Game Log spring 2013

Going to Town

On April 5, as the group sat in the dining hall planning their first official trip to Sackville, ( there had been several low key recon trips during the winter )  a “post wagon” is seen by the guard on the roof. With a good amount of snow still on the ground, a slay pulled by a horse team was making its way up the road, stopping at each house. When they got to the long drive way of the fort they called out, waited a few minutes, dropped a letter into the mail box, then moved on.

The letter was in two parts; a generic invitation to a town meeting to be held on the 25, and a personal written letter from the Mayor and the Director, inviting some representatives from ACRO to an informal morning meeting at city hall.

Doc had been working on plans to “take over” the town, by helping it and gaining influence in the new government. His more Machiavellian idea would be to make the student leaders look bad; either as incompetent or as tyrannical. John often debated Doc over political tactics. His main concern was that democracy should not be scarified in the name of survival.

The team going to town was Katerie, Kellyanna, Farmer Brown, and Doc as representatives of ARCO. The Grunt and Yvan would go as guards for the group and look after the vehicle. Choosing to make a grand entrance, the group drove to town in a hovercraft. The town guards were very surprised by this, but they had been told to be on their best behavior concerning people from the fort.

There was no end of rumors about the group at the fort up in Midgic. The fact that they had killed off an entire troop of bandits, made them heroes not murderers. Such was life in the new world. Of course half the rumors were untrue, while the other half were exaggerations.

The group met with Director Dave in the small conference room at city hall. He showed himself off as a serious hardworking official, no formality or fancy clothes. He wanted to split fact from fiction about the group and then see where they stood on certain issues. Basically he wanted to know if they would be friend or foe.

Doc lead the ARCO team in its presentation of a friendly face. He stressed that the group was made up of experts in various fields, who were researching alternative technologies and techniques for farming and for living; the kind of people that Sackville would benefit from having around. He strongly hinted that ARCO people should be in charge of some of the activities that were or should be going on around town.

The meeting arrived at an agreement in principal that both sides could smile about. The details would be worked out over the next few weeks. But there was “one more thing” that Dave wanted to talk about; the Bandits of Dorchester. Reports from a few survivors told about how the prisoners of Dorchester Detention Center, located about 12 km west of Sackville as the crow files (14.6 km along main road), had taken over after the EMP. 

After the violent take over, some of the 500 prisoners had simply left, but most had stayed on to use the prison as a fort. They raided near by homes and farms, in a bloody orgy of violence; looting and taking captives. However this first set of raids did not address the bandits’ real needs. So the next set of raids were made with more intelligence. They aimed at a system of protection, wanting sizable tribute now, to get winter supplies, and promising future visits would be peaceful if the farmers cooperated.

The bandits were a danger that Sackville had to deal with sooner than later. They would be a major topic at the town meeting.

The ARCO group had lunch at one of the few local taverns that was still in business. Although there were strict rationing rules for many items, liquor was not on the list. Kellyanna became quite the center of attention as she caroused with the locals. Doc on the other hand was trying to dispel some of the myths about the group and their camp. “We do have guns. We do not have gold.”

The town meeting was held from 1pm until dark, with extra security laid on just in case. The drastic measures that had been taken to help the town survive the winter were not popular with everyone. Some of the people who lived just outside the new-town-zone, were especially aggravated; either because they had stayed at home and been left to fend for themselves, or because they had moved into town but still owned property outside it.

The mayor played host at the meeting but it was clear who was in charge of things; Director Dave and a small group of students ( the new department heads ) each made a report and then answered questions. A few of the old council members and university professors were on stage as the advisory body, but they said little during the event.

What was going to happen next? – That was the question on most people’s minds.

Dave outlined the plan as follows: The town would stay compact and its defenses would be improved. People were welcome to move into town or stay in their homes nearby. Services, including protection, would be extended outside the town walls, but they could not be guaranteed to be as effective out there. Abandoned farms would be taken over by the town as common property. Nearby farmers, would keep their property of course, but they would be required to donate a sizable percentage of their produce.

