I Remember When All This Was Fields

Thanks To Jake Broe For Discovering This

We have mentioned Jake here several times in the past, as he often digs up interesting stories to so with Modern-day Mordor and it's trials and tribulations.  This one, however, concerns not merely the Ruffians, but also the Norks and The Populus Dictatorship, a trifecta of torrid traumatic tales and other words beginning with "T".  Art!

     First, a diversion.  That above is one of the officers in a South Canadian Missile Command Capsule inserting an 8" floppy disk into the communications stack of a Minutemand III ICBM command capsule.  The Twitter caption snarkily mentioned that these floppy disks - you might not be familiar with them as they are verrrry old technology indeed - were only rendered obsolete in 2019.

     ENTER JAKE! as he was a Nuclear Missile Operations Officer for 6 years in the South Canadian Air Force.  Not only did he recognise the Command Capsule, he recognised the crew.  His succinct explanation for the 8" floppies is that neither the Ruffians nor Populous Dictatorship's minions could hack a floppy disk.  Art!

Putin, dreaming of the day he gets 8" floppy technology

      ANYWAY, Jake picked up on a story in the "Moscow Times", which itself picked it up from "Nikkai Asia", about negotiations taking place between the three dictatorships about the Tumen River.  Art!

     The border situation on the Tumen dates back to 1860, when the Ruffians (in Tsarist guise) conquered Chinese territory, thus cutting them off from access to the Sea of Japan and, from there, the Pacific Ocean.  The Chinese can only travel freely on the river up to about Fangchuan Village, after which their border ends, and the river is shared equally between Norks and Ruffians.  Art!

     If the Chinese want to access the Sea of Japan they have to politely ask both the Norks and Ruffians if. pretty please, can they traverse the waterway?  You will also note the 'Pont de l'Amitie' bridge, which has only 7 yards clearance, preventing any large ships from sailing beyond that point.

     Well, negotiations are now taking place for Ruffia to sell it's territory along the border to China, and for that bridge to be demolished.  This idea was floated at a conference in Vladivostok last year and in April this year when Zhao Leji, China's Number 3 chap, visited the Norks.  The Ruffians are likely to be unhappy about this power-play from their Eternal Friends, but they're definitely on the back foot here and cannot refuse, though they may drag things out as long as possible.  Art!

Thanks to Jake for this illo

     This is a picture of the Tumen upriver.  The Chinese plan is to dredge and widen the lower reaches towards the estuary, in order to allow bigger ships to make it to the ocean.  Currently there are no port or harbour facilities upstream in Chinese territory, although there are small communities near the river, so these may form the basis for new shipping facilities.  Don't expect anything to sprout overnight, this will be a long-term project.  Come back in 10 years time and see what's been constructed in that time, where there were once only rolling grasslands and muddy riverbanks.  What Conrad also noticed is that the G302 road, which is Chinese, crosses over into Ruffia along it's route.  Art!

      This makes more sense when you look at Jake's photograph; this landscape is very hilly and you can't just drill tunnels thought mountains every couple of miles - when there was no compelling reason to do so, because this was simply a dead end.  "Was".  Past tense.  Rather than now carry out such an engineering exercise, why not simply move the border?  I can see this happening in the near future as part of The Populous Dictatorship's long-term 'soft invasion' plan, because it would be easier and cheaper for the Chinese, and they'd pay Putin (or his successor) thirty-five pieces of silver*.

     Don't dismiss this as smoke and mirrors, the phrase 'constructive dialogue' came out of the meeting Xi and Putin had in April.  Art!

     In addition to maritime freight vessels, Winnie The Poo will also be seeking to send Chinese Coast Guard ships into the Sea of Japan, just to muddy the waters there, because he would be able to.  

     Watch this space!

The Haul

Conrad needed to journey into Lesser Sodom today to replenish the supplies of sugar-free sweets at "Sweet Deals", and after watching and taking notes from the Excellent Antipodean Terry from "Terry Talks Movies" I was on the lookout for any of his "13 Bad Science-Fiction Films".  Art!

    Yes, "Green Lantern" was one of the 13.  Yes, I've seen it before.  Not buying it for £0.75 would have been rude.

