I swear, my alt timeline will have something about Florida

[raketenjagdpanzer]

that doesn't leave the state an abandoned ruin. Seriously, what is it with you guys? Between The Morrow Project and Twilight:2000 you'd think there was this runaway hate-on for the Sunshine State! LOL

[dragoon500ly]

You mean Florida is already an abandoned ruin, overrun with snowbirds? Oh man!!!! I am so behind on my reading!!!!

[antimedic]

I really never understood why Florida gets dissed my everyone. I have lived there my my whole life, and it is one of the easiest states to survive in. Lots of food if you know what you are looking for, and with all the growth, there is a ton of stuff out there to keep you going. Look at how Florida was basically the breadbasket of the CSA during the Civil war, when only a few interior counties were being farmed. Its easy to live here, as long as you can fish, ID some wild edibles, and build basic snares. Thats all from me.

P.S- How does St.Augustine fit into your story? Dude, we have a fort here, come on, how cool is that?

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

that doesn't leave the state an abandoned ruin. Seriously, what is it with you guys? Between The Morrow Project and Twilight:2000 you'd think there was this runaway hate-on for the Sunshine State! LOL

RakJPz,

"Sunshine State"? To reference the Simpsons, don't you mean "America's wang"?

I think everywhere gets creamed. Still, Florida is such an evocative place in terms of terrain and visualisation, many people have been there, it's a popular location in entertainment, a vibrant mix of cultures, there's a glowering Cuba just offshore, etc. In other words, it's getting the same "loving" treatment as Poland, another favourite setting area.

On that note, I will include a link to a not-quite-related but still kick-ass song, "Sister Havana" by Urge Overkill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzFlPdHt1Gk

Looks like it was taped in FL. Man, that chick doesn't seem like she's all that interested in actually being in the video.

Tony

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by antimedic

I really never understood why Florida gets dissed my everyone. I have lived there my my whole life, and it is one of the easiest states to survive in. Lots of food if you know what you are looking for, and with all the growth, there is a ton of stuff out there to keep you going. Look at how Florida was basically the breadbasket of the CSA during the Civil war, when only a few interior counties were being farmed. Its easy to live here, as long as you can fish, ID some wild edibles, and build basic snares. Thats all from me.

P.S- How does St.Augustine fit into your story? Dude, we have a fort here, come on, how cool is that?

The strikes happen pretty much as in the 1.0 background. Kennedy gets spared slightly by its bursts hitting out to sea and going off underwater due to malfunction. Patrick AFB is unharmed and becomes the keys to recovery in the area.

The I-4 corridor is pretty hosed, but Tampa/CENTCOM fallout went more southeast than northwest. Orlando and locations north and northwest did "OK", with MCO and SFB being key points for relief (what little has come).

As explained in 1.0-relevant sourcebooks, though, the Sunshine State has given rise to a lot of separatist elements which will be a problem for years to come. As I pointed out, the USS Saratoga is grounded of Port Richie, in a "maybe-someday" recoverable state. The chief concern is whether or not her reactor is safe and stable.

FL ANG units out of Jacksonville and USMC Reserve, Army Reserve and NTSC Orlando trainees are the bulk of the military presence in Florida, totaling around 2800 personnel. The Transportatiton and Paymaster reservists based out of Orlando provide the bulk of the mobility to units in Central Florida with their small number of HEMTTs, and the link between Central Florida and other regions is tenuous at best. Some transport aircraft remain, bolstered by rotary-wing and prop a/c from the USS Saratoga, and 3 functional, stored F15Ds also remain (but essentially grounded since a mere few hours' flying time worth of JP-8 remain).

SFB (Sanford International Airport) and to a lesser degree MCO (Orlando International Airport) have taken the bulk of relief flights; the surrounding environs near both airports are heavily patrolled by local militia (consisting of a great number of retired middle-aged veterans of Vietnam and Korea) aligned with both MilGov and CivGov. Unlike other areas of the country these two groups conflicts rarely involve more than catcalls, showing the international bird of peace to one another, and so on.

