This is the introduction that should have been at the top of the thread. It wasn't written at the time.
Links to other
Altered States material:
Africa in 2032. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=23546) Tribal spirits, marketplaces for magic, techno-tribalism.
The Destruction of Washington, D.C. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=23631) The Day the NAN War ended.
###
I'm building
Altered States, a Alt-History Technothriller
Shadowrun. Let's break that down.
Alt-History: This doesn't occur in the canon
Shadowrun timeline.
Altered States has its own timeline, with many events that are similar to the canon (such as a VITAS plague) and many others that are wholly new. There are several differences, among them being:
The US still exists (but is almost Balkanized). NAN has collapsed (plus it had different boundaries in America, and never existed in Canada). There was no Resource Rush and no Seretech and Shiawase decisions, so no corporate extraterritoriality. Mexico, India, and Coastal China (the Republic of China) are the top three nations. UGE and Goblinization occurred at the same time in 2011 (an event called the Emergence). No Immortal Elves or "4th World" Great Dragons. No Toxic Shamans. And so forth.
Technothriller: Altered States is a technothriller campaign, best described as "
Shadowrun, as written by Tom Clancy". Technothrillers are military- and spy-oriented. They focus on national clashes, espionage, special forces units, and bleeding edge developments. James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Evelyn Salt (from
Salt) are all inspirations (as well as Clancy novels, obviously).
Player characters are specially trained agents of the government, instead of criminals. Other than that, it's pure
Shadowrun.
Stealing data, blackmail, wetworks, destroying facilities, infiltrating installations, extracting people, and all the other
Shadowrun goodness we've come to know and love. Instead of breaking into a Renraku gene lab, you're breaking into an Aztlan air force base.
Many of the changes in the history of the campaign are to support the themes of the campaign (countries instead of corporations) and to develop some aspects of the setting more than in the official material (such as the alt-VITAS post, above).
Shadowrun: This is a cyberfantasy setting, just like
Shadowrun's. It has hermetic mages and shamans, paranatural creatures, and Orks, Trolls, Dwarves, and Elves. It has hacking, rigging, and cyberware. It is still
Man meets Magic and Machine.
It isn't a -punk setting, and draws inspiration from other sources. But it is definitely
Shadowrun, though different than the canon.
As I finish materials, I hope to post them here (and, indeed, have been doing so for the last couple of days). Any comments or ideas are welcome.
# # #
And the VITAS writeup itself.
I'm putting together some campaign support materials for my alt-history technothriller Shadowrun campaign. The following is a second draft writeup of VITAS, annotated in Shadowrun style (though not by the usual gang of criminal lowlifes). Apologies for length.
EDIT: This should have been much shorter. To compensate, I've put additional information—the classic Shadowrun-style comments—in spoiler tags. This should reduce the info overload.
Those who want to read the original article can, those looking for the details in the comments can do that, as well. Apologies for those who smacked too hard into the wall of text.
* * *
###Classified###Spoiler
“De-Federalization; Causes and Consequences”
Task Group Aztlan
The Office for Strategic Analysis
24 June, 2032
> The current internal and external political and military crises are linked by a common chain of causes: VITAS - The Collapse - The Awakening - The NAN War - Defederalization - The Long Depression. The military dis-symmetry between Aztlan and the United States is a result of these events.
If the current ceasefire is broken (and projections indicate an 85% likelihood within the next 2 years), that vulnerability means the United States, in all probability, will not survive the ensuing war. Some parts will be annexed by Aztlan, the rest will become satellite states dominated by same.
Our purpose is to break this chain of events.
- The Director
File #001 - VITAS Plague (Annotated)
--begin file--
Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS)Source:
The American Encyclopedia, 2021 Online Edition. Dr. William Kohl, MD; Pathologist, USAMRIID.
Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS) was a deadly viral epidemic that spread world-wide in 2010. The disease was the most severe pandemic in human history, killing approximately 20% of the world’s population through direct effects (1.38 billion), and another 25% through secondary effects (such as famine, civil unrest, and consequent diseases). VITAS caused permanent allergies even in survivors, which prompted the development of advanced hypo-allergenic materials. Political after-effects of the disease included a global economic depression and the Balkanization of many large countries (including The People’s Republic of China and The United States of America).
OutbreakVITAS began in July of 2010 in a remote region of India, near China and Burma, and spread rapidly into all three countries. The first deaths from the disease occurred 1-2 weeks later, thereafter escalating rapidly in number. The mounting death toll in the region prompted healthcare workers to notify the World Health Organization (WHO) of the possible existence of a new and more deadly strain of the seasonal flu. (At this time, neither Burma nor China had reported any deaths from VITAS, though later investigation revealed significant casualties in both countries, concurrent to the deaths in India.)
A month after the first casualties, Dr. Prasad Kapoor of India’s National Institute of Pathology in New Delhi first identified VITAS as a novel plague, unrelated to the flu virus. A report detailing his findings, and blood samples from infected patients, were provided to WHO and the Centers for Disease Control, and work on isolation and gene sequencing began immediately.
Dr. Kapoor’s report prompted the first widespread media coverage of the virus, under the names “The New Delhi Plague” or “The New Delhi Flu”. The Indian government began efforts to contain the virus, but by the time of Kapoor’s report it had already spread to Australia, Egypt, the United Kingdom, and Panama.
The disease spread quickly, and in almost all cases went untreated. Potential treatments for the disease existed, such as steroids, but there is no recorded instance of them being used.
Spoiler
> Due to its unique characteristics (many of which we still don’t understand today), VITAS moved faster than anyone could predict or cope with medically. We didn’t treat, because we couldn’t treat.
Identification of the symptoms and progression took a year. Conclusive identification of the pathogen (the first step towards developing a diagnostic test) took another year and gene sequencing another six months. Even the name “VITAS” wasn’t coined until two years after the the initial outbreak (by a pair of researchers from USAMRIID).
By the time all this was completed, the epidemic had long since burnt out. During the epidemic, those of us “on the ground” just didn’t know what the disease did, how it killed, or how to treat it.
VITAS is considered the modern Black Death for good reason: we were just as vulnerable to VITAS as Europe was to the Black Death. No prevention, no treatment, no cure.
- Broke-Down Back-Country Doc
VITAS was fairly unique among infectious diseases, as it had no observable primary symptoms. Its only effect was to induce new allergies in infected patients. All other symptoms came from anaphylaxis, their own immune system’s reaction to the newly-developed allergy. Observed anaphylaxis symptoms matched those of natural allergies, and included mild reactions (syncope or loss of consciousness, rashes, shortness of breath) as well as lethal manifestations (myocardial infarction or asphyxiation).
Spoiler
> VITAS was wholly unique, in fact. No other disease prompted allergic—Type 1 Hypersensitivity—responses by the immune system, even indirectly. We know it caused allergies by modifying some part of the immune system, but which parts and how it did so are unknown.
Hematopoietic stem cells in bone marrow that produce white blood cells? The white blood cells themselves, specifically mast cells and basophils? We can only speculate.
- Asclepian
> “Wholly unique.” No other natural disease operates like VITAS did. This strongly argues that VITAS wasn’t natural.
- Paranoid w/ Enemies
> Whose? Everyone got hit, everyone died at pretty much the same rate. 2010’s genetic engineering was insufficient to the task. It had to be natural.
- Lost Cause
> Or paranatural. There are a lot of unknowns in biology and medicine, a lot of mysteries and idiosyncrasies. And that was before magic entered the picture.
- Atlantean in Exile
Most people never develop allergies severe enough to be life-threatening. Prior to VITAS, only .5% to 2% of the population experienced anaphylaxis during their lifetime.
In contrast, all those infected with the disease became sensitive to a few allergens, and many became allergic to a multitude of allergens. (Common allergens being, e.g., wheat or milk, metal or vinyl, and pet dander or dust mite excretions.) The danger to specific individuals varied according to which allergens they became sensitive to and how severe their anaphylaxis symptoms were.
Spoiler
> Something not mentioned, but important: these allergies were acquired for life. The virus changed the host’s body so you became allergic, and the allergies stuck around after the disease was cured.
