How dark is the future of the Morrow Project

[Project_Sardonicus]

An interesting angle for me is how dark is the future of the project.

A typical team starts off spreading the good news, runs into a few happy villagers and some bullying, bandits. Maybe armed with muskets or battered old guns and shows them the error of their ways.

Then bam they run into a horde of Krell, or an organised patrol of KFS. And suddenly they're over matched and fleeing for their lives.

Fairly soon they realise that the project failed. Most of it's big resources were wiped out in the first year of operation. Many teams would have woken to unfriendly faces in their bolt holes and a truly horrible fate.

They're part of a handful of survivors trying to turn around not just the remains of the project, but the rest of the world around them.

With the realisation that people like the KFS have come up with an actual industrial base, whilst all the MP has is what it can dig out of the ground.

[stormlion1]

The main problem is a lack of a central command and control. With Damocles there is the start of one and we have a hint or two of it happening regionally but in the end there still well and truly separated with maybe a third of the Project awake, some having awoken way to early, or even on time after the nukes. If they could get there acts together and get a signal out to awaken all the remaining teams they would have a much better chance.

[ArmySGT.]

I go for the dark dystopian future.

Those that survived were survivors because they were more ruthless, less forgiving, and even more self serving than those that did not. Those that hid food from others, those that turned away hungry people knowing if they shared their cache they would starve too before spring. Those that burned books for heat and ate their neighbors pets.

They lived. They had children, and those children had children.

The Humanity and Motivation scales for typical encounters are in the middle and lower most often.

Though villages and other survivors maybe within a days walk of one another there is no trade, no contact, and only confrontation. Those "others" may be hunting on your land. Looking in your territory for good salvage. Trying to steal your women.

It is the MP teams that convince them to open up to more than Mailmen, Emdees, and passing traders.

The MP team has to show them through skill and cooperation that more is achieved by sharing and working together with neighboring villages; not just their own village, tribe, or clan.

Such a small, small Morrow Project for such a big undertaking.

[stormlion1]

Its also going to be location based. Area's with more villages and settlements may have more open trade with each other while areas with less settlements will be more hostile to outside contact.

[Project_Sardonicus]

Probably the most grinding and depressing thing that the project has to deal with is it failed, but other rival organisations didn't.

Certainly the KFS amongst others have recreated an industrial base. So the project will be on a back foot as it's equipment can't be replaced.

But the KFS and MM can build tanks, planes and train the crews to replace them.

Another angle will be if the Snake Eaters are basically benevolent, if they start working witht the MP will they inevitably start to take over.

[stormlion1]

Well yeah, the MP personnel are upgunned civvies with little real world experience. The Snake Eaters are motivated and experienced so in many ways there taking over would be a good thing. The Project was designed to work in the early years after the nukes fell, but 150 there out in the cold and screwed and scavenging like everyone else. In many ways the best bet would be to start nation building in one area and begin to rebuild a tech base they could work with and base themselves out of. Four to Six guys in a Humvee are not going to rebuild a whole lot, but dozens acting as a cadre for several towns can begin to rebuild a nation. It just has to be the right area is all. Up by Damocles is good, Chicago is a maybe. Don't know much about area's on the East Coast though.

[Ieqo]

An interesting angle for me is how dark is the future of the project....


With the realisation that people like the KFS have come up with an actual industrial base, whilst all the MP has is what it can dig out of the ground.

Well, on the rare occasions that I use the KFS (I tend to run games up in Yankeeland), I always do my best not to forget that even in the KFS, there exists the seed of hope. It would be a completely nonstandard MP game (being very dissatisfying to the run&gun style of players), but I've always wanted to run the long-term espionage-style "help out the resistance movement(s)" game. The Project can't hope to conquer the KFS...but they can help to change it into something more idealogically-acceptable.

When/if that's come about, as regards to Krell and his boys... Well, Boris Badinov said it best: "Den vee get moose and squirrel!"

[RandyT0001]

It is true. The setting of the Morrow Project is dark. A team wakes up, does a little recon, and drives to the nearest community. They let the team believe they are helping and, once lulled into a false sense of security, whack them in the head and take their goodies. Soon the team (and the players) go rogue and abandon the MP goals for basic survival. Players quickly tire of a game without hope.

The solution is to provide the team with a friendly base for operations. I tend to favor university towns, preferably one more than a couple hundred miles from MM, KFS, and WoK that was home to a medical school (for teaching future eemdees), which had a county wide pre-war population of 100-150,000. Assuming a war survival rate of just one percent and a growth rate of one percent (equals the world population growth rate from 1800 to 1987) for 150 years, the community will have a population between 4500 and 6700, plenty of folks for growth and protection from entities smaller than MM, the KFS, and the WoK. Another possibility is that a command team for a Combined Team woke up several decades ago and was able to establish a friendly base. (A good area for such a base of operations would be the Wilson, Rocky Mount, Greenville, NC triangle of small cities. Greenville is home to ECU, a university with a medical school. Such an operations base with about 18,000 people might be the source of MP teams that the KFS’ Fourth Regiment was sent out to find and destroy.)

Teams do not want to spend time building their own base; it’s boring to most players. Players want action; why else do their characters have the weapons?

[ArmySGT.]

It is true. The setting of the Morrow Project is dark. A team wakes up, does a little recon, and drives to the nearest community. They let the team believe they are helping and, once lulled into a false sense of security, whack them in the head and take their goodies. Soon the team (and the players) go rogue and abandon the MP goals for basic survival. Players quickly tire of a game without hope.

The solution is to provide the team with a friendly base for operations. I tend to favor university towns, preferably one more than a couple hundred miles from MM, KFS, and WoK that was home to a medical school (for teaching future eemdees), which had a county wide pre-war population of 100-150,000. Assuming a war survival rate of just one percent and a growth rate of one percent (equals the world population growth rate from 1800 to 1987) for 150 years, the community will have a population between 4500 and 6700, plenty of folks for growth and protection from entities smaller than MM, the KFS, and the WoK. Another possibility is that a command team for a Combined Team woke up several decades ago and was able to establish a friendly base. (A good area for such a base of operations would be the Wilson, Rocky Mount, Greenville, NC triangle of small cities. Greenville is home to ECU, a university with a medical school. Such an operations base with about 18,000 people might be the source of MP teams that the KFS’ Fourth Regiment was sent out to find and destroy.)

Teams do not want to spend time building their own base; it’s boring to most players. Players want action; why else do their characters have the weapons?

That is up to the PD to roleplay the NPCs well, and Players to find solutions in something other than 5.56.

Why should a village throw open their arms and welcome strangers with weapons and an armored car? After 150 years of scraping by and fighting off those with weapons that have come to kill and plunder. Why should that same village cooperate with the next one down the road, likely the one that raiders have come from before?

Role play or Roll play?

[Ieqo]

The future is dark for Project teams. Bleak, even. For me the central conflict of the game is and always will be, "How do they react to the darkness?"

Do they try and find other Project teams and assets? [Generally, unless something really big and unsubtle (read: the setup for Desert Search) hits them in the face, very few take it upon themselves to try and locate any Project resources.]

Do they try to do their mission anyway? [Generally, yes, though quite often "Rule Number 3" very quickly begins to take precedence over the other two until in short order the "Project" shows little difference from any other despotic "do it our way or else" pocket empire. They may try to be enlightened despots, but they still want to take over.]

Will they come up with ambitious missions and projects of their own? [Same as above.]

Do they go native? [This is almost always an unqualified "no". For some reason, despite whatever hints you might give them that the locals they encounter have managed to survive and thrive without any help for 150 years, the Project team still feels themselves to be intellectually and morally-superior. They never assimilate into the post-oops culture.]

The answers in brackets are, of course, my own cynicism born and reared of what I consider to be unsuccessful games. It is really hard to find a mix of players who, given the darkness of the world they find themselves in, can retain the idealism of the Project while still being pragmatic enough to adapt their mission to current conditions. If you've got them (and I finally found a great core group), great. Keep them. Listen to them.

[RandyT0001]

That is up to the PD to roleplay the NPCs well, and Players to find solutions in something other than 5.56.

Why should a village throw open their arms and welcome strangers with weapons and an armored car? After 150 years of scraping by and fighting off those with weapons that have come to kill and plunder. Why should that same village cooperate with the next one down the road, likely the one that raiders have come from before?

Role play or Roll play?

Roleplaying is the key. Trust is earned, both ways. Typically, the team has to do a series of tasks for the community, not all requiring gunplay. The community has to assist the team by providing material (tires, metal stock) for repair of the vehicle, reloading of brass, food and medical supplies and/or surgery for bullet removal, etc. After a few months, maybe a year's, worth of gaming the PC's are integrated into the community.

Do your players-characters come into town on foot without weapons and roleplay the team's instruction and education of the locals about crop rotation, germ theory, representative government, etc. for a year, two or five to convince the community of the team's sincerity? Or do they run from one community to another, constantly fighting off everybody wanting to steal their weapons, vehicle, etc., until they meet their final ambush and are killed?

Isn't it a balance of the two?

[RandyT0001]

Do they go native? [This is almost always an unqualified "no". For some reason, despite whatever hints you might give them that the locals they encounter have managed to survive and thrive without any help for 150 years, the Project team still feels themselves to be intellectually and morally-superior. They never assimilate into the post-oops culture.]

Survive, yes; thrive, no. IMO to be considered "thriving" they would have to have developed beyond individual communities into city-states or small nations that had re-learned more of the lost technology than is typically portrayed in games in the given 150 years. The teams are intellectually superior to the average person in the MP setting because the average person does not have a college degree. If the characters (or the players through their characters) present a condescending attitude toward the people that should have consequences. Isn't rule three about the teams assimilating into the post war culture of depotism? IMO the team is not supposed to assimilate to the new culture but strive to change it back to "pre-war American" culture.

The answers in brackets are, of course, my own cynicism born and reared of what I consider to be unsuccessful games. It is really hard to find a mix of players who, given the darkness of the world they find themselves in, can retain the idealism of the Project while still being pragmatic enough to adapt their mission to current conditions. If you've got them (and I finally found a great core group), great. Keep them. Listen to them.

Amen.

[stormlion1]

The current game has hope built right in. One of the first jobs had been to get communications up by entering Philadelphia (parts were radioactive but several large buildings had survived) and setting up and repairing a radio antenna then setting repeaters all over the place. When we returned to base we were pleasantly surprised to hear voices on the air talking to each other, our people's voices. The various teams were spread out, separated by hundreds of miles and essentially uncrossable terrain but there were teams out there and the project was moving forward. Sometimes a friendly voice is all a team really needs.

[ArmySGT.]

The current game has hope built right in. One of the first jobs had been to get communications up by entering Philadelphia (parts were radioactive but several large buildings had survived) and setting up and repairing a radio antenna then setting repeaters all over the place. When we returned to base we were pleasantly surprised to hear voices on the air talking to each other, our people's voices. The various teams were spread out, separated by hundreds of miles and essentially uncrossable terrain but there were teams out there and the project was moving forward. Sometimes a friendly voice is all a team really needs.

That can happen in "Final Watch" or "American Outback". Your point is a valid one, presenting the players with NPC contact with authentic MP credentials would help to keep the team as Project members versus becoming AD&D murder hobos.

