What does the KFS buy and sell?

[knightofrubus]

I wonder if the KFS has a monopoly on Tobacco Maybe it's not unlike the spice or sugar trade where they use it for leverage on smaller powers

[dragoon500ly]

Even more insidious, the KFS exports genetically modified seed at low prices, they produce vegetables and fruit that are 'radiation and disease ' free for the first couple of seasons, then a new crop disease 'arrives' and the farmers need to purchase resistant strains, repeat as necessary until the local farmers are completely dependent on seed stocks from the KFS at inflated prices of course...

[knightofrubus]

That's evil. Would the KFS have the means to do that though And, I wonder if they don't use similar 'soft power's in the form of propaganda and entertainment. Maybe there's a huge theater industry from there that promotes its core values

Also, how can we forget they still likely have some of the finest/only horses in the world!

[Gelrir]

• Rubber for making tires, hoses, insulation, etc. ... or a rubber substitute, such as guayule from Texas.
  
• Oil, for lubricants if not for fuel.
  
• Sulfur, for chemical engineering.
  
• Gypsum, for mortar and plaster, among other things.
  
• Vanadium Pentoxide, for making sulfuric acid "the modern way".

There are lots of needful things for a society making all the "amazing things" that the KFS produces.

We've been growing a list of processes for our local campaign: http://asmrb.pbworks.com/w/page/1131...%20Engineering

--
Michael B.

[dragoon500ly]

That's evil. Would the KFS have the means to do that though And, I wonder if they don't use similar 'soft power's in the form of propaganda and entertainment. Maybe there's a huge theater industry from there that promotes its core values

Also, how can we forget they still likely have some of the finest/only horses in the world!

Agriculture businesses have been pulling this stunt for years now, so the KFS could use the same trick to secure their foothold, if they modify they vegetables and fruit to maximize their size and taste, one can see post-oops farmers trading everything to get their hands on more productive seeds.

In my PD world, one of the things farmers can trade for are small radios, locked into a half-dozen or so official channels that broadcast news, weather, music and radio programs all of which can be easily for "informational" purposes. I've even gone so far as to have fancier radios gifted to village elders, that offer more channels...and capable of recording and transmitting back to KFS Security.

But the main question is just how much access the Free State has to modern equioment, my argument is that they have access to as much and even more than the teams. I want the teams to be afraid of the KFS!

[knightofrubus]

I definitely might steal that! Though, the KFS isn't as big in my upcoming game as its focused in upstate New York which I'm saying is either various small holdings or dominated by the 'Free Lakes' an autocracy centered in the finger lakes/Ontario lowlands.

[dragoon500ly]

According to TM 1-1, 3rd Edition, the Rich Five (better known as the Kentucky Free State) are listed as covering a much greater area than the published modules acknowledge.

They cover two regions:

Northeastern Highland Region of Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky.

Southeastern Highland Region of South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama.

They are also listed as possessing a tech level of 1980+, including Unlimited power, fusion and laser technology and population. Some of their weapons are equivalent to the Project. Limited only be available materials and population (work force).

This implies that the KFS should have access to a large population, with a industrial base to match.

When asking how much technology the KFS has, it can be argued that they have as much tech as they need. And with them controlling ten states, and with "outposts" into the surrounding states (if only to secure strategic points and resources).....

[RandyT0001]

From 4th edition:

Location Found: 3/4 (former state of Kentucky).
Agents and traders may be found in the neighboring states.

Description: The KFS was founded by the Rich Five: a group of
industrialists who made plans similar to the Morrow
Project. However, the KFS has become a corrupt and
decadent society with a hugely wealthy upper class,
a small middle class and a form of slavery that is
vaguely similar to the Roman system. Note: the KFS
aristocracy is aware of the Morrow Project and has
directed the Secret Police to suppress it.

To me, the Kentucky Free State is the actual entity that covers most of Kentucky and about a third of Tennessee. They have holdings, primarily mines, in the highlands of the east, from Georgia to Canada, linked by rail that supplies the industrial needs of the Rich Five government, which is why they are listed in those areas. It also says that agents (spies, saboteurs, and subversives) and traders (spies, saboteurs, and more subversives) are in neighboring areas to Kentucky Free State (Ohio river valley and Tennessee river valley).

[knightofrubus]

Thats kinda how I picture them. Kentucky is their heartland with the Ohio River Valley and Tenesee River Valley as a kind of frontier that they've slowly started to explore. What Holdings they have are not unlike forts or mining towns of the Western frontier of the 1800s.

[dragoon500ly]

I've played the KFS with its core as Kentucky and Tennessee, with colonies in Ohio and Missouri, but reading the 3rd edition description, I think, would allow a PD to field a larger, nastier version than the modules have shown.

I'm playing with a list of resources and possible tech sites that were but nuked to see how far this can go.

[knightofrubus]

So what does the KFS use as money Id assume printed currency with the Rich Five on it or do they use hard currency still

[dragoon500ly]

So what does the KFS use as money Id assume printed currency with the Rich Five on it or do they use hard currency still

I'd assume barter in the smaller day to day transactions, coinage for slightly larger transactions and local trade between villages, paper for large transactions, all the way up to credit/debit cards in the major cities, for the elites only of course.