Number 68 - December 2011/January 2012
For Point of Divergence #68
It's the last two weeks of the semester. A time when students discover that they now have less than two weeks to research, write, and turn in their papers. And a time when students discover that, hey, there's a library at this school...
...or, IOW, it's a hectic time at the library.
I've been talking about the Toll Road the last few disties (mostly because of it's appearance on Pasadena-D). Up until the 20's they used to have car races on it up to Mount Wilson. Well, last month, some Classic Car Collectors got together and got permission to drive their vehicles up the Toll Road – if not as far as Mount Wilson, at least to Henninger Flats (about two-and-a-half miles).
And this is them, getting ready to go:
On with the show!
...or, IOW, it's a hectic time at the library.
I've been talking about the Toll Road the last few disties (mostly because of it's appearance on Pasadena-D). Up until the 20's they used to have car races on it up to Mount Wilson. Well, last month, some Classic Car Collectors got together and got permission to drive their vehicles up the Toll Road – if not as far as Mount Wilson, at least to Henninger Flats (about two-and-a-half miles).
And this is them, getting ready to go:
The last picture shows them on the bridge over the river, on their way up. They managed to get about twelve cars together for this little journey – the first since about 1965 or so (the Toll Road these days is just a fire road/hiking trail – closed to vehicles). Rather cool collection of old cars...though a lot dustier after the trip than they are in these pictures. 
Meanwhile, a friend of our's cat had kittens – three of them. Cute little balls of fluff that for various fur-related reasons, Dee Dee and Allison named “Pandy,” “Edward Nygma,” and “Joey Ramon.” Amazingly, I managed to keep Dee Dee from bringing any of them home, but it was a struggle... |
Divergent Opinions - Comments on P.O.D. 67
Cover
I see what you're trying to do there. But from a thematic standpoint, given that a more robust pre-WWII TV system still would have been black and white, shouldn't all those network logos be in shades of gray?
Me
ct: Wesley Kawato: re: Tesla: “BTW, even assuming the laws of physics break horribly and this thing was possible, why would you mount it on ships when you've just shown you can hit anywhere in the world from a land-based location?” Well, with a couple of month's further thought, I've changed my mind. For I've come up with a reason.
Targeting.
Barring really, really, really accurate maps and real-time data – you know, like you get from modern satellites, which they won't have – for all the power of this wonder weapon, if you want to hit anything that isn't large and fixed,1 you're still pretty much limited to targets you can actually see, and see in real-time.
So, Wesley, you get your Tesla-mounting battleships. And my ubër-WWIII scenario's gotten a bit less likely.
re: “RoC & the Sea,” pt2: I've already made a few tweaks here and there. Mostly to correct some errors that slipped in because – originally – I had Maria up at the Navy Pier in Monterey Bay, rather than in San Pedro, and not everything got corrected for it being a different location (which is why, for example, she could take a train from home north to go there and go north to go back home). It doesn't really change events per se to move it from Monterey to San Pedro, but still, it seemed to make Senator William's speech on San Pedro Bay at the beginning of the story rather pointless if we never actually got to see the place...
Couple of other notes on it: I moved the date Churchward went crazy started writing his “Mu” theories back to 1911, rather than OTLs 1926. It just made the events date better (though the only specifically mentioned date in this section is on the telegraph). Also, it seemed Bradford would be more likely to start “hanging out” with a sixty-year-old guy than one who was seventy-five. Given I'm stretching my POD's probabilities by having a Churchward this close to OTL's at all, I feel I can get away with this.
To be fair, his name should probably be “Random-Guy-Who-Came-Up-With-Lost-Continent-Of-The-Pacific-Theories-Similar-To-OTL's Churchward,” but that's a hell of a mouthful and – really – getting too nit-picky even for me for a little side story(s) like this.
“Raa Island's” location is actually the location of OTLs “Ernest Legouve Reef”...assuming that it ever existed (it's a “phantom island,” after all). That's also roughly the location of Verne's “Lincoln Island” as well.
Targeting.
Barring really, really, really accurate maps and real-time data – you know, like you get from modern satellites, which they won't have – for all the power of this wonder weapon, if you want to hit anything that isn't large and fixed,1 you're still pretty much limited to targets you can actually see, and see in real-time.
So, Wesley, you get your Tesla-mounting battleships. And my ubër-WWIII scenario's gotten a bit less likely.
re: “RoC & the Sea,” pt2: I've already made a few tweaks here and there. Mostly to correct some errors that slipped in because – originally – I had Maria up at the Navy Pier in Monterey Bay, rather than in San Pedro, and not everything got corrected for it being a different location (which is why, for example, she could take a train from home north to go there and go north to go back home). It doesn't really change events per se to move it from Monterey to San Pedro, but still, it seemed to make Senator William's speech on San Pedro Bay at the beginning of the story rather pointless if we never actually got to see the place...
Couple of other notes on it: I moved the date Churchward went crazy started writing his “Mu” theories back to 1911, rather than OTLs 1926. It just made the events date better (though the only specifically mentioned date in this section is on the telegraph). Also, it seemed Bradford would be more likely to start “hanging out” with a sixty-year-old guy than one who was seventy-five. Given I'm stretching my POD's probabilities by having a Churchward this close to OTL's at all, I feel I can get away with this.
To be fair, his name should probably be “Random-Guy-Who-Came-Up-With-Lost-Continent-Of-The-Pacific-Theories-Similar-To-OTL's Churchward,” but that's a hell of a mouthful and – really – getting too nit-picky even for me for a little side story(s) like this.
“Raa Island's” location is actually the location of OTLs “Ernest Legouve Reef”...assuming that it ever existed (it's a “phantom island,” after all). That's also roughly the location of Verne's “Lincoln Island” as well.
TrolleyWorld: Where Fact, Fiction and What-If Collide!!!
