The Real Federation of Magic

[Shark_Force]

edit:

Once you get north of Michigan and Minnesota, the ability of the big cities up north to rely on purely local sources of food, particularly during the winter, is going to be dramatically reduced, Trade is the only way to feed a city numbering six digits, let alone seven. And the only trading options available to Free Quebec and Northern Gun for food are the independent operations in the Magic Zone, the True Federation of Magic, or the Coalition States. The first are unreliable, the second are actively evil, and the third are someone you've demonstrated you can stand up against if it comes down to that. The choices are going to be pretty clear-cut.

you realize that canada, which just so happens to be north of those areas, has tons of agriculture, right?

i assure you, it is entirely possible to have farms north of michigan. has been for quite some time, in fact. we do have a shorter growing season than, say, iowa. but it isn't remotely impossible.

How often are your farms are regularly raided by rampaging Rhino-Buffalos, or haunted by Wendigos, though? The CS is the only nation thus far to put the military defense of rural communities as a priority (even if much of that is simply a side-effect of their campaign against the D-Bees and a desire to secure the Rifts). FreeQ had been deliberately holding its strongest military asset in reserve and secret, in order to not tip their glittery hand too soon. That leaves their farms far more vulnerable. Most likely, farming in the wilds of the North are mostly going to be local affairs--a central town with a palisade (maybe constructed from scavenged MDC materials if available), with the farms immediately surrounding it. When monsters and their ilk come stomping through, the farmers all retreat into the walls with as much food as they can haul with their families, and hunker down and try to be a less appetizing target than the farms themselves. That's going to cut into the already shorter growing season.

A farm in Iowa, on the other hand, has a pretty solid barrier of patrolled land between it and the nearest wilderness, and may even have the ability to radio to inform the CS if something pops up unexpectedly, with the Coalition on rapid-deployment readiness for anything truly ugly.

if there are people alive there, it can't be that dangerous that there are constant attacks which the locals can't deal with.
if there are no people alive there, they don't need food to be shipped in, and thus the CS is not supplying their food.

but seriously, if your farm is under constant assault, what do you think is going to happen to the food shipments that are supposed to be coming from the CS? heck, never mind that, why would the CS even be sending food out there in the first place? i mean, you'd better be pulling some pretty danged valuable stuff in if you're going to pay for the CS to send food protected by the CS military through hundreds of miles of what you're insisting is incredibly dangerous territory there. and you can bet they're going to charge you a heck of a lot (starting with you footing the bill for all of the soldiers' time, plus repairs, recharging weapons, and a profit margin, not to mention a surcharge for the fact that apparently they're dealing with d-bees if this is the source of food for most of north america) for any food they're sending out that way. i mean, they're not a charity.

but if you *are* pulling in enough money to pay the CS for all of that... you're also pulling in enough money to hire and equip your own troops for that. which means you now have a local military to protect all those farmers you'll want to have growing crops near your city (which is going to form one way or another, formally or informally, if there's enough money to be made - and again, if there isn't that kind of money to be made, there will be no city and no food shipments from the CS, or need for them, regardless).

[Blue_Lion]

edit:

Once you get north of Michigan and Minnesota, the ability of the big cities up north to rely on purely local sources of food, particularly during the winter, is going to be dramatically reduced, Trade is the only way to feed a city numbering six digits, let alone seven. And the only trading options available to Free Quebec and Northern Gun for food are the independent operations in the Magic Zone, the True Federation of Magic, or the Coalition States. The first are unreliable, the second are actively evil, and the third are someone you've demonstrated you can stand up against if it comes down to that. The choices are going to be pretty clear-cut.

you realize that canada, which just so happens to be north of those areas, has tons of agriculture, right?

i assure you, it is entirely possible to have farms north of michigan. has been for quite some time, in fact. we do have a shorter growing season than, say, iowa. but it isn't remotely impossible.

How often are your farms are regularly raided by rampaging Rhino-Buffalos, or haunted by Wendigos, though? The CS is the only nation thus far to put the military defense of rural communities as a priority (even if much of that is simply a side-effect of their campaign against the D-Bees and a desire to secure the Rifts). FreeQ had been deliberately holding its strongest military asset in reserve and secret, in order to not tip their glittery hand too soon. That leaves their farms far more vulnerable. Most likely, farming in the wilds of the North are mostly going to be local affairs--a central town with a palisade (maybe constructed from scavenged MDC materials if available), with the farms immediately surrounding it. When monsters and their ilk come stomping through, the farmers all retreat into the walls with as much food as they can haul with their families, and hunker down and try to be a less appetizing target than the farms themselves. That's going to cut into the already shorter growing season.

A farm in Iowa, on the other hand, has a pretty solid barrier of patrolled land between it and the nearest wilderness, and may even have the ability to radio to inform the CS if something pops up unexpectedly, with the Coalition on rapid-deployment readiness for anything truly ugly.

if there are people alive there, it can't be that dangerous that there are constant attacks which the locals can't deal with.
if there are no people alive there, they don't need food to be shipped in, and thus the CS is not supplying their food.

but seriously, if your farm is under constant assault, what do you think is going to happen to the food shipments that are supposed to be coming from the CS? heck, never mind that, why would the CS even be sending food out there in the first place? i mean, you'd better be pulling some pretty danged valuable stuff in if you're going to pay for the CS to send food protected by the CS military through hundreds of miles of what you're insisting is incredibly dangerous territory there. and you can bet they're going to charge you a heck of a lot (starting with you footing the bill for all of the soldiers' time, plus repairs, recharging weapons, and a profit margin, not to mention a surcharge for the fact that apparently they're dealing with d-bees if this is the source of food for most of north america) for any food they're sending out that way. i mean, they're not a charity.

but if you *are* pulling in enough money to pay the CS for all of that... you're also pulling in enough money to hire and equip your own troops for that. which means you now have a local military to protect all those farmers you'll want to have growing crops near your city (which is going to form one way or another, formally or informally, if there's enough money to be made - and again, if there isn't that kind of money to be made, there will be no city and no food shipments from the CS, or need for them, regardless).

That may makes sense but the books says most of NA is dependent on food from the CS even if it is through third parties like NG.
So weather or not it makes sense is irrelevant to the fact it is canon.

That means you can either come up with reasons that canon is illogical or find a logical way to justify it. You seam to be coming up with reasons that canon is illogical because you disagree with it.

[Freemage]

edit:

Once you get north of Michigan and Minnesota, the ability of the big cities up north to rely on purely local sources of food, particularly during the winter, is going to be dramatically reduced, Trade is the only way to feed a city numbering six digits, let alone seven. And the only trading options available to Free Quebec and Northern Gun for food are the independent operations in the Magic Zone, the True Federation of Magic, or the Coalition States. The first are unreliable, the second are actively evil, and the third are someone you've demonstrated you can stand up against if it comes down to that. The choices are going to be pretty clear-cut.

you realize that canada, which just so happens to be north of those areas, has tons of agriculture, right?

i assure you, it is entirely possible to have farms north of michigan. has been for quite some time, in fact. we do have a shorter growing season than, say, iowa. but it isn't remotely impossible.

How often are your farms are regularly raided by rampaging Rhino-Buffalos, or haunted by Wendigos, though? The CS is the only nation thus far to put the military defense of rural communities as a priority (even if much of that is simply a side-effect of their campaign against the D-Bees and a desire to secure the Rifts). FreeQ had been deliberately holding its strongest military asset in reserve and secret, in order to not tip their glittery hand too soon. That leaves their farms far more vulnerable. Most likely, farming in the wilds of the North are mostly going to be local affairs--a central town with a palisade (maybe constructed from scavenged MDC materials if available), with the farms immediately surrounding it. When monsters and their ilk come stomping through, the farmers all retreat into the walls with as much food as they can haul with their families, and hunker down and try to be a less appetizing target than the farms themselves. That's going to cut into the already shorter growing season.

A farm in Iowa, on the other hand, has a pretty solid barrier of patrolled land between it and the nearest wilderness, and may even have the ability to radio to inform the CS if something pops up unexpectedly, with the Coalition on rapid-deployment readiness for anything truly ugly.

if there are people alive there, it can't be that dangerous that there are constant attacks which the locals can't deal with.
if there are no people alive there, they don't need food to be shipped in, and thus the CS is not supplying their food.

These statements do not cover the full panopoly of options.

Specifically, the one I outlined: People live there, but only some locations are defended heavily enough to withstand the worst raiders (which are infrequent, but not unheard of). Big trouble comes, you retreat inside the walls, deal with the wreckage when it passes. Meanwhile, CS-originated supplies come in and make up the difference.

