By my reckoning, Burning Man takes place about 50-60 miles south of Prime Base*, "right outside" only on a national scale. And I see no reason why anyone at that location would choose to go further into a barren desert towards Prime Base, north is literally the hardest, least promising direction they could go. To be honest "refugees at the gates" was always a stretch when you consider the obstacles to travel in the region and that roads past it were hardly on the way to anywhere in particular.

Remember also that Prime Base didn't even unbutton until a couple of years post-war*, and what are the odds that Burning Man staffers would still be in the Black Rock Desert after all that time? These aren't really rugged survivalists, why didn't they head east or west towards towns and modest civilization? Prime Base could unbutton right after the war, notice a small group of people hours away, and risk the entire Project in an environment that could not possible have been adequately surveyed yet... but why would they?

*: Per 3ed, at least, since I do not have 4ed.

An analogy for PB building a refugee camp just miles from the facility location.

We know that this situation could not happen on a US SSBM sub because the command crew would intervene, arrest the deranged commander, and pursue their actual mission of launching the missiles. The Navy trains them to do that and they are expected to do that, complete the mission.

The people put in charge of PB are not going to ignore their mission, either. They have been selected for their positions because they complete the mission without overt emotion.

West takes you to Susanville and within the fallout patterns from Sierra Army Depot. South west takes you to Reno and Carson city which was nuked also. South takes you to Fallon, NV. Oops Naval Air Station Fallon NV also nuked. South east takes you toward Ely, NV and Great Basin National Park a desolate dry sage covered high desert. Further south takes you into the Nevada test range where nukes were detonated decades before. East takes you to The Great Salt Lake and the sand flats... Crossing that takes you to the nuclear fallout the was Hill Air force base, Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Toole Army Depot. North east takes you to the fallout and radioactivity that was Boise and Mountain Home Airforce base. North takes you to the crater that was the Air National guard base at Klamath Falls, OR.

So which direction do you think the refugees went?

Well, I think that these guys have been suggested as planning staff and early attendees to Burning Man, so I'm pretty sure they don't have any idea about any targets they don't actually see get hit, and have no idea about fallout patterns, and don't know where the different bases and test ranges are, but I'm betting that they would prefer to strike out towards the last town they passed, somewhere they can find help and find out what's going on. Perhaps Gerlach but certainly any direction but north towards Prime Base. If they don't know "this is the end" they're going to go towards civilization and if they DO know they'll probably still risk fallout and eventual cancer over dying alone in the high desert.

And even if they did, what are the odds they actually wind up near enough to Prime Base for it to be even noted? There's a lot of desert and not much else. And even if they, by luck or some brilliant bit of prescience that the deep desert is their best option they make it... why would Prime Base open? Because this would presumably be in the first hours or days after the war, when biological weapons and other problems would be at their highest and opening the base would be at the dumbest. And there is no way these guys are still surviving in the desert 2 years post war.

So yeah, my guesses are probably south to Gerlach or dead in the desert before Prime Base does anything or even notices them.

That takes you to Wadsworth, NV about 15 miles east of Nevada on interstate 80....

So you get the initial rush of survivors from Reno and Carson City heading east. Their met by the truckers, tour buses, and cars from West Wendover, and others fleeing west from the nukes in Salt Lake City.

Now their city on the only east west path with mobs of more refugees coming at them . I-80 is a funnel for everyone coming out of Northern California trying to escape east.

North and slightly east to lightly populated eastern Oregon and the Snake River.... Cour'd' alene maybe?

Or maybe they just hold up on the Soldiers Meadow Dude Ranch, as it is one of the only areas with year around water?

I still have problems with this route of exposure. Smallpox vaccine is administered via a bifurcated needle dipped into the vaccine and basically tattooed to the skin of the upper arm. Add in the rabies virus and the rabies virus is delivered via a nonbite exposure. This rarely develops into a rabies infection according to the CDC and in nonbite exposures they may not even administer the rabies vaccine as a post exposure prophylactic. So if we read "rarely" as meaning 50% of the time, Prime Base would still survive. You need to find an intramuscular injection if you want the rabies to work in the manner you describe. If you can make it getting MMRV boosters that are tainted with rabies, then you have your infection and kill rates where you want them.

So these refugees decide to go not with the crowd but towards a region so desolate that a dude ranch is the best chance they have for survival in the region, AND they know that ranch is there in the first place, AND they stay in the area long enough that they overwhelm the ranch's resources AND the Project notices them AND the Project decides to risk the entire Project to expose the headquarters at the worst possible time?

To quote the great Jayne Cobb, "Smelling a lot of 'if' comin' off this plan..."

There are two major issues.

