It is the DE equivalent to that Ark - the first of the 1930s carriers (Ordered 12/4/33, Laid Down 12/8/33 Cammell Laird, Birkenhead , Launched 6/5/35, Commissioned 23/4/37). She decommissioned after Korea and, as the Americans had made a big song and dance about their new museum carrier Enterprise, a few historically minded wealthy types had a whip round and set up a trust to purchase the Ark as a British equivalent.
Other preserved carriers of the same vintage are Eagle and Hermes, with Argus being the first purpose built carrier (as per the details in The History of the Aircraft Carrier thread); Eagle and Hermes were loaned to the RIN from 1956 to 1965, and then replaced by the refurbished Indefatigable and Implacable. The majority of the surviving ships were sold:
Centaur: Sold to India and in RIN service as HMIS Vikrant
Illustrious: Sold to Brazil and in Imperial service as Aquidabã
Invincible: Sold to Chile and in RChN service as Capitan Prat
Victorious: Sold to Peru and in RPN service as Aguirre
Formidable: Sold to Korea in 1963 and in IKN service as Jejudo
Indomitable: Sold to Portugal in 1963 and in Portuguese service as Nossa Senhora da Conceição
Indefatigable: Sold to India and in RIN service as HMIS Vikramaditya
Implacable: Sold to India and in RIN service as HMIS Viraat
Argus: Sold to Brazil and in Imperial service as Riachuelo
Pegasus: Sold to Peru and in RPN service as Almirante Grau
Unicorn: Sold to Chile and in RChN as O'Higgins
Leviathan: Sold to Argentina and in RArN service as Nueve de Julio
Ocean: Sold to Argentina and in RArN service as Veinticinco de Mayo
The following CVLs were also sold in the 1950s:
Sans Pareil and Brilliant - Spain
Edgar and Engadine - Italy
Pioneer and Phoenix - Netherlands
Endymion and Orpheus - Greece
Atlas and Justinian - Portugal
Hood was decommissioned in 1957, after the Middle Eastern War, so went to the first and largest available spot at Portsmouth with the other notable vessels there as part of a large Royal Naval Museum (different from and in addition to the @ National Maritime Museum at Greenwich). Vanguard was only recently decommissioned in 1973 and it was viewed as more efficient to keep her at Devonport, at this time.
Leith has missed out, for the moment. There are still a number of recently decommissioned warships laid up, including at Rosyth, which might well be available to go there in due course.
Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
April
April 1: An article in The Telegraph by Professor Oolong Collupit predicts that, by the year 2016, Europe will united as a single state under the British Empire, with the pound being the common currency and traffic switched to drive on the right side of the road, the left.
April 2: At the 46th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, The Last Crusade wins Best Picture over The Sting, Young Winston, Cries and Whispers and 1917, with Best Actor going to Robert Redford, Best Actress to Ellen Burstyn for her role as Clementine Churchill in Young Winston and Ingmar Bergman winning Best Director.
April 3: The Home Office indicates that current restrictions on immigration will be gradually relaxed as the economy improves, whilst a bar on extended families will remain for the foreseeable future. The Conservative Opposition are in general agreement with the policy, whilst also opening the door to voluntary repatriation.
April 4: Doncaster Borough Police investigating the recent and apparently inexplicable theft of lavatories from various commercial premises, private homes and public installations across the city, including most lately the ten police stations themselves, admit that they have hit a dead end in their case, stating that they don’t have anything to go on.
April 5: The Israeli Army begins development of a distinct indigenous variant of the Crusader main battle tanks, with a view towards filling their own particular needs and offering a new multipurpose fighting vehicle to Commonwealth and foreign markets.
April 6: A potentially disastrous fire erupts in camp ground in Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico, by a 10 year old boy playing with matches, before being extinguished by quick thinking youngster Henry Schrader, 15, who, remembering the wise words of Smokey Bear that 'Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires', activates the emergency hillside flooding mechanism. He is awarded a special commendation and Boy Scout badge for initiative, whilst the 10 year old inadvertent arsonist is roundly chastised and placed in the junior pillory in Weed for the rest of the weekend.
April 7: Opening of the eighth Congress of the South Pacific Federation in Suva, Fiji, with the various British colonies discussing further development of common institutions including military forces, and opportunities for economic development.
April 8: The US minimum wage rises to $3 an hour for non farm workers, amid the continuing strong economic recovery from the recession of 1973. The Department of Commerce's Office of Economic Analysis predicts that growth in American GDP could rise up to a monthly rate of 1% by the 1975/76 year, driven by rising business confidence, industrial expansion, new technologies and increasing consumer expenditure in the United States' Bicentennial Year.
April 9: Completion of the 1973–1974 Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race, with Great Britain II, skippered by Chay Blyth, being pipped at the post by Mexican Sayulla II skippered by Ramón Carlin, which came in just 17 hours and 16 minutes earlier.
April 10: Encouraged by the extremely strong growth of the Persian economy, largely driven by flourishing oil production, Shah Kamar announces a new wave of military modernisation and expansion, with massive defence orders placed with the United States, for a package including 50 B-75 Marauder II light bombers, 250 F-4 Phantoms, 120 F-14 Tomcats, 150 A-10 Warthogs, 400 M107 175mm howitzers and 2000 air to ground missiles, and with Persia’s traditional military supplier Britain for a further 1100 Chieftain tanks, 500 Scorpion light tanks, 2400 Warrior MACVs, 400 de Havilland Tornadoes and 360 Fairey Delta IIs.
April 11: In a landmark case, the United States Supreme Court finds in favour of the plaintiff in Nelson v Mason on the question of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ('Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'), defeating a challenge to the constitutionality of state programmes cooperating with church charitable efforts, finding that 'the figurative wall of separation between Church and State can be said to extend only so far as formal establishment of a state church, the legal imposition of the same and direct funding of a state church for solely religious purposes' and further that the Establishment Clause applies specifically to the Federal Congress and not the states.
April 12: South Africa defeat the United States in the Fifth Test in Charleston by 7 runs late on the final day to win the series 3-2, after Mike Procter finished the game with a hat-trick, taking 6/72 as the USA was dismissed for 393, largely due to American captain Eddie Petersen’s resplendent innings of 265, which took his team tantalisingly close to a famous victory.
April 13: Construction of the largest supertanker yet built begins in Belfast, an Ultra Large Crude Carrier ordered by British Petroleum with a capacity of 5 million barrels of oil; at over 1600ft, the as yet unnamed tanker will be longer than the height of the Empire State Building or the World Trade Center.
April 14: Elements of the Niger Armed Forces launch an attempted coup d'etat in the early hours of the morning against the government of Premier Hamani Diori, alleging that it is corruptly hoarding grain and allowing the French former colonial masters to exploit the mineral resources of the country. The French garrison in Niamey remains in their cantonment at the city airport for the time being, with the ready battalion of the 2e REP placed on alert at Sidi Bel Abbès and a number of young, fit, mustachioed European tourists arrive on civil flights throughout the late afternoon and evening.
April 15: The Admiralty begins implementation of an extended system of deployment of integrated carrier and battleship task groups to a number of additional stations, including the Persian Gulf, South America, the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific; it is thought that there is a largely political purpose behind the moves.
April 16: An out of work mercenary allegedly linked to the Central Intelligence Agency is machine-gunned by a horrific headless figure clad in rotting jungle greens in a bar room in Mombasa. The revenant subsequently disappears into the Kenyan night whilst the bystanders are blinded by the muzzle flash of its Thompson gun.
