little_details

Setting: Alternate Havana/Guantanamo, Cuba, in the near-future
Searched for: Every term possible relating to plans for Operation Verano and Cuban military history, mostly on Google Books.

OK, so this is the first in a series of questions for this alternate history steampunk science fiction book
I'm working on that involves human cloning and The Mob and is set in Cuba. The PoD is basically that Batista stayed on in power because he implemented some reforms and wasn't openly corrupt like he was in our world. Leading to M-26-7 being easily crushed, a series of juntas all aligned with the US in some way, and a Boys From Brazil style plot involving cloning Che Guevara. The protagonist is the clone. All the stuff I've found on Operation Verano so far tells me what its objectives were and why they failed (mainly because Batista's soldiers apparently weren't all that competent and he didn't have much popular support. Yeah, I know that). But I couldn't find any books on the pre-revolutionary military or that broke down Operation Verano in detail.

Also, can anyone answer some general questions for me on culture (mainly Santeria?)
(1) what would a non-initiate call themselves? From what I've read, it seems like santero/santera refers to an initiate, not just a follower. Can anyone confirm this?

2) Would a child raised with Santeria around them be told patakies/patakis?

3) How involved with the Catholic Church would the average Santeria follower be? Is it possible to practice both Roman Catholicism and Santeria?

I haven't been very active on Little Details for a while, but I wanted to share a resource I've created with the Little Details community in mind:

The Worldbuilding Internet Library

The site collects eighty or so web resources that I've found invaluable in worldbuilding/historical research or that I believe would be helpful to others.

Please enjoy, and feel free to recommend a resource! Also, let me know if you experience any technical difficulties. This project was in part an excuse for me to play around with Wordpress, and while it has so far looked fine in modern browsers, I can't make any guarantees about older versions of Internet Explorer....

Terms searched for: various combinations of; poisonous plants, animal poison, Japan, organ failure, infection like symptoms, blood poisoning. Working my way through the '~medicine: poisoning' tag.
Setting: Warring States period (Sengoku) Japan. Our world.

I need a character to murder a healthy female in her mid-teens and to get away with it.
The female character is recovering from or newly recovered (I haven't decided on which yet) from two broken legs. Ideally I want her death to appear to be due to some complications connected to her injury, and for it to work quickly enough/be serious enough for her not to be able to tell anyone. 

I'm thinking of some kind of poisoning, but the girls' private doctor would intervene if he noticed any obvious tampering with the wound and I also haven't found a poison that would give symptoms similar to an infection.

Does anyone have any idea of what sort of poison I could use or is my scenario impossible?

I'm more than open for suggestions, thank you in advance for any help.

I've been working on a story about a sixteen-year-old girl in London during WWII. Specifically, during the Blitz, so I'm thinking about 1940. However, I'm having some trouble because some important parts of the plot depend on what sort of access she has to American films and information about Hollywood and American stars.

I want her to be very enamored with Hollywood and American movies, but would she realistically have much access to this stuff during the war? Would she have any access to American media? I've read that UK theaters were closed for a time due to concerns about safety, but I haven't found anything more specific than that, and it didn't say anything about films being imported from other countries.

Secondly, assuming her having access to Hollywood movies or at least news is plausible, I wanted her to have a crush on a popular American actor, but could use some ideas about who it could be. I'm looking for a Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio sort of figure -- an actor who would have been popular with young women at the time, and would have been seen as a heartthrob. Obviously, my character could be attracted to anyone, but the point here is that she's more attracted to this guy's image and popularity, so I want the 1940 version or equivalent of your stereotypical teen heartthrob. I know a decent amount about movies and actors from that period, but I don't know a lot about how different demographics perceived them at the time. That is, who was popular with young people vs. older crowds. Would someone like Errol Flynn work?

I've done some searches like "Hollywood film distribution, 1940s, UK," "1940s teen idols," "Movies in London during WWII" and variations thereof, but I'm not finding a lot of stuff that seems to address these questions, and I don't honestly know what to search for. So I'd appreciate some input -- even a nudge in the right direction. I don't need a ton of background. I mainly need to know if my plot is plausible, and find a few specifics like an actor she can like and a few films she might have seen. So thanks a bunch to anyone who can help.