In the Republic of Dave citizenship would be a combination of rights and responsibilities. A lot of the classic freedoms in the bill of rights were included, but also there was a list of duties required for the common good and survival of the community. A lot of useless modern laws were to be suspended, but the rule of law was to be abandoned.

Dave also promised there would be more direct democracy. Town meetings and votes would be held on major issues, about once per month. There would be elections, but not till next year.

Near the end of the meeting a spot light was put on the ARCO group and they were introduced as friends of the community. “Perhaps they can even help with the bandit problem.” One of the lieutenants on stage suggested. This of course led right into the subject of Dorchester serving as a fort for robbing rapping scum. The crowd was quickly in agreement that something had to be done soon. But there was debate over what. In the end Dave suggested the people with serious ideas, especially those with military experience, meet with him later that night. Of course the ARCO crew went to the meeting.

The attack plan against Dorchester penitentiary was outlined that night, but would be revised several times over the next two weeks as preparations were made and as recon teams came back with new info.

 

Game Log – winter 2013

Not much to say.

The group kept to themselves in their camp. With regular guard watches and patrols set. Of course after many cold days of dullness no one was very happy with going outside to stand around. So guard duty became short shifts that quickly rotated. Ranger Bob continued to make recon trips around the local area, stopping in to see a few of the friendly farmers every week or two.

Boredom was the big enemy.  The four wind turbines provided enough power for essential systems, ( heating, water pumps, kitchen, security system, a few lights ) but never enough for everything people wanted. Never the less Kellyanna insisted that there should be a movie ( usually a few anime episodes ) in the TV room every night.

Keeping warm was a challenge on the colder days, because the heat system could not be run at its full ability. People started warming up bricks in the wood stove and putting them under chairs or in beds.

The food supply was no problem, although Farmer Brown was not at all happy with the harvest, it had only been about half of what he expected the land to eventually produce. But with the basement stock rooms full of canned goods and stuff, surviving the winter would be easy. The problem would be next winter, when they would have to make do with only the crops they grew.

Who was sleeping with who;

Scott Trucker and May Lin, a long time couple was doing well.

John the activist and Mary the hacker, had lots of fights, broke up and got back together.

Katerie stated seeing John the grunt, neither seemed to take it very seriously, but they were stable together.

Doc Ward started seeing Katerie’s sister, this proved to be a more dramatic relationship, he alternated between too much studying or drinking, she yelled a lot.

Kellyanna and Yvan were the camp’s most watched couple because they always seemed to be doing something romantic or silly. No one would ever forget the way Kellyanna dressed up in anime-nurse costumes to tend to Yvan after he got shot in a hunting accident.

As spring drew near the group started talking about how they should handle relations with their neighbors, especially with the town of Sackville.  

The Republic of Dave

 Game Data for Sackville

Before the shit hits the fan, Sackville NB, has a population of about 5,500 plus about 2,600 students who attend Mount Allison University. Although the town is a small “village-like” place, the University is ranked #1 in the country. 

Recently a new town hall was built combining administrative functions with emergency services; police & fire departments. Previously each was scattered across town.

The Harness Shop may be a very useful asset, it makes hand crafted leather goods including tack for riding and working horses. ( has know how of old technology )

Mount Allison University has a total staff of 460, of this about 290 are teachers. Departments with 12 or more teaches are; Biology, Business, Chemistry, Computer Sci. English, Environmental Studies, Fine Arts, History, Modern Languages, Math, Music, Physics, and Psychology. The other departments mostly have 6 professors each.

Meloney electronics Inc. “is the only transformer manufacturer in North America that can boast of having provided cost effective solutions for 1000s of different applications for over 100 years.”

Points of interest from a map;

The big Home Hardware center just off the highway

Regional civic center 

Coastal Inn – 50 unit hotel

Soricimed Bio-pharmacy Inc. 

