Supply Cache Idea...

[dragoon500ly]

My own throught behind the 90-day food supply was to assume worst case (no food) and the minimum amount of time for crops to grow. The limiting factor is just how many people could be supported by the Camp In A Box and above all else, just how many survivors/refugees a single team could support. And this is perhaps the greatest stumbling block to a CIAB. I think we all agree that the is simply no way for the Project to aid everyone, the sheer scale of supporting a refugee populations swamps FEMAs (but then just about anything swamps FEMA!!!) ability to aid the survivors.

So what is the cutoff? Does the Project plan on CIAB supporting 500; 3,000; 15,000? Should there even be a CIAB? The careful use of a CIAB should allow a PD to let the team answer this question...

[natehale1971]

We might be able to combine the Camp in a Box with a Farm in a Box idea... once the containers have been emptied, they can be converted into a hydroponic garden. All you'd have to do is have equipment stored in the cache complex, with a 'snap-together' type set up that would allow even unskilled labor to put everything together.

This would allow the pre-stored food supplies to last the three month time it takes to get regular agriculture on its feet. And after this period the hydroponics can be used as a greenhouse type arrangement to grow food year round.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by robj3

You seem to assume that supplies can be used for one thing only.

Stockpiled food and temporary shelter are multi-purpose items.

In terms of 'unlimited resources', the Project has fusion power and cryotubes.
Depending on whether or not you follow canon slavishly, they also have
weapons of mass destruction. The Project must be extremely well resourced to have such these!

How much gear is too much for a given team?

Reconstruction (rebuild infrastructure)
Restoration (of physical and social environment)
Rehabilitation (of the survivors)
Restitution (governance rather than settling claims of loss in the Morrow setting!)

The Project's activity has to cover all these options to some extent.

The Project's activity has to cover all these options to some extent.

Rob,

I seem to think supplies can be used for one thing only if they are in fact used for one thing only. In this case, the stumbling block is food. Food and pre-fab shelter are short-term solutions to long-terms problems. How much is too much? 27 containerloads to feed 3,000 people for 3 months is too much, in my opinion.

I do agree that pre-fab shelter can be re-purposed to house workers, although it's not truly multi-purpose. Certainly, I'll concede that point.

Fusion, cryotubes, even WMDs are either small or crucial to Project operations, worth the expenditure. Storing food and shelter takes an enormous amount of space that can go to other materials that are specifically meant for reconstruction. It's a question of "bang for your buck" in terms of space and manufacturing capabilities.

I like the list you quote, although the link is no longer active. The Project can cover all the elements listed without taking "immediate" disaster relief into account.

Tony

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

We might be able to combine the Camp in a Box with a Farm in a Box idea... once the containers have been emptied, they can be converted into a hydroponic garden. All you'd have to do is have equipment stored in the cache complex, with a 'snap-together' type set up that would allow even unskilled labor to put everything together.

Nate,

I don't think we'll have to agree to disagree, I do think the "camp" part is useful. I'm going to use that in my own game. I'm just not sold on the food. Like Lee asks, how many people is the Project supposed to feed using stored food supplies? 3,000? 300,000? 20,000,000?

Agriculture is also something that takes an enormous amount of materials, from seeds to fertiliser and feed. I think that the Project is best served by concentrating on industrial infrastructure. Agriculture teams should be focused on returning mechanisation to agriculture (by applying high-tech solutions like fusion power) to enhance all food production. Not just, say, build a farm to feed X people in a given town.

Tony

[robj3]

dragoon500ly wrote:

My own throught behind the 90-day food supply was to assume worst case (no food) and the minimum amount of time for crops to grow.

I think that's very reasonable - assuming you can grow food (shades of 'The Road'?).

The limiting factor is just how many people could be supported by the Camp In A Box and above all else, just how many survivors/refugees a single team could support.

It should be a relatively small number - from the 'Farm in a Box' thread, 34,500 person-days food per 20' ISO container is an upper limit.

Area and Regional Agriculture teams are the ones who can really assist in longer term food production.

Tony Stroppa wrote:

27 containerloads to feed 3,000 people for 3 months is too much, in my opinion.

What are you feeding people with? 9 containers of rice or corn will provide the required amount of calories - bland, but it's an emergency diet. If you don't need to eat it directly, plant it or feed livestock with it.

I like the list you quote, although the link is no longer active.

Quarantelli E.L. The Disaster Recovery Process: What we know and do not know from research. University of Delaware Disaster Research Center Preliminary Paper 286.

Google Scholar gives this alternate link. Replace the %20 with a space:
http://dspace.udel.edu:8080/dspace/b...%20286.pdf.txt

I think that the Project is best served by concentrating on industrial infrastructure. Agriculture teams should be focused on returning mechanisation to agriculture (by applying high-tech solutions like fusion power) to enhance all food production.

Industrial infrastructure?
Are cattle feedlots and high intensity piggeries/battery farms 'industrial infrastructure'? I think a fertiliser plant counts.

Do Agricultural teams make plows, combines and tractors?

Agricultural teams help people grow food. Mechanisation is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-yield agriculture.

At a minimum, Ag teams need skills in agronomy, pedology, climatology, applied climatology, entomology, environmental toxicology, microbiology, mycology and veterinary medicine.

[Father Fletch]

I wonder why you wanted to come up with a hexagonal or octagonal design, other than they look cool?
Digging a frakking big square or rectangular hole is commonplace and known and "easy" for countless construction firms. Placing ISO/ConEx containers therein and covering them with the fill dirt again, a basic construction job.
If you wanted to be all fancy you could lay in a conventional concrete slab after leveling the hole, and place your containers on top of that. Cover with dirt, etc.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
While an octagon or hexagon isn't incredibly difficult, square and rectangles are likely cheaper and perhaps faster to build with less questions asked by the locals.
As for construction materials like gravel and sand they could be used as some of the fill material on the sides or banked areas around the container cache. There is a map of their location relative to the entry to the cache and their removal wouldn't disrupt the integrity of the cache. Even in 2-5 years those would be expected to be completely overgrown.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by robj3

dragoon500ly wrote:

Tony Stroppa wrote:

What are you feeding people with? 9 containers of rice or corn will provide the required amount of calories - bland, but it's an emergency diet. If you don't need to eat it directly, plant it or feed livestock with it.

Industrial infrastructure?

Are cattle feedlots and high intensity piggeries/battery farms 'industrial infrastructure'? I think a fertiliser plant counts.

Do Agricultural teams make plows, combines and tractors?

Agricultural teams help people grow food. Mechanisation is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-yield agriculture.

At a minimum, Ag teams need skills in agronomy, pedology, climatology, applied climatology, entomology, environmental toxicology, microbiology, mycology and veterinary medicine.

Rob,

If you page back, the information I was using came from Post #11 by Lee Yates' on possible food requirements.

"Assuming that you provide bulk foodstuffs, the requirements get worse, that's 2kg per person per day (6,000kg) with a 180 day supply [for 3,000 people] running or 1,080,000kg; that's 27 standard cargo containers..."

Nine as opposed to twenty-seven 20' ISO containers is a lot more reasonable, but still, how many people is the Project supposed to feed, and for how long? Let's take a token amount of the American population, 300,000, for the suggested duration of 6 months. That's 1,800 containers needed to feed a token population scattered across the USA, containers that can't hold anything like components for a fertiliser plant, materials to build or repair plows, agricultural machinery of any kind. It's not even a farm-in-the-box, just the seed stock (which is still important, of course).

Certainly, dual-purpose food-seed stock makes sense, but it would be most useful really in a narrow range of circumstances. That is, there is starvation but not so that it overwhelms Project food stocks, and not where there's already enough of a yield for sustainable agriculture that the food/seed would be redundant and therefore wasted space/resources. Not that there's no use, but it seems that the space and resources could be better used for something else.

Speaking of something else, saying "Mechanisation is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-yield agriculture" is kind of like saying mechanism is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-speed transportation. More seriously, your suggestions about agricultural components, technology and skills are well-taken. While the obvious thought about Ag teams is they would be slaving out in the fields (and there would still be lots of that) but they are most useful as a cadre and knowledge base.

As a side note, I figure that 1 20' ISO container (1 Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) will store 28,119kg of maize/seed corn (at 721kg/cu.m, 39 cubic metres per TEU). This amount of seed will plant 1313 hectares (21.4/kg seed/hectares) with a yield of 6.6 tons per hectare or 8672 tons total.

Tony

[dragoon500ly]

The key question in this whole debate has been just how much the Project can help local refugee populations. This breaks down into two parts; how large is your Project and how much gear/technology is available to support your Project.

Say, for arguement's sake that your version of the Project has 20,000 recon personnel, split into 10-person teams...thats 2,000 recon teams and let's further say that each recon team has a CIAB that can support 3,000 survivors...that's roughly 6,000,000 survivors being supported by the Project.