First, the site for Prime Base was chosen specifically to be out of the way. It is hours of travel away from anyone who might have any reason to move, and it is hours away from those people in a direction that they have no reason to go unless they want a slow, lingering death in the desert. For them to go that direction requires that they have a massive amount of information that no one outside of Prime Base is likely to have at that point, and probably not even they have it.

Second, the timetable for this option requires that Prime Base not expose themselves at the beginning of operations but at the beginning of the "hide and watch" phase. It is the worst decision they could make and they would have to know it. They have minimal understanding of what is going on in the world, and refugees at this point are at the very most likely to be carrying a biological weapon. Heck, the war is not likely to be an "overnight" thing, Prime Base opening their doors could very well get seen on satellite and receive a nuke for their troubles! Prime Base has to stay hidden until they are sure that (a) everyone is done shooting and (b) there aren't any roaming hazards like biological weapons in the area.

So Prime Base falling because it takes on refugees from Burning Man requires both brilliantly informed refugees and even more colossal stupidity and disregard for "the plan" than ever. I just don't see it.

It is worthwhile to remember that in this universe, the US government has already found a way to steal or independently develop things like cryogenic freezing of living humans, so it is probably not a stretch to say that new biological weapons, that don't match current performance, could be in play.

That having been said, a biological weapon that is 100% fatal is highly improbable and pretty stupid (unless there is a counteragent that for some reason the Project cannot develop). I still think that sabotage in Prime Base is probably the best bet.

The Burning Man crowd is the crowd to follow in this case. They know how to organize on a big scale. The ranch like many others and the sources for water are all on standard topographical maps. North or Northeast are the only ways to logically go. They cannot stay on the Playa/Gerlach; and to the north is eastern Oregon which isn't much of a high desert except where OR/NV/ID come together. Eastern Oregon is plains and forested hills with lots of water and many, many ranches. The border with NV is where that is coming together. The valleys have seasonal creeks or runoff and year round ground water. The only issue is fallout from Sierra Army Depot and Carson City, NV and with diseases like cholera breaking out from poor sanitation discipline. There is pretty good game in the area. White tail deer and prong horns, along with feral cattle, goats, and wild horses. Rabbits seem to die by the dozens on the roadways without a dent in their population.

Prime Base was sited and chosen specifically in the 1960s and 1970s.... They could not have anticipated all the aging hippies, anarchists, drug fueled electronic music kids, and their dealers coming to the Playa to get naked, stoned, and have orgies for a week in the summer. They didn't anticipate the growth of Gerlach and the federal agencies in the area to support the Burning Man event either.

It's all high desert. Low rainfall, but not the absolute lack of water. It is there to be found the area is blanketed in sage brush and cedar trees with grasses aplenty.

I didn't say that Prime Base opened immediately. I gave a plausible enough reason for why there are refugees to be in the area.. because any other direction is dead, destroyed, polluted, or completely uninhabitable.... Nevada is a donut with an uninhabitable center that the USAF/USN enjoys the freedom to drop all manner of ordnance with a circle of habitable green all around it.

Considering the staggering number of under 30 mulitmillionaire compsci tech Brogrammers in the Burning Man crowd and multimillionaire actors/actresses from Hollywood attending with their entourages..... still not that impossible.

They know how to organize a long party and haven't had to do it without preexisting infrastructure in decades. Planning survival in a post-apocalypse setting is a real stretch of their abilities.

How many topo maps do they have? Seriously, because the internet just went down for good and I don't know how many Burning Man attendees are packing USGS surveys.

I categorically disagree. Gerlach and Empire to the south make absolute sense - they are far closer, have far more resources than anything north, and are probably already known to a large number of those in attendance. Long before you hit Fallon you hit Pyramid Lake. They don't know what was hit unless it was within maybe 50-100 miles or so, and they sure don't have any way to know where the fallout will be or how intense. They're not looking for someplace to whether a war, they're looking for someplace to get their collective crap together and preferably try and get back to their actual homes and loved ones. Going north does none of that. Going north makes sense only if they know everything that is going on and decide to abandon everything and gamble that a dude ranch in the desert is the best place to spend the rest of their lives. And if there is anything serious going on, heading to that dude ranch would have to be a one-way trip - can't count on gas being available, you set up shop there you're going to be walking 50 miles to Gerlach if you need anything!

Another question: how many people at Burning Man have vehicles?

First, why not? It has always seemed weird to me that the Project had access to a genuine time traveler and yet get caught flat-footed all the time. I mean, sure they can't know everything... but Morrow never walks into a Project office and asks "got anything for me to take back to the 60's?" "Yeah boss, we knew you were coming because when you go back you tell them to plan for this. So here's a computer with an instruction manual. It has a lot of good stuff. See you next year!"

