View Full Version : Ideas for EPA: M&M Thread
I know Diamond said he wanted tech on the higher end of the spectrum to be rare, but if the apocalypse is following anything like the scenario I posted I have an idea. Basically the forces left occupying Iraq and trying to put out the fires in Saudi and Kuwait after the alternate Desert Storm would have been a mostly forgotten sideshow during the nuclear exchange. My thinking is that with the US incommunicado afterward, and with their troops among a lot of angry strangers, they US forces in the area begin 'requisitioning' everything they need - and a lot of what they necessarily don't (i.e., loot) - to transport their people back home while putting down the locals with increasing ruthlessness.
I'm envisioning a remnant of the former US military setting up shop in Long Island and other islands off the eastern seaboard, with a large wall built across Long Island from the southern shore of Oyster Bay Harbor, an inlet of Long Island Sound, to the southern coast. They basically brought that ruthlessness back with them from the Middle East and started looting industrial equipment, stores, etc., and recruiting or abducting people with the necessary skills to maintain the lifestyle and technology of the country they remember while remaining a militarized society. Those descended from the original troops are the upper class while there's a stigma to those descended from locals, with the lowest being anybody from outside their borders.
They'd basically have a semblance of 1991-era tech, with aircraft carriers long beached at strategic points to provide power with their reactors. With EMP having screwed up the video and audio cassettes, they'd be using laserdiscs and CDs respectively, with one Phillips laserdisc factory disassembled and moved from Bath, NY. Aircraft have been reduced to helicopter transports and gunships (Black Hawks and the relatively simpler Kiowas, as opposed to Apaches) supporting gunboats in patrolling the waters to prevent an influx of 'locals'. Land forces are made up of 1991-era soldiers utilizing mainly Humvees with an ever decreasing strategic reserve of painstakingly maintained and rarely used Abrams tanks stored at a central location. They'll still raid the mainland from time to time for 'requisition' missions for pre-war stores or relatively prosperous mainlander settlements.
I'm thinking there would be a sort of secret society within that would be sick of the fact that they're a permanently standing army living off of loot and not actually helping to rebuild the great country they've been picking the bones and living off the scraps of for decades. The established military command, however, believes that they're merely preserving America in at least a small way.
Diamond
11-02-2010, 09:51 PM
I think something like that could work well. What I didn't like about the first EPA is that we seemed to be recreating the Rifts game - dozens of different societies and technologies existing side by side with little or no regard for the logic of it.
The feel I was going for here was not necessarily neanderthal-level people digging in the garbage and hunting each other with pointy sticks (although some of that would be good too), but a continent that suffered almost total devastation and is rebuilding almost from the ground up. Setting it 150 years later allows us to have tribes and/or nations that have been able to rise a bit above subsistence level without getting into the Rennaissance trap we fell into last time.
That's why I came up with the Regions idea - that way, broad areas have their own sort of 'unifying feel', and the societies and peoples in each should hang together a little better. Some regions would probably have fared better to start with, such as the Pacific northwest; although they are going to have a better environment, they're handicapped from the beginning by a shortage of people. Other places, like the Midwest, are going to take a massive hit in environment AND population initially, but the conditions there once the worst of the radiation etc is gone is going to allow them to spring back a bit faster than other areas. This way, some regions might be marginally more advanced than others, but as a whole, the continent won't suffer the imbalance of some mega-power.
...Unless we want to go the route of having an 'evil empire' set up somewhere. Which could be really cool too...
Since you're wanting to set up the remnants of US forces in Long Island (which, again, I like), I think it's even more important to keep NYC intact from nukes and make it a REALLY dangerous place - not only to provide interesting story fodder, but to keep the Long Island folks penned in a little.
One thing I was thinking about adding in to the timeline/origin story/etc is the release of some kind of funky chemical/biological agents in many parts of the globe that are the root cause for a lot of mutation. (Thereby giving us a halfway plausible explanation for mutants to satisfy those who are fussy :D). NYC, having been spared from nukes, might've been a major release point of these mutagens, giving us tribes of really screwed-up mutants living in the ruins and counterbalancing the Long Islanders somewhat.
Diamond
11-02-2010, 09:54 PM
Sort of going hand-in-hand with your idea, GBW, I had thought about this:
During the final breakdown of American gov't/society/military, the remaining CONUS based military consolidates into something called the Combined American Command, or ComAmCom. Based out of the northern Rockies (maybe Montana?), they adapt a 'burrower/survivor/xenophobe' mentality and basically create a huge warren of tunnels.
A century and a half later, they've still managed to hold onto a lot of their past, but they're becoming increasingly inbred, sterile, and stagnant.
Diamond
11-02-2010, 10:09 PM
What do you guys think about having three or four (or more, depending on what everyone thinks) already-established nations/states/whatever before we start this for real? Not only would that give us a more fleshed-out starting condition, but it would give a skeleton to begin to hang things on.
We could even do one 'main' culture/nation for each region, and have that be a model for other stuff in that region. So if, for example, in the Midwest we have Kingdom A which is a fairly prosperous river-trading and farming nation, that would also be a major identifier for most other nations in that region.
This way, you still have room to insert the odd mutant community or hidden religious order, but there's also some kind of unifying theme or feel to the whole thing.
What do you think? Too restrictive?
edit: I'm not saying every culture in a particular region would be clones of each other, just that I'd like to see some more thought put into how nations arose and coexist with each other at the present day.
Since you're wanting to set up the remnants of US forces in Long Island (which, again, I like), I think it's even more important to keep NYC intact from nukes and make it a REALLY dangerous place - not only to provide interesting story fodder, but to keep the Long Island folks penned in a little.
Perhaps Manhattan is extremely densely populated, with the various skyscrapers being small communities unto themselves. The Twin Towers, for example, would probably have makeshift platforms and awnings built out from the regular floors to create more living space.
Maybe Brooklyn, Queens and the rest of western Long Island is where those who have been shoved out of Manhattan and the other islands due to being on the losing side of various conflicts, having worse mutations than usual, etc., end up. The area could be a near constant warzone that the US military remnant uses for target practice to keep their soldiers' edges sharp.
One thing I was thinking about adding in to the timeline/origin story/etc is the release of some kind of funky chemical/biological agents in many parts of the globe that are the root cause for a lot of mutation. (Thereby giving us a halfway plausible explanation for mutants to satisfy those who are fussy :D). NYC, having been spared from nukes, might've been a major release point of these mutagens, giving us tribes of really screwed-up mutants living in the ruins and counterbalancing the Long Islanders somewhat.
It could be a combination of the release of various industrial chemicals released during the extensive rioting during the breakdown of society, along with radiation from the nuclear fallout. The US did have a lot more manufacturing capacity in 1991 than today, and its known that they can create mutations in DNA.
Bruno
11-03-2010, 05:02 AM
It could be a combination of the release of various industrial chemicals released during the extensive rioting during the breakdown of society, along with radiation from the nuclear fallout. The US did have a lot more manufacturing capacity in 1991 than today, and its known that they can create mutations in DNA.
Picking up on this and Diamond's 'unified regions' idea--how about there was (is?) some weird-ass Human Purity religion/nation/whatever that sprung up that forcibly relocated in the early days any people that were too far away from their definition of Pure Humans, so we had all kinds of enclaves of mutants being forcibly stuck together. Even though most of the DNA altering crap would be long gone from the environment after 150 years, becuse there was a few generations of essentially forced breeding, the mutant genes have stuck around a lot longer in some populations than in others.
Picking up on this and Diamond's 'unified regions' idea--how about there was (is?) some weird-ass Human Purity religion/nation/whatever that sprung up that forcibly relocated in the early days any people that were too far away from their definition of Pure Humans, so we had all kinds of enclaves of mutants being forcibly stuck together. Even though most of the DNA altering crap would be long gone from the environment after 150 years, becuse there was a few generations of essentially forced breeding, the mutant genes have stuck around a lot longer in some populations than in others.
I can definitely see a revision of Spirals from the original EPA for that role (Human Purity movement). Like the ideas so far - keep in mind that some, but not all of mutants will be sterile, or non-viable. As a result, I would see the mutant populations being relatively low, unless they either produce a breed of fertile mutations, or unless they are constantly replenished. Considering the lack of scientific knowledge, I would imagine that there would still be a lot of people going into the polluted areas to loot without knowing the dangers, if not to themselves, then to their children.
Sir Ironside
11-03-2010, 09:43 AM
You could also throw in the idea of a virus that causes the mechanism that keeps unviable embryos from coming to term to malfunction.
Bruno
11-03-2010, 06:17 PM
Perhaps Manhattan is extremely densely populated, with the various skyscrapers being small communities unto themselves. The Twin Towers, for example, would probably have makeshift platforms and awnings built out from the regular floors to create more living space.
Bear in mind that after 150 years, very few buildings will still be standing. According to World Without People, the effects on cities could be seen within just a few decades.
link (http://www.seattlepi.com/books/327393_timeline14.html)
.
After two days
With no one to run the pumps, New York subways flood.
Seven days
Generators that cool nuclear reactor cores run out of fuel.
One year
Human head and body lice grow extinct. Wildlife returns to sites of melted-down nuclear reactors.
Three years
In colder climes, walls and roofs start to separate, pipes burst, roaches die.
20 years
Panama Canal closes up. Garden vegetables revert to wild strains.
100 years
Feral housecats devastate populations of small predators. Elephant population grows 20-fold as ivory trade ceases.
300 years
New York bridges fall, dams fail worldwide, cities built in river deltas, such as Houston, wash away.
Aftermath: Population Zero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath:_Population_Zero)
30 years A.H
Devastated by solar winds (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Solar_wind), artificial satellites (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Artificial_satellites) return to Earth in the form of shooting stars (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Shooting_star). Some of their pieces make it to the ground and start some fires.
House roofs collapse, allowing trees to grow in their interior.
Scoured by hurricane (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Hurricane) after hurricane, the East Coast of the United States (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/East_Coast_of_the_United_States) is slowly cleaned of buildings. Southern states like Florida (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Florida) are completely swept away.
In the ocean (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Ocean), the remains of former ships (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Ship) serve as foundations for the formation of coral reefs (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Coral_reefs).
Cereal (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Cereal) fields are turned into grasslands or overrun by expanding forests. The same happens to cities as grass and trees take root on streets and buildings.
In New York City, Central Park (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Central_Park) is getting bigger, taking over Times Square (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Times_Square).
Panes of window glass fall from buildings to the streets.
Birds of prey (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Birds_of_prey) make their nests (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Nest) and hunt rodents (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Rodent) in skyscrapers (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Skyscraper).
Paint is weathered away after years of exposure to rain. Metal (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Metal) in cars and other human structures is exposed to oxidation (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Oxidation) and disintegration.
Concrete (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Concrete) begins to collapse due to moisture.
60-120 years A.H
Skyscrapers (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Skyscrapers) around the world begin to collapse.
Sea life has completely recovered from overfishing (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Overfishing) and is thriving.
Though there are still dogs, dog breeds (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Dog_breeds) do not exist anymore, erased by generations of free reproduction. Many of the feral dog (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Dog) breeds have died out due to neutering (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Neutered), resulting in a genetic bottleneck (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Genetic_bottleneck) in the remaining dogs. Survivors mate with wolves (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Wolf).
In Europe (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Europe), the largely decreased wolf population expands into the countries where it was completely exterminated, like Germany (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Germany). Upon reaching the ruins of cities, wolves come into contact with feral dogs living there, competing with them for food or breeding with them, erasing the last traces left of domestication (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Domestication).
Around 120 years after our disappearance, the oceans and plants begin scrubbing the earth clean of our carbon dioxide.
150 years A.H
Winters are colder than in the last days of the human race.
Remains of ships and bridges form dams (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Dam) in the Thames (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Thames), flooding the ruins of London (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/London) and turning the British capital back into the swamp (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Swamp) it was before Roman times (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Roman_Empire).
