Dark Earth Timeline Discussion

[Bernard Woolley]

Does it cost a significant extra amount of money to build arms factories underground? In @ underground factories never seem to have been a great sucess.

Talking of Detroit autoworkers, did Cadillac ever realise that one of their workers was stealing a car one piece at a time?

[Simon Darkshade]

The major expense comes in creating the tunnels and chambers, certainly, which is ameliorated through the combination of dwarves and industrial magitech applications. Running power to machines and lighting is fairly straightforward, and the same type of machines are used as in conventional factories.

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/ ... nd-factory
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3d49ek7nzvo.amp
https://www.twz.com/air/inside-israels- ... y-in-syria

They haven’t been a success in our world, due to practical reasons, not the least of which is that it has usually been deemed unnecessary by those states and corporations who could actually afford it. A wartime exigency was not followed through in peacetime for a variety of reasons, but one big one was the H-Bomb. The vulnerability of Britain in particular to even half a dozen large H-Bombs was, as you know, a large factor in dismantling a lot of the 1950s era defences, plans, civil defence, force structures and more as rather pointless; discussed at length in Hennessy, particularly The Secret State.

What is different on Dark Earth? Not only have air and missile defences been maintained, and joined by extremely costly ABM defences, but there has been a lot of very secret work being carried out through the 1960s and 1970s, through scientific and arcane means, which has shifted the paradigm. The idea of a protracted WW3, including the ‘broken back war’ phase abandoned post GSP in 1952, is making a comeback, and a big one at that. Some of that was explored in A New Jerusalem Chapters 3 and 14 in two different ways, back in late 2020 and early 2021/October 1964.

Are these factories far enough underground to withstand a conventional or nuclear bomb? Not really, particularly in the latter case. It is more a matter of what type of approach they signify.

On the Caddy and One Piece at a Time:

Unbeknownst to the worker, his bosses cottoned onto him in the late 1950s, and it became something of an institutional secret amongst line management that the process was ongoing. When he completed his car in 1973 and took it out for a test drive, he got a knock on the door from the company, who wanted to use it as an advertising hook, demonstrating the versatility and ingenuity of the marque. This was signed off by a somewhat eccentric manager, who remarked that “This is our Captain from Kopenick story - something Ford, Chrysler and American don’t have.”

The feat will inspire a country song.

[jemhouston]

Note to self: Load up subsequent 1975 and 1976 entries with 1990s motion picture references, as they seem to bait readers more than literal planes, trains and automobiles.

In March 1975:
- An emperor is crowned
- A French ambassador is kidnapped, Premier d’Ambreville offers a polite response
- Introduction of the (dashed icky) Baileys Irish Cream
- Golden Hinde II sails
- Novelty songs abound, ranging from ‘Combine Harvester’ to ‘My Lovely Horse’
- Launch of HMS Red Dwarf
- New films include Aces High and The Fall of Berlin
- The BBC weather forecast begins to feature scheduled rain

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093748/?r ... utomobiles


You asked for it.

[jemhouston]

The major expense comes in creating the tunnels and chambers, certainly, which is ameliorated through the combination of dwarves and industrial magitech applications. Running power to machines and lighting is fairly straightforward, and the same type of machines are used as in conventional factories.

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/ ... nd-factory
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3d49ek7nzvo.amp
https://www.twz.com/air/inside-israels- ... y-in-syria

They haven’t been a success in our world, due to practical reasons, not the least of which is that it has usually been deemed unnecessary by those states and corporations who could actually afford it. A wartime exigency was not followed through in peacetime for a variety of reasons, but one big one was the H-Bomb. The vulnerability of Britain in particular to even half a dozen large H-Bombs was, as you know, a large factor in dismantling a lot of the 1950s era defences, plans, civil defence, force structures and more as rather pointless; discussed at length in Hennessy, particularly The Secret State.

What is different on Dark Earth? Not only have air and missile defences been maintained, and joined by extremely costly ABM defences, but there has been a lot of very secret work being carried out through the 1960s and 1970s, through scientific and arcane means, which has shifted the paradigm. The idea of a protracted WW3, including the ‘broken back war’ phase abandoned post GSP in 1952, is making a comeback, and a big one at that. Some of that was explored in A New Jerusalem Chapters 3 and 14 in two different ways, back in late 2020 and early 2021/October 1964.

Are these factories far enough underground to withstand a conventional or nuclear bomb? Not really, particularly in the latter case. It is more a matter of what type of approach they signify.

On the Caddy and One Piece at a Time:

Unbeknownst to the worker, his bosses cottoned onto him in the late 1950s, and it became something of an institutional secret amongst line management that the process was ongoing. When he completed his car in 1973 and took it out for a test drive, he got a knock on the door from the company, who wanted to use it as an advertising hook, demonstrating the versatility and ingenuity of the marque. This was signed off by a somewhat eccentric manager, who remarked that “This is our Captain from Kopenick story - something Ford, Chrysler and American don’t have.”

The feat will inspire a country song.

Did his managers give him any help other than looking the other way?

[Simon Darkshade]

Note to self: Load up subsequent 1975 and 1976 entries with 1990s motion picture references, as they seem to bait readers more than literal planes, trains and automobiles.