St. Augustine's civil government relocated to the near-indestructible fortress located in the old town. Nothing short of a demolition nuclear charge could bring the complex down and it is now the nerve center for recovery and civil government on Florida's northeast coast.

The chief damage done to Florida has been the repeated "surprise" hurricanes, although the judicious use of E2C Hawkeyes from the beached Saratoga, combined with the meteorological skills of NASA and Patrick AFB personnel have gone a long, long way to mitigating the damage by warning the remaining population centers as best they can...

[antimedic]

Heck yea! We've decided that the Castillo de San Marcos is going to be our hold out location during the Zombie Apocolypse. And dont forget, the Hawkeyes were and are still being built by Grumman in St. Augustine. And up until they were retired, Tomcats were being rebuilt, and Intruders were being converted to KA6D tankers. The State Guard HQ is also here. Several years ago I was able to see the Communications setup during a pre-fire tour, it was very impressive.

And most of the state has a gun store every 2 blocks or so. Just saying......

[headquarters]

I have a couple of cents :
Alas,Babylon : excellent book. set in Florida. Lots of good ambience and ideas for a T2k game.

1 Everybody knows Florida is warm and lush. When fuel and electricity stop being available further north a migration of people looking to get to somewhere warm and fertile will invade Florida.

2 Florida has a pretty high/normal gun pr citizen ratio. ( high or normal depending on your take on that issue)

I guess Florida will end up going through nasty times in the T2k setting - carnage.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by antimedic

And most of the state has a gun store every 2 blocks or so. Just saying......

Only one in the Keys, though, as far as I've been able to determine.

When I was doing 2013 demos, my standard plot involved U.S. Marine survivors in Cote d'Ivoire procuring transport back to the World for themselves and the embassy staffers they were escorting. I always wanted to do a sequel adventure for that, starting with the team's freighter going down in a tropical storm. The PCs would wash ashore (minus most of their gear) in the middle of a low-intensity struggle between the Conch Republic and a bunch of gangstas who'd escaped the nuclear strike on Miami. I had vague plans of making it the seed adventure for PCs arriving back in (nominally) CONUS and embarking on their homeward journeys. Alas, I can't actually write canned adventures to save my life... but I always liked the idea of the tongue-in-cheek Conch Republic secession movement turning into a de facto micro-nation once the lower Keys were completely cut off from any state or federal help.

- C.

[mikeo80]

I have a few nits to pick

1) U.S.S. Saratoga is/was a CVA, not a CVN. Oil based engineering, not a nuclear powered vessel.

2) Florida, esp in Alas Babylon and TMP gets CREAMED. So many AFB stations for the incoming Russian warheads to vaporize, the major cities of Miami, Orlando, etc. go poof!

As in Alas Babylon, once out in the boondocks, there would be at least a few survivors. As related above, there are natural resources that could sustain a low level population. As in Alas Babylon, the majority of snowbirds would be caught in the blast, radiation, firestorms. Not too many survivors there.

Just my two cents

Mike

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Come to think of it, Key West has oodles of feral chickens running about. That is meat on the hoof or if your more enterprising, capture some of them and raise them for their eggs and meat.

Chuck

I have said it here before, but I will say it again because it is so weird. Urban Guerrillas has a group called the Dunedin Rangers, a bunch of ragtag, well armed individuals in the Dunedin area. I was part of a group of reenactors that all lived in and around Dunedin, and we were part of a military museum called NASLEMM that is commonly called the "two of every gun museum" operated by long time gun collector Bill Douglas. It is very weird how similar we are to the story in the game.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by bigehauser

I have said it here before, but I will say it again because it is so weird. Urban Guerrillas has a group called the Dunedin Rangers, a bunch of ragtag, well armed individuals in the Dunedin area. I was part of a group of reenactors that all lived in and around Dunedin, and we were part of a military museum called NASLEMM that is commonly called the "two of every gun museum" operated by long time gun collector Bill Douglas. It is very weird how similar we are to the story in the game.