[stormlion1]

Which was why it was done I think. The group I was with tend to do that after a while as they start looking for a home and base and then lord it over the locals. Because someone always pulls out the lighter and goes "Look, I can make fire!" to impress someone.

But having a Command and Control or even just a friendly word over the radio changed all that. The team actually began to do there jobs in hope of hearing a 'atta boys!' over the radio from others or hear how bad they got it or better than our team.

[mikeo80]

This is why in most of the games I have played, the team had a First Contact person. Non-GI hair. Dressed in blue jeans, with either a 12 gage shotgun or a .44 Winchester. Several trinkets from the trade pack. This person WALKS in. There is no sign of the V-150 or whatever vehicle the team has. Yes the team is probably in fire positions to assist the FC IF everything goes south. The FC probably has an open mike communications, but no reception. NO EAR BUD is visible.

Because of the 150 year FUBAR, the FC still has a LOT of explaining to do. Excellent area for role play by FC and locals.

(Note to GM, PLAY THE LOCALS STRAIGHT UP. These are not ignorant savages. They, and 4-5 generations before have SURVIVED The Day. AND what came after.)

My $0.02

Mike

[cosmicfish]

The game as originally written was meant to be bleak and dark, and more than a little incompetent. Part of this can be explained by the simple fact that we saw so little of the Project in the modules, but even the basic premise of the main book is bizarre - the implication is minimal training and patchwork supply, secrecy that makes little sense once the bolthole seals, little manufacturing capacity (when that would be of paramount importance in reconstruction), all topped by a command structure that is so dysfunctional that eliminating Prime Base kills the whole Project!

If you go with that, then yes, the teams are screwed.

I went with a different premise. I gave the characters more training, and more consistent and sensible equipment. I gave them a better understanding of the scope of the project and their immediate command structure (including emergency procedures!), and I designed a command structure that was more rugged and included factories while omitting uselessly-located power stations.

This changed a few things in the game - it made the players more survivable, made resupply easier, and gave them instructions and a sense of direction beyond the first module. I changed the circumstances of the fall of Prime Base to include that the attackers were able to disable the antennas on the transmitter (to stop the base from summoning reinforcements) so the reason the Project is still asleep is simply because there were essentially no wake-up calls at all - I had all the teams awakened by automatic fail-safes as either the bolthole was compromised or the century-old life-support died. This meant that the Team could engage in their individual, country-spanning missions while still accomplishing the goal of waking the Project.

[stormlion1]

I wouldn't say incompetent. Just not prepared for the situation they ended up in. Remember the plan was for a mass wake up 5 years after. Not 150 years after or with everyone waking up at different times. This is literally not something they were trained or prepared for. The expectation was to have then remnants of the old UD Gov't and military to help and what they ended up with was Mad Max meets The US Civil War tech.

[cosmicfish]

I would argue that any organization which has an important job and doesn't plan for the loss of its leadership during a nuclear war is incompetent. All it was going to take was one stray nuke and Prime Base gets obliterated without warning.

The whole 5 years vs 150 years makes the core job of the Project harder, but the lack of basic leadership made the whole thing a roll of the dice. The whole point of spreading the Project so thin was because of the possibility of losing individual facilities, they had to consider the possibility that the facility they would lose would be Prime Base!

[stormlion1]

Losing Prime Base was unthinkable I think to the Projects Leadership, but I think the idea was that even if lost the Regional Bases working together could take over. The problem is the Regional Bases either never woke up, or woke up far too early, or were destroyed themselves. Prime Base itself was just a HQ. It didn't do much more than coordinate. Everything else was the Regional HQ's jobs.

[cosmicfish]

Losing Prime Base was unthinkable I think to the Projects Leadership
But why, and why does this excuse their stunning oversight?

I think the idea was that even if lost the Regional Bases working together could take over.
Or a backup Prime Base or whatever. Having plans (especially vague ones) does not help if you are completely unable to enact them.

Prime Base itself was just a HQ. It didn't do much more than coordinate.
But that's a pretty big "much more than" when the job was waking up the entire Project. A parachute is one small, specialized part of a paratrooper's equipment, but if it doesn't work then the results are catastrophic. So you jump with a reserve. The entire Project hinged on Prime Base remaining intact and functional for five years through a nuclear holocaust and the ensuing chaos... and it didn't have to.

[stormlion1]

Prime Base's only job was to send out the wake up call. And it failed in that. Lack the module so I am not sure of exactly why. But it should have been the regional bases job. Prime Base was supposed to be the hangout of the Council of Tomorrow and be main base for coordinating country wide relief efforts. The Regional Bases job was to implement them. The Project put all its eggs in one basket and the basket got dropped. And there are hints in the 4th edition book that this was deliberate. Bruce Morrow wanted this to happen.

[cosmicfish]

The Project put all its eggs in one basket and the basket got dropped. And there are hints in the 4th edition book that this was deliberate. Bruce Morrow wanted this to happen.
Weird. Not sure how "designed to fail" is better than incompetent...

[stormlion1]

Incompetent means they did a poor job. Designed to fail means someone deliberately set it up to fail even though many others did there best to make it work. It looks like Morrow (who in the 4th edition dies) had a plan for the Project that was only partly set up to rebuild a nuked United States. In earlier editions its not as clear but if no one ever noticed or I haven't learned. Mr Morrow wasn't at Prime Base when it was destroyed.
Did he know something he wasn't telling anyone?

[cosmicfish]

Incompetent means they did a poor job. Designed to fail means someone deliberately set it up to fail even though many others did there best to make it work.
The latter still implies the former in no small part - if it was set up to fail, and no one recognized and addressed some pretty glaring signs of such, then they were incompetent also.


It looks like Morrow (who in the 4th edition dies) had a plan for the Project that was only partly set up to rebuild a nuked United States. In earlier editions its not as clear but if no one ever noticed or I haven't learned. Mr Morrow wasn't at Prime Base when it was destroyed.
Did he know something he wasn't telling anyone?
Those earlier editions never explained Morrow enough to really know his abilities or intentions - you could assume anything you wanted. I always assumed that, other than his ability to time-travel, he was a pretty ordinary guy who had been shocked into action by what he saw of the future. The only time it came up in a game, I told my players that his abilities were killing him, and that he chose to make his last trip into the future so that he could personally help those hurt by the war he was unable to prevent.

But regardless, he was the initiator of the Project, not the sole vision behind it. Whatever his personal intentions, there were plenty of people who should have been able to see and correct the problems that endangered their own dear lives... unless, of course, they were ALL incompetent and/or suicidal. OR just Morrow's version of the Golgafrincham's "C" Ark!

[stormlion1]

Actually I kind of figured that after plans were set in motion he would send changes along after the fact. The Council of Tomorrow might have made approvals of several things that would have worked, but Morrow after the fact modified them. As far as anyone was concerned everything is as it should have been.
The question would be why. I think that rebuilding after a nuclear war would have just recreated the old United States, an angry one. By forcing the issue and waking the teams later he had a blank check to create a new nation. The entire US is either small ministates or wilderness. A true blank slate with Morrow Teams doing the rebuilding with a large leg up in comparison to other survivors.

[cosmicfish]

Actually I kind of figured that after plans were set in motion he would send changes along after the fact. The Council of Tomorrow might have made approvals of several things that would have worked, but Morrow after the fact modified them. As far as anyone was concerned everything is as it should have been.
That implies that (a) Morrow was in operational control and that (b) the Council had no other contact with the rest of the Project. Those don't seem like reasonable assumptions to me. Any of thousands of people should have seen immediate problems and worked to correct them, presumably reporting up their change of command.

Regardless, this Morrowluminati idea is a quite different interpretation than anything I ever saw implied in the game.

The question would be why. I think that rebuilding after a nuclear war would have just recreated the old United States, an angry one. By forcing the issue and waking the teams later he had a blank check to create a new nation. The entire US is either small ministates or wilderness. A true blank slate with Morrow Teams doing the rebuilding with a large leg up in comparison to other survivors.
Why would it recreate the old US? Most of the people who were devoted to that specific form of government and who had the passion and skill to execute it would have been the exact people targeted in the war! I always saw the purpose of the Project as being saving the people, and allowing them to decide the course of their governance on their own - perhaps uniting into a new United States, perhaps become a patchwork of independent nations. I don't recall anywhere the Teams are instructed to give specific guidance on this to the people they are helping.

[ArmySGT.]

Why would it recreate the old US? Most of the people who were devoted to that specific form of government and who had the passion and skill to execute it would have been the exact people targeted in the war! I always saw the purpose of the Project as being saving the people, and allowing them to decide the course of their governance on their own - perhaps uniting into a new United States, perhaps become a patchwork of independent nations. I don't recall anywhere the Teams are instructed to give specific guidance on this to the people they are helping.

That is a 3rd edition versus 4th edition schism...

3rd was about saving civilization and 4th implies strong if not outright saying the Project is there to preserve and rebuild the United States of America.

So when championing one or the other it helps with everyones understanding if you let people know which edition you are concerned about.

[cosmicfish]

That is a 3rd edition versus 4th edition schism...

3rd was about saving civilization and 4th implies strong if not outright saying the Project is there to preserve and rebuild the United States of America.

So when championing one or the other it helps with everyones understanding if you let people know which edition you are concerned about.
Gotcha. Don't have 4th edition yet, have not yet been overwhelmed with reasons to purchase it, either.

From a practical standpoint, rebuilding the USA as it currently exists would be a monumentally complex task. Even just a few years post-apocalypse, that type of government might be very problematic and not even desired by the population.

[stormlion1]

That's the issue. A few years afterwords no one will want a US or they will want a US that will exact revenge for them. By waiting the old US of A becomes a Golden Age in peoples memorys and something to rebuild towards. The main issue is that after Prime was destroyed the Regional Bases didn't wake up either or were destroyed. And if they did wake up, they didn't have the ability to wake anyone else up. A massive oversight.

[cosmicfish]

That's the issue. A few years afterwords no one will want a US or they will want a US that will exact revenge for them. By waiting the old US of A becomes a Golden Age in peoples memorys and something to rebuild towards.
Will it? Consistently? Or will it become "The Cursed Old Ways that Nearly Destroyed Us ALL!!!!"? Under the circumstances, ignorance or hatred of the past seems more likely than reverence.

The main issue is that after Prime was destroyed the Regional Bases didn't wake up either or were destroyed. And if they did wake up, they didn't have the ability to wake anyone else up. A massive oversight.
So massive that it is either stunning incompetence or massive conspiracy. Neither one really fits with 3rd edition (can't speak to 4th), but I prefer a different answer: the designers of the game didn't think this through very well. Everyone makes mistakes, and it seems reasonable for these to be game design mistakes (to be fixed!!) rather than intentional flaws in the Project.

[ArmySGT.]

So massive that it is either stunning incompetence or massive conspiracy. Neither one really fits with 3rd edition (can't speak to 4th), but I prefer a different answer: the designers of the game didn't think this through very well. Everyone makes mistakes, and it seems reasonable for these to be game design mistakes (to be fixed!!) rather than intentional flaws in the Project.

Actually, it fits very well with the background material of PF 08 Prime Base. The only exception is that there is a mistake in the programming code for the wake up delay.

Someone put a decimal in the wrong place, or did not carry a zero..... I forgive them, they were dying.