In March 1975:
- An emperor is crowned
- A French ambassador is kidnapped, Premier d’Ambreville offers a polite response
- Introduction of the (dashed icky) Baileys Irish Cream
- Golden Hinde II sails
- Novelty songs abound, ranging from ‘Combine Harvester’ to ‘My Lovely Horse’
- Launch of HMS Red Dwarf
- New films include Aces High and The Fall of Berlin
- The BBC weather forecast begins to feature scheduled rain

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093748/?r ... utomobiles


You asked for it.

Ugh! One of my least favourite eras and genres were 1980s American comedies, and a reasonable part in that was Steve Martin's oeuvre, along with the works of Chevy Chase, John Candy, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Hughes and so on. The humour and style just doesn't work for me; there are more serious American pictures of that decade that I quite like, such as Stand By Me, Witness, Wall Street, Platoon, The Natural, Mississippi Burning and so on, so that it isn't purely a matter of origin and time. I also never got into any of the teen drama/comedy attempts of that era, so probably can draw some conclusions as to the generational style and biases of those type of directors. Overall, I found the style of humour generally overdone, crass, lacking subtlety and puerile.

So they will be absent from Dark Earth mentions, along with any of the historical Mafia/gangster hagiographic genre; the downstream effect of different actions in Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as a lack of Prohibition to get their 'second stage' going resulted in American organised crime, at least in its large scale manifestation, being crushed in the 1930s and early 1940s. This results in a lack of Puzo's novel The Godfather, and the subsequent pictures, and their imitators, and all the associated pop culture glorification thereof.

However, it is not as if Godfather type pictures would have passed the Hays Code standards in any event; Dark Earth American cinema hasn't seen the big changes of the late 1960s and early 70s, where virtually all restrictions fell, and a litany of the most obscene curse words would litter discourse on the silver screen, whilst a jump was made from a hint of cleavage to copious mammary glands and full frontal nudity in a very short time.

[Simon Darkshade]

