TheEvanCat

War Never Changes III: Annals of the East

Adding some updates of the various departments in the city while I keep writing a post.

In the meantime, I haven't thought too much about which guys would be elite. On a broader sense, Security Division is roughly split into two services (unofficially): city and wasteland.

City guys generally handle stuff that you'd usually associate with guard duty or policing, their most dangerous focus probably gangs and tribes still in the city. Definitely not kick down the door in power armor type folks.

Wasteland fighters are more akin to soldiers, although not organized or deployed in substantial formations or operating with a lot of defined doctrine and combined arms capability. A lot of these guys are more focused on seeking out and securing resources or assets and keeping trade routes clear.

I'll have to do some more work on how they get around (mostly sea-based, I don't see vehicles being of much use on the shitty and ruined roads.) I'll also have to figure out stuff like power armor.

Of the two, wasteland units are much more capable and tough. It often leads to a lot of interservice rivalry and jurisdiction issues when specific departments or precincts try to take on missions. Or are forced to, since the City kind of tosses SecDiv at problems that they don't know how to solve.

Overall the vibe will probably draw much more from the NYPD than leftovers of the US Military. As a result, I think that New York will simply have more troubles adjusting to things outside of managing a very dense post apocalyptic city. But, that's the inherent thing about a city state... Probably not going to be rolling around with tanks and special forces and shit.

N.E.O. - New Earth Oracle

Paris, France

Doctor Delacroix still had his reservations about the neon-lit skyscrapers towering over the rustic quarters of Paris. Although kept at bay in La Défense, technically a district outside of Paris’s official city limits, he thought the massive towers were eyesores. Built by high-tech architects and cutting-edge designers, the towers housed multinational corporate headquarters dealing with trillions of francs worth of business and technology. To Doctor Delacroix, it looked the same as any other city: Tokyo, New York, or Rio de Janeiro. It lacked the French charm that he knew and love about his country, and he couldn’t help but tut-tut their merits away. Maybe he was getting old.

The lights were distant, though, and the warm glow of Paris’s classic architecture was much closer. Delacroix, Verne, and Roxanna Masson all sat at a conference table with several other cabinet members. Antoine Renault was the Bercy minister; so named after the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s neighborhood in Paris. He sat quietly, eyes fixated ahead of him while he held one hand on the table. The other patted the white plastic hide of a shepherd-sized robotic dog. The friendly, almost cartoon caricature model dogs were marketed as a replacement to seeing-eye dogs of the past. Renault, blind since birth, enjoyed the robotic companion’s ability to verbally warn him of obstacles in his path.

Next to him sat the Minister of the Overseas, Jacques Perrier. The outre-mer filled a critically important component of the Langium resourcing in France, seeing as all zone rouges were outside the territory of France proper. Young, ambitious, and aggressive, Minister Perrier had inserted himself into the government’s conversation on Langium purely by association with the supply. He had no technical or scientific background and was yet another lawyer from a rich family who knew exactly which buttons to press to get him through a political career. Delacroix didn’t like politicians like him either: he knew Charles de Gaulle was rolling over in his grave.

All the usual suspects besides them were present. Laurent Fortin, Minister of Defense, sat next to Simone Mooradian: the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Both were stone-faced in their own ways, sitting almost identically cross-legged in their chairs. Mooradian tapped her notebook with a pen impatiently. They had served as military officers and it showed. Fortin retired as an Army colonel after commanding a mechanized brigade, while Mooradian held dual records as the Air Force’s first female and first French-Armenian general before she retired as a général de brigade aérienne.

Curiously missing was the Ecology Minister. Frank Chirac was scheduled to attend but was pulled away for an urgent situation developing somewhere. A bored-looking intern sat in the corner with a notepad and instructions to take detailed notes for Minister Chirac’s office later.

The clock ticked past seven in the evening and the cabinet continued to wait. Five minutes later, the oak doors burst open to reveal the Prime Minister flanked by an aide with a briefcase of documents. The Prime Minister ran the French government in conjunction with the actual President who held the role of head of state. He had brought them together to finalize their plan for cooperation in the UN space travel project, which he would present to Parliament the next day. The Prime Minister, a portly and jovial man by the name of Richard de Normandie, worked his party to the bone on policies he wanted to see passed. De Normandie was often compared to a slavedriver in the tabloids for his tendency to keep parliamentarians at work over weekends and recesses.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” de Normandie apologized, wiping sweat from his brow. “Myself and President de Mer were both occupied with a developing situation.”

“Is everything alright?” Renault asked, his eyes fixated ahead of him. It was uncanny to the Prime Minister, but he got used to it. “One of my aides mentioned an… explosion in Nantes?”

“Yes,” the Prime Minister stammered. He looked back at his aide, who was furiously tapping out an email on a PDA in his hands. “Well, one of our big projects has been heavily damaged. We don’t know the full details. I’ll have to make it quick here so I can get back to my office.”

“Uh, Edward,” he said, turning his head towards his aide while he settled into his chair. “Can you set up the board? I’m sure that email can wait.”

The aide acknowledged the order and put down his PDA onto the table. Doctor Delacroix was able to see the title of the email on the screen from his seat: re: [CLASSIFICATION: SECRET] Army Decontamination Team Request. He squinted, trying to make sense of it. What would have the government panicking like that? Nothing had happened at CERN, he would have known.

