[Scenario Seeds] The late nineteenth century - 1881 to 1891

[Catsmate]

Part 1 of 1.

The period saw huge changes, social, political, economic, cultural and technological; marking the end of the Victorian era, the consolidation of Europe (with Italy and Germany unified) and the beginning of the path towards the Great War.
The Second Industrial Revolution was in full swing, with mass production and mass transport becoming the norm in the industrialised world.

Here are the first half off the usual fifty seeds, due to some pasting problems I've split them.

 1.    The First International Exposition of Electricity ran from 15 August 15 to 15 November 1881 at the Palais de l'Industrie on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. It hosted exhibitors from Britain, the States, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands in addition to those from France. It was extremely popular with people, attracting many thousands of visitors. On show were the dynamos designed by Zénobe Gramme, Edison’s incandescent light bulbs, the Théâtrophone (a telephonic system for distributing music), the electric tramway of Werner von Siemens, Bell’s telephone of Alexander Graham Bell and a couple of models of electric car. One element of the exhibition was the first International Congress of Electricians with numerous scientific and technical papers presented, including the newly standardised  units volt, ohm and ampere.
What other electrical gadgets might be on display here? Strange artefacts with odd properties?


2.    One 19 November 1881 a meteorite struck the ground near Großliebenthal, a village a few kilometers southwest of Odessa, in the Ukraine. A fireball was also seen over a wide area.
Just a chuck of space rock? Or something stranger?


3.    On 8 December 1881 tragedy struck in Vienna when the Ringtheater, an opera house, theatre and variety show venue at Schottenring, was destroyed by fire.  Between 650 and 850 people were killed by fire, smoke inhalation, crush or falling. The fire started about 6:45PM, just before the beginning of the second performance of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
The gas lights were extinguished to prevent further spread of the fire, and with no working emergency lamps hundreds of terrified patrons stumbled blindly through narrow, smoky and pitch dark passages only to find the exit door wouldn’t open.


4.    Cultural events in 1881: 2 January saw the premiere of Saint-Saëns' 3rd Concerto, 4 January the premiere of Brahms' ‘Academic Festival Overture’ and 10 February the premiere of Offenbach's opera ‘Les Contes d'Hoffman’ in Breslau. Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opened in Madison Square Garden on 18 March and 22 October saw the first concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.


5.    Sporting events in 1882 that might interest tourists: On 7 February John L. Sullivan knocks-out Paddy Ryan in the last bare-knuckle championship fought under the London Prize Rules; on 17 July the Wimbledon tennis championships begin: the first  Test Cricket match played at Sydney on 17 February and the ‘Death of English cricket’, the defeat by Australia happened on 29 August.

6.    Cultural events in 1882: on 10 February  Rimski-Korsakov's opera Snyegurochka premiered in St. Petersburg, on 8 May  David Belasco's La Belle Russe premiered in New York, on 20 August Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture opened in Moscow, on 10 December Brahms' Gesang der Parzen (Song of the Fates) premiered and the next night Sardous’ Fedora (with Sarah Bernhardt) premiered in Paris


7.    1882 was also known for freak weather. On 23 May more than 15cm snow fell on eastern Iowa in a few hours; on 5-6 June a storm, cyclone and consequent floods hit Bombay, killing about 100,000 people; on 16 June Dubuque in Iowa was hit by a freakish hail shower, some of them more than 40cm in diameter and weighing almost a kilogramme. The next day the state was hit by a tornado (estimated at F5) which travelled 350km killed 130 people in total and destroying the towns of Grinnell and Mount Pleasant


8.    On 3 February 1882 about 3,000 stones (averaging about 100 grammes) fell on at Mocs in Transylvania. They were believed to be meteorites. A month later (on 8 March) a large impact, believed to be a meteorite (and described as an ‘enormous meteoric stone’ falls SE of Fort Assinnaboine, Montana, fell, followed by earth tremors.


