Getting a Farm Going

[swaghauler]

Keep in mind that if you are not gardening (I highly espouse the Ruth Stout method), that there are three important steps to growing food by the acre (or hectare if you prefer). For visualization, remember that an Acre is the size of a FOOTBALL FIELD (around 100m X 50m wide) and a Hectare is 2.47 times the acre in size (10,000 total meters). This is a big space. The three steps to prepping a field are...

1) INITIAL MULCHING AND NUTRIENT ADD: This is normally done in the fall after the harvest. If you have ever seen a cornfield or wheat field that was harvested, you will see stubs of stalks that are bent over and left to rot. This is INTENTIONAL. Those stalks are putting nutrients back into the soil. This is often leavened with grass cuttings and dead leaves. It is best to let these rot on top of the field ALL WINTER. IF you "breaking in" a new field, you should let this debris molder on top of the field for at least a week. The wetter the better as it promotes rot.

2) EARLY SPRING TURNING: Your field has moldered all winter and you have a good debris cover going. Now it's time to turn over those nutrients that will feed your crops long-term. A MouldBoard Plow or Chisel Plow will cut deep ruts and roll that mulch down into the ground where your crops will feed on it all summer long. Once the field is turned, in comes the "boost nutrients" to be laid on the field for up to a week before the initial planting. These nutrients include Nitrogen and the rapid growth food for your crops. In my neck of the woods that would be cow manure turned into a liquid mixture resembling a thick soup. This goes on top and is allowed to soak in. It's what gives you that "Fresh country air" aroma every spring. After a week, this too gets turned over to ensure the soil is now fully capable of being Furrow Plowed.

Please note that there are several alternatives to using modern fertilizers and these methods are STILL being used today. Some common methods to "season" a field including using a "fish slurry" made up of parts of any fish you ate that were left. These parts (including bones) are ground into a "meal" and added to the ashes from a fire to produce a Potassium-rich compound for poor soils. This is then applied as a "slurry" just like manure is. This is the technique the American Indians showed the Colonists at Plymouth to help them fend off starvation.

Another technique is using human feces and urine. To make this safe, they are burned in a container and their ASHES are added to ash from the fire to prevent the spread of disease. This should also be done with Pig, Chicken, and any other Poultry's wastes. Cow, Horse, Rabbit, or Goat waste can be used as-is. These should all be turned into a slurry to stretch the amount of soil that can be fertilized.

Indeed, URINE (and to a lesser extent feces) is a powerful resource. You can use it to fertilize fields, make explosives or smokeless propellants, and even drugs. It would be a VALUABLE RESOURCE that everyone was expected to provide in a place like Krakow. Putting feces into a sealed plastic container known as a "digestor" will allow you to harvest METHANE gas for cooking or welding. Put in some feces, add a small packet of the microbes found in the product known as RID (used to clean septic tanks and found almost everywhere in the US) and just add water. I'm told you can get a liter of Methane from a liter of treated Digester water. This also has NO IMPACT on your ability to use the feces to fertilize fields later.

3) FURROW PLOWING, DISKING, AND PLANTING: Once the field is "seasoned," you can plow the furrows for planting. We used a 3-Furrow Plow but there are a variety of these plows available. IF you are planting a crop that needs looser soil like lettuce, you will also be using a Disc Plow to break up the soil into a finer grain like sand. Heartier plants like Potatoes or Corn do NOT need the soil to be that fine (which is good because topsoil erosion occurs more frequently in disced soil). This is also the stage where you will Contour Plow so wind won't blow away your topsoil. How you plant will depend on WHAT you plant, as different crops need different spacing (hence my Yields Chart). Once the fields are sown though, you can take a breather before the next step (maintenance of the crops) begins.

That's just a quick overview of how to prep a field for farming.

