How dark is the future of the Morrow Project

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

That's the issue. A few years afterwords no one will want a US or they will want a US that will exact revenge for them. By waiting the old US of A becomes a Golden Age in peoples memorys and something to rebuild towards.

Will it? Consistently? Or will it become "The Cursed Old Ways that Nearly Destroyed Us ALL!!!!"? Under the circumstances, ignorance or hatred of the past seems more likely than reverence.

Originally Posted by stormlion1

The main issue is that after Prime was destroyed the Regional Bases didn't wake up either or were destroyed. And if they did wake up, they didn't have the ability to wake anyone else up. A massive oversight.

So massive that it is either stunning incompetence or massive conspiracy. Neither one really fits with 3rd edition (can't speak to 4th), but I prefer a different answer: the designers of the game didn't think this through very well. Everyone makes mistakes, and it seems reasonable for these to be game design mistakes (to be fixed!!) rather than intentional flaws in the Project.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

So massive that it is either stunning incompetence or massive conspiracy. Neither one really fits with 3rd edition (can't speak to 4th), but I prefer a different answer: the designers of the game didn't think this through very well. Everyone makes mistakes, and it seems reasonable for these to be game design mistakes (to be fixed!!) rather than intentional flaws in the Project.

Actually, it fits very well with the background material of PF 08 Prime Base. The only exception is that there is a mistake in the programming code for the wake up delay.

Someone put a decimal in the wrong place, or did not carry a zero..... I forgive them, they were dying.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Actually, it fits very well with the background material of PF 08 Prime Base. The only exception is that there is a mistake in the programming code for the wake up delay.

Someone put a decimal in the wrong place, or did not carry a zero..... I forgive them, they were dying.

I forgive that guy, but I don't forgive his superiors. Why wasn't such a program already written? Why didn't the regional commands or other backups have some kind of timer or other way of awakening?

Realistically, every single manned Morrow facility (including team boltholes) should have had a timer that woke the team (or at least the CO) after a certain time. And every command superior to that one should have the ability to reset that timer remotely. Set the initial timer for 5 years, and every year that you don't want them awake, send the reset signal. When you are ready, send the wake-up, but if the ability to transmit is lost then the Project still activates a few years later.

No decent engineer or manager would fail to allow for the possibility that Prime Base would be taken out prior to launching the Teams. Stray nuke, Morrow civil-war, hostile takeover, whatever - there is a possibility that this single transmitter at this single location will not work. And it has to work. There should be automated systems working in parallel with manned systems, with the latter ensuring the correct functioning of the former and the former acting as a back up to failures of the more-frail latter.

[stormlion1]

Remember when the Morrow Project was conceived. The late 70's. A timer was a mechanical thing and transmitters and receivers were huge. Even the lines of code in those early computers was massive and inefficient to what they used today. Probably KOBOL. And that is a lot of lines of code right there. Even if they were updating everything constantly then by 3rd Editions nuke apocalypse it would still be only what, late 80's? The simplest thing would be to have a small crew remain awake and send the signal at the right time.
No excuse for 4th Edition though, they have to at least be running windows or some other programming language that would be able to do what is needed.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I forgive that guy, but I don't forgive his superiors. Why wasn't such a program already written? Why didn't the regional commands or other backups have some kind of timer or other way of awakening?

Realistically, every single manned Morrow facility (including team boltholes) should have had a timer that woke the team (or at least the CO) after a certain time. And every command superior to that one should have the ability to reset that timer remotely. Set the initial timer for 5 years, and every year that you don't want them awake, send the reset signal. When you are ready, send the wake-up, but if the ability to transmit is lost then the Project still activates a few years later.

No decent engineer or manager would fail to allow for the possibility that Prime Base would be taken out prior to launching the Teams. Stray nuke, Morrow civil-war, hostile takeover, whatever - there is a possibility that this single transmitter at this single location will not work. And it has to work. There should be automated systems working in parallel with manned systems, with the latter ensuring the correct functioning of the former and the former acting as a back up to failures of the more-frail latter.

Because they planned for a manned operation that would monitor and catalog the events of the War......... They did not plan for a raid intended to destroy them with a nuclear bomb and poison the survivors with an engineered bioweapon......

This was written before computers were commonplace doing those things. We look back and think "Duh!" but, Windows 7 would have been science fiction then.......... Timers and countdowns would have been mechanical one offs.... computers were still larger than a home upright freezer.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Because they planned for a manned operation that would monitor and catalog the events of the War......... They did not plan for a raid intended to destroy them with a nuclear bomb and poison the survivors with an engineered bioweapon......

