THE DAY THE OIL RAN OUT
Yes, the world really did run out
of oil in December 2012. In early 2012 a super bug escaped from a biological
warfare lab….this super bug did not harm humans in any way and no one got sick
from it. However, this super bug turned out to be one that thrived on a diet of
crude oil. That’s right. The same stuff that kept industrial civilization
going. Within ten months, the super bug had contaminated the world’s oil
supplies to such an extent that they were all gone.
Naturally, the world’s
civilization fell into chaos and had a very difficult time adapting to a world
without internal combustion. Many, many crazy ideas were attempted by
individuals, corporations, and governments world wide in an effort to keep some
semblance of civilization going. One of the wildest and most impractical ideas
was the U.S. Postal Service’s “Rocketmail” program. This program involved
requisitioning stocks of decommissioned surface to air missiles to deliver mail
from sorting centers to points up to 100 miles away, where the mail would be
picked up by couriers on foot. UPS and FedEx tried similar programs, as did
Canada Post, the European postal services, the Russians, the Brazilians, the
Chinese, and others. The Rocketmail missiles occasionally exploded on their
pads, and when they did fly, sometimes they didn’t get to the right place.
Also, about 20 percent of the mail canisters suffered parachute failures,
resulting in broken packages. A package sent by Rocketmail had less than a
thirty percent chance of making it to its advertised destination within the time
specified by the printed brochures. Early disasters with broken items (iPod
super nano’s, Black Box resin cockpits, computer parts, etc.) caused the
program to be eventually restricted to letters and postcards.
Canada Post tried to use surplus
stocks of Bristol Bloodhound surface to air missiles to implement its own
“Rocketmail” program. The missile pictured here was involved in a
particularly infamous incident, when a shipper placed the wrong shipment labels
on boxes marked “FRAGILE”. Despite standing instructions NOT to ship
“FRAGILE” boxes by Rocketmail, a large and expensive shipment of women’s
watches, crystal vases and diamond jewelry was placed in the nosecone of this
Bloodhound based near Saint John, New Brunswick. The missile and its mail
canister landed near Moncton with a thud….and local women rioted for three
days when they heard what happened to their precious orders. Husbands
and boyfriends cowered and attempted to calm their womenfolk, and more than a
few guys ended up lonely. Ultimately all Rocketmail programs were shut down as
the world found better ways to deliver the mail. A latter-day “Pony Express”
and “Donkey Express” (for larger items) saved the day in the U.S. and
Canada, and nuclear power plants eventually became the premier way to deliver
electricity everywhere, with coal fired plants running a distant second and wind
power third. Electric trains became the nation’s new transcontinental
transport option and sub orbital rocket planes based on Space Ship One became
the new standard for high-speed air travel. By 2027, world civilization had
largely recovered from the near-death experience of 2012.
THE MODEL
I ended up with a 1/72nd
scale Airfix Bloodhound SAM model after one of my IPMS Salt Lake City meetings.
I only built the missile and the launcher, and I sprayed it with white primer
and then gloss white. A Sharpie pen was used to apply “CANADA POST”. This
missile may end up being repainted and redone as a standard British SAM, but
I’ve got lots of other things I want to get to first.
Justin
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