Remove ads

An Age of Rust (In the Shadow of the Old Pueblo Reboot)

Reader mode
It seems the Mormons might be a bit more aggressive or intolerant now. Granted we haven't learned much about them yet, but they don't seem to be friendly to natives who don't convert

Also nice to see the Luwains and Lukka are doing somewhat better here even if they might be absorbed by others they still have a big enough presence to be counted on the map
 
Last edited:
Shiva12 said:
It seems the Mormons might be a bit more aggressive or intolerant now. Granted we haven't learned much about them yet, but they don't seem to be friendly to converts

Also nice to see the Luwains and Lukka are doing somewhat better here even if they might be absorbed by others they still have a big enough presence to be counted on the map
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
afaik the Luwians were mostly absorbed by other powers such as the Hittites IRL, though that didn't stop them much since they (apparently) outnumbered the actual Hittites within the Empire by a large degree at one point.

So them having their own states here is automatically them doing better than their OTL counterparts (at least in my honest opinion).

Also the Mormons are very friendly towards converts looking at the text on the map, its the other guys they aren't so keen on.
 
Last edited:
GwaedDraig said:
Fan Omake: The Southern Shore men (Taw ku Netti) Confederacy
& its place in the North.​

The Southern Shores Confederacy, alternatively called the Tawkunetti Confederacy in the dialect of the Luwians whom play a part in founding the State, is a hodgepodge of the various peoples of the steppes, downtime refugees forced from their villages in the chaotic aftermath of Tucsons arrival & small groups of Americans to whom settling in the chaos of Anatolia or elsewhere in the Mediterranean proved undesirable or even outright impossible for one reason or another.

Many members of the initial group that would form the core of the Confederacy had lived around the cities outskirts or had been traveling through on their way to other places, being among the first to realize the situation would only get worse from there, and, initially under the leadership of an elderly War vet, his family, a Rancher from Texas who'd been traveling through the city at the time of the Event & a few deserters from the Police Force led by one Officer Alvaro Shepard, tossed together a plan to get the hell out of dodge before things became too crazy with as much as they could carry, leaving the city under the cover of night on the second day.

Their early days & first attempt at settling had been located a few months journey east from the Old Pueblo, just across a river from a pair of down timer villages in central Anatolia, though it came to an abrupt and violent end less than a year & a half later when they were found and, alongside the two villages they'd settled alongside, were almost completely burnt to the ground by a large group of American bandits at the end of an string of increasing conflicts, forcing the Exodus force, now accompanied by the remaining villagers to migrate further to the Northeast.

The second serious attempt of forging themselves a home for themselves along the coast of the black sea not too far from the soon-to-be 'New Pueblo' lasted much longer, just about over a decade to be precise, seeing conditions prosperous enough to lead to the birth of a new generation & their arrival at the gates of puberty within its grasp, only to have their homes snatched away from them once more with the revolution within their neighbors borders dragged them into conflict because of aid rendered to those fleeing it.

With their lands once again reduced to little more than ashes & the survivors being hounded for being 'reactionaries' a contingency council formed by surviving community leaders made the decision to salvage what they could make the long trek north once more rather than shed more blood trying to re-establish themselves next to a now-hostile power, assembling their people into one last great exodus with the hope of building a permanent home North of the Great Caucuses.

The location that was inevitably agreed upon by the Contingency Council a month after their departure, based upon the reports of horseback scouts sent out ahead, fell along the North-eastern coast of the sea of Azov, just north of the Caucasus mountains, providing a balance of a hopefully fertile land, natural defenses to the south & and west and a fairly controllable route of trade that would be needed to supply themselves with anything that they would prove not able to produce for themselves, in the future once the nation they hoped to build beyond the traditional limit of settled civilization at the time was solidified.

The long trek itself proved a daunting task by itself with large amounts breaking away or remaining with some of the groups the convoy encountered along the path such as the USAF forces in Georgia.

Even when the convoy had successfully reached it's intended destination the prospect they set out with proved much further from their hopes then they'd expected, though the tribes that proved hostile to the newcomers were not much more than minor nuisances, many being dispatched in short order & forced to migrate further into the steppes, with the usage of firearms & uptimer horses provided by the Convoys resident Rancher being a major boon in driving them off.

Their position sandwiched between the massive wolf packs, deadly Caspian tigers & other beasts of the European steppes would prove to be a much more prevalent issue, many smaller settlements would be torn to shreds overnight by the beasts on a constant basis in the early days while larger ones were forced to organize sorties night and day just to buy themselves some breathing room to plant seeds & care for their crops.

As they gradually got more settled & familiarity with the territories landscape grew they sent out expeditions to identify and wipe out the largest concentrations of predators to mixed results, a good deal of the early expeditions never returned, but that quickly changed as larger more organized groups, whose organization was enabled by population explosion, generated itself from the Tawkunetti's extensive use of historical strategies to maximize crop yields, started departing on the borderline crusade against the fierce wilds, one of the results of which was a flood of furs, meat and the like flowing throughout the country & to its neighbors, fueling further growth.

Though with the growth of the population came many other issues, many which were inconsequential in the current era while other would be much more dire.

The most pressing was to be found towards the western borders where the men of Tawkunnet would increasingly come into conflict with the Mormon republic as some of the freshly converted tribes of the Crimean peninsula, with all the zeal expected of fresh converts, had began raiding across the border chasing those of their brethren who'd steadfastly refused conversion, instead holding true to their ancestral faiths & fled eastwards across the sea of Azov, with intent of slaughtering the adults & dragging the children back into Mormon lands to be 'rescued from demonic influence'

A prospect that didn't sit very well at all with the Tawkunetti of those tribes who'd made the journey across the Kerch strait had settled near.

