Dark Earth Timeline Discussion

[Bernard Woolley]

- A UFO incident occurs between the Methil Power Station in Fife and Craigowl Hill in Forfarshire

Knowing Methil, I blame too much drink!

[Simon Darkshade]

It certainly isn't a case of abuse of the cursed al-kuhul, but of a UFO suddenly being detected over the North Sea, coming in over the Firth of Forth, making landfall next to the power station (which here is an oil fired plant vs coal slurry) and then breaking almost due north before being bought down around Craigowl Hill.

There isn't a crash site there, though, just an emergency clean up of a missile body that landed in an impromptu nocturnal test. Absolutely nothing to see here. Crashed flying saucer? Pft! Are you feeling alright? Just let one of our doctors in black suits scan you with this little handheld whatsit...

[Simon Darkshade]

A little coda on DE British electrical generation capacity as of 1976:

Hydroelectricity and Wave Power
Welsh Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme: 3000 MW
Scotland Hydroelectric: 2000 MW
Irish Hydroelectric: 1500 MW
Lyonesse Hydroelectic: 1000 MW
Severn Barrage: 10000 MW

- A not inconsiderable amount, compared to 1500-1700 MW in @ Scotland (+ 700 MW pumped storage), 2205 MW in @ Wales and 240 MW in Ireland. The big difference comes in the Severn Barrage, the addition of Lyonesse and some larger projects in Ireland

Oil and Gas
16 oil fired power stations with 15,000 MW (Kingsnorth, Littlebrook, Grain, Ince, Fawley, Northfleet, Marchwood, Greenwich; Peterhead, Grangemouth, Stirling, Methil; Ker Ys; Kilroot, Poolbeg, Great Island)
12 gas fired power stations with 10,500 MW (Didcot, Teesside, Immingham, Eston Grange, South Humber Bank, Coryton, Pembroke, Cowes, Kingston-on-Thames; Avalon; Ballylumford; Dundee)

- A couple of different ones, and it is noteworthy that the earlier advent of large scale nuclear power did abbreviate some of the late 1950s programmes for more oil power stations

Coal
32 coal fired power stations with 33,980 MW (Drax 4000, Cottam 2000, , West Burton 2000, Battersea 1000, Barking 400, Ironbridge 1000, Skelton Grange 500, Lynemouth 400, Willington 400, Croydon 400, Wilford 400, Dunston 400, Bankside 400, Kearsley 360, Leicester 360, Blackwall Point 360, Huddersfield 360; Longannet 2000, Cockenzie 2400, Kincardine 1200, Braehead 1200; Lyonesse 1800, Caer Tristan 800, Cathbad 800; Merthyr 2000, Haven 1600, Uskmouth 1200, Carmarthen Bay 640; Aghada 640, Edenderry 480, Belfast 2000, Coolkeeragh 480)

Of the current coal plants, Barking (400), Battersea (1000), Ironbridge (1000), Blackwall Point (360), Huddersfield (360), Kearsley (360), Croydon (400), Willford (400), Bankside (400), Dunston (400), Leicester (400), Lynemouth (400), Skelton Grange (500), Braehead (1200), Cathbad (800), Caer Tristan (800), Uskmouth (1200), Carmarthen Bay (640), Edenderry (480) and Coolkeeragh (480) are due to close by 1980 in light of the fusion revolution, leaving just 10 reasonably new coal plants across the British Isles in operation.

- This is of course a significantly different situation, with the majority of British coal being used for non-electrical generation purposes, which is in stark contrast with @ after 1930 or so.

Nuclear Power
6 Gen 1 Nuclear Power Stations with 6000 MW: Windscale/Calder Hall, Chapelcross, Berkeley, Bradwell, Hartlepool, Hunterston (4 x 250 MW)

34 Gen 2 Nuclear Power Stations with 68,000 MW: Hinkley Point, Trawsfynyd, Dungeness, Sizewell, Oldbury, Wylfa, Heysham, Torness, Dounreay, Malin (Northern Ireland), Arklow (Southern Ireland), Kilmelford (Scotland), Ullapool (Scotland), Moidart (Scotland), Inverbervie (Scotland), Amble (Northumberland), Hinderwell (North Yorkshire), Skipsea (West Yorkshire), Theddlethorpe (Lincolnshire), Weybourne (Norfolk), Isle of Grain (Kent), Drakelow, Padiham, Wakefield, Neston, Kirkstall, Ribble, Doncaster, Westwood, Stourport, Inverkip (Scotland), Aberthaw (Wales), Randernesse (Lyonesse), Moneypoint (Ireland) (4 x 500 MW)

