The Guns of Old John Brown

There was a look of wonder on the faces of those who had entered the time machine for the first time. The machine itself was nothing special in its appearance - there were wires and lights aplenty, but it seemed more like some piece of specialized medical equipment or industrial machinery than a weapon to change the course of history. And the actual transition through time was almost mundane. But when you stepped out of the time machine and inhaled air that had never known the acrid scent of cordite or the sting of acid rain, when you heard the strange accents of the downtimers, when you felt the sun of two hundred years ago beating down on your flesh, you knew that things were never going to be the same for you.

It made everyone spend some time just...staring. Just taking in the new world they had found themselves in, contemplating the enormity of their task, contemplating the enormity of what had already been accomplished.

And then they set off to begin their work. Everyone here from uptime had helped overthrow one government already. Doing it again should be even easier.

Your downtime organization is currently Developed. A robust network of radicals have joined your organization, granting it great capability to act, especially when supported by uptime funding and expertise. Shipments of gold and specialized uptime revolutionaries have begun providing even more capacity, but divisions are starting to appear within the organization.

This grants you a total of eight organizational actions.

You have four Operatives available. Each operative can perform one personal action. These personal actions may apply benefits to organizational actions based on their personality and skill. The scale of Radical Reconstruction is such that the operatives can no longer operate alone. Your current operatives are Malcolm Miller, Rebecca Tillman, Floyd Olsen, and Alexander Franklin. Tag each action with who is doing them. Example -[x] Action [Alex], -[x] Action [Rebecca] [Malcolm]]





[] Speak with Brown: Brown had questions, plans, needs...and your organization has the same. There's plenty of opportunities to get him alone and have a chat. Choose up to two topics.
-[] Brown's leadership. Distant political and social divisions between uptimers and downtimers, and the immense gulfs between the interests of radical abolitionist preachers and anti-slavery factory workers, everyone respects Brown immensely. Is he willing to take a more active role?
-[] Religious matters. Faith is clearly a thorny matter for Brown. Perhaps another's perspective might help him.
-[] Discuss theory. There's always more matters of politics and economics to discuss.
-[] New tactics. Between the gatling guns and the weapons that will hopefully be delivered from uptime, warfare might be transformed completely. Does Brown have any ideas for how to take advantage of that? He's not familiar with this kind of warfare, but no one really is.

[] Meetings to be Had. History is full of people of importance. Meet figures from the past, people you read about, and seek their aid in your struggles.
-[] Write-in who you are meeting with and the goal of the meeting. Note that they should be roughly a week from Brown's farm in North Elba if you want to have the operative be available for the next downtime phase.

[] All About Chemistry. The factory has a small workshop nearby, kept carefully away from the main buildings, for experimentation and chemistry production. Currently, all its produces is some thermite, but there are other possibilities worth exploring.

[] New Designs. Right now, the factory mostly produces rifles. Good rifles, better than anything else in 1859, but that is all, or nearly so. (There is a small workshop for Gatling Guns, and another for grenades, but both are slow.) The weapons made will be invaluable, but perhaps there are other types that could be produced.

[] Factory Theory. The workers at your Troy factory enjoy the benefits of being worker-owners and having the ability to manage their own hours, but while they will probably fight to defend those privileges, or extend them to others like them, they are still undeniably chauvinistic. Expose them to theory, see what comes of it.

[] Appalachian Contacts. The mountains of Appalachia are full of potential allies against the planter hegemony, but they are unaware of your existence and are unlikely to enjoy meeting you if it starts with an army. So come down to make some deals and find some friendly faces among the folk of the mountains in advance.

[] The Railroad Below. Harriet Tubman has joined your company and introduced you to some contacts among the Underground Railroad, although even she does not know the entirety of the network. Distributing small quantities of weapons, ammunition, and most importantly information will help the network prepare for when the upcoming war begins.

[] Businessmen Doing Business. The more money you invest in your factory, the larger it will grow. Perhaps you could even diversify it to a degree, and start creating new products. Or you could create associated services, such as a cafeteria or daycare for your laborers. The new machines coming out of the time machine have already proved invaluable, but you will need some funding to properly set up the new divisions for different sorts of labor.
-[] Write-in any specific goals, methods, etc.

[] Good Steel. You have made the introduction of a rather brilliant young man who historically transformed the American steel energy. It might be worth cooperating with him to do so once more. He's willing to spend some time in North Elba for now, although he might leave to take what's he gleaned already if it ends up not being worth his time. He seems to have big plans...

[] Investing in the Community. Community roots are invaluable for an organization with political goals. And despite your expectation of violence, you are unquestionably political in nature. Whether it is through deliveries of free medical supplies, small gifts, or other donations, you can win support through the simple act of doing nice things.
-[] Choose from North Elba or Troy for each action
-[] Write-in any specific goals, methods, etc.

[] New Weapons. The comrades from uptime have begun their various tasks, but one of the most important still needs work: the men (and a very few women) who will begin the slave uprising need to be trained on the modern weapons, on semi-automatic hunting rifles and lethal but mobile mortars. It also needs to be determined how they should be integrated into the strategy for war, especially given the restrictions on the "production" of ammunition.

[] Propaganda Campaigns. The slave-ocracy in downtime America has immense political power, further backed up by the casual racism and white supremacy heavily integrated into the culture and economy of the nation. Using the immense uptime printing capacity and various downtime resources, it is time to begin launching an attack on this, on capitalism, on all the evils of hierarchy. Propaganda, posters, public speaking, all are avenues in this war of belief.

[] Uptime-Downtime Integration. The organization as it is currently made is not meant to handle such an influx of uptimers. While some of them have departed on their specific missions, others remain, and have begun their various tasks...and encountering various conflicts, personal, cultural, political, and more. Some attention must be given to this concerning trend.

[] Marches and Meetings. While there won't be any major elections before the attack begins, developing an effective political wing would still be valuauble for a number of reasons, including enabling better recruiting and establishing a peaceful counterpart to open a new front in the class war. There are downsides, many bitterly familiar to your uptime operatives, as well as the risk of reducing what limited secrecy you still have.

[] International Outreach. The cause of revolution cannot just be taken up in one country. The British Empire stands as a bloody hegemon, the workers of Paris and Berlin both strike and struggle for liberation, the depredations of imperialism have reached across the globe, causing suffering from the lands of the Maya to home of the Zulu. The radicals from uptime, eager to avert tragedy before it begins, want to start reaching out to like-minded foreign organizations, whether to offer them support or to ask for revolutionary defeatism.

[] Letters and Telegrams. Using the mail and telegram services is relatively simple. If you are looking for someone in the US or Europe, in any case. Contacting distant people is a good way to get their attention and hopefully set up a more fruitful meeting, or it might even have good results by itself.
-[] Write-in who you send messages to and the general gist of the messages.