I absolutely LOVED this new story/addendum. Thank you, DrakonFin!
Seconded on both things.
What's the status of Stockholm by 2042, and has Finland fully recovered and moved back to first world status by then? I imagine that as Finland goes in terms of recovery, so goes Central/Eastern Europe.
Russia (or parts of it) may be at a TTL 2014 Finland level.
Wow, more of thi story. Always enjoy this and love your style.
Wonder what happened to the gold bar?
Thank you for the comments, guys! I thought it was a time for a brief look at the gold train that was mentioned in at least one or two updates in the TL proper. There are again several other explicit or implicit references in the addendum as well - by now I think this is not a TL anymore but just a big web of references that folds on itself again and again.
As for the situation in the Stockholm area in 2042 and the eventual fate of the gold bar... Those are whole another stories I might get back to at some point.
What a nice young policeman! So generous and polite. I wonder what happened to him afterwards.
In those lean days, gardening was surely a good way to supplement your meager rations.
Constable Aarnio? He will stay in Gothenburg for a couple of years to work for Jakobson at the Finnish Embassy. He then moves to Mikkeli via Seinäjoki and becomes a member of the FNA civilian police organisation. Slowly rising throught the ranks, being considered a solid, affable policeman, he loathes the rise of Varis and his military police goons as much as his other colleagues. By the 2010s he is a mid-ranking official in the Mikkeli Police Command and (like pointed out in one chapter of the epilogue, E10.), he starts supporting the Opposition Interim Council early and thus after the Winter Games is seen as a strong contender to become the national head of the joint Finnish civilian police organisation after the military police has been de-fanged.
Now, how deeply was Aarnio involved in the Winter Games and toppling the National Committee? We know he is corrupt, even by FNA standards, and it is quite likely he is working for the revolution, either after being paid off or coerced like Vartia. How much is he in bed with, say, General Ahola, the Spokesman or the man called Streng? That may or may not come into light later. There was someone who might know this - but as we know, he was put away under false charges of murder and whatnot, and what evidence he had in his bulging briefcase was destroyed by Streng's associate.
Aarnio has quite certainly been supplementing his income through various more-or-less legal projects on the side. He quite probably has been into smuggling as much or more than his OTL self, though it seems quite unlikely he will face any negative consequences due to it.
Good update! Incidentally, as an eight year old and having avid interest in model airplanes I grabbed this book from my local library as it was in same library shelf as books such as "Airplanes of the First World War" After reading the facts about end of the world always being some 30 minutes away, effects of radiation and thousands of nuclear weapons suddenly Freddy Krueger movie a classmate had seen and told about did not seem so horrible anymore...
"The Big Book on Nuclear Warfare; Armaments, Strategies, Crisis Regions, Balance of Power" by Christopher Chant and Ian Hogg." Originally published as "Nuclear War in the 1980's" in 1983.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuclear-War...K_1_88?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457355792&sr=1-88
Thank you. I remember reading that book as well. I agree that it was quite intimidating, what with its colourful photos and matter of fact portrayal of nuclear weapons and their effects - if I remember correctly.
Funny thing, that train full of gold.
Like all other currencies, initially after the war it is little more than a vast lump of cold and lifeless metal. But as time goes by and the survivors start to have a somewhat functional economy, it is likely to once regain and then exceed its prewar value.
Quite so. Right after the Exchange, the aid given by Greta to the seven policemen might have well been more valuable than the gold bar, as such things like raspberry jam, canned
nötkött and
knäckebröd will keep one alive much better than trying to gnaw gold bars. But of course in the future the contents of that train will be a lot of money - and will have a big effect on the relations between the Gothenburg - Seinäjoki - Mikkeli triangle.
Good to see some addenda to the story every now and then!
More might appear sporadically, unless I get my other TL projects started sometime in the near future.