The Locations of TBA - Portsmouth, UK

And we continue. Since it'd be rather boring for both side if all I did was being a virtual tourist guide, I've included excerpts from the novel in this post (and will do so with all following posts of the series).

 

The Locations of The Burning Ages

-
02: Portsmouth, UK

The setting of The Burning Ages - at least the one the protagonists come from - is not a nice one. In fact, it might be a worst case scenario coming just barely short of a full-blown nuclear war. Imagine all the problems of today - a rising China and a resurgent Russia, the problems linked to mass immigration, demographic change, a foreseeable fiscal collaps, an aggressive Iran with nuclear weapons, the global race for the control of ressources - and now close your eyes and imagine that what you fear becomes reality: that the people in charge screw it up. Welcome to The Burning Ages.

Our story starts in the southern English harbor town of Portsmouth. The year is 2024. A NATO flotilla has gathered in Portsmouth, including Danish, Dutch, German, British and American ships waiting for the order to depart to intervene in a South America in chaos. 

However, inevitably their conversation returned to the reason they had been summoned to Portsmouth. BRIC was the acronym that stood for the organization Brazil, Russia, India and the People's Republic of China had founded and turned into NATO's global rival. Brazil had always been the odd man out of that illustrious quartet. Put quite simply, it lacked the ambition of a Russia, China or India, and more damning, the necessary quality in its leadership. Vladimir Putin still was the gray eminence in the Kremlin, but the successor generations he had raised were of his cunning and ruthlessness. China's first clique of functionaries and military men to arise in the 21st Century were pushing their country closer to the USA's economic output. And India's economy had grown six percent per year - every year - for the past twenty or so. But where those three combined ruthlessness, ambition and ability into NATO's sole global competing power block, member state No. 4 had nothing to offer but its natural resources, near bankruptcy and a long line of political demagogues. Which kind of was the crux of the matter. South America's largest nation stood on the brink of civil war. [Wolf Hunt]

An old photograph of the Spinnaker Tower
during better days.

The future has not been kind to the United Kingdom, or Europe as a whole for that matter. Civil unrest has taken a toll on the nation, but it is only the symptom of the failures of the previous decade. The first sign of the situation you are treated with is what has become of the futuristic Spinnaker Tower overlooking the Portsmouth Marina.

Vanishing skywards in the downward gusts of rain, the gray, needle-like husk of the Spinnaker Tower topped the houses that lined the docks at the Portsmouth Marina. Ever since the NATO flotilla had begun to gather in the harbor in the midst of February, the blackened and burnt-out peak of the tower had throned above city and harbor like a menacing omen. Both the Spinnaker Tower and the Portsmouth Marina appeared to the inhabitants of the city like taunting monuments of former wealth and glory. [Wolf Hunt]

With oil form the Persian Gulf in short supply due to the aftereffects of the Saudi-Iranian war - where the Iranian Pasdaran blew up most wells during their retreat, and oh, did I mention seven nuclear strikes were launched? - heating oil, fuel and food are subject to a national rationing system. Winters in Europe are cold. Without enough heating fuel, and without the means to obtain a substitute energy source fast enough, they are deadly.
People don't react that well to the idea of either starving or freezing to death. And while the situation in 2024 isn't by far as bad as it had been several years earlier, it's still far from being good. Shortages do exist, and as is the fact with shortages, they happen at the worst of times. Great Britain doesn't have the agricultural space to feed its own population. Worse even, with agricultural companies and large farmer specialising in crops meant for ethanol production, canola, or malting barley, much of trhe agricultural sector was unable to quickly adapt to a situation where wheat and potatoes were the most sought-after products. Food shortages happen. If they happen in winter...

BBC footage of devastated streets & public unrest: a far
too common sight in the UK in the decade before 2024.

After last winter’s riots in which also the Spinnaker Tower had fallen victim to an enraged mob a tense calm lay over the old seaport town. Armed police and armored cars patrolling close to the military harbor of the Royal Navy did their part to contribute to the already dreary atmosphere. [Wolf Hunt]

Great Britain did default on its debt. But, as they say, it was in good company there. As if it was a contagious disease, one nation after the other collapsed under the burden of its own debts and obligations. The less affluent ones were the first to go: Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece. Italy soon followed. But there was little even those supposedly strong ones like Germany, France or Great Britain could do when faced with a systemic crash: the sad fact was, the prior years had depleted their reserves. They resorted to printing money to stem the tide, but the more they printed, the less it was worth. Life savings were reduced to the price of a cart full of groceries in mere months. It was only logical that at some point the pent up anger and helplessness of the people would find a pressure valve. Looking back, it was just as logical that the ruling elites didn't see it coming even though it stank a mile against the wind.

Bristol Hunger Riots, 2017. Sights like this were
common during those years across the UK.

A fresh gust of wind and rain carried the memories away with it and brought him back to the here and now of Portsmouth Bay. The lingering economic crisis of 2009 had never been truly overcome. In fact, compared with what had followed, in retrospect it looked like a child’s temper tantrum. The changes had left a lasting impression on Portsmouth, Great Britain, and the world. [Wolf Hunt]

Not many governments survived this tumultuous time. For most it meant retiring from public in shame. For the less lucky, it meant a very public end. The Netherlands put the last pre-crash cabinet on trial. Other nations were not quite as considerate. Trials were costly and lengthy matters. Ropes were long but cheap, and there were street lanterns aplenty. Stripped of their luxuries and the safety of their existence as they had known it all their lives, it became obvious that the veneer between docile citicens and barbarism was a thin affair. But Great Britain did not get the worst of it. In fact, those nations with old power structures still in place - the Netherlands, Spain, Great Britain, Denmark - reverted back to them: after all is said and done, old systems are better than no systems at all.

