Woof. Still trying to piece together what all happened in Saturday's session and how we can tie things together, given our chat.

So this is another vignette told from Fred's perspective. The title is supposed to be ironic because, of course, she doesn't make any executive decisions. She is very much a figurehead, but the fact that she's so easily manipulated makes me wonder if the other heads of the families wouldn't mind her being in charge since they tend to get what they want and she takes all the heat.

Mostly I wanted some space where we can acknowledge some of the many varied and pertinent questions about this world that we never get around to mentioning in the game or the stories. Like for example, where the food comes from to feed the people in Summerland. As we talked about, I'm guessing there's around 200-300 people in the MPD and most of the adult-aged men are enrolled as guards. What do the rest do? Well, there are some teachers, some people doing laundry, and others running the kitchens preparing all this preserved food for the masses. You would imagine that in the years of social unrest there would be great advances in food preservation, sort of like the 1950's bomb shelter provisions, only this time on crack. If, as alluded to elsewhere, the families bought up huge reserves of food before the fall and the MPD scavenged all the proverbial low-hanging fruit during and after the worst years, they could potentially harvest a food bank that could feed a large group of people for a long period of time. We never really get into issues of public health but that would be interesting to pursue too. (what are the infant mortality rates, for example?)

Anyway, I wanted to include some of the big picture issues the families would face. If the power was shut off today and a huge amount of the population perished, seriously how many of us would know how to get the power back on? It's not like there's a huge on/off switch out in the country somewhere. The issue of resource management is interesting to me too. If there are too many needy mouths, you send a bunch of them off to war and then fill their vacant boots with the next generation. For the four families, I could see that stalling tactic working well. Also the issue of the spectre of the federal government rising again is amusing to me: even after the end of the world as we know it the rich don't want what they've hoarded redistributed to the needy.

Blathering now (halfway through a six-pack) so I'll end it there. Let me know if you see anything that sticks out as being moronic (besides most of the ideas, which were yours anyway).

Love,

--t