Eric,

Could be a coincidence, most likely. Maybe the author was from Florida and incorporated some local characteristics and groups?

Tony

[simonmark6]

I would have thought that the writer couldn't resist the temptation of dropping in an easter egg, Dunedin Rangers is just to close to Dunedain Rangers to resist.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

I would have thought that the writer couldn't resist the temptation of dropping in an easter egg, Dunedin Rangers is just to close to Dunedain Rangers to resist.

Simon,

Sure, that sounds logical, I never even made the connection. It could certainly have been in homage or a nod to the Dúnedain Rangers in Lord of the Rings.

Tony

[Adm.Lee]

I never noticed that until you posted it above.

Probably noticed it now, since we are showing my sons "Lord of the Rings" this week, 1 hour at a time.

[HorseSoldier]

I really never understood why Florida gets dissed my everyone. I have lived there my my whole life, and it is one of the easiest states to survive in. Lots of food if you know what you are looking for, and with all the growth, there is a ton of stuff out there to keep you going. Look at how Florida was basically the breadbasket of the CSA during the Civil war, when only a few interior counties were being farmed. Its easy to live here, as long as you can fish, ID some wild edibles, and build basic snares. Thats all from me.

Florida without air conditioning is an apocalypse in and of itself . . .

More seriously, I agree that Florida is an easier place than many to make a go of things with a significantly reduced technology base. That's a plus.

Being full of people who mostly have no clue whatsoever about how to make that work, though, is a death knell in an apocalypse scenario. Starvation and the social disruption and violence it would fuel would tend to reduce Florida to a working definition for "Howling Wilderness" after the nukes fall. Some rural populations might manage to hang on in the face of urban/suburban surge, but they'd be few and far between.

Those who did manage to hang on, as well as those who come into the state from elsewhere in the post-2000 era would probably be able to more rapidly redevelop the state than a lot of places (provided the politics don't interfere), but circa 1999-2000, Florida would be one of the more terrifying places to find yourself in North America. New America's set up in the state, as nasty as it appears to be, is probably a big step up from roving bands of marauders with a penchant for casual cannibalism and xenophobic surviving farmers and such who'd have survived by being even harder and colder than the roving gangs of man eaters.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

Some rural populations might manage to hang on in the face of urban/suburban surge, but they'd be few and far between.

New America's set up in the state, as nasty as it appears to be, is probably a big step up from roving bands of marauders with a penchant for casual cannibalism and xenophobic surviving farmers and such who'd have survived by being even harder and colder than the roving gangs of man eaters.

HS,

Thankfully, casual cannibalism simply doesn't happen in the real world, even in the face of famine. This is a very well-loved (perhaps a little too well-loved) post-apoc theme and a handy way to demarcate the "orcs". Likewise the mythical "urban/suburban surge" where the city folk descend on the countryside and warfare to the death ensues. These are taken as articles of absolute faith by survivalists and the post-apoc genre in general, but I have my doubts it would go down much like that.

Tony

[HorseSoldier]

Likewise the mythical "urban/suburban surge" where the city folk descend on the countryside and warfare to the death ensues. These are taken as articles of absolute faith by survivalists and the post-apoc genre in general, but I have my doubts it would go down much like that.

It isn't really debatable that when you pull the technology rug out from under modern societies and their agricultural and distribution systems that major urban areas become untenable. So those folks have to go somewhere.

I agree that this likely would not start as ravening hordes pouring out of urban areas, though it might end that way. It would likely start as shown in T2K, with an attempt to move urban populations closer to the means of agricultural production. Unfortunately, with the petroleum inputs modern agriculture depends on stripped out of the equation, agricultural productivity will plummet to the point that just supporting the local population will be an uncertain proposition.

