Prime Base

[dragoon500ly]

Things have been a bit slow so I thought to get a debate started about Prime Base; specifically the various problem areas that are present throughout the module. The basic starting point is an old MP Guns & Gear List article "Unauthorized Prime Base Repairman", I have no idea who the author was, my hard copy was water damaged during a hurricane, but kudos to the original author!

"A) I changed the cover of the base. Instead of a ranch, placed in a very nontypical location I made this a location for one of the major charities of Morrow Industries, a children's hospital and hospice. This had several advantages: it allowed personnel to come and go in large numbers, with their families; since it was a real facility, the real patients, families, and staff provided good cover for Project personnel; it gave a good reason for large quantities of material to be brought up to the ridge; construction, enlargement and renovation of the many buildings at the hospital gave cover for Prime Bases' construction; the locals knew this to be a hospital for terminally ill children, they quickly learned not to get close to any of the patients or their families or to be surprised when they suddenly disappeared, this was put down to a death or recovery of a child, with the parents simply returning home; the facility could provide the core of a colony after the war; its mission would, possibly, shield it from the worst of the war, targeting a children's hospital is pretty low; it was good cover for shipping high tech equipment into Prime Base."

Not a bad idea. The hospice would also explain a small airstrip being built to handle mid-sized aircraft (one less thing to worry about when the Project goes operational).

"B) No one can pilot a helicopter through a few hundred meters of tunnel. I got around this by changing the natural cavern into a quarry entrance. A set of disused mining rails are on the cavern floor. The helo launch pad actually rides on these once the doors to the hanger have been opened. The pad moves out of the cavern, with the helo on it, then the helo is launched."

Have to admit, this is a very telling point, flying a helo through tunnels certainly qualifies as "an incredibly stupid idea". Don't know about the pad, I would simply have the helo moved out onto the quarry floor and launched from there.

"C) The cyclotron in Support needs to be put in its own bunker, far from anything you want to be alive later. Cyclotrons emit neutrons when in operation. These are bad to be around. I put all of the industrial stuff in its own cylinder, off the annex tunnel. This prevents an accident from rendering the entire base unusable."

Agree with this completely, I don't know about another cylinder, but certainly an additional tunnel with rooms opening off for such things as the forge (especially when conducting any sort of pours), the chemical weapons research facility, the cyclotron, and nice thick doors to cut off the area in case of an accident.

"D) The Decon Area is not very good. Where do the baskets go? No place, they just stay there until somebody walks through all the contamination to go get them and take them where? Here is my fix. Decon is a circular corridor around a central core. Dumbwaiters, with airlock doors, are at each check point. Baskets are placed in the dumbwaiters and automatically sent to a BIOLEVEL 4 containment facility. Using remote manipulators the items are sorted and undergo decon. Items too contaminated for reuse are incinerated. The operators work from the center of the core. The entire facility can be sealed off from the base by a smaller contamination reduction corridor."

This was one of the weakest areas of the modules. The module Decon Area, well, it can best be described as an accident waiting to happen.

[dragoon500ly]

"A) The environment that is stipulated for Hidden Valley will not lead to lizards developing endothermy (warm bloodedness). The constant temp of the environment is perfect for ectothermic animals (cold blooded). I'm also uncertain if, even under the worst conditions, that you can get lizards to mutate that fast. I had a fix for this. In my campaign NASA was much more a going concern. They were about to terraform Mars when the war broke out (2012). Part of the terraforming was to use biological organisms to change the Martian environment by biological action. Additionally, they also wanted to use animals and plants that could live on Mars. Instead of engineering each organism, they decided to let the environment do the job for them. To ensure that they would get organisms that could live on Mars a virus was developed that would mutate lower lifeforms and went to work on local animals."

I always found the flora and fauna of Hidden Valley to be a very poorly considered idea. Never liked it, never used it.

