Little Things

Everybody will know the big changes years from now, but there are a lot of smaller details the museums aren't covering. Everyday occurrences, that are so often lost - you can name the presidents of the US, but not what they usually ate for breakfast - right?

Cats were everywhere after the event. Independent ones that escaped, or hand raised little kittens. It was really kind of symbolic of protecting and feeling like you made a difference in something's life. People would rescue cats, or try to avoid ever giving them up during the event. And of course, their services as pest exterminators was needed more than ever.

There was a lot less sweetness in cooking. Who is going to be growing sugar after all, or importing it from an island? Most people would choose sugar cane over potatoes, but we all know which would get planted anyway. And of course, no one was distributing soda, or packaging donuts - or even the ingredients to make them.

Lights after dark became hard to come-by. At the most harmless, they attracted bugs, but raiders or reanimates could see burning lanterns as well. No electricity meant alternate light sources were often fire hazards, and in ramshackle accommodations, a fire could get out of control quickly.

Guitar strings rust, pianos can't be moved, music players need batteries, and playing cards quickly get bent or dirty. A lot of common games and music just wasn't so practical.

You would be surprised how hard it was to find a working pen after a while. No one thought to grab dozens of them while running from reanimates, and they run dry, freeze, or crack. Pencils fared a little better, but more writing ended up on personal devices than parer after a while.

Biopreparat Location A-112, “Conservatory”

Before I came to this place, it never really occurred to me that goats were edible. Now it seems that the few times we do get much meat, it's always some sort of sheep. Local herders far and wide across Azerbaijan. We get more stuff from as “nearby acquisition” than should be allowed in any modern army. If we could be called that anyway – most of our weapons are the same ones our grandfathers used thrifty-five years ago during the world war! You can get an AK-74 on the Chinese border, but we have PPSh submachineguns?

Someone knows we're here, and ships stuff constantly. Locked box cars and tankers full of unknown chemicals make their way to underground storage facilities.  A pair of An-12s sit in one of the hangers, a half dozen Mi-8s sit in shelters not far from the runway. They rarely move, yet always seem stocked and ready for combat. BMD-1 infantry fighting vehicles are loaded in their retro-rocket cradles ready to be drooped into a fight, and two of the helicopters are equipped with rockets and napalm tanks.  Yet this just a refueling stop airport, not home to a unit of desant nor air-transport. According to the official papers, we're just a border patrol and internal security unit – glorified riot police, subordinate to the KGB, not the army.

Pale scientist looking types occasionally bubble up from somewhere underneath the strip like an artisan spring. They wander around for a bit, sun their livid bodies, and then disappear into the siding where the trains go. I never see the trains leave. I wonder where the exit is.

Perhaps the direct opposites of the scientists are the odd soldiers we see around here. Not part of our group at least. Everyone of them has the stature and movement of an Olympic athlete – prime candidates for spetznaz troops. Yet a second glace makes it seem as if they are somewhere past dead. Their faces are usually dark – almost burned – black veins run close under the skin, eyes red, and every centimeter of their arms show injection scars. They sound like other soldiers, a few are even friendly on the rare chances the airport staff talk to them. Yet they also disappear into the train tunnel.

Overall, this is a pretty easy assignment. Its hot, but a dry heat. You're not going to get a promotion out of this, but you don't have to spit shine your boots daily either. Just keep in mind a few simple rules. Do not ask about what is on the trains. Do not ask what the numeral 2552 means. Do not ask about Biopreparat. And for gods sake – if anyone mentions the term “Manor House” avoid eye contact, do not speak, call attention to yourself, or volunteer!. Those who do go into the train tunnel.

Plenty of worse places to be than Azerbaijan. Very few quite as odd however.

Japan Tourist (Part One)

Japan just sounded like a neat place to visit. For all the energy shortages, social security problems, and rising sea levels there was still something to experience. Somehow it maintained or recreated that image from the late nineties - half samurai mysticism, half neon insanity. It seemed like a parody, like they were trying too hard to hold on to the days when economists talked of the coming war between the great economic powers. (No really, I've got a book "The Coming War With Japan"). You kind of just had to go and see what was real.

Well, I finally managed to find a tour group and uploaded translation software into a brand new set of headphones. It was going well - that perfect mid part of a trip when you're over jet lag, but still have some fresh clothes, and have not yet experienced stomach problems from the big shift in diet and eating street foods.

That is when The Event hit.

Everything in your life suddenly shutting down and states of national emergency are bad enough. When you don't know the language, your computer is wiped clean, outside communication is shut down, and all your currency records are wiped out?