9.    17 November 1882 saw unusual behaviour in the Earth’s magnetic field and the auroras, caused by a major solar storm. The storm caused extensive blackout of the telegraph system, including inducing sufficient current to light electric bulbs connected to the telegraph wires and start fires in the Chicago office of Western Union.
Due to the polar expeditions of the First International Polar Year observations were noted in the Polar Regions, where the aurora was described as being as bright as the full moon. The astronomer Edward Maunder described observing a ‘definite body’ which he compared (in a 1916 article) with a Zeppelin, of pale green colour, that passed from horizon to horizon above the moon in about eighty seconds. Numerous other observers saw this phenomenon. On 18 November a huge sunspot was visible to the naked eye.
Were these natural phenomena or the effects of a passing spacecraft, or something else? Was someone (Mad Scientist, awoken Silurian, time traveller or alien) tampering with the Earth’s magnetic field for some reason? Perhaps some Tesla style broadcast power system was being tested.
Was this linked to the strange weather and/or the outbreaks of meteorites that year?


10.    February 1883 saw a number of meteors and meteorites. On 5 February at Avvika in Sweden a ‘peculiar meteor’ as large as the Sun moved SE to NW and then to the SE, and ‘made several digressions from its plane’. On 16 February a     230kg stone struck at Alfianello in Italy. And on 27 February in Connecticut was detonating meteor was followed by rumbling sounds and an earthquake.
Any of these could have been some other event, a crashing spaceship for example.


11.    The 20th of May 1883 saw the first eruption of Krakatoa, with huge plumes of steam and ash. Rumblings, tremors and jets of material lasted months until the main eruption on 27 August.
On that day four explosions (beginning at 5:30AM local time) would destroy two-thirds of the volcano (and most of the island from which it grew) and dump millions of tonnes of ash and gases into the atmosphere, causing global climate effects for the next five years.

Other volcanic eruptions of 1883: Merapi in Sumatra on 5 June and 17 August, Ometepec in Lake Nicaragua on 19 June and Mount Augustine in Alaska on 6 October.
Was this wave of volcanic activity a natural phenomenon? Or was someone tampering with the Earth for some reason? Perhaps a group of stranded aliens was attempting to alter the Earth’s climate to better suit themselves.


12.    On 24 May 1883 the completed Brooklyn Bridge in New York was opened by President Arthur and state Governor Grover Cleveland. Six days later twelve people would die on the bridge when a crowd, panicked by rumours of an imminent collapse, stampeded.


13.    On 3 July 1883 the SS Daphne sank on the river Clyde in Scotland. The ship had just been launched from a shipyard in Govan with about 200 workmen still on board to begin the ship’s fitting out. The arrangement of anchors used to control the ship’s motion failed and it flipped on it’s port side and sank, witnessed by hundreds, many of them relatives of the workers.
124 people died. The shipyard was held not to be responsible for the accident but was widely blamed by the workers’ families. The ship was salvaged and launched; after being renamed several times it was sunk in 1918 (as the Eleni) off Greece by a sea mine.


14.    One 12 August 1883 the last known specimen of quagga (a zebra subspecies) died at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam. Perhaps some has other plans and attempts to save it, or obtain tissue samples for an attempt at cloning the animal?


15.    Of interest to the tourist and traveller (time travelling or otherwise) would be the maiden run of the Orient Express (4 October 1883) by Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Litslinking Turkey to Europe by rail. Though they may be disappointed as the service and luxury for which the route was reknowned wasn’t yet in place and direct travel to Istanbul didn’t begin until 1889. Maybe the PCs need a quick method of crossing the continent (like Harry Flashman or those pursuing Count Dracula).


16.    For fans of opera the 22 October 1883 grand opening of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York (at 39th and Broadway) might be of interest. The inaugural performance was Faust. Designed by J. C. Cady the structure was nicknamed ‘The Yellow Brick Brewery’ due to it’s rather industrial looking exterior but it was immensely popular with New Yorkers.


17.    Staying in New York (though a year later), from the 23nd to 25th of October 1884 the first ‘World’s Series’ (then called The Championship of the United States) of baseball was held in the city, at the Polo Grounds. The Providence Grays beat the New York Metropolitans in all three matches.