"B) The Project had almost no need of transuranic radioactives. Fusion uses Hydrogen and makes Helium (and a neutron). The radioactive sludge at the bottom of Prime Base has no reason to be there. Additionally, NO ONE (except the Federal Government at Hanford) stores high energy radioactivies this way. What did the Project do? Place its idiot children in the safety department? Write this stuff out, its stupid!"

Concur.

"C) There is not enough housing on the base. Some day count up the number of places people work in the base. It comes to way more than the number of adults that can be housed in the base. Even with the fact that not all the jobs need to be going on at once, there just isn't room for all the people needed. Add to this the fact that some of these jobs need to be done 24-7 and things get even more sticky. The quick fix for this is to duplicate the Life Module. Stick it next to the existing one in that big hole that Morrow Industries dug in the ground. This will give a base of 4 (not 3) cylinders. The good thing about this is that you don't need to do any extra work, just duplicate the life cylinder."

According to the module, with just 3 cylinders, Prime Base had a maximum capacity of 448 Project personnel and 390 dependents (i.e. 838 people). It is also stated that there were actually 247 Project personnel and 160 dependents (407 people) living in Prime Base when the war began. The original author certain had a point about the need for 24-7 operations, but I feel that with 448 active personnel, Prime should have been able to handle the critical posts. Otherwise, the war simply happened before Prime was fully manned.

"D) The defenses of the base have always seemed capable of defeating any attack through the main entrance. However, if you really want to screw with players here are some things that you can do: place booby traps in the hallway. They may no longer work, but they are scary; every 25 feet put up a screen of wire mesh, this was both to slow movement and to prevent some Rambo from firing a LAW at the guard post. Since a LAW would have done a number on the weapon turrets, this will prevent that. As long as the weapons function, ain't nobody getting down this hallway; fill the hallway with water, it sucks being a player character; fill the hallway with Chlorine gas cylinders, bobby trapped to open of the hallway is entered."

Kinda of getting into the old Killer PD mode here. From a defensive standpoint, I can see Claymores set into recesses in the walls and roof, and controlled from Post One and the wire mesh screens are simply common sense protection from rockets. The water and Chlorine, overkill. If any of my players are reading this, I did not include this. No! Really!

[mikeo80]

These are some excellent points. I have always wondered just what the filp-flap the MP planners were thinking???!! A ranch on TOP of a mesa?? FLY A HELO through a tunnel????

I did like the idea of the "Morrow Air Force". Very usefull aircraft with known capabilities. I also liked the FASCME idea. (If I mis-qutoed the name, my bad, I do not have Prime Base at my fingertips right now )

Krell has always been a puzzle! The who, what, where, and when of the Krell Empire, at least as presented to date, does not seem logical.

A "typical" leader under Krell might have the thought. "Gee, the Boss is asleep right now. I am in charge right now. Maybe the Boss's sleep tube will have a critical OOOPS.... "

End of Krell empire, kind of like end of Alexander the Great's empire. Once the squabble starts as to just WHO is in charge....chaos ensues.

Enough for now... RL is peeking it's head in the door, I have to go to work.

My $0.02

Mike

[dragoon500ly]

"A) Is there a church or even an area for multi-use worship in Prime Base? If not, there should be. Maybe the civic center can be used this way. If not, put such a room in the additional life cyclinder. It can replace the civic center or the hospital, both of which need not be repeated in the new spaces."

Good idea. I would see the civic center being used for worship if you go for a 3-cylinder base. Going with a 4-cylinder base, replacing the civic center totally in the new cylinder. As for what replaces the hospital in the 4th cylinder?

"B) Why are the archives in the Base. They should be in the Annex. Its not like anything here is useful for the mission of the Base. I made the archives vault a large nitrogen-filled room over in the annex tunnel. If the players ever get in there, they will find the bodies of the archivists inside."

Its a good point. This material, while essential for Humanity, really has no purpose for the Project. It doesn't need to be in Prime Base for this reason, the annex is an excellent storage place.