I woke up in a hospital. Apparently it was just a panic attack, but bad enough I couldn't breath and passed out anyway. It didn't go full on movie cliche, fortunately. There was plenty of staff, they took excellent care, and even put me in contact with a girl who spoke fluent English. She's an otaku, but for Dungeons and Dragons of all things. Simply could not ask for a more perfect match.

Reanimates didn't show up immediately in the wake of the Citizens arrival, but things were in rationing and emergency mode pretty quickly. Probably comes from living with tsunamis, and the limited resources of the island. I imagine Israel got through it all pretty well too - albeit for less natural reasons.

I also imagine that the USA fared decently well due to the high per-capita gun ownership when reanimates really did show up. In a place where most of the police don't have firearms - it was hammers, kitchen knives, and table legs - the JSDF at one point was dropping loads of baseball bats and golf clubs onto rooftops to give people they couldn't get too a fighting chance!

The nation changed from the "land of the rising sun", to the "land of only sun". Reanimates have better night vision than humans, even if they can't see as well overall. Everything just shuts down and locks up a bit before sundown. I've been through orthodox Jewish neighborhoods on Friday night, and it still isn't as quiet as this. I swear the fog horn that sounds the all clear each morning is actually the nation's collected farts because they're that unwilling to make noise in the darkness.

Back to Texas

Adam drained his second canteen, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Dry heat wasn't supposed to be as bad, but everything counts in large amounts. It had been a long time since he was in this part of the country, and needed to acclimate once again. Another few days, and the tacky giant glass disco ball that formed part of the arcology complex would be visible. It contained high class restaurants and five star hotels, yes, but that would never change his opinion of the architecture. None of them would be quite so fancy five years of the apocalypse anyway..

Other feats of engineering were already visible - roads, construction depots, clusters of adobe houses, and metal shelters. Two entire communities popped up around the mega construction project. One was just the workers seeking to avoid commutes and costs by living nearby. Adams father had been one of those. Farther South of the complex was a refugee camp where his mother had lived. It almost seemed like Moses had parted Central America, sending people flying North and South - though sea rise and desertification had more to do with it.

There had been some attempts to make the place more livable than a shanty town. Few of the official actions had amounted to much, but a very large number of women had unofficially become tile layers and painters for the project. Normal union rules didn't apply, since the area had been declared and EDGE special economic zone. The government decided getting things done was more important than being right, and had let private interests take a free hand.

Even now, that was part of the reason why the young man was reluctant to return. There were many people who still held large amounts of the old money and a feeling that they owned the place. Legally that was true, but did those old rules mean they got to be the uncollected de-facto rulers of the complex? A legislative body existed, but the old rich held veto power over all but the biggest majorities. Maybe it was just a bit of low class resentment, but it just didn't seem right that there be kings in America.

Other problems waited there as well. To the East were the holy soldiers of New Birmingham, always eager to assimilate the complex. West and North were a pair of Planetary Citizen - tribes? Swarms? Nations? Groups - and opposed to each other no less. Alternately both sided would cajole or threaten the people of Lone Star to get supplies for their conflict, and none of the humans were really quite sure which to support. Mexico to the South had returned to the semi-feudal Hacienda system, a patchwork of plantations, some owned by the former government, some by independents, and many by former criminals. It was the 1910 revolution all over again, complete with soldier trains and horse cavalry. No brilliant general Obregon to bring it to a close, however.

For now, all that could wait. Only a few hours remained until sundown, and traveling at night was rarely a good idea. Better to stop now and find a residence. Provided they were free of reanimates, the old adobe houses up ahead would be the best accommodation Adam had in months.

Freighter Captain

I was at sea when the aliens arrived. Scary as S--. Reanimates, you can do something, hide at least, or shoot them. But all the bombs mankind has ever made don't mean a thing to the Atlantic. All the satellites go down when you're in the Northern waters? Its like war - if you've never been - no mere words quite do it justice.

You might have guessed that I wasn't one of the many that died on the waves. Sure there are aliens wandering about, but lets be reasonable here!

Reanimates don't swim too well, least not to my knowledge. If you're a few miles from shore its pretty safe. Catch is, you do need to eat. Not many places you can call a real port of call. Who operates the cranes and tugs - provided the machines haven't fallen to rust and ruin? Ports tended to attract large populations of business, factories, workers, immigrants - and wherever there were lots of people, now there are lots of reanimates. 

You can send out a jetty, or wait for people to come out to the ship themselves. Neither is a good option - one puts a small number of your people at the mercy of others far from help, and the other allows strangers on your ship. Too small boats meeting sometimes works, buts its hard to transfer much cargo of any type when you have two pitching dhingys. 

