A Looter's Guide to the US, 2005

[Drakich]

Hey all, been playing around with doing a write-up based on the traditional T2K timeline (drought and all), and giving a state by state breakdown of conditions, generally following the format from the East European Sourcebook. Each state will have a section with:
History / Overview, Population, Economy, Industry, Government, and Armed Forces.

Here is my Texas History/Overview writeup, about 90% complete (have to finish the 2002-2004 events).

Comments, criticism, complaints welcome:

Texas
HISTORY / OVERVIEW
Texas suffered heavily from the nuclear attacks. The Houston metropolitan area, home to over 4 million people in 1997, was hit with a total of 6.25 megatons of nuclear weapons. The industrial suburbs of Baytown, Deer Park, and Texas City were leveled. Because of the density of the refineries, oil storage, and chemical plants, the firestorm was intense and over three quarters of the population of the Houston area perished from the immediate attacks.
And the Houston area was not the only major metropolitan area attacked. Fort Worth was also hit (175,000 fatalities), as was San Antonio (350,000 fatalities), Corpus Christi (70,000 fatalities) and El Paso (125,000 fatalities). Of a population of 17 million people, an estimated 5 million people were dead within a week of the Thanksgiving Massacre of 1997.
Civil order collapsed almost immediately throughout the majority of the state. Although Austin and Dallas were not attacked, the cities were heavily damaged by looting and arson after the attacks.
Because of the heavily military base presence in Texas (most of which were being used to train replacement troops, as the regular army and National Guard units like the 49th had been mobilized and shipped out much earlier), Austin, Dallas, El Paso, and other areas were brought under control fairly quickly and efforts were made at disaster relief.
Even so, state and Federal FEMA resources were stretched incredibly thin. Tent cities were hurriedly created to help house the refugees from the nuclear attacks, but there was nowhere near enough, and the tent cities ended up being a breeding ground for epidemics and disorder. Several riots had to be put down with brutal force, and these were in American refugee camps. Along the border, things were much worse.
A trickle of Mexican refugees became a flood, and the Texas and Federal authorities responded by “closing” the border, although the border was never really closed, being too long and too porous. Effectively, National Guard and local “militia” units began massacring Mexicans trying to cross into Texas, and began rounding up Mexican refugees that had already crossed and placing them into internment camps where conditions were far worse than in the American refugee camps. The Mexican government lodged protests, and when that didn’t work, mobilized for war.
On 2 June, 1998, the Mexicans invaded, spearheaded by the Russian “Division Cuba”. The main thrust of the invasion went up I-35, and easily overran the lightly armed National Guard and militia units that attempted to resist. Delayed more by their own tenuous logistics more than any organized resistance, the Mexican army made fairly slow progress. Nevertheless, they managed to seize San Antonio and Austin by the end of August, and Waco by the end of September. In October the Mexican army and Russian Division Cuba came into contact with elements of the US 49th Armored Division just south of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and what had been an easy advance suddenly ran into stiffer resistance.
In January, the US 5th Army launched a counter offensive into Texas, but almost immediately ran into trouble. In East Texas, a paramilitary organization called the Texian Legion mauled the US 85th Infantry Division (Light), and a counter attack by the Russian Division Cuba sent the rest of the US 5th Army reeling back into Oklahoma and Louisiana.
The end result was the devastation of North Central Texas. Waco, Dallas, and Fort Worth were all reduced to ruins. And while the Texian Legion was militarily defeated, as US forces withdrew into Louisiana the Texian Legion was left in de facto control of East Texas from Mount Pleasant to Nacodoches.
Shortly after the US withdrawal from Texas, Mexico collapsed into civil war, and the military units in Texas picked sides among the various factions and began fighting out among themselves, causing further destruction in the south of the state.
As 1999 winded down, the only truly intact areas of Texas was the Panhandle region and Wichita Falls, which had largely escaped the ravages of the war. At the close of 1999, the native population of Texas had declined to less than 7 million, although there were an additional estimated million and a half Mexican refugees in the southern portion of the state.
As bleak as things were, 2000 saw the first steps towards recovery. As the various groups and factions retreated from active warfare, they settled on consolidating their base of power. The central and south of the state was occupied by the Mexicans, the west was a no-mans land, the Panhandle the base for the Texas government (also known as the Texas Government in Exile), and East Texas the power center for the Texian Legion. Much of the recovery was based on oil and agriculture, although the Texian Legion managed for a time to build a small-time arms industry turning out small arms and light artillery (mainly mortars and tube launched crude rockets) based in Tyler.
Alas, it was not to last. In summer of 2001, the drought began to take its toll on Texas, up to the Gulf Coastal Plain and the piny woods of East Texas. Massive famine rolled from west to east, and with it, all semblance of government. The Texas state government collapsed as the Panhandle turned into a desert. And civil insurrection destroyed the Mexican military units and the Russian Division Cuba in cantonment in the state. The area controlled by the Texian Legion and the independent gulf coast communities were not devastated by the famine, but instead by the waves of heavily armed refugees that descended on them from the West and the South. The Texas population crashed. By January, 2002, only 1 million people were left alive in Texas, eking out an existence on the devastated coast and eastern sections of the state.

