Train Station Zero

One more bit of plot nailed down.

The wartime "Zero Stations" are far too perfect. The Auxiliary Units, with connections to the Home Guard and W.W.II with all the "camping in the subway station during the Blitz" stuff and even the idea of invasion are wonderful for stuff to talk about, archaeology to discover, and theme to integrate.

I'm still thinking of an older thing below it. Why? Because I want some trowel work, and the kind of archaeology involved in digging out a W.W.II building is a bit different. Haven't decided on that. One problem is, relatively speaking, the archaeological history is shallow.

What I mean is, about a meter of soil was deposited on the ancient walls of Londinium. The Tube stations are in geologic eras, far below any human landscape. Well, except for the amount that's been shifted around and that's a problem, too. The beginnings of the Underground were cut-and-cover and that means anything that was higher in the strata is well and scattered.

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A different thing I'm puzzling on is how much to go beyond the probably and into the possible. I've more-or-less ruled out Penny's big Tomb Crawl from getting into live subway tunnels or the secret passage to Number 10 or anything. Stuff that is critical infrastructure is well known, well explored, and well guarded. Every dime-store terrorist has thought of it and every cop has heard of Guy Fawkes.

Which isn't to say I can't talk about it, even have her underground adventures relate to, pass near, detect evidence (the shaking of passing trains) of the other life that's down there.

But still doesn't tell me how big I dare go with what she does find. Or how to explain how it is still accessible.