What does the Project offer?

[tsofian]

One thing that get's brought up fairly often is that Project recruits are asked to give up all ties, renounce their families and all relationships with humanity. In return they get to endure survivor guilt, know they lived through an event that most likely killed ever one they ever met and all their relatives and pick up the pieces. It is sort of a lose-lose proposition.

Finding people willing to do this who are not sociopaths at worst and who would at best actually would meet the high standards and ideals of the Project seems unlikely. People who care about people are usually surrounded by them. How can the Project planners expect someone who could not build effective relationships in the relatively normalcy of the world before the war do so in the chaos afterwards?

It seems like the supply of highly skilled individuals who recently lost their entire family to a freak leg shaving accident and aren't emotionally shattered would be very limited indeed.

It seems to me that the Project has to offer something to the participants, something that people who have those relationships and love the people in their lives would value. I believe that the Project would make these people an offer of saving their loved ones. They would do this by storing the families in cryo.

Also the Project appears to have some highly advanced medical treatments. This provides another possible avenue for rewards. If a possible recruit was suffering from a serious illness the Project might be able to cure them. They might also be able to cure family members and then freeze them to live through the war. This would be powerful incentive for the "right" kind of people to join.

And where would they store all these frozen folks? Primebase?

[dragoon500ly]

If you go by canon, then Prime Base doesn't house any frozen dependents.

But we do have the secondary command base, which would be a logical candidate. In my campaign, I have a frozen scientific research base as well as the various regional bases which can also house frozen family members.

It's an interesting question (and a welcome change from the "all 32 members of my family died in a bizarre house fire, causing me to join the military and graduate Marine Force Recon, Special Forces and Delta Force" backstory).

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

If you go by canon, then Prime Base doesn't house any frozen dependents.

But we do have the secondary command base, which would be a logical candidate. In my campaign, I have a frozen scientific research base as well as the various regional bases which can also house frozen family members.

It's an interesting question (and a welcome change from the "all 32 members of my family died in a bizarre house fire, causing me to join the military and graduate Marine Force Recon, Special Forces and Delta Force" backstory).

Yes, but as the "official" unauthorized Prime Base Repairman I have no problem dispensing my own rough brand of justice to Prime Base. I do not have a problem spreading the family-cycles around though.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by tsofian

Yes, but as the "official" unauthorized Prime Base Repairman I have no problem dispensing my own rough brand of justice to Prime Base. I do not have a problem spreading the family-cycles around though.

Then we are looking at adding another cylinder to Prime (I believe we were up to 5?), or going with an additional level to the annex.

That's why I go with other bases having additional "storage".

[tsofian]

I had already added extra cylinders and moved lots of things around. My original article is posted on here someplace. Searching for it (since I didn't even have a copy on my machine) lead me here in the first place.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

One thing that get's brought up fairly often is that Project recruits are asked to give up all ties, renounce their families and all relationships with humanity. In return they get to endure survivor guilt, know they lived through an event that most likely killed ever one they ever met and all their relatives and pick up the pieces. It is sort of a lose-lose proposition.

Finding people willing to do this who are not sociopaths at worst and who would at best actually would meet the high standards and ideals of the Project seems unlikely. People who care about people are usually surrounded by them. How can the Project planners expect someone who could not build effective relationships in the relatively normalcy of the world before the war do so in the chaos afterwards?

It seems like the supply of highly skilled individuals who recently lost their entire family to a freak leg shaving accident and aren't emotionally shattered would be very limited indeed.

It seems to me that the Project has to offer something to the participants, something that people who have those relationships and love the people in their lives would value. I believe that the Project would make these people an offer of saving their loved ones. They would do this by storing the families in cryo.

Also the Project appears to have some highly advanced medical treatments. This provides another possible avenue for rewards. If a possible recruit was suffering from a serious illness the Project might be able to cure them. They might also be able to cure family members and then freeze them to live through the war. This would be powerful incentive for the "right" kind of people to join.

And where would they store all these frozen folks? Primebase?

I would agree that there would be some frozen dependents, but I don't think there could be many. Making whole families and friend groups disappear draws attention, the Project wants to avoid attention. And I do not think there are that few people willing to leave everything behind - especially in the target age range for recruitment, candidates may be in a position where they are more looking for close connections than currently having them. High school, military, college, job - these transitions are great times to pick people off.

And besides, who says freezing is their only option? Once people are at the point where they recognize that the war is going to happen, the Project has a variety of options for protecting their loved ones, from recruiting them into the Project, to putting them into a highly survivable situation outside the Project, to, if necessary, freezing them. You are right about the incentive value of protecting the loved ones, but the Project can do a LOT to protect people without having to freeze them.

Got a best friend you want to see saved? Tell us their name, we'll see if they're interested too! Maybe you can even serve on the same Team!

Got a loved one unfit for the field? No problem, we've got jobs to fill at bases with lower requirements than the field teams. Dad's got a spot waiting in the base kitchen, Mom can help in the communications staff!

Just want to make sure they're taken care of? No problem! Morrow Industries is hiring for a variety of well-paying positions in secure, out-of-the-way communities that coincidentally are perfectly prepared for nuclear Armageddon! They don't need to know about the Project they just need to know they like their job! And when you get activated, we'll make sure you get back in touch!

Got someone too old to work? Those Morrow communities also have phenomenal retirement villages! When the bombs drop they'll be in a far better place than they would be without the Project!

