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[mainiac]

Which is why i'm saying to help them IF they're open to letting Carter take up leadership or at least be part of whatever top level leadership they have.

So you are saying instead of working for the rebels, offer to lead them because Carter's group has military experience.  Interesting.

[3man75]

Which is why i'm saying to help them IF they're open to letting Carter take up leadership or at least be part of whatever top level leadership they have.

So you are saying instead of working for the rebels, offer to lead them because Carter's group has military experience.  Interesting.

Yep.

[mainiac]

Right now there doesn't seem to be much of an opinion in any direction.  I'll give it a little more time and then go with option F:

F) Wait and see how this shakes out a while more before arriving at an opinion.

[mainiac]

I'm going to double post with a bit of a backtrack and comment on the mountain men for a moment.  It seemed like everybody thought of them like, well, a 19th century diplomat.  They have technology so that makes them very powerful.  Powerful allies are good to have.  The alternative is to think of them as a capitalist.  They have technology so that makes them very rich.  The rich are good customers because the rich can afford to buy anything they want and they can offer anything you could want in exchange.  Just because the mountain men can practice autarky doesn't mean they have to...

[Ghazkull]

So we might offer to clear the mountains of bandits for them?

[mainiac]

Perhaps something they might want long term but it's still a bit of an imperialist mindset...

How about this: imagine for a moment that Cassandra handed you a wad of "Dwarfbucks" that you can use to buy things from the mountain people that you would then take to Boulder and sell.  The mountain people could sell you pretty much anything you want to buy.  But what would you want to buy from them the most?  What would you want to buy from them the least?

[Ozarck]

A) on the Mountain men. I didn't think of the mountain men as anything but powerful and wealthy. I thought of them as isolationist and pacifist, needing nothing we can offer, and offering nothing to a warlike company.

B) On 'aiding' the rebellion by putting Carter in charge. Notice how the rebellion is "against the military." Note that it is a different kind of rebellion than Mendosa's or Norris'. That makes having a military unit swooping in and taking charge really probably a bad idea. the rebels will see us as the same kind of beast as they are throwing off. Anyone familiar with the French Revolution?

3) on Losing Morale, and choosing to aid the rebels to prevent it. Morale is more about the success or failure of an option, than about which we choose. With two exceptions: 1) are we sending people into a familiar situation of despair?  That is, We've already done the whole: fight a rebellion, fight for food" bit, and our troops are likely pretty embittered and not likely to be happy to be sent to their deaths in a similar fight. 2) is the cause unjust or viewed as repugnant? In this case, I'd say no. but if we choose an option that the troops will think is repugnant (signing up with Norris might fit this category) then Morale will drop, even i it pays well.

I suggest making new convoy contracts. Get a feel for where caravans are likely to go during this turmoil, and setting up a base in that region. additionally, yes, thinking about what the mountain men will offer and what they want is worthwhile. Perhaps we could head north toward Canada in search of wildlife?

As for what we'd take to boulder .. food? Clothing? I forget what Boulder was like when we left. And th GM has hinted at least once a round that there are criminal operations in Boulder that would hire us. I think that is the route he expected us to go at first.

[mainiac]

As for what we'd take to boulder .. food? Clothing? I forget what Boulder was like when we left.

Well the city has been under martial law for the past two generations and has food shortages that just got worse after Mendoza and Carter started fighting.  The 17th is gone and the National Guard is decimated meaning that bandits pretty much run the area around the city now and the government doesn't have nearly as much ability to control the gangs of Oldtown anymore.  So Boulder is doing pretty badly.  Their situation is a lot like yours actually, they have shelter that they dare not leave and need to devote most of their efforts just to eke out a crude survival.  Most people at this point will probably be eating yeast fed off the energy from the cities aging nuclear generators.  They can do a little hydroponics on the windowed parts of the city but the extreme weather means the plants dont have terribly much light to grow and they dont have great fertilizers, equipment or seed strains anyway.

