Dark Earth Timeline Discussion

[bobbins66]

Eminently plausible until the final parlay about “The Grauniad” and no spelling errors!

[Simon Darkshade]

Well, a different approach does come from different ownership and differing direction, with a culture of punctilious sub-editors and different pay and conditions deals with the typesetters/printers union.

[Bernard Woolley]

I’m hoping that DE doesn’t have any of the client journalism that we have in RL. The sort of thing where newspapers will ‘discover’ a scandal about the Opposition when the government screws something up, or to distract from a government scandal. Hopefully no reporting that is fairly obviously biased to those in power.

I get the impression that the Third Estate in DE will still hold politicians to account and that proper investigative journalism is still alive. Rather than the ‘copy and paste’ stuff that is in so many newspapers these days. Have spotted that this week, btw.

[Simon Darkshade]

That phenomenon would seem to be a rather more recent one than either the timeframe or the culture of DE would permit or give rise to.

There is the older sense of proper investigative journalism, albeit in a context of more old fashioned trust in the government and establishment. There isn’t a perceived need for shadow censorship, but rather, where necessary, the real thing in the form of the Ministry of Information. They take a fairly loose position for most things that don’t directly imperil national security or social stability, but it is a presence with teeth; there are bad actors out there, domestically and internationally, who aren’t given scope to harm.

There haven’t been any major political moral scandals a la Keeler and if any ministers or civil servants are caught doing the ‘wrong thing’, then it is dealt with internally and decisively. In the event of anything going awry, the Press still has the role of holding those responsible to account.

[jemhouston]

More like how many times you spot cut and paste in a week?

[Bernard Woolley]

More like how many times you spot cut and paste in a week?

I’ve only spotted it once this week. There was a story that appeared in several newspapers with similar political leanings. The only source for it being real was the report on it in the first paper to run the story. It was clearly BS.

I’ve seen copy and paste in the past where one newspaper would directly lift copy from another, or a wire service. Lightly edit it and pass it off as their own.

[Simon Darkshade]

