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hehehe...

Teenager ... Lots of Mindless Firefights and immature sexual content and foul language (1980s Action Films)

Adult ... Any Firefights have a Purpose. Sexual Content is hinted at, but does not need to be shown. Foul Language is saved for moments where it creates impact. Lots of Character growth. (Jurrasic Park, Abyss, Pitch Black, 13th Warrior, etc..)

Or like a Young Adult...which is a mix of the teenager and Adult methods at the same time. Less immature sexual content and Less firefights, but characters getting personal growth. (James Bond, Borune Identity, Mr.&Ms.Smith, 300, Underworld series, etc...)

Or munchkin character with zero personally

From the description of NEMA training and background NEMA personnel transported to rifts earth, or waking up from cryogenic sleep, are likely to adopt a town or towns. Assuming it’s a large group, as a number of you have assumed you got the makings of a new city state. (great campaign idea!)

A highly trained and well equipped force would most likely be able to secure a fairly large area. These guys are dedicated to protecting those weaker than themselves. While there will be some who wont trust them many soon will. The forth of fifth time these guys sweep in and save some small community from a monster, bandits, or an evil mage and DON’T try to squeeze the locals for something of value people will begin to look on them much like the cyberknights.

Unlike the knights these guys will be interested in putting down some roots and are pretty skilled in building things to restore/create infrastructure. Roads, bridges, power systems, sewage treatment, water purification, housing…. And they are as skilled in military fortifications…

Assuming they didn’t show up next door to the coalition I would bet they would have a pretty respectable country/ city state in 5-10 years.

ARCHIE is in possession of a NEMA army in cryogenic stasis as of Revised SB 1.

I imagine if people can't find NORAD because of the changes in the landscape due to the Cataclysm other pre-Rifts weapon catches and locations aren't a given to be able to track down either.

its wouldnt be too hard to find, someone should atleast have found colorado springs

Palladium works on a 'Nuh Uh!' mindset from what I've seen, including insisting that the planet's geography changed so radically that even good-sized landmarks that one should reasonably be able to find aren't locatable anymore. Especially when it comes to finding Golden Age Pre-Rifts installations that could give a PC party a radical upgrade or edge. Otherwise someone ought to have found NORAD (or for that matter still be in charge of it, unlikely it had everyone die or vanish like happened at Lone Star and NORAD was certainly built to sustain a decent population long enough to last into the current day).

Yup that good old mindset , where NPCs can find secret bases,losted complexes and gain access to objects in orbits and where players can't read maps

What part of 'maps are useless because of the changing geography' did you miss? Something explicitly noted under the NORAD entry. Also what part of 'NORAD generally isn't listed on maps' do you also happen to be missing? And yes NPC's can find all sorts of things, they can find a way to convert matter directly into energy and gain limitless energy to power undreamed of weapons that can't currently because the power requirements are too high IF THE GM WANTS THAT TO HAPPEN. GM give all sorts of fun toys to the NPC since they belong to them, handing over NORAD because 'hey the scholar found this old map listing this fabulous Golden Age facility' is another thing entirely. The canon material in the books make it clear you aren't going to get any use out of maps trying to find it, no matter how much you want to insist 'well they should have no problems finding it, it's on the map!'.

Depens on which maps are you talking about civilian maps, yes, but military maps I don't think so . The landscape might look different doesn't means the towns that were near it grow legs and walked away.

Civilian or military they aren't going to magically update because 'well the military drew them' and the civilian don't. We've an entire industry based around people checking and rechecking maps, locating changes, and updating who owns what because boundaries shift around based on the natural landscape. A centuries old military map is gong to be just as outdated and wrong as a civilian map especially when a cosmic cataclysm literally remakes the landscape putting hills and valleys where they weren't before, reshaping where rivers run, and even raising up mountains where they weren't previously.

Towns get buried or destroyed, forests become deserts, people remake things trying to rebuild, it's incredibly naive and totally downplaying events of the magnitude that the Cataclysm was. That military map isn't going to get you anywhere when you're going 'huh, that river isn't on the map, and where'd that forest come from?', because it's going to be just as wrong as the old civilian maps. You may think there's something special about military maps but there isn't.

who said anything about maps being updated, it doesn't take anymore then a current map(yes there are map makers in rifts earth) and comparing it to a pre-rifts map, and doing the math to find a place.

That is just so wrong and pretends nothing of what I said was actually said. You've no concept of what's actually involved to keep insisting all it takes is 'well this map and that map and *poof* we have NORAD'. People trained in land navigation and using maps as current as possible still get lost because they missed a terrain feature or misread something yet you blithely insist it's no trouble at all with a centuries out of date map where the terrain has changed dramatically to find something depicted on it. Go check with an Archaeologist how 'easy' finding all those lost cities was because 'hey we've got a map made back around that time'. You simply don't understand how difficult it actually is to find anything in such situations.

