How dark is the future of the Morrow Project

[stormlion1]

Losing Prime Base was unthinkable I think to the Projects Leadership, but I think the idea was that even if lost the Regional Bases working together could take over. The problem is the Regional Bases either never woke up, or woke up far too early, or were destroyed themselves. Prime Base itself was just a HQ. It didn't do much more than coordinate. Everything else was the Regional HQ's jobs.

[cosmicfish]

Losing Prime Base was unthinkable I think to the Projects Leadership

But why, and why does this excuse their stunning oversight?

I think the idea was that even if lost the Regional Bases working together could take over.

Or a backup Prime Base or whatever. Having plans (especially vague ones) does not help if you are completely unable to enact them.

Prime Base itself was just a HQ. It didn't do much more than coordinate.

But that's a pretty big "much more than" when the job was waking up the entire Project. A parachute is one small, specialized part of a paratrooper's equipment, but if it doesn't work then the results are catastrophic. So you jump with a reserve. The entire Project hinged on Prime Base remaining intact and functional for five years through a nuclear holocaust and the ensuing chaos... and it didn't have to.

[stormlion1]

Prime Base's only job was to send out the wake up call. And it failed in that. Lack the module so I am not sure of exactly why. But it should have been the regional bases job. Prime Base was supposed to be the hangout of the Council of Tomorrow and be main base for coordinating country wide relief efforts. The Regional Bases job was to implement them. The Project put all its eggs in one basket and the basket got dropped. And there are hints in the 4th edition book that this was deliberate. Bruce Morrow wanted this to happen.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

The Project put all its eggs in one basket and the basket got dropped. And there are hints in the 4th edition book that this was deliberate. Bruce Morrow wanted this to happen.

Weird. Not sure how "designed to fail" is better than incompetent...

[stormlion1]

Incompetent means they did a poor job. Designed to fail means someone deliberately set it up to fail even though many others did there best to make it work. It looks like Morrow (who in the 4th edition dies) had a plan for the Project that was only partly set up to rebuild a nuked United States. In earlier editions its not as clear but if no one ever noticed or I haven't learned. Mr Morrow wasn't at Prime Base when it was destroyed.
Did he know something he wasn't telling anyone?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

Incompetent means they did a poor job. Designed to fail means someone deliberately set it up to fail even though many others did there best to make it work.

The latter still implies the former in no small part - if it was set up to fail, and no one recognized and addressed some pretty glaring signs of such, then they were incompetent also.

Originally Posted by stormlion1

It looks like Morrow (who in the 4th edition dies) had a plan for the Project that was only partly set up to rebuild a nuked United States. In earlier editions its not as clear but if no one ever noticed or I haven't learned. Mr Morrow wasn't at Prime Base when it was destroyed.
Did he know something he wasn't telling anyone?

Those earlier editions never explained Morrow enough to really know his abilities or intentions - you could assume anything you wanted. I always assumed that, other than his ability to time-travel, he was a pretty ordinary guy who had been shocked into action by what he saw of the future. The only time it came up in a game, I told my players that his abilities were killing him, and that he chose to make his last trip into the future so that he could personally help those hurt by the war he was unable to prevent.

But regardless, he was the initiator of the Project, not the sole vision behind it. Whatever his personal intentions, there were plenty of people who should have been able to see and correct the problems that endangered their own dear lives... unless, of course, they were ALL incompetent and/or suicidal. OR just Morrow's version of the Golgafrincham's "C" Ark!

[stormlion1]

Actually I kind of figured that after plans were set in motion he would send changes along after the fact. The Council of Tomorrow might have made approvals of several things that would have worked, but Morrow after the fact modified them. As far as anyone was concerned everything is as it should have been.
The question would be why. I think that rebuilding after a nuclear war would have just recreated the old United States, an angry one. By forcing the issue and waking the teams later he had a blank check to create a new nation. The entire US is either small ministates or wilderness. A true blank slate with Morrow Teams doing the rebuilding with a large leg up in comparison to other survivors.