Rethinking Operation Reset

[oldschoolgm]

I know that I haven't been active on the forum for a while but several threads have piqued my interest lately. Either directly or indirectly they have mentioned or discussed Operation Reset. A lot of people, myself included, have difficulties with Operation Reset or the ideas around it. So for what it's worth, here's what has been swirling around my brain on it lately.

I personally believe that Operation Reset presents a contradiction to the games main goal and genre. The operation reads like it is suppose to be some form of an espionage thriller in a game that is about combat. As I've gone back and reread Krakow and every other source that I can find regarding this operation in the 1st edition materials, what I read into this over and over is a really good way to get the players killed rather quickly. When I first played through Krakow in my early teens, I remember the frustration of trying to complete this operation. I've always felt this operation was designed more to ensure player failure rather than giving them the ability to get a leg up in the early to mid point of a campaign.

The second part of Operation Reset that I've always had difficulty with was the actual center point. The blue prints for a device that can bring non-functioning computers back to life. While this is intriguing to an extent, it really isn't something that I believe that soldiers who recently learned they are on their own to survive in a extremely hostile environment will be interested in dealing with. Given the fact that the possibility of having any kind of viable computer system or network is slim to none, this device really doesn't not stack up as having the value that the modules and designers gave it. Nor does it provide a significant military value in my mind.

As I have mulled this over in the last week several things come to mind regarding this operation some ideas have formed that might help to make this operation viable. In other thread here on the forums people have suggested or pointed at some of what is to follow, but I hope I can take this a step further.

1. Keeping to the original intent of the device and operation, we have to ask why does this blueprint need to reach the right people’s hands and for what purpose. What computers need to be resurrected?
A. Just getting a computer functioning for the purpose of using its processing power can and would have an effect on how quickly a leader can make important decisions, but what decisions does this affect?
B. Does the computer have the information to help the players or interested parties to develop chemical or biological as has been suggested before and this could also be extended to plans for nuclear weapons.
C. Finally it could be something that is on a computer that all the military factions think is important.

2. Option C is where I think this operation steps out of a failed James Bond idea and takes on significant military value and makes it more than worth the player’s time and energy. I think the device opens a series of adventures that can be tied to the original adventures or taken on its own course.
A. I feel that the designers set the factions up against each other in such a aggressive is that both factions must know of a computer system that had military viable information that could change the course of the war, or give on side the ability to have complete dominance of the battle field. So the need for such a device begins to take on a military significance and also takes gives credence to how the designers were trying to set the tension in Krakow.
B. With the game events taking place in Poland, what is the likelihood of a cache of tactical nukes with delivery vehicles existing? Supporting such a hypothesis is the fact that XI Corps sacrificed an entire Special Forces A-team to recover the blue prints and deliver them back to someone at HQ. As well as the missing DIA agent in Lodz. Both of these canonical facts lend to a different picture than what is outlined in black and white. I really believe that one of the intelligence agencies knows where the computer is that has such valuable information and that the other agencies either know of the existence of such information or know of the system that has the information.
C. Given the aggressive nature of the KGB in Krakow as outlined, I feel that they either have the computer or know where it is and also know that the computer has the location of such a cache or the next link to finding the cache. I also have the impression that the DIA chief in Krakow also knows about the computer but does not know how to get to it or doesn't have the resources to get the computer. Here again, the need for the player characters partaking in Operation Reset.
D. The other intelligence agencies also know some or all of this information, in particular the CIA. I feel they know a lot but do not have all the facts nor an idea on how to obtain the information. If they get a hold of the plans they will begin to fill in the empty puzzle pieces and that would give them an invaluable weapon/resources/tool.
E. Going at Operation Reset in this manner removes the cloak and dagger element (unless the players really want that in the game) and adds back in the military/combative element. It also sets the stage for taking this operation through the other modules.
F. Given the direction of the modules it would be easy to state that such a cache existed in or around Warsaw. This gives the players that would prefer to follow this operation a goal as well as something to recon for. Either someone or something will give them the link to the final clue to the location of the cache and they players will have to act with some speed and diligence to get to the cache before the other agencies and it will also give them a good reason to tie in to the forces in Warsaw and utilize them as a screen of sorts in their search efforts.

3. These ideas can be tied to nukes or some other militarily significant resource. Once found the next question is; what to do with the stuff? Do the players make sure the US command get the materials and thus take them to Bremerhaven? Or do they destroy the resources?