(There’s a reason hypoallergenic materials became a boom industry. It wasn’t just for the sake of us metahumans.)
Talk to anyone who survived the plague (70% of those who caught it survived), and ask them what’s it’s like to be allergic to half a dozen random things, like metal or vinyl. Know how many things are made out of metal? Imagine that every time you touched a spoon or a car you got a rash, or fainted, or had an asthma attack.
Plus, each time you’re exposed, there’s a good chance your reaction becomes more severe. Touch metal too much, and you can find your windpipe closing or your heart stopping.
VITAS is still killing people, decades after the disease itself went away.
- Ork Rights Crusader
> A classified Federal Task Force with multi-national participation? Glad I don’t have to police it.
- El Tee Charlie Six
> Above your pay grade. Aztlan has numerous enemies, and many have a seat at this table. Even those from former US states.
- The Director
VITAS was an air-born contagion, transferred by bodily fluids (sneezing, speaking, coughing) and dust. Outside the body, it could survive for up to a day, in dust or on surfaces.
The disease was highly contagious. In the United States alone, it is estimated that 80-90% of the population were exposed, and 75% of the total population developed the disease.
Once contracted, the disease has a latent period of 12-24 hours, then an asymptomatic period of 3-6 days, during which the patient is infected but not symptomatic.
The first symptoms were extremely mild, consisting of a light rash, shortness of breath, or lightheadedness. Severe symptoms, present in 25%-30% of all patients, usually began 12-24 hours later. In most cases, VITAS infections lasted 5-6 weeks from the onset of first frank symptoms. During this time, those with mild or moderate symptoms were only sporadically symptomatic.
Spoiler
> The contagiousness of the virus and this progression gave VITAS its characteristic “death spike”. The disease spread quickly, as those carrying it didn’t appear to be ill. (In both the asymptomatic and symptomatic period.) Once a person became severely symptomatic, they usually died within a day.
So the progress of the disease was a fast, quiet spread through the population, followed by a quick burst of deaths, then a slower spread from those with intermittent symptoms. The disease hit hard, killing 20% of the total population, but after the sudden wave of deaths, the disease seemed to go away. Many otherwise uninfected people contracted the disease from apparently healthy people.
-Asclepian
> So where did it go? Like a lot of lethal pandemics, it just burned itself out. It spread too fast, killed too often. Evolutionarily speaking, it was just too vicious to survive. Thank God.
- Global Anarchist
VITAS transformed global society. It caused economic and civil disruption on a scale never before seen. It ignited civil and regional wars and lead to the creation of several new countries as larger nations Balkanized. Trans-national bodies, such as the United Nations, ceased to exist as did nearly all multi-national alliances, like the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Economic devastation lead to the Second Long Depression, and a huge increase in global poverty levels. Life expectancy, standard of living, and literacy all tumbled, in many cases to pre-Twentieth Century levels.
Cultural changes were widespread, in some instances causing a resurgence of traditional culture, in others radical changes away from pre-VITAS cultural norms. Religious observation generally increased, which had a significant impact on the later Awakening of magic.
Debate on the full impact of VITAS continues in academic circles. Most agree that a full accounting of its effects won’t be possible for decades, perhaps centuries.
Spoiler
> I guess this is where I come in. So far as vague generalities go, I have little to add to the above. Later, when we get into specifics, I’ll have more to say.
As for VITAS, Doc is right: VITAS was a modern Black Death, only more lethal and global in reach. BD caused massive political and cultural upheavals, so did VITAS. (See vague generalities above.)
For the United States, it lead directly to defederalization, effectively the same as Balkanization without the honesty of admitting it. Thus our current “internal and external political and military crises.”
The current global climate was shaped by two events: VITAS and the Awakening. And we haven’t seen the end of either’s effects.
- PoliSci Perpetrator
--end file--
###Classified###
Do you mind giving a gloss on what exactly is alt-history about this?
What I see is a detailed breakdown on a dark corner of existing shadowrun history, the VITAS plague, and that's about it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all about filling in the details with long and frequently pointless ramblings. I do it all the time myself, but I'm having a hard time reconciling the thread title with its contents.
Quote from: Spike;561001Do you mind giving a gloss on what exactly is alt-history about this?
I probably should have made my first post an overview, instead of jumping directly to details. My mistake.
(Also, I worried about the post being too long. I should have listened, and broken it up into two separate posts, a day apart. Again, my mistake.)
It's an alt-Shadowrun history because much of what happens in core Shadowrun (Resource Rush, Shiawase and Seretech) didn't happen in this timeline, and much of what did happen, happened differently.
The year is 2032, and cyberware, the VR Net, and magic are all more primitive than in Shadowrun itself. Even so, they're the cutting edge, classified developments that technothrillers require (like the silent drive from
Hunt for Red October).
Shadowrun is cyberpunk, and superpower megacorps are a necessary genre trope. "Altered States" isn't cyberpunk, it's a cyberfantasy technothriller.
Which means a focus on military issues, national and racial issues, and intelligence and special ops forces PC's (instead of criminal PC's). Same shadowrunning adventures, but instead of breaking into a Renraku gene lab, you break into a Tir Air Force Base.
The history of SR leads right into the play style of SR. So, the history of "Altered States" has been changed, to do the same.
AS's world was almost identical to our own, the first major point of departure is VITAS itself. And it leads to the political and military situation of AS.
Quote from: Spike;561001Don't get me wrong, I'm all about filling in the details with long and frequently pointless ramblings.
I see why this could look pointless. The pandemic is an important part of worldbuilding, as the setting's timeline starts here. The political, cultural, and military situation in the game comes from this event, and consequences.
As an example: Any character 27 or older lived through the plague, and remember something of it. It, and its after-effects, are the defining crisis of their lives. As Vietnam was to the Baby Boomers, VITAS and the Collapse were to PC's.
That has an effect on the game world and characters. And getting the details of the disease right, means I can get what comes after right.
It's not an entertaining post, was too long, and lacked an introduction. I apologize for the infodump.
EDIT: To address the info-dumpiness, I've added spoiler tags to the original post, so the original document (the encyclopedia entry) can be clearly read. Full apologies for those who smacked too hard into the wall of text.
I'm not really getting much of an 'alt history' vibe off this myself, possibly because you've mostly pushed the clock back, and the future history events you've unwritten (resource rush etc) don't really figure much into most people's conception of Shadowrun.
Regarding 'pointless': The thrust of your entire OP could be summed up in: THe VITAS Plague Hit MUCH HARDER in this timeline.
Anything beyond that is extra. Calling it pointless seems a bit harsh, though I do mention its a self-depreciating statement as much as anything. Sadly, almost no one I know reads the opening history of Shadowrun, and pretty much everyone agrees that it is far too long and covers far too many trivial details to be of any real value to the game... its in the way. I say this having personally read the entire chapter in three different editions.
Back to your setting: I assume that since you are scaling back the time line, and subsequently the cyberware that you are also scaling back the magic? Circa 2032 I'd suspect an utter lack of Phys-adepts (They were supposed to be quite the new thing when introduced in the original Street Magic for 2050 as I recall...). THere is some unfortunately necessary balancing going on there, which is a little meta-gamey, but as I said: Necessary.
I am curious to hear more about this. It seems you want to get away from the 'amoral mercenary terrorist' aspect of Shadowrun, but that doesn't necessitate moving away from the 2050-2070 timeframe so much as just altering the status quo. Rolling back cybernetics (and presumably magic) seems like a bit heavy handed, so unless you are massively wedded to the Shadowrun system I'm not entirely sure why you'd do it in "Shadowrun' instead of a system that already delivers the play-style you are looking for in a 'shadowrun historical' setting? Hate to pimp GURPS here, but if you want a grittier, less over the top system for espionage in a near future, it does seem to fit the bill (with on board balanced support for magic, none the less!), while requiring roughly the same prep time.
