P006 → The Borkney Archives 1: Short Fiction


Stamp issued in commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the UN Airpassage Accord, in 1983. Image courtesy of the United Nations Intercontinental Air Route Commission Archives


SINCE THE GROUNDBREAKING 1978 UN AIR PASSAGE ACCORDS that deregulated global freight and passage, the stabilized carriers have brought unity and calm to the contentious and sometimes violently competitive air market. Unshackled from government constraint, and free to self-regulate, the airpassage industry has achieved an enviable degree of global, regional and local power and influence that has helped unite the common man and the uncommon industrialist alike in prosperity and freedom around the world. For your pleasure and edification, here is a brief, and informative digest of the industry that is so crucial to the way of life of billions of people worldwide. So, let us begin!





Intercontinental Blimp (Symbol 7IB on the Amritsar-Minneapolis Board of Exchange
-
The exciting result, in 1978 of the merger of seven global carriers and manufacturers: Abd-Hameyed Frieght and Passage DshT., EMAF DpE. (Elemental Manufacturing, Acquisition, and Framing), Zee Yang Rightmann Industrial Aerostadt Ppe., Buchmann Downs Haulage Inc., Laurenceville Industrial Fabric & Thermite Inc., Buhimbol-Intertrans Hydrogen OoPgs., and EHSTAR (Ezeq-Goran Hope Star Transglobal Air Routes). Intercontinental Blimp is the largest corporation of any kind on the planet, employing close to one million people globally.
An original 1908 EMAF Hydrogen Extraction Station in Novabisrkiya, Russian States Confederacy, undergoing restoration. The station was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1973. The mooring mast on the left is a reproduction. Image courtesy of the Borkney Archives.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Emilio Szegged-Halifacks was instrumental in the co-ordination and ratification of the new corporation. Formerly of EMAF DpE., Szegged-Halifacks lobbied tirelessly on behalf of his company and the industry in the halls of the United Nations for deregulation for a decade and a half before seeing the fruits of his labor ripen into the 1978 accords. Despite his hard work, it wasn't until the shocking competitive bombings of EMAF holdings in Krungthep, Thailand in 1976 (Buhimbol-Intertrans Hydrogen OoPgs. was chiefly suspect) that finally tipped the scales towards UN acceptance of Szegged-Halifax's proposals for deregulation and unity. In the 1979 industrial telecast interview with Inside the Grapefruit's Lars Van Gomez-Lakhma, where he announced plans for the ratification of the then unnamed Intercontinental Blimp, Szegged-Halifacks explained:
"Regulation always sat poorly in my colon, even when I was a Junior Framer in the drafting halls of the old Pornellis Frameworks in Zeeland, Michigan. It's not just dangerous for business, it now seems to be dangerous for property and people, and that I will not stand for, sir. This industry is air, and how can you regulate air? No, I say, you cannot. We have a responsibility to every human being to keep air free, and that is what drives us—indeed drives me!—to make sure that we leave the airpassage industry in the hands of those who know best! My aim is therefore to create the largest, most comprehensive and vertical airpassage organization the world has ever known. We know what's best for the industry, for those on who's backs the industry is built, and by god we know whats best for those who enjoy it's fruits. The goal of this new organization, as we etched in the lobby of our beautiful new headquarters in Rabat, Morrocco is to 'tie the world, faster than wind and lighter than air...'"


Intercontinental Blimp new global headquarters in Rabat, Morocco. Image courtesy of Farring Grillett Ur-Haq Architects.


EMAF and United Nations investigators at the Sleppin Krungthep Aerodrome, combing through the wreckage of the CAS Grand Boyleston Venture, one of thirteen ships destroyed by suspected Buhimbol-Intertrans competitive bombers. The tragedy is commonly held to be the tipping point towards the ratification of the UN Airpassage Accords in 1978. Image courtesy of the Borkney Archive.
Emilio Szegged-Halifacks fraternizing with the Intercontinental Blimp Corporate Peacekeepers before the unveiling of the trilloon IBS Ghengis at the XXIV International Airpassage Expo in City of Industry, California. Image courtesy of the Intercontinental Blimp Archives

IB's first product line as an integrated company was the astonishing trilloon platform. In fact, company spokesman Vera Ragunanndanann described the ambitious trilloon program as the impetus for the merger. "With so much at stake, and such massive financial and intellectual contributions required from the seven allied corporations, we all agreed that only the deepest collective commitment would be acceptable..." Launched in 1980, after eight years of tightly veiled research and development, the IBS Ghengis was unveiled by Szegged-Halifacks at the XXIV International Airpassage Expo in City of Industry, California. The framing was so novel and controversial that IB Corporate Peacekeepers were deployed among the spectators to prevent rioting. Said Oliver Hassebureau, airpassage editor for the New York Times :