18.    On 18 February 1885 Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) published the ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’. Though the UK edition preceded it by about six months due to the peculiarities of copyright laws of the period. Due to the rather haphazard printing and binding of the book (about twenty thousand copies were produced) there are numerous variations, many quite valuable.


19.    Another event for opera fans is the 14 March 1885 premiere of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera ‘Mikado’ at the Savoy Theatre in London with Richard Temple as The Mikado, Leonora Braham as Yum-Yum and Durward Lely as Nanki-Poo.


20.    On 30 March 1885 the Battle for Kushka triggers the Pandjeh Incident or Afgan Crisis, when Russian forces seize territory within Afghanistan south of the Oxus river. This led to conflict with Britain who felt there interests in India were threatened. Diplomatic negotiations calmed matters but there was an opportunity for someone to change that and trigger a war between the British and Russian Empires.


21.    On 6 July 1885 Louis Pasteur successfully tests an anti-rabies vaccine on 9 year old Joseph Meister, who’d been bitten by a rabid dog. Unless of course someone sabotages the attempt and Pasteur is prosecuted (as he wasn’t a licenses physician his treatment was technically illegal) thus ending his career and slowing the acceptance of the germ theory and his policies on sanitation


22.    On 23 February 1885 an ‘enormous meteor’ passed over the city of Victoria (in British Columbia, Canada) at 9AM and fell into the sea, raising spray and steam. A random chunk of space detritus? Or something more interesting perhaps…

On the 24th an object described as a ‘mass of fire’ fell into sea about 50 metres from the barque Innerwich in the Pacific Ocean (at 37°N latitude, 170° 15'E longitude, about 1,000km east of the International Date Line) triggering an explosion and wave. The ship had been en-route from Yokohama to Victoria (in British Columbia) when the mate awakened Captain Waters just after midnight telling him the sky had turned ‘fiery red’. On deck the crew and passengers saw ‘a large mass of fire’ appear over the ship, blindingly bright, and fall into the sea. The ship was struck by a ‘mass of white foam’ and another 'vast sheet of flame' ran down the mizzen-mast and huge masses of sparks arced from the rigging. The sky remained red for nearly half a hour after the impact.
Captain Waters reported the matter when he arrived and considered that the ship had a narrow escape from destruction. What caused these odd effects?


23.    1886 saw the publication of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde
Was this a work of fiction, or a thinly disguised account of a real event? Was someone meddling with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know?


24.    Another event for travellers interested in spectacle was the 28 October 1886 dedication of the Statue of Liberty in New York by US President Grover Cleveland. It was celebrated by first confetti (ticker tape) parade in New York City. The parade began at Madison Square and proceeded to Battery Park via Fifth Avenue and Broadway; as the parade passed the New York Stock Exchange, traders threw ticker tape from the windows, beginning the New York tradition.
Of course the event would also be a spectacular occasion for a presidential assassination, perhaps while attention was diverted by the protesting suffragists (women were barred from Bedloe's Island for the dedication).


25.    For those seeking a cultural milestone, on the 30th of November 1886 the Folies Bergère in Paris staged its first musical revue, ‘Place aux Jeunes’, which was a tremendous success.



Second part later today, hopefully. Comments and ideas welcome as always.

[Marnal]

These are great!

[Catsmate]

And part 2.


26.    1886-1888 saw a period of severe weather worldwide. After a cold and prolonged winter in 1886-7 there were a number of events of flooding around the world. On 21 January Brisbane received a daily rainfall of 465 millimetres, still a record. The spring flooding of the Yellow River was severe, inundating more than two thousand villages and towns (over 150,000km²). The death toll from flood and disease isn’t known but is estimated at between two and seven million people. Further flooding, caused by unusually heavy rain and storms occurred in Barbados, Jamaica and Cuba.
The East coast of the USA was stuck by tropical storm at Halloween (part of a series of bad storms in the Atlantic) which triggered a prolonged period of thunderstorms lasting well into winter. The winter saw a series of blizzards in North America, most notable that in January 1888 which struck the US Mid-West suddenly, after a warm period, killing hundreds. This was followed by the ‘Great Blizzard of '88’ which struck the north-eastern USA on 11 March, killing hundreds over the next few days.
Finally on 20 April 1888 246 people were killed by a sudden and severe hail storm in the Moradabad district of Delhi in British India.


