- Harry Crews
December nineteenth, two thousand and eighteen marks the day that the shot heard round the world was fired once more. The date stands proudly as a harbinger of the bloodiest period of American history that the world may ever see. Exhausted and disillusioned from fighting a decades-long war against Islamic extremism, the powers that be failed to recognize the exponentially tumultuous political dilemmas bubbling within their own borders. At first, isolated acts of domestic terrorism targeted both politicians and government buildings, as well as bolder attacks on military leadership and installations. These confined incidents evolved into more organized attacks, and eventually further into open warfare on the streets, reaching a flashpoint on the nineteenth day of December, twenty eighteen, when rebel militiamen stormed capitol buildings throughout the country, and a perfectly orchestrated attack on loyalist forces based out of Fort Stuart, Georgia wreaked havoc before the soldiers stationed there even had a chance to arm and defend themselves. Growing more powerful daily thanks to an influx of recruits, loyalist deserters and caches of pillaged military-grade weaponry and vehicles, the rebels who would come to be known as the Patriot Liberation Front soon began to appear and function as an authentic army, and the civil war raged on as it continues to do so to this day.
It's June eighth, twenty twenty. The country has fallen apart and any semblance of democracy has disappeared behind an iron curtain of grim-faced soldiers, military checkpoints and machine gun nests. Millions have fled the country, and millions more have died in the fighting as combatants or collateral damage. The economy is in shambles, food, water and medicine being meticulously rationed and distributed in accordance with mandates established by a clandestine shadow of American government which rules from faraway, secret bunkers. Both sides have incurred heavy losses, with the majority of the heavy vehicles seized by rebel forces having been destroyed, and loyalist forces expending a majority of the air assets that gave them the precision to avoid most civilian casualties and unmistakeable strategic leverage. As such, the PLF has readopted its guerrilla tactics of insurgency and loyalist forces have returned to the heavy-handed doctrines of conventional warfare. All over the burning country entire city blocks have been shelled to ruin, and great swathes of American wilderness have been burdened with minefields. Roadside bombs are common, gunfire is familiar in most neighborhoods, and civilians count blessings each day they aren't caught in that firefight they heard down the street or that their boarding house wasn't hit in that mortar attack late last night.
This is the world we live in. Our nation has been resown with shell casings and innocent corpses, rebuilt with rubble and derelict gun emplacements, and inherited by buzzards and rats.
Roanoke, Virginia: The Star City of the South. A place once renowned for its natural beauty and humble roots is now just another battlefield. Che Guevara fiercely lectured that encirclement was the worst possible situation for the guerrilla fighter to find himself in, and after a force of routed rebel soldiers were intercepted and forced to make a stand in the town, they would learn the truth to that dead man's words. The city was caught completely off-guard as loyalist forces invaded and occupied as if in an enemy nation. Despite being given only hours of notice, most civilians had a chance to evacuate the town before the fighting began anew, though some had no choice, or no time. Some chose to stay, human vultures who take pleasure or profit from the war. The entire city has been placed under martial law and confined. No one enters, and no one ever leaves. It is a metropolis besieged, with heavily fortified checkpoints posted on most all roads out, and roaming patrols circling the outskirts.
Loyalist forces assume that anyone remaining in the city is either a soldier of the PLF, or a sympathizer, and are on current orders to shoot on sight. Convoys of tanks and armored trucks routinely enter the city on missions to assault suspected enemy positions and eliminate any survivors. Artillery fire thunders through the day and night, though it is promised that collateral damage is being avoided at all costs. It is a cruel game of cat and mouse, where not only the resistance soldiers struggle to survive, but so do those civilians left behind, unable to leave and unable to surrender. For those few it is a grim test of endurance as they scavenge whatever they can in order to survive, hiding wherever possible and fighting when they must: Against the military, against the rebels, against each other, and against nature itself.
As Rats is a survival based story with a heavy emphasis on character development, aspects of a slice of life thread, and occasional action scenes. This is a dark thread, drawing loose inspiration from the indie game "This War of Mine", and I stress that if you are faint of heart, you steer clear: characters will die, violence will be raw and described gruesomely, and decisions will be made that will not only shape the story and change characters forever, but will also be difficult enough to hopefully shake you as a witness. This will not be a happy fairytale, but instead a brutal portrayal of circumstances that victims of real war have been forced to live through.
This story is largely player driven. You will not be spoon-fed roleplay, though it's safe to assume that your characters will be involved in scavenging runs and included in conversations, never left behind to twiddle your thumbs. If you face a situation in which you don't have much to say or post, do what you can: I would rather see you post nothing but paragraph long posts than not post at all. If you become inactive without notification, I'll try to get a hold of you ASAP, and failing that your character will be at the mercy of the thread (and will most likely be met with a prompt and terrible death). I know it sounds harsh, but this is a thread that I am genuinely interested in seeing through. I'm looking for quality writers here, so I encourage all to apply but I want you to give it your all.
The story will be told in three main arcs, spaced six months apart from one another to chronicle the increasingly desperate situation that our survivors find themselves in. Your characters can be pretty much anyone: A citizen of Roanoke, a deserter from either side of the conflict, a bandit, whatever. I'll be running a side-arc for antagonists, so if you're interested in having more than one character to facilitate this, that's fine too.
I'm open to questions, comments, critiques, criticisms, bitches, gripes, complaints, deep-seeded emotional anxieties, or anything for the betterment of the group.
Dalton Michael Spears, Jr.
The tales of our survivors are yet to be told.
This is only an outline. Modifications and additional information are highly encouraged so long as you provide the information asked in the original character sheet.