There are basically four types of captains these days. 

If you ran an old burner - coal, CNG, oil - your tanks are dry or spoiled, and few places have a few hundred tons of fuel to sell. So in that case, you're just an off-shore island, offering sanctuary or ahem, "social services" (People still got that itch you know, and we are going to have to rebuild the population some how...)

Next we have the two types of Windjammers, both of which are better off. To some extent, at least they can still move. A few brave ones still face the oceans and trade winds, taking month long journeys to keep the world connected. The balance though, just flit up and down the coasts carrying local goods and passengers. Its lucrative, but you meet a lot more people, and some of them just don't have your best interests in mind.

Finally, we have the nuclear cruisers. You can ply the sea-lanes or power an entire city off their atomic piles. A lot less risk when you can make a voyage in weeks rather than months - when whole towns can disappear in a bad winter, being gone for three months means you might never see it again. Port facilities are even harder to find, and finding enough cargo, or the right kind, to by a few hundred kilos of uranium... 

Sometimes my job seems about as bad as a paper dog chasing an asbestos cat through hell. But I'm not at war, and I'm not wondering who is the rightful government - the old law of the land, or the current holders of the territory. I know its just me, god, and the deep blue sea. 

Drawl on about City States

Gef out of here! Go! Raus! Skedaddle.

Dose hateful dings! Whaf daf man was sayin abouf New Birmingham - Lord have mercy. And de old Govment, I spit whenever I hear dat so called presiden's name.

Mind you, even the devil tells the truf if it suis his own purposes. It be true that all dem NES' folks are a bunch of tieves, don build nofing new adall - jus stell from de dead of all de old cities. And dose army troopers, dey goo de best guns and ello coppers, well skooled - you ain't hear no arguin fro me, dey good. But dey be servn evil people, and we migh no beat 'em in dis life, but de nex don look too good for dem.

'Corse what I hear is dat most de army now be deserters or criminals, given guns and an a license to loof - em and em domain you know.

Now if you wan a good lif, you do never speak of dat Desla Place, now arround her you don. If one ding for a man in powah like the presidn to be empted to sin. Bu dis is a whole cidy up an ouf de-fyien god, dinken deir computers and sy-bear-nef-iks can save 'em de way Jesus can! All sors of sinners line up a de gates, an dey be dold to serve de Desla massers and give up dere children for entry! Be glad dey so far away in de Rocky Monts.

Naw if you lookn for good people closer doo home, you gof Lone Star, alon de Dexas side of de gulf. Dey gof a nuclear powah plan an a half completed arcology, and be good friends wif da men on da naval bass and. I don dink dey in leauge wif de old govermen, but dey don ave much fuel neither, so it be hard to knwo when do go an fight. Dere be a lota aliens around der, like big shrimps wif laser guns! Aliens still gof an army, wi big demon robot and ello coppers dat look like fire breathn catfish. Pray for dem Lone Star folks - won you?

Now some say dat de aliens fight each another, or pay off humans to do it for dem. California be de nastiest bunch of dem around, while udders mig be willn to sit an jaw a while. You imagine dat - talkin to a shrimp? Nah, I jus stay here, nice an safe. Righ Dought folks might be over eager, but Sheppard's Hand is good people. So wa if he calls 'em police and nof an army? We be in a civilized town dat needs police and pastors, not troopahs and dictators. We's got Sunday picnics every week when most in the wasteland would fight each udder for a can o beans. Der be sho-shops and soda pop, dentists and mechanics all about us here, like a good little down - almost as if De Event never happened, alright.

Ah say again, dis be a good place, a righteous place, and fine in de eyes of de Lord. Some covet technology too much, or govermen powah, or try to keep ol ruins alive with bits o de dead. Here we care about people, all the childrens get school, all da wives keep dere homes. Dere be weeds in out gahden, but it bears might fine fruit, while all de udders be twisted or barren. To be po' here is better dan to be rich out der.

(My apologies to anyone who actually is in the Deep South, I'm trying to change up my writing, not mock you.)

Tesla External Games (Draft)

Tesla is supposed to be the city on the hill, social experiment of total freedom, open up the human race - yes? Yet all we see from outside is preformed concrete walls and guard towers like a prison, and that damned lightning spewing disco ball in the center. They demand tribute for entrance, and focus on their Dr. Moreau Experiments rather than the real human beings outside. Some bright future it is surrounded by shanty-towns.

