[d20 Modern] National Crisis

[Velenne]

I'm designing a d20 Modern adventure and I need some help. I'm not too caught up on worst-case-scenario protocols for our gov't and "what would the world do if *this* happened".

Does anyone know (or know of a website) about goverment protocols if "the worst" should happen?

The adventure might go like this: a nuke is delivered by terrorists into New York by ship and set off in port in december of 2005. Prevailing winter winds drive the fallout south, and ultimately east into the Atlantic. The President, who was in town, is killed in the blast.

My take is this:

The VP raises alert status to DEFCON 2. Satellite Defense System (finished by Bush in '03) is readied, along with all military forces, and 2,500 nuclear missle silos across the US are armed and readied. The VP broadcasts a statement from Air Force One to the world's nations that any attempt to arm their own nuclear missles will be percieved as intent and met with immidiate retaliation. The world teeters on the edge of nuclear winter while the US scans the horizon for any threats, it's collective finger dangling over a big red button.

Nothing happens.

No one takes credit for the attack which claims over a million lives. The US, with no one to shoot its weapons at, turns its attention to further defense, investigation and rebuilding.

The economy plunges and is only saved by the goverment's release in 2007 of previously classified technological advances it has made in the fields of quantum mechanics, nanotechnology, and aviation. These secrets are given to surviving US buisnesses capable of making the most with them. And they do. The next era of technological evolution is brought about: The Nanotech Age.

The adventure begins in 2012.

What do you all think? Are the d20 modern rules enough to work something like this? I'm not talking about too far in the future here so I don't need cyberpunk or anything. I'm thinking about using some of the Agents of Psi campaign to introduce a little psionics (but not magic).

 

[DM_Matt]

I think that the blast would have to be amazingly ananymous for that to work. You would need to create a compelling reason for terrorists with the means and motive to use a nuclear weapon which would have no effect other than the destruction that it would cause. It can't possibily further any cause or create fear of any group, because the cause/group is unknown. This scenario is HIGHLY implausable.

It would also require that this could be done without the US ever getting any idea as to who generally is responsable. It is very unlikely that a terrorist group would produce a weapon without the help of a foreign government, and remember that after detonation the source of the nuclear materials can usually be determined.

Whatever nation or nations helped would be bombed off the map. That is almost a certainty. These kind of worst-case plans are obviously calssified, but it would be unimaginable that they would not involve nuking back.

There are interesting scenarios that can be woven around a situation where the culprits are the Islamic world, which stands together in some sort of grand allience (possibly after the fact), and the American left somehow (again implausably) uses charges of racism and crusading to prevent a retaliation that becomes necessarily collective. That MIGHT produce a system that does not involve large-scale nuclear war and might even create a Cold War-like bipolar internaitonal order.

Or, perhaps, in the grand tradition of many 911 conspiracy theorists ( ), one could say that India or Israel detonated the bomb and made it LOOK like it was the work of Islamists.

Beyond that, unless you could think of a compelling reason for China or North Korea to do it, those see to be all the availible solutions.

 

[jonrog1]

How about US Militant types?

Not to start any fierce flame-wars or anything, but even a casual read of the testimony of multiple witnesses in the OK bombing incident reveals considerable evidence of both a.)another guy who was never caught and b.) a greater organization than three individual whackjobs.

But just as the government executed Timothy McVeigh and never publicly pursued these leads, because the idea of a few isolated nutjobs was a more acceptable concept for the press, the government's image and the American people, you can be darn sure somebody took care of whatever business needed to be taken care of.

(NOTE: I am in no way saying McVeigh was innocent, etc. Not a separatist, not living in a bunker, just letting you know.)

So in this scenario, US New World Order haters detonate the nuke, but are wiped out by secret government squads before they can claim credit. The US government decides that an unsolved mystery is more palatable than the concept that American citizens would perpetrate this monstrosity upon other Americans.

This solves your secrecy issue, why no other nation ever takes the fall for even being peripherally involved, gives you a nice conspiracy to find clues to in the guts of your campaign, and perhaps even an enemy -- the reforming militant group who committed the crime in the first place.

And having lived in New York -- you detonate even a low grade nuke in the harbor, your death toll's going to be 5 to 7 million around Christmas time. Most people don't know the city's only a mile across and two or three miles long.

If it's any use -- The agency in charge of this sort of thing is FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The squads which search for rogue nukes are called NEST teams (can't remember what the acronym stands for exactly). A website search of the Science mags might give you your worst-case scenario idea. I think NEWSWEEK ust did an article, as did WIRED.

I look forward to hearing more about the campaign.

 

[Plane Sailing]

What do you all think? Are the d20 modern rules enough to work something like this? I'm not talking about too far in the future here so I don't need cyberpunk or anything. I'm thinking about using some of the Agents of Psi campaign to introduce a little psionics (but not magic).

