some thoughts on bruce

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I accept that we have very different views on the way the game is and how it could be. I see the Morrow Project as a lifeboat that sailed too late, you see it as a passenger liner, hell, maybe even a whole flotilla of passenger liners.
For me the charm of the game was that a small group of people got together in an effort to save humanity but they got there a little too late and now they struggle with the little they have so that they can survive and perhaps make a difference.
You're very gung ho for having the US constitution as a central tenent of the Project and having the Project along the lines of some huge governmental organization with plenty of supplies and having the knowledge that they would wake up 150 years after the war, okay that's fine, we're all different and have different ideas about our games.

I'm happy to argue game issues, canon or non-canon material or what's best for 'x' situation and I'm happy to accept that sometimes it might get a little heated because different people have different ideas but the real difference between you and I is that I prefer not to stoop to insulting someone just because they disagree with my personal beliefs.

Really? Because the way you're acting says otherwise.

I have not said it's a flotilla of passenger liners. Hell, the main books state that not even a FRACTION of the project has been activated. I've been writing about HOW the project was suppose to work AT THE TIME IT WAS SUPPOSE TO GO ACTIVE. Five to Ten years post-TEOTWAWKI. Not 150 years. If i was going for the project starting 150+ years after the event, there would be a hell of alot of things I'd be doing different.

The whole point of the game was that your characters were part of something LARGER than themselves, and that they are out of their element when they wake up. They were suppose to work within the framework of the Project. But when they wake up they find out that there was a major clusterfuck that's occurred and they are waking up in a situation where it's JUST THEM operating all on their own. They don't have the resources they were suppose to have, and they have to do the job all themselves.

My work is to show HOW the project was suppose to work. Do you really think ANYONE would have volunteered knowing they would wake up isolated without someone getting their backs?

I know I might, but i'm crazy that way. I've always put others needs ahead of my own. Even after all i've been through, i still put others ahead of myself, and have opened my home up to strangers so they can have a place to live instead of the streets more than once. And yes the first time i did it, i got screwed, but i'm still doing it.

you see things as just a lifeboat that set sail too late. if that was the case, even the team would be helpless and their mission hopeless. But of course the game books state that was not the case. Not even a fraction of the project and it's assets have been activated. The project IS a large thing, and once the Phoenix Team activated Prime Base they started to kick the project off. That was the entire purpose of that module. Even if the GM didn't activate Phoenix team or inculde it in his world. The PCs that discovered the base, were to get the entire project back on its feet.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

I have not said it's a flotilla of passenger liners. Hell, the main books state that not even a FRACTION of the project has been activated. I've been writing about HOW the project was suppose to work AT THE TIME IT WAS SUPPOSE TO GO ACTIVE. Five to Ten years post-TEOTWAWKI. Not 150 years. If i was going for the project starting 150+ years after the event, there would be a hell of alot of things I'd be doing different.

The whole point of the game was that your characters were part of something LARGER than themselves, and that they are out of their element when they wake up. They were suppose to work within the framework of the Project. But when they wake up they find out that there was a major clusterfuck that's occurred and they are waking up in a situation where it's JUST THEM operating all on their own. They don't have the resources they were suppose to have, and they have to do the job all themselves.

My work is to show HOW the project was suppose to work. Do you really think ANYONE would have volunteered knowing they would wake up isolated without someone getting their backs?

I know I might, but i'm crazy that way. I've always put others needs ahead of my own. Even after all i've been through, i still put others ahead of myself, and have opened my home up to strangers so they can have a place to live instead of the streets more than once. And yes the first time i did it, i got screwed, but i'm still doing it.

you see things as just a lifeboat that set sail too late. if that was the case, even the team would be helpless and their mission hopeless. But of course the game books state that was not the case. Not even a fraction of the project and it's assets have been activated. The project IS a large thing, and once the Phoenix Team activated Prime Base they started to kick the project off. That was the entire purpose of that module. Even if the GM didn't activate Phoenix team or inculde it in his world. The PCs that discovered the base, were to get the entire project back on its feet.

This part I have no disagreement with, it's back to debating the information/issue at hand but this part...

Originally Posted by natehale1971

Really? Because the way you're acting says otherwise.