[cosmicfish]

Actually, it fits very well with the background material of PF 08 Prime Base. The only exception is that there is a mistake in the programming code for the wake up delay.

Someone put a decimal in the wrong place, or did not carry a zero..... I forgive them, they were dying.
I forgive that guy, but I don't forgive his superiors. Why wasn't such a program already written? Why didn't the regional commands or other backups have some kind of timer or other way of awakening?

Realistically, every single manned Morrow facility (including team boltholes) should have had a timer that woke the team (or at least the CO) after a certain time. And every command superior to that one should have the ability to reset that timer remotely. Set the initial timer for 5 years, and every year that you don't want them awake, send the reset signal. When you are ready, send the wake-up, but if the ability to transmit is lost then the Project still activates a few years later.

No decent engineer or manager would fail to allow for the possibility that Prime Base would be taken out prior to launching the Teams. Stray nuke, Morrow civil-war, hostile takeover, whatever - there is a possibility that this single transmitter at this single location will not work. And it has to work. There should be automated systems working in parallel with manned systems, with the latter ensuring the correct functioning of the former and the former acting as a back up to failures of the more-frail latter.

[stormlion1]

Remember when the Morrow Project was conceived. The late 70's. A timer was a mechanical thing and transmitters and receivers were huge. Even the lines of code in those early computers was massive and inefficient to what they used today. Probably KOBOL. And that is a lot of lines of code right there. Even if they were updating everything constantly then by 3rd Editions nuke apocalypse it would still be only what, late 80's? The simplest thing would be to have a small crew remain awake and send the signal at the right time.
No excuse for 4th Edition though, they have to at least be running windows or some other programming language that would be able to do what is needed.

[ArmySGT.]

I forgive that guy, but I don't forgive his superiors. Why wasn't such a program already written? Why didn't the regional commands or other backups have some kind of timer or other way of awakening?

Realistically, every single manned Morrow facility (including team boltholes) should have had a timer that woke the team (or at least the CO) after a certain time. And every command superior to that one should have the ability to reset that timer remotely. Set the initial timer for 5 years, and every year that you don't want them awake, send the reset signal. When you are ready, send the wake-up, but if the ability to transmit is lost then the Project still activates a few years later.

No decent engineer or manager would fail to allow for the possibility that Prime Base would be taken out prior to launching the Teams. Stray nuke, Morrow civil-war, hostile takeover, whatever - there is a possibility that this single transmitter at this single location will not work. And it has to work. There should be automated systems working in parallel with manned systems, with the latter ensuring the correct functioning of the former and the former acting as a back up to failures of the more-frail latter. Because they planned for a manned operation that would monitor and catalog the events of the War......... They did not plan for a raid intended to destroy them with a nuclear bomb and poison the survivors with an engineered bioweapon......

This was written before computers were commonplace doing those things. We look back and think "Duh!" but, Windows 7 would have been science fiction then.......... Timers and countdowns would have been mechanical one offs.... computers were still larger than a home upright freezer.

[kato13]

Because they planned for a manned operation that would monitor and catalog the events of the War......... They did not plan for a raid intended to destroy them with a nuclear bomb and poison the survivors with an engineered bioweapon......

By canon Bio weapons were used by the Russians and that use would most defiantly have been documented by Prime given the amount of resources dedicated to monitoring all spectrum of communication.

Even with this information Prime chose to break their own seals early without a suitable backup plan. I have a lot of trouble with this.

Even without an opposing force, a fire, explosion, or carbon monoxide leak could have taken out prime or at a minimum its communications or records storage.

I have a backup facility on an island which is also taken out by sabotage. While it is still unlikely, it sits better with me than Prime being allowed to be a single point of failure for a multibillion dollar project.

[ArmySGT.]

By canon Bio weapons were used by the Russians and that use would most defiantly have been documented by Prime given the amount of resources dedicated to monitoring all spectrum of communication.

Even with this information Prime chose to break their own seals early without a suitable backup plan. I have a lot of trouble with this.

Even without an opposing force, a fire, explosion, or carbon monoxide leak could have taken out prime or at a minimum its communications or records storage.

I have a backup facility on an island which is also taken out by sabotage. While it is still unlikely, it sits better with me than Prime being allowed to be a single point of failure for a multibillion dollar project.

Sabotage from within by agents of the Rich Five is a plausible excuse. The Rich Five was members of the Council of Tomorrow and they seem determine to eradicate the Morrow Project as a threat to their new regime.

[kato13]

Sabotage from within by agents of the Rich Five is a plausible excuse. The Rich Five was members of the Council of Tomorrow and they seem determine to eradicate the Morrow Project as a threat to their new regime.

Yep that is what happens to both Prime and Isla Nublar.

Prime is taken out by the a computer virus and the canon virus.

The Isla Nublar backup communication team has 36 personnel in cryo and 4 live watchmen. One of them is a Rich five plant who kills the other 3 and sabotages the tubes.

[ArmySGT.]

*Plot Twist!*

The Rich Five facility in Kentucky is the alternate to Prime Base! Just as massive and equipped.

The Rich Five used their positions within the Council of Tomorrow to steer their own loyal followers into the base staff, auxiliary personnel, and teams.

Anyone still loyal to the Project or the U.S. .gov slipped, fell,and caught a 9mm at the base of the skull in a tragic accident.

[kato13]

*Plot Twist!*

The Rich Five facility in Kentucky is the alternate to Prime Base! Just as massive and equipped.

The Rich Five used their positions within the Council of Tomorrow to steer their own loyal followers into the base staff, auxiliary personnel, and teams.

Anyone still loyal to the Project or the U.S. .gov slipped, fell,and caught a 9mm at the base of the skull in a tragic accident.

I like it.

Maybe a loyalist destroyed the data on locations and wakeup codes when he realized what was happening.

[RandyT0001]

In 3rd edition there were no regional HQ bases. (Created by fans of the game, regional bases were added in the 4th edition.) There was Prime Base to serve as HQ. (IIRC) There was an implication that there was an unmanned back-up base that the teams could find to wake up other teams. In Final Watch it states that the Command unit of Combined Group Seattle has codes to activate the other units in their group. Unfortunately, the ash covers the recieving antenna of the other units blocking the signal so Command cannot activate them.

From my understanding Morrow would travel to the future, return to the "present" to check the progress of building the project then again travel to the future. He did this several times. My guess is that each time he went into the future he saw one of two futures. The first future proceeds where the Project works as planned. The second future progresses where Prime Base is lost, the factions (Breeders, Frozen Chosen, Krell, KFS, etc.) emerge, and the success of the Project cannot be guaranteed. Morrow had to build the Project to address either outcome, to best of his ability without tipping off those on the Council of Tomorrow who eventually set up their own facilities (like the KFS and Chosen). Despite his best attempt to hide it those individuals would discover his dual plans about half of the time. For the PC's the game is set where they find out and split their own program from the Project.

The 79 members of the 15 teams in the Seattle group were scattered around Puget Sound. In 1980 there were about 2 million in the metro area. In 1990 there were about 2.5 million in the metro area. This raises the question: is this ratio of 15 teams with about 80 personnel per 2,250,000 pre-war population used across the entire nation? ArmySGT's post in the final Watch thread (http://forum.juhlin.com/showpost.php?p=62215&postcount=11) shows the destruction in the Pugent Sound area. Just 80 people to assist the 60,000 - 100,000 survivors over an area about 5,000 square miles, five years after the bombs fall? Seems more like a token effort to me. Using this ratio there are about 9,000-11,000 Project members using about 2200 vehicles.

How about this possibility? In 4th edition the regional bases are added. Prime Base is again lost to an attack. Before death the base's few survivors again set up a wake-up program in the base's EMP protected computer that malfunctions and wakes one team at a time. Each regional base becomes a back-up base for the Project. Each regional base has a fail-safe computer that will wake up the base's command unit six years after the the nuke attack. Unfortunately, these computers were not installed with EMP protection being sabotaged by moles of the Rich Five. Once again only one team is awaken at a time like in 3rd edition.

[ArmySGT.]

In 3rd edition there were no regional HQ bases. (Created by fans of the game, regional bases were added in the 4th edition.) The same page does say there are 10 bases/depots….. and I have to dig for the entry that states the Project is divided into 10 regions. I have to look…. I don’t remember page or section….. could even be a module. There is reference to a back up to Prime and 10 supply bases is on page 34 of 3rd edition.
There was Prime Base to serve as HQ. (IIRC) There was an implication that there was an unmanned back-up base that the teams could find to wake up other teams. In Final Watch it states that the Command unit of Combined Group Seattle has codes to activate the other units in their group. Unfortunately, the ash covers the recieving antenna of the other units blocking the signal so Command cannot activate them. One of the things that makes “Final Watch” a little less desperate for the players in it, is they have these codes. I would think that the Combined Group Leader would have had more information to go with……… Like locations Commo Base KA, the location of VB-1, and some way to locate a Team that did not activate with the recall code. I would think that the first priority after assessing that something is very, very wrong with the Project would to activate the entire Combined Group. Wake the Engineers as they have digging equipment and then locate all the rest.
From my understanding Morrow would travel to the future, return to the "present" to check the progress of building the project then again travel to the future. He did this several times. My guess is that each time he went into the future he saw one of two futures. The first future proceeds where the Project works as planned. The second future progresses where Prime Base is lost, the factions (Breeders, Frozen Chosen, Krell, KFS, etc.) emerge, and the success of the Project cannot be guaranteed. Morrow had to build the Project to address either outcome, to best of his ability without tipping off those on the Council of Tomorrow who eventually set up their own facilities (like the KFS and Chosen). Despite his best attempt to hide it those individuals would discover his dual plans about half of the time. For the PC's the game is set where they find out and split their own program from the Project. More or less, now add in multiple Earths all in the same scenario, but with slightly different circumstances so what works in one fails in another.
The 79 members of the 15 teams in the Seattle group were scattered around Puget Sound. In 1980 there were about 2 million in the metro area. In 1990 there were about 2.5 million in the metro area. This raises the question: is this ratio of 15 teams with about 80 personnel per 2,250,000 pre-war population used across the entire nation? ArmySGT's post in the final Watch thread (http://forum.juhlin.com/showpost.php?p=62215&postcount=11) shows the destruction in the Pugent Sound area. Just 80 people to assist the 60,000 - 100,000 survivors over an area about 5,000 square miles, five years after the bombs fall? Seems more like a token effort to me. Using this ratio there are about 9,000-11,000 Project members using about 2200 vehicles. The Project is meant to assist, not do everything. They were expecting thousands of survivors with useful skills and tons of equipment that just needed to be organized, safeguarded, and put to use.

How about this possibility? In 4th edition the regional bases are added. Prime Base is again lost to an attack. Before death the base's few survivors again set up a wake-up program in the base's EMP protected computer that malfunctions and wakes one team at a time. Each regional base becomes a back-up base for the Project. Each regional base has a fail-safe computer that will wake up the base's command unit six years after the the nuke attack. Unfortunately, these computers were not installed with EMP protection being sabotaged by moles of the Rich Five. Once again only one team is awaken at a time like in 3rd edition. Every base so far has been buried which negates EMP, other than that it is as plausible as the others. Flesh it out.

