10 Things about the Anarchy Zone

1. Pure Lands
• Nature has been quick to recover from the absence of humanity. Rivers already look cleaner without discharges, the air lacks haze, and the nights are quiet but full of stars that were normally outshone by electric lights. Many houses are already infiltrated by vines or small plants, weeds and bushes are turning suburbs into tangled jungle already. Animal territories are expanding across the highways.
2. Corrupt Lands
• While no one has found a reactor that exploded like Chernobyl yet, many other industrial plants have suffered mechanical failures,  leaking pesticides, industrial solutions, and tailings into the environment.
3. Hamlets and Villages
•  In many places, groups of twenty to a hundred people have settled - often starting as one or two families and inviting in a few others. In some places, small communities have reclaimed all or part of suburbs and continue to live in subdivisions of pre-Event towns. The limits of subsistence agriculture limit most of those not used to the work to smaller settlements. Going beyond this stage or finding a patron to assist are major goals of many outside the known city-states.
4. Unexpected Loot vs Needed Items
• What  people remembered to take with them, and what they did not can often lead to interesting finds. Hundreds of cameras, watches, tons of silverware and jewelery are all out for the taking, but flashlights and pocket knives are amazingly rare.
5. 10,000 Guns, Zero Bullets
• More problematic than what has been lost is what is still being used. While many places have taken to hand-loading when they have the materials, the average person can't make nitrocellulose or mine lead. 
6. Pockets of Tech
• How the EMP bounced through the ionosphere was somewhat random, as was the status of many items - whether they were off, on, in a car, or out on a table, plugged in or on battery - all factored into its survival. While most of the subsystems that ran modern society did shut down, or at least popped their breakers temporarily, large areas with working technology still exist.
7. 1880's All Over Again
• Communication and delivery are a booming business in the zone. So too is setting up canals or clearing routes between villages. Judges and lawyers ride circuits from town to town, town hall meetings are as much about being social as simple votes. Gas-lamps and kerosene have returned in force. Nothing so fanciful as steampunk, but in many ways it is like the industrial revolution.
8. Press Gangs and Patrols
• One of the larger threats in the zone is City-State forces. They are always looking for experienced guides, couriers, or soldiers. Good mechanics and knowledgeable farmers are also in high demand. At best they accept volunteers temporarily. But all too often they will take people away by force as necessary to serve.
9. Predator Explosion
• With the end of human extermination campaigns both planned and incidental, the population of vermin and seasonally hunted animals exploded. It takes a few years for the population of predators to catch up, and it often overshoots the mark. Although few are man-eaters or desperate yet, the chance of encountering wolves, bears, coyotes, lions and other creatures is quite high.
10. New Creatures
• The most Northern dwelling primate is of course, Human beings, but the second is the Japanese Snow Macaque monkey. You might not find alligators in Chicago, nor polar bears in the deep South, but creatures from another continent can be found here and there, in some exotic places there are even breeding populations. Although rumors abound, the Citizens haven't begun cloning any of their larger fauna, so for the time being, it is only terrestrial creatures of note.

10 Things about Planetary Citizens

1. Glass and Carbon Without Steel
• Citizen technology progressed in a different order than human industry. They always had less easily accessible metal and less hydrocarbons. (Rather like Japan, without the stagnation of the Shogunate.) Most of their constructs are far more reliant of materials like ceramics, fiberglass, and carbon composite laminates than on metal or plastic.
2. Individual Personalities
• It is hard to get a sense of the individual when they are only encountered in combat situations, but Citizens do show as much variability as humans. Some do mark their vehicles with family, guild, or national marks or other distinct paint patterns, and can easily become reoccurring friends or enemies.
3. Making Friends
• There are places where the live and let live mentality goes on to mutual cooperation. Usually this takes the form of Citizens delivering messages, or using their helicopters as sky cranes in recovery and building projects. Mutual defense, scouting, bartering salvage,or hunting bandits are also possibilities.
4. Start Simple
• Despite the obvious use of Faster-Than-Light travel to get to Earth, the Planetary Citizens show very little in the way of technology beyond human understanding. Part of it is because the colony was a mostly civilian effort, and thus the most advanced shielding mechanisms were unavailable. Mostly, however, is that there would be no factories waiting for them when they landed, so everything needed to be simple to maintain until an actual infrastructure could be set up.
5.  Lacking Strongholds
•  Hard rock mines, power plants, aircraft factories - all of these are long term projects that the citizens have had trouble setting up so far. Human attacks, reanimates, and scattered landing sites continue to push back completion dates.
6. Parliament by the Numbers
•  Unlike the various human social experiments throughout the zone, Citizens have maintained a respect for their parliamentary democracy, even with the inefficiency that come with it.
7. Outnumbered, but no Outgunned
• The human population is still close to a billion people, PC numbers are barely ten percent of that. On the other hand, they still have aircraft and beam weaponry that requires recharging rather than reloading. Extended conflicts are far more in their favor.
8. Military Intelligence
• Citizens have some capability of maintaining satellite surveillance, and have far greater access to aircraft than all but the biggest human factions. The orbiting machines move in predictable patterns, and the flying ones are not up constantly. But generally, they can see everything that isn't painstakingly hidden from them.
9. Hit and Run
• Humans have familiarity with the terrain, and anti-armor weapons. A long fight might go their way, but not a big one. Thus they are unwilling to attack large enclaves (and certainly not a city-state) directly.
10. Separate and Unequal
• Most zones controlled by the aliens are no larger than a city - ten or twenty square miles of terrain, and patrols or laser towers set up at farther intervals. These territories can be dozens or even hundreds of miles apart, effectively making them states to themselves. Available resources and presence of human civilization mean that actual claimed size and power can vary wildly.