Imperial Valley (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Imperial_Valley), once the biggest producer of fruits in the United States (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/United_States), returns back to a sandy desert.
Dry winds still maintain most of Las Vegas (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Las_Vegas,_Nevada) buildings intact. They serve as a refuge for vultures (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Vulture) and desert lizards (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Lizard) now.
Regarding the question about diseases and whatnot, don't forget that the Soviet Union had a gigantic biological weapons research program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_biological_weapons_program#Post-BWC_developments)that was still operating well into the 1980's (and almost certainly longer).
Notable outbreaks and accidents
Marburg virus
The Soviet Union (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Soviet_Union) reportedly had a large biological weapons (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Biological_weapon) program enhancing the usefulness of the Marburg virus (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Marburg_virus). The development was conducted in Vector Institute (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Vector_State_Research_Center_of_Virology_and_Biote chnology) under leadership of Dr. Ustinov who accidentally died from the virus. The samples of Marburg taken from Ustinov's organs were more powerful than the original strain. New strain called "Variant U" had been successfully weaponized and approved by Soviet Ministry of Defense in 1990. [8] (http://www.counter-factual.net/upload/#cite_note-Alibek-7)
Smallpox
The first smallpox (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Smallpox) weapons factory in the Soviet Union (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Soviet_Union) was established in 1947 in the city of Zagorsk (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Zagorsk), close to Moscow (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Moscow).[8] (http://www.counter-factual.net/upload/#cite_note-Alibek-7) It was produced by injecting small amounts of the virus into chicken eggs. An especially virulent strain (codenamed India-1967 or India-1) was brought from India in 1967 by a special Soviet medical team that was sent to India to help to eradicate the virus. The pathogen was manufactured and stockpiled in large quantities throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
An outbreak of weaponized smallpox occurred during its testing in the 1970s. General Prof. Peter Burgasov, former Chief Sanitary Physician of the Soviet Army (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Soviet_Army), and a senior researcher within the program of biological weapons described this incident:
“On Vozrozhdeniya Island (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Vozrozhdeniya_Island) in the Aral Sea (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Aral_Sea), the strongest recipes of smallpox were tested. Suddenly I was informed that there were mysterious cases of mortalities in Aralsk (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Aralsk). A research ship of the Aral fleet came 15 km away from the island (it was forbidden to come any closer than 40 km). The lab technician of this ship took samples of plankton twice a day from the top deck. The smallpox formulation— 400 gr. of which was exploded on the island—”got her” and she became infected. After returning home to Aralsk, she infected several people including children. All of them died. I suspected the reason for this and called the Chief of General Staff of Ministry of Defense and requested to forbid the stop of the Alma-Ata (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Alma-Ata) to Moscow (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Moscow) train in Aralsk. As a result, the epidemic around the country was prevented. I called Andropov (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Yuri_Andropov), who at that time was Chief of KGB, and informed him of the exclusive recipe of smallpox obtained on Vozrozhdeniya Island (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Vozrozhdeniya_Island).” [13] (http://www.counter-factual.net/upload/#cite_note-Shoham-12)[14] (http://www.counter-factual.net/upload/#cite_note-13)
A production line to manufacture smallpox on an industrial scale was launched in the Vector Institute (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Vector_State_Research_Center_of_Virology_and_Biote chnology) in 1990.[8] (http://www.counter-factual.net/upload/#cite_note-Alibek-7) The development of genetically altered strains of smallpox was presumably conducted in the Institute under leadership of Dr. Sergei Netyosov in the middle of the 1990s, according to Kenneth Alibek (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Kenneth_Alibek) [8] (http://www.counter-factual.net/upload/#cite_note-Alibek-7)
It was reported that Russia made smallpox available to Iraq in the beginning of 1990s. [13] (http://www.counter-factual.net/upload/#cite_note-Shoham-12)
Anthrax
Main article: Sverdlovsk anthrax leak (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak)
Spores (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Spores) of weaponized anthrax (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Anthrax) were accidentally released from a military facility near the city of Sverdlovsk (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Yekaterinburg) in 1979. The death toll was at least 105, but no one knows the exact number, because all hospital records and other evidence were destroyed by the KGB (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/KGB), according to former Biopreparat (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Biopreparat) deputy director Kenneth Alibek (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Kenneth_Alibek).
And those are just the stuff we know about.
I can easily see in our scenario the SU deciding to launch as much of this stuff at various countries as they can , especially if they adopt a "We're going to take you assholes down with us" attitude.
So how about in addition to the ~50 or so nukes that hit North America, another ~50 or so biological weapons missiles hit various cities as well --maybe a few hit New York City?
This way, when the remnants of the US military come and set up their base in NYC, since it's standard procedure for soldiers to get innoculated with every vaccine imagineable (especially in this scenario where the WW3 buildup has been going on for months at least), the returning soldiers have an immunity to all this shit that's floating around and are in a better position to take over.
How about that?
Bear in mind that after 150 years, very few buildings will still be standing. According to World Without People, the effects on cities could be seen within just a few decades.
This isn't a world without people, though. If NYC is still inhabited and, indeed, more people even start to move in from elsewhere, the buildings are still going to be maintained to an extent. I fully expect a good many of them to be deteriorated, but the sturdier ones should still be upright.
I think both Bruno and GBW have a point. I would say that if we are going for a "softer" SF approach, there should be enough buildings still standing in New York (although some of the skyscrapers might become increasingly more unstable). After all, I have ruins of skyscrapers standing 500+ years after the apocalypse in "The Keys Of Death"...
Speaking of biological warfare, almost certain to happen... I would, however, imagine that the number of nuclear warheads to hit North America would be more than 50-ish, probably at least a couple hundred, considering that the missile defense system is not yet there by early-mid 90s.
Bruno
11-03-2010, 08:13 PM
This isn't a world without people, though. If NYC is still inhabited and, indeed, more people even start to move in from elsewhere, the buildings are still going to be maintained to an extent. I fully expect a good many of them to be deteriorated, but the sturdier ones should still be upright.
True but I'm just pointing out that with the shortage of equipment, supplies and manpower, we can expect large swathes of NYC to be death traps and a few parts (especially the suburbs) to have reverted to forests or grasslands by 2150 AD.
That actually ties in very neatly with your idea of having the military forces shoving the 'great unwashed' to the edges of their turf and using various parts of the city as training grounds and target practice.
Have we considered which entries might get transferred over from EPA Zero? For example, how would the Madlands play in M&M?
Diamond
11-04-2010, 04:26 PM
Hmm. As for the mutants: we gotta have 'em. :D That's sort of why I wanted to have at least a few 'hot zones' left, to explain why there's still plenty o' muties running around...
And this: You could also throw in the idea of a virus that causes the mechanism that keeps unviable embryos from coming to term to malfunction. is a good idea too.
As for the degradation/destruction of old cities over time, that's part of the reason I wanted to set things only a century and a half later. (The other reason was to keep away from the less-PA setting of EPA v1.)
As for number of nukes hitting the US: yep, in reality it probably would've been a whole crapload more, but... if we did that, what percentage of the population would survive to be able to build up even a little bit a century and a half later? Now granted, I think this time around we need A LOT MORE WASTELANDS AND EMPTY AREAS, but is 150 years long enough to establish anything more than stone age tribes if 99% of the US population is wiped out?
Have we considered which entries might get transferred over from EPA Zero? For example, how would the Madlands play in M&M?
That's one thing I thought would work pretty well, actually.
Diamond
11-06-2010, 03:57 PM
Kind of apropos of nothing, one thing I'd eventually like to do is have an interactive map, where you could mouse over regions on the map and get a little pop-up that'd give you a brief overview of whatever you're looking at. Then if you click on it, it'll take you to that place's entry page.
Maybe we should figure out which entries we'd like to see carried over from Zero, and those could set the benchmark for other entries in the same region to work with. For example, are we bringing the Great River states over? Nouvelle Anglund? Lost Vegas?
Another idea I've been throwing around since Diamond mentioned an 'Evil Empire'. Instead of Chilango, what if Mexico City was left intact but got hit heavily by fallout and whatever mutagenic contagion we throw in? It could become the seat of power for some Neo-Aztec mutant empire as people lost faith in the Church and the region eventually united under some fringe extremists. I'm envisioning stepped pyramids built up around existing skyscrapers with their top floors or roofs being the tip, made out of the torn down surrounding buildings.
Diamond
11-06-2010, 05:46 PM
My 2 cents is that Lost Vegas would work, while the Great River states and honestly, most other nation states would not. My reasoning behind this is that the first EPA was set almost half a millenium after the present, and so it made sense that a lot of places would have climbed back to early renaissance levels.
I think we need to be very careful this time around in spreading those kind of advanced civs very thin. I would say no more than three or four on the entire continent, with the remainder given over to smaller city-states (the Oni Press comic Wasteland gives great examples of this, and also Bartertown from Mad Max, etc.), nomadic or semi-sedentary tribes (like the Angels, the Dakotay, and to some extent the Madlanders), 'uncivilized' areas (Flurda, the Ozarkz), and genuine wastelands where normal human habitation is few and far between (which IMO should be at least 50% of any given Region).
One thing to bear in mind is that almost any entry we bring over from EPA 0 is going to have to undergo massive revision to make it fit with the altered timeline. My opinion is that we ought to take the entry ideas that we like and rewrite them as needed, and use those as 'baseline' entries to give some starting conditions.
Off the top of my head, I'd include the Moremen (with a much, much reduced area of influence), the Madlands, the Eaters *, Flurda, Atlanta (heavily modified), the Chatanoogalanders, the Dakotay (again, modified), something akin to Mont Real (but maybe centered on the city of Quebec instead), the Spiral Brotherhood, Andario (modified), a less powerful version of Nawlins that's not so reliant on overseas immigration in its backstory, the Queen Mother (with a less advanced ship, of course), and the Deathhorns and other mutant animals.
*to include these, we'd most likely have to make this a true AH, with a POD back far enough to allow for more advanced robotics by the early 90s; what do you all think of that?
What about the Bluegrass Riders? They'd obviously need to be roughened up some, and their center at Lexington, or Lexin, wouldn't be quite as civilized. Makes sense that people on horseback would have an advantage over those on foot in an oil-strapped post-apocalyptic countryside.
*to include these, we'd most likely have to make this a true AH, with a POD back far enough to allow for more advanced robotics by the early 90s; what do you all think of that?
You could also make them some screw up due to the apocalypse-in-progress at some secret DARPA project or Area 51.
Diamond
11-06-2010, 08:21 PM
What about the Bluegrass Riders? They'd obviously need to be roughened up some, and their center at Lexington, or Lexin, wouldn't be quite as civilized. Makes sense that people on horseback would have an advantage over those on foot in an oil-strapped post-apocalyptic countryside.
Yep, I could see that.
You could also make them some screw up due to the apocalypse-in-progress at some secret DARPA project or Area 51.
I'd thought of that, but I wasn't sure if people would go for it. I like the idea, and if there's no objections, I'll use it.
For entries like that, that aren't region-specific, what I'd like to do is have some sort of Miscellaneous or 'catch-all' category, as opposed to Region-specific entries for things like nations/tribes/etc.
I think we can have a post-WW2 POD that would still result in a recognizable pre-Apocalypse world. Perhaps the space race is more heated, and as a result the bleed of advanced technology into everyday life is more prominent?
Also, we can have Yazov and company take control of USSR and turn it into a hermit kingdom of sorts until, say, 2015 or 2020 - basically North Korea on massive scale. Their finances are put completely into military while the nation starves. The Cold War continues, and as such certain technologies get more advanced, while some consumer tech stagnates.
By 2020, the tensions reach a breaking point. USSR is completely bankrupt, and the Soviet leadership knows that they are in a "use it or lose it" situation. They are already facing unrest throughout the nation, while falling population growth rates (by then, the population might already be declining, with low birth rates and low life expectancy) meaning that they cannot expect numerical superiority in case of a conventional conflict for much longer.