 

[TKalbfus]

A trickle of Mexican refugees became a flood, and the Texas and Federal authorities responded by “closing” the border, although the border was never really closed, being too long and too porous.

One little nitpick: Are those Mexicans out of their minds? Texas has just been Nuked and the Mexicans are clamoring to head North so they can soak up some radiation poisioning? Are they Stupid? I know alot of these people are illiterate and don't have much of an education nor do they speak English very well but Duh!

I figure the Ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party would not let Mexico Join in as an Ally of the US, so the Mexicans can stay safe in their overcrowded cities or they can head north and look for non-existant jobs and be shot at. Take your pick. Vicinte Fox has not yet been elected president of Mexico yet, how about his old Chum Governor George W. Bush, did he get nuked or did he escape?

 

[Badbru]

It's been a while since I've played T2k, however, I don't recall Mexico being struck by nuclear weapons?

Thus why would there be a "flood" of refugee's from Mexico to Texas????

I'm guessing Mexico's no party playground but surely it's better than an irradiated wasteland where every man has a gun and is damned likely to use it.
I'd suspect you'd be more likely to see a "Flood" of refugee's going the other way. From Texas to Mexico, afterall anyplace is better than a nuclear firestorm.
Isn't it more likely that it is the poor (in every sense of the word) Mexicans, with their inability to cope with even a trickle of refugees, that are forced to first close the border and then later cross it in a "humanitarian gesture" to attempt restore order to what must surely be a shattered wasteland?

Just a non American point of view.

History will be written by the victors, or in this case the survivors.

 

[vutpakdi]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
One little nitpick: Are those Mexicans out of their minds? Texas has just been Nuked and the Mexicans are clamoring to head North so they can soak up some radiation poisioning? Are they Stupid? I know alot of these people are illiterate and don't have much of an education nor do they speak English very well but Duh!

I figure the Ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party would not let Mexico Join in as an Ally of the US, so the Mexicans can stay safe in their overcrowded cities or they can head north and look for non-existant jobs and be shot at. Take your pick. Vicinte Fox has not yet been elected president of Mexico yet, how about his old Chum Governor George W. Bush, did he get nuked or did he escape?

I'd agree that I don't understand why Mexicans would be headed into a nuked Texas, but, Tom, you might want to watch how you phrase things because someone could interpret what you've written quite poorly.

Ron

 

[getamungstit]

The Mexicans fleeing into Texas is the history outlined in Twilight: 2000 that leads to the Mexican invasion. The Mexicans would probably invade just to secure Texas's oil supplies for their own use. Otherwise it makes little sense: fleeing the frying pan to jump into the fire…

One point "Division Cuba" is the Soviet "Division Cuba" not Russian. After the break-up of the Soviet Union Cuba was abandoned (the last Russians left in 1993). So in order to have this force in Central America you would need to use the 1st edition history that has the Soviet Union still in existence. I doubt whether the Group of Soviet Forces Cuba could be nicely organised into a mechanised division, it would be much better used by Mexico in the way it was used by Cuba to provide technical, air defence and operational staff support.

