How does the Project influence the world, Pre-War?

[Slar]

For my own version, I wrote up this, based on the Technology level A (Unlimited power, fusion and laser technology...) description in TM1-1 for 3E, and the fact that the Air Force has both a fusion power plant and an AI that they designed in the late 70's, and started building in the 80's (Damocles). This indicates that at least some things about the world of the Morrow Project don't match with our own (length warning):

"So, The Morrow Project...

Perhaps one of the biggest conspiracies ever to exist, the Morrow Project is the result of the intervention of Bruce Edward Morrow and his attempts to build an organization capable of rebuilding the US after a nuclear war that he alone knows for sure is coming.

Gathering a cabal of ten of the richest industrialists/investors of their day (1962), the “Council of Tomorrow,” Morrow conceived a vast, secret cadre of highly educated, highly motivated, and highly skilled individuals hidden in bolt holes, supply bases, and regional facilities, all in cryogenic suspension, that would emerge in the first decade after the war to bring the survivors back from the brink.

By the 1980s, Morrow Industries, its subsidiaries, and its allied business, both outright and through cut outs, shell companies, and investment groups, supplies some 75% of all government procurement, and nearly 90% of military contracts. Everything from rations to toilet seats to tank guns to radar sets is either manufactured by a company supporting the project, is assembled by such a company, or uses parts from such a company.

“Something so large is impossible to hide...”

Bruce Morrow (Morrow Industries), R.K. Mellon (Gulf Oil, Alcoa, and Mellon Bank), Howard Hughes (Hughes Aircraft and subsidiaries), Henry Ford II (Ford Motor Company), David Rockefeller (Mobil Oil), John Paul Getty (various), Margaret Carswell (largest stockholder of Peabody Energy and Texaco), Victor Wilson Getter V (largest shareholder of General Motors), Madsen Wilson Kirby III (Beatrice Foods), Charles Henry Hunter (largest shareholder of General Dynamics), and Wilson J. Studebaker (Studebaker Investment Group, with holdings in GE, AT&T, US Steel, and Esmark) formed the Council of Tomorrow, and through it, the Morrow Project.

With connections throughout the government, military, and international business and politics, it was only a matter of time before someone noticed something. After 1973’s “Operation Snow White,” the Scientology infiltration of the US and foreign governments, agents of the FBI, NSA, IRS, and DIA began following some of these leads. A vast conspiracy was discovered, hiding among the largest suppliers of government equipment, and behind vast lobbying groups. Various arms of the government settled in for a long-term fight.

However, not all of the agencies that discovered the Project assumed hostility. Through the man later known as “Krell,” NASA found out about the Project’s cryosleep systems, and began studying the feasibility of using them for long-range space exploration. The Air Force began reverse engineering early prototypes of Morrow’s fusion reactors, and shared that technology with NASA. The Army, discovering the amount of military hardware the Project was amassing, put into place an operation of its own. The Army Ballistic Missile Agency’s Project: Horizon was reactivated, but turned over to NASA for building a civilian science station.

“Nothing exists in a vacuum...”

Meanwhile, Morrow was reshaping the US in subtle and non-so-subtle ways. The Project needed a lot of college graduates. As a result, Morrow and its associated companies began setting up educational funding, scholarships, and grant programs, along with private schools and day care centers. Money was poured into education all across the country. Morrow acquired prisons, and instituted new programs aimed at education and rehabilitation of prisoners.

A push for more science and technology education resulted in the US adopting the Metric system in 1979. The US was building more solar energy systems, nuclear reactors, and wind generators. Space exploration was moving forward at an astonishing pace. If the war hadn’t come when it did, plans for the Horizon-style moon base were being finalized for the 1990s, and the first manned mission to Mars was planned for the early 2000s, using fusion generators, ion drives, and cryogenic suspension for the astronauts.

Sadly, none of these dreams would come true.

“The street finds its own uses for things…”

Morrow Industries, its subsidiaries and shell companies, and the companies whose owners made up the Council, were manufacturing goods that should not have seen the light of day for decades. Using advanced computers built by Morrow Electric, the Air Force was able to build an Electronic Intelligence. Project Sherlock was in planning stages in 1976. By 1980, Project Damocles, the mission-creep result of Sherlock, had started construction, using Morrow Electric components. Even as the Air Force struggled with their EI, the Project had moved the cutting edge by more than a decade’s worth of advancement. And these things started creeping out into the world.

By the time of the war, most cities got their power from Generation IV Fast Molten Salt Reactors, fueled by radioactive waste from older reactors. Most homes had solar panels on the roof, especially after Jimmy Carter famously placed them on the roof of the White House. Wind power was prevalent wherever conditions merited its use.