By canon Bio weapons were used by the Russians and that use would most defiantly have been documented by Prime given the amount of resources dedicated to monitoring all spectrum of communication.

Even with this information Prime chose to break their own seals early without a suitable backup plan. I have a lot of trouble with this.

Even without an opposing force, a fire, explosion, or carbon monoxide leak could have taken out prime or at a minimum its communications or records storage.

I have a backup facility on an island which is also taken out by sabotage. While it is still unlikely, it sits better with me than Prime being allowed to be a single point of failure for a multibillion dollar project.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by kato13

By canon Bio weapons were used by the Russians and that use would most defiantly have been documented by Prime given the amount of resources dedicated to monitoring all spectrum of communication.

Even with this information Prime chose to break their own seals early without a suitable backup plan. I have a lot of trouble with this.

Even without an opposing force, a fire, explosion, or carbon monoxide leak could have taken out prime or at a minimum its communications or records storage.

I have a backup facility on an island which is also taken out by sabotage. While it is still unlikely, it sits better with me than Prime being allowed to be a single point of failure for a multibillion dollar project.

Sabotage from within by agents of the Rich Five is a plausible excuse. The Rich Five was members of the Council of Tomorrow and they seem determine to eradicate the Morrow Project as a threat to their new regime.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Sabotage from within by agents of the Rich Five is a plausible excuse. The Rich Five was members of the Council of Tomorrow and they seem determine to eradicate the Morrow Project as a threat to their new regime.

Yep that is what happens to both Prime and Isla Nublar.

Prime is taken out by the a computer virus and the canon virus.

The Isla Nublar backup communication team has 36 personnel in cryo and 4 live watchmen. One of them is a Rich five plant who kills the other 3 and sabotages the tubes.

[ArmySGT.]

*Plot Twist!*

The Rich Five facility in Kentucky is the alternate to Prime Base! Just as massive and equipped.

The Rich Five used their positions within the Council of Tomorrow to steer their own loyal followers into the base staff, auxiliary personnel, and teams.

Anyone still loyal to the Project or the U.S. .gov slipped, fell,and caught a 9mm at the base of the skull in a tragic accident.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

*Plot Twist!*

The Rich Five facility in Kentucky is the alternate to Prime Base! Just as massive and equipped.

The Rich Five used their positions within the Council of Tomorrow to steer their own loyal followers into the base staff, auxiliary personnel, and teams.

Anyone still loyal to the Project or the U.S. .gov slipped, fell,and caught a 9mm at the base of the skull in a tragic accident.

I like it.

Maybe a loyalist destroyed the data on locations and wakeup codes when he realized what was happening.

[RandyT0001]

In 3rd edition there were no regional HQ bases. (Created by fans of the game, regional bases were added in the 4th edition.) There was Prime Base to serve as HQ. (IIRC) There was an implication that there was an unmanned back-up base that the teams could find to wake up other teams. In Final Watch it states that the Command unit of Combined Group Seattle has codes to activate the other units in their group. Unfortunately, the ash covers the recieving antenna of the other units blocking the signal so Command cannot activate them.

From my understanding Morrow would travel to the future, return to the "present" to check the progress of building the project then again travel to the future. He did this several times. My guess is that each time he went into the future he saw one of two futures. The first future proceeds where the Project works as planned. The second future progresses where Prime Base is lost, the factions (Breeders, Frozen Chosen, Krell, KFS, etc.) emerge, and the success of the Project cannot be guaranteed. Morrow had to build the Project to address either outcome, to best of his ability without tipping off those on the Council of Tomorrow who eventually set up their own facilities (like the KFS and Chosen). Despite his best attempt to hide it those individuals would discover his dual plans about half of the time. For the PC's the game is set where they find out and split their own program from the Project.

The 79 members of the 15 teams in the Seattle group were scattered around Puget Sound. In 1980 there were about 2 million in the metro area. In 1990 there were about 2.5 million in the metro area. This raises the question: is this ratio of 15 teams with about 80 personnel per 2,250,000 pre-war population used across the entire nation? ArmySGT's post in the final Watch thread (http://forum.juhlin.com/showpost.php...5&postcount=11) shows the destruction in the Pugent Sound area. Just 80 people to assist the 60,000 - 100,000 survivors over an area about 5,000 square miles, five years after the bombs fall? Seems more like a token effort to me. Using this ratio there are about 9,000-11,000 Project members using about 2200 vehicles.

