Dark Earth Timeline Discussion

[Simon Darkshade]

There are rumours to that effect, but any passion is at this point unrequited.

Fairly clear that Muppets beat out coups, policy, oil and strategic forces!

[Bernard Woolley]

I see that President Kennedy is proposing that the needy avail themselves of the FAP. Well, I guess it’s one way to make oneself feel better!

[Belushi TD]

As always, very good stuff.

May 17 - I suspect you meant he was reaching for something in his pocket, rather than teaching.

May 19 - Ahhh, bacon. Is there anything it can't do?

May 21 - Madman geologist? I would like to know more.

May 24 - Honestly, the LT's idea probably isn't a bad one. Perhaps not the right place for it, but it can't be a bad idea for the general public to know what the poison gasses smell like.

May 27 - What is gin Philadelphia?

Belushi TD

[Simon Darkshade]

As always, very good stuff.

May 17 - I suspect you meant he was reaching for something in his pocket, rather than teaching.

May 19 - Ahhh, bacon. Is there anything it can't do?

May 21 - Madman geologist? I would like to know more.

May 24 - Honestly, the LT's idea probably isn't a bad one. Perhaps not the right place for it, but it can't be a bad idea for the general public to know what the poison gasses smell like.

May 27 - What is gin Philadelphia?

Belushi TD

Belushi,

Thank you kindly as ever.

Both of the typos have been corrected; I beg the excuse of typing with one finger on a telephone in darkness way past the witching hour.

Bacon is very much the multi-use food in Dark Earth as in @, but hasn't quite hit the heights of the @ 'bacon mania' of the 2000s onwards. Interestingly enough, that particular craze/trend did emerge out of the very late 1990s dot com crash and subsequent early 2000s recession coupled with the rise of the Internet, so there isn't the scope for it in the early 1970s of DE. There, the postwar boom continues without any threatening demons on the horizon, such as an Oil Shock and stagflation, and without the Nixon Shock and end of Bretton Woods behind it. Ergo, the continued rise of beef is likely to continue for quite a while, along with the continued popular dominance of full sized cars in the USA and other markets, at the 'cost' of chicken and small cars.

I think you are on the mark regarding the 'educative value of the scent indicators of poison gas.' The issue is that it is already done in the Boy Scouts and US junior high school social studies as part of the general preparation for universal military service, a process that crosses over from the physical education (where it would be very much expected) and history curriculums (ditto) and also involves a very large military cadet force that has been built up since 1940. (To give it scale, there are 32 million aged 12-17, and half of those are males. About 1.5 million have various physical or other disabilities precluding them from full active involvement, giving a Cadet + JROTC paper strength of ~14.5 million). The intended audience of The Big Picture special involves them but also the younger middle school and upper elementary school age brackets (as well as the rest of the family in a very wholesome manner), so the Army decided to err on the side of caution, particularly after the 'free razor blades' affair of March 1971.

The madman geologist is a historical chap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laszlo_Toth
Here, he gets into a tad more trouble...

Simon

[Simon Darkshade]

I see that President Kennedy is proposing that the needy avail themselves of the FAP. Well, I guess it’s one way to make oneself feel better!

I'm afraid I don't get the reference. It is adapted from the Nixon Family Assistance Plan ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Assistance_Plan ) with an appropriate tinge of the New Frontier.

[Bernard Woolley]

To fap is a bit of American slang for a solo activity that a male might be involved in.

[Simon Darkshade]

I wish that I had remained unaware of such bilge. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t JFK’s intent.

I shall try to get June out very soon, so I can do the second quarter’s comments.

[Bernard Woolley]

Sorry to have 'educated' you on such things.

[Simon Darkshade]

That is alright. Hopefully there will be some material in June that will elicit comment, whether it be on the worldbuilding or the Easter Eggs.

[Belushi TD]

The madman geologist is a historical chap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laszlo_Toth
Here, he gets into a tad more trouble...

Simon

I am SORELY disappointed in him now that I've learned more. I was hoping for an island volcano lair, and a dastardly plan to take over the world using induced earthquakes and other tectonic events that was stymied by a retired part time superhero and the young children who live on the same street.

And an opossum. A sentient opossum.