As to George W. Bush its usually good form to replace real people who are still alive with fictional ones in historical fiction. But one thing is clear from the Twilight: 2000 history must pre-existing governments don't survive the nuclear attacks.

As an interesting aside this is the link http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB14/doc18.htm with the memo for the establishment of the Group of Soviet Forces Cuba in 1962…

 

[Glen Allen Mcinnes]

Why all the Refugee's from Mexico? well the place (in T2K) is over popluated and is placing to much of a strain on it's agg resorces and with no US aid people are starting to starve in citys where pulblic health is starting to brake down and Texas is most probaly their first stop on the way to what they beleave is the now under popluated US farm states where their is food and once the war is sorted out jobs to be had rebuilding the states. for them the US is the land of milk & honey with political and personal freedom thrown in for good measure of cause the would flee the starvasion, deasease and opresive govenment ,Rember their is an Institutional Revolutionary Party in controll not the real late 90's earily 2000's government, for people that have bean waiting generasions for things to get better with only enough improvement to keep their hopes alive a few short years in the US is better than a most probaly neaver back home.

 

[Drakich]

Quite honestly, I don't know why the Mexicans would jump from the frying pan into the fire either, but that's what the original designers had.

I also seriously doubt the ability of the Mexican army to conduct any sort of offensive operations, even without a nuclear war targeting their oil facilities (Mexico was hit) given their poor performance against the Chiapas regions. Alas, GDW had them successfully invading Texas, so thats what I went with.

 

[PBI]

I think the "success" of the Mexican invasion had more to do with the fact that the US had no troops in the region. The Mexican "blitzkrieg" basically came to a screeching halt as soon as it ran into US units racing southwards. Of course, by then, the units available to the US in the US weren't the most numerous or the best and were needed in about 18 different places at once, which is most likely why there was no sustained effort to drive the invaders back

 

[TKalbfus]

313 said,

Why all the Refugee's from Mexico? well the place (in T2K) is over popluated and is placing to much of a strain on it's agg resorces and with no US aid people are starting to starve in citys where pulblic health is starting to brake down

Mexico has about 80 million people which is fewer than Germany has. Mexico is not all desert, it's southern portions are tropical rain forest. Mexico is poor but not overcrowded, its cities are overcrowded but not the country side. There are 800 million people in the entire Western Hemisphere compared to 5.4 billion in the Eastern Hemisphere. If there is any part of the World that is underpopulated it is the Western Hemisphere. If Mexico is poor, it is poor for reasons that have nothing to do with over-population or lack of resources. You are aware that we import oil from Mexico. The Texas oil fields have been exploited for several decades, the Mexican oil fields have been less so. By seizing Texas, the Mexicans aren't going to grab much additional oil.

Also consider that the US did not use all of its nuclear weapons. If Mexico has been spared in World War III it is because it was perceived as a neutral by both side, it it attacks the United States, it will no longer be seen as a neutral and it will be attacked by the United States and if the United States has no troops in the area it will use its nukes and Mexico will then get to share in the devastation with its northern neighbor. I think it would be fairly stupid for Mexico to try and seize Texas unless it can be absolutely sure that the United States has no remaining nukes that can be used against it. Mexico may want it's former territories back, but I think it will bid its time until it can be sure of no nuclear response from the United States.

As for individual Mexicans, they ought to know better than to expect to find a better life in a United States that has just been in a nuclear war. The farmers who were not nuked have plenty of native born refugees to work their fields and pick their crops, these people can understand English and follow direction quite well thank you, and they don't need any Spanish Speaking migrants from south of the Border. Those people who have lost their jobs and their livelihoods in those destroyed cities need work and are quite desparate, and they work cheaply as they have nothing else at the moment. I think Mexican migrants might find it hard to compete with displaced Americans. Also the Farmers and Ranchers are Americans and most of them are fairly patriotic, they are more likely to hire their fellow citizens at equal pay over some Mexican migrants from across the border. These are hard times in the U. S. of A.. People just don't need foreign born farm laborers at this time. Also those Rich Affluent people who had Mexicans mow their lawns will probably be mowing their own lawns at this time since they probably won't be as rich and as affluent as they once were.