March 1975
March 1: World premiere of 1918, the final film in the Great War sequence, showing the German Spring Offensive, the Second Marne, the climactic victory which began the German defeat at the Battle of Amiens and the subsequent Hundred Days Offensive which took the Allies from France through Belgium to the Rhine. The all star cast is lead by Barry Foster who is tragically masterly as Kaiser Wilhelm II, Philip Madoc as Lloyd George, Anthony Hopkins as Clemenceau, George C. Scott as Foch, John Mills as Sir Douglas Haig, Lee Van Cleef as General John Pershing, Patrick Stewart as Vladimir Lenin, Robert Hardy as Sir Winston Churchill and Brian Keith as President Theodore Roosevelt.
March 2: Premier Jean-Bedel Bokassa of Ubangi-Shari, crowns himself as Emperor of Central Africa in a lavish ceremony in a hastily converted soccer stadium in Bangui. The extravagant affair, modelled on the coronation of Napoleon, is speculated as having cost upwards of $10 million, with much of the exorbitant sum rumoured to have been covered through the smuggling of black lotus across the Sahara to the ports of North Africa; the Central African strain is apparently regarded as vastly superior to the hağa derived from Ottoman Turkey.
March 3: A crack team of French special forces storms the Société Générale in Paris, killing all but one robber and freeing all of the hostages without injury; the operation is caught on camera by a television crew conducting a live cross to the scene, leading to iconic snippets of footage being shown around the world as a sign of French military might and resolve.
March 4: Renowned international martial artist and secret agent Bruce Lee, on a joint mission for the CIA and MI6, shuts down the Krating Daeng factory in Bangkok after exposing it as a front for opium smugglers, who he ruthlessly dispatches with his powerful kung fu skills, including the use of the rarely seen Quivering Palm technique. The factory's shadowy owner, a Dr. Klahn, vows a most terrible revenge.
March 5: Two rowing boats apparently crewed by terrorists attempting to come in to land at a beach in Tel Aviv are detected and engaged by a newly emplaced automatic 125mm gun battery at Rishon LeZion Lake, sinking both boats with ten round salvos from each of the eight guns. The raid mothership is tracked by surveillance aircraft, intercepted by a pair of RiN destroyers 65 miles off the coast of Hadera, and taken under tow into the Haifa Naval Base.
March 6: The Environmental Protection Agency announces that a ban on the household incineration of products containing polyvinyl chloride will be phased in over the next nine months due to the danger to public health of the release of polychlorinated dibenzodioxins into the human environment. Recent developments in the recycling and reuse of plastic products, particularly pioneered in Germany and Sweden, have lead to considerable potential reduction in general plastics waste and disposal in landfill.
March 7: The first shipments of a new major Soviet arms delivery begin to unload in Haiphong, with over 400 T-62 tanks, 1600 BTR-70s, hundreds of artillery pieces, AA guns and SAM batteries, sophisticated range radar systems, 5000 Strela MANPADS, 100 FROG-7s and 20 Scud-B tactical ballistic missiles. The rearming and rebuilding of the North Vietnamese military is expected to take at least a decade on current projections.
March 8: The USN personnel of Flight 19 are officially welcomed home with a reception at the White House, after extensive questioning, testing and precautionary quarantine at American bases in Egypt and Britain, prior to being privately reunited with their families and loved ones outside of the intrusive gaze of the intensely curious media. Each of the fourteen aviators is decorated and personally promoted one full rank by President Reagan in the live broadcast ceremony, with Captain Charles Taylor quipping that he thought that the USN liaison officer in Cairo had been joking when he said Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States, and that he had asked whether Jimmy Cagney was Vice President; Presidential Scientific Advisor Dr. Emmett Brown, who had assisted with the debriefing, was taken by a apoplectic coughing fit at that moment for some reason.
March 9: Replica galleon Golden Hinde II arrives in San Francisco Bay, having departed Plymouth on September 5th on the same route taken by Sir Francis Drake on his grand circumnavigation of the globe. A grand reception is planned on the arrival of the Golden Hinde II in the New Avalonian capital of Saint George on April 3rd, where a fleet review is to take place in honour of the occasion. The Arnwaite Herald carries a jocular editorial contending that Drake's arrival should signify a claim for New Avalon to encompass the entirety of the Californias.
March 10: The Meteorological Office, in conjunction with the Ministry of Magic, begins implementing new expansive weather control enchantments across the British Isles, which, in conjunction with the Sunstone, will aim to improve average annual sunshine hours to 1850; coordinate and time the average annual rainfall of 64 inches on specifically timed periods; effectively eliminate the prospect of harsh drought or severe winters which would impede commerce, industry and regular social intercourse; provides for control of damaging storms and their deleterious effects; and allows for the planning of social, economic and cultural activities with a fulsome degree of confidence in forecasting.
March 11: Release of The Fall of Berlin, a 214 minute epic war film depicting the climactic battle of the Second World War in Europe and the Allied siege and capture of the Nazi capital, starring Harry Fonda as General Eisenhower, Michael Rennie as Field Marshal Montgomery, George C. Scott as General Patton, Adrien Cayla-Legrand as Marshal de Gaulle, Dirk Bogarde as General Sir Guy Simonds, Richard Todd as General Sir Bernard Freyberg, Anthony Hopkins as Hitler, Julian Glover as Walter Wenck, Wolfgang Preiss as General Helmut Weidling, Karl-Otto Alberty as Felix Steiner, Bruno Ganz as Hermann Fegelein and Derek Fowlds as Count Jan Niemzyck, the Conqueror of the Reichstag. Filmed in and around as many locations in Berlin as possible, several scenes see the greatest concentration of Second World War tanks and aeroplanes since the 1940s.
March 12: Publication of new plans for the expansion of the urban tram networks in Adelaide, South Australia and Melbourne, Victoria, with new lines to be built out to accomodate the expanding growth of suburbia in the north and south of Adelaide and the east and west of Melbourne. In Adelaide, a new line will be fully extended to Port Adelaide, along with a line out to the northern satellite cities of Salisbury and Elizabeth, further connections in the northeastern and eastern suburbs, and a southern line out to the new university at Flinders, with further right of way reserved for future southern expansion.
March 13: The Handicapped Children Education Act is signed into law by President Reagan, with the law providing for the equal access of all physically and mentally disabled children in the public school system to special education, aligned as closely as practicable with the educational experience of non-disabled children, providing for the integration of social and academic interaction with their general peer groups where practicable, and providing for free school meals for all those in special education classes.
March 14: Introduction of the Television Electronic Disc or TeD by Telefunken in Germany. The innovative metallic discs carry an hour of footage on each side, with remarkably clear audio quality and sharp fidelity of pictures, and represent a serious challenge to current British and Japanese video formats in every major area save for length of recording. The specialised player retails for 2499 DM and attracts some interest from US troops based in Germany.
