Supply Cache Idea...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Just a few thoughts to throw into the mix here (keep in mind I haven't read any of the MP books for a few years so my numbers might be out)...

There is one factor often overlooked in RPGs when it comes to rescuing people, the total number the rescuers can actually look after. So for example, a particular MP team may have the resources to rescue 300 people but it's often likely that 600 or 1000 are going to turn up looking for help.
Then again, they may have the resources for 300 and find that in their area only 80 people survive.

Considering that the Project was meant to awaken its teams 2-5 years or so after the wars end but they ended up sleeping for around 150-200 years I tend to think that they would have planned for maximum numbers of survivors and not minimum numbers. I do seem to recall that part of their mission was to get further supplies from the local region so they weren't going to carry "everything" in their supply caches.
I mention this more so for the RP side of things, it makes life more "interesting" for the Players but it is a part of game design that appears to have been given little thought.

My other thought is about technology. Given enough money and personnel, an R&D facility can cut quite a bit of time from research & development. To give an example, the Soviet Union poured a massive amount of money into theoretical physics after WW2 to the point were they exceeded the Western World in this field and they did it in the space of about 30 years if I remember correctly. Given the drive or resources, technology/equipment can be advanced beyond the standards expected in a society.

What this means is that if MP could purchase/set up various R&D facilities (and businesses to provide funding and so on), they could actually get superior technology than the current level in society. Keep in mind that the concepts for automatic weapons were developed in the late 1800s and a working assault rifle was made in 1911 (Fedorov Avtomat), a little less than 30 years later and the Germans (stimulated by wartime necessity) applied mass manufacturing concepts to the assault rifle idea and replaced the wooden stock with sheet metal stampings.

I've never been too thrilled with the time travel aspect of TMP so I'd happily substitute fuel cell tech (fuel cell concepts were understood as early as 1839 with the first practical fuel cell being made in 1889) for the fusion packs and so on. While fuel cell tech should allow 3-4 times the mileage of a tank of fuel that internal combustion motors provide, it still means stopping to get fuel... so the rules for T2k's distilling can be used if you desire!
Alternately, cold fusion could be allowed for the game, in theory it's supposed to work and I'd rather suspend my disbelief for that (i.e. pretending that superior R&D got it to work) than have the contradiction of Bruce Morrow going into the future and bringing back the fusion technology (and thereby 'inventing' it). The concepts for fusion were understood early enough, hence the atomic bomb.

In terms of funding/driving the tech, I can easily see the US government contracting to a Morrow Industries company to develop a particular concept, it's happened often enough in the real world. This means that the US Govt and Morrow would be working together with perhaps BEM himself having the better idea of why it was really being developed

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Considering that the Project was meant to awaken its teams 2-5 years or so after the wars end but they ended up sleeping for around 150-200 years I tend to think that they would have planned for maximum numbers of survivors and not minimum numbers. I do seem to recall that part of their mission was to get further supplies from the local region so they weren't going to carry "everything" in their supply caches.

I mention this more so for the RP side of things, it makes life more "interesting" for the Players but it is a part of game design that appears to have been given little thought.

Cynic,

I tend to think along the same lines about "rescue" supplies and the purpose of caches; while elaborate and huge caches are cool, I think they would be the exception to the rule (except for Specialist teams) and not devoted to relief supplies but reconstruction materials.

Regarding the idea of a "refugee camp in a box":

1) The Project's mission was reconstruction. Therefore, planning extensively for relief and rescue efforts is a case of "mission creep". That is, they can make provisions for additional capabilities beyond the core mission but at the almost direct expense of that mission.

2) Given the wakeup window of 3-5 years, it's doubtful anyone will need immediate assistance. If the government is recovered enough it's their responsibility to provide large-scale assistance through FEMA (and similar organisations in Canada, Australia, etc.). There will be NGOs like the American Red Cross already devoted to relief efforts. If there are, they will be far more capable than the Project at administering relief efforts and delivering supplies. On the other hand, if things are really bad then there's little the Project could do in the short term to mitigate these effects.