5 Fusion Power Stations with 10000 MW: Springfields, Windscale, Darkmoor, Bramford and Brough-on-Humber (4 x 2500 MW)
(+ Tilbury, Weston-super-Mare, Empingham, Redditch and Huddersfield due to be completed in August, March 1977, June 1977, December 1977 and February 1978)
(+ Further fusion plants are planned for Pennard, Greenfield, Borstal, Chesterfield, Marchwood, Cattawade, Spalding-on-Wash, Marnham, Godmanchester, Henley, Blyth, Londonderry, Shannon, Chapelcross and Torness over the next 12 years, along with new fusion powered reactors on the site of current nuclear power plants at Hinkley Point, Sizewell, Bradwell, Berkeley, Trawsfynydd, Heysham and Hartlepool)

- Up and atom!

That equals:

Hydroelectricity and Tidal: 153.3 TWh (8.37%)
Oil: 131.4 TWh (7.17%)
Gas: 91.98 TWh (5.02%)
Coal: 297.6648 TWh (16.24%)
Wind: 42.4 TWh (2.31%)
Solar: 29.6 TWh (1.62%)
Nuclear: 648.24 TWh (52.56 TWh Gen 1 + 595.68 TWh Gen 2) (35.37%)
Fusion: 438 TWh (5 x 87.6) (23.9%)

Total: 1832.5848 TWh

- This compares to 2024’s 628.092 TWh, with the note that DE Britain, with her larger population, industry and electrification, has a demand for upwards of 1500 TWh, and more coming
- The planned fusion plants will leave that behind in the dust, opening up a variety of new industrial potential (aluminium refining, various chemical and fertiliser plants), synthetic fuels, hydrogen, computerisation, even more electrification, development of advanced batteries, export and 'things to do with space'

[Bernard Woolley]

No Northmoor? I’m disappointed!
On a serious note, with fusion, the U.K. can bin dirty stuff like coal and oil, and use it for better things.

[Simon Darkshade]

Consider the name Darkmoor. Facilities there aren’t illegally producing plutonium, but actively and legally doing so, and have the word ‘Dark’ in the name. Spooky! Mystical! Bob Peck turning into a treeee!

Quite right on the potential of fusion to minimise the need for coal and oil to be more than secondary or tertiary sources of power in the coming decades. This has positive effects on things such as clean air, but also frees up coal and oil for different uses, such as plastics, chemicals, rocket fuel, SS Structurals, fertiliser and more; insulates the country from potential economic/resource pressures; and channels excess resources and electrickity into exports.

[Bernard Woolley]

Just wondering, was the absolutely not a UFO look like the picture I have attached? Was it in no way shot down by a 'shadowy' organisation?

[Simon Darkshade]

It wasn’t shot down by any such SHADOwy groups, unless we count RAF Fighter Command as particularly disreputable.

Flying saucers that look like that have been spotted. There seem to be a number of different types of UFO, corresponding to different types of occupant.

[jemhouston]

I wonder if some of the UFOs are the equivalent of game wardens to see if we're ready to be let out our preserve.

[Simon Darkshade]

That isn't at all the case here. There is a lot more at play here, both on the good and the malign side.

[Simon Darkshade]

Some Musings on the 1976 Election:

- This election came out of markedly different conditions to any of the 4 elections that occurred in our 1970s - 70, the two 74s and 79. This takes many forms and shapes, but the most fundamental is that there hasn't been any rupture of a general consensus between the three major parties

- It is a different consensus to Butskellism in some forms, but shares the commitment to full employment; a 'mixed' economy; a welfare state; and effectively a social market economy a la West Germany

- A difference is that the 'mixed economy' line is rather closer to privatisation, as there was never nationalisation beyond the initial wave (Railways, Bank of England, Electricity/CEGB, Water, Gas, Imperial Airways and Cable & Wireless), which particularly affected steel and coal in the postwar period. With a stronger economy, there has been no question of nationalisation of aerospace, shipbuilding, automotive or Rolls-Royce

- Another is that the Welfare State, whilst expansive and strong, isn't quite as totemic for Barton as compared to other Labour leaders

- Underlying all this is no shared approach of managed decline or a need to approach a Europe which isn't present in this case; the pre WW2 British exceptionalism remains, and after some bumpy years, has even recovered a fair bit

- Indeed, that notion of recovery and the trajectory that the nation seems to be on is markedly different, even as this is a generalisation and not everyone historically held the same opinion regarding the Britain they lived in during the late 1970s. In its broadest possible sense, the general DE position or national mood is that Britain has her best days still in front of her

What then was the consensus prior to the 1976 General Election?