And that likely plays out well before someplace like Florida has been able to fully empty its urban areas to sustainable levels . . . and so a second wave of hungry and desperate urbanites heading out into the countryside is a definite possibility.

Thankfully, casual cannibalism simply doesn't happen in the real world, even in the face of famine.

Casual is a bit of hyperbole, but cannibalism certainly does happen in the face of famine and starvation. If you add in a base population that lacks any significant awareness of any sort of direct subsistence strategies, like most urban populations in modern societies (or put another way, the bulk of the population in all modern societies), and also the utter collapse of established social structures you've got conditions that would lead to widespread cannibalism by desperate people. A lot of places in post-nuke America and Europe would be somewhere between "20th century communist agrarian reforms" and "stranded arctic expedition," and cannibalism -- most likely primarily opportunistic scavenging of those already dead and less common active predation -- would certainly be occurring.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

I agree that this likely would not start as ravening hordes pouring out of urban areas, though it might end that way. It would likely start as shown in T2K, with an attempt to move urban populations closer to the means of agricultural production. Unfortunately, with the petroleum inputs modern agriculture depends on stripped out of the equation, agricultural productivity will plummet to the point that just supporting the local population will be an uncertain proposition.

HS,

You are absolutely right!

I should have been more clear that I find the usual portrayal of this process typically incorporates nasty undertones of class, cultural and/or racial warfare, if not outright themes. I mean, hey, no one pretends the kind of post-apoc fiction I'm thinking of is considered particularly subtle or tasteful.

Casual is a bit of hyperbole, but cannibalism certainly does happen in the face of famine and starvation.

most likely primarily opportunistic scavenging of those already dead and less common active predation -- would certainly be occurring.

Again, I agree.

There is an important qualification, though, in that the cannibalism that does occur is almost always of the scavenging kind. Predation sometimes may happen, but when it does it's of the criminal sort where individuals are acting out a pathology as a serial killer, and not for survival (although a source of protein would probably aid their survival). There are reports of criminals who kidnap and kill their victims, then pass them off as meat to unsuspecting customers (or people too hungry to ask any questions).

There is also cannibalism used as a deliberate terror weapon (along with rape and mutilation) but that's not what we're talking about here.

Tony

[sglancy12]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Eric,

Could be a coincidence, most likely. Maybe the author was from Florida and incorporated some local characteristics and groups?

Tony

Tom Mulkey wasn't just a Floridian and Vietnam Vet, he living in St. Petersburg at the time he was writing for GDW. I suspect he might have been aware of the existence of any groups of re-enactors in the area and could very well have included them as a tip-of-the-hat to a real group. GDW often discouraged referencing real life people or groups for legal reasons, but I doubt if the editors at GDW (up in Normal IL) would have gotten that particular in-joke.

I myself always felt that the Broken Joes of the Bay Pines VA Hospital in Urban Guerilla were inspired by his own struggles with PTSD.

I had the pleasure of playing Twilight 2000 with him a couple of times and quizzed him pretty relentlessly about many of his writing projects for GDW, particularly about stuff that may have ended up on the cutting room floor.

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by sglancy12

I myself always felt that the Broken Joes of the Bay Pines VA Hospital in Urban Guerilla were inspired by his own struggles with PTSD.

I had the pleasure of playing Twilight 2000 with him a couple of times and quizzed him pretty relentlessly about many of his writing projects for GDW, particularly about stuff that may have ended up on the cutting room floor.

Scott,

Amen to that, and I think it would be cool and appropriate if the Broken Joes had some kind of deeper connection to his own life and struggles.

Tony

[HorseSoldier]

Originally Posted by helbent4

HS,

You are absolutely right!

I should have been more clear that I find the usual portrayal of this process typically incorporates nasty undertones of class, cultural and/or racial warfare, if not outright themes. I mean, hey, no one pretends the kind of post-apoc fiction I'm thinking of is considered particularly subtle or tasteful.

