You are correct that that paragraph is talking about Rearden. I have many of the strengths and flaws of a Rearden, and in fact many of the Atlas Shrugged characters, particularly the flaws.

The last part of that paragraph is talking about REARDEN---and quite correctly, too.

The two chapters "The Goal of My Writing" and "What is Romanticism?" are both from The Romantic Manifesto.

If your intent is to write a novel The Romantic Manifesto and The Art of Fiction are especially well worth understanding before deciding your literary purpose and how you want to approach it. But make it your own work, not "based" on the plot in Atlas Shrugged.

I don't have "The Romantic Manifesto and The Art of Fiction" in my library. I do have The Ayn Rand Reader. I will definitely read through that and refine what I wrote. Thanks!

Thank you for your constructive criticism. Sorry for going over the top with doom & gloom. Your idea are much welcomed.

Thank you for your constructive criticism. I appreciate it. I did go over the top with destruction.

I wish you success.
I looked at your site, do not tell anybody this but I recall I did not see a photo of the candidate, surely they should show a photo of him, (red face). I saw very little philosophy of the kind to attract serious Objectivists, but, do you want philosophy or votes?

“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medications somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medications and a government bureaucracy.” Thomas Sowell.
There are other big names who could swing votes.

Disclosure- I am not a US resident or even tax payer (I hope).

It is 'nice'. A coupla points:
1. fantasizing destruction. Yes, but whatever rocks your boat.
2. In no sense is it 'based on Ayn Rands’ Atlas Shrugged',
as ewv explains. It is just continuation of year 2020! Barely fiction.

I encourage Owlsrayne to write it. Can we have Israel surviving because they find aspirin kills the C19M? Condemned by global elites because- Trump, Zionists, has not been tested for being safe on C19M, is not a vaccine ... They make big money selling it, labels left on intact, no one reads the labels.
What believable method can the enclaves use to keep out the infected violent armed wokists? Maybe big notices saying 'Beware Hate Zone).
I see a market for a parody type farce fantasy with way-out destruction, would appeal to the twenties market.
Would be good if there were some Objectivist messages but keep them low key.

His "outline of ideas" is not "based on Ayn Rands’ Atlas Shrugged", which is a novel of ideas and pursuit of rational values, not fantasizing destruction as its own focus. She discussed in detail the nature of fiction and its relation to sense of life in The Romantic Manifesto and The Art of Fiction.

Comparison of real events with the plot in Atlas Shrugged can be illuminating. Morbid obsession fantasizing and even eagerly anticipating imagined comprehensive destruction that we often see on this forum is not healthy and is the opposite of Ayn Rand.

Often the most critical element in a fiction writing endeavor is establishing the proper antithesis with a suitable villain or villains. While Owlsrayne's comments does not discuss how the rational deal with the irrational nor does it describe the philosophy (or lack thereof) of its protagonists and antagonists, it does describe the events in a plot line that would form the foundation for many of the chapters.

Nice? It is not based on Atlas Shrugged. Atlas Shrugged is a novel of ideas and pursuit of rational values, not fantasizing destruction.

Very nice.

An outline of ideas based on Ayn Rands’ Atlas Shrugged in 2020:

The social unrest swells, the Black Lives Movement and the Anarchists becomes well funded militarized groups.
Major Democrat run cities defund or abolish their police force. Violent crime soars; BLM and Anarchists takes control of those cities.
The Covid 19 virus mutates (now known as Covid19M) and sweeps most of the east coast and west coast of the USA.
Truckers refuse to deliver goods to infected urban centers. Food warehouses are looted.
Super markets are raided and emptied.
Starvation pervades the inner cities.
The Chinese have found a new corona virus in their pigs. The Wuhan lab genetically engineers the virus, and then the CCP exposes it to limited part of their population and encourages them to travel to Europe due to the lifted travel ban.
The CCP and the Mexican Drug Cartels smuggles rocket propelled grenades and AK47’s to the Anarchists. Mass statue and indiscriminate destruction ensues. All federal building are fire bombed. The president tries to escape, his helicopter is destroyed by a shoulder launched missile.
DHS squads tries to fight back, the military is called out but the effort collapses as the Pentagon is fire bombed.
Anarchists set many cities ablaze.
Mass migration begins from both coasts to the interior of the US. Millions die from the Covid19M in route.
A number of vetted individuals make their way to a Florida Objectivist Enclave to start creating a new technological community. A group of engineers there create a plasma shield based on the Casimir Effect to tap into Zero Point Energy to protect the Enclave. Gold and silver become the method for payment of goods and services.

