for the Rockinghamites, etc.)
  • For the Americans, this is somewhat more significant, as their color coordination is used as a way of gauging overall loyalty to Britain (the Loyalists are a dark Blue, Radicals a Dark red, and Moderates and Patriots pale versions of the former and latter, respectively)
  • The Various Sliders also have color coordination, running hot to cool, with Dark red being the worst condition that slider can having, denoting some sort of malus, and Purple representing the best condition, giving a bonus.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Something a lot of Columbians struggle with, split between loyalty to their home, and loyalty to their empire. Even the ones actively in Revolution still claim loyalty to the king, if not to Parliament and Britain, even offering him to be the king of their new nation. He refused.
• Cool Old Guy: Subverted somewhat, as the Player Characters overall run younger than their historical equivalents, but not by much.
• Corrupt Politician: Corruption is a fact of life in the 18th-century British Parliament, with much of the government’s support coming from those appointed to “offices of profit” that exist for that sole purpose. There are movements to abolish these offices, but they lack government support for self-evident reasons.
• Cultured Badass: The game abounds with them, from beloved playwright and President Randolph for the Columbians, Parliamentarian and General Greene for the Brits, and a great deal more across both sides.
• Decapitation Strike: The British forces attempt one against the Colonial Congress, capturing their capital of Philadelphia after the first major battle of the war and several delegates. Most manage to escape to New York though and set up the new capital there.
• Defector from Decadence: Arguably all of the Columbians, but Maddox stands out for defecting from the Loyalists to the Revolution and becoming one of the Union of Columbia’s Legates.
• Delaying Action: The Colonial forces under Legate Maddox ended up fighting an accidental one, allowing time for the Congress in Philadelphia to escape the approaching army of General Richard Greene.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Characters explicitly endorse views that are a product of the time period. Most are Anti-Catholic, many are slave-holders, or directly involved in the slave trade, see Native Americans as pawns or obstacles rather than people, and are fairly sexist, and that’s just what both sides believe in. Read the Morning Post, and you can see exactly why Scotland and Ireland were hotbeds for independence in the future. Even then, there are those who stand out, either for their exceptionally progressive views (Blanchet and Ethridge) or for being too horrible even for the times (see Honest or Mad Jack Fuller)
• Drinking the Kool-Aid: Much of Columbia remains thoroughly convinced the King supports them, and is simply being held in a gilded cage by Parliament.
• Dwindling Party: Congress. Beginning in 1774 with delegates from 12 states, it loses Delaware thanks to the actions of loyalists and then has several members captured during its flight from Philadelphia.
• Emergency Authority: The Congress was created as this, an emergency assembly of the colonies so they could coordinate a response to Britain, and later to coordinate the war effort. Also averted, with the proposal for additional emergency congressional powers was denied by the states, who didn’t want to relinquish their power.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Native Americans choosing to fight for the Columbians or British do so in the hopes that this will work out the best for their tribe, the Wabanaki Confeds, Lenape, and Shwanee being perhaps the biggest example, having thrown their lot in with the Columbians, who they directly fought against in the French and Indian War, in the hopes of achieving similar freedom to what they had before.
  • Carroche is another example, having fought against Britain and the Columbians in the French and Indian War, he now works with the revolution in the hopes of freeing his fellow Canadiens (though how unfree they are is debatable).
• Evil Wears Black: Blackburn is one of the few explicitly amoral entities in the game, motivated entirely by self interest.
• Fair for Its Day: Considering the times and locations, anti-Catholic hatred, slavery, and viewing Natives as less than humans aren’t uncommon beliefs, but there are some characters who disagree with, if not actively oppose such beliefs. Blanchet’s attempts to inspire a form of proto-feminism fall in line with this, even if it does backfire on him.
• Fair-Weather Friend: Arguably, the colony of Delaware to the Continental Congress. Once it became apparent that the Congress was going to rise up in revolution, Delaware backed out, trying to establish themselves as neutrals to the conflict.
• Fantastic Rank System: For the Columbians, rather than General, they use Legate.
