Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Jan 8, 2016 10:58:28 GMT
In another thread I mentioned the loss of much of the US whaling fleet in a freak ice freeze in September 1871. More than thirty whaling ships were caught in ice by a sudden and unexpected freeze, off the coast of Alaska. This left the ships, and more than 1,200 crew, trapped. Abandoning the whale oil and blubber, and their equipment, the men rowed 150km though icy waters to the remaining ships. The event basically ended commercial whaling, already in decline, in the USA. Now NOAA has located some of the ships. If exploration of the wrecks continue what mysterious artefacts or traces might be found?
Was the sudden freeze a natural, albeit freakish, event? Or was it 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? Or did the whaling operations disturb something under the sea? Arctic Earth Reptiles? Deep Ones? A crashed Martian spaceship with a crew of surviving Ice Warriors? Someone who took action to deter the pesky humans...
More information: Historical Current
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Post by starkllr on Jan 8, 2016 19:57:46 GMT
Maybe someone wanted to save the whales? A more aggressive take on the plot of "Star Trek IV" ?
It could be future scientists who want to reverse the extinction of the whales (either because they need them in the 23rd or 30th or 51st century, or just because they think it's the right thing to do. Or because they're uplifted dolphins avenging the genocide of their aquatic cousins)
It could be contemporary aliens who view the whales as the real intelligent life on Earth (having been drawn there by their songs) and have decided to help them by taking action against those who hunt them.
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Jan 8, 2016 21:23:18 GMT
I like the idea of the cetaceans being responsible; maybe they've travelled back to meddle. It reminds me of Niven's 'Known Space where they were suing the former whaling nations...
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Post by starkllr on Jan 8, 2016 23:12:34 GMT
It's too bad the dates don't work out (Moby Dick was written in 1851), otherwise this would be a great scenario to do an "Unquiet Dead"/"Shakespeare Code" style historical featuring Herman Melville.
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