10 Things about Las Vegas

1. Military HQ
• There are other places where a company to battalion sized group of soldiers can be found, but rarely do they have much - if any - equipment intact. At least some of them seek to rejoin at Vegas. It is a tough journey, and their units are often separated and reintegrated with others, making for a heartbreaking end. 
2. No More Area 51
• Although rumors persist of prototype weapons, secret caches of aircraft, or factories ready to pump out new rifles - no wasteland scav nor the government is going to find them. For now the US has the biggest and most impressive arsenal, but much of it can only be maintained through diligent labor, warehousing until absolutely necessary, or rampant cannibalization. Equipment recovery will often come before personnel, since they can recruit and train new soldiers easily.
3. The Gun Club
• This is the rumored cabal in charge of reintegrating settlements into the old United States. Publicly, they are known to offer the olive branch, funding, support, and arms to those who pay tithes to Vegas. Towns that refuse to cooperate tend to see food shortages, coups, raider attacks, plagues, and otherwise disappear...
4. Civ Gov and Mil Gov
• The military holds a lot of power in the day to day operations of the city, and some degree of veto power over who can enter or leave the city. (Usually in the form of no un-escorted people can leave, and we can't spare soldiers for such duty). However, the generals only make up a portion of the ruling council, which also includes presidential cabinet members, hospital staff, the city's mayor, and heads of the utility maintenance gangs. 
5. Experiment Rumors
• Vegas maintains the best health care and immunization rates of anywhere in the former US. However, the constant medical monitoring and monthly injections have made some people nervous. Tales of type five experimental reanimates, mind control, intentional sterilization and aphrodisiacs to control the next generation - few things are too wild to be dismissed out of hand.
6. Outside Allies
• Washington DC is mostly a burnt symbol, and many military centers were hit by orbital bombardment. However, the Planetary Citizens generally chose to hit transportation arteries to tie up supplies and divert attention from war fighting to relief efforts. Many capitals and government facilities remain intact, and at least nominally assisting the effort. Elements of the Canadian and Mexican governments also help where they can.
7. The Lights are Still On
• Food supplies can be rough at times, water usage limits constantly imposed, and curfews a way of life. Yet schools, buses, trains, casinos, and shops still run to some extent. Vegas continues to be very metropolitan, while the outlying areas usually exist in a state akin to the early 1940s during the wartime rationing. 
8. Wasteland Patrol
• Far more than any other city state, Las Vegas projects beyond its borders, and makes honest attempts at restoring the nation. A primitive postal service, new cellular towers, and traveling circuit judges are available to those who are willing to accept an agreement with the government. They are often rebuffed as relics, outsiders, or power hungry. 
9. President Grey is on Borrowed Time
• Legally, Grey is past the end of his second term as president, and while martial law is in effect, he is not a dictator and would like honest elections held soon. 
10. Old Habits Die Hard
• Even as the old US lies in ruins, there are still some within the government that longer term plans of how to stop others from rebuilding, and extend their dominion beyond the old national borders. 

Tesla Internal Games (Draft)

To many outside observers, the Free City of Tesla seems less like a state and more like a cult. This is not necessarily a false view. With great fervor, the citizens speak of transcending human conditions, life without want, and remaking society into a more functional paradigm. Nor is it false to say that they have made some progress in these claims. It would be untrue, however, to say they have gotten very far.

Post scarcity is not strictly possible - food may be available to all and electricity easily produced, but some things will always be limited. Unless the venue is infinitely large, there will be only so many tickets to the concert, and the bathrooms or front row seats even more limited. (And from what I've heard, even if the venue was infinite, bathrooms would still be rare). From the viewpoint of Tesla's inhabitants - food and energy are available in both greater amounts and types than in many other city-states but it is still not so abundant as to be free. Materials for their social experiments - whether it be nano-feed-stock, superconductor-magnets, magnetic uranium data-storage drives, or biologically safe materials for implants are all limited and neither minded nor produced in Telsa's facilities. Hence there is always a struggle to validate one project versus another.

Living space is also limited, and without access to large tunnel boring machines - the underground portions are not going to increase anytime soon. Although the lifestyles within Tesla de-emphasize personal space - there are far too many hopeful settlers waiting outside the main security perimeter.

Fortunately, most of the competition has not taken a deadly turn yet. Poetry slams, duels with wooden broken, quiz show challenges, and Go tournaments have helped decide things at times, but shootings and poisonings have been rare. More dangerous competitions is usually preformed by outsiders - groups competing by proxy by making teams of hopeful applicants retrieve materials or machines for Tesla. In turn this leads to one of the bigger resentments of Tesla - the Free City dangles to hope of entry above others heads, and forces them to take risks for the privilege, while those inside remain safe.

It is not just the projects that matter, but who gets to work on the projects. Even as Tesla claims to be working towards a total human society, how to grant citizenship is a troubling issue. Should they only accept children to ensure every citizen understands the technology and ideals - or can adults be allowed for practical skills? How much effort does it take to buy in a single person versus a family? Is the buy in enough - or should there be an IQ test or other qualification, for that mater could the other qualifiers override the need for tribute? Does anyone showing up with gifts get to trade, or only those who go on Tesla approved missions?

Tesla is safe and far less concerned with daily survival than most settlements. However, its ability to expand is limited, and the materials for its long term projects in short supply. Meanwhile more hopefuls show up at their gates every day seeking entrance to the great city under the hill, and dealing with these restless crowds is a confusing issue.

R.A.T.s in the NEST (Part Three)

United States. Library of Congress. Beyond the End Volume II: Survivor Story Archive. By Doctor Howard Remington et al. Edition Two. Nevada: Las Vegas Printing Office, June 2072
Subject: Brian Mixon, subject number 8891-80-10 NEST arcology survivor

***

Surviving the event was luck, surviving the aftermath took some skill. Partly what you knew, and a lot of learning. We started off with some really good people, but we scavenged all wrong. It was too easy in the beginning. By the time we knew what to do right, we'd lost some people, and it had gotten a lot harder.

Moving large appliances takes some strength, even with robots to help, and it stands I'm a big guy, and kept in shape with marshal arts. I could use my foot to open doors most people would need a crowbar for.  So lacking a new supply of ovens and water heaters - I stepped up for RAT duty. Besides, volunteering for such a dangerous job would get me a lot of tower credits so my girlfriend and I could leave easy - and of course, the unsaid part about us getting a little extra on the side of what we took from old buildings.

In the beginning, we looked for guns, goods, and gold. Seems right - yeah? Self defense, food stocks, tools, and money for when trade reestablished. But that is all short sighted, and presuming this was going to be a quick thing... interval? Era? Service interruption? Whatever. 

Well, all that stuff is interchangeable. Pretty much any nine-millimeter handgun will fire any nine-millimeter and vice versa. Food is food wherever it comes from. Money was kind of worthless, but also available from a lot of different places. 