• For Want Of A Nail: The death of British Prime Minister Lord North in a highway robbery gone wrong leads to the emergence of the more hardline Viscount Chastleton as Prime Minister in his wake.
• Foreign Culture Fetish:
  • The Columbians love Ancient Rome to an unprecedented degree even compared to OTL. Naming their head generals Legates (Rome’s term for generals and provincial governors) and their armies Legions are the biggest examples.
  • Much like how Roman legionaries were paid, the Congress is also giving its soldiers land after they’re discharged.
  • Also Britain with regards to Japan due to the efforts of Miles Laurence (Viscount Allendale).
• Gambit Pileup: In a game where dozens of players are all making their own initiatives and plans, this happens on a turn-by-turn basis.
• Gender-Blender Name: Several men are named Evelyn in a news story of the 1776 review of the Morning Post
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: One way to view the conflict.
  • The Columbians are mostly believers in liberty and the Enlightenment who view the conflict as the result of British infringement upon their rights, but they are allied to slaveholders, fervent anti-Catholics, and many of them have little to no qualms about the fate of Native Americans in the way of their expansionist dreams.
  • The British aren’t much better, fighting to exert the will of a quasi-democratic oligarchy on a nation they have little sympathy with, and likewise are allied to slaveholders, fervent anti-Catholics, and treat Native Americans as punishment for rebelling Columbians at best, and resources to exploit and push aside at worst. At the same time, they are very kind to those colonies that have stayed loyal, granting numerous privileges and beneficial reforms to them.
• Heroism Incentive:
  • For as much as the Columbians genuinely believe in fighting for Liberty, many also fight with the intention of social advancement and power, and Britain is generally of the opinion they are all only fighting for complete control of the Colonies.
  • On the other hand, Chastleton’s rewards for the loyalist Colonies can be seen in a similar light, as a means of rewarding those colonies who are doing the right thing by staying loyal to the crown.
• Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Commonplace in the 18th century, with British Redcoats being symbolic of the Columbian Revolution much as they were in the real-life American Revolution.
• Historical Domain Character: Many of the non-player characters are this, as a result of the setting being based on the real-life late 18th century.
• Home Field Advantage: With the majority of the war between the Union of Columbia and Great Britain taking place within states that rebelled, the Union has enjoyed a home field advantage throughout the war, with many of those in North America finding ways to use their initiatives to assist the Union and local informants appraising the Columbian forces of approaching British forces on multiple occasions.
• Honey Trap: The Congressional Delegation that went to Britain got caught in one of these, largely due to Blackburn’s control over a vast swath of the whore houses in London. It isn’t used to blackmail them so much as discredit the delegation and Columbian interests in the eyes of the British people.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: The Whigs were once considered the dominant force in Parliament, and the guardians of English liberty due to being the victors of the Glorious Revolution. Now they are an often mocked, abused opposition, popularly known more for being fools than politicians.
• I Didn't Mean to Kill Him: Did Longstreet kill Scook intentionally in their duel? It depends on political alignments: to Loyalists, it was a complete accident, to the other Columbians, he's a dirty murderer.
• Implicit Prison: The Congressional Delegation that went to Britain got placed in one of these. It was essentially a light house arrest, loose enough that a few went out to partake in the local delights, and could essentially freely depart for the colonies at any time. Benjamin Franklin was even invited by Chastleton to personally lodge with him.
• Irony:
  • The graphic used for "Columbians Hanging a Loyalist Traitor" bears a remarkable resemblance to a sketch depicting Revolutionary American Spy Nathan Hale being hanged by the British.
  • It is explicitly stated that Connor Fraser, as a self confessed hobbyist of fine food, looks down on French cooking and cuisine for being "snobbish", "arrogant" and "pretentious", yet he rips off the French idea of restaurant menus for his own eating establishment.
• Last Bastion: Delaware thinks they’re this, being so afraid of invasion by the Revolution they even allow Women into their militia. Time remains to be seen how justified they are in this fear.
• Military Academy: Under the advice of the Militia Committee, the Continental Congress created several “Military Colleges” in New England, Middle, Southern America, Chesapeake and an extremely brief in Georgia all under the supervision of the Commander-In-Chief.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Multiple characters have these, though their actions often come long after they are named.