“Okay,” the Prime Minister said, pointing to the presentation behind him. “Everyone is aware of that UN presentation that has been making waves. Faster than light travel, I’m sure Doctor Delacroix in the back there knows more about it than I do. But that’s for you guys to figure out, I wouldn’t be able to understand the specifics.”

Delacroix and Masson looked at each other. The Research Minister shrugged her shoulders and mouthed to the scientist: “Let me do the talking.”

“We got a communique from the Brazilians last week, more information about the project and what exactly they’re trying to accomplish,” de Normandie revealed. “That paper published laid out the math and science behind it, but what this UN project is trying to do is get enough of the NLC components in one area. NLC components that we have.”

The aide moved to the next slide in the presentation, a map of French Guyana. “Monsieur Perrier, you can probably explain this a bit better. What the Brazilians are looking for is mostly in this red zone, correct?”

Perrier stood up and squinted at the presentation before flipping his eyeglasses down from their perch atop his head. He looked at the map and the labels pointing to zone rouge 10. “Yes, monsieur le premier ministre,” he said. “That is zone rouge 10, the largest in South America. It lies just a few dozen kilometers south of our largest spaceport. It’s the zone with the gravitational anomalies, and we have been able to extract raw ore and refine them into alloys with absolutely incredible anti-gravity capabilities.”

“Right, yes,” de Normandie said as he nodded along. “This zone has been, eh, a pain for us ever since some Legionnaires got lost and almost got themselves killed down there. But the Brazilians have luckily been very understanding about it. Simone, good job on that one.”

Mooradian smiled softly and nodded. “I got to know the Brazilian ambassador very well over that one,” she commented. The repatriation of the rescued French soldiers went so well that it never even broke the papers.

“Anyways, the current plan of action involves us joining the UN program,” de Normandie explained, going back to the topic at hand. “We play along well with everyone else… the American and the Soviets, to name a few. But we don’t play our entire hand. Instead, we have very graciously been extended some back channels with the Brazilians. They hate the Americans more than we do, and are very interested in us having their back as we oppose them across the world.”

“What does this mean for us tangibly?” Mooradian asked. Masson raised an eyebrow at her.

“If I may, Simone,” interjected Masson. She was intense even if she didn’t mean it: even her bright red and frizzled mess of curly hair painted her as something of a mad scientist. “I’ve seen the specifics on the NLC research they’re offering to us and it is… well, years ahead of anything we can do. All theoretically ‘proven’, of course, but the Brazilians are experimenting with things we can only make mathematical equations about!”

Masson turned to Fortin: “You are still working on those hovercars for the Army, correct?”

The aide in the corner instantly cocked his head, looking confusedly back at Prime Minister de Normandie. Fortin pointed at him. “Should you really bring it up in this environment? That’s highly classified!” he barked.

“Relax, relax,” de Normandie replied as he shook his head. “The boy has a clearance, of course. And he knows not to repeat anything outside of this room. Or at least I hope he does.”

The aide nodded, placing his hands behind his back. “I can leave if you like,” he suggested. De Normandie shrugged and told him there was no need.

“Well anyways, Minister Fortin, I recall this being a high priority for Army research,” Masson continued. “Lots of government firms involved.”

“Of course,” Fortin responded. “A truck that can fly right over mines or improvised explosive devices or a tank that can carry heavy armor over terrain a normal vehicle gets bogged down in. Who wouldn’t want one?”

“And what were the big problems with it?” Masson asked. She knew the answer, of course.

“We can’t control the gravity field. It’s a lot like magnets… the antigravity ‘thrust’ is related to the amount of refined NLC antigrav alloy. We can’t tune the field or turn it off. It is unable to be controlled.”

“Right,” Masson said. “And what Doctor Kawaguchi presented to the UN was, in essence, a way to control that. While it can be used for faster than light spaceships, it has a practical application in nearly everything we do. The problem the Brazilians have is they can research really well but they don’t have the industry down. They’re simply not developed enough, nor can they access the critical quantities of NLC compounds that they need. We have both of those.”

The Prime Minister nodded again from his seat. “Roxana is completely correct. The benefits to France will propel us further along than we can imagine. Not just internationally, but domestically as well. Were you aware that they’re offering us medical NLC research? The Brazilians are able to control NLC enough that they can cause all sorts of medical fixes and improvements without the downsides of mutation that we are so used to seeing. If we could offer these treatments in hospitals, the health of a French citizen would see its biggest increase in quality in years.”

Masson sat down, looking back to Delacroix. She winked before returning to the meeting. Prime Minister de Normandie surveyed the cabinet ahead of him. “Does anyone have any concerns about this plan before I pitch it to parliament? Once the vote passes and it gets signed off by President de Mer, we will officially be joining this UN project. And, unofficially, in a pact with the Brazilians. It is of the utmost importance that we handle this appropriately.”

The Prime Minister turned to Delacroix. “This is why I brought you here. You will be chairing the French contribution to this project, which might take you away from your day-to-day activities at CERN. I trust you have a deputy to run the place in your absence?”

“Uh, of course,” Doctor Delacroix said. He was a little shocked: he was a scientist, not a politician, and this job seemed to require more political work than research. He had never wanted to be part of something so nationally sensitive but thought of what his old soldier of a father would say. That man lived and breathed liberté, égalité, fraternité. Everything he did was for God and country. Maybe his decades of scientific research instead of military service would make the old man proud in Heaven.

“Well I trust you’ll make your preparations. I assume it will require some use of email!” de Normandie joked. Delacroix’s quirks were an open secret in the government community and the source of no end to jokes. “We have a computer provided to help you out.”

