I think the line between straggler and marauder is going to be quite blurred.
Let's say you're a Soviet conscript in what was once a Category C unit. You've somehow survived the experience of fighting on a nuclear battlefield while carrying a weapon older than yourself. Your former national command authority is separate atoms drifting around the upper atmosphere. You're hundreds of kilometers from home and your schooling didn't include SERE or land navigation. Your officers are all dead, either from enemy action or, um, "enemy action." (Wasn't you. You're just trying to survive. But some of your comrades are a few weeks ahead of you on the desperation/ruthlessness curve.)
You haven't gotten a "good luck, you're on your own" message, but you know that's where you are, really. If a still-extant Soviet formation catches you, you'll be given a field trial and shot as a deserter - never mind the fact that in post-nuclear Soviet Union, army deserted you! You don't speak the local language, you don't know how to get home, you probably don't even know where you are (yes, yes, generally, you're in Poland, but which pile of rubble is that over there?). You have an artifact from the Kalashnikov Museum Collection, no rations, a full magazine, half a squad of fellow conscripts in similar straits, it's getting dark, and you're wearing a threadbare uniform that any given local may shoot you for wearing.
Really, at this point, the list of available life paths for which you meet the prerequisites is pretty damn short.
- C.
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