Robert Gill
re: Spike's AH: Yeah. I got about half-way through the episode, then – in a burst of manly restraint – simply deleted it from the DVR rather than throwing the remote though the TV...
re: “Terra Nova”: I've watched the first two...and keep rubbing my finger over the “delete” button for the rest that are on the DVR. Apart from the “Darwin Awardness” of most of the characters, the fact that in the very first episode, they could pump dozens of rounds from very big guns into dinosaurs and they kept moving bugs the hell out of me. I hate it when real animals get treated like mythological monsters – you put that many bullets in anything, let alone something that “only” weighs a couple, three tons, it dies...period.
re: Doctor Who: I actually thought how they handled the Brig's death on Who very well: A last nod to Nicholas Courtney, and a scene that showed the Doctor realizing while he had all of time, he didn't have forever...
ct: Me: I was unaware of Martin's hostility towards fan-made versions of his stuff. That said, I'd probably still have done the cover as – quite frankly – he's being a dick...
...besides, it isn't actually doing fanfic or whatever, it's my creation of an alternate history where his show was picked up. His characters, storylines, overarching plots, I used none of that nor made up any of my own. I just made up a world with a successful Doorways in it.
Invader Zim is well worth watching. Mind you, Nickelodeon canceled the series before it came to a conclusion (there was to be another sixteen episodes & a TV movie to finish things up) – the series actually did have an overall story arc to it...if neatly disguised/buried beneath a sea of meat jokes...2
Jhonen Vasquez – Zim's creator – has made hints about what this was all leading up to...but given it is about Zim, no one's sure if he's kidding or not.
I'm pretty sure the “skelter beetle” was supposed to be a product of that world's evolution – otherwise, why would Dr. Silva have to save it from extinction? So, yeah, now we've pushed the split back, what, potentially tens of millions of years?
It's also obviously a pun on the Beatle's song “Helter Skelter...”
More and more, Fringe's AH looks to be a collection of “hey, that sounds cools” than anything coherently plotted out.
ct: Kawato: As out-there as Sanctuary usually is, Tesla really did have a plan to bring about world peace with a “death ray” (or as he called it, “Peace Ray” - or as we'd call it, a particle beam weapon).
Basically, it was another one of those “weapons that make war impossible” – at least, air-war – ideas. You basically set the rays up all around your country, and anyone trying to invade got zapped. And, given they were limited to two-hundred miles of range (due to the curvature of the Earth) – and the length of your very heavy-duty extension cord – acto Tesla, you couldn't really use them to attack another country.
(which is a remarkably Amerio-centric thought from someone who was born in a country less than two-hundred miles wide. Still, this was the time when people thought bombers were going to be the be all and end all of warfare because "the bombers will always get through" – so anything that would shoot down all bombers would essentially stop a war in its tracks. Basically, it was the SDI of its time)
re: “Terra Nova”: I've watched the first two...and keep rubbing my finger over the “delete” button for the rest that are on the DVR. Apart from the “Darwin Awardness” of most of the characters, the fact that in the very first episode, they could pump dozens of rounds from very big guns into dinosaurs and they kept moving bugs the hell out of me. I hate it when real animals get treated like mythological monsters – you put that many bullets in anything, let alone something that “only” weighs a couple, three tons, it dies...period.
re: Doctor Who: I actually thought how they handled the Brig's death on Who very well: A last nod to Nicholas Courtney, and a scene that showed the Doctor realizing while he had all of time, he didn't have forever...
ct: Me: I was unaware of Martin's hostility towards fan-made versions of his stuff. That said, I'd probably still have done the cover as – quite frankly – he's being a dick...
...besides, it isn't actually doing fanfic or whatever, it's my creation of an alternate history where his show was picked up. His characters, storylines, overarching plots, I used none of that nor made up any of my own. I just made up a world with a successful Doorways in it.
Invader Zim is well worth watching. Mind you, Nickelodeon canceled the series before it came to a conclusion (there was to be another sixteen episodes & a TV movie to finish things up) – the series actually did have an overall story arc to it...if neatly disguised/buried beneath a sea of meat jokes...2
Jhonen Vasquez – Zim's creator – has made hints about what this was all leading up to...but given it is about Zim, no one's sure if he's kidding or not.
I'm pretty sure the “skelter beetle” was supposed to be a product of that world's evolution – otherwise, why would Dr. Silva have to save it from extinction? So, yeah, now we've pushed the split back, what, potentially tens of millions of years?
It's also obviously a pun on the Beatle's song “Helter Skelter...”
More and more, Fringe's AH looks to be a collection of “hey, that sounds cools” than anything coherently plotted out.
ct: Kawato: As out-there as Sanctuary usually is, Tesla really did have a plan to bring about world peace with a “death ray” (or as he called it, “Peace Ray” - or as we'd call it, a particle beam weapon).
Basically, it was another one of those “weapons that make war impossible” – at least, air-war – ideas. You basically set the rays up all around your country, and anyone trying to invade got zapped. And, given they were limited to two-hundred miles of range (due to the curvature of the Earth) – and the length of your very heavy-duty extension cord – acto Tesla, you couldn't really use them to attack another country.
(which is a remarkably Amerio-centric thought from someone who was born in a country less than two-hundred miles wide. Still, this was the time when people thought bombers were going to be the be all and end all of warfare because "the bombers will always get through" – so anything that would shoot down all bombers would essentially stop a war in its tracks. Basically, it was the SDI of its time)
Dale Cozort
re: POD TV:
“It sounds like an indie startup, though I suspect it would have far more resources than we do simply to survive in those shark-infested waters.” Maybe. They may just have a nice website too, given their only finished production appears to be a Pepsi commercial. And nothing else about them pops up doing a quick google...except their web pages. And the “clients” and “videos” pages there are password protected, so you can't see if they actually have any of either.
Given by what I see in L.A., there are (tens of?) thousands of “production companies” out there. In the old days, you would at least need the resources to rent a small office and print some business cards with that address. These days, I think you can pretty much get away with just a web address on those business cards.
Heck, given that – even now – the number of “POD: The Apa” members seems to exceed the number of “the team” they list on their site, we may have more resources than they do!
Honestly, the probability that they'll get their AH show on the air is nearly as low as a “successful sealion” ...and even if they do, there's probably only a 5% chance it'll still be called “Point of Divergence.” These things usually get renamed a couple of times at best, especially when they use big words like “Divergence.”