It shouldn't be taken as a given that Mexicans will always try to sneak into the US no matter what, that just doesn't make sense.

I also seriously doubt the ability of the Mexican army to conduct any sort of offensive operations, even without a nuclear war targeting their oil facilities (Mexico was hit) given their poor performance against the Chiapas regions. Alas, GDW had them successfully invading Texas, so thats what I went with.

I can't imagine why the Russians would attack Mexico. Mexico is not a NATO or US ally. Mexico did not help us in the Iraq War and that's even with George W. Bush's chum Vicente Fox at the Helm, I find it harder to imagine Mexico standing by our side during a nuclear war when the stakes and possible losses are even higher for Mexico and the Yanquis have never been popular down there. France was a NATO member and an Ally and did not stand by us in that scenario, so why should a neutral like Mexico suddenly become a friend, get nuked by the Russians and then turn on us and invade the Southwest and risk a further nuking by the US? It just does not make any sense at all form Mexico's stand point. I think Mexico would be more likely to mind its own business and stay out of it.

Or if Mexico stayed a neutral, why would the Russians nuke Mexico? Is it that they had too many nuclear missiles for just the US and its allies alone and wanted to waste a few on mindless destruction?

 

[Badbru]

These are reasons why if I were rewriting the history but wanted similar events I'd call the Mexican army crossing the border a "Humanitarian Gesture intent on restoring order and providing peacekeepers" rather than a land/resource grab "invasion".

Now the local Texan's will probably still see it as an invasion no matter how you sell it on the world stage (assuming you still had to)but from a Mexican viewpoint that's probably how they might see it politically, or how they might sell it to their population.

I doubt the Mexicans would sit back and do nothing. At the very least they would strengthen their border defenses and patrols because they'd be unlikely to be able to cope with refugee's (of any race religion or creed) comming out of Texas and into Mexico.

How many "ethnic Mexican-Americans" would survive the nuclear strikes and decide their ancestral homeland might be better than Texas? or worse still a New America style Texas?

 

[getamungstit]

One thing about the devastation of the Twilight War that the GDW writers didn't seem to take into account was that the harder you fall the harder you hit.

While "The Day After Tomorrow" has nonsense like the entire population of north America fleeing southward: they would get about 500-km until all their cars ran out of fuel and their is no way not even the US's hyper infrastructure could deal with refilling 50 million cars in one day (not to mention 50 million cars across the narrow band of 500-km south of where they started from.

Anyway - sorry just saw that movie and though it had a great human story for a disaster movie and terrifying disasters was WAY TO nice...

But the point is you cut the US of from technical civilisation and everyone dies. You cut Burma off from technical civilisation and it doesn't have that far to fall. For example how could US farmers convert to agriculture without tractors and fertilizers in one season and not have a massive drop in production? Plus can these farmers even know how to farm without this equipment? Hunting and gathering and subsistence farming is really hard and surprisingly you need to know a lot about your natural environment. Only a handful of year 2004 western professional botanists and farmers know what just about everyone else knew about our environment 300 years ago.

Plus all these diasters would implement shock and the ability of anyone in the US to deal with the problems would be exacerbated (or other western nations in the firing line - Japan would be far worse off with its high concentration).

With the Twilight: 2000 model implementing massive nuclear strikers, disease breakouts (bio war or natural), total collapse in our standards of law and order, total collapse in transportation and industry, massive climate change leading to drought, etc. The US would effectively be returned to mediaeval situations and the population drop would be enormous say 60-80% casualties by 2000. Then you would have a much lower repopulation rate due to massive increase in infant mortality and massive decrease in life expectancy. Plus factor in radiation and things get even worse. By 2020 the US would probably only have a population of >30 million, 10% of current levels. Very similar to colonial US… lots of hunter gathers in the wilderness and pockets of farmers and townships.

 

[Drakich]

Originally posted by A. Gubler in the 24th Century:
One thing about the devastation of the Twilight War that the GDW writers didn't seem to take into account was that the harder you fall the harder you hit.

I think you mean, the higher the fall, the harder the landing.

