The Bureau des Sciences Appliquees et de l’Ingenierie, a Branch of the Presipapal Academy of Sciences, is proud to reveal some of the recent innovative creations of the Institut Munchausen. Named after the well-known Baron who greatly honored us by working one full year here as its Consulting Director, the Institut, now under the enlightened and dynamic direction of Pr. Otto Sigurd Nemopholist, Ph D, with Dr. Albert Robida as Maitre-Assistant, is actually the *Internal* Reserach and Development Section of the B.S.A.. The ‘Service des Recherches Exterieures’ is indeed an independent Agency directly under Presipapal control: very little is known about it, other than that it could be also bear an other name (an often whispered acronym is generally quoted).
Among these new devices of warfare let us mention the ‘Carabine Culassiere’, the ‘Crache-Mitraille’, the ‘Canon-Obusier Culassier’, the ‘Artillerie Volante’, the ‘Taupe-Behemoth a Vapeur’, the ‘Petardier Subaquatique’, the ‘Esquif Aerien’…..
Please go to the Monte-Cristan Board to discover their illustrated descriptions.
All these Engines of Apocalyptic War and Horrendeous Destruction being totally alien to the "Peace & Love" ethos of Monte-Cristo, each of the 20 projects will be sold anonymously by mail auction. Neither the names nor the total number of the bidders will be published. The entry fee is fixed to 1,000 Louis d’Or (or the equivalent in Swiss currency) for each of the 20 auctions. Outbidded (even id indirectly, when two patents are auctioned separatly but have to be attributed together) competitors will know by how much, so they can improve their proposals. All auctions to be closed by the day of Saint Michel, the Warrior Archangel, at noon.
The winners –once their payment accepted by the Presipapal Bank for Sustainable Development and Constantly Increasing Profit– will receive (in a plainly brown-wrapped, unmarked, parcel) all relevant technical drawings and descriptions, building instructions and directions for use, together with the certified acts of intellectual property. Their identity, and the amount paid, will be kept secret.
Send serious proposals to the Board of Lucrative Patents, the Presipapal Palace, Monte-Cristo.
2 comments:
Actually I posted on the Presipality of Monte-Cristo blog a few illos of what would be `futuristic weapons and engines' in a mid-18°C setting.
The posts are entitled MC Mil R&D I to IV and labelled LaceW SciFI.
Actually 7 pictures only may be of some general interest, being 'authentic':
-a Thomas Rowlandson etching depicting `Sadler's Flying Artillery' (1798) (was this Mr Sadler the same as the 1st British aeronaut?);
-a Bonapartist `Seelöwe' dream is representated by 3 early 19°C drawings, with warships, balloons and even a tunnel under the Channel;
-an early 19°C French vision of 'future war' with balloons shooting in direct support of land troops;
-a late 18°C project of man-powered helicopter;
-a picture of a'flying man' from the novel "La Decouverte Australe par un homme-volant", Restif de la Bretonne, 1781.
Unfortunately the originals in the books were quite small.
Otherwise you'll merely recognize the Ferguson rifle, Puckle & Reffye machineguns, caronnade ('avanced' by the WAS), Cugnot's and Fulton's steam-driven vehicles, `Turtle' submarine.…
I also posted some personal comments about the addition of Sci-Fi (or Fantasy) elements to the background of a Lace Wars wargame campaign, and about the claimed ‘serious’ /’adult’ historicity of some wargames.
Would you believe that, owing to some unfortunate misunderstandings, a public word of caution about the cruel consequences of 'deshumanizing' warfare led to a diplomatic incident between Tradgarland
and Monte-Cristo?
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