Second, Prime Base doesn't need to anticipate any of this. The only thing within 50 miles of desert is a single dude ranch, and the smartest thing they could do is buy the danged thing and then run it into the ground. And if someone shows up at their doorstep somehow, they just need to do the incredibly important jobs they have been training hard to do and keep the door shut.

Not explicitly, but if they don't then this is a staggeringly irrelevant discussion. If they do not respond to people in the area then those people have no impact on the Project. The whole conversation started because tsofian brought up the role of refugees in the fall of the Project and you proposed Burning Man as the source. If they aren't the refugees for whom Prime Base opens.... then they are irrelevant to anything.

Or are you saying that they stay at the dude ranch for 2 years, and THEN Prime Base takes them in? Because at that point, they aren't refugees, they're settlers. They're doing okay.

That does not at all sound like a crowd ready to tackle sociopathic* post-apocalyptic desert survival strategies, especially without the internet. Heck that sounds more like "get me back to civilization NOW so I can access my resources and comforts!" Seriously, that crowd has no particular knowledge or resources at Burning Man that they can leverage to help them here. I've spoken to Elon Musk, he's great in a certain role, he can't design 99% of what he is famous for producing and would not be high on my list of "guys I want leading if Mad Max isn't available."

*: Sociopathic not because of outsiders but because they are going to abandon everyone and everything they didn't bring to Burning Man with them, and instead head in a direction chosen only because they are experts on fallout who know what's been hit and by what and who have determined that a dude ranch in the high desert is going to be their "forever home" whether the occupants like it or not. They're sociopaths!

Now imagine if the Wasteland cosplayers were having their event as the War kicks off. https://www.wired.com/2016/09/wastel...man-look-lame/

and there is great pictures for you to use as wasteland neobarbs.

Burning Man does not only attract unskilled party attendees. I would expect the early group to have construction workers, long-haul truck drivers, artisans and engineers. This group has a good likely hood of having survival skills from their hobbies, some will have reconstruction skills via vocation and there will be paper maps in the form of at least a few road atlases.

In a few years will they be a thriving community? No probably not. What they will be is a group that looks like they are trying to accomplish in some small way the mission of the Project. If only they had a few more resources, they might just make it.

Burning Man takes place on federally controlled land. If the Feds and the local county governments do not issue the permits there will be no Burning Man. How likely will the Feds be willing to issue the permits for a big party out in a desert with 1), war with the Chinese and Russians looming and 2), the impending impact of a giant asteroid? How likely will the super rich hippies want to attend Burning Man when the possibility of losing their wealth in the big WW3 looms large on the horizon?

I doubt the local counties would issue the permits because they do not want to be the governments responsible for caring and rescuing the hippies stuck out in the desert when poop hits the fan.

More than likely the BOD of the businesses those super rich hippies own will push for less play time and more prep for the bleak future.

Whereas in 3rd edition nobody saw it coming in 4th edition everybody sees it coming and can prepare.

I am sure that there would be many who were planning to have an End of the World Burning Man celebration before the asteroid strike, permits be damned, since the impact location would not be exactly pinpointed. With the military on high alert for foreign threats, a group of hippies in the desert away from high population centers will not get much of a response. The nukes were still unexpected and changed everything.

Hmmm, Add a weak LE response and one may have a militia cadre.

Why would the federal government aka the Park Service care? At this point they have other things more important to do than babysit adults who want to get drunk / stoned and dance to wierd music. What would their response be when half that number 50,000 people turn up anyway?

At that point I don't think anyone could careless about permits. The code enforcement guy would just get laughed back into his car.

Maybe, or their isn't any point. Some businesses wouldn't have a purpose without the grid and financial institutions. Oracle and Cisco come to mind.

I am so disappointed in the editing and final product that I paid $50.00 for ........ I don't give a damn what the 4th edition says.

If I could get my $50 back I might care.

Water, toilets, EMTs, Fire Services, Food distribution, waste management, and power generation with strict zoning and maintenance of lanes and structures. Built on a site atop a desert playa to support 100,000 revelers for seven days and a few hundred for a week before and a week after..... possibly 30 - 45 days..... for a seven day event.

If you say so.


These are not expensive and people out here tend to get out alot. Personally in my SUV at this moment is a topo atlas for NV, UT, OR, and CO... along with city maps for Denver, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, and a dozen others large enough to get lost in. The Ranger District can provide dozens or hundreds just ask. I don't use GPS, but I learned maps and compass in the Army. Experience in the Army taught me not to trust GPS navigation either. Maps abound.