They attempt a desperate gambit - basically trying to initiate a blitzkrieg-type of an attack into Europe, hoping that they can overrun Europe so quickly that the Americans would not risk it going nuclear. Then, USSR hopes to loot rich Western Europe to prolong their own existence. Not the smartest (or the sanest) scheme, but it is what it is, and the Party leadership is quite desperate by then, and more willing to let the world burn than lose power themselves.
The Soviet attack goes better than expected. Masses of Soviet conscripts (i.e. most of the able-bodied population) and armor roll over whatever forces NATO has available, destroying them with the sheer weight of numbers. The Soviet losses are horrendous, but they accomplish what the Party leadership wanted... at least until an unpleasant surprise.
As almost all of USSR's available forces are tied down in Western Europe, China stabs USSR in the back, attacking the lightly defended Siberian territories. The Chinese still have the same population pressures as in OTL, and a similar set of political problems (i.e. if their economy is not doing well, the Party's strange mix of capitalist economics and Communist politics will be challenged from within), and they see a golden opportunity that might be too hard to miss. The Chinese leadership reasons that it is only a matter of time before the Americans fully commit to the war, and in the context, they can expect an alliance of convenience, or at least polite neutrality from the US. While at it, they could grab mineral wealth of sparcely populated Siberia, and perhaps catch the Soviets as the Soviet leadership is fully committed elsewhere.
This is China's first, last, and only mistake.
Within two days of the first PLA units crossing the Soviet border, China mostly ceases to exist. For that matter, so does most of Russia. Both sides manage to practically annihilate each other's major population centers, major industrial sites, and large military formations, with the few exceptions (Soviet units in Western Europe are often untouched due to being outside of China's reach). As the Soviet leadership realizes that their gambit failed, they decide to take the rest of the planet with them, and launch their remaining missiles.
Much of the United States is hit, and although the overall success rate is pretty low, the Soviets launched enough missiles to more or less destroy anything resembling legitimate authority in the US. They only spare a few missiles for Western Europe, being that the Soviet military made massive gains there, but Britain is essentially flattened, or at least heavily populated south of it. The remaining large pockets of NATO forces are, likewise, destroyed, although some smaller holdouts remain.
The Americans respond in kind. European Russia is pretty much glassed, and quite a bit of Eastern Europe. Russian units further west in Europe are left relatively intact, but with chain of command destroyed, and supply lines cut, it is everyone for themselves, with Soviet officers quickly turning into warlords, and Soviet forces fracturing, some taking up with the remnants of local authority, some trying to carve mini-empires of their own with no guidance from Moscow.
South America, Australia, East Asia, and Middle East get nuked in various degrees of severity, as both major powers have their allies and enemies there, and neither US nor USSR wants competitors rising up in case of national weakness... as a result, USSR nukes some of its supposedly allied/neutral states in Asia, while USA nukes some parts of Mexico and South America (the doctrine being that the US does not want anyone to be in a position to dominate it while it, theoretically, rebuilds).
The US mainland has zones where life is almost tolerable, and other zones that were scoured of all life. Canada got enough of the Soviet nukes, but not as much. USSR is glassed, and China is pretty badly off. Western Europe got fewest nuke hits, but the fallout would still get carried by the weather systems, plus, the Soviet invasion and its aftermath more or less destroyed its infrastructure and left it in ruins; rampaging Soviet armies are still on the prowl, "requisitioning" everything they can (in other words, looting and committing atrocities, although some smarter officers might have tried to form kingdoms/dynasties by making alliances with the locals, and thus acted less... unreasonably).
How does that sound?
Diamond
11-07-2010, 12:06 AM
To be honest, I think with that scenario we're pretty much right back where we started with EPA 0. If we go with a Yazov POD (1991?), we need to add 20 or 30 years as per your scenario in order to get the military advances to create Eaters or something like them. However, that also gives us the time to create genetic engineering to create all the transgees and variant races that I really thought made EPA 0 too Rifts-like.
I do like the idea of having holdout pockets of NATO and Soviet troops all over the place; that's sort of the idea I think GBW was going for with his Long Island guys, and what I was going for with the ComAmCom.
South America, Australia, East Asia, and Middle East get nuked in various degrees of severity, as both major powers have their allies and enemies there, and neither US nor USSR wants competitors rising up in case of national weakness... as a result, USSR nukes some of its supposedly allied/neutral states in Asia, while USA nukes some parts of Mexico and South America (the doctrine being that the US does not want anyone to be in a position to dominate it while it, theoretically, rebuilds).
This, I think, is something that could and should be worked in.
A random thought I had was, what about Reagan really getting behind the Star Wars project, such that by the early 90s, the US has a workable (but crude) anti-missile shield? This, combined with the Soviet meltdown and our hypothetical strong man taking over, is going to make things even more prone to going nuclear/chemical/biological. It also creates the possibility of having a halfway valid reason for Eaters being developed - maybe they're semi-sentient prototypes designed to function as biological cleanup units in case of a bio attack on the US (since nuclear attack is not going to do as much damage as it would've a few years earlier) - they go in and literally eat contaminated matter.
Sir Ironside
11-07-2010, 07:43 AM
So, Diamond, the eaters are gonna be inspired by the Japanses miracle from Ghost in the Shell?
Diamond
11-07-2010, 11:34 AM
So, Diamond, the eaters are gonna be inspired by the Japanses miracle from Ghost in the Shell?
Not sure. I've never seen/read that, though I've heard of it. I'm not really huge on anime.
Bruno
11-07-2010, 11:45 AM
A random thought I had was, what about Reagan really getting behind the Star Wars project, such that by the early 90s, the US has a workable (but crude) anti-missile shield? This, combined with the Soviet meltdown and our hypothetical strong man taking over, is going to make things even more prone to going nuclear/chemical/biological. It also creates the possibility of having a halfway valid reason for Eaters being developed - maybe they're semi-sentient prototypes designed to function as biological cleanup units in case of a bio attack on the US (since nuclear attack is not going to do as much damage as it would've a few years earlier) - they go in and literally eat contaminated matter.
That's an interesting idea.
One idea is that with the limited nuclear war on the US, there's still some remnants of the government/military in power after the hammer came down and these prototypes are rushed into the contaminated zones ahead of schedule. Problem was that they still had quite a few bugs in their system, they go rogue and, over the course of the next few decades, slowly start getting a) more intelligent and b) learn how to make new copies of themselves.
Of course, by the time people start realizing that the dozen dumb Eaters that got loose are now a hundred semi-intelligent Eaters, none of the original engineers/scientists who worked on the project are alive.
Should the Usa Nation be around as well? Definitely would have brought new meaning to the 'Bush Dynasty'. Or do you think Camp David would have been incinerated? Even in EPA 0, they remained isolated for over a century before venturing back into the world, and would provide yet another 'legitimate' US successor to confuse post-apocalyptic North America.
BTW, I partly created Appleysha and the Madlands to try and explain why the Northeast and the rest of Nourika had differences to them, with the only trade route being a roundabout one through Atlanta and skirting the edges of the Kyairoline Wastes.
To be honest, I think with that scenario we're pretty much right back where we started with EPA 0. If we go with a Yazov POD (1991?), we need to add 20 or 30 years as per your scenario in order to get the military advances to create Eaters or something like them. However, that also gives us the time to create genetic engineering to create all the transgees and variant races that I really thought made EPA 0 too Rifts-like.
I think that scientific development does not have to be uniform. Certain directions could be well-developed (i.e. for Eaters), but some others may not be done - maybe the US as a whole becomes a bit more religious, or at least the religious right becomes more powerful, and as a result certain venues of research (specifically genetic engineering etc) are strictly off-limits due to their political impossibility? We can still mix-and-match very advanced technology in robotics with biotech being at OTL levels or even below that due to religious-based political opposition to it.
Sir Ironside
11-08-2010, 09:34 AM
Here is a bit of inspiration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOI0wVp1j-o
The old northwest area around the remnants of Chicago in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky seems to be the right mix of agrarian, industrial and mineral resources that we could see a more dominate kingdom in that area influencing their neighbors, or that we see a complex area of tiny little towns defending their own interests until someone manages to unify at least portions of the area. Rust Belt Dukedoms could trade or threaten one another over smaller shanty towns and densely populated areas like Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. Detroit, Toronto and Cleveland could fight over the lake. I could imagine Michigan as some sort of Carthage to a Cleveland's Rome that gets rich trading to their fellow Ohioan Duchies and to Pennsylvania and New York.
We could also use coal far more extensively. Take scraps of old construction equipment and have them powered by the coal from the Midwest or the southeast. Can you think of someone barreling up to Toledo in coal-powered bulldozers? It could be brutally demoralizing if you are facing that on horseback to see this thing made of yellow painted steel bellowing out black smoke and seeming invulnerable to your most basic of attacks.
Diamond
11-09-2010, 11:49 PM
We could also use coal far more extensively. Take scraps of old construction equipment and have them powered by the coal from the Midwest or the southeast. Can you think of someone barreling up to Toledo in coal-powered bulldozers? It could be brutally demoralizing if you are facing that on horseback to see this thing made of yellow painted steel bellowing out black smoke and seeming invulnerable to your most basic of attacks.
Now that right there is exactly the kind of feel I was going for with this thing.
Bruno
11-10-2010, 02:16 AM
We could also use coal far more extensively. Take scraps of old construction equipment and have them powered by the coal from the Midwest or the southeast. Can you think of someone barreling up to Toledo in coal-powered bulldozers? It could be brutally demoralizing if you are facing that on horseback to see this thing made of yellow painted steel bellowing out black smoke and seeming invulnerable to your most basic of attacks.
For that matter, even wood will do in a pinch.
Wood gas operated vehicles have been around for decades. It's fairly basic technology, in fact.
wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal#Automotive_fuel)
In times of scarce petroleum, automobiles and even buses have been converted to burn wood gas (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Wood_gas) (gas mixture containing primarily carbon monoxide (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Carbon_monoxide)) released by burning charcoal or wood in a wood gas generator (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Wood_gas_generator). In 1931 Tang Zhongming (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Tang_Zhongming) developed an automobile powered by charcoal, and these cars were popular in China until the 1950s. In occupied France (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/Occupied_France) during World War II (http://www.counter-factual.net/wiki/World_War_II), wood and wood charcoal production for such vehicles (called gazogènes) increased from pre-war figures of approximately fifty thousand tons a year to almost half a million tons in 1943
Not only is it fairly basic technology -- if you have the tech to build a steam engine, you have the tech to build a wood gas engine -- but it's actually making a comeback now because of the high cost of oil and gas.
More to the point, using our timeframe here of WW II occurring in the mid-90's, this technology will be fresh in people's minds because (FEMA) published a book, Construction of a Simplified Wood Gas Generator for Fueling Internal Combustion Engines in a Petroleum Emergency, in 1989, describing a different design called the "stratified downdraft gasifier".
It would be safe to assume that every survivor nut in the country would have a copy of this book when the hammer comes down.
Granted, even the best models kind of suck compared to coal-powered engines -- but in places that have tons of trees and no coal, this is a lifesaver. And more to the point--a renewable source of fuel that's ridiculously easy to collect, unlike coal. What's less hassle -- cut down a few acres of trees and drag them 20-30 miles back to your town or dig a big freaking hole in the ground?
Furthermore, biodiesel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel) is a rather big market these days. This is essentially making diesel from vegentable oil (or in a pinch, animal fat) and, just like wood-gas, was used a lot during WW II -- so this is pretty basic tech as well. In fact, the very first diesel engine (made by Diesel, of course) in 1893 ran on nothing but peanut oil.
A blend of 20% biodiesel can be mixed with 80% normal diesel can generally be used in unmodified diesel engines (so you can stretch out your supplies). A 100% biodiesel blend requires some engine modifications but it's doable.