How about this possibility? In 4th edition the regional bases are added. Prime Base is again lost to an attack. Before death the base's few survivors again set up a wake-up program in the base's EMP protected computer that malfunctions and wakes one team at a time. Each regional base becomes a back-up base for the Project. Each regional base has a fail-safe computer that will wake up the base's command unit six years after the the nuke attack. Unfortunately, these computers were not installed with EMP protection being sabotaged by moles of the Rich Five. Once again only one team is awaken at a time like in 3rd edition.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

In 3rd edition there were no regional HQ bases. (Created by fans of the game, regional bases were added in the 4th edition.)

The same page does say there are 10 bases/depots….. and I have to dig for the entry that states the Project is divided into 10 regions. I have to look…. I don’t remember page or section….. could even be a module. There is reference to a back up to Prime and 10 supply bases is on page 34 of 3rd edition.

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

There was Prime Base to serve as HQ. (IIRC) There was an implication that there was an unmanned back-up base that the teams could find to wake up other teams. In Final Watch it states that the Command unit of Combined Group Seattle has codes to activate the other units in their group. Unfortunately, the ash covers the recieving antenna of the other units blocking the signal so Command cannot activate them.

One of the things that makes “Final Watch” a little less desperate for the players in it, is they have these codes. I would think that the Combined Group Leader would have had more information to go with……… Like locations Commo Base KA, the location of VB-1, and some way to locate a Team that did not activate with the recall code. I would think that the first priority after assessing that something is very, very wrong with the Project would to activate the entire Combined Group. Wake the Engineers as they have digging equipment and then locate all the rest.

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

From my understanding Morrow would travel to the future, return to the "present" to check the progress of building the project then again travel to the future. He did this several times. My guess is that each time he went into the future he saw one of two futures. The first future proceeds where the Project works as planned. The second future progresses where Prime Base is lost, the factions (Breeders, Frozen Chosen, Krell, KFS, etc.) emerge, and the success of the Project cannot be guaranteed. Morrow had to build the Project to address either outcome, to best of his ability without tipping off those on the Council of Tomorrow who eventually set up their own facilities (like the KFS and Chosen). Despite his best attempt to hide it those individuals would discover his dual plans about half of the time. For the PC's the game is set where they find out and split their own program from the Project.

More or less, now add in multiple Earths all in the same scenario, but with slightly different circumstances so what works in one fails in another.

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

The 79 members of the 15 teams in the Seattle group were scattered around Puget Sound. In 1980 there were about 2 million in the metro area. In 1990 there were about 2.5 million in the metro area. This raises the question: is this ratio of 15 teams with about 80 personnel per 2,250,000 pre-war population used across the entire nation? ArmySGT's post in the final Watch thread (http://forum.juhlin.com/showpost.php...5&postcount=11) shows the destruction in the Pugent Sound area. Just 80 people to assist the 60,000 - 100,000 survivors over an area about 5,000 square miles, five years after the bombs fall? Seems more like a token effort to me. Using this ratio there are about 9,000-11,000 Project members using about 2200 vehicles.

The Project is meant to assist, not do everything. They were expecting thousands of survivors with useful skills and tons of equipment that just needed to be organized, safeguarded, and put to use.

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

How about this possibility? In 4th edition the regional bases are added. Prime Base is again lost to an attack. Before death the base's few survivors again set up a wake-up program in the base's EMP protected computer that malfunctions and wakes one team at a time. Each regional base becomes a back-up base for the Project. Each regional base has a fail-safe computer that will wake up the base's command unit six years after the the nuke attack. Unfortunately, these computers were not installed with EMP protection being sabotaged by moles of the Rich Five. Once again only one team is awaken at a time like in 3rd edition.

Every base so far has been buried which negates EMP, other than that it is as plausible as the others. Flesh it out.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

The Rich Five used their positions within the Council of Tomorrow to steer their own loyal followers into the base staff, auxiliary personnel, and teams.

I am curious... where does it indicate that the Rich Five were on the Council of Tomorrow? I always understood that they were able to steal some information from TMP, but the lower level of technology implied that they lacked the kind of access that Council membership should have provided.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

The same page does say there are 10 bases/depots….. and I have to dig for the entry that states the Project is divided into 10 regions. I have to look…. I don’t remember page or section….. could even be a module. There is reference to a back up to Prime and 10 supply bases is on page 34 of 3rd edition.

