What does the KFS buy and sell?
 

The Kentucky Free State apparently buys from Merchants who travel along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. They buy food, slaves and "salvage". In return, they sell goods that would be appropriate to the early 19th century

I've never been too happy about this. The KFS is basically Kentucky and most of Tennessee. They should be more than self-sufficient in agricultural goods and they have the ruins of several cities to "mine" for transistors, steel and so on.

The slavery seems implausible, but it's a necessary part of the KFs being the game's Evil Empire

However, I have a few ideas on the KFS luxury imports

1. Cassina: this is a species of holly native to coastal areas from the Tidewater region of Virginia to the Gulf Coast of Texas. The main attraction is that it contains CAFFEINE. Cassina Tea was very popular before coffee and tea started to be imported into North America
2. Furs/skins/ivory: some of the mutant megafauna would provide some great furs. Buff teeth could be useful for inlaid decoration
3. Rare metals. Gold, titanium, even platinum


What do other people have as Trade goods?

Just thinking out loud.

Fruits, citrus and others like grapes or peaches. Fish, fresh (live) or salted. Beef or pork (you could have a latent virus or poison in the soil which won't allow some present day common foodstuff to be grown regionally and now has to be imported). Ice (cut in winter, stored in sawdust and brought south in late summer or early fall).

What locations is chicory grown in? Some clay needed for a specific pottery? Iron ore and maybe limestone for a steel industry. Coal in PA so just next door and those slaves would make good coal miners.

Cotton. A specific species of wood for lumber or charcoal. Oil from PA?

Why not slaves?

I always thought of the KFS's trade practices to be about influence more than money. They retain the ability to be self-suffucient, but buying and selling beyond their borders let's them extend their reach substantially. They gain a large area that they don't need to defend but can still somewhat control, and can annex as they need to grow.

If the KFS had an inkling I'd imagine they'd trade for dried hops for beer though not sure how far south they grow. Thst said its very labor intensive to get Hops which might be an avenue for slave trade even past that quality grains such as wheat out of Western New York or even apples might be an option as well.

Over 74% of the hope in the US are grown in Orege, Washington and Idaho.

I truly don't see the KFS having to import much in the way of foodstuffs, rather i would expect them to import raw materials to feed their factories. This would allow them to trade finished product to their neighbors. Things like trade rifles and their ammunition, cookware, cloth, tools, even batteries and radios (carefully preset to KFS frequencies and, perhaps, equipped to monitor and record conversations and transmit them at selected times). It may even be in the best interest of the KFS to sell steamboats to carefully vetted groups.

The KFS are probably the only truly industrial power in the Morrow Project World, so firstly they can trade wonderous treasures from another world.

Assuming they have a pharmaceutical plant; then antibiotics and painkillers would be the difference between life and death.

Modern ammunition sold to groups such as Badges or maybe even Maxwell's Militia would turn them into loyal mercenaries. Even if these guys can make their own ammo and smokeless powders, it wouldn't be as efficient as a truck full from KFS stores.

In exchange the KFC could ask for whatever they wanted. Everything from luxury goods and food stuffs to whatever. Probably a particularly useful thing would be skilled slaves.

In this dark future there aren't any computers, few libraries or universities. So a literate slave with specialist skills in say for example agriculture would be equivalent to updating your software patch.

That's true however, as a native new Yorker I can attest to a resurgence in hops.even past that there are many feral varieties that have persisted. New York also has massive salt deposits though I'm not sure on the mineral wealth the KFS has access to.

Bauxite from central Arkansas (largest deposit), southern Alabama and southern Georgia, and Spottswood, VA. All of the ore around Chattanooga, TN has already been excavated over the past 150 years. If the KFS wants aluminum they have to deal with one of these locations.

Or they could just trade for "scrap" aluminium? There's an anecdote about the average landfill having more aluminium that a bauxite mine. (all those Coke cans and beer kegs). Also, if someone finds the wreck of an old aircraft, the KFS would be happy to buy it

The scrap aluminum makes more sense. Even though the KFS has reliable energy, it takes a great deal more electricity to make aluminum from bauxite then to recycle scrap aluminum. Why use that much power when the scrap should be rather plentiful.

I imagine scrap metal as a whole would be a huge trade good especially metal that's clean of radioactivity. After all,some of the best 'mine's in the form of old cities got nuked pretty hard and even 150 years later may very well be still be pretty hot.

Unless you are in a crater of a surface or subsurface blast, most common metals will not be that radioactive after 150 years. The most likely isotopes activated in iron have a half-life of 2.7 years or less. In copper, the half-lives is measured in hours. With the exception of one very rare isotope of aluminum, the half-lives are measured in second or nanoseconds. While there is going to be some hotter spots, by and large scavenging metal should be safe.

Ah ok, for reason I had figured that some hot zones might persist for a long time. Also, are there any nuclear power plants down in Kentucky?

