NEW Adventure Module!
 

Glad to see the modules are still about half the size of the rules. Seriously, a 154 page module? Sounds more like a source book to me.

I can't order it until paypal stop pissing around with my account, or it comes to amazon pod which I think Chris mentioned somewhere. I'd love fresh copies of all the old stuff too, some of mine are a little grubby.

The last revision I read was 65 pages in length, but that was over 10 years ago.

I got a PDF version of Operation: Daidalos (Recon Pack - 014), since the printed copies are gonna be delayed a few weeks. Quick summary:

• 156 pages including front and back cover
• the setting covers most of California, and some of Baja California
• the Project FAV is given stats in 4th Edition terms; I presume it's about the same as when it appeared in "Desert Search". Another, new type of Project vehicle is described in general terms.
• 1 pounder, 4 pounder, and 10 pounder muzzle-loading cannons are described.

Without giving much away (and I haven't read it cover-to-cover yet), the scenario involves the players' team in a small war.
Illustrations are nice looking, though there isn't a drawing of the new Morrow vehicle; and for some reason page 129 has a couple of nice drawings of an M88. Some more maps would have been nice.

--
Michael B.

Without giving to much away. Did you find the description of the elevator shaft and entrance to the base odd as well? To me it doesn't add up and something is missing to how it is described.

MEDIUM SPOILERS FOLLOW

Keep in mind the outside cover mentions "the specifications, layout and personnel of Juliet Echo One."

The Morrow Base

• The base does seem kind of a skimpy retread of Prime. The "find it and open things up" sequence seems odd, or maybe unlikely -- an awful lot of digging could go on, and the "find it with a metal detector" scheme seems to ignore all the other metal found in the rubble of a destroyed civilization. The area to be searched is almost 200 square kilometers.
• The "time to vent nitrogen" and "time to revive people" aren't stated, though a mention of "eight hour increments" suggests that's the amount of time it takes; the scenario seems to want to keep the player-characters "at bay", instead of wandering around the base while the NPCs are thawing. What set of RPG player-characters that have searched, blasted, tunneled, rappeled, etc. will then wait for ... well, they don't know it's eight hours. "Let's just sit on our hands and see what happens."
• Also, venting tens of thousands of cubic meters of nitrogen gas will be quite the spectacle on the surface.
• And there's no "back door". The effects of sea level rise on the "big vehicle door" aren't taken into account.
• The "fire stairs" seem to bypass some of the internal security. The floor plans conflict ... the "MARS" level map on page 109 shows stairs, but none of the later plans show them.
• It seems the medical staff will be the first people the player-characters interact with ("The 24 Medical staff are the first to be revived when the base is activated."), for eight hours or so ... and the leader of that group is described as "loud, overbearing, arrogant and contemptuous of others' opinions." Spending eight hours working with/under him could be interesting - I don't have a problem with cranky Project members, but a lot more description of his views and reactions would be useful, since by the time anyone higher-ranking and more diplomatic has woken up, this guy may well poison the attitudes of the player-character group.
• All in all, the Morrow base seems like a tacked-on "reward" for the player-characters after they've dealt with the war, earthquake, etc. -- or a way to entirely bail them out, if they're in over their heads.

The Daidalos Community

• The Project involvement in "Daidalos" and the "obligation by the Morrow team to do what somebody's great-, great-, great-grandchildren tell you" seems weird; also the "we can't tell anyone at Daidalos that our great-, great-, great grandparents were part of a secret, high-tech organization (the Morrow Project) dedicated to surviving the Atomic War and preserving civilization, because they'll freak out" ... even though Daidalos itself is exactly that. A handout text document of the "orders given to the Morrow Project agents at Daidalos" would have been very useful, since the scenario seems to think these orders convey some sort of authority over Project members.
• Page 72 seems to say that the likely player-character team (with two 20mm cannon-armed V-150 armored cars) was (besides the usual Recon stuff) to "establish the existence of the Daidalos research facility, and aid their efforts." Having the information known to the team, and their actual instructions, would be a very, very useful handout.
• When the player-characters are taken for interrogation at Daidalos, if the "refuse to help in any way", or object to rough handling (which implies they get some), they are thrown in jail, where they rot until the town is on the verge of destruction -- up to 2 or 3 months later! Hmm. I don't have an objection to people mistrusting strangers, but the scenario doesn't seem to have much information on what happens if the player-characters don't go along with the script. Keeping members out of the town in one of their two V-150 armored cars, or leaving someone to watch their own vehicles, or breaking out of jail: not described as options.
• If the player-character team does end up in custody, what their captors do with two armored cars and a lot of 21st Century gear isn't described. Their captors are reasonably tech-savvy, and would have the team's MPID cards.