Not only because some of the conflict had spilled over into their settlements due to the proximity, but also because a combination of treaties that had been signed between the Southern men & the Crimean migrants during their admission into the Confederacy obligating them to defend eachother, as well many of the Pagan denizens of the young country & even those who remained true to their Christian heritage such as the Amish, Mennonites & Hutterites among others were increasingly concerned about the zealotry in their western neighbors affecting them, even if each of them had slightly different reasons for being worried.

That concern, catalyzed further by the anger of many denizens of the Confederacy at the very thought of their homes being threatened once again by men that would've once been considered kin, would quickly filter back to the Capital where a decision would be made without delay, one in which it was determined that war with the Mormons was inevitable and preparations had to be made.

The message as such was sent out, sparking mass mobilization of the countries Militias and a policy of intentional mass-proliferation of firearms and experienced personnel to train them in the use & maintenance of such, as well as uptime crops & pack animals to any tribes, city states or other entities in the surrounding lands who were even remotely willing to align themselves with the Tawkunetti in anticipation of rapidly approaching conflict & whatever future it may bring.

"The men of the south may call themselves Conservative, Liberal, Libertarian or whatever other labels they dare to attribute themselves, the disgusting mongrels do not deserve the distinction of legitimacy for their abandonment of the ideals and the path laid out for them by their vaunted ancestors" - Odjerun Macesset, hereditary chieftain of the Eastern Osset 'Klamunen' band of the Yamnayan people, freshly elected as the second Vice-President of the Tawkunetti Confederacy.

"Some would call us barbarous for what we have done to the peoples North of the mighty caucuses, maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, I'm not exactly in a position to say one way or another with the fate of so many people laying upon my shoulders. what I can say with confidence though is that it pales in comparison to what many have done to the natives of the lands to the south or even what those bloody Mormons to the west are in the process of doing, we may have fallen far from what we once were but not to that degree" - Reginald Miller, former Texan Rancher & first President of the Confederacy.

"Those things in the Crimean peninsula are no longer our brethren, but abominations sent by the false deity that those 'Mormons' worship to wear their skins, mark my words that there will be a worse reckoning should they continue to try to subjugate our people" - Janova, Saffron banshee of the Strait, 'Last Mother' & leader of the Dazr te tyaal 'Cimmerian' tribe.

"Miller & his horses were quite literally a godsend for us, the number of times when we've had our asses pulled out of the proverbial fire by the mobility those beasts afforded us alone made it more than worth the cost of feeding them! a fact I don't think my compatriots appreciate quite as much as they should" - John Barnes, former substitute history teacher at Catalina Highschool & founder of the Barnes Memorial College that the city of Tacek-Iaya would later grow around.

"Many would question my decision to follow these strange 'Americans' to these far northern lands, far beyond what they all knew, I stand by that decision looking at those who followed our path & hearing their stories, guided by those who elected to stay behind for the purpose of helping those fleeing the chaos wrought by their accursed kin" - Uruwantaziti Pallas, leader of the Luwian villagers who joined with the Americans on their trek after the burning of their original home.

No comment (I took way too long procrastinating/being distracted from writing this)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Wonder if I should write a short blurb on the ideas I've been sitting on since I first read this story. Though I'm unsure if spirit was going to write their own stuff on it.
 
Last edited:
GwaedDraig said:
Fan Omake: The Southern Shore men (Taw ku Netti) Confederacy
& its place in the North.​

The Southern Shores Confederacy, alternatively called the Tawkunetti Confederacy in the dialect of the Luwians whom play a part in founding the State, is a hodgepodge of the various peoples of the steppes, downtime refugees forced from their villages in the chaotic aftermath of Tucsons arrival & small groups of Americans to whom settling in the chaos of Anatolia or elsewhere in the Mediterranean proved undesirable or even outright impossible for one reason or another.

Many members of the initial group that would form the core of the Confederacy had lived around the cities outskirts or had been traveling through on their way to other places, being among the first to realize the situation would only get worse from there, and, initially under the leadership of an elderly War vet, his family, a Rancher from Texas who'd been traveling through the city at the time of the Event & a few deserters from the Police Force led by one Officer Alvaro Shepard, tossed together a plan to get the hell out of dodge before things became too crazy with as much as they could carry, leaving the city under the cover of night on the second day.

Their early days & first attempt at settling had been located a few months journey east from the Old Pueblo, just across a river from a pair of down timer villages in central Anatolia, though it came to an abrupt and violent end less than a year & a half later when they were found and, alongside the two villages they'd settled alongside, were almost completely burnt to the ground by a large group of American bandits at the end of an string of increasing conflicts, forcing the Exodus force, now accompanied by the remaining villagers to migrate further to the Northeast.

The second serious attempt of forging themselves a home for themselves along the coast of the black sea not too far from the soon-to-be 'New Pueblo' lasted much longer, just about over a decade to be precise, seeing conditions prosperous enough to lead to the birth of a new generation & their arrival at the gates of puberty within its grasp, only to have their homes snatched away from them once more with the revolution within their neighbors borders dragged them into conflict because of aid rendered to those fleeing it.

With their lands once again reduced to little more than ashes & the survivors being hounded for being 'reactionaries' a contingency council formed by surviving community leaders made the decision to salvage what they could make the long trek north once more rather than shed more blood trying to re-establish themselves next to a now-hostile power, assembling their people into one last great exodus with the hope of building a permanent home North of the Great Caucuses.

The location that was inevitably agreed upon by the Contingency Council a month after their departure, based upon the reports of horseback scouts sent out ahead, fell along the North-eastern coast of the sea of Azov, just north of the Caucasus mountains, providing a balance of a hopefully fertile land, natural defenses to the south & and west and a fairly controllable route of trade that would be needed to supply themselves with anything that they would prove not able to produce for themselves, in the future once the nation they hoped to build beyond the traditional limit of settled civilization at the time was solidified.

