Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes V (Do Not Post Current Politics Here)
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Georgepatton: 1981 WMUN
WMUN Broadcast of September 1, 1983 00:45:53 UTC
As recorded and transcribed by Janice Shotwell
[continuous mechanical buzzing]
[audible click, buzzing terminates]
[Quindar intro tone once]
Male voice 1: Hey Burt! Come on out and meet all these nice people!
[Quindar intro tone x3]
Female voice: Whiskey. Mike. Uniform. November. Calling Goldstone. [Repeat x3]
Female voice: One one. Zero one. One two. Zero zero. Zero zero. Seven seven. [Repeat x3]
Female voice: Zero zero zero zero zero. [Repeat x3]
[Quindar outro tone x3]
Male voice 2: Goodnight folks! Goodnight, Molly.
[Quindar outro tone once]
[audible click, mechanical buzzing resumes]
Male voice 1 subsequently identified as Robert Middleton, sampled from the 1952 civil defense film Duck and Cover
Female voice likely identical to voice heard in 1978, 1979, and 1981 broadcasts - strong New England regional inflection present
Male voice 2 subsequently identified as Jim Jordan, sampled from a 1938 episode of the radio program Fibber McGee and Molly
As recorded and transcribed by Janice Shotwell
[continuous mechanical buzzing]
[audible click, buzzing terminates]
[Quindar intro tone once]
Male voice 1: Hey Burt! Come on out and meet all these nice people!
[Quindar intro tone x3]
Female voice: Whiskey. Mike. Uniform. November. Calling Goldstone. [Repeat x3]
Female voice: One one. Zero one. One two. Zero zero. Zero zero. Seven seven. [Repeat x3]
Female voice: Zero zero zero zero zero. [Repeat x3]
[Quindar outro tone x3]
Male voice 2: Goodnight folks! Goodnight, Molly.
[Quindar outro tone once]
[audible click, mechanical buzzing resumes]
Male voice 1 subsequently identified as Robert Middleton, sampled from the 1952 civil defense film Duck and Cover
Female voice likely identical to voice heard in 1978, 1979, and 1981 broadcasts - strong New England regional inflection present
Male voice 2 subsequently identified as Jim Jordan, sampled from a 1938 episode of the radio program Fibber McGee and Molly
I really really like this thing. A cargo cult of democracy. I love it.
Ask New Hampshire
WMUN Broadcast of September 1, 1983 00:45:53 UTC
As recorded and transcribed by Janice Shotwell
[continuous mechanical buzzing]
[audible click, buzzing terminates]
[Quindar intro tone once]
Male voice 1: Hey Burt! Come on out and meet all these nice people!
[Quindar intro tone x3]
Female voice: Whiskey. Mike. Uniform. November. Calling Goldstone. [Repeat x3]
Female voice: One one. Zero one. One two. Zero zero. Zero zero. Seven seven. [Repeat x3]
Female voice: Zero zero zero zero zero. [Repeat x3]
[Quindar outro tone x3]
Male voice 2: Goodnight folks! Goodnight, Molly.
[Quindar outro tone once]
[audible click, mechanical buzzing resumes]
Male voice 1 subsequently identified as Robert Middleton, sampled from the 1952 civil defense film Duck and Cover
Female voice likely identical to voice heard in 1978, 1979, and 1981 broadcasts - strong New England regional inflection present
Male voice 2 subsequently identified as Jim Jordan, sampled from a 1938 episode of the radio program Fibber McGee and Molly
There's a lot of reference in the small details that shouldn't be too hard to work out on their own that might make you even more uncomfortable.
To wit:
Quindar tones are those highly characteristic beeps you hear in recordings of Apollo space mission radio transmissions.
Goldstone is the name of a NASA Deep Space Communications Complex in the Mojave Desert of southern California.
The numbers in the broadcast - 11 01 12 00 00 77 relate to an event that occurred on the date of the broadcast - though quite some hours after the broadcast.
The image at the top of the box is the first picture of the Earth from the area of the Moon, taken by the Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966.
December 20, 1972 is the day after the last Apollo mission returned to the Earth.
October 9, 2009 is the day the NASA LCROSS Centaur upper-stage impactor deliberately struck the Moon at 5,600 miles per hour.
The sampling of Jim Jordan has to come from a specific set of episodes in the run of the radio program - which ran from 1935 to 1959 - because the 'Goodnight Molly' sign-off was only made during the time his real life wife and co-star, Marian Jordan, was off the show dealing with her severe alcoholism. The FCC briefly forbade him from making that sign-off, because it was felt that it violated a rule against using the public airwaves for private communication, but eventually it was pointed out that he was speaking only to his fictional wife in-character, so it was allowed again until she returned to the show.
That last one isn't creepy, I just find it kind of sweet. Which is why I stole his words and put them in the message of an evil lunar numbers station. Because I'm a bad person.
Goldstone is the name of a NASA Deep Space Communications Complex in the Mojave Desert of southern California.
The numbers in the broadcast - 11 01 12 00 00 77 relate to an event that occurred on the date of the broadcast - though quite some hours after the broadcast.
The image at the top of the box is the first picture of the Earth from the area of the Moon, taken by the Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966.
December 20, 1972 is the day after the last Apollo mission returned to the Earth.
October 9, 2009 is the day the NASA LCROSS Centaur upper-stage impactor deliberately struck the Moon at 5,600 miles per hour.
The sampling of Jim Jordan has to come from a specific set of episodes in the run of the radio program - which ran from 1935 to 1959 - because the 'Goodnight Molly' sign-off was only made during the time his real life wife and co-star, Marian Jordan, was off the show dealing with her severe alcoholism. The FCC briefly forbade him from making that sign-off, because it was felt that it violated a rule against using the public airwaves for private communication, but eventually it was pointed out that he was speaking only to his fictional wife in-character, so it was allowed again until she returned to the show.