Science

• A major feature of the scenario turns on some sketchy geological science ... which is fine; but since the "evidence" and the "refutation" are all up to various NPCs, it seems kinda arbitrary. A particular NPC can be asked to "analyze the data" by the player-characters ... but I haven't seen anything that suggests the player-character team would believe this NPC over some other NPCs. Having a player-character geologist would change a lot of things; none of the pre-generated potential player-characters are geologists.
• While I don't have a problem with it, one of the pre-gen MP characters barely graduated from high school, and spent 4 years working in a motor pool in the Army. That's fine, and he's an excellent mechanic ... but keep that in mind when your players describe their own non-college-educated Project concepts.
• A Project NPC has spent two years in the desert with a PRC-70 radio, no Morrow vehicle, somehow monitoring the radio quite a lot -- and keeping the batteries charged. He's not listed as having any technical skills at all.
• Sentient plants?

Production

• The illustrations of people, vehicles, etc. are nice, though they don't often seem to be showing what's being described. See page 132 for an example: maybe those are Morrow team members, but what's that vehicle behind them? Maps of California and wide areas are very nice; the maps of towns and the inside of the Morrow base, eh.
• The whole book is designed to resemble a set of manila folders, open on a wooden board surface. So, about 10-15% of the book is art surrounding the actual text -- the same two pieces of background art.

Things I Do Like

• There is a lot to like and use here -- and IMPORTANT I haven't read everything in every chapter yet. There's a lot of cultural and personality descriptions of the "nations" in Southern California. There's lots of detailed "order of battle" lists for the various forces going to war as the player-characters arrive. Is there a mass combat system incorporated into the Fourth Edition? I also like that a couple of major fiction/gaming tropes are subverted by the actual events.
• The authors seem to prefer the player-character team find a diplomatic solution to the war threatening the area. It's nicely not a hand-holding scenario -- here's the people, what will you do? -- and believably nigh-impossible to carry out completely peacefully.

I feel I will get my money's worth from this, and our players will enjoy it, but for our campaign a lot of reworking of the Morrow base will be needed.

Robert O'Connor, listed a content contributer, is presumably the same guy who made the excellent "North American Target List" and "UK and Western European Target List" documents for "classic" MP. I'm pretty sure he's the one who described the effects of the San Onofre reactor being destroyed.

--
Michael B.

One other thing about the Daidalos scenario book: it seems to state that (at least) some members of the Morrow Project were able to bring their entire families along into cryosleep, in Project facilities.

An interesting facet, which the Project Director should think over carefully.

--
Michael B.

MILD SPOILERS

As far as I can tell, the town of Daidalos is roughly at Josephine Peak, a few miles northwest of the Mount Wilson observatory.

A big weird "typo": there seem to be two maps of Daidalos "township" -- or a map of the town, and a map of the "facility" ...

• page 74: a crude map of the town -- definitely not the "facility"
• page 75: a nice map with contour lines (which led me to think it's at Josephine Peak), it seems to match the town description, and has the legend "Daidalos Township" printed at the bottom.

The numbered guide to the structures is a bit "off" for the nice map, which doesn't entirely match the written description, either. The maps are entirely different in layout; I suspect the "nice" map of Daidalos was drawn after the book was written and submitted for editing.

The nice one has 50 or 60 un-labeled buildings, presumably "homes"; the description of the town as having a population of only 110 residents (including 50 troops) seems way too low.

The separate "facility" isn't easy to pin down; it's in a valley northeast of the Town. Its population is stated as being "two or three times that of the town". There's supposedly an airfield and "launch gantries". If there's a hydroelectric power generator, it's not on top of a mountain ... so ... Big Tujunga Dam? While not a power generating dam, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine a simple turbine installed post-boo-boo ... though the survival of the dam given the seismic changes described seems iffy.

Page 78 has the map of level 1 of the Morrow base ... I think that the map of the Daidalos "facility" got mixed up.

More reading to do.

--
Michael B.

I believe what you are reading will also go into print as well, I have found a few typos as well in my slow reading.

There could be a few re-prints in the future for this one.

Just received the book in the mail today. The only thing I've noticed in the first few minutes: the nicely detailed maps on pages 147-148 are unreadable at the smallest font sizes, such as the town names. Otherwise it seems the same as the PDF; I doubt Timeline had enough time to fix any typos in the last few weeks!

--
Michael B.

Received mine in the mail as well. Yes they are small, but I can read them ok. I'm hoping Chris is planning on releasing the maps as a separate download at some point in the near future.

I'll ask him what software and digital map source was used for those maps.

I think this particular scenario sacrificed a lot of the charm of the old modules for what felt like an old Twilight 2000 scenario in a bad way.

Basically dozens of samey communities with similar aims and none of the quirkiness that gave the older scenarios both fun and menace.

Also for such a large intact Morrow base it felt like it was a bit bland.

I've been working on a "classic" setting version of the Maritime Base for our local campaign.