April 17: The Central Statistical Office releases a report on crime statistics in the preceeding year. 364 capital crimes occurred, consisting of 90 murders (with 7 taking place in the tiny Midsomer region of Berkshire in something of a strange anomaly), 8 kidnappings, 198 rapes, 64 drug traffickings and 4 cases of treachery. There were 20,586 serious indictable non capital crimes (87 manslaughter, 324 attempted murders, 219 cause death by dangerous driving, 127 child cruelty, 192 procurement of illegal abortions, 1043 indecent assaults, 256 indecent exposures, 247 animal cruelty, 386 abductions, 962 arsons, 12,783 robberies, 1382 drug possession and 2578 aggravated assaults) and 159184 other crimes (20,854 minor assaults, 42,335 burglaries, 32,992 thefts, 20,537 vehicle or horse thefts, 8569 bicycle thefts, 9849 theft by employee/servant, 24,223 cases of criminal damage, 752 blackmails, 40,945 cases of shoplifting, 526 forgeries and 20,791 frauds). The report is seized upon by the Opposition as evidence of a rising rate of crime and leading them to encourage expansion of employment of the pillory, stocks and flogging.
April 18: Thousands of LAPD officers are deployed in Operation Zebra, a large scale search for a gang of suspected murderers using new arcane locator spells and ‘criminal profiling’ strategies developed by the FBI’s consulting psychic detective, Edward Fitzgerald.
April 19: Opening of the newest and largest nuclear fusion power plant in the United States at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
April 20: The Royal Air Force takes delivery of its first operational squadron of English Electric Super Lightnings, an advanced multirole fighter-interceptor with a top speed stated as being in excess of Mach 3.6 and a range of 1000 miles. Powered by twin Rolls-Royce RB.125 Severn reheat turbofans with 29625lbf and 42500lbf reheat, the Super Lightning is also equipped with thrust-vectoring for what is being termed as 'supermaneuverability', an intelligent digital flight control system and an active electrically scanned array radar with integrated advanced infrared search, track and rangefinder system and an intelligent computerised voice communicant, whilst it is armed with four new design automatic 25mm cannon, up to 16 air to air guided missiles and 8 self defence 'micromissiles' (depending on configuration) and two laser rayguns fitted in the wing roots.
April 21: Launch of the first of the U.S. Department of Defense’s highly advanced Navstar World Positioning System satellites into a geosynchronous orbit by a Saturn IV rocket from Cape Canaveral.
April 22: The British Army's Armoured Trials and Development Unit begins a series of tests at Bovington of prototypes of the proposed Mobile Combat Vehicle, a multi-tracked armoured vehicle bridging the roles between tanks and mechanised infantry fighting vehicles.
April 23: Hundreds of leftists and dissidents are arrested across Korea in a crackdown by the KCIA on suspected Soviet backed communist revolutionaries allegedly plotting against the Korean state and aiming to overthrow Emperor Seo-jun.
April 24: The NFL announces that a wide-ranging review will be conducted of recent changes to the sport, ostensibly to improve upon current practices, but motivated internally by declining advertising revenue and alarming internal data regarding crowds and engagement.
April 25: A landslide in Peru kills hundreds, damming the Mantaro River and flooding two villages, in the process uncovering a strange stone door hidden beneath the mud and earth of the river bed.
April 26: The new Nigerien government demands that the French garrison be withdrawn from the country, leading to the execution of Operation Attila, the removal of the military regime. 4 Nord-Renault Chevalier medium bombers and 12 Dassault Super Mirage IV strike fighters flying out of Timbuktu bomb military facilities around the capital, whilst paratroopers conduct a combat jump to seize the airport, paving the way for the Regiment de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés and the remainder of the 62e Brigade Parachutiste to be airlifted in from Dakar. French special forces, plain clothed operatives from the Action Service of the SDECE and warrior wizards of the Groupement de Magie Royale Spéciale conduct kinetic operations to terminate the commission of the military regime with extreme prejudice. By nightfall, Niamey is firmly under the control of the restored Premier Diori and hastily assembled loyalists, or more properly, the French forces behind them.
April 27: Completion of the Imperial Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, with the massive 1600 inch extremely large telescope designed for exploration of outer space in conjunction with the SETI Program.
April 28: The Football Association formally declines to support the formation of a Woman's Football Association, preferring to maintain oversight over ladies soccer within its own organisation.
April 29: KGB operatives in Washington D.C. report the recruitment of a highly placed source in the CIA; upon being informed of this report by American sources in Moscow, CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton allows himself the briefest of smiles.
April 30: An overpass being constructed over the autobahn between Kempten and Ulm collapses, with construction workers miraculously saved from being crushed through the intervention of a caped heroic figure costumed in red, gold and black. They are further gratified that his timely intervention prevented the destruction of their beer supply and Wurstwagen, the destruction of which would not be covered by Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung supplied by any reputable Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften.
April 1: An article in The Telegraph by Professor Oolong Collupit predicts that, by the year 2016, Europe will united as a single state under the British Empire, with the pound being the common currency and traffic switched to drive on the right side of the road, the left.
April 2: At the 46th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, The Last Crusade wins Best Picture over The Sting, Young Winston, Cries and Whispers and 1917, with Best Actor going to Robert Redford, Best Actress to Ellen Burstyn for her role as Clementine Churchill in Young Winston and Ingmar Bergman winning Best Director.
April 3: The Home Office indicates that current restrictions on immigration will be gradually relaxed as the economy improves, whilst a bar on extended families will remain for the foreseeable future. The Conservative Opposition are in general agreement with the policy, whilst also opening the door to voluntary repatriation.
April 4: Doncaster Borough Police investigating the recent and apparently inexplicable theft of lavatories from various commercial premises, private homes and public installations across the city, including most lately the ten police stations themselves, admit that they have hit a dead end in their case, stating that they don’t have anything to go on.
April 5: The Israeli Army begins development of a distinct indigenous variant of the Crusader main battle tanks, with a view towards filling their own particular needs and offering a new multipurpose fighting vehicle to Commonwealth and foreign markets.
April 6: A potentially disastrous fire erupts in camp ground in Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico, by a 10 year old boy playing with matches, before being extinguished by quick thinking youngster Henry Schrader, 15, who, remembering the wise words of Smokey Bear that 'Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires', activates the emergency hillside flooding mechanism. He is awarded a special commendation and Boy Scout badge for initiative, whilst the 10 year old inadvertent arsonist is roundly chastised and placed in the junior pillory in Weed for the rest of the weekend.
April 7: Opening of the eighth Congress of the South Pacific Federation in Suva, Fiji, with the various British colonies discussing further development of common institutions including military forces, and opportunities for economic development.
April 8: The US minimum wage rises to $3 an hour for non farm workers, amid the continuing strong economic recovery from the recession of 1973. The Department of Commerce's Office of Economic Analysis predicts that growth in American GDP could rise up to a monthly rate of 1% by the 1975/76 year, driven by rising business confidence, industrial expansion, new technologies and increasing consumer expenditure in the United States' Bicentennial Year.
April 9: Completion of the 1973–1974 Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race, with Great Britain II, skippered by Chay Blyth, being pipped at the post by Mexican Sayulla II skippered by Ramón Carlin, which came in just 17 hours and 16 minutes earlier.
April 10: Encouraged by the extremely strong growth of the Persian economy, largely driven by flourishing oil production, Shah Kamar announces a new wave of military modernisation and expansion, with massive defence orders placed with the United States, for a package including 50 B-75 Marauder II light bombers, 250 F-4 Phantoms, 120 F-14 Tomcats, 150 A-10 Warthogs, 400 M107 175mm howitzers and 2000 air to ground missiles, and with Persia’s traditional military supplier Britain for a further 1100 Chieftain tanks, 500 Scorpion light tanks, 2400 Warrior MACVs, 400 de Havilland Tornadoes and 360 Fairey Delta IIs.