A.) All three major parties presented manifestos with detailed and extensive sections on Defence, and none proposed any significant (or indeed insignificant) cuts to spending, force size or force posture. What differences did exist were largely structural and relatively minor. None of them seek to make any significant changes to National Service, the British strategic nuclear deterrent or her global commitments. There is an understanding that finding savings is rather difficult; the Conservatives tried between 1960 and 1964, with relatively minor success, and Labour under Barton has seen the ambition to reduce the overall budget down to 7.5-8% of GDP disappear in the face of the expense of the 1960s RMA

B.) All three parties supported the Nuclear Fusion revolution with regard to power generation

C.) All have broadly similar policies regarding reducing income tax where possible, with particular attention to cutting rates for the lowest bracket/raising the tax free threshold. There is difference in *how* they seek to do this

D.) General consensus on the current extent of the welfare state and NHS

E.) Acceptance of the role of trade unions. Effectively, they have not quite expanded their relative power and influence quite to the same extent of our 1970s, having started from a different base, and hit some constraints along the way during the first half of the 20th century. There was no need for the policies proposed historically in In Place of Strife, as they or the framework for them were already largely in place. During Barton's 12 years in power, the TUC have agreed to keep their actions and demands reasonable in return for steady wage growth and social/welfare support. Thus, there isn't any perceived need to curb trade union power

F.) Broadly similar national/macroeconomic policies. All three share the position that not having any national debt isn't a bad thing; that using the windfall of the North Sea and elsewhere to save for the future is wise; that reducing or minimising extraneous spending where practicable is at the least prudent; and maintaining the lowest possible level of unemployment is fiscally and socially prudent. There isn't really a need for penny pinching or searching for economies at this time

G.) Agreement on future-proofing the Pension system, after having the issue examined by a number of intelligent supercomputers. Combining an OAP which can be funded independently of the Budget with a reformed Private Pension/Superannuation system is seen as the way forward to doing this, coming from a lot of thinking in the 1950s, a Lapcat tidbit on the Norwegian Pension System of another place and analysing patterns and demography

H.) Agreement on the importance of education. There are small areas of difference within this broad heading, but notably nothing like Labour's historical antipathy towards grammar schools or public schools

I.) Support for continual maintenance and modernisation of the transport system, encompassing rail, road, sea, ports, canals and air

J.) Unanimous support for the Ministry of Space and general space exploration

K.) All three major parties have immigration policies which support levels being kept variously low or 'as large as is needed for effective growth without disrupting or discommoding British workers'. The devil of the difference lies in the detail of each party's position. I've previously raised it as a tactical example of how the Conservatives sought to put some clear air between them and the Liberals, but now that they have achieved their goal of returning to power, it isn't a hugely animating issue

L.) There hasn't really been any basis for support for devolution, and, in the absence of any nationalist parties raising their head above the most local of levels, there is a default consensus of 'steady as she goes and has always gone'. The historical Liberal position of 1979 of a Federal Britain does not occur here

M.) With the majority of the Empire having undergone or still undergoing the process of transition to self-governing and then independent Commonwealth Dominions or been joined to Britain proper in the manner of Malta, Gibraltar and others, there isn't any real level of difference in positions regarding the Pacific Islands and the other remaining bits and pieces. The Liberals have something of a more liberal attitude towards the former African colonies, as compared to the rather more overtly paternalistic approach of Labour and the Conservatives, but this isn't one of the areas where they have influence in the new Coalition. The basic bipartisan position, which may turn out to be a double-edged sword in the long run, is something akin to the @ Francafrique - allowing full domestic and international autonomy, but if certain invisible Red lines are crossed, there is potential for intervention, be it overt, covert or economic

N.) There is general consensus on law and order policies, with the Liberals having the most overt level of difference, calling for a conscience vote on capital punishment and judicial corporal punishment, and for the establishment of an interdepartmental parliamentary committee to examine a number of issues of public morality

Less separates Labour and the Conservatives on a raft of issues than perhaps the Liberals, and Barton's move to not fall over himself wooing the latter is tactical as well as practical.

