[Scenario Seed] Operation Backfire.

[Catsmate]

This is not related to either the FBI investigation or the Tu-22.....


Operation Backfire.
As I've mentioned elsewhere on this forum, the history of the Whoniverse diverged from ours many years ago, the British Mars missions in the 1970s UNIT era, the knowledge of "I'm from 1980!" Sarah-Jane of crewed missions to Jupiter (referenced in The Android Invasion) et cetera. But I'm not going to rehash the UNIT dating problems again.

I've also mentioned Megaroc, the British scheme to use a modified A4 (V-2) or a derivative of it to achieved manned spaceflight by 1950, albeit a sub-orbital flight¹.

Now back to actual history, more-or-less. Like the USA and USSR (and indeed France) the UK did acquire some V-2 assemblies and parts and staged a number of launches. This was overall
referred to as Operation Backfire. To quote wiki:

Operation Backfire was a military scientific operation during and after the Second World War that was performed mainly by British staff. The operation was designed to completely evaluate the entire V-2 rocket assembly, interrogate German personnel specialized in all phases of it and then to test and launch missiles across the North Sea.

Interestingly one of the leading lights of the programme, some sources say the inspiration, was the fascinating Joan Bernard, who could easily grace a post-war scenario or indeed appear in the early days of UNIT as a scientific liaison.
Quite a lot of the details of what happened during Backfire are still hazy; while officially only three rockets were launched some sources include a fourth launch. And the UK assembled eight rockets...
Plenty of scope for murky goings-on with Torchwood, RAF intelligence (perhaps including Goddard), spies (Russian, American or French), Nazis and of course aliens and/or time trevellers. And the secretive 'T-Force' was also involved.

• T-Force was a joint US-UK organisation that effectively looted Germany of scientific and technical data, not just of advanced weapons but also of commercial information that would be of value. Their methods were frequently dubious and illegal. They also engaged in sabotage and removal of people, materials and documents from the agreed Soviet zone of control in Germany to hamper Soviet efforts.
  

The launches inspired the nascent British Interplanetary Society to submit proposals to the Ministry of Supply regarding manned spaceflight. In 1946 Ralph Smith submitted a detailed proposal, technically vetted by the Society's engineers, to adapt the V2 missile into a "man-carrying rocket". This involved enlarging and strengthening the V-2 airframe, adding further fuel tankage and installing a crew capsule. The BIS calculated an apogee of around 300km.
There were also suggestions of a photo-reconnaissance capsule that could take pictures of the Earth from such an altitude.

So, this concept can be developed in several ways:

1. A purely historical scenario with the time travellers arriving and getting involved in the launches.
   
2. A pseudo-historical scenario with someone, aliens, time travellers, Nazis, meddling with the launches.
   
3. A fully alternate history scenario with preparations for a Megaroc launch.
   

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?








1. 'Winkle' Brown in space?

[soultaker666212]

I feel this is relevant here but I genuinely think Torchwood might be the ones involved during the UNIT era British Mars missions. I can see Torchwood splashing their cash with the space companies/government in order to fund these expeditions to Mars. They could even be doing this way back before the UNIT era near the end of the war and after the end of the war, the 1940s era Torchwood doing their best to fund the space programs that would later happen.

A proposed history of Torchwood's involvement within the British space programs.
The Second World War did see many innovations in technology on both sides of the front, even if there were alien involvement such as Bracewell's Ironside project. Because of this, T-Force was established to try and get hold German technology that included the plans and knowledge and materials for the V2 rocket, but also acquiring alien/reverse engineered alien technology from Nazi hands. However, the T in T-Force stands for Torchwood as it really was Torchwood agents who went out to collect these technological objects and machines partially for their own benefit. Keeping with the Imperialism which was common around Torchwood history, their justification was to ensure the British Empire carried on despite in history as we know it was after the second world war it began to fall even more. Operation Backfire was funded by Torchwood, using the assets of the British Government within the British Occupied Zone in 1945, 4 successful launches occurred to evaluate the V-2 rocket which would then aid further British space programs to come. Torchwood continued to work with the government as well as the BIS to get Britain into space.

