Eric Anondson said:
Some more thoughts.
Can you give us some insights on the timeline from "The Fall" until the current?
During the Fall the National Guard sent a Pfc to coordinate the defense of Milwaukee and determine why all war robots had ceased to function. He was told to defend the town until receiving additional orders from Washington which never came. The town still monitors communications from the east in hopes that someday word will come but it never has.
Once he realized that word was unlikely to come, this Pfc began to take unconventional steps to defend the city, forging alliances with local mafiosi, criminal gangs and Chinese defectors.
After fending off attacks from the invading forces, a massive wave of ghouls also attacked the city, swarming out of Chicago. After being driven off, they returned to the city.
Currently the city is run by a coalition of scholars, soldiers and the descendants of those mafia and Chinese. For generations the city also cooperated closely with the Crystal time from whom they purchased water.
Recently the city got it's own water purification system working and began to compete with the Crystaltime which has shattered the ages long friendship and sent the region dangerously close to war.
And the ghouls have begun venturing out of Chicago again, attempting to establish actual diplomatic ties with the other powers in the region.
What sorts of connections with the well covered portions of the Twisted Earth are there? I imagine the water traders are getting their water from the lakes here, and sell it to the southwest... right?
Exactly right. While there is plenty of water to be had, it isn't drinkable. But the Crystaltime have a supremely good method of purifying the water, or a source of uncontaminated water that has lasted for centuries.
There were Chippewa/Ojibwe nearby (actually just to the north), how did have they been surviving?
There are nomadic tribes in the steps, known as the horse clans, that live an existence akin to the mongols, hunting and warring, occasionally resorting to banditry. Their primary method of "legitimate" business is the breeding and selling of desert horses.
With the Fertile Crescent being a paradise relative to the regional neighborhood are there people migrating to settle there from out of the desert, now or in the past?
While the area is better off than other areas in terms of climate, water and even social order, there's several reasons it isn't exactly a vacation resort. First, the area is ringed on almost every side by dangerous hazards- vast deserts, a city with a population of tens of thosands of ghouls (Chicago), vicious animal life to north and the radioactive wasteland of the east filled with even more danger.
Also local events havent been idyllic. The region was long dominated by the Mongoliant Horde of the east until the passive resistance of the Movement broke their hold on the region. Now the ghouls seem to be stirring, and the two major powers in the region, Bastion and the Crystaltime seem to be heading for an all out war.
Hope this helps and thanks again for your interest,
Chuck