OK, Here is the problem. I'm told that the horizon is approximately 3 miles away, I know this is dependent on height of the person and curve of the earth and what not. I can find numerous formula on the internet.

What I need to know. Say my character is six foot tall, and looking across a desert landscape, I need the horizon to be TWO miles away, so is the planet he is standing on bigger or smaller than earth? I just cannot wrap my head around it. Math and science are not my thing, when I google things like "how far is the horizon" I get formula for Earth, not as if he was on another planet.

help?

Hey everyone! New posting, long time stalker. Thanks in advance for any help.

Alright, so I have a scene in my Edwardian-esque setting (alternative universe inspired by, all that jazz) where a fairly experienced seamstress (been sewing all her life, working hard professionally for three years) is letting out a simple wedding dress a few inches. Is it reasonable to expect that she could do it in one sitting? If so, how long would it take if she didn't stop to take care of other work?

I've searched the exact question in the subject line and several variants (how long to let out a dress, quickest way to let out a dress, how to let out a dress yourself, etc.) and while I've gotten lots of information on HOW to do it, not very much on how long it would take to do it. My problem is that I want to know how long the actual work takes, not how long a seamstress will take to get it back to you if you take it in to have it altered professionally.

Any ideas? Thanks again!

ETA: Thanks so much to everyone who replied! I think I have an idea of where to go from here.

HALP. I am overwhelmed by links! Research has fried my brain.

This is for a charity fic, so...( Question under here. )

Any sort or help would be very much appreciated. I have *no* clue what tags to use.

Where: USA (Northeast part of the country if that's relevant)
When: Modern day

Terms: how to withdraw a lot of money from a bank, bank secrecy act, famous bank robberies, bank security

I have a few questions relating to banks.

1. I'm writing a character who works at a large bank (it's a large company with many branches) branch as a manager. In the story, I want him to have experienced two separate armed robbery situations.

I was wondering what sort of security measures are in place for a large branch that has a fair amount of cash on site? I'm envisioning one daily security officer and some kind of silent alarm button that all the tellers can press that notifies the police, but is there anything else? Are their trainings for employees on how managers/tellers should deal with robbery situations?

2. My second question is: how much cash is a bank required to actually keep at every branch? I'd imagine it's a certain percentage of something to do with local accounts, but I haven't had any luck googling for any figures.

3. I'm writing a wealthy criminal character is planning to withdraw a lot of money and flee the country. He has millions in the bank/investments and is very savvy as to how the banking system works, so he would have made plans for how to access all these assets if he were forced to leave the country in a hurry. Not having worked in a bank or made millions, I don't have any ideas as to what steps he would take.

-Does anybody have any ideas for how he would be able to transfer/move his money around so he could still access it in Western Europe? I know he wouldn't want to leave his money sitting in a US bank account since the government would move freeze all his American assets quickly. I think I've heard of certain offshore bank accounts that can be set up (on certain island nations or whatnot) that will ignore the demands of the US government to freeze assets due to pending criminal trials, but I don't know much about this or how the character would be able to access the money in those accounts. Western Union? Wire transfers?

-This character is also going to try to withdraw as much money in cash from his account as he can from a large branch. I've read a bit about $10,000 cash transactions that require a bank to notify the government in CTRs, and about SARs, but is there an actual limit to the amount of cash a branch will actually fork over to a person at one time? Is there are a lot of paperwork that needs to be filled out?

I know it's a broad topic with a lot of sub questions. Any help on this topic would be much appreciated!

Modern day, all over the world.

Not entirely sure how to google this, because I'm looking for more anecdotal kinds of information.


I have two characters who are both long-term smokers. I don't really need any help on the mechanics of smoking (I don't reall smoke myself, but I have done so enough times to know what it's like), but more about certain kinds of cigarettes and figuring out what "their brand" would be.

I know how certain brands/strengths/etc carry certain connotations amongst smokers, so I'm mainly looking for any and all information about those connotations. (For instance: one of my friends rolls his own because it's cheaper, but hates how that's become more popular and cool lately, because it makes him look like he's just doing it because it's cool. I've another friend who used to smoke Lucky Strike, but hates them now because she says all the Mad Men poseurs smoke them.)