People come to the "Free City" because they think its safe - few reanimates, some remaining government forces, and over the mountains from Citizen territory. Damned irony is, its not the city that makes it safe, but all the hopefuls. So many of us are around we can have proper patrols, and work gangs fulfilling jobs from sanitation to fortification. A functional city outside the city. It tough to feed that many, and there is no proper sewage yet - but from barbers to X-ray technicians, we have everything else.

Sometimes we think about storming the walls. If they were just people, I'd give us better than a fifty-percent chance of doing it. But we aren't sure if its just people at all. They have military drones by the swarm, and a bunch of other advanced military equipment the actual solders had left behind as too maintenance intensive. Even the citizens know better than taking on tanks! And the... inhuman stuff spoken of in whispers. Some say its cyborg super-solders, some say genetic modification. I even heard that they can reprogram the berserk nano-vac in reanimates - that's why they're so rare around here despite all the people.

Maybe its worse than that. They do trade some food and medicine to outsiders. What if there is controllable vaccine in those things? God, they could turn us against each other with a flip of a switch! I was wary of the damned stuff when it came out and the government had a hand in it - now now its a bunch of crazy techno-wizards with no government supervision and I know it turns people into monsters.

Others are a bit more trusting. They point out the city does trade, provide some health services, and does equip at least some outsiders as a de facto police force, and keeps drones aloft to assist people during resource gathering missions. Might be sincere, might be playing us against each other.

Not much to do about it in the short term I guess. Though I have to wonder why they want so much useless junk. Titanium aircraft components for instance - steel you can reforge easily enough, sections of wing not so much. Industrial wastes, chemicals, coal - they want toxic stuff other city-states would pay you to get rid of. That makes things a lot more dangerous than trading with other towns. A lot of people prefer long term health issues to short term beaten to death by the undead.

You know, maybe this whole city-state thing is overrated. We just need enough people in one area, and not worry about salvaging a power structure That survived the Event. Could work. Doesn't mean we're leaving though - Tower Reversed loves to prey on people emigrating to Tesla. I wonder if they work together, TR gaining wealth and forcing people to stay here. Hmm. You'd think the end of world government would mean less conspiracies, not more huh?

Older Machines

Wearable computers are nice, and some are designed to be fairly durable. Most are not, however, and repeated flexing, washing, or wear will crack or bend internal components. High end versions had removable memory cartridges that act as a back-ups, but most were meant for closet interfaces or wi-fi. Cell-phones and tablets also tended to have a problem with durability - so long as circuits are printed or soldered together, there is a way for them to separate. Crystal disks are an exception, since its all arrayed in the matrix, thus data taking physical form in the block - but you still need something to read that disk.

So the search is on for actual computers, and that is always a bit of a pain. Computers became a part of everyday life quite literally - you computer desk was not a piece of wood you put a CPU on top of, but contained the processor itself. Testing tables in ruins and then dragging out the complete object is an annoying job for movers under good circumstances, much less when reanimates or aliens are about. Stand alone computers still exist, but are more of a specialists tool or gamer's toy.

You could hack something out of multiple game stations and some code - but how many of us are actually engineers versus casual end users? Still easier than working with a computer of Citizen design. The basics are the same, but their code is either undocumented, or the comments are written in the offspring of Braille and musical notation. Someone has probably opened their OSes, but they aren't selling, so what good is it?

Basements are the key. Hospitals, government buildings, factories - those sites have usually been exploited or destroyed. The average attic full of junk might still be useful however. Never underestimate the little scores of suburbia.

Life 2.0 for Earth 3.1

Genius, is an idea that seems stupid at first, but turns out to change the world. Foolish, is when people think it is a good idea from the beginning.

If you're going to settle a new planet - you're going to bring along bulldozers, tractors, and plows - right? Of course to keep those running you need a supply of fuel, and numerous spare parts, and to quickly begin mining so you can produce ores needed to build replacements, and start with a colony ship big enough to haul around the hundreds of tons steel that make up these things...

Or you could do things the old way and use animals. Feed them with renewable grass, eat them when they break down, produce new ones by just leaving the old ones in a shed together... From the standpoint of mass and ship size, packing some frozen embryos with some artificial wombs, and they take less space than one bulldozer - much less a fleet of dozers and spare parts!

Now you could say there is a bit of a problem with transplanting life like this - humans can put on clothes and adapt technology as they need - getting a spacesuit on a horse is a little more difficult. Most life forms have spent thousands of years adapting to earth, not the "rather like earth" or "just a bit survivable" or "well, at least its not hell or France" exo-solar landing locations.