But the point is you cut the US of from technical civilisation and everyone dies. You cut Burma off from technical civilisation and it doesn't have that far to fall. For example how could US farmers convert to agriculture without tractors and fertilizers in one season and not have a massive drop in production? Plus can these farmers even know how to farm without this equipment? Hunting and gathering and subsistence farming is really hard and surprisingly you need to know a lot about your natural environment.

Actually, in a pinch, farmers could use wood to power tractors (wood gas generation to drive combustion engines). It was done in WW2 in a few countries. The mechanization of farming wouldn't end just because the gas stopped flowing.

And there are lots of substitutes for the chemical fertilizers used today, its just that the chemical fertilizers are cheap. Farming is a commodity business.

With the Twilight: 2000 model implementing massive nuclear strikers,

Actually, it was only limited nuclear strikes.

The US would effectively be returned to mediaeval situations and the population drop would be enormous say 60-80% casualties by 2000.

Would never happen. A decent garage machine shop probably has more industrial power than medieval Europe did. Once you have a lathe, you can build just about anything else. And you don't need electricity to run a machine shop.

With a machine shop you can build more machine shops. Or you can build engines and the other foundations of an industrial civilization.

Technology wise, things wouldn't get any worse than that late 1800's, and thats from a manufacturing perspective. There would still be some (plenty?) of relatively modern technology to canabalize.

Transportation wise, things would be, on the whole, better than the 1800's, probably equivilent to America during the Depression.

The big question is, how many people could the US feed without large scale mechanization of agriculture? The US easily fed 100,000,000 people before the advent of mechanized agriculture and great transportation systems, and this with large sections of the country (farmable country) unsettled.

Now, granted, there were a lot more people working in agriculture then as compared to now, but agriculture isn't all that complex. It's just hard work without mechanization. But one thing there would be a surplus of after an economic collapse would be idle labor.

Then you would have a much lower repopulation rate due to massive increase in infant mortality and massive decrease in life expectancy.

True, but you would have a pretty steep rise in birth rates. Manual labor requires people to labor.

Plus factor in radiation and things get even worse. By 2020 the US would probably only have a population of >30 million, 10% of current levels. Very similar to colonial US… lots of hunter gathers in the wilderness and pockets of farmers and townships.

This just isn't going to happen in a limited nuclear war scenario. Personally, I think GDW significantly overestimated the damage caused by a collapse to anarchy, and the direct effects of the relatively light nuclear attacks (they based their attacks on a GOA study done in 1979 which used an 80 warhead attack on the US refining capacity as a baseline model, which predicted ~30,000,000 casualties).

 

[TKalbfus]

Badbru said,

Now the local Texan's will probably still see it as an invasion no matter how you sell it on the world stage (assuming you still had to)but from a Mexican viewpoint that's probably how they might see it politically, or how they might sell it to their population.

Texans will always remember the Alamo! Many Texans will also find a new reason for living after losing so many of their relatives to nuclear war; they now have an enemy within their grasp whom they can kill. The Russians were too far away, but now the Mexicans have decided to join in on the Russian's side, now they can blame the Mexicans in part for the attacks on their cities. It is after all not only Iraqis who can build roadside bombs. As for the UN, there isn't any; the UN was destroyed with New York City, so there is no one to condemn for actions going on in Texas. Perhaps the French want a piece of us in order to humilate us, well they are not getting a piece without also getting a piece of World War III. Remember, a limited nuclear exhange also means there are probably some nuclear warheads left, those 80 nuclear explosions could not have destroyed them all. An intact Nation that stayed out of World War III would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by getting involved in US affairs in 2005. By 2005 the nuclear war was 8 years ago, much of the mass dying would have stopped by this time; people who survived the initial blasts but were old, weak, or frail would have died by now. What's left are hardened Americans. If the Mexican army moves in, they are likely to get a hostile reaction at this late juncture. Various State and National authorities would have reorganized themselves by now, and they are not going to sit still for a Mexican takeover. OK, granted, maybe the Mexicans are out of their minds. The American Resistance is going to give those poor Mexican soldiers a hard time though. I have a hard time accepting that the US or the Texans are just going to rollover and accept a loss of territory or occupation by a foreign army. The Iraqi insurgents are giving our soldiers a hard time and we have the upper hand; trying to take back the American Southwest is going to be alot tougher on the Mexicans, Mexicans who are by the war still poor and still a Third World Country. The basic problems that make Mexico poor are not going to go away with the nuking if is northern neighbor.