[Milano]

@ Enfield

After a cursory look throughout the web and browsing through Vesper's PDF, I really cannot give you much help. I get around 17 inches of rain between November and April, on an average year. With that I run a cow on about 25 acres. That is without feeding, which is required if the rain is late the following November. I wish I could give you more but that's about all I've got for you. If the PCs do want to go after a cattle ranch, remember that the fences, corrals, water, etc is a large undertaking. A few cows and a bull is more reasonable.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

Portions of a 2011 census of crops and farm animals for Thompson-Okanagan:
Grain 6,500 hectares
Corn for silage 3,344 ha
Hay and pasture 437,000 ha
Alfalfa 42,418 ha
Hay 61,162 ha
Potatoes 170 ha
Fruits, berries and nuts 9,598 ha
Field grown vegetables 887 ha

Hens and chickens 1,808,625
Cattle and calves 171,000
Pigs 1,135
Sheep 13,603
Horses and ponies 11,672
Rabbits 987
Goats 3,534

(all from this PDF)

I really appreciate your searching for this. While I might have found it myself this saves a lot of time.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

Keep in mind that if you are not gardening (I highly espouse the Ruth Stout method), that there are three important steps to growing food by the acre (or hectare if you prefer). For visualization, remember that an Acre is the size of a FOOTBALL FIELD (around 100m X 50m wide) and a Hectare is 2.47 times the acre in size (10,000 total meters). This is a big space. The three steps to prepping a field are...

1) INITIAL MULCHING AND NUTRIENT ADD: This is normally done in the fall after the harvest. If you have ever seen a cornfield or wheat field that was harvested, you will see stubs of stalks that are bent over and left to rot. This is INTENTIONAL. Those stalks are putting nutrients back into the soil. This is often leavened with grass cuttings and dead leaves. It is best to let these rot on top of the field ALL WINTER. IF you "breaking in" a new field, you should let this debris molder on top of the field for at least a week. The wetter the better as it promotes rot.

2) EARLY SPRING TURNING: Your field has moldered all winter and you have a good debris cover going. Now it's time to turn over those nutrients that will feed your crops long-term. A MouldBoard Plow or Chisel Plow will cut deep ruts and roll that mulch down into the ground where your crops will feed on it all summer long. Once the field is turned, in comes the "boost nutrients" to be laid on the field for up to a week before the initial planting. These nutrients include Nitrogen and the rapid growth food for your crops. In my neck of the woods that would be cow manure turned into a liquid mixture resembling a thick soup. This goes on top and is allowed to soak in. It's what gives you that "Fresh country air" aroma every spring. After a week, this too gets turned over to ensure the soil is now fully capable of being Furrow Plowed.

Please note that there are several alternatives to using modern fertilizers and these methods are STILL being used today. Some common methods to "season" a field including using a "fish slurry" made up of parts of any fish you ate that were left. These parts (including bones) are ground into a "meal" and added to the ashes from a fire to produce a Potassium-rich compound for poor soils. This is then applied as a "slurry" just like manure is. This is the technique the American Indians showed the Colonists at Plymouth to help them fend off starvation.

Another technique is using human feces and urine. To make this safe, they are burned in a container and their ASHES are added to ash from the fire to prevent the spread of disease. This should also be done with Pig, Chicken, and any other Poultry's wastes. Cow, Horse, Rabbit, or Goat waste can be used as-is. These should all be turned into a slurry to stretch the amount of soil that can be fertilized.

Indeed, URINE (and to a lesser extent feces) is a powerful resource. You can use it to fertilize fields, make explosives or smokeless propellants, and even drugs. It would be a VALUABLE RESOURCE that everyone was expected to provide in a place like Krakow. Putting feces into a sealed plastic container known as a "digestor" will allow you to harvest METHANE gas for cooking or welding. Put in some feces, add a small packet of the microbes found in the product known as RID (used to clean septic tanks and found almost everywhere in the US) and just add water. I'm told you can get a liter of Methane from a liter of treated Digester water. This also has NO IMPACT on your ability to use the feces to fertilize fields later.

3) FURROW PLOWING, DISKING, AND PLANTING: Once the field is "seasoned," you can plow the furrows for planting. We used a 3-Furrow Plow but there are a variety of these plows available. IF you are planting a crop that needs looser soil like lettuce, you will also be using a Disc Plow to break up the soil into a finer grain like sand. Heartier plants like Potatoes or Corn do NOT need the soil to be that fine (which is good because topsoil erosion occurs more frequently in disced soil). This is also the stage where you will Contour Plow so wind won't blow away your topsoil. How you plant will depend on WHAT you plant, as different crops need different spacing (hence my Yields Chart). Once the fields are sown though, you can take a breather before the next step (maintenance of the crops) begins.