Greasestock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greasestock) is a yearly event for vegetable oil powered vehicles:
The "Veggie Van", a project of V.O. Tech Inc. of Mahpoac, New York and the Westchester County Government, is one of the exhibits at the Greasestock event.The van gets its fuel from a local restaurant, and the food filtered out of the vegetable oil is used as compost at the County's Hanover Farm in Yorktown, New York.
Perhaps a bit too hi-tech for most of the areas in PA North America but some of the bigger nations --especially those areas that grow lots of food that can be processed into vegetable oil --will almost certainly have experimented with this.
WW II era car--modified to run on wood-gas.
Hmm... perhaps the Bluegrass Riders could be like the Angel Hordes in that hey had their time of supremacy in the flatlands of Kentucky and maybe surrounding areas, but the spread of coal and wood-gas technology since the Fall (or whatever we call it) has been forcing them increasingly back onto a heavily fortified Lexin.
Diamond
11-10-2010, 12:26 PM
Hmm... perhaps the Bluegrass Riders could be like the Angel Hordes in that hey had their time of supremacy in the flatlands of Kentucky and maybe surrounding areas, but the spread of coal and wood-gas technology since the Fall (or whatever we call it) has been forcing them increasingly back onto a heavily fortified Lexin.
Or maybe they've adapted also, and use wood-burners. Might be kinda cool to envision a pitched battle, Mad Max-style, between the Angels and the Riders...
The Angels and Riders could be two of those semi-advanced 'anchor societies' I mentioned. They could be the high point of technology and power on the continent. Other folks might have slightly better tech (Long Island soldier remnants or ComAmCom), or higher/better organized populations (Eliot's hypothetical Rust Belt Dukedoms), but no one would have better populations AND tech. How's that sound?
Or maybe they've adapted also, and use wood-burners. Might be kinda cool to envision a pitched battle, Mad Max-style, between the Angels and the Riders...
The Angels and Riders could be two of those semi-advanced 'anchor societies' I mentioned. They could be the high point of technology and power on the continent. Other folks might have slightly better tech (Long Island soldier remnants or ComAmCom), or higher/better organized populations (Eliot's hypothetical Rust Belt Dukedoms), but no one would have better populations AND tech. How's that sound?
Sounds about right to me - ultimately, however, much depends not on what tech you have, but on how you use it. After all, the Chinese technological advancement did not help them against much less sophisticated Mongols precisely because the Mongols had better mobile warfare doctrine, and manages to defeat the Song dynasty with a fraction of manpower and technology. Therefore, it is the strategic, tactical, and organizational doctrines that are adapted to the realities of life in this post-apocalyptic world that may make a difference between a powerful continental group and a localized nation.
Bruno
11-10-2010, 12:33 PM
Or maybe they've adapted also, and use wood-burners. Might be kinda cool to envision a pitched battle, Mad Max-style, between the Angels and the Riders...
Would be fun to have a few splinter groups from each side off doing their own thing. I have this vision of exiled Angels and Riders joining forces and staking out a chunk of land in the mountains somewhere and riding wood-burning all-terrain vehicles or something.
The Angels and Riders could be two of those semi-advanced 'anchor societies' I mentioned. They could be the high point of technology and power on the continent. Other folks might have slightly better tech (Long Island soldier remnants or ComAmCom), or higher/better organized populations (Eliot's hypothetical Rust Belt Dukedoms), but no one would have better populations AND tech. How's that sound?
Sounds good to me. How about a few 'bandit kingdom' types and so forth as well, who make a living raiding/smuggling stuff between all the different 'blocs'?
Diamond
11-10-2010, 12:35 PM
Sounds good to me. How about a few 'bandit kingdom' types and so forth as well, who make a living raiding/smuggling stuff between all the different 'blocs'?
That would work too, I think. If we include Memphis in this version, it could fill a role like that, instead of the proto-Empire it was in EPA 0.
I've been mainly looking at trade areas in the Midwest, and I think you could easily have a group of larger city-states tied together by Steamboats. St. Louis (Luey), Minneapolis-St. Paul (Min'Pall) and Milwaukee (Mil'wa'ki) are all sitting on northwestern frontier that is tied together by the riverboats, while the eastern bit would be Louisville (Luwisvyl), Evansville(Evinsvyl), Cincinatti (Sinsi) and Columbus in the east. In the center of it you could have struggling the agrarian kingdoms of Indianapolis (Indee) and Cairo (Kirow).
These areas would be under constant threat from whatever is out on the great plains, Chicago, the Mad men of the east, or the Bluegrass Riders to the south. They'd be varied enough that each one is interesting in their own right but would share cultures focused on trading with one another. Higher tech things like autos and guns are reserved for military use only. Electric power would likely be rare.
Diamond
11-10-2010, 01:22 PM
I think that's too high-tech, kind of verging back into the same territory as EPA 0. My thinking was that yeah, we could have city-states, maybe even several in the same area, but it's not very easy to travel; each civilized place would be separated by dozens (or hundreds) of miles of wasteland, populated by bandits, mutants, etc. I'd say we could have a steamboat or two, maybe maintained by a city's rulers for special cargoes, scouting, etc, but they shouldn't be common by any means.
Also: naming conventions. Since this is only a century and a half from now, instead of 500 years as in EPA 0, do you guys want to just stick with the real names for places, or nicknames, as opposed to the linguistic drift thing we had going before?
Re: names - I would say that some linguistic drift is bound to happen, considering that not everyone who survives will be literate and a good speller, not to mention the mixing of survivors. That said, I would say 90% of the time old spellings/city and place names are going to be prevalent, with only a few places going through changes of name (perhaps due to radical changes in population structure - if, for example, a minority/immigrant group ends up in charge, similar to EPA 0's Sayedid Caliphate). What do you think?
I think that's too high-tech, kind of verging back into the same territory as EPA 0. My thinking was that yeah, we could have city-states, maybe even several in the same area, but it's not very easy to travel; each civilized place would be separated by dozens (or hundreds) of miles of wasteland, populated by bandits, mutants, etc. I'd say we could have a steamboat or two, maybe maintained by a city's rulers for special cargoes, scouting, etc, but they shouldn't be common by any means.
Also: naming conventions. Since this is only a century and a half from now, instead of 500 years as in EPA 0, do you guys want to just stick with the real names for places, or nicknames, as opposed to the linguistic drift thing we had going before?I was mainly looking at ways for you to have more consistent cultures across a vast swath of territory and that seemed to be the easiest way. However this could be more toned back. St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis probably wouldn't be anywhere close to what a Cincinnati, Columbus or Louisville would be. Louisville and Cincinnati are probably close enough together to have a natural rivalry, and Columbus is close enough that there are probably regular relations between Cincinnati and itself, while being far enough away that you could have that area filled with mutants, unfriendly small towns. and overgrown ruins. Plus I would like to keep Columbus at a Medieval level so I can have Knights of Columbus. :look
It occurs to me that Appalachia is going to be the Saudi Arabia of post-apocalyptic North America with all their coal and trees. Perhaps it devolved into individual townships squabbling with each other as in the Hatfields and McCoys post-war, and it was one of the regions where coal and wood-gas technology took hold first. They could be one of the main innovators of post-apocalyptic war machines with the near constant raiding and fighting.
I'm thinking the city-states on the fringes of Appalachia are probably richer than those on the interior of the region due to trade with surrounding areas, while other largish states could be centered on larger cities like Charleston, West Virginia with the larger amounts of ruins and machine shops to work with.
Bruno
11-10-2010, 04:09 PM
It occurs to me that Appalachia is going to be the Saudi Arabia of post-apocalyptic North America with all their coal and trees. Perhaps it devolved into individual townships squabbling with each other as in the Hatfields and McCoys post-war, and it was one of the regions where coal and wood-gas technology took hold first. They could be one of the main innovators of post-apocalyptic war machines with the near constant raiding and fighting.
I like that idea.
Another reason that we can throw in to prevent them from becoming a Saudi Arabia is the fact that there's quite a few military bases along or near the Appalachia region, so the area could be broken up by a few (small) 'zones of death' or whatever that prevents them from really uniting. Maybe throw in a few ethnic/religious squabbles as well to make things a bit nasty. Or maybe in a few areas the surviving remnants of the military were a bit too heavy-handed in maintaining order after the Fall so there's now a deep distrust of some of the townships.
I'm thinking the city-states on the fringes of Appalachia are probably richer than those on the interior of the region due to trade with surrounding areas, while other largish states could be centered on larger cities like Charleston, West Virginia with the larger amounts of ruins and machine shops to work with.
That reminds me -- the transportation network. How much of the highway and railway system survived in more or less one piece?
Diamond
11-10-2010, 04:21 PM
That reminds me -- the transportation network. How much of the highway and railway system survived in more or less one piece?
I wouldn't think too much survived in a useable state away from the population centers. People would've had all they could do just to survive and hold on to their small patch of life to worry about maintaining roads. That said, I'd imagine that many highways and major roads are still passable just due to the fact that they're already proven transportation corridors that people know about. The quality of the roads themselves are probably poor to horrible, but still used. Exceptions would be probably roads in the northeast, Rockies, and other places where nuclear and other destruction not only took out the cities, but didn't leave too much viable land left to rebuild on. So, there's no real population centers there worth the effort of even cursory road maintenance. The Rockies are once again a major barrier dividing the continent, as is the Mississippi (since I'd imagine most of the bridges are gone or unsafe, and no one's yet had the time, manpower, or will to rebuild them).
oooh, River Pirates could easily be a problem for water ways especially in places like Louisiana.They could compete with Crocs for prey.
Another reason that we can throw in to prevent them from becoming a Saudi Arabia is the fact that there's quite a few military bases along or near the Appalachia region, so the area could be broken up by a few (small) 'zones of death' or whatever that prevents them from really uniting.
Not as many as you'd think, apparently. Not many bases, though there's the bunker under the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV that was an emergency bolthole for the US Congress during the Cold War.
Maybe throw in a few ethnic/religious squabbles as well to make things a bit nasty. Or maybe in a few areas the surviving remnants of the military were a bit too heavy-handed in maintaining order after the Fall so there's now a deep distrust of some of the townships.
That reminds me -- the transportation network. How much of the highway and railway system survived in more or less one piece?
This could go together, actually. Appalachia isn't exactly the Great Plains here. It's full of creeks and valleys and such whose bridges and roads could have been torn up in the brushfire wars that arose right after WWIII. That would divide the region up well enough for ethnic/religious differences between townships to arise over time and divide them up even more.
Bruno
11-10-2010, 05:23 PM
I wouldn't think too much survived in a useable state away from the population centers. People would've had all they could do just to survive and hold on to their small patch of life to worry about maintaining roads. That said, I'd imagine that many highways and major roads are still passable just due to the fact that they're already proven transportation corridors that people know about. The quality of the roads themselves are probably poor to horrible, but still used.
That would make sense. I would imagine that they would end up looking like well-used goat trails or footpaths after a while. Even when the asphalt has corroded away to nothingness, the fact is that the highways tend to be almost always stable and flat pieces of land even in the most hilly of terrains, so it's going to take a while for the plant growth to get a toe hold compared to the untouched stuff next to them.
Hmmm...that reminds me. I remember reading in that World without People book that a lot of the highways follow rivers and natural countours anyway, so even without people all the woodland critters would use (some) roads as game trails, paths to sources of water, etc.
Heh--a 'wolf highway'...
The Rockies are once again a major barrier dividing the continent, as is the Mississippi (since I'd imagine most of the bridges are gone or unsafe, and no one's yet had the time, manpower, or will to rebuild them).
I wonder if the deserts will expand in this scenario?
