Your thoughts on the (cannon) Presidential line of succession?

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Cdnwolf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_..._of_succession

When in doubt...lol.

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)

[rcaf_777]

Let not forgot the US has the designated survivor rule, which cam out of the cold war, I am thinking that once the Twilight War starts they a rotation of person held a a secure location for set time period.

[Olefin]

I dont GDW knew of a lot of the government shelters that were in place around DC that are in WV, MD and elsewhere - given the nature of the war you have to figure that once the nukes started to fly that there would have been designated Presidential successors in shelters at all times - there is no way there would have no US President for 22 hours - and there are so many backup communication systems that even if the whole country had been blanketed by EMP there were systems that EMP doesnt take take down that the government had in place by the early 90's

And the only way that the VP would have stayed in the White House to try to ride out the attack would have been in there was no other way to get out of Dodge -something like a Spetsnaz attack on the White House keeping the VP pinned down or whatever

[Enfield]

I think the basic idea makes sense of the succession being messed up. I was recently watching the series "Designated Survivor" which points out that even with a relatively controlled disaster (death of most of the cabinet and congress, but no national massacre) it is difficult to replace a lot of missing people, especially when managing an emergency. It's not the best series, but not bad, btw.

Anyway, my thought was this:
Tanner and Pemberton die along with most of the cabinet, congress and government leaders in the initial exchange.

Following this, the Speaker, a designated survivor, and a senior cabinet officer are among those left. They did not appoint acting secretaries because functions were being carried out under emergency powers by Chiefs of Staff, senior bureaucrats and agency heads who had survived.

The key question appears to be whether or not Munson or his successors appointed any acting secretaries. If they had, this would preserve presidential succession, and i think its reasonable for some GMS to have it so. For my own part, I was never entirely happy with the Broward thing.

Personally, while I am aware of the connection between Twilight 2000 and 2300 AD, I have never really been interested in that future, so I don't care about the US no longer being a military power. What I hve always been far more interested in is post apocalyptic ficition and roleplaying.

The idea of a succession conflict between two cabinet officers seems easily resolved to me: they'd know one another, and the succession depends on their position or the date of their appointment. So it might present a controversy for a time, but it seems to be that if, say, A Secretary of Defense was in charge but then a Secretary of State emerged, the government would have to recognize the Secretary of State as being the legitimate head of government.

[wolffhound79]

I wondered about this myself. I figured that with the state of chaos that was happening that certain people became lost or victims of circumstance. I had my player come across a remote mountain holiday town that was more then happy to get rid of a certain loud mouth senator that had been a thorn in there side since being trapped there in late 1997. About an hour after they had left with him , my brother looks at me and says "Did we just find the legitimate president?" I spent the next 3 hours googling trying to see if I just gave him the golden goose. I had them transport the senator to his brother, a general in the Milgov friendly forces of nevada and he was kinda hidden away just in case Mil gov ever found out.

Then to mess with them I had them encounter National Guards men in northern New Mexico under command of the true president. Made a little conspiracy back story and everything. Radio broadcast calling all loyal citizens to arms and every once in awhile coming across small groups of refugees or a few stragglers making there way to the president.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by wolffhound79

I wondered about this myself. I figured that with the state of chaos that was happening that certain people became lost or victims of circumstance. I had my player come across a remote mountain holiday town that was more then happy to get rid of a certain loud mouth senator that had been a thorn in there side since being trapped there in late 1997. About an hour after they had left with him , my brother looks at me and says "Did we just find the legitimate president?" I spent the next 3 hours googling trying to see if I just gave him the golden goose. I had them transport the senator to his brother, a general in the Milgov friendly forces of nevada and he was kinda hidden away just in case Mil gov ever found out.

Then to mess with them I had them encounter National Guards men in northern New Mexico under command of the true president. Made a little conspiracy back story and everything. Radio broadcast calling all loyal citizens to arms and every once in awhile coming across small groups of refugees or a few stragglers making there way to the president.

This is kind of what I mean. While the canon is interesting, it does have its flaws and ultimately a GM is going to tailor the game to their own campaign. I like the idea of the senator and the general being related, for example, that's a nice detail.

[wolffhound79]

Thank you. That is why I like this site. People are nice here.