Two more RFA, please!

[Ancestor]

So, I have all of the modules but lack the Challenge articles. I have the following questions.

1. Is there any canon material about what happened to West Point? The AFA got it's own BDE (as did Fort Sill, for God's sake!) and I think there is canon material that details what happened to both the Naval Academy and the Coast Guard Academy, but I could not find anything regarding the USMA. Any info or conjecture would be appreciated.

2. I have always struggled to understand the state of the nation in the roughly seven to eight months between the TDM and the Mexican Invasion. Since I started playing T2K in the 8th grade it's bothered me and now that I'm an old man and own Howling Wilderness I'm even more confused.

Is it "Alas, Babylon," "By Dawn's Early Light," (some semblance of central authority who's trying but can't be everywhere for everyone?) or is it something more akin to "The Day After/Testament/Threads (civil authority overwhelmed) leading into a poor man's Red Dawn (Mexican invasion/Red Star Lone Star)."

Any info/conjecture on this time period, specifically regarding conditions CONUS and replacements being sent into the ETO (especially size of the echelons and methods of transportation) would be appreciated as well.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Ancestor

2. I have always struggled to understand the state of the nation in the roughly seven to eight months between the TDM and the Mexican Invasion. Since I started playing T2K in the 8th grade it's bothered me and now that I'm an old man and own Howling Wilderness I'm even more confused.
ok

I have the exact same issues as you. Simply put the writers wanted the US to be in worse shape than the second most devastated region on the planet* (Poland) for game play reasons. The problem is real world facts and logic very much took a second seat to establishing the desired setting (chaos).

I understand what the writers were going for, and in any game which did not come so close to the real world, it would have been much easier to just accept the differences. In D&D for example you could always make some magical excuse for what ever the world's situation calls for.

For me, when looking at many elements it comes down to striking a balance between reality and gameplay.

Personally as far as the most controversial elements I threw out some, modified others and kept a few things as canon.

There are lots of discussions and potential modifications presented throughout this forum. They sometimes led to our most heated exchanges but there is a lot of useful information here.

I am sure some will follow up with opinions and links (I will add some myself as I see what direction things go).




* I consider Poland which has been crossed three times by mechanized forces and been targeted by a wide range or NBC weapons to be behind only the Sino/Soviet front line in terms of devastation. (1000 tac nukes will do that)

[Olefin]

I feel much the way you do Kato - for one the Mexican invasion that was depicted was so far beyond the capabilities of the Mexican Army itself (whose only tank in that time period was upgunned versions of the Stuart tank from WWII), especially since it would have brought nuclear devastation down on Mexico for sure - the US wouldnt have used nukes on their own soil but they sure would have on northern and central Mexico and yet where is that in the canon?

Also the US has been at war for over a year, seen the nukes flying for months and yet somehow doesnt have a clear designated successor ready to go if DC gets hit?

Plus the 42nd Infantry just goes on ships for Europe and leaves after TDM with NYC in barely controlled chaos - its a NY National Guard unit - most likely the governor would have told CivGov to get stuffed and kept the unit right where it was - the 78th is a US Govt unit but not the 42nd

[Raellus]

Although verisimilitude is very important to me, I tend to cut the writers some slack. Unlike D&D or other, purely fictional RPG'ing milieus where the creators can make everything in the setting fit the plot (and vice-versa), the T2K writers were dealing with real places and real units, and plausible geo-political scenarios over ten years out, and trying to create to merge the two in a near-future post-apocalyptic game world that felt real. This is an impossible task but they did a pretty darn good job, IMHO. Yes, there are lots of minor issues, and a couple of major ones, but on the whole, if it wasn't pretty amazing, we wouldn't still be talking about it 31 years later.

[Olefin]

I agree with you Raellus - its just that I wish in some ways they had thought things out a little more on the canon historical events to make them more plausible and explained

they went into a lot of detail on the game mechanics, vehicles, etc.. - but seem to have rushed the timeline a little too much - not just in the general release but in the game as a whole -

in many ways they might have been better off doing a more comprehensive timeline later and not having it in the initial game release and thus had more time to think it out - just have the Death of the 5th and where we are now in 2000 and thats it

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I guess it depends on what you want out of the game; I have straight up been told by people on this forum that if you don't have an utterly broken USA then it's just a game of GI Joe where the USA triumphs over all -

Like the US would be capable of mounting anything other than slowly and painfully building itself back up just because Belgium didn't fall or the US held off a Mexican invasion (snorting derisively at that one).

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Olefin

I agree with you Raellus - its just that I wish in some ways they had thought things out a little more on the canon historical events to make them more plausible and explained

they went into a lot of detail on the game mechanics, vehicles, etc.. - but seem to have rushed the timeline a little too much - not just in the general release but in the game as a whole -

in many ways they might have been better off doing a more comprehensive timeline later and not having it in the initial game release and thus had more time to think it out - just have the Death of the 5th and where we are now in 2000 and thats it

The harsh reality is not in favour of those who want a detailed or more realistic history/timeline. Unfortunately the harsh reality is that the majority of players are not actually interested in the history/timeline other than a generalized overview because what they really want to do is just play the game. For them, the history just isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.