At the 2kg per per person per day supply; that's 12,000,000kg or 6,000 tons of foodstuffs per day.

Supplying a 90 day supply...that's 540,000 tons of just basic foodstuffs, no clothing, no tools, no reference materials. This is the weak point of the CIAB.

Don't get me wrong, I think the CIAB is a wonderful idea! It's the logistics side of it that are the major stumbling block.

A better way of calculating things may be to look at the population of the area that the team will be working in...if the pre-war population was 38,000,000 and following TM-1s 98% death rate...that would leave a post-oops population of 760,000, once again at the 2kg rate that's 1,520,000kg or 760 tons per day or 68,400 tons for a 90 day supply.

There is no way that the Project would be able to support the entire surviving population of a post-oops world for much more than a minimal amount of time. The logistics of securing and emplacing CIAB of the size needed are almost impossible...not to mention the security problems of burying 540,000 tons around the country, sooner or later somebody is going to uncover a cache or a CIAB. That's why I feel that the CIAB would be of the minimal size, perhaps to support 1-3,000 people in very carefully selected portions of the country.

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by Father Fletch

I wonder why you wanted to come up with a hexagonal or octagonal design, other than they look cool?
Digging a frakking big square or rectangular hole is commonplace and known and "easy" for countless construction firms. Placing ISO/ConEx containers therein and covering them with the fill dirt again, a basic construction job.
If you wanted to be all fancy you could lay in a conventional concrete slab after leveling the hole, and place your containers on top of that. Cover with dirt, etc.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
While an octagon or hexagon isn't incredibly difficult, square and rectangles are likely cheaper and perhaps faster to build with less questions asked by the locals.
As for construction materials like gravel and sand they could be used as some of the fill material on the sides or banked areas around the container cache. There is a map of their location relative to the entry to the cache and their removal wouldn't disrupt the integrity of the cache. Even in 2-5 years those would be expected to be completely overgrown.

I put it in this design for one reason.. That all of the containers can be accessed at one time, and that you wouldn't need equipment to pull them out if they were stacked on each other.

More data came in with ideas of bulk supplies being placed in pits, thus the pits would be placed in between the spokes of the supply cache complex of the spokes. Thus you dig one big hole, place the cargo containers around the pre-fab central shaft. Once the containers have been placed you would the place the specially designed 'pits' full of bulk construction equipment (bricks, sand and the like) in between the container spokes and then fill it all back in. The job can take a few days.

While someone finding something like this going on, is greater... we haven't been talking about the fact that boltholes getting put into place can be just as easily stumbled across.

It's why i was using the Georgia Guidepost monument as an example of a place that the Project can set up as a rally point, or cover for a facility, ect.

[robj3]

Tony Stroppa wrote:

Nine as opposed to twenty-seven 20' ISO containers is a lot more reasonable, but still, how many people is the Project supposed to feed, and for how long?

dragoon500ly wrote:

There is no way that the Project would be able to support the entire surviving population of a post-oops world for much more than a minimal amount of time.

Richard's initial post suggested to me that this was an emergency relief capacity - enough to relieve a local disaster that was available to a given field team.

The 90 day food supply for 3,000 people being kicked around seems like a reasonable start, until area and regional Project assets are brought to bear on the situation.

That's 1,800 containers needed to feed a token population scattered across the USA, containers that can't hold anything like components for a fertiliser plant, materials to build or repair plows, agricultural machinery of any kind.

Fertiliser plants and tractor factories are area or regional level assets. Plow kits would be part of one of Richard's proposed containers.

Speaking of something else, saying "Mechanisation is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-yield agriculture" is kind of like saying mechanism is a small (but highly visible) component of modern high-speed transportation.

The remark wasn't as silly as you apparently think.
Without oil extraction, refining and distribution, where's modern high-speed transport? What about roads, ports, airports? The factories that build cars, trains, planes and their supply chains? What about the common engineering and safety standards that underlie all of this?

Back to agriculture: there's a lot more to growing crops than combines and tractors.

Thinking more widely: this is another reason why recovery has stagnated at D+150 - a lack of infrastructure and physical capital (Tony's right about needing to rebuild industry).

Another obvious area for Project expertise is food storage (pest proof containers). Distribution comes 'naturally' with area and regional level logistic support networks.

While the obvious thought about Ag teams is they would be slaving out in the fields (and there would still be lots of that) but they are most useful as a cadre and knowledge base.

Agreed - all Project members are most useful as a knowledge base.

As a side note, I figure that 1 20' ISO container (1 Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) will store 28,119kg of maize/seed corn (at 721kg/cu.m, 39 cubic metres per TEU). This amount of seed will plant 1313 hectares (21.4/kg seed/hectares) with a yield of 6.6 tons per hectare or 8672 tons total.

Looks reasonable.
From:
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/pub...ons/pm1885.pdf

figure 30,000 seeds per acre - this is ~75,000 per hectare.

A pessimistic fudge factor for seeds/bushel (25.4kg of corn) is 85,000 seeds per bushel:

http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/...estmethod.html

That's ~22.4kg corn per hectare.
1,250 ha planted per 28,000 kg corn.

Historical average yields from the Iowa State file linked above and
http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/serv...-of-area-plant

range from 10 bushels/acre (635kg/ha) to 150 bu/acre (9525kg/ha).
6.6 tons/ha (~104 bu/acre) is a typical 1970s level yield.

This makes a good case for a container of seed corn as an emergency supply in areas where it can be grown. Wheat and rice look like good alternatives in certain regions. The question is whether or not this should be a field level asset or not. I can't see why not.


Rob

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by robj3

Tony Stroppa wrote:


Richard's initial post suggested to me that this was an emergency relief capacity - enough to relieve a local disaster that was available to a given field team.

The 90 day food supply for 3,000 people being kicked around seems like a reasonable start, until area and regional Project assets are brought to bear on the situation.

The remark wasn't as silly as you apparently think.

Without oil extraction, refining and distribution, where's modern high-speed transport? What about roads, ports, airports? The factories that build cars, trains, planes and their supply chains? What about the common engineering and safety standards that underlie all of this?

Back to agriculture: there's a lot more to growing crops than combines and tractors.

Pob,

If we're looking at a capacity to aid 3,000 people for 3 months per (say) a hypothetical 10 regions across the entire Project, then that's not out of the question at all.

Even with all those things you mention, high-speed transportation is not possible without mechanisation. Transportation, yes, but not the high speed kind. Likewise, without mechanisation farming is possible, just not modern farming.

Anyways, I just found your comment amusing, and thanks for the smile.

Tony

[robj3]

Tony Stroppa wrote:

If we're looking at a capacity to aid 3,000 people for 3 months per (say) a hypothetical 10 regions across the entire Project, then that's not out of the question at all.

Do you mean each team can do this, only 10 teams nationally, or something else?

Likewise, without mechanisation farming is possible, just not modern farming.

What do you mean by 'modern farming'?

Yields (gross and/or net of storage and harvesting losses)?
Productivity per farm worker?
The use of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers?

The only one of the items above where mechanisation is essential is productivity per farm worker. Green Revolution farming techniques in the 3d world invalidate the others as points of argument.

I'm pretty sure you're avoiding a circular argument (modern farming = mechanisation).


Rob

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by robj3

Tony Stroppa wrote:

Do you mean each team can do this, only 10 teams nationally, or something else?

Rob,

If we arbitrarily set the number of regions in the USA at ten, then one per region or equivalent area in the USA. Ten such caches (9x containers) nationally is better than nothing, but not a significant drain on Project resources.

What do you mean by 'modern farming'?

Yields (gross and/or net of storage and harvesting losses)?
Productivity per farm worker?
The use of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers?

The only one of the items above where mechanisation is essential is productivity per farm worker. Green Revolution farming techniques in the 3d world invalidate the others as points of argument.

I'm pretty sure you're avoiding a circular argument (modern farming = mechanisation).

Agreed, I could be doing a better job of defining my terms.

By "modern" I mean industrialised agriculture that provides increased individual productivity along the scale of the 1st world, per your point above.

The methods of the Green Revolution (pesticides and fertilisers) are important in raising post-war agriculture to the level of the pre-war third world. (It's funny, when used in the context of the Cold War, 1st and 3rd world are quite appropriate.) I would hope the Project is aiming for something higher.

Tony

[natehale1971]

Tony... only helping that small of a group (one group of 3000 per region) would be a slap in the face of the project itself.

The entire project has been designed to HELP as many people as possible. Considering helping people a 'Drain on Resources' is... well, that goes totally against what the project was founded for. And is honestly heartless.

The project has 30+ years to prepare for TEOTWAWKI. And any Prepper will tell you, that stocking food is the easiest part of prepping for disasters. It's also the CHEAPEST part of their prepping. And considering the resources of the Project, stockpiling food is not a 'drain on resources'... because the project is the one whose very founding is to HELP as many people as possible. The original game had a bunch of supplies stuffed in a tiny little concret box that really could not hold all the stuff they talked about being in them.

