After Stabilization?

[Olefin]

per HW there is only enough food for 1/4 of the surviving population to make it to the end of the year

surviving population = 1/2 of prewar US population

Thus only 1/8th of the US population can survive to the end of 2001

so you have 3/8th of the prewar population starving to death and or dying in other ways while figting to get to the food that can keep 1/8th alive - now add in disease from the dead bodies piling up everywhere from the fun and all those who die trying to stave off the 3/8th of the prewar US population who there is no food for

oh and also all those who die when it finally rains and they can put a harvest in again but still no food while said harvest grows

what do you get - maybe, if you are really lucky, 1/16th to 1/32nd of the pre-war US population still alive by the time said harvest happens in 2002

with the result that the US that most likely never be a major power of any sort again - and basically destroy just about any remnant of technology left intact - meaning no American Arm by 2300 AD as was their intention

the authors clearly didnt think thru what they wrote during a time of pressure to get material out and published under looming deadlines - or take the time to game out what would happen with what they wrote

you would have had US cities in that kind of situation ending up looking like Sydney in Max Max Thunderdome - and thats with only a one year uber drought

So there is my answer to you Targan but instead of going on how about looking at this thread from purely a recovery standpoint and not about a discussion on the HW drought, which has been debated ad naseum here for a long time by various people. After all that is what this thread was to be about.

There is a lot of possibilities out there for recovery and stablization missions - as was mentioned the Pennsylvania mini-module in Challenge is a definite guide in how they could be approached.

[mikeo80]

I believe that Albert Einstein said, " I do not know what weapons will be used to fight WW III, but WW IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

I think this is the issue we as a group are trying to understand. As a LONG time Morrow Project player, I can see several similarities.

1) Man was stupid enough to unleash his newest toys. Mankind suffered as a result.

2) In the aftermath, there would be VERY long periond of reconstruction.

3) Most reconstruction would revolve around a group of armed persons trying desperately to keep the wolves at bay so that what ever farmers were left could raise enough food for the entire group to survive the next winter.

4) Most reconstruction would revolve around small groups or towns. Easier to defend and easier to grow enough crops to survive the comming winter.

5) A small group is also easier to set up some sort of self government. There is not enough time or energy to dedicate to professional politicians. Every one has to work together to survive.

6) Craftsmen will be VERY important to survival. A person who can fix broken things will be in great demand.

7) Only after there is enough food for the existing group, do you look outside of your group. Maybe you can exchange some of your iron worker's items for some of the wood worker's items from the next village. Trade/barter/swap meets whatever, become the predominate form of economics.

8) If you find a pre-war cache of ANYTHING, you do your best to bring it all to your village. Who knows, maybe something usefull can be gleaned from this pile of what ever it is you salvaged.

9) Books/libraries become vital resources. You may not know how to build a windmill, say. But this book MIGHT just help....

Yes the T2K nuclear war was not as devistating as the one in Morrow Project. But the resultant chaos would have caused just as much damage as nukes would have. Just not as quick.

Yes there is some form of National government, be it MilGov or CivGov. That is more than Morrow project had. However with the chaos and resultant insanity, how much control either of these two entities could exert is questionable.

Yes there are some coherent US military forces that are still in place. THis happened very rarely in TMP. THis does give either government a group of trained (?) professionals to draw upon. However you have to FEED them first before you can use them.

These are a few thoughts I want to throw out there.

My $0.02

Mike

[Olefin]

good post Mike - I think thats one thing that people have to look at between Twilight 2000 and things like The Morrow Project or Aftermath - that things are bad but they havent gone completely downhill to where there are no governments or organized military forces left yet

thats a very large distinction between the two

now that doesnt mean you cant play Twilight 2000 as if it was that bad - you just have to pick your place to do it

for instance one place that would fit that bill very well would be China - there is no cohesive national government of any kind left there - whereas in the US and Russia you still have remnant national governments that control significant resources in China it has broken down completely - another place would be India or Pakistan

all of which are places you hardly hear much about in discussions on the board and where you could have a stranded bunch of Americans or Brits in very easily - more so in Pakistan and China than India - in a place where there is no govt at all and its down to the village level

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Olefin

now that doesnt mean you cant play Twilight 2000 as if it was that bad - you just have to pick your place to do it

for instance one place that would fit that bill very well would be China - there is no cohesive national government of any kind left there - whereas in the US and Russia you still have remnant national governments that control significant resources in China it has broken down completely - another place would be India or Pakistan

all of which are places you hardly hear much about in discussions on the board and where you could have a stranded bunch of Americans or Brits in very easily - more so in Pakistan and China than India - in a place where there is no govt at all and its down to the village level

A while ago someone - I can't recall who - started a thread about ideas for campaigns set in more unusual places. If I recall correctly various suggestions were put forward (one that I recall involved East German troops who had been serving with the Soviet forces in China and were now trying to make their way back to Germany; another - and probably more popular - one was for the pc's to be a group of US Marine Corps Embassy Security Guards stuck somewhere in Africa and trying to make for the coast to get a ship to the US. I think Law went as far as starting a pbem based on that premise).

