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The state of TIAH

December 6th, 2006

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Alternate Historian's Note: Stephen Payne continues his stint as our Guest Historian while we present our NaNoWriMo novel. We hope you are enjoying this change in format – let us know how you feel about it in comments or by emailing us. This will be the format of TIAH throughout the holiday season, unless we receive a great outcry about it. Speaking of the Holiday Season, keep in mind those who need help year-round and keep yourselves safe and happy, as well. And, should you feel generous inclinations towards our guest historians, you can visit the sites of those who have separate ones from TIAH; generosity towards us here at the Academy is always appreciated, too, and you can find ways to help us out all over the site. Right now, we'd appreciate a lead on a good day job, but any good wishes you have towards us can be emailed here.

in 0, in the town of Bayt La (Bethlehem), Mullah Elijah Rafsanjani considers the interception option. Prehistory suggests the parents travelled from Kfar HaHoresh (Nazareth) to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus only to flee shortly afterwards to Kymeía (Egypt) to escape Herod's Massacre of the Innocents. The interception route could accelerate the flight to Egypt such that a Kymeía-born Jesus was brought up as an exile, unable to connect with the Jewish people. Trouble is, the Mullah knows that the Abrahamic religions are well connected. He might return to 2126 to find Jesus a more central figure in the Koran, altering pre-jihad history to the advantage of the Europeans. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1919, inside the Vatican, the struggle for the mastery of Europe is settled decisively in favour of the great council of magicians led by Maestro. Azâzêl is trapped and sealed inside Michelangelo Buonarroti's Last Judgement painting over the altar of the Sistine Chapel. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1949, at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trial, the Soviet Union charged captured Japanese perpetrators of Unit 731 with manufacturing and employing bacteriological weapons. Included among those prosecuted germ warfare criminals was General Otozoo Yamada, the commander-in-chief of the million man Japanese army occupying Manchuria. The Soviets are very much aware that General Douglas McArthur has secretly pardoned the perpetrators in Allied custody in exchange for their scientific data, some of it obtained by grotesque experiments on Soviet women and infants. Plague-infested fleas, bred in the lab facilities of the covert medical experiment unit were spread by low-flying Japanese airplanes over populated Chinese locations, such as the coastal city of Ningbo in 1940, and the city of Changde, Hunan province in 1941. This military aerial spraying resulted in human epidemics of bubonic plague that killed thousands of innocent Chinese civilians. Unit 731's bio-weapons research resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in China – possibly as many as 200,000 casualties by some estimates Less than a year later McArthur deployed the bio-weapons during the amphibious operation at Incheon, when United Nations forces broke out of the Pusan region through a series of landings in enemy territory in their bid to re-unite Korea. After all, as Brass Hat often said, "There is no substitute for victory". -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1990, after refuelling and following the rapid fitting of a nuclear weapon to his F-16 at Dimona, Israeli Flying Ace Ilan Ramon returns for a do-or-die solo mission to the desert of Western Iraq. Ramon expertly detonates the warhead directly on top of the giant spider which had emerged from the crater at Osirak. The strike is only the third time mankind has launched a nuclear weapon in anger. Unlike the first two launches however, the strike has absolutely no effect. A few orange patches glow briefly on the arachnid's back. The spider emerges from the mushroom cloud, accelerating west towards the State of Israel. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

Before(cont.)
Janice watched the two soldiers walk down the stairs until they finally went through the door at the bottom of the stairwell. She then started her hike up the stairs, trying to keep her huffs and puffs as quiet as she could. It was amazing how much the sound echoed in the stairwell, and each step made her feel like she was giving herself away. She kept looking down to see if the soldiers had come back. Just before she reached the final landing, she heard the click of the door at the first floor opening up, and she sat down quietly.
Looking down carefully, she saw the two hazmat-suited men walking up casually. They didn't seem to be in any hurry, so she was pretty sure that they hadn't seen her. She told herself to make a note in her journal that the Army was apparently lying to its own people and telling them that radiation levels were high in Waco. She was kind of curious as to why they were here; since this was the meteorology building, perhaps they were retrieving some kind of meteorological evidence about the 'explosion'. She almost wanted to spy on them and see what they were doing, but decided that getting her visual proof of Crawford's continued existence came first.
It took them forever, but they finally left the stairwell at the 6th floor. Once the door was closed, she climbed to the top and tried the door to the roof. Naturally, it was locked. She dropped her backpack lightly on the floor and unzipped the top.
She had a tool that was highly illegal that a fellow investigator had donated a couple of years ago, and she pulled it out. It fit over the lock, and was supposed to be able to slice through the mechanism with ease. In practice, though, she struggled with it for a good five minutes, making a huge racket that bounced around the walls and announced her presence like an unwelcome sonic calling card.
When she finally cut the lock out, she looked down the stairwell nervously, half-expecting to see the hazmat men on their way up towards her with guns drawn. But no, she was still alone. She turned off her night-vision goggles and put them into her backpack, then opened the door slowly.
Sunlight blazed over her, making her blink as she slipped onto the roof and carefully shut the door behind her. She took a few minutes to let her eyes adjust, huddled up against the door as the freezing wind whipped at her. She pulled her coat closer around her and wished for thicker pants. Once her eyes were used to the bright light, she stood up again and looked around.
The central Texas countryside spread out before her in chilly glory. She pulled her binoculars out of the pack, and just as a precaution, checked the Geiger counter, too. It still read normal levels of background radiation. She hoped that the guy who sold it to her wasn't just a BS artist who took advantage of her paranoia.
She walked over to the ledge and peered out over Waco. The wind was terribly strong up here, and she was a little frightened of heights, so this wasn't an ideal location for her. According to her compass, she was facing west, so she raised her binoculars to her eyes and started searching for the president's ranch. That kept her mind off the fact that a good wind could knock her down at any second.
After several minutes of fruitless searching, her face was feeling raw, so she packed her things back up and retreated to the stairwell. She put her goggles on and looked down to make sure the soldiers weren't around, then sat down and tried to warm herself back up.
She pulled out her laptop and turned it on. The battery soon had her legs warmed up again. Soldier-boys must have worked some mojo down below, because the building's wifi was working – she was connected to the Internet. She took the opportunity to make a quick entry on her web site and email what she had found out to a few key friends. She also asked the closest paranormal investigator she knew, a guy in Amarillo, if he could drive down to the motel outside of town and keep an eye on Miss Raintree.
She wasn't very hopeful that Miss Raintree was still at the motel, but it didn't hurt to see if somebody could go keep an eye on her. She shut down the computer, then went back to her rooftop search.

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