Quote from: Spike;561046I'm not really getting much of an 'alt history' vibe off this myself,
That's because you're sane. :) The first post doesn't contain any info about the differences (aside from some hints here and there). Even so, by 2032, things look very different from the canon
Shadowrun:
The US still exists, NAN has collapsed (and had different boundaries in America, plus it never existed in Canada), Mexico, India, and Coastal China (RoC) are the top three nations, no corporate extraterritoriality, UGE and Goblinization occurred at the same time in 2011 (an event called the Emergence), no Immortal Elves or "4th World" Great Dragons, no Toxic Shamans, and more.
A lot of differences that no reasonable person could infer by reading the original message.
Quote from: Spike;561046almost no one I know reads the opening history of Shadowrun, and pretty much everyone agrees that it is far too long and covers far too many trivial details to be of any real value to the game...
The thrust of your entire OP could be summed up in: THe VITAS Plague Hit MUCH HARDER in this timeline. Anything beyond that is extra.
Here's the thing: the history of
Shadowrun is needlessly detailed, in the base book. There's a lot of stuff that happen, but which have no other real effects.
Take VITAS. It kills a quarter of the globe (25%), yet it causes... little to no after-effects. You can read in some sourcebook about Madagascar, but otherwise there's no real effort to tie it into the history, to show how it matters to the setting. Maybe because, in the end, it doesn't. And there's several things like that.
For my campaign, I'm doing it differently. VITAS is the kickoff point for the campaign's history. And even though it isn't immediately apparent from the original post, the information therein leads directly to the campaign.
The history
matters to the campaign. It's not something I expect players to read, but I need it for my world-building.
(Here's an example, if you want to read it. It's hidden for size purposes. Click at your own risk.)
Spoiler
VITAS kills 20% of the US. There's a general breakdown in society (something like the first season of Jericho). The economy vaporizes (5-digit inflation, companies out of business, banking system collapses) and most governments agencies collapse. The US military is called in to restore order.
The military starts an emergency program to secure supplies for itself, like food and fuel. When they have a surplus, they print ration coupons for their excess, and use it to pay people. These coupons become a de facto second currency, to replace the grossly inflated dollar.
The Guerilla War with NAN happens. The military fights back, and is being defeated. States are placed in charge of printing ration coupons; effectively each state prints its own money.
The Guerilla War is lost, the tax base no longer exists, and the Federal Government has almost no income. Government agencies remain shut down.
Plus, people are a bit peeved over being abandoned just after VITAS, so view the central government with great resentment and cynicism. They turn to their own states.
State governments take over many duties of the Federal Government. The US has become "de-federalized", reverting to the very weak government of the Articles of Confederation. (Effectively Balkanization, in all but name.)
As a result, 40 separate legal and regulatory schemes. 40 different dollars, all of which vary in value against each other. (Though currency blocs develop later.) In effect, 40 separate countries.
A global economic depression hits, but some countries come out of it. Usually, those who restored order quickly. One of whom is Mexico.
Mexico has one country, one currency, one legal and regulatory scheme. And a governing general who is harsh on crime and corruption. They emerge from the Depression in the late teens, and over the next 14 years become one of the top three countries in the world, in terms of economy and military.
The US, due to "defederalization", stays mired in a depression until 2032. It is weak economically and militarily.
Yucatan rebels sieze Mexico City and rename the country Aztlan. They nationalize... everything and combine it into Aztechnology. They attack the NAN (and California and Texas), seizing New Mexico and Arizona (the Pueblo-Navajo Coalition).
The NAN and the California and Texas armed forces push back, and eject Aztec forces from their territories. A cease fire is declared in 2029. In the wake of the war, the NAN collapses.
Aztlan turns its attentions south and conquers Central America, eventually seizing the Panama Canal. It begins to reinforce its North American borders with troops. Its hostile intentions are clear to everyone.
During the next three years, a lone government agency, the Office for Strategic Analysis (OSA), tries desperately to contrive a means for the US to survive.
Enter the PC's.
Like actual history, each event causes the next, and each event can be traced backwards to a previous cause, eventually to VITAS or the Awakening. It's intended to be a tight alt-history, where things are mentioned because they matter.
Little of that is apparent from this first post (though the Director talks about a "chain of events"). The above hidden bit is part of that chain, the most important part for the purposes of the campaign.
And it all happens because of VITAS and the Awakening.
Quote from: Spike;561046I assume that since you are scaling back the time line, and subsequently the cyberware that you are also scaling back the magic?
Yes. Why do it?
Because it's not a commonly seen time in cyberpunk literature. Cybertech is usually a pretty mature technology. Even in
Deus Ex: Human Revolution, it's publicly known and reliable, if a bit controversial.
I like having it (and advanced magic) be classified, cutting edge tools that this one group of special ops soldiers has access to. It's different from the norm.
Other hackers lack DNI. PC's can have it. Other spec ops lack artificial muscle implants ("threaded musculature"). PC's can have it.
Though physadepts exist, no one realizes they're a thing. Such people seem to be just... tough fighters. The first physadept training program is instituted by DARPA and used by OSA.
So all these things are bleeding edge, unique abilities PC's (and perhaps other secret agents) can have and no one else gets.
Balance between cyber and magic is necessary. That's something I have to address.
As for a rules system, I think I'm going with
Savage Worlds. The group has used it in the past, and it includes rules for pretty much everything I want to use. (Some exceptions, obviously.)
Quote from: Spike;561046It seems you want to get away from the 'amoral mercenary terrorist' aspect of Shadowrun, but that doesn't necessitate moving away from the 2050-2070 timeframe so much as just altering the status quo.
Doing something different from the typical
Shadowrun criminal lowlifes is indeed the point. The reason the timeframe is 2032 is so the technology can be primitive and newly developed.
My players can play only 4-5 times in a month, then we skip a month or two. So, the campaign is going to be episodic. After the first series, I'm going to advance the timeline by 2-3 years for the next, and show the effects of their actions.
Maybe they stop Aztlan, but America breaks apart. Maybe they re-federalize the country. Maybe Aztlan wins. Their actions shape what happens (the entire goal of OSA in the first place).
Plus history keeps happening, and technology and magic advances. DNI, once classified, are now public knowledge, but very expensive. The PC's have access to better ones. Similar things happen in other areas.
(EDIT: CRK's point in the VR thread about rebuilding computers around VR concepts could be another area of change. Computers move away from nearly-Internet, more towards an SR Matrix idea.)
After each series, jump forward another few years. Gradually, the technological level (and time frame) of 2050 can be reached. Magic and cyberware is mature. And the PC's have influenced the shape of the campaign world.
I just like that idea.
What was VITAS like for people living through it?
VITAS, when it kills, is a sudden killer. A person is doing what they always do, working at a bank, driving a bus, walking their dog. Then, for no apparent reason at all, they begin to cough or choke, or have sudden heart pains. After a few minutes, they just die.
Out of the blue. For no reason at all.
You're at a bank, flirting with the pretty teller. She starts to scream, and her lips turn blue. She falls to the ground, and by the time the manager has reached her, she's dead. Any nobody can say why.
You're on a bus, going to work. The driver begins to choke, then falls unconscious. The bus crashes into oncoming traffic. If you survive the sudden impact—being thrown against seats, the ceiling, or other passengers—you find out the driver had a heart attack, for no apparent reason.
You're out for a smoke. The nice elderly lady who lives above you is coming in, leading her Lhasa Apso. Yappy dog, but harmless. You pass a few words. She smiles, but as soon as she breathes the smoke, she begins to suffocate. Her throat swells. You took CPR, you begin chess compressions and mouth to mouth. Her throat is sealed, and she suffocates despite all you can do. For no apparent reason.
That's how VITAS kills. Like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. No cause that can be predicted, no reason that an autopsy can confirm.
And this begins to happen in LA, New York, Seattle. 1 out of 5 people begin to just drop dead.
Rich and poor, white, black, asian, and hispanic, rural and city dwellers. Everyone died.
And it goes on for two weeks. "The Red Days."
You can't predict it, prevent it, or or protect against it. So, in many cases, you either flee or lock yourself up. You grab supplies, get a gun or other weapon, and quarantine yourself behind closed doors.
You got a job? F*** the job. You've got a family.
Some people buy those masks, hoping they'll protect against whatever's out there. Some people buy megavitamins or get a prescription for antibiotics. They take both, in massive doses. It doesn't help.