Delacroix rolled his eyes. “Of course, monsieur le premier ministre.”

De Normandie went back to the meeting, surveying the cabinet. He asked again if anyone had any concerns. Nobody did. The cabinet seemed to understand the scale of the project and what France had to gain from participation. With that, de Normandie clapped his hands together: “Alright, well the vote is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon right after lunch. If my party has been working the right way, this shall sail through to be signed shortly thereafter. More instructions shall be coming down soon. For now, I need to get back to work. I hope you all have a better evening than I am having.”

The Prime Minister sat up, pushing the chair away with the force of his large body. His aide collected his things in the leather briefcase and followed de Normandie out the doors. The Ministers filtered out in their own ways, making quiet conversations with each other before leaving the conference room. Only Delacroix and Masson remained, sitting quietly in their seats after a few minutes of contemplation.

“What’s on your mind, Arthur?” asked Masson, turning to the old scientist. She could sense his confliction.

“It’s a lot,” Delacroix admitted. He shook his head. “I’m so used to things being deliberate. The slow, enduring march of progress. Experiment after experiment, reams of data to process and analyze. Years and years of peer review and refinement. Now, humans are about to reach other worlds faster than my grandson learned how to walk and talk.”

“It is a lot, but it’s a good thing,” Masson replied. She frowned. “We haven’t had an opportunity for progress like this since The Visitation.”

“Was that such a good thing?”

“You’ve made your career out of this, Arthur.”

“Some days I wonder what the world would be like if the Visitors never came and spilt their trash all over this planet,” said the scientist. “Maybe things would be less complicated.”

The Research Minister shrugged and crossed her arms. “I feel like it would be the same. Maybe we would all be sending troops to the Persian Gulf to fight over Iraqi oil instead. I don’t think we can blame the Visitors on something humans always have and always will be doing.”

Doctor Delacroix sighed and stood up from his chair. He looked at Masson, and then to the door: “I just hope this will yield more progress than the trouble it brings.”

War Never Changes III: Annals of the East

East Village, Manhattan

Centuries ago, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Parkway had been a triple-tiered artery in New York’s massive system of roads. Powered by the demand for the automobile, roads were built on top of existing roads, which fed off into additional junctions and outlets. The War had changed that, with the blasts of atomic weapons bringing down sections of the elevated expressway. In the absence of life, these sections of highway sat vacant until settlers began forming camps above the city around them. What once was seen as a high ground for key settlements, separated from the streets, quickly turned into a continuous network of shanty towns.

The FDR Parkway still sat, partially collapsed. It never could be fully repaired, nor did anyone want to take up the job. The organically apocalyptic spread of shacks turned to buildings constructed of brick, wood, and rusting steel plating had covered the entirety of the expressway. Supports were reinforced with a patchwork of uneven repairs of many different materials, matching the buildings behind. Like most of the city, the rubble had been cleared where it could: streets were blocked where buildings had totally collapsed, of course, but the throughfares and detours around them were clear. The rubble of destroyed buildings formed a patchwork of reconstruction in others.

By the shore of the East River, at the foot of New York’s mottled cityscape, the spread of elevated shack structures had produced almost an undercity. Tarps and wires draped unevenly from the highway to the buildings besides hung low, swinging in the wind. Neon signs lit the darkness, advertising anything from stores to bars to more general businesses. Rusted hulks of old boats still lay tied up beside rotted docks, covered in graffiti. These, too, were too low priority to be moved or disassembled for scrap but served a use in allowing old fishermen to sometimes catch fish off their bows.

Rain blew in from the south, gently sweeping underneath the highway’s cover despite its best efforts to protect the people from overhead. A man in a hooded raincoat, scavenged from many years ago, ducked his way into a dark alley where a sign advertised a drinking establishment: its name was the Old New York Pub. An immediate rush of warm air greeted the man and a feeling of comfort washed over him. The brick-walled establishment was lit by soft red light. He let down his hood, taking in the smells of liquor and hearing the piano tune of a swing number played over a gently crackling radio.

“Hey, Charlie!” called out the bartender. Behind the counter, wearing a shirt with rolled up sleeves covered by a vest, a redheaded man waved. Charlie grinned, throwing up a wave of his own before sidling over to the counter.

The bartender didn’t hesitate to initiate the ritual. He poured a beer from the tap in front of him, some avant-garde bitter pale ale flavored with a spicy kick from a radscorpion’s venom gland. It came, naturally, out of Brooklyn. Charlie slid a few bottlecaps across the counter and accepted the pint glass, taking a drink out of the chilled glass. The Old New York Pub’s refrigerator had been out for a while until the owner had paid some mechanic to fix it. Learning how to fix prewar consumer goods and figuring out how to fabricate parts was a lucrative business for the smarter New Yorkers who weren’t picked up by the Engineering Division to work on bigger projects.

“What’s been happening lately?” asked the bartender, who went by the name of Phil.

“Not much, my boat just got back into port,” Charlie admitted. “Took the coastal route up Long Island Sound to go deliver some cargo to New Haven.”

Small trading communities had popped up in some of the old Connecticut cities, initially from the brahmin routes that traders would use along I-95 going to the Commonwealth. As more boats, controlled and regulated by the Trade Division, came into service New York was able to ship greater amounts of cargo much faster to and from these settlements. Most of the city’s food was grown in farms directly around these cities, often owned by feudal lords and squabbling strongmen.

