Wanted: New Ideas on the end of the world.

[plop101]

1997 has come and gone. The world didn't blow itself up. The Soviets don't have a tank division in San Antonio. The world became a peaceful place briefly.

Now with all that has gone on since then, I'm wondering if a new post-holocoust campaign setting could be developed. Any ideas out there?

 

[Jame]

1.) Those idiot fanatics out east win.
2.) Those idiot fanatics out west win.
3.) Those idiot fanatics out both east and west meet and start fighting.
4.) Either lose and cause a nuclear war.
5.) The Iraq conflict starts a nuclear war.
6.) As #5, but offworlders show up and blast the stuffing out of the combatants and conquer the survivors.

 

[Jame]

1.) Those idiot fanatics out east win.
2.) Those idiot fanatics out west win.
3.) Those idiot fanatics out both east and west meet and start fighting.
4.) Either lose and cause a nuclear war.
5.) The Iraq conflict starts a nuclear war.
6.) As #5, but offworlders show up and blast the stuffing out of the combatants and conquer the survivors.

I'm on the Atlantic coast of the U.S., so "out east" is either very far away or impossibly damp.
Both sets of fanatics need to die, die, die.

 

[kafka47]

Late in the 1950s, a Vilani military ship misjumped into the Terran system and spiralled into the 3rd planet from the Sun. The location was deep in South America, where ex-Nazi doctors managed to bring the crew back from the brink of death. Although, these Vilani "supermen" were suseptible to Earthborne bacteria, thanks to the brilliant efforts of the good doctors and TL B medicine on the Vilani ship, they were able to overcome many pathogens. For others they retreated into a hermetically controlled chamber. After studying Terran history, they came to the similar conclusion that the Nazis had long since promulugated...human history only advances through conflict. Whilst, the idea of the 4th Reich was repugant to them, they desparately wanted to get back home. Therefore, they sought to transform the existing neo-Nazi movement into a vehicle to do this.

If war was a catalyst, then the Vilani theorized that by the end of the 20th century, there also had to be a long period of global expansion. Naturally, they knew that existing institutions such as the Terran UN would be ineffective, as they were too much driven by National interest rather than a global concern, having just watched the Suez Crisis unfold. Therefore, the Vilani reasoned a long Cold War would provide enough economic stimuli to boast the Great Powers into technological expansion. Therefore, they began training individuals who would later intervene with TL B+ equipment.

However, it was not a pure Vilani mission, there were also representives of several minor human races carried on board, as dangerous prisoners, who had the dangerous talent of being psionic. These individuals escaped into the larger world, soon after the crash, their whereabouts unknown...

The Vilani are in a last ditch effort to get back home from a primative planet. Track down fugatives... Fight White Supremists... unite the Terran race, without them knowing about it... all before their long lives or terran bacteria get the better part.

History could go on normally, save, what was assumed to be the great peace after the Cold War was over and Soviet-American cooperation to begin. The years of turbulence or the Twilight years set in. These were years of lean and mean, while no nuclear war was fought...nor, was there a universal peace.

Is it the work of the subversives? Is it another stage of the Vilani masterplan? Or did the neoNazis eliminate the Vilani and claim the mantle for themselves. What will happen next? Read Merc 2000 for details...

 

[Uncle Bob]

Asteroid impact. Even better, have a comet come in past the moon, beak into fragments and pepper the Northern hemisphere with fragments. Results very similar to a limited nuclear exchange.

Atlantic Conveyer shuts down. A big chunk of the greenland ice sheet slides (on a layer of melt water) into the North Atlantic and cuts the Gulf stream from Europe. Minor Ice Age, ice covers Eastern Canada, Europe down to London & Scandinavia. Pais has a climate like Fairbanks, Berlin has a climate like Yellow Knife. Portugal is like Washington State is today.

Or, An ice sheet (the Western sheet?) Slips off of Antartica and interupts the Antartic conveyer. This conveyer is in deep ocean, and the efects are uncertain. It might even exagerrate El Niño.

 

[Nurd_boy]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
...Even better, have a comet come in past the moon...

add a thousand years, heroes named ariel, oocla, and THUNDAR and you've got a 70's cartoon show......

THUNDAR THE BARBARIAN......


but, you now, it could work.....

 

[kafka47]

My problem with the Asteroid scenario, is that it would be planetwide altering effect that would live much of the Earth uninhabited. I think T2000 postulates that the human race must survive at least until 2300AD.

So rather than wiping out humanity with a K-T asteroid, perhaps, it is the aftermath of a "failed" mission that fragmented the rock into several parts that would strike the earth at selected intervals over the next 10-30 years.

Of course, there is always the old standby for the End of the World...the Great Ones emerge...

 

[Ranger]

What about a pandemic? The black death killed a large portion of Europe's population. Another bug of that type would cause havoc in modern society, not to mention what it would do to the developing world with it's limited public health capalilities. The desire to establish quarantines could lead to military conflict. Just the loss of population (30% in a year or two) would wreak havoc on a modern society and drastically reduce economic activity with all the resulting problems that would cause.

Just some thoughts,

Rob

 

[Nurd_boy]

a viral disaster on the planet would still leave some survivors....with 6 billion people, even a plague that wipes out 99% would still leave 60 million survivors.....

just a thought...

 

[Jame]

What kind of social change would the 60 million people undergo after the plague? Wouldn't they be very scattered as well?

 

[notagoodusername]

Originally posted by Jame:
What kind of social change would the 60 million people undergo after the plague? Wouldn't they be very scattered as well?

Or they could be the residents of one island / metropolis / whatever which kept the plague out.


