Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
I had one of those when I was a kid, but what are you implying with direct sunlight moving things?
Part 116, Chapter 1927
Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred Twenty-Seven
20th August 1969
Montreal
The black and white vanes in the radiometer spun around inside the delicate glass globe that was sitting on the windowsill of Sir Malcolm’s office in the morning sun. Marie had been watching it for the last several minutes, fascinated by the seemingly miraculous movement and trying to figure out what the trick that made it work was.
“That has been sitting there for the last forty years” Sir Malcolm said as he saw what Marie was doing. “Your father put that there after he won it at a school event and I’ve never felt the need to move it.”
Marie did the math in her head and realized that her father would have been around Sophie’s age. It was hard to imagine that. “It still works?” She asked.
“There is no reason why it wouldn’t” Sir Malcolm replied, “It only has one moving part, and it is propelled by simple physics.”
“It seems magical” Marie said only to have Sir Malcolm chuckle.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Sir Malcolm replied, “It is one of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws.”
Marie gave Sir Malcolm a quizzical look, she wasn’t familiar with that one.
“A Science-Fiction author”
“Like Aunt Annelise?” Marie asked.
“More like hard Science-Fiction” Sir Malcolm replied, “Ms. Frank deals in what could be described as Historical-Fiction bordering on Fantasy and the Feminist direction of her work is likely due to the influence of your mother.”
“You know who she is?”
“Of course, I would” Sir Malcolm said, “Just like your Aunt Elisabeth is your mother’s half-sister and Doctor in Environmental Science, or Magdalena is running the rare books section of the Berlin Public Library, Kristine is the Headmistress at the BND’s training School in Falkensee while Asia is an Instructor there as well as the current Mistress of Keys, and finally Judita works as an Administrator for the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin.”
It was also suspected that Kristine Lehrer and Asia Lawniczak were lovers, but Sir Malcolm doubted that Marie would understand that. While he knew his granddaughter had traveled extensively and was well read, she did reveal herself to be about as naïve as one would expect a rather sheltered thirteen-year-old to be over certain matters. From what Malcolm himself had observed, she also tended to live in a world that she embellished a bit to make an otherwise humdrum existence seem like something magical. Not that he blamed her.
“How do you know all that?” Marie asked.
“Would it surprise you to know that British Military Intelligence has been keeping tabs on your family for a long time?” Sir Malcolm asked in reply. “It comes from being considered important.”
“Oh” Marie said before she resumed watching the radioscope.
The primary source for that information had been Marie’s own father and Sir Malcolm figured that Douglas coordinated whatever he said to MI6 with his wife. Meaning that they knew exactly what Kat von Mischner wanted them to know, which had a few frightening implications. It was his sincerest hope that an innocent like Marie would not find herself getting a crash education in what was basically the family business.
Washington D.C.
“That ship is huge” Nelson Rockefeller said, “I’ll give them that much.”
After more than a month of speculation, the CIA had concluded that the presence of the SMS Antonia Marie in the Canal Zone over the 4th of July had just been a coincidence. The elephant in the room was that the mere presence of a nuclear-powered ship had symbolic meaning that could not be ignored. Especially one that was about as large as could fit through the locks of the Panama Canal. The detail that the entire ship was painted white with red crosses painted prominently on either side of the hull and the superstructure made its mission clear, the CIA just questioned if there was more to it than that.
There was another thing that could hardly be ignored either and that was a photograph that had been taken in Western Samoa a couple weeks earlier. A young woman in the tropical uniform of the German Medical Service. The whole thing was in the odd shades of yellow and brown that they used in the camouflage, but the effectiveness of that was negated by the blue beret with a silver pin with the familiar symbol of Caduceus inside a wreath. Her hair was tied back in a long braid and her glasses where working their way towards the tip of her nose as she talked to one of the Samoans. She was unmistakably Kristina, the Princess Royal of Germany. Rockefeller couldn’t help but notice that a part of the tropical uniform was the shorts that had been cut just above the knees, revealing a pair of shapely legs. This was the next thing the CIA had started speculating about.
“She is a Doctor” Rockefeller observed, “So, this is perfectly in keeping with that.”
“We understand that Sir” The CIA Analysist giving him the briefing replied, “Just not everything she has done is in keeping with her being a mere Medical Officer.”
“You mean the business investments and the odd forays into politics?”
“Yes, Sir” the Analysist replied, “She is also difficult to get anyone near, something of a recluse who prefers the company of a close-knit circle of friends.”
So, that was it. The CIA was suspicious of the Princess because they were having difficulty spying on her. Rockefeller knew that stupid little things like this would complicate matters when he attended an international conference in Switzerland next year. On the same trip, he was also supposed to visit the town where his ancestors had lived until they had emigrated to Upstate New York. Having the CIA with their back up because unable to get a read on a young woman he would doubtlessly come into contact with would be a nuisance.
