More on Prime Base-I've been off for a while

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by Project_Sardonicus

Of course an interesting thought is did anyone actually expect the Prime Base to survive?

If they didn't, why build it? And why haven't the "real" leaders stepped up and taken command? The idea of the game requires that the Project command gets its head cut off, so if Prime Base isn't the actual command then you still have to account for the real one. And if the reason Prime Base isn't survivable is because it is too large (and I agree), isn't the answer to make it smaller?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I am different from everyone else. I structure my vision of the Project as a Corporation and not a Military.

It has Departments and Divisions, but the only Branches that have a military hierarchy are Recon and MARS.

While a base or Prime Base has a commander, this person is running the day to day stuff; not the strategic. The Project has a Board of Directors meant to be thawed as the precursor to the Five Year plan.

So I am fully in line with things not going like a General or Admiral might have done it. It is a corporation that organizes and prepares stunningly well; yet may stumble on implementation.

I think Corporate and Military management structures have come a lot closer than they used to be. Corporate Boards don't exercise a lot of strategic command, they select the executives who do. I would not say that the Project would be explicitly military any more than it had to be, but I think the way it needs to operate and the things it needs to do would make it more like a military (or at least defense contractor) than a conventional corporation.

But I confess that I am not entirely sure what distinctions you are seeing between corporate and military, if you would elaborate I would appreciate it.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by Project_Sardonicus

I think it leads to an intriguingly chaotic setting.

What happens when the science division demands 50 MARS troopers fight a suicidal rear action so they can evacuate a really important lab.

or conversely[LIST]


What happens when the local MARS commander decides he's going to draft all the agricultural experts as infantry in his brilliant campaign to crush Krell once and for all.

As the team wake up the project and its component parts is it stirring up a dormant hornets nest?

I think this is exactly why a traditional corporate structure not only wouldn't work but would in fact fail early in the planning stages. Everyone in the Project is armed. Some of them are specifically trained and tasked with killing other people. Some are barely competent to defend themselves. Any "commander" or "director" or "manager" who leads both types (or any otherwise mixed group) is going to have to address that, and that means being able to make military decisions.

The military figured this out a long time ago. Corporations have never had to.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

This is one of the mysteries of TMP.

How do you get several hundred people to give up their lives, families, and futures to be a janitor, line cook, waitress, launderer, and dozens of other low paying service jobs.

I get all the smart kids with degrees in the cool jobs, but where do these service skills people come from?

I never saw this as much of a mystery.

First, the Project has advanced technology and I see no reason why they wouldn't have spend some "above-board" assets on minimizing menial labor for Prime Base. Buy some Roombas.

Second, a lot of these jobs can be either secondary tasks assigned to regular staff or primary jobs for people with significant other (and more advanced) responsibilities. I once worked in a classified lab that was unable to get janitorial staff cleared for the area, so all those tasks were divvied up between a dozen or so engineers and scientists. It can work.

Lastly, for those jobs that cannot be eliminated or given to someone on a part-time basis... time to justify saving your spouse! Seriously, there are probably a lot of people who would be ideal for the Project except they have that one person they won't go without. Make them a package deal. One person takes an important Project job, the other gets to come along and cook. Heck, even if you are separated into separate bases, at least you know the other is alive. Probably.

Makes for a nice side plot for a character - they're in Recon Team K-7, but their wife/husband/other is doing laundry at Prime Base and they WILL get there to find out what is going on!!

[cosmicfish]

Sorry for the avalanche of posts, I was out of contact for the holidays but there was a lot of good stuff in here.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I think Corporate and Military management structures have come a lot closer than they used to be. Corporate Boards don't exercise a lot of strategic command, they select the executives who do. I would not say that the Project would be explicitly military any more than it had to be, but I think the way it needs to operate and the things it needs to do would make it more like a military (or at least defense contractor) than a conventional corporation.

But I confess that I am not entirely sure what distinctions you are seeing between corporate and military, if you would elaborate I would appreciate it.

This may be the real reason why Prime Base failed. The Project was caught between two schools of thought. There were some places where the rigid command structure of the traditional military would work best and other points were a "board room" style would be more effective. The issue became how to interface and switch between these two forms of control.

So when the refugees show up on the Prime Base doorstep there is a conflict between the leadership. Unable to decide what to do the debate dragged on and more people arrived and more people died. The situation produced an intolerable strain in the base personnel. Being Americans (for the most part) they demanded a voice in the decision and the situation became a subject put to the vote of the Prime Base population. They made a group decision, it turned out to be a really bad one, but it was done by vote. It makes perfect sense to me that the people who would be selected by the Project would take the data they had and make the decision they did.

[RandyT0001]

"So when the refugees show up on the Prime Base doorstep...."

