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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 9, 2024 17:59:37 GMT
Steve,
Thanks for the many observations.
1.) It is only on the books for high treason, and I use the wording carefully ‘on the books’. Here, though, it is for blokes who not only did that, but killed a dog in cold blood in @. I don’t employ authorial flourishes like this as a general rule, but I’ll make the first exception in DE here, as I did have my dog sleeping on me as I researched and wrote that bit
2.) It isn’t a happy ending, but is the first of three books in the FA
4.) There are no restrictions. This is effectively a bit of a transposition of the 1975 Dismissal in Australia. It is within the Chilean constitution and comes as a circuit breaker to stop either side pulling the coup lever. So no coup, no bloodshed to speak of, and a general election campaign
7.) With some earlier debuts, they are still approaching that height, with the real bowling talent to come
8.) There is that angle, but it comes with costs…
9.) Add in 56 divisions in the Central Strategic Reserve, 40 in the Southern Theatre aimed at the ME and more formations apparently planned for Siberia; plus the ~120 mobilisation divisions and the 125 reserve divisions
12.) The plots are different, rather than weaker
13.) Hunt does have a certain touch that makes him an interesting counterpart to Jack Regan…
21.) Power armour or air defence railguns? Both have some potential
23.) It is a fictitious sequel to ‘When Eight Bells Toll’
24.) Very much so; more on this in notes
26.) The raids won’t find anything, nor have any major deleterious effects. When one has a lot of hammers, many problems can end up being mistaken for nails. In their (limited) defence, voodoo and zombies have rather skewed the pitch for a few other West Indian exports, and one faulty interpretation leads to a cascade of compounding errors
27.) Very much so; also more in notes
30.) It is earlier than @, due to Lapcat and some of the cumulative space work, but the early days of such batteries in @ were also limited and troubled
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 9, 2024 18:03:38 GMT
he could be successful in mending the difficult Austro-German relations. What is the tension all about. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 10, 2024 0:00:43 GMT
Steve, Thanks for the many observations. 1.) It is only on the books for high treason, and I use the wording carefully ‘on the books’. Here, though, it is for blokes who not only did that, but killed a dog in cold blood in @. I don’t employ authorial flourishes like this as a general rule, but I’ll make the first exception in DE here, as I did have my dog sleeping on me as I researched and wrote that bit 2.) It isn’t a happy ending, but is the first of three books in the FA 4.) There are no restrictions. This is effectively a bit of a transposition of the 1975 Dismissal in Australia. It is within the Chilean constitution and comes as a circuit breaker to stop either side pulling the coup lever. So no coup, no bloodshed to speak of, and a general election campaign 7.) With some earlier debuts, they are still approaching that height, with the real bowling talent to come 8.) There is that angle, but it comes with costs… 9.) Add in 56 divisions in the Central Strategic Reserve, 40 in the Southern Theatre aimed at the ME and more formations apparently planned for Siberia; plus the ~120 mobilisation divisions and the 125 reserve divisions 12.) The plots are different, rather than weaker 13.) Hunt does have a certain touch that makes him an interesting counterpart to Jack Regan… 21.) Power armour or air defence railguns? Both have some potential 23.) It is a fictitious sequel to ‘When Eight Bells Toll’ 24.) Very much so; more on this in notes 26.) The raids won’t find anything, nor have any major deleterious effects. When one has a lot of hammers, many problems can end up being mistaken for nails. In their (limited) defence, voodoo and zombies have rather skewed the pitch for a few other West Indian exports, and one faulty interpretation leads to a cascade of compounding errors 27.) Very much so; also more in notes 30.) It is earlier than @, due to Lapcat and some of the cumulative space work, but the early days of such batteries in @ were also limited and troubled
On: 4th - Good to hear.
7th - That is a frightening thought for everybody else!  9th - That is a lot of manpower. 13th - I would say at least Regan was concerned with rounding up the guilty rather than beating the hell out of every suspect. 21st - I was thinking of the powered armour and must admit I missed the rail=guns. 26th - Excellent news.
