The Ariel
Archive plans and a painting by 'Natasha', 1906
Written and edited by Marcus L. Rowland
Copyright © 2000, portions Copyright © 1993-2000
Portions by Matthew Hartley, Copyright © 2001
This material is published as shareware; if you find it useful you are asked to register; see the copyright page for information on why this is a good idea.
Warning! This worldbook discusses the events of George Griffith's novels The Angel of the Revolution (1893) and Olga Romanoff (1893-4) at great length; you are strongly advised to read both novels before the rest of the collection, or your enjoyment of them may be spoiled.
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Introduction
to contents
PREVIOUS Forgotten Futures collections have dealt with a range of topics, from airship Utopias and Edwardian space flight to worlds of the strange, supernatural, and melodramatic. This collection returns to the game's roots in scientific romance, the Victorian and Edwardian equivalent of science fiction, and to the work of one of its best British practitioners. George Griffith's first novels are unusual in several respects; they describe possibly the bloodiest future history of their period, and don't flinch from showing society and even the British royal family in an unfavourable light. They are also extremely detailed, especially in their descriptions of military campaigns and the final days of the Human race, and this detail makes them an excellent source for an RPG.
The history described in these books spans a hundred and thirty-four years, from 1903 to 2037. However, for various reasons this worldbook makes the first overt changes to history a few years earlier, before the first publication of The Angel of the Revolution, and ends a few years after the close of Olga Romanoff. The reasons for this are summarised below, and mainly stem from the early death of Alexander III, also from the need to eliminate various technical developments.
Modern readers may dislike some of the racial and social attitudes shown in these stories, which are reflected in the society, attitudes, and events described in this worldbook. While it seems probable that they do to some extent reflect Griffith's views, it should be remembered that he originally wrote them as serials for Pearson's Weekly, a populist magazine which tended to reflect the chauvinist and jingoistic sentiments of its readership, and that in this respect they are typical of the period and genre. They are emphatically not those of the author of this worldbook.
For convenience the following abbreviations are often used for these stories;
The Angel of the Revolution was repeatedly revised after its original publication. In early editions the Russian Tsar is Alexander III; after Alexander's death in November 1894 this was changed to Nicholas II. The change was superficial; for example, Grand Duke Vladimar was still mentioned as the Tsar's younger brother [AR 48] although he was Nicholas's uncle. To add more confusion Olga Romanoff was not revised after Nicholas took the throne, although a footnote in later editions refers to the changes made to The Angel of the Revolution. For simplicity this collection presents The Angel of the Revolution restored to its original form, and the history described below assumes that Alexander survived into the twentieth century and uses Griffith's original chronology.
A heavily cut 1907 paperback edition of [AR] replaces Alexander with Nicholas and adds to the confusion by omitting the theft and recovery of the air-ship Lucifer, making it appear that the Terror is responsible for the destruction of the British fleet. Part of the cover illustration is used on the index page of this collection; the full illustration, the paperback's introduction, and various advertisements that appeared in the book are on the FF CD-ROM version 3.0
Language And Units
THE author of Forgotten Futures is British, as was George Griffith.
American readers will occasionally notice that there are differences in spelling
and use of language between our 'common' tongues. If that worries you, you are
welcome to run documents through a spell checker, but please DON'T distribute
modified versions. Please also note that the English of the two novels has some
Victorian idiosyncrasies, spellings and turns of phrase which have fallen out of
common usage today.
The stories use Imperial measurements of length and power; feet and inches,
ounces and pounds, miles and horsepower. To retain their flavour these units
have mostly been used in the worldbook and adventures. Readers who are
unfamiliar with the British (and American) system of weights, or with
pre-decimal British currency, will find the awful details in Appendix A of
the rules.
Playing Games
THIS collection is a source for game referees, and most sections contain
notes for their use. A few sections are written mainly for games. Statistics for the
Forgotten Futures rules are included, but you are welcome to use the game of
your choice and add game statistics to fit its rules. No one will complain,
provided you don't distribute a modified version of these files, but if you
like the game setting and adventures please register. Please note that mention
of a game below does NOT mean that this is an approved playing aid for
the system concerned!
GDW's game Space 1889 had an extensive range of supplements for
aerial and space combat and ship design. Much of this material is currently
difficult to obtain but should eventually be reprinted by Heliograph Inc.
The technology described is very different, but if a more complex system is
required this may be a useful alternative to Forgotten Futures.
Two war games fit the theme of this collection: FASA's Crimson Skies is a game of aerial
warfare in a divided America, with extensive rules for airship combat. Wessex Games'
Aeronef, by Matthew Hartley and Steve Blease, is based on Victorian scientific
romances, and takes some of its background from Griffin's stories, including the
Astronef sequence (see FF2) and some elements of AR, and with my
permission uses some of the technical background devised for FF2.. Two
later sections by Matthew Hartley cover the use of some of the airships from
these books in Aeronef, and a submarine combat system usable with both
games. Material available on-line for Aeronef includes some scenarios based on The Angel of the Revolution. See
the Aeronef website
for more details.
FF1 included rules for the design of 21st century airships and other
vehicles, which are somewhat more complicated than those in this collection. They
are largely compatible, although details such as power requirements have been considerably
simplified for this collection.
FF2 includes Martians with some similarities to those described in [OR 25],
but considerably less friendly to humanity. The prelude to A Honeymoon In Space, the
novelisation of the stories on which FF2 is based, begins with the hero preventing a war similar that of The Angel of the Revolution;
a campaign which fuses elements from this source, FF2 and this collection is outlined
in a later section. FF2 also includes more complex systems for designing
spaceships and aircraft.
FF5 has rules for a device which allows travel between parallel worlds,
which could include this one. If it is used to introduce characters to this
time-line, the referee should remember that they may know things that the
Federation would prefer to keep suppressed; for example, an outsider with the
Pilot skill may know how to fly aëroplanes, and enough about
their operation and design to build one with some help. Someone originating
in the FF2 world might even know the secret of antigravity! If they then
find reasons to oppose the Federation some interesting situations could result.
An important point to note is that some of the adventure outlines below,
and some of the accompanying adventures, involve the
activities of the Terrorists and other violent organisations, and
situations in which characters will be required to obey orders which may seem
arbitrary or unpleasant, on pain of death for any failure. Players should
be warned before beginning an extended campaign with such a background. Many
of the events described are tragic; the extended collapse of civilisation and eventual
death of most of the human race in the second novel is particularly unlikely
to lead to "fun" situations.
It must also be mentioned that an Aerian trained to use Vril, as in the
second novel, is lethally dangerous. If you want to use such characters in
adventures developed for other genres it will probably be necessary to "beef
up" the opposition to compensate.
Weird Science And The Supernatural
THIS worldbook describes technology which isn't
impossible by modern standards, but would have been very difficult to achieve at
the time the books were originally published.
Most of the air-ships can loosely be described as multi-rotor helicopters, but
are much easier to control than the real thing; even today it would be difficult
to design craft with the stability and capacity of those in the novels. The
ornithopters of Olga Romanoff would give modern engineers a major headache.
This may be a good point to mention that the design of the ships, as described
in both books, varies in various ways from the art that accompanied their
publication, and that the illustrations are not always consistent. The
pictures and plans produced for this collection are based on the books
wherever possible, or fuse elements of the books and art.