April 11: In a landmark case, the United States Supreme Court finds in favour of the plaintiff in Nelson v Mason on the question of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ('Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'), defeating a challenge to the constitutionality of state programmes cooperating with church charitable efforts, finding that 'the figurative wall of separation between Church and State can be said to extend only so far as formal establishment of a state church, the legal imposition of the same and direct funding of a state church for solely religious purposes' and further that the Establishment Clause applies specifically to the Federal Congress and not the states.
April 12: South Africa defeat the United States in the Fifth Test in Charleston by 7 runs late on the final day to win the series 3-2, after Mike Procter finished the game with a hat-trick, taking 6/72 as the USA was dismissed for 393, largely due to American captain Eddie Petersen’s resplendent innings of 265, which took his team tantalisingly close to a famous victory.
April 13: Construction of the largest supertanker yet built begins in Belfast, an Ultra Large Crude Carrier ordered by British Petroleum with a capacity of 5 million barrels of oil; at over 1600ft, the as yet unnamed tanker will be longer than the height of the Empire State Building or the World Trade Center.
April 14: Elements of the Niger Armed Forces launch an attempted coup d'etat in the early hours of the morning against the government of Premier Hamani Diori, alleging that it is corruptly hoarding grain and allowing the French former colonial masters to exploit the mineral resources of the country. The French garrison in Niamey remains in their cantonment at the city airport for the time being, with the ready battalion of the 2e REP placed on alert at Sidi Bel Abbès and a number of young, fit, mustachioed European tourists arrive on civil flights throughout the late afternoon and evening.
April 15: The Admiralty begins implementation of an extended system of deployment of integrated carrier and battleship task groups to a number of additional stations, including the Persian Gulf, South America, the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific; it is thought that there is a largely political purpose behind the moves.
April 16: An out of work mercenary allegedly linked to the Central Intelligence Agency is machine-gunned by a horrific headless figure clad in rotting jungle greens in a bar room in Mombasa. The revenant subsequently disappears into the Kenyan night whilst the bystanders are blinded by the muzzle flash of its Thompson gun.
April 17: The Central Statistical Office releases a report on crime statistics in the preceeding year. 364 capital crimes occurred, consisting of 90 murders (with 7 taking place in the tiny Midsomer region of Berkshire in something of a strange anomaly), 8 kidnappings, 198 rapes, 64 drug traffickings and 4 cases of treachery. There were 20,586 serious indictable non capital crimes (87 manslaughter, 324 attempted murders, 219 cause death by dangerous driving, 127 child cruelty, 192 procurement of illegal abortions, 1043 indecent assaults, 256 indecent exposures, 247 animal cruelty, 386 abductions, 962 arsons, 12,783 robberies, 1382 drug possession and 2578 aggravated assaults) and 159184 other crimes (20,854 minor assaults, 42,335 burglaries, 32,992 thefts, 20,537 vehicle or horse thefts, 8569 bicycle thefts, 9849 theft by employee/servant, 24,223 cases of criminal damage, 752 blackmails, 40,945 cases of shoplifting, 526 forgeries and 20,791 frauds). The report is seized upon by the Opposition as evidence of a rising rate of crime and leading them to encourage expansion of employment of the pillory, stocks and flogging.
April 18: Thousands of LAPD officers are deployed in Operation Zebra, a large scale search for a gang of suspected murderers using new arcane locator spells and ‘criminal profiling’ strategies developed by the FBI’s consulting psychic detective, Edward Fitzgerald.
April 19: Opening of the newest and largest nuclear fusion power plant in the United States at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
April 20: The Royal Air Force takes delivery of its first operational squadron of English Electric Super Lightnings, an advanced multirole fighter-interceptor with a top speed stated as being in excess of Mach 3.6 and a range of 1000 miles. Powered by twin Rolls-Royce RB.125 Severn reheat turbofans with 29625lbf and 42500lbf reheat, the Super Lightning is also equipped with thrust-vectoring for what is being termed as 'supermaneuverability', an intelligent digital flight control system and an active electrically scanned array radar with integrated advanced infrared search, track and rangefinder system and an intelligent computerised voice communicant, whilst it is armed with four new design automatic 25mm cannon, up to 16 air to air guided missiles and 8 self defence 'micromissiles' (depending on configuration) and two laser rayguns fitted in the wing roots.
April 21: Launch of the first of the U.S. Department of Defense’s highly advanced Navstar World Positioning System satellites into a geosynchronous orbit by a Saturn IV rocket from Cape Canaveral.
April 22: The British Army's Armoured Trials and Development Unit begins a series of tests at Bovington of prototypes of the proposed Mobile Combat Vehicle, a multi-tracked armoured vehicle bridging the roles between tanks and mechanised infantry fighting vehicles.
April 23: Hundreds of leftists and dissidents are arrested across Korea in a crackdown by the KCIA on suspected Soviet backed communist revolutionaries allegedly plotting against the Korean state and aiming to overthrow Emperor Seo-jun.
April 24: The NFL announces that a wide-ranging review will be conducted of recent changes to the sport, ostensibly to improve upon current practices, but motivated internally by declining advertising revenue and alarming internal data regarding crowds and engagement.
April 25: A landslide in Peru kills hundreds, damming the Mantaro River and flooding two villages, in the process uncovering a strange stone door hidden beneath the mud and earth of the river bed.
April 26: The new Nigerien government demands that the French garrison be withdrawn from the country, leading to the execution of Operation Attila, the removal of the military regime. 4 Nord-Renault Chevalier medium bombers and 12 Dassault Super Mirage IV strike fighters flying out of Timbuktu bomb military facilities around the capital, whilst paratroopers conduct a combat jump to seize the airport, paving the way for the Regiment de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés and the remainder of the 62e Brigade Parachutiste to be airlifted in from Dakar. French special forces, plain clothed operatives from the Action Service of the SDECE and warrior wizards of the Groupement de Magie Royale Spéciale conduct kinetic operations to terminate the commission of the military regime with extreme prejudice. By nightfall, Niamey is firmly under the control of the restored Premier Diori and hastily assembled loyalists, or more properly, the French forces behind them.
April 27: Completion of the Imperial Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, with the massive 1600 inch extremely large telescope designed for exploration of outer space in conjunction with the SETI Program.
April 28: The Football Association formally declines to support the formation of a Woman's Football Association, preferring to maintain oversight over ladies soccer within its own organisation.
April 29: KGB operatives in Washington D.C. report the recruitment of a highly placed source in the CIA; upon being informed of this report by American sources in Moscow, CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton allows himself the briefest of smiles.
April 30: An overpass being constructed over the autobahn between Kempten and Ulm collapses, with construction workers miraculously saved from being crushed through the intervention of a caped heroic figure costumed in red, gold and black. They are further gratified that his timely intervention prevented the destruction of their beer supply and Wurstwagen, the destruction of which would not be covered by Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung supplied by any reputable Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften.
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jemhouston
- Posts: 4485
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:38 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
Doncaster Borough Police didn't the flush the problem down the drain. 