The long trek itself proved a daunting task by itself with large amounts breaking away or remaining with some of the groups the convoy encountered along the path such as the USAF forces in Georgia.

Even when the convoy had successfully reached it's intended destination the prospect they set out with proved much further from their hopes then they'd expected, though the tribes that proved hostile to the newcomers were not much more than minor nuisances, many being dispatched in short order & forced to migrate further into the steppes, with the usage of firearms & uptimer horses provided by the Convoys resident Rancher being a major boon in driving them off.

Their position sandwiched between the massive wolf packs, deadly Caspian tigers & other beasts of the European steppes would prove to be a much more prevalent issue, many smaller settlements would be torn to shreds overnight by the beasts on a constant basis in the early days while larger ones were forced to organize sorties night and day just to buy themselves some breathing room to plant seeds & care for their crops.

As they gradually got more settled & familiarity with the territories landscape grew they sent out expeditions to identify and wipe out the largest concentrations of predators to mixed results, a good deal of the early expeditions never returned, but that quickly changed as larger more organized groups, whose organization was enabled by population explosion, generated itself from the Tawkunetti's extensive use of historical strategies to maximize crop yields, started departing on the borderline crusade against the fierce wilds, one of the results of which was a flood of furs, meat and the like flowing throughout the country & to its neighbors, fueling further growth.

Though with the growth of the population came many other issues, many which were inconsequential in the current era while other would be much more dire.

The most pressing was to be found towards the western borders where the men of Tawkunnet would increasingly come into conflict with the Mormon republic as some of the freshly converted tribes of the Crimean peninsula, with all the zeal expected of fresh converts, had began raiding across the border chasing those of their brethren who'd steadfastly refused conversion, instead holding true to their ancestral faiths & fled eastwards across the sea of Azov, with intent of slaughtering the adults & dragging the children back into Mormon lands to be 'rescued from demonic influence'

A prospect that didn't sit very well at all with the Tawkunetti of those tribes who'd made the journey across the Kerch strait had settled near.

Not only because some of the conflict had spilled over into their settlements due to the proximity, but also because a combination of treaties that had been signed between the Southern men & the Crimean migrants during their admission into the Confederacy obligating them to defend eachother, as well many of the Pagan denizens of the young country & even those who remained true to their Christian heritage such as the Amish, Mennonites & Hutterites among others were increasingly concerned about the zealotry in their western neighbors affecting them, even if each of them had slightly different reasons for being worried.

That concern, catalyzed further by the anger of many denizens of the Confederacy at the very thought of their homes being threatened once again by men that would've once been considered kin, would quickly filter back to the Capital where a decision would be made without delay, one in which it was determined that war with the Mormons was inevitable and preparations had to be made.

The message as such was sent out, sparking mass mobilization of the countries Militias and a policy of intentional mass-proliferation of firearms and experienced personnel to train them in the use & maintenance of such, as well as uptime crops & pack animals to any tribes, city states or other entities in the surrounding lands who were even remotely willing to align themselves with the Tawkunetti in anticipation of rapidly approaching conflict & whatever future it may bring.

"The men of the south may call themselves Conservative, Liberal, Libertarian or whatever other labels they dare to attribute themselves, the disgusting mongrels do not deserve the distinction of legitimacy for their abandonment of the ideals and the path laid out for them by their vaunted ancestors" - Odjerun Macesset, hereditary chieftain of the Eastern Osset 'Klamunen' band of the Yamnayan people, freshly elected as the second Vice-President of the Tawkunetti Confederacy.

"Some would call us barbarous for what we have done to the peoples North of the mighty caucuses, maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, I'm not exactly in a position to say one way or another with the fate of so many people laying upon my shoulders. what I can say with confidence though is that it pales in comparison to what many have done to the natives of the lands to the south or even what those bloody Mormons to the west are in the process of doing, we may have fallen far from what we once were but not to that degree" - Reginald Miller, former Texan Rancher & first President of the Confederacy.

"Those things in the Crimean peninsula are no longer our brethren, but abominations sent by the false deity that those 'Mormons' worship to wear their skins, mark my words that there will be a worse reckoning should they continue to try to subjugate our people" - Janova, Saffron banshee of the Strait, 'Last Mother' & leader of the Dazr te tyaal 'Cimmerian' tribe.

"Miller & his horses were quite literally a godsend for us, the number of times when we've had our asses pulled out of the proverbial fire by the mobility those beasts afforded us alone made it more than worth the cost of feeding them! a fact I don't think my compatriots appreciate quite as much as they should" - John Barnes, former substitute history teacher at Catalina Highschool & founder of the Barnes Memorial College that the city of Tacek-Iaya would later grow around.

"Many would question my decision to follow these strange 'Americans' to these far northern lands, far beyond what they all knew, I stand by that decision looking at those who followed our path & hearing their stories, guided by those who elected to stay behind for the purpose of helping those fleeing the chaos wrought by their accursed kin" - Uruwantaziti Pallas, leader of the Luwian villagers who joined with the Americans on their trek after the burning of their original home.

No comment (I took way too long procrastinating/being distracted from writing this)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Very cool stuff, thank you so much for making this.

Axslashel said:
So what happens to New Rome now?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean it's still being covered in standard updates.


Shiva12 said:
It seems the Mormons might be a bit more aggressive or intolerant now. Granted we haven't learned much about them yet, but they don't seem to be friendly to natives who don't convert

Also nice to see the Luwains and Lukka are doing somewhat better here even if they might be absorbed by others they still have a big enough presence to be counted on the map
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Mormons are very big on converting the locals and some within Crimea are not afraid to apply pressure to the locals to convert.

And yeah, @chickeness made a lot of valid points that Luwains and Lukka would survive better than I originally showed. Particularly Lukka since they have a very mountainous region.