A major change is the early development of a very powerful chemical fuel
which can be harnessed with high efficiency. Such fuels exist, and have many of
the dangerous properties mentioned in [AR 1] and
later chapters, although they are generally liquids rather than gasses; see, for
example, the hydrazine/hydrogen peroxide mix used in Germany's rocket fighters
and experimental submarines during WW2. A later discovery, the "direct
transformation of the solar energy locked up in coal into electrical energy,
without loss either by waste or transference" [OR 3],
sounds like an advanced form of fuel cell.
Communication with Mars by light-signal (not laser) is on the borderline of
possibility; it could probably be done, but the power requirements are immense,
and today better alternatives are available. It was often discussed in the
nineteenth century.
The drugs used by Olga Romanoff are also bizarre but defensible; powerful
hypnotics do exist, although long-term use has serious side effects (which are
in fact mentioned in one of the footnotes, see [OR 6]).
An understandable but awkward omission from the technology described in these
novels is radio, and spin-offs such as radar, TV, and most other advanced forms
of electronics. While radio wasn't around in 1894, many of the clues and
theories that led to radio's discovery go back to the 1860s, some to the 1830s,
and it seems very unlikely that all could be forgotten or ignored - especially
by the Martians [OR 25], who are described as being
thousands of years more advanced in all respects. If radio existed at all, many
of the events of the stories could not occur, or would be very different; for
example, the sacking of Aberdeen [AR 31] would not
be possible if the British fleet had been recalled and was about to descend upon
the attacking navy.
While it would be easy to say that radio just doesn't work in this universe,
it was more challenging to find a rationale for its non-invention. One option
considered was deliberate suppression by the Terror and Aerians; this raises
more problems than it solves, since the Aerians would certainly want to use it
even if they kept it a closely-guarded secret. The rationale chosen involves
some dodgy science, but makes a little sense in the context of these stories.
The climactic catastrophe described in [OR 25]
and later chapters isn't explainable by conventional astronomical
theory, both in its nature and in the speed with which the Earth appears to
recover afterwards. There isn't much that can be done about this, except
explore some of the ramifications that may have been missed by Griffith.
Natas' powers and Olga's dream of Aeria [OR 6] are
obviously psychic, although never described as such or explained in any way.
Finally, there are also references to "Vril"-like power controlled by the Aerians.
It is assumed that the Aerians produce this power artificially and enhance
it by training. See The Coming Race, by Lord Bulwer-Lytton (on the
FF CD-ROM version 3.0) for much more about Vril.
Weird History
MOST of the internal history of these stories begins with the
recruitment of Richard Arnold into the Terror in 1903, and the Terror's
military campaign in 1904. However, some aspects of the stories need
to be explained; the technological anomalies mentioned above, the succession of
the Tsars, and the non-invention of various early aircraft. For this reason it
has been necessary to start somewhat earlier.
The most important early historical change in this worldbook is the survival
of Tsar Alexander III to 1904 (as in the first editions of both novels), which
requires some changes to history from the 1880s onward. His son Nicholas simply
isn't a good candidate for the role of Evil Overlord; he was a reformer, albeit
weak and largely ineffective, and although he had a bad press there were
gradual improvements to life in Russia under his rule. The changes made below
keep Nicholas out of the way and give Alexander more reasons to be an oppressor.
Incidentally, the Japanese assassination attempt described below happened as
described, but in the real world had no long-term effects. A consequence of this
change should be mentioned; this history keeps Nicholas from marrying, so later
members of the Romanoff family will not inherit the gene for haemophilia,
which was carried by his wife.
Queen Victoria is described as alive but retired in the first book; it is
assumed that she abdicated in 1897, after celebrating sixty years
on the throne, and that with the reduced stress of retirement her health
improved, allowing her several more years of life.
Outside the period covered by the novels it would be easy to invent almost
any version of history. I've invented most of the "history" of the events
between the two novels, adding several minor wars and some internal problems
that seemed more plausible than the instant Utopia implied by the end of the
first book. Since Griffith didn't continue past 2037 this worldbook points out
a few problems that he may have overlooked, suggests some solutions and some
possibilities for campaigns with a post-catastrophe setting, but doesn't try
to map out the subsequent history in any great detail.
There are a few minor problems with the internal chronology of the stories, most
notably in the background events (prior to 1903-4) described in [AR 49].
The only "important" implication is that Natasha must be at least 24 at the
start of the first book, not 20 as described in [AR 6].
Presumably she looks young for her age. There is a "year 1.9K bug" in some of the dates
mentioned; Griffith was apparently unaware that 1900 would not be a leap year,
and days of the week in 1903-4, if mentioned, are usually wrong by one day.
Unfortunately this isn't consistent, and in at least one case the day of the
week for a given date changes from one paragraph to another. This isn't helped
by the fact that the plot sometimes flashes back several weeks, without making
precise dates clear. It's probably best to ignore the day of the week completely
in this chronology, and concentrate on the order of events. Most of the glitches
in the events following the first flight of the Ariel, and in the timing
of the British general election, have been filled in by inference and guesswork.
Many thanks to Steve Blease and Matthew Hartley for their help with this process.
Omissions
TO keep this worldbook to a manageable size very little is said about the
romances that drive the plots of both novels, but would seem relatively unimportant
to a historian describing their other events. Please refer to the original texts
for details.
To save disk space and reduce download times the illustrations for both novels
have been saved as reduced-size JPEG files with very high compression. Larger
and clearer versions are included on the new release of the FF CD-ROM,
and on an FF7 distribution CD-ROM available to registered users; see the
registration form for details.
I have been unable to learn anything about Edwin S. Hope, the artist
responsible for the frontispieces of both novels.
A prologue to The Angel of the Revolution was published as a 5,000 word story in Pearson's Weekly, January 21st 1893, but wasn't included in any edition of the book. It describes the initial meeting between Natas and Alan Tremayne in the Harz Mountains of Germany and Tremayne's recruitment as a hypnotised agent of The Terror, and tells the story of Natas' imprisonment in Siberia and the enslavement and death of his wife. Most of this material was later added to the final chapters of the novel. I have been unable to obtain a copy.
Technical notes
THESE documents were mostly typed using Borland's Sprint word processor,
a DOS program so old that it would probably run on a Babbage engine if I owned
one. It was occasionally assisted by Windows Wordpad and Notepad. HTML was hand
coded to minimise size, and tested using Internet Explorer 4 and 5, Opera, and
Netscape Navigator Gold.
The novels were scanned with an HP Scanjet 5P scanner, using
Caere Omnipage Pro software for OCR and HP Paperport for graphics.
Caligari TrueSpace 2 was used for 3D modelling. PC Paintbrush, Micrografx
Photomagic, and Paintshop Pro were used for graphics editing and file conversion.
Acknowledgements
THANKS to Fantasy Centre (157 Holloway Road, London N7,
UK) and to Porcupine Books for
finding me copies of the paperback and hardcover editions of The Angel of the Revolution, to
Matt Goodman who scanned the
pictures from an illustrated edition of The Angel of the Revolution and
found me a copy of Olga Romanoff, and to Andy Sawyer of the Science Fiction Foundation,
who was able to provide illustrations for Olga Romanoff.
