Who is in the Project and How? Was Cost of a base

[tsofian]

Much snipped from various places within

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Those groups are heavily investigated, and don't have super-futuristic or illegal military equipment. Secrecy is a huge issue.

The government is looking for patriots, the Project is actually looking for a special type of traitor. The government can make reasonably accurate estimates of who will betray them based on past performance, the Project needs to take a fantastical hypothetical and find people really willing to abandon everyone and everything to make it real.

You can take some of those people, you probably can't get that many without raising some uncomfortable suspicions, and most of those people would be more likely to report the Project than join it anyway.

In 4th edition there is a lot of truth to what you say and in more modern setting the Project becomes orders of magnitude more difficult to set up. If it had been set up earlier and was allowed to lay dormant it could still have a chance of being kept secret but even that becomes an issue if the teams are to be upgraded.

The Project is looking for Patriots. I'm curious how you came to the conclusion that joining the Project is treason. Treason is defined as "the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government." The Project is certainly attempting to do neither of these things. By extension they are actually following a number of governmental policies established by the Executive Branch from Ike to Carter. Presidents during that period publicly spoke about civilian preparedness and the need for individual Americans to be capable of sustaining themselves in the case of a nuclear exchange. Although the level of armament is extreme and almost certainly extra legal the intent is in no way treasonous.


I've never agreed with the "leave everyone behind" type of Project member. How can you trust a person to love and support the people they meet after the war if they were willing to walk away from everyone they knew before the war and leave 99% of them to a horrible death and the other 1% probably wishing they had died? Mentally healthy people form attachments. They have friends, family, spouses, children and they want those people they care about to be healthy and happy (and alive). One of the greatest gifts the Project can offer is the safety of family. Certain families will be ideal of bases, either awake or frozen. They will provide stability during long waits and after the wake up. In fact, thinking about this I can see families being preferentially selected for bases. They form core communities upon activation and can be the base of populations of humanity. Also having a disparity of male vs female in base situations will cause no end of issues.

The picking the right people from a mental/personality/security perspective is much harder, but the possibly that BEM had psionic abilities has been mentioned in earlier editions (not sure about 4th). If this is case twice a week he meets a group of 50 prospective candidates (they are unaware they are candidates) has a talk with them in an auditorium about how great Morrow Industries is, or discusses a new focus group issues or whatever and shakes each hand as they enter or leave. He "reads" them and separates the wheat from the chaff. If this is not to your taste there are other things that can be done but they are much more resource intensive.