Come UNIT era (aka 1970s-1980s) Torchwood still funded the space programs of the time, specifically the ones directly to Mars. Using its own money it invested with various proxy corporations, it aided these earlier space missions to Mars. Their reasoning, revive there British Empire but in space, bringing more British Imperialism to Mars since the Victorian soldiers arrival on their. However this era of Torchwood did have to do their funding in secret, for UNIT were active. UNITs involvement within the British Space programs where that of security more than funding. All though some within UNIT did question how Britain was achieving space flight missions, many shrugged that question off and saw it as a triumph of British Ingenuity. Torchwood had to be careful, it made sure not to give advanced technology they have acquired post world war 2 and T-Force operations, for giving the technology over would arouse suspicions with UNIT. Instead they gave plans to various Earth-safe technologies to space flight including the funding to make them allowing Britain to head for Mars.

However, after the numerous extra-terrestrial incidents within the UNIT era on stopping mankind's access to space, Torchwood felt it necessary to cover up these space flight incidents. All though it was UNIT who managed solve and defend from these extra-terrestrial threats, Torchwood felt the repercussions as well. One of the incidents concerned with the mission astronauts on the Mars Probe 7 and the alien Ambassadors that came with it all. UNIT did resolve the matter, defeating the xenophobic astronaut Gorge Carrington's plans to get funding to wage war against aliens, the astronauts where recovered and swapped with the alien ambassadors. This also having the aid of a mysterious astronaut who went on the recovery 7 rocket to rescue the missing astronauts. Torchwood began to cease funding on the space programs, the lack of funding lead to many shutting down and stopping operations, leading to extensive cover-ups by Torchwood not just of their involvement but also of the programs themselves. UNITs increased security and control over the programs did see investigation on their side, reviewing the funding of the projects and noticing the companies which were Torchwood proxies, luckily for Torchwood UNIT could not properly find their involvement with Mars space programs. In the end this era of spaceflight came to an end and Torchwood did its best to cover everything up, destroying documents and videos. Their plans to revive the British Empire in space failed.

Torchwood gave this a second go though around the time of the early 2000s. Still with their imperialistic mindset, they began to fund the space agencies again for a more modern space British Empire. Doing similar methods to as what they did they gave over more modern spaceflight plans, reviewed and changed to fit modern standards, and funded using their proxies again. This time though they did not have UNIT on their backs, who i were more concerned with military matters and defence than monitoring space flights. They were partially successful in revitalising the Mars missions, but this would come to and end. The incident involving the ghosts and the Battle of Canary Warf did put and end to Torchwood's space involvement again. The Battle of Canary Warf was a serious blow to Torchwood, destroying its headquarters and London assets, thus sending Torchwood into a "dark age". The destruction of Torchwood tower did partially destroy the computer systems which had the files on their funding to Mars. UNIT began to acquire these files after their search of the remains of Torchwood tower for Torchwoods alien technology. For the first time UNIT was properly exposed to Torchwood's involvement with the space programs even dating back to the ones in the UNIT era who had digitised files of their earlier documents as backups. After the Battle of Canary Warf, Britain's Mars missions ceased, lack of funding from Torchwood and technological plans was its reasoning for their failures. It wouldn't be until the 2040s that any mission to mars was truly possible again.

Just my info on why Britain had spaceflight missions to Mars and fit Torchwood into the narrative of the UNIT era.

[Catsmate]

I like it.

Personally it'd add the following:

1. Re-use of alien technology. This can be from crashed or shot down craft, presumably of a fairly limited degree more advanced than Earth, items captured from visitors (people like 'Simon Belfrage') or found on Earth, perhaps the remains of long-ago crashes.  Mostly this is done by governments in covert programmes that tend to have horrible side-effects.
   