May
May 1: The BBC’s Tonight program features a special sequence on ‘A Tale of Two May Days’, contrasting the grandiose and warlike military parade conducted in Moscow with the joyful innocent family activities of the May Day holiday in Britain and closing with a split screen image of a young laughing May Queen and a scowling Red Army conscript.
May 2: Japan pays off the last remaining instalment of its postwar food aid debt to the United States, with the $200,000,000 payment being channeled directly into the new aid programme for the reconstruction of South Vietnam.
May 3: President Ronald Reagan arrives at Heathrow Airport in London on the first foreign state visit of his presidency to Britain and is greeted by Ambassador Walter Annenberg, Prime Minister Stanley Barton and Foreign Secretary Sir James Callaghan, before being received by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness Prince Phillip at Windsor Castle and reviewing a brigade of the Queen's Guard, followed by the traditional twenty-four course royal state banquet. The visit is to include an address to both Houses of Parliament at Westminster and a naval review of the Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow.
May 4: The 1670ft tall Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out, becoming the tallest skyscraper in the United States and the world, just shading the new World Trade Center towers in New York City, with both overtaking the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow to restore American leadership in the somewhat secondary measure of the world's tallest buildings.
May 5: The Sports Federation of the German Democratic Republic initiates the State Research Plan, a blanket programme for the distribution of performance enhancing drugs, steroids and experimental alchemical concoctions to athletes competing in international competitions, particularly the Olympic Games.
May 6: The Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance presents a 10 Year Project for the improvement and modernisation of the Italian economy, based on a reduction in inflation, increased domestic production of energy to transform costs, increasing exports by 60% and continued investment in the continued development of the South.
May 7: Opening of the Royal Military Exhibition, a special exposition of Britain's land, sea and air forces and their equipment, held at the Royal Exhibition Centre at Earl's Court. The prize exhibits are a new RAF Supermarine Spitfire, the Army's new Medium Combat Vehicle version of the FV525 Warrior and the Royal Navy's new Coastal Forces hydrofoil Super Fast Attack Missile Craft.
May 8: US forces kill several hundred rebels in a brigade sized ground sweep and clear action in Sudan, with heavy air support from USAF strike fighters and bombers and USMC attack helicopters. It is estimated that the objectives of the joint punitive mission will be achieved by the end of June.
May 9: Resignation of the Prime Minister of the Lebanon after his failure to resolve the cabinet impasse over military cooperation with Syria and other members of the Arab Union, which is driven by Lebanon's position as the only majority Christian state in Levant.
May 10: Debut of The Great Adventurers, an ITV series based on the book by Sir Winston Churchill, the Duke of London, on the greatest explorers, adventurers and discoverers in the history of the British Empire.
May 11: The Hawke Labor government in Australia successfully introduces a programme of free tertiary education for approved students as part of their raft of reforms aimed at modernising and diversifying the burgeoning Australian economy, following on from the introduction of the Prices and Incomes Accord with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and a programme for the further encouragement of nationally significant secondary industries, specifically the automotive, steel, electrical, textile, clothing and footwear and consumer goods industries.
May 12: Completion of the Soviet space station Mir, joining Krasnya Oktabyr and Vostok as the USSR's major facilities in Earth's orbit, in addition with the smaller Salyut stations operating in lower orbits for more temporary reconnaissance and experimental purposes.
May 13: German arcanologists working with the Kaiserliche Anstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung develop a new industrial enchantment for the separation of different components of commonly used plastics into easily reusable base compounds which, in line with last year's law on the prevention of waste in rubbish management and the promotion of re-use and 're-cycling', opens up the potential for upwards of 96% of commonly used plastics to be recovered rather than go to landfill.
May 14: The Kustartilleriet of the Royal Swedish Navy begins deployment of the new Bofors 125mm light coastal defence gun in fixed single and twin mounts and in the mobile role; it is intended to fill the role between the mobile 105mm and 152mm guns and the heavier 152mm, 254mm, 375mm and 610mm pieces. The new Swedish gun is thought to have been designed for maximal capacity with the British Royal Ordnance 125mm Light Gun and the US M125 as part of the latest manifestation of the longstanding Anglo-Swedish Defence Pact, along with the joint development of a new mobile assault gun system, provisionally designated the Infanterikanonvagn 105.
May 15: Rhodesian Army and security forces overrun a major guerilla base in the far south west of the country in Operation Scarecrow, eliminating or capturing hundreds of fighters. The success of the operation is hailed as a major victory by The Rhodesia Herald and as, whilst not the beginning of the end, then the harbinger of a new phase in the Bush War. Some professional foreign observers ascribe a large part of recent improved performance to increased US aid in the aftermath of American victory in the Vietnam War, as well as more advanced RAF aerial support and intelligence gathering capacities. Whatever the causes and contributing factors, the outcome of Scarecrow marks a notable shift in the tides of Cold War conflict in Central Africa.
May 16: A joint Anglo-American Peaceful Nuclear Explosion is conducted by the US Department of Energy and British Ministry of Atomic Energy at the Nevada Test Site to test a new experimental device designed for potential use in the construction of a Nicaragua Canal, exploitation of the Athabaskan oil sands and iron ore mining in the Pilbara region of Australia.
