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The only question pending that could have some teeth are concerns about the Dominion Voting System.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rumor … ud-claims/

As shown at the link, the allegations don’t have traction yet, but that could change giving us a “Man of the Year” situation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_ … 2006_film)

Nothing is impossible, but I do think overturning the election is very improbable.

Ultimately, I believe most Americans just want to live their lives.  They want to make their own decisions and live with them.  This happened tonight as the virus stricken flooded the streets of all major US cities celebrating with open champagne bottles passed from person to person - drinking after each other.

I hope that Biden will follow through with his slogans, but I fully expect a return to the old days of half the country being ignored by all politicians.  When people are ignored by all politicians for decades, they will passionately listen to the first person who acknowledges they still exist.  That was Trump.

If the goal is to avoid another Trump, then it starts with looking at who he reached and reach out to them.  I am reminded of something that was an issue early in Trump’s presidency - the idea that he would actually talk to North Korea and legitimize them.  In truth, that’s how American politicians have viewed their own country too.  Don’t talk beyond your base - you might legitimize the other side.  And so, we stay divided.

The media have sensationalized the worst parts of both halves of the country, but the majority have much more in common.  The US is one of the most charitable nations on earth; we like helping others.  I just hope that we’ll be able to continue doing so.

From wacko conspiracy theory land, we have this:

https://banned.video/watch?id=5fa480cc65f2d419a08b54e2

I don’t believe it (no way the secret would get kept this long), but this stuff is where Sliders alternate histories can come from - almost believable, off-kilter, tilted reality.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/bogus … egitimate/

And there is a growing belief Arizona really was called too early:

https://mobile.twitter.com/Data_Orbital … arizona%2F

Even Nate Silver of 538 appears to agree (if we want to believe bad pollsters who were wrong about most everything before now):

https://mobile.twitter.com/NateSilver53 … arizona%2F

It won’t happen, but public polling needs to stop.  It is frankly destructive at this point.

This race should not be this close no matter how you slice it.  Showing Biden so far ahead up to the end surely made some Biden voters overconfident and possibly some Trump voters demoralized.  The result in either case is the loss of some votes due to bad polls.

This shouldn’t have been this close, and now it’s a mess.  And it’s because pollsters and media were determined to prematurely declare victory over Trump for months and months and months.

There was almost a surprise Arrow season 9 due to COVID logistics:

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainmen … ppen.html/

https://trends.google.com/trends/explor … 0my%20vote

As I understand it, the Primary Model is based exclusively on data from the primary election totals.  The primaries are over, so the book is closed on that.  That’s how they were able to do these forecast back to 1912.  This wasn’t done in real time; they could only so far find reliable records going back to 1912.

Of course, the model has been wrong twice.  The first was 1960, and there has been speculation that abnormalities in Texas and Illinois gave that election to Kennedy.  The second was 2000 when Bush was given the win.  In both cases, there is an argument that cheating swung the results; so the Primary Model may have actually been right those two times too if we had seen the true results.

As for personal behavior, the parallel to the rallies just strikes me.  Throw away the polling data for a moment.  Look around at what people are actually doing (such as the Primary Model looking at actual, final vote results on the books).  I’m not saying which forecast reality is true; I’m saying don’t be so sure of what’s really going on.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy … ing-states

Trump had no real opponent in the primaries.  Those people had no reason to vote, and they voted anyway.

In addition to QAnon, Baba Vanga predicted the President would get sick:

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1576472/bl … ronavirus/

(Vanga has also been shown to be some kind of urban legend propagated on Russian social media, but it’s interesting in understanding where these wild ideas come from).

There is a parallel, and I think you’re right.  The thing about the current situation is that many are treating the Trump diagnosis as a conclusion to a narrative, and that’s a mistake.

What’s happening right now is that the coin is still spinning in the air.  On one side, you have the media and others treating the diagnosis as almost fatal - talk of the 25th amendment and Trump having to take his name out of contention for the election.  On the other side, you have Trump and his associates saying they really don’t feel all that bad.