It references supply bases and says there should be no more than 10. It makes no direct reference to command structure. 1-2 Prime Bases, <10 supply bases, an unknown number of specialty bases, and then the team boltholes and caches. No reference to command structure.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

The Project is meant to assist, not do everything. They were expecting thousands of survivors with useful skills and tons of equipment that just needed to be organized, safeguarded, and put to use.

Sure they were... that still doesn't change the numbers. Randy's estimate of the total manpower is not unreasonable, and is consistent with the last module. Heck, I would consider 10-20 thousand to be the bare minimum, less than a thousand would have virtually no chance.

[stormlion1]

Which is why I think things were a set up and Bruce Morrow had other plans for those teams. He knew such a small sized group couldn't really do anything but in the future when there were less people they would be a whole more effective.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

Which is why I think things were a set up and Bruce Morrow had other plans for those teams. He knew such a small sized group couldn't really do anything but in the future when there were less people they would be a whole more effective.

But why are you assuming "such a small sized group"? There are no canon answers as to the size of TMP, only answers as to the size of specific parts of it, and if those parts are extrapolated to cover the nation then it would suggest that there are tens of thousands of people in the project - a reasonable number for the tasks assigned!

There is the issue that the support structure is wholly inadequate, but the published material in 3rd edition was pretty thin and gives every evidence of simply having been poorly and perhaps inconsistently written. This is not unique to TMP, most fiction franchises run into this problem, it comes from putting specific objectives (like "exciting game play" and "meeting deadlines") ahead of creating a coherent fictional universe.

If you want to reinvent Morrow as a villain, go ahead, but I prefer to keep the tone of the game intact and change the details that are inconsistent with that tone.

[stormlion1]

Eh, maybe I'm just seeing a conspiracy were there is none. But then again when I look at the teams themselves, they sheer amount of total fails that happen you almost can't see not being deliberate you have to wonder.
Then again you can also see it as a game written by people who didn't serve in the military or didn't understand just what would be needed to actually work.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

But why are you assuming "such a small sized group"? There are no canon answers as to the size of TMP, only answers as to the size of specific parts of it, and if those parts are extrapolated to cover the nation then it would suggest that there are tens of thousands of people in the project - a reasonable number for the tasks assigned!

There is the issue that the support structure is wholly inadequate, but the published material in 3rd edition was pretty thin and gives every evidence of simply having been poorly and perhaps inconsistently written. This is not unique to TMP, most fiction franchises run into this problem, it comes from putting specific objectives (like "exciting game play" and "meeting deadlines") ahead of creating a coherent fictional universe.

If you want to reinvent Morrow as a villain, go ahead, but I prefer to keep the tone of the game intact and change the details that are inconsistent with that tone.

Prime Base was half staffed when it died, CG Seattle is 79 persons, the AG base is 8 persons, the manned commo base was six persons........
There isn't any indications that the Project had thousands of people.

How do you get brilliant, productive, healthy, well adjusted people to give up their lives, and families to be cryogenically frozen and help in the recovery of a nuclear war?

That is a tough sell. I have always believed the Project has lots of equipment and very few people.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

Eh, maybe I'm just seeing a conspiracy were there is none. But then again when I look at the teams themselves, they sheer amount of total fails that happen you almost can't see not being deliberate you have to wonder.
Then again you can also see it as a game written by people who didn't serve in the military or didn't understand just what would be needed to actually work.

Kevin Dockery is a Viet Nam vet...... I don't know if Richard Tucholka is or isn't, or for that matter Robert Sadler.

Richard is very approachable and I think Tri Tac games will be at GenCon this year too.

All the modules written by Timeline? I don't know anything about any of them. Joeseph Benedetto is a recent member here and could maybe answer that.

Most of the failures are simply a plot device to explain why the PCs are out there on their own.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

Eh, maybe I'm just seeing a conspiracy were there is none. But then again when I look at the teams themselves, they sheer amount of total fails that happen you almost can't see not being deliberate you have to wonder.
Then again you can also see it as a game written by people who didn't serve in the military or didn't understand just what would be needed to actually work.

Those are the two options: a great execution of a terribly flawed world, or a terribly flawed execution of a great world. Personally, I think TMP falls into the latter category, and I think that is the general perception of the game within the larger community. The authors simply did not spend the time to create a solid foundation for the game, and the game suffered for it. At the end of the day, they were doing this for money, and it is usually better to get paid something for a half-assed job than to produce a masterpiece at a net loss.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Prime Base was half staffed when it died, CG Seattle is 79 persons, the AG base is 8 persons, the manned commo base was six persons........
There isn't any indications that the Project had thousands of people.