“Nothing exciting?” Phil asked, leaning back against the brick wall of the bar. Charlie shook his head and smirked.

“I saw a mirelurk. Shot it. I’ve been getting good with that hunting rifle I bought from your brother. The one with the scope, remember?”

“Are you able to get a good shot off those boats for yours?” Phil asked. He had always been into guns but could never join the Security Division. As a kid, he had slipped and fallen off a pile of rubble near his native home in the Bronx: he had to deal with a bum leg for the rest of his life. New York’s doctors were not as good back then as they are now. “My brother used it as a sniper for a little bit. Used to say he picked off raiders in Jersey like it was nothing.”

“You know, the boat isn’t that bad,” Charlie replied. “They’re like big barges, they sit very low to the water. Wouldn’t go on the open sea with them, fuck no. But they’re good enough for a nice calm trip up the sound or the river.”

He lifted his hands up and mimed holding a rifle: “I just saw the guy on the shore, just laying there.” He emulated recoil and made a gunshot noise with his mouth. “Super easy, just balanced my barrel on the gunwale and popped him one. It went right through the shell. I love that thing.”

Phil shrugged. “I shot some dinner plates with it once,” he chuckled.

“What a waste of a perfectly good dinner plate,” lamented Charlie as he took another sip. The spice jolted through him as it went down his throat, giving him goosebumps. He was pretty sure the drink was still radioactive on some level, too.

He sat in silence for a bit, listening to the music. The jazzy, upbeat rhythm of the song seemed awfully inappropriate. It seemed more like a dance club’s music: there were about five people inside the bar, none of whom were dancing. The door opened again, another figure entering and taking off his raincoat. He wore the dark blue shirt of a SecDiv man. “Charlie Park?” he called out. “I knew I could find you here!”

“Goddamn, is it a fuckin’ reunion in here?” Charlie said before he turned around. He recognized that voice: Sanjay Knight. Sanjay’s main job had him accompany the boats up the Hudson from time to time, since city policy required that a SecDiv agent be a part of any armed TraDiv expedition. Like many things that got wound up in the city government’s bureaucracy, Sanjay’s presence was often redundant when most of the sailors were armed themselves. He merely served as an official rubber stamp to give “jurisdiction” for use of force in the wasteland. Still, he was a good guy, and Charlie liked having him around.

Sanjay smiled and came to sit next to him. He was tall, striding across the floor with a cheerful bounce to his step. He slapped Charlie on the shoulder: “I heard you got back yesterday, right? Had a job for you.”

“Man, another contract?” Charlie asked incredulously. It made him good money, he just never felt that he had any time to rest. He finished the beer with a loud tap as the empty glass hit the table. Phil wordlessly refilled it for another exchange of caps.

“Gonna have to get a few more of these in me before you convince me,” Charlie told Sanjay. The SecDiv man grinned, reached into a pocket on his grey cargo pants, and put a handful of caps down on the table.

“Shots’ll do it quicker.”

Chelsea, Manhattan

Charlie found himself quite hungover on a pier in Chelsea the next morning, untying a line from the weathered wooden dock. The previous night’s rain had turned into a ghostly grey fog, obscuring the high-rises of the city and casting a dreary mood on the quiet docks. Other boats and barges were preparing for the day’s trip, which typically brought the slow watercraft only to Poughkeepsie. Sanjay helped a sailor dragging a wooden box onboard, making an audible rustling clink when it slammed on top of another one. Sanjay’s contract had them traveling to Almont and the cargo was unmistakable: Charlie knew the sound of ammunition rattling in a box.

The Trade Division never specified any restrictions on who the various companies of New York sold what to, and arms merchants were among the Wasteland’s traditionally most profitable companies. Bullets made in Brooklyn often found themselves in Almont sold to bandits and raiders. The infamous Gunners, who often ambushed settlers and caravans in the wilder regions around White Plains, were big fans of New York ammunition. Security Division officials found themselves confiscating caches of ammunition that were sent back to the city and, curiously, repackaged to sell again. The caps just stamped themselves.

SecDiv officials in the City Council were often at odds with the TraDiv representatives for the back and forth. The Council, meanwhile, tolerated the ordeal so long as it didn’t get out of hand. They were no position to legislate commercial activity like that and didn’t mind the additional revenue being brought in for other projects. Charlie didn’t care much if his cut was healthy enough to do as he pleased.

“How are you feeling?” asked Sanjay, slapping Charlie on the back. The sailor grumbled, shaking his head.

“This is the last time you convince me to do anything,” muttered Charlie. His head was throbbing.

"Well, give us a couple days and we’ll be back in Almont. The pay here is pretty good, just gotta be on the lookout for those Gunner guys.”

The one good thing about Almont is they provided some semblance of mafia-like protection to the New Yorkers. Smaller independent traders were often harassed by the Gunners who didn’t belong to the splinter faction in charge there. New York City, meanwhile, provided good quality products enough to convince the two groups to maintain a status quo. Roving bands of Gunners knew better not to attack the New Yorkers, lest they draw the specific ire of mayor. Potshots and ambushes still happened, but not like they used to. It was the less-organized bands of raiders that they needed to worry about.

The crew of the ship had brought aboard the last of the cargo and signed off on the courier’s order. While the ammunition came from the factory in Brooklyn, it traveled on a specially cleared subway car for intracity cargo. This stopped at the station in Chelsea, one of the “cargo stops”, where a team of workers unloaded the boxes with dollies. The whole process was much faster than the Brahmin carts of old. The boat’s captain, a veteran seaman, climbed to the wheelhouse that sat elevated over the barge’s wide cargo deck. Jad Hemsworth had proven himself for over thirty years on the Hudson and had the scars to prove it.

