The Union States of Americo

[Christoffer Lernö]

I think that's a good template for "why". But you don't need it to provide the final say. With the facts you provided before your explanation I could come up with a lot of other ways to "explain" the Enigma. Leaving it out in the open destroys a lot of possibilities.

[Mike Holmes]

I think you have an idea that's worth looking at further.

My point with the population still stands, however. That is, if we have less than 300,000 people left in what was formerly America, you can forget about population pressures or political rivalry. After we get done with the big cities and just their population proper (not considering the metropolitan areas which tend to be more than double these figures):

Code Select Expand

City          Curr Pop    Post Bang
New York      8,008,278   8008
Los Angeles 3,694,820   3695
Chicago       2,896,016   2896
Houston       1,953,631   1954
Philadelphia  1,517,550   1518
Phoenix       1,321,045   1321
San Diego     1,223,400   1223
Dallas        1,188,580   1189
San Antonio   1,144,646   1145
Detroit         951,270    951
                        23899

We have taken care of ten percent of the remaining population. Something like 3% of the current population of the US is rural. That means that less than 10,000 people are spread out between the cities of the US. And the "cities" are back to being small towns at best. A place like Milwaukee will have about 1000 people for the whole metropolitan area. That's nothing.

Wyoming, pretty much empty right now, will have just a few hundred people roaming a titanic state.

I doubt that the people of the "town" of New York will have much of aything to do with the people of Philadelphia. Oh, they'll demand tribute from the village of Jerseyans across the river, but they'll rarely have time to make a trip as far as the Hamlet of Boston a couple hundred miles away.

This is not enough people to have politicians, much less political strife. Even if births caused the population to quadruple in a single generation, that would still not be enough for political strife.

Mike

[RPunkG]

I agree wholeheartedly about the small populations and the lack of politics with a plethora of small towns, but what I have conceives is not a lot of small towns scattered across America.

My concept is as follows:  The areas with larger populations (in this example... New York) conglomorated and began to work together.  The other smaller towns, with significantly smaller populations, began to wander like nomads searching for food.

Over time, these bands of nomads stumbled across the larger groups of population.  Larger groups had already assigned tasks to maximize efficiency and, therefore, had "leaders" to oversee the work.  As the smaller groups arrived (attracted by night fires or the smell of food) they would join these larger cities.  Later in the years, the job leaders would come to assume political postions.

The only cities in the Land are the most populated regions in the current world.  New York, DC, Miami, Dallas, Kansas City, Chicago, San Francisco, Anchorage, etc...

As for discovering eachother, I based it on human curiosity.  The political leaders would want to explore the rest of the Land to see if there were any other survivors.  This is all based around "wind transports."  Train tracks start in many of the cities and extend off into the distant horizon.  They began to assume these Ancient tracks were directions to other major areas, so they attempted to follow them.  They constructed wooden and metal vehicles that fit onto the train tracks (not a difficult task) and installed windmills on them to use wind power to turn the wheels and propell the transport forward.  (Not necessarily easy, but also not impossible.)  Following these tracks often led to dead ends, but occasionally led to other cities.  These tracks were mapped and soon regular trips were made.

Perhaps this makes the idea a little more feasible?  Does this sound probable to anyone else?  This makes sense to me, but perhaps I'm suspending too much belief for the sake of the story?  I dont think the game would be fun with thousands of tiny towns populated by a few hundred people.  And then the political aspect is eliminated.

Let me know what you think!

[RPunkG]

Im also content to leave the Enigma up in the air; in fact, I am developing rules for generating unique ones, but I felt explaining my original concept might have cleared up a few discrepancies with the world.

However, any number of other explainations would be just as acceptable.  For example, perhaps this is a world where Hitler won WW2 and he is just now getting to America.  Books would be burned because America is "evil" and the nation had been racked with bombs and missiles.  Perhaps their attacks lasted only long enough to eliminate a military threat before a mind-wiping chemical bomb was released to protect their interests.