Enter the brilliant idea "lets make some new organisms - bigger, and tougher, stronger, with eight cup-holders fuel injected V-8s!". B-movie mad scientists have led you astray. It doesn't work like that. We can't just make stuff whole cloth, we can only include other genes that happened to exist before and hope it all works together. They can't customize DNA more than that.

But they can work backwards through the  chain of evolution, to prior animals, from other times, be it the ice age or earlier. Pack Mammoths for cold planets, Haast's Eagles for large pest control, Riding Elephant Birds. Restore what was lost, since at once point that goat was an Andrewsarchus, that turkey a Velociraptor.

And that in a nutshell, is why we are eighty parsecs from Earth and hiding in a cave from dinosaurs.

Raider Types

Ran into some Star Sinister guys a while back. Don't like them at all. They're harder to deal with than independents and Tower Reversed combined.

What - you're surprised by that? Sure, everybody fears the tower, and with good reason. They're the biggest, best armed, and smartest. At the same time, they have a code. You do not disrespect a man of the tower.  Just pay the damn toll, and don't insult their intelligence, and you'll make it out all right. Make a fuss, and they will teach you respect. Its like wolf alphas. Or perhaps like reanimates - something might come along to clean it up and be worthy of praise - but until then, be careful.

Lesser groups of low level adventurers - they're usually a bit desperate. They'll either shy away from a real fight, or make make stupid mistakes and get in over their heads. Either way, its a lot easier to trick, fight off, or escape a small band than evade the Tower for an extended period.

Star Sinister has a size closer to the Tower, but all the cockiness and violence of an independent group. They don't act like gentlemen and avenge their honor. No, getting back at someone who evaded their wrath is just a game and the Star plays to win. The tower isn't above threatening innocents to get the law to come out, but Star Sinister just skips to the burning without the warning.

There is no cure for comic book crazy. That is the big trouble. Sometimes putting the hurt on the Star is enough to drive it off, sometimes it just makes them all the more angry. Individual members will hunt you down even without support because they're just like that. Its a matter of judging people and avoiding the loose cannons. People skills over firepower, regardless of how reprehensible the members singularly and collectively are.

I hate violence, and I'd still prefer a good shoot out to navigating the sick minds of raiders. That is how bad these guys are.

Mars - 2053

Mars is a dead planet. We made it that way.

We had atmosphere recyclers, and were working on ways to extract it from the rust rocks all around. But even with supply shots every few weeks sped up by low cost launching, it remained that we were just a few malfunctions away from disaster.

A number of the suicides were caused by people wondering about the what ifs. What if it had been one international effort rather than several nations with separate colonies? What if we had been able to pool every thing immediately? What if a few had just stepped forward to make a sacrifice, or we had drawn lots for it? Would a little bit of dignity and an acceptance of death been enough?

Too late now.

Short version - we turned on each other. Raided the other settlements to ensure we had spares for the oxygen scrubbers. Misappropriated rock hammers and mining lasers to kill each other. Maybe we could have stopped once the population was at a fairly sustainable level, but the esprit de corps, and the call for revenge was too strong. The victims were people we had seen every single day for years, specifically chosen because we couldn't bear to kill them - so of course we couldn't just accept one of our team mates was dead and move on.

There still isn't much word on why all contact was lost, or what those alien ships are - but unless there is an outright zombie apocalypse back there, it can't be worse then living here.

Show Brainstorming

Hobbes took a few thoughtful bites, then set down his toast. "We've given our listeners a number of hints on dealing with citizens, we've never shared with the citizens tips on dealing with humans. Do you think there would be a pay-off if we tried?"
  "I don't know" Diego began "We already have one here, that would be a pretty big pay-off itself. The aliens to the east aren't going to listen, and we can't be too sure any other ones would trust us. What kind of pay-off can you expect? There are truces with small towns and limited fighting - but none of them have tried throwing in with a major city-state, No attempts to replace satellites have gone off without getting shot down. nor are they going to pay us much tribute."
   "Sounds like there is room for improvement then."
   "Hobbes, I was town a few days ago, and found a reclamation specialist who had some cocaine to trade. You do not grow that stuff anywhere near hear. We have all of civilization to save and rebuild, yet someone down south still thinks growing and selling poison to stupid Yankees is a priority. If citizen nature is even half as bad as human nature - its just not going to happen."
   "Well, what can we do then?"
   "I don't subscribe to the 'I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist' junk adage - I'm just a pessimist. I would agree that we are doing a good thing, just not that we are doing all the good things, or even much good things. However, at some point that greed is going to matter. Citizens are going to want potato chips enough to actually trade with or deal with humans to get them in a manner easier than growing an unknown vegetable and an unknown legume to produce oil to fry them in. The trouble is humans need to start their machine, the alien's theirs, and then the two need to find out where the cogs inter-mesh."
  "What if we redefine the metaphor? Argue its a path together, encourage sharing now, not once everyone has factories?"
   "Words have power. Bullets do as well. But really, power is power - all else is just tools. We can describe the world and influence some opinions, but it takes an actual demonstration of ability to influence. The world isn't a quantum state that changes because you look away."
  "Didn't we rule out physics metaphors?"
   "Have we played a devil's advocate yet that hasn't had a few broken rules?"

