Friday, November 24, 2006

Meeting

The state of TIAH

November 24th, 2006

Alternate Historian's Note: November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. In 2004, we produced our novel Warp, and last year we got a start on The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion during this annual event. Both of these novels were based on timelines from TIAH – Warp was based on the Mlosh timeline, and Protocols on the Greater Zionist Resistance timeline. Although we posted numerous links to these novels on Lulu, TIAH didn't post any excerpts from them. We're going to do it a little differently this year. This year, the November posts on TIAH will be excerpts from the novel that is being written by us for NaNoWriMo. We will still have Guest Historian entries – Stephen Payne (who has compiled several and made them available on Lulu for free – just go through the Add to Cart system to get it) has some already written and waiting, and he is going to be joined by Guest Historian JD – so, if you want to make a Guest Post this month, go ahead and send it to us, and it will appear along with our novel post.

in 1872, on board the Mary Celeste, the final entry is entered in the logbook, placing the ship 100 miles west of the Azores. Very much aware now that something is dreadfully wrong, Captain Briggs prays silently for the speedy rendezvous with the Dei Gratia. An officer as well as a puritan, he takes the precaution of placing a sword under his bed. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1940, U.S. President-elect Charles Lindburgh fulfilled a campaign promise by arriving in Great Britain to meet with Prime Minister Oswald Mosley and King Edward VIII. The alignment of fascist powers in the two Axis countries is of great concern to the social democracies of Central Europe and thoughts in the Weimar Republic turn to a proportionate response such as expelling Great Britain from the League of Nations. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1946, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Following the rapid conclusion of Operation Downfall, the Soviet Union's advancement onto the home islands had been limited to Hokkaidō where the Democratic People's Republic of Japan was declared the following year. From the capital city of Sapporo, North Japan (as it was known) glared with unrelenting hatred upon its capitalist southern neighbour, leading to the bitterest of the proxy conflicts that traumatised South-east Asia during the Cold War. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1990, the exComm3 subcommittee in Whitehall, London are frustrated by the very limited intelligence feeds they are receiving from Kuwait since the Iraqi occupation. The subcommittee members would be hysterical if they were to find out that the Iraqi's Extraterrestrial allies are seaborne creatures making the most of unrestricted access to the Persian Gulf. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

Before(cont.)
The instructions the old man at the gas station had given her were almost perfect; Janice was skirting Waco and would soon be turning on her way to Crawford. She turned on the radio and listened to the emergency lady tell her that curfew was now in effect, and any citizen caught on the roads would be taken into custody. The emergency lady went on to say that telephone service should be restored in a few days, and regular television and radio broadcasting shortly after that, barring any other emergencies.
“The governor has requested that all Texans assist in our recovery efforts by cooperating with the authorities,” the emergency lady said.
“I bet he'd like that,” Janice muttered. She was already about an hour and a half past cooperating; she was lucky that everyone else was, because she was driving with her lights off. At nightfall, she had decided to play this stealthily. She had pulled out her night-vision goggles and was hopefully invisible in the darkness.
She had done this once before, when she snuck past the military barrier at Groom Lake and nearly got caught by that cute MP. That entire mile she drove then had left her hands sore from gripping the wheel of her old car so tightly.
This time, she had been driving for an hour and had covered nearly 30 miles, and her clothes were damp from the sweat she was covered in. She jumped every time a squirrel or bird crossed her path; an armadillo had nearly caused her to wreck about ten miles back. She knew that she couldn't keep this up much longer, but wanted the cover of night to pull this off.
She reached the farm fence that the old man had told her about. Sure enough, when she turned down the driveway and drove up to the farm, it was dilapidated and abandoned. Right behind it, she saw the other side of the driveway leading off to a dirt road. She bounced down it and was soon heading towards Crawford. According to the old man, this road led right past the president's ranch.
She turned off the emergency lady and her mindless propaganda and turned her recorder back on. “Personal journal, Janice Carbonari. I am possibly ten miles from the Crawford target location, and have managed to evade the National Guard, so far. I am being forced to use techniques that are, quite frankly, dangerous, but I feel that it is worth it in order to determine the truth of this matter. From everything I have been able to learn, it seems very unlikely that a nuclear explosion went off this morning anywhere near Crawford, Texas.” She glanced over at the Geiger counter, which was registering normal levels of background radiation. “My Geiger counter is reading normally. This close, it should be giving me some kind of elevated reading, but no. I will be keeping an eye on it as I move closer; in the next hour, possibly less, it should start going crazy. My bet is that it's going to keep quiet and steady the entire time.”
She turned off the recorder and concentrated on the road ahead. Her poor car was going to need some serious work after this; she was pretty sure that the shocks were going out on her. She felt every bump right up her spine.
She kept an eye on her odometer, and when she had driven down the dirt road for ten miles, she stopped and turned off the engine. She got out and looked to the southwest, the direction that the old guy had said the ranch was. There was certainly no evidence of an explosion around her; no flattened trees, no smoking debris, nothing. But, she couldn't see the ranch, itself. She couldn't even tell if there was any structure in front of her at all.
She needed to gain some elevation so that she could see further, but the land around her was pretty flat. She looked off in the distance and saw what she thought was probably Waco. She thought for a minute, then got back in her car and drove back to the abandoned farmhouse, then back to the main road, where she pointed her car in the direction of Waco.

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3 comments:

Daedreem said...

Hi TIAH guests...
The Alternate Historian is fit to be tied, today...
If you've read the new page header, you've seen why the blog is NOT being updated...
(Are you reading on LIVEJOUNAL?? Visit the site directly for progress reports!)
Everyone know that the Historian is working behind the scenes tirelessly to regain access...
Although from the prompt response being received from blogger staff (yeah, right) what MAY occur is the Alternate Histories being moved elsewhere!

Post a comment, and let the Historian know you care! :)
-Have an in with Blogger or Google support? Let them know you want your ALT History fix back!

Signed, The Historians Songbird.

Daedreem said...

The Historian still finds himself unable to log into his account in this dimension, and requested that I post this for him.

-----------------------------
ATTENTION TIAH FANS!
An issue with the blogger beta has prevented us
from being up to update or edit the site. In order to
keep up with our fans, we have a backup site at:
http://althistory.wordpress.com
Please visit that site for TIAH updates until further
notice. Thanks for reading!
-----------------------------
Signed,
The Historian's Songbird.

Anonymous said...

Blogger's beta has crippled the Alternate Historian's editorial access to TIAH!

After we moved to the new Blogger Beta, we were no longer able to update Today In Alternate History. We have sent emails into Blogger and Google and posted to the Blogger help group, but have gotten no reply. Please help us harness the power of the Interwebs by blogging or posting somewhere about this to try to shame Google and Blogger into actually doing something about a big bug in their program.

Oh, and for updates to TIAH, visit our backup site on Wordpress - http://althistory.wordpress.com. If Blogger can't or won't fix our problem soon, that's where we'll be moving to.

Thanks!
Robbie Taylor, Today In Alternate History
Important Events In History That Never Occurred Today - now on Wordpress!
http://althistory.wordpress.com

TIAH Editor says we'd like to move you off the blog, if you're browsing the archives - and most people are - more than half of them are already on the new site. We need to be sure the new web site accomodates your archive browsing needs because we don't want to lose any readers. Please supply any feedback or comments by email to the Editor and please note the blogger site is shutting on December 1st.