Must be some hardy refugees to wander across miles of desert only to encounter Prime Base nestled in the mountains located above the Black Rock playa. It must have been hundreds, drawn from the surrounding 8,000 square miles (from 50 miles away) that made the journey. Finding the refugee camp to be so well run with plenty of food, water, and shelter that some left to journey, across the desert, to other nearby communities up to a hundred miles away to tell those survivors of the great Camp Morrow refugee center. After the first couple of weeks, some smart person decided to use some old school buses to transport the flood of refugees from Reno to Camp Morrow.

Considering the population density of northwest Nevada is it reasonable to expect that there would be a large number of refugees at the camp?

No.

Considering the importance of Prime Base to the Morrow Project, is it reasonable to expect that the board of directors and/or military commander, now emotionally overwhelmed with an immense level of compassion, rarely seen in corporate board rooms concerning the average working person, to agree to the establishment of a refugee camp, whose existence significantly increases the risk to PB, anywhere within fifty miles of PB, knowing the amount of effort and money that went into the erection of PB?

No. The screening process that MP used would have selected leaders for Prime Base that were not that stupid, not that emotional.

If you believe in the fusion power packs you have to believe that MP's HR department would be able to select people for such important positions that were not so emotional and not so dumb.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

This may be the real reason why Prime Base failed. The Project was caught between two schools of thought. There were some places where the rigid command structure of the traditional military would work best and other points were a "board room" style would be more effective. The issue became how to interface and switch between these two forms of control.

For the life of me I've never understood why the reason Prime Base falls always has to be the incompetence of the planners. Resurrecting the Project was always going to be a monumental feat and it turned out to be operating in the face of overt, skilled opposition in the form of Krell. There is no reason for the base to come down by incompetence, and I think that incompetence reflects poorly on the characters. And what you are talking about is incompetence. These issues have not been new for centuries, and there are entire schools of thought about how to address them, and the entire job of the Council of Tomorrow would realistically be to find people capable of making those decisions and delegate the task to them.

Originally Posted by tsofian

So when the refugees show up on the Prime Base doorstep...

I have to echo @RandyT0001 here, the refugee thing bugged me even back when I was a kid reading Prime Base. Why were people traipsing across the Nevada desert? How did they even make it that far? How did they happen to come across the base in the middle of so much nothing? Why did the base commander ever risk his headquarters, responsible for saving millions, to save a few hundred when the defense of that headquarters had been made such a priority? Why did he even have the resources on hand to do it in the first place?

Originally Posted by tsofian

Being Americans (for the most part) they demanded a voice in the decision and the situation became a subject put to the vote of the Prime Base population. They made a group decision, it turned out to be a really bad one, but it was done by vote. It makes perfect sense to me that the people who would be selected by the Project would take the data they had and make the decision they did.

It boggles my mind that in that situation it would become a "group decision". Discipline and trust in each others' expertise had to be a key part of selection and training, and no competent director would turn over the decision to their subordinates - they are there to make these exact decisions, after all.

[ArmySGT.]

Burning Man (aka Black Rock City)

Gerlach, Nevada is on the Playa right outside Prime Base....

Hundreds of people have been there.... it is mid way between Sacramento and Reno in the West and Salt Lake City in the East. This is off I-80 a two sometime three lanes in each direction interstate.

Many people including some that are stunningly rich have campers, buses, and RVs in Gerlach year round just to do drugs and have crazy sex with 10,000 other people in bizarre costumes and camps taking drugs and having bizarre sex.

There is also a very sizeable population in Reno, NV and Susanville, CA who will be running for their lives after Carson City, NV and Sierra Army Depot are nuked.

There is your refugees... and everyone lucky to be living in that strip of California between the Sierra Nevadas and the Nevada border.

There is only three ways across Nevada... I-15 (North/South), I-80 (East/West), and Highway 50 (East/West) also called the Loneliest Road in America. There are no towns or services on Highway 50 between Fallon and Ely. Carry gas or suffer.

[mmartin798]

This fits really well with 4th edition canon, since the war happens on 12 June 2017 and Burning Man starts at the end of August. Burning Man attracts between 65,000 and 70,000 people. There would be some sort of advance team for Burning Man in the area already in June. So a couple hundred planners and builders in the area and people already planning to head to Burning Man that started getting their transportation ready and you could have a good sized group of refugees "Just outside the door" so to speak.

[cosmicfish]

By my reckoning, Burning Man takes place about 50-60 miles south of Prime Base*, "right outside" only on a national scale. And I see no reason why anyone at that location would choose to go further into a barren desert towards Prime Base, north is literally the hardest, least promising direction they could go. To be honest "refugees at the gates" was always a stretch when you consider the obstacles to travel in the region and that roads past it were hardly on the way to anywhere in particular.