Without knowing the rest of the Project organization or the demands expected to be placed upon them, the staff of no one facility is going to say much about the size of the Project. The indication, the only real indication we see of the size of TMP, is CG Seattle. That group was the frontline (and potentially vast bulk of) support for the people living in that area. Their area of responsibility was "the Puget Sound area and Seattle in particular", an ambiguous term that could mean as few as 500,000 people (the ~1987 population of Seattle), or as many as 3 million (2/3 of the 1987 Washington state population), or as I prefer, the 1.4 million 1987 residents of King County.

If we call the population they were meant to serve X, accept 242.3 million as the US population in 1987m and assume that the civilian-to-team member ration in Seattle is typical for the US, then the "group-level" staff of TMP is simply 79 * (242.3 million / X). Varying X from 0.5-3.0 million gives us a group-level Morrow roster between 6,381 and 38,283. A roster of less than a thousand becomes patently absurd by simple math, unless you concoct some reason why Seattle would have a substantially higher-than-normal concentration of team members, something that I do not believe is supported in 3rd edition and probably has not been addressed in 4th edition.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

How do you get brilliant, productive, healthy, well adjusted people to give up their lives, and families to be cryogenically frozen and help in the recovery of a nuclear war?

To a certain extent, that can already be answered by recruiters for the military, Peace Corps, and clergy - many people are willing to sacrifice a lotfor what they perceive is a worthy cause. And considering that TMP only had to recruit between 250 and 2000 people a year out of the entire population that should not have been as hard as you think.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I have always believed the Project has lots of equipment and very few people.

So have I, but then I cannot see any reason why TMP would be cash constrained in any way - even if supporting the financial health of the project was only 10% of Morrow's time, they should have still held so much innovation and competitive advantage (even in a parallel-universes scenario) that Project funding should be at least in the hundreds of billions. Recruiting people should always have been the hardest part.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Most of the failures are simply a plot device to explain why the PCs are out there on their own.

So much of the entire setting is just a "plot device to explain why the PC's are out on their own". It is an old and common gotta-finish-fast writing mistake - they needed a specific effect, fudged the cause, and hoped that no one will notice or care. You can see it all over the place, especially in the new Star Trek movies - nothing in those films makes sense, they even allude to that in the beginning of the second, but they hope that the fast pace and lens flare will keep you from noticing. RPG's don't have the advantage of fast pace and lens flare, so the oddities and apparent mistakes are all the more glaring.

[stormlion1]

Or they left up to us to figure out down the road and debate on a forum twenty some odd years later...

[kato13]

My biggest reason for needing to come up with a realistic failure scenario is that if I ever pulled my gaming group back together, they would ask questions and if they ever get to a point where they get answers (inside prime for example) I want the best possible answers.

Due to their real world jobs they have seen real world failures (one is a forensic accountant specializing in huge corporate bankruptcies). They will accept that failure can happen. However if their characters chose to give up everything for a project at a minimum I would expect they would have needed to have some confidence in the planners.

For example how did the project get Phoenix team to join if they could not handle basics concepts of redundancy? Phoenix are portrayed as pretty sharp dudes who would have not just accept "oh we have everything covered".

[cosmicfish]

Then the first question becomes "what reasonable steps would TMP have taken to wake everyone up?", and the next question becomes "how then can this be circumvented?"

On the first, I would expect a given team to be awoken under any of the following circumstances:

1) Wake-up call from Prime Base
2) 5-year timer runs out (timer can be remotely reset by anyone superior in chain of command)
3) Bolthole is compromised
4) If any of the capsules fail*, endangering the crew - this might just awaken the CO and/or medic(s).

I would also expect that members at any given command tier have sufficient knowledge to take command at the tier above in the occasion that this is necessary, but that there are safeguards to prevent a coup (we can discuss this issue later). I would likewise assume that teams have the ability to go back to sleep if they feel it necessary, like, for example, if the area was too radioactive.

As to the second, here is my first stab: Don't assume a screw up on the part of leadership, assume enemy action.

Shortly after the war, before they knew about Krell, Prime Base sent out a coded set of commands to all the teams and facilities - the timer reset code, followed by request for a reply indicating the status of each facility and the success of the reset. This was considered a necessary step to ensure that the system worked and to determine the status of the Project as needed for planning. Unfortunately, one of Krell's hackers got lucky** and captured and recorded the signal, not knowing what it was but recognizing any powerful post-war transmission as important. They were even able to establish a rough location of the transmitter off of the signal, leading them to the area of Prime Base.