Nothing helps.
That was VITAS. And it did a number on just about everything.
This sounds very interesting, great job. I think if I were going to pick a system for this it'd be The Company (Openquest-based BRP) with RQ-style magic systems and a cyberware sub-system tacked on. Savage Worlds will be good too though.
Your premise sounds kinda like a Shadowrun (urban fantasy) version of Corporation, only with the countries replacing the Corporations.
Looking forward to reading more about it.
Quote from: Sigmund;561481This sounds very interesting, great job.
Looking forward to reading more about it.
Thanks. :) I hope to post bits and pieces as I finish them.
I've got a writeup of the Office for Strategic Analysis (the PC's patron), Small Magics of
Shadowrun (some thinking I did about the very first manifestations of the Awakening), and a post about the Collapse.
None are as long as the VITAS article above, and when I can get them revised, I'll post.
Quote from: Sigmund;561481Your premise sounds kinda like a Shadowrun (urban fantasy) version of Corporation, only with the countries replacing the Corporations.
I don't know from
Corporation (though I did just browse the website). It seems like the game involves Agents (who are sorta like Shadowrunners), in a Tranhumanist (and non-fantasy) setting. Looks like it could be cool.
For my part, I've tended to describe
Altered States as "Shadowrun, as written by Tom Clancy". James Bond, Jason Bourne, Evelyn Salt (from
Salt) are all inspirations (as well as Clancy novels, obviously).
Espionage, intrigue, wetworks, special forces operations. All the good stuff in regular
Shadowrun, just in a different context. I think it could be cool.
The following is information about the patron of the PC's, the secretive Office for Strategic Analysis (OSA).
###
The Office for Strategic Analysis is an intelligence, research, and special operations directorate. In 2032, it is the only US intelligence service still functioning.
OSA was founded to predict future trends, and develop plans to address them. Gradually it shifted to dealing with the predicted crises as well.
Lead by the enigmatic Director, the OSA has a small group of highly trained agents, divided into Special Task Squads, that travel the globe protecting the interests of the nearly-Balkanized United States of America. Though the agency's focus is world-wide, the most critical oncoming crisis is the looming war with Aztlan. The agency predicts a war with former Mexico within the next two years, a war the US cannot survive.
History
In 2010, just after the Red Days began, a Pentagon planning group met with the stated purpose of either preventing or recovering from the kind of chaos that followed VITAS as it spread across the globe. It was given the unwieldy name of the Emergency Military Supplies Acquisition Program (EMSAP). EMSAP developed the redeployment plan, a plan to restore infrastructure, and the commodity rationing plan that provided much of America food, power, and warmth throughout the last few months of 2010 and nearly all of 2011.
Reclamation, as the effort became known, was transferred to state authority in Fall of 2011, just after Emergence, as the military became embroiled in fighting the NAN War. Anti-insurgency units, recalled from Afghanistan and Iraq, had been key in Reclamation, and those units formed the backbone of the Rocky Mountain assault forces. They also suffered the highest casualties.
During the conflict, EMSAP itself coordinated with various governors to keep the front-line troops supplied. As supplies of key parts ran low, they began the effort to retrieve stores from Diego Garcia, Germany, and surviving supply caches in Afghanistan and Iraq.
After the Night of Ghosts and Terror in late 2012, the President negotiated the Treaty of Denver, and the surrender to the NAN forces. In the aftermath, the impoverished Federal government was forced to demobilize the national military structure, gutted by the war. Responsibility for maintaining military forces fell on state governments, and many cashiered soldiers and officers joined the National Guard and state militias.
EMSAP transitioned into a purely predictive role, providing incredibly accurate strategic, economic, and political forecasts for governors and the President. It was during this time that the mysterious Director came to command EMSAP. Under his auspices it became the OSA, the Office for Strategic Analysis.
(continued...)
Added a real introduction to the top of the thread. For the purposes of clarity.
Seems quite well thought out and quite cool.
I will comment (as I've been delving into the Scottish Enlightenment recently myself) that the impact on history of major events is often quite different than one would expect at first blush. Forex: the SE grew out of the educational programs put forth by the restrictive calvanist Kirk, as well as the end of the whole 'Scottish Liberty' when they signed on to the Union of England and Scotland. It gets quite a bit messier than that, but you'd expect 'Independence' and a more tolerant church to lead to a great intellectual modernization.
Quote from: Spike;561851Seems quite well thought out and quite cool.
Thanks. I'm trying to think through things. If it turns out it'll make me a happy DM.
Quote from: Spike;561851I will comment (as I've been delving into the Scottish Enlightenment recently myself) that the impact on history of major events is often quite different than one would expect at first blush.
I think you're correct. To quote someone rephrasing JM Keynes: "The unexpected always happens; the inevitable, never."
The Law of Unintended Consequences rules human endeavors. And I hope to include that in the history.
For example: During Reclamation the military introduced rationing coupons, as a way to recruit skilled civilian workers back to, for example, power plants. A reasonable measure, given the times.
Yet those coupons became a second currency, and indirectly contributed to the defederalization of the US, something no one could have predicted.
There's some other twists and turns buried in my notes. I've done my best to make it
feel like real history, even if its all made up.
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;561548I've got a writeup of the Office for Strategic Analysis (the PC's patron), Small Magics of Shadowrun (some thinking I did about the very first manifestations of the Awakening), and a post about the Collapse.
None are as long as the VITAS article above, and when I can get them revised, I'll post.
Cool, look forward to 'em.
QuoteI don't know from Corporation (though I did just browse the website). It seems like the game involves Agents (who are sorta like Shadowrunners), in a Tranhumanist (and non-fantasy) setting. Looks like it could be cool.
Yep, your write-up made me think of it mainly, I think, because like the agents, the PCs have access to tech and equipment (and magic) that average folks or even average soldiers don't.
QuoteFor my part, I've tended to describe Altered States as "Shadowrun, as written by Tom Clancy". James Bond, Jason Bourne, Evelyn Salt (from Salt) are all inspirations (as well as Clancy novels, obviously).
Espionage, intrigue, wetworks, special forces operations. All the good stuff in regular Shadowrun, just in a different context. I think it could be cool.
Espionage is one of my fav genres, and combining it with SR (one of my fav takes on cyberpunk) is just awesome. Wish I could play in your game :)
The following is information about the patron of the PC's, the secretive Office for Strategic Analysis (OSA).
###
The Office for Strategic Analysis is an intelligence, research, and special operations directorate. In 2032, it is the only US intelligence service still functioning.
OSA was founded to predict future trends, and develop plans to address them. Gradually it shifted to dealing with the predicted crises as well.
Lead by the enigmatic Director, the OSA has a small group of highly trained agents, divided into Special Task Squads, that travel the globe protecting the interests of the nearly-Balkanized United States of America. Though the agency's focus is world-wide, the most critical oncoming crisis is the looming war with Aztlan. The agency predicts a war with former Mexico within the next two years, a war the US cannot survive.
History
In 2010, just after the Red Days began, a Pentagon planning group met with the stated purpose of either preventing or recovering from the kind of chaos that followed VITAS as it spread across the globe. It was given the unwieldy name of the Emergency Military Supplies Acquisition Program (EMSAP). EMSAP developed the redeployment plan, a plan to restore infrastructure, and the commodity rationing plan that provided much of America food, power, and warmth throughout the last few months of 2010 and nearly all of 2011.
Reclamation, as the effort became known, was transferred to state authority in Fall of 2011, just after Emergence, as the military became embroiled in fighting the NAN War. Anti-insurgency units, recalled from Afghanistan and Iraq, had been key in Reclamation, and those units formed the backbone of the Rocky Mountain assault forces. They also suffered the highest casualties.
During the conflict, EMSAP itself coordinated with various governors to keep the front-line troops supplied. As supplies of key parts ran low, they began the effort to retrieve stores from Diego Garcia, Germany, and surviving supply caches in Afghanistan and Iraq.
After the Night of Ghosts and Terror in late 2012, the President negotiated the Treaty of Denver, and the surrender to the NAN forces. In the aftermath, the impoverished Federal government was forced to demobilize the national military structure, gutted by the war. Responsibility for maintaining military forces fell on state governments, and many cashiered soldiers and officers joined the National Guard and state militias.