Charlie and Sanjay both heard the foghorn go off from the wheelhouse once the preparations for departure were complete. Sanjay helped as Charlie pulled the lines connecting the boat to the dock loose and onto the deck. Beneath them, the hull reverberated with the thrumming of the barge’s atomic-powered propeller. A small powerplant no bigger than a common nuclear train’s reactor drove two propellers. In the cool morning air, the boat moved away from the pier and turned due north.

The sun, barely rising above the city ahead, peeked over the fog with its golden rays. Charlie found himself a seat on the deck, an old poolside lounge chair that leaned back next to a table, and made himself comfortable. The trip north would take a while.

War Never Changes III: Annals of the East

Manhattan

The view from the 107th floor never ceased to amaze her. Atop the massive steel-framed skyscraper was a prewar restaurant framed by floor-to-ceiling windows. Repaired over the years since the war, the 107th floor was where the North Tower’s residents came to eat, drink, socialize, or simply look out over the city. With a steaming cup of coffee in front of her, Sandra Napolini looked out across the city of New York. The city, roughshod and ramshackle, bore the scars of the old world’s violent conflagration. Buildings, many damaged and some toppled completely, were repaired across the cityscape with scrap or locally fabricated materials.

Even the towers that Sandra hailed from, the World Trade Center complex functioning as the beating heart of the old American economic system, had been repaired piecemeal over the centuries that passed. The war, the harsh environment, the radiation, and time’s unceasing march caused countless problems. Sandra’s mother, Helen, were among the engineers tasked with keeping the Twin Towers alive. Academically gifted with a knack for improvisation and creative thinking, these engineers were the backbone of the Towers’ settlement. Doctors served the people inside, while the engineers healed their home.

Sandra smiled pensively, thinking about how her mother taught the newest generation of engineers and maintainers: they had gone beyond the vertical fiefdom that had been carved out of the old city. Sandra, midway into her forties, had not yet been born when her mother had found the machine intelligence that lay beneath the complex. With its guidance, New York City was reborn in 2234. The last warring tribe, the stubbornly independent and holier-than-thou Staten Islanders, was conquered or bribed into submission by 2249. A community was born, with The Economist serving as its guide. It was all ancient history to her and many of her peers, who often had to endure their grandparents’ tales of scavenging and survival.

Sandra felt a familiar presence behind her: she turned to look and see an old friend standing by a window with a glass of beer. Samuel Powell, a technologist who worked with the Administration Division. In the vein of the old world, New York had come up with untold numbers of divisions and departments to neatly organize the jobs required to run a city. The Twin Towers and its surrounding buildings served as the headquarters for all of these, with branches and offices running into each of the territories that New York controlled.

“Mind if I sit here?” Samuel asked politely, motioning to a seat next to Sandra. She agreed, taking a sip of her coffee. He a facsimile of prewar office clothes, a luxury for tower residents but not one out of touch with the wasteland’s new fashion. His shirt was a dark green and his slacks black: muted colors that avoided the stains and filth that tended to accumulate on such clothes.

Sandra continued to look out the window where a storm cloud was slowly approaching from the shore. The water and the rain, while no longer wholly radioactive, had a slight greenish tint to them. She had heard of the Exploration Division’s scouts reporting similar phenomena in the Commonwealth and the Capital Wasteland. Another reminder that, no matter how hard they tried, there could be no going back to how things were before. She had never been behind the barrel of a gun pointed at a mutant, unless one counted smacking a radroach with a broomstick, but the reminders of the apocalypse were ever present.

“What’s on your mind?” Samuel asked, sensing that his old friend was deep in thought.

“The City Council has a meeting tomorrow, and they want The Economist’s input on a new plan of theirs,” Sandra said. “I’ll have to talk to him… it…”

“It’s okay,” chuckled Samuel, catching her slip. “I suppose we can call it a ‘him.’ After all, we name our boats after women. And The Economist is far more talkative than a boat. More personality, too.”

Sandra rolled her eyes, clutching her coffee in her hand. “Did people really talk like that in the old world?” she asked. The Economist, programmed to convey information like a suave fast-talking stockbroker on Wall Street, often irritated her. It didn’t help that people were already starting to imitate the accent and style, especially as the city developed its wealth and a corresponding population of affluent downtowners.

“I suppose they did. ’Nyah! See?’” he exclaimed, gesticulating wildly with his impression. He mimed picking up a telephone: “’Robco dropped their fourth quarter earnings and boy ain’t they shitty! Sell, baby, sell!’”

Sandra stifled a laugh. Samuel had been a goof since he was a kid. “I could never make it. Took a real wolf to survive back then. I’ll take the radstorms any day of the week.”

“So cavalier,” agreed Samuel, settled down from his act. “No wonder they blew themselves up.”

The crack of lightning dully rattled the glass in front of them. Raindrops started to fall on the windows. It reminded Sandra of her childhood when, on some floors, the windows were still broken or not fully sealed. The cold winter breeze cut through her when she made repairs to the tower’s structure. That had since been solved by the judicial application of epoxy. Good small tasks for the apprentice engineers.

“This meeting won’t be about another block rehabilitation or the subway,” Sandra said after a moment. Samuel cocked his head.

“The Council is doing something? We’ve been rebuilding for years, and they want to do more?”