It took a while to realize that the priorities were wrong. Go for industrial tools and seeds for long term agriculture, not a few weeks food. Too many guns amongst quarreling people would be a problem, and they weren't the best weapon all the time anyway. Look for personal effects to help keep morale up and make life in the NEST bearable. An old photo-album or stuffed toy could be worth more than a metric ton of gold, you know.

You can find a gun almost anywhere, if there are a lot of reanimates, search somewhere else. There is only one "Mr. Stuffles", you can't present just any picture of an old lady and call it great grandma. Those things are both harder to find, and only in one location. 

By the time we started on the difficult runs, we'd lost a lot of RATs looking for the less important stuff. We were also looking for bigger and harder to transport stuff - medical machines, power tools, military vehicles - which made the man-power troubles worse. And there was a rather hideous policy put in place that forced criminals to work as a RAT in lieu of other sentences. If you're too lazy or untrustworthy in normal situations, and not smart enough to avoid getting caught, you shouldn't be in a scavenger team. I could fill this entire project with stories about people going AWOL, over their head, or trying to double cross the team. Still might.

But yeah, by waiting, a lot of the important stuff ended up already taken, or damaged by the elements, or just plain crawling with reanimates. Other scavengers and treasure hunters were a problem too. Both in the city itself, and in trying to break through the NEST underground to get in. Not only did that take our stuff and damage our equipment, but if reanimates go in behind them - bad news all around. 

Citizens were a bit less of a problem, they didn't go too far into the city. But when you did meet them, watch out! They got really paranoid about the thousands of places one could be ambushed in an unfamiliar city - and were really jumpy with the missiles, artillery barrages, and radiation guns. Reaniamates were bad and all - but having your skin melted off by an X-ray cannon through a wall? Yeah. I have more nightmares about that and the friends killed that way than anything else.

R.A.T.s in the NEST (Part Two)

United States. Library of Congress. Beyond the End Volume II: Survivor Story Archive. By Doctor Howard Remington et al. Edition Two. Nevada: Las Vegas Printing Office, June 2072

Subject: Brian Mixon, subject number 8891-80-10
NEST arcology survivor

***

The big three questions they ask is what did you do before The Event, how did you survive, and what did you do afterwards. One and two are easy -  appliance installation and luck. Three is short and complicated - I was a rat, R.A.T.

You could manufacture whatever you wanted in a micro-fac with the proper setup. Getting it to where it was needed and functioning properly once its there, that is another story. Its not a job that requires a lot of education, and certainly not one that gets a lot of accolades. But so long as you need something mechanical put in place, you'll be in dire straits without someone like me. I'd say look what I did there and ask for some checks for free - but chances are none of you listen to the hundred year old music I do. A shame really - there was a lot of experimentation with the medium when music videos first became really popular.

My hobbies might not be on topic, but I've got time to fill, and there really isn't much to say about luck. Other survivors might talk about their great plans or narrow escapes and the brave people who sacrificed themselves so others might live. So far as I'm concerned, its all lies though. You survived because of luck, and nothing else. 

Most of the world was was already F-ed up from the aliens' arrival, the EMP, the war, doomsayers and cultists - civil unrest from the electronic shut down, and already simmering feuds. Reanimates were not the straw that broke the camel's back so much as the jackals that stripped the camel's carcass as it lay there. Little communications, difficult commutes, distracted governments - you can't legitimately claim to have had a plan, you just were in the right place.

My right place was NEST 9 in Pennsylvania. Amazingly uninteresting for a thing as awesome as a city in a bottle. Kind of like how the public lost interest in moonshots and later found space shuttle launches too mundane to interrupt TV broadcasts. Wasn't the first, wasn't the biggest, wasn't some sort of helical architect's mad dream - just a couple of interconnected really big buildings to fix urban sprawl. 

It wasn't even scary when the reanimates invaded. At least not for me. The solution to the problem was terrifying, no doubt, and probably kind of cruel. They just flipped every switch, and locked every partition in place for 24 hours. No rescuing, no trying to separate infected from clean. Just close everyone up, then go bit by bit to see where people were still capable of responding. People in public areas were obviously up in arms, not sure if they were stuck with reanimates or in the clear. I was alone in my apartment when the magnetic locks engaged. Nothing to do by video chat with my girlfriend two floors down or read. Both I and the person I cared about were safe.

A day later only about 20% of the doors unlocked. Something like fifteen percent of the population remained. Not for very long, since we did a lot wrong in the early days - but far better than the 0% of many other places.

Apocalypse versus Fantasy

Not too long ago, I came across an article on Stargazer's Blog: "Is it just me or is the post-apocalypse much like a fantasy world?" Since many of the stories featured here take place after the fall of human society, its probably a good idea to chime in on this. Its late in the day of course, so excuse the somewhat disjointed format of the essay.

Its a matter of loss, knowledge, and recovery. 

There are certainly a lot of parallels between the two genres (Or if you want to take the Joesph Campbell approach - between all genres). Digging through ruins for items of great power. Strange creatures or bandits to be wary of, natural hazards to avoid, and most outings are for a quest rather than simply walking because its a nice day. (Would you go jogging every morning if there was a 15% chance of meeting gnolls?) 

In a fantasy world, however, that has always been the case.  Orcs have been around since time immemorial, dragons live centuries, and the goblin problem is a known issue. Either by design or just dint of our books focusing on the interesting parts - fantasy worlds are made for adventure.

We have worked long and hard to make sure the real world is not a place of adventure. Most of the human eating megafauna was killed off thousands of years ago, military might keeps raiders at bay. 

Most PA settings do not take place centuries after the event. As such there are people who still remember the before times. Gunslingers understand that their weapons are machines and not magic - spare parts might be rare, but it can be fixed or replaced. Perhaps even improved upon. There is a sense that what is gone can be recovered.

Conclusively removing the fantasy elements from a fantasy setting is rarely the goal. Sometimes the quest is to actually stop the big bad evil guy from doing that. Meanwhile the goal of a PA setting is to make it less hostile to all life. Fantasy is protecting the status quo, PA is restoring it.