May 17: The Air Ministry issues Specification B.24/73 for the development of a very long range strategic heavy bomber to augment and possibly eventually replace the RAF’s fleet of Avro Vulcans. It calls for a multi-engine supersonic jet bomber capable of carrying a bombload of 60,000lb to a range of 6400nm at a cruising speed of 875 knots at 75,000ft, with considerably greater maximum speed, altitude and bombload and provision for a range of defensive armament. Avro, Vickers, Handley-Page, Armstrong-Whitworth and BAC are invited to submit designs for the ambitious specification. This move towards the future is accompanied by C.25/73, a curious shift to the recent past, which sets out a requirement for an updated and enlarged version of the Bristol Britannia powered by the new Rolls Royce Severn 16000shp turboprop engine; the ostensible fuel economy advantages of the engine present a compelling case in the considerably different strategic circumstances of 1973 compared to 1964.
May 18: Militant dissidents attempt to hijack an Aeroflot jet in Dushanbe with a view towards fleeing to Persia, but are subdued by an elite team of Omega Group commandos fortuitously on standby in Samarkand; the GRU special forces eliminate all five dissidents in the process, having been instructed not to take prisoners.
May 19: The Ministry of Agriculture and Food publishes a study on emerging technologies, enhanced alchemical fertilisers, agricultural enchantments and new seed varieties and their impact upon crop yields. It forecasts an increase in potato production to 32 tons per acre by 1980, whilst wheat and barley productivity, particularly in England’s great breadbasket of East Anglia and in Lyonesse and Leinster could rise from the current 112 and 94 bushels per acre to above 200 in the same time frame.
May 20: The heads of the Oriental Orthodox Churches and Patriarch Demetrios of Constantinople issue a joint declaration following a conclave in Constantinople that the Chalcedonian and Miaphysite Churches, whilst having differences of some Christological formulations, there is no fundamental difference of belief and that they will work together towards a unified Christianity.
May 21: The Committee of Imperial Defence authorises the fourth stage of the Long Range Missile Defence of the United Kingdom Plan, which will complete the deployment in the British Isles of 640 Violet Friend long range ABMs (with a top speed of Mach 10, a ceiling of 500 miles and a maximum range of 750 miles), 640 Black Beauty medium range weapons (Mach 6, 250 miles ceiling and 250 miles range) in both their mobile and silo based versions; and 1280 Blue Sky short range point defence missiles (Mach 12, 25 mile ceiling and 50 mile range) by the end of 1975. Additionally, in the medium term, four further Skyguard energy weapon facilities are to be established, providing direct coverage over the west and south; RAF Fighter Command's 48 Bristol Blue Envoy squadrons are to be equipped with advanced new long range Mark IV missiles and four airborne battle stations equipped with air launched Black Beautys; the Army's Air Defence Command will increase to forty squadrons of English Electric Broadswords in the home air defence role; and the Royal Navy is to increase the assignment of missile cruisers to the Home Fleet from three to five.
May 22: The US Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes statistical data on national economic activity computed by Alfie, their intelligent IBM Super Multivac 9000 supercomputer, indicating that the United States is emerging from recession based on small business sales, retail trends and stronger manufacturing output. Across the Atlantic, the British economic outlook remains more grey, with pressure growing from the Labour backbenches for direct investment and interventionist policies to further ameliorate the broader effects of the recession, whilst Prime Minister Barton and the Cabinet remain committed to the current course of action, with a suspension of all immigration save for special cases to stabilise the labour market being the only significant new measure taken in the second quarter of the year.
May 23: Formation of the Organisation d'Action Secrète by the French DCRG as a domestic counterpart to the SDE's Action Service, combining a number of previous separate groups utilised by the French government for the suppression of internal security issues and the provision of an 'active response' to the same.
May 24: British Oil’s exploration team submits a report on the discovery of five new major oil and gas fields in the Irish Sea. Investigations by drill ships and submersibles into a suspected larger deposit around Rockall continue.
May 25: Representatives of United States Air Force and Royal Air Force sign a memorandum of agreement for the cooperative development of a range of high precision laser guided bombs.
May 26: The Jordanian Prime Minister and Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban meet in Jericho for a fruitful discussion on general rapprochement and economic cooperation, with both countries keen on pursuing the benefits of the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal and on the export of Israeli electricity to Jordan.
May 27: Brazil signs defence sales agreements with the United States and Britain in response to the Argentine armament of recent years, with the former being for a range of land based equipment (headlined by 1600 M60 tanks, 2000 M113s and hundreds of modern artillery pieces) and the latter package including both land and air surplus weapons, consisting of 960 Chieftains, 800 Bristol Bloodhounds, 1200 PT.428 Rapiers, 240 de Havilland Tornadoes, 300 Hawker-Siddeley Merlins, 120 Vickers Thunderbolts and 240 Fairey Delta IIs and 240 Supermarine Sunstars along with new radar systems and 100 Vickers Vimy supersonic heavy bombers. The British aircraft order for the Imperial Brazilian Air Force comes after a decade of careful cultivation of high ranking officers and Air Ministry officials and the accompanying fillip of resource purchase agreements and investment in Brazilian industrial development.
May 28: Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of Princess Anne and Prince Christian of the Netherlands, with the union seen as a masterly means to cement ties between Britain and the Netherlands, and by extension with the increasingly strongly integrated Benelux Union.
May 30: A coup attempt in Yemen is barely suppressed by Arabian troops, leading to the widespread unrest and disorder as long-running tensions emerge to the surface of Yemeni society. The perceived economic weakness of the regime, which is the only one without substantial oil discoveries to date, is seen as being an underlying reason for the instability.
May 31: Opening of a great bridge spanning the Bosphorus in Constantinople, providing a direct link between Europe and Asia for the first time since the far off time of Emperor Darius the Great of Persia. The ongoing tensions and simmering hostility between Byzantine Greece and Ottoman Turkey makes the full potential of the continental link a question for hopeful future resolution at this time.