     I've read the first in Richard Osman's "The Thursday Murder Club" and liked it's different and quirky nature, so feel okay about a sequel.  The Raymond Chandler book is three novels in one.  I've definitely read "The Big Sleep", not sure about the other two.  You'll definitely get informed about them.  O yes indeed, John Steed.

Starring Ships!

Yes, more from the Galleries of "Interstellar Research Centre" and we have another 'Project Icarus' design.  Art!

     This is 'Leviathan', which to these eyes seems to have a multi-stage design, with the smallest third stage inverted in the arrangement.  Of course they neglect to have any explanatory blurb, so let's bring on another picture.  Art!

     Is that, perhaps, transparent aluminiuum?  I hate to break it to the designers but that's definitely not near-future technology.  Let me see if I can dig up more info on this craft.

     Okay, so this thing was expected to take 6 months to get to 2% of c, after which it would switch from Deuterium-Deuterium fusion to Deuterium-Helium 3 fusion, meaning a saving of 15,000 tons of fuel as it would only (!) require 35,000 tons of fuel.  The second fuel switch would allow an acceleration to 4% of c. The transit time - presumably to Alpha Centauri - would be less than a century and the payload would be 150,000 tons.  Leviathan aptly named with a payload like that!  6 months before arrival deceleration would begin, which is where those 'sails' come in, as they utilise the interstellar medium to braking effect.  Art!

     I think what I recognised as a 'third stage' is deliberately positioned to provide deceleration when nearing target.

     Time for lunch!  See you on the other side -

"City In The Sky"

Ace is learning dingo on the go.

     The dingo couldn’t speak, so instead he danced around in a circle, yipping and biting his tail until Ace fell into a fit of giggles.

     ‘Don’t!  Don’t, or I’ll have an accident!’

     Okay, Dot, she sternly instructed herself.  So the dingoes have killed all the sneaky-peeky alien spies across Australia.  What follows from that?

     Enlightenment shone on her like the sun in the Antipodean skies: with all their spies gone, the Lithoi had no idea what was happening beyond visual line-of-sight of their baseship.  The Victorian technology of the Australians meant no radio or internet to intercept and decrypt, no telephone conversations to eavesdrop, and no longer any way to read hard-copy off-prints – which the locals would call “newspapers” – thanks to no more Lithoi spies.

 

     ‘I definitely saw a flash,’ stated Alex.  He had his eyes “peeled”, as the Australian saying went, looking in all directions out to one-hundred and eighty degrees from the massed caravan of transports heading south-east on the Eyre Highway.

     ‘What?’ asked Terry, six feet below on a plodding old hack.

     ‘Flash.  FLASH.  Bearing - ’ called Alex, leaning over his deckchair and risking a fall from the pantechnicon roof.  ‘Bearing three-one-three.’

     Terry reined in his truculent mare and harried her out to the convoy’s right flank, watched by dozens of anxious eyes.  He’d been bold enough to promise them “little to no risk” in helping bring down Arcology One and really didn’t relish the prospect of taking on evil alien flying saucers with giant lasers attached.

     Don't mention Gordon.

A Report On "The Great War In Europe"

You know, the hex-and-counter boardgame I'm currently learning my way through.  For those of you unaware, "The Great War" is what the First Unpleasantness was known as until the Thirties and it was so-described in terms of it's magnitude, not it's wonderfulness.  Art!

     This is the Belgo-British section of the front, the Belgians being the pale blue counters.  Traditionally they didn't attack, instead conserving their strength in defence as casualties were almost impossible to replace.

     The British have come off undeservedly worse in the first turn I ran, which would be February 1918 Turn O.  The reason is their 'Entrenchment Status', which is at -2.  "What does that mean?" I hear you quibble, which is what Conrad asked, too.  It's a rather poorly-written part of the rulebook which is only explained in passing once, necessitating several read-throughs to discover.  The '-2' is a dice roll modifier, meaning that if the Teutons attacked the British whilst the latter were in trenches, 2 is subtracted from the dice roll, and any subtractions favour the defender.  Too late to go back, so we'll just have to remember in future.

     I have more to say on this but will mercifully refrain.  For now.

Finally -

From overcast and rainy the day has transformed into bright and sunny, if a tad windy.  I took madame for a trot and - Hay Pesto! - no other dogs being walked.  Indeed, Tandle Hill Park look surprisingly unbusy.  Possibly related to that ballfoot thing occurring somewhere in Europe.

*  Inflation.