[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

One thing that get's brought up fairly often is that Project recruits are asked to give up all ties, renounce their families and all relationships with humanity. In return they get to endure survivor guilt, know they lived through an event that most likely killed ever one they ever met and all their relatives and pick up the pieces. It is sort of a lose-lose proposition.

Finding people willing to do this who are not sociopaths at worst and who would at best actually would meet the high standards and ideals of the Project seems unlikely. People who care about people are usually surrounded by them. How can the Project planners expect someone who could not build effective relationships in the relatively normalcy of the world before the war do so in the chaos afterwards?

It seems like the supply of highly skilled individuals who recently lost their entire family to a freak leg shaving accident and aren't emotionally shattered would be very limited indeed.

It seems to me that the Project has to offer something to the participants, something that people who have those relationships and love the people in their lives would value. I believe that the Project would make these people an offer of saving their loved ones. They would do this by storing the families in cryo.

Also the Project appears to have some highly advanced medical treatments. This provides another possible avenue for rewards. If a possible recruit was suffering from a serious illness the Project might be able to cure them. They might also be able to cure family members and then freeze them to live through the war. This would be powerful incentive for the "right" kind of people to join.

And where would they store all these frozen folks? Primebase?

I would agree that there would be some frozen dependents, but I don't think there could be many. Making whole families and friend groups disappear draws attention, the Project wants to avoid attention. And I do not think there are that few people willing to leave everything behind - especially in the target age range for recruitment, candidates may be in a position where they are more looking for close connections than currently having them. High school, military, college, job - these transitions are great times to pick people off.

And besides, who says freezing is their only option? Once people are at the point where they recognize that the war is going to happen, the Project has a variety of options for protecting their loved ones, from recruiting them into the Project, to putting them into a highly survivable situation outside the Project, to, if necessary, freezing them. You are right about the incentive value of protecting the loved ones, but the Project can do a LOT to protect people without having to freeze them.

Got a best friend you want to see saved? Tell us their name, we'll see if they're interested too! Maybe you can even serve on the same Team!

Got a loved one unfit for the field? No problem, we've got jobs to fill at bases with lower requirements than the field teams. Dad's got a spot waiting in the base kitchen, Mom can help in the communications staff!

Just want to make sure they're taken care of? No problem! Morrow Industries is hiring for a variety of well-paying positions in secure, out-of-the-way communities that coincidentally are perfectly prepared for nuclear Armageddon! They don't need to know about the Project they just need to know they like their job! And when you get activated, we'll make sure you get back in touch!

Got someone too old to work? Those Morrow communities also have phenomenal retirement villages! When the bombs drop they'll be in a far better place than they would be without the Project!

Are you a really important person for whom none of those are viable options? Well then, let's talk about the Morrow Ark facilities, large bolthole complexes watched over by Medical and MARS teams! While you're saving the world, they'll be slumbering and waiting to return to the safe, secure world you've made for them!

The Morrow Project - saving your loved ones, so you can save the world!

That having been said, I wouldn't put the frozen families and friends into Prime Base - there just isn't a good reason for it. You don't want to make the base larger (and therefore more observable), you don't want the traffic after the war, and you don't want anyone targeting the Project to accidentally take out civilians.

Prime Base already needs to do a lot of things, it doesn't need to do everything.