Numerous reference sources were used for this worldbook; most notably the
Encyclopaedia Brittanica (1950 edition), Oxford English Dictionary, Asimov's
Bibliographic Encyclopaedia of Science and Technology, The Nuttall Encyclopaedia (1909),
and many other dictionaries and encyclopaedias. Most of the data on the Russian
royal family came from Robert Massie's excellent Nicholas and Alexandra.
Several users of the soc.history.what-if newsgroup helped to track down
details of the 1891 attack on Nicholas; I am especially indebted to "Feudalist",
who found the assassin's name and subsequent history. Users of this
newsgroup also helped with many of the other questions raised by the version of
history described in these novels.
Users of the CIX SF conference, most notably Terry Pratchett and Simon
Bradshaw, helped with details of Vril and The Coming Race. Bridget
Wilkinson eventually found me a copy, and the full text is now on the FF CD-ROM.
Rik Kershaw and John G. Wood helped immensely with proof-reading of the novels and worldbook.
Steve Blease and Matthew Hartley helped with the chronology of The Angel
of the Revolution, and with aspects of the ship design system. Matthew
Hartley has also contributed notes on converting air-ships to the Aeronef
wargame system and a complete submarine combat system, Cruisers of the Deep.
Some time after writing the first draft of this worldbook I learned that there
are several references to "Tsar Wars" in a strip in the comic 2000 AD. Needless to say
there is no connection between this collection and the comic.
Glossary
IN the glossary that follows links are generally to the book and chapter in which a person etc.
first appears or is mentioned. Ships and the principal characters are
described in more detail in later sections. Some names appear more than
once; in such cases any reference to the second or later version is followed
by a number, e.g. Ariel (2) refers to the second Ariel.
Two women named Olga Romanoff are mentioned in the second novel, but only
the most recent appears as a character. Her name is usually abbreviated to O.R.
in the definitions that follow; other names occur much less often and are given
in full. Entries without links come from other sources or were invented for
this worldbook.
The Secret History of Aeria
"We often think of history divided into neat slices, like a well-cut ham.
[n.b. find another simile; without pigs this will soon be meaningless.]
For instance, we talk about the Victorians as though an entirely new species
came into existence when Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, and died en
masse [find another phrase!] when she retired in 1897. In reality much of what had gone before
continued unchanged for decades after Victoria's coronation, and the general
trends of the Victorian period continued well into the twentieth century, until
the first great discontinuity of modern history, the War of the Terror.
"Similarly, it is possible to view the 'slice' of history that begins with
the War of the Terror as a discrete whole, culminating in the greater
discontinuity of the Fire-Cloud. Things are never that tidy; the seeds of the
Terror were laid in the 1880s and earlier, and we still live with some of their
consequences today..."
THE sources for this collection detail two relatively short periods, both
dominated by wars, but gloss over more than a hundred and twenty years of peace.
This section suggests some events that might have been going on behind the scenes
in both novels, and tries to outline some of the history of the intervening
years. Finally, it looks at the world after the second novel, a world with only
a few hundred survivors.
The periods covered by the novels may not be ideal for extended role playing
campaigns; opportunities for adventure are generally limited to serving with one or
another of the factions involved in various wars, espionage and terrorism,
survivalism, and looting, racketeering, and other forms of crime. Some adventure ideas
for these periods are outlined below, but they are mostly intended to be one-off
scenarios; those set in the days of the Terror might be used as a prelude to a
campaign with a later setting, those set during the Second Terror are snapshots
from the death of most of the human race.
1881-1905 - The Terror MOST scholars agree that the main history of the Terror begins in 1881,
with the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by the Nihilists and the succession
of Alexander III. These events have earlier roots, of course, but Alexander III
was the the lynch-pin of history, absolute monarch of a nation which
systematised brutality and the oppression of its subjects, and ruthlessly
crushed anyone else who happened to fall foul of its system. At the time of his
assassination Alexander II was planning a series of reforms; Alexander III
put a stop to them, and rendered Russia more repressive than ever before. Many
Russians, especially Jews and members of other minorities, wanted to flee to Europe and
America; Alexander's officials made it almost impossible, and anyone seeking
permission to leave was almost guaranteed exile in Siberia. Many of those who
did not flee were forced into the Russian army (with the term of conscription
lasting up to twenty years) or otherwise victimised.
An early victim was Israel di Murska, later known as Natas, a Jewish merchant
from Britain, who visited Russia with the intention of lobbying for the release
of thousands of Jews who found it impossible to escape. [AR 50] He was arrested on
trumped-up charges, sent to Siberia, and eventually crippled by a guard's brutal assault. On his
return to Britain in 1884 he learned that his wife had vanished while trying to travel
to meet him. Five years later he discovered that she had been abducted and
enslaved by a high Russian official, later dying in captivity.
di Murska joined the Nihilists, initially because of their shared hatred of the
Tsar but later adopting their socialist goals. Within a few years his organisational
genius, aided by a strange gift for hypnosis which allowed him to dominate all
opposition, had made him their leader. But the Nihilists were too public for his
liking, and too heavily infiltrated by agents of the Tsar and other informers.
He set to work to create another organisation, later known as the Terror, which
would be ruthless but totally secret. The Terror's first task was to purge the
Nihilists, eliminating traitors, weaklings and the over-talkative, and turn them
into the deadly efficient organisation that popular fiction had always imagined.
That accomplished, it gradually came to be the power behind the scenes in most
socialist organisations including the major trade unions.
"Its influence reaches beyond these into the various trade unions and political clubs, the moving spirits of which are
all members of our Outer Circle. On the other side of Society we have agents and adherents in all the Courts of
Europe, all the diplomatic bodies, and all the parliamentary assemblies throughout the world.
The Terror was designed on a cell basis from the outset, with a system of
checks and cut-outs that made it virtually certain that any infiltrator or
traitor would be caught and eliminated. Many of those in the Outer Circle, and
in the other organisations which the Terror secretly controlled, had little or
no idea of the real extent and power of the organisation. Only the members of
the Inner Circle knew more, and they went to ruthless lengths to keep their
secrets, while planning a systematic campaign of assassination which made
the Terror the most feared secret society the world had ever known. A description
of the final chain of command of the American section is typical of the organisation as a whole:
The next step in the organisation was the brigade, consisting of ten regiments, the captains of which alone the
commander of the brigade, while the commanders of the brigades were alone acquainted with the members of the
Inner Circle or Executive Council which managed the affairs of the whole Section, and whose Chief was the only
man in the Section who could hold any communication with the Inner Circle of the Brotherhood itself, which, under
the immediate command of Natas, governed the whole organisation throughout the world.
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(2) Aerian air-ship of the same class as the second Ithuriel [OR 9]
(2) Aerian air-ship used as a courier for the Council [OR 24]
(2) See Orion [OR 22]
(2) A later Aerian air-ship, stolen by O.R. and renamed Revenge [OR 7]
(3) A faster ship of the same general class built to replace (2) [OR 9]
(2) Natasha's mother; see Sylvia Penarth [AR 48]
(2) Aerian air-ship commanded by Alexis Masarov, of the Avenger's type, rechristened Isma [OR 22]
(3) Aerian sentinel-ship which was the first to detect O.R.'s attack on Aeria [OR 31]
(2) The youngest child of Alexander III, O.R.'s great-great grandmother [OR 2]
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Isma Mazarof - first draft of A History of Aeria
New Aeria Press 12 A.F.C.