[Simon Darkshade]

May Notes

- The 'Tale of Two May Days' is just one example of how Britain is at least trying to compete at the top level, even culturally. Their point is quite well made, with a peaceful, free society without needing to lock its people in being rather more attractive than the Soviet alternative. Actually saying so is an example of a Britain that is far more confident in itself than the @ of the 1970s nadir
- Japan's payment to the Americans isn't as needed for balance of payments purposes here, but comes as both a welcome gesture and a sign of Japan's burgeoning strength and confidence
- Reagan visits Britain earlier than in his @ first term, showing the relative importance of the Anglo-American relationship; there is more emphasis upon this in Britain, but the power balance is slightly different
- The heights of the Sears Tower and WTC here are part of the never-ending Cold War competition between the USA and USSR
- GDR doping will be a bit more 'effective' here, at least until exposed
- Italy is bobbing along reasonably well, but increased exports of luxury cars, clothing, shoes, furniture and other valued added consumer goods/desirables is in their favour
- The Royal Military Exhibition is a bit of an attempt to push up economic activity through events, as well as trying to advertise British defence equipment to the rest of the world. The Medium Combat Vehicle version of the Warrior is a 90mm/25pdr vehicle that tries to straddle the line between AFV and 'medium tank', mainly as a sales attempt, as it is unlikely to see service in the British Army due to the Ikv 105 dalliances outlined later on
- Bob Hawke's Labour (note different spelling to the @ Americanised version of the ALP's name, adopted thanks to King O'Malley) is on a different wicket to its @ advent in 1983, with there being much, much less scope for economic rationalist policies or moving away from industrial protectionism; the removal of university fees also reflects the priorities of the time
- Mir is larger, as are the other Soviet stations, with crews of 250+ and looking like hybrids of the Von Braun style rotating wheel space station and the first picture on this page: www.lakesidepress.com/fictitious-review ... nguide.htm The next stage, taken by the Americans and British, has been to add more rings above and below, eventually forming a sphere that then is secured with external plating as in the 8th image on this page imgur.com/gallery/4faJG then progressing towards the class Frank Tinsley sphere here: www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/i ... tation.jpg
- German researchers have effectively developed a method that will resolve one of the big issues with regard to recycling - that of plastics and plastic coated cardboard. The future consequences are interesting
- The Swedish 125mm gun is a Bofors product made with a fair bit of British input and is quite the performer. The flipside of accepting 'cooperation' here was to get a quid pro quo for orders of the Ikv 105, which will have a limited role in mechanised infantry battalions
- The Rhodesian victory is a tactical one, but does signal a shift to the next phase of the Bush War. More change to come
- PNEs will see a fair bit further use as the decade proceeds, in the East and the West
- The potential Vulcan replacement is a very ambitious and complex aircraft and will encounter some issues; the return of the Britannia, or a version thereof, represents one manifestation of the same issue, whereby replacing aircraft with the speed accustomed to starts to shift
- Omega Group (the GRU counterpart to the KGB's Alpha Group) is a different development who will see some foreign use. The Soviets are seemingly not immune to domestic terrorism
- Crop yields are growing markedly above the @ averages for this point towards some record figures; the postulated equivalents of 13.45 tons/hectare (200+ bushels/acre) is pushing up towards the @ world records set in the last 10 years by a Lincolnshire farmer who got 17.96t/h for wheat and 16.2t/h for barley. By the end of the 1980s, those type of figures will not be outliers, but fairly common yield equivalents not just on English and Irish farms, nor just in France, Hungary and Germany, but in the world breadbaskets of the US Midwest, Argentina, Canada, the Punjab and Australia. The consequences of this are fairly wide reaching
- A move towards reconciliation between the Oriental Orthodox/Miaphysite and Orthodox Churches creeps closer, with the Nestorians observing its progress with interest
- The LRMD of the UK Plan is progressing well, with the deployed ABM force providing a substantial defence against the Soviet IRBM/MRBM threat and SLBMs to boot; the Violet Friends and laser defences are two of the four measures to counter missiles that are even longer range/faster, meaning those in the ICBM/LRBM class
- America starts to roll out of recession (as a point of interest, the BEA's computer, Alfie, is named after the computer in Barbarella ) whilst Britain remains in a bit more of a rougher patch, for the moment. The effective suspension of immigration to relieve labour market pressure is a step that is different from @ policies and might continue for a little, leading to some observations on other such moves
- Here, the OAS being an arm of the French state and secret service is one of the little ironic crossovers of DE and @
- There is a lot more Irish Sea oil, on a par with a significant fraction of the @ North Sea and there is thought that there might be a very big field out near Rockall
- The Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal, hydroelectricity and development project is something that will bind Jordan and Israel closely together
- Brazil goes American for the Imperial Army and British for the Imperial Air Force and air defence units of the Army, with the Chieftains being the anomaly coming from clashes of opinion between two powerful aristocratic generals. The size and nature of the order is definitely something that has cost a lot of investment and creative promotion
- Princess Anne has a different match here

[Jotun]

What about stealing an idea of the "Germany ISOTed to the Warhammer (Fantasy, not 40k) World"?

I don‘t know about how magic works in the DE universe, but in the DEU Warhammer TL, HDW worked with dwarves and designed a submarine propulsion system that was based on a steam plant with no moving parts thanks to a laser-engraved Rune of Fire placed on a block of iron that was then used to heat the water in the steam system…an inexhaustible source of energy and an absolutely silent power plant.

[Simon Darkshade]

It works a bit differently here, in a way that draws from AD&D in some respects, but also with some influence from Warhammer.

The use of a Rune of Fire as outlined seems to break the Rule of Form of Dwarven Runes, whereby a rune is only functional on a certain class of object. Fire is a weapon rune, and a propulsion system wouldn’t be classified as a weapon; it probably wouldn’t be classified as an engineering rune either, without a very “rules lawyer” approach to trying to exploit a loophole. Creating an inexhaustible source of energy also raises problems from a story and world-building point of view, whilst the laser carving (vs the physical work of a specific rune master) comes off as a bit of Rule of Cool.

In DE, it wouldn’t be a starter, as magical runes don’t quite work that way; here, they enhance some attributes of an object, such as speed, silence/sound, range, damage et al. There are such enchantments as flaming swords, but they haven’t been employed for ‘out of the box’ purposes due to their limits in the amount of heat produced, as well as an Arcanum-inspired tendency for magic + technology to result in malfunction - Magic is known as ‘the Art’, rather than ‘the Science’ because of its flowing, variable and fickle nature.

