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Originally Posted by sglancy12
Yeah, I was never too sure about this total disintegration thing... after all, in The Last Submarine it sounded like the mutiny failed utterly.
The only real explanation seems to be the drought/famine introduced in Howling Wilderness. That would drive human waves of starving Boston Megapunks at the MPs (and all the other communities) which might grind the unit down to nothing, leaving the survivors to do do what? Desert?
One of these days, I should start a threat about how much I HATE the drought. I really think Loren Wiseman made a mistake by introducing that element into the campaign background.
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Scott,
Human waves of starving and desperate people rushing a military unit and succeeding is a favourite image of post-holocaust fiction and RPGs, but it doesn't make sense.
We're used to human waves as an element of warfare (Russians in WWII, Chinese in Korea, Republican Guard in the Gulf War, etc.) but the conditions that make these attacks possible and give them the outside chance of success don't exist. These attacks are largely (and obviously) suicidal in nature. This urge to preserve one's life is overcome by ideology or religion, and require a command cadre dedicated to motivating and organising a mass of troops to carry it out.
Mobs, even starving mobs, want to
live. They have no motivation to personally do anything suicidal. That's actually opposite to the point of the exercise: survival. You could argue some kind of group loyalty or solidarity, but I would imagine starving and desperate people are very disorganised and unlikely to coalesce. I would say it's more likely that there was some kind of organised resistance or marauder force that took advantage of the 43rd's disorganised state to administer a coup de main.
As for climate, that unfortunately is realistic, or at least realistic enough. It does get across the global effect of the war. What I would gripe about is the CIVGOV/MILGOV split and the apparent semi-permanent nature of it (for at least decades). It makes no sense when the US is at its lowest point to hamstring any kind of national organisation and response.
Tony