I don't ?? Really? Wow ! I never said it was going to be a easy task to find NORAD , I was talking about Colorado springs. As my D.I. Used to say "only idiots get losted with a map"

I imagine he's think anyone an idiot who insisted using a map from the 1600s to find something today would be an easy go of things too, and that maps are only as good as their accuracy and the more degraded the details the more you're going to find yourself messing up. Trying to find your way when the terrain details you're looking for on the map NO LONGER EXIST isn't going to qualify as even close to easy, even when trying to find a city. When you've hundreds if not thousands of miles you've got to somehow get across and work out where you're going when that mountain you're looking for doesn't exist anymore, or that river isn't where the outdated map says it should be. No, I'm quite sure your D.I. would think you an idiot for insisting an outdated map would be all that helpful getting where you're going and that's all you've got going when it comes to finding pre-Rifts facilities and land formations either natural or artificial.

Hey just because some don't think of taking a few maps of the areas and comparing them to each other and creating a new map to locate something, distances don't change

Actually yes, it does, especially when you have parts of the planet exchanging with parts of other planets and as I've repeatedly points out terrain changing including rising and falling. California's moving slightly all the time and is going to be moving a lot one day when the plate finally breaks free. Maps become outdated and wrong all the time, that's not going to change in Rifts, and people aren't just going to take some pre-Cataclysm map, one now, and *poof* find anything that was located on the old map with anything like the ease you insist would occur. Again, just see what an Archaeologist thinks of 'oh you just need this old map, a new map, and you're golden'. It took decades to find Troy and many things still haven't been found.

There is a lot more planning then that, its not some that hard nor is its easy it's just a large amount of time in the prep worl

See: Tundra Rangers, Rifts Canada.

Any NEMA soldier would know of at least a couple supply depots. I did this scenario once, they were Rifted forward and began exploring and then set out to reclaim the Library of Congress (L.O.C. Alpha) database in D.C., their second objective was to obtain the L.O.C. Charlie under the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado (L.O.C Beta was at NORAD).They set themselves up as a Merc Unit, I had them using only one Pre-Rifts GB and a bunch of exo-suits intially. They eventually bought Nosthern Gun gear and other weapons and hooked up w/the New Navy (being the only ones alive who'd recognize descriptions of the Ticonderoga for what it is).

I also had one wherein a group of NEMA personnel had been in stasis since the fall of NEMA and were discovered by a Northern Gun Merc and a Rogue CS Dog Boy, they created a Merc co. called "Zulu Squad" and DID recover the L.O.C. Alpha and set up shop in a reclaimed and rebuilt DHT which the NG Merc used as a mechanics garage where she offered cutrate costs for repairing Rifts vehicles. They had nothing except their armor and NEMA issue weapons. The PC's consisted of a NEMA Cyborg Military Specialist, a NEMA Para-Arcane, a NEMA Field Engineer and two Roscoe's w/exo suits and Vibro axes.
Curently the CS suspects something is odd, but they are typically under orders to leave Zulu Squad alone esp. as the NG Merc was once a member of a scary (but totally INSANE) NG Special Forces company called the Hessians (they had a reputation for blowing stuff up ALL the time) and her garage was away point for damaged CS gear during the Tolkeen War. Unknown to the CS the L.O.C. Alpha is hidden inside the DHT!

So having signed back into these forums for the first time in years I was happy to see this thread still around. Found it more funny that someone else necro-ed it at one point and then a brief argument ensued

But the reason for returning to this thread was/is to discuss my revisited idea. From the time this was first started NEMA and Chaos Earth was still fairly 'new' and a lot of the cross over information was raw (like I don't think we had the additional CE supplements and the Sourcebook 1 had the older ARCHIE 3 info in it) and Rifts has had a LOT of updates since then.

So my idea for the group I'm about to run the game for is similar: player characters are based loosely off of themselves with some liberties thrown in as they are supposed to be the heroes of the story. This time however I'm basing the story out west somewhere around Arzno or the Colorado Baronies and was curious about opinions on possible (large or small) places that NEMA may have holded up during the collapse.


FYI here was the intro I wrote for them to review (if you want to read it for kicks. 2k XP to start with if they can nail all of the tropes/puns/jokes I put in the intro)

"Opening setting: Date: April 4th, 2017. All of the characters have been invited to Brad and Nanette Raven's party and house warming. Brad is somewhat of a socialite in their neighborhood having recently purchased a new home (4 bedroom, 2 car garage, and a massive den, living room and sits on 2 acres) with his wife. The home sits at 1313 Mockingbird Lane and the rumor (most believe it was completely made up by realtors) is that the home was built over the remains of an old fort.