2. Naturally the Nazis had acquired some of this tech, hence T-Force and incidents like the temporally displaced raider SMS Odin. And of course Hess's real mission to Britain.
   
3. This can lead in to post-war (or late war) incidents like the Antarctic Space Nazis. Holdout Nazis were popular in the spy-fi of the seventies.
4. Post war I see a power struggle between Torchwood, the RAF (an intelligence unit commanded by Robert Victor Goddard [a man with his own reasons for looking into oddities] and the mostly civilian British Rocket Group (led by 'Bernard'). The latter are mainly civilian and pull off Megaroc and a suborbital slight.
   
5. This achievement annoys the Russians and Americans (oh, and the French 'Remember Oran' et cetera) and galvanises the nascent space programmes. It also generates a massive surge of interest (and pride) in Britain and shakes loose some funding from the MoS. Torchwood funds much of the BRG's later work and uses the group as cover.
   
6. This allows for the re-use of the three classic Quatermass plots.
7. Meanwhile Goddard and the RAF have persuaded the UKGov to create the Intrusion Countermeasures Group, led by and RAF officer and staffed from the RAF Regiment. Probably after the Bannermen matter in Wales in '59. This leads to the Shoreditch Incident, when the ICMG encounters aliens in London.List item 1
   
   1. Of course in an adjacent universe they don't get certain assistance and London is seriously damaged, beginning The Troubles that would devastate Britain over the next decades.
      
   
   
8. This would be one of the incidents that would lead to the formation of UNIT.
9. By now (the UNIT period of, let's say, 1976) there are multiple human space programmes, lots of 'stuff' in orbit (including space stations), Sea Dragon like BDBs delivering large payloads, air-launched rocketplanes. Plus the really advanced stuff based on reverse engineered gravity polarisers, transmats and the like. Britain is falling behind as Torchwood cannot continue it's funding.
   
10. By 2000 there are several bases on the moon (at least one of them with a teleport link to Earth and engaged in xenoarchaeology), a settlement on Mars striving to become self-sufficient (just in case), orbital and L5 stations and the beginnings of industrialisation of space for manufacturing, energy production et cetera). Serious people are doing serious work on a Beanstalk. There's also a UN controlled planetary defense network.
    

[soultaker666212]

I can see the US being jealous as well like you said, are you familiar with the Strategic Defence Initiative aka the Star Wars Program as it was nicknamed by the media. It was a program to design methods to prevent Soviet nuclear missiles from reaching the US from orbit, it included a lot of high tech laser weaponry and seemed too ahead of its time, there was tons of proposals and such. I'll leave this video here as it explains one of the methods in cool 80s graphics I mean maybe this sort of defence system was created using reverse engineered technology and sent up but seemingly stopped probs from lack of funding.

I can see a kind of space race between the US, Great Britain, Soviet Union and China (as they did have a presence within the space race) being a big part more and more. I do enjoy the space race though and then the later co-operation between each country as well to further humanity within space.

[Catsmate]

Apr 25, 2022 22:42:58 GMT soultaker666212 said:

I can see the US being jealous as well like you said, are you familiar with the Strategic Defence Initiative aka the Star Wars Program as it was nicknamed by the media. It was a program to design methods to prevent Soviet nuclear missiles from reaching the US from orbit, it included a lot of high tech laser weaponry and seemed too ahead of its time, there was tons of proposals and such. I'll leave this video here as it explains one of the methods in cool 80s graphics I mean maybe this sort of defence system was created using reverse engineered technology and sent up but seemingly stopped probs from lack of funding.

I can see a kind of space race between the US, Great Britain, Soviet Union and China (as they did have a presence within the space race) being a big part more and more. I do enjoy the space race though and then the later co-operation between each country as well to further humanity within space.

Very likely there would be an armed presence in orbit from several countries, perhaps ostensibly for national defence or protection from asteroid impacts.

The ESA and India would also be players.