Also militating against a massive implementation of Magitech is the scarcity of wizards, with relatively small numbers overall and from those, few further who specialise in enchantment and alteration. A parallel would be the category of “scientist” in our world - Jane Goodall and Randy Marsh are both ‘scientists’ of a general description, but aren’t going to be too useful if told to design a hydrogen bomb. A further constraint is that spells, enchantments and runes of this sort take time and effort/power from a wizard, rather than a laser.

Part 14 of A New Jerusalem contains a fair bit on magical production’ and the issues therein. I’ll dredge up some quotes later.

For now, it suffices to say that a DE submarine would have propellers enscribed with ‘dampening/sound suppression’ runes, but no one has yet been able to magically alter nuclear reactors, as their attributes make them dangerously impractical to to get immediately close to for days on end.

[Bernard Woolley]

On a random note, I think that in DE instead of CND, there should be a CNA. The Campaign for Nuclear Armaments. Their campaign slogan being “a nuclear armed world is a safe world”.

[Simon Darkshade]

I did have a thought along those lines, based on a snippet of a dream where there was a crowd chanting ‘Build the Bomb!’

CND wouldn’t be a starter for many reasons, not the least of which is Britain’s much larger (and earlier) nuclear arsenal.

I’ll have to work in the CNA for you.

[Bernard Woolley]

Nice.
I’m sure they’d also be pro-nuclear power.

[Simon Darkshade]

Just did a bit of digging:

December 23 1957: First public meeting of the Campaign for Nuclear Rearmament in London.



(I must get around to posting up the 1946-1969 entries; I delayed initially in the hope that the material from the previous two boards could make it across, as the comments were both voluminous and great, then because I mean to expand some of the shorter early material. For 1946-1967, I put stuff out a year at a time, meaning that events were quite a bit shorter. I'd love to go back and extend them, but it is just a matter of finishing off other stuff and getting the time.)

Public opinion in Britain is very pro-nuclear power, to the extent that being against it is on a par with vegetarianism or nudism, both in terms of a percentage of the population and how it is regarded. Why? There isn't the same conflation with The Bomb; there have been no accidents; it is plentiful, clean and cheap; and now fusion is entering the equation and transforming how much power is generated.

Historically in 1973, 220 TWh were supplied. In DE, nuclear generation alone, from 40 atomic and 2 fusion plants, supplies almost 400 TWh, with the other big addition being 103.86 TWh from hydroelectricity (largely from the Severn Barrage). Coal plants supply 130 TWh (35 from Drax Power Station) and oil and gas 82.4. This total of above 700 TWh has allowed for the first overseas exports of power to the Continent, electrification of various infrastructure, whole new industries (such as aluminium refining) and the power intensive nuclear production facilities, as well as domestic heating and modernisation of industrial supply.

[Simon Darkshade]