3) My personal view is the caches are to provide local sustainability for teams that cannot be supplied by the Group and regional logistical systems for whatever reason, not provide bulk supplies (which are stored in the permanent depots, according to TM 1-1). Further, at least for Recon/Recce units, teams are supposed to remain mobile to do their jobs because proportionally there are so few of them. Having teams engage in immediate disaster relief efforts ties them down and they can't engage in reconnaissance. Likewise other teams need to concentrate on their core missions and not get caught up in administering local relief efforts for thousands of people.

This also isn't meant to be a flame, but more asking if adding capability for refugee relief is putting the cart before the horse.


Tony

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Tony, basically I think the same way as you, I can't see the Project focusing so much effort on rescuing people and setting up huge caches to build refugee camps because I am of the understanding that the Project's mission was to provide a core group of people who remembered skills and knowledge from the pre-apocalypse. That is to say, their job was to check out what had happened and then decide who best to help - and their help consisted of teaching the survivors how to rebuild some semblance of their old society based on all the skills/knowledge they Team has along with whatever supplies they can get from the local area.

It seems redundant for MP to stash massive amounts of supplies to set up refugee camps when there are other organizations as well as the government itself who would already be doing that sort of thing. I see it as a case of MP's aim was to "fill in the gaps", not simply replace the government efforts. Recce teams should be doing exactly that, reconnaissance, science teams should be do the science stuff and so on and so on.

The game really takes off for me when these teams get involved in the rescue side of things knowing full well they do not have the resources to rescue everyone. That's when you start to get some really involved RP sessions because the players have to start coming up with ideas on how to get enough supplies, how to protect them and transport them and then how to stop somebody else taking them away from the people they're trying to help.

To me, TMP is about teams who find themselves out of their depth - they woke up too late, they have too little help, they have too few resources and they have too much to do. For me that's the challenge of the game, if the teams have too many supplies, it becomes too easy for the players.
As Tony said, this isn't a flame so much as a critique.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

To me, TMP is about teams who find themselves out of their depth - they woke up too late, they have too little help, they have too few resources and they have too much to do. For me that's the challenge of the game, if the teams have too many supplies, it becomes too easy for the players.
As Tony said, this isn't a flame so much as a critique.

Cynic,

As well, I'd like to be clear that I'm not advocating the Project should just be cold-blooded or stand around if people need help! Just that in 3-5 years after the war, it's probably not going to be an issue. Either A) the surviving government/NGOs will be doing what they can or B) the populations that can't feed themselves one way or another will no longer exist.

Likewise, I find the "developmental" challenges of TMP interesting, especially if there is a moral and ethical dimension added by scarce resources, a wildly different situation than expected, and so on. Forging an alliance of communities to defend against an onslaught of Krell/KFS/mutant hordes is classic TMP... but it's been done a few times.

My own Final Watch-based campaign hinged on convincing the Rebels and Reds to get along after 150 years of warfare, introduce democratic governance and abolish slavery in the Puget Sound. As the PCs were part of a Specialty: PSYOPs team their options tended to be based on mobilising public opinion and support in both camps instead of something more violent. (It was clear there was a real chance that violence would spark open war and/or civil war that would kill a good portion of the surviving population.)

Tony

[natehale1971]

I don't think you're getting the reason for 'refugee camp-in-a-box' that the supply cache concept was about...

The Recon team is suppose to go out and look around and send back reports to higher ups, telling them what they've found. But they will also need to be able to show that they can do SOMETHING for the people they've encountered during their missions.

Having a few luxury goods for trade is nice, but in the long run the people will see the project as nothing but 'good time boys and girls' who are focusing on lofty ideals and passing around the booze.

The idea of these supply caches would be to allow for the Recon Teams to set up a camp that would be used as not only a refugee camp, but also as a fledgling community that would attract the people with the skills needed to rebuild the Republic in the long run.

These camps would also be something of a way to boost morale, as anyone who has ever dealt with the government can tell you. Government recovery efforts SUCK. And notice the capitalized letters in the world "SUCK"... How long did it take to respond to Katerina? Yes that was due to the Local and State level of the chain dragging their feet and screwing around. The neighboring States (and hell cities) around Louisiana and New Orleans bounced back a hell of a lot quicker than New Orleans... Who basically had to rely upon FEMA to put things back together for... And even today we are seeing the waste and screw ups on how those resources were being used.

The Project would know this fact, and be planing for a way to use it to their advantage.

3 to 5 years post-TEOTWAWKI Event, FEMA would still be so totally overwhelmed that they would be so mortarboard that they wouldn't really know were to start to focus their recovery efforts.