That's just a quick overview of how to prep a field for farming.

much appreciated. I think being able to explain this will lend a lot of authenticity to the messages from Cascadia as well as emphasizing the need for certain technology to make the efforts easier.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Milano

@ Enfield

After a cursory look throughout the web and browsing through Vesper's PDF, I really cannot give you much help. I get around 17 inches of rain between November and April, on an average year. With that I run a cow on about 25 acres. That is without feeding, which is required if the rain is late the following November. I wish I could give you more but that's about all I've got for you. If the PCs do want to go after a cattle ranch, remember that the fences, corrals, water, etc is a large undertaking. A few cows and a bull is more reasonable.

Sorry, is that 25 or 2.5? And is that about 2.5 (or 25) per cow? If there is a lack of rain (I Understand that the Okanagan Valley is pretty dry) will there not be enough grass regrowth?

[Milano]

That is 25 acres per cow and calf. You seem interested so I'll go into some details.

Our average rainfall is 17". So, last year we had 13" of rain and I had 120 Cows/pairs... this year I've gotten 8". I own and lease around 3,200 acres. Last year I had the stocking rate of 27 ac/cow.. in a week or two I'll be hope to be able to keep 80 Cows, thus 40 ac/cow. But the numbers do not reflect the timing and number of storms to get the rain fall.

Without going crazy on details for a game, that's the jist of it. Remember that acreage is on a two-dimensional plane. I live in mountains, so acreage is relative. There is also the measure of AUMs. Or Animal Unit Months. It's way more precise, but it's limiting in that the samples must be taken regularly to come up with an average.

There is science to agriculture but there is more intuition and wisdom that goes into it. (Remember that Wisdom is what we call our mistakes.)

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Milano

That is 25 acres per cow and calf. You seem interested so I'll go into some details.

Our average rainfall is 17". So, last year we had 13" of rain and I had 120 Cows/pairs... this year I've gotten 8". I own and lease around 3,200 acres. Last year I had the stocking rate of 27 ac/cow.. in a week or two I'll be hope to be able to keep 80 Cows, thus 40 ac/cow. But the numbers do not reflect the timing and number of storms to get the rain fall.

Without going crazy on details for a game, that's the jist of it. Remember that acreage is on a two-dimensional plane. I live in mountains, so acreage is relative. There is also the measure of AUMs. Or Animal Unit Months. It's way more precise, but it's limiting in that the samples must be taken regularly to come up with an average.

There is science to agriculture but there is more intuition and wisdom that goes into it. (Remember that Wisdom is what we call our mistakes.)

Given that this is Twilight 2000 though, I imagine that not only would you have the usual problems of watching out for predators, accidents, bad weather, etc, but also the problem of a lack of law enforcement and maintenance of infrastructure and information systems. How many people do you think you would need to keep that amount of range safe? How many daily hours of work is that?

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Enfield

Given that this is Twilight 2000 though, I imagine that not only would you have the usual problems of watching out for predators, accidents, bad weather, etc, but also the problem of a lack of law enforcement and maintenance of infrastructure and information systems. How many people do you think you would need to keep that amount of range safe? How many daily hours of work is that?

3200 acres is only 5 miles of terrain. You can ride that [on horseback] in a couple of hours.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

3200 acres is only 5 miles of terrain. You can ride that [on horseback] in a couple of hours.

Do you recommend having cattle dogs?

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

3200 acres is only 5 miles of terrain. You can ride that [on horseback] in a couple of hours.

You can, but you can't be everywhere at once either. Somebody up to no good only has to wait in concealment until you pass by on your daily patrol before coming out and doing whatever they're intending to do.

Then there's this small detail in the game rules (2.2, I imagine the other versions are the same):

Feeding: All draft animals need to graze for two four-hour periods per day. Horses and mules also require grain if they do any work that day (including being ridden). The amount of grain required is given on the Food Consumption Table on page 273. If they do no work, they need not be fed grain, but must spend all day grazing to make up for it.

Realistic or not, that will seriously restrict mobility unless you've got remounts available or vast amounts of grain to feed your horse.
Note this rule includes animals used for plowing, hauling carts and wagons, harvesting, etc

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Enfield

Do you recommend having cattle dogs?

Cattle and sheep dogs can be invaluable, PROVIDED they're properly trained and the handler knows what they're doing.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

You can, but you can't be everywhere at once either. Somebody up to no good only has to wait in concealment until you pass by on your daily patrol before coming out and doing whatever they're intending to do.