Ideally, I'd like a brand that's decent quality and available pretty much everywhere, or a couple of different brands that are available in different countries but are fairly interchangable. But on the other hand, a particular brand that's hard to find but really awesome would work as well (and even better if there's a "will do in a pinch" alternative to the awesome brand.) Or a non-obvious brand that's considered particularly terrible even, that they'd have to be desperate to smoke.

Both characters have military experience, so if there's a certain brand with those connotations, that would be awesome as well. But they hang out all over the world, so they're not really particularly constrained by geographic availability.

But any information on the connotations of brands/strengths/etc would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Since it is for something I'm writing, I hope it's okay to ask here:

How old were your grandparents when they meet/fell in love? Are they still together today? Would you say they are still in love or rather just living next to each other out of habit?

My story is fantasy but I've based it around Britain in the Early Middle Ages. It's basically a retelling of Snow White.

I decided to tweak the story a bit and have her mother survive for awhile after Snow White's difficult birth, at least long enough before she gives birth to three other children.

The mother is often in a weakened, vulnerable state and some days is bedridden. I should also note that before she had Snow White she went through numerous miscarriages and stillborns. She dies later on in the story giving birth to her fourth child and I want to see if it can be linked from complications of her firstborn's birth.

My question is what sort of health conditions or disease or infections or what have you can she have to go through all that?

I've searched terms along the lines of: "pregnancy long-lasting effects," "birth lasting effect," "difficult birth effects" and so on. I only turned up with articles focusing on the infant's health, postpartum depression, and so on.

I currently am writing a piece that's set in the Japanese after world, so the time period of the honorifics isn't as important. However, the characters all take place in a military setting, so I was wondering what the honorifics would be for the various ranks. The only anime/manga that had military ranks being used that I've seen or read was Bleach where they address captain as -taichou and assistant captain as -fukutaichou, but I wanted more than one series for basis of my characters' honorifics towards each other.

The honorifics that I'd like to know are mostly, "general", "captain", "assistant captain", "___ seat" (ie 1st seat, 2nd seat, 3rd seat, etc. Up to 10th seat is needed.). I'm assuming that after a certain amount of familiarity with each other, the ranked members who see each other often enough might start addressing each other as -san, but correct me if that's wrong. I'm also assuming that a higher ranked member might use -san as well, such as a 2nd seat to a 5th seat. Would an unranked member of their division address a 4th seat in a different way than a 9th seat, assuming that the 9th and 4th ranked member were not on a -san level of familiarity yet?

I've tried to look up 'Japanese Military Honorifics', 'Japanese "Military Honorifics"', '"Japanese Military Honorifics"', 'Military honorifics in Japanese' and a plethora of other ways, but most of the sites that I come across are general honorifics or they have some mention of the military in it, like in a description of -kun. I also found about 50 results for a book called "Language and Gender in the Military: Honorifics, Narrative..." but it's about western military honorifics in English and French. I did find one source that listed -taichou as an acceptable way to address a captain, but that was the only one that I found so far and it came from an anime's forum so I also don't know how legitimate it is. I also tried using an online translator (because those work so well), but it literally gave me "Kyaputen Miyagi" and I decided that was all of the information I needed to invalidate instant translators for this.

The setting is modern day, urban USA. The character in question is a healthy, slim man, about 35 years old. He's fit and more flexible than most men, about average height. He's been kidnapped (I'm thinking chloroformed rather than hit over the head so I don't have to complicate things further with a concussion), bound tightly with his hands behind his back and his feet together in front of him and put into a wooden crate just large enough to hold him sitting with his knees to his chest. It's not airtight but it's solidly constructed and he doesn't have enough space or leverage to get free.

My intention is for him to be kept in that state for a whole day or most of a day, though I can change that if I need to. I know there would be psychological effects as well, but I'm trying to figure out how mobile he could reasonably be within a short time of being freed. I'm sure there would be muscle spasms/pain/stiffness/soreness for some time, but once he was lifted out of the crate and rested for a short while would the character likely be able to stand and walk with assistance? I want him to refuse transport to the hospital and be able to recover with oral hydration and skilled if not professional TLC, so if I need to change the time frame I can do that.

I've googled the effects of long-term binding/bondage/confinement/physical confinement and found articles about solitary confinement in prison, physical confinement of children in school and the elderly in nursing homes, and reminders not to leave somebody tied up too long in BDSM scenarios but nothing that applies to this situation.

