United States Presidential Line of Succession in Fiction - Videogames

Videogames

• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: President George Sears resigns his presidency after the existence of Metal Gear REX and the GENOME Army is revealed to the general public after the Shadow Moses Incident. His Vice-President James Johnson succeeds him after a faux-election orchestrated by a secret organization.
• Hitman: Blood Money: To achieve a cloning ban, a secret society named Alpha Zerox attempts to assassinate president Tom Steward for vice president Daniel Morris (in their employ) to replace him. Alpha Zerox also successfully kills the original vice president, Spaulding Burke, for Daniel Morris to be selected by congress as vice president. When they believe a member of Steward's cabinet, Jimmy Mickley, may get the position, they attempt to assassinate him but fail.
• Shattered Union: After a low-grade nuclear warhead obliterates the District of Columbia during a presidential reelection inaugural ball, the President and the majority of Congress are killed, and the entire presidential line of succession is wiped out. This results in multiple state governors declaring home rule and in regional portions of the United States becoming sovereign nations, one being the return of the Confederated States of America
• Mass Effect 2: In 2184, President Christopher Huerta of the United North American States (created by the merger of the United States, Canada, and Mexico) suffers a severe stroke that renders him legally dead for 90 minutes; his mental functions were transferred to a computer system to keep them viable while his body is saved, then subsequently returned. Speaker of the House Lisa Ford files a lawsuit against Huerta the following year, arguing that his time in office after his stroke was illegitimate because he had been declared legally dead, and that the Vice President should have succeeded him to office. Expert testimony presented by Ford's side claimed that Huerta no longer existed and the computer system operating his memory was only presenting an interactive simulation of a thinking person. Huerta's side countered that he did not become a different person after being resuscitated and his life was only extended beyond what was thought possible at the time. The case is decided 5-4 in favor of Huerta and the legitimacy of his term is affirmed; this is met with widespread protests in Washington, Ottawa, and Mexico City by UNAS citizens against what they call a "zombie" president.