Creating explainations is fairly easy

[Mike Holmes]

Toronto, Mexico City. If you're going to have a loss of knowledge, and include Alaska in the game, then these two cites are going to be important. Especially considering that Mexico City has been the largest population center in North America since before white men appeared here.

Anyhow, I agree that people would concentrate in the big "towns". Lets say that each gets to be five times it's current size from, refugees. This means that the countryside is depopulated, and New York City is now at a whopping 80,000 people. This is smaller than Athens was as an Imperial power by quite a bit. City states of this size also have surrounding holdings. Still not large enough to think about politics outside of it's own borders.

I didn't say that they would be unaware of each other, these towns. But there would be so much space in between them that there would be little reason to interact. Even if they had easy transportation technology. Again, at most you'd have something like an Athens/Sparta realtionship between NY and Philadelphia (the Greeks had ships). Which means more of a raiding warfare than anything else.

That I can see. A town low on food, but high on transport might decide to take advantage and steal a properous town's food.

But this means potential casualties, and that means further depopulation. After twenty years of raids, I think towns are going to be quite on the defensive.

Also, for this to work, there must be something wrong with the soil. Given the low populations there will be plenty of arable land to go around (America is overabundant this way). The New Yorkers could make it cultivating Long Island back yards alone, or even just planting central park. So did the apocalypse change this somehow?

Mike

[RPunkG]

The apocolypse didnt change the soil (necessarily) but growing food is not necessarily an option for the survivors of new york.  While they could grow food in the useable lands, they need to feed 80,000 people today, not in a few months when the crops have grown.

A lot of food is going to come from the meat of animals, eggs and various other vegitation.  In extreme cases, people will eat worms.  While this does provide sustinance, it doesnt compare to the abundance of vegetables available in the MidWest, for example.

The greeks did conquer a great deal of land and their political power only stretched so far, but their goal was to conquer and control.  Once they had accomplished their goal and stretched to the "end of the world," they concentrated on keeping everyone in check.

In this case, however, the cities have different reasons to explore and maintain contact.  The cities in less hospitable areas (Texas in the South Desert and The City of Oil in the North Tundra) will require food from the MidWest.  Each city will require flammable liquid from the Nation of Oil and the MidWest requires building materials and manpower to maintain their city walls.  Trade of foreign objects is a major goal for the pirates of the West and the scholars scour the Land searching for clues to the past.

Politics will also be high as each city extends their borders grabbing for land.  If an area of land full of corn is discovered by scouts of different cities, how will they handle the ownership?  One side may show up with diplomats and one side might show up with guns.

Each city will be defensive of eachother, but reluctant to go to full scale war, due to the small populations.  A cold war might be a better term, but each city will be constantly suspicious of eachother (like a political game of paranoia.)

[RPunkG]

Essentially, when have humans ever known of a distant land and never had any political relations with them?  The Renaissance Europe traded very far East, America signed numerous political contracts with Indians that lived hundreds and hundreds of miles away from DC... politics is how humans deal with other humans.

Politics between Italy and India and England during the Renaissance were constant and trade was a major interest... and this is a distance much greater than New York to Michigan.

[Jeffrey Miller]

The apocolypse didnt change the soil (necessarily) but growing food is not necessarily an option for the survivors of new york.  While they could grow food in the useable lands, they need to feed 80,000 people today, not in a few months when the crops have grown.

Yes, but that was 20 years ago.  I imagine a mass famine in the 1-3 years immediately following The Event, then a general stabilization as people either figured out how to survive or died.

What's the repopulation rate?

A lot of food is going to come from the meat of animals, eggs and various other vegitation.

So all forms of flora and fauna survive through The Event, except for Humans?  Why?  What makes humans special?  Think about throwing something else wierd in there that did not survive... like, how creepy/interesting is it  for humans and, say, chickens and fleas are the only creatures depopulated?