I'm hoping that this idea provides a logical course that ties in to published materials and gives GM's another option regarding Operation Reset. If the nuclear weapon idea is followed the weapon would be most likely of Soviet build and that would tie in with the KGB's actions in Krakow according to what's published there. I really wished the original writers had thought through this operation more thoroughly and provided a significant reason for the players to follow through with it. Getting to Krakow either from Kalisz or from the Black Madonna is an easy segues for players to follow without having to seed the story to ensure their arrival there.

I would like to see what everyone thinks of this potential plot and expansion of Operation Reset. I would also like to hear what else could be tied in here or expanded.

Thanks

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I always thought that one of the chief issues behind getting computers working again was for a few reasons:

One, either MilGov or CivGov can quickly process a census and then appoint a legitimate US Government instead of the rump government in Colorado Springs (you know, the one with multiple senators from the same district, fistfights and shootouts on the senate floor, etc.) That's the thing that's stopping MilGov from handing power back to the government: voting, election, establishment of a clear civilian government since the line of succession broke down and Continuance of Government took so long to restart.

Two, recovery of economic and financial records. NYC is still intact, and there are billions, possibly trillions, of dollars in electronic funds in downed computers there (and elsewhere in the country). Even factoring in massive deflation and currency devaluation, there's lots of money still in the US. Getting that money to trading partners without relying on a sketchy tramp steamer maybe getting gold bullion to France or Australia in six to eight months would be an enormous boon to the US recovery.

Three, management of disaster recovery resources. It's all well and good to say "We're going to send the 805th Military Police Combat Brigade to help reestablish a bridgehead in St. Louis and clean out bandits so locals can plant and rebuild and a major Mississippi crossing can be reconstructed" but what happens when after weeks of drive-brew-refuel-drive-brew-refuel you get there and there's literally nobody left, because due to famine or plague rumors the 1200 or so civilians fled? Now what? Real-time (or nearer-real-time) communications would ameliorate such situations.

Four, manufacturing. Even in the 80s and 90s there was a lot of computer controlled manufacturing in the US. I could buy, for $2500 in 1990, a computer-controlled milling machine that would run off of my PC and produce some pretty amazing tolerances - it was sold as a geek toy! Most computer controlled machinery and so forth runs on incredibly low-level hardware. Imagine getting just one or two auto parts factory lines working again and loading in other 3d models and so forth, so now you can make parts for water pumps, hospital equipment, refinery parts, and so on. Same thing goes for drug manufacturing: being able to precision control environments for producing more exotic drugs will help greatly.

Five, communications. I mentioned in another thread that DARPA/ARPAnet was designed to survive a nuclear war, and it would. It would be particularly healthy after a low-level exchange as outlined in Twilight:2000. However, computers to use the infrastructure are going to be rare. Getting extant systems working again will be key - and you need nothing more powerful than a computer that can run a VT52 terminal emulation program and some kind of IP stack and support some kind of networking (RJ11, Token Ring, RS232, IEE488, and on and on) hardware. A Commodore VIC-20 can do it. An Imsai 8080 with a terminal and keyboard can do it. Likewise, what if NASA or better still NOAA could communicate with satellites again? Hurricanes ravaging the southeast without warning would cease to be a huge problem. Tie that back into a working ARPANet and now you've got the problem under control.

Direct military applications of getting computers working again is of course a high priority too. Imagine an M577 actually becoming a command track again rather than a big air-conditioned personnel carrier. What if electronics that required computer tests to maintain (radar sets, computer controlled rangefinders, etc.) and consequently hadn't been working or working properly for 2-3 years could now operate again?

Finally, something I didn't touch on in the other thread but I will here: working computers are a sign of recovery. Imagine, you go down to register yourself and your family at a relocation zone. You walk into a half-destroyed building, everything's lit with kerosene lanterns, the clerk writes your name down in pencil on a yellow pad, slips an ultra-worn out piece of carbon paper between two pages and has you fill out your ration chit...very depressing. My god, you think, this is...this is 1890s...we're never coming back from this...Same scene, but there's power, and they've got a kaypro luggable. Your info grinds out on a dot-matrix printer, is saved to floppy disk, the clerk tells you if you need another copy of the chit, come see him, he can print another out. That says "things are getting better" or "things aren't that bad". It gives people hope.

[Raellus]

I concur with Raketenjagdpanzer's excellent analysis. On the surface, data recovery doesn't seem like the Holy Grail, FCoK makes it out to be, but if you dig a little deeper, it kind of is. In a nutshell, I think data recovery is enough of a compelling motive to explain the scenario/setting laid out in FCoK.

That said, if you'd rather go with a different kind of RESET for your T2KU, you should do it.