A given town might only have one such catastrophic attack every two to three years--but during any given year, several towns do experience them, and the others just are grateful it wasn't 'their turn' this year.

but seriously, if your farm is under constant assault, what do you think is going to happen to the food shipments that are supposed to be coming from the CS? heck, never mind that, why would the CS even be sending food out there in the first place? i mean, you'd better be pulling some pretty danged valuable stuff in if you're going to pay for the CS to send food protected by the CS military through hundreds of miles of what you're insisting is incredibly dangerous territory there. and you can bet they're going to charge you a heck of a lot (starting with you footing the bill for all of the soldiers' time, plus repairs, recharging weapons, and a profit margin, not to mention a surcharge for the fact that apparently they're dealing with d-bees if this is the source of food for most of north america) for any food they're sending out that way. i mean, they're not a charity.

Not a charity, nope. But there is a political angle to this, and that helps explain why, for instance, FreeQ opted to not side with Tolkeen, and even pulled a double-cross against them. Prosek is happy to make sure that surplus food is delivered to remoter parts of the continent, at something approaching 'cost', because doing so makes other human-centric nations more inclined to deal with him, even when they disagree on policy. It's not charity, it's realpolitik.

but if you *are* pulling in enough money to pay the CS for all of that... you're also pulling in enough money to hire and equip your own troops for that. which means you now have a local military to protect all those farmers you'll want to have growing crops near your city (which is going to form one way or another, formally or informally, if there's enough money to be made - and again, if there isn't that kind of money to be made, there will be no city and no food shipments from the CS, or need for them, regardless).

Again, you're misunderstanding the situation I'm presenting. FreeQ has settlements throughout the territory. Each individual community can fund the defense of a small central town, but not a range of farmland. They also would likely produce enough food for themselves in a good year, but not be set up for export (that's the biggest hit for the short growing time--a lack of actual surplus).

Say 10-20% of the towns need assistance (ranging from 'some crops lost' to 'everything outside the walls is a smoking ruin') in any given year. Deliveries from the CS each year would be targeted to those communities, and only those convoys would need protection; by paying for the CS to handle it, FreeQ saves having to pay for protection costs on the other 80-90% of the farmlands, which remain unmolested.

And here's a big part of it that you're missing. The manpower to defend that farming territory, in the way the CS polices the breadbasket regions of Iowa and northern Missouri, would require Northern Gun and FreeQ to not only pay the cost, but also to conscript their citizens. A place calling itself "Free [Anything]" is not going to be big on conscription, and the citizens are likely to balk at being drafted. Conscription and other coercive means of getting people to enlist, meanwhile, mean that the CS is able to do it much more cheaply than an all-volunteer force could.

And of course, we're not only talking about the Great North. The Pecos territory is largely desert and scrub grasslands, and thus also likely to lack much by way of local farming on a large scale. For all their love of independence, bandits tend to like to eat like everyone else. (For that matter, food lost from farms in Arkansas and Missouri to raids by the bandits, who then sell it in Pecos, would actually count as the CS 'supplying' the food, even if they never got paid for it.)

[Shark_Force]

why would free quebec not have the resources to defend their own territory? they have an army of glitter boys, and truly massive amounts of perfectly usable land where you can grow all kinds of crops.

but even if it was free quebec that was getting food from the CS, that wouldn't be the breadbasket of north america. that would be the breadbasket of free quebec (good luck persuading the extremely indepently-minded free quebec to give up autonomy by making themselves dependent on a foreign power for food, though).

that still leaves the entire rest of the continent. why is the CS sending food to them?

there are either people and resources available to defend those people, and therefore able to defend their farms, or there is no need to send food to that place. any large enough group of people to need food shipped in will either be able to protect themselves *and* their farms, or will soon be dead.

and this definitely still doesn't explain why the CS would be providing food to places that have d-bees in them. or why those places would trust the CS to send them food that isn't tampered with.

the CS being the breadbasket of north america is absurd. maybe they can produce enough, maybe not (it's debatable, they're the ones that by far are most likely to need food to be shipped in, seeing as how they're the ones that have the most areas of superhigh population density). but there's no reason to expect them to share it with everyone else, no reason for everyone else to trust them that much, no reason for everyone else to not provide their own food, and no reason to expect that shipping the food all across north america wouldn't be so ludicrously expensive as to make the entire thing unreasonable even if the CS *is* willing to ship food to the colorado baronies and lazlo and the federation of magic and psyscape and everywhere else for some unfathomable reason.

[IGNG]

why would free quebec not have the resources to defend their own territory? they have an army of glitter boys, and truly massive amounts of perfectly usable land where you can grow all kinds of crops.

I could point out point out that glitter boys are extremely vulnerable without support and once you add that support you have enough invested into a single point that it would be bad if something happened to it so you have to further reinforce the point and now you can only have a few points and thus can only provide protection to a small area. Of course doing so would require more thought than the 'cause it sounded cool' reason for it existing so i won't bother.

[Freemage]

why would free quebec not have the resources to defend their own territory? they have an army of glitter boys, and truly massive amounts of perfectly usable land where you can grow all kinds of crops.

but even if it was free quebec that was getting food from the CS, that wouldn't be the breadbasket of north america. that would be the breadbasket of free quebec (good luck persuading the extremely indepently-minded free quebec to give up autonomy by making themselves dependent on a foreign power for food, though).

that still leaves the entire rest of the continent. why is the CS sending food to them?

there are either people and resources available to defend those people, and therefore able to defend their farms, or there is no need to send food to that place. any large enough group of people to need food shipped in will either be able to protect themselves *and* their farms, or will soon be dead.

and this definitely still doesn't explain why the CS would be providing food to places that have d-bees in them. or why those places would trust the CS to send them food that isn't tampered with.

the CS being the breadbasket of north america is absurd. maybe they can produce enough, maybe not (it's debatable, they're the ones that by far are most likely to need food to be shipped in, seeing as how they're the ones that have the most areas of superhigh population density). but there's no reason to expect them to share it with everyone else, no reason for everyone else to trust them that much, no reason for everyone else to not provide their own food, and no reason to expect that shipping the food all across north america wouldn't be so ludicrously expensive as to make the entire thing unreasonable even if the CS *is* willing to ship food to the colorado baronies and lazlo and the federation of magic and psyscape and everywhere else for some unfathomable reason.

To be clear, I'm suggesting poor writing is part of it--the CS is the breadbasket for the human-dominated portions of North America. Some of that food also finds its way to D-Bees, yes, but it's shipped originally with the intent of aiding human settlements, in order to continue the CS' propaganda efforts painting themselves as the saviors of humanity. They probably are not providing a significant resource to anyone else, save through the indirect means of losing some to bandits and other hostile actions.

The 'get in the walls and hide' thing that I'm describing is, by the way, how human settlements survived hostile incursions from other humans for centuries. You let the farms get raided and burned, then you go back out and rebuild. It's cheap and easy, in comparison to trying to maintain a full military force to fend off a threat that comes around once every 4-5 years. You make the central fortress something that's very painful to attack, so the marauders take what they want, burn as much as they feel like, and move on without actually wiping out your population.

But such communities are ONLY self-sufficient, and that off-year when they get hit, they aren't even that. Get too far away from the central fortress, and you're out of luck when the monsters come around. So the land that can be used to support the community is limited, and that community is very vulnerable to food disruptions, with famine a real possibility during the bad years. CS convoys can help with that, and I've already addressed why, economically, it's cheaper to buy one year's worth of food every year over five-ten years to provide for five communities, than it would be to pay for military defenses for all of those communities for all five years.

The CS is the only group willing to draft a significant portion of their population, and devote a significant portion of their economic strength to arming that force, to maintain patrols over more farmland than they technically need to produce enough for for their people, for this year. They have large food stores, and have a surplus that they can sell off.

Hell, they might even allow foreign powers to come to depots on the borders and pick up the food themselves. Doing so would STILL be cheaper for the other factions than maintaining a CS-style military. And the CS isn't maintaining that military to make a profit; this isn't a business model for them. Rather, it's a happy (for them) side-effect of being a hyper-militarized society bent on genocide.

[RockJock]

A big chuck of North America has large scale animal herds, (bison, cows, dinos etc), so large scale farming is more needed by bigger cities.

Just my two cents.

[Shark_Force]

To be clear, I'm suggesting poor writing is part of it--the CS is the breadbasket for the human-dominated portions of North America. Some of that food also finds its way to D-Bees, yes, but it's shipped originally with the intent of aiding human settlements, in order to continue the CS' propaganda efforts painting themselves as the saviors of humanity. They probably are not providing a significant resource to anyone else, save through the indirect means of losing some to bandits and other hostile actions.