March 15: Commissioning of the first of the Royal Navy’s new Red class super fast attack craft, HMS Red Dwarf at Vospers shipyard in Portchester. The 525t boat, equipped with a rapid fire 2.5” gun, 4 Sea Eagle and 12 Cormorant SSMs and capacity for light self defence guns and missiles, has a top speed of over 70 knots and is designed to allow RN Coastal Forces to maintain their qualitative superiority over the Soviets. The commissioning ceremony is inadvertently attended by worlds famous Royal Space Force pilot Commander Ace Rimmer, who parachutes onto the quay next to the Solent after ejecting from an experimental rocket powered air speeder.
March 16: Introduction of Baileys Irish Cream, a proprietary concoction of Irish whiskey, cream, Nesquik, caramel, triffid oil, xander root, moon sugar and certain secret herbs, to the British alcoholic beverages market, having been developed to combine excess low grade alcohol and surplus cream from dairies owned by the same conglomerate. Initial reception is generally positive, although an incensed grammatician begins a vehement letter writing campaign against the absence of an apostrophe in the name, which culminates in his arrest several months later for attempting to hire mercenaries to burn Gilbeys Distillery to the ground.
March 17: A number of incidents along the border between Israel and Lebanon, mainly consisting of isolated firing of small arms and infantry rockets, but including one attempted penetration by suspected Arab militants, leads to the border being closed and reinforced by the Israeli Army. American diplomats in Beirut advise the Prince of Lebanon to consider tightening his control of his military along the border, lest a minor provocation grow into something far more significant.
March 18: Western intelligence sources in the Soviet Union indicate sighting a number of apparently new armoured vehicles, including self propelled 122mm and 152mm howitzers and 130mm and 180mm guns, a new light tank with a 100mm gun, and what appears to be heavy assault guns and tank destroyers.
March 19: A 20 year old bank teller is shot dead in a bank robbery in Bondi, Sydney. NSW police swoop on the area and conduct numerous raids across the city, prior to the arrest of recidivist criminal Gary Findlay. He makes his first appearance in court on March 21, prior to pleading guilty at trial and being sentenced to death on March 31st and hanged on April 14th.
March 20: The Wurzels ascend to the top of the BBC/BMRB British singles charts with 'Combine Harvester', a novelty pastiche of West Country life, pushing 'My Lovely Horse', the popular paen to a loyal horse penned by two priests in Western Ireland, into second place, followed by American actor Telly Savalas with 'If', 'Tamlyn' by Pentangle and Cliff Richard with 'Olivia'.
March 21: Royal Marines depart Tanna in the New Hebrides, having suppressed the secessionist movement without violence beyond the arrest of the ringleaders, who were tried in Port Vila in January and sentenced to exile, through a combination of clear shows of force, presence patrolling and hearts and minds operations. One unforeseen side effect of Operation Halfpenny seems to be the formation of a new peculiar cult; after screenings of various recorded programmes, including The Muppet Show, two separate groups now worship the amphibian compère and his glamourous porcine paramour as godlike entities.
March 22: A fire is accidentally started by a worker carrying out routine tests at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama, with the unlucky worker using a candle to inspect a suspected leak in concrete walls and igniting highly flammable polyurethane sheeting; over $5 million of damage is caused by the blaze, but the functions of the plant are unimpeded and there was no danger of radioactive contamination. The worker is counselled and sent for retraining at the National Center for Atomic Safety in Springfield, Indiana.
March 23: The French ambassador to Somalia is kidnapped as he departs a church service in Mogadishu. As Somali police race to locate the kidnappers, French Premier d’Ambreville summons the Somali ambassador and threatens a full blown punitive invasion of the East African country should the French diplomat not be released, completely unharmed. The Marine Royale atomic supercarrier Verdun, currently in the Red Sea returning home from a Far Eastern cruise, is ordered to change course along with her escorting battle group and proceed to within range of Somalia. Under the shadow of the French threat, Somali authorities force the hostage takers to capitulate through the mass arrest of their clan and subsequent vigorous encouragement efforts moving clan elders to requisite heights of persuasiveness; the six kidnappers are subsequently shot while trying to escape whilst en route to prison. The Somali government contemplates a complaint to the League of Nations on the coercive conduct, but the prior lack of success of Sudan in broadly analogous circumstances makes it seem to be an unproductive option.
March 24: Production begins at the Panguna mine on Bougainville in Australian New Guinea, with the open pit gold and copper mine operated by Imperial Mining thought to be be one of the largest such deposits in the world, with expected reserves of over two billion tons of ore copper, five hundred million tons of silver and over forty million ounces of gold.
March 25: The Royal Catering Corps of the British Army begins operational testing of new 12 man composite ration packs, suitable for feeding an infantry section or equivalent sized unit for a day (or more if supplemented with locally available fruit, vegetables and fresh bread), at Aldershot. Initial feedback indicates that the ten different menus provide substantial variation of foodstuffs, and that the inclusion of various sundries and ‘luxury items’, including coffee for the first time in a modern British ration, is a welcome one; the presence of irradiated haggis in Menu 10 is somewhat more of a curiosity for non-Scottish test subjects.
March 26: Release of Aces High, an exciting Great War aerial combat film starring Christopher Plummer as Sir Hugh Trenchard, Simon Ward as James Bigglesworth VC, Malcolm McDowell as Albert Ball VC, Timothy Dalton as Edward Mannock VC, Michael Caine as Billy Bishop VC, Ray Milland as General Sir David Henderson, and one of Snoopy's own great-grand puppies, Maxy, in the role of his famed ancestor, the Beagle who shot down the Red Baron.
March 27: Monthly production of petroleum in Canadian Alaska exceeds the equivalent of 1 million barrels a day for the first time, with revenues flowing onto the province providing for valuable funding for infrastructure programmes.
March 28: The Federal Communications Commission announces that the price of citizen's band radio license fees is to fall from $10 to $2, partly in light of inflation since the last price consideration in 1970, and partly out of its perceived utility for civil defence purposes.
March 29: A British film crew records the extremely rare spectacle of the 'Dance of the Dolphins' in Walvis Bay off the coast of South West Africa using unmanned aerial and underwater cameras to create a hitherto unparallelled insight into the majestic natural phenomenon, which sees thousands of dolphins engage in a synchornised elaborate dance or play ritual that has fascinated human observers since time immemorial.
March 30: The New York Inquirer carries a special feature assessing the performance of the Reagan Cabinet, with the paper noting approvingly that it has been the most stable since the Great War in terms of personnel, with all thirty men and women remaining in the same roles since January 1973. The President's approval rating remains consistently high, averaging 79% over the last six months.
March 31: British Rail announces a plan for a number of new high speed intercity lines across Britain to complete the third stage of the postwar Railway Modernisation Plan, with the first major stage to be concentrated around the East Coast of England, including a new high speed line between Peterborough and Kingston. The proposals are accompanied by a lavish (at least by British Transport Films’ and British Rail’s standards) advertising campaign, spearheaded by Felicity Kendal and Brian Blessed, which proclaims that ‘This is the Age of the Train!’