Remember also that Prime Base didn't even unbutton until a couple of years post-war*, and what are the odds that Burning Man staffers would still be in the Black Rock Desert after all that time? These aren't really rugged survivalists, why didn't they head east or west towards towns and modest civilization? Prime Base could unbutton right after the war, notice a small group of people hours away, and risk the entire Project in an environment that could not possible have been adequately surveyed yet... but why would they?

*: Per 3ed, at least, since I do not have 4ed.

[RandyT0001]

An analogy for PB building a refugee camp just miles from the facility location.

War is declared and a US SSBM sub hears a Russian hunter killer sub enter it's launch box. Within a few minutes the US sub hears a ship enter its launch box which is identified as the 1500 passenger Princess Cruise ship. The US sub hears the torpedo attack by the Russian sub on the cruise ship which begins to sink. The signal to launch missiles is decoded by the US sub. Overwhelmed with outrage and hatred, the US sub commander ignores his launch mission which he has been training for years as a submariner and orders his crew to intercept the Russian hunter killer sub for an attack. All of the training, preparation, screening, and placement into a position of extreme responsibility is ignored as the command officers follow the commanders orders to attack the Russian sub.

We know that this situation could not happen on a US SSBM sub because the command crew would intervene, arrest the deranged commander, and pursue their actual mission of launching the missiles. The Navy trains them to do that and they are expected to do that, complete the mission.

The people put in charge of PB are not going to ignore their mission, either. They have been selected for their positions because they complete the mission without overt emotion.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

By my reckoning, Burning Man takes place about 50-60 miles south of Prime Base*, "right outside" only on a national scale. And I see no reason why anyone at that location would choose to go further into a barren desert towards Prime Base, north is literally the hardest, least promising direction they could go. To be honest "refugees at the gates" was always a stretch when you consider the obstacles to travel in the region and that roads past it were hardly on the way to anywhere in particular.

West takes you to Susanville and within the fallout patterns from Sierra Army Depot. South west takes you to Reno and Carson city which was nuked also. South takes you to Fallon, NV. Oops Naval Air Station Fallon NV also nuked. South east takes you toward Ely, NV and Great Basin National Park a desolate dry sage covered high desert. Further south takes you into the Nevada test range where nukes were detonated decades before. East takes you to The Great Salt Lake and the sand flats... Crossing that takes you to the nuclear fallout the was Hill Air force base, Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Toole Army Depot. North east takes you to the fallout and radioactivity that was Boise and Mountain Home Airforce base. North takes you to the crater that was the Air National guard base at Klamath Falls, OR.

So which direction do you think the refugees went?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

So which direction do you think the refugees went?

Well, I think that these guys have been suggested as planning staff and early attendees to Burning Man, so I'm pretty sure they don't have any idea about any targets they don't actually see get hit, and have no idea about fallout patterns, and don't know where the different bases and test ranges are, but I'm betting that they would prefer to strike out towards the last town they passed, somewhere they can find help and find out what's going on. Perhaps Gerlach but certainly any direction but north towards Prime Base. If they don't know "this is the end" they're going to go towards civilization and if they DO know they'll probably still risk fallout and eventual cancer over dying alone in the high desert.

And even if they did, what are the odds they actually wind up near enough to Prime Base for it to be even noted? There's a lot of desert and not much else. And even if they, by luck or some brilliant bit of prescience that the deep desert is their best option they make it... why would Prime Base open? Because this would presumably be in the first hours or days after the war, when biological weapons and other problems would be at their highest and opening the base would be at the dumbest. And there is no way these guys are still surviving in the desert 2 years post war.

So yeah, my guesses are probably south to Gerlach or dead in the desert before Prime Base does anything or even notices them.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

So yeah, my guesses are probably south to Gerlach or dead in the desert before Prime Base does anything or even notices them.

That takes you to Wadsworth, NV about 15 miles east of Nevada on interstate 80....

So you get the initial rush of survivors from Reno and Carson City heading east. Their met by the truckers, tour buses, and cars from West Wendover, and others fleeing west from the nukes in Salt Lake City.

Now their city on the only east west path with mobs of more refugees coming at them . I-80 is a funnel for everyone coming out of Northern California trying to escape east.

North and slightly east to lightly populated eastern Oregon and the Snake River.... Cour'd' alene maybe?

Or maybe they just hold up on the Soldiers Meadow Dude Ranch, as it is one of the only areas with year around water?

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I know folks have complained about the small pox vaccinations. It seems a prudent policy to vaccinate against this known potential biowarfare agent for the field teams and to have a supply of the vaccine for the base as well. With the CDC protocols in place in the 1980s the live rabies virus would have gone unnoticed in the QC process.