The 'get in the walls and hide' thing that I'm describing is, by the way, how human settlements survived hostile incursions from other humans for centuries. You let the farms get raided and burned, then you go back out and rebuild. It's cheap and easy, in comparison to trying to maintain a full military force to fend off a threat that comes around once every 4-5 years. You make the central fortress something that's very painful to attack, so the marauders take what they want, burn as much as they feel like, and move on without actually wiping out your population.

But such communities are ONLY self-sufficient, and that off-year when they get hit, they aren't even that. Get too far away from the central fortress, and you're out of luck when the monsters come around. So the land that can be used to support the community is limited, and that community is very vulnerable to food disruptions, with famine a real possibility during the bad years. CS convoys can help with that, and I've already addressed why, economically, it's cheaper to buy one year's worth of food every year over five-ten years to provide for five communities, than it would be to pay for military defenses for all of those communities for all five years.

The CS is the only group willing to draft a significant portion of their population, and devote a significant portion of their economic strength to arming that force, to maintain patrols over more farmland than they technically need to produce enough for for their people, for this year. They have large food stores, and have a surplus that they can sell off.

Hell, they might even allow foreign powers to come to depots on the borders and pick up the food themselves. Doing so would STILL be cheaper for the other factions than maintaining a CS-style military. And the CS isn't maintaining that military to make a profit; this isn't a business model for them. Rather, it's a happy (for them) side-effect of being a hyper-militarized society bent on genocide.

for the most part, the coalition states and the handful of communities next to them (plus free quebec, now that it is no longer right next to the CS) *are* the human-dominated parts of north america. the rest are tiny communities (which can subsist off the land as hunter-gatherers in lean years) and fairly multicultural large cities that have fairly substantial armed forces that are more than capable of dealing with bandits and the occasional MDC monster, which therefore don't need CS food shipments, probably don't want them (or at least, don't want to rely on them in any way), and are probably not welcome to have them even if they did want them (because the CS doesn't like multicultural cities, they just like humans).

the CS is the breadbasket for the CS. which, to be fair, is probably a fairly major chunk of the population of north america, and almost definitely a very significant portion of the human population of north america. but when you call them the breadbasket of north america, that implies they're feeding tons of other places, and that just isn't plausible.

[eliakon]

To be clear, I'm suggesting poor writing is part of it--the CS is the breadbasket for the human-dominated portions of North America. Some of that food also finds its way to D-Bees, yes, but it's shipped originally with the intent of aiding human settlements, in order to continue the CS' propaganda efforts painting themselves as the saviors of humanity. They probably are not providing a significant resource to anyone else, save through the indirect means of losing some to bandits and other hostile actions.

The 'get in the walls and hide' thing that I'm describing is, by the way, how human settlements survived hostile incursions from other humans for centuries. You let the farms get raided and burned, then you go back out and rebuild. It's cheap and easy, in comparison to trying to maintain a full military force to fend off a threat that comes around once every 4-5 years. You make the central fortress something that's very painful to attack, so the marauders take what they want, burn as much as they feel like, and move on without actually wiping out your population.

But such communities are ONLY self-sufficient, and that off-year when they get hit, they aren't even that. Get too far away from the central fortress, and you're out of luck when the monsters come around. So the land that can be used to support the community is limited, and that community is very vulnerable to food disruptions, with famine a real possibility during the bad years. CS convoys can help with that, and I've already addressed why, economically, it's cheaper to buy one year's worth of food every year over five-ten years to provide for five communities, than it would be to pay for military defenses for all of those communities for all five years.

The CS is the only group willing to draft a significant portion of their population, and devote a significant portion of their economic strength to arming that force, to maintain patrols over more farmland than they technically need to produce enough for for their people, for this year. They have large food stores, and have a surplus that they can sell off.

Hell, they might even allow foreign powers to come to depots on the borders and pick up the food themselves. Doing so would STILL be cheaper for the other factions than maintaining a CS-style military. And the CS isn't maintaining that military to make a profit; this isn't a business model for them. Rather, it's a happy (for them) side-effect of being a hyper-militarized society bent on genocide.

for the most part, the coalition states and the handful of communities next to them (plus free quebec, now that it is no longer right next to the CS) *are* the human-dominated parts of north america. the rest are tiny communities (which can subsist off the land as hunter-gatherers in lean years) and fairly multicultural large cities that have fairly substantial armed forces that are more than capable of dealing with bandits and the occasional MDC monster, which therefore don't need CS food shipments, probably don't want them (or at least, don't want to rely on them in any way), and are probably not welcome to have them even if they did want them (because the CS doesn't like multicultural cities, they just like humans).

the CS is the breadbasket for the CS. which, to be fair, is probably a fairly major chunk of the population of north america, and almost definitely a very significant portion of the human population of north america. but when you call them the breadbasket of north america, that implies they're feeding tons of other places, and that just isn't plausible.

^this^
The CS can have breadbasket for the CS
The CS can even be a breadbasket for some of its allies such as Northern Gun, Free Quebec, Los Alamos, ect.
That makes total sense
It makes less than no sense for the CS to be, in any way, shape or form the Breadbasket for the various other communities in North America.
Dewomer, Psyscape, Arnzo, Tolkeen, Queens Harbor, anywhere in Mexico, Magestar, Lazlo, New Lazlo, Char, the list goes on and on and on...
Virtually everyplace but the CS and its proxies is going to be on the list of "if you ship food to these people, you and your entire family will be dragged into the street and shot as traitors to humanity" which sort of makes it highly unlikely that they are getting the majority of their supplies from their mortal enemies, many of whom they are actively at war with.

[Axelmania]

, if your farm is under constant assault, what do you think is going to happen to the food shipments that are supposed to be coming from the CS? heck, never mind that, why would the CS even be sending food out there in the first place?

It is easier to defend a merchant caravan than acres of farmland.

The CS engages in trade with other communities like Northern Gun who in turn may have loosed standards about others they trade with. Clearly the CS trades for other things valuable to them.

[Freemage]

To be clear, I'm suggesting poor writing is part of it--the CS is the breadbasket for the human-dominated portions of North America. Some of that food also finds its way to D-Bees, yes, but it's shipped originally with the intent of aiding human settlements, in order to continue the CS' propaganda efforts painting themselves as the saviors of humanity. They probably are not providing a significant resource to anyone else, save through the indirect means of losing some to bandits and other hostile actions.

The 'get in the walls and hide' thing that I'm describing is, by the way, how human settlements survived hostile incursions from other humans for centuries. You let the farms get raided and burned, then you go back out and rebuild. It's cheap and easy, in comparison to trying to maintain a full military force to fend off a threat that comes around once every 4-5 years. You make the central fortress something that's very painful to attack, so the marauders take what they want, burn as much as they feel like, and move on without actually wiping out your population.

But such communities are ONLY self-sufficient, and that off-year when they get hit, they aren't even that. Get too far away from the central fortress, and you're out of luck when the monsters come around. So the land that can be used to support the community is limited, and that community is very vulnerable to food disruptions, with famine a real possibility during the bad years. CS convoys can help with that, and I've already addressed why, economically, it's cheaper to buy one year's worth of food every year over five-ten years to provide for five communities, than it would be to pay for military defenses for all of those communities for all five years.

The CS is the only group willing to draft a significant portion of their population, and devote a significant portion of their economic strength to arming that force, to maintain patrols over more farmland than they technically need to produce enough for for their people, for this year. They have large food stores, and have a surplus that they can sell off.

Hell, they might even allow foreign powers to come to depots on the borders and pick up the food themselves. Doing so would STILL be cheaper for the other factions than maintaining a CS-style military. And the CS isn't maintaining that military to make a profit; this isn't a business model for them. Rather, it's a happy (for them) side-effect of being a hyper-militarized society bent on genocide.

for the most part, the coalition states and the handful of communities next to them (plus free quebec, now that it is no longer right next to the CS) *are* the human-dominated parts of north america. the rest are tiny communities (which can subsist off the land as hunter-gatherers in lean years) and fairly multicultural large cities that have fairly substantial armed forces that are more than capable of dealing with bandits and the occasional MDC monster, which therefore don't need CS food shipments, probably don't want them (or at least, don't want to rely on them in any way), and are probably not welcome to have them even if they did want them (because the CS doesn't like multicultural cities, they just like humans).

the CS is the breadbasket for the CS. which, to be fair, is probably a fairly major chunk of the population of north america, and almost definitely a very significant portion of the human population of north america. but when you call them the breadbasket of north america, that implies they're feeding tons of other places, and that just isn't plausible.