Some of the substance of what Powell and Barton discuss does lead to further (very, very quiet) scrutiny of particularly Jeremy Thorpe, and also some of the other Liberal MPs, such as Roy Jenkins, on account of their extra-marital explorative tendencies making them potentially open to honey trap approaches.

[Simon Darkshade]

Further to the above:

- There is something of a consensus on keeping the Welfare State financially affordable, whilst still being generous to those in need, informed by some bits and pieces of future/different perspectives. It still exists, and is comparatively generous, but there is both less call for it and more of the original Beveridge idea of support. There certainly isn't the same (and to an outsider, rather bizarre) quasi-religious fetishisation of the NHS as seen from some persons and groups way down the line
- The general approach of being able to take a point of view that isn't short term assists hugely with the Pensions issue. With DE supercomputers, it is possible to simulate how a potential course of action may play out; this isn't the only way things could turn out, but it provides some level of gaming out the options of spending the windfall of North Sea oil in the here and now or using it to build for the future.

Sam was no expert, but knew that pensions were around 2% in 1945, 3% in 1961, 4% in 1975, 5% in 1993 and over 8% in 2015; like his author, he enjoys obscure statistics. Whilst that level of growth isn't necessarily applicable to Dark Earth, it showed one possible outcome, and was enough to merit a paragraph in one part of the Lapcat Report on its potential ramifications

There had already been considerable growth between 1945 and 1961, after all. Part of Barton's Grand Design was to fund certain areas of spending in a sustainable and perpetual manner, and funding Pensions through the Imperial Sovereign Fund is the first manifestation of that; in the long run, there is the intent to further supplement this with an individual superannuation scheme, so that fewer people are reliant on the Pension when the aged portion of the population rises.

As of 1976, in raw terms, the £12/week Old Age Pension is worth the equivalent of £344 pounds; when adjusted for purchasing power, it is likely closer to ~ £550-600 in 2026 Earthly terms. The current 2026 British pension is £241.30 at full rate. That is already a good wicket, but a superannuation scheme can potentially deliver a weekly income in the realm of £900-£1000 for a not insignificant part of the populace.