Belushi TD

[Simon Darkshade]

I'm sorry. They're not scheduled until next Tuesday.

[Belushi TD]

I'm sorry. They're not scheduled until next Tuesday.

Ok, Cameron.

Belushi TD

[Simon Darkshade]

June
June 1: British Petroleum and the Iraqi Ministry of Oil begin talks on a revision of the existing oil and gas royalties agreement, with King Faisal II a strong proponent of an equitable 50/50 profit sharing arrangement. It is thought that discussions will be influenced by British desires to curtail Iraqi arms dalliances with Moscow; some consider the latter to be a gambit aimed at securing the former.
June 2: The Home Office authorises an increase in recruitment of the Royal Irish Constabulary in response to increased indicators of growing low level criminal activity in Dublin and Belfast and the far smaller concern of the Druidic-backed Irish separatist lunatic fringe movement.
June 3: Soviet writer Joseph Brodsky is summarily detained and expelled from the Soviet Union by the KGB, being flown directly to Vienna, where he seeks embassy with the Austro-Hungarian government.
June 4: A massive explosion in the Wankie Colliery in Rhodesia kills over 420 miners in the country's largest ever industrial disaster. Prime Minister Sir Ian Smith and Governor-General Earl Cassels of Imjin both visit the scene over the coming days, with both The Rhodesian Herald and The Chronicle calling for reforms to the health and safety of mining operations, citing the sector's vital importance to the Rhodesian economy.
June 5: A report in Dagens Nyheter outlines proposals for increases in the frontline strength of the Swedish Armed Forces, including formation of a new special mobile infantry unit for Norrland operations, expansion of the Swedish Army in Germany, establishment of five new strike fighter wings, construction of new classes of missile cruisers and destroyers; and an accompanying redeployment of the Gothenburg Squadron to the Baltic proper.
June 6: The Times carries a feature on the trends in British restaurant meals in its lifestyle section, with the most common meal ordered over the last five years said to be tomato soup, prawn cocktail, steak and chips and Black Forest gateau. This does seem to correspond with the continuing rise in general beef consumption and the marked increase in popularity of beefsteaks over the last two decades, both of which are ascribed to the great postwar increase in general affluence in the middle and working classes.
June 7: Extensive regulations regarding the safe use and handling of asbestos are issued by the US Department of Labor, following on from studies linking unrestricted exposure to cases of asbestosis and other pulmonary fibrosis. Its industrial use has declined somewhat since its peak, with ICI's new Artax 'super fibreglass' licensed for production by DuPont in January; some US industrial commentators have characterised the move as an attempt by ICI to maintain its edge over IG Farben and close some of the gap with the global market leader Dow Chemical.
June 8: New archaeological excavations at the ancient site of Skara Brae in Scotland uncover a remarkably preserved bronze axe and a golden amulet marked with the symbol of an ankh as well as what appears to be the apex of a buried pyramid. The discoveries come as a great surprise to archaeologists across Britain and leading some to call for a reappraisal of the nature of its Bronze Age inhabitants.
June 9: The US Army begins design work on a successor to the new M-70 Marshall main battle tank in response to intelligence reports of new Soviet development projects. With production in full swing across the five major tank manufacturing arsenals in the United States, it is anticipated that there will be scope for export orders of the Marshall by 1976.
June 10: Opening salvos of the 'International Architectural Wars' are fired with a lengthy article in Architect critiquing the 'anti-modern' approach prevalent in Britain, lauding the positive credentials of the international modern style that is increasingly professionally popular in the United States and noting that extensive planning legislation has been used to stymie attempts to 'break the overbearing spell of the past'. Initial response to the unprecedented criticism is cool, with one noted British architect quoted anonymously by the BBC as saying 'They have Frank Lloyd Wright; we have Lutyens. Consider that.'
June 11: The infamous Red terrorist group thr Baader-Meinhoff gang stages a series of coordinated attacks across Germany, attacking the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Neue Rathaus in Munich and the Stuttgart TV Tower with Panzerfausts, Sagger missiles and incendiary rockets. The outrages cause little actual damage, with no deaths and only six injuries across all three locations, but act as a distraction to draw in security forces whilst another strike team breaks into a bank in Nuremberg, stealing over 40 million Deutschmarks to fund their operations.
June 12: Mid-air tragedy is narrowly averted over Windsor, Ontario as American Airlines Flight 96, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10, has its cargo door blown off in flight and a partial decompression occur. The cool heads and skill of the pilots and crew ensures a safe landing across the border at Metro Airport, with the swift words of the air traffic controller 'Take him to Detroit!' becoming a briefly popular cultural catchphrase.
June 13: Captain Nikolai Petrov, a Soviet GRU officer based in Indonesia, absconds from a diplomatic visit to Singapore and defects to the US Embassy. He is flown out to Hawaii by a specially requisitioned Pan Am Boeing 2707 later in the day for further interrogation.