Brad is a hobbyist mechanic that recently did moderately well in the stock market. Brad is currently a paralegal working out of Sedona and Flagstaff and Nanette is a former employee of Cracker Barrel, having recently lost her job suddenly without any listed reason.

Rumor has it that while she was on her 66th order of the night a 4th grade class was coming in from a field trip led by Mrs Anakah Skye that had been greatly disturbing a small group of Marines in from Yuma Air Base. No one is sure how exactly the fight broke out as many concluded that the Marines looked too much alike to tell but after two kids helplessly flailed on one of the Marines and Mrs Skye managed to choke slam another one somehow Nanette took the blame (this whole bizarre turn of events made the local news but the facts are in short supply).

Nanette comes from an upper middle class family that while she always attempts to downplay, the locals always seem to spread around via gossip. The daughter of an inventor, Weyland Cole, who is most known for his very successful line of sun tan lotion 'You tan eee' which was originally coined having become super popular with women and the belief that causes minor growth in the mammary region. "chest busting action" is plastered on the bottle so as to not confuse it with other traditionally store bought brands. Something Nanette doesn't care to bring up in conversation

Brad Raven is known as the Glasswalker of the Southwest because of his extensive collection of glass blown artwork from local vendors (and some also believe it stems from his political savvy with other local attorneys). He currently works at the offices of Giovanni and Dunsirn.

Both are in their early 40s and love music. It's a BYOB but there will be drinks and snacks on hand.

OOC: this should give enough information for the starting characters an opportunity to build a reason, even if vague, how they know the hosts and wind up at the party."

in regards to old maps and NORAD. even assuming that NORAD didn't get swept up in some dimensional weirdness like D-shifting, consider the events of the cataclysm.
when Yellowstone blew, it buried chicago under more than 6ft of ash. ~1200 miles away. within a week. and ash was still falling almost a month later.
also the entire ring of fire on the west coast went up. dropping dozens of feet within a days.

in the vicinity of NORAD, only ~600 miles from yellowstone, can you imagine how much Ash was falling? between yellowstone and the west coast eruptions? not to mention the stuff that wouldn't reach Chicago, like Pyroclastic bombs and other Tephra. then add in nearly 300 years of soil and rock accumulation, vegetation, etc.

just look for the pre-rifts towns? hah, good luck. they are all gonna look like Pompeii. pre-excavation. just big empty fields and valleys. maybe a few odd hills where the larger buildings collapsed and were entombed in ash. so you'd maybe get an odd small artifact or two that washes out into a stream. nothing really to tell you "look, Colorado springs used to be here!"

all of the old landmarks are going to be gone the same way. 300 years of erosion, the first century aided by leftover ash and tephra, would render the rockfaces so different to be unrecognizable. landmarks on the valleys are buried or eroded as well. all the streams and waterways will have changed. as a result.

if you plunk a pre-rifts person who grew up there down into that region, he might be able to give you an idea based on things like the placement of specific gross geological features (again, assuming no dimensional weirdness) to get you to within the right region, say an area the size of oh, Rhode Island. but specific locations? hell no.

and for the people of post-rifts times? that wouldn't have that personal knowledge, and who are stuck to just looking at those wildly inaccurate pre-rifts maps as they pass through? no chance.


these same facts mean that not only are NORAD's entrances going to be buried well below the ground level, any signs you might be looking for based on old photos or maps are going to be gone.

This wasn't about NORAD. That was someone's conversation back from 2012.

But to you points: I think they are valid to an extent.

http://www.ontheluce.com/2015/11/18/anc ... santorini/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/santor ... /size.html

The reason I cite this as a credible resource to compare the Yellowstone explosion is because of the monstrous nature of the Thera explosion, the fact that the city of Akrotiri was almost completely at the epicenter and much of that city remains using ancient technology, stone, and mortar.

I completely agree that most of anything in this region (the American West) could require digging, but with the advent of MDC structures and whatever super-materials that went into it I don't see why there wouldn't be more to find, if someone had some rough understanding where to look (someone coming from 2017 into the Rifts era might have an understanding as of 2017 but the apocalypse as we know it happened further down the timestream).

So back to my original question: Outside of NORAD (which I didn't bring up and don't plan on using) is there anything in this region, commercial or military, that someone thinks might have withstood the elements well enough to be preserved/worthwhile?