That last one isn't creepy, I just find it kind of sweet. Which is why I stole his words and put them in the message of an evil lunar numbers station. Because I'm a bad person.
The date of the broadcast is at the top of the post - September 1, 1983.
Hmm, I had assumed the Quindar were some sort of alien species that communicated in beeps and chirps. Ah well
Well...Hmm, I had assumed the Quindar were some sort of alien species that communicated in beeps and chirps. Ah well
They are not a date format, they relate to an event that occurred on the day of the broadcast.
11 - K, 11th letter of the alphabet
01 - A, 1st letter of the alphabet
12 - L, 12th letter of the alphabet
00 - zero
00 - zero
77 - seven
C'mon, man, you're killing me here!
TheHolyInquisition
Banned
Ah, the shootdown. I didn't get the numbers=letters system.C'mon, man, you're killing me here!
It's all clear now, though.
SirPaperweight: Afghanistan, MTC, Russo-African Cyberwar
To say that Afghanistan is a war-weary country is an impressive understatement. The landlocked Asian nation has been at war for the better part of a century, fighting the Soviets, the Americans, Islamist rebels, the Russians, and finally the forces of KBT, a private military company that has since become the country’s official governing entity. In the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2023, Islamist forces led by the Taliban once more took control of the country, driving the Western-backed government out of power. Afghanistan became infamous as a safe haven for Islamist terrorists worldwide, but the political will to topple the regime was low in the Great Powers.
However, the 2029 Red Square Bombing, in which Taliban-backed terrorists killed over 7,000 people in Moscow, brought the ire of the Russians. The Afghan government was deposed in a SVR-sponsored coup d’état, and Eurasian Union (1) troops flooded into the country with the intent of destroying Islamist influence there once and for all. What followed was a bloody seven-year war, where Afghan guerillas waged a bloody insurgency against the occupying armies. In a scenario mimicking the Iraq War of 2003-2011, the Russian troops became bogged down trying to prop up a stable government while public opinion at home slowly soured on the continued fighting.
In 2036, newly-elected Russian president Victor Kudryashov authorized a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, once again leaving a power vacuum behind. This time, however, that vacuum would not be filled by an Islamist regime, but instead by the private military company known as the Military Technologies Corporation (KBT). KBT’s CEO Yegor Abramoff, a shrewd businessman and cunning manipulator, was already one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Russia, having amassed a fortune of well over $100 billion. Hardly content to rest on his laurels, though, Abramoff sought to fill the vacuum of power in Afghanistan with his own troops. The well-equipped and well-funded KBT troops, recruited from around the world, ruthlessly crushed the remnants of the Afghan military and isolated the Islamists to a few remaining strongholds in the countryside. Thus, in 2038, the government of Afghanistan was officially dismantled and replaced by KBT.
The first challenge to Abramoff’s regime came from the Russian Federation. Kudryashov was never on good terms with the oligarch due to the latter’s financial ties to the president’s political rivals. Thus, the Russian government began restricting trade and travel to Afghanistan, with increasingly suffocating restrictions finally culminating in a Eurasian Union embargo on all trade with the fledgling regime. KBT assets within the Union were seized, and sanctions were put on top executives at the company. This was a severe blow to KBT, which in its early years relied heavily on commerce in Russia.
Abramoff thus decided to flex his muscles against the Russian government. A massive cyberattack on the 19th of December in 2040 wiped out the entire Russian electrical grid, causing thousands of Russians to freeze to death in one of the coldest winters yet seen in the 21st century. A Russian counterattack cut power to almost all hospitals in Afghanistan, killing hundreds of patients who could not be treated without electricity. This back-and-forth continued for months, and escalated to the point where the Russian nuclear stockpile was disabled for three days in April 2041. Ultimately, at the behest of his closest advisors, President Kudryashov came to the negotiating table. The Kabul Accords eliminated trade and travel restrictions between Afghanistan and the Eurasian Union, and led to the recognition of Abramoff’s regime as the legitimate government of the country. The terms, while hardly unfair to Russia, were nonetheless humiliating to President Kudryashov, who resigned in disgrace shortly after the signing of the Kabul Accords.
Yegor Abramoff continued to rule Afghanistan in autocratic fashion until his death in 2051. His son, Mitrofan, himself an extremely intelligent businessman, assumed control of KBT and continues to serve as its CEO to this day. Today, KBT is one of the wealthiest and most secretive corporations on Earth, with an annual revenue likely over $750 billion (although this statistic remains unconfirmed). Mitrofan Abramoff’s own net worth is also unknown, but reports by several analysts over the years estimate that he is worth anywhere from $300 to $800 billion, making him easily the wealthiest person on the planet.
Of course, all that ludicrous wealth manages to stay firmly in the hands of KBT and its shareholders. While Abramoff and his associates live like Pharaohs, the people of Afghanistan remain some of the poorest on Earth, surviving on less than $2,000 a year even after adjusting for purchasing power. It’s speculated that while KBT officially markets itself as a private security company, it gains most of its revenue from the illegal trade in arms and drugs. While KBT publicly denies this, investigative reporting has uncovered more and more evidence that the corporation is one of the largest players in both markets.
1. The economic and military alliance between several states in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East
A Strange, as-of-yet Unnamed Vision of the Future
- American Political Parties in 2061
- Yonglism
- Afghanistan
Thank you! A friend gave me the idea of a third world country being run by a private military company, although he was thinking of an American corporation, not Russian.
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