Paul Bunyan and John Henry both died fighting the machines that started displacing the troublesome and nascent labor unions in the American West. The cost was ruinous for the companies; the new steam and clockwork technology had to be imported from Britain. But cost was nothing compared to being able to achieve dominance over the work force. With a few men running the machines, they were able to pay them enough to not ask questions. They also volunteered (in the spirit of patriotism, of course) to arm steam-mechanicals to act as the National Guard in the Western United States. Giving them their own, government sanctioned, private military.

Clarrence Darrow eventually moves west to help the labor rebellion, stealing plans from his bosses at the railroad companies to help them out.

Clattering clockwork steampunk mechanical American West labor rebellion. Steam and clockwork technology is not in the hands of the everyday person. This is the equivalent to the stealth bomber. The industrial revolution has hit, but we haven’t yet entered into a world where there aren’t still yeoman farmers the farther west you go.

America in the late 19th century, regardless of what you’ve heard or seen in movies, was an absolute shithole. The cities were dirty, and the politics dirtier. Tammany Hall, the election of 1876, the Free Silver movement. William. Jennings. Bryan. I totally need to re-write the ‘Cross of Gold’ speech to reflect steam and clockwork…

Have you ever heard that shitty seventies song, ‘Black Betty’? It was by Ram Jam, and it goes something like ‘Whoa Black Betty, bam bam bam” over and over. I thought this song was about a woman when I first heard it. But it’s actually about the whip that they used in Texas prisons of the era, usually on African-American prisoners. One of the dirty secrets of the post-Reconstruction South is that black folk were rounded up on a regular basis for ‘crimes’ such as jaywalking. They were sent to prison work camps, and basically re-enslaved on this basis.

You here a lot of fringe left and right wing people (and not so fringe) talk about the Posse Commitatus Act, which prevents the government from using the military to act as a police force. But what people either don’t acknowledge or don’t know is that it was a response to having Federal troops in the South. The Federal troops that were protecting some of the early black schools from being destroyed by people like the Klu Klux Klan. The Posse Commitatus Act was a part of the informal deal worked out after the election of 1876 in which the Democratic candidate won, but a committee of thirteen Republicans and twelve Democrats ended up awarding the election to the Republican candidate (go figure). Rather than start up the Civil War again, the Republicans said, okay, let us have the Presidency, and we’ll pull the Federal troops out of the South. Southern Democrats, eager to begin beating down on black people, readily agreed.

As stupid as American politics is today, few people realize how utterly fucked people were in the late nineteenth century. I mean, the American census had specialized terms for people who were one-eighth African-American. (If you were, you were an octoroon.) On top of this, there was almost universal grinding poverty, and a spectacularly bloody labor struggle.

The people were already covered in muck. Lets just add a little more soot. A Steampunk America that uses so much coal that it has to start importing it from overseas…China, if I remember my Henry Adams, had a lot of coal. A world were China gets industrialized quicker… Or what would be the Chinese equivalent of an emirate? Dependant on foreign coal?

Hmmm…All just ideas right now. I’m going to have to go back to some good American labor history. And thank God I bought the Oxford Companion to American History, because I can’t remember all of this shit. At a certain point, even I want to just forget it.

Windigo psychosis “refers to a condition in which sufferers developed an insatiable desire to eat human flesh even when other food sources were readily available.” The word comes from the mythical anthrophagous <sp?> creature of Algonquin lore, the Wendigo.

Another well-known case involving Windigo psychosis was that of Jack Fiddler, an Oji-Cree chief and shaman known for his powers at defeating Wendigos. In some cases this entailed euthanizing people suffering from Windigo psychosis; as a result, in 1907, Fiddler and his brother Joseph were arrested by the Canadian authorities for murder. Jack committed suicide, but Joseph was tried and put to death.

[From Wendigo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Jack Fiddler is a pretty cool sounding name.

At a secret government installation somewhere in the frozen tundra of northern North America, a scientist is working on understanding zombies. Lets face it, this is something the government would put a lot of thought into if it existed. The government loves zombies. It thinks zombies might be the best thing that ever appeared on the face of the earth. So much money goes to these scientists who are investigating the guinea zombies at this highly secure facility.

This particular scientist is doing lab work on Resident W. Resident W was also a scientist, but decided that he’d figured out the real trick wasn’t to be bitten by a zombie and turn into a brainless automoton. Oh no, he was pro-active. He theorized that eating a zombie was as pro-active as you could get. And by theorize, I mean that his brain went bad through a combination of dealing with zombies all day and staring at desolate tundra on his days off.

Our scientist-our HERO scientist-is studying this madman, because he turns out to have been right. He’s mutated into a creature with skin like charred marshmellow, black with white pus oozing out of it. But he’s also super-strong, and not mindless. Just utterly mad. And out HERO scientist is engaged in a contest of wills, trying to figure out how to deal with this ugly bastard. His bosses want him to figure out what it is and bottle it, but oh, please, could you skip the madness bit?