^this^
The CS can have breadbasket for the CS
The CS can even be a breadbasket for some of its allies such as Northern Gun, Free Quebec, Los Alamos, ect.
That makes total sense
It makes less than no sense for the CS to be, in any way, shape or form the Breadbasket for the various other communities in North America.
Dewomer, Psyscape, Arnzo, Tolkeen, Queens Harbor, anywhere in Mexico, Magestar, Lazlo, New Lazlo, Char, the list goes on and on and on...
Virtually everyplace but the CS and its proxies is going to be on the list of "if you ship food to these people, you and your entire family will be dragged into the street and shot as traitors to humanity" which sort of makes it highly unlikely that they are getting the majority of their supplies from their mortal enemies, many of whom they are actively at war with.

Directly trading with those communities? No, you're right. The CS would not be willing to ship goods to magic-wielding, D-bee heavy communities.

Of course, if the setting had some sort of entity engaging in the transfer of goods and services under the radar, things might be difference. A marketplace, of sorts, operating in the darkest of shadows, could theoretically be responsible for a considerable amount of unofficial trading. I wonder, what you would call such an operation... Perhaps a... "Black Market"? No, no, that would be silly, I suppose.

Okay, enough snark. I do think that the CS is unknowingly providing a considerable amount of food--particularly in the form of long-storage canned goods, field rations and MREs that 'fell off the truck'--via the Black Market to communities that they would much rather have nothing to do with, and arguably would prefer to starve. These communities, however, enjoy the fact that they are leeching off the hated CS warmongers, and so quite happily trade with the thieves and smugglers to supplement food supplies when necessary.

[Shark_Force]

i'm certain there are some CS goods (even non-illegal ones that are simply being sold without proper taxation or whatever) that wind up being sold through the black market.

i'm not remotely convinced that the volume of food that would be required to consider the CS to be the breadbasket of north america is being sold through the black market. at some point, the CS are going to notice if just as many truckloads all fall off the truck and disappear without a trace as there are truckloads that don't fall off a truck.

i mean, the CS ships a truckload of MREs to some place, with a few thousand boxes of food, and maybe 10 or 15 of those disappear from time to time? or maybe 1-2 per trip? sure. but high volume trade? not happening.

[Axelmania]

Black Market isnt necessary.

1) Chi-town sells corn to Ishpeming

2) Northern Gun sells corn to Magestar

3) profit

[Shark_Force]

Black Market isnt necessary.

1) Chi-town sells corn to Ishpeming

2) Northern Gun sells corn to Magestar

3) profit

except that open trade requires that the CS be willing to feed magestar. they're not going to ship enough corn to ishpeming for ishpeming and magestar's needs, they're going to ship enough to ishpeming for ishpeming's needs.

[eliakon]

Black Market isnt necessary.

1) Chi-town sells corn to Ishpeming

2) Northern Gun sells corn to Magestar

3) profit

except that open trade requires that the CS be willing to feed magestar. they're not going to ship enough corn to ishpeming for ishpeming and magestar's needs, they're going to ship enough to ishpeming for ishpeming's needs.

AND if they find out that Ishpeming is selling to Magestar they are going to cut off ALL the corn.

[Freemage]

Agreed. Hence, Black Market. I would suspect the BM has infiltrated the CS army's supply and logistics division.

1: Slap a "Use by" date on all MREs and other foodstuffs meant for the troops. As in the modern, real-world version of such things, there's actually a lot of wiggle room, especially when it comes to canned/dried foodstuffs.
2: Establish a firm policy of "Dispose or destroy" on all "expired" goods. This, of course, is to ensure the well-being of our all-important front-line troops.
3: In each camp, there's a supply sergeant whose job it is to cull out all expired foodstuffs. He's also the one responsible for ordering the foodstuffs.
4: He's also been recruited by the Black Market, and steered into this position from the moment he enlisted.
5: Consistently over-order, by a small amount. "Dispose" of expired foodstuffs by driving them off-sight, and giving them to a 'local contractor'.
6: LC then takes those packages of still quite safe to eat foodstuffs to their destination market. Depending on how covert they feel they need to be, this may entail stripping the CS logo off the packets and cans.
7: The CO at the camp never questions the excess foodstuffs--they probably prefer that to some skinflint who, in the name of budget economy, lets the food stores run out every once in awhile.

[Axelmania]

Ishpeming probably sells to many human communities and I can't see the CS bothering to estimate NG food needs and limiting exports to that estimate. It isn't profitable. NG and the human settlements it sells to may wish to stockpile, for example.

Unless someone points ijt some text showing the CS is that controlling with its trade partners I see no reason we should conclude this.

[IGNG]

The NG books make it very clear that NG does not 'officially' sell anything to anyone the CS dislikes.

[Axelmania]

Fair enough. Is there anyone else besides NG who the CS does not explicitly dislike who has no stated policy like that? Could be other businesses operating in Ishpeming. What about the manistique imperium or wherever chipwelll is based?

[IGNG]

NG just sells it to shell corporations that don't really exist who make it disappear. The CS isn't going through NGs books but if NG has a block of equipment for same one day and it disappears the next they ask about it. NG basically just lies.

[Axelmania]

NG = Lando Calrissian

[Shark_Force]

Agreed. Hence, Black Market. I would suspect the BM has infiltrated the CS army's supply and logistics division.

1: Slap a "Use by" date on all MREs and other foodstuffs meant for the troops. As in the modern, real-world version of such things, there's actually a lot of wiggle room, especially when it comes to canned/dried foodstuffs.
2: Establish a firm policy of "Dispose or destroy" on all "expired" goods. This, of course, is to ensure the well-being of our all-important front-line troops.
3: In each camp, there's a supply sergeant whose job it is to cull out all expired foodstuffs. He's also the one responsible for ordering the foodstuffs.
4: He's also been recruited by the Black Market, and steered into this position from the moment he enlisted.
5: Consistently over-order, by a small amount. "Dispose" of expired foodstuffs by driving them off-sight, and giving them to a 'local contractor'.
6: LC then takes those packages of still quite safe to eat foodstuffs to their destination market. Depending on how covert they feel they need to be, this may entail stripping the CS logo off the packets and cans.
7: The CO at the camp never questions the excess foodstuffs--they probably prefer that to some skinflint who, in the name of budget economy, lets the food stores run out every once in awhile.

and again, you can do that with a small amount of stuff. but there's no chance you're going to pull that off on a scale large enough to make you the breadbasket of everywhere else in north america. if we're incredibly generous and presume that the CS military is half of the population of all of north america excluding the xiticix and any other entities the black market doesn't deal with, and that you can over-order by 10% without drawing attention (which also sounds a bit generous to me, but for the sake of argument)... then you're feeding only 5% of the rest of north america on that.

that is not going to make you "the breadbasket of north america".

edit: and, of course, that's if we presume that the CS military is literally as large as the portion of the population of north america that are not in the CS military, which is just absurd.

[SereneTsunami]

perhaps you are misunderstanding the author's meaning. Couldn't he have meant that the Coalition is NA's breadbasket because it feeds the nation with by far the most mouths to feed, the Coalition itself. What I'm trying to say is that feeding Chi-Town, Iron Heart, FQ, and other smaller Coalition States would count as "The Breadbasket of NA" without selling one powerbar to any foreign nation.

[Shark_Force]

perhaps you are misunderstanding the author's meaning. Couldn't he have meant that the Coalition is NA's breadbasket because it feeds the nation with by far the most mouths to feed, the Coalition itself. What I'm trying to say is that feeding Chi-Town, Iron Heart, FQ, and other smaller Coalition States would count as "The Breadbasket of NA" without selling one powerbar to any foreign nation.

if i am misunderstanding the author's meaning, then it is because the author used the wrong words entirely.

when a place is described as the breadbasket of <area>, it means that they produce and export food throughout that area to such a major extent that the other places in that area generally get a large amount of food from them.

what you are suggesting is that by "the breadbasket of north america" the author actually meant "not the breadbasket of north america at all", which i find slightly implausible.

[Blue_Lion]

perhaps you are misunderstanding the author's meaning. Couldn't he have meant that the Coalition is NA's breadbasket because it feeds the nation with by far the most mouths to feed, the Coalition itself. What I'm trying to say is that feeding Chi-Town, Iron Heart, FQ, and other smaller Coalition States would count as "The Breadbasket of NA" without selling one powerbar to any foreign nation.

the CS warcampain says in an adventure about an attack on the CS food supply that they provide most the food in NA and even nations like Lazlo get their food from them through a indirect source.(kind of hard for that to be miss understood as you claim.)