Diamond
11-10-2010, 06:17 PM
I did some tweaking on the base map. The rad symbols are places that took multiple major hits during WW3 and are of course still massively deadly. The bright red immediately surrounding them are 'death zones' where the radiation is still lethal, while the lighter red are peripheral areas, still very unsafe, but survivable if you don't mind your children ending up with six eyes and a tail. :D
Of course many more places probably got Bombed during the war, but these are just the places that, a century and a half later, are still deadly.
Do we want to make threads for particular regions just to open up a general overview of them?
Bruno
11-10-2010, 06:42 PM
Wow--you pretty much took out most of the St. Lawrence River with that map...:innocent:
Wow--you pretty much took out most of the St. Lawrence River with that map...:innocent:
You don't think he's trying to say something, do you? :eek:
Diamond
11-10-2010, 07:15 PM
Hey, I wiped out the Bay Area too. Plus most of Texas. :D If you don't think those zones work, or you want more or less of 'em, let me know.
I think the thing for us to do is this:
Give me a couple days to work out a more in-depth background/timeline, then once the details of that are hammered out, each of take a particular region and develop one or two entries for it, based on EPA 0 entries, or/and what we've discussed here. I have two ideas for the Rockies (ComAmCom in western Montana, and the Moremen right at the edge of the Colorado death zone.
Several of you guys have ideas that seem workable for other regions. GBW had a good idea for surviving US/NATO troops on Long Island and clans in the Appalachians; Eliot has an idea for some city-states in the Midwest; so on and so forth. So why don't we take a week or two to work on these 'baseline' entries after the timeline is done, and then proceed from there?
Bruno
11-10-2010, 07:27 PM
You don't think he's trying to say something, do you? :eek:
I think he cut a deal with Dave Howery; Dave promised him all of BC if he takes me out of the way...
Several of you guys have ideas that seem workable for other regions. GBW had a good idea for surviving US/NATO troops on Long Island and clans in the Appalachians; Eliot has an idea for some city-states in the Midwest; so on and so forth. So why don't we take a week or two to work on these 'baseline' entries after the timeline is done, and then proceed from there?
Sounds good to me. My Montreal entry is out for obvious reasons but I can transplant bits and pieces of the idea for Quebec City instead and I'm sure some of the flora and fauna I came up with in my Quebec entries are still doable. Should be able to put together a nice 'Republic of Quebec' entry.
The Queen Mother, the mutant diseases and maybe one or two other entries of mine look like they can be rewritten with a minimum of hassles as well.
Sounds good to me as well. We're including the Angel Hordes and the Bluegrass Riders as two other baselines, right?
Diamond
11-10-2010, 08:18 PM
Sounds good to me as well. We're including the Angel Hordes and the Bluegrass Riders as two other baselines, right?
Yep. Hopefully Alex will want to re-write the Angels, and I assume you'll redo the Riders?
So right now we've got:
1) those Long Island guys
2) Bluegrass Riders
3) Appalachian clans
4) Quebec (city? republic?)
5) ComAmCom
6) Moremen
7) Angels
8) Florida - I'd like to include the idea of the Methed mutants and possibly Stormshead, but I think everything else from that entry is probably not workable.
I'd definitely be interested to remake the Angels. Speaking of which, I am also having an idea of having a society formed around the heavy metal ideas... basically think the game Brutal Legend and the like, and imagine a society formed by teenage metalheads that don't know any better, and whose great-grandchildren end up worshipping at the twin altars of Eddie and Vic Rattlehead... literally :eek: \m/
Also, do we want to include the reworked Spirals? I was thinking of them starting out as a development of supremacist groups, both racial and religious supremacists who for all intents and purposes decided they hated the mutants more than they hated each other. As such, the *Spirals might end up being an unholy alliance of groups that, before WW3, would have done their best to kill one another, resulting in a very, very odd group...
Diamond
11-10-2010, 11:29 PM
I think the Spirals definitely should be included, but I think we ought to wait until we've got some nations and communities in place, so we've got some background info to build them right. I always thought in EPA 0 that they were a really good idea, but kind of ungrounded, since they were developed separately from anything else.
And I love the metalheads idea. :D Where were you thinking of locating them?
Diamond
11-10-2010, 11:34 PM
Do we want to make threads for particular regions just to open up a general overview of them?
I am planning on doing that, but not until we get the timeline/background hammered out.
Each region should ideally have its own thread, but that might get a little cumbersome with 16 different zones. What I was thinking about was combining two or more into each thread, especially those areas where there's likely going to be a lot of overlap, like Texas/Ozarks/Great Plains, West/East Canada, Mexico/Yucatan/Central America, and Midwest/South. That way we'd go from 16 threads to 10. Still big, but more manageable. That's something I'll have to give more thought to, as there's probably a better way to organize the regions to minimize threads.
So you're going to write the timeline before we work on the baseline entries, Diamond? Also, if the Angels and Riders are the high-point of contemporary post-apocalyptic technology, just what is it exactly? I've gotten the coal and wood-gas powered war machines, and steamboats are rare, but what about small arms? With WWIII happening to a US still in the Cold War, arms manufacturing plants are going to be a lot more common. Are we talking stamped steel weapons with cartridges? If so, with smokeless or black powder?
Also, will major bridges across rivers and such still be up? If there's been an effort to keep them from getting washed away by debris washing downstream, that could help in retarding the reinvention of old vessels. Perhaps old barges and other watercraft have been converted to wood-gas as well. Or, on the other side of things, perhaps the war threw so much debris in the rivers that they're impassable in certain areas, maybe even dried up and creating new marshes where a river is trying to form a new course. Or maybe a combination of the two.
I'm thinking the Riders, at their greatest extent, could have reached Lake Erie before the Rust Belt communities got themselves together enough to form organized opposition and built war machines to push them back south across the Ohio River, by which point the Riders started using the machines themselves. I'm wondering how river transport is going to be working.
Diamond
11-11-2010, 12:08 AM
So you're going to write the timeline before we work on the baseline entries, Diamond?
Yes; then I'm going to post it (probably in the other thread) for you guys to pick apart and refine.
Also, if the Angels and Riders are the high-point of contemporary post-apocalyptic technology, just what is it exactly? I've gotten the coal and wood-gas powered war machines, and steamboats are rare, but what about small arms? With WWIII happening to a US still in the Cold War, arms manufacturing plants are going to be a lot more common. Are we talking stamped steel weapons with cartridges? If so, with smokeless or black powder?
I think we ought to allow any types of firearms available circa the early 90s (within reason, and used sparingly). A century and a half isn't that long in the scheme of things, and if a crate or three of M-16s, packed in grease, is discovered 100 years later, they'll probably be perfectly usable. What I wanted to get away from was the 'retro' feel of EPA 0, where firearms were essentially being reinvented. This TL will scavenge much more, and be less inclined to reinvention, especially if the people that control the old guns don't want competition.
Also, will major bridges across rivers and such still be up? If there's been an effort to keep them from getting washed away by debris washing downstream, that could help in retarding the reinvention of old vessels. Perhaps old barges and other watercraft have been converted to wood-gas as well. Or, on the other side of things, perhaps the war threw so much debris in the rivers that they're impassable in certain areas, maybe even dried up and creating new marshes where a river is trying to form a new course. Or maybe a combination of the two.
I'd go for a combination of the two. I think the really big rivers (like the Mississippi or the Ohio) should be a pain in the ass to cross, with semi-fords and bridges being heavily guarded and contested areas.
I'm thinking the Riders, at their greatest extent, could have reached Lake Erie before the Rust Belt communities got themselves together enough to form organized opposition and built war machines to push them back south across the Ohio River, by which point the Riders started using the machines themselves. I'm wondering how river transport is going to be working.
Keep in mind that this is a much shorter timeframe than EPA 0. What I'd do instead is have the Riders still on the rise; have them develop at the same time as the rust belt towns, not before. Two groups of survivors, going about survival in different ways. At our present (I guess probably around 2040-ish), they may have just started having regular contact 20 or 30 years before with the rust belt. The Ohio River is going to be a big impediment to northern expansion, at least initially.
One thing you may want to do with the Riders is combine horses with steam/wood-powered stuff; maybe they use horses to scout and conduct raids and low-level wars, saving their vehicles for prestige events and big conflicts.
With that in mind I could see Louisville as a fallen city for an example of the rider's power or at least one under siege by them. It could be fun to have open warfare between those two. One getting resupplied by the river and smaller allies while the other plunders the country side. Or Louisville might be an area originally taken by the riders, but conquered by a Rust Belt Crusade. We could probably use any of these for cities on the Kentucky side of the river in fact. Scrap Metal Knights and Bulldozers fighting it out against bikes and cars all across the river front. GBW we'll need to collaborate on what the war would look like.
Oh and seeing St. Louis nuked like that is making me think a little goofy. I could just see a sign made on cardboard reading "Mutant Ferry Service. $5 We love you long time."
Considering who the Riders are descended from, I think they'll hold onto Louisville quite tenaciously. Since the Riders are in the ascendancy perhaps it's a city north of the Ohio is under siege - maybe Cincinnati.
Gah! Just remembered that the Madlands are going to be transferred over as well. They encompass eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, including Cleveland, Erie and Pittsburgh. Your Rust Belt folk are going to have to deal with their inhabitants as well, the Cleavers and Eeries. They'll probably be one reason why the Rust Belt is losing ground against the Riders, with the forces they have to keep guarding against Madlander raiding bands.
I guess if Cinci is the city under siege and Columbus dealing with the madmen, that leaves the much smaller Dayton as the winner in all this. They hold more political might in reinforcing their allies. Louisville being taken by the enemy early on leaves Evansville cut off from any assistance, and the riders could cut all their way to Indianapolis.
I think the Spirals definitely should be included, but I think we ought to wait until we've got some nations and communities in place, so we've got some background info to build them right. I always thought in EPA 0 that they were a really good idea, but kind of ungrounded, since they were developed separately from anything else.
And I love the metalheads idea. :D Where were you thinking of locating them?
What do you think if we build the Spirals' origins from Aryan Nation or something similar that went through a VERY improbable (but, in post-apocalypse, anything goes) alliance/merger (different people call it different things) with several immigrant gangs, a black supremacist movement, and a few religious fundamentalists of all stripes. As a result, the group would be VERY disorganized, prone to infighting, sectarian, and agreeing on nothing but one thing - the "muties" must die. Within 150 years of apocalypse, it would be on the verge of a major reformation by a few smarter leaders, and perhaps on the verge of a major purge of the ranks to create a leaner, more streamlined (and more efficient, in a rather nasty way) group.
Not sure where to put the metalheads... originally I would've thought Florida (with the big metal scene there and whatnot), but it seems Florida is mostly glassed. I don't see them as a big group or a particularly powerful one, at least initially, but it would be quite amusing to have a group that prays to "Holy Slayer" and calls its clergy "Judas Priests" :)
I think we ought to allow any types of firearms available circa the early 90s (within reason, and used sparingly). A century and a half isn't that long in the scheme of things, and if a crate or three of M-16s, packed in grease, is discovered 100 years later, they'll probably be perfectly usable. What I wanted to get away from was the 'retro' feel of EPA 0, where firearms were essentially being reinvented. This TL will scavenge much more, and be less inclined to reinvention, especially if the people that control the old guns don't want competition.
Hmm, this is before the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. There'll be a lot of AK-47s floating around, as well as the TEC-9. The latter was stamped steel and might be a popular handheld weapon for the Angels and Riders since it can be fired at semi-auto and full-auto.
Not sure where to put the metalheads... originally I would've thought Florida (with the big metal scene there and whatnot), but it seems Florida is mostly glassed. I don't see them as a big group or a particularly powerful one, at least initially, but it would be quite amusing to have a group that prays to "Holy Slayer" and calls its clergy "Judas Priests" :)
Albuquerque has apparently had a big metal scene since the '70s. Also consider that the apocalypse happened around when Grunge was popular, if you want to take that into consideration.