[cosmicfish]

The Rich Five used their positions within the Council of Tomorrow to steer their own loyal followers into the base staff, auxiliary personnel, and teams.
I am curious... where does it indicate that the Rich Five were on the Council of Tomorrow? I always understood that they were able to steal some information from TMP, but the lower level of technology implied that they lacked the kind of access that Council membership should have provided.

[cosmicfish]

The same page does say there are 10 bases/depots….. and I have to dig for the entry that states the Project is divided into 10 regions. I have to look…. I don’t remember page or section….. could even be a module. There is reference to a back up to Prime and 10 supply bases is on page 34 of 3rd edition.
It references supply bases and says there should be no more than 10. It makes no direct reference to command structure. 1-2 Prime Bases, <10 supply bases, an unknown number of specialty bases, and then the team boltholes and caches. No reference to command structure.

The Project is meant to assist, not do everything. They were expecting thousands of survivors with useful skills and tons of equipment that just needed to be organized, safeguarded, and put to use.
Sure they were... that still doesn't change the numbers. Randy's estimate of the total manpower is not unreasonable, and is consistent with the last module. Heck, I would consider 10-20 thousand to be the bare minimum, less than a thousand would have virtually no chance.

[stormlion1]

Which is why I think things were a set up and Bruce Morrow had other plans for those teams. He knew such a small sized group couldn't really do anything but in the future when there were less people they would be a whole more effective.

[cosmicfish]

Which is why I think things were a set up and Bruce Morrow had other plans for those teams. He knew such a small sized group couldn't really do anything but in the future when there were less people they would be a whole more effective.
But why are you assuming "such a small sized group"? There are no canon answers as to the size of TMP, only answers as to the size of specific parts of it, and if those parts are extrapolated to cover the nation then it would suggest that there are tens of thousands of people in the project - a reasonable number for the tasks assigned!

There is the issue that the support structure is wholly inadequate, but the published material in 3rd edition was pretty thin and gives every evidence of simply having been poorly and perhaps inconsistently written. This is not unique to TMP, most fiction franchises run into this problem, it comes from putting specific objectives (like "exciting game play" and "meeting deadlines") ahead of creating a coherent fictional universe.

If you want to reinvent Morrow as a villain, go ahead, but I prefer to keep the tone of the game intact and change the details that are inconsistent with that tone.

[stormlion1]

Eh, maybe I'm just seeing a conspiracy were there is none. But then again when I look at the teams themselves, they sheer amount of total fails that happen you almost can't see not being deliberate you have to wonder.
Then again you can also see it as a game written by people who didn't serve in the military or didn't understand just what would be needed to actually work.

[ArmySGT.]

But why are you assuming "such a small sized group"? There are no canon answers as to the size of TMP, only answers as to the size of specific parts of it, and if those parts are extrapolated to cover the nation then it would suggest that there are tens of thousands of people in the project - a reasonable number for the tasks assigned!

There is the issue that the support structure is wholly inadequate, but the published material in 3rd edition was pretty thin and gives every evidence of simply having been poorly and perhaps inconsistently written. This is not unique to TMP, most fiction franchises run into this problem, it comes from putting specific objectives (like "exciting game play" and "meeting deadlines") ahead of creating a coherent fictional universe.

If you want to reinvent Morrow as a villain, go ahead, but I prefer to keep the tone of the game intact and change the details that are inconsistent with that tone.

Prime Base was half staffed when it died, CG Seattle is 79 persons, the AG base is 8 persons, the manned commo base was six persons........
There isn't any indications that the Project had thousands of people.

How do you get brilliant, productive, healthy, well adjusted people to give up their lives, and families to be cryogenically frozen and help in the recovery of a nuclear war?

That is a tough sell. I have always believed the Project has lots of equipment and very few people.

[ArmySGT.]

Eh, maybe I'm just seeing a conspiracy were there is none. But then again when I look at the teams themselves, they sheer amount of total fails that happen you almost can't see not being deliberate you have to wonder.
Then again you can also see it as a game written by people who didn't serve in the military or didn't understand just what would be needed to actually work.

Kevin Dockery is a Viet Nam vet...... I don't know if Richard Tucholka is or isn't, or for that matter Robert Sadler.

Richard is very approachable and I think Tri Tac games will be at GenCon this year too.

All the modules written by Timeline? I don't know anything about any of them. Joeseph Benedetto is a recent member here and could maybe answer that.

Most of the failures are simply a plot device to explain why the PCs are out there on their own.

[cosmicfish]

Eh, maybe I'm just seeing a conspiracy were there is none. But then again when I look at the teams themselves, they sheer amount of total fails that happen you almost can't see not being deliberate you have to wonder.
Then again you can also see it as a game written by people who didn't serve in the military or didn't understand just what would be needed to actually work.
Those are the two options: a great execution of a terribly flawed world, or a terribly flawed execution of a great world. Personally, I think TMP falls into the latter category, and I think that is the general perception of the game within the larger community. The authors simply did not spend the time to create a solid foundation for the game, and the game suffered for it. At the end of the day, they were doing this for money, and it is usually better to get paid something for a half-assed job than to produce a masterpiece at a net loss.

[cosmicfish]

Prime Base was half staffed when it died, CG Seattle is 79 persons, the AG base is 8 persons, the manned commo base was six persons........
There isn't any indications that the Project had thousands of people.
Without knowing the rest of the Project organization or the demands expected to be placed upon them, the staff of no one facility is going to say much about the size of the Project. The indication, the only real indication we see of the size of TMP, is CG Seattle. That group was the frontline (and potentially vast bulk of) support for the people living in that area. Their area of responsibility was "the Puget Sound area and Seattle in particular", an ambiguous term that could mean as few as 500,000 people (the ~1987 population of Seattle), or as many as 3 million (2/3 of the 1987 Washington state population), or as I prefer, the 1.4 million 1987 residents of King County.

If we call the population they were meant to serve X, accept 242.3 million as the US population in 1987m and assume that the civilian-to-team member ration in Seattle is typical for the US, then the "group-level" staff of TMP is simply 79 * (242.3 million / X). Varying X from 0.5-3.0 million gives us a group-level Morrow roster between 6,381 and 38,283. A roster of less than a thousand becomes patently absurd by simple math, unless you concoct some reason why Seattle would have a substantially higher-than-normal concentration of team members, something that I do not believe is supported in 3rd edition and probably has not been addressed in 4th edition.

How do you get brilliant, productive, healthy, well adjusted people to give up their lives, and families to be cryogenically frozen and help in the recovery of a nuclear war?
To a certain extent, that can already be answered by recruiters for the military, Peace Corps, and clergy - many people are willing to sacrifice a lotfor what they perceive is a worthy cause. And considering that TMP only had to recruit between 250 and 2000 people a year out of the entire population that should not have been as hard as you think.

I have always believed the Project has lots of equipment and very few people.
So have I, but then I cannot see any reason why TMP would be cash constrained in any way - even if supporting the financial health of the project was only 10% of Morrow's time, they should have still held so much innovation and competitive advantage (even in a parallel-universes scenario) that Project funding should be at least in the hundreds of billions. Recruiting people should always have been the hardest part.

[cosmicfish]

Most of the failures are simply a plot device to explain why the PCs are out there on their own.
So much of the entire setting is just a "plot device to explain why the PC's are out on their own". It is an old and common gotta-finish-fast writing mistake - they needed a specific effect, fudged the cause, and hoped that no one will notice or care. You can see it all over the place, especially in the new Star Trek movies - nothing in those films makes sense, they even allude to that in the beginning of the second, but they hope that the fast pace and lens flare will keep you from noticing. RPG's don't have the advantage of fast pace and lens flare, so the oddities and apparent mistakes are all the more glaring.

[stormlion1]

Or they left up to us to figure out down the road and debate on a forum twenty some odd years later...

[kato13]

My biggest reason for needing to come up with a realistic failure scenario is that if I ever pulled my gaming group back together, they would ask questions and if they ever get to a point where they get answers (inside prime for example) I want the best possible answers.

Due to their real world jobs they have seen real world failures (one is a forensic accountant specializing in huge corporate bankruptcies). They will accept that failure can happen. However if their characters chose to give up everything for a project at a minimum I would expect they would have needed to have some confidence in the planners.

For example how did the project get Phoenix team to join if they could not handle basics concepts of redundancy? Phoenix are portrayed as pretty sharp dudes who would have not just accept "oh we have everything covered".

[cosmicfish]

Then the first question becomes "what reasonable steps would TMP have taken to wake everyone up?", and the next question becomes "how then can this be circumvented?"

On the first, I would expect a given team to be awoken under any of the following circumstances:

1) Wake-up call from Prime Base
2) 5-year timer runs out (timer can be remotely reset by anyone superior in chain of command)
3) Bolthole is compromised
4) If any of the capsules fail*, endangering the crew - this might just awaken the CO and/or medic(s).

I would also expect that members at any given command tier have sufficient knowledge to take command at the tier above in the occasion that this is necessary, but that there are safeguards to prevent a coup (we can discuss this issue later). I would likewise assume that teams have the ability to go back to sleep if they feel it necessary, like, for example, if the area was too radioactive.

As to the second, here is my first stab: Don't assume a screw up on the part of leadership, assume enemy action.

Shortly after the war, before they knew about Krell, Prime Base sent out a coded set of commands to all the teams and facilities - the timer reset code, followed by request for a reply indicating the status of each facility and the success of the reset. This was considered a necessary step to ensure that the system worked and to determine the status of the Project as needed for planning. Unfortunately, one of Krell's hackers got lucky** and captured and recorded the signal, not knowing what it was but recognizing any powerful post-war transmission as important. They were even able to establish a rough location of the transmitter off of the signal, leading them to the area of Prime Base.

During the attack on the base, that same hacker wanted to rebroadcast the signal to see if they could gain some situational understanding of its purpose. Taking advantage of Krell's control of the exterior, he found Prime Base's powerful transmitter and patched into the system, drawing on the base's own power and using it to broadcast the signal over and over again while he monitored the area for a response. His efforts wound up being for naught - the nuke was detonated shortly after, killing him and damaging his patched-in hardware, slowing his retransmit rate by a factor of 2^15. Instead of transmitting every 30 minutes, it was transmitting every 2 years, powered entirely off of the base's own power supply.

After the Krell attack, command tried to wake up the designated backup command location, knowing that if for some reason that failed, the timers would wake up the entire Project in a few years anyway. They failed because the nuke had not only damaged the hacker's timer but also the communication line between the base and the antenna. They attempted to repair the damage and resend, but all died before they could even make it to the site of the damage.

So the result winds up being much the same - the Project made no ridiculous mistakes, but the Project is still asleep thanks to a damaged transmitter hardwired to a fusion plant that resends the timer reset faster than the timer can wake anyone up. For the first century or so, the only teams being woken were due to exterior damage to the bolthole or deliberate actions by groups like Krell and the Kentucky Free State, either of which tended to lead to the destruction of the team. Capsule failure has started to be an issue in the last few decades, but not enough to wake up many teams. The big command facilities were better protected and none of them have experienced any survivable failures***, and prior to the PC team none of the handful of teams to survive their unplanned awakening were able to establish the kind of contact needed to awaken the Project. The bulk of the losses to the Project, besides Prime Base, happened in the war itself or due to predation.

