What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wars?

[Angrytubist]

I can see why high yield algae-culture would not be popular until after the grain blight. Given I might be biased as I farm for a living. But while I assure you that
I'd eat the processed pond scum to keep from starving. It would be after a couple years of bad crops, and after I had eaten every squirrel, coon, and possum in the county. :)

[Johnny1A.2]

Regarding road conditions, one sometimes sees a custom or culture of preservation of vital resources emerge, even among otherwise barbarous conditions. I could easily imagne the unspoken general rule of 'Don't Damage The Road' arising among autoduelists, cycle gangs, etc, because a decent road is useful to all of them in one way or another.

(Tear up the road too much and fewer people will use it and you'll have fewer people to rob or kill, for ex. if you're a cycle ganger or other riff-raff.)

I would not be surprised if in some regions, excessively damaging the road itself gets the AADA, the Brotherhood, the cycle gangers, BLUD, pretty much everybody mad at you at once.

[swordtart]

I have always taken "algae" as the headline term for anything that would have been previously disdained as food.

Thus in my campaign while you certainly do get "algae beer", you will find Scop-u-like, KRILL (a burger chain). There are still farms producing pork, chicken (and eggs) on a small scale. As it's Florida, the aligator farms are producing meat commercially (it's not cheap, but it's not Algae either.

The problem with all these is distrubtion. A small farm maybe produces a pickup full of eggs, and it's worth his while moving them to the local truckstop. Most he'll see to the diner. He might cut a one-off deal with a gypsy trucker who will move them up the line. The further away they get, the more expensive those eggs get. You may well get some to pay $1 for an egg, but there will come a point where it isn't cost effective to move them.

Algae can be grown in a tank anywhere and therefore the shipping cost is generally nil. Your typical lowlife eats city certified Algae and doesn't care. Corporate wage slaves eat gourmet proteins manufactured in their own archologies. The rich can eat waht they like as they may be prepared to pay $50 for an egg.

Caviar is food for the rich, but Sturgeon is the food of peasants.

[Angrytubist]

Hopefully I'm not injecting too much reality into anyone's fantasy. But I've always had a problem with the general rarity of poultry in the the
Car Wars world (At least the fiction I've read indicates chicken dinner = $$$). One thing that many folks don't realize is that fresh eggs easily keep for two weeks or better with no refrigeration. Also, in Thailand chickens are raised commercially on a diet of 75% dried algae. Assuming our hypothetical small farmer takes his eggs to market weekly and maintains 200-500 laying hens (not really as many as you would think, a commercial egg house holds anywhere from 15-25,000 hens) (a good layer lays approx. 1 egg/day) a few tanks of algae in his barn for feedstock, and a 5 acre truck garden (veggies are not affected by the grain blight) he could completely fill his pickup and a 10/15 foot trailer weekly. Assuming also that society cannot yet support the massive commercial farms we have today. This would leave "real food" pricey but not unavailable. Think chicken dinner prices for eggs, and steak prices for chickens. Of course their meat animals would have to be efficient, chickens, rabbits, goats, and fish. Probably wouldn't see many "gourmet" crops being produced, as rarity of any natural food would keep prices high. As for as how our hypothetical farmer defends his crops, armed machinery would be cool. I own a 700 hp International Harvester that would look awesome armored up and tricked out with flamethrowers and some turret-mounted MG's. (that would show the %&@$ deer and wild hogs in my corn. *makes machine gun noises*)

Anyway, my point is, treat your players to something that didn't come out of a vat every once in a while. They'll be way more interested in helping the cantankerous old coot that nonetheless served them up some honest-to-god eggs and bacon (eq. to a nice restaurant dinner.) than taking the contract from egg-o-like inc.

[Jonas]

Originally Posted by Angrytubist

Personally I don't care for jets or tanks in my world, I think the metal/fuel cost of these monstrosities would be too great for any post-apocolypse national govt. Especially given the relative inexpensiveness of armed cars/propeller planes. The same goes for huge steel battleships/aircraft carriers.

Prop aircraft make sense but I have to disagree with you regarding armored vehicles. They may be expensive and resource hungry but they can also take far more punishment and mount far more firepower then a much lighter vehicle. A toyota with a pedestal mounted autocannon in the back may be good for scouting and raiding, but for a straight up brawl its hard to replace the heavy armor and big gun of a proper MBT.

[ak_aramis]

Armoring up a toyota you still get 10 miles to the gallon; even stripping down an MBT, still get 2 galons to the mile, and it costs more than 100 toyotas with milspec lasers...

[Angrytubist]

Plus a nation of people who not only receive virtually no govt. support against their enemies foreign and domestic, and who own their own heavily armed and armored vehicles are probably going to be hard to tax. Especially on the federal level. (i.e. they might pay the local fortress-city taxes in order to shop, use their phone/computer/radio network, and generally have a "safe home address" to R&R at, but feds who don't provide even their basic function forgetaboutit.)

Edit: Most of my dislike for tanks is mechanical rather than esthetic (armor scale, blech.) Also I think that a federal govt. strong enough to field heavy armor (heavier than a metal armored sleeper long-nose tractor anyway) probably wouldn't allow armed vehicular combat on major thoroughfares and in major metropolitan areas.

[Buzzardo]

Originally Posted by Angrytubist

Plus a nation of people who not only receive virtually no govt. support against their enemies foreign and domestic, and who own their own heavily armed and armored vehicles are probably going to be hard to tax. Especially on the federal level. (i.e. they might pay the local fortress-city taxes in order to shop, use their phone/computer/radio network, and generally have a "safe home address" to R&R at, but feds who don't provide even their basic function forgetaboutit.)

Remembered national pride, longing for conditions similar to those before the fall, and a plan for providing the benefits you mentioned to everyone could lead to the re-establishment of a limited federal government as soon as circumstances permit, given a charismatic leader to do it. Or things might be fragmented for a long time. Various events could push it either way, which makes it good fodder for future history fiction (or the future history behind a science fiction game).

[Angrytubist]

I think you have a point, however I think your "charismatic leader" would have to be a military as well as a political figure. Think a George Washington, Andrew Jackson, or even a Dwight Eisenhower type personage. Though all in all I think the feds would probably be broken. In the US pride in/loyalty to one's state is a far older (and in my area stronger) tradition than the same towards an overarching federal govt. i.e. I think areas like Deseret and the Free Oil States would be more the norm than "union" states.

I do love that the setting handles both, however.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Angrytubist

I think you have a point, however I think your "charismatic leader" would have to be a military as well as a political figure. Think a George Washington, Andrew Jackson, or even a Dwight Eisenhower type personage. Though all in all I think the feds would probably be broken. In the US pride in/loyalty to one's state is a far older (and in my area stronger) tradition than the same towards an overarching federal govt. i.e. I think areas like Deseret and the Free Oil States would be more the norm than "union" states.

I do love that the setting handles both, however.

Alaska isn't terribly federalist... At least, most of the non-military personnel aren't. Feds muck with our hunting and fishing, and California based judges apply Californian attitudes to Alaska laws via the 9th Circuit... Once JBER and the Eilson/Wainright/Greely base complexes depopulate (either due to non-payment of troops or withdrawl for duties elsewhere, or both), one can expect reasonably a huge "Go it alone" attitude... especially if the FedGov actually collapses. Whomever wrote the entries for Alaska in older CW materials didn't take into account the cultural differences or political differences...

Actually, once you get away from Kodiak, Anchorage and Fairbanks (Kodia has CGS Kodiak, Anch. has JBER, and Fairbanks has Eilson, Wainright, and Greely), you have almost no federal jobs, and lots of complaints about the feds interfering. Anchorage and Fairbanks are economically driven by the bases, and Kodiak's a fishing town that just happens to have a coast guard base... And while Anchorage is almost 1/3 of the state, take away the federal jobs, and Anchorage probably drops to 50K (from 250-350K) as the economy collapses.

So, up here, the Feds would likely be unwelcome back by those left after the collapse.