Lonestar, Area 51, or whatever base you want to use. I also enjoy a good necro.

yes you can certainly find things if you dig in the right spots

my point is finding those spots. the discussion was about using old maps to navigate the post-rifts world. when all those towns are under dozens of feet of soil, how do you locate the towns being used as landmarks to navigate to NORAD? are you going to dig up the millions of square kilometers of the new west to figure out where the old cities were so you have a roadmap to NORAD?

people keep talking about how easy it should be to find places like NORAD, usually claiming that the maps should look exactly the same... i was trying to point out why the maps would be different, why it is going to be hard. why the people of the new west haven't found it yet.

I know this board was started over 15 years ago but if anyone finds this, in the game I'm writing up after the BOZP Lt. Gen. Sawyer sent a large contingent with supplies and equipment North into the Canadian Wilds. She erased the order records and history proceeded as normal with the exception of NEMA partially founding FQ and while staying hidden has managed to build an army much smaller in equipment, as in during the CoU the CS had 3.2 million "Old Style" Death's Head SAMAS alone, but their infantry is better than the Dead Boys including their equipment and weapons. NEMA has had about 300 years to study, improve, and implement minor technological/magical advances. I've written ALOT more on other things they've done and what they're up to but I dunno what my players will do to influence them past this point.

If seen coming out of a Rift? Odds are they're going to be attacked. If found later? It depends on who finds them and how powerful they are. Some places might welcome them with open arms. Others will attack them instantly. Some might be friendly but put them in protective custody and confiscate their equipment. This would be especially true in North America. They'd recognize a lot of NEMA's equipment as Coalition States. They'd want to reverse engineer it. The CS of course does not like anyone using their equipment or having equipment based on it. They'd be declared enemies of the state. The only reason the CS wouldn't eliminate them right away is if they far enough away or large enough to cause a problem. They've got enough going on right now. They'd be put under observation until they can be dealt with. I think the CS would also try to infiltrate them to learn more about where they got their equipment and try to get them to fight on their side.

I could see the CS taking a different perspective on time travelers, given that during the invasion of Chi-Town it's possible Temporal Wizards could've teleported some of their own troops days/weeks/months into the future.

"If it's gone through a rift we need to kill it" or "if it's gone to another dimension we need to kill it" seems like too extreme a stance to assume here.

One glaring contradiction to this assumption would be Jo-Anna Prosek. She was "magically whisked away to a prison cell". I don't think it ever clarifies specifically where (just "strange room of alien design and unearthly material", FOM29) but it sure sounds a lot like the City of Brass which is only accessible through dimensional portals (Dunscon thinks it's a pocket dimension) so Jo-Anna (and Coake when he rescued her) did venture through rifts.

It's doubtful Jo-anna would have (or COULD have) kept that info from Karl, so he would know that his wife came through a rift at least twice in the period of her absence. Yet the CS did not execute her.

Humans are perceived as victims of the Rifts, I don't see the CS just gunning down any human who gets sucked into one and somehow manages to make it back.


I think that could depend on context. I think this outlook on the CS is a bit extreme.

If they're marching through a rift in an organized fashion like an invasion force, yeah the CS is probably going to fire, because it looks like they opened that rift.

If however they just fall through, or are in the middle of a battle with supernatural monsters who also came through, I could see the CS possibly be a bit less trigger-happy.

I agree the CS's outlook is extreme. How they come through could also matter. Thing is you never know what's coming out of the Rift. Could be good could be evil. Could be evil disguised as good. Or good that looks evil.

I'm also sure that extensive tests were conducted on Jo-anna to make sure she was her.

But canonically that is what they do. If someone gets taken into a Rift there is no way to tell if they are the same person. If the CS learns that Rifts are in time also that would just reinforce the shoot first and burn the body later sentiment as their paranoia would lead to... "IF it is the same person that returns; we have no idea how long they were gone for. It is likely they were detained and questioned. At best they don't answer any questions. At worst everything we don't want stinking d-bees to know is pulled from his head and they are preparing an invasion. Somewhere in between there are strapping our guy with explosives or brainwashing him into a spy or saboteur. I doubt Pvt. Partson would want to come back to kill his friends in the unit, or his mom and wife and kids. So let's do him a favor and shoot him when he comes through. Okay guys? For Humanity, for the CS for Pvt. Partson's baby girl!"

IIRC Jo-Anna didn't come out of a rift she was teleported. I think the CS knows the difference between a rift and not a rift.

Either way, I'm sure extensive tests were done on her. She could have been brainwashed, possessed, had all kinds of things implanted. She could be a completely different Jo-anna. Better make sure than risk letting her kill the emperor.