My idea here, was to explain how a cache complex would be set up.

Giving each field team (recon, mars & science) a 'Camp in a Box' wouldn't be a drain considering just how VAST the conspiracy that would be necessary for the Project to have existed (and another reason to say that the Federal Government knew about it, and was turning a blind eye to it... and would give a damn good reason for Carter to have killed Civil Defense Preparations).

Look at the Soviet Union, they never gave up on Civil Defense and pretty much didn't give a rat's ass about their people as individuals. But even they had kept civil Defense going, and had made provisions for people to survive a nuclear exchange.

if 3000 people is just to big a group in your oppinion to help, cut it down to 1000. Or even 500. But to call it a 'drain on resources' is heartless and a slap in the face to the very IDEALS that the Project had been created for.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

Tony... only helping that small of a group (one group of 3000 per region) would be a slap in the face of the project itself.

Nate,

Ah, no one, much less the poor Project or it's IDEALS, are getting slapped in the face! (Repeatedly, and so violent, too!) Roshambo'd in the balls, maybe.

I think the Project isn't heartless, nor should it be seen to be. Immediate aid for 30,000-100,000 people seems about right. Significantly less isn't worthwhile, significantly more requires diversion of additional Project resources and courts the danger of "mission creep". Project resources may be vast but they shouldn't be practically unlimited (if we want to keep this within the bounds of reality). Hand-waving this concern away is simply dodging the question. As has been mentioned several times, the Project can't feed all survivors, everywhere, even if all possible resources are devoted that end.

Please note, I am separating immediate food aid from the idea of a CIAB, which I otherwise like. So don't take this as a flame for your idea in general. To recapitulate, as it stands, CIAB to my understanding comprises 16x standard ISO containsers: 9 for food/seed stock alone, 7 for the other supplies and facilities. I can't see one of these per team, but one or more per region would be do-able. If I am mistaken, please clarify!

We must keep in mind the main mission is still to aid in long-term reconstruction of the USA. That is the guiding principle to keep in mind. Therefore, short term aid is acceptable as long as it's not a drain on the resources that are available for reconstruction. That said, I agree that the COT and Morrow would see the USSR's continued efforts towards civil defence and postwar reconstruction is deserving of a private-sector response (with some government backing or at least tacit acceptance).

Tony

[Cpl. Kalkwarf]

Originally Posted by Father Fletch

I wonder why you wanted to come up with a hexagonal or octagonal design, other than they look cool?
Digging a frakking big square or rectangular hole is commonplace and known and "easy" for countless construction firms. Placing ISO/ConEx containers therein and covering them with the fill dirt again, a basic construction job.
If you wanted to be all fancy you could lay in a conventional concrete slab after leveling the hole, and place your containers on top of that. Cover with dirt, etc.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
While an octagon or hexagon isn't incredibly difficult, square and rectangles are likely cheaper and perhaps faster to build with less questions asked by the locals.
As for construction materials like gravel and sand they could be used as some of the fill material on the sides or banked areas around the container cache. There is a map of their location relative to the entry to the cache and their removal wouldn't disrupt the integrity of the cache. Even in 2-5 years those would be expected to be completely overgrown.

Actually you would want to protect the containers before covering them with dirt. I work in the construction Observation, management and testing field. Metal will corrode in allot of soil situations and not last long. Encasing it in a concrete cocoon will help considerably. The tricky part would be to protect the lock/access area from the soils and still allow some one to gain access to them with a minimum of tools. One such idea would be a specially designed lightweight concrete that with a large hammer or other object could be used to break it away for the critical area. Perhaps with a MP or other symbol cast into it.

All in all Caches will be a tricky part of the project. Though if you were only expecting them to last a short time then it would not be a problem. Though in the case of the normal MP scenario waking up 150ish years later some of the caches may have been compromised as in rusted through or rusted/corroded shut. This may even be an issue with Bold holes to some extent. Location is the most important part of the planning. Know your area. How it reacts chemically and geologically. Ground water level/depth is very important. Trying to keep something buried in or below the water level and keeping it sealed or dry is very hard without an active system. Big sealed stainless steel containers would be the best bet, especially with an additional plastic or rubber coating. The one tricky part is the access to the cache. How it is protected and still accessible.

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Nate,

Ah, no one, much less the poor Project or it's IDEALS, are getting slapped in the face! (Repeatedly, and so violent, too!) Roshambo'd in the balls, maybe.

I think the Project isn't heartless, nor should it be seen to be. Immediate aid for 30,000-100,000 people seems about right. Significantly less isn't worthwhile, significantly more requires diversion of additional Project resources and courts the danger of "mission creep". Project resources may be vast but they shouldn't be practically unlimited (if we want to keep this within the bounds of reality). Hand-waving this concern away is simply dodging the question. As has been mentioned several times, the Project can't feed all survivors, everywhere, even if all possible resources are devoted that end.

Please note, I am separating immediate food aid from the idea of a CIAB, which I otherwise like. So don't take this as a flame for your idea in general. To recapitulate, as it stands, CIAB to my understanding comprises 16x standard ISO containsers: 9 for food/seed stock alone, 7 for the other supplies and facilities. I can't see one of these per team, but one or more per region would be do-able. If I am mistaken, please clarify!

We must keep in mind the main mission is still to aid in long-term reconstruction of the USA. That is the guiding principle to keep in mind. Therefore, short term aid is acceptable as long as it's not a drain on the resources that are available for reconstruction. That said, I agree that the COT and Morrow would see the USSR's continued efforts towards civil defence and postwar reconstruction is deserving of a private-sector response (with some government backing or at least tacit acceptance).

Tony

The plan i had for the "Camp in a Box" is for each Field Team (MARS, Science & Recon Team) to have at least one of these types of supply caches. And this is not a drain on resources. No by a long shot. You are forgetting the fact that this kind of prepping is the easiest and cheapest. You are providing for immediate aide to a community, and news of this will get around. Thus improving the public perception of the project.

Once the "CIAB" has been set up and gets running (something that the team isn't expected to run, just get it started), it will act as a good distribution point for a localized recovery area.

This does something for the PC Team... it's part of the standing orders of the project, and allow them to feel like that even without being able to raise the Project on the radio that they are doing something substantial.

You stated We must keep in mind the main mission is still to aid in long-term reconstruction of the USA. That is the guiding principle to keep in mind. and the CIAB is an important part of that goal.

Look at the big picture Tony. Only providing help for a handful of people would come across as elitist. That the 'Morrow People' are only helping 'those people' and keeping all the good stuff for themselves and those that kiss their asses.

That creates a division in the people you are trying to help.

By providing a field team, who is out in the field and can see where the help is needed RIGHT NOW, the ability and means to do something positive about it... goes a million miles further than just pretty words of 'we've got aide coming'.

Actually having the ability to do something RIGHT NOW, even if you feel it's a 'drain on resources' to feed someone starving, or provide medical aide to someone who is dying and can't 'just hold on a little longer'.. because those words would be seen as hollow, and when that aide doesn't show up as said... well, that turns you into a liar.

The "CIAB" provides a field team composed of PCs something that allows them to get things set up, so they have long-term goals that fall into what the Project is all about.

To break the fourth wall for a moment, having a team of PCs just running from one shoot-first-grab-loot encounter to another is boring in my opinion. and the "CIAB" falls into the entire ideal of the Project with one big box with a nice bow on top. The project's long-term goal is to rebuild the country, and to do that you have to do it one building block at a time. That's what a CIAB is. a building block. It's a starting point.

Back into the game universe now...

Even if the project got started out 5 years after the nukes were exchanged, they would have some people out there who knows how to do high-tech skills. But they need to get find them. To get them into a place that their knowledge can be used.

Thus the CIAB.

It allows the Field Team to see what is needed on the spot, and set up something that will act as a rally point for civilians to come too. And allow the project (who sends someone from the supply & logistics branch to run the CIAB at first to set up the computer hook-ups that will allow them to know who they are helping, their skill set, ect) to start finding out just what human resources they have access too.

Once the CIAB has been set up, this central location will be perfect for the Agricultural teams to go to first, then go to the local communities that really need their help the most.

That's what this has been used for in my campaigns. And it worked. If you don't want to use it, so be it.

But to call something like this a 'Drain on Resources' goes totally against what the Project's goals are.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

But to call something like this a 'Drain on Resources' goes totally against what the Project's goals are.

Nate,

I don't agree being rational goes totally against the Project's goals. In fact, it's crucial.

I also believe we both see the big picture. To suggest otherwise simply doesn't make sense.

We just disagree on how resources should be allocated, or even what (if any) the reasonable limits to those resources are.

I think the CIAB is a good idea, maybe one per Group or several per region. Minus the enormous food storage, of course! I've even adapted the CIAB for my game, so that's certainly a personal compliment regarding the idea.

We'll leave it at that, and no hard feelings.