I still have problems with this route of exposure. Smallpox vaccine is administered via a bifurcated needle dipped into the vaccine and basically tattooed to the skin of the upper arm. Add in the rabies virus and the rabies virus is delivered via a nonbite exposure. This rarely develops into a rabies infection according to the CDC and in nonbite exposures they may not even administer the rabies vaccine as a post exposure prophylactic. So if we read "rarely" as meaning 50% of the time, Prime Base would still survive. You need to find an intramuscular injection if you want the rabies to work in the manner you describe. If you can make it getting MMRV boosters that are tainted with rabies, then you have your infection and kill rates where you want them.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

That takes you to Wadsworth, NV about 15 miles east of Nevada on interstate 80....

So you get the initial rush of survivors from Reno and Carson City heading east. Their met by the truckers, tour buses, and cars from West Wendover, and others fleeing west from the nukes in Salt Lake City.

Now their city on the only east west path with mobs of more refugees coming at them . I-80 is a funnel for everyone coming out of Northern California trying to escape east.

North and slightly east to lightly populated eastern Oregon and the Snake River.... Cour'd' alene maybe?

Or maybe they just hold up on the Soldiers Meadow Dude Ranch, as it is one of the only areas with year around water?

So these refugees decide to go not with the crowd but towards a region so desolate that a dude ranch is the best chance they have for survival in the region, AND they know that ranch is there in the first place, AND they stay in the area long enough that they overwhelm the ranch's resources AND the Project notices them AND the Project decides to risk the entire Project to expose the headquarters at the worst possible time?

To quote the great Jayne Cobb, "Smelling a lot of 'if' comin' off this plan..."

There are two major issues.

First, the site for Prime Base was chosen specifically to be out of the way. It is hours of travel away from anyone who might have any reason to move, and it is hours away from those people in a direction that they have no reason to go unless they want a slow, lingering death in the desert. For them to go that direction requires that they have a massive amount of information that no one outside of Prime Base is likely to have at that point, and probably not even they have it.

Second, the timetable for this option requires that Prime Base not expose themselves at the beginning of operations but at the beginning of the "hide and watch" phase. It is the worst decision they could make and they would have to know it. They have minimal understanding of what is going on in the world, and refugees at this point are at the very most likely to be carrying a biological weapon. Heck, the war is not likely to be an "overnight" thing, Prime Base opening their doors could very well get seen on satellite and receive a nuke for their troubles! Prime Base has to stay hidden until they are sure that (a) everyone is done shooting and (b) there aren't any roaming hazards like biological weapons in the area.

So Prime Base falling because it takes on refugees from Burning Man requires both brilliantly informed refugees and even more colossal stupidity and disregard for "the plan" than ever. I just don't see it.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

I still have problems with this route of exposure. Smallpox vaccine is administered via a bifurcated needle dipped into the vaccine and basically tattooed to the skin of the upper arm. Add in the rabies virus and the rabies virus is delivered via a nonbite exposure. This rarely develops into a rabies infection according to the CDC and in nonbite exposures they may not even administer the rabies vaccine as a post exposure prophylactic. So if we read "rarely" as meaning 50% of the time, Prime Base would still survive. You need to find an intramuscular injection if you want the rabies to work in the manner you describe. If you can make it getting MMRV boosters that are tainted with rabies, then you have your infection and kill rates where you want them.

It is worthwhile to remember that in this universe, the US government has already found a way to steal or independently develop things like cryogenic freezing of living humans, so it is probably not a stretch to say that new biological weapons, that don't match current performance, could be in play.

That having been said, a biological weapon that is 100% fatal is highly improbable and pretty stupid (unless there is a counteragent that for some reason the Project cannot develop). I still think that sabotage in Prime Base is probably the best bet.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

So these refugees decide to go not with the crowd but towards a region so desolate that a dude ranch is the best chance they have for survival in the region, AND they know that ranch is there in the first place, AND they stay in the area long enough that they overwhelm the ranch's resources AND the Project notices them AND the Project decides to risk the entire Project to expose the headquarters at the worst possible time?

To quote the great Jayne Cobb, "Smelling a lot of 'if' comin' off this plan..."

The Burning Man crowd is the crowd to follow in this case. They know how to organize on a big scale. The ranch like many others and the sources for water are all on standard topographical maps. North or Northeast are the only ways to logically go. They cannot stay on the Playa/Gerlach; and to the north is eastern Oregon which isn't much of a high desert except where OR/NV/ID come together. Eastern Oregon is plains and forested hills with lots of water and many, many ranches. The border with NV is where that is coming together. The valleys have seasonal creeks or runoff and year round ground water. The only issue is fallout from Sierra Army Depot and Carson City, NV and with diseases like cholera breaking out from poor sanitation discipline. There is pretty good game in the area. White tail deer and prong horns, along with feral cattle, goats, and wild horses. Rabbits seem to die by the dozens on the roadways without a dent in their population.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

There are two major issues.

First, the site for Prime Base was chosen specifically to be out of the way. It is hours of travel away from anyone who might have any reason to move, and it is hours away from those people in a direction that they have no reason to go unless they want a slow, lingering death in the desert. For them to go that direction requires that they have a massive amount of information that no one outside of Prime Base is likely to have at that point, and probably not even they have it.