SitzKrieg said:
Wonder if I should write a short blurb on the ideas I've been sitting on since I first read this story. Though I'm unsure if spirit was going to write their own stuff on it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I am always interested in other people's input and ideas for Age of Rust. Can't promise it will be usable in canon but I'd be interested in seeing what you have.
 
One thing I am curious about is how many rights do workers have. Because with the industrialization revolution kind of starting and will come in full swing soon I can see a few nations worried about how workers will be treated in factories and similar jobs, and try to make some sort of plan or laws before the worst of abuses can really start
 
Probably depends on where you are. Mycenae, Crete, Rome, and some of the various other Civilian Democracies I think would be fairly decent in that regard (though some might be worse at that when it comes to Downtimer workers.)

On the other end of the spectrum, places like New Arizona and the New American Republic probably have worker's rights of "You have the right to be shot if I don't like your work performance." Especially New Arizona with its literal Helots.
 
Shiva12 said:
One thing I am curious about is how many rights do workers have. Because with the industrialization revolution kind of starting and will come in full swing soon I can see a few nations worried about how workers will be treated in factories and similar jobs, and try to make some sort of plan or laws before the worst of abuses can really start
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That is a very very good question. Cause as the quest shows, a lot of very early industrialization in this setting is janky, lacking in decent safety standards, inherently hazardous to people's health, and absolutely vital. Anyone who works a puddling furnace is losing decades off their life expectancy, but those are needed. The mines are gonna be a mess, industrial accidents common, but there is a need to keep pressing forward. But at the same time, some states don't have a great monopoly on force.

I imagine a more democratic or at least less horrid states, workers have a fair amount of rights and benefits but strikes in certain industries would be looked upon very poorly. And of course those rights are dramatically less for downtimers in places like New Washington.

You do not want to be a Downtimer miner in the NAR.
 
Teen Spirit said:
benefits but strikes in certain industries would be looked upon very poorly
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Than at the very least they better make sure the workers in those industries have plenty of rights and are treated fairly if they don't want strikes to happen
Teen Spirit said:
And of course those rights are dramatically less for downtimers in places like New Washington.

You do not want to be a Downtimer miner in the NAR.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If they want the work done right or no sabotage then they better get people who are fine with the oppression to supervise them, because all it takes is a few angry unnoticed workers to screw things up
 
I'm sorry but I'm not really familiar with the Quest you guys are talking about. Does anyone have a link?

The use of downtime labor in industrialization is going to be something nightmarish in some states.
 
Shiva12 said:
f they want the work done right or no sabotage then they better get people who are fine with the oppression to supervise them, because all it takes is a few angry unnoticed workers to screw things up
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean a lot of pre-industrial mining if it wasn't open pit was really hellish. Rome to my understand kind of threw Slaves at the mines.
 
Remove ads
The Near East, Twenty Years after the Great Shift
  • Informational
    • So there was a couple of things I forgot or couldn't fit on the map. And if I'm being honest, map making is intensely stressful for me, plus I also wanted a more professional looking map for AoR as it was. Thankfully @Ernacius agreed to make one for me. This doesn't override the new one it's basically an expanded, nicer quality version of it. Hope you enjoy.

     
    Last edited:
  • Informational
    • Huh. I think this is using modern coastlines. The Persian Gulf was bigger back then and the Shatt al-Arab didn't exist yet, I believe. Also the Nile Delta looked different. I don't know enough about other coastlines to comment on anywhere else.
     
    Sorry for the double post in advanced

    Just some Omake ideas...

    • An old man who sort of lost his mind from the translocation and the destruction that followed. Now roaming the world as the Don Quixote & Robin Hood of the Age of Rust only instead of chivalric romances he's emulating the Spaghetti Westerns of his childhood and the Dark tower series.
    • The previously discussed Island in the Sea of Time crossover.
    • One where Tucson arrived in a mythic/fantasy version of the Bronze Age.
    • Various uptime stories and pop culture figures getting retold into figures more fitting for the post arrival Bronze Age.
     
    Remove ads
    Eastward By SitzKrieg
  • Sidestory

    • Eastward​
    There are a few things I want to get out of the way first to explain the above. I attempted to create an image that conveys what the people above would wish to show their journey as from Anatolia towards Mesopotamia. In a sense it's an embellishment on my part I tried to think about how the people in that image would show their experience as.

    I originally was going to split this image into three parts and make an omake for each part. To explain the three parts the first is fleeing Anatolia the second is moving through Assyrian/Hittite lands and the third is making it to Mesepotamia. The issue is I spent a bit too much time on this with very…disappointing results in the end I decided to cut the cord and give up what I made to the jury.

    With that out of the way allow me to explain the above as to be perfectly honest I am not the best when it comes to making Omakes. I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses and this story intrigued me how would they respond to this event? There's roughly 7,000 publishers and with children and family probably somewhere closer to 10,000-14,000 that would actually be effected by any of the disaster relief comities.

    Obviously they wouldn't form a state and a good chunk may either die or be caught up in the chaos not making it to any of the staging points. Naturally such a group would not be welcome in any of the major downtimer states, Anatolia would be too hostile an unwelcoming. Considering the sort of reception my faith brings me usually it's not hard to see how a panicking paranoid uptimer social class is going to treat us.

    Two options are more than likely their course of action either treck westward or eastward. It is likely that there might be two groups a larger one that goes eastward and a number of out of contact smaller groups which would move westward.

    The above image is an embellishment of the path the larger group might take. Mainly moving past the Hittites towards Mesopotamia ultimately with an end goal of Babylon in mind taking what supplies and knowledge they could in order to sell their services as teachers and scholars in exchange for safety. Eventually seeking to integrate themselves and spread their religion and support such effort.

    Ultimately this was my own interpretation of such an event.
     