EMSAP transitioned into a purely predictive role, providing incredibly accurate strategic, economic, and political forecasts for governors and the President. It was during this time that the mysterious Director came to command EMSAP. Under his auspices it became the OSA, the Office for Strategic Analysis.
(continued...)
Mission and Organization
The OSA has a reputation for uncannily accurate predictions about the future. No one knows what precise methodologies its analysts use. Rumors variously cite Artificial Intelligences, powerful divination magics, or complex sociological algorithms. (Alternately, psychic visions and alien visitors are common node-talk.) Collectively, OSA analysts are referred to as “The Oracles”.
Though the OSA provides reports to state governors (through intermediary organizations), its primary focus is to serve as the long-term strategic planning office of the Federal government, tasked with identifying emerging threats and neutralizing them. The Director reports directly to the President, no other individual has jurisdiction or oversight of its operations.
The CIA collapsed in 2010, along with nearly all the Federal government. In 2016, OSA began a foreign intelligence program, to gather information from the most likely strategic threats, including Mexico, China, and India. It soon expanded those efforts world-wide. The first regional Task Groups were founded during this period. The OSA is the only foreign intelligence service of the defederalized United States, replacing the CIA entirely.
The OSA began working closely with DARPA in 2019, providing the fruits of its industrial espionage to the research directorate, and testing and deploying DARPA’s advanced tactical and intelligence concepts (such as the semi-autonomous Expert System Drones that patrolled the NAN border). DARPA had transitioned into joint technological and magical research, and the OSA proved adept at identifying fruitful avenues of research and developing practical applications of same. The world’s first physical adept training program began at DARPA and came to fruition under OSA tutelage.
OSA began deploying special forces units in 2021, using them to help shape events in many key hotspots. They served as advisors to the Eastern Alliance during its war with the Holy Islamic Caliphate, and were suspected of the assassinations of key HIC leaders, including Turk general Asil Kaya (called “The Demon of Athens”). OSA forces operated with Indian units in the anarchic Pushtun areas of former Pakistan, helped secure Kurdistan against deserting HIC units, and worked with Israeli forces in former Syria and Iran, during the breakup of the HIC.
After the conquest of the Pueblo-Navajo Coalition in 2029, Task Group Aztlan became the primary focus of the small agency. TG-Aztlan has developed and deployed technology unknown to the rest of the world, including the Direct Neural Interface and working cybernetic implants. Novel magical weapons and countermeasures are also a key focus for TG-A.
Within the last year (2031) TG-A has increased its recruitment efforts, bringing into the OSA skilled soldiers, police officers, magicians, and other prospects from across North America and forming them into small Special Task Squads, trained in espionage and special ops. The looming war with Aztlan has focused the efforts of the Office, and the Director is determined to win the war at all costs.
Funding: As with the rest of the greatly reduced Federal government, the OSA is funded by tariffs and fees (as the Federal Income Tax has proven difficult to reinstate). It receives a disproportionate share of Federal funds, something of a sore spot with surviving Federal agencies.
Each President has continued funding the agency despite complaints, as each has relied heavily on its accurate forecasts and effective and spare use of force. No other agency could replace the OSA, and no President has ever tried. The Director has survived four Administrations, and looks likely to survive many more.
I want to talk campaign for just a bit.
Altered States is set in a time where all the usual Shadowrun stuff we take for granted in 2050 is classified, bleeding edge tech. Much of it was developed in India (the world's hi-tech headquarters), and "acquired" by the OSA, who turned it over to DARPA. The very first usable models are coming on line right now. PC's have access to them, because they're OSA agents, but (so far as they know) no one outside the OSA does.
Hackers get DNI, which lets them hack the 2032 Internet with a speed non-cybered hackers can only envy. Mages have new spells, unseen by anyone. Phys-adepts, well they exist and no one else knows this. And cyberware is an OSA-agent-only tool.
Well, that's hardly fair, is it? PC's get all the nice toys, and the NPC's are mooks to be blown away.
Not quite true. A DNI-equipped hacker may be fast, but if he's incompetent, that just means the bad guys will catch him that much faster. Similar limits apply to everything else. If you're no good at your job, there's only so much wiz tech or magic can do for you.
But there's more. The point of being a secret agent isn't to kill everything that moves. It's to not get caught.
You're in an Aztlan research lab. Why? Someone gave that info to the OSA. If Aztlan catches you, even if you fight your way clear, they know someone is spilling secrets. That means your asset is threatened, and you could lose a valuable tool who could have provided information for decades.
Don't get caught. If you're shooting, you've already blown the mission. (Except for those few, rare cases where shooting and/or blowing stuff up is the mission.)
Subtlety is the name of the game. Get in, do the mission, get out. Anything else means your classified, limited-access tech and magic could have better been employed augmenting a garbage truck driver in Detroit.
--begin file--
Small Magics of the Awakened World
Prof. Joshua Shaw, Ph.D., D.Th. MIT&T
Journal of the Processes of Rational Magic, July 2029
Magic is formed by belief and powered by belief. Beliefs in ceremonies, magical creatures, supernatural beings. When the Awakening began in 2010, the return of magic meant these beliefs became true.
Beliefs in spirits, totems, and magical creatures. Belief in the efficacy of magical rituals or ceremonies. Belief in supernatural beings.
Trolls are giants in Norway, and cyclops in Greece. The beliefs—the culture and mythology—of those areas shaped what Emerged there. (And if modern beliefs differed from those held thousands of years ago, it was the modern beliefs that became real.)
The Awakening meant magicians had become real. It also meant that small magics had become real.
Nearly all people have at least a small connection to the astral plane: they are alive, and so produce mana and can (in minuscule ways) shape and form mana. Such tiny wisps of mana can do little on their own, but thousands of tiny wisps of magic working together can achieve impressive, if subtle results.
It can keep food from spoiling, that long ago should have gone bad. It can convince men to turn aside from violence, or offer aid. It can even cause weakness, illness, or speed death.
(That so many survived the Collapse can, in part, be ascribed to the effects of small magics. Indeed, VITAS and the Collapse drove a resurgence in religious belief and practice across the globe, with significant consequences for many countries.)
Tales of the Awakening focus on the dramatic: the appearance of dragons, Howling Coyote's Night of Ghosts and Terror, the Emergence of Metahumanity. But in the earliest days of the Awakening, the only magic that worked was the small, subtle workings of minuscule amounts of mana.
Prayers that rain would come, or turn aside. Superstitious gestures, symbols, or rituals. Vows of hatred and revenge, repeated many times by many people. In small ways, these can affect the world.
It's 2029, and the Awakening is 19 years old. And small magics are still a part of the Awakened world.
• An old woman with Alzheimer's loses her cat. Forgetting it has died, she expects it to be there when she sets out food. So it is. A cat that she can see, hear, and hold, that is invisible to others.
• A single rural county in Virginia hosts a colony of brownies. Unseen house-spirits, brownies help in animal husbandry and household chores for the price of a small bowl of milk and a piece of bread. Their first manifestation can be traced to an elderly, superstitious gentleman of Scotts ancestry, who had been feeding brownies since his boyhood in the 1960's. His neighbors took up the practice in the late Teens, and have had the aid of brownies ever since.
• A town in Mexico (now Aztlan) had the lowest murder rate in North America. Its church, The Church of Christ's Peace, had a shrine to St. Zachary. Each week the congregation prayed for peace, and many burnt candles at the shrine, hoping for peace. Even during the Aztlan coup, no one in the town was killed, nor was a single shot fired. (The town was later destroyed by the Aztlan governing council for offering aid to rebels.)
When dealing with small magics, cold, detached, scientific analysis will always fail. These small magics are subtle in effect, affect a small area, are hard to predict and impossible to duplicate, in part because of the nature of magic.
Magic is formed by belief and powered by belief. And those who don't believe, find that small magics don't exist for them.