*: Note that surviving the capsule is not guaranteed even if the capsule reports itself to be working perfectly - survival is dependent on the capsule AND the individual. The capsules themselves have many backup systems and an extremely low failure rate, even though some will not be revived from nominally functioning capsules.

**: Going with one of Pixar's admonishments to writers - using coincidence to get the protagonists INTO trouble is good writing, using it to get them OUT of trouble is bad writing.

***: So some might have gotten nuked, but none had a cave-in or capsule failure.

[kato13]

**: Going with one of Pixar's admonishments to writers - using coincidence to get the protagonists INTO trouble is good writing, using it to get them OUT of trouble is bad writing.


Funny you mention this as PIXAR had their asses saved by coincidence during the work on Toy Story 2 by sheer luck.

The story goes that 3 or 4 compounding failures led 90% of the work on the movie being lost. One Major executive happened to be on maternity leave and bandwitdh not being as strong as it is now she had a backup brought to her house for review.

Once they realized that multiple failures in their main storage (which I look back on for inspiration how a well run company can just blow it sometimes) they sent for the unintentional offsite backup (wrapping the computer in blankets and buckling it in as it was now worth over 50 million dollars in potential lost effort).

[kato13]

The timer reset is very interesting and makes sense.

[stormlion1]

Timer failure right from the get go. Imagine that one of the Rich Five had been the manufacturer and set them all up to pass the bench test but fail after say four years and six months automatically.
That or the Timers actually do go off but some programming in the code actually doesn't wake the teams up because its looking for the wake up call and not a timer. A single line of code written wrong can doom everything. I've seen things like that happen where an update has actually derailed the entire program and no one knew it until a specific set of circumstances had passed.

[cosmicfish]

Timer failure right from the get go. Imagine that one of the Rich Five had been the manufacturer and set them all up to pass the bench test but fail after say four years and six months automatically.
I don't recall any evidence that the Rich Five were that able to influence the Project - can anyone tell me where it says that? Because it seems that if they were, the Project would be in dire, dire straits right from the get go, and the whole feel of the game becomes radically changed.

That or the Timers actually do go off but some programming in the code actually doesn't wake the teams up because its looking for the wake up call and not a timer. A single line of code written wrong can doom everything. I've seen things like that happen where an update has actually derailed the entire program and no one knew it until a specific set of circumstances had passed.
I actually considered something like that, but I prefer a story that has conflict between strong sides over a story that has the home team just fumbling the ball.

[stormlion1]

Well the Rich Five had access to a lot of the same tech the Morrow Project had so there was some crossover, though probably more of the industrial espionage variety. Another option is Krell who was a member of the Project I believe. But honestly the home team fumbling the ball is the most believable of them all. It happens all the time.

[cosmicfish]

Well the Rich Five had access to a lot of the same tech the Morrow Project had so there was some crossover, though probably more of the industrial espionage variety.
That was always my assumption - it seems like if they had anything close to full access to the Project that they would both more tech and also more knowledge/control over Project resources in their territory.

One alternate idea that I toyed with was reverse industrial espionage - perhaps the Rich Five originated cryogenics, and Morrow poached it from them!

Another option is Krell who was a member of the Project I believe.
Is that ever said anywhere? Krell always seemed like a deliberate mystery, like even the authors had not decided who he was and how he got his information on the Project.

But honestly the home team fumbling the ball is the most believable of them all. It happens all the time.
Sure, but something as important as that code would have been checked and rechecked and tested and retested. A big programming error by one dying, rushed programmer makes sense, but this would have been much less likely. It absolutely could have happened, but like I said, I personally prefer the enemy action option because it adds capability to the enemy and makes them a bigger opponent for the players to eventually deal with.

But it does not hugely impact the game, unlike the massive, widespread incompetence implied in the canon 3ed fall of the Project.

[kato13]

Sure, but something as important as that code would have been checked and rechecked and tested and retested.

You would hope, but testing only goes so far. I was part of one of the largest IT failures in history (700 million dollars with literally nothing to show for it). We had 500 plus programmers who did a tremendous amount of unit testing but when everything was integrated, a system which was supposed to handle all the communication for 1500 locations was reduced to 4 bytes per minute rather than the multiple megs per second that were promised.

[stormlion1]

Same here, my brief employment as a Computer Programmer was a colossal failure due to a team of twenty working on a project, debugging and reviewing the program we worked on for months and we never did get it to work right. The problem was that it did work, it passed every test we threw at it, but when it needed to work 'in the field' it failed every time.
And no one could figure it out. We had other teams look at it, we had outside contractors look at it. We even gave it to a school and hoped a fresh perspective from some students would find the problem. And no one ever figured it out.
The project was scrapped soon after and I decided that several months of frustration was it and looked for other work. Plus honestly I doubted my ability's at that point pretty badly.

[RandyT0001]

From the 4th edition, p.27
As a failsafe, an alternate base was constructed, so that the teams could be revived even if some unforeseen catastrophe overwhelmed Prime Base.

P. 22
From there (firearms training) trainees progress through a series of steadily more realistic situations, practicing contact and stoppage drills in both rural environments and in a custom built "town" on one of the projects training sites.

P. 23
The final element of basic training is the "civics" course, intended to teach the team how to deal with and rebuild communities they encounter.
It covers everything from physical infrastructure, through law enforcement training, to how to hold fair elections.

So it seems that TMP did have a back up base but the question is what happened to it - captured by Krell? Subverted by the Frozen Chosen?

So each team member has training on how to make contact with post-war (at 5 years after the war) locals.

In addition each team member has training on the basic needs of a community, food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, etc. and they know enough about law enforcement to be able to teach it to others.

[stormlion1]

I'm guessing the Back Up base was the base captured by Krell but whomever was stationed there may have nerfed it a bit when it was captured. Krell may have gotten the cryogenic pods and the armorys but the C&C was destroyed.

[cosmicfish]

I think the reason there aren't consistent, canonical answers on Krell is because they never decided on any. They wanted to avoid committing to an answer until they were ready to write something where it was needed. Unfortunately, they missed the point that the truth about Krell (and so many other people and groups) was needed to understand the history and present of the Project.

So make up an answer that makes you happy, because they aren't going to do it until they are ready to write the "take down Krell" module... which is never going to happen.

[ArmySGT.]

I am curious... where does it indicate that the Rich Five were on the Council of Tomorrow? I always understood that they were able to steal some information from TMP, but the lower level of technology implied that they lacked the kind of access that Council membership should have provided.

I haven't ignored your question....... I just haven't found an answer in Canon materials.

Bullets and Bluegrass tells us that the Rich Five had Cryosleep technology before the War on their own. Canon states that the Cryosleep technology was in use by the Project, the U.S. government (Canada too, with Snake Eaters), the Frozen Chosen, and the Rich Five.

This way we infer that the Rich Five, as industrialists, had to be part of the Council of Tomorrow, or the Corporations responsible for Cryosleep research or production...... Cryosleep research begins in the 1960s with animal research (Fallback), though principal researchers, corporation, and places of production are not named.

I will continue to have a look through the modules, I think the answer is there.

[ArmySGT.]

I think the reason there aren't consistent, canonical answers on Krell is because they never decided on any. They wanted to avoid committing to an answer until they were ready to write something where it was needed. Unfortunately, they missed the point that the truth about Krell (and so many other people and groups) was needed to understand the history and present of the Project.

So make up an answer that makes you happy, because they aren't going to do it until they are ready to write the "take down Krell" module... which is never going to happen.

It is one of the most problematical situations of the back story. Krell has an empire but, is defeated by the Morrow Project. The Project in the form of Prime Base opens up and constructs Paiute place to test if the goals and hopes of the Project can be realized. Krell forces infect Prime Base with a lethal bioweapon that has enough infectious period without symptoms to ensure everyone in Prime Base has it. Krell forces using a nuclear bomb destroy Paiute place and believe that Prime Base is sealed under rubble. Paiute Place is built using materials, equipment, and supplies from Prime Base but, the huge exterior doors to the vehicle bay and warehouse were never uncovered. Krell goes on to war with the Project destroying several bases. Krell forces have captured one base intact and Krell uses this to cryosleep for a few decades, then come out and conquer some more. The Krell territory is in the upper midwest. Krell has a ship and a crew with warriors sailing in the Pacific and a threat to Seattle and the *censored* in Seattle for "Final Watch".....

Ummm, welcome to the Labyrinth...... Causes happen before the effects.

[cosmicfish]

Bullets and Bluegrass tells us that the Rich Five had Cryosleep technology before the War on their own. Canon states that the Cryosleep technology was in use by the Project, the U.S. government (Canada too, with Snake Eaters), the Frozen Chosen, and the Rich Five.

This way we infer that the Rich Five, as industrialists, had to be part of the Council of Tomorrow, or the Corporations responsible for Cryosleep research or production...... Cryosleep research begins in the 1960s with animal research (Fallback), though principal researchers, corporation, and places of production are not named.
The Rich Five, Frozen Chosen, and the Snake Eaters are all indicated as having cryo technology in the 3ed core rulebook, it is never indicated which direction technology was flowing, or how. We can surmise anything we want, but the US government sure wasn't on the CoT and they had cryo technology! Again, it seems that if the Rich Five were on the CoT they would have more Morrow technology and enough information to make sure that every team was already dead before becoming a problem. More likely (to me) is that the Rich Five included the contractors developing cryo tech for the government prior to the war. The Chosen Frozen stole it (good old industrial espionage), as did Bruce Morrow, who took the tech back in time and used it as the foundation for the Project's more refined systems.

[cosmicfish]

Ummm, welcome to the Labyrinth...... Causes happen before the effects.
It's a Krell of a problem.

[ArmySGT.]

It's a Krell of a problem.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j218/ArmySGT_photos/Makes%20me%20laugh/Awesome/Likedthis_zpsb454e99d.jpg

[ArmySGT.]

I like it. Unlike the last offering, this is being marketed towards a military market which suggests that it is better suited to the Morrow mission. The only problem I would have with this beasty would be coming up with a cover story for why you are transporting hundreds or thousands of these around the US pre-war.

Hundreds, Yes; thousands, No.

Typically, rail to a depot with a railyard. Then under canvas to the bolt hole.

For inspection purposes, there is a data plate on the driver side door jamb and a VIN plate like any other vehicle. These identifiers are listed with the DMV and titled as demonstration units for sale purposes.

Cops and DOT inspector would look for those and wouldn't be looking for serial numbers anywhere else.

[cosmicfish]

Hundreds, Yes; thousands, No.
Depending on the size of the Project, there might be thousands!

Typically, rail to a depot with a railyard. Then under canvas to the bolt hole.

For inspection purposes, there is a data plate on the driver side door jamb and a VIN plate like any other vehicle. These identifiers are listed with the DMV and titled as demonstration units for sale purposes.

Cops and DOT inspector would look for those and wouldn't be looking for serial numbers anywhere else.
Sure, but it is going to be next to impossible to keep eyes off of these vehicles - they are just too bulky and conspicuous, and orchestrating the movement of all these vehicles is going to be tricky. Of course, we already know that the existence of the Project was already compromised by the time of the war, perhaps this is how!

[ArmySGT.]