And note, “this summer” has come and gone.
re: “The Wings Fall Off”: Nice story. Well paced and with a good ending (my nemesis)...
...but I'm still going to nitpick...
What about the book makes Red think it's something special rather than, say, a bog-standard futurist book (since the silver woman described it as a manual to compress two-hundred years of tech advance into ten, well, that describes a lot of futurist books out there)? How much of it did he have to read to figure that out?
“The intense made him hesitate” I think you're missing the word “cold” there.
I'm not sure why you would unfreeze anyone but the tied up guy. Oh sure, he may be the bad guy, not the guys with guns – but he's tied up. So unfreeze him, have a nice talk, then decide.
BTW, their bodies require “enormous energy to keep their form,” but a laptop battery is enough to flip them back out of their “frozen” state? Seems a bit of a conundrum...
There, finished the nitpicks. Cool story.
re: “A Dad Should Have Nightmares” pt1: Finally, a “Nazi's win WWII” scenario where the only viable option they have to do that is taken – don't fight WWII!
However, given such a timeline, would the Germans be so advanced in rocketry that there's a moon landing by 1955? Research in that was driven mostly by the defense needs created by a Germany that was slowly going to lose the war. No war (and Goering in charge), maybe no V2.
And the U.S. should be capable of putting something in orbit in a world where even Italy has a space program!
Not sure how Germany would lock up the shipbuilding market, but what the hey.
“The bomb is too heavy to fit on a rocket.” Honestly, I can't see any calculation that would get him that answer in a timeline where rockets are big enough to build space stations and go to the Moon (even if the mooncraft was assembled in orbit). Yeah, I know he's trying to make himself believe that, still...
“He checked the car for bugs and trackers.” Unless all technology has advanced as fast as rocketry, this is still an era of “portable” tube amp'd radios the size (if not shape) of a laptop (with batteries that die after about two, three hours tops) and “miniature” wire recorders about the size of two soda cans, side by side.
And I don't even know what a “tracker” would consist of back then. Probably something giving out a continual radio signal that if they have enough receivers with loop antennas, they can almost figure out where you are.
Basically what I'm saying is that he may be taking precautions more necessary a decade later (at least) then when he is.
Of course, I don't really know what the POD is or how we got to 1955 here, so all of the above may well be explained...and it's just in a later part (or at worst, the backstory).
There will be later parts, right?
re: “There Will Always be an England” pt5: Nice section covering the chaos of having to retreat under fire quite well.
re: “Snapshot” pt9 (wait, it was pt9 last time, shouldn't it be 10?): A nice load of backstory (and story story) presented in a rational and believable way. Kudos.
“Fido and Lyles's old dog King...” Sounds like Fido and Lyle collectively own King. Maybe “Lyle's old dog King and Fido” would be better.
“Like inkblots...another thing they don't do over here I guess” That seems unlikely – or at least, Lyle not knowing what it is does (especially if all their asylums are still full...;)). The Rorschach test was invented in the twenties and I'm almost sure it was in common enough use for the Marx Brothers and a few other 30s/40s movies to do bits about it – though in what movies, I couldn't tell you. Given the SOTA of psychiatry in the 1950s, I can't see it not coming into as much use in US53 as in US2011
re: “The BEMs Really Are Alien” pt2: I'll be the last person to complain about someone writing “by the seat of their pants” - especially when it turns out such interesting pants as these.
I have no more idea where it's going than you...but I hope it keeps going.
re: Soviets as Number One: “The Soviets then join the Allies, and partition Germany.” Okay, I was going with this until here – but how does this happen? The Soviet actions the last two years (to say nothing of keeping Germany supplied during that time) have got to be worrying the Allies nearly as much as Hitler's. Sans Germany attacking them – which you don't have happening in this scenario as it's unlikely as all get out – and I think the best you could get would be a “you're fighting the same enemy, but not the same war” situation. As such, a “partition” would be more the cease fire line between the two than anything negotiated and have a definite “DMZ” feel to it. I'd also like to think it is more likely to be in Poland than Germany.
I'm pretty sure you can't get a situation where the Allies go from defeating Germany to attacking the Soviets – not being Hitler, they're not clinically insane – but OTOH, this is going to be a “Cold War” with a lot of itchy trigger fingers on both sides. I suspect the Allies still develop nukes first (if only because they look like a relatively cheap equalizer to all those Soviet forces) – do they then try to use them to force a Soviet pull-back to 1939 borders? That can't possibly have good results when the Soviets develop/steal theirs a few more years down the line.
re: Surviving Aztecs: I honestly don't see them surviving (as an “empire” anyway) much more than another century or so. Just too much of their empire didn't want to be in it – and maybe that “Tarascan strategy” is “less efficient” short term, long term it actually creates a more unified empire than the Aztecs version, which was basically send the army out every year to give the subject tribes their annual beating and make sure they sent in their tribute.3
Then throw in all the external threats, the fact that they had so much of their population tied up in the army they literally had to get tribute or starve (an army that had to keep growing, because they kept expanding the empire)...they were a “fall” waiting to happen. On OTL, the trigger was the Spanish, but it's pretty obvious that all it needed was a trigger.
ct: Robert Gill: “US manufacturers produce five or six percent of world production (down from 41 percent in 1997)” which sounds real bad...but if production worldwide is “170 times what they were” in 1997 as well, that means that they've still had a twenty-fold increase in production. It's just that China has had a much, much bigger increase.
“On of the biggest problems in the US part of the solar cell field is that” Huh? “Is that” what? It just ends here.
ct: Me: Invader Zim is well worth putting in your Netflix queue - and there are some low-res uploads of many of the episodes on Youtube.
I'm not sure exactly what the relationship our cats and the opossums have. The cats are used to four cats eating out of one bowl, so I suppose they don't see anything wrong with that fifth, funny-looking, cat having some. And as far as the opossum side, ones we saw were fairly young, so since the cats aren't actively doing anything to stop them, they may think they're just funny-looking opossums who have already eaten.