"C) The Mission Annex is a great idea. Here is my problem with it as it was written. Why does it open onto the ridge line? Like somebody could build an airport up there. Like people would want to build communities on a rock with very limited access to resources. The Annex should open up to the desert floor. Logistical access to the rest of the world is pretty decent from the desert. There is lots of flat space to build a decent runway at the foot of the mountains. There is room to set up limited agriculture at the foot of the mountains. The water is at the bottom of the hills, not on the ridge line. All in all, I'd build the major colony at the entrance to the valley, where the streams exist the mountains. The construction of Pahute Place can still be up in the hills, since that could have been started with materials from the children's hospital and salvage. Construction of the colony up there would also have revealed less of the Base's assets right away."

Concur.

"The armory, except for the ready use material, should be stored in the Annex. The weapons should be stored as they are, the ammunition should be in sprinklered magazines."

I would even go so far as to have an additional leg dug at right angles to the annex, placing the ammunition magazines as far as possible from Prime Base and placing several sets of blast doors in between.

"I again screwed with the heliport. The Annex tunnel has a narrow gauge railroad in it. This leads into all the annex caves by the use of sidings. The Annex tunnel leads straight to the heliport, out the great big doors, into the disused quarry, down the valley and to the old mining camp. The idea was that this would be the main link to the new colony. The trams are large enough to handle the biggest pieces in storage. This method also prevents any break in from the base from the Annex. The Annex is a dead end. The level with the heliport now becomes a nexus of transportation for the entire base, so Post Two gets moved in here."

Still not sure how this works out, I'm still debating a few issues, such as survivors having access to any part of Prime.

"By moving the Annex, both deeper and more towards the end of the ridge, you can put the bomb where the ridge meets the mountain. The resulting crater now makes the ridge an island once the vally floods. Now have the players fry to get there."

Now this is just plain cruel!

"D) The firefighting and prevention stuff for the base is very minimal. There should be sprinklers in all rooms (either Halon or water). There needs to be a second fire station. There needs to be little fire/first aid and rescue equipment lockers all over the place. Go to any big industrial complex and take a look at the stations they have for their Emergency Squads. At the very least there should be three of these per level and one at each levl of the transcore. They should have a set of confined space entry gear, Scabs, fire extinguishers, forcible entry tools, fire hoses, a fire hydrant, HAZMAT spill materials, etc., etc., etc. (there should also be some type of lighting equipment plus portable genetrators). All the doors should be rated for at least 2 hours under fire conditions. Individual sections of the base should be capable of being sealed off in case of fire. Certain sections should be designated as fire refuges where people can close themselves off from the heat and smoke of a fire. Some large buildings have these features. It saves lives. This thing about the base being a giant airflow is silly. It makes no sense.Each cylinder should be capable of being isolated, at the very least. Each floor or even various sections should be capable of being isolated. Fire doors should be widely used. The air should travel through ducting, either between floors or between the interior walls of the cylinders and its actual structural skin. Pipes and other utilities have to be run the same way. The one big air loop makes no sense. The draft were the air is being forced out of the cleaners must be really amazing and don't stand anywhere near the intakes with less than $50.00 worth in Mexican change in your pockets! This leads to an interesting alternate for the Final Deception. The Base personnel didn't just burn some papers on level one, they turned off the sprinklers, threw some flammable solvent and stacks of papers in and top it off with some O2 bottles and a detonator. When the PCs break in they find the entire upper level totally burnt out, except for one transcore, where the nuclear material shtick going."

Gotta agree with this, its well thought out and fills in several critical gaps in the design of Prime Base.

"E) There should be almost no radiation in Hidden Valley. Here is the deal, radiation from nuclear weapons will disappear from the environment in two ways. The first is through radioactive decay. We all know how this works, with half lives and daughter products and what not. The other way is through a process called weathering. Decay will operate on a scale notable to players. By the time of the wake up, all the short-lived stuff will be long gone. This will still leave a pretty big count of longer lived material (Strontium-90). Weathering is a different process. It part of erosion and similar natural processes. The Hidden Valley environment, with huge amounts of rain and subsequent erosion will weather very rapidly. The good side is that the background in the valley will be pretty normal. However, I would recommend not eating anything that was feeding at the bottom of the lake. This is were all the radioactives will get weathered to and they will become a hot layer of sediment. This still should not be too terrible, except for biological systems that concentrate various radio active materials. Needless to say, NO SCUBA DIVING!!!!!"

