How do you see the Autoduel World in 2060 ?

[Racer]

I've read the background to the 'World in 2040's' from GURPs Autoduel Second Edition , but of course EVERYTHING has changed since the late '90's when it was written , ( in particular since 2001 ... ) . So what do you think it's like .

I doubt very much that the UK will have gotten rid of the Monarchy by 2060 - I can imagine the Queen still being on the thrown ( her second clone ) as " Charles is just not up to The Job - yet ... " Lol !!!

[43Supporter]

Originally Posted by Racer

So what do you think it's like .

Frankly, I think by that point, society has fixed itself. The advent of the 1,000-lb. Cluster Bomb means biker gangs no longer exist (I ought to know... >:) ), so the only real threat to citizens is each other. That said, I doubt the US has returned to the exact state it was in pre-"2000"; like as not the FOSs still exist, and welfare is now only spoken of by people who are on their third or so clones, but in terms of screwed-up-ness the world is pretty-much indistinguishable from the pre-"2000" era.

[swordtart]

Given the Japanese-Protectorate war is supposed to have set back recovery by 10-15 years that handily puts the US in exactly the state it was in 2045-50.

Large cities are generally intact as rebuilding and rescourcing is concentrated there, small towns are also recovering as it takes less resources to recover and they are usually capable of supplying their own food. Anything in between has not recovered as the rescources would need to be shipped in and the return isn't worth the investment. Some large cities are still ruins and harbour scavenger gangs.

Whilst bikes were ever vulnerable to fragmentation effects, bikers simply adapted and fitted cycle shells, component armour or started to rely more on trikes. Generally better suited to unmodified off-road movement they base themselves out of ruined farmsteads and practice hit and run tactics. The 100 strong rampaging gangs of the 20's are gone, but large gangs still survive in the city ruins as it isn't worth winkling them out. Heavy air dropped ordinance is effective, but also expensive when the delivery system is taken into account and the value of any recoverable salvage makes this an unattractive proposition for speculative mercenary endeavours. If a gang is foolish enough to stay put for too long, air bombardment might be considered and paid for by merchant venturers who may consider the enormous cost of the mission offset by potential looses in trade.

Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada are badland states (since there was never an AADA Guide for them I choose to assume no-one wants to go there). The military bases here made them prime targets for Protectorate attack. Their proximity to the Oil States and The United Mexican States meant their attention was diverted elsewhere. Several areas suffered from ground delivered Nuclear devices which could not be stopped by the SDI LSTARS. Mutation of insect life is apparent and according to some reports damage to experimental facilities has resulted of the escape into the wild of genetically modified organisms. These mutants are occasionally see by travellers but as yet no specimines have been delivered to the oppropriate agencies (or so they say). Look in the mirror in the morning here and that may be the only person you can trust that day.

[Racer]

Originally Posted by swordtart

Given the Japanese-Protectorate war is supposed to have set back recovery by 10-15 years that handily puts the US in exactly the state it was in 2045-50.

According to Autoduel 2nd and I think later Pyramid articles , the USA-JP War never happened . In Autoduel most of the 'recent' damage to the US was due to ARF's 'Black February' terror attacks and other internal problems .

Audoduel was written before the Internet had really taken off , Mobile/Cell Phones had become ubiquitous , Sat Navs and CCTV had become common and instant global communications were commonplace . I have had younger players in their mid teens question and jeer at 'the standard' 3 mile range of car CB radios and 25 mile range of 'so called LD radios' ! I friend of my cousins has a digital 'walkie-talkie' type radio with 110 mile+ range he takes on camping trips !

Technology has come on so much since I started playing CW in 1982 - I never dreamed that there would ever be carbon-fibre framed motorcycles that I could pick up with one hand . It also makes me feel quite old ( at 39 ) that the Commodore VIC-20 I learned my basic computing skills on aged 11 , is now in a display at London's Science Museum !

[ak_aramis]

2060 should be pretty well recovered, tho the social values will have changed a lot. The 30 years of destruction will have had a sobering effect, and the areas where weffies live on algae have become much ingrained, and the rest of the country resents them all...

Free Oil States: yup.
EDSEL: probably moved up in the world
AADA: fighting for its survival, as EDSEL and other such groups start claiming "The wild days of road duels must end!"
Cycle Gangs: only left where no one else wants to waste ammo on...

[owenmp]

In the late 1990s HVD Magazine and NOVA published an unofficial addition to the AADA RASG featuring Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. E-mail me if you want more details.

I wonder if cellular networks would survive the Bad Years in the U.S. If many cellular towers are destroyed, cellular devices will be more difficult to use. Satellite-based systems may become more popular and necessary.

Cellular reception still varies from region to region. CB radios often had less reception issues. CB radios may be used more often in an autoduelling age.