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"...What I have to ask you, comrades, is what we are to make
of this so-called Terror. I put it to you that they are as much our enemies as
the Tsar; indeed, that they may even be in the pay of the Tsar. They claim to
share our interests, but they demand blind obedience. They have money and weapons,
to be sure, but our contacts with them are entirely through intermediaries,
how are we to be sure that we are not dealing with agents of the Ochrana? Even
if they are not, it is obvious that there is a hidden agenda behind their actions. I say again,
comrades, that we must be vigilant in our dealings with these strangers, and beware
of their gifts..."
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov¹ (AKA Lenin)
Trans., minutes of Moscow Nihilists, 1898
¹Executed on Natas' orders, 1899"Under the circumstances there is no objection to your knowing that. In the first place, that which is known to the
outside world as the Terror is an international secret society underlying and directing the operations of the various
bodies known as Nihilists, Anarchists, Socialists -- in fact, all those organisations which have for their object the
reform or destruction, by peaceful or violent means, of Society as it is at present constituted.
The Section was divided first into squads of ten under the command of an eleventh, who alone knew the leaders of
the other squads in his neighbourhood. Ten of these squads made a company, commanded by one man, who was
only known to the squad-captains, and who alone knew the captain of the regiment, which was composed of ten
companies.
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Scenario Idea: Initiative Test
This adventure may be run at any time between the formation of the Terror and the start of the war. The characters have been recruited into the Outer Circle of the Terror, and tested for loyalty and discretion; their superiors feel that they may now be ready to perform a relatively minor mission. They are to travel to France and learn the movements of Etienne Lambert, a petty criminal who is in the pay of the Russian Secret Police, spying on exiles in Paris. When they have traced his contacts they are to kill him, throwing as much blame as possible on his Russian masters. They may not seek the aid of members of the Terror in France, and mustn't reveal anything to the exiles Lambert has betrayed. There is no time limit; their superiors want it done carefully, not quickly. There are snags, of course; Lambert has a wife and two children, and was blackmailed into betraying the exiles. The Russians have proof of his crimes, and have threatened to have him arrested if he doesn't co-operate. The exiles he has been spying on are scum, criminals who have been preying on other refugees in a protection racket - that's why the adventurers have been told to avoid them, the French branch of the Terror will be dealing with them shortly. Basically this is a test of judgement and initiative. The Terror has no use for Lambert - he couldn't be trusted if his family was at risk - but the circumstances don't necessarily require his death:
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In 1891, when the Terror was already becoming feared, there was an attempt to assassinate the Tsarevitch Nikolai, or Nicholas, first heir to the Russian throne, during a visit to Japan. The circumstances were bizarre; Nicholas' train broke down near Kobe, and he disembarked to get some fresh air. While he was outside a Japanese policeman named Tsuda passed by. Tsuda had been behaving oddly for some time, and for no apparent reason attacked Nicholas and slashed his head with a sword. He was promptly disarmed by another passenger, Prince George of Greece, who used his walking stick to knock the sword from Tsuda's hands (for some of the techniques he might have used see Self-Defence With A Walking Stick, on the FF CD-ROM). Nicholas was wounded; Tsuda was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to life imprisonment. This sentence has never been satisfactorily explained, since the normal punishment for any crime against royalty was immediate execution; it is generally believed that he was helped by an isolationist faction in the Japanese government, but it has sometimes been claimed that Tsuda was a member of the Terror, and that his death, only three months later, was either an assassination to ensure his silence, or faked to cover his escape. There are many reasons to doubt this, not least the simple fact of Tsuda's ineptness; Nicholas survived the attack. Most historians prefer the so-called "lone swordsman" theory.
Although Nicholas' injuries didn't initially appear to be serious, he collapsed a few days later; surgeons diagnosed a stroke, possibly triggered by a blood clot that formed after the accident, leading to partial paralysis of his left side and blindness in his right eye. As a result he withdrew from public life, and it was thought likely that he would die (in fact he made a very gradual recovery, but remained frail, and had only recently returned to the Russian court at the outbreak of the War of the Terror). With Nicholas incapacitated the next heir was his brother, Prince George, but he was also an invalid; he suffered from tuberculosis (and in fact died in 1899). Alexander's third son was Prince Michael, then aged 13.
Alexander's advisers became alarmed; with Nicholas and George ill, and Michael so young, there would be a succession crisis if Alexander died. None of his sons was married, so there was no guarantee of continuity. Alexander was only 46, but his father's assassination and the activities of the Nihilists and the Terror were proof that the Tsar could die young. They urged him to take all possible precautions against assassination, and his doctors were instructed to monitor his health as closely as possible.
Alexander took their advice and strengthened his personal guard; he also issued instructions for the expansion of the Ochrana (secret police) and for the ruthless suppression of all dissident activity, their grip tightening to such an extent that there were protests from most European powers. Russia also began to modernise its armed forces; the excuse given was the possibility of war with Japan, but most observers realised that the main preparations were for a land war, and for the further subjugation of Russia's own population. Meanwhile Alexander's attentive doctors noticed, and treated, early signs of kidney disease (probably a delayed result of injuries in a train crash in 1888); daring surgery restored him to relatively good health, although he never recovered all of his former strength.
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A significant event occurred in 1895, although its importance only became apparent 140 years later. Certain experiments on induced electromagnetic radiation which had initially seemed to show the promise of telegraphic communication without the use of wires began to fail. The range of these signals, initally estimated at several miles, was reduced to a handful of yards, regardless of the power of the transmitter, swamped by apparently random electromagnetic "noise". One of the scientists, Guglielmo Marconi, later said that it was as though "...we tried to shout through a hurricane." The signals existed, but had no useful range. Gradually work was abandoned as scientists moved on to other projects. These included attempts to tap into the "noise" as an energy source, but the power output, although measurable, was too low to be useful.
What was really happening, although it could not be guessed, was the first Martian attempts to establish communications with the Earth. The Martians had observed the first electrically-lit cities through their telescopes and decided to make contact; to do so they transmitted with overwhelming power, more than could be produced by all the generators of Earth, using a signalling system which unfortunately meant nothing to the scientists of the day.
Meanwhile Natas knew that his organisation alone, although growing fast, was too weak to destroy the Tsar and all traces of the Russian system of government. Instead he planned to foment a war between Russia and the major European powers, most notably Britain and Germany, then step in at the crucial moment to destroy the Tsar and impose socialism on the Western powers. As his agents carried out this plan he became aware that the Tsar also intended war; moreover, that he had powerful allies in American government and big business. The American branch of the Terror began to collect evidence of their activities, and in a few cases took action to delay the completion of the alliance. Victims included several industrialists, most notably the inventor Edison (who was working on several militarily important projects including a flying machine of the Aëronef type) and some of his staff and associates. This delayed the development of various weapons, and gave the Terror more time to recruit and arm its agents.
"...Interested as you are in the question, I suppose there is no need to tell you that for several years past the Tsar has had an offer open to all the world of a million sterling for a vessel that will float in the air, and be capable of being directed in its course as a ship at sea can be directed."
