Diplo Action: Trade Focus; 1d100=45+14+20, Dc 65, Success +1
As you looked over the recently-expanded and bustling docks around St. Claire where the negotiations to buy a shitload of fish were taking place, you had to suppress a sigh. Things had been going fairly well so far, with you having your merchants talk to their merchants, but the honest truth of it was that these fishermen and border guards were savvy folk. Part of the problem was that economically they had backslid to a glorified barter system in record time, with greenbacks trading hands very infrequently. As such, since you were low on barter objects, you needed to go to their Mayor and Council to hash things out.
The end deal was, in your opinion, very close to you getting filled like a fish. In exchange for all students from St. Claire paying in-county tuition when going to the Auburn Hills Oakland Community College campus (something you were disguising via generous applications of grant money) plus providing round trip transport for the fish and said sales being a non-taxable item on the St. Claire end, you got about a quarter of the food needed to keep your town and the peripheries fed. The education boost to St. Claire was incredibly important- about doubling their administrative capabilities as they slowly crept away from the Good 'Ol Boys network. If you needed more than a quarter of your total food requirements, though, it was going to come right out of your Strategic Resources stockpile of gasoline, ammunition, and pharmaceuticals.
Right now, that was a price you were willing to pay.
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Trade Deal Acquired, Trade Route Established. St. Claire opinion +25.
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Mil Action: Scout The Boarders, Again; 1d100=55+4+10+5, Dc 50, Success +2
Well, after the great Springtime Fumble, your thoughts on the likelihood of the next shot at exploration were fairly hopeful. You'd managed to wrangle Jack into the mess this time (mostly with an offer to have someone take care of that mangy old house he loved to death and the waif that he needed to scrape off for this trip) and your Explorer Team had been joined by Jack's load of missfits for this misadventure.
When they called in three weeks later, the news was one of those for better and for worse scenarios. For starters, the entire Detroit area had experienced a complete turnaround, meaning what was north was south now. Thanking God very quietly you only had one mosque to worry about and very happy you weren't in Hamtramack, you looked over the rest of the neatly typed and printed report. The area was absolutely riddled with lakes, streams, duck ponds, and all sorts of oddities. More importantly, to the east there was a decent-sized alluvial plain, along with a preliminary survey showing that there was a pretty good chance that whatever river system that St. Claire and New Baltimore were fishing off of didn't actually connect to the Detroit watershed. The group had also encountered several dozen groups of the natives to the area, and the report boiled down to "so we're somewhere in Scandanavia" in terms of global location.
The most important thing that the report noted, though, was that most of the people around here were fairly friendly, and nobody was terribly likely to take massive offense at your existence. That said, though, more than a few groups had fjord-facing defenses and protective measures, their actions speaking louder than words as to where they expected trouble to come from. The end conclusion- "don't start shit and we'll be fine" was vaguely welcoming, but not enough to make you step back from defensive ideas. After all, knowing Jack those mappers went in armed to the teeth.
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Admin Action: Victory Gardens; 1d100=94+14+20, Minor Crit
After getting Jack out of your hair, you'd quickly settled down to get to work on one of your pet projects- the concept of the Victory Garden. Or, considering your dire straits right now, more like Survival Garden. The idea was simple- by having a small, independent food source, people would buy less food, which would both reduce the amount of food you'd have to import and reduce strain on your road net. Not that the road net was under any real strain right now, but the idea was there- get people off the convience store idea, get people on to the idea of growing and eating their own food. Considering the number of people out of work, you figured a state-sponsored hobby might help them.
When the numbers came in from Bordines, though, you were almost in shock. People here were smart, and they all knew that food reserves were running low. Thus, the idea came about, a lot of them started their prep for gardens. When you added Official Encouragment, though, the wheels came off the wagon. More than a few people used the last of their gasoline buying up miniature greenhouses, hydroponics gear, and strings on strings of plantage. The two-inch green grass mat lawn was on it's way out with narry a whimper, and in return came the giant-ass garden overflowing with produce.
Humerously enough, your local deer population, which was already well over what the remains of the Department of Natural Resources, started to rapidly fall off as people began to realize that one, they were destroying their prized gardens; and two, there was a lot of meat on a deer. You weren't one to complain until some kid accidentally set off a deadfall trap, at which point you had to restrict in-town hunting to daylight hours and bows only.
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Scout The Boarders Again; 1d20=5+1+1+1, Dc 10, Failed
Grumbling along on the horse you'd purchased in town, you looked down at your latest acquisitions and sighed loudly.
"Really, guys." You complained for the hundredth time. "I understand the idea behind the whole 'learning the native language the hard way' system, but for fuck's sake where am I going to put a trio of ex-slaves?"
Looking over to you, the Explorer who had pissed most of your disposable income away grumbled back. "Listen, we got the cash back when we killed the slave trader later, right?"
"Not the point, dumbass. Really, really not the point. For one thing, I don't think these guys even speak whatever version of Scandinavian the natives here speak. Two, we can worry about the whole slavery thing later- we need to get these maps home. Three, we're probably going to be fighting those natives if some warlord pops up, and I don't want them to understand the basic principle of 'woods equals death' until we have enough of a response force to make it stick when they try and push a few hundred troops through broken terrain and we whack 'em when they're not looking."