Citizen Helicopters

Physics is physics, so citizen aircraft don't look all that different from human ones in the major ways - wings, jet engines, tails, rotors, and the like. Differences tend to be more from points of doctrine than anything else. For example, most of their aircraft are designed for short rough field performance or as flying boats to facilitate operation from small islands or boats. Believe it or not, the old 1950s "Sea Dart" interceptor is a fairly good match to their most common fighter, though the wings are extended, with canards, so for those fans of classic warbirds - think a dart with the wing to cockpit root extensions of a F-18 Hornet and the canard whiskers of a IAI Kifir C-7.

But I'm not really here to talk about fighters - chances are you won't see them up close. Citizen choppers, are pretty common on the other hand.

One running theme you'll see in most of these designs, is a resemblance to flatfish, rays, perhaps airplanes that have been stepped on and had the wings removed. Partly its the different weapons used, and what they feel is safe. In human attack helicopters, the design is often pilot in back, gunner in front to keep the design as narrow as possible, thus presenting a smaller target when facing the target head on. Citizens prefer side by side seating, either just two people together, or a pilot in the middle and gunners on either side.  This presents two advantages. First - each crew member has only a specific sector to watch, rather than the entire field. Secondly, the wide body shields the top mounted engines and a large section of the rotor disk from laser fire, as well as masking the exhaust from infrared missiles. 

Most commonly seen is the flounder shaped utility helicopter - one of the three person models. It seems to have a cargo bay, complete with which underneath it, but no one has observed it carrying passengers. Its comparable in size to a late model UH-1, but the coaxial five-blade rotors and proportionately larger engines give it a much greater under-slung cargo capacity, and fiarly impressive speed for something in its class.

Furthering the comparison to the UH-1, there is an armed version of this copter as well. Fortunately, there are some clear differences that allow an observer to tell the two apart - but it is highly advised to find cover first, and then confirm the model! Each of the two side crew have a rotating laser turret beneath them, and the fuselage is notably pinched behind the cockpit, giving them a degree of view to the rear - about 340 to 350 degrees of the machine can be covered, with only directly behind being safe. The long internal cargo bay is divided into three bomb-bays, each carrying missiles or actual bombs - estimated to be in the fifty to one-hundred kilogram range. (Interestingly, unlike the common human practice - citizen helicopters almost never use unguided rocket pods.) Increased drag from the turrets, as well as the weight of armor, batteries, and munitions  make this version notably slower.

One of the weirder machines to accompany the aliens is their high speed transport craft. Its a strange amalgamation of helicopter, swing wing jet, manta ray, and another abortive aviation project - the AH-56 Cheyenne. It has a pusher ducted fan, pop-out wings, and a single six blade rotor. (Anti-torque seems to be more ducted jets in the tail, rather than a side rotor.) Apparently the craft takes off vertically, with the wings retracted out of the rotor down-wash, but once it accelerates, the wings pop out to provide some or most of the lift, unloading the rotor hub and allowing it to provide mostly thrust. Actual capacity seems to be quite limited to just soldiers, since all that equipment engines take up space and have weight of their own. On the other hand, it has both for and aft laser turrets, and is quite effective at what its designed for - dashing into enemy territory to deliver a commando team, or dashing out with rescued personnel.

Of course there are more sundry transports of various sizes, and a second type of attack helicopter, but the former are not often seen outside Citizen territory, while the later seems to be a newly designed machine with little information available, so this report will have to suffice for now.

Reanimates Revisited Four and Five

The three most elusive things in the zone are the Type Four reanimate, the Type Five reanimate, and a trustworthy account of viewing a type Four or Five Reanimate.

I am not quite sure why there is so little doubt about their existence, since they are quite rare if present at all. But like a good conspiracy theory, it lives on even after all evidence to the contrary is presented and the case closed long ago. Perhaps its because in a way, these things make what is happening less scary. Its a pretty tall order to believe that something like the reanimates is just pure chance, and that as dumb as a type one might be - together they seem to have a functioning hive mindset.

Type Fours fill in the need for a "Queen Bee"or a general of the undead army. They're what use the recovered bodies from fights to make new reanimates, and why there is a standard and measured response to parties entering abandoned cities and megastructures. Attempts to sweep an area clear of reanimates will often succeed for a while, and then witness waves of the creatures returning. If all of them were wiped out - how do they know to return to the area - why would they return?

Now, there are people who believe that the reanimates are some sort of divine retribution - but most accept there is some science behind it all. What science - that is the question. Some believe that this is a government conspiracy, and that nanovac was always meant to allow the government to take control of people. Others thing that normal nanovac is benign, but the military had some exotic types on on hand for either enhancing soldiers, or building something worse. Reanimates are supposedly a national emergency response to the appearance of aliens - its just bad luck that they turned on their masters as well.

More recent rumors imply the Type Five is a more recent development from reverse-engineering the reanimates. Blame is alternately placed on old governments trying to force compliance from city-states attempting independence, transhuman enclaves like the Free City of Tesla, or the ABERHAM facility held by New Birmingham.

Reanimates Revistied, Beta

Yes, I am calling it a reanimate to be technically correct, but everyone else is just going to refer to is as The Beta. At this point, it has ceased to be anything resembling human. Neither appearance nor temperament hit that this creature might once have been a man or woman - its just a shock trooper more alien than even the quadruped Planetary Citizens.

Other reanimates, "Kappa" aside - look pretty close to human, this one doesn't.  A Beta's skin is like half-melted tires, in both consistency and resiliency - they barely even notice something less than a shotgun slug. Its hands and feet have hooked talons between the digits allowing them the ability to climb many surfaces and tear off huge chunks of skin. Two arms, and two legs is only the minimum, Betas with six or eight limbs have been mentioned in many stories around the campfire. Exaggeration? Possibly. But there are enough things to be scared of without adding fanciful reanimates to that list.

You can find them hunting in packs, or rarely alone - thank god for small blessings.

Fortunately, their intelligence seems to stop at the logic more fewer humans equals better. The Beta might surprise you due to its location and silence - but they don't set the same sort of planned ambushes an Alpha or Type Two might. On the other hand, they're fast and will give chase a lot more readily than other reanimates. Be very wary of this! Betas can run faster than most humans, though they're not too agile, so you need to make rapid turns or duck through small openings to get away.

