Carlisle vs. HMS Dolphin

My sources in north Wales tell that me that the HMS Dolphin a corvette of the King’s Royal Air force has crashed into the main train station in the town.  Apparently it happened just after a train had arrived from Glasgow, there was a bright white light and the corvette that was seen hovering overheard was split in two bursting the gas-bags on either side.  It is fortunate that Heliumite has such a high buoyancy otherwise the two pieces would have come crashing down at a far faster rate than they actually did.

The train station was evacuated and the only casualties that my sources have been able to confirm is that four crewmen of the fifteen that man a corvette are currently missing, no evidence of bodies found thus far.

With the recent news in the press about the Russian peace summit one wonders if they are really are committed, what type of weapon can cut through GrapherIron like it was paper?  More importantly what is the motive for the attack?

Discoveries That Changed the Post War Empire

During the post war era of the late twentieth century two inventions/discoveries changed the very course of the Empire and made it into what it is today.

Heliumite

Originally hydrogen was used as the lifting gas of airships however even before the advent of the second war it was known that the gas is highly flammable and easily set off from a little spark.  At the end of the war a Welsh scientist Tomas Connah who had originally been working on deep sea diving and the use of other gases to breath at greater depths, had an accident occurred at his lab at Southampton navel docks where a diver lost her life (she was married to Tomas).  The resulting gas became known as Heliumite.  Helium itself is quite rare and expensive to produce in large quantities but the process that Connah discovered was cheaper and seemed to create more gas from less gas.

The exact process is a state secret and the Empire has the monopoly on the sale of Heliumite.

Heliumite has the same atomic weight as its cousin but does not expand in high altitudes and has a greater lifting power than hydrogen which seems to break the laws of physics.  There is however much that the Empire keeps from public regarding this unusual gas.

GrapherIron 

Technically not actually made of iron in anyway, the actual material is Graphene and an epoxy resin which when bonded together becomes the hardest and lightest material known to man.  Its uses range from the very small (paint to generate electricity on tall buildings) to the very large (skyscrapers and the superstructure of airships and spaceships).

GrapherIron when used as a envelope for an airship creates a frictionless surface that significantly decreases drag and thereby increasing velocity close to 160mph although that is dependent upon the class of airship.

This allowed the Empire to build virtually indestructible airships for the military and commercial use.

Without these two inventions our world would be very different today.

The Unexplained!

Here is something that really bugs me about people especially those that consider themselves to be scientists is the used of the following two words: Supernatural & Paranormal.  If you look this words up in the dictionary they have a common terms associated with them:

"beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding" or "beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature"

Effectively the phenomena is unexplained, why o’ why do we have to have two words for one word.  Unexplained means that science has not got around to figuring out why this happens.

The problem really begins when people associate these words with pseudoscience and immediately anything that is unexplained falls into this category.  Whereby no serious scientist will even look into it for fear their reputation, if it was just left as unexplained then this problem would be mitigated somewhat.

Supernatural is associated with religion which is pointless since it has been proven that the gods exists along with the less nice entities like Cthulhu despite what the bulk of the public believe or should I say what the Empire wishes us to believe.  They are not super anything, they exist end of story and as we all know religion is just a dogmatic belief structure that has no real value when connected to beings that are fact.  Of course the issue comes with understanding the answers they supply which is where religion comes in, the priests interpret who are just as unlikely to understand the answer as anyone else.  The dogma is man-made and completely meaningless like many historic traditions.

I have digressed somewhat from my original rant, nothing in nature is unnatural except in the eyes of a dogmatic majority.  It is unexplained get over it people!

Voxigraph Failures

The uptake in the use of Voxigraph technology in the last eighteen months has been dramatic to say the least even the war has not slowed its pace.  Although as yet it does not rival BEN (Babbage Empire Network) in size except in its instantaneous communication over that of the old telegraph/ticker tape methods.  The issues with BEN are inherent with the original system design of an Open System.  Open Systems are always prone to abuses and attacks from dishonest folk.  In order to send secure communications over BEN a system of keys are required at either end thereby slowing the whole process down whereas with the Voxigraphs the connection is vocal and so far incredibly secure at least that we know of.  Another issue with BEN is that certain companies that maintain the network around the globe continue to impose restrictions which slow everything down despite the Empire’s assurances that BEN is faster than ever.

Eighty percent of the Voxigraph network is used by government offices and military bases across the Empire at this time there is only a small uptake in private and commercial use.  The Empire has become quite dependant on the Voxigraph network over the last year due to the disruption in radio signals, the cause of this disruption is still of much concern.  Many theories have been put forth most however seem to come from fringe scientists like Max Drum who state that the Conjunction is the cause of everything bad happening in the Empire at this time.