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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 10, 2024 0:46:27 GMT
he could be successful in mending the difficult Austro-German relations. What is the tension all about. The impact of the two world wars and AH trying to distance itself from being a German sidekick/ally, whilst asserting a more distinct Danubian identity. |
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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 10, 2024 12:36:45 GMT
Steve, Thanks for the many observations. 1.) It is only on the books for high treason, and I use the wording carefully ‘on the books’. Here, though, it is for blokes who not only did that, but killed a dog in cold blood in @. I don’t employ authorial flourishes like this as a general rule, but I’ll make the first exception in DE here, as I did have my dog sleeping on me as I researched and wrote that bit 2.) It isn’t a happy ending, but is the first of three books in the FA 4.) There are no restrictions. This is effectively a bit of a transposition of the 1975 Dismissal in Australia. It is within the Chilean constitution and comes as a circuit breaker to stop either side pulling the coup lever. So no coup, no bloodshed to speak of, and a general election campaign 7.) With some earlier debuts, they are still approaching that height, with the real bowling talent to come 8.) There is that angle, but it comes with costs… 9.) Add in 56 divisions in the Central Strategic Reserve, 40 in the Southern Theatre aimed at the ME and more formations apparently planned for Siberia; plus the ~120 mobilisation divisions and the 125 reserve divisions 12.) The plots are different, rather than weaker 13.) Hunt does have a certain touch that makes him an interesting counterpart to Jack Regan… 21.) Power armour or air defence railguns? Both have some potential 23.) It is a fictitious sequel to ‘When Eight Bells Toll’ 24.) Very much so; more on this in notes 26.) The raids won’t find anything, nor have any major deleterious effects. When one has a lot of hammers, many problems can end up being mistaken for nails. In their (limited) defence, voodoo and zombies have rather skewed the pitch for a few other West Indian exports, and one faulty interpretation leads to a cascade of compounding errors 27.) Very much so; also more in notes 30.) It is earlier than @, due to Lapcat and some of the cumulative space work, but the early days of such batteries in @ were also limited and troubled
On: 4th - Good to hear.
7th - That is a frightening thought for everybody else! 9th - That is a lot of manpower. 13th - I would say at least Regan was concerned with rounding up the guilty rather than beating the hell out of every suspect. 21st - I was thinking of the powered armour and must admit I missed the rail=guns. 26th - Excellent news.
Steve, On Chile, I've been pretty clear from the beginning that things will be different. The drivers for the @ coup, the whole constitutional system, the politics and the broader Cold War context are either not there or different. The West Indies will soon have Andy Roberts and Michael Holding debuting, followed by Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall. The elder statesmen of their team are Gary Sobers, Lance Gibbs and Rohan Kanhai, with Clive Lloyd, Deryck Murray and Roy Fredericks very experienced mid career players. They have Richards and Greenidge coming through a few years earlier than @, along with Laurence Rowe and Alvin Kallicharan being younger players, so have a very formidable team indeed. With the lack of World Series Cricket interrupting a number of careers, not to mention the absence of any 'rebel tours' to South Africa (given its ongoing normal Test status), the international cricket scene for the next decade and a half is going to be very interesting. The Soviets are the only state, as in @, who maintained a traditional 'full sized' army post WW2. That they have largely mechanised and motorised the same is a testament to how much they spend on defence. Here, it is enough of a threat to give pause and to continue to justify all of the military advances, reforms, production and modernisation going on in the West. Regan certainly had that approach; this version of Gene Hunt has had a fair bit of Sam Tyler rub off on him, as well as the nature of DE Power armour is a gradual process, but combined with some work on batteries and other more arcane means, offers some interesting ways forward. The railguns, using the extremely large amount of electricity produced by fusion plants, do offer some interesting options against aircraft and missiles in some circumstances, in concert with other missiles and lasers. It will be viewed as a case of 'we seemed to be wrong this time, but we shouldn't drop our guard'. Simon |
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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 10, 2024 15:53:46 GMT
September 1973 Notes
- The Bermuda executions historically caused some civil reaction, but here the garrison increase acts to dissuade this in the large part, even if the method might be a bit more shocking; deterring high treason has been largely successful
- Raids in Italy are the first part in a European reaction to spillover terrorism
- Allende gets the Gough Whitlam treatment, rather than a bullet in the head, and a free helicopter ride that lands without incident, whilst Chile ends up with a bitter general election rather than a bloody coup and bloodier aftermath
- Von Richthofen gets a bit touchy about certain events, including The Beagle Incident, but his opprobrium here is aroused by a revisionist film maker seeking to portray him as callous and ruthless towards his vanquished opponents, machine gunning them on the ground after shooting them down. He is right to be angry
- The Windies are gathering strength and momentum even earlier
- Reforms to gridiron safety will certainly address some of the identified medical concerns, but this is a different era and audience to the 2010s, so I can see how some would dislike the ‘softening’ of the sport