DE Britain in 1976 has seen growth of 40.09% over the 1950s, 54.26% over the 1960s, and now 42.72% over the 1970s thus far. This is relatively less than Germany, France and Italy, but not by nearly as much as was perceived on Earth in this period, where growth was 23.17% in the 50s and 24.4% in the 1960s. There is a relative shift in economic position, but this is offset by a number of factors, including burgeoning British economic advantage in newer industries and technologies; an absence of national/public debt; the North Sea windfall being ‘put to work’; and a genuine trajectory of economic success, positivity and optimism
- The relative decline vis a vis some European states has effectively slowed so that Britain could well surpass Germany in GDP by the end of the decade
- There is a feeling that a new Industrial Revolution is coming, and Britain is at the forefront
- Taxes are on a steady downward trajectory, although covering defence costs is a Herculean labour in terms of squaring the circle
- Manufacturing is not a dirty word, nor a vestige of the past being replaced by services, with 47.9.% of the labour force engaged in it, and it being responsible for 39.6% of GDP. Each decade since the War has seen close to a doubling in gross manufacturing output. Even as there has been change, older industries have adapted, become more productive and tried to modernise; the comparative lack of globalisation helps in that regard
- Under Barton, the National Plan and coordinated industrial strategy identified which were the key industries needed for future strength and investment was channeled into them
- Infrastructure has been invested in, and there is a genuine feel of the country being on the move; something like the 1960s ‘mood’, but not just applied to trendy parts of London
- Inflation hasn’t been nearly as bad an issue as historical, which has meant that rising pay (even if it has been steady and graduated over time, in line with union-government-business/industry agreements) can really be felt for the average worker and his family. There is more scope to afford a holiday, buy more consumer goods, improve the family home and save for the future
- Energy is plentiful and increasingly cheaper, which opens new doors
- With a mean/average weekly income of £44 and a median of £30, pensioners are beneficiaries of the stacking of a number of benefits, such as the OAP + Widow’s Pension for £22/week or the OAP + a Veteran’s Pension for £27/week. This eliminates one preventable area of poverty; for those under 65, there are projections that poverty will be effectively eradicated within the next decade. Absolute poverty is effectively a thing of the past, and even relative poverty (60% of the median by the @ measure, or 50% in DE terms) is becoming scarce. If a man is able and willing to work, then he can bring home £20-25/week and likely not pay a great deal of tax on it - for a £20/week job, around £1 in income tax and £1 for National Insurance, and there is talk of raising the tax free threshold further
- There doesn’t seem to be a decline to manage in economic terms. In military terms, the long postwar contraction, or the DE version, ended in the late 1960s, and now there is a small yet measurable increase year by year, and that is just in raw numbers/snout counting. In terms of capability/combat power, look out
- In 1976, the RN had 54 destroyers and frigates, along with Ark Royal, Hermes and Bulwark; Tiger and Blake; and 9 SSNs + 18 SSKs. The DE equivalent is 428 escorts (not counting the sloops and larger corvettes, which exceed the size of Earthly RN frigates in some cases), 48 cruisers, 50 carriers and 142 submarines; the small matter of 21 battleships and 5 battlecruisers is just a little icing on the cake
- The British Army of 1976 had 170,000 men and deployed 4 divisions and 1200 tanks; the DE one has just over 1,600,000 men, 26 divisions and 15000 tanks (including the 3260 reserve vehicles, but not counting the 15000 MBTs of the TA and AR)
- The 1976 RAF had ~ 100 Harriers, ~ 20 Jaguars, 150 Phantoms, 36-40 Vulcans, ~ 60 Lightnings and ~60 Buccs and around 96,000 men. The DE RAF has over 12,000 aircraft and 923,487 men, not to mention 1128 ICBMs
- It isn’t just a numbers game, but the quality of equipment and men, and the sheer bulk of reserves of both which back it up
- Even as the British African Army begins to wind down, this isn’t seen as a sign of decline, as a single airborne battalion can do the job of two divisions of African light infantry; the likes of the KAR and the Zulus aren’t going to disappear, though
- A crucial area of difference is the serious discussion of substantive force increases, as well as modernisation
- Culturally, DE Britain doesn’t seem to be too slouching, even if it is in a different sense to our 1970s (perhaps more actors than pop stars and soccer players)
- Not only wouldn’t one find rubbish piling up on the streets due to a binman’s strike, but there is a noticeable absence of public litter, detritus, graffiti, run-down AND abandoned buildings and public mess in general
- Like the historical Britain of 1976, you’d be fairly hard pressed to find anyone sleeping rough on the streets in the manner one might see today; in DE, with the availability of the succour of the monasteries and the (former) workhouses, not to mention the assistance of the police, Salvation Army and social workers, there isn’t a large itinerant populace; even the urchins of London are not truly homeless in the @ sense
- Mention managed decline in this context, and you’d likely get as baffled a look as if you mentioned Mandalorians or other such modern day cultural shibboleths

[Simon Darkshade]

So, in addition to Michael Jackson and Chuck Norris, I’ve had a think about other celebrities/famous and infamous people of the 1970s to add to my next “Where Are They Now?” entry:

Chuck Norris, Michael Jackson, Robert Redford, Endeavour Morse, Sebastian Holmes, James Bond, Harry Palmer, Arthur Fonzarelli, Carl Sagan, Evel Knievel, Steve Austin, Henry Ford II, Big Bird, Salvador Allende, Hirohito, Dick Cavett, Akio Morita, Marilyn Monroe, Yitzhak/Isaac Rabin, Mother Teresa, Howard Hughes, Alec Leamas, Apollo Creed, Paul Kersey, Travis Bickle

Who else should be added?


