The Back up Prime

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

The computer control room which housed the activation computer for PB2 personnel and the activation codes for other teams was flooded destroying the computer system. The rest of the base is intact and the teams are still there. As long as the dam provides the necessary electrical power to keep the cyro units active the team will sleep for millennium.

First, why take the massive risk of putting a sleeping facility completely under water? The advantages in shielding and stealth are pointless when you are all but guaranteed to have some degree of leaking and therefore some degree of destruction?

Second, having taken that risk, how bad was the risk mitigation that the computers were at the low point collecting water? And why were there not any automatic systems registering the leak and activating the staff under emergency protocols?

This kind of failure, in engineering design and construction, paints the designers as incompetent. I personally prefer to use enemy action or bad luck (errant missile, earthquake, that sort of thing) to take out necessary facilities.

[RandyT0001]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

First, why take the massive risk of putting a sleeping facility completely under water? The advantages in shielding and stealth are pointless when you are all but guaranteed to have some degree of leaking and therefore some degree of destruction?

Plot requirements.

Second, having taken that risk, how bad was the risk mitigation that the computers were at the low point collecting water? And why were there not any automatic systems registering the leak and activating the staff under emergency protocols?

Literary license.

This kind of failure, in engineering design and construction, paints the designers as incompetent. I personally prefer to use enemy action or bad luck (errant missile, earthquake, that sort of thing) to take out necessary facilities.

Errant missile, earthquake? How cliché.

Ok, ok. How about this.
The base was built under a partially completed dam. The dam serves at the outlet for the vehicles. The computer room is on the same level as the rest of the underground base. An asteroid...........no, that's been used already. An agent of Krell infiltrated the base, set her own cyro tube to wake her a month after the bombs fell and she killed the other members of the base only to find out that the commander must key in a code to open the exits. She suffocated.

Ok. Too far fetched.

Lightning struck the radio tower, overloading out the commo equipment and the command computer. 95% of the personnel died also but not the commander. Once the fusion power plant runs out of fuel, about 150 to 200 years after the war the emergency protocols circulate fresh air and wake the remaining personnel.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

Plot requirements. Literary license.

AKA lazy writing. Seriously, is there a reason why you would want to depict the planners as incompetent? And if not, why do it?

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

Errant missile, earthquake? How cliché.

Nukes not hitting where the Project expected should be the single biggest cause of lost facilities, and I would think earthquakes and other natural (or nuke-triggered) disasters would be up there too. Cliché is better than lazy writing.

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

Lightning struck the radio tower, overloading out the commo equipment and the command computer. 95% of the personnel died also but not the commander. Once the fusion power plant runs out of fuel, about 150 to 200 years after the war the emergency protocols circulate fresh air and wake the remaining personnel.

Radio towers are pretty well lightning-proofed already, it's pretty basic. And I am not sure why that would kill anyone, much less 95%.

Is there a reason PB2/Second Base needs to have survived at all? I mean, I suppose this whole discussion is a little academic if there is no chance to bring it into play, but is there a reason to create some convoluted reason why the base is intact but still sleeping? The simplest reason PB2 never took over would be because like a number of Morrow facilities it simply got hit in the first exchange.

[RandyT0001]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Is there a reason PB2/Second Base needs to have survived at all? I mean, I suppose this whole discussion is a little academic if there is no chance to bring it into play, but is there a reason to create some convoluted reason why the base is intact but still sleeping?

In your game if there is a chance that PB2 survived and might come into play then it seems that you have to create a reason why PB2 did not fulfill it's job by taking over the command of MP after PB1 was incapacitated. As you have alluded to, it has to be a well thought out and logical reason. I think that somebody on the forum once suggested that the funds, labor and material that was meant to construct PB2 was diverted by the Rich Five to build their base instead without Morrow ever discovering the truth.

I really have not decided whether PB2 survived or not for my campaign.

The simplest reason PB2 never took over would be because like a number of Morrow facilities it simply got hit in the first exchange.

Yes, that's the simplest and easiest way out. My guess is that ArmySgt wanted a discussion of other possibilities and options, i.e. a brainstorming session. (Yes, my brain contributes just a teaspoon of rainwater to the storm. )

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

I think that somebody on the forum once suggested that the funds, labor and material that was meant to construct PB2 was diverted by the Rich Five to build their base instead without Morrow ever discovering the truth.

How do you conceal that level of divergence? At some point, someone had to notice that they literally did not have what was required for the build! Siphoning off resources should produce a leaner Project, but not a ridiculous one.

And if you want the Rich Five behind it, perhaps they just looted the facility! Starnaman introduced a group who had found and looted a bolthole, perhaps the Five knew the location of PB2 and decided that it was the perfect source of last-minute resources they needed. As the bombs fell, a small crew with Morrow access codes entered the base, took certain equipment they needed but had not yet been able to acquire (comms, computers, etc.), and abandoned it. Perhaps some of the staff are still there, supported by the reactor that was too difficult to remove, perhaps they were all killed.

Heck, perhaps the facility was deliberately sabotaged by the Five to hamstring the Project and ensure their supremacy, with the plans to destroy PB rendered unnecessary by Krell's actions.

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

Yes, that's the simplest and easiest way out. My guess is that ArmySgt wanted a discussion of other possibilities and options, i.e. a brainstorming session. (Yes, my brain contributes just a teaspoon of rainwater to the storm. )

Sometimes the simplest is the best. If you need a particular effect or if it is an important plot point, then go more convoluted. But without that, the simple answers solve the problem. If I need to kill someone, I'm pretty much going to use a gun or a knife, if I need to kill someone and make it look like food poisoning or suicide or natural causes then I would go a different route, but only under such circumstances.

So is there a particular effect that is desired? Is the goal to have the staff dead (or asleep) but the facility intact? Or the other way around, have the staff alive but their facility wrecked? Each of those has a different set of reasonable causes.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

My guess is that ArmySgt wanted a discussion of other possibilities and options, i.e. a brainstorming session. (Yes, my brain contributes just a teaspoon of rainwater to the storm. )

Yes, I wanted to cultivate the various viewpoints and see what came up that I might not have considered.