    Last edited:
  • Sidestory
    • SitzKrieg said:

    Eastward​
    There are a few things I want to get out of the way first to explain the above. I attempted to create an image that conveys what the people above would wish to show their journey as from Anatolia towards Mesopotamia. In a sense it's an embellishment on my part I tried to think about how the people in that image would show their experience as.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Oh wow that is cool, thank you so much! And yeah I dig the In-universe stylized representation of their journey. I think it really fits that idea well. And yeah Missionaries and similar groups are definitely something I want to cover as there's a lot of potential there. A few people looking to spread the word could have a profound effect on a state or they could be swiftly kicked out.

    The religious aspect is something I'm both really eager to cover and really nervous to cover as, the Event is gonna have a major impact on faiths and some people's views on faith.

    But thanks again, I'm really thankful anytime people like my content enough to make fan content for it.

    Apologies for lack of recent updates, haven't been feeling my best as of late. Hope to have something soon.
     
    Remove ads
    The Emergency Commission (Revised)
  • Threadmarks


    • "The Emergency Commission is a curiosity in the modern world. Economically it has risen from its own mistakes, built a small slice of prosperity in an uncertain world. For most that would be enough but politically, Limberlost is stuck in the past. Clinging on to hopes that have been dead for nearly two decades.'"
    - Elicia Baxter, 'The World Since the Event' Published 20 A.E

    "I don't regret joining the Emergency Commission, nor do I regret leaving it. It was never going to work, it was far too ambitious and none of us really knew what we were doing back then. But without that experience, without those failures, I never would have learned how to survive out here. Failure is a better teacher than success after all."
    -President Paul Lee, United States of America (New Washington)

    "How the Hittites didn't conquer all of us after that stupidity is a mystery if you ask me. Extremists burned down half the Commission while the other half broke it's back in the fields. So much time and effort wasted trying to reclaim the Old Pueblo. Someday we'll reclaim Tucson, but anyone who tells you it's going to be soon is a damned fool."
    -Senator Chuck Wise, The New American Republic

    The Emergency Commission, officially The Emergency Commission for the Reclamation of Tucson, was one of the first uptimer states to be formed in the aftermath of the Event. While initially prosperous, disastrous efforts to reclaim control of Tucson combined with mismanagement, strife by religious and political extremists, and a downtime resistance, caused the Commission to quickly collapse with only a small remnant surviving to the present. A remnant that has managed to endure and even prosperous as the Commission found a second life as hub for scavengers traveling to Tucson.

    Beginnings

    The Emergency Commission's origins date to before Tucson's collapse. The Air Force Mutiny had made many city officials realize what others had realized weeks before; that the city could not be saved and the population was simply too big to sustain. This was a hard pill to swallow for almost everyone. Tucson was their home, the center of their lives; many families had spent generations there. On a more pragmatic level, the level of technology in Tucson was thousands of years beyond anything Anatolia had to offer. Even in its broken state Tucson was a marvel of engineering and science the likes of which the Bronze Age world had never seen. Abandoning it meant abandoning so much of what it had to offer. Unsurprisingly, some began planning how to reclaim the city almost the moment they left.

    The nucleus of what would became the Emergency Commission was a collection of villages a few dozen miles from Tucson. They had been among the first villages occupied by Americans in the days following the event, with the local population forced out at gunpoint. Over the first couple of months the roughly half-dozen settlements came under the de-facto leadership of the village of New Limberlost and it's council. New Limberlost was a small pre-Event village that had been expanded by a ring of tents, converted cars and roughly made log cabins. The New Limberlost council was a five person group largely made up of police officers and city officials, with former city councilman Jacob Baxter acting as its nominal leader. The council had ambitions of returning to Tucson almost from the beginning, but those were put aside while they focused on rationing food and appeasing the wilder survivor groups.

    A chance encounter would change that.

    A small party from New Limberlost was sent to trade with one of the smaller villages near them. The village was little more than a collection of huts along a goat trail but it hosted someone rather important; Councilman Paul Lee. With the Mayor and City Manager dead, Councilman Lee represented the closest thing Tucson had left to surviving civilian leadership, something that New Limberlost believed could be put to good use.

    Baxter and the other members of the Limberlost council believed the key to American survival was the establishment of some sort of provisional government; they thought that without some sort of central authority the Uptimers would grow more and more scattered and warlords would take over. They hoped Councilman Lee would give them the clout needed to convince other villages to join their efforts. Lee agreed with this assessment and joined the now six person council.

    The council quickly drew up what its members called "The Roadmap back to America", a several year plan to essentially reestablish the United States of America. Their plans were ambitious and far reaching, and the key to all of them was reestablishing control over Tucson. Whoever controlled the city of Tucson would quickly become the strongest power in the region- if not the world. But effectively controlling and making use of Tucson would require a great deal manpower and specialized knowledge, both of which Limberlost was lacking in. Some consideration was given to reaching out to the Air Force, but at the time no one in Anatolia knew where they were and Lee feared the Military would quickly dominate any efforts to reclaim Tucson, turning any country they formed into a military dictatorship. They decided that they were going to need the help of other local survivor groups to do this, a lot of them.

    Three months after the Event the Emergency Commission was founded, its first goal being the reunification of as many Americans as it could as the first step to reclaiming Tucson.

    They proved wildly successful at first. Lee was quite popular in his ward and many survivor groups in those days were gripped by uncertainty and despair. The councilman and the others offered hope, salvation, and the promise of a better tomorrow. Village after village quickly signed on, soon the Emergency Commission's authority stretched for hundreds of miles- as far east as what would become the Broken Coast. Police officers, small business owners, college professors and dozens of other professionals poured into New Limberlost, hoping for a chance to make Tucson livable again. Plans were drawn up for greenhouses as people discussed how to rework the power grid. For a time, Tucson seemed within their reach. Then reality came crashing in as fall arrived and, along with it, the first major harvest since the Event.

