[Darkwing]

Originally Posted by robj3

OK, it's hard to escape the need for tractors and combines then.
I think we should avoid feedlots, battery farms and high-density pig farms though. There are better ways to produce meat.

You may not have much choice in methodology, depending on what the locals have been doing, and what their building capabilities are.

A multi-billion dollar (in current dollar terms) annual budget would be noise in the system ; corporate profits exceed a trillion dollars a year, let alone the activity of the rest of the economy.

Still more than enough for bean-counters to sniff out money being diverted

This is the big problem - or is it?
It depends on how big you think the Project needs to be. Over the years people have used small (a few thousand field personnel) to very large (over 100,000) in their games.

I'd say 10,000 is a bare minimum to be prepared to rebuild if you're trying to cover the whole country.

With regard to construction, the United States is a large country and there's lots of building going on. Covering up from prying eyes (Soviet or other foreign intelligence services, nosy investigative journalists) is going to be hard work - but it is doable (e.g. the B2 bomber and stealth aircraft, much of the nuclear weapons production effort). We know this from the development of the 'security state' following WW2.

It is a problem, though, which can delay and raise costs of projects. Delay is bad throughout the project, the more so the closer to TEOTWAWKI. Money is less of a problem in the last few years or months - who cares of the project goes bankrupt 24 hours before the event?

That depends on how the world ends. I don't think the Project would plan for a Permian level mass extinction scenario (96% marine species, 70% of terrestrial vertebrates, for an overall loss of ~60% of all families).

I'm NOT thinking mass extinction either - but specific food and drug plants might get blighted or something else in the chain does and the domino effect takes out a staple. If you wake up and find that the local area has lost something like that, having a small supply of such seeds would help restart agriculture until the regional base can be contacted for larger issuances.

Seed and animal banks that you go on to describe are area or regional level assets, as Richard has pointed out.

So they are in the plan, then?

I don't have an objection to small animals being frozen with the teams, but horses and the like are probably more trouble than they are worth (Project members have enough to learn without developing equestrian and large animal vet skills).

They would definitely need to have those skills in a post-apocalyptic world. Cars won't exist, except for what you brought with you, and there haven't been road crews repairing the highways since the event.