[jemhouston]

Dr. Emmett Brown was a good man and well known for mentoring young people, not only STEM, but other interests as well.


Why in the world would you you use a lit candle in almost any inspection? If you were trying to find an air leak or hole, it might work but using a smoke machine might work better.

I have heard of using helium filled balloons to find a leak in a large spacecraft. Two or more will move to the leak.

[Simon Darkshade]

Dr. Brown has already been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work on the fusion programme.

The use of a candle was a completely historical incident - the seemingly craziest ones always seem to be so!

[jemhouston]

Dr. Brown has already been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work on the fusion programme.

The use of a candle was a completely historical incident - the seemingly craziest ones always seem to be so!

I was afraid you'd say that about the candle.

[Simon Darkshade]

At least it was only one candle; if it was four candles, it may have taken out the plant!

[jemhouston]

At least it was only one candle; if it was four candles, it may have taken out the plant!

Simon, they'll try to take out the plant with 3 candles. They'll see it as you daring them.

[Simon Darkshade]

I’ll leave it to one of the Poms to explain why Four Candles is a truly explosive combination.

[Belushi TD]

Is there possibly a number missing from the below quote?

Filmed in and around as many locations in Berlin as possible, several see the greatest concentration of Second World War tanks and aeroplanes since the 1940s.

Or are you backhandedly saying that this movie bombed in theaters?

Belushi TD

[Simon Darkshade]

Just a word: "scenes".

[Simon Darkshade]

March 1975 Notes

- 1918 does feature several actors who played their historical characters very well in other productions, and is a suitably triumphant and terrible conclusion to the war
- Bokassa crowns himself a tad earlier, reflecting the lack of the 'President for Life' tendency in an Africa formerly ruled by distinctly non-republican colonial powers; mention of black lotus and hağa injects a note of Conan the Barbarian to provide an extra layer of concern as to how he is being funded
- The French bank siege isn't quite the same as the Iranian Embassy Siege of @, but is one of a number of very public anti-terrorist actions, analogous in some ways to those of 1976, 77 and 80
- Bruce Lee shuts down a factory producing the (non carbonated) precursor to Red Bull as a front for opium smuggling; its owner, Dr. Klahn, the villain of the 'A Fistful of Yen' sequence from The Kentucky Fried Movie, is not pleased
- The terrorists historically involved in the Savoy Hotel attack in Tel Aviv don't make it to shore
- Moves against dioxin are reasonably straightforward, providing an opportunity to mention large scale plastic recycling advances
- North Vietnam needs a lot of support, but is getting the full treatment
- The story of Flight 19 finally comes into the public eye and are welcomed home; Dr. Emmett Brown suffers from a sudden case of feeling a bit of cross-dimensional deja vu
- The arrival of the Golden Hinde II leads to a joking New Avalon newspaper claiming California; a secure and confident US general public chuckles at the joke
- British weather control will lead to a number of consequences, not the least of which is individuals complaining that said huge efforts don't suit their personal timetables and convenience
- The Fall of Berlin features an all star cast and a lot of spectacular action; it is better than the Soviet picture
- Tram networks expanding indicate a different approach to light rail urban transport, not just in Australia, but in many parts of the Western world
- The TeD is a historical invention, but is somewhat improved due to the generally higher level of 'global technological bathwater'
- Red Dwarf packs a lot into a smaller package, similar to the Sa'ar 4s and 4.5s
- Baileys contains plenty of fun ingredients
- The Australian bank robbery case simply points out the consequences of continued capital punishment, with flow on effects upon the level of crime, and popular culture, particularly in years to come in Sydney and Melbourne
- Combine Harvester and My Lovely Horse: the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny of ultimate novelty
- The Tanna crisis is handled with a relative lack of force, but with a consequence of creating a Kermit and Miss Piggy Cult
- The fire at Browns Ferry was a historical event; using candles to check air flow does seem to be a bit of a throwback. Luckily, there are fully modern methods in Springfield!
- d'Ambreville reacts very strongly in Somalia, partially in an effort to emulate Reagan's actions in the Sudan; this will have consequences...
- The Panguna mine will likely have a far smoother operating history
- New compo makes for well fed soldiers and more effective ones, in due course. The irradiated haggis is a Red Dwarf reference
- Aces High is a very different, less cynical picture, taking a broader view, and having Snoopy shoot down the Red Baron at one of its climaxes
- CB radio will be quite the craze
- The Dance of the Dolphins, whilst based on a fun feature of the 2e Forgotten Realms, is a nice bit of flavour and insight into a living world
- Reagan's Administration remains stable, popular and successful for now
- Some very different 'Age of the Train' ads for a very different Railway Modernisation Plan

[Simon Darkshade]

A brief sneak preview of April:

April 1: The BBC Panorama programme features a special on the decommissioning of the last of Sweden's Royal Moose Cavalry Regiments on location in Lappland. Viewers write and make telephone calls of complaint over the coming days, charging that the All Fools' Day joke was overwrought and obvious, as the doughty and reliable Swedes would never foresake their beloved meese. The Swedish Ministry of Defence, when asked for comment, hastily assures journalists and the Swedish and foreign public alike, after an extremely busy hour of purely coincidental internal consultations, that the story was indeed a jest, and that there was absolutely no truth to the scurrilous rumour - nay, scurrilous joke - that the Kungliga Norrlands Älgkavalleriregementet were to lose their meese for budgetary reasons.

April 9: The Home Office publishes advice indicating that the temporary restriction on immigration put in place during the 1973 recession is to be lifted in stages, with the first stage seeing a monthly total of 2500, divided amongst established national quotas, subject to the standing restrictions on family immigration, and with separate temporary arrangements for university student admissions.

