Dies the Fire

[Justo]

Pedro Cardenas Orders
-Pedro and the group will continue to head East towards Pedro's family farm.
-Pedro and the members of the group belonging to the military will intensify their efforts in subduing the non-military members of the group. Non-military members of the group will be given less food, be forced into doing more dangerous tasks(searching for food in dangerous areas, fighting other groups etc) and generally be forced into subservience by the stronger members of the group. From here on these people will be refered to as "labour" and can be thrown away at any time.
-The group will look to intensify its efforts in searching for food. Even going so far as to try to overpower other survivor groups in the region to steal their food, supplies, weapons etc. Even possibly going so far as to force members of other groups to come along with our group to ensure a steady supply of "labour".
-To emphasize "labour" will essentially be used to find food then the military personall will overpower them and take the food and more "labour" will be forced into the group to replace losses to malnutrition and death by force. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

 

[Tyrion]

Orders (Once again no story sorry man lifes just hectic at the moment)

- Put the government official up wherever we have room... might have to share with the greyhounds in the dog run Hmm...
- If they are to 'assign' workers to us, well we will need to set up accomodation, we have a burnt out shack in one of the fields we can get them to fix that up firstly. However our 'land' is mostly bush and not terribly suited to growing food, probably best to get some sheep or goats or cattle to graze.
- Can of course cut down the bush covering most of our 25 hectares, unless the government assigns us other peoples land as well...

 

[ZeletDude]

Timothy Whitley orders:
Try to find sharp objects or someething that can be used as weapon in the apartments I'm in then look for food and if they find any good weapons head north on Interstate 15 and try to find anymore salvagable materials (food,weapons,clothes..)
If anymore raiders come try to
kill them and take whatever they have on them.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

This'd be the 24 hour warning for the update.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Story next time, Six Month War has me bogged down in politics and such. Orders are to begin construction for a caravan to head west, into the heartland, along with any who will come. We will attempt to forge armor reminiscent of that of medieval warriors, since kevlar is now effectively useless. The equipment to do this should be available in the hardware stores nearby the subdivision we currently control, and should count as salvage. We will also train any able-bodied and willing men and women in using axes and makeshift weapons. We cannot expect to pass out of the city and into the country entirely peacefully.

 

[Karalysia]

Orders: story tommrow

-Gather men and move to raid other gangs food sources, and other rsources using whatever makeshift weapons we've made form bats, to knives, to spears, to swords, chains etc... and seek to crush rival gangs and extend monoploy over food sources
-Shift powerbase from original college students to the gangs
-Continue to attempt to incorporate more members by gathering people

 

[ChiefDesigner]

EQ, if you could check your PMs?

Thanks.

-----

Orders, Dr. Victor Hsiao

* Lack of information feeds rumors; rumors breed panic. Begin giving presentations in the camps about current findings regarding the Change. Likewise, find or make a printing press to get informational posters up.

* Through lectures and informational pamphlets and posters, inform the refugees that we have been attacked, and are likely at war with an extraterrestrial entity capable of supreme feats of engineering. Ask everyone to remain calm, and cooperate with police, Army and National Guard units--we have to get organized and survive, before we can rebuild and fight back. Declare that we intend to fight back, but can only do so once the immediate crisis is over.

* Grain has to get moving to the camps; people have to get moving to the grain elevators; water has to get to both. Ask for volunteers among all able-bodied men, and all able-bodied childless women. Note that volunteers will be first in line to receive food, and that many of them will in fact be in the business of moving food from the grain elevators.

* Get people with skill in the construction and machining trades started building pedal-powered water pumps--appropriate needed materials from hardware stores and bicycle shops.

* Get all other skilled tradesmen not working on the water pumps to build manual-powered reverse osmosis filters, in order to produce purified water. Reverse osmosis doesn't need power; all it needs is a filter, a piston and a cylinder. Crush charcoal to make makeshift filters; scavenge pool supply stores, water treatment plants, and garden supply shops for chlorine crystals--we won't be able to make more for a long time, but the more people we can save right now, the better off we'll be next year or the year after.

* Get people digging aqueducts from the reservoirs to the camps and to grain elevators. God willing, we can have public showers in a week or two.

* Get people digging sewers and latrines. Sanitation, sanitation, sanitation.

* Get the rest moving the contents of the grain warehouses to the camps.

* Work toward relocating people near the grain warehouses.

* As long as we can keep people organized, food should not be a problem--see below.