“Well, not by choice,” Sandra said. She sighed. “Maybe it’s not the best thing to say,” she turned her head to make sure they were alone. Nobody else occupied the 107th floor at this hour, “but it’s a power issue. They want to investigate the old nuclear reactor at Indian Point.”

Indian Point, some thirty miles north of them, was the Hudson Valley’s largest atomic reactor before the war. By some coincidence, it had been spared the bombs. New York could easily have been another Glowing Sea if Indian Point was targeted like the many reactors in Western Massachusetts. It lay dormant and, more importantly, disconnected from the city. But as New York grew, material concerns manifested. Its first and foremost concern was, like the old world, electricity. Indian Point powered the old New York and was eyed as a solution for the postwar. Sandra needed to get The Economist’s input on the operation.

The AI, using millions of data points from before the war and fed into it by people like Samuel afterwards, would generate a suggestion. Predictions on the reactor’s operating capacity, chances of survivability, how expensive it would be to repair, and how easy it would be to hold were all floating around in The Economist’s data banks. Sandra, as its custodian, needed to get the answers from it.

It wasn’t that Sandra had a special relationship with The Economist. She did, or at least as close a relationship as one could have with an AI. She had been trained quite literally since birth to interpret its results and translate the oracle’s sometimes arcane knowledge into reality for the City Council. It meant many nights with The Economist, often hashing out and making sense of its outputs. A lonely life, often devoid of friends. It was never overtly stated, but Sandra often felt like people attached a certain religious quality to her. Was she a priestess? A prophet and a messenger for a god? She didn’t feel like one. Yet there were similarities she couldn’t ignore.

Samuel finished his drink in silence, mulling over Sandra’s new mission. He clinked the empty bottle down on the table as the rain continued to fall. Sandra’s coffee was still half-full. “Are you going to be here a while longer?” he asked.

She nodded. Samuel uncrossed his legs and leaned over to look out the window some more, trying to see where she was focusing on. The raindrops streaked down the glass, obscuring the view. Fog rolled into the harbor and wind started to whip at the boats moored in downtown Manhattan’s piers. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it,” he said. “The wife has made some dinner. You’re welcome over sometime this week if you have the time,” he offered. “I know you’ll be busy though.”

Sandra looked back to him and smiled softly again. “Thanks, Samuel. I appreciate it. I won’t keep you. Have a good night.”

Samuel stood up, grabbing his beer bottle by the neck. A lone Protectron stomped its away around the corner, holding a tray on its bulky metal hands. Samuel walked up the robot and placed his glass down, to which the Protectron’s monotone robotic voice thanked him for not littering. He exited, off into a corridor that led to the stairs down to his floor of the building. Despite the bureaucracy that had taken root in the Twin Towers, people still lived in the building full time. Sandra was one of them, too. She took another sip of her coffee as the storm picked up.

Indian Point. The words repeated in her head. She wondered what The Economist would say about it.

War Never Changes III: Annals of the East

@TheEvanCat I mean...since you're not either...

@FalloutJack

Hell yeah. Love working on a Monday.

Also I totally forgot how to format youtube videos for this forum.

War Never Changes III: Annals of the East

Everyone in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=AW2xyXl2tTI

War Never Changes III: Annals of the East

Yeah, fuck Yam. I do what I want. Maybe if he can outdrink me for once then he can deny my posts.

Come at me, bro.

War Never Changes III: Annals of the East

New York City

Territory

Territory:

The government of New York City maintains its core in the traditional five boroughs of New York: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx. Surrounding major communities like Jersey City, Newark, Yonkers, White Plains, and various Long Island suburbs are also directly controlled by the city government: this has brought important prewar facilities like Newark International Airport, the Tappan Zee Bridge, and various ports under direct control and security.

Regional Map

Local Map

History

History:

New York City was the largest prewar urban center in America, functioning as a population center for 18 million people, industrial powerhouse, shipping center for billions of dollars’ worth of commerce, and a strategic military location. Most of all, the head of America’s worldwide economic dominance was centered on Wall Street in downtown Manhattan. The crucial part that New York played in America painted a target on its back: it received a lion’s share of the bombs and missiles launched at the mid-Atlantic region. Despite the best efforts of New York’s state-of-the-art air defense missiles and laser weapons, the saturation bombing of the city got through and caused severe damage.

The scale of the attack decimated the city. Millions were killed outright, with many more succumbing to radiation injuries later on. The scenes of New York were a mirror reflection of Washington DC, Boston, and other metropolitan areas: those who were not dead or dying slipped into anarchy as the last vestiges of government and society died with the old war. Through this and the ecological disasters caused by the black rain and radiation storms, New York would be a dead city for a hundred years. People organized themselves into bands of raiders and other survivors, squabbling over territory and resources in the apocalypse.

Deep beneath downtown Manhattan, in a secure bunker guarded from all threats, an artificial intelligence laid dormant. While it had been operationally disabled by the nuclear blasts of the Great War, it was still able to receive and process the vast amounts of data that eked into its memory since the conflict. This was The Economist, an incredibly powerful computer built before the war to manage the American economy: it accumulated data of stock movements, corporate reports, and production results and generated predictions of the future. While it had predicted the Great War by taking note of an uptick in defense contractors’ stock values, its warnings were not seriously heeded by the prewar Americans.