SDI 5, NT 2 NP 2- Bare hands are useless against a Beta, and even just knives and pistols (DR 2) are very uncertain without burning lucidity or burst fire. Their odd biology means once you do break through the armor, there isn't much behind it.

Betas have low stats despite their toughness - Two for wits and quick, one for technique and ranged. Close combat is a respectable five however, and their running speed is Run/12 making an injured human generally unable to escape through speed alone.

Unlike prior reanimates these ones have notable weapons - and are capable of ripping up armor and opening cars like tin cans - DR 5 with claws means they are close to being capable of ripping a person's head off with a single swipe (remember - DR six exceeds the SDI of two for a human by four - overkill...) Betas are capable of reduceing this if they want to take someone alive for some unknown reason...

Revisiting Reanimates, Type Two

About the only good thing you can say about the Type Two is that they are not as smart as the Alphas, and easier to spot than the Type Ones. Unfortunately, these are both only a matter of degree, and if you don't spot them or account for their intelligence, you are in for a world of hurt.

Perhaps the best way to describe the Type Two is that they reanimated wrong. Many of them seem a bit dis-formed or gangly, and almost all show open sores or pustules, often displaying a kind of quicksilver like discharge. Tumors and discolored patches of skin can be commonly found - hair a bit less so - often its missing in spots or gone entirely. In short, almost all of them look like victims of some terrible industrial accident, horrific disease, or chemical weapon attack.

Don't let these seeming injuries fool you however. They are not slowed down, addled, or falling apart - quite the opposite really. These reanimates are more like packs of Hyenas, if Hyenas could climb walls and ignore a load of buckshot to the face. Reports commonly describe them harrying victims, or one runner driving prey into an ambush set by the rest of the pack.

Treat a Type Two as you would treat a bloodthirsty Samurai wearing a flak vest, and perhaps you will survive the encounter.

Type Two Reanimates use the Necrotic Threshold - SDI 4, NT 1 NP 3 - meaning it takes three hits of at least two damage (the first "absorbed" by the NT" each to take one down. Given that a character generally only attacks once in a combat round, this is quite deadly. This gets worse, when they appear  in hunting pairs, or groups of three to eight.

Stat wise, the reanimates have low technique (2), but high for a human strength of 6, Wits 4, Quick 5, and close combat 5 and DR 3, though only ranged of one - they don't use tools often.

 

Revisiting Reanimates, Alpha

A quick note and apology - I just realized I forgot to update the link to the right to the new game file, that has now been rectified. The video post and the game files page had the correct link to the DoW release.

And now back to your regularly scheduled abomination.

***

Alphas are the stuff of nightmares. That sort of terminology does get thrown about a lot for the higher level creatures, and not without reason. Certainly the carnage wreaked by Betas is easily noticed, as is the whole swaths of destruction left by a Kappa. The terror of an Alpha is subtly. Its very easy to mistake the kills inflicted by one of these undead serial killers for the work of another human being. Quite likely, their kills are under-reported for this exact reason.

Other types of reanimates have hardiness or speed on their side, Alphas not so much. They're almost as easy to disable as a normal human - but key word is disable. Like the rest of the reanimates, you're still not going to destroy them  like that. You still need completely remove and then desecrate the head at some point to ensure nothing recovers the body and brings it back.

Finding it to do that though, is the catch. Chances are, it will find you - while you sleep. Alphas know how to hide, to track, to wait for targets to be distracted by other threats, and how to use tools. They can and will cut through barbed wire, scale a fire escape, enter the door, quietly sneak up on people, bash their heads in with an ax, then make an exit.  Thats right - these things know how to sneak and observe.

Hard as it is to tell a type one from a human, an Alpha is even harder. They know the value of camouflage and bathing occasionally - though they don't seem to be too picky about cleanliness. Alphas move as fluidly as a normal person, not with the stiffness of a One, or the loping of a Two. The lack of speech is similar to other reanimates, as is the high body temperature, but those signs are not obvious at first glance.

Some say you can tell them apart by their curiosity - Alphas are known for prodding defenses or exploring areas, or just walking off to the beaten path. Then again, those are all quite human behaviors as well. These creatures seem to have a fondness for melee weapons - but once again, many prudent humans also rely on such.

So yeah, its a reanimate with a survival instinct, near human intelligence, and extremely difficult to tell from a normal person up until it bashed your head in with a hammer. They are thankfully rare, but that certainly doesn't mean you'll only find one at a time.

An Alpha has stats similar to a baseline human - four strength, five wits, four quick, three tech, three ganged, and four close. Some might even qualify for certain skills, though that would be rare. They can run, (speed 10/run) but are not likely to give chase - preferring to reevaluate and ambush the prey at a more opportune time.

Alphas are harder to damage than humans, but not necessarily as oddly tough as their lower ranked Type One - SDI 3, NP2.

Day 31, Behavior Notes

Subject: Unknown Name, Middle Aged Female
Catalog Number: WD-1-650-1A-1034229
Classification: Whiskey Delta, Subclass Alpha
Date of Birth: Unknown, possibly around 2000
Date of Death: Mid 2050, Actual Date Unknown, approx. between 7/14/2050 and 8/1/250 (Records lost)
Sample Collection Date: 11/15/2050
Recovery Point: Toledo, OH

[Time Stamp 03:45]
So little staff, so much to do - we confirmed a third effective strain yesterday, showing considerable anatomical differences from the previous Whiskey Delta types - identified as Strain One, and One Alpha. We are still unsure if this represents a further stage of subject transformation - a beta level of metamorphosis, or distinct second type. I have been temporarily pulled from my anatomical study of [Redacted] to assist in observations of captured specimens. Since tracing the pathogen has just gotten exponentially more difficult - wee are trying to focus on methods to escape the active vectors, and in turn, how to protect from attack, rather than a cure for the attackers. 

Doctor Wilkes has come up with an unusual suggestion for starting our descriptions. Time and again, survivors have made the comparison has been made to Zombies from cheap horror films, and as such, he recommended that we use that as a baseline. Doctor Lincoln disagrees, and finds this a silly and illogical assumption, but does concede that for the average person, pop-culture familiarity may be the key to quicker comprehension than a proper bio mechanical analysis.

