Morrow Project as a workable concept

[ChalkLine]

When I think of MP it just, to me, seems unworkable.

Thinking that four to eight volunteers fighting future shock is going to make a difference is unlikely. If we look at simple humanitarian efforts at home we can see that it takes lots and lots of people and millions of tons of equipment and supplies.

Restarting the world is going to take much more than that. Even just the United States, although national boundaries will be meaningless, is going to take an enormous amount work and capital.

Now, Morrow would know this. Anyone would know this which is why the project is secret.

Something is going to happen 150 years after the apocalypse and Morrow is sure quite where and quite when but when it does happen he wants security, rebuilders and scientists available.

What the hell is it?

[Father Fletch]

Maybe, maybe not. But it does make for a great starting scenario for a group of RPGers. 2-6 team members, equipped for mayhem and murder-hoboism.

But, part of what this board, and other discussion fora (forums?) do is to think out what if?

• How would something like MP work?
• Can we make sense of the canonical material?
• How would we change it for our own game groups?
• What should we do to update it?

And personally one of the parts of MP that I enjoy is the gedankenexperiment of how does your player group handle the setup and presumptions about their mission and expected timeline for its execution vs. the actual situation 150 years post bellum.
Can they help? Can they stick to the Project core missions of reconnaissance, assessment, and assistance? Or will they sink into barbarity?

[ChalkLine]

Yep, but let's imagine that it is as I said.

It would be have to be something that Bruce Morrow thought was worse than the end of society a we know it. Literally.

Perhaps it has something to do with Bruce's powers.

Is it something coming back that he was unable to stop?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

When I think of MP it just, to me, seems unworkable.

Thinking that four to eight volunteers fighting future shock is going to make a difference is unlikely. If we look at simple humanitarian efforts at home we can see that it takes lots and lots of people and millions of tons of equipment and supplies.

Restarting the world is going to take much more than that. Even just the United States, although national boundaries will be meaningless, is going to take an enormous amount work and capital.

That depends on what you expect to do. The goal of the Project is to restore civilization... eventually. Using the surviving resources 5 years post-war. You are comparing that to efforts to immediately restore current civilization using current levels of wealth. That's not a fair comparison.

Look at what the Peace Corps does, or Special Forces, for a more accurate comparison. The goal is to provide security and necessities of life as soon as possible, and then work towards an advanced civilization over time.

And there would be no future shock after 5 years, and the Project is probably 10,000 to 50,000 people, not just one team.

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

Now, Morrow would know this. Anyone would know this which is why the project is secret.

Something is going to happen 150 years after the apocalypse and Morrow is sure quite where and quite when but when it does happen he wants security, rebuilders and scientists available.

What the hell is it?

In this scenario, what could Morrow handle, and how would deceiving the entire Project and misallocating those resources help? Why do that? If Bruce can convince influential people about the war, why not just show them what is really going to happen and then prepare for THAT?

I think you are barking up the wrong tree here.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

When I think of MP it just, to me, seems unworkable.

Thinking that four to eight volunteers fighting future shock is going to make a difference is unlikely. If we look at simple humanitarian efforts at home we can see that it takes lots and lots of people and millions of tons of equipment and supplies.

Restarting the world is going to take much more than that. Even just the United States, although national boundaries will be meaningless, is going to take an enormous amount work and capital.

Now, Morrow would know this. Anyone would know this which is why the project is secret.

Something is going to happen 150 years after the apocalypse and Morrow is sure quite where and quite when but when it does happen he wants security, rebuilders and scientists available.

What the hell is it?

So are you thinking events or things that the SCP Foundation handles?
http://www.scp-wiki.net/about-the-scp-foundation

[Matt W]

Don't focus on the isolated Teams. In the game history, the Morrow Project MIGHT have worked - but it was unlucky.

The Project's strategy looks more plausible if we consider that the primary objective was to set up an "island of civilization" at Prime Base - and build out from there.

Other parts of the project were intended to support the Prime Base "island". The primary purpose of the Field Teams was to assist Prime Base by finding useful resources and allies, identifying dangers, and so on. Assisting with local recovery attempts would have a lower priority.

The "freeze-then-build-out" type of approach didn't work for the Morrow Project BUT it was successful for the Rich 5 (also known as the Kentucky Free State) and for the Frozen Chosen. Perhaps the Project was just too ambitious and too unlucky?

[Father Fletch]

Originally Posted by Matt W

Don't focus on the isolated Teams. In the game history, the Morrow Project MIGHT have worked - but it was unlucky.

The Project's strategy looks more plausible if we consider that the primary objective was to set up an "island of civilization" at Prime Base - and build out from there.

Other parts of the project were intended to support the Prime Base "island". The primary purpose of the Field Teams was to assist Prime Base by finding useful resources and allies, identifying dangers, and so on. Assisting with local recovery attempts would have a lower priority.

The "freeze-then-build-out" type of approach didn't work for the Morrow Project BUT it was successful for the Rich 5 (also known as the Kentucky Free State) and for the Frozen Chosen. Perhaps the Project was just too ambitious and too unlucky?

To expand on this a bit, the purported higher survivability of dispersed teams, protecting from threats internal and external threats immediately post war, ended up being a net negative when Gang aft agley.

The KFS and R5, by putting all their eggs in one freezer basket, did better by concentrating their resources.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I thought the main plot of The Morrow Project was that the timers on the cryo chambers malfunctioned, and awakened the teams too far in the future; furthermore, that the main base was hit by saboteurs, and the network capability of each "bolthole" was wrecked. So teams in Atlanta wouldn't be able to communicate with teams in Jacksonville (FL or TN), and so on.

The point about TMP "working" is that all of that stuff isn't supposed to work: it's gone. It's no longer (initially, anyway) about re-setting and restoring a devastated United States, but survival, like in T2k. Down the road once Alpha Base is recovered, yes. But the future the teams find themselves in, in 218x, is supposed to be untenable. No, 4-8 people can't reset the US. But the plan in the late 20th century was never about just 4-8 people, it was large numbers of 4-8 person teams, centrally guided, with all of the advantages that would give.