Armtec drainage products Inc.

Westmorland veterinary hospital 

Russel Metals Inc.

Sacville Auto & RV Ltd. A family business

The Selem elementary school is inside town zone, but the high school is not.

Several farms and a golf course are in the planned town zone

Story line

When the EMP happened people were surprised and confused. The mayor and town officials spent the first few days dealing with the direct results of the EMP; a few fires, lots of panic, and a lack of power or communications.

Meanwhile some of the Mount A. students had figured out what had really happened. They tried to see the mayor to explain the situation to him, but they were turned down several times. They eventually got him to listen when they dragged in a professor of physics to explain the science of what an EMP is. Although the mayor and council listened, they did not really grasp the severity of the situation. They kept on thinking the problem was a local one and that help would soon arrive, the power would be turned back on and things would get back to normal soon.

It was during this critical meeting that Dave Donovhan, leader of the student group, eloquently hammered home the both short and long term seriousness of the situation. Help would not be coming. The town had to look after itself. If direct action was not taken immediately, things would be even more difficult than they were going to be.

Naturally the town council started to debate the matter.

For several days the town council along with some experts from the university met and talked about what should be done. Meanwhile Dave and his group organized students as much as possible to deal with the disaster and plan for winter survival.

One week after EMP

After the mayor was frustrated at the hopelessness of the situation, he did the only sensible democratic thing he could; he called a full town meeting. Several professors gave the crowd an outline of the situation, including expected best and worst case scenarios.  Dave and his group quickly stood up and demanded a chance to speak before the flood of questions. He offered a plan of action, being a good public speaker; he soon had the town voting for it.  At the end of the meeting the mayor named Dave acting town director for the length of the emergency.

Dave started the very next day putting the plan into action.

Although he was the center of attention and a strong motive force behind the ‘save our town student movement’ Dave was not the dominant dictator people would later accuse him of being. Many other students shared similar ideas and were happy to push into the mountain of work that had to be done.

“Do what needs to be done. It’s not a question of money or of law right now, it’s a matter of manpower, skills, time and resources. The aim is everyone’s survival. Sacrifice in the short term will be many and painful.”  That is what Dave said many times in the first month. 

The plan had several major points

1. Inventory of all food supplies, confiscation of any supplies in excess of one week. Exceptions were to be reasonable, to avoid pissing people off too much.
2. Organization of food / supply storage and distribution, with an eye for stretching things out through winter and spring.
3. Restoring power to key areas of the town, this lead to the ‘war of the wind farm’ with the town of Amherst, who also wanted the power generating ability.
4. Downsizing of the town footprint, which meant moving people from nearby areas into the defensive zone and moving people from buildings that had no alternative heating to those with wood stoves. Services if they could be restored would not be extended outside the defensive zone.
5. Confiscation of essential businesses and materials. People would be paid back later, with money or tax credits.
6. Ensuring the defense of the town, vs. possible bandits.

Power Policy

After the ‘war of the wind farm’ it was agreed that electricity would be split 70 / 30 between Sackville and Amherst. Although the wind farm was technically in NS not NB, it was the militia from Sackville that took control of it ( and set up a guard post there ). Even so the power it supplied was not enough to operate the town at normal levels. Thus essential services and key buildings got power all the time, while homes and businesses got power for 6 hours / day on a rotational basis. 

Sackville town map 

Notice the yellow markings for the planned deference works 

Town Defense

A lot of work was needed to set up the defenses and then a lot of men were needed to guard the town. Seven gates were created to control access to the town along the roads; they would be linked to a nearby building, which would be modified to include an observation tower. Each gate would have a 5 man guard team, one of them being keeper of the walky-talky. Gate #1 next to the University would serve more as a command center able to dispatch several mobile 5 man teams if they were needed. A few 2 man teams would patrol the town on foot. A total of 150 men (50x3 shifts per day) would be required. The RCMP and anyone with real army experience would act as officers in the town guard.