[DigTw0Grav3s]

Perhaps tangential, but would fiat currency - particularly in a digital format - have any value after the exchange? The nuclear obliteration of most global industry would ensure that straight barter and enforceable I.O.U.s would be the only viable enconomics left, no?

If I'm trying to reload my own brass and hope that the harvest turns out this year, a bunch of binary values in some NYC vault don't have much value to me, do they?

Also, wouldn't most of the actual hard communications infrastructure be toast with or without the computers that run them? Satellite dishes would be toast, EMP effects would have used the power grid as a massive tuning fork, and the like.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by DigTw0Grav3s

Perhaps tangential, but would fiat currency - particularly in a digital format - have any value after the exchange? The nuclear obliteration of most global industry would ensure that straight barter and enforceable I.O.U.s would be the only viable enconomics left, no?

If I'm trying to reload my own brass and hope that the harvest turns out this year, a bunch of binary values in some NYC vault don't have much value to me, do they?

Not for you (or me) but for governments and large businesses (and you better believe they'd want to get back in the business of industry and governance again PDQ...again, there'd be massive devaluation and currency would likely still have to trade on physical assets ("How much gold is in Fort Knox, did you say?"), but I would tend to think there'd be some EFT going on as quickly as reset got going again in a serious way.

Also, wouldn't most of the actual hard communications infrastructure be toast with or without the computers that run them? Satellite dishes would be toast, EMP effects would have used the power grid as a massive tuning fork, and the like.

It depends; again, the communication backbones (the military/government ones) the post-disaster internet were to rely on are fairly robust.

Of course if you're in a Grimdark mood you can take the "EMP was far worse than anyone imagined" line from one of the sourcebooks and say "Well, no it's not working at all any more" and then it's gone.

Lest anyone think I'm promoting a "USA Triumphs over all" theme, I'm talking about events happening over a decade or two; Reset is the linchpin here.

[oldschoolgm]

I agree with raketenjagdpanzer with regards to long term reasons for wanting such a device for having computers back up, but I still can't see a non-intel player character buying into the significance of that when they are out there trying to survive.

Having a more concrete short term goal for the information and device would offer the players a plot that could unfold for almost any length of time.

Also with regards to communications lines, I know the military had a significant communications backbone in the mid-90's though I am not sure as to the robustness of it so I'm not totally sure how much of it would have survived after 4+ years of war. On another note too, is the time diference between real world mid 90's to what was envisioned when the game was originally written in the early 80's. Cell phones were in fairly wide use in the mid-90's but there is no such thing in the game canon.

Time for me to go back to my books and see if there is more to say on the communications infrastructure that was assumed to be in place at the time of the start of the war.

[Webstral]

A little feedback on some of the ideas presented here:

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

One, either MilGov or CivGov can quickly process a census and then appoint a legitimate US Government instead of the rump government in Colorado Springs (you know, the one with multiple senators from the same district, fistfights and shootouts on the senate floor, etc.) That's the thing that's stopping MilGov from handing power back to the government: voting, election, establishment of a clear civilian government since the line of succession broke down and Continuance of Government took so long to restart.

That’s a very interesting idea. I’m going to think about this one for a while. Collating the data is a huge task, but I don’t believe the combining and analyzing part of the data is the real bottleneck. Getting people to go door-to-door (or whatever the post-Exchange equivalent will be) to collect reliable information is going to be the big challenge.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Two, recovery of economic and financial records. NYC is still intact, and there are billions, possibly trillions, of dollars in electronic funds in downed computers there (and elsewhere in the country). Even factoring in massive deflation and currency devaluation, there's lots of money still in the US. Getting that money to trading partners without relying on a sketchy tramp steamer maybe getting gold bullion to France or Australia in six to eight months would be an enormous boon to the US recovery.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Not for you (or me) but for governments and large businesses (and you better believe they'd want to get back in the business of industry and governance again PDQ...again, there'd be massive devaluation and currency would likely still have to trade on physical assets ("How much gold is in Fort Knox, did you say?"), but I would tend to think there'd be some EFT going on as quickly as reset got going again in a serious way.

The US is a generation away from electronic money playing any part in the economy, and I’m being generous by saying it’s a single generation away. The only thing worth less than a paper US dollar in 2000 is an electronic dollar. You can at least wipe your fourth point of contact with a $1 bill. In 2000/2001, the whole idea of currency has very little currency—at least in the US. In 1997, the dollar is backed purely by faith. After the Exchange, paper money not backed by something tangible and readily at hand, like food, fuel, or something else people want right away, isn’t going to be worth collecting except to start a fire. Electronic money will be worth even less than that. It’s hard to imagine that Milgov, with its multitude of very real and immediate challenges, is going to view the recovery of electronic funds from NYC as worthy of as much consideration as we have already given it.