"The beast looked like nothing other than a pregnant, tumorous throwback. Certainly an affront to a general public raised on ever-narrowing forms and sleek and streamlined framing. The air [amongst the spectators]... was fumed with disbelief and confusion, like a hydrogen leak, waiting for a spark...[to ignite it]. The IB bulls stationed amongst the spectators were twitchy themselves, not knowing if and when this crowd would ignite into a full-scale riot. I could see the sweat on the neck of the one nearest me, and it was a mere 50 degrees F. True to Emilio Szegged-Halifacks'... showmanship and timing, however, that combustible pall evaporated as soon as the Ghengis pirouetted away from its mooring. Never has beast turned beauty in so narrow an envelope of time. The audience sighed as one...  As the fish does not know water, we, obviously do not know what we ourselves want..."



Pyrene Airship Freight and Passage (Symbol PAFP on the A-MBEx) Operating out of Huizir-on-Rhine since it's founding in 1811, Pyrene is the oldest continually operating carrier in the North Eastern hemisphere.

The PAS Bayereuth Wehrmachtzeppelin at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania hours before the pivotal American Civil War battle. The Bayereuth, the world's first ironclad lofted-arms platform, was part of the Rhine Defense League's lend-lease program to Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac. Meade's 10th Sharpshooters ruled the battlefield from their perch in the undercarriage until Confederate Col. Phil 'Chickenhawk' Tarmanian flew his personal airboat into her starboard flank and ignited a phosphor bomb in a last-ditch offense, taking his own life and those of the eight sharpshooters and three Bavarian pilot-operators. Image courtesy of the Tarmanian family.


Founded originally as a packet-vessel operation under the name Trans-Pyrene Oceanic, Pyrene is known for it's dependability and safety across a number of the world's most challenging routes. The company was run by the Von Gerritsen family until 1923 when brothers Vito and Albert Von Gerritsen came to irreconcilable differences over the company's direction. The two settled by agreement that Vito would keep the company and Albert would retain certain route patents and airship designs under the name Oceanic Dirigible (see below). 

In 1924 the company renamed and restructured itself. Eleven months later Vito was found dead in his office suite. Ownership disbursed to the ten majority shareholders per the revised corporate bylines of the restructure.

Pyrene's modern reputation was cemented in 1958 by it's handling of the failed trans-Himalayan Route Acquisition Expedition. This famously resulted in the vaporization of a base camp, three Sherpa villages and the crew and observers on board the PAS Blue Heliotrope. Upon hearing of the tragedy, CEO Stanlich Emmerdraam was reported to cry "this blood is on my hands, and by God I will not disgrace the dead with retreat!"
A commemorative stamp issued in honor of the 10th anniversary of the tragedy of the PAS Blue Heliotrope. Image courtesy of the Borkney Archive.

While lawsuits and international prosecutions almost crushed the company, Emmerdraam called for the mobilization of Pyrene's 80,000 employees to help personally fund a new Route Acquisition Expedition. This expedition resulted in the PAM-Archangel Route, today's most heavily trafficked airshipping lane. First year post-patent profits went to establish Base Camp Louwen, in honor of the captain who went 'up with his ship.' The camp today serves as a major high-altitude goods-transfer hub and has brought gainful employment to much of the region's restive Sherpa population. The company's response to this tragedy is still taught in business management schools as a best-in-class case study in disaster mitigation. Emmerdraam still helms the board of directors, while Fishmann Morris, the first non-German to occupy a top leadership position in the corporation's history, serves as CEO.
Fishmann Morris, the first non-German head of Pyrene, in his office in Huizir-on-Rhine. Morris' stated vision is to continue the company's legacy of lowest-cost, highest-quality airpassage products. Image courtesy of the Pyrene Historical Archive.



Oceanic Dirigible (Privately held) Founded in 1924 as the result of the Von Gerritsen split at Trans-Pyrene Oceanic. Albert Von Gerritsen focused his new company on performance airships designed for fast, light freight. Von Gerritsen never expanded the route patents he retained from settlement with Pyrene. Instead he shrewdly revised and refiled these patents, keeping ahead of changing environmental conditions and weather patterns. This earned him the sobriquet 'Weatherman.'