Tony

[Darkwing]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

Tony... only helping that small of a group (one group of 3000 per region) would be a slap in the face of the project itself.

The entire project has been designed to HELP as many people as possible. Considering helping people a 'Drain on Resources' is... well, that goes totally against what the project was founded for. And is honestly heartless.

No, just realistic. Depending on number of people, transportation, and other resources, you can only do so much, Recognizing that is not a slap in the face or heartlessness. Now, saying "We're all about rebuilding America, and we'll let the survivors starve because there's plenty of other survivors elsewhere that we can use without having to give handouts" would be heartless and disregarding of the projects ideals. OTOH, as a servicemember, I know how many sailors couldn't give a rat's ass about the flag, the constitution, or the ideals of America.

Originally Posted by natehale1971

"The project has 30+ years to prepare for TEOTWAWKI. And any Prepper will tell you, that stocking food is the easiest part of prepping for disasters. It's also the CHEAPEST part of their prepping. And considering the resources of the Project, stockpiling food is not a 'drain on resources'... because the project is the one whose very founding is to HELP as many people as possible. The original game had a bunch of supplies stuffed in a tiny little concret box that really could not hold all the stuff they talked about being in them. "

Any use is a drain - just how justifiable is it?

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by Darkwing

No, just realistic. Depending on number of people, transportation, and other resources, you can only do so much, Recognizing that is not a slap in the face or heartlessness. Now, saying "We're all about rebuilding America, and we'll let the survivors starve because there's plenty of other survivors elsewhere that we can use without having to give handouts" would be heartless and disregarding of the projects ideals. OTOH, as a servicemember, I know how many sailors couldn't give a rat's ass about the flag, the constitution, or the ideals of America.

i am a DAV, so i know there are many in uniform who don't care about the flag or the constitution or ideals of america. but one thing you are forgetting. the project SCREENED everyone to make sure that only those who believed in those three things got into the operation.

And what you and Tony are not getting is the fact that I have worked with Preppers, and know that what I am talking about is NOT difficult. Every prepper I have worked with has stated that stockpiling FOOD is the easiest (and cheapest) part of their preps.

Yes that will take up space, but when you empty the container... you are opening up space that can be used later. Thus the "FARM IN A BOX" idea can be combined with the CAIB... you can turn the empty storage area into green houses.

Any use is a drain - just how justifiable is it?

As I stated. Saving lives is never a drain, and is always justifiable.

Remember that the project is country wide, and that they have to place resources in a way that will allow the intital teams the greatest flexibliy to do their jobs without immediate support from the main resources of the Project itself.

CIAB gives that ability. it allows for teams on the ground/frontlines to do their job, and do it right up until they can get access to the rest of the Project's resources in all those hidden warehouses in Alaska and Canada.

That's why i came up with CIAB in my campaigns.

I came up with CIAB using the Planning on how to do things with the 5 to 10 year window after TEOTWAWKI in mind. Considering the way the game has it being 150 years afterwards... the CIAB allows teams to have the ability to set up a settlement, and give them the breathing room to set up everything that can give them a sense of self-sufficiency.

[Darkwing]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

i am a DAV, so i know there are many in uniform who don't care about the flag or the constitution or ideals of america. but one thing you are forgetting. the project SCREENED everyone to make sure that only those who believed in those three things got into the operation.

screening isn't perfect, and after a major event, some people change, even if they thought they were prepared. I've seen it. No matter how intellectually prepared you are for it, pulling a Rip Van Winkle until after your world ends and finding yourself in a whole new world WILL unhinge some of your sleepers and temporarily unbalance more of them. PCs of course have enough emotional insulation that it won't happen to them, but it can and should be expected to happen to a portion of the NPC sleepers.

And what you and Tony are not getting is the fact that I have worked with Preppers, and know that what I am talking about is NOT difficult. Every prepper I have worked with has stated that stockpiling FOOD is the easiest (and cheapest) part of their preps.

Not my point. There's a finite amount of space that can be hidden without giving the secret away by the work required to hide it. Then there's distribution. After Katrina, my family did disaster relief on the Gulf Coast, so I have some idea.

As I stated. Saving lives is never a drain, and is always justifiable.

Any use is a drain. Groceries are necessary, but they still drain money from my account. Your position is emotional. I've been a stretcher bearer, and one of the lessons is that it is sometimes necessary - not pleasant or desirable, but necessary - to sacrifice some who could be saved in order to save others or to save the ship as a whole. During the evac from Katrina, a hospital in New Orleans was evacuated with outside aid. The workers evacuating the hospital focused on readily transportable patients first, leaving the worst cases and least likely to survive for last, and ultimately, left some behind. The doctors and nurses complained about it on the news afterwords - they were trying to get everyone out, starting with the ones worst off. Not only were they wrong, their skewed priorities and cross-purposes with the workers very likely contributed to the number of patients who had to be left to die. They were idiots, putting emotion before reason in a survival situation.

Remember that the project is country wide, and that they have to place resources in a way that will allow the intital teams the greatest flexibliy to do their jobs without immediate support from the main resources of the Project itself.

I get that. I simply asked where do you draw the line? How much can you stash without blowing cover, and how much can you control after you wake up? "Hey, we don't know the lay of the land, don't know the players, but we got a bunch of food"
"Ok", says the local warlord "after I kill you, my troops will have enough food to support us for our next campaign". Rear-echelons staying in the 20th/21st centuries can ask these questions, model them, and make cold-blooded decisions the personnel waking up may be too involved to arrive at.

CIAB gives that ability. it allows for teams on the ground/frontlines to do their job, and do it right up until they can get access to the rest of the Project's resources in all those hidden warehouses in Alaska and Canada.

That's why i came up with CIAB in my campaigns.

It's a good idea, I think we're haggling the details. Each cache and CIAB/FIAB/etc is less money and resources to apply towards teams to sleep into the future and do the rebuilding work, and that much more chance to blow the secret. You have to strike a balance.

I came up with CIAB using the Planning on how to do things with the 5 to 10 year window after TEOTWAWKI in mind. Considering the way the game has it being 150 years afterwards... the CIAB allows teams to have the ability to set up a settlement, and give them the breathing room to set up everything that can give them a sense of self-sufficiency.

If it survived the wait and wasn't found and looted in the interim, yes.

Now, some other things to think about: How many species will die out? In addition to food, you probably would want mini-Svalbard-style seed vaults for important plants, maybe a Titan AE-style gene bank (in the 60's, it'd just be frozen animal ova and semen, towards the end it might get more sophisticated) with useful species. If gengineering gets good enough neo-mules like Buck (Time Enough For Love, Heinlein) might be developed. Neo-mules were intelligent, spoke somewhat intellibly, and bred true. Even if they aren't developed, I would put some pack and riding animals in cryo chambers (what survives freezing better? Zebras, ponies, camels?). They can replace their numbers without factories or spare parts. Maybe some dogs, too. Include the hardware to assemble a couple of Connestogas in any cache and in the CIAB for transporting the goods if necessary. Lower tech is more sustainable in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Then there's the possibility of project members who don't want to be frozen. It'd be helpful to have families living in the area who could check on the boltholes and caches, and if they successfully pass on their charge to their children, the PCs might wake up to a small community with working farmland to brief them on how the world has changed and to provide an initial base of operations - or maybe a worshipper base, if the wording of their duty got garbled. Or maybe even the villagers think they're supposed to guard AGAINST the demons ever waking up? For such a village, if feasible, I'd have built them their own cache, knowing they'd have used it before the PCs woke up. But it would have given them a head start and ensured they had the tools to survive the Big Uh-OH!

In my first thread I asked about others disliking Bruce as a time traveler - it seems to me that the only thing given up by making him a precognitive with a silver tongue is the advanced tech - no resist weve, no fusion, no lasers - and I'm cool with that.

OTOH, if I were a time traveler in his shoes, I'd go farther back. I'd set up a brokerage in the 20s, play the market, and pull out just in time. Then I'd use that money to bribe senators and bureaucrats into making secure "food storage" vaults all over as WPA and CCC projects, invoking the dust bowl and food riots as justification. Have them built the same way the Nazi's made bunkers, concrete reinforced to 4 times the civil construction standard. Then quietly suggest around '39 - '40 that the economy can continue recovery without these projects as we prepare to help England. In the 40's, while everyone's thinking about other things, I'd quietly buy those plots through agents, holding them through proxies and dummy corporations. That gets a lot of your digging done early and before satellite photography, and none of it is in your name.

Then, when the project officially starts in the 60's, it inherits a lot of pre-prepared sites. Maybe even enough to fulfill the design.

"Blessed Saint Liebowitz, keep 'em dreaming down there" Astronaut Randy Claggett, Space, James Michener

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by Darkwing

screening isn't perfect, and after a major event, some people change, even if they thought they were prepared. I've seen it. No matter how intellectually prepared you are for it, pulling a Rip Van Winkle until after your world ends and finding yourself in a whole new world WILL unhinge some of your sleepers and temporarily unbalance more of them. PCs of course have enough emotional insulation that it won't happen to them, but it can and should be expected to happen to a portion of the NPC sleepers.

for those NPCs... we have the Phoenix Team to deal with unbalanced and warlord mentalities.