I think that the d20 modern rules would suit this kind of campaign very well, although there are a couple of additional issues which you haven't mentioned, and I'm not sure how it will be addressed.

1) Where is the tension in this scenario? What are the forces working against one another? Do you already have planned who the unnamed group are? (is it SPECTRE?)

2) Will there be a knock-on economic effect which will affect the way that the wealth bonus is used? (not so important I'd imagine)

Cheers

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

At the very least, you should start with a viewing of Sum of All Fears.

Matt hit most of the key weaknesses in your proposition. I'd like to add, one million deaths seems rather high to me unless we're talking about a very large nuke, and very large nukes are difficult to smuggle into a city and very hard to conceal their origin.

There are a couple of websites out there that will predict the blast radius of various kinds of nukes, with death toll projections. I'd try searching for them.

You might also look around for FEMA protocols, though I suspect that most of them are classified. But that's just the inner conspiracy nut gettin the better of me.


Wulf

 

[Sixchan]

<snip>
My take is this:

The VP raises alert status to DEFCON 2. Satellite Defense System (finished by Bush in '03) is readied, along with all military forces, and 2,500 nuclear missle silos across the US are armed and readied. The VP broadcasts a statement from Air Force One to the world's nations that any attempt to arm their own nuclear missles will be percieved as intent and met with immidiate retaliation. The world teeters on the edge of nuclear winter while the US scans the horizon for any threats, it's collective finger dangling over a big red button.

Nothing happens.
<snip>

The idea sounds pretty cool, but I was wondering about this part. Don't you think that in the time it would take for the wind to kick in with effect, to confirm the president dead, and to get the VP on board AF1 to broadcast that message, every other nuclear country in the world would have ALREADY armed their missles? I don't think any nation would be willing to stand down, even at the threat of the US. The UK's Subs would be well into the Atlantic by this time, the French Aircraft Carriers would be crawling the Atlantic and Med Sea. Russia and China would be about as nervous as the US. And also, Israel would have its small arsenal ready, and I can't imagine the US trying to stop Isreal from Defending itself, since it is the next logical target. India and Pakistan would be firmly pointing their nukes at each other.

The UK, France and Israel would declare their weapons to be used for the Defence of the US, and likely so would Russia, and probably even China. The alert would eventually wind down if no more attacks were forthcoming, resulting in more or less the same situation, though.

I guess I'm just being a plausability Nazi.
But it still sounds like a nice idea.

 

[Velenne]

WOW! These are great ideas! I'm glad I asked because you guys bring up a lot of excellent points.

the culprits are the Islamic world, which stands together in some sort of grand allience

*grab* The Cold War produced most of the advances we see in widespread use today. I like this idea!

1) Where is the tension in this scenario? What are the forces working against one another? Do you already have planned who the unnamed group are? (is it SPECTRE?)

What I was looking for was a common enemy, a way to push technology forward without going to far into the future, and a way to alter the political atmosphere to my liking.

Maybe it could have gone like this:
(taking a little from jonrog1's idea) -PSI was doing all it could to contain the spread of puppeteers. The creatures seemed to have been steadily converging on the New York area for an unknown reason, working toward a plot only the little parasites could fathom. Whatever it was they were up to, PSI failed to contain them and it looked as if they would release their spores into the atmosphere (GI Joe the Movie style) and infect the planet. With no other options available, and the destruction of the human race at hand, the PSI team broke into a silo, stole the nuke, and detted it in New York. Puppeteers vaporized, threat resolved, massive american casualties.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Of course, another possibility (although I'm not sure that you would like it ) is that the US is the big bad guy. Elements of the CIA/NSA/Whoever detonated the nuke as a "fundraiser", and are in control of the US government. Can a few ordinary Joe's piece together the conspiracy and bring freedom back to the land of the free?

Cheers

 

[DM_Matt]

Of course, another possibility (although I'm not sure that you would like it ) is that the US is the big bad guy. Elements of the CIA/NSA/Whoever detonated the nuke as a "fundraiser", and are in control of the US government. Can a few ordinary Joe's piece together the conspiracy and bring freedom back to the land of the free?

Cheers

If you go that route though, you will need an enemy taht they are trying to rally against. The Pan-Islamic Allience that Velenne seems to have adopted would fit the bill for that though. Perhaps political correctness is preventing the kind of feelings that occurred during the Cold War from springing up, but many people (such as these culprits) see developing a bitter hatred of the enemy to be vital to national survival.

That gives the opportunity to add a lot of moral ambiguity, but a lot of darkness too. In this scenario, you'd almost have to make both sides evil, as a good PIA would be pretty difficult to imagine.

 

[Sixchan]

You never know. There are Islamic Democrats. We could speculate that a dictator unites the Islamic world, and is assasinatd by Democrats who them sieze the government.

You couldn't have the reerse happen overtly in America, but its quite possible covertly...