Those kind of films made me kind of sick before hand. Watching one to understand this point of while similar events transpire outside our compound does not sit will at all. Worse yet, Doctor Benway seemed to laugh through the whole thing. I'm half inclined to call the man a harbomaniac, but it could be just because the effects of the move were poorly done... if only we really were dealing with actors covered in gray paint. 

I watched the movie nine hours ago and still can't sleep. This probably isn't good...

[Time Stamp 12:30]
Reviewing actual footage now, and our subject. There is in fact a startling degree of overlap. The gait of Whiskey Deltas is somewhat stiff and uncoordinated, at least in subclass one, though the mutation shows far less of this. They also show a marked ability to ignore wounds that would be fatal in a baseline human. WD-1-650-1A-1034229 is missing arm and sports several holes in the Thorax and Abdomen made by an automatic rifle. 

However, our whiskey delta does not have anywhere near the purification of the movie version. It still maintains an oddly healthy pallor and shows little signs of exsanquinating, despite the multiple wounds that would have killed a baseline a matter of minuets from bleeding out.

[Time Stamp 17:53]
Dr. Wilkes has pointed out that Whiskey Deltas show a lack of fixation. Determination to get their targets, certainly, but unlike his fictitious video game examples they do not have to take the most obvious route, and they move from target to target. While in that - deplorable - movie, the ghouls would drag down the victim, them stop to rip it apart and eat its innards WDs don't. In the film, the main character was able to escape while the creatures were distracted by its meal, and at a latter point, made a dash to distract several from his friends.

Real - ugh - Whiskey Deltas don't pull the living apart, at least not humans. Reports of mutilated dogs and wolves would seem to back the idea they fight with other predators, but humans tend to be preserved. Possibly for later use as vectors? While hardly peaceufl, the attack seems to be more a combination of tackling or tripping, combined with punches to disable the target, a few bites to get past the defenses, or to start a secondary concern of bleeding or to slow down an escaping victim. Dr. Lincoln, suggested this may be toxic, and a way to get a "hit and run" kill or as a means to track the victim by blood trail or scent.

Some Whiskey Deltas have been observed using weapons, generally items found in the environment. I have noticed that even in a cluttered environ - they will go for actual tools or weapons like axes or bats, before picking up random debris. The newly identified sub-type seems to have sharpened ends on its finger-bones, giving it functional talons and seems to do far less to preserve the victim than our normal WDs.

The Eisenhower Power Armor

Tactical Augmentation exoSkeleton Carapace Model 79 Eisenhower.

Almost no one calls it that. Its the Ike, the tin can, power armor, Sierra-Three (Slim-SpaceSuit), support armor or just a suit. AS to its actual designation - 79 refers to the number of prototypes and competing models rather than a date or notable index, and most of the augmenting pistons are under armor so it certainly doesn't look like an exoskeleton - making TASC-79 seem rather counter-intuitive.

The machine seems to be a cross between medieval armor and a slimmed down space suit. There are several styles of helmet,  - allowing for different combinations of filters, visual gear, wearer comfort, and user preference (otherwise troopers can be hard to tell apart). Most are a cross between a a knight's Bascinet, a stalhelm, and a gas mask - the eye-piece a notable oval of tinted armor glass. Shoulder-pads both cover the areas where the arms, front plate, and back unit converge, and also can by shape and color help mark individual solders. Each elbow has a pad over it and volumetric-fabric to allow for ease of movement, while the knees are covered with jointed armor and fully protected.

While the unit has a prominent hump/backpack most of the systems are in fact quite well distributed. Batteries are located in the legs and feet to help keep the center of gravity low, and provide limited additional protection from mines. Fuel cells are in the lower part of the pack, and isolated from the user, while above is a water system, and some electronics. Much like wearable computers, the inside of the arms mount input devices, though since these are non-flexible, there are much more durable than fabric processor units. Antennas run around the helm, so the radio is unlikely to stop working, unless the user is decapitated. (Grim tales from South America say, even then it might still work.)

Armor composition is secret, but is generally acknowledged to be a metallic layer over a glass reinforced plastic filler, backed with nano-ballistic gel. Per usual, avoiding incoming fire is preferable, but reports confirm at least limited ability to block heavy-caliber pistols, light rifles, and buckshot.

TASC-79 Stats (Full)

• SDI 4 (Will slow down rifle bullets, resistant to shrapnel and pistols)
• Animus Points: 12 (Convergent)
• Abuse: 1d8 (More fragile than people think, but effective)
• Fuel: 1d8 (Fuel cells are by necessity small, roughly 48 hours of operation)
• Agility: -1d6 (Its about thirty-five kilos of armor, actuators, and batteries strapped to your limbs and chest - while it can go anywhere a human can, something like picking a coin off the floor is surprisingly difficult while wearing one)
• Overdrive: 3 (Its a combat unit - sometimes redlining is for the best.)
• Capacity: One person with nothing in their chest pockets.
• Speed: Equal to the wearer or fourteen, whichever is less.
• Sensors: Forward Looking Infrared (passive), IR search-light, Image Intensification night vision, 3.5x zoom camera, multichannel military radio, battlefield-networking compliant. Total package is +2d6 to searching, and identification and a bonus to initiative at night.
• 1d8 threshold at the end of a track  Nicely built and distributed systems
• Power Plant: A combination of fuel cells and high-efficiency batteries, plus pulleys actuated by
• Other systems: NBC air-filter - though no overpressure system, piezoelectric heating system, built in water dispenser, urine removal system (PA does not unzip...)
• Aim: +1d6 to ranged (Recoil compensation and targeting systems)

TASC-79 (Amended)

• Abuse: 1d8
• Fuel: 1d8
• HP: 12
• SDI: 4
• Agility: Pilot minus 1d6 for bulk and articulation limits.
• Tech/Systems: +2d6
• Ranged: +1d6

Drugs and The Zone

There are two kinds of escape - the zone, and drugs, and rarely do the two mix. There might be some drinking - that goes on everywhere, and for good reason - it can be safer than water under some conditions and a way to relax. Narcotics however, are still a constant threat.

Despite various changes in law enforcement, there is still a heavy taboo against many types of mind altering substances. While most residents of the zone respect personal freedom, hallucinations and not-quite-dead things out for blood don't mix all that well.There are some in the zone that enrich themselves through the creation of harmful chemicals, but sneaking them into a well guarded G-zone can be quite difficult.