That was when the thought occurred to him that the CIA might be the wrong people to be involved this time.
20th August 1969
Montreal
The black and white vanes in the radiometer spun around inside the delicate glass globe that was sitting on the windowsill of Sir Malcolm’s office in the morning sun. Marie had been watching it for the last several minutes, fascinated by the seemingly miraculous movement and trying to figure out what the trick that made it work was.
“That has been sitting there for the last forty years” Sir Malcolm said as he saw what Marie was doing. “Your father put that there after he won it at a school event and I’ve never felt the need to move it.”
Marie did the math in her head and realized that her father would have been around Sophie’s age. It was hard to imagine that. “It still works?” She asked.
“There is no reason why it wouldn’t” Sir Malcolm replied, “It only has one moving part, and it is propelled by simple physics.”
“It seems magical” Marie said only to have Sir Malcolm chuckle.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Sir Malcolm replied, “It is one of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws.”
Marie gave Sir Malcolm a quizzical look, she wasn’t familiar with that one.
“A Science-Fiction author”
“Like Aunt Annelise?” Marie asked.
“More like hard Science-Fiction” Sir Malcolm replied, “Ms. Frank deals in what could be described as Historical-Fiction bordering on Fantasy and the Feminist direction of her work is likely due to the influence of your mother.”
“You know who she is?”
“Of course, I would” Sir Malcolm said, “Just like your Aunt Elisabeth is your mother’s half-sister and Doctor in Environmental Science, or Magdalena is running the rare books section of the Berlin Public Library, Kristine is the Headmistress at the BND’s training School in Falkensee while Asia is an Instructor there as well as the current Mistress of Keys, and finally Judita works as an Administrator for the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin.”
It was also suspected that Kristine Lehrer and Asia Lawniczak were lovers, but Sir Malcolm doubted that Marie would understand that. While he knew his granddaughter had traveled extensively and was well read, she did reveal herself to be about as naïve as one would expect a rather sheltered thirteen-year-old to be over certain matters. From what Malcolm himself had observed, she also tended to live in a world that she embellished a bit to make an otherwise humdrum existence seem like something magical. Not that he blamed her.
“How do you know all that?” Marie asked.
“Would it surprise you to know that British Military Intelligence has been keeping tabs on your family for a long time?” Sir Malcolm asked in reply. “It comes from being considered important.”
“Oh” Marie said before she resumed watching the radioscope.
The primary source for that information had been Marie’s own father and Sir Malcolm figured that Douglas coordinated whatever he said to MI6 with his wife. Meaning that they knew exactly what Kat von Mischner wanted them to know, which had a few frightening implications. It was his sincerest hope that an innocent like Marie would not find herself getting a crash education in what was basically the family business.
Washington D.C.
“That ship is huge” Nelson Rockefeller said, “I’ll give them that much.”
After more than a month of speculation, the CIA had concluded that the presence of the SMS Antonia Marie in the Canal Zone over the 4th of July had just been a coincidence. The elephant in the room was that the mere presence of a nuclear-powered ship had symbolic meaning that could not be ignored. Especially one that was about as large as could fit through the locks of the Panama Canal. The detail that the entire ship was painted white with red crosses painted prominently on either side of the hull and the superstructure made its mission clear, the CIA just questioned if there was more to it than that.
There was another thing that could hardly be ignored either and that was a photograph that had been taken in Western Samoa a couple weeks earlier. A young woman in the tropical uniform of the German Medical Service. The whole thing was in the odd shades of yellow and brown that they used in the camouflage, but the effectiveness of that was negated by the blue beret with a silver pin with the familiar symbol of Caduceus inside a wreath. Her hair was tied back in a long braid and her glasses where working their way towards the tip of her nose as she talked to one of the Samoans. She was unmistakably Kristina, the Princess Royal of Germany. Rockefeller couldn’t help but notice that a part of the tropical uniform was the shorts that had been cut just above the knees, revealing a pair of shapely legs. This was the next thing the CIA had started speculating about.
“She is a Doctor” Rockefeller observed, “So, this is perfectly in keeping with that.”
“We understand that Sir” The CIA Analysist giving him the briefing replied, “Just not everything she has done is in keeping with her being a mere Medical Officer.”
“You mean the business investments and the odd forays into politics?”
“Yes, Sir” the Analysist replied, “She is also difficult to get anyone near, something of a recluse who prefers the company of a close-knit circle of friends.”
So, that was it. The CIA was suspicious of the Princess because they were having difficulty spying on her. Rockefeller knew that stupid little things like this would complicate matters when he attended an international conference in Switzerland next year. On the same trip, he was also supposed to visit the town where his ancestors had lived until they had emigrated to Upstate New York. Having the CIA with their back up because unable to get a read on a young woman he would doubtlessly come into contact with would be a nuisance.
That was when the thought occurred to him that the CIA might be the wrong people to be involved this time.
