Ok, with Teg interested in Civil Engineering, I'm updating Cole a bit to cover Agricultural Specialist/Drone Pilot (with enough Chemistry to keep the still and biodiesel processor working).

Cole Anderson grew up on his family’s farm, where he lived and worked until he was 20 years old.  Had it not been for a pest infestation of almost biblical proportions, Cole might not have ever seen a crop duster.  But after he did, Cole could think of almost nothing else.  He left home for Embry-Riddle and headed to Arizona, to pursue his new dream of flying.  After earning his Associates in Aeronautics and his single and multi-engine ratings, along with ‘aerial application’ certification, he returned home, bought a used Air Tractor, and started working for his family, along with nearby farms.  When the war broke out, the Department of Defense pulled the names of all licensed pilots from the FAA and Anderson was subsequently drafted into the USAF.  Following his abbreviated training, Anderson was sloted as a C-130 pilot, shuttling cargo to and from Little Rock AFB.  Cole spent most of war in the co-pilot seat of a Herc doing domestic logistics flights, with the 4 year degree holding Academy jocks dodging (or not) Vympels in the European theater.  Once the parts and fuel got low, Lieutenant Anderson soon found himself at lose ends and looking for something other than infantry duty....
This message was last edited by the player at 01:31, Fri 06 July 2018.

Don't drone me, bro!

@All - if everyone's okay with the engineer pitch, I'll start working him up as the civilian team leader, appointed by the Governor's Task Force on Recovery ("Reconstruction" having unfortunate connotations in the former Confederacy).

 Really hoping to carve some time tomorrow for Rpol.  Stay tuned!

The kids are upstairs playing.  Winning!

Right now I'm building up Saul and Carissa Noble as a father/daughter team ready to take on the South.  Saul will be a 53 year old Marine who enlisted out of high school, finished his first enlistment and joined the Memphis, TN police department, working on a degree in Psychology in his spare time.  He stayed active in the Marine Reserve working in the 4th Civil Affairs Group out of Florida, deployed several times to the Mideast and Afghanistan (and all the badness that came leading up to 2030).  Saul was promoted into the Warrant Officer track coinciding with his promotion to Detective in the Gang Unit in the police department and the awarding of his Master's Degree in Sociology.

In his spare time, Saul moved his family about forty miles northwest of Memphis into Arkansas, settling on a small ranch that his father left him.  Saul's heart was always on the Ranch and he raised his three daughters on the property with his wife, Eva.  Without any sons, Saul leaned hard on his daughters, teaching them to be strong, self-sufficient women.  Carissa to the lessons the most, learning to ride, shoot, survive, care for animals, and more.  She shadowed her father through the Memphis PD explorer program and from the time she was 16 attended shooting camps and competitions with him.  She was waiting on her Memphis PD academy slot to come through when the world went to shit.

Saul was 48 when the Blood Lord's bullet hit him in the hip.  It was a career ending .45 caliber slug that shattered a portion of his  right leg and pelvis, leaving the detective with a sizable limp.  The Corps kept him around a little longer, mainly due to his experience in dealing with hostile populations.  Starting around 2027, he retreated back to his farm to watch his wife die of breast cancer and one of his daughter's vanish into the San Diego nuclear fireball.  All in all, he's managed to stay pretty well with it.

When the governor of Arkansas started putting together a unit to go out and make contact, his name came up and he showed up with Carissa in tow.  His final daughter, Ora, stayed behind with her husband and three kids to keep the ranch from disappearing into the hands of marauders.

Saul's skill set will be pretty diverse, Charisma heavy with Persuasion and interrogation.  I'm guessing a whole lot points across many disciplines, master of none.  Except cop stuff.

Carissa, at 25, will be a pretty competent door-kicker with a ranch skill set as well.

In reply to keys138 (msg # 17):

Looks good, Keys. Did Clarissa get into the academy? It says she was on the wait list when the SHTF, but she's 25 when the campaign starts. If not, what was she up between 2026 and 2030? Working on the farm, maybe? I'm not finding fault, just curious.

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Yeah, I kinda figure dad kept her home to keep the family as safe and intact as possible.  Maybe interned with a veterinarian on the side.

In reply to keys138 (msg # 19):

Cool.

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Rashid West

American, Age 45 (born Oklahoma City, OK, 19 April 1985)

Callsign: Marvin

Armament: Applied Mathematics, LaRue PredatOBR, Beretta 1301 Tactical Marine, Glock 41 Gen4 MOS

Languages: English (native), Spanish (professional)

Key Skills: Civil Engineer, Combat Engineer, Leadership. Small Arms (Rifle)

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Bio:

Rashid West was born in 1985 in Oklahoma City.  Desperate to get out of the Midwest, he applied to dozens of colleges on both coasts - but the Naval Academy offered the best job security after graduation.  Getting to see the world from the deck of a ship seemed like a bonus, until Rashid's second semester, when he learned he was incurably susceptible to seasickness.  It was then that he decided he'd go for the Marine Corps.

