Saturday, April 16, 2022

#AtoZChallenge2022: N is for New World Order

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories N
The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: N is for New World Order

The New World Order is a conspiracy theory that gets rolled out once every few years. We are about due for it to come back up.

The idea behind it is that some great disaster, usually a false flag one, will cause all the countries in the world to cede control to some World Government, usually the UN, so there is a one-world government.

The term seems to come from early 20th Century political figures Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill.  It was much later popularized again by the first President George Bush.   

There are SO MANY conspiracy theories about the New World Order. More than I could even pretend to cover here.  But here are a few.

The first big one centers around the "End Times" of the New Testament.  Some readings of Revelation led people to people that the time of the Anti-Christ would coincide with the rise of a One World government.  This one got a lot of press back in the time when the European Union was founded (1993).  I remember having a conversation with a woman I worked with at a head injury clinic.  Like me she was a Qualified Mental Health Professional so not a dumb person by any measure, in fact very bright and very good at her job. Yet she told me she was not making any plans for the future.  She took the formation of the EU as a sign of the Beast returning. She even pointed out to me that the number of countries was the same as the number of horns of the great beast.  I don't think she was right, but she was convinced.  She even told me she expected the world to be over by 1999.  I kinda wish I had kept in contact with her.

There is a New Age philosophy that takes the NWO into a positive light with the arrival of the Age of Aquarius.  This will be a new age of peace and love.  I have used these ideas before with my witches and Sisters of the Aquarian Order.

There are plenty more involving the Illuminati and the Masons (of course).

David Icke, in particular Icke fashion, claims this is the time when we will be invaded by aliens.

And there are more, but you get the idea.

There are so many problems with any sort of New World Order.  I am not saying that we won't get to a One World Government, but it won't be any time soon.

Stacey Abrams as Earth's President on Star Trek Discovery
Capt. Burnham and Earth's President in the 32nd Century

Honestly, look at Brexit.  Not even Europe can hold itself together even when there are solid financial reasons to do so.  

Plus there is no single body of government that can even make the claim of being able to gather everyone together even through force.  

New World Order conspiracy theorists have a remarkable faith in humanity that I simply do not share. 

For NIGHT SHIFT

If anything the world of NIGHT SHIFT is even more chaotic than our real world.  Getting humans together is hard enough.  Add a bunch of supernatural creatures on one side and now a bunch of extraterrestrials on the other side, the notion of a New World Order is laughable.  Unless...

There is fear of a New Word Order, and the ones that are feared are normal humans.  This works well with my Ordinary World setting. Here the supernatural creatures are worried that humans will discover all about them and wipe them out.  As we know, scared groups tend to panic, and panicked groups tend to lash out violently.  

The situation would play out with various groups of supernatural creatures working together that normally hate each other joining forces to fight what they consider the bigger threat, united humanity. 

Like the Doctor Who episode, The Pandorica Opens, they gather together based on a faulty premise. The Doctor wasn't destroying the universe and the humans are not gathering together to destroy all the supernatural. Well...no more than usual. And certainly not a coordinated effort. 

So no New World Order here. 

--

Of course, this song was the first thing I thought about. 


The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

9 comments:

Lady In Read said...

another interesting set of theories I have kind of heard about in passing.. The story you mention about the woman you worked with reminds me of a few people I met with similar strong beliefs in such theories.. I lost touch with them though as they were only casual work acquaintances
visiting from A2Z Challenge

Dino said...

I was reading about Birds Aren't Real the other day and thought of you and this blog.

Beth Lapin said...

Sad state that our world is in right now. No wonder the idea of a united world has appeal.

Beth
https://bethlapinsatozblog.wordpress.com/

Cheryl said...

As I was reading, I thought about the book of Revelation. Did you ever read the Left Behind series by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye? It helped provide background and insight into the book of Revelation, even though it was fiction.

Thanks for sharing.

https://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2022/04/blogging-from-to-z-2022-next.html

Melanie Atherton Allen said...

It is an interesting mix of weird, fascinating, and depressing to talk to someone who genuinely believes that the world is about to end. And I would be interested to know how she took the non-ending of the world, also. I guess a lot of people were scared about 1999, or about 2000, or about 2001, depending on how they worked the thing out. I started college in 2000, and I would have felt extremely cheated if the world had ended then.

Visiting from Atherton's Magic Vapour

asha said...

Very logical conclusion. Yeah a new world order at this chaotic time may not seem to be plausible, but don't we all wish for some unified solution to our world issues someday...

Charlie Warren said...

Haha - the first thing I thought of was the song New World Order. That's a great album.

The second thing I thought of was the nWo faction from WCW. That time period was probably the last great period of wrestling for old time fans.

The third thing I thought of was the Illuminati: New World Order CCG version of the original Illuminati game from Steve Jackson Games. Great game!

We've been hearing about New World Order for some time. I've heard countless iterations of warnings since sometime in the 1980s. There's been all sorts of catalysts mentioned but the NWO one world government has yet to pass.

A Tarkabarka Hölgy said...

It takes some special mental gymnastics to hear "we will all be one nation" and think "the end times must be near"... :D

The Multicolored Diary

PT Dilloway said...

A false flag alien invasion was used in Alan Moore's Watchmen and sort of in Robotech, only in that case an actual alien invasion did come along 10 years later, but at the time no one really had any way of knowing that; the leaders of the world just used the crash of an alien ship as an excuse to unite the world and end the Global Civil War.