Lost Contact

"The Net has been down for days now. Nothing good can come of this."
  "So just use the radio."
  "Doesn't work like that, we don't have one."
  "What do you mean, you don't have a radio? How can you not have a radio? There are no servers, there is no mail, there is no telephone, the satellites were shot down... There is Nothing BUT Radio!"
  "Just exactly where have you been the last forty five years? Cellular networks man. Better than radio in every way. Don't need big transmission towers, not prone to static, and sms is non-synchronous. If the guy at home is away from the radio - no message is received  A text you can read whenever you want, and remains a note in stressful situations. If you can find some transmitters - not too hard since service trucks are grounded at act as Faraday cages - its easy to set up and easier to communicate."
  "So everything about reanimates you ever need to know is expressed in a few dozen words?"
  "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Whiskey Delta Tango Charlie Charlie, Golf Tango Foxtrot Oscar."
  "Foxtrot Uniform to you as well!"
  "What was that - your breaking up."

Count the Days

The ultimate goal of Mankind is to stop counting days.

To be so assured of food supply that we can stop counting down to the harvest, or to the new spring.
To be so assured of health that death is too far away to bother counting.
To be so assured of philosophy or religion  that even if we can't make our days infinite, we are not bothered by their end.
To be so assured of loved one's safety that we are not counting the days until they return.
To be so assured of peace that we are not counting down to the next war.

It would be a damned lie to say we were anywhere near this end of counts before The Event. But we were hopeful. Telepresence, micro-factories, nano-vac - we seemed to be getting the wants and safety covered, even if there were so many philosophies and conflicts that allowed for a deeper reassurance. Well, maybe it was only for a select few and we were living in a cyberpunk future. Then again, the world was cyberpunk ever since they installed metal detectors at O'Hare Airport and we accepted the reality that unattended luggage would be take away and detonated. Turbojets didn't transform the masses into the glamorous "Jet Set" - they became cattle in aluminum tubes instead.

It shouldn't take an Apocalypse to make you grateful for what you had. Then again, even that didn't work, and there are still people craving more and seeking We're always going to be petty and competitive, and neither the undead or aliens are going to change it.

You can count on that.

Writing from the Zone

I'm drawing a blank, and there are fifteen minutes left in the day. It probably shouldn't bother me. Tomorrow will be pretty much the same, and not all that many people are relying on these messages anyway. Who knows, maybe I've run out of stuff to write about. Perhaps that is what annoys me.

But that is the way the zone plays tricks on you. It lulls you into a sense of sameness, and unimportance. You slow down, you don't look as hard, you miss updates. Then you miss reanimates. Food caches, warning signs, traveler's sigels.

The zone is chasing you, stay a step ahead, stay alert. Its no longer a game about getting out of one building and dodging the freshly risen undead as society falls apart. That is almost cliche. Now its about escaping every building, or at least your home. Now its a struggle to keep going. Sometimes you wonder if you're a real person, if what you're doing has meaning. We all have to ask that in the long view of things, but for now, keep it up, try to get a week uninterrupted. Seek the book within.

Smells Like Trouble

Shaving soap may save your life.

Nobody is quite sure what keeps a reanimate moving, and why they aren't just rotting piles of meat. They're perfectly intact, and will even heal wounds over time. Nothing like those half gone grey skinned creatures from old movies. More impressively, this oddly good health is in spite of having next to no sense of hygiene. Far as we can tell, they don't bathe, and change clothes only when what they're wearing has ripper or rotted completely off, if that much. Death be not proud and all that. (Though I don't think that is what the poet meant...) If you have a good nose and aren't too ripe yourself, you can smell them on the wind sometimes.