    Bitter Harvest

    One of the most vexing challenges for every Uptimer community, but particularly the Emergency Commission, would be the first harvest after the Event. Tucson was not an agriculturally focused city and the largest fields it had within city limits were community gardens and greenhouses. While the University had an extensive agricultural department and there were hundreds of gardeners among the Commission's villages, few were fully prepared for just how difficult bronze age farming could be. Farming of the era was a brutal and laborious affair that took a considerable amount of time and effort and would often cause considerably strain on the farmers. While every effort was made to acquire modern tools and work began promptly on making new ones, there simply weren't enough tools to go around and very few of the newly forged iron tools would be ready in time. Consequently, many villages had to depend on the stone and bronze tools that had been left when they took over Downtimer settlements. Those who still had a native population quickly put them to work, but many others were forced to handle the crops themselves.

    The shortage of tools, combined with some mismanagement with planting, a colder than average summer, and native raids, led to numerous crop failures and a harvest far lower than expected. Even with fishing and hunting, many villages were again facing the risk of malnutrition or even starvation. Efforts were made by the Commission to ration food but it's here that the Commission hit its first stumbling block, many villages refused to share. While all the survivor settlements had agreed to mutual aid and defense when they signed on to the Commission, co-operation proved very hard to enforce. Even when a settlement's representative in Limberlost agreed to send food to another village, in some cases the settlement itself would refuse. The starving days of Janurary and February were still fresh in many minds. Quite a few Uptimers felt that giving away any food, even if they had some surplus, would be risking starvation. Those that shared, frequently would only share with villages nearby that they where familiar with.

    The Commission had few means to compel villages to give up their surplus food. Everyone was armed, the Emergency Commission had no monopoly on force, and many settlements threatened to withdraw from the Commission if they tried to force the issue. That winter would prove a long and bitter one for many survivors.

    Spring brought little relief and even more problems.

    Malcontents and Desperate Gambits

    New Limberlost had very loose requirements for who it recruited. Basically, any American settlement that looked remotely sane was allowed to join and was largely left to its own devices on internal matters. While this resulted in rapid expansion it also left the commission all but blind to what was going on in most villages. True, the leadership was aware of the problems this could create, but they hoped that this would only be a temporary state of affairs that could be resolved once Tucson was reclaimed.

    The problem was that the leadership had failed to understand the effect of the Event on some people, how many had become radicalized by the dark days in Tucson or by what they personally had done to the local population. There were some villages that had become dominated by extremist politics (on the far right and the far left) or fanatical religious beliefs. Most of these settlements kept quiet in the early days, as the need for food trumped everything else in the short term, but a few would prove more proactive. Students set up a tiny commune called Liberty only for it to be burned by the neighboring village of Globe over fears that the commune was trying to create a socialist state. Firebrand priests traveled from village to village, some preaching their own twist on conventional faiths, others screaming about the approaching end of days.

    Paul Lee argued that some sort of action had to be taken but Baxter and the others held that taking drastic action now would only lead to more unrest. Baxter feared that if the Commission diverted its attention from Tucson they risked becoming bogged down fighting a never-ending series of conflicts.

    The Commission was wracked by further troubles as native rebellions increased. Wells were poisoned, fields were burned, uptimers were murdered. This led to reprisals against the local downtimers, which only increased downtimer resistance. It was quickly becoming apparent to most involved that the Commission as it was now was ungovernable without drastic reforms that most of its leadership were convinced could only be possible after they took Tucson.

    A desperate plan was hatched in the Summer of 2 A.E. Riders were sent out with letters asking (in some cases flat out demanding) that every settlement send anyone it could spare to New Limberlost.

    The reclamation of Tucson was about to begin.

    A Botched Return

    The Emergency Commission was realistic enough to acknowledge that it lacked the numbers and materials required to even attempt to hold the entire city. Instead their plan called for the establishment of what they termed "Corridors of Control", taking over key sites within the city such as power plants, greenhouses and schools while also holding the roads leading to these sites. Ideally this would ensure they could hold the facilities, gather supplies from them, and reinforce them if need be.

    The assumption was that these zones of control would gradually expand through further expeditions and survivors within the city joining the Commission, neither of which ever came to pass.

    Problems began even before they reached Tucson proper as the Commission forces had to pass through what the world would come to call "The Field of Bones". The area surrounding Tucson had become filled with abandoned cars, dead animals and the now skeletal remains of those who had failed to escape the city. The sight of so many dead neighbors hammered the Commission's already struggling morale.

    Things did not improve once they reached the city. The Old Pueblo had not weathered the past year well. Many streets were little more than charred ruins and even those that remained intact were far from pristine. Everywhere the Commission went they were greeted by weeds popping out of broken streets, signs faded by sun and storms, and stores long since stripped of anything useful.

    This would prove to be one of the Commission's biggest hurdles. Many of the things they had expected to find easily were proving far harder to recover than expected. Solar Panels had been removed, heavy equipment stripped for parts, hospitals ransacked for medical supplies. There was still plenty of material to recover, but the easiest pickings were long gone and many of the facilities they planned to use were more damaged than expected by looting and time. They had prepared for decay and damage but their estimations proved far more optimistic than they realized.

    The second and far larger problem that faced the Commission was the remnant population of Tucson itself. The Commission had done some preliminary probing of the city just months after the Event, coming to the mistaken conclusion that the few who survived within the city were largely just fortified family units struggling to survive. Their assumption was that while some would undeniably be hostile, the majority would probably welcome any semblance of stability back with open arms.

    This would not be the case. Most of those that still lived in Tucson saw everyone who had fled as having abandoned them to die. This meant that while a few welcomed the Commission with open arms, most were cold to those bearing the Commission's inverted flag, if not outright hostile. This, plus basically everyone involved having mental trauma from the Event, and a few raids by more aggressive Tucsonians, led to outright hostility between the Commission and much of Tucson's surviving inhabitants.