My novel is set in West Virginia, USA. A detective has returned fire on and killed the boy-toy of the wealthy and very well-connected son of a six-time congressman and Speaker of the House. Subsequent to being informed he may have charges brought against him, the detective finds himself under open surveillance. His best friend is researching to write a book on a closed child murder that took place in her rental house. She is partially motivated by two new murder cases with similar circumstances that have occurred near her house. Her house is ransacked and the files and interviews she obtained have been stolen. Outside her house, the detective approaches the men following him to ascertain who they are working for and find out if they also have his friend's house under surveillance since he has been living there. They are FBI. As it's not required by law, they do not have a court-order for the video surveillance of the writer's home, but they do have one for audio and a GPS transponder on her vehicle. If asked directly by the writer, do they have to reveal and present the court-order for covert surveillance? (I'm hoping for yes- and the agents are also sympathetic to the detective's case, but Daddy has pull- I can make them private goons if need be :-))

I have read lots about covert surveillance, the Going Dark proceedings, the use of informants for surveillance, privacy laws, and the FBI lawsuits brought by EFF for by-passing court orders and searched with 'legality of covert surveillance' 'court ordered surveillance' 'informed consent, court ordered surveillance' 'court ordered surveillance, informing suspect' 'requirements of revealing covert surveillance' 'requirements of revealing court ordered surveillance', those last two with 'to suspect' added. And whatever else I though up[, lolol, but I must be missing a keyword because I can NOT find the answer to my question :-)

Where: real world

When: early 1950s

Terms searched: none

Any chess experts out there?
I need something, preferably mid-game, which a) has a name (e.g "Ruy Lopez" or "Berlin Wall") and b) involves laying a trap. Ideally, it would be the type of trap where every "correct" move just digs the hole deeper.


Edit: I know how to play chess - learned over 30 years ago. I'm just not good enough to have studied the kind of thing I'm looking for.

I'm passingly familiar with the structure of the British police force, but what would the daily duties of a DC include?

Further, are DCs assigned partners? 

I looked up the structure of the police force, the kinds of constables, etc. but there isn't much actual information on the day to day job, unless we count crime fiction and I don't want to do research through fictional sources.

And a question of my own:
This one is for the Doctor Who / Torchwood fandom, which, as far as my very limited understanding goes, plays fast and loose with World War Two military details, but as I have literally no experience with military culture, I'd thought I better ask anyway.

So, here goes: January 1941, a young American volunteer (71st Eagle Squadron) has just joined up with the newly forming 133rd Eagle Squadron (*) and is scheduled to move out to his new post in a few days. However, he gets shot down during his last flight with his old squadron. Presumably, his body is never found. (He went down over the sea.)

Another man then changes this volunteer's records, steals his identity, and signs on with the 133rd Eagle Squadron in his stead. For about a month or so, he actually does what he's supposed to, defending London during the Blitz. Then he dissapears without a trace, while on leave.

I'm trying to figure out if that would mean this poor volunteer's record will forever state that he deserted, or if he'll be recorded as MIA, seeing as there are bombs dropping all around them and he could easily just have been buried under a collapsing house or something. And what would that mean for his family back home? He didn't have a wife or children, but were his aging parents entitled to some kind of pension if their only son was killed in action? Basically, I'm wondering just how pissed off the volunteer would be if he ever found out what the other man did under his name, and what the imposter might have done to make up for it later on. (It's canon that he didn't return to his post when he lived through that time period the second time around, but I figure he might have sent money to the family or something. By that time, he would know enough about military law to know exactly what consequences his actions would have, due to having served in the British Army during World War One.

( Rest cut for verbosity... )

I am working on a book of my own, like pretty much everyone else here apparently.
The story's setting is placed in the far future, and one of the problems I am dealing with is fleshing out one of the nations involved.

The nation in question has a national religon/philosophy that is based upon the lifting up of the indiviual to higher levels or ideals, and as a result lift up the state.
Most of the basis of this set of beliefs is based upon the Gnostic biblical teachings, as well as a part of Friedrich Nietzsche's works. But I was wondering is there anyone or anything else that might also serve as a source of inspiration to help further flesh this out?

I have given Ayn Rand a shot, and that may go into another part of the story, but I would like to be able to have more to play around with as I bang on my keyboard.