[SereneTsunami]

perhaps you are misunderstanding the author's meaning. Couldn't he have meant that the Coalition is NA's breadbasket because it feeds the nation with by far the most mouths to feed, the Coalition itself. What I'm trying to say is that feeding Chi-Town, Iron Heart, FQ, and other smaller Coalition States would count as "The Breadbasket of NA" without selling one powerbar to any foreign nation.

the CS warcampain says in an adventure about an attack on the CS food supply that they provide most the food in NA and even nations like Lazlo get their food from them through a indirect source.(kind of hard for that to be miss understood as you claim.)

I said perhaps because I knew I could be wrong. I don't have access to all the books. My point is that the CS has most of the mouths in NA under their banner, and they make much more food then anyone else(genetic enhanced crops and livestock) so are a "breadbasket" without any other considerations. I do see the point you 2 are trying to make about the reasons why the CS would allow food to be sold to their enemies, through black market or not. The more i read on these forums and the books themselves the clearer it is that the economics of Rifts Earth were never a high priority for the writers.

[SereneTsunami]

perhaps you are misunderstanding the author's meaning. Couldn't he have meant that the Coalition is NA's breadbasket because it feeds the nation with by far the most mouths to feed, the Coalition itself. What I'm trying to say is that feeding Chi-Town, Iron Heart, FQ, and other smaller Coalition States would count as "The Breadbasket of NA" without selling one powerbar to any foreign nation.

if i am misunderstanding the author's meaning, then it is because the author used the wrong words entirely.

when a place is described as the breadbasket of <area>, it means that they produce and export food throughout that area to such a major extent that the other places in that area generally get a large amount of food from them.

what you are suggesting is that by "the breadbasket of north america" the author actually meant "not the breadbasket of north america at all", which i find slightly implausible.

Yea, your definition is not the only one. It's jsut your reading of the passage. I tend to think "Breadbasket" means only production. There can be no doubt about that. If consumption is also a factor, then the CS has the most mouths to feed, and im not sure of the numbers, but could easily have over half of all the people in NA. Both measures merit "Breadbasket". But like your opinion, and that's all your reply was, it's only worth about 2 cents.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

The Collation war campaign book actually covers an attack on the CS bread basket, they are stated as providing most the food needed by NA. So several non CS factions would help the CS stop such an attack on the bread basket.

Gonna need a citation on this one. It's not anywhere in CWC that I could find. The only mention of a "breadbasket" in the book is that CS Missouri is the breadbasket of the Coalition States.
And really, this is also outright contradicted by other sources. (Well get to that later).

Which honestly makes no sense.
The population of NA just isn't big enough to need a 'bread basket'

Yes and no. The population is certainly large enough to require it (about ~45 million sentients) if everyone was living concentrated in a few cities. They aren't, by and large, outside of the Coalition and a few outliers. Therefore, the CS has a "breadbasket" (CS MIssouri) but the rest of the continent doesn't seem to need one because there's more than enough arable land around the big cities that they produce what they need.

You realize the continent has had a 'bread basket' since before the U.S. was founded, right? The central colonies served the same purpose, especially for the northern urban cities where there was less arable land.

Umm... no. This is not correct. The "central colonies" (i assume we're talking about the Viriginias) produced largely commodity crops. Tobacco and the like. New York and Boston both fed themselves, basically. (There was more than enough arable land around them to produce enough food to support the populations). Most food for the largest American cities pre-industrial revolution was grown within a 3-4 day cart drive from said city. The only exceptions might be grains and corn.

The existence of enclosed cities means you need a rather vast farming community to support them (unless you want to go all algae and mushroom farms with heavy genetic engineering--or, you know, full-blown Soylent Green).

Lots of acreage, but not a vast number of people. Once you get past about the 1920s technologically, 30-40 men can produce enough food to feed tens to hundreds of thousands. All it takes is tractors and piped irrigation. One man can work several hundred acres or more, easily, that way.

Once you get north of Michigan and Minnesota, the ability of the big cities up north to rely on purely local sources of food, particularly during the winter, is going to be dramatically reduced,

I have no idea why you would think this. Large swathes of modern day Canada are farmland, particularly in the areas inhabited in Rifts Earth. Quebec has an entire food culture centered around preserved foods precisely because that's how they fed themselves during the winter. (Thank you Bizzare Foods and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations) You can grow more than en ough food to last you through the winter. You just have to store it right. Youve got your brain stuck in the modern "all food is always fresh" mode of going down to the supermarket and getting what you need from week to week. That's largely a mid-20th century and later contrivance. Before that, you generally had months and months of food on hand if you lived in a rural area, and in large cities, like NYC, storing preserved food to get the city through the winter was a major industry.

Trade is the only way to feed a city numbering six digits, let alone seven.

In the modern day, yes. In the recent past (as recently as the early 20th century).... no, not really. Food STORAGE and preservation is how you feed large numbers of people. Fresh food is a luxury.

And the only trading options available to Free Quebec and Northern Gun for food are the independent operations in the Magic Zone, the True Federation of Magic, or the Coalition States. The first are unreliable, the second are actively evil, and the third are someone you've demonstrated you can stand up against if it comes down to that. The choices are going to be pretty clear-cut.

... Northern Gun doesn't need outside food. I have no idea why you think they do. The Upper Peninsula is, outside of the major cities of NA like Chi-town or Lazlo, one of the safest places in all of North America. Virtually no monsters, very few D-Bees (and for the most part, all friendly, living under the radar since NG doesn't run them out as long as they behave), and almost no dangers. A worst, a few pirate raids, but NGs naval forces keep the coasts well patrolled. Sometimes, some gang-related highway robbery. That's it. Manistique is similarly safe (the other half of the UP). And that is some VERY fertile land. They can EASILY feed themselves.

Same with Free Quebec. The area around FQ is very fertile. There are hundreds of ranches and farming towns. They grow their own food, and patrol their own land.

The big cities in RIFTS would likely have some sort of internal food production. If you've got cheap fusion power, you can just set up some UV lights indoors and grow food all year round.

https://www.freightfarms.com/

We don't really do it much today because it's cheaper to rely on the sun (which is free) and huge tracts of sparsely populated land in good climates. In today's economic environment, it's virtually never going to be cost competitive to grow wheat or corn in an indoor controlled system. But if you're on RIFTS Earth, where farming can be substantially more hazardous (and where fusion power makes electricity virtually free), it makes much more sense.

This is also quite possible/likely. Maybe not enough to feed the entire population in a giant fortress city like Chi-town or Waukeegan, but a good supplement. All it really takes is electricity, which, as Eagle points out, is expensive in modern day but essentially free on Rifts Earth for moderately high tech societies.

How often are your farms are regularly raided by rampaging Rhino-Buffalos, or haunted by Wendigos, though? The CS is the only nation thus far to put the military defense of rural communities as a priority (even if much of that is simply a side-effect of their campaign against the D-Bees and a desire to secure the Rifts).

Citation on that? And uh.. need i remind you that the CS, until recently, included Free Quebec? They patrol their land vigorously, always have.

As for how often Rhino-Buffalos et al, terrorize a farm... often enough that many farmers, despite living in sub 20th century tech conditions, own an old laser rifle to run off predators or hunt with (RMB). The farms and ranches detailed in Rifts Canada could all easily stand off a few monstrous predators, and are cited as examples of the common ranch or farm in the area.

FreeQ had been deliberately holding its strongest military asset in reserve and secret,

Strongest, perhaps, but not even remotely their most numerous. They have several hundred thousand infantry. Not that Glitter boys make for good patrol vehicles anyway. Fast moving vehicles and mounted infantry make the best for patrolling borders and running off threats. FQ even has a hover-jeep they use specifically for patrolling the frontier because it is a good fast-response vehicle, and makes HEAVY use of the old style Sky Cycle.

in order to not tip their glittery hand too soon. That leaves their farms far more vulnerable.

Again, why? Holding their ~20,000 GBs in secret wasnt stopping them from deploying some of their 200,000+ soldiers to garrison and patrol duties. Which they do.

Most likely, farming in the wilds of the North are mostly going to be local affairs--a central town with a palisade (maybe constructed from scavenged MDC materials if available), with the farms immediately surrounding it. When monsters and their ilk come stomping through, the farmers all retreat into the walls with as much food as they can haul with their families, and hunker down and try to be a less appetizing target than the farms themselves. That's going to cut into the already shorter growing season.