Ah -- I get your point now, and yeah, sorry if my initial post sounded a bit too rooted in survivalist fantasy and such.

[Cdnwolf]

Hmmm with all those snowbirds wiped out... means all those rich houses up in Canada now sitting empty....

How about bandits take over Cindrella's castle and make it the base of their operations....

And more importantly... what about all those crocs running free now!!

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

Ah -- I get your point now, and yeah, sorry if my initial post sounded a bit too rooted in survivalist fantasy and such.

HS,

No need to apologise, probably something of an overreaction on my part. Please accept my own apologies!

A recent article characterised this and other tropes as "nuke porn", complete with metaphorical "money shots" (detailed descriptions of atrocities, nuclear attacks, cannibalism, etc.). Cannibalism is all-too often a kind of lazy shortcut for moral degeneration and the collapse of civilisation. Cannibals are like "orcs" or zombies, bestial subhumans to be liquidated without guilt or remorse.

Getting back onto topic, I was reading of Trump's Mar-a-Largo estate in Palm Beach Florida.

"In 1985, Donald Trump paid $10 million for the estate, which contained 33 bathrooms, three bomb shelters and a nine-hole golf course. Ten years later, he converted it to a private club with a spa, tennis and croquet courts, a new ballroom and beach club. Current initiation fees are $200,000."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/home_ga..._web_0418.html

In the larger sense, if you or anyone lives in Florida then by all means, run a game there! I can't emphasise how fun it is running a game in your home state or province, and especially your own city or near where you live. I'm running a PbP game set in my home town of Vancouver, and when I want to I can go out and have a look at the physical geography. One of the players lives close by and every once in a while we meet up for coffee and check things out, take photos, do a "walk-through" of an area to gain a better understanding for offensive or defensive operations, or just to go over an engagement for amusement. ("Okay, the claymore would have been set up there, behind the Hydro pole... later, the biker takes off down the alley there, Andy is standing here, turns, puts two aimed shots into his back and brings him down.")

Tony

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by helbent4

In the larger sense, if you or anyone lives in Florida then by all means, run a game there! I can't emphasise how fun it is running a game in your home state or province, and especially your own city or near where you live.

I've always had this outside idea of doing a module based here in San Antonio, especially since it was occupied by Soviet and Mexican forces. Call it Remember the Alamo or something like that. Never really got around to it.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I've always had this outside idea of doing a module based here in San Antonio, especially since it was occupied by Soviet and Mexican forces. Call it Remember the Alamo or something like that. Never really got around to it.

Paul,

Do it! Doooo iiitttt.... (shakes fist menacingly like Homer Simpson).

Tony

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Paul,

Do it! Doooo iiitttt.... (shakes fist menacingly like Homer Simpson).

Tony

It's not going to happen. I don't have enough waking hours during the week where my brain is engaged enough to do it. Except for certain days when I take a Nuvigil (which keeps me awake by suppressing sleep receptors and hormones and boosting my levels of norepinephrine and dopamine), it's not unusual for me to sleep 14-20 hours a day, and I can't take Nuvigil very often because it has its own undesirable side effects. (Damn antipsychotics!) It's the price I pay for not being a total loon.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

...the price I pay for not being a total loon.

What's this "not" rubbish you're on about?

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

It's not going to happen. I don't have enough waking hours during the week where my brain is engaged enough to do it. Except for certain days when I take a Nuvigil (which keeps me awake by suppressing sleep receptors and hormones and boosting my levels of norepinephrine and dopamine), it's not unusual for me to sleep 14-20 hours a day, and I can't take Nuvigil very often because it has its own undesirable side effects. (Damn antipsychotics!) It's the price I pay for not being a total loon.

Paul

My wife has depression and takes medication, so to a degree removed I'm familiar with living with mental health problems. (I read your website and am familiar with your personal struggle to that extent.) It would be nice if you did and I encourage you strongly, but in a real sense this is a technical issue, it can't be helped.

Tony