I suppose there'd be more problems if that was the only available food and both sides weren't as well fed.
I've never seen racoons and opossums interact myself – though that may simply be because I only see raccoon three or four times a year and rarely if ever in the backyard. Since they are in a lot more direct competition with opossums than opossums are with slightly-over-fed cats, I suspect there'd be a lot of mutual posturing at one-another...and then the opossum would run off to an easier target.
Quite apart from the fact that the raccoon outweighs it about four to one, around here, when I see raccoons they often are going about in pacts of two or three – which is probably enough to make a hungry coyote think twice about messing with them let alone a opossum.
“the main reason to do it is to force the Allies to put forces into the new version new Britain.” Okay, that makes sense. It's stupid – in the way a lot of Nazi war plans were – but it makes sense that they'd do that.
“I don't think the vast majority of city people are going to try to go sweeping out through the countryside looting until it is far too late for them to do so.” Interestingly enough, back in 1978, James Burke's Connections handled this very scenario right in episode 1, "The Trigger Effect". If you look it up on YouTube, it's halfway through part III of the episode.
My initial reaction to Stirling's view of the collapse “it both falls apart and comes back together (as a feudal society) too fast “ seems to be holding up pretty well.
ct: Kurt: “So the builders computerized your lights and left no instructions/schematic. Lots of fun to be had there.” Oh yeah, simply tons of fun...
I may have to try “Write or Die.”
re: Parting Thoughts: “If sequencing of DNA gets cheap enough, police could reconstruct enough about a person from a stray hair, to narrow a suspect list...” And we can finally seem just how much nurture vs nature effects your final appearance.
Given by what I see in L.A., there are (tens of?) thousands of “production companies” out there. In the old days, you would at least need the resources to rent a small office and print some business cards with that address. These days, I think you can pretty much get away with just a web address on those business cards.
Heck, given that – even now – the number of “POD: The Apa” members seems to exceed the number of “the team” they list on their site, we may have more resources than they do!
Honestly, the probability that they'll get their AH show on the air is nearly as low as a “successful sealion” ...and even if they do, there's probably only a 5% chance it'll still be called “Point of Divergence.” These things usually get renamed a couple of times at best, especially when they use big words like “Divergence.”
And note, “this summer” has come and gone.
re: “The Wings Fall Off”: Nice story. Well paced and with a good ending (my nemesis)...
...but I'm still going to nitpick...
What about the book makes Red think it's something special rather than, say, a bog-standard futurist book (since the silver woman described it as a manual to compress two-hundred years of tech advance into ten, well, that describes a lot of futurist books out there)? How much of it did he have to read to figure that out?
“The intense made him hesitate” I think you're missing the word “cold” there.
I'm not sure why you would unfreeze anyone but the tied up guy. Oh sure, he may be the bad guy, not the guys with guns – but he's tied up. So unfreeze him, have a nice talk, then decide.
BTW, their bodies require “enormous energy to keep their form,” but a laptop battery is enough to flip them back out of their “frozen” state? Seems a bit of a conundrum...
There, finished the nitpicks. Cool story.
re: “A Dad Should Have Nightmares” pt1: Finally, a “Nazi's win WWII” scenario where the only viable option they have to do that is taken – don't fight WWII!
However, given such a timeline, would the Germans be so advanced in rocketry that there's a moon landing by 1955? Research in that was driven mostly by the defense needs created by a Germany that was slowly going to lose the war. No war (and Goering in charge), maybe no V2.
And the U.S. should be capable of putting something in orbit in a world where even Italy has a space program!
Not sure how Germany would lock up the shipbuilding market, but what the hey.
“The bomb is too heavy to fit on a rocket.” Honestly, I can't see any calculation that would get him that answer in a timeline where rockets are big enough to build space stations and go to the Moon (even if the mooncraft was assembled in orbit). Yeah, I know he's trying to make himself believe that, still...
And I don't even know what a “tracker” would consist of back then. Probably something giving out a continual radio signal that if they have enough receivers with loop antennas, they can almost figure out where you are.
Basically what I'm saying is that he may be taking precautions more necessary a decade later (at least) then when he is.
Of course, I don't really know what the POD is or how we got to 1955 here, so all of the above may well be explained...and it's just in a later part (or at worst, the backstory).
There will be later parts, right?
re: “There Will Always be an England” pt5: Nice section covering the chaos of having to retreat under fire quite well.
re: “Snapshot” pt9 (wait, it was pt9 last time, shouldn't it be 10?): A nice load of backstory (and story story) presented in a rational and believable way. Kudos.
“Fido and Lyles's old dog King...” Sounds like Fido and Lyle collectively own King. Maybe “Lyle's old dog King and Fido” would be better.
“Like inkblots...another thing they don't do over here I guess” That seems unlikely – or at least, Lyle not knowing what it is does (especially if all their asylums are still full...;)). The Rorschach test was invented in the twenties and I'm almost sure it was in common enough use for the Marx Brothers and a few other 30s/40s movies to do bits about it – though in what movies, I couldn't tell you. Given the SOTA of psychiatry in the 1950s, I can't see it not coming into as much use in US53 as in US2011
re: “The BEMs Really Are Alien” pt2: I'll be the last person to complain about someone writing “by the seat of their pants” - especially when it turns out such interesting pants as these.
I have no more idea where it's going than you...but I hope it keeps going.
re: Soviets as Number One: “The Soviets then join the Allies, and partition Germany.” Okay, I was going with this until here – but how does this happen? The Soviet actions the last two years (to say nothing of keeping Germany supplied during that time) have got to be worrying the Allies nearly as much as Hitler's. Sans Germany attacking them – which you don't have happening in this scenario as it's unlikely as all get out – and I think the best you could get would be a “you're fighting the same enemy, but not the same war” situation. As such, a “partition” would be more the cease fire line between the two than anything negotiated and have a definite “DMZ” feel to it. I'd also like to think it is more likely to be in Poland than Germany.