SPOILERS BELOW

http://asmrb.pbworks.com/w/page/1298...aritime%20Base

Instead of the very modern landing craft in the published book, our base has an older style (late Fifties/early Sixties) of LST. The Newport-class were newer at the time (mid-Eighties), but waaaay too big to be hiding in a tunnel.
Some notes:

• the two side "storage and garage" areas each have a floor space of about 1.1 hectare
• I moved the "really hazardous" stuff out of the base, to bolthole-style storage bunkers at least a kilometer away.
• sea level rise can really mess with an underground "dry dock"!
• more entrances and exits seemed appropriate
• I'm not sure I will draw all the upper levels ... they're not likely to be the scene of a firefight.
• the Council of Tomorrow clearly is behind (i.e., secretly in control of, and probably founded) the Catalina land conservancy group. The base shown is located just north of the village of Two Harbors, on Santa Catalina Island; the cross-section showing a "mountain peak" is based (roughly) on the contour maps of the area.

Remember, all of this is for the "canonical" Atomic War date of 1989.

Feel free to crib, copy, re-use, criticize, kvetch, etc.; attribution would be appreciated but isn't required! Tip o' the hat to Nathan VanDuser, Chris Morrell, and Rob O'Connor for the excellent, original "Daidalos" book!

--
Michael B.

I've been slowly going over sections in detail. A general problem: the table of contents isn't very good (and there's no Index). For example, the "survivor groups" (all the local nations and communities) fills pages 17 to 71 of 154 numbered pages (thus 1/3 of the book): but "survivor groups" (Chapter 2, second B) is as detailed as the table of contents gets for those pages.

Some puzzling decisions by the writers in regards to the nation-community of Amega S'hana:

MANY SPOILERS

Steven Baxter is an NPC Project member from a different team than the player-characters; he was captured 3 years (or not, see below) before the module date by the Coachella Valley community ("Amega S'hana", which isn't given a translation into the Cahuilla language); his team stumbled into a shootout with a patrol from one nation (the Nueva Republica, aka Mexicanos) and just as the bullets stopped flying the Amega S'hana army showed up. Six of his team members were killed in the continuous battle; he and one other survivor were captured, along with one remaining Morrow Project fusion-powered XR-311, and taken to the Coachella Valley (aka Palm Springs for the rest of you non-California). The two Project members were placed in a "prison camp" and kept there for a year (per page 73) or three years (per page 103) as convicted spies (despite their gear, language, etc. differences from the supposed enemy). Eventually the other Morrow prisoner died, and Baxter "pushed ... to his limit" escaped; he found a Project cache, resupplied himself a bit, and then spends two years eluding the Amegans, until he contacts the player-character team. None of the above are problems (though the date thing needs a fix); but:

• Baxter has Project radios, and the "wake up codes" for several other teams (he's the coordinator of all Recon teams in California) ... but hasn't used the radios to wake up any of those teams, though he's been hanging around the area, "... hoping all the time that some other MP team might eventually find him." Why didn't he wake one or more teams up? The player-character team was awakened by someone else, not Baxter.
  
• another issue: on page 105 the text states Baxter "[...] does not like the Amegans but will grudgingly say that they are trustworthy and honorable if treated respectfully at all times. Baxter doesn't like the Mexicanos at all." Very, very odd: he spent one or three years in an Amegan prison camp, from which he was driven to escape -- and his only contact with the "Mexicanos" was during the same battle in which the Amegans captured him. Why would he like the Amegans any more than the Mexicanos? Well, he is insane, I suppose. Stockholm syndrome?
  
• no mention is made of his feelings about Colonel Mulderry, commander of the Border Rangers, the man who captured Baxter three or five years ago, and probably killed at least one of his team mates in that battle -- and "who will be anxious to take the team to into the capitol" for questioning.
  
• the description of the Amegans' understanding and treatment of the Project teams is inconsistent. It seems they were willfully ignorant of Baxter's obvious "not a spy" status when they captured him. But on page 104: "Unknown to Baxter, the Amegans had altered their judgement of him and his teammate soon after retrieving them from the desert [...] With their usual sharp wit and decisiveness they set to studying the vehicle, attempting to unlock its secrets." So asking him about the "secrets" was a no-no? The circumstances of his captivity aren't described much, but apparently he wasn't questioned (except about his supposed espionage activities) and was driven to escape.
  
• the "Amegans" are Tech Level C (solar electricity, wind turbines) to E (agriculture, weapons). They're described as having a half-dozen internal-combustion military vehicles, but otherwise steam engines are the most advanced vehicles; Tech Level E weapons are circa the American Civil War. Okay, all well and good -- very "Mad Max". But the "great secret" is the fusion power plant of the captured XR-311. I can certainly agree the Tech Level C to E locals can realize it's amazing, but (page 104 again): "While they are still many years from creating a working fusion power plant themselves, the Amegan scientists have made great strides in understanding fusion power and its potential applications." The 4th Edition says about Project reactors: "Inside almost all the Project’s vehicles was an electrodynamic confinement reactor - a vacuum chamber containing a complex grid of electromagnets which could hold a fusing ball of plasma and tap its energy to produce electricity. The big advantage of this system was that vehicles only needed to refuel every 18 months or so. The big disadvantage was that a high-voltage, high current electrical source was needed to start the reactor." I have my doubts about the Amegans being anywhere near understanding the reactor -- if they know it's fusion it will be due to the label on the casing.
  