Previous People:

1975: Henry Kissinger, Delia Smith, Miss Piggy, Hunter S. Thompson, George Smiley, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, George Best, Viv Richards, Norman Mailer, Monty Burns, Abba Eban, Prince Charles, Shah Kamar, James Carter, John Wayne, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lankester Merrin, Yoni Netanyahu, Steven Spielberg, Richard Nixon, Ted Crilly, Tony Benn, Winston Churchill, Yukio Mishima, Enoch Powell, Stanley Barton, Prince Philip, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, JFK, Ronald Reagan

1970: RFK, MLK, James Hendrix, Hugh Hefner, Alexander Dubcek, Saloth Sâr (+), Robert McNamara, Duncan Edwards, Charles Manson, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jagger, Bruce Wayne, Pablo Picasso (+), Kermit the Frog, Bill Gillespie, John Cleese, Leslie Hornby/Twiggy, Marie Connolly née Lawrie/Lulu, Mrs Barbara Plunkett Greene/Mary Quant, Jane Fonda, Timothy Leary, William F Buckley, Eric Clapton, Padre Pio, Yoko Ono, David Jones, Golda Myerson, Gene Hunt, Enrico Fermi, Georgy Zhukov, Marshal Ky, Jacques Clouseau, C.S. Lewis, Margaret Thatcher, James Hacker, Yukio Mishima, Yuri Andropov, Moshe Dayan, Karol Wojtyla, Wilfred Owen, Walt Disney, Pele and Rudolf Nureyev

1965: JFK, Vasily Stalin, Stanley Barton, Alexei Sergeyev, Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, Charles Henry Stuart, Leonid Brezhnev, Harold Wilson, Roy Jenkins, Nelson Mandela (+), Salvador Allende, Leon Trotsky, Lester Pearson, Lassie, Ronald Reagan, MLK, Paul McCartney, Elvis, Willie Brandt, Rachel Carson, Sukarno, Bruce Lee, Dag Hammarskjold, Monty, TE Lawrence, George Orwell and JM Keynes.

1960: Roger Thompson, JFK, Stalin Jr, Che, Nixon, De Gaulle, Churchill, Horatio Hornblower, Bob Dylan, LBJ, Billy Graham, Cassius Clay, Malcolm Little/X, Brezhnev, Pierre Trudeau (+), Duncan Edwards, Stan Lee, Ernest Hemingway, Neil Armstrong, Ronald Reagan, Frank Whittle, Enoch Powell and Charlie Chaplin

1955: Churchill, Eden, Thompson, Von Richthofen, Van Helsing, Tito, Haile Selassie, Sir Mohandas Gandhi, John Lennon, Reagan, Atticus Finch, Blofeld, Bond, Flashman, Stanley Barton, Roy Hobbs, Emmet Brown, James Dean, MLK, Dick Tracy, John Wayne, Curtis LeMay, Matt Braddock, Willy Wonka, Che, Quatermass, Frankenstein, Fu Manchu, George Bailey, Harry Callahan, Stalin, Khrushchev (+), Eisenhower, Taft, Mao (+), Nixon, Patton, MacArthur, Heydrich, Mussolini, Rommel, Otto von Habsburg, De Gaulle, William Richardson, Nasser (+), Franco (+), Elvis, Sherlock Holmes, Tolkien, Jack Aubrey, Richard Sharpe, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Charles Ratcliffe, TR, Dracula, Nikola Tesla, Cecil Rhodes and George Orwell

[Belushi TD]

I know you're not a fan of gridiron football, but how about baseball? There's some room for some of the early great players to have extended careers, like Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Rogers Hornsby, people like that. Oh, Jackie Robinson? Or is baseball not segregated in DE? Satchel Paige? Maybe Thomas Edison, as you've already done Tesla?

I seem to recall that Hobbits are a thing in DE, but as halflings. I assume the "historical figures" presented in Tokien's Lord of the Rings are long gone.

I also seem to recall that Teddy Roosevelt lasted significantly longer in DE, but his extended life has run its course?

Belushi TD

[Simon Darkshade]

Teddy Roosevelt is still kicking around at 118, but he doesn't get out as much as he used to, and has given up outdoor horse-riding and indoor hunting.

My baseball knowledge starts and effectively ends with Roy Hobbs. Of those baseball players, Ruth and Young are definite candidates for being deceased as of 1976, as they were quite a while before that time anyway; Hornsby would be getting on if he didn't die of a heart attack, and would certainly be retired.

Robinson is alive, in rather better health than he was prior to his 1972 fatal heart attack, and doesn't have the worries of his son's drug problem to add to his concerns. Paige is similarly alive and just retired in his unique case.