27.    On 5 February 1887 Giuseppe Verdi's opera ‘Otello’ premieres at the La Scala opera house Milan, Italy. The house was overcrowded by notables, journalists, and the ordinary people of Milan, eager to see the first production, directed by Verdi himself. Francesco Tamagno played Otello, Victor Maurel, Iago and Romilda Pantaleone took the role of Desdemona. An opportunity to mingle, record the performance for posterity, meet Verdi or carry out some nefarious plot. A box could be had for 1,000 to 2,500 lire.


28.    On 23 February 1887 the French/Italian Riviera struck by an earthquake, of magnitude 6.0, centred near the Italian coast. There was heavy damage in the Riviera de Ponente region, with Genoa and San Remo the worst hit. In Genoa thousands of people tried to flee in the aftermath, and most buildings were damaged to some degree (the Ducal Palace collapsed). About two thousand people died in all, with the worst incident being in Bajardo where 300 people sheltering in a church died when a subsequent tremor collapsed the building.
On the French Riviera the damage wasn’t as bad, although a small tsunami kill nearly a hundred people in Mentone. Amongst the visitors was Britain’s Prince of Wales (in Cannes).
Many tourists fled to Monte Carlo, where, in recognition of the tragedy, gambling was suspended in  for several days.
A natural event? Or a sinister Silurian plot?


29.    1887 saw two disasterous theatre fires. On 25 May a gas lamp at the Paris Opera caught fire, 200 people die in the resulting blaze. While a similar accident at the Theatre Royal in Exeter on 5 September produced a similar death toll.


30.    On 19 August 1887 Dmitri Mendeleev makes a solo ascent by balloon to an altitude of 11,500 feet (3.5 km) above Klin, Russia to observe an eclipse. What if the enthusiastic but inexperienced aeronaut (he had no idea how to land the balloon) hadn’t survived the experiment?
There are a number of other possibilities around Mendeleev; who was generally sympathetic to the anti-Tsarist students he taught. His final lecture at University of St. Petersburg in 1890 was attended by a large group of armed secret police to guard against the possibility of him fomenting revolution.


31.    On 22 February 1888 Scotsman John Reid of demonstrated golf to Americans at Yonkers in New York state, three holes in a cow pasture, leading to the formation of the first US golf club t. Andrews Golf Club at Yonkers


32.    On 5 June 1888 the Rio de la Plata (River Plate) region in Argentina and Uruguay felt a magnitude 5.5  earthquake took place, causing much panic (as the inhabitants were unused to such tremors) but no casualties. Again this might have been no natural tectonic event but manipulation of the Earth’s crush by Sinister Forces.


33.    On 15 June 1888 Wilhelm II becomes emperor of Germany, succeeding his uncle Frederick III after the latter’s brief reign. He would, assuming no-one changes history, set Germany on the ‘New Course’ in politics that would lead to World War 1.


34.    On 23 December 1888 the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear with a razor and sends it to a prostitute for safe keeping. Why did he really do this? Had someone implanted a device into his ear causing him to hear alien voices?


35.    In late 1888 London was convulsed by the Jack the Ripper killings. At least five women (Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly) were brutally murdered in the Whitechapel area of London. No person was caught and the killings remain a much discussed mystery.
Besides conventional human explanations the killings could have been something completely different; explorers from a different universe sampling animal life, a malfunctioning experiment in biological or cybernetic augmentation using alien technology, a mad scientist in search of tissue samples et cetera.  
Alternatively a time traveller may seek to document the killings and solve the mystery, or prevent them. Even if observing carefully there’s the potential for accidental alteration to history, perhaps requiring the party to carry out the murders…


36.    On 30 January 1889 Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and his teenage mistress Mary Vetera died under suspicious circumstances at a hunting lodge at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods. Officially a murder/suicide the deaths rocked European politics and are of continued interest to historians.
Perhaps a time traveller wishes to document the deaths and solve the mystery? Leaving them open to becoming embroiled in events.