Prime Base was sited and chosen specifically in the 1960s and 1970s.... They could not have anticipated all the aging hippies, anarchists, drug fueled electronic music kids, and their dealers coming to the Playa to get naked, stoned, and have orgies for a week in the summer. They didn't anticipate the growth of Gerlach and the federal agencies in the area to support the Burning Man event either.

It's all high desert. Low rainfall, but not the absolute lack of water. It is there to be found the area is blanketed in sage brush and cedar trees with grasses aplenty.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Second, the timetable for this option requires that Prime Base not expose themselves at the beginning of operations but at the beginning of the "hide and watch" phase. It is the worst decision they could make and they would have to know it. They have minimal understanding of what is going on in the world, and refugees at this point are at the very most likely to be carrying a biological weapon. Heck, the war is not likely to be an "overnight" thing, Prime Base opening their doors could very well get seen on satellite and receive a nuke for their troubles! Prime Base has to stay hidden until they are sure that (a) everyone is done shooting and (b) there aren't any roaming hazards like biological weapons in the area.

I didn't say that Prime Base opened immediately. I gave a plausible enough reason for why there are refugees to be in the area.. because any other direction is dead, destroyed, polluted, or completely uninhabitable.... Nevada is a donut with an uninhabitable center that the USAF/USN enjoys the freedom to drop all manner of ordnance with a circle of habitable green all around it.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

So Prime Base falling because it takes on refugees from Burning Man requires both brilliantly informed refugees and even more colossal stupidity and disregard for "the plan" than ever. I just don't see it.

Considering the staggering number of under 30 mulitmillionaire compsci tech Brogrammers in the Burning Man crowd and multimillionaire actors/actresses from Hollywood attending with their entourages..... still not that impossible.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

The Burning Man crowd is the crowd to follow in this case. They know how to organize on a big scale.

They know how to organize a long party and haven't had to do it without preexisting infrastructure in decades. Planning survival in a post-apocalypse setting is a real stretch of their abilities.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

The ranch like many others and the sources for water are all on standard topographical maps.

How many topo maps do they have? Seriously, because the internet just went down for good and I don't know how many Burning Man attendees are packing USGS surveys.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

North or Northeast are the only ways to logically go.

I categorically disagree. Gerlach and Empire to the south make absolute sense - they are far closer, have far more resources than anything north, and are probably already known to a large number of those in attendance. Long before you hit Fallon you hit Pyramid Lake. They don't know what was hit unless it was within maybe 50-100 miles or so, and they sure don't have any way to know where the fallout will be or how intense. They're not looking for someplace to whether a war, they're looking for someplace to get their collective crap together and preferably try and get back to their actual homes and loved ones. Going north does none of that. Going north makes sense only if they know everything that is going on and decide to abandon everything and gamble that a dude ranch in the desert is the best place to spend the rest of their lives. And if there is anything serious going on, heading to that dude ranch would have to be a one-way trip - can't count on gas being available, you set up shop there you're going to be walking 50 miles to Gerlach if you need anything!

Another question: how many people at Burning Man have vehicles?

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Prime Base was sited and chosen specifically in the 1960s and 1970s.... They could not have anticipated all the aging hippies, anarchists, drug fueled electronic music kids, and their dealers coming to the Playa to get naked, stoned, and have orgies for a week in the summer. They didn't anticipate the growth of Gerlach and the federal agencies in the area to support the Burning Man event either.

First, why not? It has always seemed weird to me that the Project had access to a genuine time traveler and yet get caught flat-footed all the time. I mean, sure they can't know everything... but Morrow never walks into a Project office and asks "got anything for me to take back to the 60's?" "Yeah boss, we knew you were coming because when you go back you tell them to plan for this. So here's a computer with an instruction manual. It has a lot of good stuff. See you next year!"

Second, Prime Base doesn't need to anticipate any of this. The only thing within 50 miles of desert is a single dude ranch, and the smartest thing they could do is buy the danged thing and then run it into the ground. And if someone shows up at their doorstep somehow, they just need to do the incredibly important jobs they have been training hard to do and keep the door shut.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I didn't say that Prime Base opened immediately.

Not explicitly, but if they don't then this is a staggeringly irrelevant discussion. If they do not respond to people in the area then those people have no impact on the Project. The whole conversation started because tsofian brought up the role of refugees in the fall of the Project and you proposed Burning Man as the source. If they aren't the refugees for whom Prime Base opens.... then they are irrelevant to anything.

Or are you saying that they stay at the dude ranch for 2 years, and THEN Prime Base takes them in? Because at that point, they aren't refugees, they're settlers. They're doing okay.