A fence would be built around the perimeter. This was a big job because some land would have to be cleared and a service road built along side the fence. As much as possible the natural water defenses of the area would be included in the plan. When we say fence, one should thing more about a Roman palisade work; a ditch, hidden spikes, earth mound and fence, with a few hardened positions for defenders to hide behind, not simply a chain-link stand alone fence.

Some work was done on the fence before winter set in, but it was mostly uncompleted.

The plan called for Crossman Road to serve as the West edge of town, however the practical matters of downsizing and surviving winter meant that Salem Street was the temporary Western boundary. ( no services were extended beyond this during winter ) Like wise to the South, the Gate was intended to be at the junction of Wood Point road, next to the rail way tracks, but for the winter it was at Queen and Salem streets intersection.

Story Line – Continued

During the fall there was frantic activity to be ready for winter. People grumbled about Director Dave and his plan, but for the most part things went well, there were only a few problems that resulted in violence. Of course some people ( especially those outside the downsized footprint of the town ) did not want to go along with the plan. They claimed that they would be fine in their own homes and would not contribute to the collective supply house. They were pressured and pestered about it, but in the end force was not used on them. Most survived, a few came begging at the town gates in mid winter, a few died in their homes.

It was during the winter that most of the trouble happened. Some people had little to do except complain. Especially once their personal stock piles of food ran out and they were entirely dependent on the “soup-kitchen” rationing system that the town offered.

Several thefts of food occurred. When some of the criminals were captured justice was swift and public. They were whipped and told that next time they would be shot.

Of course winter was not dull for everyone. There were many projects on the go. Those with needed skills, and those with the interest to learn said skills, were kept hopping. Dave and his inner circle of students, were laying the foundations for dealing with the long term, not just the one winter. While most people expected things to get back to normal eventually, they were talking about a new and better society.

It is very important to point out here that there was a sharp division in the population. Those who saw current events as a tragic blow to their lives, who subconsciously thought that the world had ended when the EMP happened and those who looked ahead with hope, who actually enjoyed the challenges that life now offered them. In general terms this was an age related phenomena. Except for a few old radicals at the University who thought the world needed to be knocked on its ass, and a few old farmers who were kind of proud to help do things like they did in the good old days, most of the people over 30 suffered a kind of reality shock.  

Life after the EMP

September

The electro magnetic pulse, caused by three high altitude nuclear detonations over the USA, affected most of Canada also ( the critical 100km zone near the boarder was well within the effect zone ) on September 26, 2012. Remote northern communities suffered little if any damage.

The first big challenge

When the EMP hits; the lights go out, computers and phones stop working, other electronic devices fail too, vehicles with advanced systems also fail. This last point causes serious immediate problems because; some cars & trucks will crash, wile many emergency vehicles may not function. However the overall death count is likely to be small, because the majority of cars will simply lose power, slow down, pull over and stop.

The more deadly vehicle related event will be the crashing air planes. Most modern planes use commuter controls and fly-by-wire technology, if they lose these systems they will crash. Those taking off and landing will cause disasters near the airports; those already in flight will come down quite randomly. The resulting explosions and fires will not be properly handled because communications are down and many fire trucks are not working.

Game mechanics = small chance of an airplane crash on / near the PCs.

An EMP not only causes the electricity to go out, it also because some devices like power transformers and generators to explode. This will certainly start some fires; the bigger cities are more at risk because they have more of these devices. The danger is not the fires themselves but the response to them. With out phones or an effective fire department, the people who notice the fires will be the ones to deal with them. It is reasonable to assume that a good number of these fires will get out of control.

Thus the first day or so after the EMP is mostly about fighting fires. Unless a community is very lucky, it will lose a few buildings. Some people, perhaps many, will be left homeless.

