Shireroth

The more I think about what Harvey said in the Notes on Revival thread about incorporating actual events into the fictional history, and the more I think about my reply as to starting a work specifically devoted to that, the more it appeals to me. If no one objects, I think I'm going to start pursuing that direction of work.

That being said, there was a lot of stuff I wasn't around for, and a lot more stuff that I was around for but I can't remember clearly (to be fair, I don't remember much of anything clearly). So I suppose what I'm asking is, what sort of sources do we have? Obviously, ShireWiki has a nice thingy on our history, but it doesn't always go into a lot of detail, nor does it much explore pre-Shireroth history (or post-Tymaria history, it's that old). It's easy enough to start with that, and the other relevant pages on Shirewiki.

But does anyone have any other suggestions?

Scott's book Microscope is probably the most coherent complete source from that time. I was just about to send it to you in an email until I noticed that the file size is 10.1 MB. Scott spared no expense with the images. I'm not sure where it's hosted online right now, but if you're really having trouble getting it, I'll figure something out for you.

Less coherent (in the sense that the information is scattered around a bit) is the Apollo Fireball and Apollo Skyline. Fireball is at http://www.geocities.com/giantsquid1_19 ... /site.html . Skyline is at http://www.geocities.com/apolloskyline/ . Be warned that both archives are really bad, the latter even more so. Scott's a pack rat but a terrible organizer.

http://www.geocities.com/jasonian_22/ is thoJ website, one of the (maybe THE?) oldest surviving entire website from the old days. Their slant on history is laughably biased, but that's another angle for you if you want, and there are some interesting things all around on that site, though I'm not sure how much relates to Shireroth directly.

*Proceeds to ransack the suggested resources*

I have made some amazing discoveries! They are as follows:

1. Lack of sleep makes you act funny, hence the tone of this post and whatever rambling I may do.

2. I have copied every issue of the Fireball I could get my hands on. This was, sadly, not all of them, because there were one or two with pages that could not be found scattered throughout, one that had an existing page whose text was entirely a copy of the first issue despite being nowhere near it in time, and what seem to be the pages for the last four issues which are entirely devoid of text. I'll be going through everything in more detail shortly.

I'm not sure what Harvey means about about poor organization here, whether he means that of the issues themselves or of the stuff in them. If the former, admittedly it's a bit annoying to have to change the URL slightly to get to each issue, but I've seen worse. If the latter... I don't know about within single issues (but then I'm a poor organizer myself, so I may be oblivious), but I do have to admit that sometimes the things the articles talk about seem to come entirely out of the blue (i.e., are not really mentioned in previous issues, or at least not recent ones). That may just be an artifact of the medium, though. The thing about writing a newspaper for the same group you hang out with is that you can reasonably expect them to already know at least some of what you know.

3. Because of this, it's a bit hard to extract broad trends from it. What the newspapers DO provide, however, is dating of events. The Fireball seemed to publish at least once a week (and more often than that, toward the beginning); and putting that into ASC terms, it means that the fictional history would be able to go decade-by-decade if need be (though that would make it very, very long). Assuming the Skyline has a similar schedule, dating events should be easy for the run of both papers.

4. Microscope, on the other hand, has the opposite problem. The big picture, the context of events, that is missing in the papers is present there; but when reading it, it's sometimes hard to tell exactly when things are happening, with dates being mentioned only infrequently, and at best just identifying the month and year (most often only the unclarified month, which means that for readers not familiar with events, they have to search backward through the text to figure out which year is being talked about).

5. Therefore: Microscope + (Fireball + Skyline) = PROFIT. Let the villagers rejoice!

6. Next step is to gather up the Skyline issues like I did for the Fireball, so I can peruse them while I'm not online; and then, together with them and Microscope, construct a rough chronology of events to fictionalize. We already have dates for Kaisers that should have been reigning at the time, so those will form the framework of the timeline and help to shape the fictional events.

7. I will now go to bed. Peace out.

Sounds awesome. Keep up the good work

While doing unrelated research, I stumbled upon the following:

http://p102.ezboard.com/Apollo-Historic ... ID=4.topic

So that should help with dates for a while. I'd be more than happy to clarify in detail what any of the events on that timeline were about, and to generally try to answer any other questions you have.

I'm certain at least one other timeline of this sort was created, possibly two, but don't know where they're being stored.

You've of course read the Kildare page which has Bill's dates for Apollo history pre-Kildare?

Yep, that I saw too.

Shyriath wrote:I have made some amazing discoveries! They are as follows:

1. Lack of sleep makes you act funny, hence the tone of this post and whatever rambling I may do.

i can attest to this very much...

Wow, that post rambled on! Which one? You know, the former. That wasn't a ramble. Sure it was, if it wasn't what was it. Well for sure it wasn't a ramble. How would you know? I know a ramble when I see one. No you don't. Sure I do. How would you know a ramble. I've seen them before. Where? Here. Here? Yeah here. When have you seen a ramble here? I've done them myself. Youself? Now that's something I can believe.

Progress report: I've begun the timeline. You'll have to take my word for this at the moment; I find myself avoiding posting it due to the fact that I know that my use of bold and italics to distinguish different kinds of notes in the text will not carry over when I copypaste into a post, and I'll have to go back through and add the proper BBCode. (I'm lazy, so sue me).

At any rate, things are beginning to take shape. I've more or less arranged a sequence of events from the founding of the Apollo Sector to very near the beginning of the Union of Apollo States (i.e. 0-460+ ASC). Scott's timeline has proven invaluable in that, as has the Apollo Fireball. Microscope is helpful for general understanding, but I'm also falling back on it occasionally for approximate dates in cases where the Fireball either had a gap in publication or touched only erratically on a subject (for example, not mentioning a nation at all up to what had to be several weeks after its creation, and then talking about it as if it had always been there).

I am continuing my research into the Skyline. I also found a link to an intact Tymarian Sun website, which may also be useful.

Regarding Bill's work on Kildari history: The official history, because it's meant to tend toward a nationalistic tone, might disagree with reasoning behind events, or reinterpret them in a certain way, but a lot of them (especially the earlier stuff) could probably be referenced in some manner without actually contradicting anything (though there are a few that might cause some trouble); and some of the dates in it will be helpful as far as pinpointing real events. It does drive home, though, that there will be much thinking to do about how to handle, in the fictional interpretation, the various mergers Shireroth went through early in its existence. They could be passed off as alliances, maybe, or EU-style partnerships, but actual surrendering of sovereignty wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in the face of the assumption that Shireroth would have maintained the Kaisership continually throughout those periods.