[Scenario Seeds] More things to do in the Nineteenth Century
Mar 1, 2015 13:52:15 GMT
Marnal likes this
Post by Catsmate on Mar 1, 2015 13:52:15 GMT
My third collection of 'seedlings' this time covering 1861-71, an era dominated by the American Civil War. Fifty historical events with potential for altering history, attracting time travellers or just mysteries to be solved and spectacles to be seen.
1. Was the ‘Baltimore Plot’ real? It was a supposed conspiracy to kill US President-elect Abraham
Lincoln while he travelled to his inauguration. The detective Allan Pinkerton, who managed Lincoln's security during the journey certainly believed so, as did Lincoln and his advisors, who took precaution to ensure his safe passage through the city of Baltimore in Maryland on the night of 22-23 February 1861. The image of him sneaking through Baltimore did some damage to Lincoln’s image also.
But was there a plot at all? Certainly a historian with access to time travel might want to study the events of the
time, and especially Lincoln’s journey from Illinois to Washington for his inauguration.
Of course other time travellers might want to create a real plot, and attempt to kill the President-elect by knife (the
alleged plan), poison, bomb (which featured in an episode of The Time Tunnel) or sniper.
2. Was the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that destroyed the city of Mendoza in Argentina on 20 March 1861 a natural event? Or the result of spaceship crash/explosion, geo-engineering, Sulurian meddling or…
3. On 13 May 1861 the British ship North Star was attackedby Chinese pirates about 50km from Hong Kong. Eight people were killed and two treasure chests were taken, nominally holding about £1,000 in gold. Was the gold the only thing locked in the chests? Curiously the pirate junk anchored in a bay not far from the attack afterwards rather than fleeing..
Alternatively time travellers could simply be aboard the ship, as passengers or because of a random landing, and become embroiled in the attack.
4. Also on 13 May 1861 the ‘Great Comet of 1861’ was sighted for the first time. This was one of the brightest comets ever seen, visible for three months and passing within twenty million kilometres of the Earth. Even if it’s just a comet (and not an alien spaceship or something even stranger) this event has possibilities for inspiring panic or otherwise confusing people.
Then there’s the fact that the Earth passed within the comet’s tail, what could have been deposited on the planet?
5. 22 June 1861 saw the start of the infamous Tooley Street fire in London, which blazed for two
days and continued for fifteen days more. This event led to the creation of the London Fire Brigade and its absorption of the private fire fighting companies. Was it a natural event? Something alien being destroyed? Or arson to cover up something strange?
6. 21 July 1861, and the First Battle of Bull Run ends in a glorious and decisive victory for the Union army, under Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, in the first major engagement of the American Civil War. Now McDowell leads his troops in a rapid advance on the Confederate capital of Richmond. It looks like the Civil War could be over
by Christmas.
So, who’s tampered with history to make this possible? And how did they change Bull Run from a disastrous Union defeat to a victory? Had someone tampered with the (historically) indecisive and inept McDowell? Or replaced him?
7. The Trent Affair (8 November 1861) is a rather hackneyed option for American Civil War alternate histories but
still has possibilities. Two confederate diplomats (James Mason and John Slidell) were seized by crew from the USS
San Jacinto, while they were en-route to Britain on a British mail packet, RMS Trent. The actions of the San Jacinto’s Captain Charles Wilkes were initially immensely popular in the Union, but by mid-December the dubious legality of his seizure, the parallels with previous British behaviour that the USA had opposed, and the decidedly hostile British response.
Eventually the matter ended with the USA releasing the diplomats and the easing of tensions. Of course it’s possible to
imaging other variations; a violent confrontation aboard the Trent, greater recalcitrance by Union politicians, or another incident to reinforce hostilities.
8. Interesting births of 1861; Frederick Hopkins (British biochemist, Nobel laureate and researcher on nutrition and vitamins) and James Naismith (the Canadian born inventor of basketball). Now it’s unlikely that a time traveller might want to eliminate this sport from history, but you never know…
9. 17 January 1861 saw the death of Maria Gilbert, far better known as Lola Montez, also Countess of Landsfeld. The Irish born dancer and actress became the mistress of King Ludwig (“Mad King Ludwig”) of Bavaria, whom she influenced to institute liberal reforms until the 1848 revolution forced her to flee.