You need to recognize and fully understand that I am not attacking you just because I have disagreed with the way you see the game but the statement above and your comment to Drashal ("Before you tell ANYONE to go back to school, you need to at least learn to spell.") makes me think that you believe we are trying to belittle/attack you. This is not the case.

I'm happy to argue about the game with you and if we could meet in real life we could shout at each other, grind our teeth, pull out our hair and glare at each other then buy some food or drinks (or both) and realize we are both as interested in the game but just see it in different ways. However, continued name-calling makes that entirely too unlikely and makes this forum a whole lot less pleasant to inhabit.

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

You need to recognize and fully understand that I am not attacking you just because I have disagreed with the way you see the game but the statement above and your comment to Drashal ("Before you tell ANYONE to go back to school, you need to at least learn to spell.") makes me think that you believe we are trying to belittle/attack you. This is not the case.

I'm happy to argue about the game with you and if we could meet in real life we could shout at each other, grind our teeth, pull out our hair and glare at each other then buy some food or drinks (or both) and realize we are both as interested in the game but just see it in different ways. However, continued name-calling makes that entirely too unlikely and makes this forum a whole lot less pleasant to inhabit.

Arguing the game is not the problem. but having someone who is obviously not taking this as constructive criticism, but making accusations someone needs to go back to school, and making statements that are not backed up by facts to attack me... that is an attack. My statement to go back to school ONLY happened after he made that attack.

I have read all of the books, i've been working on the Morrow Project Sourcebook that details how the Project was suppose to work in the 5 to 10 year timeframe that the project had been planned for. If it seems i've made the project large in my write-ups, it's because the scope of the mission of the project was so damn large.

Finding a way to locate people with the right skills during the 5 to 10 year post-TEOTWAWKI Event, is why i came up with the "Camp-in-a-Box" as it's been called. A way that the project administrators could find people by getting them to register when arriving at the camp (Something FEMA has set up for their relocation camps).

At no point have I stated that the Project is part of the Government, because it's a completely private civilian endeavor that does have connection to SOME people who are in the Executive Branch of the Government. With the time the Project had to get set up, of course someone associated with the Project is going to end up in a position in the Government to act as a way of keeping investigations being launched to FIND the project.

Because face it, anything as large as the Project would draw attention if they aren't careful. Someone is prone to get a wild hair and tell someone in the government or some reporter. It's why there had to be something major for the people to be dedicated to, that they would look past money or anything else to stay in the project.

For the UK, the ideal would be the Monarchy. For the US it's the Constitution. For the other regions/sectors of the Atlantis Project there would be something for each of the groups to focus upon. Something that can be rallied around to rebuild a nation upon.

That building block is different for each group. No one can be used for every nation, or people.

And you are acting like i can wave a wand and get the Atlantis Project published.... but I am sorry that can't do that, no one can. Tim & I talked about what's keeping 4th Edition from coming out. And it's not just a money issue. But it's a simple fact that they don't have the money right now to get it printed because of the way the damn economy is. And that's going to effect everything. I've got an appointment to speak with the owners of the game where I'm going to try to get them to go the PDF and Print-on-Demand route that will help with the costs.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

And you are acting like i can wave a wand and get the Atlantis Project published....

Please do not ascribe actions on my part, it was an end of paragraph remark not a presumption that you could wave your hand and have it appear.

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Please do not ascribe actions on my part, it was an end of paragraph remark not a presumption that you could wave your hand and have it appear.

That was not how it came across.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Here's my thoughts on why Bruce was a good guy and why I don't see the Project's end goal as just rebuilding the USA in the mold of the constitution.