Shane

 

[Jame]

Maybe a few isolated cities on a backwater coast. For example, those hicks in Maine

 

[kafka47]

JAME... You wouldn't be referring to our friend Swordy, by any chance.

I do like the idea of a plague, the only thing, is what would keep the situation militarized...beyond containment. I could see how a MilGov and CivGov could form in the United States and former USSR. But, it would not explain the overly militaristic future that Twilight 2000 or Merc 2000 postulates.

 

[Ranger]

Well, I don't think a pandemic would lead to a Third World War as envisioned in T2K, but it could lead to an outbreak of many local conflicts that would colapse modern society in much of the world. Quarantines would break existing distrabution networks for all comodities creating shortages of once common goods that are essential for maintaining an industrial or post industrial society. These shortages would lead to conflict.

If you want an example of a T2K situation, look at Afganistan since the Soviet withdrawl. Local warlords holding power based on the use of a few heavy weapons that they could keep running. Even after the Taliban took power the war continued for years.

Over the last decade at least half a dozen states have clapsed in Africa. The only thing that allows these states to recover is the ability for the rest of the international community to provided resources for reconstruction (including troops to provide security). In the event of a world wide pandemic it would be each nation-state for itself.

Another thought is that it wouldn't even have to be a bug that effected people. Something that wiped out one of the main food crops in the world would cause massive starvation and throw larg parts of the world into chaos.

Rob

 

[plop101]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:

...Even better, have a comet come in past the moon...

Later posted by Nurdboy:

add a thousand years, heroes named ariel, oocla, and THUNDAR and you've got a 70's cartoon show......

THUNDAR THE BARBARIAN......

but, you now, it could work..... [Devil]

THUNDAR ROCKS! Early in my Traveller playing days, I used to do Barbarian/Scout PC's based on ole Thundar. Sometimes, real late at night on Cartoon Network, they rerun that show.

 

[Nurd_boy]

THUNDAR ROCKS! Early in my Traveller playing days, I used to do Barbarian/Scout PC's based on ole Thundar. Sometimes, real late at night on Cartoon Network, they rerun that show. [/QB]

especially in T20 with a bit of magic from dnd tossed in with the high tech gadgets.....

 

[Liam Devlin]

Strange this topic I find after renting(at last) "Reign of Fire"- the dragons come back and scorch the earth...there's a Tw2000 disaster!

 

[Ellros]

I just watched that the other night too Liam. I was thinking the same thing, especially in the beginning with the tank rolling down the road

 

[El Darbo]

How about somethign a little closer to home...?

Tensions escalate across the globe s the US threatens both Iraq and North Korea with military action if they don't aquiece to US wishes.
Anti-american sentiment whips up in the Arab world, promising "much harm to US interests and citizens" if they don't "halt your imperialist aggressions". NAturally, Africa and any other state that has a bone to pick with the US forms into a sort of global coalition in an attempt to blck the US from any actions outside its borders.
Of course the US pays no heed and continues with it actions.
As military intervention in Iraq begins, Al-qeida operatives detonate an old "lost" soviet nuke warhead outside a base in Turkministan that the US is using to stange into Afgan. The blast kills a couple of hundred thousand, and the terrorists claim tht they have more.
Possible links between North Korea and Osama-b.L. send US forces into their territory. China reacts by crossing it's borders in order to "insure the security of the peoples republic". Us and Chinese armies meet peacefully in the north east of North Korea, eventually setting up a DMZ between the 2 lines. Not a week later all out war is almost provoked when a drunk Chinese soldier stumbles across nomans land and is shot by patrolling americans after he brandishes a pistol. Relations sour. Seeing their cue, terrorists explode a tac nuke, this time ouside the chinese HQ for their occupation zone. Fingers point, blame flies. It is discovered that the missiles that NK had that were nuclear were real, but are now missing, as is the old soviet submarine they had purchased in 2001.
As all fear, the NK sub launches several missiles from its torpedoe tubes and they head for american soil, provoking the US defense network into action. The sub is eventually sunk, but the damage to N america is intense. Survivors from the sub are rescued/captured, or manage to evade.
SOme of the survivors of the sub are located by US intelligence after they had evaded for 2 weeks. They hijack an airplane in tailand and make for Syria. Their plane is intercepted over the Indian ocean and persued into Indian airspace, setting off both Indian and Pakistany airforces. This escalates into all out war in a mater of hours, ending in the launching of their nuclear arms, shattering the world and activating the armaggedon plans of all sides........

 

[Uncle Bob]

Or I posted this on another forum, in response to a question on the future of NATO

Can the other Fifteen Nations force the Three out?

France, Germany, and Belgium are the core of the European Union. France is not worried about the four billion dollars Saddam owes them, they are thinking about dominating Europe. And if they break up NATO the US goes home and they are the big dogs. They will bully the little nations of Europe unmercifully. The ex-warsaw pact nations see this, which is why they're behind us.

Germany will go along for a while, but eventually they will get tired of being #2. But France has nukes and Germany doesn't. Yet.

Do the Germans buy nukes from the Russians? Build their own? Do the French strike first?

And then what does Russia do? If Russia goes in the backdoor of Europe what do we do, what does China do?

But first, what do the North Koreans do when we won't play their game? Do they backmail ROK into kicking us out and reunifying? Is that a good idea with America full of testosterone and a president determined to do the right thing?

And China...has Russia really sold them 200 kph supercavitating torpedoes? What does that do to to the Seventh Fleet at Taiwan?

India-Pakistan, Israel, Lybia, South African tribal wars, so many flashpoints, so little time.

So many flashpoints, so little time.