Omnicron Base, the Project's secondary command base

[dragoon500ly]

I've been working on the proposed secondary base, here is the introduction. As always comments and flames are cheerfully accepted...

Personal Journal of Elizabeth Morrow, February 14th, 1983

It has been three years since the completion of Prime Base and I have finally convinced the Council of the dire necessity for a backup command base. The Council’s primary concern has been the tremendous financial outlay and the almost sixteen years of construction time necessary for its unusual construction.

The location selected for the proposed Omnicron Base is near the Morrow Industries Ozark rail yard (MIORY) facility located just south of Springfield, Missouri. This facility handles storage and refurbishment of over 100,000 shipping containers yearly as they are moved along the primary E-W and N-S rail lines. Needless to say, an excellent cover for the transshipment of equipment, supplies and personnel for the new base.

The facility enjoys another advantage, its location abutting the northern edge of the Ozark Plateau has had extensive mining over several decades for lead, coal and salt, almost all of which have closed due to lack of minerals and leaving the tunnels available for reuse by Morrow Industries.

Located some two kilometers due south of the MIORY site is a 1,250 foot hill with the remains of a coal mine opened in 1857 and closed and abandoned in 1871. The mine has been surveyed and only commercially unviable amounts of coal have been found. The mine consists of three roughly parallel horizontal shafts running some 600 yards into the hill. Vertically, there are three levels with each of the lower levels consisting of twin shafts stretching 500 yards, end to end, with the lowest level approximately 100 to 140 feet deep.

Initial design of the proposed Omnicron Base envisions three levels, each of three parallel tunnels with three additions intended as warehouses and support equipment as well as a vertical shaft rising from the top level and then splitting into four horizontal shafts that run almost to the surface of the hill. These are two shafts are intended for communication facilities and two as personnel exits. A further shaft is intended to run due west from the second level and connecting with a small chamber that will be a vehicle storage area, with controlled access to the surface.

Anticipated ground breaking will be on August 17, 1984, with a “hopeful” completion date of October, 1993.

[dragoon500ly]

This is the introduction I use in my home grown games, as always, comments and flames are cheerfully welcomed!

On 29 August 1949 at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan when the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb; code named “First Lightning.” This explosion, at roughly twenty kilotons was roughly equivalent to “Trinity”, the first U.S. explosion.

It was not until September 3, 1949 when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft flying off the coast of Siberia picked up the first evidence of radioactivity from the explosion. Later that month, President Harry S. Truman announced to the American people that the Soviets had the bomb as well. Three months later, Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist who had helped the United States build its first atomic bombs, was arrested for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets. While stationed at U.S. atomic development headquarters during World War II, Fuchs had given the Soviets precise information about the U.S. atomic program, including a blueprint of the “Fat Man” atomic bomb later dropped on Japan, and everything the Los Alamos scientists knew about the hypothesized hydrogen bomb. The revelations of Fuchs’ espionage, coupled with the loss of U.S. atomic supremacy, led President Truman to order development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.

It all began on May 5th, 1952 with a closed meeting of some of the country’s leading industrialists and scientists in St. Louis, Missouri. After intense debate, the meeting elected twelve individuals to sit on the Council of Tomorrow. Their mission, to assist in the reconstruction of the U.S. after a nuclear war. The means to accomplish this ambitious plan was to develop innovative power generation, scientific processes and a means to cryogenically freeze the teams and their support equipment.

For many years the Project secretly recruited, trained and stored their teams at hundreds of locations across the United States and Canada, awaiting the proper time for the reawakening. Gradually their scientific research improved and their equipment became more and more advanced. In 1979, the project developed a functioning, portable fusion power plant and advanced laser technology. In 1987, the Project carried out a complete updating of all of the previously stored equipment, opening the buried and sealed chambers of the sleepers without waking them and leaving behind new equipment, vehicles and the instruction manuals on how to operate them.

