Hello...
jedi078 wrote:I'm pretty much of the opinion that even if military units managed to isolate themselves from the Wave (as presented in the RPG book) once personnel came into contact with survivors or Zombies they too would probably come down with the flu/plague. Those that died would become Zombies. Of course medical personnel might have orders to put a bullet into the head of someone who died of the flu in order to prevent them from turning into a Zombie.
This doesn't mean that I don't think the Alaska airlift didn't happen. But if the Alaskan airlift did occur those who were airlifted out were survivors of the flu/plague and the military personnel were also the survivors of their respective units. Would some sort of expedition be made to 'reclaim' the lower 48 states? I'd say yes, but it wouldn't happen for some time. The plot hook of 'hey, the Air Force is airlifting people out to some safe place' is a good one as it gives players some place to go if running a game set during the breakdown of society. Even afterwards military aircraft might drop leaflets, with maps and routes to the Alaskan safe haven, which in turn might be the focus of the game, but getting there is going to be a long hard task.
I am also a firm believer that some of the first 'safe havens' were probably formed by the survivors of U.S. military units.
I agree with you on every aspect Jedi078.
However, creating a permanent safe haven in Alaska may prove challenging to say the least. Alaska's industrial base is limited, which means that a large percentage of necessary materials - everything from machinery to military equipment - has to be shipped up there at high pre-Wave cost. While people may believe that the fuel problem is solved by the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System running all the way from the North Slope to Valdez, the big problem is that the pipeline only transports crude oil, which can't be burned in engines and machinery safely.[sup]1[/sup] Crude has to be refined into finished fuels and materials in order to be suitable for use, and there isn't sufficient refinery capacity in Alaska to keep the entire state going, among other things (You can refer to
http://www.survivalblog.com/retreatareas.html for plenty of information about why taking refuge in Alaska may be problematic.). Therefore, in order to turn Alaska into a permanent safe haven, it must be provided with a full industrial base and enough agricultural capacity to sustain the population...
...and alternatively, you can use Alaska as the
basis for your campaign. Let's use an analogy here, referring to the post-wave Alaska/CONUS relationship and using its British Isles/Mainland Europe counterpart before D-Day in World War II. Following the evacuation of Allied troops from the mainland after Germany won the Battle of France and claimed most of Europe, the British formed the well-known Commandos, which were specialized units designed to launch raids on German targets from the United Kingdom.[sup]2[/sup] Essentially, they launched these raids to harass the enemy while achieving enough victories to both damage the morale of the Axis Powers and improve the morale of the Allies by promoting these successes, at least until full-scale invasions were launched to end the war in Europe.
Essentially, one post-Wave equivalent would be composed of special units formed from surviving military units in Alaska which would launch daring raids to not only kill zombies, eliminate dangerous human threats (e.g. Bandits, Retro-Savages, and the Cults) and evacuate noncombatants, but to obtain vital resources of strategic importance to allow the Alaska Freehold to become self-sustaining, including agricultural, industrial, and military equipment. Resources such as these would not just be simple salvage and scrounging operations, such as acquiring guns, ammunition, food, and fuel, but to acquire the machinery necessary to make them on-site. So instead of sending the Alaskans fish, they need fishing poles, and the equipment needed to manufacture fishing poles (Though the Alaskans have plenty of it!
). Missions like these were often launched even in World War II, to acquire samples of German equipment to reverse-engineer in the UK and other Allied nations. Reverse-engineering Axis equipment was in fact a big part of Allied intelligence - one example of German equipment captured by these raids was the Würzburg radar system acquired through Operation Biting - also known to the educated as the Bruneval Raid. British Combined Operations at the time achieved a technical intelligence victory by deploying 120 British Commandos (Not to mention the RAF pilots and Royal Navy crewmen assigned to get them there and back...) in February 1942 to retrieve the radar system from Northern France.[sup]3[/sup]
Now I have to go, so please take care; thanks a bunch, and have a good afternoon.
whassupman03
[1]: Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_System[2]: Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Commandos[3]: Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_BitingI don't normally kill zombies, but when I do, I use the...
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) of the undead world. And if you would like to use units that you yourselves served in, feel free to do so! We're on an open floor, so let's have some fun with it! Please take care; thanks a bunch, and have a good night.