Graduating Annapolis in 2007, Rashid was commissioned a second lieutenant and served four years as a combat engineer platoon leader and battalion staff officer.  Despite making first lieutenant in minimum time, he had little patience for the politicking required for a successful career in the Corps, so he resigned his commission in 2012 and entered grad school for civil engineering at Texas A&M.  He finished his master's in 2015 and landed a job with an engineering and demolition company based in Little Rock, where he earned his P.E. certification.  For the next decade, he worked on major infrastructure and architectural projects across the South and Southwest.  Along the way, he completed a doctorate in energetic materials engineering at New Mexico Tech and established his own specialty engineering and demolition consulting firm, Ph.D EOD LLC.

Looking for another personal project after his wife left him and he had free time on his hands, Rashid happened across the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office reserve deputy program.  He joined in 2022 and quickly gained a statewide reputation as a reliable consultant for explosive breaching, EOD, and related matters.  This ultimately kept the Marine Corps from recalling him when the war broke out - by the time a 40-year-old ex-lieutenant was needed, Rashid was working full-time to help maintain order in the capital city and across the state.

Rashid realized early that the world was not going to recover in his lifetime - but rapid intervention might arrest the downward slide above a 19th-century level.  He used his government connections to hook up all of his surviving employees with jobs in the Governor's Recovery Task Force, then started farming himself out to whatever projects needed his own skill set.  He was an early proponent of the outreach team concept, though he didn't expect to be appointed to lead one.

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Appearance:

Rashid stands 6'1" with a slim build that was just beginning to show the first traces of middle age before the bombs fell.  His close-cropped hair is starting to go gray at the temples.  Half a lifetime working with explosives has left surprisingly few marks on him: only a constellation of shrapnel scars across his right chest and upper arm testifies to his career.  More obvious is the surgical scarring from  work on both ACLs (torn, respectively, playing volleyball and jumping a fence in a foot pursuit).

In the field, Rashid typically wears lightweight cargo pants and expedition shirts, hiking boots, a LaRue Tactical giveaway hat with a Major League Doorkicker morale patch, and Oakley Flak 2.0 sunglasses.  He also wears a battle belt with his Glock and two spare magazines, radio, karambit, trauma kit, and either a spare magazine for his rifle or a shell carrier for his shotgun.  For a planned gunfight, he changes into ranger green Arc'teryx LEAF assault garb, a Velocity Systems Scarab plate carrier, and an Ops-Core FAST ballistic helmet.

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Personality:

Rashid naturally tends toward a high energy level and drive to be doing something.  He has never been patient by nature, but Annapolis and the Corps taught him to channel his twitchiness into meticulous planning, which is probably why he's still alive and mostly undamaged.  He has an engineer's drive for efficiency, though he's also learned how to apply social lubricant as needed to get through bureaucracies and other unpleasant interactions.

Casual observers are not aware that Rashid has a sense of humor.  He's naturally a smartass but learned at an early age to suppress it out of self-preservation.  Now it comes out as deadpan remarks deployed on a time-delay fuse that usually runs out several hours after the conversation.  If he's around close friends, he'll roll out his Warner Brothers voice impressions, including a pitch-perfect Marvin the Martian.

Prewar, Rashid's hobbies included volleyball (partly out of a contrarian desire to not be a tall black man playing basketball), IPSC 3-Gun competition shooting (with occasional forays into SASS), camping and hunting in the Ozarks with some of his employees from the area, maintaining his high-end professional wardrobe... and maintaining an "it's complicated" with his ex-wife Jeannette, a former Marine Cobra pilot who was flying for the Gulf oil industry.

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Contacts:

Academic, U.S.
Blue-Collar, U.S.
Government, allied
Government, U.S.
Law Enforcement, U.S.
White-Collar, U.S.
White-Collar, neutral/opposed

So is the idea to have two leaders, a military one (Dave's PC) and a civie one (Teg's)? I'm fine with that, for the record, but I want you guys to be fine with also. Otherwise, we're going to need to do some negotiating/adjusting.

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I think what Dave and I had tentatively worked out is that the mission will be under overall civilian authority with a military XO (similar to the way the PRTs were done in Iraq, as this mission is more similar to that than to the Afghanistan model).  Under certain trigger conditions, such as imminent or actual combat or an immediate military or law enforcement problem, command automagically devolves to the military XO.  I don't see us having trouble negotiating this but I agree it's best to get it all written down ahead of time.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:51, Sat 07 July 2018.

That was where I thought we would be coming from at the outset but I'm not so sure that a military XO is really required now - I'm not really seeing where it's adding any unique skills.

I think the need is not so much in the skills on the character sheet as it is in the different authorities and command structures.  Ultimately, if (when) we run into a situation that looks like we need to stabilize an area with force, that's going to be a State Guard mission.  Far better to already have an officer on the team who can recognize that early and provide cogent military analysis to the follow-on forces that we may need to call in.

