RolePlay onLine

Reluctant Heroes of Pulp

It is February 1st, 1932 in Lake Placid, New York.  The Winter has been moderately mild and Lake Placid just froze over for the first time yesterday.  Many competitors have been anxious to make trial runs through courses and have not been able to do so.  Jibes at the Americans from some of the 331 competitors from 17 countries can be heard on the streets of the small hamlet or in the headquarters of the games at the Lake Placid Inn.  The Olympic committee is meeting this morning in the Grand Hall of the Lake Placid Inn to discuss approval of trial runs.  All about town hopeful competitors prepare for practices and the sound a low voices, in many languages, talking strategy can be heard beneath higher pitched sharpening of skates and runners. 
A storm is blowing into town with gusty winds and new snow.  A thud signals the morning paper bundle has arrived.  The headline on the top of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise reads........ Governor Franklin Roosevelt set to open the Olympics on the 4th.




< img src = https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a5/1932_Winter_Olympics.svg/150px-1932_Winter_Olympics.svg.png>;



The Great War to end all wars concluded with the Armistace on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. The world came together after the war in a great assembly at Versailles Peace Conference in 1919.  The guns finally fell silent.  The men finally left the trenches. When the smoke and poison gas cleared France, Flanders and many other fields had been subjected to a 4 years Apocalypse like the world had never seen.  These fields soaked up the impact of 10 Million Artillery Shells, were up turned with 25,000 Miles of Trenches, Dugouts, Reventments and Fortification.  Untold millions of miles of barb wire and razor wire were strewn across the land.  Those fields also soaked up the blood and entrails of 40 Million casualties.

People from all over the world came to observe leaders of the world reconstruct a global community and to lobby for their peoples interests. 

Leading the Conference were the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the United States. Over the course of 6 months the members of 32 countries would deal with the borders of 80% of the worlds countries, and complete 5 treaties.  France and the United Kingdom had paid dearly in the Great War with 8 million military casualties.  They would ensure Germany would never be in a position again to cause this type of war again.  The Versailles Treaty came down hard on Germany, bankrupt the country with reparations, Germany would bear the shame of causing the war.

While Europe worked to recover from the Great War and rebuild without an entire generation of young men, the US exploded with enthusiasm during the 1920's.  The United States would go through a minor post war recession, and like the rest of the world deal with the 1919 Influenza Pandemic that killed 40 million, but would quickly rebound in a decade so wild it was called the roaring 20's.