From what I have been able to research on this, he's on the ball.

"F) Remove the diving board from the 8 foot deep pool. After the first three people broke their necks diving into 8 feet of water, they would probably have taken it down."

No arguments here!

"G) The ramp in the Support Cylinder has a track for the narrow gauge tram. The tram lines also run through the two lower sets of inter cylinder passageways. This allows better logistics."

Good point, concur!

[ArmySGT.]

[ArmySGT.]

The location is down wind of Sierra Army Depot. That defeats the purpose of placing it where it is now.

The Communications suck badly. How were they going to contact Teams, send the Wake up signal, and coordinate Operations that far removed?

ULF? ELF?

Why does Prime Base need the Johnson space center to run their satellite?

Logistics. Where is the Stuff. Left out for the PDs creativity I suppose.

The Krell. Yes, that Group would at least have had a write up by the time this module was rolled out. Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri. Nevada. Washington State (Krell Navy).

What? Mindless Neo-barbs with no skills. Yes development fail.

[dragoon500ly]

Going by the module, the communications exposure module was supposed to allow for continent wide communications, supposedly through HF....its one of those areas that was not well thought out when it was written. Ditto for Operation Lonestar and its seizure of the Johnston Space Center in order to control a MP satellite.....but the purpose of this thread is to ID these weak points and suggest fixes.

My own view of Prime Base runs along with the unknown author of the original post...placing a ranch on top of a ridge just didn't make any sense. A children's hospice/hospital makes better sense in that it explains the movement of people and equipment. The downside is that there are no major towns/cities in the immediate area. Still, it beats a ranch...

The plus sides of the hospice idea is that it can justify the building of a small airfield nearby (on the valley floor!).

[ArmySGT.]

I don't know. Ted Turners "Vermijo" ranch covers a good chunk of norther New Mexico. The airfield for that is "County" , however it is much better equipped than that part of the State could afford.

This is a Twofer. Top of the screen is the NRA Whittington Center and the airfield is below. Just south of Raton NM on the way to Santa Fe. Wasn't unusual to see a couple of Lear Jets and other private air craft there. The rich coming in to hunt on Ted's place.

[dragoon500ly]

Been doing some research on towns in Nevada and it seems that almost all towns in this area are built near the mouths of the various canyons. Looking over a topo map of the Prime Base region, it seems to me that instead of building on top of the ridge, that the Project may have been better served by building on the canyon floor just off of Soldier Meadow, perhaps with the ranch/hospice backed onto the ridge. This way its a more normal construction.

This would also mean that the Ops Cylinder would have to be rebuilt (Level 1 would be at the bottom and so on). OR the entrance tunnel could be replaced by a entrance stairway.

Comments?

[mikeo80]

In many of the games I have played, there has always been a second Prime Base. This was an identical setup as the original, however everyone was in deep sleep. It has been located (depending on game) in Kansas, North Carolina, Saskatchawan, or Maine.

When Prime Base realized they were going to die, they sent the "wake call" to PB2. With a full description of what had happened, a full data dump for the PB2 computers, and, basically, a last message. "Good luck, God bless, you are on your own."

In the Kansas game, the "wake up" message did not get through. I was part of a Recon/Frozen Watch team that woke in the "canon" time frame of Big Bang +150. The commander of the Recon portion of the team had a vector to PB2.

When the game ended (PBEM is very difficult.) We had found the base, got the sleepers awake, and were scouting the area for first contact/local conditions for deployment of Morrow Air Force.

My $0.02

Mike

[dragoon500ly]

I've never argued the existence of a "backup" Prime Base, it simply is common sense. But the issue with having Prime Deuce automatically take over is that it screws up the canon material beyond an acceptable level.