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
I owe the basis of that event to one Gerald Wiley, also known as Ronnie Barker.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
April Notes
- Professor Colluphit's article is an example of the lurid silliness one can find in all sorts of newspapers; his name is vaguely related to a chap from the works of Douglas Adams
- Some films from 1973 are similar to @, whilst others, including the Best Picture winner, speak to the different mood and style of the times. Young Winston is made a few years later than in @, and is rather more expansive and epic in its scale (and budget)
- A small level of difference seems to be emerging between HMG and the Opposition over immigration, but every time that it looks like widening, circumstances lead to it narrowing a bit again
- April 4 is courtesy of Ronnie Barker
- The Israeli tank project isn't the Merkava, the circumstances for which haven't emerged here, but rather, an adaption of the Crusader to their own specific needs and environment; some of these might include the capacity for carriage of infantrymen in some cases
- The fire of April 6 was historically much worse, but the intervention of Henry Schrader (his counterpart in a different universe would later become quite the aficionado of minerals) puts it out before disaster; note the continuing use of the pillory in the USA being offhandedly mentioned
- The US economy continues to rebound, with some interesting consequences on politics and culture
- 'Wrong Way Chay' doesn't quite manage a win this time
- Persia starts to order quite lavish amounts of military equipment, some of which are similar to the @ Shah's 1970s shopping spree. The largest difference at play is that there isn't a perceived need for Persia/Iran to take on a role as US 'deputy sheriff', given Britain still remains firmly in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East
- April 11 sees my own obscurantist interest in jurisprudence of the Establishment Clause break through briefly (No Lemon Test here!) and a very well hidden Easter egg being embedded in the final words: that last different bit of 'incorporation' comes out of some different wording in the DE Fourteenth Amendment, which then has some rather interesting flow on effects on cases in the first half of the 20th century
- South Africa continuing to play Test Cricket through the 1970s gives some very, very good players the opportunity to shine at the highest level
- The ULCC is a broad equivalent to the Jahre Viking/Knock Nevis, just a tad larger and built in Belfast vs Yokohama
- Niger experiences a brief coup that ends up 'touching the third rail' (what a fascinatingly descriptive Americanism that is) by telling the French garrison to vamoose
- The merc in Mombasa was named Van Owen, gunned down by Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner; the manner of his demise meant that lawyer, guns nor money could save him
- British crime stats have a lot of detail buried there, ranging from a reference to Midsomer Murders to different crimes being classified as capital; the overall crime statistics are derived from some historical data, extrapolated out to the different population size and modified by various social and cultural factors
- Consulting psychic detective to the FBI is one Edward Fitzgerald, a real cracker of a bloke
- This particular Three Mile Island power plant has a bright future
- The 'Super Lightning' is one heck of a kite, designed to cover quite the area out of bases in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Denmark and Norway. The 'intelligent computerised voice communicant' is a bit of magitech quite different from any @ equivalent, whilst the micromissiles bear some passing similarity to the Miniature Self Defence Missile. Oh, and laser rayguns
- The Navstar World Positioning System isn't quite the same as GPS, and the Saturn IV is a DE original rocket a bit bigger than an @ Saturn IB
- The Mobile Combat Vehicle may or may not see eventual service
- Something was uncovered in Peru, again
- The rather large telescope in NSW reflects the greater amount of money being ploughed into SETI
- Women's soccer doesn't get its own association quite yet
- Why might Angleton be smiling?
- We finish the month with a German superhero, who might bear some coincidental resemblance to Vormund insofar as the colour of his costume is concerned, and the opportunity to use some lovely long German compound words. My only regret is that there was no capacity to incorporate mention of the Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft, but that bit of Teutonic beauty will keep...
- Professor Colluphit's article is an example of the lurid silliness one can find in all sorts of newspapers; his name is vaguely related to a chap from the works of Douglas Adams
- Some films from 1973 are similar to @, whilst others, including the Best Picture winner, speak to the different mood and style of the times. Young Winston is made a few years later than in @, and is rather more expansive and epic in its scale (and budget)
- A small level of difference seems to be emerging between HMG and the Opposition over immigration, but every time that it looks like widening, circumstances lead to it narrowing a bit again
- April 4 is courtesy of Ronnie Barker
- The Israeli tank project isn't the Merkava, the circumstances for which haven't emerged here, but rather, an adaption of the Crusader to their own specific needs and environment; some of these might include the capacity for carriage of infantrymen in some cases
- The fire of April 6 was historically much worse, but the intervention of Henry Schrader (his counterpart in a different universe would later become quite the aficionado of minerals) puts it out before disaster; note the continuing use of the pillory in the USA being offhandedly mentioned
- The US economy continues to rebound, with some interesting consequences on politics and culture
- 'Wrong Way Chay' doesn't quite manage a win this time
- Persia starts to order quite lavish amounts of military equipment, some of which are similar to the @ Shah's 1970s shopping spree. The largest difference at play is that there isn't a perceived need for Persia/Iran to take on a role as US 'deputy sheriff', given Britain still remains firmly in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East
- April 11 sees my own obscurantist interest in jurisprudence of the Establishment Clause break through briefly (No Lemon Test here!) and a very well hidden Easter egg being embedded in the final words: that last different bit of 'incorporation' comes out of some different wording in the DE Fourteenth Amendment, which then has some rather interesting flow on effects on cases in the first half of the 20th century
- South Africa continuing to play Test Cricket through the 1970s gives some very, very good players the opportunity to shine at the highest level
- The ULCC is a broad equivalent to the Jahre Viking/Knock Nevis, just a tad larger and built in Belfast vs Yokohama
- Niger experiences a brief coup that ends up 'touching the third rail' (what a fascinatingly descriptive Americanism that is) by telling the French garrison to vamoose
- The merc in Mombasa was named Van Owen, gunned down by Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner; the manner of his demise meant that lawyer, guns nor money could save him
- British crime stats have a lot of detail buried there, ranging from a reference to Midsomer Murders to different crimes being classified as capital; the overall crime statistics are derived from some historical data, extrapolated out to the different population size and modified by various social and cultural factors
- Consulting psychic detective to the FBI is one Edward Fitzgerald, a real cracker of a bloke
- This particular Three Mile Island power plant has a bright future
- The 'Super Lightning' is one heck of a kite, designed to cover quite the area out of bases in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Denmark and Norway. The 'intelligent computerised voice communicant' is a bit of magitech quite different from any @ equivalent, whilst the micromissiles bear some passing similarity to the Miniature Self Defence Missile. Oh, and laser rayguns
- The Navstar World Positioning System isn't quite the same as GPS, and the Saturn IV is a DE original rocket a bit bigger than an @ Saturn IB
- The Mobile Combat Vehicle may or may not see eventual service
- Something was uncovered in Peru, again
- The rather large telescope in NSW reflects the greater amount of money being ploughed into SETI
- Women's soccer doesn't get its own association quite yet
- Why might Angleton be smiling?
- We finish the month with a German superhero, who might bear some coincidental resemblance to Vormund insofar as the colour of his costume is concerned, and the opportunity to use some lovely long German compound words. My only regret is that there was no capacity to incorporate mention of the Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft, but that bit of Teutonic beauty will keep...
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jemhouston
- Posts: 4485
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:38 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
While I know budgets are tighter IRL, I'm happy that DE is having more than one production run of the Saturn Family.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
The current 1974 cutting edge NASA/USSF rocket is the Super Nova C-10N, a nuclear rocket designed to transport a payload of 1000t to high Earth orbit. The preceding Nova rocket was first launched in 1968 and was about 50% larger than a @ Saturn V.
The Saturn IVs here are among the 140 assorted rockets ordered in January 1970 as part of the next stage of the space programme and the very, very long term starship construction programme up on one of the moons.
The Saturn IVs here are among the 140 assorted rockets ordered in January 1970 as part of the next stage of the space programme and the very, very long term starship construction programme up on one of the moons.
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
At first I thought you were introducing Hauptmann Deutschland 
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
He is the same character as Vormund, but I'm not really going down the Marvel style or path as I have never really got into the superhero genre, even before its modern popularity; find the practice of calling superheroes 'Captain _______' a bit gauche; and have a very healthy and long disdain for Marvel and didn't comic books after the age of 11 or so.