> Shaw's editorial, first published in a Hermetic magazine, wrecked his academic career. A prominent Hermetic, taking up the cause of folk-beliefs and superstition, and proclaiming both to be accurate (to some extent), while simultaneously declaring that Hermetic magic couldn't confirm their existence, much less understand them... it was tantamount to the Pope recanting his Catholicism.
The ensuing imbroglio was fun to watch, though.
- Rational Supernaturalist
> Arguments for and against are still rocketing back and forth across the globe, in conferences, symposia, and peer-reviewed journals. Shamans trumpet the existence of small magics, Hermetics deny it, and theurges sit to the side smiling and looking mysterious. Careers have, and are, being made and broken over what is, at its core, a simple editorial recognizing how vast and mysterious the Awakened world really is.
Had I know what would happen, I might have kept my mouth shut.
- Atlantean in Exile
> Maybe you should have. The return of magic doesn't invalidate science. Observation, information, and experimentation are just as valid and necessary as ever. Otherwise the credulous and irresponsible will declare anything and everything mystical to be true, whether it exists or not.
Just because magic is real, doesn't mean every single superstitious belief is true. Carefully sorting out the gold from the dross takes care and hard work. There is no golden road to knowledge, we must all walk through the muck.
- Scion of Hermes
-- end file --
Quote from: Sigmund;561929Espionage is one of my fav genres, and combining it with SR (one of my fav takes on cyberpunk) is just awesome. Wish I could play in your game :)
I hope I get to play in my game! :) At my age (and, I assume, the age of most here) Real Life has a horrible tendency to get in the way of RP'ing. I hear about people who've played the same campaign weekly for 30 years, and I can only marvel.
As for espionage, the
Mission Impossible series and
True Lies are also two of my inspirations. And, just because of the prep for this campaign, I've decided to schedule
Burn Notice for viewing.
Anyway, thanks for the enthusiasm. Cheers!
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part01--
The Collapse: Consequences of the VITAS Pandemic
VITAS was the epochal moment in human history. Worldwide it killed 20% of the population, and its after-effects killed 25% more. It shattered the existing economic and political order, casting the globe into chaos.
For all the shock and tumult caused by the Awakening, the effects of VITAS were more profound and more transfiguring. VITAS broke apart countries, vaporized the economic system, and rewrote common assumptions about the relationship between government, industry, and private citizens. Even the emergence of orks, dragons, and astral spirits didn't provoke such historical consequences.
This brief covers the immediate consequences of the plague, for the medical system, the economy, national infrastructure, and civil order.
> VITAS was a curiously antiseptic disease. There were no scarred survivors, no coughing, sore-covered infectees, no hospital wards filled with moaning, dying patients. It came, it killed, it moved the frag on. Bizarre.
- Ork Rights Crusader.
> It's impossible to overstate the impact of VITAS. A more deadly and far reaching plague than any that came before, it simply washed over the world, destroying everything, leaving the detritus of civilization in its wake. The present-day global order coalesced out of that chaos, and every aspect of internal politics and international relations were affected by the disease.
VITAS made the history we'll have to live through for the next millennium.
- PoliSci Perpetrator
Medical
The first casualty was the medical community, on the front lines of the epidemic. Health services, governmental and private, were overwhelmed by a combination of casualties, demand, and the breakdown of public order. As circumstances deteriorated, it became impossible to get treatment for any medical condition. Travel restrictions (and swiftly dwindling fuel supplies) limited the amount of medicines available, and pharmacies soon ran out.
At the same time VITAS was killing billions, hundreds of millions were dying of other diseases that would, at any other time, have been survivable. Secondary outbreaks (such as the flu or cholera) became common, and without treatment they became full-fledged pandemics in and of themselves.
> VITAS happened 22 years ago, and though we still don't have accurate models of how it worked on a cellular level, we know what it did. But during the pandemic, it was a complete unknown. No one knew how infectious it was, how it killed, or what prophylaxis might work. It was a mystery killer.
Those who went to work, whether medical professionals, soldiers, or workers, were very much heroes. They had no control over whether they lived or died, knew it, and went to work anyway.
- Broke-Down Back-Country Doc
--end part01--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part02--
Medical, Cntd.
Restoration of medical infrastructure happened slowly. With limited access to modern equipment (such as ultrasound machines or MRI's) Doctors were thrown back on 50-year-old medicines and surgical procedures. Though tried and tested, they were more risky than modern methods, and many patients suffered.
In terms of pharmaceuticals, the United States was the first country to recover, though it took until after the NAN War for that to occur. When recovered, the industry focused mainly on manufacturing known compounds; in a crippled economy it was difficult to fund research into new medicines. Without new antibiotics (or other medications), sulfa became the drug of choice for fighting bacterial infections, including resistant strains such as MRSA.
Among the economic chaos of the Collapse, and the hardship of the Long Depression, the US drug industry was one of the few economic bright spots. In the aftermath of VITAS, China became a manufacturing superpower, India lead the software and high-tech industries, and Mexico controlled much of the world's petroleum and minerals markets. Without a significant manufacturing base, and with even domestic mineral and oil production increasingly owned by foreign industries (such as Mexoil), pharmaceutical manufacturing was one of the few areas the United States could excel in.
--end part02--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part03--
Economic
The second casualty of VITAS was trade. Trade depends on drivers, seamen, and dockworkers. It depends on factory workers, farmers, and craftsmen. On researchers, engineers, and designers. On salesmen, managers, bankers. All of these died en masse, with consequences for their companies and the rest of the economy.
Travel restrictions were put into place, cutting one country off from another. This halted the flow of infected individuals (though too late), but also prevented trade. Via ship, airplane, truck, or train, international trade was interdicted completely. (The sole exception being smuggling and other criminal endeavors.)
Oil in the Middle East could no longer be shipped to other countries, such as China (the largest consumer of Middle Eastern oil). China itself could no longer manufacture electronics for the West, as components sat on the docks in Singapore or Korea. And, even if the items could be manufactured, they couldn't be transported to other markets.
There were no exports, there were no imports. The global economy slowed, sputtered, then disintegrated. Factories were shut down, banks closed, corporations collapsed. Stock markets cratered — destroying the retirement plans of governments, companies, and private citizens — then closed.
Governments went bankrupt. Public debt payments were suspended, causing further chaos to the banking system. Public aid programs, such as Britain's National Health Service or America's Social Security, collapsed. Welfare payments ceased, unemployment benefits were cut off.
The tax base collapsed, and governments paid for supplies and manpower with fiat currency or simply seized them. Widespread use of fiat currency hypercharged inflation rates. Annual inflation rates climbed into three, four, or five digits.
People were thrown out of work, with no public aid, and remained unemployed for a significant length of time.
--end part03--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part04--
Economic, cntd.
> It's hard for people to understand just how destructive and widespread the economic collapse was. To isolate one economic element, corporations: no multi-national companies survived the Collapse. Corporations that had been household names and economic powerhouses—Apple, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil—were swept away in the chaos and are now all but forgotten. Every single major corporation in existence today was founded post-Collapse.
- Lost Cause
> Founded, in most cases, after the Argentinean Model. Governments seized the property of defunct companies and sold them to qualified investors on a mortgage plan. The investors were to operate the companies and pay back the government the cost of their facilities out of their profits (usually in revalued currency, like the Japanese nuyen).
The plan gave investors capital goods (like factories, raw materials, or land) and enough money to pay workers for about a year. This created jobs, allowed unused capital assets to be put into production, and created income for the government.
This solution pleased no one, right-wingers considered it Socialism, left-wingers Corporate Welfare, but it worked well enough to restart the (legitimate) economy.
- PoliSci Perpetrator
Internal trade was also hampered, sometimes by quarantines, sometimes by civil strife. Goods couldn't reach markets, including consumer goods, medicines, and food. People fell back on what they had on hand, or what could be acquired from black market sources.
Those who had local supplies were safe. Those who didn't, starved. Even emergency supplies, often distributed by the military, weren't enough in many areas. In the US, a plurality of secondary effect deaths (about 30 million) were attributable to starvation.
--end part04--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part05--
Structural
The Collapse had a devastating effect on national infrastructure — electrical grids, sewage, water, natural gas, phone service, and the Internet. Though none collapsed as thoroughly as the banking system, all became overtaxed and unreliable, failing completely in many areas.