    This hostility saw a number of clashes take place over the second half of 2 A.E and into 3 A.E., with some of the more notable battles being a running battle near the Foothills Mall that would involve nearly two hundred combatants, and the siege of a gas station near the University of Arizona that ended with Commission forces managing to hold out against a gang known as the "U.S Department of Mayhem" for two weeks before making their escape. Other incidents would see the already demoralized Commission forces driven back or flat out abandoning the Commission entirely.

    While the Emergency Commission was able to establish control over small parts of Tucson, the "Corridors of Control" never really materialized and efforts in Tucson would quickly prove a massive drain on resources.

    The Collapse of the Emergency Commission

    After the second harvest failed to provide the increase in yield expected from the introduction of potatoes and other uptime crops (largely due to mismanagement), and with its failures to gain control of Tucson, by mid 3 A.E the Emergency Commission was in crisis. The group's entire legitimacy had rested on its promise to regain control of Tucson. When it proved unable to deliver on that promise many started to question what the point of the whole thing even was.

    Settlements began to withdraw. Paul Lee retreated to the south and refused all communications from New Limberlost, mad preachers roamed the dirt trails, preaching tales of how the Emergency Commission must be destroyed to ensure Christ's birth. New Limberlost realized something had to change- and fast- or else the whole operation was going to collapse.

    That's when word reached them of settlements to the Northeast built out of helicopters and planes. The Emergency Commission was soon in contact with the 162nd Air Wing- a mix of Air National Guard and USAF officers who had split off from Davis-Monthan and chosen their own path. The 162nd Air Wing wasn't big but it was a professional military force with access to a fair amount of equipment.

    New Limberlost entered into secret talks with the 162nd, promising them a stake in the Commission's government if they helped train a proper military force to reclaim Tucson from what it saw as bandits and madmen. News of these talks soon leaked out and spread throughout the Commission's settlements. The backlash was immediate, many at the time were still deeply angry at the USAF for the Air Force Mutiny and their actions leading up to it out of the popular belief that Tucson had been savable up until the Mutiny crushed all hope within the city. To many settlements this was nothing short of New Limberlost making a deal with the devil to maintain power. Fear spread rapidly that the Commission's leaders were creating a military dictatorship.

    The settlement of Globe soon announced its secession from the Emergency Commission, taking with it a number of nearby towns and forming the New American Republic. The New American Republic was quickly followed by the American Republic of Turkey to the north and the State of New Tucson (now known as the Broken Coast) to the East.

    Cut off from New Limberlost and disillusioned with the whole idea of reclaiming Tucson, Councilman Paul Lee broke away from the Commission and declared his new country the United States of America reborn, with himself as its President.

    The Commission collapsed rapidly, with those villages who didn't outright secede often being outright abandoned instead as their populations fled to the borders of these new statelets. The assassination of Jacob Baxter in late 3 A.E, and the 162nd abandoning all talks as pointless, marked the end of the Emergency Commission's efforts to retake Tucson.

    After the Collapse

    But this did not mean an end for the Emergency Commission itself, though for a while that seemed likely. Late 3 A.E to 5 A.E were very unstable times for what was left of the Emergency Commission, at times bringing it to the brink of total ruin.

    The Limberlost Council was all but leaderless after the death of Jacob Baxter, with many on the council debating joining the newly born New American Republic or American Republic of Turkey. Less than stellar harvests in 4 A.E lead to protests and calls for actual elections. What started as small protests soon turned into full blown riots and sit-ins that gripped Limberlost and many of the surrounding villages, with several defecting to the NAR.

    At one point the Limberlost council was forced to barricade themselves in their own building for several days, as the few soldiers they had that were still loyal fended off protestors. Many feared the NAR or ART would soon invade and wholesale annex the whole Commission, and indeed plans for such were being debated in both countries.

    A stroke of luck ended up saving the Limberlost council and the EC as a whole. A heavily armed scavenger group arrived in New Limberlost. Attacks by protestors who believed the group had been hired by the council lead to a number of street battles that saw many of the ring leaders of the pro-democracy revolt killed or arrested and the protests largely dispersed as the council reasserted control over what was left of the Emergency Commission.

    The scavengers were paid handsomely for their help in the form of electronics and kitchenware.

    Two voices would come to dominate the council in the aftermath of their near revolution, Hayley Fuller and Dawson Roberts. Hayley Fuller was a former gas station manager who gained a reputation as being a hard nosed but shrewd older woman, while Roberts claimed to be a Engineering Manager for the Transportation Department, in reality he had only applied for the position shortly before the Event.

    The two took power in a perilous time for the Emergency Commission. Most of the population was struggling to feed itself and lived in homes that were little better than the huts they first claimed five years ago, unrest was still high, remnants of the local downtimer population still endured and made travel outside of the villages risky. The country had almost no economy to speak of and most of its neighbors viewed it as little more than a dying remnant of a failed project, soon to be wiped away by history.

    To appease the populace, Fuller pushed through a number of moderate reforms, easing much of the tax burden on the populace and even allowing democracy in many of the smaller villages, though the Limberlost Council's own elections would remain "Suspended until the Emergency has ended".

    Roberts would make a number of deals with scavengers, offering them armed escorts into Tucson and maps of areas in the city still relatively untouched. These deals, combined with New Limberlost's relatively easy access to the city, and the NAR's inability to control its border with Tucson, would lead to New Limberlost and the Emergency Commission's rebirth as a trade hub for those looking to scavenge the Old Pueblo.

    Scavenging Your Past

    Tucson has been scavenged and looted since the first day after the Event. In the beginning it was primarily food, guns, and vehicles of every kind, the means to survive and the means to flee.

    As time passed, returning scavengers sought out things like pots and pans and other staples of the home, once commonplace items now nearly priceless to the post-Event World. As mentioned previously, books, mainly textbooks, were highly prized as well, something that entire states would fight over. Electronics of every kind were also a highly valued item for any scavenger, along with engines and various mechanical parts.