Then there's this small detail in the game rules (2.2, I imagine the other versions are the same):

Realistic or not, that will seriously restrict mobility unless you've got remounts available or vast amounts of grain to feed your horse.
Note this rule includes animals used for plowing, hauling carts and wagons, harvesting, etc

Like I was saying, range riding as currently done seems to me (though I am no ranch hand) to be more appropriate to say organized territories. I think that in most other cases except maybe cantonments that you probably at the very least need a watchtower or two in addition to regular patrols.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Enfield

Do you recommend having cattle dogs?

Yes. Dogs are useful for a variety of things like TRACKING, SENTRY DUTY, ATTACK, BOMB DETECTION, RESCUE WORK, and even as a food source. Dogs can be used to pull a plow. Native Americans used them to pull/drag litters for the sick, wounded, or cargo and Eskimos used them for transportation and hunting bears. This is why you always see dogs on Special Forces missions today.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

You can, but you can't be everywhere at once either. Somebody up to no good only has to wait in concealment until you pass by on your daily patrol before coming out and doing whatever they're intending to do.

Then there's this small detail in the game rules (2.2, I imagine the other versions are the same):

Realistic or not, that will seriously restrict mobility unless you've got remounts available or vast amounts of grain to feed your horse.
Note this rule includes animals used for plowing, hauling carts and wagons, harvesting, etc

You are misperceiving LINEAR DISTANCE with SQUARE AREA. Milano's ranch might encompass 8km but it is most likely 8 SQUARE KM. This means that the farthest distance from his ranch house to the fence might be 2 or 3 km at most. In open terrain, you can often see this far with just a pair of binoculars. This is why I told everyone in my post above to imagine an Acre as a football field. This gives one a good idea of the size of a given patch of terrain.

The food chart in Twilight2000 is WAY OFF. The amount of grain it recommends for a horse would be for a Percheron or Belgium DRAFT HORSE doing heavy manual labor. A Quarter Horse being ridden two periods a day might require 4kg of grain (if ridden HARD) and 4kg of hay. It may need less IF it were allowed to graze before and after riding.

For those wanting a more accurate chart than Twilight2000's, just GOOGLE "Horse feeding requirements" and a number of charts that cross-reference a horse's weight and activity level will give you accurate, real-world amounts of grain and hay based on activity v. size.

[swaghauler]

I will begin posting my homebrew rules this week. Done with all the Court stuff, now I just have to get Dad's stuff sold or distributed [to various family members].

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

You are misperceiving LINEAR DISTANCE with SQUARE AREA.

No, I'm not actually.
Yes it might be possible to see that far, but that assumes relatively flat and open terrain. I grew up on 200 acres - a fairly small block really, but there was no way you could see from one end to the other because of the ridgelines, forested areas, etc. It was often impossible to even hear gunfire from some points.
Additionally, the idea is to meet any threats well away from your boundaries if at all possible. You'd want to extend your patrols several miles in all directions.
If you're dealing with bandits within your boundary, you've got major problems.

Now, if your land is on nice flat ground with clear sight lines for miles, then a simple watchtower might well suffice. Problem with that is sight lines are two directional.

In the initial stages while the characters are learning the how of farming, as I mentioned earlier, it's far better they focus on small area subsistence farming with an emphasis on concealment and protection. As their skills and resources improve (scavenged machinery, seed stock, additional personnel, etc) they can expand their cultivated area, always however with security as a background thought - even several years post nuke there's still a lot of starving people willing and able to do nasty things to get a meal.

[Vespers War]

Somewhat tangential, but page 273 is almost certainly excessive for animal food consumption. It calls for 15 kg of grain for a horse or 10 kg for a mule plus 8 hours of grazing.

For comparison, here's what the British Army provided animals "in camp" (i.e. at the front lines) during World War I. When "in stables" the diet was reduced by 2 pounds of grain per day (oats for the horses and maize for the mules). Chaff was a 50/50 mix of hay and straw.