Needing a big event on which to launch the reputation of his untested company, Von Gerritsen announced a bold goal: make the infamous La Monse Run in under twenty days. The development team, led by famed framer and fabric innovator Torres Al-Heyamid, Schmidt Prize-winning fiber chemist Yang-Xin Lebrecq, and a young framer named Borden Lee Zampelli, developed the controversial RAS Voorgescheit Celestial, the world's first true-neutral buoyancy airship. 

The RAS Voorgescheit Celestial alights from Rajapurrandannan Field in the Ghurkahn, halfway through her record-setting La Monse Run on October 19th, 1929. From the industrial telecast "Captain Marquendoomer, Have You Any Pastries?"


The Celestial made the La Monse run in record time. Alighting from Ergosh Field, near Constantinople on the morning of October 10, 1929, Captain Gens Marquendoomer captivated the world with daily industrial telecasts of their progress. Fifteen days later, at dawn on October 25th, the Captain and his exhausted, badly dehydrated crew touched down at Port Sudan airfield. Due to a combination of weather patterns, new technology, and exclusive use of Oceanic's patented routes, Marquendoomer and his crew shattered expectations and records with a then-astonishing fifteen day run.

The voyage was not without mishaps, however. Three hours north of Laotian airspace Navigator First Class Kurt Fong Saud miscalculated his bearings. Inexplicably missing in the expedition's equipment was a Parley 32 Weather Converter (then state-of-the-art). Without vital information from the converter, and with the miscalculation, Fong Saud nearly ran the ship into a coastal inversion on the Slip Loom Line near Sembalek Falls. 

In a famous photograph by expedition photographer Julio Lemmy, Marquendoomer is bandaged— from hitting his head on the transversal aftercock in the rough descent—yet keeping his trademark cool. Fong Saud is ramrod straight, taking his medicine like a man while getting relieved of his duties. 
Captain Gens Marquendoomer, left, in bandage, relieves his navigator Kurt Fong Saud from duty after the Celestial drifted off course near Sembalek Falls. The forward haberdeen stabilizer is seen in the background. Image courtesy of the Fong Saud family.

While many critics cried foul that Von Gerritsen closed his routes along the La Monse run, thereby creating an 'artificial pitch' on which to compete, Von Gerritsen would have none of it. Capt. Marquendoomer answered for his boss in a famous Op Ed piece in the Bohemia Press saying "Feragh ich bin alquadar, moquab droogen vericht messe!" This is, indeed, where the colloquialism we use today, originates.

The Celestial was the prototype for all subsequent Oceanic liners. Patents derived from her original framing, including chemical fabric emulsions, fiber stranding, buoyancy pilings, framing algorithms, pivot shankling, and non-linear aluminum PGR conversion techniques, all still stand today. The original Celestial is immortalized in all ships of the Oceanic line in their serial numbers, all of which start with either C, CE, and CEL.

Albert Von Gerritsen walking to work in 1971 six months before his death. Von Gerritsen, a man of habit, walked the same route to work from the family enclave for his entire working life. Image courtesy of the Von Gerritsen Library and Archive.
Harriet Von Gerritsen-Torgash celebrates her new role as CEO of Oceanic Dirigible with family (obscured at the request of the corporation) at the annual shareholders meeting in 1975. Image courtesy of The Von Gerritsen Foundation for Common Posthistory.

Albert Von Gerritsen died in a hunting accident in 1972. His niece Harriet Von Gerritsen-Torgash, Chief Executive Weather Analyst for the company at the time, assumed control after what was believed to be an internecine boardroom feud between those who wanted to diversify the company's route patents and those who wanted to maintain Albert's original intent. She still sits in the top seat today. As the University of Hagen-Am-Hooerdeine's 1982 graduation keynote, she left the students with a glimpse inside her razor-sharp mind: "Growing up in an airship family, it was always clear to me that there are two ways to untether the line halleck. You can either batten like crazy and pray the wind won't shine, or you can bellow the leathers and hope for the best. These two things, either or...And that's exactly what I've done all my life."



Beheymot Global Freight and Passage (Symbol BEH on the A-MBEx, and BFP on the London Transit Commodities Exchange). Formed in 1954, originally as a military partnership between the Palestine Hagannah, the Royal Transjordan Frontier Force (RTFF) and a trio of military-industrial suppliers.

Gen. Nahum Sarig (foreground) of the Palestine Hagannah and Cmdr. Gen. Al-Muqtabh Nelson Fahd of the Royal Transjordan Frontier Force (far left, with his aide-de-camp) at the newly opened Hashem Bezek Proving Grounds in Eilat. In this recently declassified 1956 photograph, the two military leaders observe trial maneuvers of the Yela Hamzek platform. Image courtesy of the the Royal Transjordan Image Library.