Edison died in 1931 as historical, with the issue of his diabetes and tobacco chewing making reaching 84 a pretty good innings for the times. The ability to live longer until medical and arcano-medical technology could increase his lifespan/treat some chronic illnesses much more successfully is complicated by the timing; if he had been born a decade later, things would be different.

The characters in The Lord of the Rings are, as far as is known, just that - fictional creations. That there is some sort of crossover between the deep, deep past and Tolkien's mythology is something known to a very, very few, and not much really is known of it. The parallel I'd draw is The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel - from what we know of the prehistoric period, it is possible that there was some sort of mixing of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon, and scholars can postulate vague ideas about their culture, religion and 'society', but everything beyond that is close to impossible to know.
So there have been some tantalising finds of what could be LOTR linked ancient artifacts in ancient barrows, but I'm not going to come out and confirm or deny them; there certainly won't be any archaeological finds of ruins on land or sea that correspond to Tolkien's works.

What I was looking for is famous people from the latter part of the 1970s. The majority of lists online simply focus upon Hollywood actors and actresses, and there is more to life than movies.

[Simon Darkshade]

A Lil' Sneak Preview of July 1976:

July 1: Prime Minister Powell announces that a special interim budget will be prepared for the second half of the year to allow for the execution of manifesto plans, the direction of necessary funding for a number of established defence programmes and special expenditure on atomic power and infrastructure. He further indicates that, in line with manifesto undertakings, repatriation incentive payments for migrants are to be increased to encourage increased returns to their home countries; this is being seen as a more urgent priority due to projections that the unemployment rate could rise as high as 0.5% in 1977 due to anticipated frictional pressures.

July 2: A special squad of German police headed by Kriminalhauptkommissar Horst Schimanski arrests 43 year old Joachim Kroll at his home in Duisburg on eight counts of murder. Kroll will confess to a further six slayings before his trial, where he is sentenced to death; he subsequently goes to the guillotine on January 16th 1977.

July 3: Britain experiences her warmest day of the year, with a balmy 82 degrees relieved by the scheduled late afternoon cook breeze and overnight showers. The ambient weather sees crowds flocking to Wimbledon, the opening day of the West Indies tour match against Derbyshire in Chelmsford and the more popular films of the season, including Shout at the Devil, Trial by Combat, Operation Slapstick, King Kong and Flood!

July 7: A group of suspected Western backed mercenaries break out the former Congolese and Katanga politician Dr. Julius Limbani, who has been thought to be dead, from a secret prison in the depths of the Congo, eliminating his guards and flying him out to Rhodesia in their chartered Bristol Britannia. The Congolese government issues a number of loud and vociferous complaints about the violation of their sovereignty, but Salisbury indicates that they had no knowledge of the private operation, which had been launched from Portuguese East Africa, and were holding the group in custody pending investigations.

July 9: Petty criminal Garry Gilmore is knocked out in a street brawl outside a bar in Provo, Utah and spends the next two weeks unconscious in hospital, before awaking on July 25th. It appears that the blow has caused some form of change in his character, with Gilmore eschewing drinking, theft and fighting, focusing on his nascent relationship, joining a church and subsequently appearing considerably chastened to the point of being 'scared straight', in the words of his pastor.

July 22: The marriage of Forrest Gump, former head of the Bubba-Gump Shrimping Company, and his childhood sweetheart Jenny Curran takes place in Greenbow, Alabama, after several years of being apart due to his absence on military service, his brief table tennis career and subsequent business success in Louisiana. On the same day, Kevin Arnold, 20, returns home from his Army service to his childhood home in the suburbs of Sacramento to wed his sweetheart Gwendolyn Cooper, in a charming ceremony attended by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Arnold.

July 24: The British Ministry of Defence issues a fulsome press release on a number of significant new defence programmes, with the announcement of the choice of the BAC design for the Royal Air Force's future Multi-Role Fighter; the awarding of the contract for the development of the Type 24 General Purpose Frigate to Armstrong-Whitworth, with the indication that at least 60 ships are envisaged as being built during the 1980s; and the War Office's selection of the Vickers Silver Moon general support tactical battlefield missile and the de Havilland White Rider SRBM to augment the Army's current array of Lance, Blue Water and Black Prince. The accompanying announcement that British and Commonwealth troops deployed to Uganda since Operation Oblivion on September 12 1972 are to complete their full withdrawal by the end of August, with only residual advisors, technical experts, specialist training teams, the High Commission's security force and the regular brigade of King's African Rifles remaining to support the Ugandan Army's transition to regular operations.