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
I never got into "graphic novels" aka comics for adults. I don't need pictures to kickstart my imagination. I have novels and P&P role playing games for that. Hauptmann Deutschland was just a particularly silly Marvel brainfart that I picked up on through pop cultural osmosis.Simon Darkshade wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2025 12:36 am He is the same character as Vormund, but I'm not really going down the Marvel style or path as I have never really got into the superhero genre, even before its modern popularity; find the practice of calling superheroes 'Captain _______' a bit gauche; and have a very healthy and long disdain for Marvel and didn't comic books after the age of 11 or so.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
They came after my time as well, with my entry coming through books, RPGs and gamebooks; this is reflected to a certain extent in some of that style and features of Dark Earth.
I’ve also been waiting for a chance to use Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft since I was a schoolboy.
I’ve also been waiting for a chance to use Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft since I was a schoolboy.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
May
May 1: The Portuguese Exército Colonial begins a major new offensive in Mozambique, backed by newly acquired aircraft, helicopters, tanks and artillery, with commanders firmly believing that, in conjunction with support from Rhodesia and South Africa and advanced aerial photographic intelligence supplied the United States, a profound strategic victory is in sight.
May 2: An ATESA DC-3 aeroplane flying near the Tunguhura volcano east of Quito crashes after an apparent dragon attack, with fractured reports from the ground speaking of a blue-tinged beast of enormous size and rage rocketing into the sky at the ill-fated airliner.
May 3: Colombian police arrest Daniel Camargo Barbosa on suspicion of the rape and murder of a 9 year old girl. He is conveyed to the Palace of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Cartagena, questioned firmly and extensively, tried and sentenced to be gelded and burned at the stake.
May 4: Opening of the Expo '74 World's Fair in Spokane, Jefferson by President Reagan in front of a crowd of almost 150,000 spectators. Forthcoming attractions include the magnificent Moonsphere, the Space Garden, a new arcane monorail and the world's largest cinema utilising the new IMAX projection system.
May 5: A Columbia Airlines Boeing 747 is left momentarily without pilots in midflight after the flight crew are laid low by acute food poisoning, but through the able assistance of a retired fighter pilot among the passengers, the first stewardess and a wise cracking rabbit, Flight 409 is able to land at Lincoln International Airport outside Chicago, despite unseasonal weather and the tower supervisor suffering from a surfeit of Pervitin.
May 6: Metropolitan Police Flying Squad detectives, lead by the redoubtable DCI Jack Regan, recover the stolen Vermeer painting The Guitar Player in a raid on a converted warehouse that subsequently turns into a high speed pursuit through Central London.
May 7: The United States Department of Transport issues an exploratory paper on speed limits for Interstate Highways, with a range of options touched upon, namely 150mph, 125mph, 100mph and 90mph, with the lower speeds described as less suited to American conditions and automobiles.
May 8: Indian Railways begins the process of electrifying the Capital Zone around Delhi, in the first of twenty five zones incorporating over 179,000 miles of track, the second largest rail network in the world, after the completion of the nuclear power station at Gorakhpur and the beginning of construction of India's first atomic fusion power station in Kota. The process is expected to cost upwards of 12,500 crore rupees.
May 9: An earthquake registered 6.5 on the Richter scale strikes the Izu Peninsula southwest of Tokyo, Japan, killing 30 people, predominantly in the village of Nakagi, and an unknown number of korobokkuru in a nearby settlement. Prime Minister Yukio Mishima instructs his ministers to prepare a new series of contingency measures in case of earthquakes and tsunamis.
May 10: Italian police storm a prison hospital in Alessandria, shooting dead three armed prisoners who were holding other patients and medical staff as hostages, utilising an experimental device for slowing perceptions of time to get the drop on the desperate men.
May 11: The United States Navy's Eighth Fleet formally completes the shift of its headquarters to Falmouth in Cornwall from their temporary bases in Scotland, with the forward deployed task forces supporting USN activities across Northern Europe and the Eastern Atlantic.
May 12: His Majesty Faisal II, King of Iraq and current Sultan of the Arab Union, breaks from tradition and protocol, and causes no small consternation to his security detail, by stopping his motorcade during a visit to the northern city of Hawler and walking out into the crowd to talk directly to his people. Several foreign journalists note that this humility seems to result in a favourable reaction from the predominantly Kurdish crowd.
May 13: The Royal Israeli Air Force issues a requirement for an advanced supersonic multirole trainer with a secondary strike fighter-bomber mission, with the expansive specifications hoped to draw the interest of other Commonwealth partners for shared funding and potential exports. Discussions with the United States for potential participation have stalled, after an earlier agreement in principle for the Israeli ordering of new build F-15 Eagles and Skyhawk IIs tantalisingly offered a path forward.
May 14: Soviet mountaineers conducting an exploratory expedition on Lenin Peak in the Tajik SSR encounter a group of strange, unidentified humanoid monsters who appear suddenly out of the snow and vanish just as mysteriously.
May 15: Completion of the rebuild and expansion of White City Stadium in London, with the refurbished facility capable of holding a crowd of well over 100,000. The Chronicle speculates that this project can be ascribed to London strengthening its bid for a third Olympic Games in 1980.
May 16: Establishment of the Grønlands Nationalpark, the largest national park in the world at just over 1 million square miles in area, the majority of which are underneath the extensive Greenland icesheet.
May 17: King Zod of Albania declares that he will free his country from rats by 1980, leading some of his councillors to begin to experience slight doubts regarding his complete sanity.
May 18: Executives from the major U.S. railways begin a series of hard-hitting merger talks in Washington in a conference facilitated by the Department of Transport. Whilst some measure of economic consolidation is viewed as inevitable, the standing interests of the U.S. Federal Government regarding use of the railway network for defence purposes necessitate some degree of care and supervision.
May 19: American scientists unveil the world's largest solar powered aircraft at Expo '74, with many observers commenting on its marked resemblance to some sort of large bird, such as an eagle or a golden condor.
May 20: Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Nikolai Podgorny opens a new exhibition of socialist realist art and urban design in Moscow, declaring that it remains the only acceptable form of artistic expression in the Soviet Union, due to the Soviet people only wishing to see reflections of their real socialist experiences, rather than obscene bourgeois decadence as in the West.
May 21: Unveiling of two new French prototype jet airliners, the Nord-Renault 4250, a medium range wide body twin engine carrying 300 passengers out to 3000 miles at Mach 1.25; and the Sud-Dewoitine S239 Pacifique, a four engine long range 'jumbo jet' capable of carrying 500 passengers to 5500 miles at Mach 2.
May 22: Death of former Yugoslavian Prime Minister and leading Balkan democratic socialist elder statesman Josip Broz, in his residence in Belgrade.
May 23: Declaration by the Emperor of China that the Middle Kingdom can only progress towards true modernity through the pathways of tradition, and that everything that China needs for the development of its people and future lies within her own borders, which must be fully and properly secure.
May 24: The Ministry of Food reports in its Annual Paper on British Food that Britain has reached near complete self sufficiency in foodstuffs and beverages, with the exceptions of tropical fruits, exotic spices and tea (and coffee for the strange tastes of American forward deployed troops and expatriates and odd Continental travelers). The report comments on developing trends in British food consumption, such as the marked increase in popularity of veal and the curious growing niche occupied by Italian boiled wheat dough noodles, which the Ministry of Food sees as a potential efficient use for some small part of the recent bumper crops of wheat from across the Empire.
May 25: A group of Japanese communist activists are arrested after being recorded allegedly planning to assassinate the Emperor and overthrow the state. They are taken under heavy security to the underground special interrogation dungeon beneath Sugamo Prison amid outrage among law enforcement and the government at the mere thought of such heinous revolutionary actions.
