I agree fully with the concept of the population assistance cache as outlined in the initial post.
The team may wake up in the middle of a disaster. If not, then the supplies could be allocated to the reconstruction effort.
Regardless, teams are able to offer prompt substantial assistance to locals which must be useful in establishing goodwill for the Project.
The base unit for supply caches should be the intermodal container,
as Richard mentioned upthread.
This enables pre-loading at Project warehouses, and supplies require minimal
concealment - they blend in with regular road and rail freight. For maximal access to all the nooks and crannies caches and boltholes will be placed, sticking with 20' containers as the base unit might be good (the only problem I can see with the 40', 45' and 53' containers).
With regard to the amount and location of supplies, this depends on how much independence of action field teams are going to need (weeks? months? a year without resupply?). There are game balance and plotting implications here - but I think that game refs/PDs should be able to cope with an apparent excess of gear.
Despite Bruce, I don't think the Project is blessed with perfect precognition; the Project must then plan for a broad range of contingencies (e.g. nuclear war the most likely way civilisation could end, but not the only one; how bad the 3-5 years after environment will be will also vary). So I would tend to be generous with supplies. Logistic support from area/regional bases can't be assumed.
The most extreme scenario is that Project team members are going to repopulate the world - that there are no other human survivors.
[I don't think the Project should be capable of coping with a total biospheric collapse option (caused by nearby supernova, gamma-ray burst, major impactor or gravitational wrenching by rogue whatever, etc). Game over; everyone dies].
At the low end of the range is the nebulous (and controversial?) threshold for Project activation.
A reasonable level would seem to be 'limited' nuclear war scenarios with near total destruction of key industrial infrastructure (>95% of oil refining, chemical plants, etc.) and an initial (to one year) mortality of ~30-40% of the pre-attack population. This would also fit with a 'Black Death' style pandemic.
Sorry about topic drift.
Rob
|