Responsibility for most such services was held by local monopolies or municipal corporations. They all depended on intricate machinery and computer monitoring systems, which (if damaged) required spare parts, stocks of which were running low due to the international travel embargo. They also depended on specially trained engineers to repair the equipment and restore service, and like all other industries they suffered from deaths and worker absenteeism.
The electrical grids proved the most vulnerable. From October to December of 2010, the power to much of the country was gone. There were exceptions in specific areas (such as those serviced by Niagara Falls Hydropower and the Hoover Dam), and efforts to restore power were constant, but electricity was rarely available, especially in cities.
Even when power was partially or wholly restored, problems in the integrated grid were difficult to diagnose and repair, and electrical surges or losses of power were common. Such surges or brown-/blackouts affected industries, domiciles, and government buildings.
--end part05--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part06--
Structural, cntd.
> The power system is the jugular vein of a modern industrial society. Cut it, and no matter how healthy everything else is, it all dies. (Which is why the first facilities Reclaimed were power plants. The second were oil refineries.)
Let me demonstrate:
In August 2003, a powerline in northern Ohio brushed against some trees. This single incident set in motion a series of events culminating in a blackout that affected 6 states (New York, including all of New York City, New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania) and the Canadian Province of Ontario. 10 million Canadians and 45 million Americans were without power for up to 16 hours. That one single accident knocked out power to 15% of the US.
Let’s tally the damage: Power went down. Given. Factories shut down. (The auto industry didn’t return to full production until a week after power was restored.)
Cellular towers went down (despite backup power sources). Cable television off-lined.
Water pumps went down, leaving water running but allowing contaminants (such as sewage) to leak into water mains. “Boil or die.” (Plus shutting down beaches. Imagine a day at the beach, complete with wading through sewage-infested pools. It’s called “cholera”.)
Trains stopped in their tracks. Airports shut down. Gas stations shut down. Worse, East Coast refineries went offline, meaning supplies of gasoline became constrained. The outage killed 11 people and cost $6 billion.
(The one thing that didn’t happen was a crime wave. NYPD reported 100 fewer arrests than usual during the blackout. Sometimes people surprise you.)
All of this from a single blackout, caused by a single power-line and a single tree. VITAS hit much harder than that.
Everybody involved—two national governments, many giant corporations, and several state agencies—pinky swore to fix the problems. They established committees and made regulations and everything.
A report issued a few years after the Blackout concluded that, big surprise, the power system was just as vulnerable as in 2003.
- Global Anarchist
> To be fair, the above is a archetypal black swan event. Bugs in software caused monitors to go offline, wires hitting trees caused a surge, which knocked out the NE grid. Everything’s vulnerable in ways we cannot anticipate or prevent, and they cause long chains of unpredictable responses, like the 1990 AT&T telephone outage in Manhattan that eventually prompted the Secret Service to raid the offices of a game company in Austin, Texas.
The world isn’t a linear place, and we can’t predict or prevent the majority of what eventually comes to pass. Surely the Awakening should have proven that.
- PoliSci Perpetrator
--end part06--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part07--
Structural, cntd.
Power restoration was a key goal of Reclamation, and the focus of the majority of Emergency Military Supplies Acquisition Program (EMSAP) resources. Even so, it took three months to partially restore power and 6 months to mostly restore power. This had consequences for nearly everything else.
Communications & Internet: Without power, communications went down for most of the country. No radio, no TV, no phones, no cell communications, and no Internet. (And at the same time, fuel shortages made it difficult or impossible to travel long distances). The communications blackout lead to much of the social unrest that would later plague the country.
All local ISP's experienced at least some outages, and many simply ceased to exist as companies (further isolating those in their service area). Even after power was restored, power surges damaged critical equipment at ISP's, hosts, and cloud service providers, equipment that was hard to replace post-Collapse. (Power surges also damaged personal computers, leaving their owners without Internet capable equipment.)
Restoring communications took months, even after power became available.
Similar problems plagued the other infrastructure services. No single utility collapsed completely, and none stayed down permanently. But all experienced severe problems, and were kept in operation by skeleton crews of employees, many working 18- or 20-hour shifts.
--end part07--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part08--
Structural, cntd.
> During Reclamation, a lot of grunts griped about having to “clean up after civilian p******”. Fraggin’ idiots. We didn’t land until a month after the Red Days began, and weren’t on the ground in force for another two weeks. That’s six weeks of outages and chaos, and the only reason anything survived to be Reclaimed was because 5%-10% of the local workforce ignored a clear and present danger to their lives and came to work anyway.
My platoon was assigned to oil duty on the East Coast, prepping refineries for oil shipments from the NSPR. An abandoned oil refinery is a massive explosion and firestorm waiting to happen. When we got there, the refineries were offline, but they hadn’t just been abandoned. Their crews had shut them down with maximal attention to safety, so whoever came after could get them up and running with a minimum of fuss. (Compare that to the fires that tore through Corpus Christi.) They didn’t panic, they just did their jobs and probably saved some ungrateful sorry-ass grunts their worthless lives.
I never learned who manned those refineries, but if I ever meet ‘em I’ll buy ‘em a round or ten. They deserve it.
- El-Tee Charlie Six
Infrastructure was one of the two chief focuses of the first phase of Reclamation. While some units secured materiel — food, fuel, and spare parts — others took command of power stations, sewage plants, and heating oil/natural gas facilities. Workers for these industries were some of the first “hired” by Reclamation Command under the auspices of the EMSAP. The last group of soldiers, and in the beginning not the largest, focused on security for the first two endeavors.
--end part08--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part09--
Social Order
The fourth casualty of VITAS was civil order. Whether manifesting in individual crimes, looting, riots, mob violence, or outright civil war, in the wake of VITAS one form or another of civil disorder struck every single country on the planet. In many cases, entire governments ceased to exist, some of which have yet to be reestablished; unorganized or denationalized territories exist on every continent.
In the short term, the United States avoided the more violent forms of disorder that plagued other nations (such as China’s civil war). During the Collapse and Reclamation, there were armed clashes with well-armed criminal gangs or rogue military units, but these were small in scale, typically involving fewer than 30 combatants on either side.
The real violence didn’t arrive until the start of the NAN War, in December of 2011. Howling Coyote and his followers began a guerrilla offensive, backed by powerful magics, that killed tens of thousands of US soldiers, bankrupted the federal government, and succeeded at creating a secessionary state for the first time in US history.
Causes
Civil disorder was often the result of pre-existing ethnic or national conflicts (such as Kurdistan’s struggle for independence or the Tamil guerrilla war in India). In other cases, it was the result of the disintegration of law-enforcement organizations (many of which broke apart just as companies did).
In the United States, civil disorder was triggered by the following four causes.
--end part09--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part10--
Social Order, cntd.
1. Organizational collapse: All organizations suffered from VITAS, including the police, National Guard, and the military. 20% of their members were killed outright, and varying percentages of survivors went AWOL.
This meant that police forces, if they survived at all, were hard pressed to patrol their usual jurisdictions. In many places, the police forces didn't survive. Such areas were quickly overtaken by criminal gangs or came to be ruled by self-appointed or community chosen vigilantes.
> Under martial law, local jurisdictions were empowered to enforce the law as best they could. In places where trials were still held, they were invariably quick and informal and the punishments were usually severe. Scanty supplies meant prisoner populations couldn't be supported, so most places enforced four tiers of punishment (none of which involved incarceration): confiscation of goods (sometimes varying according to the seriousness of the crime), exile from the jurisdiction, hard labor, or execution. Looters, murderers, and rapists were typically hung, hoarders punished with confiscation of goods or exile. Other crimes were punished as the local authorities saw fit.
Such trials rarely respected civil rights, especially the right to legal counsel. People were forced to give testimony, and the standards of evidence were low. There were no doubt many miscarriages of justice, but the dire straits people found themselves in simply outweighed such concerns. With winter coming, and food running short, people were more concerned with starving than with niceties of due process.