A small group of medical techs and engineers in the Florida Enclave develop medical nanites (ref: Ben Bovas’ “Moon War”) to destroy the virus. They also develop an aerosol (from the movie: The Shape of Things to Come, based on H. G. Wells novel) that could render whole populations asleep, then wake up with loss of previous memory.
Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) armed enclaves with restored WW2 and Korean War Military weapons arise and shutdown any movement into those areas. Former military and their families join that enclave. Self-defense and munitions manufacturing along with existing firearms companies becomes their trade product. Their initial goal is to take back the ravage cities by force.
Native American reservations raid National Guard Armories and then take control of large area of the former states they’re in. They revert to their tribal ways and refuse any trade with the Enclaves.
Montana, the Dakotas, Idaho and Wyoming secede and become a separate country. They’re trading agricultural goods with those Enclaves for their tech. Gold and silver is also adopted for payment of goods.
Military bases are now ghost towns some bases that are still manned scrape military hardware into useful products to trade with the Objectivist Enclaves. The remnants of naval vessels become initial mode of transportation for trade among some of the coastal Enclaves.
A Chief Engineer of the merchant marines gathers together merchant mariners and ex-naval personnel to commandeer the remaining SL7 Algol Ro Ro( capable of 30 knots plus) from the Sealift mothballed fleet in New Orleans. They refit her and mount weapons for protection. The coastal enclaves are notified via sat cell they able to pick up and deliver cargo faster than the ex-naval vessels. They will be charging higher fee for that service.
The ex-naval personnel recommend to the Chief Engineer that they could obtain a C-17 Globe Master to pick up and deliver product to inland Enclaves since the plane is capable of short take-off and landing on municipal runways. Now, a C-17 is added to their Fast-Lift organization.
The weaponized virus backfires on the CCP, mass die-off occurs in China. Members of the CCP become infected along with the premier. The military is decimated by the virus. Angry citizens torch all the major cities. Trade ceases. Crops fail due to the farmers are dead. Starvation collapses the country. China ceases to exist.
Major Russian cities collapses due to the Chinese Super Virus, Russians migrate to Siberia.
Poland had shutdown their borders early on and survives as do some of the other Slavic states.
The virus in Europe become like the Bubonic Plague of centuries ago.
India has been spared and the leader there mobilizes the people to build walls and barriers on their borders terrain permitting. Their navy patrols the coast and sinks any refugee craft trying to enter India.
The Muslim countries are also decimated by the virus.
Israel survives. A mass die-off occurs in the Palestinian territory because the ruling government believes that Allah will save them. Then they build catapults to throw dead bodies over the wall in an attempt to infect the Israeli people.
Africa becomes a desolate continent.
My out-line of the Shape of Things To Come.

we will probably never know exactly what happened, because the chinese covered up what was going on. In the absence of data to the contrary, the circumstantial evidence apparent at this time leads me to accept and run with the idea that the chinese manufactured this new virus, and either accidentally or on purpose let it out.

Well, whatever their intentions, what they did killed hundreds of thousands of people for no good, other than hurting trump;s re election and crashing our economy

When Ayn Rand explained that successful and meaningful political action requires the proper philosophical foundation she made it clear that that foundation requires rejection of mysticism, altruism, and collectivism, not substitution of "libertarian" political views for the current parties. For all the impact she had, the dominant trend continues to worsen under the influence of professional intellectuals, and so have the politics.

A substantial percentage of the population is not politically libertarian. The Libertarian Party after over half a century remains contradictory, fringe pretend politics with no understanding of the intellectual changes required,

"who is John Galt?" I thought that the place we are all longing for is in the future of America. I know that Ayn Rand asserted that there could be no successful political action until the proper philosophical foundation is laid meaning wide spread and prevalent.
Polls reveal that a substantial percentage of the population is libertarian.
We may get a clue how wide spread a pro individual freedom limited government is because the LP is going to get its candidate for president, Jo Jorgensen on every ballot. Her position on issues are online at JoJ2020.com.
She is intelligent, articulate, well oriented, normal character, a business woman and senior lecturer of Industrial psychology at Clemson University.
I can imagine her getting votes from disenchanted GOP voters who cannot stomach Pres Trump, as well as disenchanted Dems who cannot abide Biden, and can attract many of the 40 million independents and might actually win!

I have a grandson who is nine years of age and I think it is too soon to give up this country without a fight preferably at the ballot box.

What percentage of anyone's assets should be in precious metals?

The key words in that comment are "no thought".

It is already here in different forms and degrees. The latest was the virus shutdown freezing everything in place in the name of emergency, with no thought of how to sustain a functioning economy.

Yes, the "few years here or there" is the least of it.

10-289 is coming.

Of course, I was being facetious. Both of those "deals" are examples of why the freedom that used to exist in America is so rare.

You can't function under the new Biden viro directives, but "shrugging" is both not enough and not feasible with nowhere to go.

It's guaranteed that something like that will "get out" by natural causes or otherwise. That is why it is necessary to research it and try to be able to contend with the possibility, not "play around" with it. But it is "unwise" for dictatorships with mixed motives to that or anything else, which is one of the reasons why we should be researching it. Likewise for nuclear and space weapons.

It isn't far fetched to recognize the possibility that they would do something like that, but there is no evidence now that they did it and there are other more plausible explanations.