* Medical professionals do what they can to contain epidemics. Delousing stations and scrounged antibiotics should hopefully break the typhus transmission chain; hydration should take care of cholera. Thank God we've broken measles, smallpox and polio pre-Change.

MATH FOLLOWS

* About 30% of the population is between the ages of 15 and 40. With 15 million people in the camps, that's 4.5 million people available to work. Say a third of them can't work; that gives us a drafted workforce of 3 million people. Engage a third of them as porters; give them a shopping cart, trolley or other scrounged conveyance. Assume they can carry in their cart 20 kg of dried grain 10 miles a day; in four days, that's 20 million people that can be fed.

* The DFW metro area, fortunately, is full of food storage sites. There are 23 registered grain warehouses in the 12 counties of the DFW metro area alone; at least 44 if one looks one county out. (source: http://www.agr.state.tx.us/agr/main_render/0,1968,1848_27187_0_0,00.html?channelId=27187) Assuming these are modern grain elevators, with capacity comparable to the Houston Public Elevator, they're gong to have capacity of, say, 5 million bushels of grain. Say they're 20% full--that's 2.5 million * 44, or 110 million bushels.

Dried corn grinds down into cornmeal at a 4:3 ratio. 550 g cornmeal is 2000 calories; call it a kilo of dried corn to yield the same 2000 calories. A bushel of corn is 27 kilos; in the counties around the metro, we can estimate that there are 2.97 billion kilograms of corn; that's enough to feed 15 million people for 198 days a nutritionally imbalanced diet. Food shouldn't be a problem if we can just get people organized.

As a sancheck, US annual corn production is somewhere around 12 to 13 billion bushels. It is not unreasonable to think that the DFW area has 1.7% of the USA's storage capacity for corn, given that it's sited in the middle of the prairie at the intersection of two rail lines.




it's over fifteen million!!!!!!!

 

[bestshot9]

I guess I'll just post the same orders for the next turn, still on break and don't have time to write a story, sorry.

ORDERS:

Roger will try to organize the fire fighters to work alongside the police in helping to keep the peace, ration out food, etc. The grocery store should still have plenty of food for now but start organizing hunting parties and such to go after deer and other game, to help supplement our ranchers, chicken farmers and other farmers in the area. (Mostly corn and potato farmers out there.)

And I would say once a week updates would probably work the best, at least for me.

 

[Crezth]

ORDERS:

Let the Protestants in to the gardens and offer them shelter. Give every impression of appearing friendly, offer them shelter. If they accept, then while they sleep, have the Family cut the throats of every leader in the group, and disarm their numbers. In this way we may only defeat a portion of the Protestants. When morning comes, offer the Protestants a choice - salvation, or death. Because the remaining Protestants will doubtless come for us after this move, then we must strike the ground again - taking what supplies we can - and head southeast towards County Down, on the outskirts of Belfast, and make our way to the Silent Valley Reservoir.

If the Protestants do not stay the night, then let them in as they will and gradually wear their numbers away with spurts of kidnappings (followed by an inquisition) and offer them to join the Family. Preach and sway them as we can, and strike when the time is right - rebuffing what numbers have been banging our doors and escaping to County Down when we can.

 

[Vertinari118]

Iain

"Ach, how long we've been walking Seamus"
"'Bout an hour Iain. Clocks are broken though so I can't be sure."
"Will be almost there then"

Indeed we were almost there, the village of Ardgour, or to be specific the village of Corran was only fifteen minutes further alone the narrow track we were walking down. The other crofters followed behind us as we proceeded into the village to share our food with the inhabitants and the inhabitants of nearby Clovullin. Robin greeted the crofters, as he was the clan chieften of the area and, with communication links down, the current leader of the area. He was not a young man but, despite this and his role being completely cememonial under normal circumstances, he takes to leadership and organisation well. The villages and crofts rapidly sorted and shared out the food to keep everyone going until a party can get to Fort William and find out why the generators have packed up and the Land Rovers have failed, getting replacements if they can.

"'Twill be an arduous row up the loch. 8 miles to Fort Williams. But I'll not force it on any man to go, I'll go myself if no-one else will go. Any volunters?'

No-one spoke for a long while, for we were crofters and villages not rowers. No-one wanted the job. Eventually I spoke:

"I'll do it. With of my lads for help. We'll just take some food for the jouney and be on our way," I turned to the three old lads who were not coming on the trip, "You'll be off back to my misses. Tell her I'll be rowing up to Fort Williams and won't be back for at least a couple of days. Tell her to keep the farn in order and give out what food we can spare to any travellers."