Despite the desperate shortages though, most people have very little productive labor.  They are doing things like carefully recycling every scrap of food or material.  When a customer walks into a store, there is a sales clerk ready to lavish them with attention all the time they shop and the sales clerk has two assistants on beck and call.  There are so many people to work on the few hydroponic farms that they carefully tend to each plant and the farms dont even grow enough to feed the farmers.  Not that the farmers could afford to eat real food anyway with the prices after the kansas shipments stopped, all the farmers can afford is the products of the yeast farms and the eggs that are the main source of protein for most of the population.

In a nutshell, the city lacks the means to support itself.

And the GM has hinted at least once a round that there are criminal operations in Boulder that would hire us. I think that is the route he expected us to go at first.

It was probably the most lucrative option available but you guys instead went for the least lucrative option at every possible turn.  Y'all are like anti-capitalists.

Anyone familiar with the French Revolution?

Oh!  I am!  I am!  What part do you want to see?  I am drawing a bit more from 3rd and 5th century Rome however.

[Playergamer]

You know, if we went back to Boulder we could do a ton of good.

[Ozarck]

As for what we'd take to boulder .. food? Clothing? I forget what Boulder was like when we left.

Well the city has been under martial law for the past two generations and has food shortages that just got worse after Mendoza and Carter started fighting.  The 17th is gone and the National Guard is decimated meaning that bandits pretty much run the area around the city now and the government doesn't have nearly as much ability to control the gangs of Oldtown anymore.  So Boulder is doing pretty badly.  Their situation is a lot like yours actually, they have shelter that they dare not leave and need to devote most of their efforts just to eke out a crude survival.  Most people at this point will probably be eating yeast fed off the energy from the cities aging nuclear generators.  They can do a little hydroponics on the windowed parts of the city but the extreme weather means the plants dont have terribly much light to grow and they dont have great fertilizers, equipment or seed strains anyway.

Despite the desperate shortages though, most people have very little productive labor.  They are doing things like carefully recycling every scrap of food or material.  When a customer walks into a store, there is a sales clerk ready to lavish them with attention all the time they shop and the sales clerk has two assistants on beck and call.  There are so many people to work on the few hydroponic farms that they carefully tend to each plant and the farms dont even grow enough to feed the farmers.  Not that the farmers could afford to eat real food anyway with the prices after the kansas shipments stopped, all the farmers can afford is the products of the yeast farms and the eggs that are the main source of protein for most of the population.

In a nutshell, the city lacks the means to support itself.

So, importing hydroponic vertical gardens, seed stock, and fertilizer would be best, along with becoming a sort of security force for the food production regions of Boulder. We could organize workforces for mining out underground facilities and making new  living and growing places, and perhaps ask the Mountain men about methods of tapping geothermal energy.

And the GM has hinted at least once a round that there are criminal operations in Boulder that would hire us. I think that is the route he expected us to go at first.

It was probably the most lucrative option available but you guys instead went for the least lucrative option at every possible turn.  Y'all are like anti-capitalists. We went with morality and adventure over greed and criminality.

Anyone familiar with the French Revolution?

Oh!  I am!  I am!  What part do you want to see? Oh geez. No one wants to see the Spanish InquisitionFrench Revolution I am drawing a bit more from 3rd and 5th century Rome however.

You know, if we went back to Boulder we could do a ton of good.

I think I agree. Time to head to Boulder.

[mainiac]

I think I agree. Time to head to Boulder.

Um, how exactly?  Like wanted criminals and whatnot?  You thinking head back to hide in Oldtown or something?

[3man75]

You know, if we went back to Boulder we could do a ton of good.

Doing what? Just stopping the bandits won't solve the food problems. Plus wouldn't norris send a strike force to
Like kill us dead? An then set us on fire?

[Playergamer]

Option B, offer our services to the Boulder National Guard.

Clear out the bandits, bring in food and open trade routes.

[Ghazkull]

^that or ask the Mountain Men if they want to expand and that we could be their non-essential meatshields

[mainiac]

((There doesn't seem to be a consensus, so I'm just moving things along a bit.))

