...critics should wait until after the Russian-American Coalition conference. However, many remain skeptical about the presidential visit, claiming the whole event is just for show.
The Russo-American Coalition, also referred to as the Russian American Coalition and the RAC, is an alliance by the Soviet Union and the United States formed some time after the 1986 San Francisco bombing, presumably to help prevent full scale nuclear war in the aftermath of the Hawaiian Conflict and likely other land war threats.
The RAC apparently allows both leaders of the US and USSR, to meet and discuss policy and current events in presidential conferences. The conference slated for December 28th, 1991 was likely to discuss the massive wave of anti-Russian hate crimes, violent anti-Russian protest rallies, and glorification of the 1989 Russian killings.
Depiction in Hotline Miami and Hotline Miami 2[]
Outside of Jacket's assassination mission on May 13th, 1989, the RAC is only mentioned toward the end of Hotline Miami installments: in Hotline Miami they're used as a punchline both that Biker is out of his depth and that the game really has an Escape from New York-, Assault on Precinct 13-style alternate history as partial reason for the societal decay. In Hotline Miami 2 they're mentioned in optional newspapers in the final two acts, foreshadowing a presidential conference.
Exactly who, if anyone, has the upper hand in the Russo-American Coalition is vague, but many Americans view it as a political betrayal and are shown to hate the influx of Russians in America. In Hotline Miami's Deadline, Jacket dreams of being denied entrance to a bar serving Russian zombies for not being a "VIP." In the second game, Evan is similarly denied access to a bath house, causing him to kill the Russian doorman in anger or by accident.
How much of this is due to paranoia or Evan being desperate to finish the book and salvage his family, and how much is actually due to social injustices and discrimination against non-Russians is left vague.
The Colonel generally hates the idea of vague, detached superiors interested in primarily in political angling, and sees the RAC as the pinnacle of that. In 1989 he formed an underground anti-RAC movement, 50 Blessings, to topple it by generating massive Russian casualties and assassinating several pro-RAC American politicians (apparently former Russian gang bouncers). 50 Blessings disbands after 1989, having sown the seeds of anti-Russian sentiment.
On December 28th, 1991, the Colonel (now an Army general), stages a coup at the RAC conference and kills both the Soviet and American leaders, prompting nuclear war.
Trivia[]
- The Main Menu of Hotline Miami primarily uses Russian text (ГОРЯЧАЯ ЛИНИЯ МАЙАМИ) making the 'native' English Hotline Miami text secondary and in turn, subservient to the former much like the United States to the Soviet Union under the RAC after the San Francisco Incident.
- According to developer notes (located within the GMK source file for the original GameMaker version of Hotline Miami) the Russo-American Coalition were originally known as the "KUA"; the original full name is unknown, though Kommunist Union of America is a possibility.