[robj3]

Darkwing wrote:
In response to:
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.

If the local's food system is that well developed that they can run feedlots, battery farms and modern high density pig farms they don't need Project assistance. These forms of intensive farming require lots of externally sourced inputs (e.g. feed, growth promoters, antibiotics, waste management) which imply a well developed economy.


On budgetary issues:

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

Counter-examples:
Enron. WorldCorp. The recent GFC.
The Pentagon/DOD complex is infamous for shoddy accounting.

In any case we're talking about extremely small diversions of flow - cents in the tens of dollars in my example. Noise in the system.

Yes, the project isn't possible with omniscient auditors, spies and investigative journalists. Evidence suggests they are in short supply.


So how big is the Project?

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

I agree; I was merely reporting the range I have seen over the years.


On concealing project efforts:

It is a problem, though, which can delay and raise costs of projects.

I've never said that it wasn't a problem. You seemed to be arguing that it was an insurmountable problem.

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.

While I've been on the thread I've argued for an emergency food supply. A seed supply seemed so obvious I didn't explicitly mention it. Mea culpa.

On seed/animal banks:

So they are in the plan, then?

They have to be, however the only canonical description of an Agricultural team is in the module 'Fall Back'. It is a regional level asset.

Note that in reality, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a facility at Fort Collins, Colorado that is the national seed bank:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_ma...de=54-02-05-00

On the need for equestrian and veterinary expertise:

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.

Some personnel, not all. There's a limit to training time, but no limit to the size of the potential curriculum.

Project issue vehicles are largely military AFVs which have proven off-road capability.

I largely agree with dragoon500ly's remarks.

On the Project's extraordinary hardware:

10 years is wildly optimistic. How long have we worked on SDI-scale lasers, fusion, cold-fusion, et al?

In the published material, Bruce Morrow provides a helping hand. Whether this comes from the future, a parallel timeline or Alien Space Bats isn't clear.

Agreed, cryogenic suspension with successful revival and vehicle sized fusion plants are going to require many profound advances in knowledge.

For the sake of the story, the divergence point is that these enabling technologies are successfully developed - otherwise there is no Morrow Project.