• a related issue: if the reactor runs out of fuel after 18 months ... shouldn't the captured XR311 be out of fuel by the date of the module?
  
• also about the Amegans: they have a stated population of 25,000. People under 18 will be about 25% of the population; "old" and the sick, criminal, etc. will be at least 15%. That leaves 15,000 productive adults. In the United States currently, 10% of the population are age 15 to 19 -- let's call that "high school" age; so the Amegans would have 2,500 people at that age level. Another ten percent are aged 20 to 24. In 1940, about 25% of white Americans over age 25 had a high school diploma; about 5% of white males over age 25 had a 4 year college degree. If we presume the Amegans can do as well overall as the most favored social group of 1940, then there would be (25,000 x 0.65 x 0.05 =) 813 college graduates (of all ages) in Amega S'hana ... which I consider too high for such a small self-sufficient community, but let's continue anyway. High school teachers, doctors and pharmacists, and "liberal arts" degree holders will make up half of these graduates (to an approximation, and not counting the chance of multiple degrees); so there are 406 people who might have STEM degrees. Assuming that graduates each year roughly equal the loss to death, emigration, or other "loss of status" events, there might be about 25 STEM degree graduates per year, out of 50 graduates total. Okay, so they have a well-established small ... hmm (page 66) "Nixon Gutierrez is Chair of the Engineering Department of Palm Springs University." Pretty fancy for a post-apocalyptic town college.

It's still an interesting and informative module, and our local group is looking forward to playing through it.

--
Michael B.

Our local group will be starting on this scenario in a month or two, so I'm still plowing through the book.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

I do wish the authors had included a page or so of well-presented arguments in favor of the "purge" alliance. There are some phrases and fragments, but no paragraphs of their beliefs in their own words. The people of Bernar have "... churchmen whose sole job is to make sure their folk are stayin' clear of El Maqina Diablo." What sort of church is this? A variety of Christianity doesn't seem likely, given the "sole job" of the churchmen. There's also a group of Amish who apparently share the anti-technology belief. Since the player-characters are hopefully going to be visiting possible allies in the area on diplomatic missions, having a taste of how the people of Bernar have convinced everyone about their crusade would be useful.

--
Michael B.

More reading of the Operation: Daidalos scenario.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

• A surviving, working tactical nuclear weapon seems technically unlikely ... but eh. However, the trigger for the whole Purge story-line is "a scurrying mountain man" carrying tales back to incite the rabid anti-science cultures. This would seem to imply that any tale at all -- true or not -- would have set them off. The nuclear weapon isn't actually needed to start the war, just some Mountain Coot telling tall tales. "I think we're all indebted to Gabby Johnson for clearly stating what needed to be said! Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish ... "
• I'm still unconvinced by the "tectonic survey" and precision earthquake detection powers of the Daidalos people. I've decided to scrap the whole nuclear-weapon-and-massive-earthquake plot, and to go with ... an airplane. The people of Daidalos were chosen for their aerospace skills; the town has a runway and "launch gantries" somewhere. Getting the Luddite crusade all riled up would only take something as simple as a biplane flying around.

More thinkings needed ...

--
Michael B.

I'm not completely set on the nuke either at this moment. I never put much thought into a replacement, but I do like your idea of an airplane, it does seem to fit into the anti-tech groups manifesto and ideology.

I have been thinking about how the team gets into the base thou, as written I think there could be a problem with how it is done.

SPOILERS

Yeah, I think the authors underestimate the size of the island, and the amount of 20th Century "stuff" on the island.

"... a Morrow Project installation somewhere on Catalina Island ... In 2167 nothing remains of the facility, but careful searching with a Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) or metal detector will locate the steel door ... buried under about five feet of soil, rock and vegetation ... "

So we're to expect a team will search the entire island with a metal detector, and whenever they get a signal they'll dig at least five feet down? They'll be doing a lot of digging!

Attached is an elevation view of the base for our (classic era) version.

--
Michael B.

The only item that I have seen in the rules is the MAGNETIC SENSOR at 15kg and can be vehicle mounted, which kind of gives me the idea this is not what we think it should be. Now I'm not sure if 5 feet down is even detectable (another research project I guess)

I have begun doing up stats for portable metal/mine detectors for the game.

The elevator is what has me scratching my head.

Overall I like the module.

Presuming that the "steel door at the top of the elevator shaft" is reasonably thick (any armor value at all), I feel that 5 feet of depth will be easily found by any sort of metal detector. Making a super-sensitive metal detector isn't always useful ... you pick up all the other stuff in the area, olod plumbing, rebar, your own gear, etc.. Military detectors look for land mines with a few ounces of metal, at least a few inches underground ... I suspect a hundred kilograms of stainless steel will set them off fine. You'll still have to be within 3 or 4 meters, though, at a guess.

"Feet" ... bah, mixing metric and Imperial units ...

• I was also puzzled ... how was concrete during construction, motor vehicles, etc. supposed to have gotten into the underground base? The seaward opening seems to still be "original", undisturbed rock (until the base is unsealed).
  