Conversely, in many of the G-Zones where threats to life and limb are usually confined to the outside, escapism is fairly rampant. Of course, since this impairs work and can lead to off-setting behavior, numerous steps are taken to combat this scourge.

Unsurprisingly, New Birmingham has some of the strictest statutes, outlawing even tobacco, medicinal marijuana and closely monitoring alcohol consumption, though the later is still allowed. Both the citizen enforcement units and "Right Thought" attack the problem head on, while ever present moralizing presents a huge stigma. At least a few take citizens interpret mild drug use as a way to quietly rebel against the government.

Conversely, the free city of Tesla is quite forgiving of drug offenses, though it is hardly free of Taboos. While personal freedom is prized, it is a city-state dedicated to to the pursuit of rationality and high order thinking in order to pass a technological singularity. Altered states of mind may help in some sorts of research and philosophy, but are generally not in line with the enlightenment and logic enshrined by the city's founders.

Las Vegas maintains the laws much as they used to be. Jail sentences and discharges tend to be replaced with time in a penal battalion however, as manpower is seen at a premium, even if the city is over-populated. A few weeks digging ditches in the desert or running the gauntlet of Citizen and Reanimate forces to the East tends to be a very effective punishment. Still, a lot of bored soldiers and too many people causes a number of social problems people seek to escape from.

Lone Star tends to be relaxed about the drugs themselves, but severely punishes any crime or infraction committed when under the influence. Most of the remaining NEST towers have a similar policy, but these arcos are rather more porous, heavily populated, and have a higher density of reanimates outside, leading to a much greater level of despair and abuse than farther West.

Rumors abound of places where drugs are used as a social control or means to reward citizens - trading addition for service. However, these are probably just that, rumors - the side effects of most narcotics become too much of an impairment too quickly to allow this sort of system to work for more than a few months or years.

For War and Profit (Part One - Origins)

The standing army is a bit of a historical aberration. There were militias, armed nobles, and guards - but service was more a type of tax or tithe than a civic duty. You got land from the king, and in turn agreed to protect it and support him against his enemies. Mercenaries were pretty common - pay for an army only when you need it, and get forces with experience rather than armed serfs. It was the rise of industry and to some extent fire arms - that lead to the need for specialist forces and large national armies.

Soldiers for hire became quite common after The Event. With the devastation of the industrial base, supporting advanced systems or large armies became quite difficult. Concurrently, a drop in population meant that that most settlements couldn't afford to have people serving all the time and not helping elsewhere. Although some form of protection against reanimates was needed, most surviving enclaves did not need to protect a huge area or force their desires on other nations which also meant that large national armies were somewhat unnecessary as well.

Around the same time trends indicated the time was ripe for mercenaries, the potential supply also sky-rocketed. Many soldiers found themselves with some equipment, but cut off from command and control. Those who chose to be raiders or simply give up the military life generally left their heavy equipment behind due to difficulty of finding resupply. Soldiers who wished to hold on to it generally needed to either find a way to link back up with the government or to make it profitable. This also was a ploy for personal security - working for a town meant stability and allies - wandering alone with heavy weapons made many consider that individual a threat.

Of course, not all soldiers for higher started as professional military. Many people with relatively limited skill sets or criminal records found that it was easier to sign on with a militia than pick up other skills. Others saw it as a path towards exploration and adventure, while still having the safety of numerous armed companions and steady work.

A number of non-military mercenary services also appeared after the event. One of the best known of these groups was the "Ambulance Chasers" - medical raiders. There were also reports of free-lance fire companies who would help inspect and reconstruct ad-hoc settlements to be safer places, college professors trying to teach (much like hiring Greek Philosophers in Rome), and assorted technicians assisting the creation of new electrical and mechanical systems. Retrieval Experts and reanimate/alien extermination squads were another common theme - though the latter often operated under a rather heavy stigma.

Living on the E.D.G.E. Part One

EDGE is an acronym for Economical Design and Governance Enclosures. They are a simpler and smaller scale arcology development presented as an alternative to the massively sized and expensive mega-structures. Quite often, they are on the model of a small town, but with increased means of self sufficiency, non-traditional use of space and greater planing.

Although an EDGE is not an island, or even quite as self-contained as a NEST arco, local supply is considered optimal. Greenhouses and small farms attempt to source food locally, and micro-facs shorten other supply chains.Quite often, the settlement is built around a central refining and fueling system, with encouragement to use vehicles based around this singular source. For example, Brazil has many cane ethanol based EDGEs based around ethanol fuel cars, and New Mexico has an electric edge based on a solar tower.

Most town are only built on the surface of the land. Many structures of an EDGE have surface access of course, but they also tend to extend deeper or extend higher than than normal, and often make use of domes or other large enclosed areas for novel purposes. Grocery stores are often located underground, where prevailing cooler temperatures lower refrigeration energy requirements. Similarly treatment or precessing stations are located out of sight.. Inverse domes are often created in the ground, allowing multiple dwellings around the edge to both have natural light, and less surface footprint.

Each EDGE is begins with set standards of size and expected resource throughput. Rather than expanding as the population grows like a normal town, the population is meant to increase to the systems carrying capacity, and then an evaluation takes place on how to expand. Of course, this is hardly perfect, and there are certain over-estimates made to accommodate the randomness of human life, but the general expectation is to run the area more like a colony than simply allowing uncontrolled development.

Light Armored Vehicles Part One

Combat cars are the new 2030 mammals

In the age of the dinosaurs, mammals never got bigger than a cat, most were mouse sized. Other creatures successfully filled the other niches of life, and mammals couldn't compete. When the big rock hit, changing the environment, and wiping out everything bigger than a dog - that was when the our ancestors came unto their own.


Similarly, the times changed, and the use of the tank faded. Vehicles needed to be able to respond faster, transported quicker, and fuel shortages meant the inefficient older tanks were often prohibitive to operate anyway. Wheeled vehicles move faster, are easier to service, and

Tank are not extinct however. Some times you just can't surpass treads for broken ground, and a big gun for direct fire. The citizens found this out the hard way, when they tried to engage human military units in the aftermath of The Event. Human railguns out-ranged lasers by a good margin, and the citizens without similar vehicles, were quite unable to counter heavy armor without resorting to heavy bombardment.