In the closing years of the century developments in aviation threatened to give the Tsar an unbeatable military advantage. Several engineers were working on large steerable aerostats, or war-balloons, and there was also considerable interest in heavier-than-air machines which would be less affected by the wind. The Tsar was known to be interested in aviation, and was prepared to buy in the technology, or acquire it by espionage. Most other governments ignored aviation, except for some interest in captive observation balloons, or were unwilling to budget for realistic research programmes.
At this point aviation research was directed in three main directions; aerostats, powered fixed-wing aëroplanes (essentially gliders with engines), and a variety of aëronef-like designs which used propellers and other mechanisms to lift an aircraft bodily from the ground. Only the first showed much promise, the others required powerful lightweight engines that were unavailable. Aëroplanes also had the disadvantage of requiring launching catapults, which ruled them out of contention for military purposes¹.
¹Or so it was believed. In 1974 Aerian engineering students built a man-carrying aëroplane from materials that were available in 1904, with an enlarged version of a period internal combustion engine for power. It carried two passengers, and was able to take off under its own power, albeit after lengthy acceleration along a straight road, flying at 75 MPH. However it was noisy, unable to ascend or descend vertically, and hazardous to fly even in perfect weather, requiring continual attention from the helmsman. While this might be dismissed as a toy compared to the Ariel and other air-ships of the period, it is interesting to speculate on the course of events if such miniature air-ships had been available at the time of the War of the Terror, and equipped with light artillery or bombs.
Natas also sought control of the air; his technical advisers knew that flight was an inevitable development, and identified the scientists and engineers most likely to attain it first, by checking the subscribers of various technical and scientific journals and the authors of relevant articles, papers, and patents. Richard Arnold's early papers on aëronef power systems bought him to their attention. With his strange predictive ability Natas focused on him as the scientist most likely to come up with a usable aircraft capable of carrying a worthwhile payload and, more importantly, likely to fall in with the Terror's plans. He made sure that Arnold would be cut off from society and friends and subtly influenced him to hate Russia, planting articles and stories on the Tsar's tyranny in the newspapers and magazines Arnold read. Meanwhile the most powerful rivals were discredited and eliminated, often by murder and sabotage; the destruction of Count Von Zeppelin's machine in July 1900 was a typical operation, witnessed by thousands of horrified onlookers.
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Scenario Idea: What Goes Up...
"Good afternoon, comrades. These photographs show Count Von Zeppelin, who is shortly to test this steerable metal-framed balloon at Lake Constance, near Freidrichshaven in Germany. Zeppelin is a patriot and has refused to sell the design to Russia, but Natas has learned that the Russians have stolen the plans of this craft, which is far in advance of comparable experiments in France and other countries; if the Tsar builds a fleet Russia will be able to dominate the world. Your mission is to discredit it completely, by ensuring that it is destroyed during the maiden flight. There must be no survivors, and no hint that it is anything other than a failure of the design, which must be seen to be fatally flawed." The dirigible is being given its final checks and filled with hydrogen in a floating hangar on the lake, attended by engineers, officers and men of the German Balloon Corps, and the Count himself. It is never left unguarded; however, one of the Balloon Corps corporals is a member of the Outer Circle, and can probably smuggle small items in and out of the hangar. Optionally one or more of the crew or ground staff look enough like adventurers to be replaced by someone with appropriate Actor skills. The adventurers have diagrams of the dirigible and must come up with a scheme for destroying it without any allegation of sabotage. If necessary NPC engineers, explosives experts, and scientists are available to help them, but the adventurers must develop the plan and put it into action. There are several obvious targets for sabotage; the gas bags, the mobile weight that controls the airship's balance, the ballast mechanisms, and the aluminium structure of the dirigible itself. The trick is to make whatever happens look like a complete accident and a fundamental flaw in the design, which implies structural failure at a critical point, or a major fire leaving no trace of its origin. To this end it should be noted that aluminium will burn at sufficiently high temperatures, and is "rotted" by certain chemical compounds (which will not be named here for obvious reasons) in a form of spreading corrosion which can cause serious damage to aluminium structures. The FF CD-ROM includes an article, The Ship That Flies, which describes Zeppelin's airship and first flight in detail. Useful NPCs for this adventure are British journalist George Griffith and
artist Another possibility for an adventure along these lines would be the "elimination" of American bicycle makers Wilbur and Orville Wright, before they can get their heavier-than-air flyer off the ground. They appear as characters in a rather different context in one of the FF2 adventures. |
Arnold's eventual success, in September 1903, coincided with the development of a French steerable war-balloon [AR 8] designed by a Monsieur Riboult (later director of the Franco-Slavonian League's war-balloon fleet), a project Natas had deliberately allowed to come to fruition. Natas knew that the Tsar planned to go to war as soon as he had aircraft, and that the French were prepared to share the technology with Russia; if the Tsar could be induced to begin his campaign with aircraft that were greatly inferior to those available to the Terror, his eventual destruction could be assured. It was a dangerous gambit, but one that Natas' strange prophetic abilities suggested would work.
Arnold was sent to Russia to meet the Chief (Alan Tremayne) and to examine the completed war-balloon. He had a series of narrow escapes before returning to Britain and starting work on the construction of the first full-sized air-ship, the Ariel. Natas' motives in allowing Arnold to take such risks are difficult to understand; if he had been captured and interrogated it is possible that Russia would have learned his secrets, although it is likely that there were plans to free or kill him if necessary. However, this trip did give Arnold a better understanding of the appalling conditions then current in Russia, and thus strengthened his commitment to the cause. It also produced detailed plans and specifications of the Russian war-balloons, making their limitations clear and leading to some modifications to the Terror's air-ship designs; most notably the forward ram was lengthened and the propellers sharpened to ensure that they would cut through a war-balloon's fabric without becoming tangled.
"...How you got to know of me and my invention is, after all, a matter of indifference to me. With your perfect system of espionage you might well find out more secret things than that."
With hindsight it is obvious that Arnold completely underestimated the Terror, even as he acknowledged its capabilities. He believed that he alone controlled the secret of flight; in reality all important details, including the composition of his fuel, were known long before he was contacted and recruited. If he had refused to join, or showed any sign of wanting to sell out to the Tsar, he would have been killed; Natas preferred him alive and working for the Terror, since he knew more about his design than anyone else, but if necessary other arrangements could and would have been made. The demands Arnold made on joining the Terror were accepted because they fitted in with the Terror's goals, although Arnold thought that the Terror had no alternative but to agree. In fact it could be said that Arnold was later the first to break the terms he made, in his attack on Kronstadt.
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The Ariel Archive plans and a painting by 'Natasha', 1906 |
At this point the Ariel had been flight-tested but her weapons were untried, and the direct course to Tiumen, where the rescue was scheduled to occur, passed over the fortress of Kronstadt and St. Petersburg. Arnold had by this time become so angry that he thirsted for action; Colston insisted that the actual rescue was to be as bloodless as possible, so Arnold found another target for his rage.
"There is not the slightest reason why we should not take a shot at Kronstadt, if only to give the Russians a foretaste of favours to come. Still, I won't fire the first shot on any account, simply because that honour belongs to you. I'll fire the second with pleasure."