Looking down at his boots, the Explorer kicked a loose stone angrily. "Still…" he muttered, his borrowed gun riding poorly in it's holster.
Sighing, you turned, wincing at the glancing arrow wound you had taken from when a local hunter overshot. It might have skipped off your ribs, but the fucker still hurt like a bitch.
"Listen, kid. First, we make sure we're not going to get drowned in a wave of horned helmets and angry axes. Then we enact Great Social Change, probably at about the same time we have to beat off the waves of angry axes when the kings of Bumfuck Nowhere realize they just got outclassed literally overnight. Okay?"
"Okay." The Explorer grumped.
"Good!" you said. "Jimmy! How that map coming?"
"The scale's fucked, the towns are dots, and the relative elevations are piss." Jimmy complained. "But we've got most of the area down pat. At least when the survey boys get their asses out here we can make sure they probably don't end up with an arrow in the ribs."
"a ha ha fuck you Jimmy." You replied, wincing again. "C'mon boys, let's get home and see if they still have toilet paper left."
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VOTES
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DIPLO ACTION
[]- Grand Survey: Someone needs to map out the area hit by the Event, and as Jack so archly performed, the waterways and trails outside the Event Area. On the plus side, it's going to be dirt cheap. On the minus, though, it means letting Jack off the leash for a bit.
[]- Southern Focus: To the south of you sits Troy, and likewise Pontiac. Both are significantly bigger than you, both have a lot less resources, and both have major criminal elements that, if provoked, will make a hell of a lot of headaches. A little polite shoulder tap should keep them off their back, though
[]- Eastern Focus: There's more options than just the northeast for food. Waldenburg might not be the most agricultural area, but it should be able to put you less in the red- and more importantly, it also gets you a straight shot at Anchor Bay Gardens and Harrison Charter Township, both of which have potential for fishing.
[]- Concrete Jungle: Nobody has gotten close to Detroit with a ten foot pole yet, and you're not sure you want to. There's a lot of territory ripe for the taking, as well as potential land, but there's also a lot of people who started off desperate and are only seeing things get worse.
[]- Northern Conference: You, right now, know a lot. Thing is, you're on the border with this mess, and there are a lot of people who aren't. Getting them on your side would be nice, and more importantly it'll help you keep everyone on the same page. Equally important, if anyone else knows things like the fishermen in St. Claire and gangers in Pontiac then you want to get them knowing what you're knowing and working together.
MIL ACTION
[]- Survey Grounds: This one's nice and simple. You've got surveyors on the County payroll who you can easily snipe, you've got Explorers cooling their heels and enjoying the little luxuries of life, and you've got a lot of people who are going to be chomping at the teeth to get their hands on raw materials like wood. Surveying the Outlands is the first step to getting civilized people there, and more importantly you know will have a home-field advantage off your own, valuable turf.
[]- Deep Scouting Run: This one's more dangerous, and quite frankly you're not sure if you want to do it. In essence, Jack & Co. have a proposal that involves getting canoes and going as far up the Paint Creek and Clinton River as they can, trying to make sure your waterways are safe. It probably won't end in tragedy, and if it does then it'll be easy to find out how it went wrong when everything washes downriver.
[]- Assemble Response Force: As Jack's misadventure proved, there are some very violent people out there who are aggressive. Having a way to fight back would be excellent, although you're going to have to drag it through the Town Council kicking and screaming. (-25 Mil on success, -50 on failure)
[]- Assemble Paramilitary Unit: A cheaper alternative to actually getting a government-organized fighting unit put together, you could probably get Jack to whip together a "citizen response force" under his command, which would give you a lot of leeway in their use. However, they'd be fairly finicky, and you'd hate to see some of your neighbors' reaction to that kind of thing if they found out.
ADMIN ACTION
[]- Preliminary Planning: There's a painfully likely chance you're not going to have machines to help you with a lot of what you need to do next planting season. As such, you're going to need to replace mechanization with warm bodies, and that's going to be a difficult proposition at best. Start thinking about it now, and if it comes up later you won't have too many issues.
[]- Housing Codes: Time to bring housing back into code. You've got a lot of houses, and a lot of them use gas stoves. If you can make it mandatory to go wood, and God knows, you've got wood, then you can definitely stave off some of the issues that are going to be popping up when winter rolls around.
[]- Language Barrier: Jack's right, as usual, and you need to crack the language barrier if you're ever going to get trade going. Considering what you've got going for you in terms of food production, you're going to need trade as soon as you figure out whatever the local version of "dos tacos, por favor" is, and you're going to need to get on that really quickly.
[]- New Census: To be perfectly frank, right now information is king. You need an accurate count of the population if you want anything to get done, and the only way to get that right now is to break out the door-knockers with clipboards. More importantly, it could show you if you've been highballing or lowballing the population numbers, showing how close your food estimates are.
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Critical Resources Turns Remaining: 2
Food Supply: 0 Turns!
Food Production: 37% Base, 25% as per Passive Trade, 50% as per Active Trade Deal
Cash Flow: Good
Credit Rating: Excellent
Public Order: Good
Public Mood: Worried, Determined.
Points
Diplo: 165
Mil: 130
Admin: 194
(Starvation Rules/Conditional Trade Rules to be posted shortly.)