When the coin hits the ground, which side will be up?  Heads or tails?  If Trump reappears in a few days full of energy, hale and hearty, what do we think he’ll say?  I think he’ll say that his experience proves the virus is no big deal.  Democrats have shut down the economy and hurt people for no reason.  And all of the people who listen to him will be emboldened.  Trump is going to have the best care in the world, but his supporters won’t see that.  They’ll just see that Trump beat it, and they can too.  No big deal.

As it’s always been, the best thing the media could do is ignore Trump, but they just can’t do it.

Boo, if true.

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/t … rlane.html

Recently came across the Star Trek Next Gen episode “Pen Pals” during a BBC America marathon, and it reminded me of another old Sliders idea I had.  In the Next Gen episode, Data receives an audio transmission from a young girl, and it becomes a question of whether or not to save her world and violate the prime directive.  The only similarity to my Sliders idea is the blind exchange of messages, and it relates to the basketball used to demonstrate the timer return mechanism in the Sliders pilot movie.

What if a Quinn double in another reality conducted the same experiment but used a paper airplane.  And when the return mechanism kicked in, what returns is the paper airplane wadded up into a ball.  It now has blood on it.  Unfolding the paper is a scrawled message - it simply says “Help”.

Holding the vortex open with assist from the equipment, the Quinn double begins to exchange written messages with the unknown person on the other side.  This Quinn attempting to build up courage to jump through to obvious danger.  Fighting obstacles to keep the vortex powered so it will stay open.

Finally taking the leap of faith, the Quinn double finds an Arturo (our Arturo) on the other side trapped under the rubble of the collapsed basement.  My original idea featured a world where the Roswell crash happened in China; and after isolating themselves for decades, the Chinese suddenly emerged with advanced technology.   I think I would change that idea now to be more grounded.  I might use the idea of a sinkhole formed by fracking, and that would add drama in that the continued collapse of the ground is causing the fixed point of the vortex to become more and more out of reach.

To adapt this to Declassified, I would exchange Quinn for Reese.  The extra element would be that the Reese double would find our Reese trapped on the other side.  In the course of the adventure, the Reese double mentions how he doesn’t know if he could ever be as brave as our Reese, and it really takes Reese aback.  Has he changed that much and didn’t even notice?  With doubles being a mirror, it’s that interesting idea of a double acting as a sounding board and causing someone to see a person they no longer recognize in themself.

Well, Berlanti is spreading out from CW - his Green Lantern series and Strange Adventures are going to HBOmax (which will also host Titans and Doom Patrol).  The CW is kind of losing its grip on DC even before this.  HBOmax is sucking up the oxygen.

I think the CWverse would have clicked on a bit longer, but it could be another victim of the pandemic.  The shut downs accelerated what was going to happen anyway.

There is no more honor among either party, so there’s no reason to follow any “rules”.  It’s a sad reality, but it’s where we’re at.

If the Democrats win full control, they have been very open about their plans to stack the courts, stack the House, stack the Senate and stack the electoral college.  No Republican will have control of any level of the federal government ever again.  And then we’ll have exactly what America was before the Revolution - rule by one “family”.

Of course, for those paying attention, we’ve only had one party ruling government for a long while now.  For good or ill, it only started to change with Trump.  He’s a wild card.  And Trump proved that the Republicans have lost control of their voters; so the charade is going to end, and the Republicans won’t be allowed to have a say any longer.

Cause and effect with time travel is seldom a straight line, but they actually laid groundwork for Kang in Ant-man 2.  During the trip through the quantum realm, there was a “blink and you’ll miss it” cameo of Kang’s base - Chronopolis:

Kang was one of those characters tied up in the Fox rights, though - he was joined with the Fantastic Four rights I guess due to the lineage

What blows my mind is that Trump sat down and agreed to recorded conversations with Bob Woodward.  Then Trump does an ABC town hall which anyone should have known would be heavily stacked against him.  It’s new level stupid.

People compare Biden to Mr Magoo, but they’ve clearly never watched Mr Magoo.  The fumbling, oblivious blind man always walking into danger and coming out of it smelling like a rose.  That’s been Trump so far.