My two lads and I then went to get a rowing boat and spent a couple of hours learning how to row. I was the fittest and strongest but my technique was poor, so I would do the middle shift when power not control was needed, my two lads had both done some rowing in their youth so they would guide the boat in more tricky areas. In this manner we set off for Fort Williams to solve the mystery if we could.

Alice

-As above
-Further fortify the croft to make it a strong hold.
-Begin neigoiating with other crofters to see if they are willing to pool resources and increase productivity so the villages can be completely indepentant from the stores of tinned food etc. that are currently a good quarter of the rations.

 

[civver_764]

"The citizens are going more restless every day, the longer with sit here with our thumbs up our asses, the more of a chance we have of descending into Anarchy. We need to send delegates to Europe, tell them of our situation."

Benedikt was sitting in the middle of an executive council meeting, something he had been frequently invited to since he began to be one of the sole sources of food for the island. The Prime Minister was surprisingly happy to hear his input. "With all due respect, Prime Minister, how stupid do you think the Europeans are? Surely they would have known about us by now, given our lack of communication for the past two god damn weeks. In this modern era, no doubt they would be wondering what the fuck was going on."

The Prime Minister was quick to reply, "What are you suggesting? That the Europeans don't care about us?"

Benedikt shook his head, "Of course not. I'm saying that this catastrophe has effected more than just our island. The reason they don't know about us is because the exact same thing has happened to them."

"Yeh, I've gut to agree with the captain here, Mr. Prime Minister, we'd only find more chaos if we were to make it back to Europe." It was one of the Prime Minister's chief advisors.

"Not to mention," Benedikt continued, "That we still haven't even figured out a way to get off this bloody frost ball even if we wanted to."

The Prime Minister nodded, "Well, then, what course of action are you suggesting we take, Mr. Margeir."

"The capital city is simply too large to sustain this many people in a crisis like this. Suicide rates have gone up tremendously, not to mention crime itself...we need to divide off the city into seperate settlements in the immediate area. Ten different divisions should do for now, and I can head one of them."

"Divide the city?! How the hell are we going to convince over 120,000 people to leave their homes?"

"I'll leave that up to you. You've got a large police force, I suggest you use it. Most of the people will be happy to move out of the chaos in the main city."

Orders:

Benedikt Margeir: Civver_764
Nationality: Icelandic
Pre-Change Occupation: Head captain of a large fishing ship
Location: In the suburbs/outskirts of Reykjavík
Followers: 24
Food: 24
Survival Skills: 4
Organizational Skills: 2
Scientific Adaptation: 1
Archaic Knowledge: 1

Orders for this round are to sit tight and continue relying on the government for food, making daily trips out from the coast to collect fish and other seafood from the Atlantic. Benedikt Margeir will head into the city and begin recruiting more people to join his specific 'division' of the city(which will, if things go accordingly, contain 12,000 citizens within a few months), which will be set up along abandoned suburban settlements not far from the port itself(where Margeir lived before the change). The people already living there will be convinced to share their homes with the newcomers, in exchange for an exemption from work, extra rations, and settlement money paid by the government of Iceland. This will only be temporary, as storage depots of construction materials will be used to construct new homes. For the time being, up to 300 will be recruited and moved from the city, fitting up to 2 or 3 families per house.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Quick survey before I update, and I apologize for my absence. It is admittedly a hectic time in my life, and I WILL NOT see another NES die due to my scheduling issues. For those of you involved, and even lurkers, who would prefer to play this part out to the end, and who would prefer to skip to the nation stage of the NES? If we do skip to the nation-stage, I promise that all of your characters will survive, though probably not 100% to your hopes in power or success. Personally, I'll be happy either way.

 

[civver_764]

I vote skip to the nation stage.

 

[Jason The King]

Lurker says skip to nations stage.

 

[Adrogans]

Lurker says continue with this.

 

[Karalysia]

No nations.

 

[bestshot9]

I say lets at least do a few more turns like this before we get ahead of ourselves.

 

[Lord of Elves]

I vote for nation stage. If it is carried out as such, I'd like my upstart community to be referred to as the Federal Republic of America. *Bambi eyes*

 

[Tyrion]

I dont really mind either way, though i dont see much happening down here in the character stage but thats ok nice and peaceful

 

[civver_764]

Well I mean, I don't really have anything to do for the rest of the character stage. My guy and his followers are pretty much set, and Iceland could go on like this indefinitely. I have to invent stuff just to justify gaining more followers.