Not my point. There's a finite amount of space that can be hidden without giving the secret away by the work required to hide it. Then there's distribution. After Katrina, my family did disaster relief on the Gulf Coast, so I have some idea.

Good for you. Preppers who actually took the time to put supplies away didn't need that help. The Project planned in advance, so taking a page from the Preppers is important. Not just taking after-the-fact relief effort playbooks.

Any use is a drain. Groceries are necessary, but they still drain money from my account. Your position is emotional. I've been a stretcher bearer, and one of the lessons is that it is sometimes necessary - not pleasant or desirable, but necessary - to sacrifice some who could be saved in order to save others or to save the ship as a whole. During the evac from Katrina, a hospital in New Orleans was evacuated with outside aid. The workers evacuating the hospital focused on readily transportable patients first, leaving the worst cases and least likely to survive for last, and ultimately, left some behind. The doctors and nurses complained about it on the news afterwords - they were trying to get everyone out, starting with the ones worst off. Not only were they wrong, their skewed priorities and cross-purposes with the workers very likely contributed to the number of patients who had to be left to die. They were idiots, putting emotion before reason in a survival situation.

Emotional? Damn right. it's me being HUMANE.

And mister stretcher bearer... I was a CORPSMAN. I know what it takes to save a life and save a ship or community. So don't try to preach to me about it. I've been there, Done that and got the crappy tee-shirt and little coin to prove it.

And you know what. I wouldn't want you in the project, and with how you're talking, you'd never have made the screening process.

I get that. I simply asked where do you draw the line? How much can you stash without blowing cover, and how much can you control after you wake up? "Hey, we don't know the lay of the land, don't know the players, but we got a bunch of food"
"Ok", says the local warlord "after I kill you, my troops will have enough food to support us for our next campaign". Rear-echelons staying in the 20th/21st centuries can ask these questions, model them, and make cold-blooded decisions the personnel waking up may be too involved to arrive at.

And you aren't getting how the field team would work... and not giving the field team any props for being able to do their damn job. once again, you're not showing ANY knowledge of how a field team would work, or how the Project operates.

The screening was massive to keep idiots and power-mad types out. And it took place over several years. At each level of the Project, starting from working at their cover agencies (Morrow Industries & its subsidiaries), into doing the labor of building Project assets, to actually learning what the project was when they started to get brought into Project itself after passing each of the lower levels of security and trust.

It's a good idea, I think we're haggling the details. Each cache and CIAB/FIAB/etc is less money and resources to apply towards teams to sleep into the future and do the rebuilding work, and that much more chance to blow the secret. You have to strike a balance.

And as I stated. that is the only down side to the entire project, and why i feel that the government was giving a blind eye to the entire thing. The supply caches are all about providing the field teams with everything they would need over a short-term when they cannot get access to the project's resources through resupply and the like.

Now, some other things to think about: How many species will die out? In addition to food, you probably would want mini-Svalbard-style seed vaults for important plants, maybe a Titan AE-style gene bank (in the 60's, it'd just be frozen animal ova and semen, towards the end it might get more sophisticated) with useful species. If gengineering gets good enough neo-mules like Buck (Time Enough For Love, Heinlein) might be developed. Neo-mules were intelligent, spoke somewhat intellibly, and bred true. Even if they aren't developed, I would put some pack and riding animals in cryo chambers (what survives freezing better? Zebras, ponies, camels?). They can replace their numbers without factories or spare parts. Maybe some dogs, too. Include the hardware to assemble a couple of Connestogas in any cache and in the CIAB for transporting the goods if necessary. Lower tech is more sustainable in a post-apocalyptic setting.

All that goes beyond the Field Team Supply Cache. The Project has these things called specialty teams (such as, i don't know.... the agricultural teams who are placed in a nice large base with all the species of animals and plants needed in hibernation).

Yes i was a little condescending there, on purpose. It doesn't feel good does it? You've piped into something you don't know about, and then act as if you know it all.

I was a combat corpsman and chemical-biological-Radiological warfare specialist when I was in the US Navy, so i know a little bit about what it means to triage wounded and prioritize things to get a job done.

it's why i came up with the CIAB idea.

It's the start of the project's long-term goals, and gives breathing room for a field team do get started doing that job of rebuilding when they do not have immediate access to the Project's resources.

The rest of your post has NOTHING to do with what we're talking about here. We're talking about a Supply Cache Idea. Not about Project members who refused to be frozen... or how you don't like Bruce being a time-traveler or what you'd do if you were a time traveler. That's something for a different thread. Not hijacking this one.

Now back on Target.

Tony does not think giving each field team a CIAB because it's a drain on resources, and I'm using real world experience to say it's not.

The Project is the biggest Prepper endeavor ever taken. It's not about disaster relief.. it's about reconstruction five years AFTER the fact. And to do this you have to take lessons learned from both disaster relief and from the Prepper community.

Preppers have to think of EVERYTHING they will need, and start putting them away for a later date.

I've talked with the Chris (owner) & Chris (head writer) at Timeline about having the Project being behind the people who wrote the essays and books that started the Prepper (not going to use the survivalist title, since to many people associate it with armed racist separatist groups) Movement, and they liked it since it made alot of sense. Especially since 9-11 with FEMA telling people all the time that they need to start prepping for possible emergencies (even though most people don't).

The work I've done with the Prepper Community has shown me, that the easiest and cheapest part of their Prepping... but at the same time, is the one that they have to take the greatest care in keeping from drawing attention. Each one has a different way to buy so much food to be placed into storage without it being noticed.

One would hit a different grocery store each month to get their bulk supplies, while doing normal shopping at a regular interval at the stores nearest to them. Another Prepper i worked with had memberships to each of the bulk stores in the surrounding communities and would shop at a different one every payday to get their bulk goods while continuing their regular shopping trips at their local grocery store to keep from anyone getting suspicious of them not doing any shopping.

Now the Project has a series of companies all across the country that allows them to create the stockpiles they need. Be it weapons, equipment, meds, clothing, ect.. They have the ability to get their hands on it.

They have 30+ years of time to prep for what is coming, the only thing they have to worry about is getting discovered. This is one of the reasons the psyche screening is so important. They aren't just looking for mental stability, they are also making sure that their personal integrity is above board...

The best way to describe it, would be the kind of anal probes you have to get to receive the Yankee White security clearance. And you're getting these probes ALL THE TIME with the Project, and you never even know you're getting them.

Morrow Industries has been described by some as a major Government Contractor, building facilities all over the country. And thus providing some cover for what they are doing on such a grand scale.

Kato came up with Morrow Industries owning a shipping company to provide cover for all the transportation of supplies around the country... and having MI owning several public storage companies to act as a cover for project facilities.

But what would the cover be in case someone accidentally stumbled across the emplacement of a bolthole or a supply cache? Well, it depends on what part of the subsidiaries of MI that is being used at that point in time.

If it's one of the Government Contractors... "We're setting up a remote site to monitor geothermal output" or "we're placing an automated monitoring site to measure earthquake activities" or what ever sounds official enough.

If it's one of the public storage or shipping companies... "We're setting up the subbasement for an environmentally controlled long-term data storage site."

That's what we should be focusing on... what story would be if someone stumbled on a construction crew putting a cache or bolthole or facility into place. Be it a story an a HUGE payment of 'hush money'... or the extreme of taking the trouble makers and putting them into hibernation.

[Darkwing]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

for those NPCs... we have the Phoenix Team to deal with unbalanced and warlord mentalities.

So when your buddy freaks out because he thought he could handle his new reality on waking up, you just have him shot? He may not be an asset in the field for a while, if ever, but that seems an extreme solution.

Good for you. Preppers who actually took the time to put supplies away didn't need that help. The Project planned in advance, so taking a page from the Preppers is important. Not just taking after-the-fact relief effort playbooks.

That depended on how well your cache came through the storm.

Emotional? Damn right. it's me being HUMANE.

I believe that being humane does not require clouding judgment with excess passion. Especially when thinking things out in advance, one can clearly examine the logic and find the best balance.

And mister stretcher bearer... I was a CORPSMAN. I know what it takes to save a life and save a ship or community. So don't try to preach to me about it. I've been there, Done that and got the crappy tee-shirt and little coin to prove it.

I wasn't trying to preach, just saying some of the things I think should be considered, and what my personal experiences were that led me to think so. I've got a few t-shirts and coins of my own.

And you know what. I wouldn't want you in the project, and with how you're talking, you'd never have made the screening process.

Now you're getting personal. If you have military experience, you know some folks lose it when things happen, and others remain level-headed. Your screening process would try to find such people, not bleeding hearts.