The Destruction of Kronstadt Painting by Fred T. Jane |
The records of Aeria show that when the news reached Britain there was an emergency meeting of the Inner Circle, which debated punishing Arnold and Colston for exceeding their orders. However, their orders could be interpreted as allowing the attack; it had been anticipated that they would probably have to use the air-ship publicly at some point during this mission, and they had permission to do so if necessary. Whether the attack could be construed as "necessary" has been the subject of considerable debate; suffice it to say that the Terror so strongly favoured action against Russia, even non-essential action, that there was never much doubt of the outcome. Their aim was to provoke a war that would destroy the Tsar; anything that raised tensions in any way was likely to be approved.
On Monday morning a Council of Ministers was held at the Peterhof Palace in St. Petersburg, presided over by the Tsar, and convened to discuss the destruction of Kronstadt.At this Council it was announced that the fleet of war-balloons would be ready to take the air in a week's time from then, and that the concentration of troops on the Afghan frontier was as complete as it could be without provoking immediate hostilities with Britain. In fact, so close were the Cossacks and the Indian troops to each other, both on the Pamirs and on the western slopes of the Hindu Kush, that a collision might be expected at any moment.
The Council of the Tsar decided to let matters take their course in the East, and to make all arrangements with France to simultaneously attack the Triple Alliance as soon as the war-balloons had been satisfactorily tested.
One of the great questions of history is the Russian government's motive in allowing the war to begin at this point, when it was obvious that their war-balloons were completely outclassed by the mysterious air-ship that destroyed Kronstadt. It is often argued that Alexander was more aware of the importance of air power than any other ruler, and must surely have realised the hopelessness of the situation. Surely there were ample survivors to attest to the power of the Terrorist air-ship, its speed and manoeuvrability, and the effect of its shells. How could any sane government oppose such power?
It must be remembered that the attack on Kronstadt was the first military use of an air-ship, and that its implications were slow to sink in, even on the most air-minded governments. The reports published abroad, before censorship blocked all comment, gave an idea of the truth, but they received little circulation inside Russia. No Russian officers survived the explosions, and the surviving soldiers and seamen were mostly peasant conscripts, dazed by the suddenness of the attack and unable to give a coherent account of events. Their stories were confused and often contradictory, and a full enquiry continued for several weeks after the attack, long after the start of the war. It was known that the air-ship had attacked at high speed and from a considerable height, but the range at which the shells were fired wasn't clear, and as reports moved up through layers of bureaucracy, at frantic speed, these details were simplified or minimised, often by Terrorist sympathisers. By the time they reached the Tsar and his Council an unbiased reader might have formed the impression that the air-ship described was only a little more destructive than the Tsar's own war-balloons, with a lucky hit on a magazine destroying the fort.
Several other false assumptions led to this decision.
Russian Soldiersof the 1904 War |
Following the rescue of Natasha [AR 13] the Ariel went on to Africa and explored Aeria, the enclosed valley discovered by Holt and Jackson in 1899 [AR 17]. The Terrorists planned to sit out the early stages of the war, while building up their forces for the end game, and Aeria seemed the perfect headquarters for this purpose. It was virtually inaccessible by land, except by difficult mountaineering techniques, and would be easy to defend if the Russians somehow realised it was their base. Arnold and Colston and their crew surveyed the the valley and identified its natural resources, and built the first huts of the village that would eventually become the capital city of Aeria.
Meanwhile workmen and the components of another dozen air-ships were shipped to one of the Cape Verde islands [AR 9], where the air-ships were assembled and tested [AR 18] and the crews trained in their operation.
Ithuriel Rescues the Aurania Painting by Fred T. Jane |
On the evening of the Ithuriel's departure Aeria was hit by a tropical storm and Roburoff ordered the shipbuilders to shelter in the air-ships; under cover of the storm a group of Russians, members of the Outer Circle who were aboard the Lucifer, stole the air-ship and flew it towards Russia [AR 25]. Despite all of Roburoff's efforts they were not intercepted. When the air-ships returned with Natas there was an immediate investigation, as a result of which Nicholas Roburoff was stripped of his rank as President of the Executive of the Brotherhood. After refuelling the air-ships Ithuriel, Ariel and Orion set off in pursuit of the Lucifer, tracking it to Russia, where samples of its fuel had been left with Russia's premier chemist, Professor Volnow of the Imperial Arsenal Laboratory at St. Petersburg. Volnow was taken prisoner; as the Ithuriel left with him the laboratory was accidentally destroyed by an explosion caused by simultaneous release of both components of the fuel, apparently the action of a careless laboratory assistant. Russian sympathisers later claimed that bombs were dropped by the Terrorists, but this was always denied. Although several hundred civilian workers were killed, the Arsenal was a legitimate military target, so there seems no obvious reason for the Terror to lie about the matter. The log of the Ithuriel must be considered the best account of the incident, and supports the "accident" version of events.
Lucifer Attacks the Baltic Fleet Painting by Fred T. Jane |
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Scenario Idea: Torpedo!
The adventurers are members of the Royal Navy, the only survivors from the officers and crew of Torpedo Boat 82, destroyed by a shell from the Lucifer. As the adventure begins they are floating on the remains of a slowly-sinking life raft. Dusk is closing in. Give them a while to worry about sharks etc., and worry about rations, then have them picked up by a Danish fishing yawl. Unfortunately the yawl has also picked up something else; a Whitehead torpedo, presumably fired by one side or the other (both have them) is tangled in the nets. The engine has stopped, but the warhead is probably still armed. The fishermen have no tools aboard, apart from knives, marlinspikes, and a rusty axe. To make matters worse, the yawl seems to be in the path of the Russian fleet, which is visible by occasional gun and searchlight flashes; while it's making a couple of knots, there isn't enough wind to get out of the way... There is an opportunity here for patriotic sailors, if they can recognise it. The torpedo has neutral buoyancy - it will float a little below the surface if it can be got back into the water. If they can tow it behind the yawl it will be a lethal surprise for anything that runs into it. The snags? There isn't enough rope aboard to keep it far enough away to ensure that the yawl will be safe (although adding a net or two will do the trick), and the crew of the yawl really don't want anything to do with a ton or so of high explosive. They must be overcome, persuaded, or somehow bribed. If the adventurers do nothing the yawl will be machine-gunned by one of the Russian torpedo boats (actually a steam ship, much larger than later motor torpedo boats) but to do this the ship has to come within range of the torpedo, at the end of all of the ropes and nets aboard the yawl joined together. If the torpedo explodes aboard the yawl everyone aboard, and anyone in the water nearby, will be killed. If it explodes on the end of all the ropes etc. the yawl will be damaged but survive. None of the other ships will notice the yawl, they'll think the torpedo boat hit a mine; it will sink within minutes. The adventurers must then decide what to do about the Russian survivors, who will be swimming towards the yawl... |
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...if you will tell me where the Lucifer is now to be found, and will despatch orders both by land and through Professor Volnow, who brings this letter to you, and will return with your answer, for her to be given up to me forthwith with everything she has on board, and will surrender with her the four traitors who delivered her into your hands, I will restore the nine war-balloons to you intact, and when I have recovered the Lucifer I will take no further part in the war unless either you or your opponents proceed to unjustifiable extremities.If you reject these terms, or if I do not receive an answer to this letter within two hours of the time that the bearer of it descends in the aerostat, I shall give orders for the immediate destruction of the war-balloons now in my hands, and I shall then proceed to destroy Cüstrin and the other aerostats which are moored near the town. That done I shall, for the time being, devote the force at my disposal to the defence of Berlin, and do my utmost to bring about the defeat and dispersal of the army which will then no longer be commanded by yourself.