Dogs, of course, are a more reliable warning system though you have to be careful. To start, barking and whining can reveal your position. Furthermore, you will probably get a lot of false alarms. What few tests have been conducted seem to show that an animals aversion to reanimates is just based on them seeming like humans'. A wild horse can't tell the difference between a not quite alive person and a not yet dead one - it just doesn't like people. So the dog that barks at reanimates, is really just barking at any person that isn't you.

It might seem like a vanity, but keeping your hair nicely styled and getting rid of that matted beard is a good way to avoid getting shot due to mis-identification. If you're shot because they can tell who you are, well that is your own damn fault, not mine.

Quiet Reanimate Seder Thoughts

"This is the bread of affliction, which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt..."

You find a lot of people going through religious festivals these days. I really can't attest if belief is making a comeback or not. Even in New Birmingham there are probably a lot of those with minimal faith that put on airs to take advantage of a good thing. But, so far as I can tell there are a lot of festivals.

Obviously, most of these rituals pre-date electricity, so its something to bring people together without using too much in the way of resources. Kind of like how Classic Rock and Classical compositions have changed places - quartets and candles are still possible, sparing the fuel for generators to run the electric guitars and light show - that is high society extravagance!

There is also the excuse to eat - never underestimate how many of our holidays center around food. If you can't splurge on your scarce supplies in the name of god, when can you? Well, obviously it should be never - but if you really did get held in that austerity, would you want to live?

Taking a less facetious tone - that may be a reason for the rise of spirituality. To have something to live for, or belief that those taken down in the hard days of the Event are in a better place, where we can see them again soon. (But not too soon, of course.) If not the afterlife, then deliverance and affliction are powerful themes when in any disaster, especially one that seems so supernatural.

While recovering the technological artifacts is where the big money is, there is a good market for preserving religious and social ones too. Some of these can be difficult - you can't just throw a torah or icon in a sack drag it around after all. You need to escort a rabbi or have a priest demonstrate proper care. Still, even if you do it for some religion you've never heard of, there is that extra warm feeling in your heart for doing it, in addition to standard fees your charging. I just know there is that satisfaction, and you don't get it from just grabbing generators and nano-vac. Its the closest I feel to relgious.

Well, its not for me to judge, but you'd be remiss without a bit of spirit in the zone.

And on that note, have a joyful passover. L'Çhaim.

Ballistic Blues

We're running a bit low on bullets here. And I don't mean "we this camp", I mean "we the human race". You would think there are a lot of peacenik types that would appreciate that, but they were probably eaten by the reanimates, feral zoo animals, or aliens a few years ago.

Ok, I'm being melodramatic. But it is a problem we need to address. Big factories obviously aren't running, and micro-facs aren't meant for arms manufacture. The military might have built some for fabricating weapon parts or aircraft components abroad, but its not really the guns and parts that we're lacking. Kind of by nature - the whole propelling things through use of explosions - guns are well, pretty tough - you know?

If you're not an expert in the field, you might thing that nano-facs are little replicators, put in feed stock, and get anything you want. That is really not how it works.

There are several different types of micro and nano-facs (Technically, nano-facs are micro, but not always vice versa, but using the terms interchangeably is common even amongst the operators.) dedicated to different tasks - such as ones that handle cloth, and others for metal, and other for computer goods. A cloth factory could produce anything from a bikini to a three piece silk suit, but none of the pins for the tailor to custom fit them. A car oriented factory might have the means to handle nano-scale silver and platinum for catalytic converters, but they're not going to produce medicine.

Taking this a step further, there are also chemical handling factories for drugs, or material science. The aforementioned cloth factory might be able to produce bullet-proof vests, but it needs spools of high-tensile fabric made elsewhere to do so.

Yeah, yeah, I know - I lost you about three paragraphs ago/ Short version for those about to fall asleep: Most factories are too specialized or the wrong type to produce gunpowder. No nitrocellulose, no boom. Metal slugs for gauss weapons are easy enough to make, but the supra-conducting magnets that make them - that is even more difficult to forge than umm, uh...

Well, we were able to make nuclear weapons and plutonium a hundred years ago, modern rail guns only in the last twenty or so.

Don't get me wrong, micro-facs are wonderful, and retrieving parts and templates for them is some of the most valuable salvage work you can undertake. However, arms stocks have actually been fairly low priority so far compared to farming and industrial technology for running a city-state. That may change soon, and bring some city-states into conflict. You might want to be far away when that happens, I know I do.

Citizen Armies

Citizens are methodical when it comes to war. Between their tendency towards what we would call vendettas and the price of mercenaries, there is a cultural emphasis on making sure there is nothing left to carry out reprisals. Limited supplies and fear of human numbers also encourage them to take assured steps. (You'd be scared if stuck on a foreign world, even if the populace didn't have things like tanks and reanimates - right?) 