And you aren't getting how the field team would work... and not giving the field team any props for being able to do their damn job. once again, you're not showing ANY knowledge of how a field team would work, or how the Project operates.

What am I not getting? When you wake up, you see what's out there, what's going on, you figure out how to link up with other units, you find locals and make alliances, and do all this with a handful of people. Each task is not performed in a vacuum. You have so many man-hours, and so much work.

The screening was massive to keep idiots and power-mad types out. And it took place over several years. At each level of the Project, starting from working at their cover agencies (Morrow Industries & its subsidiaries), into doing the labor of building Project assets, to actually learning what the project was when they started to get brought into Project itself after passing each of the lower levels of security and trust.

Nothing's perfect.

And as I stated. that is the only down side to the entire project, and why i feel that the government was giving a blind eye to the entire thing. The supply caches are all about providing the field teams with everything they would need over a short-term when they cannot get access to the project's resources through resupply and the like.

Fine. I never argued against the caches; I said that you have to balance resources on hand with what resources can be stashed without revealing the fact that you are hiding something. Even if the US gov't is pretending ignorance, they can't control a reporter getting a whiff of it or Soviet spy-sats.

All that goes beyond the Field Team Supply Cache. The Project has these things called specialty teams (such as, i don't know.... the agricultural teams who are placed in a nice large base with all the species of animals and plants needed in hibernation).

At least some live working animals should be in each bolthole. Your vehicle gets shot up soon after waking, what do you ride? Semis may not be available at your CIAB, especially if you haven't met up with the larger bases yet, so those connestogas are handy.

Yes i was a little condescending there, on purpose. It doesn't feel good does it? You've piped into something you don't know about, and then act as if you know it all.

No. You mistook my tone, and jumped on your high horse over it. Growing up during the Cold War, I read a good amount of post-apocalyptic fiction, thought about it a fair amount back then. Sure, I'm new to this game, but having read a bit about it, I was sharing some of my thinking about how things be done. Everything I've read seems to show MP personnel having a lot of high tech gear in relation to their new world. That's failure to prepare well. I don't need to know it all to see that much.

[QUOTE]I was a combat corpsman and chemical-biological-Radiological warfare specialist when I was in the US Navy, so i know a little bit about what it means to triage wounded and prioritize things to get a job done.

it's why i came up with the CIAB idea.

So take a step back, breathe, then think like a military medic planning for combat, not like a civilian planning for the weekend rash of accidents.

QUOTE]The rest of your post has NOTHING to do with what we're talking about here.

re-read it and see how it relates.

We're talking about a Supply Cache Idea. Not about Project members who refused to be frozen...

Who would be useful in helping maintain that cache against discovery or disaster.

or how you don't like Bruce being a time-traveler or what you'd do if you were a time traveler.

I mentioned that I prefer the lighter touch of Bruce being a precog as prelude to mentioning all the things he should have done if he were a time traveler that would ease the infrastructure burden of placing caches and bases and boltholes, which means more resources in hand and less work concealing the facts of what you're doing when the project officially starts.

That's something for a different thread. Not hijacking this one.

I wasn't hijacking this thread.

Tony does not think giving each field team a CIAB because it's a drain on resources, and I'm using real world experience to say it's not.

I agree that it's a good idea, I just am less optimistic about how much can realistically be stored, and how many caches can be emplaced without giving away that you are doing such a thing.

I've talked with the Chris (owner) & Chris (head writer) at Timeline about having the Project being behind the people who wrote the essays and books that started the Prepper (not going to use the survivalist title, since to many people associate it with armed racist separatist groups) Movement, and they liked it since it made alot of sense. Especially since 9-11 with FEMA telling people all the time that they need to start prepping for possible emergencies (even though most people don't).

I like that idea. Best book I've seen on that was the Bad Times Primer.

The work I've done with the Prepper Community has shown me, that the easiest and cheapest part of their Prepping... but at the same time, is the one that they have to take the greatest care in keeping from drawing attention. Each one has a different way to buy so much food to be placed into storage without it being noticed.

And that's part of my point. Each CIAB is a good idea, but the size and number can't be allowed to draw outside attention.

Now the Project has a series of companies all across the country that allows them to create the stockpiles they need. Be it weapons, equipment, meds, clothing, ect.. They have the ability to get their hands on it.

And I don't argue that. What I argue is that building the site, filling it, and burying it is the vulnerable point for being noticed.

They have 30+ years of time to prep for what is coming, the only thing they have to worry about is getting discovered. This is one of the reasons the psyche screening is so important. They aren't just looking for mental stability, they are also making sure that their personal integrity is above board...

As mentioned above, if Bruce really is a time traveler, then they have 30+ years for getting and stashing the goods, but they also could easily 60+ years for the whole thing because most of the construction would have been done 20-30 years before, and would also thus make it easier to avoid spysats as a discovery vector.

The best way to describe it, would be the kind of anal probes you have to get to receive the Yankee White security clearance. And you're getting these probes ALL THE TIME with the Project, and you never even know you're getting them.

If you're looking for personal integrity, you can't screen for it without talking to them. Security clearances can be screened without a member's knowledge, but that limits it to secondhand information.

Morrow Industries has been described by some as a major Government Contractor, building facilities all over the country. And thus providing some cover for what they are doing on such a grand scale.

Kato came up with Morrow Industries owning a shipping company to provide cover for all the transportation of supplies around the country... and having MI owning several public storage companies to act as a cover for project facilities.

All good ideas.

But what would the cover be in case someone accidentally stumbled across the emplacement of a bolthole or a supply cache? Well, it depends on what part of the subsidiaries of MI that is being used at that point in time.

If it's one of the Government Contractors... "We're setting up a remote site to monitor geothermal output" or "we're placing an automated monitoring site to measure earthquake activities" or what ever sounds official enough.

If it's one of the public storage or shipping companies... "We're setting up the subbasement for an environmentally controlled long-term data storage site."

That's what we should be focusing on... what story would be if someone stumbled on a construction crew putting a cache or bolthole or facility into place. Be it a story an a HUGE payment of 'hush money'... or the extreme of taking the trouble makers and putting them into hibernation.

All of that makes sense, and I like the storytelling aspect of a bunch of temporal kidnapees being a PITA for the PCs, who didn't know about them until they woke up to find out one of their fellow teams is actually a bunch of old rednecks who were hushed up by freezing, not fellow project members.

But what about a reporter who sees and photographs a site being put in and gets away to file the story without being noticed till the newspaper comes out? What about GRU agents analyzing satellite surveillance?

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by Darkwing

So when your buddy freaks out because he thought he could handle his new reality on waking up, you just have him shot? He may not be an asset in the field for a while, if ever, but that seems an extreme solution.

People who freak out would have been weeded out with the training. You are frozen and awoken as part of your training. They would have found those who would have hibernation sickness syndrome before they ever where sent into the field. Everything the project did was tried and tested before it was put into place.

That depended on how well your cache came through the storm.

shows how little you know about preppers. they always have more than one cache. the minimum that i've noticed among the real preppers has been three caches, and two Bug-Out Locations.

I believe that being humane does not require clouding judgment with excess passion. Especially when thinking things out in advance, one can clearly examine the logic and find the best balance.

do you really think i am clouding my judgment? Because i'm not. i'm thinking through this rationally and using my knowledge of Preparing and Emergency Relief to come up with the CIAB. It's not only logical, it gives the field team the flexibility to do what they are suppose to do.

I wasn't trying to preach, just saying some of the things I think should be considered, and what my personal experiences were that led me to think so. I've got a few t-shirts and coins of my own.

then realize that you're not the only one with experience. everyone has different experiences and training. mine was in several areas outside the norm, and it allowed me to think outside the box and focus on how to solve problems using any and all methods possible.

Now you're getting personal. If you have military experience, you know some folks lose it when things happen, and others remain level-headed. Your screening process would try to find such people, not bleeding hearts.

Bleeding Hearts? are you flipping daft?

Anyone who'd volunteer to be frozen and woken up after TEOTWAWKI with the goal of rebuilding the USA and helping people are going to give a damn about the individual. Anyone who does not, who'd say that one life lost while winning the end goal is okay, would not be allowed into the project.

because the individual is just as important as the whole.

I've never been called a bleeding heart. so this is a first.

What am I not getting? When you wake up, you see what's out there, what's going on, you figure out how to link up with other units, you find locals and make alliances, and do all this with a handful of people. Each task is not performed in a vacuum. You have so many man-hours, and so much work.

Let's see, how you worded it.. that a fieldteam goes up to some local warlord and gives up everything and gets killed... Get it?

Field teams would wake up, check out the area. spend time LOOKING at the area, studying it and finding out who needs the help, and how much help they need. That's what they do. They don't just walk up to a warlord and get themselves killed.