Depending on the size of the Project, there might be thousands! I am in the camp that the Project only has a few hundred personnel. Due to all the security constraints and that people accepted would have to give up their lives and family, worse without warning them or aiding them for the impending, inevitable war. I do think that CG Seattle is indicative of a Combined Group. I don't think the Project would bother half staffing anywhere. I think the will fill a region at a time, starting with regions with the highest probability of recovery according to the plan.

Sure, but it is going to be next to impossible to keep eyes off of these vehicles - they are just too bulky and conspicuous, and orchestrating the movement of all these vehicles is going to be tricky. Of course, we already know that the existence of the Project was already compromised by the time of the war, perhaps this is how! I don't think so...... Your average civilian has no idea what they are looking at. Any thing with tracks is a tank, for example.

[cosmicfish]

I am in the camp that the Project only has a few hundred personnel. Due to all the security constraints and that people accepted would have to give up their lives and family, worse without warning them or aiding them for the impending, inevitable war.
I agree that those are serious issues, but I do not think that it is an impossible challenge considering the sheer population of the country and the time scale of recruiting. I also think that the recruiting process is likely to be in stages that allow the Project to not only identify but actively groom and indoctrinate prospective members.

Importantly, I just do not see a Project of a few hundred or even a few thousand making any real dent in the post-war problems. There are just too few of them, spread too thin. Even if nothing goes wrong, they are going to have a heck of a time providing any level of service, and being so few they would be tremendously vulnerable to any number of problems. It's just a bad bet. With a few hundred people, think of how few experts in any given field you really have, and think about how easy it is then to lose entire disciplines (as an example).

I do think that CG Seattle is indicative of a Combined Group. I don't think the Project would bother half staffing anywhere. I think the will fill a region at a time, starting with regions with the highest probability of recovery according to the plan.
I am not sure how this works then - if CG Seattle is typical for the population it serves, are you saying that the Project is only distributed across portions of the country? If CG Seattle was serving a pre-war population of 1.4 million (King County, in 1987) then 10 such combined groups (790 field staff) would serve only 5.8% of the 1987 US population of 242.3 million.

It is hard for me to believe that Morrow hoped to have any real impact with such a low level of coverage.

[ArmySGT.]

In all these cases I expect the Project to be heavily recruiting from the survivors to fill out the thousands of jobs that are not highly skilled or needed a someone frozen before the War.

I expect the Project to move into an area, establish a refugee camp from pre-positioned supplies, recruit from the refugees persons with competent skills or abilities. Then expect them to depart to start another camp somewhere else. This with detachments moving about trying to get essential service like water treatment and sewerage operational, to establish a clinic and staff this with surviving medical personnel. Etc.

I don't expect them to do it. I expect them to provide the materials and a kick in the ass to get it started.

Then I expect them to protect said from marauders and politicians both most likely to plunder a recovery effort.

[cosmicfish]

In all these cases I expect the Project to be heavily recruiting from the survivors to fill out the thousands of jobs that are not highly skilled or needed a someone frozen before the War.
I expect that too, but it is like the F550 parts issue - if you are expecting 98% of the population to die in the war, how much can you depend on finding experts to recruit in any given area? Especially if, as you mention below, you are taking your time getting to that area?

I expect the Project to move into an area, establish a refugee camp from pre-positioned supplies, recruit from the refugees persons with competent skills or abilities. Then expect them to depart to start another camp somewhere else. This with detachments moving about trying to get essential service like water treatment and sewerage operational, to establish a clinic and staff this with surviving medical personnel. Etc.
How long do you expect them to spend in each area? Realistically, even if you work every Project member for the rest of their lives (hard for recruiting) you won't have much time with any one population before you would have to either move on or abandon your goal of covering the US. And incidentally, you have every reason to expect that areas waiting on Morrow teams to arrive are going to see ongoing deaths and loss of resources - take too long to get to an area and there might not be anyone left to help!

Then I expect them to protect said from marauders and politicians both most likely to plunder a recovery effort.
I think this is the biggest issue I have. If you assume a surviving population of just 1%, you have 2,423,000 survivors. If just 1%* of those are problematic, then you have TMP dealing with 24,230 "problem" people. The game provides numerous examples of large groups 150 years post-war who still have significant military hardware, I cannot imagine how the Project would deal with a dispersed array of military forces 20+ times their own number. Even with Phoenix that is a tall order, and considering that they are likely only supported by maybe 80** MARS teamers and 200*** Recon teamers, they are really outnumbered more like 80 to one, combatant-to-combatant. And no one knows about Phoenix.

Plus remember that you have to deal with protecting your entire force, which is going to rapidly become publicly known and spread across 3.8 million square miles. With the few aircraft available, you are spread too thin to protect anyone, and we've already seen how quickly people will turn to tyrants who provide security over good people who can't.

Going back to the recruiting problem, I would think this to be one of the biggest issues - recruiting people to save the world is hard enough without one of them doing the math and realizing that it is a suicide mission.


*: Personally, I would expect a lot more than 1% to be problematic - murderers and militants have pretty good survival instincts.

**: Based on CG Seattle. And remember that half will be tasked as protective details for Science teams.

***: Also based on CG Seattle.

[ArmySGT.]

I expect that too, but it is like the F550 parts issue - if you are expecting 98% of the population to die in the war, how much can you depend on finding experts to recruit in any given area? Especially if, as you mention below, you are taking your time getting to that area? I didn't mean engineers and cardiac surgeons..... I meant people capable of running a village with a little jumpstart..... The Project isn't going to be able to dictate who is in or out by much. Still at 3-5 years your going to find electricians, plumbers, warehouse managers, policemen, chefs, hoteliers, green house operators and local politicians and a host of people that can learn.

I can't believe truly unskilled people are going to be around at 3-5 years.

Your right, you cannot plan for every contingency. You can't recruit people on the scaled needed to rebuild a large metro area either. You spread it around and create a system of villages,that make them interdependent and cooperative.

How long do you expect them to spend in each area? Realistically, even if you work every Project member for the rest of their lives (hard for recruiting) you won't have much time with any one population before you would have to either move on or abandon your goal of covering the US. And incidentally, you have every reason to expect that areas waiting on Morrow teams to arrive are going to see ongoing deaths and loss of resources - take too long to get to an area and there might not be anyone left to help! One to two weeks tops. Jumpstart, get it going, and leave it in the hands of locally recruited competent persons.... The survivor population is going to elect and follow their own, unless the Project is installing a dictatorship and shooting dissenters.

Forget about controlling it. Deliver the equipment, install it, and bring in the survivors. The survivors will self identify and it will shake itself out.

The Project has more important tasks like water treatment plants and power plants..... Things that will speed recovery by orders of magnitude.

Don't fret about village level politics.


I think this is the biggest issue I have. If you assume a surviving population of just 1%, you have 2,423,000 survivors. If just 1%* of those are problematic, then you have TMP dealing with 24,230 "problem" people. The game provides numerous examples of large groups 150 years post-war who still have significant military hardware, I cannot imagine how the Project would deal with a dispersed array of military forces 20+ times their own number. Even with Phoenix that is a tall order, and considering that they are likely only supported by maybe 80** MARS teamers and 200*** Recon teamers, they are really outnumbered more like 80 to one, combatant-to-combatant. And no one knows about Phoenix.

Plus remember that you have to deal with protecting your entire force, which is going to rapidly become publicly known and spread across 3.8 million square miles. With the few aircraft available, you are spread too thin to protect anyone, and we've already seen how quickly people will turn to tyrants who provide security over good people who can't.

Going back to the recruiting problem, I would think this to be one of the biggest issues - recruiting people to save the world is hard enough without one of them doing the math and realizing that it is a suicide mission.


*: Personally, I would expect a lot more than 1% to be problematic - murderers and militants have pretty good survival instincts.

**: Based on CG Seattle. And remember that half will be tasked as protective details for Science teams.

***: Also based on CG Seattle.

That has so many variables it can be argued anyway either of us wants to spin it. How many come over when there is a warm bed and food on the table?

I leave it to MARS, the Snake Eaters, surviving .gov assets, and frankly the survivors populating the recovery site who know damn well what they stand to lose.

[cosmicfish]

I didn't mean engineers and cardiac surgeons..... I meant people capable of running a village with a little jumpstart..... The Project isn't going to be able to dictate who is in or out by much. Still at 3-5 years your going to find electricians, plumbers, warehouse managers, policemen, chefs, hoteliers, green house operators and local politicians and a host of people that can learn.

I can't believe truly unskilled people are going to be around at 3-5 years.
I think you overestimate the number of "skilled" people in this country, compared to the number of people who answer phones or wait tables or groom dogs or any of the thousands of occupations that earn people money but do not necessarily translate well to a post-apocalyptic setting. I also think that even people with useful skills are going to be at a competitive disadvantage for years compared to people whose primary skills are simply survival.

One to two weeks tops. Jumpstart, get it going, and leave it in the hands of locally recruited competent persons...
So... you see the Project as basically showing up, dumping a set of gear, and leaving after showing them how to turn it on? Then why bother with the college degrees? Why bother with psychological and civil affairs teams (who will take months or years to see a result with any particular population)? Heck, the basic challenge of reconnoitering and securing an area is going to take substantially longer than 1-2 weeks! I would expect marauders to just follow the groups around, pillaging those untrained and unprotected villages as fast as Morrow leaves!

Forget about controlling it. Deliver the equipment, install it, and bring in the survivors. The survivors will self identify and it will shake itself out.
That is a lot more callous approach to aid than I can imagine working. I also think that a lot of Morrow equipment is effectively irreplaceable, and giving it over to a bunch of shoe salesmen and hoping they will figure it out is more than a bit optimistic.

The Project has more important tasks like water treatment plants and power plants..... Things that will speed recovery by orders of magnitude.
Those are indeed very important, but they are also large-scale projects that will take a long time to implement for even a small area - Morrow is not building and maintaining a national power grid in the first year, probably not in the first 5.

Don't fret about village level politics.
You have to worry about any level of politics that has control over equipment/supplies you are distributing and/or that has the ability to pose a threat. CG Seattle has 79 people. A modest village that knows the lay of the land and has spent 5 years fighting for survival might be one election away from being the exact kind of militia that can take down a bunch of idealists who eventually have to leave the V-150 to urinate.

That has so many variables it can be argued anyway either of us wants to spin it. How many come over when there is a warm bed and food on the table?
There are a lot of variables in there, but I was being far, far more favorable to the Project in my estimates than I actually think realistic. At any given time in this country, we have about a third of a percent of our population incarcerated not counting those still going through the courts, those released, and those simply not yet caught. Add to that the opportunists and other types who won't commit a crime in a "civilized" society but who turn wolf after missing a couple of meals, and one percent seems awfully darned low to me.

It's an odds game. You cannot handle every contingency, but you can't just ignore them either, you have to prepare for enough challenges to have a solid chance of success, and considering that this is a completely unknown set of challenges I can't see doing this in a minimalist manner and expecting anything other than disaster. When you are stretched so thin, there are just too many things that can go wrong and take you down, and why would TMP accept that?

How many come over when there is a warm bed and food on the table?
When you provide no security, no policing, and no permanence, probably not that many. Five years post war I would expect that vast majority to have formed small, tight communities that do not trust outsiders and are not likely to accept the brigands' promises to be good in return for three hots and a cot. It is going to take more than a few weeks for a bunch of educated novices to take a population scattered and changed by years of post-war struggles, identify and filter out the "bad eggs", and integrate the rest.