As the radiation storms lessened and groups of raiders coalesced into solidified tribal communities in the city’s neighborhoods, one settlement would become the unwitting leader of the city’s revival. In 2232, a thriving community located in the campus of the World Trade Center, known as the Twin Towers for the skyscrapers that most people lived in, made an incredible discovery. Helen Napolini, an engineer in the community, stumbled upon an unknown maintenance shaft when looking for the source of a standard electrical problem. She climbed down, discovering the dormant AI. When she awoke it, an error message greeted her. The curious engineer secretly began her work, finding a maintenance manual in her tower’s library and diagnosing the machine’s problems. It took Helen two years to identify and source the parts to fix The Economist.

In 2234, The Economist spun back up underneath the Twin Towers, rebooting its systems and finally holding dialogue with Helen. She spent long nights speaking with The Economist about the old world and the new. When presented with the question of how to solve the problems in the wasteland, The Economist gave solutions. Helen realized that this was more important than her and, after a week of learning about the AI, presented it to the council that ran her settlement. This group made the decision to take The Economist seriously and recognized that they were bestowed with a responsibility to bring order to the wasteland around them. Helen was made the custodian of The Economist until her death in 2278: her daughter, Sandra, still maintains the role.

The Twin Towers quickly appointed their military and diplomatic strategists to the task of reuniting the city. Using The Economist’s guidance, the adjacent bands of settlers and raiders were either folded into the council’s governance or conquered. The Twin Towers, upon establishing a beachhead in Brooklyn, renamed themselves in the vein of the old world’s New York City. They took the flag, colors, and symbols of the city as a way to unify the disparate communities inside. By 2249, after fifteen years of struggle, New York City grew to encompass its territories.

Brave leaders like James Hastings made significant sacrifices such as in the Battle of Newark, which netted the city government its airport at the expense of their general’s life. Ismael Jones, a skilled diplomat, negotiated with the ghoul settlement of Yonkers to rejoin the city and take a seat on the council to address ghoul-specific issues. Based on priorities given by The Economist, the New York City government began a generational struggle of repair and decontamination. Led to sites of knowledge and production such as factories, the city government stripped old world technology in daring patrols outside the city limits so they could train future doctors, lawyers, engineers, and public servants in the city.

The city experienced its brush with major factions like the Brotherhood of Steel who, on their quest to find new lands, brushed past the city’s skyline in their airship in 2282. The underground slave evacuation route set up by the Railroad ran through and into the city, bringing synthetic humans from Boston to places as far away as Washington DC. The council’s security of the city is not in question, but what to do after is: policy formulates as the New York government makes decisions on how to handle the rugged terrain outside the city. As they meet more factions in the wasteland, their role in the wasteland’s precarious political ecosystem takes further shape.

Despite the ravages of the war, New York is a centralized city state with a relatively normal population. Agriculture innovatively based out of former warehouses and high rises feeds the citizens inside. Industrial centers from before the war were repaired and function to supply the small city, although their growth capacity is in question. People return to life, enjoying culture and art and relationships not purely confined to survival. Much like the cities of the West, New York is starting to resemble a post apocalypse. With this development comes major problems: societies develop in the wasteland, and New York must find some way to deal with them. The Economist maintains its role as an oracle for the city, but requires more data to find a way forward.

It is 2298, over 200 years since the bombs fell. New York is not alone in the east coast’s wasteland, and a new great game of power and influence has developed. The city, while successful in and of itself, has significant growth ahead of it. If it can further live in the wasteland, it will need to adapt to the pressures of its time.

Pressing Issues

Pressing Issues:

By the very nature of New York’s position as a major metropolitan city state, it is surrounded by danger on all sides. Radiation storms in the northeast continue to make life difficult for New Yorkers attempting to explore the wasteland in search of useful leftovers. Raiders, bandits, and mutants occupy the northern upstate regions that have been untamed by civilized control. Similarly, Long Island is a pressing strategic objective for the city’s security. A unique, exotic threat manifests in former New Jersey.

Internally, the city grapples with its former tribal borough governments competing for resources and influence. It also is not spared from the discrimination and rights issues facing its ghoul and growing synth populations. Additionally, concerns of resources and power are starting to become an issue as the population grows. Tempting targets of opportunity like farms and prewar power plants lay outside the city’s borders, requiring action. All of these issues, both old and new, keep New York City occupied as the 24th century approaches.

Significant Organizations

Government:

City Council: The City Council is the main body of representatives from each territory of New York. They make all decisions regarding the city's governance, advised by the City Divisions and their chiefs as well as The Economist itself. 11 representatives come from Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, Jersey City, Newark, Yonkers, the White Plains Territories, the Bergen Territories, and the Elizabeth Territories. It is well known that most of the power lies within Manhattan and its traditional seats of power, with the five prewar boroughs generally forming a decisive power block over newer additions to the city-state.

Custodian of The Economist: The Economist, a massive prewar artificial intelligence, was initially designed to predict the movements of financial and economic markets. Since the Great War, The Economist has somehow developed into a mystical oracle-like seer that has guided the city's government. A caretaker with the special ability to engage with the AI and bring out its conclusions was formally established following the activation of the computer beneath the World Trade Center. Helen Napolini was charged as the machine's custodian. While she passed away in 2278, her daughter Sandra has taken custodianship of The Economist. She reports directly to the City Council with its advise on their plans.

