So how much money has the Project got?

[Project_Sardonicus]

When setting up my first campaign for the Morrow Project one question that puzzled me was; how much money does the project actually have? With which to buy equipment, facilities, train team members etc.

So the project has at least one time traveller who can read the share prices, see whose winning sports events. It's got perhaps 200 earth changing technological patents all this and with it's sponsors maybe a billion dollars to invest.

The answer seemed to me to be unlimited, literally the project could generate as much money as it needs.

Of course if the world is ending in a few decades, this isn't as much help as you'd think. There's only a few hundred scientists who could build the cold fusion reactors or cryo tubes in the whole world. So governments start wondering why they're wondering off on 5 million dollar a year contracts.

You can pay a building company to dig out your 10 story state of the art bunker, but how do you stop them talking about it?

And once you start buying missiles and training cells of trained fighters, then you look just like a revolutionary, terrorist organisation.

So the project is held up by a number of issues; it needs total secrecy, it has massive complex goals, it has no government support and it has a short time table.

Thus creating the bizarre state of Project equipment. Primitive armoured vehicles with futuristic power sources, hand scanners that can diagnosis any illness alongside 40 year old pistols.

In fact a retro adventure is something I've been working on. When the council of tomorrow uses future project members to help them right now. With everything from kidnapping scientists, to buying truckloads of illegal arms and quietly covering up leaks.

[kato13]

It doesn't answer your question directly but I used the following rule of thumb in the past.

I expected that for each member that was put in the field the project spent ~4 million dollars.

~1 mil for recruitment, psychological testing and "dissapearing" the person (with more than 9 out of 10 prospects being rejected)

~1 mil for training person (including the costs of building/maintaining and keeping secret the facilities)

~1 mil for the bolthole construction and equipment per person

~1 mil for the caches construction and equipment per person

This means a 10,000 person project means 40 billion dollars being redirected without being noticed by anyone. I have designed projects bigger than that but the risks of being discovered are higher. I usually would start thinking about government involvement after that point.

PS welcome aboard.

[Project_Sardonicus]

Hello glad to see the project still lives

[stormlion1]

Well a lot of spending was hidden inside of larger budgets, burying a bolthole under the guise of road repair or sewer repair and while demobilising AFV some are retained and rebuilt and used down the road. Weapons and ammunition are easy, arms dealers have always done a booming business. Construction crews are Morrow Project employees, ones who will end up in Bolt Holes themselves to aid in rebuilding. Training can be hidden as simple employee retreats, ones done in the backwaters of America and involving live ammunition, but when your part of a multi-billion dollar corporation, particulary one that may be doing plenty of political donations is something that the authorities will probably ignore.

[ArmySGT.]

40 years is a long time. The Council of Tommorrow is many, many Fortune 500 companies. The U.S. Government is peripherally aware. The several Cabinet level Secretaries are present and having a meeting about Bruce and his project the day the war starts.

I had a quick discussion with Richard Tucholka about Bruce Morrow.

Bruce isn't only a Time Traveller able to move himself into and out of the future. Bruce is visiting parallel dimensions, seeing the alternatives creating from choosing option A over option B.

The reason the Project benefits from future tech but not future pre-knowledge is that Bruce hasn't always returned to the proper "present". The information like targets struck, superbowl winners, and hot stock picks is different in them all.

Of course, there is a new book now and a re-interpretation of Bruce E. Morrow.

[stormlion1]

In the end, Bruce Morrow gave a 'best guess' for what was needed I think. The main question to ask is who made up the Council of Tomorrow and whether they themselves were put into cryo and would still be out there and did they set things up themselves that are separate from the Morrow Project.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

In the end, Bruce Morrow gave a 'best guess' for what was needed I think. The main question to ask is who made up the Council of Tomorrow and whether they themselves were put into cryo and would still be out there and did they set things up themselves that are separate from the Morrow Project.

Some of them have. They are the Rich Five and creators of the Kentucky Free States.

Others exist.

[stormlion1]

I didn't think the Rich Five were affiliated to the Project, just had somehow gained access to Morrow Project Cryotubes and froze themselves and there assets for there own plans.

[Gelrir]

The Project was a vast military-industrial conspiracy, involving tens of thousands of people -- recruitment, facilities engineering and construction, production and procurement of vehicles and equipment, security and counter-intelligence, surveys and predictions about the Atomic War and the condition of America afterwards, and scientific research (on the new technologies from the future). Bruce Morrow gathered "nine of the country's leading industrialists" -- not "nine of the greatest scientists", "nine of America's richest people", or "nine of the nation's most powerful political leaders" -- the Project is clearly intended to be supported by Big Ol' American Industry.

From my point of view, it's quite possible that anything from a single 'mole' to a whole chunk of the Council of Tomorrow could be the source of information about the Atomic War and outre technology. Clearly, though, this leak was kept secret from the Project before the Atomic War; and the Rich Five (or KFS) don't have much reason to give any credit to the Morrow Project. In game play terms, all that matters is: how much do they know about the Project? They tell their minions to capture Morrow teams, etc.

I'm personally kind of dubious about more than one member of the Council of Tomorrow being also a member of the Rich Five -- Morrow security should be better than that; and if too many members of the Council were 'baddies', the Project itself would have been subverted.

But it doesn't matter too much; ordinary members of the Morrow Project don't know the names of any members of the Council of Tomorrow. If they hear that "John Smith" is in the Rich Five, there's no reason for them to say, "Ah ha, he was also on the Council."

There have been many threads in this and other forums about who the Council members might have been, which companies were involved, etc.. I think that for the same reason the Project didn't tell anyone where Prime Base was, they would try to avoid information about which companies were supporting the Council of Tomorrow (Cadillac-Gage and Morrow Industries being obvious exceptions).

--
Michael B.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

I didn't think the Rich Five were affiliated to the Project, just had somehow gained access to Morrow Project Cryotubes and froze themselves and there assets for there own plans.

They are some members of the Council of Tomorrow. This may in some part be why they want to snuff the project.

They want to be Kings of the new world, not restore the old one.

[ArmySGT.]

What is out of the reach of the project? What can they not build and maintain secrecy?

They have fusion motors, cryosleep, Weapons grade lasers, powered armor, and a commsat?

Nuclear bombs? viral weapons? Genetic engineering?

[kato13]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

What is out of the reach of the project? What can they not build and maintain secrecy?

They have fusion motors, cryosleep, Weapons grade lasers, powered armor, and a commsat?

Nuclear bombs? viral weapons? Genetic engineering?

Well my project has none of those except the comsat. (My cryo sleep being replace with time displacement)

I actually have Morrow luck into being able to have a launch vehicle. Due to some close connections to the CIA they are contracted to do destructive and launch analysis of 6 of the SS-N-20 from the captured Red October. Unfortunately one was destroyed in an accident

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by kato13

Well my project has none of those except the comsat. (My cryo sleep being replace with time displacement)

Time Displacement?

Like a one way time slingshot?

The problem with this, is catapulting agents into the past. Changing history.

Cryosleep means no temporal paradoxes to get around.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Time Displacement?

Like a one way time slingshot?

The problem with this, is catapulting agents into the past. Changing history.

Cryosleep means no temporal paradoxes to get around.

No it is more like you are put in a bubble that is out of time. Time continues to move around you, but passes much more slowly inside the bubble. This actually gets me past the spoilage of equipment problem as well.

Unfortunately the equipment was not fully tested underground and the additional mass, due to the dirt, led to the bubbles having unplanned inertia. The teams shoot past their desired wakeup date. The smaller teams with the smallest bubbles "wake up" first. Prime Base due to it massive size and inertia may not wake for additional centuries.