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Post by thewarchief on Jan 15, 2024 0:19:31 GMT
Something I noticed while working on the buildings list - HMS Belfast.
So you've got an old WWII cruiser docked in the middle of the Thames as a museum ship. Okay. And you also got the Black Archive, UNIT HQ, and possibly a new Torchwood HQ in the city. Okay. I haven't been to London, so I don't know how silly this seems. But a warship strategecially parked to fire on anyplace in the city and protect the waterway leading to the city.
I get the feeling Belfast is a secret UNIT base designed to take out the Black Archive in a worst case scenario? A volley or two of 6 inch (152mm) Dalekanium shells could make short work of anything in the city.
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Catsmate
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Post by Catsmate on Jan 15, 2024 9:26:31 GMT
I like this. Quite a lot of the ship is off-limits to visitors anyway,
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misterharry
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Post by misterharry on Jan 15, 2024 9:57:14 GMT
An interesting fact about HMS Belfast, which is quite well known in the UK but may not be further afield, is that its guns are aimed at London Gateway services between junctions 2 and 4 of the M1, almost 12 miles away from the ship. Apart from demonstrating the guns' range, what ancient menace was found beneath the service station, the return of which Belfast is guarding against?
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Post by thewarchief on Jan 15, 2024 13:49:52 GMT
Apart from demonstrating the guns' range, what ancient menace was found beneath the service station, the return of which Belfast is guarding against?
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Catsmate
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Post by Catsmate on Jan 15, 2024 14:40:34 GMT
An interesting fact about HMS Belfast, which is quite well known in the UK but may not be further afield, is that its guns are aimed at London Gateway services between junctions 2 and 4 of the M1, almost 12 miles away from the ship. Apart from demonstrating the guns' range, what ancient menace was found beneath the service station, the return of which Belfast is guarding against? My memory is a bit vague but DoctorX spent a while stranded in the Pease Pottage services. Or the Sapphire & Steel finale..... All sorts of nasty thing lurking in plain sight.
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Post by thewarchief on Jan 15, 2024 15:10:06 GMT
Pitty the guns are not pointed at Ludsgate or I'd have it solved.
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Post by grinch on Jan 15, 2024 18:35:49 GMT
Could it perhaps also serve as a portable Black Archive in case of a crisis? Or maybe just extra storage for alien relics which are too dangerous to be kept in the city?
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Catsmate
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Post by Catsmate on Jan 15, 2024 18:40:33 GMT
IIRR MI5 based itself on a superannuated warship in Belfast in the '70s.
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Post by thewarchief on Jan 15, 2024 19:12:21 GMT
Could it perhaps also serve as a portable Black Archive in case of a crisis? I guess. I'm not sure how portable the stuff in the Black Archive is or how easy it would be to transport, but the ship is certainly well located. It would just need to cross the Thames. Steaming down the Thames probably wouldn't be the fastest way out of the city, but the ship could carry a lot more stuff than a lorry, and you probably can't fit any of those Bracewell modified fighter jets onto the back of a Bedford, let alone the C-130. UNIT has some anti-grav tech in the Archive too, which could help to move stuff to the Belfast.Yeah, the more I think of it, the more sense your idea makes. The ship is there to move all of the stuff in case of a crisis, and the guns could be "Plan B" in the event that they can't get stuff out, but can't let it fall into hostile hands (tentacles, feelers, plungers, etc.). It's also possible the UNIT had the ship there to deal with any problems Torchwood created, only the gosht shift got out of hand too fast for the ship to do any good. Or maybe just extra storage for alien relics which are too dangerous to be kept in the city? I though HMS Belfast was in the city. According to Google it's parked about 300 m from the Tower of London.
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Catsmate
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Post by Catsmate on Jan 15, 2024 20:49:24 GMT
Could it perhaps also serve as a portable Black Archive in case of a crisis? I guess. I'm not sure how portable the stuff in the Black Archive is or how easy it would be to transport, but the ship is certainly well located. It would just need to cross the Thames. Steaming down the Thames probably wouldn't be the fastest way out of the city, but the ship could carry a lot more stuff than a lorry, and you probably can't fit any of those Bracewell modified fighter jets onto the back of a Bedford, let alone the C-130. UNIT has some anti-grav tech in the Archive too, which could help to move stuff to the Belfast.Yeah, the more I think of it, the more sense your idea makes. The ship is there to move all of the stuff in case of a crisis, and the guns could be "Plan B" in the event that they can't get stuff out, but can't let it fall into hostile hands (tentacles, feelers, plungers, etc.). It's also possible the UNIT had the ship there to deal with any problems Torchwood created, only the gosht shift got out of hand too fast for the ship to do any good. Or maybe just extra storage for alien relics which are too dangerous to be kept in the city? I though HMS Belfast was in the city. According to Google it's parked about 300 m from the Tower of London. There could be an underwater exit from the Tower, or one of the river gates could be used. And an underwater hatch on the Belfast.
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Post by thewarchief on Jan 15, 2024 21:27:51 GMT
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Catsmate
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Post by Catsmate on Jan 15, 2024 21:40:37 GMT
There could be an underwater exit from the Tower, or one of the river gates could be used. And an underwater hatch on the Belfast. Sounds like a job for a submarine. BTW, I wrote the ship up here: dwaitas.proboards.com/thread/4790/hms-belfast-unit-base. [/quote] IIRR the Thames is only around 6-7 metres deep at Tower Bridge. So mini-sub or DPV only.
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Post by grinch on Jan 15, 2024 22:09:33 GMT
If we follow the idea that the HMS Belfast can be used to destroy the Archive if necessary, I could actually see UNIT implementing such a plan if something threatened to break out of the Black Archive. As the sourcebook showcased, there are a lot of powerful individuals imprisoned within the Enigma and Omega Vault that could threaten the world should they escape.
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Post by thewarchief on Jan 15, 2024 22:11:22 GMT
IIRR the Thames is only around 6-7 metres deep at Tower Bridge. So mini-sub or DPV only.[/quote] Could fit much Black Archive stuff into one of those, could we? But there is probably some way to get all that alien tech indoors without the public noticing. A Bristol VTR ECW double decker bus isn't exactly tiny. I'll have to reread The Black Archive Sorucebook. Ohh, they supposedly have T-Mat. That would be the easy way. Just transmat everything over in one go.
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