  • Avery Ellison-Fear is a subversion, as the leader of the British opposition he is not really respected by the Courtiers or the Columbians, nor is he known for anything particularly menacing
  • Played more straight with Sylvester Blackburn who is an amoral, high ranking government official, entirely motivated by self interest.
  • Captain Bainbridge is another British example.
  • Subverted with Adlai Arkham. Despite the implications behind his surname, he is most well known as a doctor and a painter, and is one of the more principled members of the Patriots, and Columbians in general
• Neutrality Backlash: Possible aversion with Delaware, since their declared “neutrality” is really just not mobilizing their own militia against the Columbians, resulting in the Columbians choosing to avoid invading them because of it, and the British get to use Delaware as a launching pad, and thus don’t punish them like the rebelling colonies later on mobilizing their militia against the Columbians.
• Offered the Crown: Columbia to King George. He said no, largely due to him viewing them as already his subjects, rather than a separate nation, and thus they are in no position to offer him sovereignty of a nation he already controls.
• Officer and a Gentleman: At a time in which a military education and ability to hold a post were limited to the nobility and the wealthy, this is the norm.
• One Nation Under Copyright: Technically most of the colonies got their start this way, but in even in 1774, more literal examples exist, most prominently the Hudson Bay Company and the British East India Company, who aren’t yet at the zenith of their power, but still managed to help incite the conflict.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted hard, with many characters sharing the same name as other, unrelated characters. There are no less than five different Williams running around in 1776.
  • Overlaps with Dead Guy Junior in the case of some characters, including William Toland III and Richard Greene Jr, who are named after their parents in the manner somewhat common at the time.
• Patriotic Fervor: A good example with the Columbians, whose greatest strength at the start of the rebellion is their belief and unity of cause. A disturbing example of this also swept Britain with a vengeance in 1776, leading them to view the rebelling Columbians as subhuman monsters.
• Political Cartoons: Several exist depicting the exploits of Tearaway Columbia and Brother Johnathan as anthropomorphic representations of America. Brother Johnathan is a character from OTL, but Tearaway Columbia is the creation of AH user Turquoise Blue.
• Preppy Name: Half the cast are British Parliamentarians in the 18th century, so yes.
• Privately Owned Society: The colony of Charlotta (most of real-life Florida) is in effect the private domain of eccentric British MP Denys Rolle, who renames St. Augustine to Rollestown. Charlotta reflects Rolle's own eccentric and Utopian worldview, with the popular comprised of poor, homeless, and criminal British persons, in addition to freed slaves and the existing small Spanish and native populations. The colony is a strange blend of evangelical Anglicanism, humanitarianism, and healthy living.
• Propaganda Machine: The British Government making use of one to revise opinions about the Columbians, transforming the view of the Columbians from people who were stepping over the line, but still good English citizens with fair complaints, into one of outright hatred, viewing the Columbians as little more than subhuman, atheistic Anarchists, who seek to destroy the foundations of English Liberty and culture in a mad quest for power.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: When the Loyalists in the Second Continental Congress threaten to storm out if at least one of the Military Colleges isn’t given to them, the Militia Committee creates one in Georgia, a colony which doesn’t recognize Congressional Authority.
• Renaissance Man: fitting a time when politics was a side gig, many characters specialize in talents outside of politics, Poetry like the Viscount Liverpool, Playwriting like President Randolph, Geology like Rhodri Kendrick, or Cooking like Fraser, just to name a few.
• Right Way/Wrong Way Pair: Tearaway Columbia and Brother Johnathan start out this way, with John the right, loyalist American, Columbia the Wrong, Rebellious American, but it gets Reversed and Twisted, such that it is difficult to say eventually who is right and who is wrong outside of individual Political Cartoons.
• Romance Sidequest: Several characters have used their initiatives to acquire suitable matches for themselves or their charges
• Ruler Protagonist: Both Chastleton, as Prime Minister for the British, and Randolph, as President of the Continental Congress, are among the most prominent members of their respective faction. Randolph is especially notable, as in OTL the President of the CC was a rather unimportant figure, unlike Randolph (who is ironically related to him)
• Running Gags: "Water remains wet as Whigs remain foolish."
