Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt W
4. Outdoor Life vs Indoor Life
IMHO, the subterranean sections are not intended for permanent occupation. Radiation and other hazards might mean that shelter is required for an initial few weeks or months but - after that - the plan would be for people to live and work outside Prime Base.
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This is the only one I have a problem with.
First, conditions outside the base could reasonably make the nearby area unlivable for some number of years after the war - a stray nuke gets too close, and you won't want little Timmy playing outside until the radiation levels drop! The base and its personnel HAD to be prepared to stay underground for years.
Second, even without the NBC issues, basic security protocols will force Prime Base to maintain secrecy essentially as long as it is needed. The site was chosen for its desolation, a permanent community of hundreds or thousands of people out in the middle of the desert is going to eventually pinpoint the location as a major facility.
Third, an external Morrow town would require external Morrow protection. Can Prime Base spare the personnel to guard the gates of this proposed town? If a significant enemy force approached, (forgetting for the moment about secrecy) could Prime Base even defend it?
Last, but not least, where do the resources (human and material) come from to build this town? Does Prime Base have that many carpenters and plumbers? Can they justify the room to store hundreds or thousands of prefab houses and other facilities?
Personally, I think the base personnel are just going to have to suck it up, and testing for the ability to do so would need to be part of the screening. As for dependents, well... I can see three options:
1) Don't bring any. Seriously, select PB personnel from those with no dependents. Most are likely to be recruited in or immediately after their college years anyway, enforce on them at recruitment that signing on means not having kids and not forming any dependent relationships with anyone outside the Project.
2) Freeze em. Have a facility at or near PB where dependents can slumber away in cold sleep until a safe village can be established. Maybe they get lucky and it's a matter of months, maybe they don't and its a decade.
3) Combination of the two.
Try to only recruit those without dependents, but if you really need Jane Physicist, then her somehow-unfit-for-the-Project husband can join her kids in cryo sleep and she'll just have to wait it out.
I personally like the last option, as it seems to balance the flexibility needed for recruiting while minimizing the non-contributing headcount. Plus, either of the last two options turn the "bury the kids" part of the original module into a "rescue the kids" part, and as a father I
really like that idea better.