In extreme cases, people will eat worms.  While this does provide sustinance, it doesnt compare to the abundance of vegetables available in the MidWest, for example.

Only if you like grain. Recommended reading for anyone designing their own societies.  You really need to understand the role of the environment on the development of culture and society to recreate them elsewhere. (..and it won a Pulitzer, so you can feel edumacated, too!)

Each city will be defensive of eachother, but reluctant to go to full scale war, due to the small populations.  A cold war might be a better term, but each city will be constantly suspicious of eachother (like a political game of paranoia.)

Moving any sizable force of people through wilderness without the benefit of motorized transportation and hefty supply lines & sources is impossible.  At best, the pre-Revolutionary War period campaign season was roughly 3 months, IF you had a good summer, and if you could convince the levied troops that their crops would last until late autumn..

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Welcome to the Forge, and congratulations on being brave enough to post your stuff here ... as you can see, you'll get attention that's a little different from most RPG internet discussions.

I'm thinking that we should focus on your stated points of play: experiencing problems with survival and learning the secret of what happened. These are the player-goals you've presented as the solid "meat" of the game.

Well ... several questions arise from that.

1) Are the problems with survival really that interesting to experience? Let's say your rules do an amazing job of simulating, say, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Good - we run a session and experience that problem, and cope with it in some way. Then, what's next? Oil spill and bio-hazards - we see how well the rules do that (let's say it's stellar). Good - then, what's next?

In other words, once we cope with a hazard, the drama or interest of the next hazard is diminished sharply. One solution is to shift the emphasis on "survive the hazard" to a different realm, more of, "survive the hazard to ensure X," but then we'd have to find out what kind of X is most interesting for you as the designer.

2) "Can my character survive" presents some severe problems for play which many game designers don't consider carefully. Fundamentally, what if "my character" ... doesn't? It's quite uninspiring to play a game in which the single most trenchant problem is trying to keep my character alive ... and in which, if I fail, I am no longer allowed to play.

If a game is to present character-survival as an ongoing, central problem, then (it seems to me) the player should continue to be functionally part of the game even when a character is killed.

3) The Enigma presents some concerns as well. If I understand you correctly, the players are not to know the reasons for the Big Apocalypse any more than the characters do. Again, if I'm correct, this means that when they do find out, the game is over, or at least it's stripped of one of its main reasons to play.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, though - so if you would, please describe to me (a) the character's beginning outlook toward the Engma (for instance, why would he care?), (b) the player's beginning outlook toward the Enigma (does he know that finding it out is a goal of play?), (c) events during play that would change either of these things, (d) what sort of situation or in-game material "gives the game away" or answers the Enigma, and (d) what sort of continued play after that point is possible.

I know it seems like a lot to ask, but as presented in the threads and essays linked earlier in the thread, I think that "Setting which provides the most enjoyable play," has more power (as a design focus) than "Play in order to find out about the basic foundations of the Setting."

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

What Eogan said. After the destruction, starvation will be an issue. Either food is available on hand long enough to establish long term living conditions (farming). Or people will travel to where there is food, and then do the same. In that case, the population will be even smaller from starvation.

As I keep saying, the city-states will have contact with each other. But if you do take enough people with you to conquer the other town, why not just stay there, and not go home? If New Yorkers are going to have so much trouble surviving, then they'd move to where the food is. By your logic everyone would just move to the midwest. And, hey, that's OK. Just the state of Illinios has enough land to feed every last one of them ten times over. And still no need for conflict. Much less over the whole country.

But this all does not fit the facts. There is plenty enough food growing in upstate New York to feed their 80,000. What, they don't have farms in NY state? Why travel all the way to the midwest, starving all the way, when food is much closer. It's only 80,000 people. NY state probably produced food for several million (at least the population of the towns outside of the metropolitan areas). If 5% survives to be collected that'll feed everyone.