I leave it to MARS, the Snake Eaters, surviving .gov assets, and frankly the survivors populating the recovery site who know damn well what they stand to lose.
Per your staffing level, MARS would be less than 100 people for the entire country, the Snake Eaters are unknown to the pre-war Project and may be hostile even post-war, other surviving government assets may or may not be the exact enemy you are fighting against, and the survivors likely lack the weapons or training to protect anything that anyone else really wants to take.

[ArmySGT.]

I think you overestimate the number of "skilled" people in this country, compared to the number of people who answer phones or wait tables or groom dogs or any of the thousands of occupations that earn people money but do not necessarily translate well to a post-apocalyptic setting. I also think that even people with useful skills are going to be at a competitive disadvantage for years compared to people whose primary skills are simply survival. I think you vastly UNDERestimate the number of skilled survivors. Sure nuclear bombs and biowarfare do not discriminate but, nature is harsh. If you didn’t have any skills one day after the war, you were dead by day seven. People with skills were valuable to one another, they were valuable to anyone with even some advantage.

Define a skill like survival in a post apocalypse anyway. Finding clean water? Finding canned goods and wild berries? Knowing which way is north? Fishing in uncontaminated streams? Killing people with something, so you can go one more day?

We know that in every case hunter gatherer cultures remained small and ineffective at holding terrain versus static agrarian cultures. By year 3-5 the survivalists have looted all the food from stores, depots, and small survivor groups. They have burned through their ammo and lost their most aggressive members to wounds.
So... you see the Project as basically showing up, dumping a set of gear, and leaving after showing them how to turn it on? Then why bother with the college degrees? Why bother with psychological and civil affairs teams (who will take months or years to see a result with any particular population)? Heck, the basic challenge of reconnoitering and securing an area is going to take substantially longer than 1-2 weeks! I would expect marauders to just follow the groups around, pillaging those untrained and unprotected villages as fast as Morrow leaves! I see the project arriving at a suitable location probably a small town that already exists. They leave some alcohol powered generators, two way base station radio, drill a well, stock a clinic, gather people and have the people hold an election. By 3-5 years the weak and those incapable of defending themselves are dead and gone or they have learned.
That is a lot more callous approach to aid than I can imagine working. I also think that a lot of Morrow equipment is effectively irreplaceable, and giving it over to a bunch of shoe salesmen and hoping they will figure it out is more than a bit optimistic. After 3-5 years the survivors know a hell of a lot more about surviving than any Morrow Project member has ever learned.
Those are indeed very important, but they are also large-scale projects that will take a long time to implement for even a small area - Morrow is not building and maintaining a national power grid in the first year, probably not in the first 5. Those are the hubs you start building from. You don’t need to bring the municipal water system for the greater Seattle area online or any other major city for that matter. Every small town has a water treatment plant that has been isolated by the loss of the national power grid. It needs some techs to make it run, power, and the right chemicals. That is where you start.
You have to worry about any level of politics that has control over equipment/supplies you are distributing and/or that has the ability to pose a threat. CG Seattle has 79 people. A modest village that knows the lay of the land and has spent 5 years fighting for survival might be one election away from being the exact kind of militia that can take down a bunch of idealists who eventually have to leave the V-150 to urinate. If they were that way before Project personnel were to make contact then that would be apparent. Recon and specialist Psyops teams would have effectively identified these groups.

You can’t stand over these villages and hold them hostage to your preferred form of government. That isn’t what the Project is about and it ties up Project members like MARS indefinitely.
There are a lot of variables in there, but I was being far, far more favorable to the Project in my estimates than I actually think realistic. At any given time in this country, we have about a third of a percent of our population incarcerated not counting those still going through the courts, those released, and those simply not yet caught. Add to that the opportunists and other types who won't commit a crime in a "civilized" society but who turn wolf after missing a couple of meals, and one percent seems awfully darned low to me. By year three these guys have starved to death and died of exposure. These career criminals definitely are violent predators but, they don’t know a blessed thing about providing for themselves. When all the stores and depots are looted these guys become cannibals and later die.
It's an odds game. You cannot handle every contingency, but you can't just ignore them either, you have to prepare for enough challenges to have a solid chance of success, and considering that this is a completely unknown set of challenges I can't see doing this in a minimalist manner and expecting anything other than disaster. When you are stretched so thin, there are just too many things that can go wrong and take you down, and why would TMP accept that? Because the Project isn’t a conquering army ready to set things right for God and Justice….. They have limited personnel and lots of resources.

A village is built, the people moved in, and 10 miles away another is built. These are set up to mutually trade and mutually assist. One have the mechanics and the dentist, the other the electricians and the doctor.
When you provide no security, no policing, and no permanence, probably not that many. Five years post war I would expect that vast majority to have formed small, tight communities that do not trust outsiders and are not likely to accept the brigands' promises to be good in return for three hots and a cot. It is going to take more than a few weeks for a bunch of educated novices to take a population scattered and changed by years of post-war struggles, identify and filter out the "bad eggs", and integrate the rest. I expect few brigands to be left. The hostiles are a few of these villages that are hostile to other groups and raid for what they don’t have. However, once they can get what they need without being killed trying to take it, that will be incentive enough.
Per your staffing level, MARS would be less than 100 people for the entire country, the Snake Eaters are unknown to the pre-war Project and may be hostile even post-war, other surviving government assets may or may not be the exact enemy you are fighting against, and the survivors likely lack the weapons or training to protect anything that anyone else really wants to take.

That is better than a Morrow Project of 20,000 that is 1% science, 9% recon, and 90% MARS.

[ArmySGT.]

The Rich Five, Frozen Chosen, and the Snake Eaters are all indicated as having cryo technology in the 3ed core rulebook, it is never indicated which direction technology was flowing, or how. We can surmise anything we want, but the US government sure wasn't on the CoT and they had cryo technology! Again, it seems that if the Rich Five were on the CoT they would have more Morrow technology and enough information to make sure that every team was already dead before becoming a problem. More likely (to me) is that the Rich Five included the contractors developing cryo tech for the government prior to the war. The Chosen Frozen stole it (good old industrial espionage), as did Bruce Morrow, who took the tech back in time and used it as the foundation for the Project's more refined systems. More background on the Morrow Project Cryosleep program is outlined briefly in "Fallback" stating that the Project was experimenting with this tech as far back as the 1960s.

[mmartin798]

The 1960's era cryosleep was mentioned in the 3rd edition rules stating plainly that the Project perfected the science of cryogenics early in 1964. It also fits well with my picks for the Counsel of Tomorrow members and the Rich 5, since I include Charles F Adams IV, Chairman of Raytheon from 1960-1962 and 1964-1975. Raytheon purchased Amana Refrigeration in 1965 and bundled their microwave technology under the Amana name for the consumer market. As the canon description of the cryosleep process mention the use of microwaves to inhibit ice formation, it just worked for me.

As for how the US government got cryosleep, I suggest secret DARPA project. When cryonics got started in the late 1950's and early 1960's, there was one experiment where a rat was frozen to 0 Celsius and reanimated with microwaves in 1955. So no need for the US Government to have stolen it, just throw money and researchers at it.

[bobcat]

honestly i don't see this darkness that everyone keeps painting. yes the project failed(for any of a dozen plausible reasons listed) but even with that failure there are still survivors who the teams can help. as for the teams only spending a few weeks in an area that would be silly hen you think about it. each of the teams is given an AOR and generally put in a bolthole fairly central to their area of responsibility. this is done so that even if completely cut off they can still accomplish their small piece of the mission. one should also consider that the project wouldn't really be recruiting many "well adjusted" people. those who would be well adjusted to civilization would die rather quickly with civilization taken away. they would recruit and select people who could operate individually or in small teams with little external guidance because in a nuclear war and the aftermath thereof anything could happen. teams would carry out their initial orders, react to their unique situations, make reasonable attempts to contact their next higher headquarters, and mostly stay in their AOR. if each team spends a few weeks in each village or settlement, helps where they can, and keeps running a circuit within their AOR, it won't be that long until they can establish a more permanent patrol base and just send out help as it is needed.

it's no darker really than life as a colonist back in the old days, brighter in fact because at least the teams know that even in extreme contingencies they have a chance. compare that to the donner party.

[cosmicfish]

I think you are missing a lot of the problems. Ignoring the massive losses of people due to the Project's absence, the Project was depending on the knowledge and resources available immediately after the war, and without those resources the Project will see a lot of people suffer or die that otherwise could have been saved.

Worse, the intervening century and a half has given despots like the Rich Five and Krell time to entrench themselves and flourish, meaning that an organization designed to bring order out of chaos must now also serve as an insurgency. The Project can still defeat them (presumably) but again, how many more (Project and civilian) will be lost?

The Project has lost both it's leadership and a decent chunk of its membership, and has awoken into a world vastly different than the one they were expecting with challenges that are both far greater and different in nature compared to their original mission. Given that the Project's remaining resources are never spelled out, it really is not possible to know whether or not they will be able to succeed or even survive.

[bobcat]

don't get me wrong it's still a Charlie Foxtrot but the project wasn't going to save anyone. 5 years after the bombs drop almost everyone that was going to die from it will have already died. 150 years after they drop there's a larger population pool to work with. Project losses from the KFS are, of course, problematic but even in KFS territory there are still teams that can be awakened per canon. Krell is a threat but per cannon they lack the ability to work without leadership, a handicap that the Morrow Project personnel lack. the only group better prepared for the situation than the teams of the Morrow Project would be the snake eaters and only by merit of having more training time before they were put on ice.

[cosmicfish]

don't get me wrong it's still a Charlie Foxtrot but the project wasn't going to save anyone.
Then what was the point??

5 years after the bombs drop almost everyone that was going to die from it will have already died.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Not only do you have people suffering from the direct (cancer, chemical poisoning, military/militia/criminal violence) and indirect (nuclear winter reducing crop yields) consequences of the war, you also have the negative health effects from the absence of modern technologies and materials that save so many lives every year in the US alone. These are all issues that TMP was intended to mitigate.

150 years after they drop there's a larger population pool to work with.
Yes, but they are, by and large, a population pool with an education that would be underwhelming in the old west. TMP now has to educate the population up to the level where they can even be effective in helping themselves... and they were never trained to do that! 5 million (or however many survivors there were) people with a modern education are going to be able to produce a lot better quality (and duration!) of life than 100 million people with a 19th century education. Can you imagine how hard it is to explain public health to people who have no concept of the idea? Or of how hard it is to convince people who HAVE slaves that it is not okay?

Project losses from the KFS are, of course, problematic but even in KFS territory there are still teams that can be awakened per canon. Krell is a threat but per cannon they lack the ability to work without leadership, a handicap that the Morrow Project personnel lack. the only group better prepared for the situation than the teams of the Morrow Project would be the snake eaters and only by merit of having more training time before they were put on ice.
KFS is a much tougher foe than you give them credit for. In 3E at least KFS has more than 10,000 trained soldiers (not counting Air Force or Secret Police), a complete (if small) combined-arms military, as well as the ability to draft even more if necessary from their own populace. Their headquarters is under a mountain. They will be an extremely difficult nut to crack even for a fully-functional Project.

As for Krell, what are the odds that the Project starts wide-scale activation and he doesn't get a wake-up call? And the Project lost their entire headquarters, so even with full activation their leadership is pretty handicapped.

The Snake Eaters should not be a large problem. First because they are relatively few in number, second because they are more likely to align with TMP than oppose it. Worst case they are likely to partner up with TMP and then try and steer it more towards where they want the country to go... because that is exactly what they started training to do in SF in the first place!

[ArmySGT.]

honestly i don't see this darkness that everyone keeps painting. yes the project failed(for any of a dozen plausible reasons listed) but even with that failure there are still survivors who the teams can help. as for the teams only spending a few weeks in an area that would be silly hen you think about it. each of the teams is given an AOR and generally put in a bolthole fairly central to their area of responsibility. this is done so that even if completely cut off they can still accomplish their small piece of the mission. one should also consider that the project wouldn't really be recruiting many "well adjusted" people. those who would be well adjusted to civilization would die rather quickly with civilization taken away. they would recruit and select people who could operate individually or in small teams with little external guidance because in a nuclear war and the aftermath thereof anything could happen. teams would carry out their initial orders, react to their unique situations, make reasonable attempts to contact their next higher headquarters, and mostly stay in their AOR. if each team spends a few weeks in each village or settlement, helps where they can, and keeps running a circuit within their AOR, it won't be that long until they can establish a more permanent patrol base and just send out help as it is needed.

it's no darker really than life as a colonist back in the old days, brighter in fact because at least the teams know that even in extreme contingencies they have a chance. compare that to the donner party.

The darkness comes from the lack of support from even villages close to each other.

Survivors are a selfish, uncooperative bunch. They are the descendants of those that took what they needed. Often this was at the expense of others or the greater good. They are clannish and have a well learned distrust of outsiders due to raids, robbery, and disease. Villages cooperate on a barter system and often operate as feudal society with a chief or warlord that is the sole authority.

Trade still happens but, trade with outsiders happens infrequently and outside the village. Two armed groups meet somewhere in the middle of two villages and barter. Mistrust at best.

Ignorance..... Knowledge died. Sure, there are some C and B level groups and those would probably be the ones built around a preWar school or University. Most of the rest are focused solely on skills that make food, shelter, and warmth. People don't have time for nice things, some story telling and music for a few hours in the evening before rising at dawn to begin again. Most cannot read, and those that can mostly can read only at a grammar school level. People can't build more than simple machines because math has degenerated to simple arithmetic. Health is a terrifying mix of superstition, misunderstood lore, and fiction. The average person won't live to see 40. Most children will grow to be adults if they can just survive past their fifth birthday.

Technology is lost.... The plagues and the destruction were pitiless and did not care if the victim was a high school drop out or held a PHd. People that knew how to build things or repair things may have lasted longer if they were valuable to a collective whole, such as a mechanic who could fix cars. People were only able to pass on some of their knowledge and without formal education, some was lost in context. Some skills had to be learned and often without someone possessing the skills to begin with such as blacksmith or log cabin builder. Other things are consumed and cannot be replaced, like some tools. There is no hardware store when your last file is dull or the chainsaw chain has broken for the 34th time. Making a replacement may not even occur to them because no one in their collective tribe ever knew how to build any of it.

[bobcat]

all of this is true but as far as the situation goes there are far worse scenario's to wake up to.

lost knowledge and technology are handicaps. i'm assuming roughly 15% literacy rates that aren't very well spread out through the populace. some areas such as settlements built around universities and larger schools will be better off in this regard. the thing is even if the 5 year plan worked there would still have been a major deficit in skilled labor, massive drops in the literacy rate, and the project would be spending most of their resources teaching people how to survive in the long term. the world the teams wake up to has experienced the loss of technical knowledge and technology but the people already know how to survive long term. they've been doing it for 150 years.

xenophobia would be a major handicap that would also have to be handled on the 5 years plan. the big change is that there is no longer a major war in recent memory or possibly still raging. if the teams would have been able to bypass that barrier with mushroom clouds still branded in the commo memory they should still be able to after much of that memory has faded. they also have the advantage of having valuable skills and trade goods to aid them in getting around such barriers, never underestimate how far even a good cup of coffee can go in winning hearts and minds.

before we get to likely aggressors/allies we need a few basic assumptions. first i am assuming Recon Team G-9 from Operation Damocles is successful and sends the wakeup signal. i am also assuming that the project fails to implement even rudimentary COMSEC and that the wakeup signal will be received by everyone with cryo tech. allowing Krell's warriors to have a chance.

as for the likely aggressors/allies. the Snake Eaters could go either way. these are teams of highly trained Green Berets who in 3rd edition are described as being reasonable and having a primary goal of figuring out what the project is up to. assuming the party does not antagonise them they will likely fall into the allies category where their training will make them invaluable in reconstruction. specifically considering the fact that they are specifically trained to be teachers and mentors. if the team forms an alliance with them the lack of education is easily offset by these heavily armed teachers. they would also very likely take an adversarial approach to both Krell and the KFS so even without a formal alliance with the snake eaters those that RT G-9 would wake up if they deal with the AI on the UP could easily present a major stumbling block to the other major hostile factions.

Krell and his forces are known hostile. unless the destruction of Prime Base was so rapid that nobody was able to send a message out, the teams should wake to a warning about this threat. they are limited in technology and lack the ability to react to changing situations without direct oversight. unfortunately assuming RT G-9 is successful their leader will likely be awoken along with surviving Morrow Assets and the Snake Eaters. this makes Krell a credible threat to teams operating within reach of any Krell forces but again unless they destroyed prime base before a message could be sent they should be a threat the teams are able to prepare for.

KFS is one of the more serious threats. fortunately they haven't seen any significant actions in more than a century. if there are any Snake Eater teams awoken in their controlled territories by RT G-9 the KFS will predictably be met with a threat that they are completely unprepared for. yes they have an advantage in that they have Armor and Air Support, but, as Iraq and Afghanistan have showed us these advantages can be offset. that said an armed confrontation with the KFS is a less than ideal solution. if a team could somehow subvert the ruling body of the KFS to align along Morrow Project ideals they could provide a technological base for a more rapid reconstruction. after all what's a little velvet revolution between friends?

[mmartin798]

Krell and his forces are known hostile.

I will have to check when I get home from work, but I do not believe the Krell agents ever shown themselves to the forces from Prime Base. They implanted themselves as insurgents and agitators. I think when they captured the Morrow team members and negotiated, they present only as part of the large angry mob of survivors. Like I said, I am at work and may be wrong but that is what I think it said. If true, Prime Base could only send out a message along the lines of, "Oops! Pissed off some survivors and botched a rescue. Be careful out there!" Far from identifying a group of hostiles.

[RandyT0001]

According to 4th edition, pgs. 477 & 479, Bruce Morrow knows of Krell and the fact that they oppose the MP in the future. Whether he tells the COT or the upper command units of MP is not provided in the book. During Bruce's excursions into the future we can assume he knew of or heard about Krell, the Frozen Chosen, and the KFS. Based upon the implications in the book, Bruce was more concerned with Krell the either of the other two. Maybe the MP defeats the KFS and Frozen Chosen but in doing so weakens themselves so much as to be easily conquered by the horde of Krell.

Guess that's what we are supposed to play out and discover.

[mmartin798]

True, 4th edition does not expressly say whether or not he informed others about Krell. It does indicate that Bruce was very reluctant to interfere with the timeline. The stopping of the 1989 nuclear war was done reluctantly. After Bruce goes and spends two years in the future after that, he comes back even more resolved to not interfere with the timeline ever again and with the desire to know who Krell is. Given that, I would assume he kept all threat data to himself to avoid contaminating the timeline. How bringing back powerful lasers and portable fusion technology does not do that I will conveniently ignore or assume Bruce saw no significant change in the future as a result of bringing those back.

[bobcat]

well back to third edition(i don't have fourth edition yet) in prime base it says that the staff at prime base learned of krell before being wiped out. the fact that his forces were able to secure a nuclear weapon would have pointed to them being a significant threat even if the nuke at the refugee camp was detonated before it could be deployed against morrow in the time between that and the final fall of the base it would have been negligent of the Morrow HQ staff to not send a message warning of this threat before their last stand. add in what i'm being told from fourth edition and there is no feasible way for the the Morrow HQ to have still been in the dark about this threat and fail to send some kind of warning to the teams to be read once they wake up.

[ArmySGT.]

well back to third edition(i don't have fourth edition yet) Don't buy it until it is revised and properly edited.

[bobcat]

well i'm waiting on the modules to be brought up to speed on it as well as the Errata. i don't like having to guess and improvise to make a module work with a new system only to find out halfway through the campaign that they're releasing the module with accurate updates in a week and i did everything wrong.:D

[kalos72]

I was really going to pick this up too...cant wait to see the production stuff. Is there a plan to update the 4th book or just a hope?

[cosmicfish]

I would be surprised if there was an update or revision any time soon. It's my feeling that sales have been underwhelming, and that they are likely attributing that to the genre or gaming in general than to any shortcomings of the actual product.

[mmartin798]

Maybe this should be moved to the Prime Base thread, but rereading the 4th edition rulebook it says that both Prime Base Alpha and Prime Base Beta, for lack of a better way to differentiate Prime Base and the alternate, have an awake staff through the war. This means that at the very least, Prime Base Alpha should have been able to send a message to Prime Base Beta talking about the events in real time, including the nuclear blast. Even if they do not name Krell specifically, Prime Base Beta would know there is a group with the ability to use nukes. This also means that the Project should go on according to plan right at the wars end using Prime Base Beta to awake teams, but that is a discussion for another thread.

[cosmicfish]

Maybe this should be moved to the Prime Base thread, but rereading the 4th edition rulebook it says that both Prime Base Alpha and Prime Base Beta, for lack of a better way to differentiate Prime Base and the alternate, have an awake staff through the war. This means that at the very least, Prime Base Alpha should have been able to send a message to Prime Base Beta talking about the events in real time, including the nuclear blast. Even if they do not name Krell specifically, Prime Base Beta would know there is a group with the ability to use nukes. This also means that the Project should go on according to plan right at the wars end using Prime Base Beta to awake teams, but that is a discussion for another thread.
Wait... what??? The backup had staff awake during the destruction of Prime Base?? And is still there, frozen?? That makes zero sense to me. What stopped them from waking the Project?

[mmartin798]

Yup, here is the text, copied from my PDF of the 4th edition:

As a final failsafe, an alternate base was constructed, so that the teams could be revived even if some unforeseen catastrophe overwhelmed Prime Base. This base had the same libraries as Prime, and many of the same facilities, albeit on a rather smaller scale. However, it had only a relatively small frozen staff of specialists in addition to its small “awake team”.

[cosmicfish]

Yup, here is the text, copied from my PDF of the 4th edition:

As a final failsafe, an alternate base was constructed, so that the teams could be revived even if some unforeseen catastrophe overwhelmed Prime Base. This base had the same libraries as Prime, and many of the same facilities, albeit on a rather smaller scale. However, it had only a relatively small frozen staff of specialists in addition to its small “awake team”.
And there is no explanation given for why this alternate base completely failed in its intended design as a failsafe???

[bobcat]

this is why i tend to like the idea of software design screwup. it requires less handwavium to cause the Charlie Foxtrot.