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: The central premise of Parliamentary Sovereignty, with one of the big driving factors in the lead-up to the crisis being to what degree Parliament is sovereign over the colonies.
• Show Within a Show: President Randolph is an accomplished playwright, with several of his plays being detailed within the game. Several other characters are also writers of varying pedigree.
• Shown Their Work: The Game Masters are exceptionally knowledgeable on the period, and it shows in their write-ups of events.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis:
  • The amount of hate the Whigs receive from the Courtiers, despite being a relatively cooperative opposition, makes them feel like this.
  • The amount of Anti-Catholic disdain from the cast can make them seem like this, until one considers the past century of strife Catholicism in Britain caused. While they are no longer a threat to the regime, that’s only because a long period of chaos and violence.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: The Petticoated Tyrant has 4 sets of them, Michael and Sophie being the most prominent.
• Starving Artist: Heavily averted. Many characters are artists precisely because their wealth enables them a lot of leisure, examples including the vastly wealthy Lord Liverpool, the most beloved poet in Parliament, and the playwright President Randolph, who came from wealthy Virginian planters and made his own fortune as a surveyor and speculator before taking up the quill.
• Stiff Upper Lip: Ironically averted by the British in 1776, who are caught in the throes of Wartime Patriotism, and have begun to passionately hate their Columbian relatives.
• Sympathy for the Devil / Sympathy for the Hero: The Whigs started with this for the Columbians, but they’ve put that mostly aside.
• Take a Third Option: The dominance of the Court and Whig parties in Britain is threatened to an extent in the 1774 election where the old Tories and radicals perform well as a large mass of Independents who hold the balance of power in the House of Commons.
• The Chew Toy: Everyone can agree, from the Court Party to the most radical of Americans: the Whigs are terrible. A doomed and powerless opposition, the insult of choice, both in-character and out-of-character, is to call them "foolish".
• The Good King: A common view of King George, from both sides of the Atlantic, With the Columbians even asking him to become their king, rather than becoming a republic like in OTL. He refuses, but that doesn’t stop most from continuing to love him.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Many OTL important figures get downplayed roles as the Player Characters take on larger roles. Outside of Franklin being the Chief Delegate of Columbia, most OTL Founding Fathers have received brief mentions at best.
• The Republic: Aversion, since King George retains his popularity in the colonies, and thus Columbia votes to remain a monarchy, offering the crown to George. He refuses to take it, though the Columbians delude themselves into thinking this is due to Parliament, rather than his own antipathy toward them. It remains to be seen if this will hold true if they achieve independence.
• Took a Level in Badass: Thanks to more extensive preparations for war before the commencement of hostilities, the Colonial Congress is capable of fielding an army of over 40,000 troops within the first year of the conflict, allowing it to engage the British forces in open battles despite the British also deploying more forces than OTL.
• Training the Peaceful Villagers: The actions of Austin Blanchet in Delaware lead to most of the adult males taking up arms, and some of the women and children too!
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: All initiatives, Political, Apolitical, or part of an agenda. are capable of being completed within the span of one Turn. Of course, this doesn’t mean they are completed well, or at all.
• Villainous Demotivator: The White Paper is this for the British to the Rebelling Colonies, rearranging their Borders, changing their political representation, and keeping Native reservation to their west to prevent them from expanding, not to mention losing out on the economic benefits colonies that remain with the Crown receive.
• Weird Currency: The Columbians, having little else of value besides the vast swaths of “empty” (in reality populated by Native Americans) land, not only promise certain acreages to their soldiers, but also back up their Continental Dollar with land rather than gold. Even though their ownership of said land is tenuous, the currency retains its value quite well.
• Young Future Famous People: The historian Edward Gibbon blunders his way into a British diplomatic delegation to France which seemingly avoids war with Britain.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Of course, the Columbians view themselves as freedom fighters against Parliament's Tyranny when Parliament views them as dangerous revolutionaries intending to destroy British North America.