An interesting woman she has echoes of another royal mistress who impressed the Doctor, perhaps the stroke and pneumonia didn’t actually kill her…
Wherever she’s encountered it might be unwise to criticise her dancing, one bad reviewer was attacked with a whip.
10. Another interesting death in 1961 was that of Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Prince-Consort of the United Kingdom on 14 December. Aged only 42 Albert had suffered from stomach pains for months, but had continued his duties, including moderating the British response to the Trent Affair. He was diagnosed with typhoid just prior to his death but his long illness suggests a different medical troubles, possibly kidney failure or cancer. Which might be easily fixed with advanced medicine of course.
11. 30 January 1862 saw the launch of the USS Monitor the first warship combining iron armour, screw propulsion and turreted main armament. She would be engaged in sea trials until 6 March when she set out for Hampton Roads and the famous battle with the CSS Virginia on 9 March. with both ships ineffectually battering at each other.
Unless someone decides to prevent the Monitor from taking part in the battle, leaving the Confederate ironclad to eliminate the squadron blockading the James River.
12. The day after the Monitor’s launch saw Alvan Clark of Northwestern University make the first human observation of the white dwarf star Sirius B. Did someone give him some help?
13. 12 April 1861 saw one of the odder small scale actions of the American Civil War, known as Andrew’s Raid or the Great Locomotive Chase. A small group of Union soldiers lead by a civilian spy/scout, James Andrews, stole a locomotive stopped at a town in northern Georgia called Big Shanty (now Kennesaw) so the crew and
passengers could have breakfast there. They were pursued by three of the train’s crew on a handcar. Andrew’s men stopped to sabotage the railway and cut telegraph wires as they travelled north, closely followed by their pursuers who commandeered a series of locomotives.
The raid was intended to prevent Confederate resupply of Chattanooga in response to a threatened Union attack,
but actually achieved little of military value. However it’s a fascinating incident to use as background for a scenario.
14. While not as famous as the Great Exhibition of 1851 the Great London Exposition of 1863 (1 May to 1 November) held in South Kensington, beside the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, saw more than six million visitors. Perhaps not all of them were native to the period, or the planet Earth? And if they’re in London for the Exposition perhaps they’d take in the opening of the new Westminster Bridge (24 May)
15. At around 2PM on 17 September 1862 the Federal arsenal at Allegheny, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, exploded. The blast killed 78 workers, mostly women, many of whose bodies were unidentifiable. Was the explosion an accident, perhaps due to defective barrels used to transport gunpowder leaking, or was it an act of sabotage? Was there a
Secret Project being carried out in the complex that either went wrong, or needed to be stopped for the good of humanity?
16. That same day the United States saw it’s bloodiest; the Battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg) near that town in Maryland. Certainly an event that would be of interest to historians with access to time travel, but a more fascinating question is; who lost the Lost Order?
Robert Lee issued Special Order 191 during the Maryland campaign, before the battle, One of the copies of the order was lost and recovered by Union soldiers of the 27th Indiana Volunteers at the Best Farm in Maryland. The order provided the Union Army with useful information concerning the Army of Northern Virginia's movements and campaign plans. The commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, George McClellan, said of it “Here is a paper with which, if I cannot whip Bobby Lee, I will be willing to go home”.In fact McClellan hade poor use of the information, which was rapidly becoming obsolete.The Lost Order is a favourite incident for Alternate Histories of the battle and the war,
However one unanswered and controversial question is; who lost the paper originally? An attempt to settle this matter
has numerous possibilities for causing trouble during a wartime campaign.
17. Moving to Germany, Otto von Bismarck became prime minster of Prussia on 22 September and gave the famous
“blood and iron” speech to the Landtag on the 29th. Unless someone prevents his rise to power, derailing the historical move to German unification.
18. December 1862 saw the arrival of Peruvian slave traders on Easter Island. They would abduct and enslave 1,500 people (about half the island’s population). The atrocity would lead to the deaths of all those familiar with the Rongorongo script. Later the raiders would deliberately introduce smallpox. All events that some time travellers might wish to prevent, regardless of the damage to the Web of Time.
19. In April 1863 the French consul to the Ottoman Empire and amateur archaeologist Charles Champoiseau discovered the statue known as the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The status is over 2,000 years old and regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Classical period. Champoiseau sent it to Paris later that year. Unless someone else gets there first and steals the statue.