    For years those would be the most commonly sought after items and even by 5 A.E the city still contained plenty of highly sought after goods and parts. This would prove key to the EC's revival.

    Everyone wanted something in Tucson and the EC was the only power to have any sort of nominal hold in the city, even if this hold was little more than a few outposts and a couple of friendly survivors within the city. And while the city itself was by the ocean, traveling directly to Tucson was a very hazardous affair. This gave the EC the easiest route into Tucson. For a time they jealously guarded it, pushing away would be scavengers who might profit from a city they saw as rightfully theirs.

    In 5 A.E this was all changed, New Limberlost was declared an open port and the way to Tucson was open to all. Everyone was free to travel to Tucson, for a price. Scavengers were generally expected to pay a tax, usually in the form of part of their haul, for the right to use EC safe houses and roads into Tucson and all scrap markets within New Limberlost were taxed as well.

    These efforts helped revitalize the EC's economy and in turn funded additional efforts. Limberlost guards could be hired as mercenaries for a venture into Tucson, oxen-drawn carts and even modified trucks could be hired to haul cargo. The EC could not control the city itself, as shown by several near wars that broke out between various states such as Crete and ART over scrap within the city, but they did their best to make a profit off it.

    The once small collection of huts known as New Limberlost had become a thriving port city, even beyond salvage work, the city became a hub for travel. As many first-wave states to fight emigration efforts, anyone who wished to get out of Western Anatolia and sail for New Arizona or Rome usually went through New Limberlost, no one questioned where you were heading there.

    As states began to develop more and sought after goods began to become sparse or simply too rusted or decayed to use anymore, salvage efforts began to shift towards more basic materials, stuff like copper wiring and steel scrap, though the need for steel would fade in item as states began to rediscover steelmaking. While pipes had long been a popular salvage item, with many states using them to forge their first post-Event guns, the quest for copper and steel would have a much bigger impact.

    The EC, often working alongside another power or large salvaging group, would on more than one occasion, seize an entire neighborhood, kick out (sometimes violently) those who still lived there, before ripping the area apart, tearing down buildings and ripping up streets in the search for useful materials. The building blocks of many states' futures would be built out of the crumbling ruins of their past.

    Striving Towards an Impossible Dream

    By 15 A.E, the town of New Limberlost had become Port Limberlost, one of the largest ports in all of Western Anatolia. While it lacked the size and power to really compete economically with Crete or Alashiya, it was strong in its own right. Port Limberlost having a standard of living near on par with New Washington.

    But the Emergency Commission was still facing problems, while Port Limberlost was great for salvage and general trade, it offered little outside of that. Leading to many leaving in later years, taking part in what would become known as the Third Wave.

    While some efforts were made to expand outside of its trade hub status,with schools being built. These were largely minimal efforts as the Limberlost council had far from given up on its original goal, reclaiming Tucson and reforging the United States.

    This goal had never fully left the minds of those in charge of the EC, as far as much of the leadership and (still rather small) military were concerned, the salvage business was largely a means to an end.

    After Fuller's death from cancer, Roberts pushed forward with his vision for restoring the US. The plan was relatively simple, using much of the wealth acquired over the years to hire as many mercenaries as they could, using the mercenaries to take control of Tucson. From there, Roberts hoped to use the legitimacy of holding Tucson, combined with a number of bribes, to secure the loyalty of much of the faltering NAR. With now considerable force at their beck and call, Roberts hoped to secure the loyalty of ART by helping them squash their downtimer problem once and for all.

    From there, they would annex much of the Wilsonian Coast and bring Troy to heel one way or another. From there he hoped to arrange something diplomatically with New Washington, perhaps some sort of joint gov to form the New United States.

    It was a very ambitious plan, one that hinged on a lot of questionable elements. It's hard to say if it would have ever worked or not, as the plan failed in its first steps.

    While the Emergency Commission had acquired a great deal of wealth, this didn't translate into manpower. While a few joined up, most of the people they tried to hire as mercenaries refused, not wanting to get involved in what they saw as a lost cause. Even those who thought it could be achieved found Roberts' strategy to be desperately lacking.

    After all, what was the point of holding Tucson anymore, much of its value had been stripped away by time and the EC's own efforts. The city was a rusty, crumbling ruin, what could holding it really prove at this point?

    While the plans were never fully discarded, large efforts to higher mercenaries were abandoned in 17 A.E, with Dawson Roberts being forced to resign later that year. Officially he resigned due to an incident of public drunkenness but unofficially the council had been looking for a reason to push him out for some time.

    The Emergency Commission Today

    The Emergency Commission in 20 A.E finds itself at an interesting point in it's life, far more prosperous than it was in its earlier days, but its dreams forever out of reach. Its cities are rich from the loot that ended up crippling its own ambitions.

    Conditions are changing within the EC, the days of large ventures to Tucson bringing home tons of scrap are fading. And while Port Limberlost has kept most of its populace appeased through a combination of rich trade and moderate reforms, many of those unhappy with the regime have simply chosen to leave, taking advantage of Port Limberlost's no questions asked policy to find a better life somewhere else. This has created a notable brain drain in the EC.

    The Emergency Commission has risen out of its own ashes to build a small but prosperous place for itself, but many are starting to wonder if it will survive the years to come.
    ---
    Author's Note: Sorry for being gone for so long. I'm gonna try and get next few updates relatively quickly. So this is the first of I believe the three major revisions. Next up is Troy, where we'll see the Cop empire suffer even greater failures then they did before.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • There's something about the revised Emergency Commission that just appeals to me, even if it still has massive shortcomings. I've always had a fondness for fictional cities/towns which live off a trade of literal salvage and scrap (though Port Limberlost has evolved beyond that from what I can tell.)
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top