As for big business, there isn’t any. All economic ventures of any size in the US are being conducted by one government or another or under the direct control of one government or another. I’d be willing to discuss whether large-scale ventures in Colorado involve some private entities larger than their counterparts spread across CONUS. But in 2001, the American economy is more a hybrid of feudalism and communism than anything capitalists would recognize.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Three, management of disaster recovery resources. It's all well and good to say "We're going to send the 805th Military Police Combat Brigade to help reestablish a bridgehead in St. Louis and clean out bandits so locals can plant and rebuild and a major Mississippi crossing can be reconstructed" but what happens when after weeks of drive-brew-refuel-drive-brew-refuel you get there and there's literally nobody left, because due to famine or plague rumors the 1200 or so civilians fled? Now what? Real-time (or nearer-real-time) communications would ameliorate such situations.

Ham radio.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Four, manufacturing. Even in the 80s and 90s there was a lot of computer controlled manufacturing in the US. I could buy, for $2500 in 1990, a computer-controlled milling machine that would run off of my PC and produce some pretty amazing tolerances - it was sold as a geek toy! Most computer controlled machinery and so forth runs on incredibly low-level hardware. Imagine getting just one or two auto parts factory lines working again and loading in other 3d models and so forth, so now you can make parts for water pumps, hospital equipment, refinery parts, and so on. Same thing goes for drug manufacturing: being able to precision control environments for producing more exotic drugs will help greatly.

Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes! The labor picture in 2001 begs for automation. Ironically, while the cost of labor has dropped to the bottom of the well, there are severe shortages of it. Subsistence agriculture practiced by people who didn’t even garden before the war is going to consume anywhere from half to 90% of the labor in any given locale. Automating tasks that might otherwise consume the time of a skilled machinist would be a godsend to everyone—especially the Colorado cantonment, where economies of scale are more practicable than almost anywhere else in the country.

By the way, this dovetails into my argument for manufacturing a standardized assault rifle in Colorado. Assembly lines with a degree of automation will be far more efficient users of labor than decentralized gunsmithing. I’ll get back to that thread one of these days.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Five, communications. I mentioned in another thread that DARPA/ARPAnet was designed to survive a nuclear war, and it would. It would be particularly healthy after a low-level exchange as outlined in Twilight:2000. However, computers to use the infrastructure are going to be rare. Getting extant systems working again will be key - and you need nothing more powerful than a computer that can run a VT52 terminal emulation program and some kind of IP stack and support some kind of networking (RJ11, Token Ring, RS232, IEE488, and on and on) hardware. A Commodore VIC-20 can do it. An Imsai 8080 with a terminal and keyboard can do it. Likewise, what if NASA or better still NOAA could communicate with satellites again? Hurricanes ravaging the southeast without warning would cease to be a huge problem. Tie that back into a working ARPANet and now you've got the problem under control.

I support this.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Direct military applications of getting computers working again is of course a high priority too. Imagine an M577 actually becoming a command track again rather than a big air-conditioned personnel carrier. What if electronics that required computer tests to maintain (radar sets, computer controlled rangefinders, etc.) and consequently hadn't been working or working properly for 2-3 years could now operate again?

This, too—although I’m doubtful about the priority of getting tactical ground-based radar to work again.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Finally, something I didn't touch on in the other thread but I will here: working computers are a sign of recovery. Imagine, you go down to register yourself and your family at a relocation zone. You walk into a half-destroyed building, everything's lit with kerosene lanterns, the clerk writes your name down in pencil on a yellow pad, slips an ultra-worn out piece of carbon paper between two pages and has you fill out your ration chit...very depressing. My god, you think, this is...this is 1890s...we're never coming back from this...Same scene, but there's power, and they've got a kaypro luggable. Your info grinds out on a dot-matrix printer, is saved to floppy disk, the clerk tells you if you need another copy of the chit, come see him, he can print another out. That says "things are getting better" or "things aren't that bad". It gives people hope.

In my mind, this aspect is second only to the advantages of automating manufacturing. Morale in post-Exchange America is in desperate need of a boost. I like the description above very much.