June
June 1: Young director Steven Spielberg, after having been linked with initial discussions for a film version of Frank Herbert’s Dune, is signed to direct the well anticipated big screen adaption of Flipper. The ongoing saga of trying to bring Dune to the cinema, along with that of the other popular science fiction property, Morning Star 40,000, the bright and noble future of the 41st century, where high adventure reigns across the galaxy.
June 2: A Soviet Tupolev Tu-184 supersonic narrowly avoids crashing whilst flying above the Paris Air Show, with sorcerous protection dweomers stabiliising it out of a dangerously steep dive over the crowd of hundreds of thousands of spectators. The incident comes amid the much anticipated 'Duel of the Supersonics', with the new generation of American, British, French, Soviet and German supersonic airliner designs showing off their capabilities and sleek lines.
June 3: A crowd of an estimated two millions, and tens of millions more watching on BBC, witnesses the spectacle and ceremony of the annual Trooping of the Colour, marking the official birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. Her Majesty, riding on Burmese and accompanied by the Sovereign’s Escort of the Household Cavalry and twelve Royal Knights, proceeds down The Mall, which is lined by a full brigade of Foot Guards, to Horse Guards to inspect the twelve arrayed Guards (all of full company strength), the Mounted Regiments of the Household Cavalry and the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery. The massed bands and corps of drums of the Household Division, numbering over a thousand musicians, provide the musical accompaniment to the spectacle, whilst Her Majesty and the Royal Family later appear on the balcony at Buckingham Palace to witness a feu de joie and a fly past by over two hundred jets of the Royal Air Force, lead by the Red Arrows.
June 4: At a reception in Washington D.C., collective donations by Britons and Canadians for assistance in support and relief for the victims of the Mississippi floods totalling almost $100 million are ceremonially handed over by Canadian Governor-General and revered Imperial elder statesman Sir William Richardson, who states “America has done so much to help the world, and it is the very least gesture thar we can supply in return. As was said back at the Taku Forts, ‘blood is thicker than water.’ “
June 5: The Territorial Army’s 25th Infantry Division leaves Aldershot by skyships bound for Israel on the first such reserve roulement to Middle East Land Forces; much of their heavy equipment will be drawn from pre-positioned stocks in Sinai, the Negev and the Galilee in a test of wartime mobilisation capacity beyond the scope of the Continent. The 49th (Wessex) Infantry Division is to deploy by sea to Norway for support of Britain's Scandinavian NATO allies on the 10th, similarly utilising prepositioned equipment at Trondheim and Bodo.
June 6: US astronauts from Orion 6 land on Titania, with Mission Commander Buzz Aldrin and his deputy James Lovell the first to walk upon the Uranian moon; their landing had been delayed to allow for comprehensive probe missions of the dense atmosphere, surface conditions and Titanian environment, along with harvesting of certain gasses for fuel supplies of their atmospheric flying support craft. The entire 12 man landing team remarks on the strangeness of the primordial landscape and jagged alien peaks, reminscent in some ways of Luna, albeit with bizarre rainbow coloured luminscent mosses and lichens and deep lakes of methane and ethane.
June 7: A joint FBI-Seattle PD investigation uncover an underground illegal boxing club that acts a front for an anarchist terror gang. Despite exacting security measures, including two separate binding geases to not talk about the nature of the 'Fighting Club', the team lead by Lieutenant Martin Crane and FBI Special Agents Dale Cooper and Fox Mulder rolls up the group, which turns out to be lead by a renegade Soviet agent.
June 8: Opening of Singapore International Airport at Changi, replacing the earlier airfields at Kallang and Paya Lebar and adjacent to RAF Changi.
June 9: King Juan of Spain issues a proclamation that he will exercise royal authority to provide necessary advice and counsel to the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition regarding the exercise of its powers in circumstances beyond its specific remit. This act of effective limitation seems to be quite unexpected by the Spanish Inquisition.
June 10: The Boys Scouts Association issues a report on the continued progress of the Scouting movement in the British Empire and Commonwealth, noting that in Britain alone, there were 2.8 million Boy Scouts and Cubs and 2.4 million Guides and Brownies; the latter have seen an increased uptake in recruitment due to the success of the ‘Brownings for the Brownies’ fundraising drive.
June 11: Peter Smithers MP, long standing chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee on Un-British Activities, where he followed in the footsteps of his redoubtable father, announces a fresh series of investigations into Red influence on academia and the arts.
June 12: A meeting of various Central American leftist revolutionary groups and KGB advisors takes place in Guatemala City to determine the next phase of the concerted liberation struggle.
June 13: Echo class atomic cruise missile submarine K-56 collides with a Soviet research vessel off Cape Povorotny and, despite the desperate attempts of her crew to save her, is sunk, killing 23.
June 14: The Ministry of Food publishes a paper on the British diet, noting that meat consumption has continued to rise, even through the recession, due to increased production, utilisation of the Commonwealth stockpile and successful television and wireless advertisements for British beef and veal, pork, lamb and mutton and chicken. Whilst traditional roast joints, steaks, chops and stews remain the most popular forms of meat consumption, there has been an a noticeable rise in the popular consumption of minced, diced and sliced meats for simpler occasions.
June 15: The 'Hicklin test' for obscenity is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v Caulfield, maintaining the established standard that all material that contributes in some way to the corruption and depravation of minds open to immoral influence is obscene, regardless of any perceived artistic or literary merits.
June 16: USAF B-47 Stratojets bomb suspected communist rebel camps in Eastern Angola in support of Portuguese forces operating against the Frente Popular de Libertação de Angola.
June 17: RCMP Special Cases investigators destroy a nest of vampires hidden deep in the slums of Old Mexico City, having followed the trail of a suspected black lotus smuggling ring all the way from Vancouver.
June 18: Opening of the Washington Summit of the ‘Big Three’ superpowers, with General Secretary Sergeyev and Prime Minister Barton being formally welcomed by President Reagan. It is hoped that the summit could lead to some sort of breakthrough on the nuclear arms race.
June 19: Travellers in Ronceveaux Pass report hearing the echoing blasts of a horn, which they surmise to be some sort of haunting recurrence of the sounding of Roland’s Olifant, 1195 years ago.
June 20: Unveiling of the prototype Tanque Argentino Mediano in Buenos Aires. The 36t tank is much lighter than the MBTs in used in the first world, having been designed as a cheaper alternative to them for rougher terrains and militaries with more modest budgetary restrictions, and is praised as such in the Argentine technical military press until the field tests of July 13th against the M60 and Chieftain.
June 21: Sir Kimball O’Hara retires from Indian government service after over 75 years of assorted confidential roles and classified missions, stating that he will divide his time between his estate in Shimla and visiting the residence of his longtime friend and confidante Mowgli in the Mahadeo Hills above Seoni.
June 22: Opening of the British Army Equipment Exhibition at Pegasus Village in Aldershot, organised by the Sales and Aid Department of the War Office and showcasing the military vehicles, missiles, weapons and equipment produced by the forty two Royal Ordnance Factories and 320 large and small firms directly engaged in defence production. Britain's position as one of the top exporters of arms in the world over the postwar decades remains a significant source of foreign earnings and the emerging markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East offer great future potential alongside traditional clients in South America and Europe. Orders for British tanks alone contribute hundreds of millions of pound to the country’s economic health every year.
June 23: LAPD detectives arrest long time fugitive Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander, living under an assumed name in the suburbs, after a tipoff from 12 year old Todd Bowden, who recognised the old man from a school project; the youngster’s hand is shook and hair is formally ruffled in congratulation by Captain Joe Friday.
June 24: A resolution for the expansion of the Council of the League of Nations to 15, consisting of the five permanent members and a number of rotating seats (two from Latin America, two from Western Europe, one from Eastern Europe, one from the Commonwealth, one from the Middle East, one from Africa and two from Asia) is unanimously passed. A proposal for the expansion of the permanent members was unsuccessful due to Soviet and Chinese concerns.
June 25: King Zod of Albania signs an agreement with Emperor Alexander in Constantinople for a timetabled program of defence coordination and security cooperation.
June 26: England set a new Test cricket record in the Third Test against New Zealand at Lords, winning by an innings and 624 runs, having scored 854/6 declared and dismissing New Zealand for 98 and 132, with Geoffrey Boycott topscoring with 254, Keith Fletcher making 178, Colin Cowdrey 156 and Alan Knott 150*.
June 27: A suspected Arab terrorist is killed by a remotely detonated bomb planted in his parked automobile in Paris, with the assassination ascribed to the work of Israel’s Mossad.
June 28: British unemployment peaks at 1.54%, or a total 1,846,800 men and women, amid the first clear signs of economic recovery. Treasury figures will later show a decline in GDP of 1% in the first quarter and 0.6% in the second before the bullish recovery in the second half of the year.
June 29: Japanese industrial defence scientists demonstrate a new model of a Toyota utility vehicle that is capable of transforming into an off-road armoured vehicle. Whilst the concept has been dismissed as a mere novelty by some, Prime Minister Yukio Mishima is heard to remark approvingly that “they are more than meets the eye” to inventor Dr. Tenma and his accompanying child android.
June 30: A British husband and wife are rescued by a Korean fishing boat after having drifted at sea for 120 days in the Pacific Doldrums, following the sinking of their pleasure yacht by a whale. Their incredible ordeal will later serve as the basis for Staying Alive, a 1975 motion picture adaption.