May 26: NASA and the United States Department of Space announce a new round of contracts for construction of components for the United States starship programme, including the development of landing shuttles and modules, long term life support modules, the habitation cylinder and the cosmic shield. With many of these being at a conceptual stage, the extensive contracts worth more than $50 billion are seen as exorbitant by some critics, but to others they represent the price of mankind's next step forth into the stars.
May 27: Royal Navy frigates patrolling around the entrances to the U.S submarine base at Holy Loch in Scotland detect a suspected Soviet submarine of a new design and prosecute the contact extremely heavily over the next 12 hours, in conjunction with RNAS aeroplanes, helicopters and rotodynes, until the submarine, revealed to be a new Victor II SSN, is forced to the surface in the Firth of Clyde. A subsequent heated discussion over differing interpretations of territorial waters is resolved when the Soviet submarine is escorted, on the surface, out into the North Atlantic by an RN group lead by the atomic guided missile super cruiser HMS London and HMS Sheffield ; the protracted standoff is used as an opportunity for US Navy Seal frogmen to plant an innocuous anechoic hull tile fitted with a tracking device on the Soviet submarine.
May 28: The Home Office announces that a review of conditions in British prisons has not contained sufficient evidence to warrant changes to the system of hard labour, the use of the bread and water diet and the option of judicial corporal punishment as a sanction for offences against prison discipline, stating that so long as the primary legislative purposes of imprisonment remain public protection, deterrence and retribution, there is little scope for alteration to systems or other measures that would act against these objectives.
May 30: Chilean opposition leader and former Premier Salvador Allende begins a speaking tour of the United States, with his address focusing on the injustice of his dismissal and the repudiation of democracy it represents; The Chicago Tribune notes wryly that Mr. Allende's avowed socialist principles apparently do not extend to not charging for tickets to his talks.
May 31: Screening of the first episode of The History of the English Church, presented by C.S. Lewis, on the BBC, the latest in several well-received cultural documentaries that have been praised by critics for their role in public education and edification.
May 1: The Portuguese Exército Colonial begins a major new offensive in Mozambique, backed by newly acquired aircraft, helicopters, tanks and artillery, with commanders firmly believing that, in conjunction with support from Rhodesia and South Africa and advanced aerial photographic intelligence supplied the United States, a profound strategic victory is in sight.
May 2: An ATESA DC-3 aeroplane flying near the Tunguhura volcano east of Quito crashes after an apparent dragon attack, with fractured reports from the ground speaking of a blue-tinged beast of enormous size and rage rocketing into the sky at the ill-fated airliner.
May 3: Colombian police arrest Daniel Camargo Barbosa on suspicion of the rape and murder of a 9 year old girl. He is conveyed to the Palace of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Cartagena, questioned firmly and extensively, tried and sentenced to be gelded and burned at the stake.
May 4: Opening of the Expo '74 World's Fair in Spokane, Jefferson by President Reagan in front of a crowd of almost 150,000 spectators. Forthcoming attractions include the magnificent Moonsphere, the Space Garden, a new arcane monorail and the world's largest cinema utilising the new IMAX projection system.
May 5: A Columbia Airlines Boeing 747 is left momentarily without pilots in midflight after the flight crew are laid low by acute food poisoning, but through the able assistance of a retired fighter pilot among the passengers, the first stewardess and a wise cracking rabbit, Flight 409 is able to land at Lincoln International Airport outside Chicago, despite unseasonal weather and the tower supervisor suffering from a surfeit of Pervitin.
May 6: Metropolitan Police Flying Squad detectives, lead by the redoubtable DCI Jack Regan, recover the stolen Vermeer painting The Guitar Player in a raid on a converted warehouse that subsequently turns into a high speed pursuit through Central London.
May 7: The United States Department of Transport issues an exploratory paper on speed limits for Interstate Highways, with a range of options touched upon, namely 150mph, 125mph, 100mph and 90mph, with the lower speeds described as less suited to American conditions and automobiles.
May 8: Indian Railways begins the process of electrifying the Capital Zone around Delhi, in the first of twenty five zones incorporating over 179,000 miles of track, the second largest rail network in the world, after the completion of the nuclear power station at Gorakhpur and the beginning of construction of India's first atomic fusion power station in Kota. The process is expected to cost upwards of 12,500 crore rupees.
May 9: An earthquake registered 6.5 on the Richter scale strikes the Izu Peninsula southwest of Tokyo, Japan, killing 30 people, predominantly in the village of Nakagi, and an unknown number of korobokkuru in a nearby settlement. Prime Minister Yukio Mishima instructs his ministers to prepare a new series of contingency measures in case of earthquakes and tsunamis.
May 10: Italian police storm a prison hospital in Alessandria, shooting dead three armed prisoners who were holding other patients and medical staff as hostages, utilising an experimental device for slowing perceptions of time to get the drop on the desperate men.
May 11: The United States Navy's Eighth Fleet formally completes the shift of its headquarters to Falmouth in Cornwall from their temporary bases in Scotland, with the forward deployed task forces supporting USN activities across Northern Europe and the Eastern Atlantic.
May 12: His Majesty Faisal II, King of Iraq and current Sultan of the Arab Union, breaks from tradition and protocol, and causes no small consternation to his security detail, by stopping his motorcade during a visit to the northern city of Hawler and walking out into the crowd to talk directly to his people. Several foreign journalists note that this humility seems to result in a favourable reaction from the predominantly Kurdish crowd.
May 13: The Royal Israeli Air Force issues a requirement for an advanced supersonic multirole trainer with a secondary strike fighter-bomber mission, with the expansive specifications hoped to draw the interest of other Commonwealth partners for shared funding and potential exports. Discussions with the United States for potential participation have stalled, after an earlier agreement in principle for the Israeli ordering of new build F-15 Eagles and Skyhawk IIs tantalisingly offered a path forward.
May 14: Soviet mountaineers conducting an exploratory expedition on Lenin Peak in the Tajik SSR encounter a group of strange, unidentified humanoid monsters who appear suddenly out of the snow and vanish just as mysteriously.
May 15: Completion of the rebuild and expansion of White City Stadium in London, with the refurbished facility capable of holding a crowd of well over 100,000. The Chronicle speculates that this project can be ascribed to London strengthening its bid for a third Olympic Games in 1980.
May 16: Establishment of the Grønlands Nationalpark, the largest national park in the world at just over 1 million square miles in area, the majority of which are underneath the extensive Greenland icesheet.
May 17: King Zod of Albania declares that he will free his country from rats by 1980, leading some of his councillors to begin to experience slight doubts regarding his complete sanity.
May 18: Executives from the major U.S. railways begin a series of hard-hitting merger talks in Washington in a conference facilitated by the Department of Transport. Whilst some measure of economic consolidation is viewed as inevitable, the standing interests of the U.S. Federal Government regarding use of the railway network for defence purposes necessitate some degree of care and supervision.
May 19: American scientists unveil the world's largest solar powered aircraft at Expo '74, with many observers commenting on its marked resemblance to some sort of large bird, such as an eagle or a golden condor.
May 20: Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Nikolai Podgorny opens a new exhibition of socialist realist art and urban design in Moscow, declaring that it remains the only acceptable form of artistic expression in the Soviet Union, due to the Soviet people only wishing to see reflections of their real socialist experiences, rather than obscene bourgeois decadence as in the West.
May 21: Unveiling of two new French prototype jet airliners, the Nord-Renault 4250, a medium range wide body twin engine carrying 300 passengers out to 3000 miles at Mach 1.25; and the Sud-Dewoitine S239 Pacifique, a four engine long range 'jumbo jet' capable of carrying 500 passengers to 5500 miles at Mach 2.