April 15: Former President John F. Kennedy makes a public appearance at the unveiling of new U.S. Army small arms at Fort Bragg, firing the SR-25 semi-automatic sniper rifle and M249 light machine gun and declaring approvingly that the latter 'really tore up that grassy knoll!', in reference to the target hill. The much anticipated new U.S. service rifle competition is still ongoing, with an adapted version of the current 7.62mm M-16 being trialed competitively with an American built variant of the FAL and British, German, Swedish and French rifles for comparison.

April 17: Establishment of the Royal Air Force’s first composite Rapid Deployment Wing, No. 373 Wing at RAF Lyneham, consisting of special purpose combined squadrons made up of flights of Fairey Rotodynes, Hawker-Siddeley Skyblazers, Sopwith Camels, Hawker-Siddeley Harriers, de Havilland Tornadoes, Vickers Thunderbolts, Armstrong-Whitworth Warspites and Supermarine Eagle TSR-2s, with the last aircraft type in the new configuration combining electronic warfare, tanker support and communications capabilities with their bombing role. The new force, based out of RAF Kingswell and commanded by Wing Commander Peter Tyson, will operate in conjunction with troops of the Royal Air Force's Joint Special Warfare Group and the RAF Regiment.

April 19: US arcane intelligence systems report the occurrence of an apparent sharknado off the Soviet Black Sea port city of Sochi. No official confirmation has been issued, but signals intelligence and national technical means report an emergency deployment of Soviet forces to the area...

[Simon Darkshade]