In other words, Natas promised the return of the war-balloons and a free hand in Europe if the Lucifer and its crew were returned, and guaranteed that the Terrorists would oppose the attack on Berlin if the Tsar refused.
By now the Tsar had a clearer idea of the destructive power of the Terror's air-ships, and had no choice but to comply. However, his letter refused to hand over the crew, who were Russian citizens (after the war identified as members of the Ochrana, the Russian secret police). Natas decided to accept these modified terms, and ordered Arnold to release the war-balloons and set off in pursuit of the Russian Baltic fleet and the Lucifer, since he felt that its recapture was far more important than the destruction of the Russian aerostats or the death of the traitors.
A Treacherous Attack on the Ariel Painting by Fred T. Jane |
It must be emphasised that despite all efforts by subsequent historians to "pretty up" Natas' plan and make it seem less ruthless than it was, it is clear that he had no desire to stop the Russian attack, and little intention of doing so; he wanted Britain to be on the verge of collapse before he intervened. His ultimatum was a last resort, made necessary by the gravity of the situation.
If the Tsar had refused to co-operate Natas would have carried out his threat with extreme reluctance, and probably found a way around it - for example, by destroying the Lucifer early in the battle then breaking off to give Russia a free hand. The only way for the Revolution to succeed was from a position of absolute power; allies and enemies alike must be convinced that they were entirely at the Terror's mercy. Any serious attack on the Russians would have caused immense problems for Natas. If it succeeded the Russians might pull back from an all-out assault on Britain. If it somehow failed Russian morale would have been strengthened immeasurably, making the final battle more of a gamble.
Ithuriel Recaptures the Lucifer Painting by Fred T. Jane |
"...the moment he brings his war-balloons across the waters which separate Britain from Europe, the last hour of his empire will have struck."If he neglects this warning with which I now intrust you, I will bring a force against him before which he shall be as helpless as the armies of the Alliance have so far been before him and his war-balloons; and, more than this, tell him that if I conquer I will not spare. I will hold him and his advisers strictly to account for all that may happen after that moment.
While Arnold appears to have been entirely sincere, Natas must have been responsible for the wording. The Tsar was psychologically incapable of resisting such a challenge, especially when it offered a chance to confront the Terror head-on and avenge the death of his father.
In essence, then, the theft of the Lucifer helped Natas achieve many of his goals. It gave him a chance to dictate terms to the Tsar, and to dare him to invade Britain. It left the British fleet depleted, increasing the chance of an invasion. It eliminated a Russian admiral and the premier Russian aviation laboratory and scientist. It "blooded" the crews of the Terror's air-ships. Given Natas' legendary cunning, it was natural that rumours about these events circulated after the war; Gore Vidal's novel Natas (1977) incorporates these stories, with scenes in which Natas hypnotises the thieves (who have been detected as Russian agents) and plans the theft, arranges the murder of Volnow, and betrays Admiral Prabylov (secretly a member of the Outer Circle) by destroying the Russian flagship without rescuing him first. All palpable nonsense, but there is evidence that the original rumours were planted by Tsarist sympathisers in the 1920s.
In July and August members of the Inner Circle were kept busy planning the final seizure of power in the colonies, Canada, and the United States. Natas needed the resources of these countries to rescue Britain and defeat the Tsar. The USA posed the worse problems; its government and industrial leaders were corrupt and committed to aid the Russians. American shipyards were building a fleet of dynamite cruisers, while the press was committed to neutrality but slowly moving towards the Russian camp. Eventually the USA would be steered into the war on the side of the Tsar. To counter this, it was essential to seize all of the reins of power simultaneously and time all operations perfectly, from strikes to the capture of the President and most of the government. It would have been impossible without the co-operation of certain members of the U.S. Secret Service, who had joined the Terror after deciding that their loyalty to America and the Anglo-Saxon race outweighed their duty to a corrupt government.
The complex job of co-ordinating the operation was in the hands of Michael Roburoff. As the operation drew near he showed disturbing signs of an egotistical lust for personal power, and even attempted to manipulate the Revolution for personal gain. The most obvious sign of this was his demand for Natasha's hand in marriage, but there were other incidents that showed he had an inflated idea of his own importance, and at least one assassination motivated by spite, although it also furthered the goals of the Revolution. In mid-September Natasha and Tremayne were sent to America, ostensibly for a wedding, but in fact to convey Natas' reply to Roburoff's demands:
...My orders to you were to complete the arrangements for bringing the American Section into action when you received the signal to do so. Instead of doing that, you have sought to bargain with me for the price of its allegiance. That is treachery, and the penalty of treachery is death.NATAS.
[AR 36]
The Execution of Roburoff Painting by Fred T. Jane |
The panic that followed paralysed the Eastern States, and five millions armed men took to the streets to seize control of America. By noon every dynamite cruiser and warship on the eastern coast had been seized and manned by the Terrorists. More than half the army and navy had joined the Terrorists. At midday the President was arrested by his own Secret Service guards in the White House. An hour later Washington was secure, and Tremayne entered the Senate, and in the name of Natas proclaimed the Constitution of the United States null and void, and the Government dissolved, to be replaced by the Federation of the English-speaking world, an alliance of countries linked by common blood, speech and interests¹. Naturally this idea was immensely popular with the members of the Brotherhood, especially linked to a redistribution of wealth which would redress most of the economic ills of the United States.
¹In areas with non English-speaking populations other arguments were used; for example, predominantly German areas were told that the Federation was Germany's only hope. Areas of New York with large Italian populations were kept under martial law for several weeks. The Russian exile community was solidly behind the Revolution, once a few spies and informers had been eliminated.
The carefully-timed arrival of a message from Natas, appointing Tremayne "...Chief of the Central Executive, first President of the Anglo-Saxon Federation..." [AR 27] set the seal on the situation. He was accepted by acclamation (it should be remembered that the crowd was mostly composed of members of the Brotherhood, with the few outsiders caught up in their enthusiasm) and accepted the office immediately, vowing war against the Tsar if "one of his soldiers sets foot on the sacred soil of our motherland".
This concluded the Second American Revolution; it had cost less than a hundred lives, and took less than twelve hours. The triumph of the Terrorists was complete, and its scapegoating of the millionaires was extremely popular. By the end of the day Canada was similarly paralysed. Two days later the Governor of Canada dissolved the Canadian Legislatures "under protest" and resigned. He objected to surrendering sovereignty, but could see no way to oppose the Revolution. This was received less calmly; most of Canada accepted the change, but there were riots in the French-speaking areas and it was necessary to declare martial law in Quebec.
The members of the capitalist Ring and their allies in the late U.S. Government were tried before a Commission of seven members of the Inner Circle of the American Section, presided over by Tremayne. They produced proof of a plan to declare war upon Britain, and starve her into surrender, including a secret pact signed by the late President and the Secretary of State, and countersigned by the Russian Ambassador. None of this was a crime under prior American, but that didn't stop the court convicting the President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State, twelve other politicians, and a ring of twenty-four industrialists of "multiple counts of giving and receiving bribes, betraying and conspiring to betray the confidence of the American people in its elected representatives, and also of conspiring to make war without due cause on a friendly Power for purely commercial reasons."
