Silver Shogun

[Webstral]

I’m at an impasse in my effort to turn Silver Shogun into a script for a graphic novel. A little back-and-forth with the boys of Twilight: 2000 might be the trick for getting out of my own head and gaining some perspective, if you guys are willing to indulge me.

Some things are settled on. The protagonist, David Tokugawa, is a major shareholder in a Las Vegas casino and hotel named The Phoenix. The story begins with him at The Phoenix on the evening before Thanksgiving 1997. A series of vignettes set the stage, establishing that the war has been going on for a couple of years and has turned nuclear in Europe and China. Vegas is packed with people trying desperately to ignore what has been happening in Eurasia. Profits have been at an all-time high everywhere in Vegas, but things are getting out of hand. Some vignettes hint at the activity at Nellis AFB. Others show that the City of Las Vegas has been taking some action in the direction of contingency planning. Tokugawa has a number of brief encounters all over the casino that show the relationships he has with other principal players at the casino as well as his approach to management.

When EMP knocks out the power on Thanksgiving, the masses panic. On this weekend, Vegas is particularly susceptible to the mess we have described amongst ourselves over the past few years because there are more visitors in Clark County than residents. Whether the visitors hit the road, riot, loot, or have sex in public places, their manifestation of mass panic will be as intense as or more intense than any other city in the US. The first 24 hours after the power goes out will be very, very intense. I intend to immerse the reader in this experience through Tokugawa’s eyes.

Soon enough, though, the military and the police appear on the Strip and enforce law and order. Like an elastic stretched and released, the people snap back to the patterns of civilized behavior, though not ever again like it used to be.

There’s a period of time between the initial calming in many parts of the city and the abandonment of Las Vegas and Nellis AFB by the military (see my notes on 99th Wing) that I have not defined to my satisfaction. While I intend for Tokugawa to take on the role of the leader of a powerful alternative force in Clark County prior to the departure of 99th Wing, I’m having trouble sorting out a number of the details that need to be sorted for him to make the transition from the de facto owner/CEO of the casino to the leader of an army that includes gang members, outlaw bikers, armed civilians, casino security forces and other private security forces, organized crime, subverted city and county employees (including police), and subverted military.

So far, the best I have been able to come up with is that Tokugawa goes down a path on which each step towards becoming the enemy of 99th Wing has its own logic answering to the events of the moment. While we see during the vignettes that Tokugawa plans carefully and looks at the big picture, events in the immediate aftermath of Thanksgiving prevent him from looking beyond the next moment in a systematic fashion. He has immediate crises, like caring for the needs of guests and staff at The Phoenix in a totally unprecedented situation.

I haven’t developed a detailed picture of Las Vegas at various points after Thanksgiving. Obviously, it sucks big time. The orgy of death and suffering right after Thanksgiving dies down but then slowly builds to a new, better organized crescendo. During this time, where is the food coming from? How is the water getting to people? These two questions are very important because they dictate the shape of things in Vegas during the first 10 days after Thanksgiving.

I’ve considered cheating on the water by having electricity restored. My deus ex machina is the idea that the Hoover Dam generators are just too important to be allowed to be knocked out by a single burst of EMP. Backup electrical equipment is located on site after July 1997. Contingency plans are put into effect, turning the pumps back on in Vegas. Water doesn’t go to everybody, though. It’s distributed at central locations, which also can serve for distributing rations.

This goes back to the food issue. Where’s the food coming from? Obviously, the government will have seized all local warehouses and other stores. There are farms and ranches in the northern part of the state. I’m stuck on how this translates into a situation inside Las Vegas, though. What the relationship between Tokugawa and the people who control the water, food, and fuel during the first week of December? I’ve considered having Tokugawa and the other heads of casinos on the Strip assemble to try to figure out what they are going to do while supplies last with the result that Tokugawa becomes leader of this conglomerate. But then what? Does the city government recognize him in any meaningful way? Does Nellis AFB (by which I mean the Air Force command) recognize him in any meaningful way? What would their acknowledgement of his leadership of these hotels full of guests mean? Do they dump rations with Tokugawa’s security forces and tell him to handle distribution? Does he get assigned responsibility for local security? While the fact that the rest of Clark County is descending into anarchy is a given, what does this look like from Tokugawa’s perspective? What are they telling the surviving guests of the casinos about their fate and futures? How do these developments bring Tokugawa into conflict with gangs, ad hoc militia, and ultimately the surviving government forces?