Inventory management would be greatly facilitated by computers, just as it is today. By the end of 1998, SAMAD is starting to tackle the salvage situation. This, by the way, is one of the larger private ventures in SAMAD and thus Arizona. There are at least a quarter million passenger cars in southeastern Arizona just waiting to yield their spare parts. Then there are the commercial trucks and all manner of military vehicles. Then there are all of the various machines. Agriculture in SAMAD is highly labor intensive. Salvage operations are going to have to make do with very limited manpower. At the same time, manufacturing is going to have huge demands on limited manpower and materials. Computerized inventories can go a long way towards economizing new production by helping keep track of the salvaged and available spare parts and potential substitutes throughout SAMAD.

[Webstral]

First of all, Oldschool, I genuinely appreciate the effort you have invested in thinking this through. I like the reinterpretation you are giving The Free City of Krakow and its underpinning logic because you are making a concerted effort to make the game your own. I’m sure any player in your game would have a great time.

Originally Posted by oldschoolgm

I personally believe that Operation Reset presents a contradiction to the games main goal and genre. The operation reads like it is suppose to be some form of an espionage thriller in a game that is about combat.

We’re all free to make of Twilight: 2000 whatever we see fit. I’ve always seen Twilight: 2000 as being a game about survival, which means avoiding combat whenever possible. The game is dichotomous from this standpoint; clearly, much attention is given to combat, which is the most exciting part for the average player. Good role playing, though, means making the characters real. Generally, people want to live. Combat quite literally is a roll of the dice. I got through Iraq, but I’m not about to re-enlist to see if I can survive Iran when and if the balloon goes up there. Players are in it to experience the vicarious thrill of fighting, but the characters who have survived until 2000 know that combat means death for somebody. It’s only a matter of time before the magic BB strikes. Therefore, combat is a necessary evil for advancing some cause or plan. If that cause is simple survival, so be it. However, in the big scheme of things the characters will want to find a stable situation where their opportunities for combat are minimized OR they will pick a cause that is worthy of risking their lives. I interpret the modules and materials of Twilight: 2000 as supporting these two ideas.

The mission to Krakow makes sense to me from both standpoints (personal survival and aiding a cause). The characters want to get to Krakow because they want safety. The players play the game for a little stimulation, but the characters are doing what they are doing because they want to live a little longer. The RESET papers give the trek to Krakow a bit more urgency and a sense of direction greater than finding a room to rent.

[pmulcahy11b]

Here's a weird option for Operation Reset: "Reset" is just a code name for the recovery of a device. The device is alien in origin, and is believed to be a communications device that may put the government in direct contact with the ETs. The government thinks (hopes?) the ETs are benevolent in nature and may want to help a distressed world like ours, with the government that contacted them first to oversee the operation...

Even the people at the top may be willing to believe this about an object if they are in the wreckage of World War 3.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Personally I like the idea of a suitcase-sized cold fusion rig. Like was in the Later Days 'blog...(only that wasn't what it was, was it...)

Power's more important than getting a few more computers working. Reliable electricity.

You find a way to collimate enough muons, you got yourself desktop cold fusion there.

[Raellus]

My RESET was plans for a viable cold-fusion powerplant developed by Polish scientists! My players never really got into the whole RESET side plot (I was running a PotV campaign at the time and was using a Spetznaz recovery team pursuing RESET as a push factor to keep the tug moving). As it played out, the NPC carrying the plans was killed in a firefight with a Polish army anti-bandit force and the plans lost. I think that most of the PCs were glad to be free of the burden. Anything else happening with RESET in my developing campaign world will likely happen off-screen.

[WallShadow]

Universal CPU replacement.
Super-duper operating system.
Cold fusion in a briefcase.
Interplanetary hotline to benevolent aliens.

And now...

A radiation-neutralizer. Or at least a method of absorbing/concentrating the radionucleides to sequester them from the environment. Could be a GMO version of bamboo, or a species of radiation-damage-resistant biologically-magnifying mollusc, an algae that not only tolerates but thrives near and incorporates radioactive particles, a retrovirus DNA treatment to regrow cells damaged due to accumulated RADs, nanobots that physically repair biological RAD damage, or a spin-off from a failed cold-fusion program that actually dampens the decay rate of the deadly isotopes (foreshadowing of the nuclear damper of the Traveller era).

Any of these would give a heavily-nuked nation a big lead in recovery, restoring the health, safety, and/or productivity (as in land made arable once more) much sooner than one's competitors.


Oh, and the DNA or the nanobots might serve nicely as a "miracle" in conjunction with the Black Madonna, or just about any wandering "holy man". And who, including the KGB, CIA, DIA, GRU, New America, NSA, etc, wouldn't want dibs on the "fountain of youth"?