My own take on it is that Prime Deuce's wake up code fell prey to the same programming bug that prevented the wake up of the Project after the fall of Prime Base.

In my own campaigns, Prime Deuce is asleep, waiting for the proper wake up commands, i.e. the PCs need to discover Prime Base, find the wake up codes and kick start the Project into gear.

[ArmySGT.]

Then why not have Prime Base 2 be the Atlantis project? I wasn't supposed to come online for more than 75 years anyway. Where should it be? Iceland? Safe except for Keflavik. The Orkneys, probably ignored all together, secretive, and well placed for Comms. North Africa? Like Morroco. Certainly safe from Europe going down to nukes and plagues. Can you imagine all the Anglo refugees in North Africa skewing the demographics? An Island in Aegean sea? Morrow Navy heave ho!

Good News boys! Your going to find and wake up the second Morrow Base. After 69 days at sea you should be close..

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

I've never argued the existence of a "backup" Prime Base, it simply is common sense. But the issue with having Prime Deuce automatically take over is that it screws up the canon material beyond an acceptable level.

My own take on it is that Prime Deuce's wake up code fell prey to the same programming bug that prevented the wake up of the Project after the fall of Prime Base.

In my own campaigns, Prime Deuce is asleep, waiting for the proper wake up commands, i.e. the PCs need to discover Prime Base, find the wake up codes and kick start the Project into gear.

I agree with everything you said. In the last game I played, the "Kansas" game, PB2 was still asleep. The other games I had run, The teams involved never found PB2.

My $0.02

Mike

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Then why not have Prime Base 2 be the Atlantis project? I wasn't supposed to come online for more than 75 years anyway. Where should it be? Iceland? Safe except for Keflavik. The Orkneys, probably ignored all together, secretive, and well placed for Comms. North Africa? Like Morroco. Certainly safe from Europe going down to nukes and plagues. Can you imagine all the Anglo refugees in North Africa skewing the demographics? An Island in Aegean sea? Morrow Navy heave ho!

Good News boys! Your going to find and wake up the second Morrow Base. After 69 days at sea you should be close..

And there is nothing wrong with running Prime Deuce as the headquarters of the Atlantis Project! As for location, I favor a location in Canada or the UK.

[ArmySGT.]

Ah, but the Atlantis Project is about rebuilding Europe. The UK makes sense except that it is sure to get pasted in a Nuclear exchange. Canada is to far out of position.

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Ah, but the Atlantis Project is about rebuilding Europe. The UK makes sense except that it is sure to get pasted in a Nuclear exchange. Canada is to far out of position.

IIRC, Atlantis was concerned with rebuilding the world, not just Europe.

If I am correct, then I could see several small PB's available to co-ordinate.

One in Switzerland (Europe) ( I do not know about this one. Switzerland might have survived, but the rest of Europe will glow in the dark for the next 1000 years.)

One in Congo (Africa)

One in Nepal (Main Land Asia) (Same problem as Switserland)

One in Chile (South America)

One of the small islands of Philipenes, or Indonesia for that corner of the world.

I would think that Middle East/North Africa is still glowing in the dark. Likewise India/Pakistan, South Africa and surrounds.

Russia, China, Europe, Japan, Korea, pretty much WASTED.

Australia, New Zealand, etc might have survived. Major cities are toast, but coast and interior might be ok.

South America could end up being the next Super Power. No real strategic targets, good agriculture areas esp. Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil. Some Oil production, some iron, coal etc for industries. They could just have enough to make it.

Northern Canada with all of its' raw materials should still be there.

Central Africa probably survived, however the tribal warfare would have devistated any hope of rebuilding.

My $0.02

Mike

[dragoon500ly]

Looking over the choices, then the best place to plant Atlantis is South America, low-priority nuclear targets and a tech/pop base to use to rebuild the rest of the world.

[ArmySGT.]

The Morrow Project was supposed to wake up three to five years after the nuclear exchange and the Atlantis Project was slated for 75 years later. Presumably to get support from a reforming North America.