I'm pretty sure you can't get a situation where the Allies go from defeating Germany to attacking the Soviets – not being Hitler, they're not clinically insane – but OTOH, this is going to be a “Cold War” with a lot of itchy trigger fingers on both sides. I suspect the Allies still develop nukes first (if only because they look like a relatively cheap equalizer to all those Soviet forces) – do they then try to use them to force a Soviet pull-back to 1939 borders? That can't possibly have good results when the Soviets develop/steal theirs a few more years down the line.
re: Surviving Aztecs: I honestly don't see them surviving (as an “empire” anyway) much more than another century or so. Just too much of their empire didn't want to be in it – and maybe that “Tarascan strategy” is “less efficient” short term, long term it actually creates a more unified empire than the Aztecs version, which was basically send the army out every year to give the subject tribes their annual beating and make sure they sent in their tribute.3
Then throw in all the external threats, the fact that they had so much of their population tied up in the army they literally had to get tribute or starve (an army that had to keep growing, because they kept expanding the empire)...they were a “fall” waiting to happen. On OTL, the trigger was the Spanish, but it's pretty obvious that all it needed was a trigger.
ct: Robert Gill: “US manufacturers produce five or six percent of world production (down from 41 percent in 1997)” which sounds real bad...but if production worldwide is “170 times what they were” in 1997 as well, that means that they've still had a twenty-fold increase in production. It's just that China has had a much, much bigger increase.
“On of the biggest problems in the US part of the solar cell field is that” Huh? “Is that” what? It just ends here.
ct: Me: Invader Zim is well worth putting in your Netflix queue - and there are some low-res uploads of many of the episodes on Youtube.
I'm not sure exactly what the relationship our cats and the opossums have. The cats are used to four cats eating out of one bowl, so I suppose they don't see anything wrong with that fifth, funny-looking, cat having some. And as far as the opossum side, ones we saw were fairly young, so since the cats aren't actively doing anything to stop them, they may think they're just funny-looking opossums who have already eaten.
I suppose there'd be more problems if that was the only available food and both sides weren't as well fed.
I've never seen racoons and opossums interact myself – though that may simply be because I only see raccoon three or four times a year and rarely if ever in the backyard. Since they are in a lot more direct competition with opossums than opossums are with slightly-over-fed cats, I suspect there'd be a lot of mutual posturing at one-another...and then the opossum would run off to an easier target.
Quite apart from the fact that the raccoon outweighs it about four to one, around here, when I see raccoons they often are going about in pacts of two or three – which is probably enough to make a hungry coyote think twice about messing with them let alone a opossum.
“the main reason to do it is to force the Allies to put forces into the new version new Britain.” Okay, that makes sense. It's stupid – in the way a lot of Nazi war plans were – but it makes sense that they'd do that.
“I don't think the vast majority of city people are going to try to go sweeping out through the countryside looting until it is far too late for them to do so.” Interestingly enough, back in 1978, James Burke's Connections handled this very scenario right in episode 1, "The Trigger Effect". If you look it up on YouTube, it's halfway through part III of the episode.
My initial reaction to Stirling's view of the collapse “it both falls apart and comes back together (as a feudal society) too fast “ seems to be holding up pretty well.
ct: Kurt: “So the builders computerized your lights and left no instructions/schematic. Lots of fun to be had there.” Oh yeah, simply tons of fun...
I may have to try “Write or Die.”
re: Parting Thoughts: “If sequencing of DNA gets cheap enough, police could reconstruct enough about a person from a stray hair, to narrow a suspect list...” And we can finally seem just how much nurture vs nature effects your final appearance.
Kurt Sidaway
Did take your advice on the “what do you expect” line in Blue Flash:
ct: Me: ct: Jim R: Yep. Definitely a “plan that began with a lot of beer, as well as ending with some...”
ct: Dale Cozort: “Do you really need to explain that mammoths are elephant-like?” Remember, he's writing for a primarily American audience...;)
ct: Wesley Kawato: Congrats! You latched on to the whole “targeting” problem a disty before I did.
re: “Mitteleuropa” pt4: The number of players in this little drama just keeps increasing...and all of them know more than Daniel about what's going on.
“some pulp novel” I know it isn't, but for some reason this seems too early to use this term instead of something like “penny dreadful” (though it may be too late for that one).
Karl seems to sober up pretty quick.
The aside about journalists mostly working as “our correspondent” is a bit long, it breaks into the story too much.
Okay, I'm liking this more and more (and not just because of the inclusion of visible paragraph breaks!) and I'm very curious how you're going to link all these things (letters, spies, wars, strange young men, future Queens) together.
I reached up and jiggled the handle briefly...and the front door, of course, was locked. Standing there, handle in my hand, I briefly contemplated looking under the mat for a spare key – not that I put spare keys under mats and that was something so stupid I couldn't see any other me doing that either.
Rose looked at me, still holding the handle, and raised an eyebrow.
“It's locked,” I said, probably needlessly.
“What did you expect?” She asked back. “No one's home, so the door's locked. Why would that be a surprise?”
“I don't know, everything else we've seen has been a weird retro 1930s or 40s or 50s, I thought maybe it would be like when my grandparents said 'in the old days, we could just leave the front door unlocked.'”
She gave a short giggle. “Oh sure. My gramma says that too. But she never manages to explain why all the front doors had locks on them to leave unlocked in the first place if they were so unnecessary.”
Ten points for Rose...or Ravenclaw...or something...
Tired of jiggling a locked door and looking like an idiot, I decided we'd try the back door.
Rose looked at me, still holding the handle, and raised an eyebrow.
“It's locked,” I said, probably needlessly.
“What did you expect?” She asked back. “No one's home, so the door's locked. Why would that be a surprise?”
“I don't know, everything else we've seen has been a weird retro 1930s or 40s or 50s, I thought maybe it would be like when my grandparents said 'in the old days, we could just leave the front door unlocked.'”
She gave a short giggle. “Oh sure. My gramma says that too. But she never manages to explain why all the front doors had locks on them to leave unlocked in the first place if they were so unnecessary.”
Ten points for Rose...or Ravenclaw...or something...
