The Guns of Old John Brown

Buried Gold Caches - 22+60 = 82/25. Expanded Gold Supplies = 57/50.


The chaos of the civil war may have greatly disrupted your efforts at supporting Brown, but it made one of your goals far, far easier. The wealthy have mostly fled the city or died, retreating to redoubts in suburbs or seeking asylum in foreign shores. And while the majority of their wealth is in bits and bytes, secured by passwords and DNA locks, they have plenty of jewelry, of hoarded gold and finely cut diamonds and elaborate works of silver and gemstones.

And now that wealth can be put to use. While the majority of it seized to act as a sort of reserve of hard currency for use in trade and negotiations, and many pieces end up in the hands of individuals for their own uses, significant quantities are carted off to be discreetly sold in the downtime and fund the coming war.

The sheer amount of supplies being sent down is mind-boggling, all of it taken from the bourgisioie fuckwits who would doubtlessly have an anuerysm is they realized what their wealth was funding.

It's enough to put smiles on quite a few places, and to result in a number of plans previously considered "too expensive" to be dusted off by the downtime branch.

Result: Greatly expanded funding for the downtime branch of Radical Reconstruction, new options unlocked.

High Quality Printing, 8+66/50 = 74/50

The original plan had been to establish a farm of printers and graphic designers to create custom propaganda for Brown, but as with many things, the civil war uptime changed them. What little you had collected was turned over to be used for uptime propaganda, but a few quiet words with your backroom sponsors and some donations from your machine shop saw an agreement made: a backroom trade of small numbers of petty luxuries like drugs (when you can start growing them) and tools in exchange for being able to use the newly-established propaganda facilities.

It's a deal some are uncomfortable with, but truthfully it's a small price.

Result: Propaganda being produced for Brown, -3 Resources per turn


Drug Farms, 4+22/30 = 26/30

Meanwhile, the greenhouses for the medicine and drug farms finish their construction, and some arrangements are made to have those with experience teach some of your comrades. But with the chaos and busyness of these past two weeks, with supply lines fractured and cities burning, no one quite has the time to make sure you get the actual seeds and cuttings you will need.

They are all needed where they are.

Result: Action incomplete

Specialist Weapon Purchases, 10+88/25 = 98/25, Good Guns, 10+86/25 = 96/25

The sheer number of weapons an army needs is mind-boggling. It's not just a rifle for every soldier, but there are spares, training weapons, guns for the hastily-raised territorial defense units and anti-fascist teams...there are thousands and thousands of rifles, pistols, machine guns, and more being shuttled throughout the city and its surroundings. And that means it's easy for some small quantities to get lost or transferred to "partisan support" and find their way into your hands.

The stockpile includes over two hundred rifles, each one capable of outfiring the best downtime weapons, along with smaller supplies of sniper rifles, infantry mortars, and other, more dangerous weapons. And with them comes what was missing before: ammunition. Boxes and boxes of bullets, crates of shells, and other ancillary equipment fill the floor of the factory as they are steadily transferred downtime. It's actually becoming a bottleneck, you simply cannot move the supplies through the time machine fast enough.

-[X] Uptime Expertise: There are a plethora of socialists, anarchists, communists, and more at a loss now that they have succeeded, even partly. Some of them are genuinely lost, the scope of their victory overwhelming them. Some of them could be inducted into Radical Reconstruction and sent on "special missions." (5 Resources per die, 16/20)--109/20?!
Uptime Expertise, 109/20

The initial proposal was for a few people to join your downtime branch on a permanent basis, but as such things do it became rapidly transformed. Interest from your benefactors and the need for experts in both uptime and downtime changed the plan to be a recruitment of teams to provide support for specific tasks on request in downtime, although a number of measures to keep secrecy high have been implemented.

Following some intense and incredibly successful negotiations, the first teams assigned are...

(You have five points)

[] Soldiers, to train people how to use modern weapons. 1 point.
[] Nurses, to teach people the basics of medicine. 2 points.
[] Agronomists, to teach people about how to grow the new crops you have been importing. 1 point.
[] Engineers, to help upgrade the industry you are developing in Troy. 1 point.
[] Native revolutionaries, to assist you in making contact with the First Nations. 1 point.
[] Insurgents, to help prepare people for fighting war behind enemy lines. 1 point.
[] Drill sergeants, to mold young men and women into skilled soldiers. 2 points.


Seed Stocks, 71/25

The cultivars used in modern farms are tightly controlled, lest the genetic property of corporations be misused and cut into their profits. The security measures for keeping them from being reused without permission are elaborate.

But there was a resistance network just as elaborate dedicated to sabotaging these measures, to hacking the seeds to make them able to grow without human restriction and even to make their own specialized cultivars. And this network has come into the open. You have taken full advantage of it, getting a number of shipments of seeds for different plants - wheat and amaranth, potato and squash, pepper and carrot. Some are optimized for rapid growth, some for nutrition, some for size. But all are far superior to the unmodified plant. All will be invaluable for fighting hunger and suffering.

