Quote:
Originally Posted by Cdnwolf
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If you look at the list you can see that #15, Sloan Gibson, while an "Acting" secretary is still in the line of succession. This means that he was approved by the Senate to be first deputy secretary, but has not yet been approved by the Senate to be full secretary.
Every department's 1st deputy is approved by the Senate. I believe most if not all second and third deputies are also approved, and the department of Defense has at least 8 positions approved by the Senate (more if you count the regional commands).
So the canon story would not play out the way it does. You easily could have a president no one heard of.
Quick name the undersecretary of the interior. But there would not be a total lack of candidates.
Edit.
The most likely possibility for a schism would come from confusion over does 2nd deputy sec of state trump 1st deputy sec of def. However as long as someone in the first 18 survives, the next line of succession (assuming you follow the GDW story they went crazy) would depend on who they made "acting" secretary from the pool of approved candidates. (Which I expect would be one of the first 10 things they do)