One idea I'd like to see is a group of knights that recruits from different populations to hold Holy Places. By this I mainly mean famous churches and religious colleges. The idea of a group of machine gun wielding Templar holding Notre Dame makes me laugh. They could view mutants in the same way knights viewed peasants.
Diamond
11-11-2010, 02:16 PM
For the Madlands: GBW, you could shrink their western border back a bit; displace them more to the east, to allow a few smaller cities in Ohio. You could make their territory cover NY and PA west of the Appalachians, for example.
What do you think if we build the Spirals' origins from Aryan Nation or something similar that went through a VERY improbable (but, in post-apocalypse, anything goes) alliance/merger (different people call it different things) with several immigrant gangs, a black supremacist movement, and a few religious fundamentalists of all stripes. As a result, the group would be VERY disorganized, prone to infighting, sectarian, and agreeing on nothing but one thing - the "muties" must die. Within 150 years of apocalypse, it would be on the verge of a major reformation by a few smarter leaders, and perhaps on the verge of a major purge of the ranks to create a leaner, more streamlined (and more efficient, in a rather nasty way) group.
I think that could work just fine.
Not sure where to put the metalheads... originally I would've thought Florida (with the big metal scene there and whatnot), but it seems Florida is mostly glassed. I don't see them as a big group or a particularly powerful one, at least initially, but it would be quite amusing to have a group that prays to "Holy Slayer" and calls its clergy "Judas Priests" :)
I think the only things we ought to keep from my original Florida entry are the Metheds and maybe Stormshead. The Swanna tribes wouldn't have had enough time to 'evolve', and neither probably would the Kingdom (the Epcot center crazies - although I rather liked them :D). The swamp peoples in the Everglades might be okay to hang onto, minus their nanotech bath.
Essentially, there's still all kinds of room to fit the metalheads in there if you wanted to. Metalheads versus meth-heads. :D
Bruno
11-11-2010, 02:57 PM
I think that's too high-tech, kind of verging back into the same territory as EPA 0. My thinking was that yeah, we could have city-states, maybe even several in the same area, but it's not very easy to travel; each civilized place would be separated by dozens (or hundreds) of miles of wasteland, populated by bandits, mutants, etc. I'd say we could have a steamboat or two, maybe maintained by a city's rulers for special cargoes, scouting, etc, but they shouldn't be common by any means.
Another thing we should consider are steam trains. After all, once wood-gas and coal engine tech is more or less perfected and reliable, somebody somewhere is bound to say 'Hey--you know all those hundreds of rusting diesel powered trains and those thousands of miles of track that's still in something resembling one piece? We could do something with all that...'
Like steamboats and war engines though, I think they should be pretty rare and used for special cargos, travel for the elite, etc. But definitely around.
This could go together, actually. Appalachia isn't exactly the Great Plains here. It's full of creeks and valleys and such whose bridges and roads could have been torn up in the brushfire wars that arose right after WWIII. That would divide the region up well enough for ethnic/religious differences between townships to arise over time and divide them up even more.
There's also bound to have been all kinds of refugees, survivalists, etc flooding the area from nearly all sides. I can easily imagine some of the towns and cities in there adopting a mish-mash of ideas on what to do with all the hordes, with everything from total isolation to 'involuntary recruitment' being used. That would also start creating some additional tensions and exaggerate seperatist tendencies.
Each region should ideally have its own thread, but that might get a little cumbersome with 16 different zones. What I was thinking about was combining two or more into each thread, especially those areas where there's likely going to be a lot of overlap, like Texas/Ozarks/Great Plains, West/East Canada, Mexico/Yucatan/Central America, and Midwest/South. That way we'd go from 16 threads to 10. Still big, but more manageable. That's something I'll have to give more thought to, as there's probably a better way to organize the regions to minimize threads.
How about keeping all the stuff east of the Mississippi in one thread, all the stuff west of the Rockies in another and the rest in a third, with Mexico/Yucatan/Central America as the fourth? You yourself stated that the Mississippi and the Rockies will act as natural barriers.
Also, will major bridges across rivers and such still be up? If there's been an effort to keep them from getting washed away by debris washing downstream, that could help in retarding the reinvention of old vessels. Perhaps old barges and other watercraft have been converted to wood-gas as well. Or, on the other side of things, perhaps the war threw so much debris in the rivers that they're impassable in certain areas, maybe even dried up and creating new marshes where a river is trying to form a new course. Or maybe a combination of the two.
Like Diamond, I think a combination of the two should be used.
The really big rivers should be a truly pain in the ass to cross (if not possible at all). The smaller stuff could be free for alls (especially along the borders), constantly being captured and recaptured and having bandits 'collecting tolls' and so forth.
I think we ought to allow any types of firearms available circa the early 90s (within reason, and used sparingly). A century and a half isn't that long in the scheme of things, and if a crate or three of M-16s, packed in grease, is discovered 100 years later, they'll probably be perfectly usable. What I wanted to get away from was the 'retro' feel of EPA 0, where firearms were essentially being reinvented. This TL will scavenge much more, and be less inclined to reinvention, especially if the people that control the old guns don't want competition.
Hey, if a bunch of guys in a cave in Afghanistan are able to put together AK-47s from scrap metal, I don't see firearms being an issue.
Reliable firearms, however, is a different story...
Weaponsmiths are going to be a cross between engineers, mechanics and blacksmiths in this world; constantly scrounging around for old weapons and scrap metal, and passing on their secrets to their apprenticies.
Scrap Metal Knights and Bulldozers fighting it out against bikes and cars all across the river front. GBW we'll need to collaborate on what the war would look like.
Oh and seeing St. Louis nuked like that is making me think a little goofy. I could just see a sign made on cardboard reading "Mutant Ferry Service. $5 We love you long time."
One idea I'd like to see is a group of knights that recruits from different populations to hold Holy Places. By this I mainly mean famous churches and religious colleges. The idea of a group of machine gun wielding Templar holding Notre Dame makes me laugh. They could view mutants in the same way knights viewed peasants.
Heh--I like some of those ideas...
Something to keep in mind about the Mississippi. I think I posted a map in the image thread that showed just how much the river twisted and turned over the years before all those dams and dikes were build to maintain its current course. With WW III and the complete breakdown of society, very few of those things are going to be maintained.
The river will almost certainly start reverting to its usual meandering course by 2140, changing slightly every now and then, and becoming a general pain in the ass to navigate.
Hmmm..you know--that opens up the possibility of all kinds of things; 'lost' towns that have been swallowed up by the river (for now) but reappearing out of the muck a few years later, ships left high and dry on some hilltop and covered over with trees after a few years, a Riverboat Kingdom, parts of the river system becoming 'havens' for exiles of all the nations, and so forth.
Diamond
11-11-2010, 03:20 PM
Like steamboats and war engines though, I think they should be pretty rare and used for special cargos, travel for the elite, etc. But definitely around.
Yes, exactly. I never meant that we couldn't have stuff like that, just that it should be rare, sometimes unreliable, and patchwork. Recovering from total devastation is going to take a LONG time, and for this time period, I think most places are still in scavenger/adapting old stuff mode. Reinvention and wide-spread technology should still be quite a ways off.
There's also bound to have been all kinds of refugees, survivalists, etc flooding the area from nearly all sides. I can easily imagine some of the towns and cities in there adopting a mish-mash of ideas on what to do with all the hordes, with everything from total isolation to 'involuntary recruitment' being used. That would also start creating some additional tensions and exaggerate seperatist tendencies.
I like this too. It creates a really chaotic, anarchic, Mad Max type of feel.
How about keeping all the stuff east of the Mississippi in one thread, all the stuff west of the Rockies in another and the rest in a third, with Mexico/Yucatan/Central America as the fourth? You yourself stated that the Mississippi and the Rockies will act as natural barriers.
Done. Bam. :D I'm going to slightly redraw the Regional boundaries to keep more to that.
Weaponsmiths are going to be a cross between engineers, mechanics and blacksmiths in this world; constantly scrounging around for old weapons and scrap metal, and passing on their secrets to their apprenticies.
Yes. I don't know if any of you ever read any of those old Deathlands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathlands) books from the 80s, but there was a character in there called JB Dix who functions in that capacity.
Something to keep in mind about the Mississippi. I think I posted a map in the image thread that showed just how much the river twisted and turned over the years before all those dams and dikes were build to maintain its current course. With WW III and the complete breakdown of society, very few of those things are going to be maintained.
The river will almost certainly start reverting to its usual meandering course by 2140, changing slightly every now and then, and becoming a general pain in the ass to navigate.
Hmmm..you know--that opens up the possibility of all kinds of things; 'lost' towns that have been swallowed up by the river (for now) but reappearing out of the muck a few years later, ships left high and dry on some hilltop and covered over with trees after a few years, a Riverboat Kingdom, parts of the river system becoming 'havens' for exiles of all the nations, and so forth.
Now... I'm not going to make any attempt to be excruciatingly precise in depicting the Mississippi's future course in the maps for this. So yeah, all of those are possibilities.
Bruno
11-11-2010, 05:04 PM
I like this too. It creates a really chaotic, anarchic, Mad Max type of feel.
This kind of ties in with youir idea of keeping New York City in one piece and my idea of the Russians going all biological weapons happy. Maybe some of the bigger cities on the East Coast are nailed with biological weapons, the infected survivors run off into the wilds of the Appalachian Mountains--and end up infecting a whole bunch of locals in the process.
That's bound to make some of the locals go a bit nuts and get all heavy handed on other refugees who show up. Or maybe some of the other towns use that as an excuse to keep themselves isolated from the rest. Or the locals get killed off and some other groups --escaped prisoners? gang members from NYC? Aryan Brotherhood? national guardsmen?Muslims/Orthodox Jews/Hindus/whatever? - to fill in the power vacuum.
This kind of ties in with youir idea of keeping New York City in one piece and my idea of the Russians going all biological weapons happy. Maybe some of the bigger cities on the East Coast are nailed with biological weapons, the infected survivors run off into the wilds of the Appalachian Mountains--and end up infecting a whole bunch of locals in the process.
With NYC intact, and this taking place when it is, there's going to be a lot more old-style Checker cabs (pictured below) around when WWIII hits. I can picture armored versions of them cruising the debris filled streets, kind of like the one in Escape from New York. Perhaps, of all things, NYC's Taxi and Limousine Commission survived the war and still operates as a sort of private guild that still maintains their armored cabs and drives passengers and cargo around the often violent canyon-like streets of Manhattan towered over by decrepit skyscrapers and highrises teeming with people and glowing with cook fires.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Checker_cab.jpg
I've been thinking about what to do with Salt Lake City. There are only two places worth nuking in Utah; the chemical and biological storage facility in Toole and Hill Air Force base. I guess nuking Fort Douglas might also be an option as it does serve as an administrative center. I'm guessing though these would pale in comparison to an earthquake going off on the Wasatch Fault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasatch_Fault). This scenario (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/635199749/Its-2008--and-the-big-one-slams-Utah.html) could play out but worse without any add, and a declining technology. Those that are injured may easily end up dead instead especially with many of hospitals built along the fault.
Sir Ironside
11-12-2010, 08:34 AM
EMC has an idea, many of the faults could have gone off. New Madrid comes to mind, and there goes the Midwest, St. Louis particular.
I've been pondering the map a bit more, and I think there should be at least one major city to survive on the west coast. I'm thinking Los Angeles, which would have devolved completely into riots in the aftermath of WWIII and would have seen numerous earthquakes since which have crumbled the city steadily ever since, starting with the Northridge quake in '94. A vast ruined urban landscape dominated by well-armed gangs and militias, possibly with a lot of refugees like NYC flooding into the mountains and into northern California around and past the radioactive ruins of San Francisco.