If you like, going back south puts you into the fallout pattern of all the places just visited. Right back into the confused frightened mobs fleeing east from Sacrament on I80 and the confused frightened mobs fleeing west from Salt Lake City. I would like to think that some semblance of the rapidly disintegrating FedGov is broadcasting from Raven Rock Alternate Joint Command or Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in the Emergency broadcasting system via AM/FM/Shortwave with facts on fallout and impacts.

There are thousands of vehicles at Burning Man.. During the event people must walk or use pedal power unless the vehicle has been deemed mobile art... Art cars are popular and very creative. People arrive on buses then sleep in tents. RV, campers, and all manner of conversions. Gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, hybrids, electrics, solar..... These are creative people and crafty people. Sail racing and velocipede racing are side activities.


Oh Bruce.... According to Richard Tucholka, it isn't that certain. One Bruce also side steps dimensions.. Infinite earths. Bruce gets a small mention in Fringeworthy, another game by Richard. Second, there is also paradoxes, every change upsets all the other futures. When Bruce tries to implement large changes at some singular point things change radically. The sort where Hitler dies as corporal from allied artillery in 1917. Leon Trotsky bests Josef Stalin for the number two position in the Soviet in the 1920s forcing Stalin into exile. That sort of thing. Bruce can implement the Big Picture like organizing the Council of Tomorrow and that seems to not produce so many possible outcomes.

Which I assume they would do. Is it heartless and cruel? Yes, so is a nurse debriding dead flesh off a third degree burn. The Project is to save civilization, not survivors.

If you say so. I think many will still be in the area five years on. Simply because there isn't much point in traveling hundreds of miles of unknown to look at another nuke impact. Will there be 100,000... not with the canon 95% death toll from nukes, disease, war plagues, and nuclear winter. A few hundred living in RVs and living on game and gardening in canyons. Sure, why not?

Managing, subsisting, yep. Prime Base can do better with at a minimum modern medicine and agricultural assistance.


If you say so.... I see the type that gets things done. That sold door to door or worked three jobs and made their own success. I don't think any are going to rise up and be George Washington. I think they will still rise to the top in organization and using resources to max potential making them Mayors more than Kings. That goes for the business leaders, the film stars and rock stars, I expect will just die or get their hands dirty.

Meh, we can only speculate. People do some amazing things when the other option is death.

The sore caused by the small pox vaccination will likely be enough to introduce the rabies virus into the host-I can't state this as a fact because I doubt there is any literature on this, but since the smallpox vaccine causes a small to moderate amount of tissue damage at the inoculation site it doesn't seem unreasonable to me. The rabies virus would quite likely find a lovely place to hang out and multiply in that region until it can get into the host.

What changes have you made? What do you replace the asteroids with? Plague or "Rage Zombies" are two possibilities, I use Rogue 417 in my early 4TH musings. Drop the Judge and P38, if I want a 9mm single stack, I'd use Colt Commanders. I'm rotating UH1's and 5 Ton trucks into the mix, but I lost which axles are V150's. The V100 used M54 axles, this is for supply reasons in my game, also made it easier to convert. The UH1 is less complex and common enough. I'm thinking of adding an off site transportation base for ground and an air one beyond that.
Prime Base victim to Rogue, hmmm, that would require minor changes, perhaps more battle damage that would aid in the deception. Rogue would be long dead by the time the PC's arrived but one could kepp them in suspense with dust and fake rolling of dice. Actually I wouldn't use rogue at all 150 years later, but it allows me two campaigns in a shared world.

I am forced to make changes if I was to PD a game. Everyone I know that would love to play this has read the game book and modules cover to cover many times. Also as 40+ years old and most are less interested in combat and more problems in world building. They can be really critical of handwavium too.

Right now, I am thinking of how to introduce a plausible Soviets threat as great as the Kentucky Free States... So I am thinking of reinforcements coming from a NeoSoviet Republic formed from an alliance of Vladivosok and Petropavlosk in the Soviet Far East to the Soviet enclave in Seattle.

As far as the Cause of the War.... The accidental computer wargame fires a total U.S. nuclear response and Soviets Dead Hand system retaliates with a total Soviet nuclear response. India and Pakistan go to it and collapse into failed states. The Chinese strike out in all directions with an arsenal far greater than expected. The Chinese aim is to wreck the governments and structure of local rivals so as to position themselves as a superpower for a hundred years. Except that China gets it back from Soviets and India in larger scale than anticipated. The real devastation comes from the indiscriminate release of viral and bacterial plagues by governments, terrorists, and religious fanatics with irrational grudges that decimate not only human populations, but livestock and farm crops too.