July 29: David Berkowitz, a 23 year old US Postal Service employee, attempts to attack a pair of women sitting in a car in the Pelham Bay district of the Bronx, and gets as far as to produce his .44 Bulldog revolver before being shot down in preemptive community defence by vacationing former New York City resident Paul Kersey, who had just been going for a stroll to get some ice cream at 1 o'clock in the morning, with four quick rounds to the head and neck from his .475 Wildey Magnum Automatic. Kersey is congratulated on his quick thinking and commended for his good shooting by NYPD detectives, and released after filling in paperwork for the Safer Community Rewards Programme, a new endeavour sponsored by Mayor Russell Nash and his special advisor Robert McCall.

[Bernard Woolley]

July 7:

I'm sure they were not led by a Allen Faulkner. I'm very glad that whoever hired them did not do a deal with the Congolese and betray the mercenaries.

Kevin Arnold

I'm sure he's in for some Wonder Years.

July 29:

Well, that's the end of Son of Sam. I've heard that guy Paul Kersey is very unlucky for an architect. He seems to be a magnet for trouble and his family and friends seem to be very unlucky too. Is Robert McCall still working for 'The Company', as well as advising Mayor Nash?

[Simon Darkshade]

On the mercenaries and Allen Faulkner: You might well be onto something. As for being betrayed and making deals with the Africans, the different course of action reflects the alternate balance of power prevailing in Africa, where the British and French aren't backseat drivers.

Mr. Arnold certainly will be in for some quite wondrous years to come, even if the music of his youthful teen-age period wasn't quite so lively and beat driven. I would not that his father does die in 1975 at 46, but remains hale and hearty.

Berkowitz doesn't even get to establish a moniker, but instead, experiences extreme and career ending ventilation. Kersey has been unlucky, but not so much as his Earthly equivalent; more will play out in my next Where Are They Now, but both his wife and daughter survived the initial 'home invasion' in NYC. He was 'encouraged' to take a transfer to Chicago after some business a few years ago.

McCall is still with The Company; Russell Nash used to be an antique dealer, with a similar story being told in the charming film Highlander.

[jemhouston]

With Highlander immortals, I can't help wonder if there isn't a procedure for them to schedule a time and place for the duel so they can duel in private.

[Belushi TD]

Or maybe they only kill off the jerks who desperately want to be the "ONLY ONE!"?

Belushi TD

[Simon Darkshade]

The thing is, like many things in Dark Earth, they don't have exactly the same mythos, power, role and backstory. Taking Highlander, specifically, the idea of Immortals fighting each other in The Gathering in the 1980s in order to get The Prize of reading thoughts throughout the world, without exception would rapidly eclipse a lot of other features, issues, plot points, roadblocks and storylines. It would become, in essence, a Highlander fan fic, not a fictional universe of its own. Similarly, if Superman had his most extensive powers, and all his array of foes, sidekicks and cosmology, it would rapidly become a Superman fan fic.

Once you insert a central dominant supernatural force or group, it becomes their story and arguably narrows the scope of it dimensionally. In TBOverse, it became a collection of stories of how various daemons did their thing through history, with mortal men and their deeds being kicked down a notch in importance, significance and even value.

I wanted to avoid that paradigm whilst still having a host of fictional characters and creatures cohabitating the same world. DE is an alternate universe, with strong parallels and links to Earth/our universe, but some distinct differences by the same token.

So instead, I hint that something is going on that might well be broadly similar in some respects to the general brushstrokes of particular characters or properties, but 'transposed' to a Dark Earth context. So there might be some strange figures with longer than usual lives, certain precepts that they hold to, and what appears to be some similar themes and characters, but they might very well turn out to have some dramatic differences to the works that they are from which we are familiar with on Earth. It could be that 'the prize' is to escape the curse of an extended lifespan, and to once again be able to know a woman and have her bear their children; it could be that there have been a number of Gatherings throughout history.

Highlander is one of the easier properties/mythoi to incorporate, as it only needed a few little clippings of their figurative wings to work into the world in a reasonable manner. That was helped by Highlander fortunately being limited to the one film in 1986 and the television series.