Fine. I never argued against the caches; I said that you have to balance resources on hand with what resources can be stashed without revealing the fact that you are hiding something. Even if the US gov't is pretending ignorance, they can't control a reporter getting a whiff of it or Soviet spy-sats.

as i said.. cover stories would been needed for all the work that the project is doing over the 30+ years they are putting things into play.

At least some live working animals should be in each bolthole. Your vehicle gets shot up soon after waking, what do you ride? Semis may not be available at your CIAB, especially if you haven't met up with the larger bases yet, so those connestogas are handy.

that would be pushing it. that goes beyond what a field team is going to be able to do. animals and spare vehicles are in other project facilities that are better capable of using and allotting their use.

[quote] No. You mistook my tone, and jumped on your high horse over it. Growing up during the Cold War, I read a good amount of post-apocalyptic fiction, thought about it a fair amount back then. Sure, I'm new to this game, but having read a bit about it, I was sharing some of my thinking about how things be done. Everything I've read seems to show MP personnel having a lot of high tech gear in relation to their new world. That's failure to prepare well. I don't need to know it all to see that much. [/qoute]

I grew up during the coldwar, and was trained to fight the cold war. My father was a grounds keeper at a resort in the mountains and watched as he set up all the infrastructure that made it completely self-sufficient.

Who would be useful in helping maintain that cache against discovery or disaster.

are there people not frozen? yes. But they are frozen right before TEOTWAWKI and placed in support facilities. Only Prime Base was awake for TEOTWAWKI, and that became the reason why the project isn't waking up until 150 years post TEOTWAWKI.

As mentioned above, if Bruce really is a time traveler, then they have 30+ years for getting and stashing the goods, but they also could easily 60+ years for the whole thing because most of the construction would have been done 20-30 years before, and would also thus make it easier to avoid spysats as a discovery vector.

if you did grow up during the Cold War, you would know that it wasn't until the late 1950s and 1960s that people started to really believe that TEOTWAWKI could actually happen. that something horrible could be done to destroy a country.

We didnt have the weapons like the A-Bomb until post-1945. And even then the scope of what the atomic/nuclear (and biological) weapons could actually do.

For God's sake they had men and women standing out in the open watching nuclear tests.. Throwing Parties to watch them!

it wasn't until the late-1950s and early-1960s that all the players that would be needed for such a grand scale conspiracy comes into play. the new edition of The Morrow Project will be dealing with the groundwork that the time traveling Bruce E. Morrow set up for the project down the road.

That one of the key operators behind the Council For Tomorrow was Howard Hughes, through him Morrow was able to make the connections with the other industrialists and get the resources needed to set everything up.

Nothing happens in a vacuum, as you stated. The difference is, i am using knowledge of various fields to try and create a coherent whole.

The Supply Cache model that i came up with was something that would hold all the kind of gear that the books say a cache would have in them. And introduced the CIAB as one of the six supply caches that each field team would be assigned to give the team the flexibility they'd need.

Not EVERY team would have a CIAB, but the field teams (SCIENCE, RECON and MARS) would have them. The Specialty teams would have resources to build something more intense because they would have direct access to the full resources of the Project, and would have direct resupply routes...

But Field teams would be operating on their own, without direct support for extended periods of time. Thus the three month food supply. That would either provide the breathing room for resupply from the Project Supply chain or for the first crops that would come from the 'greenhouses' and fields that would be set up in and around the CAIB site.

If you're looking for personal integrity, you can't screen for it without talking to them. Security clearances can be screened without a member's knowledge, but that limits it to secondhand information.

Wrong. The government does this to it's personnel in sensitive areas ALL THE TIME. Half of the guys i hung out with while i was in the service with had some massive security clearances. One of them told me that i had been given a Top Secret clearance since i passed the background checks that were ran on me because of the people i had made friends with (once of which was a Flag Officer who shared my love of Opera).

But what about a reporter who sees and photographs a site being put in and gets away to file the story without being noticed till the newspaper comes out? What about GRU agents analyzing satellite surveillance?

that's why i said a cover story would be needed for the project's assets being set up. Back in the time period the project was getting set up, satellite coverage was not what it is today.

[robj3]

Tony Stroppa wrote:

If I am mistaken, please clarify!

I'll give it a go.

If we arbitrarily set the number of regions in the USA at ten, then one per region or equivalent area in the USA. Ten such caches (9x containers) nationally is better than nothing, but not a significant drain on Project resources.

That's a bit on the small side unless your Project is very small indeed.
Think bigger, Tony.

U.S. corn production is on the order of 10,000 million bushels (254 million tonnes) per year. It's been like that for almost forty years.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/feedgrains/Table.asp?t=01

Diverting a hundred thousand tonnes a year (~0.04%) from this production flow would cost US$20 million a year in current prices. That provides enough grain for over 3,500 containers at 28,000kg per container. At nine containers per team, that's almost 400 (~388) teams supplied per year.

By "modern" I mean industrialised agriculture that provides increased individual productivity along the scale of the 1st world, per your point above.

OK, it's hard to escape the need for tractors and combines then.
I think we should avoid feedlots, battery farms and high-density pig farms though. There are better ways to produce meat.

In your response to Richard:

Project resources may be vast but they shouldn't be practically unlimited (if we want to keep this within the bounds of reality).

See above. The cost is modest. I think we had a discussion on one of the Yahoogroups about how big the Project could be - and given the size of the U.S. economy during the second half of the last century (4-10+ trillion of dollars per year using current prices), it can be very large indeed.

A multi-billion dollar (in current dollar terms) annual budget would be noise in the system ; corporate profits exceed a trillion dollars a year, let alone the activity of the rest of the economy.

Therefore, short term aid is acceptable as long as it's not a drain on the resources that are available for reconstruction.

I've just demonstrated that for low percentages of the resources likely to be available to the Council of Tomorrow we can provide a large quantity of grain.

I agree with Richard.

Cpl. Kalkwarf wrote:

Actually you would want to protect the containers before covering them with dirt.

I agree with sheathing metal with concrete. It provides corrosion resistance as well as protection from ground shock.

One such idea would be a specially designed lightweight concrete that with a large hammer or other object could be used to break it away for the critical area.

This is a good idea.

All in all Caches will be a tricky part of the project.

Yep. In terms of general construction, I'm thinking along the lines of the launch control centres used for ICBMs, as well as extensive standardisation (e.g. Minuteman silos).

Avoid the water table, use impermeant rock formations where possible.

Darkwing wrote:

There's a finite amount of space that can be hidden without giving the secret away by the work required to hide it.

This is the big problem - or is it?
It depends on how big you think the Project needs to be. Over the years people have used small (a few thousand field personnel) to very large (over 100,000) in their games.

With regard to construction, the United States is a large country and there's lots of building going on. Covering up from prying eyes (Soviet or other foreign intelligence services, nosy investigative journalists) is going to be hard work - but it is doable (e.g. the B2 bomber and stealth aircraft, much of the nuclear weapons production effort). We know this from the development of the 'security state' following WW2.

Now, some other things to think about: How many species will die out?

That depends on how the world ends. I don't think the Project would plan for a Permian level mass extinction scenario (96% marine species, 70% of terrestrial vertebrates, for an overall loss of ~60% of all families).

Seed and animal banks that you go on to describe are area or regional level assets, as Richard has pointed out.

I don't have an objection to small animals being frozen with the teams, but horses and the like are probably more trouble than they are worth (Project members have enough to learn without developing equestrian and large animal vet skills).

[Darkwing]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

People who freak out would have been weeded out with the training. You are frozen and awoken as part of your training. They would have found those who would have hibernation sickness syndrome before they ever where sent into the field. Everything the project did was tried and tested before it was put into place.

No screening is perfect. You're making overly optimistic assumptions.

shows how little you know about preppers. they always have more than one cache. the minimum that i've noticed among the real preppers has been three caches, and two Bug-Out Locations.

Shows that I assume that something will always go wrong.

do you really think i am clouding my judgment? Because i'm not. i'm thinking through this rationally and using my knowledge of Preparing and Emergency Relief to come up with the CIAB. It's not only logical, it gives the field team the flexibility to do what they are suppose to do.

The concept is sound. Where I think you're clouding your judgment is taking questions of details as hostile criticism of the base concept.

then realize that you're not the only one with experience. everyone has different experiences and training. mine was in several areas outside the norm, and it allowed me to think outside the box and focus on how to solve problems using any and all methods possible.

Never claimed to to be the only knowledgeable person, and I have also led an uncommon life that has taught me to live outside the box as well.

Bleeding Hearts? are you flipping daft?

Anyone who'd volunteer to be frozen and woken up after TEOTWAWKI with the goal of rebuilding the USA and helping people are going to give a damn about the individual. Anyone who does not, who'd say that one life lost while winning the end goal is okay, would not be allowed into the project.

They certainly would. The individual is important, but the mission comes first, and if you aren't willing to make sacrifices, you cannot succeed. Life is not black and white. The end can on some occasions justify the means, but since most people don't have a moral compass capable of ethically wending their way through that, most folks deny that.

because the individual is just as important as the whole.

