More on Prime Base-I've been off for a while

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

This may be the real reason why Prime Base failed. The Project was caught between two schools of thought. There were some places where the rigid command structure of the traditional military would work best and other points were a "board room" style would be more effective. The issue became how to interface and switch between these two forms of control.

For the life of me I've never understood why the reason Prime Base falls always has to be the incompetence of the planners. Resurrecting the Project was always going to be a monumental feat and it turned out to be operating in the face of overt, skilled opposition in the form of Krell. There is no reason for the base to come down by incompetence, and I think that incompetence reflects poorly on the characters. And what you are talking about is incompetence. These issues have not been new for centuries, and there are entire schools of thought about how to address them, and the entire job of the Council of Tomorrow would realistically be to find people capable of making those decisions and delegate the task to them.

Originally Posted by tsofian

So when the refugees show up on the Prime Base doorstep...

I have to echo @RandyT0001 here, the refugee thing bugged me even back when I was a kid reading Prime Base. Why were people traipsing across the Nevada desert? How did they even make it that far? How did they happen to come across the base in the middle of so much nothing? Why did the base commander ever risk his headquarters, responsible for saving millions, to save a few hundred when the defense of that headquarters had been made such a priority? Why did he even have the resources on hand to do it in the first place?

Originally Posted by tsofian

Being Americans (for the most part) they demanded a voice in the decision and the situation became a subject put to the vote of the Prime Base population. They made a group decision, it turned out to be a really bad one, but it was done by vote. It makes perfect sense to me that the people who would be selected by the Project would take the data they had and make the decision they did.

It boggles my mind that in that situation it would become a "group decision". Discipline and trust in each others' expertise had to be a key part of selection and training, and no competent director would turn over the decision to their subordinates - they are there to make these exact decisions, after all.

[ArmySGT.]

Burning Man (aka Black Rock City)

Gerlach, Nevada is on the Playa right outside Prime Base....

Hundreds of people have been there.... it is mid way between Sacramento and Reno in the West and Salt Lake City in the East. This is off I-80 a two sometime three lanes in each direction interstate.

Many people including some that are stunningly rich have campers, buses, and RVs in Gerlach year round just to do drugs and have crazy sex with 10,000 other people in bizarre costumes and camps taking drugs and having bizarre sex.

There is also a very sizeable population in Reno, NV and Susanville, CA who will be running for their lives after Carson City, NV and Sierra Army Depot are nuked.

There is your refugees... and everyone lucky to be living in that strip of California between the Sierra Nevadas and the Nevada border.

There is only three ways across Nevada... I-15 (North/South), I-80 (East/West), and Highway 50 (East/West) also called the Loneliest Road in America. There are no towns or services on Highway 50 between Fallon and Ely. Carry gas or suffer.

[mmartin798]

This fits really well with 4th edition canon, since the war happens on 12 June 2017 and Burning Man starts at the end of August. Burning Man attracts between 65,000 and 70,000 people. There would be some sort of advance team for Burning Man in the area already in June. So a couple hundred planners and builders in the area and people already planning to head to Burning Man that started getting their transportation ready and you could have a good sized group of refugees "Just outside the door" so to speak.

[cosmicfish]

By my reckoning, Burning Man takes place about 50-60 miles south of Prime Base*, "right outside" only on a national scale. And I see no reason why anyone at that location would choose to go further into a barren desert towards Prime Base, north is literally the hardest, least promising direction they could go. To be honest "refugees at the gates" was always a stretch when you consider the obstacles to travel in the region and that roads past it were hardly on the way to anywhere in particular.

Remember also that Prime Base didn't even unbutton until a couple of years post-war*, and what are the odds that Burning Man staffers would still be in the Black Rock Desert after all that time? These aren't really rugged survivalists, why didn't they head east or west towards towns and modest civilization? Prime Base could unbutton right after the war, notice a small group of people hours away, and risk the entire Project in an environment that could not possible have been adequately surveyed yet... but why would they?

*: Per 3ed, at least, since I do not have 4ed.