June 14: Beginning of Exercise Omdurman, the large scale combat stage of the Summer Manouevres, which sees the British First Army (reinforced by the I Canadian Corps) simulate a defence and counter invasion against the British Second Army (reinforced by the Commonwealth and Anzac Divisions) across East Anglia. It includes a simulation of the new ‘missile barrage’ doctrine in the initial throes.
British defence exercise and missile barrage doctrine
June 15: A Scottish pleasure schooner is attacked and badly damaged by a pod of killer whales 200nm west of the Galápagos Islands. The stricken vessel and its family crew are rescued by RNAS Camels and Rotodynes engaged in a nearby training exercise.
June 16: A massive rockfall inside a railway tunnel near Soissons, France nearly causes a collision between two trains and a subsequent derailment, but the potential tragedy is averted by the fortuitous intervention of a tricolour-clad superhero.
June 17: A former USAF F-86D is fitted with an arcane receptor for an intelligent computing engine by eccentric scientist Professor Uriah J. Frinksworth-Culbeshack and, after being struck by a freak bolt of lightning whilst on a tear flight, begins to show a distinct and highly strung intelligence and personality. After being informed that the Korean War is over and that ‘he’ might not get a chance to shoot down any of ‘those Red MiG hussies’, ‘Three Dog’ (as ‘he’ insists upon being called) goes into a protracted sulk and demands a fresh paint job.
June 18: Germany bears England 3-2 in the UEFA European Football Championship Final in Brussels, continuing their strong run of form against their longtime rival.
June 19: French Army losses in Algeria rise to their highest rate in a decade as rebel operations begun to increase to a markedly higher state of intensity, with a total of 36 casualties. Provision of air cover, surveillance and medical evacuation has kept these numbers low, even in the face of better armed insurgents.
June 20: The Australian Labour Party wins the Australian federal election, forming a minority government and ending 24 years of rule by the Liberal and Country Party coalition. New Prime Minister Robert Hawke is acclaimed as the architect of the Labour triumph and promises in his victory speech to steer the economy to ever greater success, introduce a universal health care scheme, reinvigorate and modernise the Australian Defence Forces and the maintenance of a strong Australia in the face of threats from Asia, both communist and otherwise.
June 21: In the latest series of test flights over Nevada and California, the experimental 'Airwolf' super helicopter sets a new rotary aircraft altitude record of 52,187ft, with the stringy fellow piloting (whose identity is kept secret due to the black nature of the program) being equipped with a new ejection seat as a safety measure.
June 22: What is later recognised as the last recorded cancer death in Britain occurs, with a 67 year old indigent dying of a rare nerve cancer in Darkplace Hospital in Romford. The newly developed raft of drugs and treatments out of America have been fast tracked into general NHS and private hospital usage.
June 23: Old West historian W.W. Beauchamp III claims to have uncovered a diary that reveals that the notorious Liberty Valance was not killed by Senator Ranse Stoddard as commonly believed, nor Sheriff Will Kane as it sometimes rumoured, but rather the legendary French American cowboy Lucky Luke.
June 24: The two base tunnels for the English Channel Tunnel project link up in the middle of the Channel, with the miner coming through from Dover offering his counterpart coming through from Calais a welcome cup of tea to mark the occasion, a gesture gratefully accepted by his countryman. Provisional agreement for French sovereignty at the three mile limit off Calais was reached after lengthy negotiations in Paris.
June 25: A secret meeting of Japanese yakuza bosses in a castle outside Saitama agrees upon a ceasefire in the underworld war that has wracked the last four years, bringing a potential end to the tit for tat clashes, ninja attacks and shootings that have threatened to expose their dark world to the wider Japanese public.
June 26: The Ecuadorian petroleum pipeline to the Port of Balao is severed in over two dozen places in a series of coordinated attacks by an unknown rebel group. No faction takes responsibility for the heavy blow to Quito’s economic plans to become a major oil exporting nation.
June 27: Incorporation of Syzygy Entertainment in California, a new concern for the production of electronic video-game machines.
June 28: Constantine VII is elected as the new Patriarch of Constantinople and primus ante pares among the heads of Eastern Orthodoxy. The young Patriarch, 60, is seen as a strong advocate for moves to bring about a possible end of the Great Schism with Rome.
June 29: Release of The Last Crusade, an epic war film directed by Richard Attenborough about General Allenby’s famed campaign in Palestine and Syria in the Great War, featuring Robert Shaw as Allenby, Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, Richard Harris as General Maude, Christopher Lee as Lord Curzon, Robert Hardy as Sir Winston Churchill, Peter Cushing as Falkenhayn and George Sanders as Lloyd George. Filmed on location in Israel, it sees a very large amount of original equipment employed, including dozens of Mark V tanks recently located in an old British munitions depot in Sindh.
June 30: A preliminary investigation by the U.S.N. Naval Paranormal Investigation Service finds that there can be no reasonable explanation for the so-called 'Sergeant Camouflage Incident' and recommends calling in experts from the FBI's 'Y Files' office.