Tired of jiggling a locked door and looking like an idiot, I decided we'd try the back door.
ct: Me: ct: Jim R: Yep. Definitely a “plan that began with a lot of beer, as well as ending with some...”
ct: Dale Cozort: “Do you really need to explain that mammoths are elephant-like?” Remember, he's writing for a primarily American audience...;)
ct: Wesley Kawato: Congrats! You latched on to the whole “targeting” problem a disty before I did.
re: “Mitteleuropa” pt4: The number of players in this little drama just keeps increasing...and all of them know more than Daniel about what's going on.
“some pulp novel” I know it isn't, but for some reason this seems too early to use this term instead of something like “penny dreadful” (though it may be too late for that one).
Karl seems to sober up pretty quick.
The aside about journalists mostly working as “our correspondent” is a bit long, it breaks into the story too much.
Okay, I'm liking this more and more (and not just because of the inclusion of visible paragraph breaks!) and I'm very curious how you're going to link all these things (letters, spies, wars, strange young men, future Queens) together.
Anthony Docimo
ct: Me: ct: You:
“I was unclear...I didn't mean that West Florida stops the annexation, I meant that the USA never gets around to annexing West Florida.” I'm not sure I was any clearer then. I was saying that – no matter what the feeling was in West Florida – the USA was going to annex it. Access to the Gulf was/would be just too important for Alabama/Western Georgia for it to stay on any sort of “back burner” for very long. Heck, too long and I'd expect those two to do some annexing all on their own.
Wikipededia says that for Alabama “Individual statehood was delayed, however, by the territory's lack of a coastline.” If that doesn't give them a huge reason to push for annexation, I don't know what would. Mind you, such a scenario is likely to shorten/eliminate the “Panhandle” all together, rather than just cut it in half as on OTL.
re: “In and Out and...”: I'll be honest, I totally lost at what was going on here (and to who). Just too many concepts stuffed into a less than three-page story.
Wikipededia says that for Alabama “Individual statehood was delayed, however, by the territory's lack of a coastline.” If that doesn't give them a huge reason to push for annexation, I don't know what would. Mind you, such a scenario is likely to shorten/eliminate the “Panhandle” all together, rather than just cut it in half as on OTL.
re: “In and Out and...”: I'll be honest, I totally lost at what was going on here (and to who). Just too many concepts stuffed into a less than three-page story.
Tom Cron
Sorry to hear about your Mom. I lost mine in 2006 and – while it does get better – I still sometimes forget I can't tell her something.
re: AH News:
“He asks why steampunk worlds reach Victorian-level technology, then stop.” Odd thing to say about a genre where “Victorian” tech levels area apparently high enough to build spaceships, computers, giant war-mecha...
Anyway, it's probably because if technology advances too far, well, then the use of steam will – like in our timeline – start disappearing, replaced by better power sources.4
And no steam, no steampunk. It “just” becomes another AH story, with some interesting technology in the timeline leading up to its current day.
ct: Kawato: The “Tesla caused Tunguska” theory was created by Oliver Nichelson. And – as Wikipedia says – “This theory failed to gain many adherents owing to the lack of positive evidence, the presence of meteoroid fragments in soils and trees from the time, and the fact that the Wardenclyffe Tower was largely or entirely inactive at that time.”
Best bet still rides on it being a comet – with a small (and fragile) asteroid being a reasonable second.
One thing I hadn't know (thanks Wikipedia!) was that the impact may have created a small lake seven kims away from the main blast site – Lake Cheko – formed from a chunk of the disintegrating body that actually did hit the ground.
re: The Beatles at Woodstock: Well lookee what I found online...
So, they were invited, but to get them to Woodstock you pretty much need them them to still be touring – or at least, doing some concerts – in '69 and for them not to be in the studio during that weekend.5 Still speaking to one-another would be a bonus.
However, if you can get them still touring, the butterflies will be more than enough to move the studio time enough one way or another, so that's half the problem solved.
Therefore, we simply need to keep them doing a few concerts through 1969. Simplest way to do that is probably to keep Brian Epstein alive – so no overdose death for him in 1967. Maybe his stay at the Priory Clinic is more successful – or maybe (as there are suggestions it was a suicide rather than accidental) he's just feeling a bit better that 27th of August...someone gave him a kitten or something.
This alone probably would not be enough to keep them doing tours – they were a lot of work for the band and, more importantly, they wanted to do a lot more things with their music than could be done by a four-piece band on stage (try doing Sgt Pepper live, for example. You pretty much need to bring an entire orchestra with you!).
Still, even if there are no long tours, a handful of individual concerts would not be out of the question and that should be all we need.
So comes the Summer of '69, Epstein decides that they need to do something to boost sales of The White Album (which would be a different album, given a still living Epstein, probably no Maharishi, and a less argumen-tative Beatles) which had gotten poor reviews and was not doing as well as Sgt Pepper had.6
And here comes this invitation to a little festival in Upstate New York.
Well, it isn't huge, but they seem to be getting some big names and – anyway – the “boys” don't really want any more concerts where “the screaming is so loud we couldn't even hear Ringo's drums.” Besides, it's only three days and just a quick hop across the pond. It's perfect...
re: AH News:
Anyway, it's probably because if technology advances too far, well, then the use of steam will – like in our timeline – start disappearing, replaced by better power sources.4
And no steam, no steampunk. It “just” becomes another AH story, with some interesting technology in the timeline leading up to its current day.
ct: Kawato: The “Tesla caused Tunguska” theory was created by Oliver Nichelson. And – as Wikipedia says – “This theory failed to gain many adherents owing to the lack of positive evidence, the presence of meteoroid fragments in soils and trees from the time, and the fact that the Wardenclyffe Tower was largely or entirely inactive at that time.”
Best bet still rides on it being a comet – with a small (and fragile) asteroid being a reasonable second.
One thing I hadn't know (thanks Wikipedia!) was that the impact may have created a small lake seven kims away from the main blast site – Lake Cheko – formed from a chunk of the disintegrating body that actually did hit the ground.
re: The Beatles at Woodstock: Well lookee what I found online...