I’m thinking, too, that Tokugawa needs to be part of a scheme to get people through the coming lean times that fails. I don’t yet know what form this takes. Maybe there is an effort to plant gardens inside and around the city. Maybe there is a Nevada version of relocation, taking survivors from the urban areas of Las Vegas to farms throughout the state. I’m sure other crushingly tragic possibilities exist.

I’m certain of a couple of things, though. One of Tokugawa’s chief weapons in this stage is diplomacy and subversion. I’m thinking of having him bring a minor gang into the fold, then using them to cripple a larger gang. This would require rapid consolidation of all the security forces on the Strip. Why aren’t these guys drafted by the Air Force? I don’t have a good answer for that yet, but I need them not to be drafted by the Air Force or the story dies.

[Targan]

With Tokugawa being an existing major player in the Vegas scene, he must have had solid links to some pretty serious underworld figures. Maybe he had some dodgy side businesses going on pre-war (illicit substances, firearms, human trafficking perhaps related to the sex industry). If, in the lead up to the TDM, he was able to play some of those forces off against one another with an eye to consolidating them under his own banner, that would give him an excellent pool of muscle to draw on once the fertilizer hit the ventilation.

Alternatively or in addition, perhaps he had a major financial stake in labor hire and/or private security companies. Both of those areas would provide excellent synergies with his casino interests.

[Rainbow Six]

How local strongmen evolve is something that I’ve been thinking a bit about lately (as you probably know I’ve been working on an Alternative Survivor’s Guide to the UK for some time and one of the challenges I have is how to make different strongmen more diverse rather than having them all be variations of the same theme), so a few thoughts that may or may not be of use.

In many areas the man (or woman – for brevity I will use male pronouns but no reason why it couldn’t be a she) who controls sources of food and water will probably have significant influence / power. He may have gotten control of that food through legitimate (or at least pseudo legitimate) means (one option I’ve used was a man who owned a trucking company that was contracted by the Government to deliver essential supplies) or illegitimate means. Sometimes someone may find themselves in the position almost by accident (I’m currently trying to flesh out a leader who comes to power after the 1997 nuclear exchange and subsequent food riots as a consequence of being an unwilling (at least initially) ringleader of the riots).

Much of that is tangential at best to the questions you’ve put forward, but the underlying theme of how / if Tokugawa takes control of much of the city’s food distribution may help answer the question of what happens if he becomes leader of the conglomerate as you’ve described. I’d endorse the idea that the remaining military elements recognise him as leader and delegate to him the task of distributing food / water. It’s one less thing for them to be worried about, particularly if he already has a proven and effective distribution system in place. Whether the City Government (or what’s left of it) recognise him or not may or may not matter dependent on what sort of state the City Government is in by then – is it still intact and providing the basic functions of Government? Or has it been superseded in that role by Tokugawa, who, perhaps crucially, is being supported by the military.

As to what Tokugawa is telling the survivors, if he is controlling food distribution there is a message, perhaps implied but unspoken, or perhaps subtly spread by his minions (I don’t like that word particularly but it serves a purpose here) namely that if they support him they will do OK going forward. Maybe not great, but OK, and OK is probably better than much of the country at that point. In time these supporters will then become the footsoldiers, camp followers, and specialists that may make up a significant portion of his Army.

Re: the drafting (or not) of the gangs into the Air Force, would the Air Force have the resources (not to mention the will) to attempt to draft every gang? Even if they tried how many gangs would simply ignore the instruction to report for duty? Alternatively, I note you do say you are certain which route you want to take, but rather than using an overtly criminal gang to bring down the larger gang could you use another group? Targan mentioned Casino security guards; perhaps these guards have been brought under the aegis of City government as some form of auxiliary police so are exempted from any Air Force draft on the grounds that they have already been effectively drafted by the City Government? Perhaps Tokugawa has covertly taken over the remnants of City Government by then (possibly he has the head of the Government in his pocket, either by means of blackmail, intimidation, or influence, making Tokugawa the puppet master pulling the strings) so these men end up doing his bidding, possibly without even knowing that they are doing so.