- The Soviets have a big conventional threat that is evolving; the Light Motor Rifles were a mooted 1980s type of division that is fairly interesting
- A Sea Race to match space is something different, driven by the surprises beneath the waves…
- Star Trek is going strong, creating a different science fiction ‘scene’
- The heir and spare have been provided, along with a Princess and now another spare to boot, and more likely coming. It is doubtful if any will end up writing embittered memoirs
- Turkey and Greece inch a bit closer; the old name of Ankara is still used in English
- Gene Hunt is suited to the Sweeney Todd (Mancs version)
- Sweden has had a very different post WW2 political history, with plenty of consequences
- The Ever Readies were a brief mid 1960s experiment that here sees a later introduction and a longer life
- Brunner doesn’t escape justice
- Power armour still has a lot of troubleshooting to go through; very powerful railguns are looking practicable in the future due to the sheer amount of electricity generated
- Von Hartmann will be an interesting Chancellor
- Philip Calvert was intended to be a movie franchise challenger to Bond, but tanked. Here, it has a longer and more successful life and pushes Hopkins to the fore in his younger years
- A Daily Plate rather than a Food Pyramid is a fairly big change, with the 1970s-1990s advocacy of basing diets on grains/cereal/pasta being replaced by fruits and vegetables, with meat and milk still pushed at their 40s/50s extent. There is still a cereal/grains lobby, but it is being pacified with other measures. Crucially, sugars, confections and overly processed foods are getting earlier askance; in combination with a prohibition on HFCS, this will have many positive consequences on the American diet and, downstream in time, the general Western diet. The flow on effects of not seeing an obesity increase and then epidemic are profound, along with fat not being quite so demonised as in the @ 1980s. To cap it all off, I managed to have it unveiled on the charming period programme of US children’s educational television, Mulligan Stew
- Plenty of interesting toys on offer for Christmas; consider the location of the toy factory and consequences upon the future local economy
- The Limbo Raids are a story hook for the future
- Some tangible rendering of the cost of living is illustrative for readers. The impact on universal Medicare will further lower costs to some extent over time
- Mesrine gets caught, stopped and chopped
- The VFL grand final result will only mean something to a very limited number of readers; Yibbida Yibbida
- Battery development is included to show that not all rushes to tech are successful or possible
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 11, 2024 17:58:01 GMT
On: 4th - Good to hear.
7th - That is a frightening thought for everybody else! 9th - That is a lot of manpower. 13th - I would say at least Regan was concerned with rounding up the guilty rather than beating the hell out of every suspect. 21st - I was thinking of the powered armour and must admit I missed the rail=guns. 26th - Excellent news.
Steve, On Chile, I've been pretty clear from the beginning that things will be different. The drivers for the @ coup, the whole constitutional system, the politics and the broader Cold War context are either not there or different. So no Falklands War in the Darhearth verse, would love to see it happening, would be bigger than the TBO version. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 11, 2024 18:18:23 GMT
Steve, On Chile, I've been pretty clear from the beginning that things will be different. The drivers for the @ coup, the whole constitutional system, the politics and the broader Cold War context are either not there or different. So no Falklands War in the Darhearth verse, would love to see it happening, would be bigger than the TBO version.
Definitely not. Britain is far more powerful and militant here so Argentina would never dare risk it. A dictatorship in crisis as OTL might risk a clash with Chile say but not DE Britain. Also I can't see a Thatcher type leader gaining power in Britain here and also I think the closest British colony is in Patagonia so Argentina would if they did try something insane go for that 1st.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 11, 2024 18:25:09 GMT
So no Falklands War in the Darhearth verse, would love to see it happening, would be bigger than the TBO version. Definitely not. Britain is far more powerful and militant here so Argentina would never dare risk it. A dictatorship in crisis as OTL might risk a clash with Chile say but not DE Britain. Also I can't see a Thatcher type leader gaining power in Britain here and also I think the closest British colony is in Patagonia so Argentina would if they did try something insane go for that 1st.
So Argentinia nor any other South American country would even at full strength be able to go against the British Empire. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 11, 2024 19:15:05 GMT
Definitely not. Britain is far more powerful and militant here so Argentina would never dare risk it. A dictatorship in crisis as OTL might risk a clash with Chile say but not DE Britain. Also I can't see a Thatcher type leader gaining power in Britain here and also I think the closest British colony is in Patagonia so Argentina would if they did try something insane go for that 1st.
So Argentinia nor any other South American country would even at full strength be able to go against the British Empire.
Here Britain, coupled with dominions and other allies is still pretty much a super-power and one very determined to defend its status and position. No sane opponent that is so much weaker will consider something like that. The most that is likely might be some terrorist attacks 'sanctioned' by lower elements in a government - think of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand as the example that comes to mind from OTL but heaven help any mid level nation that tries something like that against DE Britain!