[jemhouston]

Good update

[Simon Darkshade]

Thank you. I’m putting together notes on the second quarter, so if there are any questions or areas that merit expansion, I’d be more than happy to include them.

[Simon Darkshade]

April Notes
- The sale of Ayers Rock is a fairly obvious joke; there isn't really much material there that can't be found elsewhere.
- The LN fishing conference is driven by the realisation of what was done to the great white shark and the megalodon and applying the logic of expunging a species elsewhere, leading to a bit more attention being given to overfishing and its potentially disastrous consequences
- Charlie Chaplin's slightly different situation, being viewed as a lecher and rake more than a Red. Chaplin's postwar figurative trials began in @ with the issues of infidelity, moral turpitude and the Mann Act then later shifted to the Red sympathy accusations after Monsieur Verdoux was released. The former were driven by Hoover's suspicions as to Chaplin's political leanings. Here, the earlier moral issues are sufficient to cause such a scandal (a la Fatty Arbuckle) as to drive him back across the Atlantic to Europe. A slight difference, but one driven by the different social mores of DE
- Arab dalliances with Moscow could have a political element behind them in some cases; being monarchies under an overall confederacy, they aren't very likely to jump fully into bed with the Reds as Iraq and Syria did in @. I would also note the absence of Egypt from any discussion of Arab states. This is because of its relative separation, with the British and Israel lying in between them, and a different course of Egyptian nationalism post WW1, where Pharaonism has had more protracted success. @ Pan Arabism died early and died hard with the crushing of the revolutions of 1956, in concert with many of its more influential exponents from @ dying in WW2 meatgrinders and the regional balance being much more reminiscent of the 1920s; in its place, a different Pan Arabism has grown, without the same socialist/Nasserite character. As to the weapons themselves, but Soviet arms don't really have the same @ reputation and cachet after Korea and Vietnam, similar to some shifts away from them after the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War in @. The only thing going for them is they are nominally cheap, but come with associated political tendrils. Overall, the Soviets don't have their Indian market, nor have they made any major inroads into Africa, given the asterisk next to the independence of former British and French colonies. It is almost as if this policy were informed from insights from another world...
- Beginning of the RCAF's efforts to replace the Arrow (and other mid-late 1950s aircraft), with the likely candidate being...a further development/next generation evolution of the Arrow. They are also going to go big for missile defence, complicating the Soviet task of penetrating North America
- RFK drops out of the Democratic race, sensing that this will be a change election and that the likelihood of America voting for a Kennedy 4 elections in a row is pretty small. He's hoping to keep his powder dry for 1976. The remaining frontrunners are Jackson and Hubert Humphrey
- The British power picture is distinctly different, with coal falling a lot earlier and oil never really coming to the fore. This has a bit of a political impact, lessening the relative power of coal mining unions, but isn't driven by that; rather, the march of technology here is swifter and plans are very ambitious, as they should be in a world where fusion power has been achieved and economically harnessed. By 1980, nuclear will be even further ahead, with fusion starting to play an even bigger role. In any event, there will be more of a shift to nuclear/fusion by the USA, British Commonwealth, Europe, the USSR, China and Japan over the next decade that will further reduce the largest source of greenhouse gasses in @. In @, the percentages of causes of greenhouse gasses were power generation (25.9%), industry (20%), deforestation (17.4%), agriculture (13.5%), transport (13.1%) and residential and commercial buildings (7.9%), whereas in Dark Earth, Power Generation and Deforestation might be 7% and 2.4% by 1984, transport at 9-10%, Industry at 12%, Agriculture at 10% and Residential/Commercial at 3%. Roughly speaking, it will be ~45% of the @ levels and falling. The last sentence of April 7, mentioning cybernetics, indicates that Britain under Barton and Labour is dallying with a much more successful version of Project Cybersyn
- Sanctuary Hills on April 8 is a reference to the initial community/player home in Fallout 4, with some DE touches such as two storey houses (which make up 65% of new suburban house construction), libraries and churches being essential parts of small towns and the subtler mention of the ongoing strength of the old fashioned general store
- Air America's anti-drug aerial campaign will have some interesting effects. The agents being used are specially bred/developed ones rather than simply Agent Orange, designed to attack particular species with quite devastating effect. It is driven by anti-drugs efforts, as there is no need to supplement budgets; roughly speaking, the US intelligence budget of 1972 is about 250% of the @ 2022 figure (which equates to $12.85 in 1972 value), or 32 billion. That is but a small fraction of the overall US defence budget.