On the 9th of October they were sentenced to death, but Tremayne commuted the sentence to confiscation of their wealth and perpetual banishment (with their wives and families, who were found guilty of profiting from these crimes) to Kodiak Island, off Alaska. The assets seized included more than three hundred million dollars, real estate, and most of America's railways and industry. All of these businesses became state property, placed in the hands of boards of management composed of their own officials. Soon all was running smoothly. Government was rationalised and streamlined, and prices fell, largely because a huge proportion of the wealth generated by industry no longer went into a few greedy pockets.
A more fundamental change was the abolition of most of the USA's civil and criminal law, replaced by a simple code based on the ten commandments, to which was added a promise that those "who could not live without breaking any of these laws would not be considered as fit to live in civilised society, and would therefore be effectively removed from the companionship of their fellows." This was well enough, but the extension of collective guilt to the families of those found guilty (as in the case of the corrupt government officials and the Ring) became a common practice, and one which cannot readily be justified; it was borrowed wholesale from Imperial Russia, where "guilt by association" was ample justification for arrest. It is odd that the founders of the Federation rejected all of the Tsar's other works but adopted this one practice, and continued it for most of the twentieth century.
Meanwhile events were moving rapidly elsewhere. The League now controlled continental Europe, while the Anglo-Teutonic Alliance collapsed with the conquest of Germany and its other member states. Britain's "victory" in the Nile left the fleet so damaged that a naval presence in the Mediterranean could no longer be sustained, and all ships of the Royal Navy were recalled to home waters to prepare for the invasion.
As expected the Tsar refused to disarm, so the Federation prepared for war. The blockade of the American and Canadian coasts was rigidly maintained, with no vessels allowed to enter or leave any port, and aerial and sea patrols along the coasts. All warships of the League were withdrawn from the Atlantic.
On the 6th of October the British cabinet rejected Natas' offer to help Britain in return for the surrender of sovereignty; they refused to recognise the Federation as a properly constituted Power, or to have any dealings with its leaders [AR 27]. At this point Britain had lost all regular communication with the East for several weeks; it was guessed that India was lost, but there was no certainty, and there was no communication with Australia. All Atlantic cables were dead, and no merchant ship dared leave harbour; those that did vanished. The Federation's offer was the last communication from the outside world before the League's invasion began.
The Centurion Torpedoed Painting by Fred T. Jane |
The League intended to make an example of London, then demand Britain's surrender. The Tsar meant to destroy London's will to resist by blocking all food supplies and raining shells and fire-bombs onto the capital. The tidal power barrage at Greenwich was an early casualty, depriving most of London of electricity, and the other power stations and gas works were similarly targeted. Fortunately London's water and sewage systems were let off lightly, and it was a cold winter, or disease would certainly have been widespread. Hundreds of thousands of casualties filled every hospital, overflowing into schools (which were closed for the duration, to the joy of many children) and many homes. The deep underground tube stations were pressed into use as shelters - without electricity they were useless for their original purpose - with women and children given top priority. Gradually food supplies ran out, and many Londoners were reduced to eating the poorest of raw vegetables, nettles and thistles, horse meat (many horses were killed by bombing), and eventually dogs, cats, pigeons and other birds, snails, and even rats.
Outside London the vast mass of the population were curiously inert; the expected flood of volunteers was little more than a trickle, with few members of the working classes joining the colours. Even in London the response was considered disappointing. Most working men, and many others sympathetic to the Socialist cause, were awaiting the call to arms from a very different source; the Terror and its associated organisations.
On the 21st of November the last railway lines were captured, leaving London entirely dependent upon its own resources. By the end of the month the Tsar believed that the city was on the verge of surrender. However, he was largely unaware of the activities of the Revolution, especially in America. As far as he was concerned the U.S.A. would soon hand over the promised dynamite cruisers; they were a little overdue, but not enough to cause serious concern, and reassuring messages occasionally reached him via the Transatlantic cable (which was, of course, under Tremayne's complete control). Tremayne's October ultimatum hadn't spelled out the full extent of Terrorist power; the Tsar simply knew that the Terror had a few air-ships, and had no idea that millions of men, including a large fraction of his own armies, were ready to fight in the service of freedom and socialism.
On the 29th of November Colston repeated his offer to the King and Cabinet; this time the King urged and received acceptance. Britain was to join the Anglo-Saxon Federation, and the Federation would immediately start to fight on Britain's side. All London need do was hold out for another six days, the time needed for the Federation's American forces to reach Britain. Unknown to the King, Natas was prepared to intervene even if Britain had refused to join the Federation [AR 42], but naturally preferred to be treated as Britain's saviour, not just another invader. Roughly four hours after the meeting ended, the Ithuriel destroyed the French submarine fleets at Sheerness and Portsmouth, then returned to America.
Shaken by this unexpected disaster, the Tsar delayed the final attack and sent a flag of truce into London the next day, offering terms for a British surrender. The King eventually said that he would surrender on the sixth of December if no help had arrived "from the other cities of Britain"; in fact he hoped that the help of the Federation would arrive first. It was a gamble; the Tsar could have decided to use his war-balloons to eliminate the threat by bombing Britain's major cities, where the Revolution's supporters were preparing to take up arms, but luckily chose to concentrate on London. By the time these terms were agreed the Federation fleet was already en route to Britain, reaching the Channel on the fifth of December.
Terrorist Volunteersof the 1904 War and its aftermath 
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Ramming an Aërostat Painting by Fred T. Jane |
Aërostats Hit by Explosive Shell Painting by Fred T. Jane |
At about this time the Azrael and the Lucifer were damaged by artillery fire in two separate incidents. In both cases the air-ships were flying low, in support of ground operations, and were hit by random shells, not aimed fire. The Azrael was hit by a French shell, which badly damaged her air-planes but fortunately left the fan-wheels and stern propellers intact; she was able to beat a slow retreat. The Lucifer, that most unfortunate of air-ships, was hit in the stern, then apparently lost power to all fans and propellers; it seems likely that the shell (which was probably a stray fired by Federation artillery; no enemy units were in range) severed her main and secondary pneumatic lines, since an engine hit would have caused an immediate explosion. She crashed and exploded, and all aboard her were killed.¹
¹After this incident this name was "retired"; fleet lists traditionally included a fictitious ship called the Lucifer, and training exercises simulated missions to rescue her from whichever enemy was currently fashionable, but there was never another real ship with that name.
The Final Battle Painting by Fred T. Jane |
Natasha's Song of Victory Painting by Fred T. Jane |
The Trial of the Tsar Painting by Fred T. Jane |
In the days that followed Natas retired, leaving Tremayne to form the Federation's first government. The main requirements of member nations were public ownership of all land, banning land speculation and requiring all rents to be paid to local governments, and a total ban on war. Standing armies were to be disbanded, warships sunk, all weapons scrapped. Small Federation-controlled standing armies were to be retained, but were only to be used for maintaining the peace; war, and any other possession of military weapons, were crimes punishable by death. [AR 48]
The Federation (in practice, a relatively small number of men and women, former members of the Terror, who were soon to become residents of Aeria) retained the secrets of flight, and guarded them jealously. They woul