“Woodstock, Declined Invitations:
1) The Beatles (John Lennon said he couldn't get them together)”
“Woodstock took place the weekend of Aug. 15-17, 1969. On the 15th, the Beatles were nearing the end of recording Abbey Road, so would not be available.”
“Their last live concert was in 1966, and their only live appearance after that was an impromptu performance on the roof of Abbey Road Studios in January 1969. They were all working on their solo projects during the summer of 1969 and barely spoke to each other”
1) The Beatles (John Lennon said he couldn't get them together)”
“Woodstock took place the weekend of Aug. 15-17, 1969. On the 15th, the Beatles were nearing the end of recording Abbey Road, so would not be available.”
“Their last live concert was in 1966, and their only live appearance after that was an impromptu performance on the roof of Abbey Road Studios in January 1969. They were all working on their solo projects during the summer of 1969 and barely spoke to each other”
So, they were invited, but to get them to Woodstock you pretty much need them them to still be touring – or at least, doing some concerts – in '69 and for them not to be in the studio during that weekend.5 Still speaking to one-another would be a bonus.
However, if you can get them still touring, the butterflies will be more than enough to move the studio time enough one way or another, so that's half the problem solved.
Therefore, we simply need to keep them doing a few concerts through 1969. Simplest way to do that is probably to keep Brian Epstein alive – so no overdose death for him in 1967. Maybe his stay at the Priory Clinic is more successful – or maybe (as there are suggestions it was a suicide rather than accidental) he's just feeling a bit better that 27th of August...someone gave him a kitten or something.
This alone probably would not be enough to keep them doing tours – they were a lot of work for the band and, more importantly, they wanted to do a lot more things with their music than could be done by a four-piece band on stage (try doing Sgt Pepper live, for example. You pretty much need to bring an entire orchestra with you!).
Still, even if there are no long tours, a handful of individual concerts would not be out of the question and that should be all we need.
So comes the Summer of '69, Epstein decides that they need to do something to boost sales of The White Album (which would be a different album, given a still living Epstein, probably no Maharishi, and a less argumen-tative Beatles) which had gotten poor reviews and was not doing as well as Sgt Pepper had.6
And here comes this invitation to a little festival in Upstate New York.
Well, it isn't huge, but they seem to be getting some big names and – anyway – the “boys” don't really want any more concerts where “the screaming is so loud we couldn't even hear Ringo's drums.” Besides, it's only three days and just a quick hop across the pond. It's perfect...
Wesley Kawato
ct: me:
Better – but you've still got the wrong dates, locations, etc:
from Georgia's Blue and Gray Trail
From the outset, Southerners questioned whether Maryland would join the Confederacy, as did most of Washington, D. C.. Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks sent a number of pro-Union signals in speeches dating back to 1858 ("Maryland is devoted to the Union"). By 1860 the governor was saying "...if the Union must be dissolved let it be done calmly, deliberately, and after full reflection..." In a letter dated November 27, 1861 Know Nothing (American Party) Governor Hicks explicitly refused to call a secessionist convention in Maryland stating "I see nothing in the bare election of Abraham Lincoln that would justify the South in taking any steps tending toward a separation of these States."
On December 6 the Democrat legislature agreed, passing legislation that said, in part, "we will firmly resist being dragged into secession." Governor Hicks reiterated his intention of not calling a secessionist convention on January 5, 1861 (This address was published on January 6, which is sometimes given as the date). For two days (February 18-19, 1861) following the formation of the Confederacy, the legislature decided to call a convention. Representatives from each county met in Baltimore to discuss secession, but the "Conference Convention" fell short of planning any action. Instead, they simply recommended that if Virginia seceded, then Maryland should also secede.
When the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter only seven states were in the Confederacy. Sumter, however, solidified support for the Confederacy and Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas quickly followed the other slave states. The remaining states with a large number of slaves (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri) were more deeply divided because large portions of the electorate did not support slavery.
While the Lincoln Administration began working quickly to keep the remaining southern states in the Union, they had a serious problem with Maryland because of its location. Situated between the North and Washington, losing Maryland to the South would make it difficult for the Lincoln Administration to remain in the city, especially during the early phase of The Civil War. Pro-South protesters led the Baltimore Riot of 1861 on April 19, attempting to halt or delay troop movement to Washington.
When the riots were over, Governor Hicks, Baltimore mayor George Brown, Ex-governor Enoch Louis Lowe, and Marshall of Police of Baltimore George P. Kane met to discuss the situation in Baltimore. To eliminate the chance of additional troops passing through the city these men decided to destroy the railroad bridges around Baltimore, which occurred on the night of April 19-20, 1861. According to the other men, Hicks gave the order to destroy the bridges, which Hicks later denied.
Governor Hicks returned to the state capitol in Annapolis. On April 22, 1861, Benjamin Butler showed up with a boatload of Union volunteers making their way to Washington. When Butler arrived in Philadelphia on April 20, he had been unable to advance because of the burned bridges, so he commandeered a boat to get around Baltimore. In the east, only the area near Baltimore was considered pro-slavery. To the west, many of the counties had voted for John Breckinridge, the dashing pro-slavery candidate for President. With Annapolis under Union control and Baltimore subject to mob rule, Governor Hicks ordered a secessionist convention to form in Frederick, in the western part of the state starting on April 26, 1861.
On April 27 the body announced that it did not have the power to "commit this state to secession." In the end, the convention would vote 53-12 to call a secessionist convention if the people of Virginia seceded. The convention, however, did not adjourn and continued to meet throughout the summer. On May 2, 1861 Rebel sympathizers in Baltimore were cut off from communication with the South by a large federal force at Relay House, south of Baltimore on the B&O. George Kane was arrested for having a role in a plot against Lincoln as he moved through Baltimore in February, 1861.
Secretary of War Simon Cameron asked George McClellan to arrest all pro-South members of the secession convention called for September 17. That day, orders were issued by McClellan for Nathaniel Banks to make the arrests and Major General John Adams Dix, commander of the Department of Maryland and the Department of Pennsylvania was given the duty. Among the first men arrested was Baltimore mayor George Brown, on September 12.