The lady in charge of security at the facility is the daughter of some old friends of the HERO scientist. He meets with them, and though they don’t know exactly what the facility is up to, they do know that their daughter and their old friend work together, and that she doesn’t really like our HERO scientist, but they don’t know why. Talking with them, our HERO scientist also admits he doesn’t know either.

The security chief is at the cafeteria (even ultra-secret government research facilities that study zombies have cafeterias), and is discussing the difference between guilt-culture and shame-culture with a collegue. Shame culture is pre-Christian, and is best demonstrated by Oedipus. He was ‘innocent’ in the sense he couldn’t have known that he was killing his father (who was demonstrably a massive bastard) or marrying his mother, but he still commited those acts. The acts themselves were the important thing, not his state of relative innocence, or feelings of remorse. In post-Christian society, remorse and intent become important features of determining responsibility. The way in which the subject views his relation to the object acted upon becomes more important. Hence we se Oedipus as somewhat alien. He couldn’t have known, so it makes no sense to us as to why he felt he must be punished for commiting a crime he was incapable of realizing he was commiting.

Meanwhile Resident W is huddled in a corner of his cell, and realizing that he can make contact with the mindless zombies being studied in the lab. He can see through their eyes. He can hear what they hear. He doens’t know how it really works, so he’s just experimenting, and smiling. He is happy, oh yes, he is very happy. And waiting. When HERO scientist shows up, he asks Resident W what he’s smiling about. “I’m having such wonderful dreams.”

HERO scientist and security chief run into each other. He confronts her about her dislike of him. Points out he’s an old family friend, and that they’ve known each other since she was a little girl. She lets him know that as the security chief, she was given the background information on all of the people working on the base. He visibly reacts to this. “Yeah, I know all about you and little girls. I know they made sure that you didn’t have to face prosecution because they needed you for this project.”

“That was ten years ago. I went ot counseling for five years. You’re head of security. You’d know if I was looking for this stuff on the Internet, and it’s not like I take a vacation from this fucking place.”

“Yeah. HERO scientist. Overcomes his addictions and works really hard on research to make up for it. Except you don’t take vacations because you love doing this. More-how much I don’t know-than you like child pornography.”

“Jesus Christ. Look. What do you want me to do?”

“What is there you could do? I found out about this, it ruined a part of my fucking childhood. Every memory of my fun ‘Uncle’, every time my parents left me alone with you, it feels like a fucking violation.”

“It’s not like…I never…acted out..I know all this shit is…was wrong. I never. Not you, not anyone, I swear to God.”

“Lovely. You never actually raped children. You just masturbated to photographs of horribly abused children. You truly are a HERO scientist.”

She walks away, leaving him with this.

MEANWHILE…

Resident W manages to break out, co-ordinating the other zombies, controlling all of the ones that had been created by the one that he ate. The others are unaffected. There is a loss of power as the virus (or whatever, will add Science Words later) is diluted across generations. (Also, mindless zombies don’t eat each other. Why? I have no idea. But it seems Important.) So with a small brigade of minions, he breaks out and starts marching across the tundra toward the nearest city.

Security chief is scrambling to deal with all of this. She manages to get some sort of strike force together, but probably won’t be able to deal with small army of zombies and Resident W, who is of course super strong, impervious to damage, etc. blah blah.

(This is the weakest point, because we have to believe that the government can’t deal with a few dozen zombies and some sort of revenant. Then again, after Katrina and Iraq, maybe it is believable. Still, probably needs some fleshing out. Just like all the other gaping plot holes.)

They realize that he’s going to get to a city, and they won’t have time to stop them before they start infecting people, and so Plan B is readied: Just nuke the whole city. It’s pretty much their only option.

UNTIL…

They realize the HERO scientist is setting out overland to intercept Resident W. And he’s eaten the flesh of one of the late generation zombies. He’s not as powerful as Resident W, but he’s also hoping whatever it is working away at his body will give him a window of sanity to deal with the bastard long enough for the security strike team to deal with Resident W without nuking a city.

(Yes. GAPING PLOT HOLES AHEAD. Do not fall in.)

HERO scientist manages to defeat/delay, in a stunning and brilliantly laid out fight sequence (Bam! Pow! Whack!), and the security force gets to him. He tells the security chief that he realizes that she can’t get her childhood back, and that it is his fault. “I did this because I did that. This is my accepting responsibility for what I did.” He looks away from here. “Now get rid of me. I’m a monster, and we know what happens at the end of the movie.” She nods, and takes out a gun, and shoots him.

FIN

Alternative teaser ending: HERO scientist wakes up in a cell in a different lab. His skin has turned blackened charcoal, like Resident W. Turns out he’s retained his sanity, but otherwise completed the transformation. Which makes the government very happy, because they think, perfect, we found the right dose of zombie flesh to make super soldier zombies that still have brains, not just an appetite for braaaiinzzzz. He is HERO scientist no longer. He is now ZOMBIE SCIENTIST, at odds with the government he once worked for, which I think deserves an ongoing series. Or not.