Slayer Anderson
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The Hand We're Dealt - Vote:
🕑 Added 2025-03-29 11:46:24 +0000 UTCSo, I've been going back and forth on a few things as I finish up the next chapter of Mind Games, which I should have out later today.
Next chapter of The Hand We're Dealt will feature a timeskip and the Spanish-American War will have developed a lot further. I'll keep the exact circumstances under wraps for now, but here's a question. As Patreon supporters, you have a chance to shape some of the stories and details, and this is one such chance.
Should Andrew Jackson survive the war?
Feel free to discuss in the comments.
Edit: Short History Lesson on Andrew Jackson...
Andrew Jackson was the last elected President to have served in the Revolutionary War and held a deep and abiding hatred for the British after his time as a young boy (13 IIRC) when he was put on a disease-invested prison ship and nearly died. After nearly dying on the march back home, he recovered and went on to serve in the state militia and make a name for himself.
Jackson was active in local politics and won a seat in the US House and Senate from Tennessee, but left both prematurely because he preferred the military life, hated politics, and was infamously quick to anger. That last characteristic is why he fought at least two dozen duels over the course of his life, eventually dying with several bullets still lodged in his body.
His rise to national fame came during the Battle of New Orleans, where he defended the city from a British invasion using a hodgepodge force of black freedmen, American Indians, Creole militia, regular army, and pirates. It was here that he attained something of a folk hero status as a decisive and intuitive leader as well as a man of the people. Jackson also led military incursions into Spanish Florida and created the fear of a war that led Spain to sell Florida to the US.
Jackson ran in the 1824 election and was narrowly defeated despite receiving a plurality (but not a majority) of the electoral vote. He dubbed the backroom dealing a 'corrupt bargain' and resigned from his senate seat in protest. Running again in 1828, he won and proceeded to move forward with a political agenda that strongly favored the rural agricultural class as well as the slave-holding south. He was staunchly Unionist and wielded the power of the federal government like a cudgel at times, openly arguing with his former Vice President over the issue of a State's Right to Nullify certain tariffs that were economically damaging.
He was, ultimately, a populist who supported small farmers and hated large businesses and banks especially. The first great economic depression in American history arguably led to his election as an anti-elitist candidate who promised to abolish the National Bank and put power back in the hands of the states and local banking institutions.
He's most infamous for the Trail of Tears, in which American military units forcibly drove Native Americans from their land and resettled them in Oklahoma. A significant number of these people died during the forced march during a brutal winter and is generally agreed-upon as an act of genocide or ethnic cleansing today. Many Native Americans felt betrayed by the man who had led them into battle as a militia commanders years prior, but Jackson felt that the Indian population was fundamentally not American. In order to secure the agrarian ideal and supply the increasing population of the young country with land to settle, the Indians had to be moved.
Comments
ElricFlairgold
Let's break history some more.
Lillow Lynx
I’m voting for him to die so the situation with the natives on the frontier can remain messy and allow for more world building on the magic side of things.
Jeffrey Gassenheimer
I don't know that calling Andrew Jackson a "character" that people are voting to kill off in this context is even accurate. His impact on the story solely exists in the context of his potential actions on history. He has no spoken lines, has never met any of the POV characters, and as far as I remember, has no written lines either, even through the main character's "peeking at other people's notes" power.
Nathan
Feed the goblin! 👺
Draconic Hermit
I'm voting that he dies, if only because I like the idea of the actions of the OCI having massive consequences (both positive and negative) even if it was well meaning on his part.
Sir M
I mean what's the worst that could happen right?
Zerak
Thanks for the lesson , I changed my vote. I thought you were talking about the guy he helped prove the “innocence” of.
Slayer Anderson
What I can do is, during the next vote on a significant event, offer a third choice to roll dice instead of defaulting to a vote. I can't modify a vote in-progress on Patreon, so this one will stand as it is, but in the future I'll offer the dice option (as a protest vote) given that you've offered such a stringent protest over the way the current vote was formatted. I do value the feedback even if I disagree with the argument, so thank you for your input.