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Considering the staggering number of under 30 mulitmillionaire compsci tech Brogrammers in the Burning Man crowd and multimillionaire actors/actresses from Hollywood attending with their entourages..... still not that impossible.

That does not at all sound like a crowd ready to tackle sociopathic* post-apocalyptic desert survival strategies, especially without the internet. Heck that sounds more like "get me back to civilization NOW so I can access my resources and comforts!" Seriously, that crowd has no particular knowledge or resources at Burning Man that they can leverage to help them here. I've spoken to Elon Musk, he's great in a certain role, he can't design 99% of what he is famous for producing and would not be high on my list of "guys I want leading if Mad Max isn't available."

*: Sociopathic not because of outsiders but because they are going to abandon everyone and everything they didn't bring to Burning Man with them, and instead head in a direction chosen only because they are experts on fallout who know what's been hit and by what and who have determined that a dude ranch in the high desert is going to be their "forever home" whether the occupants like it or not. They're sociopaths!

[ArmySGT.]

Now imagine if the Wasteland cosplayers were having their event as the War kicks off. https://www.wired.com/2016/09/wastel...man-look-lame/

and there is great pictures for you to use as wasteland neobarbs.

[mmartin798]

Burning Man does not only attract unskilled party attendees. I would expect the early group to have construction workers, long-haul truck drivers, artisans and engineers. This group has a good likely hood of having survival skills from their hobbies, some will have reconstruction skills via vocation and there will be paper maps in the form of at least a few road atlases.

In a few years will they be a thriving community? No probably not. What they will be is a group that looks like they are trying to accomplish in some small way the mission of the Project. If only they had a few more resources, they might just make it.

[RandyT0001]

Burning Man takes place on federally controlled land. If the Feds and the local county governments do not issue the permits there will be no Burning Man. How likely will the Feds be willing to issue the permits for a big party out in a desert with 1), war with the Chinese and Russians looming and 2), the impending impact of a giant asteroid? How likely will the super rich hippies want to attend Burning Man when the possibility of losing their wealth in the big WW3 looms large on the horizon?

I doubt the local counties would issue the permits because they do not want to be the governments responsible for caring and rescuing the hippies stuck out in the desert when poop hits the fan.

More than likely the BOD of the businesses those super rich hippies own will push for less play time and more prep for the bleak future.

Whereas in 3rd edition nobody saw it coming in 4th edition everybody sees it coming and can prepare.

[mmartin798]

I am sure that there would be many who were planning to have an End of the World Burning Man celebration before the asteroid strike, permits be damned, since the impact location would not be exactly pinpointed. With the military on high alert for foreign threats, a group of hippies in the desert away from high population centers will not get much of a response. The nukes were still unexpected and changed everything.

[.45cultist]

Hmmm, Add a weak LE response and one may have a militia cadre.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

Burning Man takes place on federally controlled land. If the Feds and the local county governments do not issue the permits there will be no Burning Man. How likely will the Feds be willing to issue the permits for a big party out in a desert with 1), war with the Chinese and Russians looming and 2), the impending impact of a giant asteroid? How likely will the super rich hippies want to attend Burning Man when the possibility of losing their wealth in the big WW3 looms large on the horizon?

Why would the federal government aka the Park Service care? At this point they have other things more important to do than babysit adults who want to get drunk / stoned and dance to wierd music. What would their response be when half that number 50,000 people turn up anyway?

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

I doubt the local counties would issue the permits because they do not want to be the governments responsible for caring and rescuing the hippies stuck out in the desert when poop hits the fan.

At that point I don't think anyone could careless about permits. The code enforcement guy would just get laughed back into his car.

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

More than likely the BOD of the businesses those super rich hippies own will push for less play time and more prep for the bleak future.

Maybe, or their isn't any point. Some businesses wouldn't have a purpose without the grid and financial institutions. Oracle and Cisco come to mind.

Originally Posted by RandyT0001

Whereas in 3rd edition nobody saw it coming in 4th edition everybody sees it coming and can prepare.

I am so disappointed in the editing and final product that I paid $50.00 for ........ I don't give a damn what the 4th edition says.

If I could get my $50 back I might care.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

They know how to organize a long party and haven't had to do it without preexisting infrastructure in decades. Planning survival in a post-apocalypse setting is a real stretch of their abilities.

Water, toilets, EMTs, Fire Services, Food distribution, waste management, and power generation with strict zoning and maintenance of lanes and structures. Built on a site atop a desert playa to support 100,000 revelers for seven days and a few hundred for a week before and a week after..... possibly 30 - 45 days..... for a seven day event.

If you say so.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

How many topo maps do they have? Seriously, because the internet just went down for good and I don't know how many Burning Man attendees are packing USGS surveys.