Are you a really important person for whom none of those are viable options? Well then, let's talk about the Morrow Ark facilities, large bolthole complexes watched over by Medical and MARS teams! While you're saving the world, they'll be slumbering and waiting to return to the safe, secure world you've made for them!

The Morrow Project - saving your loved ones, so you can save the world!

That having been said, I wouldn't put the frozen families and friends into Prime Base - there just isn't a good reason for it. You don't want to make the base larger (and therefore more observable), you don't want the traffic after the war, and you don't want anyone targeting the Project to accidentally take out civilians.

Prime Base already needs to do a lot of things, it doesn't need to do everything.

[Matt W]

Maybe the Project's super-medicine can offer something that nobody else can. A cure for cancer? Regrowing limbs? Restoring spinal cords?

Maybe those veterans that the Project wants to hire have been crippled by their injuries. "Work for us and you'll walk again"

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by Matt W

Maybe the Project's super-medicine can offer something that nobody else can. A cure for cancer? Regrowing limbs? Restoring spinal cords?

Maybe those veterans that the Project wants to hire have been crippled by their injuries. "Work for us and you'll walk again"

Restoring nerve damage would be ideal, as would replacing damaged limbs. Even curing diabetes would open a huge pool of potential volunteers. We know that in canon we have both a super anti toxin and a super antibiotic, so people dying of all sorts of poisons and infectious diseases would be candidates for those. Perhaps MP developed gene therapy way ahead of everyone else and they can even treat genetic disorders.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by tsofian

Restoring nerve damage would be ideal, as would replacing damaged limbs. Even curing diabetes would open a huge pool of potential volunteers. We know that in canon we have both a super anti toxin and a super antibiotic, so people dying of all sorts of poisons and infectious diseases would be candidates for those. Perhaps MP developed gene therapy way ahead of everyone else and they can even treat genetic disorders.

The only problem here goes back to pre-activation phase secrecy. Curing people of debilitating injury/disease/illness using nanotechnology (as described in 4th edition) would be hard to keep secret. Once a Project member's family member is cured, that family member will get noticed by a friend/relative/medical professional who will want to know how they got something completely taken care of that cutting edge medicine could not do. I am sure a Morrow Medical Research facility could do all of these things, or at least try to so they can fine tune the nanotech. Without taking the person so helped out of circulation, someone will start asking questions and that will not lead to anything good. In fact, the healed person would likely be asked to become a case study to see why they got better. Limb regeneration would be very hard to explain.

[tsofian]

The healing of the people means nothing if they don't live through the war, so they will either get sent to an out of the way location and/or frozen.

Terry

[cosmicfish]

There are also the ethical questions of being able to save so many people and holding it back - it seems unlikely to me that the kind of people the Project needs would be okay joining a group that will let so many die or suffer.

[Project_Sardonicus]

Would some recruitment take place in the very beginning of the war to end all wars?

Various very high profile recruits, leading surgeons and scientists get a call just as the bombs start dropping?

Here's a chance to save what's left of civilisation come join us.

That said the project probably wouldn't be short of recruits. Just maybe slightly eccentric ones to put it mildly.

Whenever a ship sinks or a building burns down, investigations into who died are hampered by people claiming to have been there. To have their lives written off and start over again. With a bright new identity; Lionel Hutz is dead, long live Miguel Sanchez.

The project would provide a chance to do this on an epic scale. And if a recruit had family, then a generous life insurance payment could be sorted.

The project would not be short of people dreaming, the dream of starting over as someone else. Besides however good the training many simply wouldn't believe the world was really going to end. It's something that's so hard to visualise that they may not realise what they actually let themselves in for until they step out of that bolt hole for the first time.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

There are also the ethical questions of being able to save so many people and holding it back - it seems unlikely to me that the kind of people the Project needs would be okay joining a group that will let so many die or suffer.

If that is true The Project can not exist at all. The canon project has clean nuclear fusion. That could save millions of lives across the world simply by running water treatment plants, let alone prevent death in coal mining or from pollution caused by coal fired plants. How many millions would the universal antibody save? The Universal antidote? Could not the Project's advanced lasers be used as missile shields?

The Project is able to utterly convince its volunteers that the war is absolutely going to happen. Curing Uncle Ned's diabetes only to have him die of radiation sickness a few years later isn't a good bargain. Volunteers accept that the Project doesn't release this technology widely because doing so will simply compromise the ability of the Project to rebuild civilization after the inevitable war.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by Project_Sardonicus

Would some recruitment take place in the very beginning of the war to end all wars?

Various very high profile recruits, leading surgeons and scientists get a call just as the bombs start dropping?

Here's a chance to save what's left of civilisation come join us.

"Come with me if you want to live!"

Do they get a call or are there special teams waiting for the final warning to grab these resources and protect them somehow?

This is an excellent opportunity for some great story telling. The player characters can be either the special Morrow Teams or the high value resources that are to be salvaged. Maybe the team lives next to a University and has the cover of a coffee shop staff. They get the call and "round up" their targets. There is a bolt hole under the coffee shop. It would be a lot of fun to play the scientists of such, especially if you didn't let the players know what was happening! They roll up some sciency or college type and all of a sudden BAM they morrow team shows up and lays the heavy shit down on them!

[Project_Sardonicus]

Some how this makes me think of a fusion of Friends and the Morrow Project?

But I could imagine an interesting scenario would be the first months of the war. With a desperate need to secure resources, human and material.

Maybe ensuring the use of airfields and making sure that key facilities aren't accidentally overrun by refugees. Without necessarily revealing their existence.

There may even be a need to track down senior Project members who've snuck off campus to bring their own families to safety.