A farm in Iowa, on the other hand, has a pretty solid barrier of patrolled land between it and the nearest wilderness, and may even have the ability to radio to inform the CS if something pops up unexpectedly, with the Coalition on rapid-deployment readiness for anything truly ugly.

The farms are actually mostly patrolled by Skelebots. (Not that that is a bad thing, really. Theyre plenty good at something like that.) Also, the farmers in outlying CS territory are allowed to own MD firearms to protect themselves and their farms.

Again, you're misunderstanding the situation I'm presenting. FreeQ has settlements throughout the territory. Each individual community can fund the defense of a small central town, but not a range of farmland. They also would likely produce enough food for themselves in a good year, but not be set up for export (that's the biggest hit for the short growing time--a lack of actual surplus).

The growing season is maybe 3-4 weeks shorter than most of the US' breadbasket areas. That's not enough to cause a sudden disparity in crop yield, it just makes certain crops non-viable. They can still produce plenty of surplus. The situation you're presenting is that Free Quebec (one of the most powerful nations on the entire planet) is somehow the Rifts Earth equivalent of a post-Soviet-occupation Afghanistan. They aren't. They were, until recently, a fully contributing member of the Coalition States, and are the second most powerful nation on the entire continent. They have hundreds of thousands of people under arms. Their territory is a VERY fertile swath of land, rich in natural resources, and plenty of livestock (including a ranch that raises Fury Beetles!) and fishing. They have the strongest human Navy on the planet after the New Navy.

These are not Third-World Poorhouse schlubs, and i dont know why you keep thinking/insisting that they are. Barring alien societies (like the Splugorth and their servitor races), Free Quebec is one of the most powerful nations on the planet, right behind the NGR and Coalition States. (Japan has higher tech but is quite a bit smaller). You keep equating them to being barely able to function, and that is CLEARLY not the case, as they were a going concern and self-sustaining before the CS even existed.

Say 10-20% of the towns need assistance (ranging from 'some crops lost' to 'everything outside the walls is a smoking ruin') in any given year. Deliveries from the CS each year would be targeted to those communities, and only those convoys would need protection; by paying for the CS to handle it, FreeQ saves having to pay for protection costs on the other 80-90% of the farmlands, which remain unmolested.

There's no evidence that their farmlands aren't producing more than enough food to feed their people, much less that they need assistance. They aren't under any more threat or attack then the CS farms. In fact, likely less, as the CS has a lot of enemies that will strike at it that are situated fairly close by (Federation of Magic, Tolkeen Revenge Squads, other magic users). Free Quebec is pretty much sitting out there alone, with no real enemies to speak of.

And here's a big part of it that you're missing. The manpower to defend that farming territory, in the way the CS polices the breadbasket regions of Iowa and northern Missouri, would require Northern Gun and FreeQ to not only pay the cost, but also to conscript their citizens.

... why? NG has a population of about 1.5 million or so, and a standing army (that they already pay for) of over 110,000. That doesn't include the mercs that arent employed with the IMCN that would be happy to take a garrison job for a season for easy pay. And you talk like NG having to pay soldiers to protect their farms would be a huge deal - it isn't. Theyre the largest single (human/non-Splugorth controlled) corporation on the planet after Triax. They make TRILLIONS a year in profit. They can easily afford it, not that they need to.

Free Quebec has a few million citizens (2.5-3) and has a standing army in the 300,000+ range when you include support personnel, navy, infantry, Armor, GB Legions, and PA/Air Force. Theyve never had to conscript anyone. In fact, 83% of their adult population is either currently serving in the military or has served. (IIRC, mandatory 2 or 4 year tour might be a requirement for males, dont remember, ill look it up later). They have a VERY patriotic population.

A place calling itself "Free [Anything]" is not going to be big on conscription, and the citizens are likely to balk at being drafted. Conscription and other coercive means of getting people to enlist, meanwhile, mean that the CS is able to do it much more cheaply than an all-volunteer force could.

Quite the contrary, a lot of the most "free" countries in the real world have mandatory military or civil service requirements for all citizens. In those countries, no one resents it, they see it as part of their responsibility to their country. FQ is largely the same.

And of course, we're not only talking about the Great North. The Pecos territory is largely desert and scrub grasslands, and thus also likely to lack much by way of local farming on a large scale. For all their love of independence, bandits tend to like to eat like everyone else. (For that matter, food lost from farms in Arkansas and Missouri to raids by the bandits, who then sell it in Pecos, would actually count as the CS 'supplying' the food, even if they never got paid for it.)

ill give you this. The Pecos Bandits raid CS Missouri constantly. However, they also farm quite well (or at least, people living in the "Pecos Empire" do). You've got northern texas and southern texas confused (north is a dustball, south is actually quite humid and wet, particularly near the MANY rivers). Southern texas is plenty good for farming a lot of staple crops like corn and wheat. And amazing for raising livestock (which the Simvan - hundreds of thousands of them - do). The Pecos Bandits trade heavily with the Indian Preserves in the area, which do quite a lot of farming.

The 'get in the walls and hide' thing that I'm describing is, by the way, how human settlements survived hostile incursions from other humans for centuries. You let the farms get raided and burned, then you go back out and rebuild. It's cheap and easy, in comparison to trying to maintain a full military force to fend off a threat that comes around once every 4-5 years. You make the central fortress something that's very painful to attack, so the marauders take what they want, burn as much as they feel like, and move on without actually wiping out your population.

Actually, such towns routinely had YEARS of food in storage. For quite a while, in a lot of European countries, it was a law that towns had to have a certain amount of food stockpiled for emergencies. (though, less raiding and more to save themselves from a bad year of crops or the like.) When those laws went under, is when famines started to be an issue - including the very famous Irish Potato Famine.

But such communities are ONLY self-sufficient, and that off-year when they get hit, they aren't even that.

I think you have a weird idea of how much land it actually takes to feed a person. I own less than a full acre of land, and i could feed my entire street if i planted it correctly. (10-15 families, probably 50+ people). If we were remotely intelligent, it would easily last us all year (as it is, with just a tiny 30x25 garden, i end up giving away canned veggies by the bushel every year so my basement doesnt fill up) via canning and preservation. You've got to get your head un-stuck from this late-20th/21st century mode of "you only keep a few days of food on hand".

In the medieval/pre-industrial world, and a world like Rifts Earth... you keep months to years of food on hand. And if you dont, the city you live in does, or a company or corporation does.

Get too far away from the central fortress, and you're out of luck when the monsters come around. So the land that can be used to support the community is limited, and that community is very vulnerable to food disruptions, with famine a real possibility during the bad years. CS convoys can help with that, and I've already addressed why, economically, it's cheaper to buy one year's worth of food every year over five-ten years to provide for five communities, than it would be to pay for military defenses for all of those communities for all five years.

Most of the major Non-CS population centers that are detailed, though, dont need to pay to hire more forces. A lot of them have plenty of forces to begin with. (Ill cover that a bit later).

The CS is the only group willing to draft a significant portion of their population,

Citation? The CS has never, to the best of my knowledge, had to draft a single soldier. (I dont have the newest Minion War books, so maybe then?) Even gearing up for the Siege, all they did was ramp up the patriotism, and recruit from the nearly endless supply of fools in the 'Burbs, who joined up just for the chance to get their families into one of the CS cities.

and devote a significant portion of their economic strength to arming that force, to maintain patrols over more farmland than they technically need to produce enough for for their people, for this year. They have large food stores, and have a surplus that they can sell off.

Citation that they are the only ones? Lazlo is said (Rifts Canada) to have a fairly large standing army, a police force, and militia, and protects all of the communities nearby that want to consider themselves "part of Lazlo". Basically everything for almost 100 miles, right up to the border of FQs claimed land. They certainly have enough land to feed themselves. And access to other-dimensional sources of food (they could buy foodstuffs straight from Center on Phase World of they needed to).

Hell, they might even allow foreign powers to come to depots on the borders and pick up the food themselves. Doing so would STILL be cheaper for the other factions than maintaining a CS-style military.

You dont need a CS-style military to protect farmland. A couple dozen to a few hundred guys that patrol regularly on fast moving vehicles can cover a gigantic area of farmland. See, for instance, the Colorado Baronies.

the CS warcampain says in an adventure about an attack on the CS food supply that they provide most the food in NA and even nations like Lazlo get their food from them through a indirect source.(kind of hard for that to be miss understood as you claim.)

Again, citation?

Only "breadbasket" reference i can find in the entire book is referring to CS Missouri as the Breadbasket of the CS.