- The salient feature of the Qir earthquake update is that the Persian wine industry is still very strong
- Lord Lucan's kidnapping and his different fate comes from Britain's different relative position, which involves certain overseas interests/companies not having been nationalised in 1946. The type of aristocrat who went into the City and then professional gambling in @ is the same type of chap who would go into various overseas commerce or colonial business interests, so the option leapt out at me as an opportunity to use a familiar name
- Mr. Jagger's report on magi-tech on the BBC provides a bit of a window into the (near) future
- Skyshield XXII is similar in effect to Sky Shield II, but coming from a different direction. It has become an annual exercise pitting the best of BC and SAC against ADC as a means of constant testing and maintaining readiness; contrast this with the downgrading of fighter and missile defences during the 1960s and early 1970s in @ with the decreasing Soviet bomber threat. Here, the ICBM is a serious threat, but the 1950s anti-air posture remains alongside it, with some new SAMs having a limited ABM capacity (based on the earlier developmental history of the Patriot, which saw those capacities deliberately downgraded) in addition to the dedicated ABM forces of Nike Zeus, Spartan/Sprint and Excalibur
- As Japan rearmed in @, they fairly quickly moved to building its own warships and licensed production of US aircraft. Here, it has its own thriving shipbuilding capacity (as in @) and its own domestic aircraft companies building their own jet designs and a budget unrestricted by its own limitations, not to mention Prime Minister Yukio Mishima. The reason for the British purchases is that Japan is hitting the outer edges of its own productive capacity in certain niche areas and the US is currently flat out replacing its WW2 cruiser missile conversions
- April 15th's reference to Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin are a tribute to the late David McCallum
- Panda diplomacy occurs even under Imperial China, albeit with talking pandas
- Sudan is being used as a bit of a carrot to turn Egypt's attention south rather than east
- Project Stormtracker is designed to save lives, property, money and opportunity
- The sabotage of the Odessa bombs on April 20 was intervention by a (non state) intelligence group, but the traffic snarls just come down to French, Italian and Spanish drivers
- The events of Freaky Friday have a generally similar outcome, with the chance of some future developments
- Lucan's rescue suggests that the Argentine authorities have an interest in eliminating 'rebels' who could talk...
- Robert House Sr. will have a son eventually, in a new Vegas
- Death of a legend in the passing of Field Marshal Blackadder, hero of two world wars. He does have sons and grandsons, though, including one who will pop up soon
- Reagan is the clear frontrunner for 1972. After 12 years of Democrat rule, there is going to be a lot of natural appetite for change, along with some rumblings over Universal Healthcare and relatively minor inflation. In the absence of (Chief Justice) Nixon, the obvious leading Republican candidate is Ronald Reagan. At 61, he is younger, which has a natural impact on what type of character a man is. The general Reagan position here (detailed on March 21) is to be very strong on defence and foreign policy, but to oppose further growth of the state and implement some of the Reaganomics of @; there is less of an inflation problem and none of the stagflation issue, so not all of the 1980s solutions will be in place
- April 26th's Thuggee cult is a reference to 1965's Help!, replete with a few Beatles quotes
- Al Bundy from Married with Children gets his chance to be a professional gridiron football player, similar to the actor who played him
- The IKAF is still a very firm and good US customer for arms and military aircraft. In general, the guaranteed/close to guaranteed US markets are in Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Philippines, Thailand and South Vietnam), South America (Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Uruguay and Ecuador) and Central America (onduras, Santo Domingo, El Salvador, Haiti, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Los Altos and Yucatan). There are many states that still buy a lot of 'Made in the USA' arms/aircraft whilst having their own niches, such as Germany and Turkey, whilst the British have the Commonwealth, the Middle East and Persia, the Balkans (Byzantine Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia), the Benelux Union, Portugal and Scandinavia as the markets where they dominate; Argentina, Brazil and Chile still buy mainly British, but are trying to develop their own arms industries with varying degrees of success
- A different Burundi crisis for starters, but the reaction is the noteworthy element, with a relatively fast alert of forces who are airlifted into action in early May
- Biggles retires as Britain's leading ace of both World Wars and stuck around to score a few kills in Korea and over Egypt. He is very youthful for his age (similar to a lot of DE figures, he seems 20 years younger in appearance and capacity) and is likely to get involved with the Special Air Police, an independent international group devoted to law, investigation and daring-do

