The Grail Conspiracies

Sometimes fiction follows fact; other times the reverse -- a thought that came to mind as I was watching the  60 Minutes segment "Pussy Riot punk band remains defiant of Putin's Russia". To go to that 60 Minutes segment on Pussy Riot

The all female Pussy Riot music protests echo the group Twisted Messiah in my technothriller THE GRAIL CONSPIRACIES, with both similarities and differences.

Pussy Riot was formed to protest alleged election abuses and other anti-democratic action in Putin's Russia. The protests were apparently confined to Moscow. So far as I know, Pussy Riot was not in it for the money. Nor did the Pussy Riot members (or any allies) have political ambitions beyond cleaning up their own governments.

Both the real Pussy Riot and my fictional Jesse Cripes and Twisted Messiah have  names chosen to be deliberately offensive . . . in a variation of the old politician's slogan, "Say anything you will about me, good or bad, just spell my name right."

Pussy Riot (so far) is confined to Russia.  Twisted Messiah (fictionally) takes advantage of rock super-stardom to springboard into a world-wide politically-oriented force.  A (fictional) CIA agent says The Company has come up with the bureaucratic-speak term:  NGPF (Non-Governmental Political Force), a take-off on NGO (Non-Governmental Organization).

The women of Pussy Riot seem to have the aim of doing good for their country; Twisted Messiah and the powers behind it have a very different aim. As a CIA agent says in THE GRAIL CONSPIRACIES,

"The Twisted Messiah fans . .  .most of them, are totally dumb bastards. There's nothing constructive they want to do or build or achieve with their lives so they're choosing the other direction, to be destructive, to wallow  in anger, hatred, darkness.  That's why we consider them the world's worst nightmare.

"Twisted Messiah, the movement, is not just a fan club, it's the functional equivalent of a covert army with terrorist potential, scattered in cells all over the world. Millions of fans, most of them dumb shits with nothing to lose, an army of dead-end kids all around the world, all willing to drink the Kool-Aid. And they've got tons of money, and the contacts to obtain any kind of weapon, even WMD.

"Believe me, you don't want to think about those scenarios when you wake up in the middle of some dark night."