May 22: Death of former Yugoslavian Prime Minister and leading Balkan democratic socialist elder statesman Josip Broz, in his residence in Belgrade.
May 23: Declaration by the Emperor of China that the Middle Kingdom can only progress towards true modernity through the pathways of tradition, and that everything that China needs for the development of its people and future lies within her own borders, which must be fully and properly secure.
May 24: The Ministry of Food reports in its Annual Paper on British Food that Britain has reached near complete self sufficiency in foodstuffs and beverages, with the exceptions of tropical fruits, exotic spices and tea (and coffee for the strange tastes of American forward deployed troops and expatriates and odd Continental travelers). The report comments on developing trends in British food consumption, such as the marked increase in popularity of veal and the curious growing niche occupied by Italian boiled wheat dough noodles, which the Ministry of Food sees as a potential efficient use for some small part of the recent bumper crops of wheat from across the Empire.
May 25: A group of Japanese communist activists are arrested after being recorded allegedly planning to assassinate the Emperor and overthrow the state. They are taken under heavy security to the underground special interrogation dungeon beneath Sugamo Prison amid outrage among law enforcement and the government at the mere thought of such heinous revolutionary actions.
May 26: NASA and the United States Department of Space announce a new round of contracts for construction of components for the United States starship programme, including the development of landing shuttles and modules, long term life support modules, the habitation cylinder and the cosmic shield. With many of these being at a conceptual stage, the extensive contracts worth more than $50 billion are seen as exorbitant by some critics, but to others they represent the price of mankind's next step forth into the stars.
May 27: Royal Navy frigates patrolling around the entrances to the U.S submarine base at Holy Loch in Scotland detect a suspected Soviet submarine of a new design and prosecute the contact extremely heavily over the next 12 hours, in conjunction with RNAS aeroplanes, helicopters and rotodynes, until the submarine, revealed to be a new Victor II SSN, is forced to the surface in the Firth of Clyde. A subsequent heated discussion over differing interpretations of territorial waters is resolved when the Soviet submarine is escorted, on the surface, out into the North Atlantic by an RN group lead by the atomic guided missile super cruiser HMS London and HMS Sheffield ; the protracted standoff is used as an opportunity for US Navy Seal frogmen to plant an innocuous anechoic hull tile fitted with a tracking device on the Soviet submarine.
May 28: The Home Office announces that a review of conditions in British prisons has not contained sufficient evidence to warrant changes to the system of hard labour, the use of the bread and water diet and the option of judicial corporal punishment as a sanction for offences against prison discipline, stating that so long as the primary legislative purposes of imprisonment remain public protection, deterrence and retribution, there is little scope for alteration to systems or other measures that would act against these objectives.
May 30: Chilean opposition leader and former Premier Salvador Allende begins a speaking tour of the United States, with his address focusing on the injustice of his dismissal and the repudiation of democracy it represents; The Chicago Tribune notes wryly that Mr. Allende's avowed socialist principles apparently do not extend to not charging for tickets to his talks.
May 31: Screening of the first episode of The History of the English Church, presented by C.S. Lewis, on the BBC, the latest in several well-received cultural documentaries that have been praised by critics for their role in public education and edification.
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jemhouston
- Posts: 4485
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Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
Did the Lincoln International Airport manager ever get his plan approved to remove the nearby houses and get the area rezoned for light manufacturing and business to stop the noise complaints?
What constitutes high speed in central London? I can't see a anything over 40Kmph being possible.
Leadership talking to the people directly is a good thing.
What constitutes high speed in central London? I can't see a anything over 40Kmph being possible.
Leadership talking to the people directly is a good thing.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
I’m not sure on the first one.
In the second instance, at this time, there is plenty of scope for Sweeney-esque high speed chases through London.
The Iraqi situation contrasts with their historical dictators at this time, who certainly, like Little Miss Muffet, had Kurds in their way.
In the second instance, at this time, there is plenty of scope for Sweeney-esque high speed chases through London.
The Iraqi situation contrasts with their historical dictators at this time, who certainly, like Little Miss Muffet, had Kurds in their way.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
May Notes
- Portugal faces a different strategic environment in its colonial wars, and there is some prospect for success, of sorts
- The historic Ecuadorian plane crash comes at the hands (well, claws) of a rather peeved wyrm, which isn't the first such incident in Ecuador. There is something of a reason for this, which will develop further
- A Colombian killer is nicked and faces a rather different end than 25 years in jail, escaping in 1984 to then commit 72 further murders, be arrested in 1986 and sentenced to the crushing sentence of 16 years behind bars, then being stabbed to death by another inmate in 1994. The rather harsh approach taken by the Colombian Inquisition does ensure that there won't be any escaping or reoffending
- Expo '74's monorail does lead to a bit of a rise in other cities considering them, including Springfield, Indiana
- The travails of the Columbia Airlines 747 combines some of the events of Airport 1975 and Airplane!
- The Guitar Player is recovered with a bit more of the 'Regan touch'
- The question of US Interstate Highway speed limits isn't driven by the same oil related issues as @, which lead to some rather different proposals
- Electrifying India's railway network will take a lot of time and money, but the increasing amounts of power available make it an attractive goal
- A historical earthquake in Japan leads to the government to start to think about what could happen if even larger ones hit
- The Alessandria prison hospital shoot out is far more one sided, with the incident demonstrating the wider range of technologies and capabilities available to law enforcement and showing how their consequences play out
- The USN Eighth Fleet is primarily a support force, coordinating forward deployed CRUDESFLOTs, as well as a rotational deployment of a carrier task force detached from Second Fleet
- Faisal's approach in Iraq to the Kurds is very different to that of the nation's historical Baathist dictators
- The RIAF is looking to develop a very capable trainer that can serve as a supporting fighter-bomber, and also generate some export sales, reflecting their different strategic environment
- Something strange is going on up in Soviet Central Asia
- The reason behind White City Stadium's renovation is indeed the prospective 1980 Olympics bid
- There is something a bit strange about good King Zod; hopefully, he won't be approach by a fellow carrying pipes
- US railway mergers will be done a bit differently, reflecting their different position in the nation's transport matrix
- A flying machine that looks like a Golden Condor?
- Socialist realism continues to rule the roost in the USSR
- The French airliners will get some interesting sales in coming years
- Britain achieving effective food self sufficiency, with obvious exceptions, reflects the priority given to it, as well as the different evolving patterns of food trade and imports. The rather clumsy description of pasta shows that its position is still akin that of the @ 1950s
- There is more to the Japanese communists incident than meets the eye
- The US starship project is a big, long term one, and the development process is going to result in some useful spin off technologies
- The Victor II being caught in the Clyde was a contrived operation to try and lure a Soviet submarine into a situation where it could be 'tagged and released into the wild'. Someone back in Moscow is not going to have a very good morning
- Rather than bread and water, and other measures, being abolished, they are maintained in British prisons, ostensibly due to the influence of legislative language, but also from a decision from the top that prisons should be seen as a very unattractive place for people to end up
- Allende gets some mockery from a newspaper, but all things considered, he is on a better wicket
- Not only does the television event of May 31 show that C.S. Lewis is still around and kicking, but it serves to demonstrate a bit of a different approach and organisational mindset/culture at the Beeb
- Portugal faces a different strategic environment in its colonial wars, and there is some prospect for success, of sorts
- The historic Ecuadorian plane crash comes at the hands (well, claws) of a rather peeved wyrm, which isn't the first such incident in Ecuador. There is something of a reason for this, which will develop further
- A Colombian killer is nicked and faces a rather different end than 25 years in jail, escaping in 1984 to then commit 72 further murders, be arrested in 1986 and sentenced to the crushing sentence of 16 years behind bars, then being stabbed to death by another inmate in 1994. The rather harsh approach taken by the Colombian Inquisition does ensure that there won't be any escaping or reoffending
- Expo '74's monorail does lead to a bit of a rise in other cities considering them, including Springfield, Indiana
- The travails of the Columbia Airlines 747 combines some of the events of Airport 1975 and Airplane!