• Opening the elevator shaft automatically resuscitates the base crew ... updates would have been awkward.
  
• "the elevator was destroyed when the [surface] facility was leveled" ... but the shaft is capped by a steel door. Why wasn't the elevator below the steel door? And, when the elevator was in use, the card slot at the bottom of the shaft would be hard to reach.
  
• The areas beyond the door at the bottom of the elevator have breathable air: "opening the doors atop the elevator shaft has triggered an automatic sequence that vents the inert gases used to preserve the facility and bleeds in oxygen." So: you open the top door, climb down 80 feet, open another door ... and everything is already peachy? That's gonna be some thrilling venting! Plus, oxygen being "bled" from tanks is gonna be cold ... though presumably there are heaters.
  
• It would be interesting to know the "five other languages" that the airlock instructions are labelled in. Given all the required California-only Project ID cards up to this point ... who do they expect will be reading it?
  
• I just now made a small graphic showing what I think they're trying to describe. Note the two human figures for scale, the inset ladder in the shaft, and the ... very much a guess ... location of the upper card terminal.

--
Michael B.

SPOILERS

Another issue -- the people of Daidalos happen to have a "mobile drill rig" that can make an 18" diameter hole thousands of feet deep, to fit their "tactical nuclear device"? That's a lot of drill casing, if nothing else.

--
Michael B.

There may not be that much digging. The use of magentometers mounted on aircraft is used to scan for ferrous metals quite regularly. These aircraft mounted sensors can detect metal deposits 1000m underground with some pretty fine resolution, easily for the detection of a door.

The magnetic sensor is not well defined in either 3rd or 4th edition. But the description fits fairly well with the airborne sensors I have researched. The only difference would be the way it is mounted. In the air, the sensor is either a unit suspended under a rotary wing aircraft or on a stinger-like boom off the tail of a fixed wing aircraft. If the sensor were mounted to a metal vehicle, then it would be safe to say the rules description of a dead zone would be quite fit. I would think the dead zone would be closer to the 15m in 3rd edition rather than the 1m in 4th edition.

So to find this base, they just drive around and have the autonav marking the detected deposits and depths. Then look for the one that seems the most like an underground base, go to what looks like a hatch candidate and then start digging. What happens to the group as they drive all over the island is a different matter.

Note: I don't have this module, so I am just basing this on the information in this thread.

Hmm, if that's the range and resolution of a MAD boom, then finding any underground structure (let alone the door) will be trivial ... just a few passes over or near the island should be enough (especially if you know or suspect it's on the coast). The island is about 200 square kilometers in area, but much of it is only 5 kilometers wide. I wonder how the magnetic detector "indicates" information ...

--
Michael B.

Here are a couple PDFs for your consideration on airborne magnetometer surveys:

https://www.geosci-instrum-method-da...5-181-2016.pdf

https://www.geosoft.com/media/upload...vey_Reeves.pdf

If there are enough other ferrous minerals in the area, that may help mask the location, but a solid steel door should still show if you take more passes closer together.

Very interesting stuff!

"The airframes of modern aircraft are primarily constructed from aluminium alloys which are non-magnetic; the main potential magnetic sources are the engines. As a first approach, then, magnetometer sensors have always been mounted as far away as possible from the aircraft engines."

In an armored car the whole vehicle is a magnetic source, alas.

"Permanent magnetisation of the aircraft which will be unchanging unless engines are changed or magnetic objects (such as toolboxes) are brought on board."

Not sure how the Project avoids that. Careful with re-arranging your machine guns!

Finding the base itself (which has thousands of tons of rebar and structural steel) will make finding the actual entrance much easier. Keep in mind that whatever capabilities you describe for the Project magnetic sensor will be brought up again by your teams!

--
Michael B.

I have been giving this some additional thought. To work, the magnetometer would have to be some kind of standoff distance from the team's vehicle. Going with something a kin to the fixed wing aircraft solution, the sensor could be mounted on a collapsible 3-4m pole that attaches to the body of vehicle, giving a final height of 4-5m above ground level. Driving with the sensor up would limit their speed and the types of terrain they could drive in. This does not stop them from doing measurements in rough areas, as they could go there with the sensor down, stop the vehicle, raise the mast, take the measurement, lower the mast, drive to the next location in the search grid and repeat. It would take probably 1-2 minutes to raise the mast, 1-2 minutes for the sensor to stabilize and take the measurement, another 1-2 minutes to lower and secure the mast with about 1 minute for general chaos running around the vehicle. So about 12 measurements per hour not counting travel time in rough terrain. There is still the 15m diameter blind spot directly below the mast caused by the large ferrous mass constantly there. This might be a suitable compromise for making the base a bit more difficult to find.

I don't have the module so am not party to all of the details of available equipment, etc. But I do work for an engineering consulting company that conducts this type of survey for civil and archeology applications.

There are other options for this type of survey (this includes magnetic, GPR and LIDAR). For those difficult to access areas, we've used a mountain bike. More recently, the use of drones has saved massive amounts of time and money for surveys.

