Disaster planning

[bunn]

If Great Cthulhu devours the Houses of Parliament during, say the State Opening of Parliament, and removes at a stroke all Members of Parliament, all members of the House of Lords, the Privy Council, the Monarch and all the senior Royals...

Who is left in charge?

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

There would be a demise of the crown and the nearest heir proclaimed by what remains of the privy council (they wouldn't all be in parliament); the civil service would survive and enable the continuance of government; writs would be called for a series of by-elections covering presumably every parliamentary constituency, in effect a new general election; devolved and local administrations would also endure.

[torkell]

Perhaps the MP who's being held hostage (against the Queen's safe return from Parliament) at Buckingham Palace?

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about that MP; and not all lords are present either, so parliament would continue even if the Commons was incapable of deliberating.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

How many of the Privy Council are outside London, I wonder? I imagine Great Cthulhu as creating a certain amount of collateral damage. Probably not the neatest of catastrophes.

Likewise I feel a great deal of the Civil Service might get Tentacled. The Welsh Office and DEFRA would survive, but I imagine might take a little while to get to grips with their new situation.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Probably not at peak efficiency, however.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

And, of course, the Scottish civil service in Edinburgh, still part of the British civil service.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! It might take him some time to work out who would be needed to appoint him acting prime minister.

Although, he is not very far away, so we'd be relying on Great Cthulhu staying in the river and not getting out to stomp about.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining the Welsh / Scottish / DEFRA turf wars now...

But I suppose the military would be involved at least initially. One might need to ensure that, say, Hastur the Defiler made a lightning strike on Portsmouth and Andover, which are conveniently closely situated for the convenience of Eldrich Things From the Abyss.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Don't forget all the staff of the agencies scattered around the country, whose low morale at not being full civil servants might be overcome by finding they are almost the only civil servants...

[torkell]

This then begs the question of how well Eldritch Abominations would fair against a modern military. I'm reminded of a moment from Buffy, where the monster-of-the-week discovers that "No weapon forged can defeat me!" doesn't include rocket launchers.

[timetiger.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking it would be Cthulhu.

*runs*

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

I'd guess at the declaration of martial law by the senior-most military authority surviving, and a nuclear strike on London (not necessarily by the UK).

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It's a valid point. Although, I imagine that modern military rarely train with Eldrich Abominations in mind, so might initially be handicapped by lack of tactics, attempting to negotiate etc.

And I'm guessing that a surprise attack on Andover would be *very* surprising.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Too true! :-D Hence the need for rapid defence!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Damnit! you are right, I bet either the US or Russia, and just possibly also the French, would nuke Cthulhu and not worry about taking out London. Probably both!

I wonder how long it would take them to make their minds up to do that.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

That's basically the premise of the Monster Hunter novels! (You should try them (if you haven't already). I've read the first and it was great fun. (Although making the hero be an accountant makes me naturally biased...)

[hano.livejournal.com]

If memory serves, the heir to the throne doesn't attend the State Opening. Hence Prince Charles would immediately become King and Head of State. After that it's kinda up to him. Assuming that His Tentacleness had only eaten Parliament, we'd till have a functioning State, just no elected representatives. In other words government would continue, until such time as elections could be called, a new Parliament elected, and and Government formed.
If you really want to look into the abyss, read Peter Hennesey's 'The Secret State' (2nd edition) which looks in detail at Whitehall's planning for a major nuclear attack on the UK. Truly the stuff of real nightmares.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

You may be right, I was vaguely thinking of some event I walked past once where I unexpectedly saw the whole Royal family going in, but now I think of it, that wasn't the State Opening and ISTR it may have been Westminster abbey...

Although, as with the hostage MP, it might be rash to assume that Cthulhu will confine his activities entirely to the River...

Ooh! There's a book! Thank you! I've never read 'When the Wind Blows' or seen the movie because I don't think I'm up for quite that much heartbreak, but a factual account sounds interesting.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I don't know what sparked this line of inquiry, but it's pretty amazing.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I believe it is fairly well established that if you nuke Cthulhu a) you now have bits of radioactive Cthulhu everywhere and b) after about half an hour he reassembles himself and he is now Very Annoyed.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Once they saw the satellite feeds, not long. And don't forget the Indians and the Pakistanis and the Chinese.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I wasn't, but perhaps erroneously, I felt that China being a fair distance away might hesitate to see what closer powers might do first, and that it would be a particularly tough decision for India because so many family links. For some reason I see the Indians being a little more sentimental about that.

I'm guessing at Russia to hit the button first, but they might hesitate in case that might provoke US retaliation, so I have a side bet on France...

(In case you, or indeed the intelligence services, are wondering, I'm not actually growing Cthulhu in some sort of giant tank in the Tamar in order to carry out the experiment :-D).

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Arthuriana...

If you are going to have a Once King who actually becomes a Future king, then I feel there is going to need to be a lot of clearance to free up a vacancy. And an enormous number of awkward constitutional and bureaucratic obstacles to deal with.

:-D

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... I do have three cats, but really, none of them are the Bond-villain kind of cat.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

True. I imagine the Met office for example, being of relatively little help, but there's a good network of local chief executives who might step up. I am a little terrified by the concept of local councillors leaping into the breach, however.