The games Command & Conquer: Red Alert, by Westwood, and its sequel Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, by EA, are both quite culturally influential on the board. Running jokes and tie-ins are often based on them, in particular by such members as LordInsane, alt_historian, euio, and Thande.

• Red Alert 2 betrays Westwood’s original vision and is an example of the Eeeevil of EA, guaranteed to provoke a P-gah from LordInsane...even though it’s rather fun to play.

• Unlike OTL’s Soviet Union, the Premier of the USSR in Red Alert appears to be picked by the Praesidium on the basis of how strong his Russian accent is, explaining Alexander Romanov.

• The OTL version of Red Alert’s US President Michael Dugan is France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy. The French can thus sleep soundly in their beds knowing they have a president who can defend them against hordes of Soviet airships.

• Yuri’s mind control was a waste of money, because any sensible person would be converted to the Soviet side just by seeing how cool their airships are.

• Yuri’s Magic Telephone is the best explanation in any ‘US invaded’ scenario for why nuclear war doesn’t happen (to quote alt_historian).

• The Hellmarch theme is perhaps the ultimate backing to any montage of scenes showing an invasion. It was even suggested as a soundtrack to the Return of the Noldor in The Silmarillion.

Einstein: Time vill tell. Zooner or later, time vill tell.

Kane: The foreseeable future...? Comrade Chairman, I AM the future!

Romanov: Ve Romanovs have our legacy to consider.

Dugan: I don’t give a wooden nickel about your legacy! You call them off!

Romanov: The little turtle sees BIG RUSSIAN MISSILES, and he ducks! And he covers…duck, cover, Hahaha! Today we will make history, Comrade General! Together we will destroy the United States; their cities, their homes, their dreams, and perhaps more!

Less frequently mentioned is the other C&C game continuity (insert rant by LordInsane here about how they should actually be one continuity, and were before EA poked their abnormally large noses into the whole business), the Tiberian (and not ‘Tiberium’, adds LordInsane in an addendum to the previous rant, pointing out that EA has no understanding of Latinate adjectives) series of games. These consist of Tiberian Dawn (aka ‘Command and Conquer’), Tiberian Sun, and “Tiberium” Wars, which should really have been called Tiberian Twilight.