37.    On 31 March 1889 the 300m high Eiffel Tower officially opens in Paris to commemorate the French Revolution. As the lifts were not yet operational Eiffel and his distinguished guests had to walk up the 1,710 steps, most not going all the way to Eiffel’s private apartments at the top.


38.    On 31 May 1889  May 31st the town of  Johnstown in Pennsylvania was destroyed by a catastrophic flood, with 2,209 people killed. The town of about 30,000 people was an industrial workingman’s town, sited on a flat triangle of land between two rivers, the Little Conemaugh and the Stony Creek, which passed around the town, and drained a huge tract of the Appalachian Plateau, before merging to form the Conemaugh River at the western end. Overflowing rivers were a common occurrence but in 1889 a poorly maintained dam, the South Fork, located about 22km above the city held back Lake Conemaugh, as well as two days of heavy rains, would contribute to a disaster.
At 2:50PM the dam broke; less than an hour later a 15m high wall of water and debris swept down on Johnstown.
 

39.    The Great Fire of Seattle occurred on 6 June 1889. 25 downtown blocks (about 50 hectarea), most of the city’s business district, were destroyed. The dry weather and inefficient water supply contributed to the disaster which began at about 2:30PM when a wood-worker was heating glue which boiled over, igniting scrap wood. The fire spread rapidly burning until 3AM despite fire-fighting efforts. Fatalities are unknown, but believed to be very few.
A perfect opportunity for accidental involvement by those time travellers unaware of the fire, heroism, splitting a party and looting. Or was the fire actually caused by sometime completely different from a careless workman?


40.    On 14 November 1889 New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) began her attempt to surpass the fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg by traveling around world in less than 80 days She succeeded, finishing the trip in January in 72 days and 6 hours. She could be encountered during her trip, perhaps being delayed by some strange occurrence that she wanted to investigate…


41.    On 15 January 15 Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty is premiered at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. An event likely to attract any time travellers with cultural pretensions.


42.    On 4 March 1890 the longest bridge in Britain, the Forth Rail Bridge (513m) in Scotland, is formally opened by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). In the aftermath of the collapse of the Tay Bridge the Forth Bridge was over-engineered and heavily tested before it’s formal opening. Though probably not enough to withstand deliberate sabotage…


43.    On 12 May 1890 the first-ever official cricket County Championship match was held. Yorkshire beat Gloucestershire by eight wickets at Bristol. George Ulyett scores the first century in the competition. Another sporting first happened on 11 October 1890, John Owens run the first 100 yard dash in under 10 seconds in Washington DC.


44.    On 6 August 6 1890 William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison in New York. The killing was te product of intense lobbying by Thomas Edison, as part of his effort to discredit alternating current electrical transmission in favour of his preferred technique of direct current.
The execution was horifficably botched with Kemmler cooked alive, which caused public opinion to turn on Edison and dooming his DC system


45.    On 29 December 1890 the US Army’s 7th
Cavalry massacre more than two hundred captive Sioux at Wounded Knee in
South Dakota (and several of their own soldiers). Unless someone decides
to alter history and avert the massacre, peacefully or otherwise.


46.   Births of 1890; the writers Karel Capek (Czech writer), H. P. Lovecraft (American), Conrad Richter (American) and Boris Pasternak (Russian); three Nobel laureates, William Bragg (English, physics), Hermann Joseph Muller (American, Medicine) and Jaroslav Heyrovský (Czech, Chemistry); the Soviet politician Vyacheslav Molotov, Vannevar Bush, Groucho Marx, Eddie Rickenbacker and Dwight David Eisenhower.


47.  On 17 March 1891 the British steamship SS Utopia, carrying over 800 Italian migrants to New York collided with the battleship HMS Anson in the inner harbor of Gibraltar and sank. 564 died


48.   On 5 May 1891 The Music Hall now known as Carnegie Hall) in New York had its grand opening and first public performance. Peter Tchaikovsky was the guest conductor.