Chassis Types
There are two main types of wheeled vehicles, colloquially known as high cars and low cars. 

High cars are an armored box placed atop bogies (much like rail cars) that are functionally independent and easy to replace drive trains connected to the electrical systems - meaning the actual crew compartment is well off the ground and most of the blast from bombs and mines is absorbed by the drives. This does often mean a higher center of gravity though - and while placing the batteries along the floor as balance and further protection helps, many vehicles built on this patter forgo large turrets for small remote mounts or recoil-less weapons.

Low cars use a more conventional chassis, integrated into the hull of the vehicles.While this method doesn't have the ease of maintenance of outer bogies, nor the added mine protection - it does limit damage to the drive trains better, and allows for a lower center of gravity, and in turn, little problem mounting turrets. 1960s and 70's designs like the V-150 commando, BRDM, Mowag Piranha and LAV-25 would not look out of place in the 2050s, and indeed many of their descendants continue to serve.


Protection
Most vehicles start with a steel or aluminum box, though some use more exotic armor types (Polly-aligned alloy of either steal or aluminum - PAAS "Pace" and PAAL "Pale" respectively - nano metal fibers wrapped around other materials, with a structure similar to the neodymium in magnets).

Firepower
Many land vehicles have now copied the naval concept of VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells to provide rapid tracking missile batteries. Many tanks have a distinct hump on the turret bustle for surface to air missiles, while armored cars, while some cars are just a driver, commander, and a bunch of missiles pointed upwards behind them.

Vehicle Availibility - Five Years On

The first rule of transportation in RPGs: it's available as necessary to move the plot, and stops when the GM needs it too. If they want transit to be fairly easily available, that isn’t a problem. However, given the background of the Anarchy Zones, Motorized transportation would probably be a major bottleneck in the setting. Many parts would be hard to acquire, and the fuel more problematic yet - "Mad Max" this is not. In turn, part of the establishing self-sufficiency themes would be setting up fuel production, and then modifying vehicles to run off your supply.

One would think that there would be a lot of stranded and forgotten vehicles lying around, ripe for the salvaging. The abundance is true, but the pickings are actually rather slim. Cars are actually far more perishable than commonly thought. Lubricating oil turns to sludge, for example. Moisture infiltration means the upholstery might be a mold covered disaster. Rubber tires also degrade - most mechanics say you probably should avoid using ones that have been in storage for more than five or six years. This last piece of advice should make it rather clear that making fuel will be the easy part of getting the world going again. Importing rubber - that is going to be difficult.

Power sources also have limited shelf-lives, and the setting is taking place five years after most up-keep stopped. Batteries have probably discharged or corroded from time, to say nothing of being burned out by EMP. Petroleum derived fuels do go bad over time - partially evaporating, oxidizing, and absorbing water - leading to lower performance and more particulates in the fuel system. Biodiesl goes bad after a number of months. Ethanol by nature is antiseptic and hydrophilic, so it won’t rot, but it will contaminate itself fairly quickly.

These are just the issues that come with time passing, but remember - there are disasters in the background of the zone. Peak Oil and assorted emergencies in the preceding twenty years means that natural oil fuel and lubricants are quite rare - and likely guarded by remaining military for use in high performance war machines.  As The Event occurred, EMP shorted out components, looters damaged what was left, and panicked people seeing reanimates for the first time often abused or crashed vehicles as a result. Since then aliens have been trying to deny the enemy resources, raiders have been trying to corner the supply, and reanimates... 

Reanimates are a bit of an oddity. One of the big arguments for the existence of a type 4 is how they treat vehicles. Often, they will simply smash the things to prevent the victims from escaping. Other times, they seem to intentionally leave vehicles in near pristine condition, serving a lure to the unwary.

As stated in the beginning - making vehicles available to players isn't a bad thing, if it moves the plot along. A more likely scenario, however, is that acquiring the vehicles and maintaining it drives the plot. Finding a machine untouched in an underground parking garage, finding a mirco-fac that can produce replacement tires, and getting a working bio-fuel reactor going to keep it running, while fending off those who want it for themselves - that is the crux of getting the machine restarted in the zone.

AZ Mouse, GZ Mouse

No one initially planned if they would end up in wild territory or where a government still held sway.However, once the worst of The Event  passed, they could chose where they would stay. It isn't so much a matter of occupation, knowledge or politics that determines where a person ended up, but a mental state. Those who ply the Anarchy Zone are marked by adaptability, liked to a certain form of intransigence. Government Zone Citizens show a certain form of intransigence, and a marked form of adapability. The younger generation does not always have a choice, but most know where they want to be.

The Zoner abides, adapts, and advances - working towards goals of their own. Life in the uncontrolled portions of the zone is not easy, and those who chose it must wear many hats. Scavenger, trader, technician, trail blazer, soldier, doctor - fending for oneself on the frontier requires a lot of knowledge. Food is never certain, environmental hazards can silently kill as easily as reanimates, and Citizen encounter suits can tear apart small hamlets with ease.

All these troubles and tasks could be easily traded away for security, if they were to just settle down in a Government Zone. But that would mean giving up on their own dreams, and accepting often over-crowded conditions managed by other people. It may mean acquiescing to a theocracy, acting as a second class citizen under a cadre of mad scientists, or being drafted for dangerous missions by executive order - none of which will suit a person that chooses the zone.

Conversely, the Government Zone seeker is looking for stability in the world, even if it comes with a lack of personal control. They stand by the old traditions, believing it is better to restore what remains than to create something new or go off adventuring. Even this requires some flexibility however. New jobs have appeared - like salvage artist and bounty hunter - while old ones like lawyer and advertising executive mean a bit less when so many of the rules have changed. So they remain in society, yet still must struggle to find a place in it.

It is quite hard to tell who belongs in which category by simply looking at them or by occupation. A combat medic might feel that they are best serving  the community by staying in the city, while an accountant sees that their old knowledge of tax code is obsolete, and thus sets out for a new life in the wild. People will sometimes cycle through the two options - finding they can't fit in a G-zone, but can't fight their way through the AZ, thus seeking out a different enclave to serve.

At the heart of it, choice matters. The time of last stands in old farmhouses and malls is over, the time to chose a path is upon them.