April
April 1: The BBC Panorama programme features a special on the decommissioning of the last of Sweden's Royal Moose Cavalry Regiments on location in Lappland. Viewers write and make telephone calls of complaint over the coming days, charging that the All Fools' Day joke was overwrought and obvious, as the doughty and reliable Swedes would never foresake their beloved meese. The Swedish Ministry of Defence, when asked for comment, hastily assures journalists and the Swedish and foreign public alike, after an extremely busy hour of purely coincidental internal consultations, that the story was indeed a jest, and that there was absolutely no truth to the scurrilous rumour - nay, scurrilous joke - that the Kungliga Norrlands Älgkavalleriregementet were to lose their meese for budgetary reasons.
April 2: The Freedom Train begins its tour of the United States in the build up to next year's Bicentennial celebrations, setting off with an open day display in Wilmington, Delaware. The train contains a special arcane cinema car, utilising a specially designed pocket plane to seat over a thousand; a special gallery car carrying copies of famed artworks; a concert car; and a dozen display cars loaded with Americana, copies of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and notable artifacts.
April 3: Golden Hinde II arrives in Saint George, the capital city of New Avalon, greeted by Prime Minister Sir Jack Steel, Governor-General Sir James Cassels and a grand naval review lead by the RNAN's flagship, the battleship HMNAS New Avalon, and the aircraft carrier HMNAS Drake, as well as a crowd of several hundred thousands.
April 4: Over twenty people are killed in a major train crash in Lithuania, where a passenger train rear-ended a cargo train, rupturing a tank car and setting off a tremendous fireball. A later report to the Politburo recommends emulating arcane measures taken in the West to ameliorate the risk of certain types of rail collision, with the author being counselled by the KGB in a therapeutic raid on his flat at 0200, followed by a free, all-expenses-paid indefinite holiday to beautiful Sevvostlag, where he will have the opportunity to consider the failings of the West whilst weaving wicker power stations inside the Arctic Circle.
April 5: Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Mishima pushes past his security detail to attack a leftist protestor who attempts to harrass the Crown Prince, ferociously belabouring the wretch around the head and neck with his expert karate before roundhouse kicking him into a display of bonsai cacti. The image of the 'Prime Minister's Defence' is captured by an American camerawoman and attracts attention around the world for its thematic similarity to the famed shot of the assassination of Inejirō Asanuma in 1960, and later goes on to win Miss Piper Wright a Pulitzer Prize. The would-be protestor is tried after recovering from his dozens of broken bones, bruises, contusions, and the extraction of hundreds of cactus spines from his nethers, and, due to him not being a legal adult, is sentenced to a year in the Nijūhachi-gō Reform School.
April 6: Reginald Issacs, 47, is found guilty of the abduction, sexual assault and murder of a nine year old schoolboy in the Wombat State Forest of Victoria, and receives the mandatory sentence of death by hanging, with no recommendation for mercy. He is subsequently executed on April 11th at Pentridge Prison.
April 7: Establishment of the Micro-Soft microcomputer software company in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company will sell a number of innovative programmes, simulators and devices before being partially bought out by millionaire Japanese technology tycoon Katsumata Tadanobu in 1979.
April 8: At the 47th Academy Awards, Wagner wins Best Picture in a tight race over Zardoz, The Towering Inferno, The Great Gatsby and Murder on the Orient Express. Richard Burton wins Best Actor for Wagner, popular favourite Miss Piggy wins Best Actress for Jane Eyre, and legendary veterans Fred Astaire and Ingrid Bergman win Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress for their roles in The Towering Inferno and Murder on the Orient Express.
April 9: The Home Office publishes advice indicating that the temporary restriction on immigration put in place during the 1973 recession is to be lifted in stages, with the first stage seeing a monthly total of 2500, divided amongst established national quotas, subject to the standing restrictions on family immigration, and with separate temporary arrangements for university student admissions.
April 10: King Sigurd II of Iceland intervenes in a special cabinet meeting that is considering the notion of unilateral changes to Iceland's claimed territorial waters, vigorously asserting that the value of British bases and associated investment outweighs the potential gain rendered by any putative action, with the sheer size of the Royal Navy's Fisheries Protection Squadron (consisting of four detachments of six Island class patrol vessels apiece in the North Atlantic Division alone) making the practical execution of such a course of action nigh on foolhardy. He orders a steadier process of diplomatic endeavours in line with current League of Nations discussions on a new Law of the Sea Conference.
April 11: Introduction of the Family Viewing Hour in the United States, with the FCC regulating a requirement for each of the five major networks to air family-friendly programming in the first hour of the prime-time lineup, and to restrict the airing of any commercials in this period inimical to the spirit of the regulation.
April 12: Commissioning of the United States Navy's latest Ticonderoga class supercarrier, USS Valley Forge, at New York Shipbuilding on Staten Island, by Second Lady Barbara Bush, bringing the USN's fleet to a total of sixteen CVANs, with a further four (Philippine Sea, Antietam, Khe Sanh and Leyte Gulf) under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding, American Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, U.S. Shipbuilding in Quincy and Bethlehem Shipbuilding at Fore River.
April 13: The Premier of Chad is overthrown and slain in a military coup, apparently precipitated by mounting military discontent after a series of severe purges. As the Army moves to establish control of N'Djamena, attention turns to the potential reaction of French backed mercenary units protecting the scientists working on the Lake Chad Project.
April 14: Californian State Police investigators arrest Patrick Kearney after a protracted search for the 'Freeway Killer' of young men and boys across Southern California. The horrific nature of some of the crimes have lead to some calls for the reestablishment of the FBI's Special Witchcraft, Demonology and Evil Deeds Department, last operational in 1945 under Director Hoover, and colloquially known as the Department of Evil.
April 15: Former President John F. Kennedy makes a public appearance at the unveiling of new U.S. Army small arms at Fort Bragg, firing the SR-25 semi-automatic sniper rifle and M249 light machine gun and declaring approvingly that the latter 'really tore up that grassy knoll!', in reference to the target hill. The much anticipated new U.S. service rifle competition is still ongoing, with an adapted version of the current 7.62mm M-16 being trialed competitively with an American built variant of the FAL and British, German, Swedish and French rifles for comparison.
April 16: A report on church attendance statistical patterns in Britain indicates that the marked increase experienced in the 1960s has continued into the 1970s, with 1974 seeing an average of 72 million attending some form of Christian worship on any given Sunday, and 59% of those being Church of England, 14% Roman Catholic, 11% Methodist, 7% Presbyterian, 5% Puritan, 3% Baptist and 1% Quakers,
April 17: Establishment of the Royal Air Force’s first composite Rapid Deployment Wing, No. 373 Wing at RAF Lyneham, consisting of special purpose combined squadrons made up of flights of Fairey Rotodynes, Hawker-Siddeley Skyblazers, Sopwith Camels, Hawker-Siddeley Harriers, de Havilland Tornadoes, Vickers Thunderbolts, Armstrong-Whitworth Warspites and Supermarine Eagle TSR-2s, with the last aircraft type in the new configuration combining electronic warfare, tanker support and communications capabilities with their bombing role. The new force, based out of RAF Kingswell and commanded by Wing Commander Peter Tyson, will operate in conjunction with troops of the Royal Air Force's Joint Special Warfare Group and the RAF Regiment.
April 18: President Reagan marks the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s midnight ride at the Old North Church in Boston, lighting a lantern to show the start of America’s third century.
April 19: US arcane intelligence systems report the occurrence of an apparent sharknado off the Soviet Black Sea port city of Sochi. No official confirmation has been issued, but signals intelligence and national technical means report an emergency deployment of Soviet forces to the area.
April 20: King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia opens the Phnom Penh Grand Exposition, showcasing the scale of the recovery of Cambodia from the Indochinese wars and proudly proclaiming that the Paris of the East would shine as brightly as the City of Light.
April 21: Rumours begin to filter down to Melbourne of a potential future VFL champion player dominating in junior grades at Drouin in West Gippsland. Gary Ablett, the younger brother of recent Geelong signing Geoff Ablett, is attracting attention from the reigning premiers, even as he is yet to make his senior debut.
April 22: The President of Honduras is ordered to resign from his office by the Honduran high military council, after revelations in the Wall Street Journal of bribes of over $1 million from the United Fruit Company for the reduction of banana export tax; it is against standing regulations for bribes not to be registered and appropriately distributed to other members of the high military council.
April 23: Polish Army officer Jerzy Pawlowski, a gold medallist in fencing at the 1968 Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, is extracted from Communist Poland in a delicate secret operation involving advanced submersible canoes manned by a detachment of US Navy SEALs smuggling the CIA agent down a river to a waiting RN submarine just offshore in the Baltic.
April 24: Terrorists of the Baader Meinhof Gang assault the German Embassy in Stockholm, taking over the building and seizing 12 hostages. Whilst negotiators try to keep the terrorists occupied, a crack team of commandos from the Drabantkår's Sarskilda Angreppstvinga assault the embassy, freeing the hostages and disabling the terrorists with tactical surstromming spray.
April 25: Communist bank robbers of the Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre kill 12 in a raid on a branch of the Banco de Comercio in Tlapan, Mexico City, after being frustrated in their attempts to open the vault. The Emperor orders a plan for the annihilation of the group to be prepared with utmost haste.
April 26: William Eeebahgum, 35, of Eskdaleside cum Ugglebarnby, wins the first National Black Pudding Eating Competition in London, consuming 18 of the delicacies in the 5 minute timeframe, and securing his prize - a child sized black pudding, which he carefully shepherds onto the train back to Yorkshire.
April 27: The New York Times carries a story on the 'jogging boom' of the last several years, approvingly noting its positive impact on public health and fitness, and jesting that, 'with the 1960s seeing the rise of hiking, inspired by President Kennedy's challenge, and the 1970s now the epoch of running, perhaps the 1980s will see a nationwide craze for jumping!'
April 28: Maiden broadcast of Wonder Woman, a fictionalised television series about the adventures of a certain female superhero. An earlier draft series outline had to be scrapped after a formal letter from attorney Matt Murdock indicating that some content was potentially defamatory to various unnamed clients.
April 29: The British Army introduces a number of new detection, weapons systems and individual equipment systems in Exercise Redgauntlet, with new 'eyebots' providing tactical commanders with an 'eye in the sky' and the improved infra-red Foefinder and Farscry systems and Vickers Skyguard laser ray guns were successfully fielded on mobile armoured vehicles for the first time. The new variants of the Marksman and Sharpshooter self propelled anti-aircraft systems, now additionally fitted with an advanced variant of the Skyflash MANPADS and Sabre missiles respectively, apparently offer an increase in the effectiveness of tactical air defence of nearly 40%, whilst the 'miniguns' fitted to armoured and unarmoured vehicles provide a noticeable increase in firepower.
April 30: Release of Bohemian Rhapsody, a Hollywood musical based on the events of the Thirty Years' War, in what many critics view as an inconceived attempt to carry over the popularity of the German-based early modern television series Darklands, Wolf and Fox and Kriegshammer. Despite gathering plaudits for Tomasz Wiseau in the role of Albrecht von Wallenstein, Richard Harris as King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and Timothy Dalton as Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the film is seen a rather expensive failure.