I would place it in North Africa (all low priority targets widely dispersed), Southern Spain, South of France, or an Aegean Island.

The Aegean Island fits the most, mythological Atlantis was an island, and this would be the easiest to conceal construction and other operations prior to WW3.

[dragoon500ly]

Drawbacks to the island placement, is that you will have to have some kind of sea-borne capability and, unless the island is large enough to support an air strip, any aviation assets would be restricted to helicopter.

Spain may be a better choice than the south of France, but thinking over it, I'm sticking to a South America location. Looking over the various websites, it appears likely that SA would not receive a large number of nukes, giving a better chance of some kind of surviving industrial capability as well as a larger population base. Assets that the Atlantis Project could use to good effect.

[dragoon500ly]

Does anybody have any opinions on the 4-cylinder Prime vs. the canon Prime?

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

Does anybody have any opinions on the 4-cylinder Prime vs. the canon Prime?

I have no real problem one way or another. I can see the need for more people to man the various posts at PB. Then you need more living space. As we have said here, there are some things that are missing from PB that should have been there. There are some things at PB that should NOT have been there. (Esp U-235 or PU-239 in the basement????)

One way I could see this happening....

The extra cylinder (s?) are there...Need a button pushed from the Commander of PB...,.OPEN SESAME!!!!

Could also be more storage?? Could be more teams in Deep Sleep?? I mean come on, the only external team is Phoenix????

BTW, I DO NOT believe in the Phoenix team concept...They are not there in MY version of PB. A couple of Recon Teams, a MARS team and a Science team are all resonable IMHO.

My $0.02

Mike

[ArmySGT.]

Me too. I never cared for the Pheonix Team concept.

Their really in the Module so the PD can cut the Players loose again and have someone to run Prime Base (NPCs).

I favor a Command Staff in cryo sleep. Then you do have NPCs to take over and run Prime Base and the Players can get out of house keeping and back to adventuring.

I think of the Canon Prime Base Commander and his staff as the Garrison or Caretaker staff. The equivalent of a Colonel. That one level of Prime Base has the Staff that was meant to run the Project. There is a Four Star equivalent with a few two and one star department heads as well as Staff Specialists (Junior Officers and NCOs) in sleep waiting to start the Project.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by mikeo80

I have no real problem one way or another. I can see the need for more people to man the various posts at PB. Then you need more living space. As we have said here, there are some things that are missing from PB that should have been there. There are some things at PB that should NOT have been there. (Esp U-235 or PU-239 in the basement????)

One way I could see this happening....

The extra cylinder (s?) are there...Need a button pushed from the Commander of PB...,.OPEN SESAME!!!!

Could also be more storage?? Could be more teams in Deep Sleep?? I mean come on, the only external team is Phoenix????

BTW, I DO NOT believe in the Phoenix team concept...They are not there in MY version of PB. A couple of Recon Teams, a MARS team and a Science team are all resonable IMHO.

My $0.02

Mike

Got to agree about the radioactive sludge...I'd rather have a facility to recharge the fusion engines.

The good thing about the fourth cylinder is that it would give you extra teams, a MARS team for certain, 5-6 Recon Teams just to help control/patrol the local area. Another farm, extra storage for critical items (all though I simply add a short tunnel extension off the mission annex) could go into the extra cylinder. Hmmmm, ever seen a map of the Malinta tunnels on Corrigador? Might even be a better idea than the one long tunnel concept.

Then there is Phoenix....

I'm of two minds about Phoenix. From one point of view, they make sense, a final protection of the Project or a means of "controlling" a rogue team. But isn't that part of the duties of a MARS Team? But Phoenix always was opitional...your mileage may vary.

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

The good thing about the fourth cylinder is that it would give you extra teams, a MARS team for certain, 5-6 Recon Teams just to help control/patrol the local area. Another farm, extra storage for critical items (all though I simply add a short tunnel extension off the mission annex) could go into the extra cylinder. Hmmmm, ever seen a map of the Malinta tunnels on Corrigador? Might even be a better idea than the one long tunnel concept.