[jemhouston]

It took me second to remember who Lieutenant Martin Crane was.

Friday always seem to me to be someone who would rather be on the streets and not at desk. According to Kent McCord, Jack Webb was going to bring Dragnet back again with McCord as his partner. He wasn't sure if he was going to play Jim Reed again. Webb's death killed that.

[Simon Darkshade]

Crane worked well here when looking for a mid-career Seattle PD officer.

I also feel that Friday is better suited to the streets, rather than engaging in departmental politics. Here, he has the cachet to get what he would like.

[Bernard Woolley]

A Committee on Un-British Activities is in itself Un-British. Which, IRL was the government response to a proposal one be created.

[Simon Darkshade]

That would be the case…if it was what it seemed.

It is a function of looking like assuaging some American concerns regarding suspected dalliances with communism, which are actually previously turned double agents and even unknowing double agents; providing cover for investigations into actual Red penetration/influence attempts that, for various tactical and operational reasons, have been decided need to be exposed; obscures the real committees working against the Reds; and provides some nice compensatory role for a certain type of MP who would otherwise ruffle feathers, yet can’t quite be trusted (on ground of competence or otherwise) to be bought into the inner circles.

Thus, rather than being a rather clumsy and American hammer (in search of a nail), it is a picture of one that obscures the secret entrance to a room with more secrets and more secret exits.

[Simon Darkshade]