If consumption is also a factor, then the CS has the most mouths to feed, and im not sure of the numbers, but could easily have over half of all the people in NA.

About a quarter of the population of the continent is the Coalition States, though at the time of that population quote (SB1 classic) Free Quebec was part of that overall number, as they were still a State.

Further, all of the other even remotely major areas that are detailed (Lazlo is only vaguely detailed, but its pretty clear they have large army, protect their borders and the surrounding lands) are either heavily implied to have their own food sources or outright stated to.

NG and Manistique certainly do NOT need food from the CS. They have one of the safest areas in North America for farmland. And a decent amount of seafood as well (being on the Great Lakes).

Free Quebec doesn’t either, and has a standing army that only the CS can rival on the continent.

The Colorado Baronies are surrounded by hundreds of ranches and farms (each Barony has about 2-3 times as many people farming or ranching as live in the “capital” and they are all well-armed (by OCC breakdown, lots of cowboys with guns and a bucketload of magic users).

Arzno sits just a few miles south of an entire confederation of towns that grow crops and have cattle ranches. (Clarkdale Confederacy).

Merctown is surrounded by farms - in fact, one of the ways it became Merctown was the Mercs taking over and protecting the farmers and civilians.

Los Alamo and Kingsdale are also surrounded by farms and protected by those cities.

By and large, the “people” of North America have no need of the CS’ food.

[Blue_Lion]

Looks like memory was slightly off looked in the book and on page 223 of cs war says if the attack on a CS farm town is successful hundreds of thousands will suffer including thousands of D-bees and wilderness folk that are dependent on CS food production.
(See strange bedfellows.)
I do apologies for the misinformation. But it does say D-bees depend on CS food production meaning they have access to it.

[Axelmania]

Thousands per hundreds of thousands could be taken as maybe 1 (d-bee or wilderness folk) eats per 100 Coalition States human urban residents. I say that rather than "citizen" because humans in the burbs wouldn't count as dbees or wilderness so they must be part of the hundred of thousands.

Dbees.and wilderness humans seem to rely in it as a supplement but are disconnected enough that however they get it probably has access to other food providers so the starvation impact is lessened compared to distributors who rely primarily or exclusively on the CS.

Of course... Those worst impacted by sabotaging acres of CS farmland can probably get food for cheaper. The drought resistance of wilderness folk and dbees would be offset by higher costs to get that food within the CS due to problems importing/exporting.

I could also see them suffering indirectly from a CS drought because if CS supply was cut off, the hungry non-wilderness humans would have to look to alternate sources and be willing to pay higher prices, pushing up the prices dbees and wilderness would need to pay, as demand outstrips supply and scarcity hits.

[Shark_Force]

wilderness folk shouldn't need to rely on the CS for food. it is possible to survive as hunter-gatherers just fine, and wilderness folk should be perfectly capable of that. in fact, hunter-gatherers actually have more time available for things other than producing food than farmers... farming is great for feeding cities, but not really necessary for feeding small groups of people wandering in the wilderness.

the only d-bees i would realistically expect to rely on the CS for food are the ones living in the 'burbs.

again, the CS being the main source of food for the CS makes sense. the CS being the main source of food (or even an important source of food) for all of north america is just silly. i'm sure people on occasion buy some small amount of canned foods or military rations that have been smuggled out of the CS. but relying on the CS for food? that doesn't make *any* sense. they're all living in places where they can provide their own food, basically everyone and their dog has a standing army already to protect their territory from bandits, and the CS are a bunch of raving lunatics who want to invade and conquer or murder most of the people who aren't in the CS, which makes relying on them for food not only unnecessary but mind-bogglingly stupid for anyone who doesn't want to be enslaved by the CS.

[Axelmania]

The historical feasibility of a hunter gather lifestyle is not the feasibility of doing so in Rifts Earth. Much harder and challenging. We aren't the apex predator anymore.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

The historical feasibility of a hunter gather lifestyle is not the feasibility of doing so in Rifts Earth. Much harder and challenging. We aren't the apex predator anymore.

Actually, we are still an Apex Predator, even on Rifts Earth. It is possible to still be an Apex Predator and have other things that hunt you.

For instance, Lions and Tigers are apex predators in their respective food chains, but humanity still hunt(ed)s them. Doesn't make them not the apex predator of their particular food chain.

Humanity is a bit beyond an apex predator, really, as we hunt for enjoyment or non-food reasons. We're a hyper predator. And even in Rifts earth, there is still PLENTY of wildlife for hunter-gatherers to hunt (otherwise, the Simvan, all several million of them in NA, would be in serious trouble). It's just a bit more dangerous because while you're out hunting Deer, something may be hunting you, too.

Even then... in Rifts Earth even barbaric humans have proven that were still an apex/hyper-predator. Barbarians armed with virtually no MDC weaponry regularly hunt and kill Dinosaurs, and do so very successfully.

[Shark_Force]

The historical feasibility of a hunter gather lifestyle is not the feasibility of doing so in Rifts Earth. Much harder and challenging. We aren't the apex predator anymore.

Actually, we are still an Apex Predator, even on Rifts Earth. It is possible to still be an Apex Predator and have other things that hunt you.

For instance, Lions and Tigers are apex predators in their respective food chains, but humanity still hunt(ed)s them. Doesn't make them not the apex predator of their particular food chain.

Humanity is a bit beyond an apex predator, really, as we hunt for enjoyment or non-food reasons. We're a hyper predator. And even in Rifts earth, there is still PLENTY of wildlife for hunter-gatherers to hunt (otherwise, the Simvan, all several million of them in NA, would be in serious trouble). It's just a bit more dangerous because while you're out hunting Deer, something may be hunting you, too.

Even then... in Rifts Earth even barbaric humans have proven that were still an apex/hyper-predator. Barbarians armed with virtually no MDC weaponry regularly hunt and kill Dinosaurs, and do so very successfully.

indeed. just as the existence of poisonous berries does not make it impossible to gather the non-poisonous berries, the existence of dangerous creatures does not make it impossible to hunt the non-dangerous creatures.

[Axelmania]

Hm okay, so we are still Apexy but less Apexy than now. Those Barbarians aren't the usual person and dinosaurs aren't the most cunning threat out there. A single Boschala would be a very bad day for those guys.

[Freemage]

Shark_Force: Just a quick note to declare my surrender on the issue of 'foodstuffs stored in the Great North'. You convinced me.

[Blue_Lion]

The historical feasibility of a hunter gather lifestyle is not the feasibility of doing so in Rifts Earth. Much harder and challenging. We aren't the apex predator anymore.

Actually, we are still an Apex Predator, even on Rifts Earth. It is possible to still be an Apex Predator and have other things that hunt you.

For instance, Lions and Tigers are apex predators in their respective food chains, but humanity still hunt(ed)s them. Doesn't make them not the apex predator of their particular food chain.

Humanity is a bit beyond an apex predator, really, as we hunt for enjoyment or non-food reasons. We're a hyper predator. And even in Rifts earth, there is still PLENTY of wildlife for hunter-gatherers to hunt (otherwise, the Simvan, all several million of them in NA, would be in serious trouble). It's just a bit more dangerous because while you're out hunting Deer, something may be hunting you, too.

Even then... in Rifts Earth even barbaric humans have proven that were still an apex/hyper-predator. Barbarians armed with virtually no MDC weaponry regularly hunt and kill Dinosaurs, and do so very successfully.

indeed. just as the existence of poisonous berries does not make it impossible to gather the non-poisonous berries, the existence of dangerous creatures does not make it impossible to hunt the non-dangerous creatures.

If a wilderness community economy is based on gathering raw materials to sale to large nations using the profit from it to buy food, the loss of available food would hurt them.
A mining town in the wilderness could have little to no farmers or hunters, but instead trade what they mine and trade for food.

[Killer Cyborg]

The historical feasibility of a hunter gather lifestyle is not the feasibility of doing so in Rifts Earth. Much harder and challenging. We aren't the apex predator anymore.

Actually, we are still an Apex Predator, even on Rifts Earth. It is possible to still be an Apex Predator and have other things that hunt you.

For instance, Lions and Tigers are apex predators in their respective food chains, but humanity still hunt(ed)s them. Doesn't make them not the apex predator of their particular food chain.

Humanity is a bit beyond an apex predator, really, as we hunt for enjoyment or non-food reasons. We're a hyper predator. And even in Rifts earth, there is still PLENTY of wildlife for hunter-gatherers to hunt (otherwise, the Simvan, all several million of them in NA, would be in serious trouble). It's just a bit more dangerous because while you're out hunting Deer, something may be hunting you, too.