20. New York City was wracked by a period of rioting from 13-16 July 1863). The disturbances were triggered by working-class discontent over the recent conscription laws passed by the US Congress to supply troops for the Civil War, and especially the fact that wealthier men could avoid the draft by paying a $300 commutation. At least
120 people died in the rioting and more than two thousand were injured. A perfect opportunity for a careful time traveller to loot and steal.
21. In December 1863 Britain again came close to war with the USA over what’s known as the ‘Chesapeake Affair. The incident began on 7 December when Confederate sympathizers operating from Canada captured the American steamship Chesapeake off the coast of Cape Cod, killing one of the US crew. The raiders had planned to refuel at Saint John in New Brunswick before travelling to Wilmington in North Carolina where the ship would be used as a blockade runner. However difficulties at Saint John forced them to head further north and load coal in Halifax. After
leaving port there was an attempt by US forces to arrest the men in Canadian water, a violation of British sovereignty.
Following the earlier ‘Trent Affair’ the incident outraged Britain and threatened to bring Britain into the war against the Union until diplomatic maneuverings calmed the tensions.
Of course someone might be using the incident to exacerbate those tensions and change the course of history dramatically bu having the UK get involved in the American Civil War. Alternatively what if there’s something aboard the Chesapeake that must be retrieved before the Confederate or Union forces discover it, some world changing artefact.
22. Births of 1863; William Randolph Hearst (American newspaper publisher), Henry Ford (American
automobile manufacturer), David Lloyd George (British politician), Arthur Machen (British author and mystic), the German admirals Franz von Hipper and Reinhard Scheer and the ill-fated Austrian Archduke to-be Franz Ferdinand.
23. Abraham Lincoln delivered the brief Gettysburg Address on 19 November 1863, and despite his
own prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here" the Address has lived on.
But what exactly did he say? There are several slightly different version of the address, from Lincoln’s own notes, his prepared speech and onlookers.
Perhaps someone should go back to 1864 and properly record the speech?
24. On the night of the 11th of March 1864 the newly constructed Dale Dyke Dam at Low Bradfield in South Yorkshire, burst its banks as the reservoir (intended to supply water to the burgeoning city of Sheffield) was being filled for the first time. More than three million tonnes of water was released to flood the rivers Loxley and Don and destroy the heavily populated Wicker district of Sheffield. In total nearly 250 people died in the Great Sheffield Flood.
The actual cause of the dam’s failure has never been established, leaving the field open to sabotage, alien (or Silurian)
activity, accidental result of Mad Science or other possibilities.
25. On 18 May 1864 two employees of the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper (reporter Francis Mallison and city editor Joseph Howard Jr.) planted a false Associated Press report claiming that President Lincoln was planning to conscript another 400,000 soldiers. The story, published in the New York World and the New York Journal of Commerce, triggered
a drop in share prices and an 11% increase in the price of gold, which Howard had earlier purchased on margin. He made a significant profit from the hoax but was detected and jailed. This provides an interesting example of manipulating the press for profit, one that could be used by someone with access to better resources to (for example) create a faked telegraph report to manipulate the market.
26. On 25 November 1864 there was another outbreak of fire, this one definitely man-made. A group of Confederate agents and sympathisers attempted to set New York afire by starting fires at dozens of locations around the city (including thirteen hotels, Barnum's Museum, the Winder Garden Theatre) and also on several barges carrying hay and other flammable material. The plot failed, party due to incompetence on the part of the agents and partially due to prompt police action.
Interestingly crowds at the Winter Garden, there to see a performance of Julius Caesar, were calmed by Edwin Booth, whose brothers, Junius and John Wilkes, were also acting in the play.
27. The Great Fire of Brisbane occurred on the 1st of December 1864, sweeping through the centre of the city of Brisbane and burning out of control for nearly three hours. Entire city blocks were devastated , with numerous business amongst the buildings destroyed, though there were no fatalities;
This could be a background event for time travellers, an accident they were responsible for, or one someone’s trying to
prevent.
28. The 8th of December 1864 would be an interesting day to visit the UK, it saw both the opening of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the presentation by James Clerk Maxwell of his paper 'A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field' at the Royal Society in London. The paper was the first treatment of light as an electromagnetic wave.
29. Was the ‘Claywater Meteorite’, which exploded just above the ground in Vernon County, Wisconsin on 25 March 1865, really just a meteorite? Or an exploding spaceship perhaps?
30. On the 9th of April 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the American Civil War. This is an event many academic time travellers (or just tourists) would be interested in watching.