Just a few thoughts…hope they help

[Raellus]

I like the idea of Tokugawa coopting a local gang (bikers, methinks) to help bolster his casino's organic security force in the increasingly chaotic period leading up to the TDM. Think Altamont without the music and hippies. This gives him added muscle and establishes potentially useful connections to the other illicit activities and underworld figures associated with the OBG. It also gives him the ability to exert greater pressure on his fellow/rival casino owners, eventually bringing them to heel. An alternative to the bikers is the mob, with which Vegas has strong historical ties. This, IMO, has been overdone, so I prefer the bikers.

Now that Tokugawa has the largest non-governmental security force in Vegas, the military authorities at Nellis make a huge mistake by coopting Tokugawa, essentially deputizing him and his security apparatus in a bid to get the city back under control. When he shows willingness to participate in this arrangement, they then delegate to him the task of handling food distribution, since he's got enough security to make sure mobs of rioters don't make off with the goods. Perhaps he talks them into supplying him with some military surplus weapons to help him accomplish this difficult task.

Coopting Tokugawa is a huge mistake by the civil/military authorities because they've given Tokugawa both de jure and de facto legitimacy and authority (and possibly some firepower). In the eyes of many of the hungry locals and refugees, Tokugawa is the savior, not the government or the AF. In the meantime, Tokugawa absorbs or destroys potential rival power groups (street gangs, mafiosos, etc.), consolidating his power and growing his army.

If and when the military pulls its material/moral support from Tokugawa- perhaps they realize the mistake they've made, or they decide to evacuate or whatever- Tokugawa can turn that into a propaganda coup, spinning it so that the government/military look like the bad guys. By that time, he's got popular support and an increasingly powerful paramilitary army- a force to be reckoned with.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

How local strongmen evolve is something that I’ve been thinking a bit about lately (as you probably know I’ve been working on an Alternative Survivor’s Guide to the UK for some time and one of the challenges I have is how to make different strongmen more diverse rather than having them all be variations of the same theme)...

This is exactly my challenge. I'm mindful of the fact that I'm inclined to lean towards certain ideas that characterize Thunder Empire. Tokugawa has to be a unique character, not a variant on MG Thomason. I need to find patterns and solutions in Tokugawa's rise that are fundamentally different from anything happening in southern Arizona. At the same time, events have to have a credible logic.

[simonmark6]

Would it be too clichéd to go with some Japanese systems?

The simplest would be the Japanese feudal system which went from:
Shogun
Daiyomo
Samurai
Peasants

If a charismatic leader was able to gather together several dispirit groups who happened to control the means of keeping the city together, the leader of each group would be the Daiyomo and many of the gangsters could become the Samurai.

To make it less obvious, Tokugawa could base his control on the concept of the Japanese corporate system. This is essentially a conglomerate of inter-linked groups that together form the means of production. The inter-dependency in this case could be a further means of control for the leader with hostages of every "family" living with the Shogun.

This has the benefit of being different to other ways that warlords have been introduced in TW2K.

Japanese Corporate Theories break down to:
•Management technology is a highly transportable technology.
• Just-in-time production exposes problems otherwise hidden by excess inventories and staff.
• Quality begins with production, and requires a company-wide "habit of improvement."
• Culture is no obstacle; techniques can change behaviour.
• Simplify, and goods will flow like water.
• Flexibility opens doors.
• Travel light and make numerous trips, like the water beetle.
• More self-improvement, fewer programs, less specialist intervention.
• Simplicity is the natural state.

Something like this could form the basis of Tokugawa's plans. Basically, he could initially secure the means to control organised violence within the city, both legal and illegal and then sets up "industrial clans" to secure certain vital resources and organisations.

The key to these would be protection: Tokugawa insinuates his own "samurai" into the clans that have loyalty to him, or at least something outside the clan as security and in exchange certain members of each clan "visit" Tokugawa.

You could combine the two ideas as the culture develops: industrial clans in the city with protected key workers and a more transient population of "peasant" workers and then, agricultural clans that represent the old Feudal systems with a Daiyamo appointed by the Shogun and Samurai supporting them whilst peasants labour to produce food.

Anyway, it's a few ideas to kick about.

[Raellus]

It bears noting that under the Tokugawa Shogunate, farmers had a higher social status, at least in theory, than merchants. This despite that many farmers were more or less impoverished while many merchants could be quite wealthy. From my understanding, the reasoning was that farmers were producers, while merchants simply trafficked in goods produced by others.