[Simon Darkshade]

May Notes

- The T-72 is quite different, whilst the 254mm gun-howitzer is a new old calibre for the Soviet Army with a particular niche. Soviet SAMs lag behind their Western counterparts, but a lot of effort is being put into bridging this gap
- As referred to in April, the British intervention in Burundi occurs quite quickly. The basic features of it come from the 1964 and 1968 African operations in the Congo - heavy firepower, overwhelming force, shock and awe and use of overmatching equipment.
- German-Polish rapprochement is occurring with the approval of Moscow, which is interested in ratcheting down tensions in Europe post Vietnam so it can catch up to the West and build up its forces
- Kennedy's Family Assistance Program is similar to Nixon's, with an appropriate New Frontier slant on it; the Vietnam veterans being demobilised not only get their GI Bill entitlements, but several other sweeteners that are aimed at avoiding a recession and subsequent unemployment, at the cost of an additional inflationary effect
- Counter torpedoes are something rather more advanced than @, but are based on the same general idea of interception. They don't change the imbalance between SSNs and surface combatants entirely, but do shift the playing field somewhat
- The Cameroon self coup has a very decisive quashing, which is an exemplar of the type of control enforced by Britain and France on their independent former colonies. It remains independence with an asterisk or caveat. Reinforcements of goodwill is of course a reference to Yes, Prime Minister
- New USAF ICBMs provide a real superheavy in the form of the Peacemaker (based on the ICBM-X that preceded the WS-120A) and the Ranger (the @ Midgetman). That they will be fielded alongside Minuteman and Titan is a sign that the US ICBM arsenal is not fixed at 1054, but going to grow. The majority will be Minutemen by virtue of 1960s production, but the new elements add to the strategic complexity that the Soviets and others must confront. The 'Double Double Track Decision' is a bit of an Easter Egg, using the terminology of the @ NATO Double Track Decision for a different missile policy, just adding to some jarring dissonance
- The Colonial Service not only continues well past the point where it had been renamed and reroled in @, but has quite an Indian summer. They operate in the relatively newly independent states as a form of development aid mixed with general administration. A reference to the Imperial Tanganyika Scheme is an Easter egg for older readers and commenters of yore, who reacted to the Groundnut Scheme being mentioned back in 2015
- The Beatles, in their Yellow Submarine, find sunken treasure en route to the Octopus's Garden. I regret nothing
- US deployments to Borneo are a sign to Indonesia that Konfrontasi has run its course and, in the absence of a distracting Vietnam theatre, they are now the focus of American anti-communist efforts in the region. As such, Sukarno may well choose to wind things down a tad
- SS Royston Grange is just a little bit further away from the ill-fated oil tanker and is badly stricken vs enveloped in an instant very nasty fire. The Andrew having a nuclear cruiser in the Plate isn't a sign that there are tensions with the Argies or anything like that, but rather that some of the CGNs are employed as selected station flagships in South America, the West Indies, the Middle East/Persian Gulf and the Pacific
- Grange Hills is a secondary modern, not a comprehensive; the latter category doesn't exist in the British education system
- Israeli oil in Sinai does change the energy and strategic complexion of the regional balance a bit more. Herzliya/El Arish is quite the large port city in Sinai, sitting astride the coastal railway
- A-W's new battleship armour steel is several times more effective than the previous generation of armour steel; there have been a few new types since KCA
- Indian termination or assimilation continues apace, with quite a few consequences
- USAF TSR-2s are joined by the B-75/B-76 combo, which are twin and four engine bombers respectively from the BX programme; the B-76 medium looks like a B-1A, whilst the B-72 is a third smaller
- The May 17th incident shows that not only are there quite hard penalties in place for any sort of riotous public behaviour, but that his sentence being seen as lenient gives an impression of the more authoritarian leanings of the Establishment
- Katar/Qatar comes under new management, with the @ ruling dynasty being a bit too assertive for the EIC's interests. Consider the future changes
- Tactical employment of bacon is not something I've invented, alas
- The attack on Pieta is historical, but the response is rather different
- A cure for diabetes (based on some promising stuff being looked at during the present day) isn't going to be a really big thing in the early 1970s, but has a lot of downstream effects
- Kermit the Frog vs the Cult of Cthulhu
- Scratch and sniff poison gas isn't a great idea for a few reasons, but isn't the only notable feature, with The Big Picture not only keeping going in prime time (in glorious Technicolour, of course and on all 4 networks), but attracts quite the audience. The idea of using propaganda isn't seen as something only the 'other side' does
- Leonard Nimoy commenting on an Andean dragon from afar, whilst accidentally being photobombed by a UFO, is something I'd like to create using AI one day...
- Father Brown crosses the Atlantic and solves a long running mystery
- Bokassa mutating has some rather disturbing possible consequences
- French strategic missiles being based not only in multiple locations in France, but deep in the Sahara. With Algeria still in the fold, it makes sense for the Force de Frappe to use it

[Simon Darkshade]