The Prime Base of the Morrow Project is a vast underground complex designed to sustain the lives of some three hundred personnel through the nuclear Holocaust as the recorded the data concerning the war. Designed to also act as the primary communications nexus for the Project when they should wake. So through will be their recording of these events that they will be only one of two locations with the only comprehensive sources of information on pre-war times.

Omnicron Base is the frozen back-up to Prime Base and houses back-ups of all information recorded by Prime Base. Prime Base automatically downloads every twelve hours to Omnicron Base. In the event that Prime Base misses a scheduled transmission, twice within twenty-four hours. This will trigger a recall scheduled to reawaken Omnicron Base from its freeze. In the event of such an occurrence, Omnicron will assume control of the Project.

Prime Base was built in the hills in the northwestern corner of Nevada. Omnicron Base was built in the rolling hills of southwestern Missouri. Both locations are anticipated to be outside the majority of the heavy fallout paths as well as in (relativity) seismic inactive areas.

The Bases differ in radically different designs: Prime Base consists of three cylinders and a large stores annex, deep under a mountain. Omnicron Base consists of four tiers of multiple tunnels and an extensive annex network, deep under a mountain. While Prime Base depended upon its relative isolation, Omnicron Base is concealed by the Morrow Industries Ozark rail yard (MIORY) storage, an extensive shipping container storage, decontamination and refurbishment facility near a major east-west rail line facility located just south of Springfield, Missouri.

Prime Base started its construction in May of 1967 and was completed in March of 1980. The construction of Prime Base was carried out under the cover of mining operations (for further information on Prime Base’s construction, please consult Project File 008.)

Omnicron Base started its construction in August, 1984 and completed in August 1993. Its cover plan involved the Morrow Industries being granted a contract from the EPA for the cleanup of a designated Superfund Hazardous Waste Site. The transportation of equipment, supplies and essential personnel were transported by a variety of cargo and dump trucks based at the MIORY facility

The construction crew was never very large, sufficient to operate the tunnel boring machinery, and to maintain the recovery and loading equipment. The crew was composed of carefully selected Morrow Industries employees who were ultimately destined to staff the Base and so the only people would know where the base was built, would be the people who were assigned to it.

As the years progressed, the underground portions of the Base were completed, permanent party personnel would be moved into the Base and begin operation of the Base or furthered its ongoing construction.

Only the personnel assigned to Sigma would know the exact location. Other Project personnel knew of Omnicron, and an even smaller number of personnel knew its approximate location. These latter personnel would be provide with clues that would enable them to reach the Base in the event of some emergency. But ultimately, knowledge of and access to Omnicron Base was the carefully guarded secret of its personnel. Not even the Council of Tomorrow or Bruce W. Morrow were not privy to the location.

Several missions were deemed necessary to the operation of the Base and its successful mission. the Base had to provide living areas to its personnel; stores/supplies and manufacturing facilities and finally and most importantly, command, control, communications and information apparatus. In the end, and following the example of Prime Base, it would be split into three sections: Base administration and mission operations; living and support facilities; and a facilities for supply and manufacturing.

The final design of Omnicron Base included four Tiers, each consisting of five parallel major tunnels, inter-contacted with five parallel secondary minor tunnels. Each major tunnel averages 200 meters in length and 30 meters in width. Lined with reinforced concrete walls, floors and roofs, a uniform 2 meters thick. The secondary tunnels average 200 meters in length and 10 meters in width and with walls, floors and roofs that average 2 meters thick, constructed out of reinforced concrete. The physical floors were one meter thick, allowing crawlspaces through which runs the communications, air, water, sewage lines as well as HVAC, humidifiers and other air circulation equipment. A feature of the tunnels are the series of bays that are placed on each side, these house the various functions of the base. Each Tier is separated from the next by 30 meters of rock, with the upper Tier resting 100 meters under the surface.

[dragoon500ly]

The Base, needless to say has a large number of doors. These come in a wide variety and styles depending on their function.

The types of doors range from interior doors to closed rooms, to small access doors between levels, to large cargo doors in the warehouse sections, and many more. There are also several types of doors unique to the base.

Over its construction cycle and the brief period of its operation prior to freeze, few doors were kept locked, but all of the doors can be locked as necessary. There are several doors and areas which are kept locked due to the nature of their contents. And there are doors that are kept locked, depending on if they are being used.

There are three varieties of locks. The most common are designed to be operated by an MPID, which serves as the key. Everyone in the Base is issued with a MPID (even all but the smallest of children). This allows the locks to be coded for specific individuals. The doors to individual quarters and offices are excellent examples of this system.

For additional security, electronic locks are provided. These locks are operated by means of a small panel usually mounted the right side of the door. This panel has eleven buttons (0-9, clear and enter). To open the lock, one must enter the combination in the proper sequence. Most combinations range from three to six digits. Electronic locks, like key locks, do not have to be “on”, there is usually a setting which turns the lock off during periods of regular use.

Please note, that while electronic locks are relatively secure, but the simple fact that once the combination is revealed or discovered can no longer provide security. It is true that any combination can be changed, it must first be known that the combination needs to be changed. In almost all cases, the compromise of the combination is only discover by the discovery of something missing, then changing the combination is a case of too little, too late. Key locks do not have the same problems, especially when there are a limited number of keys. While it is true that keys can be made, the process is not nearly as casual as passing along a combination.

Some locks are more secure. Some require both an electronic combinations and a key to operate. Some electronic locks use a triple sequence of numbers to open the lock and it is routine practice to have two or more personnel, each possessing only a part of the sequence.

A feature that is known only to certain staff members is that individual locks can be remotely operated from certain security consoles to allow the entry of security or medical personnel in the event of an emergency. In addition, an override code can be entered that locks all of the doors in a particular section or even the entire base.

The following is a description of some of the standard types of doors and their locks found in Omnicron Base:

Interior Doors: These are intended to not to provide security but rather privacy. If there are any locks at all, it is usually by means of a twisting knob lock or a hand bolt. The materials these doors are made of varies, but is usually consists of thin metal or plate glass. But even when locked, the interior doors can be very easily broken.

Area Doors: These are fire-resistant doors rated for 1 ½ hour duration and fitted with smoke and draft control gasketing. They are designed to be secure against casual trespass. Department offices, file rooms, and quarters all are fitted with this type of door. Even while being of fire-resistant construction, they can still be opened by determined assault.

Security Doors: These doors are equipped with heavy duty locks and bullet resistant armor and can withstand casual explosives (up to hand grenades). While these doors can withstand physical assault, they can be breached with rams. These doors can be locked only from one side.

Supervised Doors: These are the most secure doors within the Base, being heavily armored (able to resist 7.62mm armor-piercing ammunition) but only vulnerable to the use of a large amount of explosives. Another security feature is that they cannot be operated from the vicinity of the door. Instead, there is always a security station, usually nearby, where a guard controls the door and opens/closes it remotely. When the guard is nearby, there are usually some means by which the guard can see the far side of the door. The most common arrangement is a booth fitted with armored glass. If there is no nearby security station, surveillance is accomplished through electronic communications and closed circuit television. These doors are rare in the Base.

It must be stressed that there are other types of doors in the Base. Those presented above are the standard doors. Custom doors, particularly those with vault-like functions and features are detailed in their specific sections.

[dragoon500ly]

**this section heavily draws on the EPG entry in Prime Base. I've found over three gaming sections that this is an excellent way to harass a player team**

Omnicron Base is completely self-contained in its power requirements. Primary power is supplied by one of three fusion reactors located within the Power Annex. Each level of the Base has emergency batteries with enough capacity for 96-hours of normal operations.

But the Project planners and the designers of the Base could not rely on the continuation of normal conditions. Contingency plans and designs of the necessary equipment had to be planned for.

Like its sister, Prime Base, Omnicron Base is a totally artificial environment and is absolute dependent upon its internal power. Any loss or disruption of power can cripple or even end the mission of the Base and place its personnel in jeopardy due to sudden loss of its heating, cooling, lights and water.

Still, electro-magnetic pulse, disconnections from the main grid and other possible hazards may reasonably occur during or following a nuclear war. There are areas and functions of the Base that must be kept operating. The emergency power grid is designed to fill that need.

The Emergency Power Grid (EPG) closely resembles the main power grid in that it serves all of the areas of the Base. But it differs in two ways. The first of these is in the area of back-ups, fail-safes and fuses. The main grid has only two sets of each. The EPG is a tertiary system having an additional three sets of each and two automatic switching system that shunts power to a working area when one of the subsystems blows.

The other difference is in the power supplied. The main grid sends power wherever and whenever it is requested. Switch on a lamp or plug in a power tool and the main grid makes it run. The EPG supplies power only to those functions and areas designated emergency areas.

The system comes into operations in two ways. If the main grid is interrupted then the EPG automatically comes on line. Or the EPG can be switched on in place of the main grid (this may be done in order to effect repairs or perform maintenance on the main grid.)

There are several modes in which the EPG operates. Which mode to be used usually depended on the area of the Base and its function:

Automatic: In this mode the EPG supplies power, usually in the form of lighting, to a specific area. Power is constantly available to designated services.

Conditional: Some areas of Sigma are on the grid, but power is supplied only when someone was in the area. This is usually effected through the heat sensitive switches located in many areas of the Base (See the Base Lighting section for details.)

Command: Finally, any area of the Base can be linked to the EPG so as to perform in a normal manner, in other words, as if it is on the main grid. This can only be done from the Power Control Center of the Power Annex, through the controls located there. Once done, however, the area so designated would continue to function normally until someone returned to the Control Center and returned the area to standard functioning.

[dragoon500ly]

Level One consists of four major tunnels, interconnected with four secondary tunnels. Each of the major tunnels has a series of Bays cut into both sides. The secondary tunnels also have smaller bays that are used for equipment as well as storage lockers. Level One is dedicated primarily to the three primary entrances (Personnel, Vehicle and Aviation) as well as a decontamination facility dedicated to each entrance. Base Security has three bays that secure and monitor each of the entrances. Adjacent to the Personnel Entrance is the Medical Screening Facility; Central In-processing; Transit Team Quarters; a Dining Facility; an Exercise and Recreation Area; a Housing/Billeting Officer and a Personnel Assignment and Adjustment Office and an Accounting/Supply Office.

Level Two consists of five major tunnels, interconnected with five secondary tunnels. This level is dedicated to Project-wide operations. Tunnels 2, 3, and 4 contain the operations floor; operations support; branch operations; the communications intercept center; the communications center; computer center; briefing rooms; a dining facility; an exercise area; base administration section, base internal telephone exchange; base video complex; base fire department (manned 24-7); the Project technical library; general technical library; the World Holo Map room and its viewing and control section and the Archives office (archive material is stored in the GSSP.) Tunnels 1 and 5 (the outmost tunnels) are divided into spare parts/raw materials storage; machine shops and parking areas for “deep storage” vehicles and aircraft. The secondary tunnels, as for Tier One, have smaller bays that are used as storage lockers.

Tier Three has seven major tunnels, interconnected with seven secondary tunnels pattern. The main tunnels house food services (two sets of kitchens, dining rooms; and cleaning facilities; school and day-care/nursery; playground; civic center (with restaurant/bar; BX/commissary; auditorium; two community halls; concourse/park; club/lounge; arcade; tailor shop; class VI store; fast food & ice cream parlor; barber/beauty shop; a convenience store); exercise & recreation area; base laundry; library; hospital. Scatted around the major tunnels are (46) single-occupancy quarters; (227) dual-occupancy quarters; (100) tri-occupancy quarters; (50) quad-occupancy family quarters and (10) laundry rooms for a total population of 600.

Tier Four, the bottommost layer of the base consists of seven tunnels interconnected with seven secondary tunnels. Tunnels 1, 2, and 3 contain hydroponics/fish farms. Secondary Tunnel D ends in a blast door that gives access to the Annexes and General Support Stores Pods (GSSP). Tunnel 4 houses additional hydroponics/fish farms as well as the farm administrative office. Tunnel 5 has farm stores and cleaning, sterilization, and maintenance facilities. Tunnel 6 houses the distillation & Brewing center and its associated supplies. Tunnel 7, due to the nature of its activities is connected to the other major tunnels by only two secondary tunnels (B and F) and these are sealed with blast doors. This is the location of Sigma’s Laboratories and Research. Here are the biology labs, chemical research, NBC warfare lab, and physics research labs.

Past the secondary tunnel D’s blast door are a series of annex tunnels: Annex A is the shop's section, consisting of, two woodworking shops; four machine shops; two forge rooms. Annex B is the engineering and production area, this consists of a mechanical engineering and maintenance facility; a materials and electronics engineering facility; a production & assembly area; a hydro/aerodynamics engineering facility; a fusion engineering facility, and a laser/energy facility. Annex C is a printing facility with an extensive printing store area. Annex D is the base arsenal, this consists of three sections: the base armory (repair/maintenance and reloading facility; the base arms room (ready stores of arms & ammunition, and the nine arms bays (which hold extensive weapons, ammunition, and related equipment.)

The General Support/Stores Pods: Like Prime, Sigma Base is can provide almost all of its needs. Please note that the GSSPs are intended to keep Sigma running and can only support the field teams assigned to the base. Omnicron does have access to three supply bases that are intended to support field teams in the Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma areas.

GSSP is the anagram identifying the bulk supply and inventory system of Omnicron. There is no office that controls and monitors the Pods. The Base accounting system keeps track of supply levels, and the location of each and every item. As levels decrease, the inventory system also keeps track of Omnicron’s own production and directs any excess production into the GSSPs for long-term storage and eventual issue.

The Pods are sometimes referred to as warehouses, although sizes, shapes and special equipment varies. Each pod is a very large room with load-bearing walls and pillars and a locking door. Near the door is a computer terminal that serves as an inventory control point.

In essence, the GSSPs can be divided into three broad categories: Base supplies, foodstuffs and consumer. These are, at best, very broad groupings and there is some amount of overlap between the groups.

Base supplies are those items stored for the use of Base personnel and equipment supporting the mission operations. A very general list would include (but by no means limited to): uniforms, boots, POL products, rations; replacement power tools, tool kits; light bulbs, toilet paper, tarps, camouflage netting, paper, pens, pencils, hardware (nuts, bolts, nails, screws, etc.), electric wiring, kitchen gear and so forth. I will never draw up a total inventory list, but as the Prime Base Module suggests, “require your players to think of and ask for what they want, or think they need. Then, if the item(s) is responsible, include it.”

Another thing to consider is the difference between perishable and permanent items. The GSSPs will include a large amount of perishable and very, very few permanent items. There would be a large amount of lights bulbs and vehicle spares….and very few replacements vehicles.

Foodstuffs are self-explanatory. Omnicron produces plenty of vegetables and fish, even limited beef, pork, and chicken that will support its population. But the vast amount of foodstuffs will be in bulk containers, 55-gallon drums or cases of barley, coffee, corn meal, flour, malt, pepper, rice, salt, spices, sugar, tea, wheat, yeast, etc. as well as drums of fruits, fish, meats, and vegetables.

There are also GPPSs that are refrigerated storage. Here are stored items such as frozen beef, pork, poultry, mutton and fish, frozen fruits and vegetables, whole milk, and a slew of other items. Non-food items such as whole blood, camera, x-ray film, and selected drugs are also included.

Luxury items consist almost entirely of consumer goods such as items for the BX/Commissary system. The emphasis for this class of items includes jeans, flannel shirts, and other civilian clothing and footwear, brand name liquor, assorted soft drinks and beers, specialty foods, coffees, teas, and other delicacies, tobacco products, perfumes, jewelry, watches, and other items that would fall under this category.

Finally, there are four annexes that are placed at the extreme northern end of the base. These are the Power Annex, which maintains three fusion reactors (primary, secondary, and emergency), four bays with emergency e-batts, the Emergency Power Grid Control, the Base power plant, Main Power Grid Control, and the Main Power Grid. The Water Annex contains a 1.7 million gallon tank of fresh water and four water wells. The Sewage Annex which filters, and recycles “gray” water and dries out and burns “black” water. Finally, there is the Air Annex which filters and recycles the base’s atmosphere and as well as filters and purifies outside air and then runs both through the base’s HVAC systems.

At the far end of the annex/GSSPs system are a security complex and another blast door, leading to the Annex Tunnel. The tunnel runs just short of three kilometers to the north of the Base. The tunnel is six meters wide and four meters high and it doesn’t run in a straight line. Starting three hundred meters from the blast door, it turns gradually northwest (in all a 10-degree turn) and after running five hundred meters, there is a blast door and a turn north (another 10-degree turn) and it then runs a kilometer north before another blast door and a 20-degree turn the northeast. The last one point five meters is straight and ends in another blast door. At the near end of the tunnel, its depth is eighty meters but gradually rises to a depth of three meters below the surface.

[mmartin798]

I like this concept. But I just had to comment about the part that made me smiled, the listing of x-ray film in the refrigerated GSSPs. Digital x-ray was already main stream by the mid 1990's and film quickly went the way of the dodo.

There were a couple of big factors here. Silver being an environmental pollutant was being enforced with lower allowable limits. This lead many efforts to remove silver from as many processes as possible. X-ray and graphics arts film both quickly found ways to remove silver. X-ray with modified digital camera technology and graphic arts with thermal photopolymers. I watched this personally as my dad was a radiological technologist. Digital x-ray machines quickly replaced all the traditional machines in just a few years as any new machines added were digital and replacements for retire machines were also digital. This included portables. I worked in the graphic arts field and that transition was almost a blink of an eye, taking not more than 5 years to become the standard.

Since Omnicron Base's construction was finished in 1994, any equipment added would have likely been digital unless they wanted to stick with the cheaper, more failure prone and higher radiation exposure of the film based machines they could pick up on the secondary markets.

[dragoon500ly]

It has been three years since the completion of Prime Base and I have finally convinced the Council of the dire necessity for a backup command base. The Council’s primary concern has been the tremendous financial outlay and the almost sixteen years of construction time necessary for its unusual construction.

The location selected for the proposed Omnicron Base is near the Morrow Industries Ozark rail yard (MIORY) facility located just south of Springfield, Missouri. This facility handles storage and refurbishment of over 100,000 shipping containers yearly as they are moved along the primary E-W and N-S rail lines. Needless to say, an excellent cover for the transshipment of equipment, supplies and personnel for the new base.

The facility enjoys another advantage, its location abutting the northern edge of the Ozark Plateau has had extensive mining over several decades for lead, coal and salt, almost all of which have closed due to lack of minerals and leaving the tunnels available for reuse by Morrow Industries.

Located some two kilometers due south of the MIORY site is a 1,250 foot hill with the remains of a coal mine opened in 1857 and closed and abandoned in 1871. The mine has been surveyed and only commercially unviable amounts of coal have been found. The mine consists of three roughly parallel horizontal shafts running some 600 yards into the hill. Vertically, there are three levels with each of the lower levels consisting of twin shafts stretching 500 yards, end to end, with the lowest level approximately 100 to 140 feet deep.

Initial design of the proposed Omnicron Base envisions three levels, each of three parallel tunnels with three additions intended as warehouses and support equipment as well as a vertical shaft rising from the top level and then splitting into four horizontal shafts that run almost to the surface of the hill. There are two shafts are intended for communication facilities and two as personnel exits. A further shaft is intended to run due west from the second level and connecting with a small chamber that will be a vehicle storage area, with controlled access to the surface.

Anticipated ground breaking will be on August 17, 1984, with a “hopeful” completion date of October, 1993.