If you piss them off - you will know it. Fortunately, it takes a while to get that far.

For the most part, they aren't looking for conflict - since doing so requires such extreme measures, and most of them probably don't have the supplies to carry it out for long. At least we don't think they do.

Patrols will be seen around their borders, but they tend to announce their presence or leave signs - deterrence only works if you know its there. In some places - usually desert like ones where there are few people, it will be just citizens in flack vests with their little rocket rifles, and panzerfaust like anti-tank rockets. They don't like facing humans without their machines, however. Air patrols by helicopters, roving beetle like armored cars, or perhaps most likely - their signature demon armors are another common way to enforce territory.

Speaking of which - laser towers. Those big lotus like things that use phased array emitters to steer energy beams - not always strictly their territory. Obviously, the aliens have to be around to set them up and keep them charged. But you can't always trace a line between them and say one side is PC territory, and the other anarchy zone. Sometimes they keep the tower's closer to the settlements for protection but claim a wider area, and others they put the things way out to protect strategic points. Sometimes human settlements can be included in their territory - its nice to have traders, translators, potential slaves, or whatever other use they find for humans at times. (So far as I know, they don't find us delicious.) Also - Citizens aren't dumb and will take up active defense if you prepare to make trouble on their borders - they will not just sit patently on the other side of the line while you prepare for war.

Where was I? Right.

After patrols, the most likely sight will be wrecking crews. Citizens know about denying sanctuary and supplies to their enemy and often go about demolishing old towns to make sure they don't end up with refugees, bandits, or worse on their borders. Usually these teams will give advance warning to evacuate, or even negotiate a scheduled for moving the populace. Usually. At the appointed time, teams will move in with explosives, backed by Succubus units (the ones with missiles - incubus is just guns) to collapse anything that tries to resit or attack the sappers. After that, they tend to either sift through the rubble for any valuable materials - or just cover it with dirt to make a small hill. That is a sure way to tell the difference between a town depopulated by reanimates or hit by raiders that found a cache of missiles - the aliens are careful to not leave ruins, reanimates leave most intact, raters just leave junk.

When you do find an actual citizen military unit, it tends to be big, and some multiple of five. Can't tell you why that is the magic number, or the names of their units, but its always something like five, fifty, or two hundred fifty - though that last number is pretty much unheard of these days. Just think in terms of a normal human platoon, company, and so on. Often some portion of these numbers are mercenaries, and rarely that means human mercenaries. Two to one you're going to faced trained high level warriors rather than conscripts. A bit of selection pressure means that those who made it through the Event learned how to deal with tanks, so even a few of those aren't going to be much help, and really - who has "a few"tanks just lying around these days?

Basically - don't tick off the aliens, OK? Don't you have enough problems already?

Take this Caravan and Truck It.

Being self sufficient is a damned tall order - even the minimal impact arcologies made with the best tech 2030 had to offer couldn't do it. Villages and towns cobbled together in the wake of a disaster - good luck.

Its really hard to generalize about trade routes - so much depends on the area, the needs of the people, alien levels, and the like. If I had to make categories, hmm - lets go for four types. Protected, Directed, Casual, Smuggling.

Protected caravans carry all the high priority things with immediate value. Yes, surgical tools and spare parts are always needed - but if you stole a bunch of them, it would be hard to use them yourself or sell them to the very next person you saw. Food and munitions, on the other hand, are valuable to anyone at any time. As such, these caravans travel only rarely, on previously scouted routes, and only if they have acquired a large number of guards to keep it safe. They aren't always very good guards - if you want some travel in your life, they'll accept just about anyone really, so feel free to sign up - but there will be a lot of them.

Directed caravans are for important stuff that doesn't need such heavy escort. Might have some guards, but most of the defense is just the operators own weapons, vigilance, and deals with the local raiders. Like a protected caravan, they tend to have a set destination.

Casual caravans are your wandering traders, making a general circuit, or speculating on rumors and coded radio transmissions.

Smuggling in this context doesn't quite mean illegal stuff, it just means small scale and using a combination of mobility and wits to make it through. A group of thirty guys, eight vehicles, and ten thousand rounds of ammunition doesn't happen every week, or even every month. Sending it via different method might not make it. So if you absolutely need to deliver  bullets, get four people, and give them each a pack containing two hundred rounds. They split up and travel the back ways. Its pretty hard to notice them, and even if one or two get caught, most of the delivery gets through. Not the safest method, but usually the fastest, and at times, that means the best.