By 1978, Motorola was manufacturing mobile telephones, the first models of which weighed about two pounds, and offered 1/2 hour of use on a 10 hour charge. By the time of the war, such phones had come down in price from $4,000 to an average of $200, and a number of companies, including Motorola, Bell Labs, General Electric, and Morrow Electric were the largest manufacturers of cellular phones in the world. Morrow Electronics was about to release its first model with an LCD screen and digital camera Black Friday, 1989, hoping to cash in on the Christmas season. Other manufacturers were lagging behind by about a year.

Most people had a computer in the home by the start of the war. Morrow Electronics was again at the edge of design and research. Several young college graduates, their schooling paid for by Morrow Industries grant programs, were drafted to develop hardware and software for the company.

The “Four Horsemen,” a team of programmers and designers, soon dominated the company’s efforts. Paul Allen, William Gates, Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak, released their first home computer in 1976. In 1979, they were introduced to Bruce Morrow, and inducted into the Project. Their reverse-engineering of their own future products put the Project’s computers 30 years ahead of anything built at the time. The released computers were generations ahead of their normal development curve.

Sony released their “Walkman” portable cassette player in 1979. In 1980, Morrow Electronics one-upped them with their “Go-Music” player, with built-in radio, at a lighter weight, with more futuristic styling. By 1982, the “Disc-Go-Music” was playing Compact Audio Disks. By 1985, Morrow’s first Compact Video Disc player was on the market, and a portable version was to begin sales in 1990, after missing the Christmas 1989 target.

Ford and Chevrolet both released a Hybrid Electric line of compact cars in 1981, each powered by gasoline engines developed in-house, and by electrical motors developed by Morrow Electric, the parent company of Morrow Electronics. Engineer David Arthurs, working with plans brought back by Bruce Morrow, had fast-tracked the development of these hybrids based on his own research and previous efforts by General Motors’ Buick division. By 1987, fully-electric automobiles were being released by the “Big 3,” all using motors developed by Morrow Electric. American automakers dominated the US and global market, though the Japanese manufacturers were closing the gap quickly.

“Strange bedfellows…”

As mentioned before, the Project had popped up on the radar of various government agencies. Massive amounts of money were moving around, triggering the IRS to begin investigating. Military hardware was being manufactured, but was nowhere to be found, which was of great interest to the DOD. The SEC was starting to realize just how much of the global market was under the control of Morrow Industries and its mysterious backers. NASA and the Air Force were reaping the benefits of Morrow technologies stolen by agents of the CIA, NSA, and DIA. If the war had not come, the feds certainly would have. But the alphabet soup of federal agencies were not the only ones to know something was going on.

By 1987, the grifting empire built by televangelist Jim Bakker, and his wife, Tammy Faye, was crumbling. IRS, FCC, and FBI investigations were closing in on the dirty little secret of America’s most influential religious hucksters, and the cover-up needed a scapegoat. Bakker took the fall. What the government thought was simple profiteering and misuse of church funds to pay off victims of sex crimes was actually an operation to extend the “ministry” into the post-war environment. The leaders of America’s evangelical movement were buying cryotubes from the same supplier that had sold them to NASA and the Defense Department. But with sex scandals taking off the heat, those not involved in the torrid affairs of the Bakkers, and one year later, Jimmy Swaggart, were able to make their plans in secret.

“People are our business…”

By the time the war started, the average American came home from work in an extremely-efficient gas-powered car, or, more likely, a hybrid. They unlocked their home with a remote, rather than a key. On entry, a computer-controlled thermostat would adjust the temperature to their liking, and a large-screen LCD display would either automatically tune to their chosen channel, or their Digital Recording Device would que-up programs recorded during the day.

Food would be prepped on an infrared electric stove, or in an electric oven, as electricity was extremely cheap. The children would be using their own home computers to do homework, talk to friends, play games, or look up information in databases across the country. Breaking news, about the current status of the latest manned moon mission, or the celebration of an astronaut’s birthday on Skylab II, or the continued destabilization of the Soviet Bloc, might be displayed in the corner of the screen, without interrupting the main program. The family would be enjoying the new American Renaissance of prosperity, and global economic and technological hegemony.

Basically, take anybody who grew up in the early 2000’s, and place them in this 1989 home, and they would recognize most of what they saw. The names, brands, and styles would be different, but the technology would be very similar.

Imagine what it would have looked like in another thirty years…"

So, what does your world of the Project look like, before the balloon goes up? Same as ours, more advanced, or just different?

[knightofrubus]

Similar to yours though I keep the project much more confined. It's an aggressive think tank that pushed tech into the market via the Council/The Rich 5 and others to get a baseline for project assets and reintegration.

I also kept major beats like the Gulf War and 9/11 in as I'm of that generation though with twists such as the DOD using laser armed Abrams and the towers being taken out by detonating a project power supply under the building and imploding it.

By 2017 the US grid was on the cusp of net zero emissions with the first large fusion reactors coming online and project sourced batteries powering more snd more cars/homes etc.