- The Guitar Player is recovered with a bit more of the 'Regan touch'
- The question of US Interstate Highway speed limits isn't driven by the same oil related issues as @, which lead to some rather different proposals
- Electrifying India's railway network will take a lot of time and money, but the increasing amounts of power available make it an attractive goal
- A historical earthquake in Japan leads to the government to start to think about what could happen if even larger ones hit
- The Alessandria prison hospital shoot out is far more one sided, with the incident demonstrating the wider range of technologies and capabilities available to law enforcement and showing how their consequences play out
- The USN Eighth Fleet is primarily a support force, coordinating forward deployed CRUDESFLOTs, as well as a rotational deployment of a carrier task force detached from Second Fleet
- Faisal's approach in Iraq to the Kurds is very different to that of the nation's historical Baathist dictators
- The RIAF is looking to develop a very capable trainer that can serve as a supporting fighter-bomber, and also generate some export sales, reflecting their different strategic environment
- Something strange is going on up in Soviet Central Asia
- The reason behind White City Stadium's renovation is indeed the prospective 1980 Olympics bid
- There is something a bit strange about good King Zod; hopefully, he won't be approach by a fellow carrying pipes
- US railway mergers will be done a bit differently, reflecting their different position in the nation's transport matrix
- A flying machine that looks like a Golden Condor?
- Socialist realism continues to rule the roost in the USSR
- The French airliners will get some interesting sales in coming years
- Britain achieving effective food self sufficiency, with obvious exceptions, reflects the priority given to it, as well as the different evolving patterns of food trade and imports. The rather clumsy description of pasta shows that its position is still akin that of the @ 1950s
- There is more to the Japanese communists incident than meets the eye
- The US starship project is a big, long term one, and the development process is going to result in some useful spin off technologies
- The Victor II being caught in the Clyde was a contrived operation to try and lure a Soviet submarine into a situation where it could be 'tagged and released into the wild'. Someone back in Moscow is not going to have a very good morning
- Rather than bread and water, and other measures, being abolished, they are maintained in British prisons, ostensibly due to the influence of legislative language, but also from a decision from the top that prisons should be seen as a very unattractive place for people to end up
- Allende gets some mockery from a newspaper, but all things considered, he is on a better wicket
- Not only does the television event of May 31 show that C.S. Lewis is still around and kicking, but it serves to demonstrate a bit of a different approach and organisational mindset/culture at the Beeb
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jemhouston
- Posts: 4485
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:38 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
I think the movie is closer to the original Airport movie back in 1970. Airplane! is the spoof version of that movie.
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Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 838
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
- Location: Earth
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
jemhouston wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2025 2:33 pm I think the movie is closer to the original Airport movie back in 1970. Airplane! is the spoof version of that movie.
Airplane! is an almost scene for scene remake of Zero Hour. There’s a funny side by side video on YT.
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jemhouston
- Posts: 4485
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:38 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
Thank youBernard Woolley wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2025 8:56 pmjemhouston wrote: ↑Thu Jan 09, 2025 2:33 pm I think the movie is closer to the original Airport movie back in 1970. Airplane! is the spoof version of that movie.
Airplane! is an almost scene for scene remake of Zero Hour. There’s a funny side by side video on YT.
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Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 838
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
- Location: Earth
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
To be honest, that doc sounds very like the sort of thing the BBC would have done in @. Kenneth Clarke’s Civilisation comes to mind,- Not only does the television event of May 31 show that C.S. Lewis is still around and kicking, but it serves to demonstrate a bit of a different approach and organisational mindset/culture at the Beeb
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1229
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth Timeline Discussion
Think of it as a matter of trajectory, with likes of Civilisation, this one and the Triumph of the West being more at the very forefront of what is regarded as the BBC's high cultural 'mission' and that there should be more of it, rather than the gradual shift towards more populist and eventually lower brow programming. There hasn't been the type of shift away from Reithianism that occurred under Hugh Greene and some of his successors, nor has there been the same shift towards the 'youth market'.
Another way of picturing it is drawing an analogy to the TBOverse Falklands War. Stuart once characterised it as happening in both TBOverse and Earth, but in the form, it was a bit of a fulcrum point of Britain heading on the way *up*, whereas on Earth, it was a marker of Britain on the way *down*.
Looking here https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/s ... 1985-01-10 , we can see BBC One's broadcast schedule from today's date in 1985. Some of the differences that we may see in the Dark Earth equivalent, without giving away anything to do with 1985 (a year chosen randomly using the accurate generator of my finger with my eyes closed), include no Top of the Pops, no Night Court, a different after dinnertime family comedy, no repeats of a 1960s American medical drama and interestingly, no Ceefax (with that role being taken by some dedicated channels.
From Friday night, there definitely wouldn't be a broadcast of Miss Great Britain, but there absolutely will be the likes of By the Sword Divided on Sunday night; absolutely ripping programme, that one.
In their place, there is likely to be a British produced historical costume drama late at night; concentration of children's programmes in the morning and afternoon to allow for a scientific or historical programme in the dead time in the middle of the day; some sort of travel/nature programme; and a few more serials.
This isn't to say that there won't be room for a lot of types of programmes, but there will be a subtle but noticeable difference. The Beatles will continue their programme well into the 1980s, but sometimes they will be followed by a Michael Wood documentary series.
(By the by, there won't be a 'Jim'll Fix It' for obvious reasons (there being some positive side effects from the lack of @ pop music), but there may well be a 'Tim'll Fix It' with Tim Brooke-Taylor from The Goodies. Bill Oddie will get his twitching programmes and nature shows, and Graeme Garden something medical or scientific, to round out a trio of side programmes, in addition to The Goodies, which shall have a bit of a longer run.)
Another way of picturing it is drawing an analogy to the TBOverse Falklands War. Stuart once characterised it as happening in both TBOverse and Earth, but in the form, it was a bit of a fulcrum point of Britain heading on the way *up*, whereas on Earth, it was a marker of Britain on the way *down*.
Looking here https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/s ... 1985-01-10 , we can see BBC One's broadcast schedule from today's date in 1985. Some of the differences that we may see in the Dark Earth equivalent, without giving away anything to do with 1985 (a year chosen randomly using the accurate generator of my finger with my eyes closed), include no Top of the Pops, no Night Court, a different after dinnertime family comedy, no repeats of a 1960s American medical drama and interestingly, no Ceefax (with that role being taken by some dedicated channels.
From Friday night, there definitely wouldn't be a broadcast of Miss Great Britain, but there absolutely will be the likes of By the Sword Divided on Sunday night; absolutely ripping programme, that one.
In their place, there is likely to be a British produced historical costume drama late at night; concentration of children's programmes in the morning and afternoon to allow for a scientific or historical programme in the dead time in the middle of the day; some sort of travel/nature programme; and a few more serials.
This isn't to say that there won't be room for a lot of types of programmes, but there will be a subtle but noticeable difference. The Beatles will continue their programme well into the 1980s, but sometimes they will be followed by a Michael Wood documentary series.
(By the by, there won't be a 'Jim'll Fix It' for obvious reasons (there being some positive side effects from the lack of @ pop music), but there may well be a 'Tim'll Fix It' with Tim Brooke-Taylor from The Goodies. Bill Oddie will get his twitching programmes and nature shows, and Graeme Garden something medical or scientific, to round out a trio of side programmes, in addition to The Goodies, which shall have a bit of a longer run.)