Links from the End of the World

The Apocalypse was not very friendly to server farms. EMP burned some out, the disruption of the power grind turned most off. A few were even accidentally targeted by alien strike teams - anything drawing that much power and requiring that many heat exchangers must be a weapon of some type - right? Cell towers got knocked down in the fighting, satellites were vaporized, and the whole looting and fighting in the cites broke a lot of the remaining land lines.

For a society addicted to bandwidth, this was almost as bad as the reanimates.The SPHERE system was augmented reality, the internet was notes and warnings superimposed over every object, not pages accessed at a terminal. To be reduced to 1980s text at best is very disorientating to many, though its hard to tell if this has had any big effect on psychology. Funny thing - insane people tend to get eaten by reanimates. Go figure.

There have been attempts to set up cellular towers and begin establishing networks. However, with no satellite relays its a local system at best, highly dependent on line of sight. Cables would be nice - but who is manufacturing spun glass fiber-optics when the dead are beating down their doors?

Shortwave radios and physical couriers have proven to be the most reliable means of sending messages, though a few have yielded response from pigeon carriers. Drones will work in some areas, but the citizens are very aggressive in removing any craft even near their territories. With rather good reason they are wary of humans coordinating attacks on their settlements, and are quite aware of how effective human anti-tank missiles and guided bombs are against their far lighter built units.

In theory, the Citizens do have the capacity to communicate long distances, using their remaining ships as relays. It is very rare for them to take advantage of this fact. Some have speculated that the settlements do not want to talk to each other, and there is a lack of cohesion in the alien ranks. Others believe that most of the Citizens' resources were expended during The Event, and there is precious little equipment left to back a global response even if they wanted to. Rumor has it that people who sufficiently ingrate themselves with the PCs can even get messages sent via their networks. Whether this consists of simply being polite to the guests or actively selling out the human race is up for debate, of course.

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Speaking of net connections - Stand by for Thursday's Post.