Bruce was definitely one of the good guys, he cared enough about the entire human race that he set up a Project to preserve the human race from extinction in a nuclear war he knew was coming. If he had been uncaring, he could have just used the Project to save himself and his family & friends. If he'd been a real bastard, he would have just saved himself and his most trusted allies.
He might be seen as callous or uncaring because it can be argued that he can travel to the future so he can obviously see what's going to happen so why doesn't he stop it? I think there's a few reasons that can be given for this.
1. He might not be able to stop it no matter what he tries, fate has been determined already and no man can change it.
2. He might be able to change things but believes he should not because that could alter too many things and just make the problem worse. He doesn't know the outcome unless he constantly travels back and forth from the future and if he does do that, he might just makes things more complicated and therefore much worse.
3. He realizes that the Project is not going to wake up 3-5 years after the war, instead they will wake up 150 years after. However, having seen this, he has also seen that 150 years later is when the Project will really be needed the most because the world hasn't recovered well enough in over 100 years. He has to accept some deaths and misfortunes because the Project is actually needed further into the future and not just 5 years after the war ends.
However, if he tells people that this is what's going to happen, they will probably doubt they can pull it off, they'll believe that some of them will die in the process because technology isn't good enough to ensure they all survive. So he tells them they will wake up around 3-5 years after the war so they can save the USA so that they can save humanity. And they will, but they will do it when humanity is getting close to the point where they really, really need the help.
(Personally I feel this is the most likely reason)

The goal of the Project stated in the 3rd edition, is the continued survival of the human race beyond the point of destruction. With this in mind I do not see the rebuilding of the USA in whatever model of government as being the end goal of the Project. It's simply a stepping stone to the main goal which is the preservation of the human race.
Why even try to rebuild the USA? Because an industrial nation has the best chance of supplying the needs of a civilization so that it can not just survive but also thrive and therefore be able to help other civilizations.The USA is arguably the best placed modern, industrialized nation to ensure the survival of the human race. Once it's back on it's feet, it can start to rebuild the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, nations that are heavily industrialized are also the most vulnerable to calamity because for example, if the electricity stops, nobody remembers how to make candles and there's not enough firewood for cooking and heating anymore and none of the factories work so there goes any new clothes or cars or fuel pumps, spare parts for the radios, medicines etc. etc.
This is why the Project becomes so important. Bruce knows that the government couldn't get the USA back on it's feet, even 50 years later the people are still struggling and 150 years later they're so spread out and in such small numbers, there's no certainty the human race will be strong enough to survive any further problems (say like the Plague making a comeback).

This is were the Project comes in. They have skills and resources that can strengthen local communities. They have the knowledge of what the world used to be like and how it can be like that again. They have the ability to reunite the scattered survivors of the USA and rebuild the nation. Once the USA is again a vibrant civilization able to furnish resources in excess of what it needs to survive, those surplus resources can be sent to other parts of the world to ensure that the human race lives on elsewhere thereby ensuring that should another calamity affect the human race, they won't all be wiped out because they are all in the one place, (all the eggs are not in the one basket so to speak).

It's been mentioned that the game was designed during the Cold War and perhaps the Project was written up as fearing that the Soviets may still be in a position to cause grief for the US. I don't agree with this theory because I think Bruce would have been able to see if this was so in his trips to the future. I think Bruce realized that the best chance of saving humanity was to rebuild the USA, the best nation to be able to do this because of the reasons I mentioned above. The world definitely needs saving because after all, if the US could not get back on it's feet 150 years after the war, what chance does the rest of the world have?

It's necessary to preserve enough people with the skills, knowledge and ideals from before the war so that 150 years later they can set about building up a society that has the skills and resources to save the human race from dying off. I think Bruce saw this as the real problem of the entire war, that the results were so devastating that even 150 years later the world still hadn't properly recovered. This is when the Project is really needed, not one or two or even 5-10 years after the war.
The USA is the best nation to rebuild the world and save the human race and this is the most noble of goals. Rebuilding the USA in the mold of the constitution would certainly help but it can't be just the end goal, but it's a damned good way of reaching the real end goal, that is, to ensure the survival of the entire planet.

[natehale1971]

And that's why i said the MORROW PROJECT's goal was the rebuilding of the USA. The Constitution and it's framework is the building block that allowed the USA to become the great nation that it has been in the past, and can be in the future. THAT is why i said it would be used as something to rally around in the US.

The Atlantis Project was for the rest of the world. The overall goal was the salvation of the human race as you said. But it had to start somewhere. and the USA was it. And the Constitution created the American Dream that has inspired so many around the world. WHY NOT have it as the rally point for volunteers in the USA to do the reconstruction.