During the attack on the base, that same hacker wanted to rebroadcast the signal to see if they could gain some situational understanding of its purpose. Taking advantage of Krell's control of the exterior, he found Prime Base's powerful transmitter and patched into the system, drawing on the base's own power and using it to broadcast the signal over and over again while he monitored the area for a response. His efforts wound up being for naught - the nuke was detonated shortly after, killing him and damaging his patched-in hardware, slowing his retransmit rate by a factor of 2^15. Instead of transmitting every 30 minutes, it was transmitting every 2 years, powered entirely off of the base's own power supply.

After the Krell attack, command tried to wake up the designated backup command location, knowing that if for some reason that failed, the timers would wake up the entire Project in a few years anyway. They failed because the nuke had not only damaged the hacker's timer but also the communication line between the base and the antenna. They attempted to repair the damage and resend, but all died before they could even make it to the site of the damage.

So the result winds up being much the same - the Project made no ridiculous mistakes, but the Project is still asleep thanks to a damaged transmitter hardwired to a fusion plant that resends the timer reset faster than the timer can wake anyone up. For the first century or so, the only teams being woken were due to exterior damage to the bolthole or deliberate actions by groups like Krell and the Kentucky Free State, either of which tended to lead to the destruction of the team. Capsule failure has started to be an issue in the last few decades, but not enough to wake up many teams. The big command facilities were better protected and none of them have experienced any survivable failures***, and prior to the PC team none of the handful of teams to survive their unplanned awakening were able to establish the kind of contact needed to awaken the Project. The bulk of the losses to the Project, besides Prime Base, happened in the war itself or due to predation.

*: Note that surviving the capsule is not guaranteed even if the capsule reports itself to be working perfectly - survival is dependent on the capsule AND the individual. The capsules themselves have many backup systems and an extremely low failure rate, even though some will not be revived from nominally functioning capsules.

**: Going with one of Pixar's admonishments to writers - using coincidence to get the protagonists INTO trouble is good writing, using it to get them OUT of trouble is bad writing.

***: So some might have gotten nuked, but none had a cave-in or capsule failure.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

**: Going with one of Pixar's admonishments to writers - using coincidence to get the protagonists INTO trouble is good writing, using it to get them OUT of trouble is bad writing.

Funny you mention this as PIXAR had their asses saved by coincidence during the work on Toy Story 2 by sheer luck.

The story goes that 3 or 4 compounding failures led 90% of the work on the movie being lost. One Major executive happened to be on maternity leave and bandwitdh not being as strong as it is now she had a backup brought to her house for review.

Once they realized that multiple failures in their main storage (which I look back on for inspiration how a well run company can just blow it sometimes) they sent for the unintentional offsite backup (wrapping the computer in blankets and buckling it in as it was now worth over 50 million dollars in potential lost effort).

[kato13]

The timer reset is very interesting and makes sense.

[stormlion1]

Timer failure right from the get go. Imagine that one of the Rich Five had been the manufacturer and set them all up to pass the bench test but fail after say four years and six months automatically.
That or the Timers actually do go off but some programming in the code actually doesn't wake the teams up because its looking for the wake up call and not a timer. A single line of code written wrong can doom everything. I've seen things like that happen where an update has actually derailed the entire program and no one knew it until a specific set of circumstances had passed.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

Timer failure right from the get go. Imagine that one of the Rich Five had been the manufacturer and set them all up to pass the bench test but fail after say four years and six months automatically.

I don't recall any evidence that the Rich Five were that able to influence the Project - can anyone tell me where it says that? Because it seems that if they were, the Project would be in dire, dire straits right from the get go, and the whole feel of the game becomes radically changed.

Originally Posted by stormlion1

That or the Timers actually do go off but some programming in the code actually doesn't wake the teams up because its looking for the wake up call and not a timer. A single line of code written wrong can doom everything. I've seen things like that happen where an update has actually derailed the entire program and no one knew it until a specific set of circumstances had passed.

I actually considered something like that, but I prefer a story that has conflict between strong sides over a story that has the home team just fumbling the ball.

[stormlion1]

Well the Rich Five had access to a lot of the same tech the Morrow Project had so there was some crossover, though probably more of the industrial espionage variety. Another option is Krell who was a member of the Project I believe. But honestly the home team fumbling the ball is the most believable of them all. It happens all the time.