Venting shouldn't be that much of a problem, Morrow normally just use Nitrogen to store their bases. So to make it breathable you just have to add Oxygen to make a 80(nitrogen)/20(oxygen) mix

It's certainly nitrogen in our local campaign; but I don't imagine the base is sealed with negative pressure (which invites infiltration of gases through any cracks or bad seals). So, some nitrogen has to be removed to keep the air pressure from increasing.

The base might have an "oxygen remover" as part of the environmental system -- it can thus "self-store", instead of requiring vast amounts of nitrogen to be provided every time it's opened for re-stocking. Perhaps before the Atomic War there was a terminal connection aboveground, as part of the now-missing elevator, to suppress the "pump in oxygen" reflex.

I was more impressed/concerned about the speed with which the base transformed from "static/inactive" to "ready to walk around in".

SPOILER

I suppose the excess nitrogen could be vented underwater (it is a coastal base, after all).

--
Michael B.

https://soundcloud.com/user-494087291

I mentioned this excellent resource else where, but there's a few episodes on the UK's plan to use converted car ferries as floating bunkers. I wonder if the project would think of something similar? Would this be a logical extension of some of the elements in Daedolos?

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...lear-planning/

Floating bases were talked about in a different thread. There is a company that will make a luxury yacht that is basically an artificial island build on a SWATH style hull. I don't think any consensus was reached.

I suspect you're referring to the proposed "Mobile Continuity Force", described in the "Professional Notes" section of the US Naval Institute "Proceedings" (July, 1984) and excellently depicted as the "Mobile Continuity Force" vessel on the Shipbucket web site. The USNI article isn't easily available online, but the Shipbucket page is:

http://www.shipbucket.com/drawings/7048

The old Shipbucket forum had a detailed description of the crew, weapons, sensors, etc. ... they're recently re-mixed everything and the old forum pages don't seem to be around.

Our Classic-era campaign has quick-and-easy conversions of T-2 tankers (they were turbine-electric vessels, and low cost in the early 1980s) rather than a built-from-the-ground-up design. http://asmrb.pbworks.com/w/page/5264...uction%20Fleet

The tanker conversion description is based on the vehicle transport vessels built for the government in the late 1960s (from earlier conversions to railcar carriers).

https://www.t2tanker.org/ships/t2active.html

https://www.t2tanker.org/ships/t2convstory.html

The "Lewis B. Puller" is sorta similar, though perhaps a bit too blatant for the Morrow Project to get away with:

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/ho...pte-1658743256

--
Michael B.

I was fascinated by what a simple idea it was, like Airforce 1 but a fraction of the cost and you could stay at see for weeks (well years with a fusion drive). In the UK it seemed to have beaten this whole fear following the Nuclear Scientists debacle that all of the ROTOR shelters would have been anhiliated on day one. And as such three converted car ferries became the biggest secret in the Nuclear War plan.

Of course the other thing is the amount of work that went into these floating bunkers was pretty minimal.

So it's not impossible another corporation or even national guard could have done their own conversions.

Now I think about it Russia has some truly monsterous nuclear powered ice breakers and their fuel would last for decades. So maybe out there is the remenants of the Russian Navy prowling the Atlantic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclea...red_icebreaker

More reading of the "Operation: Daidalos" book.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Chapter Six, "Enemy Troop Deployments", goes on for five pages in detail about all the presumed opponent nations, with information about troop numbers, weapon types, morale ratings, etc. There are also two pages giving game mechanics for the enemies' weapons. However, the Daidalos city-state doesn't have anything like this amount of detail provided:

(pg. 76-77): "Stored in the armory is an extensive collection of well-maintained 21st Century vintage weapons as well as weapons of Daidalos manufacture. The vehicles consist mainly of alcohol-fueled jeeps armed with pintlemounted .50 caliber machine guns. One jeep sports a Mk 19 40mm grenade launcher." That's pretty much it for information about their equipment.

It's implied that Daildalos has at least two hundred soldiers (based on a statement of barracks size); and apparently everyone serves for 5 years in the military after high school or college (pg. 92, "... completed their schooling and are both currently serving their compulsory five-year terms in the [Diadalos Defense Force]" (though a character description elsewhere implies that the compulsory service was once only two years).

That brings me to another issue: the stated scientific and technical capacity seems very "off" for a 6,000 person community (including children). We are told there are seismologists, geologists, astronomers, mathematicians, botanists, agronomists, chemists, rocket scientists, at least five grades of military officers up to the rank of general, a hospital "... as advanced as any pre-war hospital" and "Discoveries in botany and agronomy rival advances made just before the War."

Based on circa-1900 American population, you'd have age groups:

• age under 20: 2,664
• age 20 to 44: 2,268
• age 45 to 64: 822
• age 65 or more: 246

The "five years" compulsory service would give a military of 472 persons (if nobody's exempt) plus "lifers": say 500 total. That's pretty close to the level of militia to population in the United States during the War of 1812.