Diamond
11-12-2010, 02:01 PM
I've been thinking about what to do with Salt Lake City. There are only two places worth nuking in Utah; the chemical and biological storage facility in Toole and Hill Air Force base. I guess nuking Fort Douglas might also be an option as it does serve as an administrative center. I'm guessing though these would pale in comparison to an earthquake going off on the Wasatch Fault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasatch_Fault). This scenario (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/635199749/Its-2008--and-the-big-one-slams-Utah.html) could play out but worse without any add, and a declining technology. Those that are injured may easily end up dead instead especially with many of hospitals built along the fault.
I'm reworking the Moremen to take SLC into account; basically I'm going to have large surviving congregations of Mormons travel eastwards to escape the ruins of SLC only to run into the massive wall of radiation in Colorado and Wyoming; they dig in, building tunnels and holes, and mutate into the Moremen.
EMC has an idea, many of the faults could have gone off. New Madrid comes to mind, and there goes the Midwest, St. Louis particular.
The earthquakes are a good idea; I'll work them into the timeline.
I've been pondering the map a bit more, and I think there should be at least one major city to survive on the west coast. I'm thinking Los Angeles, which would have devolved completely into riots in the aftermath of WWIII and would have seen numerous earthquakes since which have crumbled the city steadily ever since, starting with the Northridge quake in '94. A vast ruined urban landscape dominated by well-armed gangs and militias, possibly with a lot of refugees like NYC flooding into the mountains and into northern California around and past the radioactive ruins of San Francisco.
Good point. The more I think about it, the more I think San Diego would actually take a heavier initial hit, due to all the military activity/bases down there. I'll leave LA untouched like NYC and vaporize San Diego instead. :D
Diamond, we also had a tornado. Rare, but usable.
http://web.ksl.com/dump/news/cc/torn.htm
Diamond
11-13-2010, 10:39 AM
I'm going to try to finish up a draft of the timeline by tomorrow; can't promise I'll be done by then due to football :D, but I'll try.
After looking at this picture of a more modern wood gas generator being used by a Saab:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/99woodgas.jpg
I'm thinking the vehicles most likely to use them in a post-apocalyptic world - as in able to have them built into the frame of the vehicle instead of having a cumbersome trailer - would be scavenged SUVs, pickups, vans, minivans and, at the very least, station wagons. Regular cars and such would probably be broken apart for parts and scrap materials. Larger vehicles, such as buses, medium to large trucks, etc., would probably be the preferred bases for war machines/siege engines to be constructed on. The others would probably be more your typical Mad Max road raider-type vehicles.
I'm thinking of developing a list of commercial vehicles around at the time of WWIII (1992 models, the latest one) that would be capable of being utilized that way.
Buses probably not. Buses are only useful for carting around civilians unless you get prison buses. Trucks are going to be far more useful for most uses.
Bruno
11-13-2010, 06:10 PM
Isn't the mid-90's around the time when Hummers started becoming really popular?
Isn't the mid-90's around the time when Hummers started becoming really popular?
Hummer, the company that started selling civilian models of the Humvees, didn't form until 1992.
Nikephoros
11-13-2010, 06:15 PM
Yes :(
Land Rover exists as a commercial brand but isn't widely sold... they are highly durable though.
I have a possible reason for why the Angels and the Riders would become two of the predominant military powers in post-apocalyptic North America. Warfare, it seems, will be based around converted road vehicles such as the ones I put in my list - SUVs, trucks, vans, etc. - that I'll call 'Raiders'. They allow for mobile platforms for troops firing mounted or personal weapons and transport small squads. Larger vehicles - buses, medium to large trucks, etc. - would transport larger amounts of troops or mount heavier weapons, thus I'll term them 'War Machines'. They would be used primarily for open warfare instead of raiding or skirmishing.
My thinking is that the Angels and Riders are able to fill out a third category more easily than other groups, a sort of dragoon/cavalry role. The Angels have their hawgs, and the Riders have their horses, and are able to flood the broader countryside with them around their Raiders and War Machines to intercept supply trains, destroy infrastructure, farms, etc. My thinking is that this is a relatively new concept for post-apocalyptic warfare, and as these two groups had these one-man transports more readily available to them, others are going to take a while to play catch up, thus leading to their period of military supremacy.
BTW, I included the assembly plants because I figure that's where the biggest stockpiles of parts for those vehicles are going to be for scavenging. The links also, in most cases, go directly to pictures of each vehicles as they were in that period, so you can ponder how a certain group or society would mod them. I'm thinking the backs of the station wagons, minivans, and most SUVs would be sliced off to install the wood gas generator on the bed of the vehicles - in a lot of cases they'll have to remove the rear seats as well.
I should also mention that FEMA published a book, Construction of a Simplified Wood Gas Generator for Fueling Internal Combustion Engines in a Petroleum Emergency, in 1989. This would allow for a spread of the technology in the aftermath of WWIII. However, it seems the FEMA generator has a host of design problems, revolving around the lack of a fixed oxidation zone, that it will probably take the amateur mechanics quite a while to iron out before they become truly reliable.
Bruno
11-15-2010, 09:30 AM
This was a PM that I wrote but I'll post it here to spark a few ideas.
Landfill Mining/Wars
This was an idea I was kicking around a long time ago but now I think it may have some merits now that we're restarting EPA.
The basic idea is that whoever is able to scavenge the most amount of resources will obviously has an advantage over their neighbours, The problem is that once all the little towns and villages have been picked clean, you'll have to start work on the cities -- and with most of them nuked, radioactive, contaiminated with disease, whatever -- that's going to be very dangerous.
However--there's an overlooked source of resources--and one that's a) conveniently located far away from cities and b) conveniently buried from prying hands and eyes.
Landfills, of course.
It's actually a booming market now. Think of all the scrap metal, aluminum cans, bottles, plastic, whatever that's been dumped into landfills. Also consider that all that organic garbage would have decayed after a few decades, turning all the dirt in the landfill into high grade fertilizer.
You can also use the methane from the landfill as an energy source (remember Mad Max; Beyond Thunderdome and the pig shit methane?) but that's a bit tricky and complicated.
According to the EPA (http://true-progress.com/landfills-mines-of-the-future-20.htm), about 110 million tons of waste was dumped into landfills in 1995 just in the US alone. Also:
Studies of minicipal waste have found that by weight, 4% to 8% of the total waste is comprised of metals mostly steel and aluminum, but some copper and other things as well. The relative ratio of steel to aluminum depends on the geographical area and consumer trends, but each fluctuates between 25% to 75% of the total metal content by weight.
Even if we're modest and reduce that to 1% by weight, this means that if you can dig out 1000 pounds of landfill, you've recovered 10 pounds of metal. This doesn't count all the glass, plastic, etc that's been recovered as well.
Now bear in mind -- this is going to be really nasty work. There's all kinds of fumes and stuff from all the decaying garbage (even after a few decades). The decaying process tends to generate heat in some cases, so it's quite possible to turn over a shovelful of dirt and get a facefull of smoke in the process. Plus there's all the toxins and stuff percolating in the fill.
A study (http://dste.puducherry.gov.in/envisnew/books&reports9.pdf) of some landfills gives us some rough figures (p. 43 onwards).
My thinking is that a few nations decide to start going crazy on this idea and end up fighting a few wars and battle over the landfills.
Diamond found this:
This site (http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/rankings/landfills.html) has a breakdown of the biggest landfills in the US as of 2009, so it should be possible to extrapolate backwards a couple of decades.
Hummer, the company that started selling civilian models of the Humvees, didn't form until 1992.
That said, if this is an ATL we could, perhaps, have the company form a little earlier, maybe about 2-3 years ahead of schedule, so that we may have early Hummers available by the time of WW3. They would exist in substantial numbers, but not very commonly, not yet at least.
That said, if this is an ATL we could, perhaps, have the company form a little earlier, maybe about 2-3 years ahead of schedule, so that we may have early Hummers available by the time of WW3. They would exist in substantial numbers, but not very commonly, not yet at least.
It was the Gulf War that really put them into the public eye and spurred their release to the commercial market, though. Beside that, though, I kinda like the idea of the vehicles being used being ones that weren't necessarily designed for warfare - century and a half old SUVs, vans and station wagons endlessly patched and armored with scrap metal, spitting death from mounted weapons as they maneuver on cracked, weed-infested interstates.
Diamond
11-15-2010, 06:34 PM
It was the Gulf War that really put them into the public eye and spurred their release to the commercial market, though. Beside that, though, I kinda like the idea of the vehicles being used being ones that weren't necessarily designed for warfare - century and a half old SUVs, vans and station wagons endlessly patched and armored with scrap metal, spitting death from mounted weapons as they maneuver on cracked, weed-infested interstates.
I agree.
Sir Ironside
11-16-2010, 10:00 AM
So, stuff inspired by cheesy post-apocalyptic novels of the 1980's are allowed?
Diamond
11-16-2010, 02:06 PM
So, stuff inspired by cheesy post-apocalyptic novels of the 1980's are allowed?
Yeah. That's more the feel I wanted to go for here. But no 'super-science' and... NO DINOSAURS.
:D
Sir Ironside
11-16-2010, 02:56 PM
What about the children of a group of astronauts who where in orbit when the bombs went off, and where turned into monsters?
What about a group of mutants who are clever enough to build a nuclear reactor out of stuff from a junkyard?
Bruno
11-16-2010, 09:13 PM
Random thoughts from surfing on wikipedia...
-Monster Truck Rallies really started taking off in the mid to late 1980's.
-After a horrible accident during the Indy 500 in 1964, the US Auto Club bans gasoline and switches all racecars to methyl alcohol (methanol) - i.e. wood alcohol, a rule which would stay for 41 years before ending after the 2005 race (they started using ethanol instead). This applies to Monster Trucks as well, since they fall under the Auto Club rule.
-During the Nigerian Civil War of 1966 to 1969, engineers in the breakaway republic of Biafra resorted to powering vehicles with alcohol. Initially, alcohol was used to supplement the crude oil refining capacity which the state had under its control, but as the Soviet and UK backed Nigerian army seized the oil producing regions, and with the Nigerian embargo beginning to bite, alcohol became the dominant source of fuel for the economy.
-One of the last acts of the Carter administration was to create federal incentives for ethanol production. By 1984, the number of ethanol plants peaked at 163 in the U.S., producing 595 million gallons of ethanol that year.
Some more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_fuel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_alcohol_fuel
Just throwing some ideas out there...
Random thoughts from surfing on wikipedia...
-Monster Truck Rallies really started taking off in the mid to late 1980's.
-After a horrible accident during the Indy 500 in 1964, the US Auto Club bans gasoline and switches all racecars to methyl alcohol (methanol) - i.e. wood alcohol, a rule which would stay for 41 years before ending after the 2005 race (they started using ethanol instead). This applies to Monster Trucks as well, since they fall under the Auto Club rule.
With the amount of junked cars and such in a post-apocalyptic world, I can see monster truck rallies still being popular. They might even be used as weapons of war on occasion, but I can't see them as being very practical with their high profile and trying to run over a vehicle in motion.
They might have been more useful in the first few decades of the post-apocalypse, before people really started mounting weapons on vehicles. That could maybe give rise to sagas about those war machines of old - 'The Legend of Bigfoot'. :D
Sorry if it seems like I'm spamming - I seem to be the only one posting. :o
Biosphere 2 - a biodome project in Oracle, Arizona - was sealed for a two year mission on September 26, 1991. Might be interesting how that turns out when WWIII breaks out while people are in there. I've also been wondering about the Mir space station and any space shuttles that might be in orbit at the time.
Then there's the oil rigs, freight container ships and oil tankers that would be at sea at the time. Anyone know what the Soviet sub strategy was at the time? Were they going to target commercial vessels in the event of war with NATO, or were they targeting only warships. If not, I can envision a bunch of container ships and tankers deciding that land in too dangerous with the fallout and chaos and congregate around oil rigs to create artificial islands and living off of their assembled cargoes and oil. That might even be able to rig up some limited refining capacity to make gasoline and such. By the time 150 years have passed, they could be giant rusty islands of ships welded and lashed together that trade rare pre-War items for food and other resources with land-based communities.