Oil extraction requires somewhat complex equipment, and also people to do the extraction. Texans are going to be too busy trying to feed themselves to worry about getting Oil. In addition, if that equipment survived, then, presumably, other such equipment survived, and, for example, the national petroleum reserve might still be intact. Putting much more easliy available oil in Colorado than in Texas. Then there are all the refineries across the country. Not to mention all the gas stations. Which have gasoline. Let's say that 1% of those survive. Given that the population is one tenth of that, there will be a supply of gas that will last ten times as long as a gas station goes before refilling. What's that, a week, a month? Well, anyhow, enough for a few weeks consumption at a rate equal to the pre-collapse level. With conservation it might last years without having to go anywhere for more.

As opposed to oil. I suppose it's possible to make an oil-burning car, but I think it's going to be real slow. Making Oil into gas is an even more complex procedure. Somebody remembers all that? Or has worked it out? And why bother with all this if we have steam power available from chopping down trees? And wind power, and water power, and all the rest. These last are a lot more primitive and easier to produce than oil.

Nope, there's just not enough competition for resources. Why do you need cars at all? So small a populace could just live in bucolic peace on farms in their local vecinity. Using whatever resources they have to travel out to the other communities to trade occasionally. You just have too few people living in too large an area of abundant resources. The number of people is also small enough that specialization is difficult. Remember that an economy of scale is, well, an economy of scale. You need lot's of people to maintain any technology. Even if you know how to make it (wich we're still unclear on).

This is not to say that war will never happen. But they will be small, local things, and anything over a longer distance will be more like viking raiding than anything else (which could be cool).

Mike

[Jeffrey Miller]

As I keep saying, the city-states will have contact with each other. But if you do take enough people with you to conquer the other town, why not just stay there, and not go home? If New Yorkers are going to have so much trouble surviving, then they'd move to where the food is. By your logic everyone would just move to the midwest. And, hey, that's OK. Just the state of Illinios has enough land to feed every last one of them ten times over. And still no need for conflict. Much less over the whole country.

Also, cities are where they are for a reason, not "just cuz".  New York is where it is because of the Hudson and the need to control North-South Dutch fur trade instead of dealing with the French in the St Lawrence...

(can anyone guess what I've been studying?  Don't worry, I'll post the summary shortly)

[RPunkG]

I appreciate everyones opinions and conversations on the idea behind my post-apocolyptic world.

However, it seems obvious to me that I haven't quite thought everything through.  Everyone has made excellent points (albeit oil production, population problems, migration theories) and, unfortunately I don't have the answers or story concepts to explain them away or make them seem plausible.

I suppose I bit off more than I could chew; seeing as how I know very little about sociology, human behavior or agriculture.  Overwhelmed with a bunch of questions I cant answer... i suppose I might just scrap the ide and start over?  Or perhaps make it less complex.

:)

[Eric J.]

I'm wondering why you chose post-apoptaliptic myself.  What part of it are you trying to capitolize?  Is it the return to basic warfare and the destrucuralization of law and human societies?  Is it the stife of humankind to rebild itself?  There are a lot of interesting ways of doing it.  I would simply advise you to think about what reasons that you are doing this for.  It is imporant to know.  RPGs have strong points.  Ficticious worlds have strong points.  Capitolize on strenghts that are indicitive to them both.

[RPunkG]

Originally I did the post-apocolyptic world for two reasons.

To get away from the huge guns and rampant cyber wear of a CyberPunk world and to create a fantasy setting that isn't the "traditional" setting with wizards and elves and dragons.

Really, me and my friends have been roleplaying for years and we're all quite exhausted of d&d, shadowrun, and GURPS supers.  I was trying to fashion a new roleplaying world that hadn't been done before, providing new scenarios and situations as a refreshing change.

[Mike Holmes]

Have you read all of the following?

Gamma World
Morrow Project
Aftermath!
Twilight:2000
Tribe 8

and most importantly:

deadErth, the most comprehensive guide on how not to make such a game.

These all have interesting perspectives on living in a post-apocalyptic world.

Mike[/b]