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Not sure, but pirates tend to value their lifes a bit to much, to attack a ship full with armed soldiers, plus the fact that the whole pacifc squadron of the Imperial Navy will relentlessly hunt them if they are stupid enough to actually go for it.
Other nations that have navies that operate in the Pacific should have their own Hospital Ships and there should be Joint Exercises being planned for any possible humanitarian missions and of course there could be exchange of personnel like maybe an USN doctor who has an advanced degree in Nuclear Physics...
One good thing: With no use of the nuclear weapons in warfare, the stigma isn't quite as severe...
I'm fairly certain that MI6 is aware that they don't know quite as much about the Tigress as their files would suggest. I'm also fairly certain that the CIA isn't as aware of that fact. As for Marie and the family business, she has already had a minor, though extremely dangerous, brush with it; her sister is about to run headlong into it; her brother might be drawn towards it, as a consulting analyst at the very least; so the odds of her getting that crash course are reasonably high. This is Stupid Luck & Happenstance, after all.
As for the SMS Antonia Marie, the US Navy will be cursing and worrying over other German nuclear powered vessels, like missile subs for example, while the CIA is probably more than a little annoyed that the hospital ship is exactly that, a hospital ship on its annual mission of mercy and goodwill around the globe. You just know they were hoping to discover that it was a spy ship pretending to be something else.
Which brings us to their obsession with Princess Kristina. They are hung up on the fact that her initial training was provided by the Tigress herself and that, as a military medic attached to German Special Forces, she has turned up in several situations where the CIA & US Special Forces have been running a covert op or two. To your average paranoid intelligence officer, once is coincidence, twice is enemy action. Everyone else involved recognises it as Stupid Luck & Happenstance, but because of training and their institutional mindset, the CIA will persist in thinking of her as Kat 2.0.
There are already nuclear powered ships, the KLM under Grand Admiral von Schmidt launched the SMS Bremen a SSBN that made the first round the world trip below the surface of the ocean.
The technology is known but the main thing is the cost, IOTL the United States Navy commissioned the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier the USS Enterprise in 1962 and it was only until1975 when the USS Nimitz became the second.
There could be other nuclear powered ships that the various navies of the world have but the main concern that the United States may have is that using nuclear power for a hospital ship is a massive waste of money and there may be some nefarious purpose that the Germans have in mind.
Does planning for potential armageddon count as nefarious? I guess the CIA would think so.
With that one thought, Rockefeller jumps to No1 in the AH list of smartest alternate Presidents...
altamiro
Banned
OTL the first nuclear powered ships were Soviet icebreakers (the Lenin, launched 1957) or cargo ships like NS Savannah (1959).
So there is actually no reason not to expect nuclear powered civilian ships ITTL.
The NS Savannah was only in service for ten years and was never commercially viable, the problem was never the technology but the costs, having a nuclear powered naval hospital ship is a very good idea if you don't mind blowing the budget or are willing to drastically cut back in other areas.
It seems that the SMS Antonia Marie was designed to be something more than just a hospital ship to justify the costs and that is what concerns the United States.
IOTL the United States after the commission of the USS Enterprise was planning to have the subsequent aircraft carriers of the Kitty Hawk class and others to be nuclear powered but they were instead redesigned to be conventional powered and it was only until 1975 with the USS Nimitz that another nuclear powered aircraft carrier was built.
It is very plausible at this time ITTL that Germany has made a technological breakthrough in nuclear power engineering that has made it more cost effective and that is definitely makes it more imperative that the United States and other countries to find out.
It seems that the SMS Antonia Marie was designed to be something more than just a hospital ship to justify the costs and that is what concerns the United States.
IOTL the United States after the commission of the USS Enterprise was planning to have the subsequent aircraft carriers of the Kitty Hawk class and others to be nuclear powered but they were instead redesigned to be conventional powered and it was only until 1975 with the USS Nimitz that another nuclear powered aircraft carrier was built.
It is very plausible at this time ITTL that Germany has made a technological breakthrough in nuclear power engineering that has made it more cost effective and that is definitely makes it more imperative that the United States and other countries to find out.
Though according to Wikipedia:
If there's a larger fleet of nuclear-powered civilian craft, then the costs wouldn't be so high.
ejspan said:
They can try
Can you blame them though? She is a) the Princess Royal (and therefore a potential future Kaiserin), b) a spec-ops rated (?) combat medic and c) very close to the Tigress.
She is definitely someone to watch out for. It's just that the outsiders' take would be hilariously off the mark.
Marc A
Of course, the very things that also make her of interest mean that she's safer than most.
Like, a commoner who'd become so 'interesting' might go ashore one night, have a funny-tasting drink and wake up the next morning being smuggled to Langley in a steamer trunk. But as a Princess...it'd be noticed if she got disappeared, and Germany would look - very hard.