June Notes
- Spielberg's Flipper is a different film and not quite the same blockbuster; the market is rather different as well, in addition to ongoing discomfort about megalodon and GWS attacks and what was done in response to them. Dune is going to be made earlier than 1984 (in any event, with the @ soundtrack) and Morning Star 40,000 is fairly much the antithesis of Warhammer 40k, reflecting the differing circumstances of its origin, being a novel product of the early 1970s rather than a miniature game in 1980s Britain
- Here, there isn't a fiery and bloody Tupolev crash at the Paris Air Show, but rather, a sign that they are still seen as the way of the future. Air travel in general is still in its 'golden age' period of class, luxury/benefits (such as proper meals, decent legroom and larger seats) even for economy class and non-deregulated prices. The 1980s emergence of cheap 'flying Greyhound buses' is a long, long way off, if it emerges at all. By the by, there are some interesting sorcerous efforts underway to provide barriers between the smoking and non-smoking sections on flights
- Trooping the Colour is larger, with 12 Guards (compared to the @ practice of 8 at this point) of greater strength, with the other noticeably different features being the larger number of Guardsmen lining the Mall in numbers similar to 1953 (without the modern unfortunate spectacle of police facing the crowd), the inclusion of a feu de joie and the much larger RAF flypast
- The flood donations refer to the circumstance evoked in the Canadian wireless commentary piece by Gordon Sinclair, whereby the Mississippi floods did not elicit a skerrick of help, whereas the US rallied to help those affected by the flooding of the Nile, the Ganges and the Niger. Here, there is the capacity to assist and a generally greater sense of cousinly/neighbourly connection
- TA roulements are a way of maintaining effective total strength whilst appearing to save money on the accounts books, as well as providing men and units with substantive experience
- Titania doesn't appear to be teeming with life in the same way as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, but still has some weird stuff going on. More scientists will be screwing up their hypothesis and starting over with new data
- Despite the first and second rules of Fighting Club being 'Do not talk about Fighting Club', they are as nothing before the tenacity of Marty Crane and Agents Cooper and Mulder of the Y Files
- The Spanish Inquisition did not expect the King to start to push back against their more extravagant flourishes
- No change of name in 1967 for the Boys Scouts Association, chiefly because there was no need for the @ Chief Scout's Advance Party review from 1964-1966. The uniform remains the traditional one with shorts and campaign hat rather than long trousers and berets. 'Brownings for the Brownies' comes on the back of the Guides being 'handed down' the stocks of Sterling SMGs
- As said, the House of Commons Select Committee on Un-British Activities has more to it than meets the eye
- The Soviets see Central America as ripe for being a potential front for insurgency; actually projecting force there is seen as ridiculously unlikely
- K-56 is lost here, rather than grounded on a sandbar
- We begin to see slight shifts in the type of meat consumption with new generations having more time and more money, as well as the seeming embrace of new technologies; this manifests itself in faster cooking cuts and recipes for weeknight meals
- The Hicklin test remains in the absence of a 1957 reassessment in Roth v United States, which effectively means that the broader definition of obscene content rules out certain novels, films and publications that otherwise rose to prominence in the 1960s and early 70s and the absence of the @ Miller test. The flow on effects of this mean that more risque content in films is doubly staked (after the first one from the Motion Picture Code), pornography is subject to much greater legal persecution (with no @ window of child pornography not being illegal in most jurisdictions), no rise of comedians using rude words for shock effect and there is a lack of bad language on television programmes, with the furthest extent being the 1960s uses of 'damn', 'hell' and 'dammit'
- USAF bombers joining in to support the Portuguese in Africa indicates some very different strategic concepts
- The Mounties always get their man, or, in this case, their covert vampire drug smugglers
- Slow efforts towards some sort of cap on nuclear arsenals inch forward
- The TAM tank is a good little vehicle and well suited for its designed role. The only issue is that it can't penetrate either the M60 or the Chieftain with its current armament, and they can blow its turret clean off from 3000 yards away; in light of the Brazilians just ordering hundreds of each, the TAM goes back to the drawing board for modifications
- Kim and Mowgli are long time friends; they regard Sir Rudyard Kipling's adaptions of their adventures rather fondly, reflecting the want of old men to regard their youth through rose coloured glasses
- The Army Equipment Exhibition is an @ development, albeit from 1976: https://www.kvbk.nl/sites/default/files ... 1-0129.PDF
- Kurt Dussander is one of the two villains from Stephen King's novella 'Apt Pupil, or the Summer of Corruption' in the collection Different Seasons (which coincidentally included The Body, which became Stand By Me, and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, which became The Shawshank Redemption) which was later ruined as a film adaption in 1998 by Bryan Singer. Here, Todd is taught about the Holocaust that little bit earlier, and has just that little bit more moral reinforcement that, despite his morbid curiosity (that would turn into full blown evil as he grew up), he does the right thing and turns in the old Nazi concentration camp commandant rather than seek to hear the details of his stories and in doing so, saves his soul
- Expansion of the Council of the League follows on similar expansion of the UN Security Council in the @ 1960s, albeit with different categories of nations still maintained. Expansion of the permanent members to 6 is a bridge too far at this point, as the likely candidates are all seen as being in the orbit of the US and Britain
- British unemployment starts to go down fairly rapidly from this point as the economy bounces back and this is the last time it will be in seven figures for many a long year. Unlike the @ 1973-1975 recession in Britain, this is very much a V shaped recession rather than a protracted U shape, without the added kicker of an oil shock hanging in the shadows of the second half of the year. Just as in America, there is an absence of protracted stagflation and the British economy has fairly strong fundamentals - the balance of trade and balance of payments remain positive, secondary industry contributes 42% of GDP (tertiary 48% and primary 10%) and the domestic market has an ever increasing appetite borne of affluence
- PM Mishima considers that the Toyota 'transformer' is 'more than meets the eye'; the opinion of Dr. Tenma and Astro-Boy is not available at this time
- The husband and wife adrift in the Pacific is an interesting story drawn directly from @