A Country so Vast and Empty.

[Catsmate]

This is a country that loses a prime minister and that is so vast and empty that a band of amateur enthusiasts could conceivably set off the world’s first non-governmental atomic bomb on its mainland almost four years would pass before anyone noticed. Clearly, this is a place worth getting to know.

That line is from Bill Bryson's book In A Sunburned Country (aka Down Under) a travelogue of Australia, and refers to one of those fascinating, odd events that happen occasionally, yet have no definite explanation and so much gaming potential.

• He also refers to the disappearance of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt under rather mysterious circumstances in 1967.
• On Sunday 17 December 1967 Hold, an experienced and capable swimmer, went for a swim at Cheviot Beach and has never been seen again.
• Perhaps the Sea Devils (or Deep Ones if they're not the same) got him.
  
  

On the night of 28 May 1993 a seismic disturbance occurred in Western Australia, somewhere to the south of a huge¹, remote cattle and ship station, Banjawarn, on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert, about 350km north of the town Kalgoorlie and more than 600 km north-east of the city of Perth. There were few actual witnesses, only a handful of prospectors and long-haul lorry drivers, and none of them were close, but an odd low-frequency sound was reportedly heard for some time, following a huge fireball in the sky. A meteor or earthquake was assumed and no significant investigation was carried out.

However no crater was ever found, suggesting if it was a meteoric event it was a bolide, a meteor that exploded in the air due to frictional heating stresses and never reached the surface of the Earth. An earthquake seems unlikely given the fireball sightings.

Of course such events aren't particularly uncommon, but there's another aspect to this particular one, and that's the  reason for Bryson's line. There was speculation about the detonation of a nuclear bomb in the Australisn desert. Why? Well in 1993 Banjawarn Station was owned by the Aum Shinrikyo group, a Japanese doomsday cult best remembered for carrying out the attempted mass-murder attack on the Tokyo subway in March of 1995 using sarin nerve gas.

The group was known to be interested in acquiring biological and nuclear weapons, and had recruited former Soviet nuclear engineers and dabbled in the mining of uranium at Banjawarn. The group certainly developed and tested nerve gas at the station; gassed sheep corpses and other residue found after the site was raided by police following the 1995 attacks.

Now in the Real World^TM it's unlikely in the extreme that any such group could have constructed or obtained a nuclear bomb. While the engineering knowledge is relatively easy to find, fissionable material is (thankfully) somewhat more difficult to obtain. And there's generally a low tolerance by governments of private enterprise in this area, as demonstrated by the rather high death rate of former Soviet nuclear weapon engineers...

But of course in the Whoniverse such considerations don't apply, and this event could inspire many scenarios set in the wilds of Australia. Aliens, cults, mad scientists, time travellers, government 'black' projects, UNIT operations (or Torchwood, if relations were friendly) could all be based far from prying eyes.

And in an earlier ere there's have been even fewer potential witnesses, far less effective communications, few long range aircraft and no satellites.







¹And I mean huge, it's about about 4,000km^2,, the size of Rhode island The island of Ireland is 84,000km²

[da professor]

Of course, if anything interesting were to bring the Doctor to Australia,there's a certain Miss Jovanka who might have mixed feelings about seeing him again.

[misterharry]

Salt of the Earth, one of the Time Trips ebooks that was released earlier this year, is set in the Australian desert. Disappearances have been going on for years. But because it's so sparsely population, nobody has noticed (or if they have, it's just put down to people getting lost in the vast and inhospitable country). It's one of the better stories in the series and has a real sense of place.

[Catsmate]

Aug 24, 2014 9:04:48 GMT misterharry said:

Salt of the Earth, one of the Time Trips ebooks that was released earlier this year, is set in the Australian desert. Disappearances have been going on for years. But because it's so sparsely population, nobody has noticed (or if they have, it's just put down to people getting lost in the vast and inhospitable country). It's one of the better stories in the series and has a real sense of place.

Thanks, I must read that. Australia's empty bits have interested me as a gaming location since Chaosium's Terror Australis .

Aug 24, 2014 8:37:53 GMT da professor said:

Of course, if anything interesting were to bring the Doctor to Australia,there's a certain Miss Jovanka who might have mixed feelings about seeing him again.

I'd forgotten about her, oh yes that could be an interesting encounter.