That’s what I mean, though.  If neither side sees any scenario where they could concede, then the only outcome is for one side to start killing the other until somebody surrenders.  That’s what war is; and that’s where we’re headed (some places are already flirting with it).

I’m not taking a side here; but when we strip away all the laws and rules of civilization, the only way left to settle disputes is the old way.  I don’t want to see that happen.

I’ll put it like this.  Right now it’s looking like no matter who I vote for, there’s going to be bloody war.

Yep.  It really turns out to be a similar investment to that of a live action series with CGI (especially if the animation is purely rotoscoped).

And I forgot to mention earlier, but I truly love Don Bluth.  When I created my fantasy-type pitch to Marvel years ago, I sought out someone who had a Don Bluth type art style (and it turns out she had even trained as a Disney animator though she unfortunately wasn’t able to work on any notable project).  What she produced was exactly what I was looking for, and I still love how it turned out.

So they state a rationale for it, but the Fed is about to let inflation happen on purpose.  In my mind, higher prices don’t equate better times for regular people, but what do I know.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/20 … 639747002/

Remember, remember the fear of September.

Probably the bedrock part of my process is looking for a puzzle to solve - how do I explain something and make it logically work?  You’ve given that challenge here, so here we go. 

My first personal “rule” on a Sliders story is “don’t change the world”.  I personally didn’t like the idea that the Sliders would come in and radically change human history.  It works in some of instances (like “Last Days”), and it can even work on a smaller scale (like “Weaker Sex” where Arturo could be running for a smaller office like Mayor or City Councilman).  But keep the stories small and personal.  Local level.

My second “rule” is that the Sliders should be the stars of their own story.  Looking at especially the later years, too often the Sliders would land on a world and help random person X with random problem Y.  The Sliders would be reduced to facilitators of some stranger’s story arc.  I suppose that too can work occasionally, but I don’t like it at all for a show such as Sliders.

Sliders is a survival show.  Though often ridiculous and regularly frustrating, Sliders is the story of four people trying to simply hang on until they can make it home.

Those rules in place, I then ask a question - “what is reality?”

There is no set definition of reality for anyone; and even in an individual’s life, the meaning shifts based on the circumstances.  Thinking on that question today, the first thing that came to mind was a strange phenomenon I’ve experienced and is talked of in movies.  When we go on vacation to an exotic locale surrounded by strangers, we become the person we want to be instead of the person we are.  It’s temporary - you change back as soon as you go home; but while on that trip, you are taking a vacation from yourself.

Now with a rough, basic premise, let’s look at the basket of alternate history ideas (something I’m constantly building and have been posting here).  For this idea, we’ll use the most recent I posted - “Bubble World” (where people are segregated based on how they think and feel).

So how can this fit together?  The Sliders land on “Bubble World” noting they are going to be stuck here for weeks, and one of them (probably Bennish) says something pretty tame that deeply offends the people they are talking to.  A heated argument starts; people are running for help; authorities arrive, and before we can grasp what’s happening in the chaos, Alli is injected with something by the authorities and blacks out.

Alli wakes up in a “re-education” center.  Alli is to be taught the “correct” way to act so that she can re-enter society as a productive person.  This training can also be our vehicle to exploring the history of this world. I would recommend a mix of various ideologies as the “correct” idea so that you can hold as many viewers as possible.  We’re often not as far apart as we think.

As part of the training, Alli is put into something like a therapy group; and she is surprised and irritated to find that she has been reunited with Bennish.  In talking, Bennish shares some of his back story; and the longer the episode goes, we begin to notice that Bennish is a better person.  Alli tries a few times to escape; but on one attempt, Bennish stops her.  He has come to believe this isn’t so bad.  He’s a better person, and he likes it.  Seeing this, Alli is starting to believe it too.