Bruno
11-23-2010, 03:32 PM
Biosphere 2 - a biodome project in Oracle, Arizona - was sealed for a two year mission on September 26, 1991. Might be interesting how that turns out when WWIII breaks out while people are in there.
Well--they wouldn't be able to stay in there for very long. The biodome project was a complete failure in that, despite saying that it was self-contained, they still nevertheless needed some oxygen pumped into the place at one point.
Still, it was in the middle of nowhere and with a bit of luck, they could hook up with some refugees...
I've also been wondering about the Mir space station and any space shuttles that might be in orbit at the time.
Don't know how long Mir would stand up without regular use of their thrusters. Did they have an emergency escape pod up there?
As for the shuttles, they have a few non-USA landing sites to choose from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_shuttle_landing_runways
Possibilities are Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean (although that was also used as a military base) and Easter Island.
Then there's the oil rigs, freight container ships and oil tankers that would be at sea at the time. Anyone know what the Soviet sub strategy was at the time? Were they going to target commercial vessels in the event of war with NATO, or were they targeting only warships. If not, I can envision a bunch of container ships and tankers deciding that land in too dangerous with the fallout and chaos and congregate around oil rigs to create artificial islands and living off of their assembled cargoes and oil. That might even be able to rig up some limited refining capacity to make gasoline and such. By the time 150 years have passed, they could be giant rusty islands of ships welded and lashed together that trade rare pre-War items for food and other resources with land-based communities.
I think I posted a picture in the image thread of a real life version of something like this.
Well--they wouldn't be able to stay in there for very long. The biodome project was a complete failure in that, despite saying that it was self-contained, they still nevertheless needed some oxygen pumped into the place at one point.
Still, it was in the middle of nowhere and with a bit of luck, they could hook up with some refugees...
Might make for an interesting community on the fringes of Angel Hordes territory.
Don't know how long Mir would stand up without regular use of their thrusters. Did they have an emergency escape pod up there?
There was a Soyuz capsule attached to the station at all times, it seems. Also, since we're taking a 'soft' sci-fi approach, perhaps they decided to do a sustained burn to boost Mir into a higher orbit so that it would still by up there after a century and a half for people with telescopes to watch for.
As for the shuttles, they have a few non-USA landing sites to choose from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_shuttle_landing_runways
Possibilities are Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean (although that was also used as a military base) and Easter Island.
Might be interesting to say that there was a space shuttle in orbit at the time and, with the world devastated below, they're the ones who helped boost Mir into a higher orbit in addition to tapping out the Soyuz capsule's thrusters before taking the stranded cosmonauts aboard and landing at one of the emergency civilian airport landing sites - the military bases likely would have been taken out by Soviet nukes. Maybe a community forms around the shuttle and its crew at one of the airports, either the one at Myrtle Beach, SC or Wilmington, NC.
Might be interesting to say that there was a space shuttle in orbit at the time and, with the world devastated below, they're the ones who helped boost Mir into a higher orbit in addition to tapping out the Soyuz capsule's thrusters before taking the stranded cosmonauts aboard and landing at one of the emergency civilian airport landing sites - the military bases likely would have been taken out by Soviet nukes. Maybe a community forms around the shuttle and its crew at one of the airports, either the one at Myrtle Beach, SC or Wilmington, NC.
It would be an interesting development - perhaps this community is highly stratified, with two "clans" developing - one descended from Americans, another descended from Russians. Moreover, those descended from actual cosmonauts/astronauts are afforded higher status, something like nobility, while descendants of the settlers (i.e. people who joined them) turn out to be lower on the social totem pole. Maybe it is reinforced by control of some technologies, or maybe engineering/scientific knowledge passed on through the generations by the "nobles".
After all, cosmonauts and astronauts are likely to be HIGHLY proficient in scientific matters, and perhaps quite capable of jury-rigging things if they have to. This means they might have unique and highly valuable skills in operating high-tech equipment, or even superior engineering/knowledge of mechanical and electrical devices. This would stop the "masses" from rebelling - rebelling against the elite would mean losing access to high-tech know-how.
Sir Ironside
11-26-2010, 08:36 AM
Might make for an interesting community on the fringes of Angel Hordes territory.
There was a Soyuz capsule attached to the station at all times, it seems. Also, since we're taking a 'soft' sci-fi approach, perhaps they decided to do a sustained burn to boost Mir into a higher orbit so that it would still by up there after a century and a half for people with telescopes to watch for.
Might be interesting to say that there was a space shuttle in orbit at the time and, with the world devastated below, they're the ones who helped boost Mir into a higher orbit in addition to tapping out the Soyuz capsule's thrusters before taking the stranded cosmonauts aboard and landing at one of the emergency civilian airport landing sites - the military bases likely would have been taken out by Soviet nukes. Maybe a community forms around the shuttle and its crew at one of the airports, either the one at Myrtle Beach, SC or Wilmington, NC.
It would be an interesting development - perhaps this community is highly stratified, with two "clans" developing - one descended from Americans, another descended from Russians. Moreover, those descended from actual cosmonauts/astronauts are afforded higher status, something like nobility, while descendants of the settlers (i.e. people who joined them) turn out to be lower on the social totem pole. Maybe it is reinforced by control of some technologies, or maybe engineering/scientific knowledge passed on through the generations by the "nobles".
After all, cosmonauts and astronauts are likely to be HIGHLY proficient in scientific matters, and perhaps quite capable of jury-rigging things if they have to. This means they might have unique and highly valuable skills in operating high-tech equipment, or even superior engineering/knowledge of mechanical and electrical devices. This would stop the "masses" from rebelling - rebelling against the elite would mean losing access to high-tech know-how.
There is a cheesy 1980's series called The Doomsday Warrior, and one of the novels has the hero meet a group of mutants who were descended from a Space Shuttle crew who were coming in when the bombs hit. They survived, but radiation had an effect on their descendents. These mutants where highly intelligent, they were very ugly, and their touch would bring death.
It would be an interesting development - perhaps this community is highly stratified, with two "clans" developing - one descended from Americans, another descended from Russians. Moreover, those descended from actual cosmonauts/astronauts are afforded higher status, something like nobility, while descendants of the settlers (i.e. people who joined them) turn out to be lower on the social totem pole. Maybe it is reinforced by control of some technologies, or maybe engineering/scientific knowledge passed on through the generations by the "nobles".
After all, cosmonauts and astronauts are likely to be HIGHLY proficient in scientific matters, and perhaps quite capable of jury-rigging things if they have to. This means they might have unique and highly valuable skills in operating high-tech equipment, or even superior engineering/knowledge of mechanical and electrical devices. This would stop the "masses" from rebelling - rebelling against the elite would mean losing access to high-tech know-how.
Maybe it could be eight clans instead of two. A typical shuttle crew was five people while the Mir had a crew of three, one clan or family for each 'forefather'.
It seems the airports at Myrtle Beach, SC and Wilmington, NC each have their pros and cons. Myrtle Beach has a smaller population for less refugees to overwhelm the shuttle crew, but the airport is near the center of the city in the middle of them. Wilmington has a larger population, but the airport is a fair distance away and so has some buffer space from refugees.
The more I look into it, the more Long Island looks like the perfect place for the US military remnant to set up shop and maintain a semblance of 'modern' technology. Around 1991, there was a long-established aviation industry, a budding computer industry, the largest industrial park on the East Coast in Hauppauge, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, large amounts of agriculture, and a series of fishing communities. That's a lot of multi-skilled talent and a diversified economy sitting in one spot, people who would probably be grateful when the soldiers come along to stop them from being overrun by the hordes from NYC.
I'm also thinking they'll have outposts on small islands like Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Block Island and perhaps some of the ones in New York Harbor, like Ellis, Governors and Liberty Islands.
Sir Ironside
01-16-2011, 02:51 PM
I have a question on a type of mutation, extreme longeveity. Would it be possible for this idea?
I have a question on a type of mutation, extreme longeveity. Would it be possible for this idea?
That would be dependent on what you have in mind, I'd think. A wandering lone figure who's the subject of legends would seem to be okay, but not someone who's the mastermind behind some huge conspiracy or organization. If he's mutated, he'd probably have to be disfigured a fair bit as well - like the picture of a mutant that Diamond posted elsewhere. This isn't an age of genetic engineering like EPA Zero, its all about random mutations and a mutation that intense would have a lot of side effects.
This version of EPA hasn't had as much time since the Apocalypse, so travel over long distances would still be a hazardous affair. Not least because non-locals wouldn't know where all the radiation spots are, where clean water is, local bandit gangs, etc., as well as local powers and customs.
Sir Ironside
01-17-2011, 04:24 PM
That would be dependent on what you have in mind, I'd think. A wandering lone figure who's the subject of legends would seem to be okay, but not someone who's the mastermind behind some huge conspiracy or organization. If he's mutated, he'd probably have to be disfigured a fair bit as well - like the picture of a mutant that Diamond posted elsewhere. This isn't an age of genetic engineering like EPA Zero, its all about random mutations and a mutation that intense would have a lot of side effects.
This version of EPA hasn't had as much time since the Apocalypse, so travel over long distances would still be a hazardous affair. Not least because non-locals wouldn't know where all the radiation spots are, where clean water is, local bandit gangs, etc., as well as local powers and customs.
No, nothing like the leader of a conspiracy. I'm taking a nod from a character from a 1950's b-movie Teenage Caveman; the "giant" that does the voice over that the end. He turned out to be a centuries old survivor of the holocaust that destroyed the world. I'm also thinking of some one along the lines of the Wandering Jew. He had some one in a billion twist in his DNA that interacted with the radiation that extended his life. He can still be killed by misadventure, and if his system gets too much radiaton, but he seems to shake off diseases plus he just doesn't get any older.
Diamond
01-17-2011, 08:27 PM
Reminds me quite a bit of the immortals in the Horseclans books.
Sir Ironside
01-17-2011, 09:28 PM
I'm also thinking along the lines of Alexander Corvinius.
Where does this currently stand? Same with Ran's project?
Diamond
02-03-2011, 06:23 PM
Where does this currently stand? Same with Ran's project?
I don't currently have the time or enthusiasm to run it. The options as I see 'em are that someone else take up the reins and moderate things, or we let it lie fallow until I sort out my job/life situation and can take it up again.
I'll take the reins then if folks don't mind.
I'll take the reins then if folks don't mind.
Sure, go for it.
Okay doke. I'm going to drill this weekend, but I'll launch myself into this real good when I get back on Monday.
Ran Exilis
02-06-2011, 11:48 AM
I'd just like to say that I'm glad to see that there's still life in this side of the project.
Where does this currently stand? Same with Ran's project?
Technically, my project is still ongoing.
However, Haggis, Gulag and me all have university and similar RL obligations to worry about, and I still have a few shiney little non-EPA ideas to get out of my system as well.
Nonetheless, I do aim to have some new content sorted out and posted before the end of this month.
And of course, my side of the project is still open to suggestions and new contributors.
Gulag
02-07-2011, 09:59 AM
I'd just like to say that I'm glad to see that there's still life in this side of the project.
Technically, my project is still ongoing.
However, Haggis, Gulag and me all have university and similar RL obligations to worry about, and I still have a few shiney little non-EPA ideas to get out of my system as well.
Nonetheless, I do aim to have some new content sorted out and posted before the end of this month.
And of course, my side of the project is still open to suggestions and new contributors.
I have lots of material to expand the details on my nations for EPA & Haggis and I have talked about a great deal of trans-atlantic relations and trade, so hopefully that will be put up in the near future.
I'm conjuring up some ideas, but before I plow through the respective threads are we absolutely certain that we want to divide our efforts?
Gulag
02-08-2011, 09:57 AM
I'm conjuring up some ideas, but before I plow through the respective threads are we absolutely certain that we want to divide our efforts?
What do you have in mind?
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