Heavy Draft Horse: 13 pounds oats, 4 pounds maize, 16 pounds chaff
Officer's Horse or Riding Horse taller than 15.1 1/2 hands: 12 pounds oats, 10 pounds chaff
Pack Horse or Riding Horse shorter than 15.1 1/2 hands: 11 pounds oats, 10 pounds chaff
Light Draft Horse: 9 pounds oats, 4 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff
Heavy Draft Mule: 14 pounds maize, 16 pounds chaff
Light Draft Mule: 12 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff
Pack Mule: 7 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff

The amount of grain required on page 273 is equal to the total amount of feed for a Heavy Draft Horse or Light Draft Mule. A relatively simple suggested house rule is to require either the amount of grain listed with no grazing or half the amount listed with 8 hours of grazing.

[Legbreaker]

I think you can reconcile the game amounts with reality by assuming the post nuke "grain" isn't as high a quality was pre nuke. Contains a lot more chaff than actual grain, the crops themselves are effected by radiation, limited rainfall and sunshine, etc.
Yes, it's a bit of a generalised handwaving, but...

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

No, I'm not actually.
Yes it might be possible to see that far, but that assumes relatively flat and open terrain. I grew up on 200 acres - a fairly small block really, but there was no way you could see from one end to the other because of the ridgelines, forested areas, etc. It was often impossible to even hear gunfire from some points.
Additionally, the idea is to meet any threats well away from your boundaries if at all possible. You'd want to extend your patrols several miles in all directions.
If you're dealing with bandits within your boundary, you've got major problems.

Now, if your land is on nice flat ground with clear sight lines for miles, then a simple watchtower might well suffice. Problem with that is sight lines are two directional.

In the initial stages while the characters are learning the how of farming, as I mentioned earlier, it's far better they focus on small area subsistence farming with an emphasis on concealment and protection. As their skills and resources improve (scavenged machinery, seed stock, additional personnel, etc) they can expand their cultivated area, always however with security as a background thought - even several years post nuke there's still a lot of starving people willing and able to do nasty things to get a meal.

One of the issues with the location is that it is lying in the vicinity of two roads. One is a two lane nearby, one is a major highway 4 km away. While the area is insular and communities are small and isolated due to the devastation, even if marauders, hungry refugees and others might just be passing through, the farming could be a tempting target for marauders, scavengers and refugees.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

Somewhat tangential, but page 273 is almost certainly excessive for animal food consumption. It calls for 15 kg of grain for a horse or 10 kg for a mule plus 8 hours of grazing.

For comparison, here's what the British Army provided animals "in camp" (i.e. at the front lines) during World War I. When "in stables" the diet was reduced by 2 pounds of grain per day (oats for the horses and maize for the mules). Chaff was a 50/50 mix of hay and straw.

Heavy Draft Horse: 13 pounds oats, 4 pounds maize, 16 pounds chaff
Officer's Horse or Riding Horse taller than 15.1 1/2 hands: 12 pounds oats, 10 pounds chaff
Pack Horse or Riding Horse shorter than 15.1 1/2 hands: 11 pounds oats, 10 pounds chaff
Light Draft Horse: 9 pounds oats, 4 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff
Heavy Draft Mule: 14 pounds maize, 16 pounds chaff
Light Draft Mule: 12 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff
Pack Mule: 7 pounds maize, 10 pounds chaff

The amount of grain required on page 273 is equal to the total amount of feed for a Heavy Draft Horse or Light Draft Mule. A relatively simple suggested house rule is to require either the amount of grain listed with no grazing or half the amount listed with 8 hours of grazing.

That's great. It adds up with an older book I read that was published in the 1930s called Animal Management.

The party had found a stray horse, clearly domesticated but on its own and seeking company/help. They had no idea what to do with it and I didn't tell them, so they ended up leaving it on its own and it got killed by predators. Hopefully they learned their lesson.

[pmulcahy11b]

You know, IRL I know nothing about farming or taking care of animals other than dogs or cats. I'd need scads of teachers in T2K to become useful on a farm.

Of course, once my meds ran out, I be in a continual severe psychosis, and probably of no use to anyone, including myself. Probably spend a lot of time breaking into pharmacies looking for Invega, Ativan, and Modafinel.

Sorry to threadjack, but how would the mentally ill survive in a T2K world? Would they even?

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

You know, IRL I know nothing about farming or taking care of animals other than dogs or cats. I'd need scads of teachers in T2K to become useful on a farm.

Of course, once my meds ran out, I be in a continual severe psychosis, and probably of no use to anyone, including myself. Probably spend a lot of time breaking into pharmacies looking for Invega, Ativan, and Modafinel.