In the aftermath of Reclamation, a blanket Presidential pardon for all crimes committed during the Collapse (even by local authorities) was a necessary expedient to restore a semblance of order. Even so, hard memories and feuds lingered on for years. In many places, revenge killings were common for years after Reclamation.
- PoliSci Perpetrator
--end part10--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part11--
Social Order, cntd.
2. Communications outages: Structural difficulties, most especially lack of power, resulted in a communications blackout to much of the country. No phones, no Internet, no television broadcasts, and little radio communications.
Without communications, local jurisdictions were isolated from the rest of the country. No one knew how widespread or lethal the pandemic was, if a second wave of deaths was likely, or whether the government, or any government, existed at all.
This forced local jurisdictions to keep the peace on their own. Many locales simply sealed their borders (to the extent this was possible). Mass migration out of the larger cities lead to severe cultural clashes, sometimes involving violence, and though aid was sometimes available from both military and civilian sources, critical supplies were scant and hard to come by.
3. Limited transport: Fuel became scarce during the Red Days (as the two-week "death spike" period was known), and regular supplies of diesel and gasoline weren't available until well into Reclamation. (What fuel there was, was reserved for military or EMSAP use.)
Without vehicular transportation, distances suddenly multiplied. At 60 miles an hour, a car could travel 480 miles in a single day (8 hours). A healthy man would cover the same distance in 24 days (20 miles a day).
Transportations difficulties combined with the communications outages to isolate most communities. Trade and travel almost wholly ceased, as did the flow of news and policy. At best, news was replaced by rumors passed on by travelers. At worst, communities found themselves wholly alone.
--end part11--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part12--
Social Order, cntd.
4. Migrations: Large urban areas were the hardest hit by secondary effects. High crime rates and famine lead to the collapse of local governments, and mob violence became common. Warring gangs seized control of inner cities, ruling and terrorizing residents. Rural areas, especially those with local farming, never quite fell into chaos, and even moderately sized urban areas survived largely intact.
The largest cities became war zones, driving out-migration to record levels. Tens of millions of people left urban centers for the suburbs, smaller neighboring cities, or the countryside.
> Where did they go? They headed for any place they thought would offer food and shelter from the oncoming winter. Many times, they just headed south.
Sometimes—more often than one would expect—they found shelter and food, if they were willing to pitch in. Sometimes they found cities who had sealed their borders. There were clashes, and people died. Sometimes they found bandits or renegade military units. And sometimes they found nothing, and starved or froze.
People moved into abandoned houses, barns, gas stations, sheds, greenhouses, empty factories, office buildings, malls, parking garages. Sometimes they took what they needed, sometimes they took charity.
They cut down trees for warmth, and ate anything they could. Store shelves were stripped bare, orchards and fields denuded. They hunted deer, birds, rabbits, gophers, and eventually horses, dogs, cats, and insects.
When Reclamation began, they crowded army units, begging for food. There were riots, and people were shot.
- Lost Cause
> The outmigration of the cities hit everyone hard, but most of all urban dwellers. Secondary effects claimed 5% of VITAS survivors in rural areas. They killed 50% of the surviving urban population.
- PoliSci Perpetrator
--end part12--
File #002 - The Collapse (Annotated)
--begin part13--
Social Order, cntd.
> Of all the cities in North America, Los Angeles suffered the worst. After its water and power cut out, returning it to desert, the majority of the city headed elsewhere. Fires, set by rioters, burned the city down, turning the LA basin into five hundred square miles of charred ruins. LA refugees suffered over 90% casualties from causes like the Great Angelino Fire, dehydration, heat stroke, starvation, disease, and banditry.
Today, it’s a small city of 55,000, Nuevo Angeles, clustered around the NA California Coast Guard Base (formerly the Port of Los Angeles). An unknown number of squatters occupy surviving buildings in the rest of the city, but California lacks the resources to police or Reclaim it. “Charred Angeles” is a Barrens, like Redmond in Seattle, only with far fewer occupants.
- Sou-Wester
Displaced citizens were the most challenging aspect of Reclamation. The military lacked the capacity to set up camps to house tens of millions of refugees. Eventually, military units began reclaiming abandoned suburbs (driving off criminal and vigilante gangs), ringing them with fencing, setting up aid camps there. People could move into permanent housing, not tents, with water and heat (and intermittent power), and receive the bare essentials of food. Those agreeing to work in various Reclamation or EMSAP projects received ration coupons for additional food, power, and even fuel.
Conclusion
These, then were the challenges of Reclamation: a populace ravaged by disease, a medical system in collapse, economic disintegration, infrastructure in disorder, and a breakdown in civil order. Local leaders held onto order as much as they could, and the overseas Redeployment provided a core of soldiers that could begin to stabilize the country, reestablish infrastructure, and restore order. Even so, Reclamation was a difficult process and, when on the verge of completion, was interrupted by the NAN War, from which the federal government has yet to recover.
--end file--
###Classified###
Demographic Effects of VITAS in the United States
Using the 2010 US Census data, I estimated rates of infections for areas of varying populations, then calculated the death toll based on the following assumptions:
• 4% of the population was resistant or immune.
• 25% of those who contracted the disease died.
• 30% of those who contracted the disease developed moderate reactions to multiple allergens (from 5-15), and half this group is effectively crippled for life.
• 45% of those who contracted the disease developed minor reactions to a few allergens, between 1 and 5.
• The more densely populated an area is, the larger a percentage of people were exposed.
In table form, this looks like:
(http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q598/Daddy_Warpig/CityPopulation.png)
This is the primary kill rates for VITAS. Secondary kill rates (due to famine, consequent infection, and the like) also vary by the size of the affected region.
In table form, this looks like:
(http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q598/Daddy_Warpig/CityPopulation2.png)
All survivors of VITAS developed new allergies (as detailed above.)
• 37,000,000 developed crippling allergies.
• Another 37,000,000 developed multiple moderate allergies.
• 111,256,000 developed minor allergies.
These allergies last for life, and have a chance (if the afflicted is exposed to an allergen) of escalating to severe anaphylactic response. (Which can be lethal.)
Similar percentages hold for every population on the planet, indicating why hypoallergenic substances and research into allergy suppression are key industries.
Demographic Consequences
This distribution of casualties will have strong effects on the United States.
• A large percentage of Progressive Democrats live in urban areas, indeed almost all urban areas vote Democrat in presidential elections (even in "Red States"), so the high casualty rates among urban dwellers will affect the relative strength of the political parties.
One possible consequence of this: Assuming the Republican party emerges dominant, there will likely be a split between Conservatives and Libertarians. The Republicans could emerge as the "party of Big Government" as they try and reverse defederalization.
Progressives would be a smaller third party, much like modern Libertarians, with a great deal of influence as swing voters. On government issues, such as taxation, they may side with Conservatives, on Social issues, such as gay marriage, they could side with the Libertarians. Other outcomes are possible, of course.
With the increased religiosity common after VITAS, a religious populist party could arise. This kind of party would be a return to the politics of the late 1800's (Social Religion), and doesn't fit into the Right-Left paradigm of current US politics.
With defederalization, different mixes of parties could predominate in different regions. In California, Libertarians and Progressives could dominate, and would be bitter enemies. In New England and the Golden Triangle (NY, PA, NJ), Populists and Progressives are the dominant parties. In the Midwest and South, Republicans and Populists. In Texas, Libertarians and Republicans.
The national Congress would be split between the four parties, with none having a majority. This deadlock could be another reason for the weakness of the Federal government.
• Races and ethnicities are not evenly distributed across regions of varying size. I have yet to do the research on this, so I can't draw any conclusions as yet.
• Differing Socio-Economic Status groups are not evenly distributed. The poorest and wealthiest Americans tend to concentrate in cities (ignoring outliers, like Appalachia). Both groups will be reduced in size, relative to the Middle Class.
(Though this is not a permanent effect. The Collapse impoverishes most of the wealthy, and the Long Depression much of the Middle Class. In 2032, about half the population lives below the poverty line.)
In other words, because of its unique characteristics, VITAS will have an effect on ethnic composition, poverty rates, political identification, and other areas of public life. Figuring these out makes the setting more unique (highlighting the sci-fi aspects) and more plausible (as technothrillers must be).