From a character perspective, Rashid's command experience is limited to one posting as an engineer platoon leader.  He has no idea how to organize and train a local militia or burn out a marauder infestation, and his tactical mindset at this point is much more a law enforcement one than a military one.  He's an engineer first, a small business CEO second, an adrenaline-seeking reserve law enforcement officer third, and a superannuated O-2 a distant fourth.  So he would ask for State Guard help.

I'm not sure that it would matter a whole lot whether it's a state gov't, state law enforcement, or State Guard operation as they're all closely interrelated. I mean, the SG is authorized by state law and answers to the governor (IIRC, he/she appoints its top CO). I assume state LE would be beholden to the state executive as well (attorney general?). I'd prefer not to have to deal with jurisdictional debates within the party. I'm still fine with co-commanders (one for civil affairs and one for tactical ops, as suggested, or some other arrangement), but a CO/XO arrangement might be simpler and cleaner.

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This message was last edited by the GM at 20:03, Sat 07 July 2018.

I'd prefer co commanders, with West having primacy in civil matters and Kirk having primacy in military matters. Where there's overlap I trust each of us to resolve it smoothly and seamlessly, whether that's IC or OOC.

Or, alternatively, West is team leader and Kirk is deputy team leader (but not XO. In practice it's effectively the same thing as a CO / XO relationship but better reflects the joint civil / military nature of the operation).

That would work equally well, yeah.

For PR purposes, I think something like this would require at least the appearance of a mixed civilian/military team under civilian controlling legal authority, reporting up to the elected executive (i.e., the governor).  Assuming the governor isn't an overwhelming dickbag, it's going to be important to demonstrate that the state has not fallen prey to the CivGov/MilGov split that afflicts the federal government, and that the military is still operating within traditional and constitutional limits of its independence.

In reply to Tegyrius (msg # 28):

Ok, good. I think that's settled. Co-leaders.

Teg, while you were on vacay, I mentioned that I was thinking the governor would be a good guy (relatively speaking, at least) this campaign.

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This message was added to by the GM at 19:05, Sun 08 July 2018.

As it's been brought up, on a meta level my character's views of the split between Governments can best be described as follows

State Gov (i.e the Arkansas leadership) - happy to work with them (provided they are properly and legally elected, which I am presuming they are).

Mil Gov - the legitimate Government at the Federal level (there is a reference in the back story to her father being a three Star General who has a seat at the big Milgov table).

Civgov - treacherous bastards.

(I am assuming we are following the schism as it happened in the classic timeline, i.e. someone more or less appointed himself President.

I don't anticipate any of this causing issues for anyone ic although there's the chance for some drama if we happen to run into any Civgov forces.

OK, when y'all are satisfied with your character/s, go ahead and post them in the Personnel thread. There's no rush, but I'd like to keep things moving in the right direction.

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In reply to Good Ol' Rae (msg # 31):

I'm considering some tweaks to mine. I thought that giving her a chequered past was adding something but now I'm not so sure, particularly in a game where actions affect other characters. It's maybe something that would fit better in a piece of fiction where there's more control. Or maybe not. I'm undecided.

I might also switch to Army rather than AF given that Rae has the 197th Infantry Brigade in Memphis. My thought process is that it's not unreasonable that the 197th would detach 'advisors' to advise the ASG. Again, I'm undecided.

Another option is to keep the chequered past but have it happen in Memphis, so it may not be common knowledge in Arkansas. In which case she may have been voluntold that she's being put on TDY to the ASG. That sounds to me to be fairly plausible (in the original draft, which was intended for New Mexico she sort of got kicked from one unit to another until she ended up in Albuquerque. I think that kind of worked with the set up of the New Mexico Defence Force with the asshole Governor, but I'm feeling like it's not transferring to this environment too well).

Thoughts are welcome.

I think it works well as a character's internal motivation and backstory.  If it's going to be a good writing prompt for you, I say keep it.  The idea of the original incident having occurred out of state keeps every citizen interaction from becoming a "hey, don't I recognize you from the newspapers?" sort of thing.

For my own part, I'm flailing with getting into West's head.  He, too, was originally written for the New Mexico game (not as a team leader) and I don't know how well the backstory adapts to this game.  I still think an operation like this would need a civilian leader/co-leader for political and legal reasons but I don't know if he's the right guy for it.  I'm back to fiddling with the idea of a former district attorney who, while competent, got the job mainly because someone in the governor's administration knows and trusts (or owes) him.  Mechanically, though, the concern is not overlapping too much with Keys' civil affairs specialist.

Take your time, fellas. I'd rather we slow down and make sure we're happy with our characters that push forward too quickly and find that we don't relate to them. Not liking one's own character means being unmotivated to write for him/her, which doesn't bode well for the longevity of the campaign.

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Concur.

How about a FEMA official as team lead? Or Homeland Security? Or the State equivalent?

https://www.adem.arkansas.gov/

As for mechanical overlap, I think that's essentially the same challenge I had with West / Kirk, but as you said yesterday there are other ways of looking at it.

I'd keep it State, just to avoid potential MilGov/CivGov drama.

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