Slayer Anderson
The problem as I see it is two-fold. The first is that I had to do a quick write-up to give people the backstory on one of the most influential figures in early American political history. This pretty blatantly suggests that a second/third-tier order of effects summary wouldn't be as impactful as you're suggesting. Either that or it would entice more people to vote for disturbing the timeline simply on the basis that different = more interesting. The second issue is that, beyond dropping significant narrative spoilers to the story itself (which is a very real concern), attaching a cause/effect scenario like you're suggesting outright states that voting to kill a character you dislike simply because you dislike them isn't a valid motivation for voting that way. Simple preference in voting for what you want is entirely valid, and I stand by that. I will go ahead and confirm that without Jackson's... 'decisive action' as regards Native American residence east of the Mississippi, things are going to get a lot messier on that front. There will be consequences to the vote no matter what, but I'm only willing to hand-hold people to a certain extent in that regard. If there *IS* substantial trolling or virtue-signaling in the comments as a result of this, the next votes will be restricted to the higher tiers and/or cut entirely.
Jeffrey Gassenheimer
Lets shatter these stations.
god of war
I would like to choose for him to live but crippled making him unfit for presidency but still eligible for other positions in the Senate.
Acrimonius
Perhaps add a modifier to encourage people to think of second and third-order effects. “Would you rather Jackson not be alive to become President and enact the Trail of Tears if it had a high likelihood of causing the Union to lose the Civil War, thus ensuring the continuation of slavery in America?” or “Would you rather Jackson not be alive to become President and enact the Trail of Tears if it had a high likelihood of causing Texas and the West Coast to be under the control of a Mexican Empire that is at war with the U.S. for control of North America?”. By posing the answer so simply, you’ve given people a choice to stop something they may see as morally wrong, without downsides. This should not be a vote. It will simply devolve into virtue-signaling on one side and trolling of those same people on the other. You’ve already acknowledged that Jackson’s opinions were very popular at the time, so the question becomes “are you going to arbitrarily kill a character based on a person you may dislike, for no other reason than your dislike of them?”.
Slayer Anderson
Wish granted.
gaouw ganteng
That's my point, tho. He is very controversial, even today. His reputation for violence, and exploding into a life-and-death duel is very much well known. And IIRC, there's also land deal that might've been the precursor for the Trail of Tears. Maybe his rival managed to leverage that controversy into smear campaign against Jackson. So he lose, but still gain significant amount of vote.
Slayer Anderson
Jackson did serve as a senator from Tennessee in 1797 and again from 1823-1825. He was also a member of the Tennessee delegation in the US House from 1796-1797. Part of the reason I'm having this vote is because it's very difficult to come up with a reason for Jackson not to run for POTUS (and win) given the political climate of the day. While a deeply controversial figure from a historical perspective, he was a widely popular and strongly opinionated man who was active in local, state, and federal politics for most of his life. There might be a change in the specific election he runs in, but I can't see him not running for president.
Tristan R Mitchell
Andrew Jackson was famously racist, especially against Native Americans. The Trail of Tears was his thing.
Matthew Robar
What happened in actual history? Can you include like one sentence about how you expect each of these to go? Cause right now my knowlege about the choice is “when do I want this random American to die? And how much will he fuck anything up either way” so I’m kinda ambivalent
DeAD Scholar
All I've heard of him was that he was an insane, dishonorable motherfucker that stopped his own assassinations by beating them with his cane. I'm willing to reroll him.
gaouw ganteng
Is it possible for him to survive but NOT becoming president? I'd assume that the Native displacement will still happen, but not that bad like IRL. I'm split on the shenanigan that a bloodthirsty duelist that will easily fly off the handle will do... But not while doing it as the POTUS. Maybe he serves as a Senator? Just, not POTUS.
Konan2020
Was he the one responsible for the trail of tears, right? I prefer to roll the dice and try for someone else