Even then... in Rifts Earth even barbaric humans have proven that were still an apex/hyper-predator. Barbarians armed with virtually no MDC weaponry regularly hunt and kill Dinosaurs, and do so very successfully.

indeed. just as the existence of poisonous berries does not make it impossible to gather the non-poisonous berries, the existence of dangerous creatures does not make it impossible to hunt the non-dangerous creatures.

Well said.

[SereneTsunami]

I think most folks are correct in thinking that a war between Chi-Town and the FoM would not be anything like the Siege of Tolkeen. Parking 50,000 troops on top of each of the 3 main cities locations would force the FoM to go insurgent on the CS.

My thought is that many if not most of the mages and evil beings that make up the power in the FoM would just leave. Although the CS would be at a significant disadvantage in the magic zone because their dog-boys would have their senses disrupted in the magic zone. It is clear to me that as some point the Proseks will decide to deal with the FoM, they certainly have the resources to commit 150,000 troops to a long term "prioritization of the natives", as a great warrior poet once said.

[Freemage]

I think most folks are correct in thinking that a war between Chi-Town and the FoM would not be anything like the Siege of Tolkeen. Parking 50,000 troops on top of each of the 3 main cities locations would force the FoM to go insurgent on the CS.

My thought is that many if not most of the mages and evil beings that make up the power in the FoM would just leave. Although the CS would be at a significant disadvantage in the magic zone because their dog-boys would have their senses disrupted in the magic zone. It is clear to me that as some point the Proseks will decide to deal with the FoM, they certainly have the resources to commit 150,000 troops to a long term "prioritization of the natives", as a great warrior poet once said.

"Parking" 50,000 troops on the big cities isn't as easy as it sounds:

Getting 50K troops into the tunnels leading to the City of Brass portal is going to be awkward at best; and wouldn't it be unfortunate if a cave-in occurred? (I'm assuming that Dunscon has some sort of contingency plan for what happens if someone else brings down the mountain in a similar fashion.)

The troops sent to Dweamor will be more effective, except they keep getting lost and isolated while on patrol (making them vulnerable to insurgency tactics). Not patrolling isn't an option--the insurgents could cut off supply lines and plink you from the periphery. And with three self-styled gods of magic ruling the city, with a trio of mage guilds underneath them, they've got a decent shot at doing some serious damage to those troops even in an outright conflict.

And when those 50K troops show up at Stormspire, the core tower of the city just says, "Screw you guys, I'm outta here," and teleports to a new location, which you will now need to re-locate, move your troops to, surround again... and then it disappears again. Of course, every time you go through this song and dance, you get to move your troops through hostile territory occupied by horrific nightmares that will harass and bedevil your soldiers constantly.

Far more likely: Prosek sends 150K troops to Magestar, they level the city, and go home and Prosek declares another glorious victory over the unnatural invaders.

[Eagle]

Fighting the Federation of Magic is going to be like fighting Al Quaeda. You can't dig them out of their caves, they're too well hidden. What you can do is kill them when they pop up out in the open, and just accept that sometimes they're gonna get lucky and kill some troops. If you can kill some high profile targets, and stop a few of their retaliatory attacks, then they'll lose credibility as an opponent. Nobody is going to want to go join up with them when all they do is hide, and occasionally one of their people gets gunned down in some little village.

Dweomer is a little different, but Dunscon's Federation is really only viable as a home for people who rabidly hate the CS. You go there if you really just want to kill some Dead Boys. But what they don't realize is they're actually a good PR piece for the Coalition. You can always count on some jerkwad mage to show up every six months or so, shout "Viva la Resistance!" and fireball some soldiers. Then Prosek is like "See? I told you!" and everybody is like "yup, mages are bad". So while Prosek's got a personal hatred for them, they aren't anywhere near the military threat that Tolkeen was, and their terrorist attacks serve a useful purpose. His son is ultra pragmatic, I bet he carefully guides his father away from going after them yet. As long as the City of Brass remains hidden, there's nowhere to send a massive military force. So the Emperor can seethe with hatred, waiting to get those bastards, while his son quietly files away any info on where the city might actually be.

[SereneTsunami]

Perhaps FoM's best left as a boogyman for Prosek to point at, that's a good thought.

[Shark_Force]

dunscon's federation of magic is more of a military threat than tolkeen ever was.

sure, he lacks the resources to destroy the CS. but he's actually interested in doing it.

meanwhile, tolkeen was more than happy to sit in their city and leave the CS alone. even when provoked, they did nothing except to defend their territory.

(that said, i pity the 50,000 troops you send to lay siege to any of the three cities in the federation of magic... i don't think 50,000 would really be hard for any of them to deal with if they put even a bit of effort into it. the problem, of course, is that the CS has a lot more than 50,000 soldiers to spare).

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I think most folks are correct in thinking that a war between Chi-Town and the FoM would not be anything like the Siege of Tolkeen. Parking 50,000 troops on top of each of the 3 main cities locations would force the FoM to go insurgent on the CS.

First the CS would have to be able to locate those cities. The only one it has ever localized was Stormspire (because Kzaa makes no attempt to hide it), which simply up and teleported away when they attempted to attack it from the air. They have absolutely not one idea where the City of Brass and Dweomer are, in the first place.

Even if the found the entrance to the caves that lead to the City of Brass... Dunscon could have the caves sealed up in an afternoon. He's got enough Earth Warlocks and Elementals in his employ that the entrances would look like rock faces that had been there forever within hours... and they could literally tunnel out anywhere else they wanted to, up to hundreds of miles away.

Dweomer... good luck. The entire area is heavily steeped in magic and is surrounded by a misdirection field. Even if you find it, it is the only one of the three "cities" of the FoM that you could actually potentially neutralize. (And this assumes the Lords of Magic dont have something hidden up their sleeves like teleporting the city away or shifting it into another dimension entirely).

The other two... nope. The problem with the FoM isn't the "big cities" it's the fact that AREN'T really any critical areas you can attack. The entire area is covered with little villages and towns and tiny settlements. You'd have to literally march across the entire area and destroy everything in a line. If that would even work - Ley Lines make it easy for magic users to appear behind you, evacuate entire towns before you get close, etc.

Even if you destroyed all three big "cities", and killed all their inhabitants... you've killed a relatively small portion of the population and haven't really blunted their ability to punish you. Think the Russians in Afghanistan in the 80s. Only the Afghanis in this analogy have access to a resource that never truly runs out and lets them raise the dead, summon creatures, contort reality...

Good luck!

[SereneTsunami]

I think most folks are correct in thinking that a war between Chi-Town and the FoM would not be anything like the Siege of Tolkeen. Parking 50,000 troops on top of each of the 3 main cities locations would force the FoM to go insurgent on the CS.

First the CS would have to be able to locate those cities. The only one it has ever localized was Stormspire (because Kzaa makes no attempt to hide it), which simply up and teleported away when they attempted to attack it from the air. They have absolutely not one idea where the City of Brass and Dweomer are, in the first place.

Even if the found the entrance to the caves that lead to the City of Brass... Dunscon could have the caves sealed up in an afternoon. He's got enough Earth Warlocks and Elementals in his employ that the entrances would look like rock faces that had been there forever within hours... and they could literally tunnel out anywhere else they wanted to, up to hundreds of miles away.

Dweomer... good luck. The entire area is heavily steeped in magic and is surrounded by a misdirection field. Even if you find it, it is the only one of the three "cities" of the FoM that you could actually potentially neutralize. (And this assumes the Lords of Magic dont have something hidden up their sleeves like teleporting the city away or shifting it into another dimension entirely).

The other two... nope. The problem with the FoM isn't the "big cities" it's the fact that AREN'T really any critical areas you can attack. The entire area is covered with little villages and towns and tiny settlements. You'd have to literally march across the entire area and destroy everything in a line. If that would even work - Ley Lines make it easy for magic users to appear behind you, evacuate entire towns before you get close, etc.

Even if you destroyed all three big "cities", and killed all their inhabitants... you've killed a relatively small portion of the population and haven't really blunted their ability to punish you. Think the Russians in Afghanistan in the 80s. Only the Afghanis in this analogy have access to a resource that never truly runs out and lets them raise the dead, summon creatures, contort reality...

Good luck!

Yea, i think those points are pretty valid. Leaving the FoM as a "unpredictable menace" serves the Prosek's ends better then spending years trying to figure out how to play Wack-a-Mole in the Magic zone. There isn't even a prize at the end of the conflict. At least Tolkeen offered a bunch of new territory and resources.