 

[PBI]

In the original timeline, Mexico (and France) were nuked in order to deny their facilities to the "enemy" (i.e. both NATO and the Warsaw Pact), so neither country avoided the war, though they both faired much better than those nations that were actively involved. The bit about the flood of refugees turning into a stunami may be a bit far-fetched, but the original timeline's justification for the Mexican government invading the US isn't that far off.

Remember, the nukes started flying in July, 1997 when the first German troops crossed the Polish-Soviet border and by the time of the first strategic attacks on the US and USSR in November (Thanksgiving in the US only, btw ), most of the pre-war hesitancy about using nukes was gone. No one wanted to risk a total committment, so instead of launching a massive strike (which they did) all at once, both sides launched a massive strike that took a while. It specifically states in the timeline that the strike on the US and Canada was aimed at refineries and command and control centres, both military and civilian. The fact that a great deal of both types of targets are in or around major population centres undoubtedly resulted in a higher casualty rate then the relatively small number of warheads would seem to indicate.

I find nothing inflated about the final casualty figures, either. Most people in North America wouldn't be able to live off the land; they don't have the skills. The food distribution network would have collapsed, if for no other reason that the network is so dependent on computers and complex scheduling, and fuel availability and infrastructure and the maintenance of simple law and order (well, order, at least), that by the time society had adjusted to the new way of things, yes, I could see a 45-50% casualty rate, no problem.

As a final thought on the casualties caused by the nuclear exchange, in the original timeline, since the exchanges are occurring over a period of days or weeks, lots of people would flee the cities (and stay away), which would pretty much end any hope of preventing a population crash. Ironically, had the strikes all occured at the same time, things might have turned out better, as folks would have returned within a few days when it became evident that the nukes had stopped falling.

 

[TKalbfus]

I don't believe the Mexicans would offer their facilities as that would violate their neutrality. I don't believe the refineries would do the Russians any good, their tanks are in Europe, they might sell oil to the United States, but getting the oil to Russia would be very difficult as it would have to cross the Atlantic. I don't believe US attack subs would let that happen. If anyone attacks Mexico the Russians would do it. The refineries are in populated areas, a Russian nuclear attack on Mexican refineries would kill millions of Mexican citizens, it seems to me that this would make it unlikely that Mexico would join the War on Russia's side. Maybe they see themselves as just taking back land they lost in 1848, but the Americans would no doubt see it as the Mexicans becoming belligerant and joining the War in league with Russia America may be ruined, but it still has plenty of nukes left and the Mexicans have none, there would be no deterent effect that would prevent what's left of the US government from nuking the bejesus out of Mexico. If the Russians only targeted their refineries, the US would target alot more and if they don't have missiles, they'll use suitcase or backpack bombs if they have to. The US is just not going to surrender the Southwest or Texas without a fight and Mexico is fighting out of its league. The fact that the US has much of its infrastructure destroyed means that it has much less to lose. It has nuclear warheads and if they still work they can destroy Mexican cities that weren't previously destroyed and if they don't work they can still be used as dirty bombs and spread plutonium all over populated areas in Mexico. The Mexicans, if they are in their right minds don't want to mess with the US, as of 2005 its still going to be dangerous and its not going to allow its territory to be taken with out a nasty fight. If Mexico somehow wins, then the US will keep all 50 stars on its flag and will seek revenge for all of its murdered millions later. The Mexicans will not rest easily so ong as there is a United States to its north.

 

[Jame]

From what little I've read, it sounds like humanity did a good job of grinding itself down without using nukes (which could happen in real life) but had to contend with famines and droughts and the collapse of infrastructure.

I'd like to know what happened in Massachusetts (Rifle River, anyone?) aside from the Gang of the Gun.

