Crowdsourcing the Timeline

[Shepherd]

Bob Schroeck wrote:

---

9/11 does not happen.  It took several different sociopolitical trends converging in a specific way to motivate Bin Laden and al Qaeda to attach the US the way they did, and most if not all of them didn't happen (or happened very differently) in the IST world.  This is not to say something similar doesn't happen -- but when, where, and by/to whom?

Idea #1:
How about attacks on one or more IST bases by a jihadist movement? After all, one of Bin Laden's stated reasons for his attacks on America was the presence of an American military base in his home country. Perhaps the IST either had a base in Saudi Arabia or was in the process of building one there, so you get similar results due to similar input. Having Bin Laden as the mastermind adds verisimilitude since you'd expect someone with a noted fixation on destroying symbolic structures to be involved in a plot to destroy symbolic structures.
If you do go with this scenario, I do suggest inventing a name other than Al-Qaeda (since that would be stretching the parallels a bit too far) and to not go with a complete failure of the attack (since that would feel like Inglourious Basterds style wish fulfillment). On the other hand, the 9/11 attack was the culmination of years worth of semi-successful lesser attacks and only worked so well because of the civilian construction of the Twin Towers. I'm certain that IST buildings are designed to be much more rugged, so either the attack is only a partial success or the attackers are using MUCH more force.
Perhaps the timeline could be seeded with notes regarding ineffective jihadist attacks using car bombs and missile strikes, culminating after several years with some sort of bunker busting attack by a military aircraft hijacked via telepathy/mind control drugs/teleportation swap/surgically altered imposter/etc.
xxxxxx
Idea #2:
Blame Canada! Evil Canada is always fun, so have some sort of political scandal result in an electoral upset that leaves a group of hardliners in charge of the Canadian government. These people take Patriot Act/Gitmo style policies to the sort of Big Brother ends that are feared in the real world. Perhaps they respond to American gun violence leaking over into their country by closing their border with the US. You could have televised debates about building a heavily patrolled border fence to keep American criminals out.
And in case it matters, I release any and all rights to these ideas to Bob Schroeck, and expect no remuneration of any sort.
----------------------------------------------------

"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV