Maybe, You'll Think of Me... a Journal of the Post-Apocalypse

May 23, 2081

Kelly here again. Just do me a favor and send me a bunch of Scifi to read and no horrible fanfiction. I’m a little annoyed at my husband. I mean that 30 Hs thing he had you send me was utterly disjointed. At no point in the raving and rambling did it make any sense. I actually looked at the Harry Potter books to try and explain it and it only made it even more demented and illogical.

I honestly should have expected this. My husband claims to be part of a UFO mind control cult so his sense of humor is a bit broken. Which frankly, is one of the reasons I love him. He’s an idiot but he’s my idiot. The Doom one was almost as bad but at least had some internal logic. And when described to me it gave me an idea. I’d like to ask you to send me a bunch of what [REDACTED] calls Retro games. I’m thinking that if I might be able to convert them over to a Holodisk format we might be able to increase the amount of entertainment options open to us.

[REDACTED] wants Wasteland. He’s saying that at least from the creative point of view it was the ideological predecessor of the “Fallout” game that he says our world matches and thus the events of the game might actually happen.

I’d very much appreciate instructions on how to make simple plus toys. I’d at least like to know how to make Sock Monkeys and Rag Dolls. We have socks to spare and plenty of damaged clothing, but the children are growing short on toys. Some set patterns would really make things easier for all of us. Though doesn’t have to be just plush toys. I should have asked this a while ago, but I never really thought of it while I was typing into this thing.

I’m rebuilding a gasoline powered car. We’ve been hitting up salvage yards and are pulling together more vehicles. This is going to be so cool!

And for future note, if you have any questions for me, I’ll be happy to answer them. It seems like all of you have an interest in this world and I can answer those. I’m also able to offer a point of view different than my husband in case you’re interested in a different take on some of your ideas. I see no reason he should have all the fun. I have a bit more of a down to earth perspective since I’m not being forced to be El Presidente.

He hates it when I call him that.

Viva, El Presidente!

It’s moments like this that I have to remind myself that I love my wife...

Just kidding. I love her dearly and she’s one of the three most important ladies in my life and I didn’t say that because she’s kicking me.

Though it certainly contributed.

And now she’s kicking me again.

As infuriating as she is beautiful I swear to god.

And now she stopped.

Alright. Now, where was I?

Right.

Combing the park has proven to be somewhat difficult. Not from the military point of view, but from the human. There’s thousands of corpses out there and while natures dealt with many of those that were outside, those indoors are rather intact and from the way most of them were positioned, many of them didn’t go quickly. To make it worse, there are the ferals.

We’ve probably found well over a hundred wandering about between locations and they never cease to unsettle. Though we’ve found several good sites for possible habitation. One of the top is Mammoth near the northern part of the park. It has hotsprings and while damaged by a couple years without maintenance, it wasn’t hit directly by the bombs. The EMP did a number on the electrical systems but it could probably be fixed up with some good hard work. It also has major carrying capacity. It’s defenses will need improvement, but it’s pretty much a small town waiting to be moved into.

My hope is reasonably simple. Bring it back on line. Our little fortified little outpost here was a good redoubt but we’ve more than outgrown it. We’re now running at over 500 people here. We have tents set up outside the walls, which isn’t safe.

Masterson’s scouts ran into another semi-nomadic group coming up from the south. They’re all from some jerkwater somewhere in northern Utah. They were far enough from the bombs not to get hit directly and took shelter in an abandoned mine they’d been filling with supplies to serve as an adhoc vault.

While not as obsessively prepared as say, Masterson’s Americaneers who are full on survivalists, they made having a fall back point something of a community project and they had more than enough supplies to last for a year in there.

From the sound of it, should have been as close to a happy ending as you could get in this day and age. It wasn’t.

I’m going to say now, the hatred for the China wasn’t just because of the war and the internment of Chinese civilians wasn’t just because of racism. The PRC were nasty pieces of work, easily as bad as the Enclave and Hei Gui was able to swim through that population like fish in a goddamned sea. I had a couple conversations with Henry on the subject and the general attitude is that the US oppressed the Chinese Americans because many were spies for the PRC and the Chinese Americans were willing to become spies because they were being oppressed. And right at the top of that shit sunday was Hei Gui who were playing both sides as fools to get what they wanted.

According to Masterson, one example of the shit they pulled was that a few New Plague outbreaks about 5 years ago that were were traced to a tainted batch of Ramen noodle flavor packets. Notice, Ramen, because it’s distinctly chinese and would cause a backlash that would created more potential agents. Anyways Blue Flu spores are comparable to Smallpox in ability to survive. He knows about this because he was forced to dispose of several cases of noodles when he heard about the recall.

Needless to say, our friends from Utah never got the memo and you can guess what happened. Massive outbreak, tight quarters. When the breakout happened, it was massive. This group took the supplies and gear they could carry and fled into the night.

We both find them a little bit shady. They’re not saying too much about how they survived this long on the move and our guess is that they might have been engaging in scavenging and some selective predation and mild extortion. From the looks of things we’re the first group big enough that they don’t have a chance in hell against so they’re playing it nice.

Given a decade or two they could turn into Raiders if we don’t try and stage an intervention of some kind. They were desperate and got double fucked. I accept that. Hell, had things gone differently, I’ll admit it. If I had to rob and cheat to feed my family, I’d do it. I’d hate myself, but I’d do it. So I’m willing to cut them some slack. We both realize these conditions turn men into monsters, but if they don’t cut that shit out there will be words. Or bullets. And we’re short on bullets so I’d rather try words first but if they don’t work... bullets.

Right now they’re camped out in Jackson. As you can guess we’re limiting our contact. They claim to be clean, but we’re not exactly going to getting close until we know for a fact they’re all clean.

Speaking of Jackson, the next group, I swear to fucking god are evidence that bad pop culture references are part of the fabric of reality in this world. Send me South Park. As much as you can. Because the town just south of Jackson. Guess it’s name. Just fucking guess. Because Masterson came across a small enclave. Several families... all of whom are pretty much fell out of the show. Up to and including a foul mouthed kid named Eric.

Seems there was a town shelter. About 60 survivors. They opened up last year but we were too busy playing whack a raider up north to really keep our scouts going strong.

Their shelter’s exhausted and their town’s spread out and generally indefensible so they’re interested in moving north into the park. They want to settle on their own though, but are open to linking up.

Though it’s moments like this I do feel like going “Seriously God?”

We managed to find a couple other smaller groups subsisting in the more isolated parts of the park. It’s sometimes easy to forget how utterly huge Yellowstone is. Most of these folks were pretty much camping in the boonies or retreated into the hills when the bombs dropped, and lacking our technical knowledge and preparation have been living hand to mouth. Given a generation, I think they’d have devolved into Tribals through a mixture of incest and isolation.

On the other end, we found a settlement of ghouls in West Yellowstone. They were a mixture of survivors from the town and from the park. They’d known about us for a while, and like what they heard, but were avoiding contact. They were afraid we’d see them as monsters. I sent Lucas to talk to them.

From what he’s told me they were shocked to see a Ghoul among us as not only an equal but a community leader. There’s still some ongoing negotiation, but all seems like they’re going to start working with our little collective. This is in my mind a major windfall. We now have a group who are immune to radiation and will be ignored by Ferals.

Wu has also talked to be about his people's’ decision. They had the choice between moving on or joining us. They’ve decided on both. They want to keep their culture and identity alive but find us to be good neighbors. They’d like to lay down roots and start their own little Chinatown here in Yellowstone. Wu’s even mentioned he’d like to have some space for monastic study and meditation.

Our little religious enterprise is going well. It’s shaping into a odd little philosophy that very few people have any complaint over. Sure, Fletcher is bitching about crazy eastern mystical bullsht but lets be honest, now that he’s getting his meds I think the man only complains because he’d spontaneously combust if he didn’t have something to bitch about.

We’re also starting with serious farming as well. Some of the tricks you folks sent were worth their weight in gold. In other cases we’re simply digging off the top layers of soil. The fallout has decayed enough that the soil is at least semi-usable in places. We’re on the cusp of sustainability and once we’re sustainable I can fucking retire and go back to living like a normal person and not having to babysit a small civilization.

I asked the others about the National Guard presence in Cody but it seems that base was stripped for the war effort years ago. Might be some dregs but the place is on lockdown. That means we’d need to blow open the doors and deal with whatever's inside. Not quite ready for that yet. We don’t have the firepower and there's a good chance that the rewards will be slim.

We’re planning on spending some real time in the Wind River Reservation to look for survivors. Some of the people from Missoula are also suggesting we check out the Flathead Reservation as well. They wanted to check it out, but Necros’s raids started before they could.

Driggs might be worth looking into. Though remember, even with a car the going is slow due to the roads having many abandoned vehicles and we have a lot on our plate.

Swords really aren’t on the priority list right now. Besides, if we need them spring steel makes for pretty good blades and there are automotive leaf springs basically everywhere. They’re good steel and almost custom formed to be used as blanks.

I have to thank you all for the... sheer volume of tool information. It’s helpful and I’ll pass it along. Or at least save it to this things internal memory.

All those books are also going to be dead useful.

Right now we really don’t know about many groups outside our little Republic to be. So sending spies is a bit premature.

Good thing about most local power tools. Most use Fission batteries. Means that assume they were not burned out by the bombs they’re going to be good on the power front for about 40 years.

Billings is upstream on the Yellowstone, so I don’t know how bad the contamination is that way. Honestly, I’m in no rush to go find out either. Though if we start seeing 3 eyed fish, I’ll let you know. Might even name them in your honor. Well, that or I’ll call ‘em Blinky Fish. Because, you know, the Simpsons.

Necros did do some raiding south along I-15. We did kind of put a stopper on it once we held Missoula. According to the few survivors of his slave pens we managed to pick up, since Spokane was hit, going west was difficult.

Our general rule of thumb is to stay out of areas that were directly hit. And why I say direct hit I mean multiple surface strikes and/or multi-megaton bombs. The amount of bombs fired make our cold war look like a couple kids glaring at each other across the classroom. Keeping track of kiloton airbursts and EMP bursts simply isn’t worth the trouble, as horrifying as that might sound. You might get a spike of radiation, but its nothing a rad-x can’t deal with. It’s the places that were hit HARD that pretty much are no go areas. The counters start to bitch at you once you get within sight of city limits, and even with environmental suits and rad-x you’re don’t want to spend too long close by.

Atomic car reactors are very tough. It takes truly massive force, or 200 years of decay, to make them become unstable.

Prewar preservation involves chemicals and equipment we do not have access to.

Our level of industry is complicated. We have a solid knowledge base, but lack the tools to build the tools. We’re planning on building them when we have the chance but on the whole we’re a scavenger economy that is planning on becoming self-sufficient at some point in the future when we’re able to feed ourselves.

Being able to build a lathe while useful, is insignificant in the face of small rumbling bellies. Especially when you have a perfectly function one in the back that you pulled out of a burned out high school. Make sense?

That said, the information is useful. A lot of the basics have been forgotten. That steam engine Godo sent us is worth its weight in gold. Sure, we have people who can strip down and rebuild a nuclear reactor but are dumbfounded by the breed of Redneck Engineering we need maintain an industrial society in the long run.

Mutated wildlife is showing up. There were a couple reports of two-headed deer in the woods. Frankly I’m ordering everyone to keep an eye out. If Deer look like that, the hell happened to the Grizzlies?

That vintage projects website is a godsend. Lots of useful basic tech there on all levels and every bit of it within our ability to reproduce. Planning on putting it all on holodisk and slipping it into someone’s machine shop. It’s all old enough that it doesn’t need to be tweaked any.

Showed the walipini layout to Masterson, Pitt, and Fletcher. We’re going to build a number of them at all locations. Assuming we can keep them clear of snow in the winter they’re going to be useful as hell. We’re going to be using real windows instead of plastic sheet though. Snow will be an issue in the winter and frankly, it’s not as if we don’t have tens of thousands of abandoned houses and storefronts within a day’s drive waiting to be stripped down to nothing.

They’re not quite so hot on the garden towers, at least not that design. We’re not exactly wanting for room here and they’d take energy and materials to make, but they think they can get some ideas from it.

I’ll experiment with duckweed at the impact spring, but I’m warning you now... if I get eaten by ambulatory carnivorous mutant duckweed I’m blaming you.

Accessing Nevada and Vegas will be hard because it means going through Salt Lake City, which was nuked to shit. Maybe in a decade or two.

About the possibility of volcanic eruption. First, I’m hoping my foreknowledge implies it never happens. Second, if it does I’m glad we're at ground zero because then everyone on the continent would be fucked and at least we won’t be suffering.

To explain the damage from the EMP, most of the intact stuff we found was in some semi-shielded area. Our guess is the Chinese set off a sizable number of orbital EMP bursts to fry out the grid. The damage we’ve seen indicates it. Most tools and appliances if plugged in are never actually off. Plus a lot of the modern equipment have a fission batteries so they’re never actually put into a cold shutdown either. It’s complicated, it might sound convoluted, and believe me, it’s damned annoying, but sadly it's how things turned out.

A Chem Station? Really? This isn’t a videogame. Creating drugs is extremely complicated chemistry. And believe me, those tribals and raiders you mentioned were probably experts in their trade. Just look at Meth labs. That’s not easy shit yet it gets pulled off by the lowest form of human in the most fucked up conditions.

Again. No moats. Too hard to dig, it was the middle of fucking WINTER at the time, and lining it with spikes is just begging for people to get hurt.

I don’t need to drool at Keri. Kelly’s hotter and probably knows more SCIENCE than most of the crew. She’s the one who needs to be on Mythbusters.

Build a Gundam? What. I don’t even know what to... no. Just. No.

I’ll figure out who to tell later on. Right now I just need some sleep. Thank god things aren’t as bad as last year.

But seriously, South Park? Really?

Ghouls are a bit of a double edged sword. They're a great long term knowledge repository and more importantly a long term wisdom repository, but with more than one you now need to figure out a constitution that will prevent the rise of a ghoul gerontocracy while also not disenfranchising them. Just the one who was also a lawyer you could have put into a lifetime judiciary post but out of a settlement some will eventually run for legislative or executive posts.

If you do term limits it won't be long before all of the ghouls have been term limited out and then they're disenfranchised. If you don't their greater age and experience will eventually get them perpetually reelected until resentment for the ruling minority tears society apart.

Maybe term limits that reset every century?

How far are you willing to travel South?

Past Jackson almost to Evanston is a place called Kemmerer. It is the home to a Surface Coal mining area. The Kemmerer Mine company. Nearby is a Water Treatment Plant at Lake Viva Naughton. Both supply the nearby Pacificorp Naughton Power Plant.

Depending on how things are, the place should be mostly intact being in the middle of nothing and though Salt Lake is to the South West, the surrounding mountains should have shielded a lot. They should have intact equipment that the scum did not touch.

I suggest recovering as much as you can before someone else does.

South in Evanston is another Water Treatment Plant.

Between West Yellowstone & the park is the Madison Campgrounds and the Madison Waste Water Treatment plant.

If Billings has water flowing down the Yellowstone, could you use the assets of 2 water treatment plants in Livingstone instead to decontaminate the water, along with duckweed?

Nearby Bozeman should have lots of materials you can use for Construction. For houses & road maintenance.

Talk to your Engineer friends about refurbishing the Mammoth area & the nearby Gardiner just on the other side of the Montana/ Wyoming border.