These are not expensive and people out here tend to get out alot. Personally in my SUV at this moment is a topo atlas for NV, UT, OR, and CO... along with city maps for Denver, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, and a dozen others large enough to get lost in. The Ranger District can provide dozens or hundreds just ask. I don't use GPS, but I learned maps and compass in the Army. Experience in the Army taught me not to trust GPS navigation either. Maps abound.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I categorically disagree. Gerlach and Empire to the south make absolute sense - they are far closer, have far more resources than anything north, and are probably already known to a large number of those in attendance. Long before you hit Fallon you hit Pyramid Lake. They don't know what was hit unless it was within maybe 50-100 miles or so, and they sure don't have any way to know where the fallout will be or how intense. They're not looking for someplace to whether a war, they're looking for someplace to get their collective crap together and preferably try and get back to their actual homes and loved ones. Going north does none of that. Going north makes sense only if they know everything that is going on and decide to abandon everything and gamble that a dude ranch in the desert is the best place to spend the rest of their lives. And if there is anything serious going on, heading to that dude ranch would have to be a one-way trip - can't count on gas being available, you set up shop there you're going to be walking 50 miles to Gerlach if you need anything!

Another question: how many people at Burning Man have vehicles?

If you like, going back south puts you into the fallout pattern of all the places just visited. Right back into the confused frightened mobs fleeing east from Sacrament on I80 and the confused frightened mobs fleeing west from Salt Lake City. I would like to think that some semblance of the rapidly disintegrating FedGov is broadcasting from Raven Rock Alternate Joint Command or Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in the Emergency broadcasting system via AM/FM/Shortwave with facts on fallout and impacts.

There are thousands of vehicles at Burning Man.. During the event people must walk or use pedal power unless the vehicle has been deemed mobile art... Art cars are popular and very creative. People arrive on buses then sleep in tents. RV, campers, and all manner of conversions. Gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, hybrids, electrics, solar..... These are creative people and crafty people. Sail racing and velocipede racing are side activities.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

First, why not? It has always seemed weird to me that the Project had access to a genuine time traveler and yet get caught flat-footed all the time. I mean, sure they can't know everything... but Morrow never walks into a Project office and asks "got anything for me to take back to the 60's?" "Yeah boss, we knew you were coming because when you go back you tell them to plan for this. So here's a computer with an instruction manual. It has a lot of good stuff. See you next year!"

Oh Bruce.... According to Richard Tucholka, it isn't that certain. One Bruce also side steps dimensions.. Infinite earths. Bruce gets a small mention in Fringeworthy, another game by Richard. Second, there is also paradoxes, every change upsets all the other futures. When Bruce tries to implement large changes at some singular point things change radically. The sort where Hitler dies as corporal from allied artillery in 1917. Leon Trotsky bests Josef Stalin for the number two position in the Soviet in the 1920s forcing Stalin into exile. That sort of thing. Bruce can implement the Big Picture like organizing the Council of Tomorrow and that seems to not produce so many possible outcomes.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Second, Prime Base doesn't need to anticipate any of this. The only thing within 50 miles of desert is a single dude ranch, and the smartest thing they could do is buy the danged thing and then run it into the ground. And if someone shows up at their doorstep somehow, they just need to do the incredibly important jobs they have been training hard to do and keep the door shut.

Which I assume they would do. Is it heartless and cruel? Yes, so is a nurse debriding dead flesh off a third degree burn. The Project is to save civilization, not survivors.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Not explicitly, but if they don't then this is a staggeringly irrelevant discussion. If they do not respond to people in the area then those people have no impact on the Project. The whole conversation started because tsofian brought up the role of refugees in the fall of the Project and you proposed Burning Man as the source. If they aren't the refugees for whom Prime Base opens.... then they are irrelevant to anything.

If you say so. I think many will still be in the area five years on. Simply because there isn't much point in traveling hundreds of miles of unknown to look at another nuke impact. Will there be 100,000... not with the canon 95% death toll from nukes, disease, war plagues, and nuclear winter. A few hundred living in RVs and living on game and gardening in canyons. Sure, why not?

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Or are you saying that they stay at the dude ranch for 2 years, and THEN Prime Base takes them in? Because at that point, they aren't refugees, they're settlers. They're doing okay.

Managing, subsisting, yep. Prime Base can do better with at a minimum modern medicine and agricultural assistance.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

That does not at all sound like a crowd ready to tackle sociopathic* post-apocalyptic desert survival strategies, especially without the internet. Heck that sounds more like "get me back to civilization NOW so I can access my resources and comforts!" Seriously, that crowd has no particular knowledge or resources at Burning Man that they can leverage to help them here. I've spoken to Elon Musk, he's great in a certain role, he can't design 99% of what he is famous for producing and would not be high on my list of "guys I want leading if Mad Max isn't available."