Over the nine days Dix made arrests, however, and when the convention convened on September 17 (six days later), a quorum could not be established and the Maryland secession convention came to an end. On September 20, 1861 Dix arrested E. G. Kilbourn, Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates. Kilbourn was characterized by Dix as being a "dangerous secessionist." Kilbourn remained in federal custody at Fort Warren (in Boston Harbor) until February 15, 1862.
On December 6 the Democrat legislature agreed, passing legislation that said, in part, "we will firmly resist being dragged into secession." Governor Hicks reiterated his intention of not calling a secessionist convention on January 5, 1861 (This address was published on January 6, which is sometimes given as the date). For two days (February 18-19, 1861) following the formation of the Confederacy, the legislature decided to call a convention. Representatives from each county met in Baltimore to discuss secession, but the "Conference Convention" fell short of planning any action. Instead, they simply recommended that if Virginia seceded, then Maryland should also secede.
When the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter only seven states were in the Confederacy. Sumter, however, solidified support for the Confederacy and Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas quickly followed the other slave states. The remaining states with a large number of slaves (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri) were more deeply divided because large portions of the electorate did not support slavery.
While the Lincoln Administration began working quickly to keep the remaining southern states in the Union, they had a serious problem with Maryland because of its location. Situated between the North and Washington, losing Maryland to the South would make it difficult for the Lincoln Administration to remain in the city, especially during the early phase of The Civil War. Pro-South protesters led the Baltimore Riot of 1861 on April 19, attempting to halt or delay troop movement to Washington.
When the riots were over, Governor Hicks, Baltimore mayor George Brown, Ex-governor Enoch Louis Lowe, and Marshall of Police of Baltimore George P. Kane met to discuss the situation in Baltimore. To eliminate the chance of additional troops passing through the city these men decided to destroy the railroad bridges around Baltimore, which occurred on the night of April 19-20, 1861. According to the other men, Hicks gave the order to destroy the bridges, which Hicks later denied.
Governor Hicks returned to the state capitol in Annapolis. On April 22, 1861, Benjamin Butler showed up with a boatload of Union volunteers making their way to Washington. When Butler arrived in Philadelphia on April 20, he had been unable to advance because of the burned bridges, so he commandeered a boat to get around Baltimore. In the east, only the area near Baltimore was considered pro-slavery. To the west, many of the counties had voted for John Breckinridge, the dashing pro-slavery candidate for President. With Annapolis under Union control and Baltimore subject to mob rule, Governor Hicks ordered a secessionist convention to form in Frederick, in the western part of the state starting on April 26, 1861.
On April 27 the body announced that it did not have the power to "commit this state to secession." In the end, the convention would vote 53-12 to call a secessionist convention if the people of Virginia seceded. The convention, however, did not adjourn and continued to meet throughout the summer. On May 2, 1861 Rebel sympathizers in Baltimore were cut off from communication with the South by a large federal force at Relay House, south of Baltimore on the B&O. George Kane was arrested for having a role in a plot against Lincoln as he moved through Baltimore in February, 1861.
Secretary of War Simon Cameron asked George McClellan to arrest all pro-South members of the secession convention called for September 17. That day, orders were issued by McClellan for Nathaniel Banks to make the arrests and Major General John Adams Dix, commander of the Department of Maryland and the Department of Pennsylvania was given the duty. Among the first men arrested was Baltimore mayor George Brown, on September 12.
Over the nine days Dix made arrests, however, and when the convention convened on September 17 (six days later), a quorum could not be established and the Maryland secession convention came to an end. On September 20, 1861 Dix arrested E. G. Kilbourn, Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates. Kilbourn was characterized by Dix as being a "dangerous secessionist." Kilbourn remained in federal custody at Fort Warren (in Boston Harbor) until February 15, 1862.
from Georgia's Blue and Gray Trail
And now, the last part (?) of RoC and the Sea...
RoC and the Sea, pt3There's a woman on an island...
San Miguel was not a large island, less than thirteen kims by six. It sat as the westernmost Channel Island, an irregular triangular plateau of rock and earth, scrub and the occasional stunted tree, a good seventy kims away from the coast at Santa Barbara. Elena's home sat on a high bluff near the north-western shore, overlooking the small islet of Castle Rock, and during big storms, the saltwater spray from the waves far below could still wash her front porch.
Fresh water, on the other hand, was harder to come by; winter rains needed to be carefully horded in the three big tanks her grandfather had built seventy years before. Everything that Elena couldn't grow herself in her carefully maintained kitchen garden – which wasn't much – or make herself – which unfortunately was – needed to be brought over from the mainland on Elena's tiny boat. Shopping was therefore an two-day affair. More, if the seas picked up. And it was an affair she couldn't afford to do much.
But it was her home...and she wasn't going to lose it.
She was doing a hike she had done more times in her life than her life had days. Past the dry lake. Past the remains of her father's attempt at viticulture on the gentle slopes of Green Mountain, the few remaining vines now simple a source of fruit for her. Past the ghost forest, with its acres of caliché castings of ancient trees. Through the abandoned ranch and down into Cuchillo de cañon and along the slender trail of the deep “V” cut into the bluffs between the island's interior and the sea. Past the old cattle pens, where the island's small herd had been sorted prior to some being sent to market on the mainland. Out onto the beach that curved along the harbor and down to the narrow pier that led to the middle of the harbor and her small motored boat.
...and then the winds came...
No, that last line wasn't part of the story – it's what actually happened. On Wednesday, November 30th, a massive Santa Ana wind came down out of the north and smashed through all the cities/towns along the foothills of the mountains here in the L.A. area.
Trees – some a over a century old – were uprooted. Those that didn't get blown down got branches, some huge, blown off. Streets were blocked, poles blew over, and power went off for most of the communities near the mountains.
Yeah, that includes Pasadena and Altadena.
So basically I've been sitting in the dark since I got home from work Wednesday night. I'm now back at work the following Monday...and my house is still sans electricity. Which, when you write on a computer, puts a definite crimp in your output.
So it looks like “Part 3” is going to have a “Part 4,” assuming I ever get electricity back.