Sorry to threadjack, but how would the mentally ill survive in a T2K world? Would they even?

Most of those who need regular access to pharmacies and other infrastructure supported medical support facilities would either be in really rough shape or dead.

Even in modern industrial nations like Kenya or Zambia, or in some of the former Soviet republics, they lack the ability to accomodate mental illness or some disabilities like visual impairment. People underestimate how much medical advances and prosperity make such help available.

So how much of a stockpile would the average state in the Union have? And how good would their distribution be?

But that's a good point, a great adventure hook.

Let's say you have a character with a chronic illness, like Diabetes 1, or with a mental illness requiring a medical regimen. But the person is a loved one, part of the group, or even an expert in a field that has become rare where their expertise is needed. The characters, who would perhaps normally avoid cities, are forced to go to one.

I may even do that to force the group to go to the New American enclave and go to Lewiston or some such place, forced to treat and deal with them or sneak in and sneak out...

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

You know, IRL I know nothing about farming or taking care of animals other than dogs or cats. I'd need scads of teachers in T2K to become useful on a farm.

Of course, once my meds ran out, I be in a continual severe psychosis, and probably of no use to anyone, including myself. Probably spend a lot of time breaking into pharmacies looking for Invega, Ativan, and Modafinel.

Sorry to threadjack, but how would the mentally ill survive in a T2K world? Would they even?

One area where I'm STILL kind of working on for the SCAVENGING RULES IS the creation of meds and chemicals. We have people with Chemistry and Biology skills in the game and chemicals can be acquired or even created, so why can't people with prior careers as Chemists, Doctors, and RNs MAKE medicine? We humans have been doing that since the Dark Ages.

There IS a Pharmacy equivalent to the PHYSICIAN'S DESK REFERENCE for Pharmacists. It lists various drugs, their components, and potential interactions with other drugs. This would be like a "bible" for a fledgling "compounding lab." Once you know what's in a given drug, you should be able to either approximate it or replicate it.

My idea for this follows the same pattern that I use for salvaging industrial machines and electronics...

1) Set a Difficulty Level starting at EASY and moving up to IMPOSSIBLE based on the complexity of the item.
2) Determine the number and type of Tools and Resources [units] needed to perform the task. For example, a new radio might require 6 small repair parts units, 3 electronics parts units, and a battery. It would also require an Electronics toolkit.
3) Determine the Skill OR Skills required to make the item in question. ie. Electronics skill for the radio above.

This is the standard procedure I use for most of my Salvage rules.

[swaghauler]

One thing I do see in this Forum that I still don't quite understand is this idea that you HAVE to find a thing in order to have it because NOTHING is being made now. Maybe it's because I grew up on a farm. If we needed something and didn't have it, we just either fabricated it or "repurposed" something else to meet our needs. In my mind, I can see all kinds of people in Twilight2000 doing just that.

Need a certain type of tool? Modify another tool or just make what you need using welders and a grinder.

Need a hand lifting something? enlist a horse or cow to give you what you need, or at the very least, rig a block and tackle.

Need to make a certain chemical? Just get yourself a college chemistry book with the formula in it and try NOT to burn your eyebrows off (and yes, I'm guilty... and no I'm not going to talk about it).

This is what I'd do in the real world and this is what I encourage my PC to do in my games.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

...but how would the mentally ill survive in a T2K world? Would they even?

That's actually a damn fine question and one that came up recently in Lurken's Discord game. An NPC was determined to have a brain injury resulting in a loss of Intelligence (down to 1).
Through long term use of appropriate skills (a mix of Medicine: Diagnosis, Interrogation and Persuasion for the most part), and possibly medication (Chemistry with a touch of Biology) a few points might, in time be regained.
Of course while in the middle of Poland in 2000 that's rather unlikely to happen, but who knows?

For others with less "recoverable" illnesses once the medication runs out with little chance to acquire more, it might be more humane to give them a final rest with a lead pill. Not a nice thing to have to contemplate, but when you've exhausted all other options....

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

One thing I do see in this Forum that I still don't quite understand is this idea that you HAVE to find a thing in order to have it because NOTHING is being made now. Maybe it's because I grew up on a farm. If we needed something and didn't have it, we just either fabricated it or "repurposed" something else to meet our needs. In my mind, I can see all kinds of people in Twilight2000 doing just that.