These tiny packets, nestled between bags of jackets and crates of ammunition, will save many lives.

Result: Stocks of modified seeds sent downtime


Winter Gear, 135/80

The cold weather will kill countless people as the networks of logistics and trade break down under the strain of the war you are fighting. That does not make your cause unjust, but it does mean you will take measures to mitigate this.

And that means taking advantage of uptime abundance. There are coats and hats aplenty, and even more cloth. All that can be spared is taken and shipped downtime, thick wool and down jackets, improvised raincoats, ski socks and hats, balaclavas, everything that isn't need uptime is requisitioned.

It won't be enough. This is a single, if populous city, while you will be facing icy conditions across an entire country. And that's leaving aside the logistical concerns for downtime.

But it will save many lives, and that's more than worthwhile.

Result: Stocks of warm winter clothes sent downtime


Industrial Reworking and Expansion: 79+256 = 335/500

Some of those most familiar with how to manage small-scale industry take a break from their work in the machine shop to give lessons and seminars, while others put the machinery to use manufacturing more of itself. But by and large, this area is left to others. While many factories are left to churn out vital equipment and supplies with old, unsafe equipment, modifications to the routines and schedules of workers do alleviate the worst of the danger. And the efforts for repair and reworking can be focused on other factories.

There are a number of competing priorities, from the need for these modifications to be done quickly to modifications of supply chains to deal with the ongoing crisis of resources. It makes finding the best approach difficult, and with a number of groups working on the same project in separate areas and factories, the result is somewhat scattershot and chaotic, but all the same significant progress is being made.


Continue Reconstruction: 411+151=562/600

While some of your membership takes part in improvements and adjustments to industry, the majority of your time and attention goes to the reconstruction of the city itself. It needs to be completed as soon as possible. You sweep for unexploded ordinance. You dig out collapsed sewage tunnels. You unbury bodies from the shattered remnants of buildings and place them in graves. You repair roads, railways, dockyards. And you endure countless jokes about how appropriate the "Reconstruction" part of your name is.

Others take part, but by sheer chance many of your members end up taking leadership roles in the effort, and as it accelerates so does your involvement. The most vital sections of the city - the spiderweb of residential areas and the industrial heart - are completely rebuilt, while scant damage lingers on the outskirts and the commercial and financial sectors are in need of a more expansive rebuilding.

It's mostly patch jobs and improvisations of course, but it is still incredibly impressive for being two weeks of work.


Power Grid Modification: 261/1000, Biofuel Collection: 227/400, Metal/Resource Reclamation: 313/400, Social Reconstruction: 217/???, Logistics Reworking: 273/???

You aren't the only ones working desperately to try and undo the damage of both war and capitalism. There are thousands of union organizers, radicals, and revolutionaries in the city, and countless millions of workers. It's hard to tell who is more enthusiastic for this immense labor.

The landfills and waste dumps are mined for metal, while the luxuries of the rich are seized and either reconstructed or redistributed. An immense wealth of intellectual property is released for the use of anyone and everyone. The sailors on the semi-automated barge network are brought into the fold, and through them, discreet contacts with networks of smugglers are made to transfer in vital resources that can't be found within areas of revolutionary control. Even the very buildings of the city are torn down, statues are melted into ingots to make everything from bullets to barricades.

Every resource that can be developed within the city is, as urban gardens are planted and insect farms are established. Pigeons and other improvised livestock are corralled for meat,while the nearby lakes are dredged for fish to serve as a stopgap until more sustainable food supplies can be found. And those supplies are being made, as every bit of green space is turned into an urban garden of some description, every roof into a greenhouse.

The battles over nearby power stations are fierce and bloody, and several are destroyed, leaving the city trapped in a perpetual brownout. Despite that, rationing and economization see full functionality restored to limited areas such as hospitals and factories, and immediate efforts to further stabilize the grid are underway. Slapdash repairs of the plants begin almost as soon as the battles end, while longer-term plans such as the re-development of the neglected green power networks are being prepared.

And as a stopgap, biofuel conversion plants are being prepared. The sewage plants are being taken over and frantically modified, while leftover plant matter and discarded scraps of food are also added to the vast tanks that are being used to produce fuel and fertilizer.

Meanwhile, the collapsing rail networks around the city are repaired, the harbor dredged, and attempts at restarting the construction of ships and rolling stock - and recruiting people to run those vehicles - begin. A new Revolutionary Logistic Corp is formed to expand the reach of the army and start these same efforts in more distant locales.

But the most important part of the reconstruction is the social side, as police stations and courthouses are attacked, the offices of major corporations and the JIA are looted, and the alienating regime of work is utterly transformed. Bottom-up or top-down, the social revolution beings, as calls to attack the physical structure that support patriarchy and white supremacy begin.