[Game] Let's Make a Post-Apocalyptic Setting

[(E)]

Yes we had help. If by help you mean the genius of Hector Yang who had his 4th PhD by age 17. Born in 1998 his work revolutionized the biotech field. It is likely he would have been a world leader if not for his politics and eccentric behaviour.

What is the dominant attitude after the end? More 'everyone for themselves' or 'us vs them'? Or something else?

[christ0pher]

Originally Posted by (E)

Yes we had help. If by help you mean the genius of Hector Yang who had his 4th PhD by age 17. Born in 1998 his work revolutionized the biotech field. It is likely he would have been a world leader if not for his politics and eccentric behaviour.

I really like Dr. Yang!

Originally Posted by (E)

What is the dominant attitude after the end? More 'everyone for themselves' or 'us vs them'? Or something else?

This largely depends on "where you're from" now, after the end. The small ecologically self-sustainable communities that popped up in the years after the end trend to be a little more upbeat, but everyone has adopted a kind of clannish we look after our own attitude.

What happened to the 20 or so personnel at the L5 station preping for the next Mars mission?

[patchwork]

The Mars mission was only planned and intended to take two years, so essential supplies and life support were no longer viable after 2034. Despite the fact that many of them became aware that their families were lost to the plague, they behaved as the professionals at the top of their field that everyone knew they were, relaying surveillance data and communications to anyone actively combating the plague until forced to abandon station in 2034. The Mars crew splashed down at that time, and global communications being kind of shot, what they've done the last ~8 years is not public knowledge.

Regardless of factual basis, what do survivors tell each other was the cause or source of the plague?

[Humabout]

Depends on the group of survivors. Many of the nutters who inevitably survived thanks to their ocd preparations think it was a government conspiracy culling the masses. Most religious strongholds spout notions of endtimes and god's wrath over various devicive issues. "Average people" surviving dont really know what happenned and generally blame deer flu, the disease-of-the-month media was hyping just before The End.

Who built a space station at L5 to put people on Mars, since it wasn't NASA or Spacex (neither is even considering that) and what other space facilities might be suffering degrading orbits until they rain down as fiery debris on survivors?

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Humabout

(Snip)

Who built a space station at L5 to put people on Mars, since it wasn't NASA or Spacex (neither is even considering that) and what other space facilities might be suffering degrading orbits until they rain down as fiery debris on survivors?

The Interplanetary Society and a consortium of other nonprofits received a huge grant from venture capitalist Avery Jacobsen, who succesfully funded the research and creation of clean thorium powerplants.

India and the United States were early adopters, because both (especially India) have large known reserves of thorium. Europe signed on quickly thereafter, as it allowed them to largely free themselves from dependance on Russian fossil fuels.

Once China announced its intent to adopt the technology, as well, Jacobsen put the property rights up for bid, and slurped up a significant fraction of the world's institutional investment capital. He then created the space exploration consortium, which immediately became the world's largest customer for aerospace contractors.

The world was actually on the verge of a golden age of space exploration and colonization when everything fell apart.

Question: How stable were the thorium powerplants, and could any be refurbished and restarted, under current conditions?

[christ0pher]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Question: How stable were the thorium powerplants, and could any be refurbished and restarted, under current conditions?

Very stable and with a little bit of effort and planning one could be brought back online. Since a "meltdown" in a thorium reactor is a pretty passive affair, not much gets damaged due to the "meltdown" triggering a plug of frozen saltwater to melt into the reaction chamber which cancels the nuclear reaction causing the "meltdown" in the first place.

Who is broadcasting on all those damn beeps on 87.1FM at seemingly random times during the night?

[Joe]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

Who is broadcasting on all those damn beeps on 87.1FM at seemingly random times during the night?

Who do people believe is broadcasting them?

Well, theories vary. Many of the whackier survivor groups like to point to "The Beepcast", as it's affectionately known, as a way to bolster their claims that aliens/big-government conspirators/sentient robots (choose your poison) were behind the whole plague in the first place, and are now carrying on secret conversations behind our backs.

Naturally, more objective folks find this implausible.

The smart money says that the Beepcast is simply being caused by some sort of technical glitch or malfunction in an old high-powered radio broadcast tower somewhere - one that somehow still has power.

But some reasonable people still hold out hope that it's some sort of far-flung survivor group using codes to communicate - that's a more hopeful thought.

As for who is really behind the Beepcast... that's left to the GM's discretion, since it ought to vary campaign by campaign!

On a scale from "very rarely" to "absolutely constantly (shudder)", how much time does the average survivor spend worrying about being attacked by The Infected?

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Joe

Who do people believe is broadcasting them?

Well, theories vary. Many of the whackier survivor groups like to point to "The Beepcast", as it's affectionately known, as a way to bolster their claims that aliens/big-government conspirators/sentient robots (choose your poison) were behind the whole plague in the first place, and are now carrying on secret conversations behind our backs.

Naturally, more objective folks find this implausible.

The smart money says that the Beepcast is simply being caused by some sort of technical glitch or malfunction in an old high-powered radio broadcast tower somewhere - one that somehow still has power.

But some reasonable people still hold out hope that it's some sort of far-flung survivor group using codes to communicate - that's a more hopeful thought.

As for who is really behind the Beepcast... that's left to the GM's discretion, since it ought to vary campaign by campaign!

On a scale from "very rarely" to "absolutely constantly (shudder)", how much time does the average survivor spend worrying about being attacked by The Infected?

"Very Rarely." It was long enough ago that The Infected are mostly either dead or recovered.

What is the largest and/or highest-tech settlement left on Earth?

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Randyman

"Very Rarely." It was long enough ago that The Infected are mostly either dead or recovered.

What is the largest and/or highest-tech settlement left on Earth?

The Chagos Archipelago, in general, and the island of Diego Garcia, in particular. It was already a highly-developed U.S. Navy base with lots of stores, and enough arable land to convert to food production.

Always remote and highly-classified, it only ever had U.S. military personnel and it was easy to create an enforceable quarantine. Rapid response to the initial outbreak meant the disease never had a chance to spread.

Following the destruction of the United States, the commander of the Navy base focused on the creation of a sustainable settlement, while maintaining strict discipline. As a result, Diego Garcia still has some functioning warships and even aircraft, although fuel for everything is carefully rationed and the lack of replacement parts mean fewer and fewer aircraft fly, every year. Currently, they have only a few prop planes they use for reconnaissance, although they could put up about a half-dozen combat jets if they really, really needed to (and they're not sure how many would safely land...).

For the most part, the "Diego Swabbies" have focused on expansion into nearby islands of the archipelago, as needed. The area relies mainly on fish, tropical fruits and vegetables, and whatever other crops (potatoes and maize are staples) adapted to the tropical island environment.

The biggest problem was the vast disparity of the sexes. Male personnel outnumbered female personnel nearly 2:1 and that's one reason the CO established the strict (although NOT barbaric) discipline that allowed the settlement to survive.

Question: Where do the Diego Swabbies go for women to correct their gender disparity, and what impact has that disparity had on the development of their nascent culture?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Question: Where do the Diego Swabbies go for women to correct their gender disparity, and what impact has that disparity had on the development of their nascent culture?

Usually the southern tip of India and Sri Lanka, occasionally Indonesia or Somalia. Generally, offering food and other trinkets can get them to agree to travel to the far off islands. One concern is that because the Diegans haven't been infected, they have no resistance to the disease, and could be wiped out by a single person carrying the disease, so a strong quarantine is enforced.

Question: Is anyone building pre-collapse technology, or working on new technology?