Near Mammoth is Electric peak & Sepulcher Mountain.

Would it be a good idea to set up a Radio tower?

If roads are had to travel south of Jackson or nearby, If you exit the park from West Yellowstone and go South along ( 20 ) and turn off you can reach Driggs as the nearest place that may be hit by Nukes is Idaho Falls, so it should be safe to reach.

On the part of another place to set up in the park?

Near Moran north of Jackson is Jackson Lake is the Jackson Lake Lodge. From Jackson Lake flows the Snake river and the small Jackson lake Dam.

Would it be enough to make Water mills? A Power generator?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Lake_Lodge

Just to the north along the lakeshore is Colter Bay Village

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colter_Bay_Village

Around the south of the lake & north of Jackson is considered a Moose habitat.

But.. there is also those that hate the Chinese, so?

Note: See end for simple radios and a directional antenna pages.

Your talking about starting up a significant electrical grid, You need to be warned about what CBer's call Skip.

I've been a CB and Ham radio user for well over 40 years and one thing you need to be aware of is over the "horizon radio signals" often called SKIP.

This over the horizon electrical noise was a fairly uniform irritating bright "haze" before the EMP, but now your electrical grid is going to be a beacon that "shines" in the darkness.

Your electrical grid will generate electrical noise and pretty much anyone in North America with a radio and the knowledge to make a directional antenna will be able to hear your power grid and other electronics and determine direction and if they have access to a military base or have someone that was "into" radio then they will also be able to roughly determine your direction and location by comparing the time of day and season for the "skip" to charts.

Initially the charts would be useless, but as more time passes and the high atmosphere returns to normal the more accurate the charts become.

They can also determine your location from using a atlas or map and noting down what towns, streets and landmarks you mention in any standard radio transmission.(What names and places have you mentioned on your radios?)

I'd recommend that you really watch for and shield any equipment that generates a lot of electrical noise below say roughly 40 megahertz.

It's not all bad you can add simple radios to your outpost with direction antenna's pointed away from your electrical grid and your likely to hear any functioning electrical system that is approaching your area a long time before you see it.

Given the near electrical silence following the EMP attacks your going to be able to pick up the electrical noise of devices as small as say a Pip-boy and direction determined long before what ever is carrying it comes into visual or audio range.

I'd recommend every perimeter outpost have at minimum a AM radio and a directional Antenna tuned to the 20 to 30 megahertz range constantly listening for electrical noise.

Also Don't put your surviving radios in the outpost I'd recommend you build something simple like a "foxhole" or razor blade and safety pin radio coupled with a salvaged vacuum tube used as a audio amplifier for the headphone side of the radio circuit.

Back in each main town is where I'd put my better AM radios and set up a good radio tower with several directional antennas and have operators that listen for and can recognize electrical noise and log down the direction and what it "sounds" like.

Better yet take those functional low grade consumer VI's you mentioned such as the "Talky Toaster" and program and interface them with a good broad band radio and have them constantly scanning all frequencies from say roughly 40 Megahertz down to as low as the receiver goes and generating verbal reports about what they hear.

Have them look for place names and listen for the finger print style noise of say heavy equipment such as those atomic powered earth movers that surprised you in a raid and the noise of power plant electrical generators.

Your wife's oscilloscope will really help in determining the signature of the signals your picking up and programming those VI's.

Who knows you might even be able to find the rough location of the rest of those Earth Movers that were being used by those raiders.

Note that the last link is for a simple radio transmitter that can be used to generate morse code or other digital signals, but I'm unsure if it will be useful, the vacuum tech is very different and the crystal might not be used in that tech tree.

Below is some radio pages that might be useful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxhole_radio

http://www.ehow.com/how_5540594_make-foxhole-radio-twenty-minutes.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_antenna

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-simple-AM-transmitter/

Homemade Toys
http://happyhooligans.ca/70-awesome-toys-make-kids/

Sock Monkey
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Sock-Monkey

Rag Doll
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Rag-Dolls

Hope this can be useful.