Now that I think about it, a larger force is a better idea than my force structure. I only had 2 Recon Teams. THIS IS PRIME BASE!!! I agree that 5-6 Recon just to keep the neighborhood safe. The people who staff PB have a LOT of work to do. They do not need to worry about some scruffy ingrate who might have a grudge doing something STUPID.

Also, I would not have set up the village so close to Prime. Yes there was some water available. But if I were the commander of PB, I do not want any trouble on my doorstep!!??!! Yes the directives of TMP say to help others. No problem. Just do not help them HERE!! Move them 10-20 klicks elsewhere. I am sure you can find water in other places.

Also, once the teams release, I would think no return to PB. No back track possible, no bio/chem/nuclear contamination to deal with. With a 5-6 Recon team force, you can send a LOT of duce and a halves with resupply as needed to any one in need.

Also, don't you find it interesting that in the canon, there is NO mention of the doctors in PB using U.A. to try and stop the bio??? I mean, as soon as you suspect something, out come the Bio-Beds, and you start an assembly line to try to innoculate as many as possible in as short a time as possible.

Well, enough of me on a soap box today.

My $0.02

Mike

[dragoon500ly]

I know I'm going to get flamed....

But IMO, the weakest part of Prime Base was the decision to open the base up to aid local survivors, not to mention the decision to build a colony.

Yes, I am well aware of Morrow Project General Order Number One...but the chief responsibility of Prime Base was to activate and manage the Morrow Project, that job almost certainly demands that Prime Base has to remain sealed off and ignore local survivors.

Cold, yes, but Prime had the ability to recall teams in the area to help survivors, THAT IS THE PRIMARY MISSION of these local teams. The opening of Prime Base in order to assist survivors and to build a colony was, at best ignoring its primary mission to rebuild North America for the short term "I Feel Good About Myself" mission.

This is the failure of the module.

Flame Away!

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

Flame Away!

Not from me. In fact I'll put up a pair of flame retardant long johns for you.

I said the same basic thing in my previous post.

Once PB started operations, a recon of the area WAS in order. No problem there. Yes there are people suffering and dying....

To quote that great American Philosopher, Homer Simpson, "D'oh!!!!"

THIS IS PRIME BASE!! You do not have ANY true recon teams on board. At most, some Recon experience. Same with the helicopter rescue attempt. In RL, we saw just how DAMNED difficult that particular op can be.

(Here I will refer you to Desert One, the Iran rescue mission, and Mogadishu, and the offing of Bin Laden)

IF we follow canon time line, Big Bang is 1987, PB comes up to full on line status say early - mid 1991. If the MARS leader had any sense, even faced with Morrow captives, he would have referred the Base Commander to the nightmare of Desert One in Iran. MIND you, Desert One was attempted by troops who TRAINED for this kind of op. And they still FUBAR'ed

Now to get back on point. The Morrow commander, had he lived, should have been shot for extreme negligence. AS far as he knows, he IS TMP. (There may or may not be a PB2) He has to organize and implement the most dangerous, complicated, long term recovery mission in the history of the WORLD. Simple survival would dictate you do not bring trouble to your own doorstep!!

Let me get off of my soap box for now! Enough of my ranting and raving.

My $0.02

Mike

[ArmySGT.]

No complaints from me.

Stunningly dumb mismanagement. Let's see open up the uber top secret burn after reading primary (possibly sole) Headquarter as a refugee camp.

I guess it made for a plausible, though tragically dumb way to remove Prime Base and set up the game for the 150 year lapse.

BTW what the hell has Krell been doing for 150 years? The had to know that was Prime Base. Nuke the village, then a Biowar weapon on your enemies state of the art facility staffed with PHDs of all stripes? Kind wander off because suffering villages in wisconsin are more interesting?

Dumb.