June Notes

- The Iraqi oil royalties renegotiation shows the Soviet dalliance up for what it was - a gambit, at least insofar as the current Iraqi government is concerned. There are some middling elements in the Army that have some interesting delusions that Soviet arms and Soviet assistance will allow them to finally have a successful coup, but they aren't too successful
- The Irish burblings (far yet from any sense of troubles) are of an entirely different nature to the sectarian/political ones of @ and several levels down in seriousness. Nevertheless, for a society that doesn't really tolerate unrest, it is alien. Darn Druids.
- The mining explosion in Rhodesia is a historical event, but when placed into the different context here, becomes a driver for some interesting reforms
- Sweden starts reacting to the Soviet increase in forces and equipment in the Scandinavian theatre over the 1960s (formation of a Murmansk Military District in the Kola in addition to the continued Archangelsk MD; increase of 2 armies to 4 in Archangelsk MD and 4 deployed to Murmansk MD, plus an extra Tank Army in the Leningrad MD; one of the four new Airborne/Air Rifle divisions deployed to the Baltic MD and one to the Murmansk MD; and extra Naval Infantry Divisions added to the Baltic and Northern Fleets, bringing them to 3 apiece; and increases in Frontal Aviation.
- What would later be described as 'The Great British Meal Out' has its DE equivalent, albeit a bit on the light side. In general, rising meat consumption (and increasing sales of steaks vs joints) is analogous to @, whilst chicken consumption is still less common
- asbestos still presents something of a health hazard, albeit not a carcinogenic one, causing it to still be sideline. Artex is based on Zetex, but greatly improved through arcane augmentation. I note that IG Farben still exists, having not been broken up post WW2
- Skara Brae's ankh is a bit of an obscure Easter egg based on the Ultima series of computer games, where the Rune of Spirituality (found in the in game city of Skara Brae) is in the symbol of an ankh. There is a suggestion that there was something going on in Britain in the Neolithic Period separate from the known elvish period, Tuatha de Dannan and the Atlanteans
- The M-70 is effectively a US only equivalent to the MBT-70 in period, but with a 125mm gun and the DE equivalent to Chobham armour, with performance/protection/firepower around the level of the M1A1 or equivalent. General practice for the US Army post WW2 has been to have a new generation of MBT every 10 years or so, which means that a new, much more advanced and formidable tank is being designed for the 1980s
- Architecture wars across the Atlantic are a sign of the absence of certain other cultural/social touchpaper issues, as well as a bit of Anglo-American headbutting. That there is a distinct difference in national styles is a deliberate choice/evolution, allowing for a real sense of character rather than an international sameness that blights so many Western cities. The real loser in terms of styles is brutalism, which has lacked the British incubator in the post WW2 period and is really only found in the Eastern Bloc
- Baader-Meinhof's attacks are flashy, but ineffectual, largely being put together to mask a bank heist. Despite their pretensions to cool romantic revolutionism, they are seen as dirty murdering criminals