During the first few nights of near total darkness, there will be a serious fear of looters, especially in the larger cities. With the power out and fires burning the police will be on high alert for people acting crazy or those just trying to take advantage of the situation for criminal activity. Small communities with a spirit of co-operation will suffer less from the paranoia and from the actual violence. However there is still a heightened chance of a misunderstanding turning ugly, as frightened people may shoot first and ask questions later. ( yes even here in Canada )

October  

  

About 5 days after the EMP things will have settled down. The initial state of shock and the frantic activity, which may have included attempts to stuck up supplies, will have passed. The local authorities will have reestablished order, or completely fallen apart.

Almost all businesses will be shut down or converted to essential services. Assuming the local government is not paralyzed, it will have installed a sort of martial law, which will include an effort to restore power. Also high on its list of priorities will be getting emergency vehicles working or improvising replacement vehicles. Electricians and mechanics will be worked hard.

The big challenge of the month

Food supplies will be getting low. The average person has only about one week of supplies at home, this includes stuff in the refrigerator ( which no longer functions ). If the authority has taken quick actions to secure the grocery stores, there will be enough to keep the community going for a few more weeks, but strict rationing will be required. If the authority was unstable or just unlucky, a sizable amount of food may have been looted from the stores by this time.

A smart authority will quickly extend its confiscation of food stuffs to all restaurants and anything which is not a privet dwelling. Unfortunately a lot of food which is stored frozen or refrigerated may have gone bad by the time it is needed.

The sharing of privet supplies will be discussed, but it is a tricky issue. A call for donations to be distributed to the needy can be made, but is unlikely to amount to much. Those smart / paranoid enough to store up supplies will not be expecting the emergency to end soon, ( even though authorities will constantly talk about how things are getting back to normal ) they will want to keep enough to survive the winter.

The local government will, by the end of the month, have to consider the dangerous policy of total food control. This would likely include stripping everyone down to a few days’ basic supplies, then setting up distribution centers. Rationing would be aimed at long term survival, with the assumption no new food would be incoming. The community would have to stretch things until crops could be grown next year. 

A smart authority would quickly amend the hunting law to only allow an animal ( larger than a rabbit ) to be killed, if half the kill went to the community distribution butcher. In these difficult times, people who could hunt would hunt regardless of the law. So getting them to share would be the best policy.

The problem of prisons

They have enough food and supplies for about one week, after that what will become of the inmates? More critically what happens in a prison when the power goes out? Operations, as normal as possible, will continue for several days, as the warden tries to find out what in the world is going on. By the start of October, some hard choices must be made. Are they all left to starve to death?  Are some let go and others executed? 

Although it is unlikely, the inmates may take over the prison. This gains them a number of weapons and a secure base of operations from which they may raid the surrounding area. ( a very good game plot idea )

Winter  

Surviving a Canadian winter requires two things, 1. food & water, 2. shelter & heat. With out power many people will have no water, because most water pumps are electric. There will be a rush in the fall to set up alternative systems for water delivery. Also most people depend on power for their heating systems, natural gas and oil furnaces do not work without electricity. There will be a rush to acquire wood stoves by those who plan to spend winter in their own homes. Of course they also need a supply of wood, which may be very expensive

Again we have a question of community spirit. In larger towns people are more likely to try and profit by providing much needed services and goods. While in smaller towns your neighbor will simply help you go cut down some wood and you will share it.

How many people will die during winter

Most will starve to death, or die in the search for food. In a more general way this also includes people killed trying to steal food. Freezing to death is the next biggest danger, and may be linked to the search for food.

Deaths by fire and smoke inhalation may actually outnumber those who freeze, especially considering most people have very little experience with using fire for heating and cooking. Accidental house fires will be a big problem in winter, because communications may still be down, fire trucks may still be few in number, most roads will not be plowed and the water system may have no pressure. 

Also anyone taking drugs to keep themselves alive will be in trouble. Supplies will quickly run out, with no replacements to be found. Natural herbal drugs may help some, if they can be found. However there will be many among the old who are simply doomed.