In the last month there have been a number of failures to the Voxigraph network and according to my sources at key times when high up government officials were out of position.  The directors of Voxigraph were unavailable for comment however their public relations spokesman stated that the failures were due to “Acts of nature…” and had nothing to do with the war whatsoever, they were merely coincidences.  The chances of it being a coincidence is as likely as a honest man in Parliament, one wonders if their network is as secure as they have advertised to the Empire.  It does beg the question in light of how the enemy has been able to gather its intelligence so very well indeed.

Ghost Airships (9th May) & The King

Ghosts

Russian airships have been spotted all over Europe but only for moments at a time, they have a distinctive colour scheme of red covering the top half of the skin of the airship and below that all black.  The various sources I have in Europe say the people are calling them Russian Ghosts, none of these ghosts have attacked so far some of my sources have stated that a black dust rained down after the Ghost vanished.

Three separate sources in Denmark have informed me that Black and Red Airships have been seen over Nyborb, Aars and Sylt.  My sources in Denmark are very reliable and very good at ferreting out any information although that normally involves food.

These airships were seen just about the same time as London got up close and personal with one, although it was for a brief period.  Enough to scatter the dockers in every direction, my sources on the scene afterwards say there was an odd burn mark dirigible shaped on the ground.  One might think that the airship was doing something against the laws of physics and the Universe pushed back.

The King

I understand the King is meant to be making a speech tomorrow and there is some talk of a National holiday to be announced.  London has also been heavily covered in posters I think the slogan is:

A Strong Empire Needs Strong Men

What we really need is a strong victory over the enemies intelligence gatherers!

Sister Mary Jones - Shakes

You may remember me posting up an article about one Sister Mary Jones well one my sources has found another entry, he thinks there is more to the entry though.

29th June 1969

Shakes came to see to me today back at Thrawl Street, I mean Carrie she complained at me last time that she hates that name despite that she's so good saying the sonnets like a posh lady.  She was in a terrible state, kept saying they've taken it over and over again.  I finally got her calmed down with a little slo gin from the old lady below us, the bulge in her stomach had completely gone.  I was sure she wasn't due for another month, grasped in her hand was a velvet envelope.  She said "They taken my baby and gave me this." holding the envelope up for me to see.  I asked when did this all happen, she started to cry.  A little more gin and some for myself, then in short little bits she told what happened.

Makes you think people what happened back 1968?

Young Blood seeks Older & Missed Again

Young Blood seeks Older 

In a recent study it has been shown that the injection of blood from a young mouse into a vastly old mouse has improved memory and agility.  Is it me or this sort of the thing the last thing we want at a time like this, I mean the Empire is at War.  Do we really need the Age of the Vampire at this time as well?

Missed Again

On another subject all together it appears that the penal colony on Ganymede is in uproar after several inmates and guards witnessed an orange vortex in the sky which ejected a massive asteroid and a satellite.  According Fleet headquarters spokesman both objects are on a trajectory that will leave our solar system and never been seen again.

Astronomers on Callisto have identified both objects, the asteroid is that of 19880 which went missing in 2011 and the satellite is none other than Corcas's Breadth of God designed mostly by Max Drum.  The only comment that Max Drum gave to the press today is that "It is sign." which is unusually closed mouth of him.  You may wonder whether he was worried about the asteroid, known a HL 129, which hurtled passed us early morning on Saturday.  It seems nobody bothered to tell the public of its potential doom, it passed within 186,000 miles.

Corcas's Breadth of God was supposedly designed to capture asteroids by pushing them into an orbit that would come closer enough to the Earth so that they could be mined.  The Empire denies all involvement in the original project.

Rumours of the Front

The war begun over a year ago now and it seems like more innocents died every day despite the assurances from the Empire that we have fought the enemy to a stand still.  Bonnybridge and its children still in the hands of the enemy, the rumours I have collected are worrying indeed. There is talk of cannibalism on the battlefields of Europe whilst the news from Bonnybridge is that civilians held there are going missing.  My sources are close to the town but cannot leave for risk of capture by Russian troops.  They however can see some sort of light north of the town during the night.  The rail link from Falkirk has been cut close to St Helen's Loch, a coal train derailed there.

I have used my considerable resources to help as best I can with the fight but the enemy seems to be several steps ahead of us which can mean only one of two things we have traitors in my midst or the enemy have an undetectable method of intelligence gathering.  Both possibilities are quite worrying I am not sure which I would prefer.

One of my sources however has thrown up a name that may help one Du Pre Alexander, he was a director of the EIC before the Empire dispersed it so my source tells me.  Aside from that there is not much on him except that he has traveled quite considerably and a number: 729.