Another thing I dislike about the PB module is the failure to detail the Krell Warriors. There they were an organized force right after the war and capable of delivering a nuke. A hundred years later their spear chuckin abos? Really?

The whole module needs a re-write.

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

What the hell has Krell been doing for 150 years? The had to know that was Prime Base. Nuke the village, then a Biowar weapon on your enemies state of the art facility staffed with PHDs of all stripes? Kind wander off because suffering villages in wisconsin are more interesting?

Army Sgt:

As I read the PB module, Krell was in deep sleep when PB was neutralized. According to the module, the next time Krell woke up, he sent a team to see what happened. They found the valley like Jurrasic Park and bailed on the mission. Krell had the operatives killed, and moved on, figuring PB was DEAD.

There are so many parts of that scenario that are WRONG.

1) IF Krell was as Brilliant and demented as hinted at in different modules, he HAD to know that the first team had killed, if not PB, something really really important. If Krell had as many followers and as much tech as hinted at, a nuke, bio, etc, he would have sent teams until he was SURE it was dead. Then strip the body.

2) The mutants in the PB module could not have mutated THAT fast for the second Krell team to find Jurrasic Park. Radioactivity, swamp, ok, maybe...

3) The mutants could not have evolved that fast for "today", i.e. BANG +150. Natural selection does not work THAT fast. Yes, man introduced all kinds of radioactivity into the bio-sphere, but still....Mini T-Rex? Mini sauropods? Mini velociraptors? Even something that could (maybe) be edging toward intellegence? Not in MY Morrow world.

4) If Krell knew that this was PB, Krell associates "today" would STILL be talking about the day they killed Morrow. No hint of that in any module. We Americans still talk about Picketts Charge at Gettysburgh, Washington crossing the Delaware, Francis Scott Key and the "Star Spangled Banner". Surely a prize THAT big would be still talked about. Inflated, maybe, but a kernel of truth in the story.

5) Krell had inside information about Morrow. IF we are talking about BANG + 150 years, and Morrow teams are coming up here and there, and they are starting to organize, Krell would have re-visited the PB area...This time no quarter until he has an answer...one way or another.

(I refer you to the modules Fall Back, Damocles, Operation Lucifer, Ruins of Chicago, and Bullets and Bluegrass. In each there are hints that TMP is trying to start itself.)

My $0.02

Mike

[Matt W]

"Krell caused the capture or destruction of several Morrow bases. He captured one intact and had himself frozen"

Consider the implications of the above quote. The exact number of Morrow Bases captured by Krell is at the discretion of the PD - but Krell doesn't really NEED Prime Base anymore. He has probably salvaged more resources than Prime Base and may even have control of "Alternate Prime"

[dragoon500ly]

Canon requires that Prime Base be knocked out, inserting any kind of common sense blows the module to pieces. So, how do we fix it?

The simple fix is to have Soviet Intelligence observe the construction of Prime Base, and chalking up the ranch/children's hospice concept as simply a poor effort to camouflage the new American command base...a salvo of ICBMs solves the problem in typical massive overkill fashion. The damaged Prime Base computer is only able to broadcast a random code over the ELF broadcast system, which is the reason for the slow and haphazard wake up of the Project. For this purpose, I'd place "Prime Base" in the Snake River Valley in Idaho.

The Prime Base module now becomes the frozen Prime Deuce as well as the headquarters for the Atlantis Project. This deletes the flashback to too many Saturday afternoon Japanese monster movie marathons, deletes the Krell episode, deletes the incredibly stupid decision to open the base and "feel good about ourselves" mission and now the objective of the team is to locate Prime Deuce and reawaken it.

I'd still like to go with a fourth cylinder with MARS/Recon/Science teams for control of the local area. Perhaps a larger aviation section (has anybody noticed that Autogyros are used only in TM1-1 and never show up in any module?). A fusion refueling facility in place of the HAZMAT in Support and an expanded Mission Annex tunnel facility.

As for Phoenix....I'd rather replace them with a large MARS Team, dedicated to the protection of Prime Deuce.

Comments?