- Whilst the Windsor Incident is historical in its facts and outcome, I did insert the bemusing little quote from The Kentucky Fried Movie about Detroit in order to show that there is no such decline and declinism in the Motor City here
- Omdurman occurs on a much larger scale than any @ British manouevres, but is not seen as anything truly special here. Knowledgeable readers will note that it occurs across the same territory as the 1912 ones that pitted Haig against Grierson. The missile barrage is something that can be expanded upon should there be interest
- The schooner attacked by killer whales is from @, but with British ownership of the Galapagos, there is help at hand
- The French superhero is based partially on Superdupont, with a bit less sarcasm
- An accidentally intelligent fighter jet is just the beginning of future developments; it might be applied to a Firebird
- France still fighting away in Algeria in a war that can't be fully won and can't be fully lost; the lack of any external help/assistance for the FLN puts them in a permanent twilight of sorts
- The ALP comes to power in the 1972 Australian federal election, but is very different to the entity in @. Whitlam isn't around, having died in WW2, there is still a very strong traditionalist bent to many of the unions and Bob Hawke is very popular, sober and driven by external affairs and world events. The ALP (with the non American spelling of Labour, thanks to King O'Malley's obsessions failing) is taking a lot of pages out of the British Labour playbook
- Airwolf keeps progressing, with the ejection seats on the helicopter thankfully firing downwards
- A very small and innocuously worded reference to the last recorded cancer death in Britain being mid 1972, with the last one across the pond coming a little later due to the larger population meaning that some people unfortunately fall through the cracks. Consider the consequences
- The mash up of Lucky Luke, High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Unforgiven
- Link up of the Channel Tunnel project happens rather quickly, showing that when there is the will and the cash, the DE habit is to go at full pace. It is also useful to note that both crews are British, with the project not being an Anglo-French one in the same fashion
- Something is awry in Ecuador
- Syzygy (rather than Atari) is too good a name not to use
- Something is building in relations between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, but it will need a new figure on the Western side to push things into epoch making territory
- The Last Crusade is another example of epic war films being more popular and prevalent, as well as WW1 not being portrayed in quite the same cliched manner of Oh What a Lovely War and its like. Some of the actors reprise their roles from other pieces, such as Peter O'Toole, whilst others slot in before some of their classic roles (Robert Hardy)
- NPIS looks into Sergeant Camouflage (a big Marine with friendly eyes, apparently) and hand over the case to the Y Files

[jemhouston]

The problem with downward ejection seats is you have to so high above the ground for them to work. No change of blowing the rotors and going up?

[Simon Darkshade]

That does touch upon the issues with helicopter ejection seats in general. Because the Airwolf is 'flying high' during these tests, it carries a downward ejection seat for the time being. Blowing the rotors and going up makes sense for a rather cheaper and more conventional helicopter.