By giving Recon Teams the ability to throw up refugee camps that woulds become the Core Communities of the Recovery effort would allow the FEMA resources to be deployed to where they are needed.

IE, the Project would be the Kick-in-the-Pants to get the recovery effort underway.

FEMA has the power to dragoon people as 'Human Resources' and put them anywhere they want. Even if that means breaking up families and putting people with the skills they need into places where they need them.

This alone would cause rebellions popping up all across the FEMA run camps. But a Project camp would do everything they can to keep families together, and thus have better morale and NOT needing heavily armed security to keep the peace (and keep the people in the camps from rebelling due to the fact that Mommy has been shipped to California and Daddy has been shipped to New York City because Mommy is a baby doctor and daddy is an engineer).

if you don't think FEMA has this power, please check it out. It's one of their questionable powers, that people who are Veterans or who work (or have worked) in the DoD are exempt from.

And is the source of the 'Displaced Person' program that has evolved into a form of slavery that created the problem that has risen with the New Confederacy...

The Project is a non-Totalitarian solution to FEMA and it's heavy handed way of dealing with mass emergency conditions.

And by giving Recon Teams the ability to be a hands-on recon of the area, and having the ability to put up a refugee camp WHERE NEEDED RIGHT NOW, is better than them just saying... We can help you sometime in the next three to six months. Even if the camp they can build would comfortably take care of 300 families for a set time, they can support larger numbers in the short-term necessitating them getting resupplied by FEMA or Regional support bases.

[natehale1971]

(Had my Roommates kidnap me for a little bit....)

Also the Refugee Camp wasn't meant to be operated by the Recon Team.

While the Recon Team sets it up since they are ON SITE and see what is needed, the camp would be operated and administered by specialists deployed form the Combined Operations Group and/or Area Operations Group...

These camps would be able to serve as not only distribution points for relief supplies... but they would also be perfect for organizing the survivors in a way that would let the Project KNOW what kind of skill pool they would have access too.

Another thing that i had forgot for putting in the cache, would be ballot boxes, and other things that would promote voting and electing local representatives.

Yes the Camp would have a Project Administrator, Project Security and Project Medical Staff who would operate as the core that would be dispatched... but they would be assisted by an elected 'Mayor', and elected Chief Constable and of course a local (if available) Chief Medical Examiner.

On the judicial arena.. elections for a Chief Judge, Chief Prosecutor and Chief Advocate would be necessary.

There is a lot of things we might be forgetting that would be needed for reestablishing a fully functioning representative republic with a strong democratic tradition.... To many today think we're a democracy, but the founders were adamant that we're A REPUBLIC, for as long as we can keep it.

And the Project was founded at a time that this was still taught in schools, and the education materials that would be made available for the schools that would be set up, would have the kinds of things that a turn of the last century 8th Grader would have to know to graduate (things that many college graduates today have difficulty knowing).

I'm going to set up a community thread that everyone can post their thoughts on just what is needed to create a self-sufficient society that would be the cornerstone for the government to rebuild the republic upon.

[dragoon500ly]

There is a lot to be said for both arguements. It's the 5 year mission profile that limits what can be done. So the question to be asked is, just what would be available 5 years after a nuclear exchange? If you want to use the Katrina example, the very things needed to sustain a survivor community ran out the quickest. Things like batteries, flashlights, bottled water, and all the way through to diapers and hand wipes. Now this was within a week of the storm hitting the coast, what would it have been like 5 years later, and in a TEOTWAWKI event?

Would FEMA have been able to haul supplies from one side of the country to the other? And remember, in a nuclear exchange one of the key targets would be communications nodes. So there is nothing beyond short haul railway, the interstate highway system is jammed with wreckage and blast damage at key locations. The various relief agencies would have been completely overwhelmed. Just how much aid could be moved around?

IMO, there is need for every team to have at least one "camp in a box". If only to help set-up or resupply an existing survivor community. I can even see "nests" of the CIAB located in areas that were planned to shelter large numbers of survivors, I can even see the arguement, that some of these CIAB would not be as well concealed as a regular supply cache. The goal is to help the survivors that the team encounters, to at least some degree. And going with the small numbers of personnel, the only other force multiplier would be supplies.