Divisions of City Government:

Administration Division: With the recovery of prewar information, the Administration Division is charged with the maintenance of information and operation of systems to manage and organize the city. Clerks, bureaucrats, computer operators, and librarians all collate and categorize incoming knowledge and manage the running of a large city. Widely derided for bringing paperwork back from the old world, the AdminDiv runs nonstop to organize the many departments and divisions of government. The culmination of AdminDiv's efforts is the direct input of data into The Economist's vast computational arrays. This function provides The Economist with information that it needs to generate its crucially important calculations and predictions.

Medical Division: In a world ravaged by sickness and radiation poisoning, the doctors and nurses of MedDiv are responsible for operating a healthcare system in the city. MedDiv operates numerous clinics, hospitals, research facilities, and supply lines for medical equipment and various medicines. They are also well known for contributing to the relationship between the Wasteland Aid Society and the New York City government. Aid Society schools and physicians often cross-train with MedDiv staff, resulting in a cadre of highly competent medical professionals who attend to various matters of public health and individual treatment.

Nuclear Division: NucDiv holds the mandate of nuclear energy production and distribution across the city. From small fusion cells to large regional reactors, NucDiv is responsible for managing and operating every facet of atomic power within New York's borders. The city's success hinges on their efficiency, as without power there will be no further growth. This "no fail" approach has led NucDiv to garner a harsh reputation as cutthroat: there is zero-tolerance for mistakes within this division.

Sanitation Division: Once a department dedicated to managing the complex mechanisms of waste disposal and public health in America's densest urban area, SaniDiv's mandate is no less crucial after the apocalypse. While the old problems of garbage, sewage, and infectious diseases have not gone away, SaniDiv now has been charged with the essential duties of cleaning radiation and mutant abominations from the city's scarred landscape. Their work often takes them into the dangerous subterranean city beneath New York, rediscovering lost infrastructure below the streets.

Security Division: Commonly known as SecDiv, this is the city's organized armed force. They assume both domestic guard duty, policing, security and military actions and patrols in areas of the Wasteland outside of city limits. As a result, they are a hybrid organization with competing hierarchies and interests. With scarce resources and muddled priorities, SecDiv is often overstretched and undermanned. Compounding the issue is the City Council's view of them as a "multitool" to solve problems that do not neatly fit into any one division's area of responsibility, further stretching the force.

Trade Division: Perhaps the most powerful division of New York's government, TraDiv is responsible for the overall management and regulation of the city's powerful commercial and trade activities. They register and tax caravans, riverboats, motorized transportation, and anything else that passes through New York's many trade zones. They are similarly responsible for generating economic data on activities in order to further refine New York's policy priorities.

Characters

AdminDiv:

Samuel Powell: A close friend of Sandra Napolini. He works directly in the Twin Towers at the forefront of data collection from across the city, feeding The Economist's decisions with raw data to analyze.

Brooklyn AA&E:

Mario Leonetti: The manager of Brooklyn AA&E's energy weapons department. He seeks a greater market share as he sells weapons to anyone and everyone across the Wasteland.

Custodian of The Economist:

The Economist: A complicated prewar artificial intelligence buried beneath New York City that has been repurposed into guiding and planning the city's government after the bombs fell.

Sandra Napolini: The daughter of Helen Napolini, the original Custodian. She is the human interface for The Economist, conversing with it to take its advice straight to the Council itself.

NucDiv:

Arthur Sanchez: A former colleague and friend of Clifford Smith who stood by as NucDiv leadership fired him for an accident he was never responsible for.

Clifford Smith: A disgraced nuclear plant manager who finds new purpose in restarting Indian Point.

Port Newark:

Anna Pawlowksi: Formerly Clifford Smith's apprentice, she becomes the new manager of Port Newark's nuclear reactor upon his departure.

SecDiv:

Charlie Park: Aimless and without clear direction, he finds most of his work taking security jobs on freighter barges up and down the waterways of New York's territory.

Sanjay Knight: A loyal, if slightly immature junior SecDiv man with a propensity to get in trouble at the absolute worst of times.

War Never Changes: Let's Tri This Again

New York:

By 2290, the chaos of the wasteland had been quelled by a unifying force in the dense urban landscape. A charismatic leader has assembled a faction of disparate wastelanders and executed a plan with the help of The Economist: an incredibly powerful artificial intelligence beneath Wall Street. Initially designed to predict market conditions and economic futures, The Economist warned of a massive nuclear conflict when it became aware of a sudden uptick in defense contractors' stocks. Now, centuries after the great war, its collated data has generated wisdom far beyond its initial purpose.

The Economist serves as an oracle to the government of New York City, a machine that has fused its knowledge of the old world with the new. New York heals, organizing its defenses and bringing its residents under a shield of civilization and protection. Beyond the outskirts of New York's territories, a rugged wasteland awaits. Threats encroach upon the city on all sides: untamed radiation storms engulf Connecticut and the territories west of New Jersey, and exotic threats manifest south of New York's suburbs in New Jersey. The former upstate regions of New York are occupied by raiders, bandits, and mutants: a land ripe for exploration and plundering.

New York operates as a city state surrounded by dangerous threats. The city's high rises betray its pivotal role in the old world and display its potential in the new wasteland. Where New York has risen to the occasion before, it shall manifest again.

War Never Changes: Let's Tri This Again

For my plans with the Commonwealth, I plan on doing the Minutemen ending where the Sole Survivor kills off the Institute and Brotherhood of Steel. Preston Garvey and Sole Survivor hate each other. And the Sole Survivor is still around.

@Mao Mao

Oh, don't worry. Totally canon. I get the vibes that Preston hates the player character and is trying to get him to fuck off and go away every time in FO4.