 

[PBI]

Tom, it doesn't really matter how plausible it would have been for Mexico to let the Warsaw Pact use their refineries, nor France, or any of the other neutrals. The point is that the capability was there, and in a situation where the combatants have largely wrecked their own refining capcity (and ports, and communication and transport hubs, etc), you just can't take the chance that the enemy would sieze or otherwise gain some level of control over such assets.

In fact, to use a real world example, after the initial period of tension wore off in the USSR after Reagan's ascendency, there really was very little danger of WWIII breaking out, especially so once Gorbachev took power. Nevertheless, NATO maintained the force structure it had (re)built to in the early 80s because capability matters at least as much as intent.

 

[PBI]

Originally posted by Jame:
From what little I've read, it sounds like humanity did a good job of grinding itself down without using nukes (which could happen in real life) but had to contend with famines and droughts and the collapse of infrastructure.

I'd like to know what happened in Massachusetts (Rifle River, anyone?) aside from the Gang of the Gun.

IIRC, there was a module set in Mass. covering the rediscovery of one of the very last functioning SSNs in the world and was the start of a 2 or 3-part linked series. Basically, the Boston area is a basket case of rival gangs, some relatively sophisticated, others not, and semi-organized crime, while the coast is either under the control of pirates operating from Gloucester or terrorized by them. The interior of the state is a patchwork of small, isolated communitites. There may even be a Milgov unit (National Guard) somewhere south-southeast of Boston that's gone semi-rogue, but it's been a while since I read the module.

All in all, life in Mass. is about the same as the rest of the Eastern seaboard of the US; bad, but it could be worse. Much worse.

 

[TKalbfus]

I don't think the US would nuke Mexico for any reason unless Mexico was perceived as the enemy. Anyone who nukes an oil refinery in Mexico or any other country that was not in the war would have to realize that they were commiting mass murder on an enourmous scale as most refineries are in populated areas.

The Russians have killed millions in the past, so murdering civilians is nothing new to them. But aside from that how could the US or Russia nuke a particular country because it has the capacity to refine oil and not end up going to war against the entire world? Mexico is not the only country with refineries. Most gasoline is refined locally in many countries, according to this logic then each one of these countries would have to be attacked with nuclear weapons. For example, there are refineries in Newark, NY, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. Where ever there is a market for gasoline their is usually a refinery closeby as oil companies don't like to transport gasoline over long distances.

I don't think the US would nuke a long list of neutral countries and make enemies out of them. I don't think these neutral countries can be expected to understand why millions of their citizens have been murdered as a simple precaution to avoid the refineries from falling into enemy hands. Do you really think the US and the USSR would have tried to nuke every country in the world to make sure no one has oil refining capacity? I don't think so. Turn it around, lets say there is a small nuclear war between Pakistan and India and so India nukes the US to make sure we don't sell any gasoline to Pakistan. Does this make any sense?

 

[vutpakdi]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:


The Russians have killed millions in the past, so murdering civilians is nothing new to them. But aside from that how could the US or Russia nuke a particular country because it has the capacity to refine oil and not end up going to war against the entire world?

...

I don't think the US would nuke a long list of neutral countries and make enemies out of them. I don't think these neutral countries can be expected to understand why millions of their citizens have been murdered as a simple precaution to avoid the refineries from falling into enemy hands. Do you really think the US and the USSR would have tried to nuke every country in the world to make sure no one has oil refining capacity?
...

Countries (actually governments) can do funny things when in wartime or when they feel threatened. They can take can take their most cherished values and toss them aside for convenience.

In the Twilight 2000 world, the US and USSR wouldn't nuke some random neutral country. They'd nuke neutral countries that they perceive to be enemies ("You're either with us or against us") or countries that they perceive might fall into enemy hands or control. The US probably wouldn't nuke Mexico unless it perceived that Mexico was an enemy for some reason.

Also, remember that the US (and the UK, for that matter) has , in the past, been quite okay with wholescale attacks on civlian populations that killed hundreds of thousands if not millions. I think that the smartest thing that Saddam Hussein did in the first US-Iraq war was to NOT use his chemical weapons on US troops (or anyone else) in any significant quantity. If he had, there would have been a very significant hue and cry in the US government (particularly Congress) to respond in kind with nuclear weapons, probably resulting in significant civilian casualties.

Ron