[C. J. Burke]

Originally Posted by Racer

Audoduel was written before the Internet had really taken off , Mobile/Cell Phones had become ubiquitous , Sat Navs and CCTV had become common and instant global communications were commonplace . I havw had younger players in their mid teens questin and jeer at 'the standard' 3 mile range of car CB radios and 25 mile range of 'so called LD radios' !
[/b]

Autoduel was written in 96 when I'd been online for a couple years already, although Rob hadn't (I don't think he even had an email address). We included an Internet worm to help explain some of the breakdown in technology before the loss of infrastructure during the Chassis & Crossbow era. It devolved into local database systems and information was a commodity. It seemed to work with the least amount of rewriting of history.

As for the radios, well someone would have to maintaining towers or satellites if you wanted long range and that really wasn't a top priority. (At least not for the civilians to use.)

[43Supporter]

Originally Posted by Racer

According to Autoduel 2nd and I think later Pyramid articles , the USA-JP War never happened . In Autoduel most of the 'recent' damage to the US was due to ARF's 'Black Wednesday' terror attacks and other internal problems .

Haven't seen a 2nd-ed. of _GURPS Autoduel_ (which I assume is what you're referring to); however, given how much ill will Steal-ey generated with the fanbase (what was left of it at that point, after the other three of the Gang Of Four had come through) with that ill-considered, ill-written rubbish, I have no problem believing SJG would want to distance itself as much as possible from that particular example of weapons-grade idiocy.

Oh, by the way: I can speak as an authority on this, as I witnessed the entire disaster unfold from within the blast radius. ("Wibble!")

swordtart: Biker Gangs *cannot* exist when Civilization has access to 1,000-lb. Cluster Bombs ("The poor man's nuclear weapon"), and any sort of targeting gear more advanced than a video camera. Infrared sniffs out any heat sources (campfires to vehicle plants -- hope your bikers enjoy living off berries, 'cause if they try to cook something, *BOOM*); radar finds concentrations of metal or plastic (and no biker gang can afford to RP everything exposed on a bike); plus, depending on the group, they may have access to seismic scanners and other interesting tools. And when that bomber arrives with its 1KCB, even if the bikers have dug in, the bomb drops the roof of the shelter onto who- or whatever is inside. (And if the gang is caught while on the road between camps -- bye-bye bikers.) Also: Most bikers are ill-equipped to deal with airborne targets, esp. one dropping payload from one mile away or more. (Side Note: There's other stuff which can be dropped on a bike gang to really ruin its day -- I recall one twisted individual who arranged to drop *Thermite Grenades* on a biker gang....) Since the delivery unit is unlikely to be shot at, never mind destroyed, its cost is amortized across multiple missions (before I stopped playing regularly, my bomber had seen some 300 sorties, and the only damage it had taken was due to running over a pothole on a landing strip); the bombs themselves are relatively cheap, esp. contrasted with even a small biker gang (the 1KCB costs $5,000; that's the cost of one combat-grade medium cycle).

And that's just the external threat -- have you noticed that a bike can't upgrade its chassis? So all the nifty stuff which has been developed to protect bikes simply decreases the bike's already-limited armor-carrying capacity, making it more susceptible to the 1KCB, and its bretheren.

As to the Desert Southwest: It's most-likely a Mexican-speaking area now (no comments from the peanut gallery), with little to no active gov't above the town level (Las Vegas is now its own enclave, with control over Hoover Dam). A nice place if you want disappear from history (replacing Oregon in that regard :) ), but otherwise no one gives a darn. Any mutations are most likely of the "two-tailed rat" variety -- and said mutations kill the victim fairly quickly, so that burns out in short order.

Really, the only reason autoduelling would survive is for the reasons pointed out in _ADQ_ a long while back: Blood Sports are cheaper than Welfare, and alleviate the problem of "people who have no money have only one recreational activity available to them: unprotected nookie; with the expected results of same".

[swordtart]

43: I love your certainty ;)

"Cannot" is too huge a word when most of the US states don't have access to Aeroduel or the UACFH. Far too often technologically advanced states have gone to war with technologically inferior states and had their backsides handed back to them.

How would I defeat radar. One biker has a bollix. $5000. Everyone is protected for at least a 3 mile radius. It's illegal, but then I am a bandit. Or maybe we'll just hide in caves, fully efective against radar since Fred Flintstone. Anti radar netting $100, not wholly effective, but spread enough about and you won't know what to bomb.

IR. Hot smoke grenades or just lighting lots of fires A tire fire would have the advantage of producing smoke as well, or I'd hide in caves. A space blanket will partially mask me, but if we limit ourselves to Car Wars tech, all IR does is enable you to target me at night (when we will be hiding in our caves).