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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 12, 2024 3:36:21 GMT
Steve, On Chile, I've been pretty clear from the beginning that things will be different. The drivers for the @ coup, the whole constitutional system, the politics and the broader Cold War context are either not there or different. So no Falklands War in the Darhearth verse, would love to see it happening, would be bigger than the TBO version. I'm not sure how the Chilean 1973 coup affected the occurence of the Falklands War, but as Steve says, there is no real chance of it. A.) The strategic balance is completely, completely difference from the TBOverse 'slightly different than @' version. In July 1971, we have this: "The British Commonwealth South Atlantic Fleet arrives in Port Stanley on the first stop of an official tour of the Falklands, Prydain, Argentina and Uruguay. Consisting of HMS Hermes, the battleship HMSAS Good Hope, four cruisers, eight destroyers, six frigates, the Royal Navy skyship carrier HMS Leviathan with her squadron of RNAS Hawker-Siddeley Nimrods and the RAF aerodreadnought Solaris, the fleet’s goodwill visits have been bought forward by the recent unrest in Uruguay and the precipitous Argentine naval exercises." That is a nuclear aircraft carrier plus flying vessels, aircraft, a battleship and 18 surface ships. Operating variously between Rio de Janeiro, the River Plate, Simonstown, Saint Helena, Tristan da Cunha and the Falklands, when active. Further discussion here: alternate-timelines.proboards.com/thread/3409/dark-earth-general-discussion?page=2&scrollTo=110040B.) "Argentina (is still) 1200 miles away from the Falklands. Consider this map: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_air_forces_in_the_Falklands_War#/media/File%3AFAA_Air_Bases_1982.gif All of those bases are out. That means that no Argy tactical fighters can reach the Falklands. They can fly bombers down that far, but without escort fighters. If they wanted to have a go, they would be limited to heavy bombers and carrier aircraft, whilst leaving their flank open to airfields in Prydain. That shifts their relative threat, whilst not shifting their general grumpiness about their existence. The bigger issue for Argie nationalists is Prydain, but by virtue of its status as an internationally recognised independent country, their claim is much, much weaker. Even in a world where the League of Nations is weaker than the @ UN, there still hasn’t been an aggressive war of conquest since WW2 for a reason." C.) Even the reduced 1968 defences are sufficient to overwhelm anything short of a division alternate-timelines.proboards.com/thread/3479/dark-earth-new-jerusalem?page=23&scrollTo=148240D.) DE Britain has been 'aware' since 1961 at the extremely secret top level of a 1982 Falklands War in a parallel universe, resulting in the matter being studied, as an academic exercise in force movement, prepositioning, basing and contingency planning. E.) The correlation of forces between the British Empire and Argentina is so far apart it simply isn't funny. Further, this isn't an Empire reticent at protecting its interests or with its hands tied - the 1972/73 deployments into Burundi and Uganda were divisional in strength F.) Argentina is allied with Britain and growing closer together. The Falklands don't really register when there is Prydain right next door, but the small matter of that being an independent, friendly state, which is part of an atomic alliance. Argentina also has its own nuclear weapons, which tends to calm a state down a little. So, of all questions to ask, this one is the easiest to answer, if the most futile. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 12, 2024 3:39:26 GMT
D.) DE Britain has been 'aware' since 1961 at the extremely secret top level of a 1982 Falklands War in a parallel universe, resulting in the matter being studied, as an academic exercise in force movement, prepositioning, basing and contingency planning. This is big, DE having access to parallel universe. |
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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 12, 2024 3:44:32 GMT
Well, it isn't as if it has been the subject of the entire storyline of Never Had it So Good, is then discussed at length in A New Jerusalem and mentioned on a few oblique occasions in the Timeline (see further Lapcat). There isn't any permanent access, but awareness and knowledge harvested from Sam's mind in 1961.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 12, 2024 3:48:44 GMT
Well, it isn't as if it has been the subject of the entire storyline of Never Had it So Good, is then discussed at length in A New Jerusalem and mentioned on a few oblique occasions in the Timeline (see further Lapcat). There isn't any permanent access, but awareness and knowledge harvested from Sam's mind in 1961. Seems i need to re-read everything again, seems i am starting to ask question which answers are already published by you. |
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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 12, 2024 3:56:38 GMT
That could well be useful. With regard to the Timeline, there is a lot in there beyond the first few days of each month; taking some time to collate a few comments can result in greater depth of replies.
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