-----------------------------------
2269
-----------------------------------

While the 17th was restoring a little bit of stability to their patch of the world, things were just as unstable as ever across the Mississippi.  President Norris had come out in top but faced disloyalty and risk of coups from below.  So he returned to the oldest trick in the book and tried to rally the population together with an outside war.



India had resisted American hegemony going all the way back to the forth world war.  Their role in securing victory meant that even the imperialist president Jenkins had been reluctant to make them toe the line.  Escaping the worst of the weapons of mass destruction of the forth world war, they had grown into an economically powerful rival to the militarily powerful United States.  A nominally friendly but complicated alliance lasted for many years until President Norris, who spoke of the dangers of the powerful Indian military.


In 2265, India possessed over 20,000 ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets anywhere in North America.

Norris made demands of India for disarmament and when the demands were inevitably rebuffed, ordered a sneak attack on the Indian military in 2268.


Norris was confident that with nuclear landkruzers he could interdict the coastal cities of India and force them to accept his demands.  Furthermore he could send the generals he feared the most far away, thus removing threats to his power at home.  For eight months this strategy seemed to go well as Mumbai, Surat and Kochi were seiged into surrender.  Then came Colombo...


No, not Columbo


Colombo, in Sri Lanka

In September of 2269, India revealed it's new weapons system against the 9th Armored.

This new weapon released a burst of subatomic particles that disrupted nuclear power generation through thousands of meters of water.  The machinery of the landkruzers fell inert as the nuclear generators died.  Swarms of nuclear torpedos soon followed and for the first time in history, landkruzers were defeated


Wreckage from the UST Andrew Jackson, pride of the 9th Armored

In a fit of rage, President Norris labeled the Indian Expenditionary Force traitors causing the garrisons of Mumbai, Kochi and Surat to prompty defect and abandon the occupation of India.  Within a week, India had effectively won the American-Indian war.  It was unprecedented, the US simply did not lose wars.  Nuclear Landkruzers were not defeated.  The military might that controlled the world was suddenly broken...

Riots and rebellions broke out worldwide.

Splinter states rose up around the world, Nagasaki, Pyongyang, Bielefeld, Marsailles as the American backed governments suddenly found themselves unable to cope with the seperatism.  Even the United States was rocked by rebellion.  For the first time in 300 years, huge swathes of American territory openly declared independence from the Federal government, Cuba, Alaska, Quebec, Yucatan, Utah, Houston, Mexico City.

Within hours of the start of the Utah uprising, the National Guard had been driven out of Provo.


Survivors of the Provo Guard started fleeing east from the rebels, some ending up in Boulder, others joining the 17th.  Religious persecutions between Mormons and non Mormons broke out in Provo and Boulder, followed soon by new waves of refugees and war.

It was obvious that Federal troops weren't coming.  Norris was soon killed by his own people in DC and at least four different Generals made bids to replace him.  The holy warriors of Utah soon push the Boulder National Guard east and put Boulder under siege.  The steady pounding of artillery starts to tear down the mighty walls of the city.

Most of the 17th made it safely to Cavern Forge as the fighting started up.  A few scattered units were stuck behind the battlelines but you can still muster a force of about 300 in all.  And of course you still had nearly 700 soldiers who have small arms but dont have the combat gear to fight on the surface.  There was still a crucial shortage of ammo and a nearly complete lack of heavy equipment.  Given these realities, the senior staff pushed Carter towards different courses of action:

A) Join the winning side, help the holy warriors overrun Boulder and Federal troops are gone from this area for good
B) Boulder needs us, head around to the south and join up with the Boulder National Guard
C) Boulder needs us, attack the rear areas of the Utah holy warriors.
D) We dont want to be involved with either side.  Claim our own stake of territory and keep both sides out.
E) We dont want to be involved with either side.  Leave the area and head towards Texas.  With Dallas in open revolt we can safely leave the county and go anywhere in the world.