31. On 14 April 1865 Abraham Lincoln became the first US President to be assassinated in office, an event many time travellers might want to see averted. Or perhaps worsen the effect by killing Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward as originally intended.
32. On 17 April 1865 the steamboat SS Sultana, was destroyed by a series of boiler explosions while carrying around 2,300 passengers (mostly former Union prisoners). Around 1,700 men were killed by the explosions or drowned in the icy waters of the Mississippi.
Despite the fact that the ship was grossly overloaded (she was rated for less than 400 passengers), poor repairs on the boiler had been performed, and that bribes and kickbacks had been paid, no-one was ever held accountable for the disaster.
Was it neglect and carelessness that caused the accident, or a bomb?
33. Was the Mobile Magazine Explosion of 15 May 1865, in Mobile, Alabama an unfortunate accident, sabotage, theft gone wrong or a desperate measure to destroy something from beyond the Earth before it spread? About 200 tonnes of ordnance and bulk gunpowder exploded and more than 300 people died.
34. What really caused the sinking of the paddle-wheel steamship Brother Jonathan near Point St. George, off the coast of Crescent City, California, on 30 July 1865? An uncharted rock as the official history has it? A Sea Devil
attack? Or time travellers seeking her huge cargo of gold? 215 of the 244 passengers and crew aboard died in the sinking. Most of the approximately four tonnes of gold aboard has never been recovered.
35. On 7 May 1866 a German student radical, Ferdinand Cohen-Blind, attempted to assassinate Bismarck in Berlin. Despite being shot five times at close range. Bismarck had only minor injuries. Did someone prevent the assassination, by tampering with the ammunition or protecting Bismarck in some way? What happens if the assassination is successful?
36. On 27 July 1866 the SS Great Eastern successfully completed laying the transatlantic telegraph cable between Valentia Island in Ireland and Heart's Content in Newfoundland. This began the permanent linking of Europe and North America by communications link. Of course the cable laying was fraught with problems and had taken years to complete, with several failed efforts. Perhaps someone is trying to end this attempt early, by sinking the Great Eastern in mid-Atlantic for example?
37. 15 February 1867 saw the first performance of Strauss's waltz ‘The Blue Danube’ in Vienna. Musically inclined time travellers might wish to be present, possibly to record the event for posterity.
38. In March 1868 a French geologist, Louis Lartet, discovers the first identified skeletons of Cro-Magnons (early Homo sapiens sapiens, the fist modern humans), at Abri de Crô-Magnon in Dordogne, in France. Did someone suggest the
location to him? Or try to stop him?
39. 1868 saw the ‘Meji Restoration’ in Japan with the 15 year-old Emperor declaring his own restoration to full power on 3 January, and Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu stating this declaration was illegal a week later. This led to the first battle between the opposed forces at the end of January (the battle of Toba–Fushimi which ends in an Imperial victory). The pro-Imperial forces increase in strength and gain foreign support, with the formal enthronement on 7 April. However a series of battle occur throughout the year and into 1869.
The warfare would give ample cover for theft, assassinations and looting. Or a time traveller may wish to abort the
return to the Imperial system and support the Shogunate.
40. Grigori Rasputin, the Russian mystic, preacher and advisor to the Imperial family was born on 10 January 1869. Was there anything odd about his birth that could explain the later stories about his powers? Was he actually human?
41. On 10 May 1869 the First Transcontinental Railroad across North America was completed at Promontory in Utah, beginning the connection of the east and west coasts of the USA that would be completed in 1876. The construction of the 3,000km of track was a mammoth effort, backed by equally mammoth graft, corruption and political intrigue, most notably the Credit Mobilier scandal.
The railway provides numerous possibilities for scenarios; from simply enjoying the journey to becoming embroiled in robberies, murders and other crimes (in the style of Murder on the Orient Express and similar stories) to efforts to alter history by attacking the railway or preventing its construction.
One Doctor Who audiobook, “The Runaway Train” is set in this period.
42. On 14 September 1869 the steamship SS Carnatic sank in the Red Sea, in the mouth of the Gulf of Suez. The disaster claimed 31 lives. Oddly the accident took almost 36 hours to complete, with the ship running aground on a reef (on the 12th) but the Captain refused to abandon ship, believing the vessel to be safe and expecting another liner to pass nearby within a few hours. This was another lost treasure ship, carrying perhaps a quarter tonne of gold (which was mostly recovered) but rumours persisted of other treasure aboard.