[Simon Darkshade]

April 1975 Notes
- The Swedish Moose Cavalry Incident is a case of a Swedish thought bubble regarding defence cuts being plausibly denied after having been floated on a very convenient day. Across the West, politicians are finding it difficult to cut defence, which adds an extra level of meaning to the April Fool element. The plural of moose here is ‘meese’, due to slightly different evolution of the English language
- The Freedom Train is a tad more special than a conventional train
- A train crash in Lithuania leads to a fellow touching the Soviet third rail of emulating the West; the continuation of the Gulag points to a dark undercurrent beneath ‘Red Plenty’
- PM Mishima is characteristically zealous in his actions, whilst the Japanese legal system is still quite lenient on youths; Piper Wright is a muckraking journalist companion from Fallout 4
- Historically, Issacs was sentenced to death but not hanged, due to different Victorian Premiers
- Micro-Soft has a different history; Katsumata Tadanobu is the second Friend from 20th Century Boys
- As is now common, a different Oscars night, with Burton winning, but Miss Piggy receiving the biggest ovation; Zardoz getting a nomination is a sign of a different picture and times
- Immigration numbers seem very small by modern levels, but are quite high for the 1970s
- Iceland is on a different wicket, so that Cod War type gambits won’t work
- Valley Forge’s commissioning points to two underlying differences: carriers not being named after politicians, and being built in more places than Newport News; the latter does allow for a greater pace of production of multiple ships
- Something is going on around Lake Chad…
- US police are becoming much quicker in finding and nabbing serial killers; it will take a tad more for the return of some of Hoover’s measures
- JFK loves shooting up grassy knolls and fourth walls. The next US Army service rifle is going to be an interesting question, as no one has gone down the .223 intermediate path or equivalent yet
- British church attendance is heading in a different direction, with numbers broadly analogous to the 1860s
- The RAF Rapid Deployment Wing, Peter Tyson and RAF Kingswell are all from the 1982 British television series Squadron
- Soviet sharknados indicate something is awry
- Cambodia on the up and peaceful
- April 21 is one of my little VFL/AFL flourishes
- Honduras: Where the issue isn’t taking bribes - it is not registering and sharing them
- Jerzy Pawlowski is rescued; the RN sub was used as they do have some appropriate quiet small AIP boats for special ops
- The Swedes once again beat terrorism with surstromming spray, which is a lot more effective than just capsaicin
- The winner of the National Black Pudding Eating Competition has an appropriate name; his village is a real place name that cried out to be used
- We shall see if, in the 1980s, you might as well jump
- Wonder Woman has to undergo changes to make it legally acceptable; note the attorney
- British Army battlefield air defences and tactical recce get a boost
- A very different Bohemian Rhapsody, which not even Tomasz Wiseau can save

[jemhouston]

Simon, it may be me, but I don't think any smaller than 6.5 would work for a military caliber. You need range to reach out, power to punch through objects, and maybe full auto. A modern version of 7mm Mauser would work.

[Simon Darkshade]

It isn’t just you, Jem.

Here, there were some moves to develop a .256” assault rifle during the Korean War rearmament period, but they largely were used by the British as a carbine/SMG replacement for various third line troops; the rifle in question, the L2, is to the L1 and FN FAL what the FN CAL was historically, at least in terms of appearance and commonality of parts and training.

The US, whilst initially interested in replacing various earlier rifles with it, went for the “M16”, which here is more of an AR16 married with an M14 to create a full powered battle rifle in 7.62 x 51mm.

The issue now is that anything substantively smaller in calibre is seen as not performing sufficiently against both modern body armour and the various creatures and monsters that exist around Dark Earth.