In comparison, Israel required military service of 3 years for men and 2 years for women from 1968 to 2015, starting at age 18, with about a 26% exemption/refusal rate. There's also some form of reserve service obligation.

From the 1940 U.S. Census, the work force consisted of 79.1% of the males age 14 or more, and 25.8% of the females 14 years of age or more. For Daidalos, that gives 2,372 males and 774 females in the work force, a total of 3,146 workers.

• professional persons (engineers, lawyers, judges, teachers, all medical professionals, draftsmen, librarians, musicians, etc. except college instructors as below) are 5.1% = 160, of which at least 40 will be elementary and high school teachers
• college presidents, professors and instructors are 0.1% ... about 6, certainly less than 10 for a population of 6,000.
• farm owners and farm managers are 13.7% = 431
• proprietors, managers and government officials (including professional soldiers and naval forces) are 7.6% = 239
• clerical and sales workers are 11.7% = 368
• craftsmen are 14.8% = 465
• manufacturing workers are 17.2% = 541
• domestic and service (barbers, cooks, cleaning and laundry, waiters, bartenders, prostitutes, etc.) are 4.3% = 135
• protective and emergency workers (police, firemen, guards) are 1.5% = 47
• farm laborers (including unpaid family members) are 7.6% = 239
• laborers (fishermen, longshoremen, etc.; but not including farms and mines) are 10.9% = 342
• not reported/not classified are 6% = 189

I have trouble believing this community can educate and support multiple seismologists and geophysicists, for example.

Also, if their military of 500 persons with "well-maintained 21st Century vintage weapons" has a good supply of ammunition (and they've had decades of knowledge about the threat of the Purge to prepare), defeating in defensive battles an enemy of 6,000 (mostly armed with bows, swords, spears, and some muskets) should be quite possible. Daidalos is mentioned to have used booby traps and land mines in previous wars.

I wonder if a short chapter about the Daidalosi military got misplaced or cut for space?

--
Michael B.

I only have one question about your analysis. If Daidalos is more or less a late 20th/early 21st century city-state, then why are you using 1940 census data? It is likely they have additional occupations that didn't exist in 1940. The 2000 census includes information workers and would include effects that has on the other occupations. For example:

Occupation / 2000 data / 1940 data
Professional persons / 20.2% / 5.1%
Farming / 0.7% / 13.7

Both of these examples were greatly affected by technological advances in the latter half of the 20th century. Though you will have to take some care, as the 2000 census data only includes civilians, so you will have to pull the military out of the population total before doing the break down.

Good point! But I don't consider Daidalos to just be 6,000 divided by 327 million of the 21st Century United States.

The use of 1940 data seemed a better fit to a community of only 6,000 persons that can't import technical goods (I thought about using 1930, but that would be skewed by the Great Depression). I doubt they can build (or import from China) lots of combine harvesters or other mechanized farm equipment (horses are mentioned as the usual form of transport); and I don't see them as benefiting from online tech support and other 'information technology" very much.

21st Century America (the nation covered by the 2010 census) depends heavily on foreign nations (outside of the census) for manufacturing: steel, electronics, merchant ships (and shipping), heavy machinery, etc. An independent nation is going to have to shift to self-sufficiency (at least for technical goods); they mention (pg 76) that the Daidalosi "own very little that an average person of the late 20th Century would have"; and even within Daidalos barter is still commonly used. So I chose 1940 U.S. as an example of a nation not-very-dependent on foreign manufactures or mass production of every convenience.

One of my issues with the book is the lack of information on how this tiny nation constructs things, feeds itself, educates an amazing number of college students, etc. ... quadrupling the number of professionals (college instructors, medical specialists, web application designers, seismologists, etc.) to a 21st Century America level would come at the expense of farmers, laborers, and factory workers.

Another military note: the Daidalos Defense Force has claymore mines, also.

--
Michael B.

SPOILERS

So, if you want to present Daidalos as having the same occupation patterns as 2017 America:

153.3 million employed (age 16 or more) out of 327 million (thus excluding military in both cases) translates to 2,812 persons employed out of 6,000 in Daidalos. Thus:

• management: 326
• business and finance: 139
• professional: 652 (including 169 in education, training and library occupations, and 88 in computer and mathematical occupations, and 168 in medical/healthcare occupations)
• service: 490 (including 122 in police, fire, and other protective occupations)
• sales and office: 616
• natural resources, construction and maintenance: 260 (including 22 in farming, fishing and forestry occupations)
• production, transportation and material moving: 328 (including 155 in production occupations)

For Daidalos, you can then add about 500 persons on active military duty to that. Thus 22 farmers, fishermen and forestry workers support the community (and produce a marketable surplus).

--
Michael B.

22 farmers is a bit on the light side. In 2010, 1 farmer could feed 155 people which would mean 22 farmers could feed 3410 people. A rate of 1 farmer to 100 people is probably closer to what Daidalos could do assuming methods approximating 1980-1990 agriculture, so you would need 60 farmers.