[Webstral]

The Joint Chiefs in Colorado Springs will be thinking along the lines that Olefin has outlined, I believe. I happen to agree that another significant loss of stability will kill more than 75% of the survivors for whom there is no food. Once the people who produce the food that can be produced start to become casualties in a major way, the entire carrying capacity of the (remains of) the civilization will enter a downward spiral with no end in sight. Although I am loath to take up a contrary position to so many of my respected compatriots, I must agree with Olefin that ending the drought in 2002 isn’t going to solve the problem. A single truly disastrous nationwide harvest in 2001 will bring down the United States. Whatever rises from the ashes in North America (since Canada and Mexico seem to be in on the rainfall problem) will not be the US, Canada, or Mexico. I strongly suspect that a drought that means famine for 75% of the survivors will mean death for 90-95% of the survivors. The population of the US could sink to levels not seen since the early 1800’s.

Of course, this line of thinking is driving the Joint Chiefs to an early grave. I think this is why the 2001-2002 period can make for such exciting adventuring for PCs. The US stands at a crossroads in early 2001. If there is a widespread disaster, the country may never recover. But IF the airship program can be put on a solid footing, IF the remaining Milgov cantonments can be reconnected, IF the necessary expertise and critical machinery can be delivered to the right places, and IF surpluses of food can free labor for industrialization and reconstruction before too many more of the experts die, then the US has a chance to arrest the downward spiral more-or-less permanently and enter a long, arduous upward spiral.

Because it’s not like the rest of the world isn’t doing its best to recover.

[Targan]

Some areas will be worse affected by the drought than others. Howling Wilderness says as much. Also, coastal communities will have more food options than inland communities. Once again it will come down to whether available food can be moved far enough and safely enough to where it is needed.

If we stick to things as described in HW the 2001 spring/summer/autumn harvests in the CONUS will largely be a write-off (compared to pre-war crop yields). Winter precipitation at the end of 2001 may offer a glimmer of hope for the following growing season but in the colder lattitudes it won't be much consolation.

Bear in mind, in the real world the US is a huge net exporter of food. Crop yields late in the Twilight War will be hit by a lack of manufactured fertilisers, a lack of fuel for farmn machinery and then the drought but we've never crunched the numbers to determine at what point crop yields fall to below subsistance levels. And a drought doesn't automatically mean that the entire CONUS turns into a giant, parched dustbowl. It means sustained, reduced average precipitation.

Like it or not, enough people DID survive in the CONUS (according to GDW's writers) to allow the USA to once again become a major world power. As usual I choose to find ways for that to have happened rather than throw out HW altogether. My respected fellow forumites are of course entitled to do with HW as they see fit

[Olefin]

Personally I dont think GDW's writers really sat down and thought much about how their modules interconnected let alone the different games. (For instance Allegheny Uprising flat out contradicts Kidnapped and HW - it takes place after the drought begins in both, is set in the area that CivGov is trying to move thru, yet makes absolutely no mention of the drought or the fact that most of the Eastern Seaboard and Mid-Atlantic States are being evacuated).

And I agree with what Webstral posted - any famine that kills off 3/4 of your remaining population will kill off the country pure and simple - there is no way the uber drought occurs as written and the United States ever rises again - and certainly not per the timeline in 2300AD.

If you go with 2300AD as the future then HW and Kidnapped, as written, doesnt work, pure and simple. There wouldnt be a US left.

At best, with the HW and Kidnapped drought, even if only one year long,. you would be looking at a fragmented nation that would look more like Germany did before they reunified in the 1870's - a patchwork of small states, city-states, and minor empires, all fighting each other and all claiming to be the true US and none able to have the power to rule much more than the small patches of territory they sit on. If you want to see what that will be like read A Canticle for Liebowitz and see how long it took for something like the US to rise again - it was a long long time.

Especially since HW says that MilGovs' communications will be breaking down - meaning that MilGov and CivGov will both be coming apart at the seams.

Now if you ignore 2300AD then you can have anything happen.

As I have said before - it may be one of the reasons they went back to Europe right after HW - because they had just written the US off as anything other than a place to play Aftermath in.

I.e. it was either tell people "whoops we went too far, please ignore those two modules and we will be refunding you your money after we do a rewrite so we can have playable modules again in the US" or "ok well so much for being able to do anything with the US anymore after painting ourselves into the corner by Loren, hey lets go back to Europe"