Yes and no. In a pragmatic sense, there are times when the individual must take back seat to the whole, especially in survival situations.

I've never been called a bleeding heart. so this is a first.

I didn't call you a bleeding heart, I said that the project cannot want them in their teams.

Let's see, how you worded it.. that a fieldteam goes up to some local warlord and gives up everything and gets killed... Get it?

Field teams would wake up, check out the area. spend time LOOKING at the area, studying it and finding out who needs the help, and how much help they need. That's what they do. They don't just walk up to a warlord and get themselves killed.

And of course, the local warlord announces his intentions and makes public demonstrations so any recon team has advance warning that he's a bad guy.
Real life is muddier than that.

as i said.. cover stories would been needed for all the work that the project is doing over the 30+ years they are putting things into play.

Any cover story gets thin after a while - Roswell?

that would be pushing it. that goes beyond what a field team is going to be able to do. animals and spare vehicles are in other project facilities that are better capable of using and allotting their use.

So how are you getting that food from your CIAB out? What's your transportation when your vehicle gets trashed?

if you did grow up during the Cold War, you would know that it wasn't until the late 1950s and 1960s that people started to really believe that TEOTWAWKI could actually happen. that something horrible could be done to destroy a country.

non sequitur. WPA and CCC wouldn't know anything about the real purpose of their projects.

it wasn't until the late-1950s and early-1960s that all the players that would be needed for such a grand scale conspiracy comes into play.
the new edition of The Morrow Project will be dealing with the groundwork that the time traveling Bruce E. Morrow set up for the project down the road.

That's when I figured the official project begins, too, but since I have not yet seen any mention of such groundwork, I thought it should be brought up.

That one of the key operators behind the Council For Tomorrow was Howard Hughes, through him Morrow was able to make the connections with the other industrialists and get the resources needed to set everything up.

I like that idea.

Nothing happens in a vacuum, as you stated. The difference is, i am using knowledge of various fields to try and create a coherent whole.

I don't see a difference there.

Wrong. The government does this to it's personnel in sensitive areas ALL THE TIME. Half of the guys i hung out with while i was in the service with had some massive security clearances. One of them told me that i had been given a Top Secret clearance since i passed the background checks that were ran on me because of the people i had made friends with (once of which was a Flag Officer who shared my love of Opera).

I always knew the status of my clearance - but for checking on stability and integrity, the second- and third-hand methods don't work well enough.

that's why i said a cover story would be needed for the project's assets being set up. Back in the time period the project was getting set up, satellite coverage was not what it is today.

Cover stories are fine, as long as they're not overused. But the more you can do to avoid even having to use them, the better.

[Darkwing]

Originally Posted by robj3

OK, it's hard to escape the need for tractors and combines then.
I think we should avoid feedlots, battery farms and high-density pig farms though. There are better ways to produce meat.

You may not have much choice in methodology, depending on what the locals have been doing, and what their building capabilities are.

A multi-billion dollar (in current dollar terms) annual budget would be noise in the system ; corporate profits exceed a trillion dollars a year, let alone the activity of the rest of the economy.

Still more than enough for bean-counters to sniff out money being diverted

This is the big problem - or is it?
It depends on how big you think the Project needs to be. Over the years people have used small (a few thousand field personnel) to very large (over 100,000) in their games.

I'd say 10,000 is a bare minimum to be prepared to rebuild if you're trying to cover the whole country.

With regard to construction, the United States is a large country and there's lots of building going on. Covering up from prying eyes (Soviet or other foreign intelligence services, nosy investigative journalists) is going to be hard work - but it is doable (e.g. the B2 bomber and stealth aircraft, much of the nuclear weapons production effort). We know this from the development of the 'security state' following WW2.

It is a problem, though, which can delay and raise costs of projects. Delay is bad throughout the project, the more so the closer to TEOTWAWKI. Money is less of a problem in the last few years or months - who cares of the project goes bankrupt 24 hours before the event?

That depends on how the world ends. I don't think the Project would plan for a Permian level mass extinction scenario (96% marine species, 70% of terrestrial vertebrates, for an overall loss of ~60% of all families).

I'm NOT thinking mass extinction either - but specific food and drug plants might get blighted or something else in the chain does and the domino effect takes out a staple. If you wake up and find that the local area has lost something like that, having a small supply of such seeds would help restart agriculture until the regional base can be contacted for larger issuances.

Seed and animal banks that you go on to describe are area or regional level assets, as Richard has pointed out.

So they are in the plan, then?

I don't have an objection to small animals being frozen with the teams, but horses and the like are probably more trouble than they are worth (Project members have enough to learn without developing equestrian and large animal vet skills).

They would definitely need to have those skills in a post-apocalyptic world. Cars won't exist, except for what you brought with you, and there haven't been road crews repairing the highways since the event.

[dragoon500ly]

Welcome to the Morrow Project Darkwing, I'll try to answer your questions, at least from my point of view.

Originally Posted by Darkwing

Still more than enough for bean-counters to sniff out money being diverted

In order for the Council of Tommorrow to pull off the Project, there would have to be a some sort of process to divert funds...Howard Hughes pulling billions out to fund his various personnel projects would be one example. Funds diverted into research projects, DoD-classified projects, etc. There would be a way to get around the bean-counters.

I'd say 10,000 is a bare minimum to be prepared to rebuild if you're trying to cover the whole country.

I generally go for a Project numbering 30-40,000. I also start with a 1949 start date for the Project and a war date sometime in 2001. My point is that the CoT would have started research into power and cryo systems and that this would have taken about 10 years to perfect, it allows you roughly 40 years of recruitment, training and building.

I'm NOT thinking mass extinction either - but specific food and drug plants might get blighted or something else in the chain does and the domino effect takes out a staple. If you wake up and find that the local area has lost something like that, having a small supply of such seeds would help restart agriculture until the regional base can be contacted for larger issuances.

Even from the earliest days of Timeline, every cache has always included bags of seeds. The need is not debated, the only questions is quantity and how large an impact a few bags can have. This would be the mission of the Specialty teams who would have larger caches of ag machinery, seeds, fertilizers, frozen animals. Something like a Recon Team, this really would be beyond what their mission requires.

They would definitely need to have those skills in a post-apocalyptic world. Cars won't exist, except for what you brought with you, and there haven't been road crews repairing the highways since the event.

No arguement here! Until people have really tried to bring a vehicle into an area where vehicles have never been, they are simply clueless as to how difficult it is to move through terrain. Military-grade vehicles are better suited overall since they are designed to work in this type of environment. You will see arguements about being non-threatening and using SUVs....I have to laugh because I have seen the results of people trying to use these top-heavy pos in wilderness areas...it isn't pretty.

[Darkwing]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

In order for the Council of Tommorrow to pull off the Project, there would have to be a some sort of process to di vert funds...Howard Hughes pulling billions out to fund his various personnel projects would be one example. Funds diverted into research projects, DoD-classified projects, etc. There would be a way to get around the bean-counters.

I just think it's a factor to consider when deciding how and why things are done, and just how much can be done.

I generally go for a Project numbering 30-40,000. I also start with a 1949 start date for the Project and a war date sometime in 2001. My point is that the CoT would have started research into power and cryo systems and that this would have taken about 10 years to perfect, it allows you roughly 40 years of recruitment, training and building.

10 years is wildly optimistic. How long have we worked on SDI-scale lasers, fusion, cold-fusion, et al?

No arguement here! Until people have really tried to bring a vehicle into an area where vehicles have never been, they are simply clueless as to how difficult it is to move through terrain. Military-grade vehicles are better suited overall since they are designed to work in this type of environment. You will see arguements about being non-threatening and using SUVs....I have to laugh because I have seen the results of people trying to use these top-heavy pos in wilderness areas...it isn't pretty.

I grew up in Colorado, and whenever it snows, the 4WDs and SUVs were the first to spin out. And I took an old 2WD pickup with granny gear many places jeeps wouldn't go.

Thanks for the welcome!

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Darkwing

10 years is wildly optimistic. How long have we worked on SDI-scale lasers, fusion, cold-fusion, et al?

All to true, but since this is a SciFi game.... One of the things I've noticed about some of the great scientists, is the sheer amount of work that they never publish, now a lot of this is theories that never panned out, good ideas, bad ideas, and flat out things that man must never know. Just what was Einstein working on the last ten years of his life? Why was the US Government so careful in gathering up all of Telsa's unpublished material? You get the idea.

I grew up in Colorado, and whenever it snows, the 4WDs and SUVs were the first to spin out. And I took an old 2WD pickup with granny gear many places jeeps wouldn't go.

Tell me about it...my favorite is the "ahem" "expert" who took his SUV into a local swamp for some 'mud-dogging' and wound up sunk up to the bottoms of his windows. He just couldn't understand why his SUV couldn't drive out..."Its got four wheel drive!"