49.    On 11 May 1891 An attempt was made to kill Crown Prince Nicholas (later Tsar Nicholas II) while nhe was on a visit to Japan. A madman named Tsuda attacked him with a sword, injuring the prince, the second blow was blocked by the intervention Prince George of Greece with a walking stick.
Unless someone changes history, replacing the autocratic Nicholas by one of his brothers…
The exact succession is difficult to be sure of; historically Alexander III died of nephritis in 1894 and the middle son George died in a motorcycle accident in 1898, probably triggered by his tuberculosis.  Michael, the historical Michael II (briefly the last Tsar) might end up Tsar.


50.    Interesting births of 1891 include six Nobel laureates, John Howard Northrop (American, Chemistry), Pär Lagerkvist (Swedish. Literature), Frederick Banting (Canadian, Medicine), James Chadwick (English, Physics), Nelly Sachs (German, Literature) and Walther Bothe (German, Physics); two German field marshals (Erwin Rommel and  Walter Model) and an admiral (Karl Dönitz); Charles Coughlin, the anti-semitic 'radio Priest', Sergei Prokofiev (Soviet composer), John A. Costello (Irish politician and president),  Earl Warren (American jurist) and the Indian statesman B. R. Ambedkar

[Hedgewick]

Apr 14, 2015 20:02:15 GMT Catsmate said:

41.    On 15 January 15 Tchaikovsky's ballet The Sleeping Beauty is premiered at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. An event likely to attract any time travellers with cultural pretensions.

Yes, these are wonderful, and I appreciate the attention to cultural milestones as well. I might find a use for these as, in our current campaign, the Richard E Grant version of the Doctor is possessed of many a cultural pretension. If the game master should give the character a choice of destinations in an upcoming adventure, he'd surely set a course for Tchaikovsky!

[Catsmate]

And of course the cricket in case the Fifth Doctor is along.

Personally I like the idea of accidentally encountering another time traveller who's travelled just to record some cultural event (or mystery) for posterity.

[jay042]

April 17th 1897- A UFO crashes in the small town of Aurora Texas. Of course the whole incident could have been a hoax. The town itself had seen a number of setbacks recently with poor crops, fire, disease, and the railroad not coming through. So they created the story to try to sir up interest in the town. Maybe they draw the wrong kind of interest to the town.

What if some actual aliens, coming to Aurora hoping for a spaceship they can potentially scavenge parts from, discover it's an attention seeking hoax?

[Catsmate]

Nov 26, 2016 12:34:03 GMT jay042 said:

April 17th 1897- A UFO crashes in the small town of Aurora Texas. Of course the whole incident could have been a hoax. The town itself had seen a number of setbacks recently with poor crops, fire, disease, and the railroad not coming through. So they created the story to try to sir up interest in the town. Maybe they draw the wrong kind of interest to the town.

What if some actual aliens, coming to Aurora hoping for a spaceship they can potentially scavenge parts from, discover it's an attention seeking hoax?

Thanks I must add that to my list. I mentioned the Aurora crash in my Airship Panic thread;  it's an interesting one with strange metallic debris, "papers in unknown hieroglyphics" and the body of the pilot, described as "not an inhabitant of this world". Roswell fifty years early..............
Of course, as you say, it's quite likely a deliberate fabrication by Hayden.

I like the idea of desperate aliens being drawn in by a purely human hoax. Unless there's a real incident buried under layers of concealment and the real debris was taken away and used in the US airship programme and the hidden aerial war with Britain.

During the period newspaper were rife with stories about airships; in the weeks before the Aurora story there were dozens of accounts of sightings of various configurations of aerial vehicles in Texas.

[Ordovician]

The summer of 1899 appears to have been horrible for insects of all types. There was the notorious "kissing bug" panic that summer (where people imagined some sort of insect was flying around biting people, possibly a story idea in itself...), but I've also seen old newspaper articles from the time about huge swarms of caterpillars, centipedes, crickets, and of course the ubiquitous mosquitos.