That low number of farmers (in 21st Century U.S.A.) is related to global trade and industry. Daidalos has developed high-yield crop species in several areas, it seems. The community will have to produce machines locally, however (there's no hint of trade for such things).

In 2015 United States there were 1.25 hectares of agricultural land per person; so for 6,000 persons it's 7,500 hectares.

FERTILIZERS, PESTICIDES, ETC.

A hectare of 2015 American agriculture gets an average of 137 kg of fertilizers (phosphates, nitrates, and potash); and a few kg per hectare of herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. Daidalos clearly has a very active chemical industry (especially for a nation with one working oil well).

In the 21st Century6, phosphate rock is the raw material for most commercial phosphate fertilizers. Hydrogen from natural gas is a major component of ammonia production (which in turn feeds nitrogen production); nitric acid production also limits this. Potassium chloride is the usual source for making potash fertilizer; for the U.S., it mostly comes from Saskatchewan.

PHOSPHORUS

Could be made from soy husks, rock phosphates (if available), urine or bone ash; about 1% of animal live weight is phosphorus, and 85% of it is in bones and teeth. Used in chemical preparations, in steel and bronze production, for making matches, for making pottery, in baking powder, and in limited quantities for fertilizers.

Production of white phosphorus from urine (using charcoal or silicate sand) is easy. Red phosphorus is obtained from white phosphorus be heating it to 482 F in an container entirely free of air; this is a delicate operation. White phosphorus is very toxic, and liable to catch fire in air; it should be stored in mineral oil or water. Red phosphorus is stable in air.

If sulfuric acid is available, a more efficient process can be used to produce phosphorus from phosphate rock or bones. The bones or rock are dissolved in sulphuric acid to give phosphoric acid and calcium sulphate as a by-product. The acid is concentrated, mixed with 25% of its mass with carbon, dried in iron pots to a black powder and then distilled over and over in clay retorts. It is condensed into 10-15 kg blocks called 'cheeses'. After refining and casting into sticks (all under water to prevent it catching fire), the product is ready to be shipped, stored in water or mineral oil.

AMMONIA

Production of ammonia might be achieved by heating and distillation of nitrogenous plant waste, animal and human dung and urine. Guano (sea-bird dung) is particularly rich in ammonia. If you've got coal, ammonia can also made by coal distillation -- distilling one ton of coal produces 700 kg of coke, 100 liters of ammonium hydroxide, 50 liters of coal tar, 400 cubic meters of coal gas (used for lighting and heating), 30 kilograms of sulfur and about 10 kilograms of vanadium pentoxide.

NITRATES

These might be produced in compost piles of manure, ashes, straw, urine etc.. These "saltpeter plantations" willl be supremely smelly, and thus several kilometers outside of town; usually near farms with lots of livestock. Potash is (in essence) combined with the nitrates to provide the potassium component of potassium nitrate, used in turn for making black powder. For a VERY crude first approximation, a barrel of potash combined with the nitrates from the plantation produces a barrel of potassium nitrate.

Since potassium nitrate is 75% of black powder by weight, a barrel of it (~200 kg) will end up being part of 266 kg of black powder.

POTASH

This can be made at "asheries", for chemical use and for fertilizers, brewing, bleaching textiles, black powder production, glassmaking, etc.. The production process starts with burning hardwood trees and leaching the ashes in water. Partway through the process, you get lye (useful for making soap); this is further boiled down to make potash. Leaching the wood ash, and the conversion of nitrates to potassium nitrate (aka saltpeter, or nitrate of potash), creates a lot of water pollution.

FARM EQUIPMENT

Tractors, planters and harvesters are an important part of modern farm efficiency (both in terms of yield per acre and number of persons required). In 2007 the number of wheel and crawler tractors (excluding garden tractors) in use by agriculture in the U.S. was very close to 1 per square kilometer of agricultural land.

An example of an Iowa corn and soybean farmer (the farm is operated by the owner, his son and one employee): they need a semi-truck, a tractor, a planter, and a harvester, along with various towed or attached items, all to deal with 1400 hectares of land. These vehicles have to be replaced every ten or fifteen years; some are shared with other farms, but other vehicles not listed are leased or borrowed temporarily.

So, it's pretty much one "big equipment item" per farm industry person (which sort of matches the whole "mechanized farming" concept); so you need 60 to 75 large motorized vehicles. Combine harvesters weigh from 1.5 to 25 tons usually; so these are "car or truck" size vehicles. If they're replaced every 12 years, they need to make 5 or 6 per year. Thus there needs to be several assembly lines (for tractors, combines, planters, and trucks); a steel mill to produce tubing, sheet, structural, etc. steel; a source for rubber tires; fuel (methanol or whatever); lubricants; glass; wire; batteries; etc.

LOCATION

The scenario sort of implies that all this high-yield agriculture is in the San Gabriel Mountains, which is a little odd. Clearly the environment has changed (there are redwood forests everywhere). It's unclear how much the Daidalos community makes use of the flat land between the mountains and La Crescenta (probably Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, etc.).

--
Michael B.