As such, the political face of the nations of Europe is one of monarchies and authoritarian systems of government (or just very loosely checked, elected ones holding a great deal of executive power). As one commentator described it, "Europe stopped one step short of mixing the political landscapes of 1914 and 1934." In Great Britain, power reverted back to the last halfway intact institution: the Crown.

Prince Henry of Wales (Age 40), Minister of Defence
& acting C-i-C of the Armed Forces of the UK.

The aftereffects of that had wrecked the Union and more than one of its members beyond repair, and they were still being felt by the rest. King William IV only barely kept the nation together, ruling via military power, emergency decrees and subservient and essentially powerless Houses of Parliament after the British political parties had cycled through nine prime ministers during the past seven years in a very accurate display of pre-WW II Weimar style politics. [Wolf Hunt]

While King William IV is head of state and goverment there is little doubt that it is infact his younger brother, the Prince of Wales, who is keeping the whole thing together. His military aptitude and good standing with the rank and file - stemming back from his own service time in Afghanistan and a multitude of personal initiatives to lessen the burden placed on the forces and its veterans - were decisive in winning over the Armed Forces for the move that replaced the last ineffective government (a national coalition of the Tories and Labour, and little good it did) with a royal cabinet. While he does not possess his older brother's political sensibility, he does have embrace the image his enemies have painted him with: that of the Crown's hatchet man. His standing with the public, despite being the enforcer of order, is surprisingly high, a fact owed in no small part to the Prince being rather media savvy, having coined the catchphrase "A Windsor pays his dues".

Leaving all the big politics aside, Great Britain in general and Portsmouth in particular aren't inviting places in 2024 (and given the restrictions on immigration that's true in the literal and the figurative sense).

A lone soldier of the Territorial Army patrolling a
deserted street in Portsmouth, 2024.

The cobblestone walkway along the roiling harbor basin led past another access road that opened up a view onto the desolate interior of Portsmouth. Besides a fish’n’chips fast-food restaurant and, directly opposite to it, an Indian diner decorated with kitschy elephant figures on whose front window a label in huge letters proclaimed that the place also delivered its menus to the inner city, there were barely any signs of life. Rubbish littered the sidewalks and the curbstones. Half a dozen car wrecks - some burnt-out, others cannibalized for parts - adorned the sides of the street. Most of the stores were closed, half of their windows barricaded with boards, dulled, or covered in placards and graffiti. There were no longer any jewelers, hip stores or coffee shops - at least not in the vicinity of the lakeside promenade - and Hallwinter had no inclination to venture deeper into the city on his own. Not without an escort, and not the kind one spent the evening with. [Wolf Hunt]

But where the Armed Forces and armed police remain the solde guarantor of public peace, it is they who are the best supplied, and they who live closest to the pre-crash standards.

Paramilitary units like this one are the backbone of local
security services, providing the 'heavy hitters' in urban
combat and riot control.

The south-western part of the harbor offered a reassuringly different view than the rest of Portsmouth. Despite the wet and cold weather, the docks drenched into the pale light of large floodlights bustled with activity here. Rail cranes ceaselessly moved amongst the quay wall and the surrounding ships, trucks continually brought crates and containers filled with supplies, and between all that uniformed men and civilian workers scurried around, giving the casual onlooker the impression of an anthill. [Wolf Hunt]

Portsmouth remains one of the largest bases of the British armed forces, even in 2024, but fiscal constraints, the personnel demands on the British Isles, and the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War (the other common name for the Saudi-Iranian War) keep large parts of the fleet mothballed in harbors like this. Nonetheless, the supply and support installations there are top notch and are put to good use to equip the NATO flotilla of which the main protagonists are a part of.

Old photograph of Portsmouth Military Harbor;
in the front you can see HMS Warrior.

Behind the almost clunky silhouette of the Berlin, the outlines of the other ships of the flotilla which would depart for the shores of South America in what had been planned to be less than a week towered in the night-stained mist. Both men knew them by heart. The U.S. Navy had sent the guided missile destroyer Halsey, the Royal Navy contributed the destroyer Daring and Monmouth, a Type-23 frigate. Behind them anchored the Dutch Evertsen and the Danish Triton, both of them frigates. That Germany contributed the lion’s share of the European part of the flotilla was owed to pure necessity rather than a growing German influence. Besides the Berlin, the emergency cabinet had decided to deploy the Bremen, a modern Type-125 long endurance frigate alongside the amphibious command vessel Emden, a 22,000 ton French Mistral-class built in license by ThyssenKrupp, and the hydroelectric submarine U-36. The four vessels were led by the destroyer Brandt, the pride of the fleet. Appearance-wise it was a pain on the eyes. Steven Flynn of the USS Halsey had once correctly remarked that the sixteen and a half thousand ton destroyer looked like the unholy result of a tequila-filled Tichuana orgy between the defunct DDX and a Ticonderoga-class. [Wolf Hunt]

FMG Brandt, the German lead ship, is a destroyer of the Kanzler-Klasse (Chancellor-class), named after federal chancellor Willy Brandt (in office: 21 October 1969 – 7 May 1974), a member of the Socialdemocratic Party of Germany (SPD). It is the only ship of its class.

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This concludes the second part of my little series about the "Locations of The Burning Ages". I hope you enjoyed it. Check back in again for the next installment, which will be The Locations of The Burning Ages: 03 - Trondheim, Occupied Norway.

The copyrights to all used photographs remain with their respective owners. No infringement is intended.