None in Kentucky. But some in Tennessee, including Oak Ridge.

From 1952-2013 there was the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Paducah, Kentucky that produced low-enriched uranium. But no, not a power plant itself.

I wonder if the KFS has a monopoly on Tobacco? Maybe it's not unlike the spice or sugar trade where they use it for leverage on smaller powers?

Even more insidious, the KFS exports genetically modified seed at low prices, they produce vegetables and fruit that are 'radiation and disease ' free for the first couple of seasons, then a new crop disease 'arrives' and the farmers need to purchase resistant strains, repeat as necessary until the local farmers are completely dependent on seed stocks from the KFS at inflated prices of course...

That's evil. Would the KFS have the means to do that though? And, I wonder if they don't use similar 'soft power's in the form of propaganda and entertainment. Maybe there's a huge theater industry from there that promotes its core values?

Also, how can we forget they still likely have some of the finest/only horses in the world!

• Rubber for making tires, hoses, insulation, etc. ... or a rubber substitute, such as guayule from Texas.
  
• Oil, for lubricants if not for fuel.
  
• Sulfur, for chemical engineering.
  
• Gypsum, for mortar and plaster, among other things.
  
• Vanadium Pentoxide, for making sulfuric acid "the modern way".

There are lots of needful things for a society making all the "amazing things" that the KFS produces.

We've been growing a list of processes for our local campaign: http://asmrb.pbworks.com/w/page/1131...%20Engineering

--
Michael B.

Agriculture businesses have been pulling this stunt for years now, so the KFS could use the same trick to secure their foothold, if they modify they vegetables and fruit to maximize their size and taste, one can see post-oops farmers trading everything to get their hands on more productive seeds.

In my PD world, one of the things farmers can trade for are small radios, locked into a half-dozen or so official channels that broadcast news, weather, music and radio programs all of which can be easily for "informational" purposes. I've even gone so far as to have fancier radios gifted to village elders, that offer more channels...and capable of recording and transmitting back to KFS Security.

But the main question is just how much access the Free State has to modern equioment, my argument is that they have access to as much and even more than the teams. I want the teams to be afraid of the KFS!

I definitely might steal that! Though, the KFS isn't as big in my upcoming game as its focused in upstate New York which I'm saying is either various small holdings or dominated by the 'Free Lakes' an autocracy centered in the finger lakes/Ontario lowlands.

According to TM 1-1, 3rd Edition, the Rich Five (better known as the Kentucky Free State) are listed as covering a much greater area than the published modules acknowledge.

They cover two regions:

Northeastern Highland Region of Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky.

Southeastern Highland Region of South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama.

They are also listed as possessing a tech level of 1980+, including Unlimited power, fusion and laser technology and population. Some of their weapons are equivalent to the Project. Limited only be available materials and population (work force).

This implies that the KFS should have access to a large population, with a industrial base to match.

When asking how much technology the KFS has, it can be argued that they have as much tech as they need. And with them controlling ten states, and with "outposts" into the surrounding states (if only to secure strategic points and resources).....

From 4th edition:

Location Found: 3/4 (former state of Kentucky).
Agents and traders may be found in the neighboring states.

Description: The KFS was founded by the Rich Five: a group of
industrialists who made plans similar to the Morrow
Project. However, the KFS has become a corrupt and
decadent society with a hugely wealthy upper class,
a small middle class and a form of slavery that is
vaguely similar to the Roman system. Note: the KFS
aristocracy is aware of the Morrow Project and has
directed the Secret Police to suppress it.

To me, the Kentucky Free State is the actual entity that covers most of Kentucky and about a third of Tennessee. They have holdings, primarily mines, in the highlands of the east, from Georgia to Canada, linked by rail that supplies the industrial needs of the Rich Five government, which is why they are listed in those areas. It also says that agents (spies, saboteurs, and subversives) and traders (spies, saboteurs, and more subversives) are in neighboring areas to Kentucky Free State (Ohio river valley and Tennessee river valley).

Thats kinda how I picture them. Kentucky is their heartland with the Ohio River Valley and Tenesee River Valley as a kind of frontier that they've slowly started to explore. What Holdings they have are not unlike forts or mining towns of the Western frontier of the 1800s.

I've played the KFS with its core as Kentucky and Tennessee, with colonies in Ohio and Missouri, but reading the 3rd edition description, I think, would allow a PD to field a larger, nastier version than the modules have shown.

I'm playing with a list of resources and possible tech sites that were but nuked to see how far this can go.

So what does the KFS use as money? Id assume printed currency with the Rich Five on it or do they use hard currency still

I'd assume barter in the smaller day to day transactions, coinage for slightly larger transactions and local trade between villages, paper for large transactions, all the way up to credit/debit cards in the major cities, for the elites only of course.