Re: Post Apocalypse
In reply to pearldrum1 (msg # 14):
As much as I like post apocalyptic games, rl invariably rears it's fugly head whenever I try to run or even play. Work trips, studies, health issues, never a dull moment.
That said. post apocalyptic is one of my favorite settings, and if interested players are willing to bear with my shortcomings, I'd be willing to give it a go.
This is what I'm thinking...
In 1989 a hardline coup takes over the USSR and unleashes a full nuclear first strike against China and the USA in a desperate bid for world domination before the Soviet economy collapsed.
China and the US hit back with everything they had, wreaking terrible damage, but the USSR was well prepared. NATO and Soviet armies clashed in Europe leaving it devastated by medium range and tactical nuclear weapons. Soviet forces invaded China from the north supported by India invading from the west. The war raged for a year until Soviet nuclear and biological weapons finally exhausted China's massed armies. Soviet bio war epidemics spread to India Southeast Asia and finally to Russia itself. The war in Asia ground to a miserable halt and a shroud of radioactive plague ridden death settled over the continent.
In the West, the US and Canada fought to restore order to their devastated countries and support their beleaguered forces overseas. Civil disorder quickly broke down as panicked populations fled the remaining cities and criminal gangs looted at will and terrorized the refugees. Government forces found themselves in constant battle with criminal gangs and local populations resisting confiscation decrees. After two years US forces overseas had been lost but the government had stabilized several areas of the country and lent support to Canada. This momentary respite was shattered when surviving DEWline radars picked an incoming Chinese nuclear strike. China's intentions were revealed when the US Pacific Fleet detected a massive invasion force bound for the West Coast.
Vital US installations were destroyed but the Pacific Fleet inflicted heavy losses on the Chinese Navy. Chinese flotillas speeding for the California coast lost even more ships to the US Air Force fighters operating out of civilian airports after the loss of Vandenberg. The US Marines led the defense of Los Angeles but found themselves betrayed by criminal gangs carefully cultivated by Chinese interests years before. The Marines and surviving police, Army and Navy units fought their way out of the city, and when Marine Harrier jets reported the Chinese flag flying over Los Angeles city hall. the Marine commander ordered the Chinese beachhead and 'treacherous' Los Angeles destroyed by a 1 megaton nuclear tipped tomahawk cruise missile.
The Chinese invasion of San Francisco fared better but the force of untrained conscripts took heavy losses from hastily deployed US reserve forces supported by police and armed civilians. It captured the San Francisco peninsula but supplies and reinforcements never came. Discipline broke down,and deserters spread latent Soviet bio weapons to the civilian population. A new plague tore through the west coast and down into Mexico. Disease spread through the US and Canada with the movement of troops and refugees, and what little order there was collapsed.
20 years later Southern California is a depopulated semi arid wasteland. Semi civilized enclaves are known to exist in Old Barstow, Slowtown by the Sea, Cannibal Santa Cruz and Diesel Bakersfield in the grip of the ruthless First Sergeant. These enclaves and others are joined by a tenuous network of trade routes, the most notorious of which is the Old I-5. A special breed travels this route in armored cars and trucks of welded salvage. They are quick, resourceful, and deadly. They are the road warriors, and along I-5 their drama of survival is played out.
