September 11 attacks (canon event)

The September 11 attacks are a scripted event: written to happen in a specific month of the term rather than being drawn at random. It plays in the ninth month of a Bush or Gore presidency beginning in January 2001, which falls in September 2001. A workshop scenario built on Bush 2001 can replace it with a different September.

The event

The briefing reports four hijacked airliners. The two towers of the World Trade Center have been struck and have collapsed, and the Pentagon has been hit. The fourth aircraft has gone down in Pennsylvania. Casualties are in the thousands, and civilian aviation has been grounded. The military is asking for authority to respond in the air, and the nation is waiting to be addressed. Three responses are offered. One is an immediate address that frames the attack as an act of war and commits to a military answer. Another is an address built on national unity without an immediate military commitment. The third is a delay until the casualties and the perpetrators are known. The player answers in their own words, as with any other month, and the game reacts in the usual way. Once it has played, it does not recur, and a presidency that runs past September 2001 without matching one of these two starts never sees it.

In career mode

A career presidency that reaches the White House with Bush 2001 as its reference receives this event in the ninth month of the presidential term. Because that reference is fixed when the career begins, in practice this means a career that becomes President having started in 2001. A career that began before 2001 and only reaches the presidency in January 2001 does not receive the event, even though every president in office that September is meant to. This is a known inconsistency.

Players who are not President that month see September 2001 differently. Governors and citizens read about it as a national headline in their state's news, followed the next month by a headline on the first air strikes in Afghanistan. While a career player holds the presidency itself, these state-level headlines do not appear, because the President's own papers already cover the national story.

Who answers

Which voters react is decided by the calendar month, not by the scenario chosen. The Nineties cast plays up to and including September 2001 and answers the attacks itself. The 2000s cast takes over from October 2001 and plays through to December 2012, before the modern cast begins in January 2013. In career mode, each voter's opinion of the player carries across this change of cast, so support does not reset in the month the cast changes. See Era shifting.

The post-9/11 mood

From October 2001 to December 2003, every voter's reaction takes into account the state of the country after the attacks, on top of their own usual views. Up to September 2002, this reflects a country that is still furious, wants those responsible found, and is prepared to back military force abroad, hard treatment of terror suspects, and new surveillance and security powers at home, and voters are shown as holding this view broadly, not only its most hardline supporters. From October 2002, the mood turns colder: voters still back the war on terror and the powers that came with it, and a leader who looks soft on the war loses their support, but they are also starting to ask what the next war will cost, without turning against the war itself. On every other issue, voters remain exactly as their own persona describes them; only their view of the war, the emergency powers and the treatment of suspects is affected. Two voters are excluded from this mood throughout: Protest Paige and Berkeley Leonard. The mood affects voter reactions across the game during this period, including in focus groups, in response to military decisions, and in direct conversation with a voter. It applies to any presidency running through this window, not only Bush 2001 or Gore 2001.

The workshop option

There is no player toggle for the mood in an ordinary game; it is present in every presidency that runs through this period. Scenario creators building a pack set in the 1990s era can choose a setting called "The post-9/11 mood", with three options: the player decides when starting the pack, the mood is always on, or it is switched off. Only the "off" setting changes anything, and its help text explains that it is meant for a timeline in which September 11 never happens.

Afterwards

The weeks that follow are not scripted, but the game's pool of events for this period includes several tied to a specific later month, available to any presidency running through the window rather than only to Bush 2001 or Gore 2001. From September 2001, these include the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the drafting of the Patriot Act, the decision on strikes in Afghanistan, and the airlines' bailout request. From October 2001, the anthrax letters. From November 2001, airport screening, the crash of a passenger jet in Queens, and the Enron scandal. From December 2001, the shoe bomber, the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and the No Child Left Behind Act.