In short it appears that most of your high tech equipment can be effectibvely countered by living in the stone age (which is where you want to bomb us, so we might as well go there in our own time frame). Recent real-world experience indicates that high tech isn't quite as effective as we would like to think in such an environment.

If you are evoking UACFH, I raise you tank wars and its spotting rules, you can't find me, you can't hit me. If you can see me, I can see you long before (you are in a big plane and in open sky, we are dug in and camoflaged). My 100 strong bike gang has 100 chances to get you with a lucky shot, you have to get pretty lucky with your first.

The blast radius of a 1000lb cluster bomb is 14 inches (according Aeroduels description - but not the worked example) and probably destroys most things within that radius that isn't behind cover capable of withstanding 5d damage (30 points max - even a small boulder has 25 DP, a four foot boulder has 50 DP, a purpose built bomb shelter??). According to the horizontal bombing rules if a bomb dropped from a mile up will move forward 195" from its drop point and take 30 seconds to land. Even if you could land it exactly on your target point 30 seconds is a long time to find cover (I can bet the bike strted in 4 seconds). If we are on the road moving, we'll be 90" away even if we are moving at only 30. You'll have to predict exactly where we'll be in 30 seconds to stand even a chance of hitting us (and remember what I said about going off road), a 14" radius blast covers about 3% of a 90" radius movement circle. If you dive bomb your munition will get there quicker, but the fact that you are subject to range penalties means your chance of scatter is much greater.

My biker gangs standard practice need only be 100 yards (20") between tents when camping (and riding) each tent is a ganglet of 5-8 members plus their bikes. Your cluster bomb might get one or two tents and of that you might kill half the bikes and bikers if we pitch camp in cover when we can, since we can ride until we find cover, it isn't too hard. If we are in our safe havens (deep caves, underground car parks etc) you will need anti-armour bombs to shake our faith.

The key point though is can you actually be bothered to find them. As long as they are SEPs they will survive. Obviously a concerted stike could probably eliminate a significant majority of them, but you will need more than air power to do it. Bombers cannot take and hold ground, you might convince them to move on, but you won't eliminate them without dedicating serious resources to it. Even if the only cost of your sortie is the price of a single bomb at $5000, it is $5000 you pay out without any return. Therefore soemone has to fund that $5000 and the fact they they managed to rub out half a dozen easily replaced gangers and some salvaged bikes isn't much of a return.

I suspect that your success has more to do with your opponents not really playing to the strengths of bike gangs and treating them as targets for your bomber to kill rather than a sensible opponent. Did you use a realistic 1000" x 1000" play area that would represent even a small camp for example or did you force the gangers to cram into a standard map sheets? Did they allow them sensible cover rather than the paper walls of Midville? Did they think to park the bikes in hardened cover, were they allowed to run. I suspect it was probably more like that stood around on a bombing range like cardboard cutouts in order to maximise the gore score.

[bosky]

I think the whole "bike gangs would be sooooo wiped out by technology" is false if you consider the Vietnam or Iraq wars, or really any conflict where a large super power was against a smaller force who practised guerrilla warfare. Think of all the dead areas in mountains and the desert, even in the current non-collapsed USA.
I'm sure some of the inexperienced biker gangs would be destroyed, but they probably would have died on the highway in the "old (2040) days" anyways. Anyone left alive would be crafty and used to avoiding detection and living on the fringe.

As for the world as whole, I like to think of Car Wars as timeless, so adding cell phones and realistic radio seems to dampen that whole "lone man on a highway fighting for his life". Would Mad Max have been as thrilling if he could easily call for backup? What if his wife could have just dropped him a text message "brb, on highway getting chased lol, help k thx".
Maybe the world did start to recover by 2060, and we're left with some kind of scenario like Speed Racer (aka high tech, sanctioned races). Or maybe once people got a taste for guns-on-cars they fought to keep autodueling alive, even if it was under the nose of the high tech police and fancy cities.
Or maybe everything moved to a third world country that DIDN'T rebuild. Heck even driving your "now illegal" armed car south to 2060 Mexico would probably keep most duelists in the thick of fighting.

Also:

Originally Posted by 43Supporter

As to the Desert Southwest: It's most-likely a Mexican-speaking area now (no comments from the peanut gallery)

I agree that is how the world is heading now (if it isnt' there already :/ ), but would a Mexican immigrant really want to go to America when they could be shot and killed on the road by armed gangs? Think of all the current day home grown minutemen who would love a chance to put a gun on their car and go "huntin' illegals".

In general I think such long term exposure to daily autodueling would be ingrained in the generation, and they might fight to keep their way of life. Maybe 2060 is the decade of conflict between the "rebuilders" and the "luddites", similar to a second Industrial Revolution.