Was this sinking actually an attack or attempt to steal the gold? Why was it covered it? Why did the captain behave so oddly?
43. Besides Rasputin other interesting births of 1869 include: Neville Chamberlain (British politician and prime minister), Mohandas Gandhi (Indian political leader) and four Nobel winning scientists, Charles Wilson (Scottish physicist), Hans Spemann (German biologist), Gustaf Dalén (Swedish physicist) and Fritz Pregl (Austrian chemist), plus Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Russian revolutionary wife of Vladimir Lenin.
44. On 28 January 1870 the SS City of Boston departed from Halifax in Canada bound for Liverpool. She never arrived, nor has any sign of the ship or the 191 people aboard ever been found. The most probably explanation is that the ship either collided with an iceberg or foundered in the violent gales and snowstorm that occurred around the 30th.
Another alternative is a deliberate sinking; the ship has been linked to Alexander Keith (aka William Thompson) who
would attempt to sink the Mosel in 1875 with a long delay bomb in order to claim on insurance for cargo aboard.
Keith may have sunk other ships before his plans failed (the bomb on the Mosel exploded in harbour at Bremerhaven).
Of course there other possibilities for a mysteriously disappearing ship; Sea Devil attack, dimensional rift, mysterious
alien artefact aboard or human Mad Science.
45. The novelist Charles Dickens has appeared in Doctor Who, but what if someone wished to prevent his death on 9 June 1870. He was 58 at the time and had suffered ill health for several years, including an earlier mild stroke, but this shouldn’t be beyond the capacity of advanced medicine to cure.
46. 1870 saw the start of the Franco-Prussian War, initially triggered by Bismarck’s release of an edited version of an account of a conversation between King Wilhelm I of Prussia and the French ambassador, Count Benedetti. However this event has several possibilities for meddling, either to calm the French response or to start the war earlier by having the German Prince Leopold accept the offered Spanish throne.
Once the war starts (France declared war on 19 July) there are further possibilities for altering history, for example
by removing Napoleon III from military command in favour of someone more competent (Marshal MacMahon probably) leading to better French performance, and perhaps victory at Wissembourg. The history of Europe takes a quite different path.
47. The declaration of the King Wilhelm I of Prussia as the first German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles occurred on 18 January 1870. This was a spectacular and historically important event, likely to draw temporal tourists. Even those who don’t plan to attempt to kill some of those present….
48. Anyone visiting London around May 1871 will hear about, and might become embroiled in, the famous matter of the Tichborne claimant. In 1854 Roger Tichborne heir to a baronetcy was presumed lost in the sinking of the Bella off the South American coast, though some survivors of the ship had been rescued and taken to Australia.
In 1866 in response to a series of newspaper advertisements seeking information about Tichborne and the Bella a man arrived in London claiming to be the missing heir, Sir Roger Tichborne.
He was accepted as Tichborne by his mother, the family solicitor and doctor, family friends and soldiers he’d served with. However most of the Tichborne family declared him a fraud. Likewise evidence from Australia suggested he was a butcher named Arthur Orton.
On 11 May1871 a court case, Tichborne v Lushington, began to establish the claimant’s identity and prove his claim. The case was adjourned on 7 July and began again, continuing until March 1872 when the jury declared him an imposter. He was later jailed for perjury after a lengthy criminal trial in 1872-3, which featured (for the time) some scandalous revelations about Crown witnesses.
All in all an interesting piece of background. Unless of course ‘Orton’ really was Tichborne, perhaps changed by
some alien force or encounter.
49. In June 1871 the Hayden Geological Survey set out from Ogden in Utah with about forty men to explore north-western Wyoming, an area that would later became Yellowstone National Park. The expedition would last until August and contributed to the establishment of the Park.
But What strange encounters were omitted from the historical record? What was the true cause for the series of
earthquakes the party recorded?
50. In September 1871 more than thirty whaling ships were caught in ice off the coast of Alaska. The sudden and unexpected freeze left the ships, and more than 1,200 crew, trapped. Was this a natural, albeit freakish, event? Or something else; a deliberate attack on the American whalers (by whom?), the testing of a endothermic bomb, the product of Mad Science, a briefly opened wormhole or spatial rift connecting the ocean to somewhere far colder?
Comments? Suggestions? Ideas for other seeds?