[RandyT0001]

An analogy for PB building a refugee camp just miles from the facility location.

War is declared and a US SSBM sub hears a Russian hunter killer sub enter it's launch box. Within a few minutes the US sub hears a ship enter its launch box which is identified as the 1500 passenger Princess Cruise ship. The US sub hears the torpedo attack by the Russian sub on the cruise ship which begins to sink. The signal to launch missiles is decoded by the US sub. Overwhelmed with outrage and hatred, the US sub commander ignores his launch mission which he has been training for years as a submariner and orders his crew to intercept the Russian hunter killer sub for an attack. All of the training, preparation, screening, and placement into a position of extreme responsibility is ignored as the command officers follow the commanders orders to attack the Russian sub.

We know that this situation could not happen on a US SSBM sub because the command crew would intervene, arrest the deranged commander, and pursue their actual mission of launching the missiles. The Navy trains them to do that and they are expected to do that, complete the mission.

The people put in charge of PB are not going to ignore their mission, either. They have been selected for their positions because they complete the mission without overt emotion.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

By my reckoning, Burning Man takes place about 50-60 miles south of Prime Base*, "right outside" only on a national scale. And I see no reason why anyone at that location would choose to go further into a barren desert towards Prime Base, north is literally the hardest, least promising direction they could go. To be honest "refugees at the gates" was always a stretch when you consider the obstacles to travel in the region and that roads past it were hardly on the way to anywhere in particular.

West takes you to Susanville and within the fallout patterns from Sierra Army Depot. South west takes you to Reno and Carson city which was nuked also. South takes you to Fallon, NV. Oops Naval Air Station Fallon NV also nuked. South east takes you toward Ely, NV and Great Basin National Park a desolate dry sage covered high desert. Further south takes you into the Nevada test range where nukes were detonated decades before. East takes you to The Great Salt Lake and the sand flats... Crossing that takes you to the nuclear fallout the was Hill Air force base, Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Toole Army Depot. North east takes you to the fallout and radioactivity that was Boise and Mountain Home Airforce base. North takes you to the crater that was the Air National guard base at Klamath Falls, OR.

So which direction do you think the refugees went?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

So which direction do you think the refugees went?

Well, I think that these guys have been suggested as planning staff and early attendees to Burning Man, so I'm pretty sure they don't have any idea about any targets they don't actually see get hit, and have no idea about fallout patterns, and don't know where the different bases and test ranges are, but I'm betting that they would prefer to strike out towards the last town they passed, somewhere they can find help and find out what's going on. Perhaps Gerlach but certainly any direction but north towards Prime Base. If they don't know "this is the end" they're going to go towards civilization and if they DO know they'll probably still risk fallout and eventual cancer over dying alone in the high desert.

And even if they did, what are the odds they actually wind up near enough to Prime Base for it to be even noted? There's a lot of desert and not much else. And even if they, by luck or some brilliant bit of prescience that the deep desert is their best option they make it... why would Prime Base open? Because this would presumably be in the first hours or days after the war, when biological weapons and other problems would be at their highest and opening the base would be at the dumbest. And there is no way these guys are still surviving in the desert 2 years post war.

So yeah, my guesses are probably south to Gerlach or dead in the desert before Prime Base does anything or even notices them.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

So yeah, my guesses are probably south to Gerlach or dead in the desert before Prime Base does anything or even notices them.

That takes you to Wadsworth, NV about 15 miles east of Nevada on interstate 80....

So you get the initial rush of survivors from Reno and Carson City heading east. Their met by the truckers, tour buses, and cars from West Wendover, and others fleeing west from the nukes in Salt Lake City.

Now their city on the only east west path with mobs of more refugees coming at them . I-80 is a funnel for everyone coming out of Northern California trying to escape east.

North and slightly east to lightly populated eastern Oregon and the Snake River.... Cour'd' alene maybe?

Or maybe they just hold up on the Soldiers Meadow Dude Ranch, as it is one of the only areas with year around water?