I thought it looked familiar.
Do you know if anyone has made a timeline for the die-backs in
Dies the Fire?
There could be a religious angle for your food storage needs. A religious sect in the US, the Mormons, are each supposed to keep a certain amount of food on hand at all times. Of course, Kinorbians who are known to do the same will become targets...
I was thinking about the risk of Vargr raids. Such a raid might easily disrupt distribution networks for several days. Localized, of course, but every urban concentration might be hit. So there are emergency stores for, say, 14 days (double the worst case scenario?), in every community, spread over one warehouse per neighborhood.
And how much of the food will be spoiled or inaccessible with the systems collapse? Will Kinorb even store or process foods as we do today?
Emergency rations would be specifically designed for long-term storage, low bulk and long shelf life.
Kinorb may be TL8, but that doesn't mean it's our TL8. Kinorb member of a hi-tech Imperium in the 57th Century and there could be quite a bit of TL15 "retro-tech" about...
These emergency rations may actually be palatable
.
The regions that cannot sustain themselves will collapse to point where they can sustain themselves. With the planetary transport net down and little transport in private hands, the capital city and the regions around are dead. Everyone is going to die by starvation, violence, or some mixture of the two well before the Fleet jumps in.
So the time limit for the adventure would be a lot less than a month. Hmm... how much less?
Also, because the capital's "starvation contagion" can only spread by foot, the rest of the planet's regions should be spared the worst effects IF they are have enough food, either stored or scavenged, and IF their population densities aren't too high. Smaller cities may be very well becomes "starvation bombs" too.
Once the food and water problem is over, there's always looting and ill will between various population groups (The native Kinorbians have become second-class citizens on their own world and many of them resent the **** out of the tourists and retirees. They also resent the company. And the company has just lost a lot of their ability to move guards around. And guess which population group the company is going to concentrate on saving first?)
We'd send aid and relief workers, we always send aid and relief workers.
Bill, the analogy was a response to ther suggestion that no one at Efate would care enough to send any help at all. I say that even before humanitarian sentiments enter into it, both the Imperium and the Efatan authorities have a great deal of political interest in caring.
Having someone in the government or military very quickly proclaim martial law and then deploy troops, call up militia, deputize citizens to strongly enforce food stockpiling and rationing upon pain of death until help can arrive would be a good start. Is there a National Guard or some similar organization? How about prior service clubs like the American Legion? Or even fraternal organizations like the Masons? If they exist, you should get them all involved somehow.
Nope, just the retirees and tourists, plus the infrastructure to run the world. A bit like the British in India, although the demographics are quite different.
I finished the loathsome Draka series on inertia mostly, had to see the end of the train wreck I suppose. Put down the second Nantucket book halfway through and haven't had the urge to pick it back up.
I never started on the Draka, but I liked the Nantucket series enough to keep it and I reread it once in a while.
Hans
o:
