Suspicions

The state of TIAH

November 23rd, 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, and after considering his Captain’s briefing, Richardson believes that they are part of an elaborate deception by the New York ship-owners J.H. Winchester and Co. to exploit the bad luck reputation of the Celeste for commercial gain. A $3,000 ship carrying $34,000 worth of cargo is after all suspicious. He suspects the barrels are full of seawater. The ship will be wrecked and J.H. Winchester and Co will over claim the insurance, making a handsome profit. The Dei Gratia will rescue the crew. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1945, the automatic “three strikes” policy of the non-proliferation committee for the Congress of Worlds mandates a decision in relation to the distant planet earth. A meeting is quickly convened. Agreement is quickly reached on the authenticity of alerts from remote sensors of a third thermonuclear detonation. The geographic pattern of detonations when correlated with sentient population distribution suggests a type 1 scenario (the ‘immediate application’ model); that being a test detonation in a remote corner of the aggressor’s territory followed by short-term offensive activity in a populated area. A decision is taken to authorise an exploratory mission that will land close to the site of the first detonation ETA Roswell, New Mexico at the earliest launch window, July 1947. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1946, the second set of trials of lesser war criminals at Nuremberg commences. In the Sailor's Trials, charges are brought for the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, French North Africa (now Algeria) by the Royal Navy which took place on 3 July 1940. Force H, based in Gibraltar led by the aircraft carrier the Ark Royal killed 1,297 and wounded 350 French sailors in this “wanton and unnecessary” attack. The surrender demand from British Admiral James Somerville " your ships..entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated... I have the orders from His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German hands." is presented to the court noting that the offer to Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul mirrored instructions already provided by French Marine Minister Admiral Darlan. Further noted was a contemporaneous statement by Somerville who was less enthusiastic about the action saying that it was "the biggest political blunder of modern times and will rouse the whole world against us…we all feel thoroughly ashamed…". At the Sailor's trial, Somerville took ultimate responsibility for the action and was executed before Christmas Day 1946. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1990, a meeting of exComm3 gets under way in an underground room at Admiralty House, Whitehall, London. The subcommittee is charged with executing the long-term project to respond to the discovery of Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) hidden in Iraq. In fact former CIA Director George Bush had developed a long-term plan for harnessing ET since his access to Project Blue Book in the mid-70s, but needed the Presidency to make it happen. So far all the Committee have agreed on this year is the need to keep Thatcher in power to stop the US Administration from 'going wobbly'; they just cannot trust Neil Kinnock to pull this off. Neither can they level with the Great British Public, so they hit on the idea of vaguely threatening weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to build up hysteria and anti-Iraqi hostility in the western media. Of course they need a casus belli for an armed incursion into Iraq to seize the ET to safeguard freedom and democracy in the world. This isn't the nineteenth century, its going to be a whole lot tougher than snatching the Elgin Marbles out of the Ottoman Empire in 1806. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

Before(cont.)
Steph let her father talk to the kids and she tried to get some food ready for them. She heard Joan catching herself almost telling her grandfather about the Johnsons a couple of times, but she never got the words out. She eventually just handed the phone to George, who blathered about unimportant things for several minutes.
Joan walked over and began helping her mother with the food. Without looking at Steph, she asked, “Why don't we go to Tyler?”
“I don't want to get caught on the road in all this, Joanie.”
“Yeah, but I just...” She caught herself looking out the window at the house across the street, and turned back to the food. “I can't even look at it, now.”
“I know.” Steph placed a hand on Joan's. “I know, baby. But, it'll go away.” She turned her attention back to the hamburger she was shaping. “That's the thing about pain. It doesn't stick around forever.” Joan nodded, and went to get the hamburger buns out of the cupboard.
George came in and looked at the tray Steph was working on. “Yeah, no school and burgers. It's a great day.” He toddled off to the living room to watch his movie again.
Steph and Joan looked at each other and laughed. “I guess it's all in how you look at it.”

The air inside the hazmat suit was stale and smelled strongly of rubber. It made Kevin a little light-headed, and he said so. Sergeant Morris just told him, “Suck it up, you'll get used to it.”
“Right. Suckin' it up, sergeant.” He saluted and stopped complaining. It had been years since he had to follow orders, but it was all coming back to him. Much as he didn't want it to. “You know, when I'm a millionaire playboy after all this, I think I'm gonna move to a tropical island. Live like Gilligan.”
“Long as you got a Mary Ann on that island.”
“Or two.” They laughed and high-fived each other. Morris was not in a suit, which made his suck it up have a little less weight in Kevin's mind, but he had assured Kevin that he had worn the suit a thousand times. “So, are we ready to go now?”
“Show me how you check your oxygen.” Kevin pointed at the small readout on his left wrist. “Radiation levels.” Kevin pointed at another small readout. “Atmospheric density.” Kevin looked confusedly at the wrist controls. “Nah, I'm just screwin' with you; that's not on there. You're ready.”
“Can I take this thing off, then?”
“Yeah, go ahead. We won't need 'em again till we get outside Waco.”
Kevin walked back to the locker and turned off the air pump in the suit. Then, he unfastened what seemed liked dozens of zippers, snaps and hooks and shucked off the suit. He packed it carefully back into the sack and hefted the sack onto his shoulder.
Sergeant Morris came into the locker room and pulled down a bag for himself. “OK, I got the directions. We're gonna be goin' to the meteorology building on the Baylor campus, and they got a list of computers they need you to pull information out of.” He handed the list to Kevin, who looked it over quickly.
“This is a lot of computers.”
“We got all day.”
“We're not goin' now?”
“Nope, we leave at 0500 tomorrow. Curfew's gonna hit in about an hour, and they don't want us on the road there after dark.” He shoved the printout with his instructions into his pocket and looked up at Kevin. “Hey, Bradley, you got anyplace to stay?”
“Not really. I guess I'll sleep here, if you got any barracks.”
“Well, I was gonna go see if my ex-wife and my kids were all right, spend the night there.” Kevin smirked. “Not like that; she hates my guts. I just wanna be sure... you know.”
“Yeah, I understand, sergeant. You go on, I'll be OK here.”
“No, I mean – you can come, too. She's got a couple of couches. We can leave for Waco from there.” He was walking out of the locker room with his hazmat bag. “She's outside of Pflugerville. Closer to Waco than here.”

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