If you say so.... I see the type that gets things done. That sold door to door or worked three jobs and made their own success. I don't think any are going to rise up and be George Washington. I think they will still rise to the top in organization and using resources to max potential making them Mayors more than Kings. That goes for the business leaders, the film stars and rock stars, I expect will just die or get their hands dirty.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

*: Sociopathic not because of outsiders but because they are going to abandon everyone and everything they didn't bring to Burning Man with them, and instead head in a direction chosen only because they are experts on fallout who know what's been hit and by what and who have determined that a dude ranch in the high desert is going to be their "forever home" whether the occupants like it or not. They're sociopaths!

Meh, we can only speculate. People do some amazing things when the other option is death.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

I still have problems with this route of exposure. Smallpox vaccine is administered via a bifurcated needle dipped into the vaccine and basically tattooed to the skin of the upper arm. Add in the rabies virus and the rabies virus is delivered via a nonbite exposure. This rarely develops into a rabies infection according to the CDC and in nonbite exposures they may not even administer the rabies vaccine as a post exposure prophylactic. So if we read "rarely" as meaning 50% of the time, Prime Base would still survive. You need to find an intramuscular injection if you want the rabies to work in the manner you describe. If you can make it getting MMRV boosters that are tainted with rabies, then you have your infection and kill rates where you want them.

The sore caused by the small pox vaccination will likely be enough to introduce the rabies virus into the host-I can't state this as a fact because I doubt there is any literature on this, but since the smallpox vaccine causes a small to moderate amount of tissue damage at the inoculation site it doesn't seem unreasonable to me. The rabies virus would quite likely find a lovely place to hang out and multiply in that region until it can get into the host.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Why would the federal government aka the Park Service care? At this point they have other things more important to do than babysit adults who want to get drunk / stoned and dance to wierd music. What would their response be when half that number 50,000 people turn up anyway?

At that point I don't think anyone could careless about permits. The code enforcement guy would just get laughed back into his car.

Maybe, or their isn't any point. Some businesses wouldn't have a purpose without the grid and financial institutions. Oracle and Cisco come to mind.



I am so disappointed in the editing and final product that I paid $50.00 for ........ I don't give a damn what the 4th edition says.

If I could get my $50 back I might care.

What changes have you made? What do you replace the asteroids with? Plague or "Rage Zombies" are two possibilities, I use Rogue 417 in my early 4TH musings. Drop the Judge and P38, if I want a 9mm single stack, I'd use Colt Commanders. I'm rotating UH1's and 5 Ton trucks into the mix, but I lost which axles are V150's. The V100 used M54 axles, this is for supply reasons in my game, also made it easier to convert. The UH1 is less complex and common enough. I'm thinking of adding an off site transportation base for ground and an air one beyond that.
Prime Base victim to Rogue, hmmm, that would require minor changes, perhaps more battle damage that would aid in the deception. Rogue would be long dead by the time the PC's arrived but one could kepp them in suspense with dust and fake rolling of dice. Actually I wouldn't use rogue at all 150 years later, but it allows me two campaigns in a shared world.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

What changes have you made? What do you replace the asteroids with? Plague or "Rage Zombies" are two possibilities, I use Rogue 417 in my early 4TH musings. Drop the Judge and P38, if I want a 9mm single stack, I'd use Colt Commanders. I'm rotating UH1's and 5 Ton trucks into the mix, but I lost which axles are V150's. The V100 used M54 axles, this is for supply reasons in my game, also made it easier to convert. The UH1 is less complex and common enough. I'm thinking of adding an off site transportation base for ground and an air one beyond that.
Prime Base victim to Rogue, hmmm, that would require minor changes, perhaps more battle damage that would aid in the deception. Rogue would be long dead by the time the PC's arrived but one could kepp them in suspense with dust and fake rolling of dice. Actually I wouldn't use rogue at all 150 years later, but it allows me two campaigns in a shared world.

I am forced to make changes if I was to PD a game. Everyone I know that would love to play this has read the game book and modules cover to cover many times. Also as 40+ years old and most are less interested in combat and more problems in world building. They can be really critical of handwavium too.

Right now, I am thinking of how to introduce a plausible Soviets threat as great as the Kentucky Free States... So I am thinking of reinforcements coming from a NeoSoviet Republic formed from an alliance of Vladivosok and Petropavlosk in the Soviet Far East to the Soviet enclave in Seattle.

As far as the Cause of the War.... The accidental computer wargame fires a total U.S. nuclear response and Soviets Dead Hand system retaliates with a total Soviet nuclear response. India and Pakistan go to it and collapse into failed states. The Chinese strike out in all directions with an arsenal far greater than expected. The Chinese aim is to wreck the governments and structure of local rivals so as to position themselves as a superpower for a hundred years. Except that China gets it back from Soviets and India in larger scale than anticipated. The real devastation comes from the indiscriminate release of viral and bacterial plagues by governments, terrorists, and religious fanatics with irrational grudges that decimate not only human populations, but livestock and farm crops too.