In 1958, in response to the military buildup on the Persian border and the imminent collapse of the buffer states of the Kurdistan/Tikriti/Kuwait Accord, the governments of Palestine and Transjordan brought together three cross-government subsidized corporations to provide for the defense of the two Jordan River states. Led by the charismatic Gamal Zilbermann, (the one and only 'Hero of Beirut,') owner of Zilbermann Framing and Engineering, the other two corporations included Bezek Al-Massoudh Hydrogen Works, and Hashemite Royal Foundries.

Palestine Prime Minister Ariel Ben Moshe and Transjordanian King Gustav Ibn Abdallah IX signed the charter with the trio of corporations just weeks before the new corporation, newly dubbed Behaymot, delivered its first shipment to the Western Transjordan Frontier, which pointed to much deeper and longer partnership than the international community had previously understood. This was the vaunted Yela Hamzeq (Hell's Onion) platform, so named because the framing of the aerostat was vaguely onion-shaped in order to support the heavy armor and firepower. It was a line of aerostatic defense ships designed to provide an umbrella of forward observation and fire. With a heavily armored undercarriage, twelve batteries of 9" air-to-surface artillery that provided 360º of coverage, and four 50 cal. forward-facing rotary motorguns, each Yela Hamzek was truly a horrific thing to behold for miles around. The platform proved itself in the coming chaos that would consume the region sixteen months later.

Members of the elite Sham El-Hamzek Mutual Brigade at the battle of Ar-Rutba. Three ships of the Hamzeq Line take a break from heavy activity. Ar-Rutba smolders in the distance. Image courtesy of the Mutual Palestine-Transjordan War Memorial Office.


In 1959, the Ar-Rutba Defense Incursion put Beheymot and the Yela Hamzeq platform on the world stage. In a move to secure key transit routes from the rapidly deteriorating situation in the buffer states, the RTFF utterly razed the agricultural outpost city of Ar-Rutba using the Yela Hamzeq platform, which at the time was stationed over 100km west, across the border. Said Line Captain Ghazir Shteynman, future Adviser General to the UN Commission on Deregulation, who was a Yela Hamzek pilot during the Ar-Rutba action, "It was like God sneezed."

"God sneezed..." Line Captain Ghazir Shteynman in the cockpit of his Yela Hamzek platform airboat Al Shebahaz (The Rooster), after neutralizing the agricultural outpost city of Ar-Rutba. Image courtesy of Beheymot Industrial Rotor SSd."


Inquiries and orders piled up in the Eilat and Aqaba offices after what became known within corporate circles as "the Audition." The Yela Hamzeq Line helped keep the Jordan River states out of the Central East Collapse. Behaymot quickly became the world's top lofted-arms provider.

Developed by Behaymot Global Freight and Passage, the Batavia is the world's largest airship, capable of hauling 17,700 horse-tonnes of dry-goods portage. Seen here at Hashem Bezek Proving Grounds in Eilat in 1982. Image courtesy of Behaymot Industrial Rotor SSd.
Tariq Zilbermann, CEO, charismatic nephew of Gemal Zilbermann. On the desk, photo-left, a model of the upper-carriage of the HRH King Abdallah IX Royal Armored Dirigible, the floating armored palace from which the King observed the destruction of Ar-Rutbah. Image courtesy of the United States Central Intelligence Agency

Although this was advantageous during crisis times, the looming peace made it clear to the corporate directors and backers that diversification was key to sustainability. Because of international regulations, the company's growth and expansion into peacetime opportunities were limited. In 1965 the company reorganized under a new holding group, Behaymot Global Freight and Passage, under which Beheymot Lofted Attack & Defense Systems Intg. stood independently enough to satisfy regulatory agencies. Regulation barred the company from acquiring existing patent routes, however, and the expense of developing new routes did not appeal to the corporate leadership.

Today, helmed by Gamal Zilbermann's charismatic nephew Tariq, BGF&P does a majority of business (73% according to 1984 financial year-end reports) in the military sector, providing weaponized airships and support infrastructure under it's subsidiary Beheymot Lofted Attack & Defense Systems Intg. It retains the deepest vertical infrastructure of the big four, with mining and processing, hydrogen and elemental extraction, and chemical interference processing, all the way up to passenger catering and service consultancy. Although BGF&P do not have the breadth of route patents enjoyed by its competitors (in fact, the freight and passage division alone would not rank as a major player in the marketplace), it does supply many of the freight and passage services that the other Big Four rely on to provide top service to shareholders, owners and consumers.

© 2024 Elan M Cole