Need a certain type of tool? Modify another tool or just make what you need using welders and a grinder.

Need a hand lifting something? enlist a horse or cow to give you what you need, or at the very least, rig a block and tackle.

Need to make a certain chemical? Just get yourself a college chemistry book with the formula in it and try NOT to burn your eyebrows off (and yes, I'm guilty... and no I'm not going to talk about it).

This is what I'd do in the real world and this is what I encourage my PC to do in my games.

Hey wasn't that the kind of information you would find in the Farmer's Almanac and books like that?

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Sorry to threadjack, but how would the mentally ill survive in a T2K world? Would they even?

The same question applies to a host of other medical issues that require pharmaceutical maintenance or other regular care. Enfield mentioned diabetes, which is the classic example from Lucifer's Hammer. Among other factors, I would expect the HIV/AIDS epidemic to be a source of paranoia, discrimination, and other social complications atop its medical implications.

For that matter, anyone dependent on electrically-powered medical equipment probably died shortly after the first wave of nuclear strikes. Anyone know the effects of EMP on pacemakers?

Back to the thread topic, these issues present an interesting complication for any group attempting to align itself with the Cascadians. The Cascadians are working toward the survival of civilization, not necessarily that of any given individual. It's up to each referee to determine how far they take it in their campaign, but I'll point to one of the Cascadian movement's principles:

Originally Posted by The Pacific Northwest, p.31

Societal triage. Current and imminent resource shortages mean the Cascadians and the other American successor governments can't save everyone, so they shouldn't waste their limited resources trying to do that. There's a limited amount of room in the Cascadian lifeboat. Those who won't align with the movement's tenets and the needs of the day will be encouraged to go elsewhere – if necessary, at gunpoint. This doesn't mean people who can't work are exiled, though, so long as they can contribute something (or they've earned charity through service to the movement). A mind is just as valuable as a pair of hands. Whether this should extend to some measure of eugenics in a post-nuclear gene pool is a hotly-debated point in Cascadian communities.

- C.

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

The same question applies to a host of other medical issues that require pharmaceutical maintenance or other regular care. Enfield mentioned diabetes, which is the classic example from Lucifer's Hammer. Among other factors, I would expect the HIV/AIDS epidemic to be a source of paranoia, discrimination, and other social complications atop its medical implications.

For that matter, anyone dependent on electrically-powered medical equipment probably died shortly after the first wave of nuclear strikes. Anyone know the effects of EMP on pacemakers?

...

- C.

A book that this issue was a central part of is "one second after" by William R. Forstchen. Main characters daughter is a diabetic, and town doctor talked a bit about some of the antipsychotic medications, or the withdraws from them.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

The same question applies to a host of other medical issues that require pharmaceutical maintenance or other regular care. Enfield mentioned diabetes, which is the classic example from Lucifer's Hammer. Among other factors, I would expect the HIV/AIDS epidemic to be a source of paranoia, discrimination, and other social complications atop its medical implications.

For that matter, anyone dependent on electrically-powered medical equipment probably died shortly after the first wave of nuclear strikes. Anyone know the effects of EMP on pacemakers?

Back to the thread topic, these issues present an interesting complication for any group attempting to align itself with the Cascadians. The Cascadians are working toward the survival of civilization, not necessarily that of any given individual. It's up to each referee to determine how far they take it in their campaign, but I'll point to one of the Cascadian movement's principles:



- C.

According to a report I read, it is not automatic that a pacemaker will be destroyed by EMP. Interestingly, the human body will act as a kind of Faraday Cage and shield the device.Unless the person is pretty close to the blast radius, people with pacemakers should be fine.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

For others with less "recoverable" illnesses once the medication runs out with little chance to acquire more, it might be more humane to give them a final rest with a lead pill. Not a nice thing to have to contemplate, but when you've exhausted all other options....

Hay, that's me! You f**k!

That sort of makes me wonder...what if I asked Dr Pola (my doctor; he's young enough he may have RPGd at some point) what it would take to mix up a reliable batch of my medicine, or if there's an herbal substitute. Unfortunately, my next regular appointment with him is not until 7 June, and I don't want to call for a special appointment just to ask him RPG questions! He is, though, an Iraq Vet, and might have put some thought into this sort of thing, maybe for the Iraqi people who were probably short of this type of medication.