Time passes, and Alli starts to change.  She’s calmer.  Happier.  The time comes to be released, and Bennish offers for Alli to come live with him.  She’s a bit taken by how nice their new home is, and it was already furnished; but then she notices something on the desk.  An ID card for Conrad Bennish.  No Junior.  The Bennish she has come to know is the native version of that world - an assistant counselor at the facility she was placed in.  She hadn’t noticed because they were never placed in a “cell” together; they always sat in a ring of chairs where everyone appeared equal; she always found him already in the recreation areas before she got there and never gave it much thought.

So the question it comes down to.  The new person that Alli has become - is this the person she wants to be, or will she revert to her old self now that the vacation is over and it’s time to go home?

I would need to think a little more on a B plot to give Reese and Gibbs something to do (most likely focused on them trying to save Alli but finding only our Bennish instead), but we have our story foundation now.  I did not intend it to be when we started, but this turned into a kind of sideways look at “Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome”.

Of course, the above is not a completed story - it’s the product of maybe an hour’s thought in an attempt to solve the puzzle you presented.  But it has potential.

It would seem that Herman Cain hates Kamala Harris so much that he came back from the grave to slam her:

https://mobile.twitter.com/THEHermanCai … 1610427392

And now this:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/08/politics … index.html

I’ll admit there’s a kind of mad genius to it, but the strong emphasis is on “mad”.  This will not stand; Congress and the courts can’t allow it and should not allow it.  This would make irrelevant our three branch system of government; we would truly have an authoritarian government if this is allowed.

There’s also the probability that companies will hoard the cash instead of letting employees keep it:

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-p … ash-2020-8

The madness here is that it’s scorched earth.  Trump is going to turn both Democrats and Republicans in Congress against him.  Further, it’s madness to just do away with payroll taxes provided by the middle class.  How are Medicare and social security supposed to survive if you cut out a significant chunk of their revenue?  Granted - social security is going to fail anyway, but why accelerate it?  This just created a massive talking point for Democrats as they can tell the elderly that Trump is trying to take away their benefits by crashing the system; and they really won’t be lying about what he’s trying to do.

The only “genius” here is that Trump knows the orders will fail, and he just wants to be able to say he tried to help people and Congress stopped him.  Its cover for failure to make a deal.  It’s an attempt to turn a negative against him into a positive.  Will it work in his favor?  Odds are against it, in my opinion.  I think it will cause him more damage than good.

This probably fits in this thread; Dubya even gets a passing mention in the responses.

Jerry O’Connell in the hot seat on stepping up for Ellen DeGeneres:

https://mobile.twitter.com/MrJerryOC/st … 5951516672

I don’t know enough about the situation to form an opinion, but I do admire people who stand up for what they believe even when it isn’t popular.

Hope that’s true - the show deserves a long run

How can you go sideways with culture to make a Sliders backdrop?  The real world is always dropping ideas.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/investin … index.html

As you see in the article, this change isn’t new; it actually happened in the background years ago when most people weren’t paying attention.

Kodak Film is now Kodak Pharmaceutical.  Who would have thought that in 1995?

What other companies could you use this kind of strange twist to create a comical situation?  Well, what if an all-in commitment to the 1980’s New Coke destroyed the company making it necessary to refit into a cleaning product company?

https://www.cnet.com/pictures/things-yo … th-coke/2/

Imagine one of the Sliders picking up a Coke can without examining it closely and taking a drink?  On that world, people might think they were drinking cleaning chemicals!  As concerned citizens rush the Slider off for emergency medical treatment, it could be a good opportunity to explore an alternate history health care system casting a light on how ridiculous it can become.

People are scared to tell anyone they’re voting for Trump, though.  We live in a culture right now where using the wrong pronoun in a sentence might get you fired from your job (not to mention social implications).  The step-mother of the police officer who killed Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta was fired because she married the wrong person - she didn’t even say anything.

Regardless of how badly the polls are skewed, you would think the Democrats would want them to show a razor thin race.  If Biden is shown to be 15 points ahead, you will see Biden voters not worry about donating or voting (especially in a pandemic).  It’s just incredibly unwise to encourage voters to be overconfident and lazy.  That’s part of what lost Hillary her election; she skipped campaign opportunities in places like Wisconsin because she was overconfident those voters were in the bag.