What if after World War Two, U.S. Forces didn’t return home… and the United States…
RULED BRITANNIA
Note from Dennis Lowery: This is a ‘first draft’ story idea and premise for further refinement.
Story Description (shorter version)
As World War Two ended, the balance of power in Europe was shattered when the Soviets revealed they had captured six undiscovered atomic bombs the Nazis could not deploy. Refusing to accept only their post-war gains, the Soviet Union’s ambitions expanded, leaving President Harry Truman with a dire choice: pull American troops back to Great Britain or risk a nuclear war in Europe.
Truman’s decision to cede Europe to the Soviets ignites a fierce debate within the U.S. government. Many senior military leaders and politicians view the Soviet Union as the next great enemy. When Truman died under suspicious circumstances, a coup led by senior military officials thrust America into a new era of authoritarian rule.
Amidst this turmoil, U.S. military intelligence collaborates with British anti-monarchists, hollowing out the British government from within. The new regime proposed a radical solution to prevent Soviet invasion: annex Great Britain as the 49th state of the United States.
But rebellion brews on both sides of the Atlantic. British patriots and disillusioned Americans unite in their quest for freedom, determined to reclaim their countries and their heritage from the grip of tyranny.
Story Description (longer version)
What if, as World War Two ends, the Soviets reveal they’ve captured six just completed, undiscovered atomic bombs the Nazis could not deploy, and it shifts the balance of power in Europe? The Soviet Union will no longer accept only their Allied apportioned post-war gains.
Not wanting to start a new conventional war and not willing to drop an atomic bomb in Europe and trigger a nuclear weapons-based one, President Harry Truman ordered all American troops pulled back to Great Britain, ceding Europe to the Soviets.
But a faction in the U.S. already believes that the Soviet Union is our next Great Enemy who must be confronted. General George Patton himself wants to move his 3rd Army against the Soviets. That faction gains power when Harry Truman dies (or, as some suspect, was assassinated).
Truman’s vice president, now president, is ineffective against the internal powers aligned against him. He is soon replaced via a senior military-led coup (something right out of SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, the 1962 novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, and the 1964 film by John Frankenheimer).
U.S. military intelligence officers recruit British anti-monarchists and anti-crown politicians and reward their collaboration. The British government is weakened and then hollowed out.
The new ‘President’ of the U.S., the leader of the coup—at least its public ‘face’—hardens what has become a U.S. military occupation of Great Britain into an annexation.
Some British men and women of influence now loyal to (owned by) the U.S. bring forward the idea that the only way to stop the Soviet Union from also swallowing the United Kingdom… is for it to become part of the United States, a 49th ‘state’ (before Alaska and Hawaii in 1959).
But rebellion is growing in Britain even though the Soviet Union is now only across the channel in Soviet-France. They want their country and their heritage back. So do many Americans who can’t abide by what’s become an authoritarian society. The American and British rebels join forces in a quest for freedom.
From a premise by Dennis Lowery. In our story development pipeline, RULED BRITANNIA is the first story in a thrilling alternate-history series where the fight for liberty knows no borders.