Cost of a Base

[Desert Mariner]

The cost of such things has risen considerable, not counting inflation. There is so much more data available on a person now, so many more things to check. in the period from 1960-1990 a security clearance didn't have to check credit scores, on line sources, social media. In addition people tended to be less mobile and do less job hopping, which makes a background check a lot simpler.

Conversely, costs are reduced in some areas because of the glut of online information. Where you had to have investigators on the ground performing exhaustive individual interviews, you now can get the big picture by "Google it".

[Gelrir]

The cost of such things has risen considerable, not counting inflation. There is so much more data available on a person now, so many more things to check. in the period from 1960-1990 a security clearance didn't have to check credit scores, on line sources, social media. In addition people tended to be less mobile and do less job hopping, which makes a background check a lot simpler.

A couple of data points:

• In the late 1980s I was working at Wells Fargo student loans, a few times a year we had visits from the Defense Investigative Service checking on all the information on certain students' loan application paperwork (the references, addresses, etc.)
  
• My brother was in the Army in the mid-1980s, and had a Secret or maybe Top Secret clearance ... the background investigation included investigators speaking with people who'd paid him to mow their lawns during high school.
  
• I'm pretty sure the DIS checked TRW, TransUnion, and other credit score systems back then, too ... we had a little terminal for those agencies in the student loan center at the time.

A possible added complication: the Morrow Project's background check is in many cases being performed on someone who doesn't know it's happening, and thus isn't cooperating.

In our current campaign it's presumed that the Morrow Project is "piggybacking" on government background checks of Council of Tomorrow corporate employees for a lot of the clearances.

--
Michael B.

[dragoon500ly]

A possible added complication: the Morrow Project's background check is in many cases being performed on someone who doesn't know it's happening, and thus isn't cooperating.

In our current campaign it's presumed that the Morrow Project is "piggybacking" on government background checks of Council of Tomorrow corporate employees for a lot of the clearances.

In my games, I often have the players hired into one of Morrow Industries defense technology divisions, helps when the government handles those security background checks...

[dragoon500ly]

Just a thought (quit your crying!!)

Has anybody ever given thought to how supplies would be stored in the various tunnel(s) of our hypothetical base

Arguments can be made that for efficient utilization of space, pallets would be stacked high and tight. Disadvantages to this is that the entire tunnel would have to be frozen, running a risk of everything be damaged if anything causes the tunnel to lose integrity.

Another option is to carefully pack everything into modified shipping containers, fitted with individual cryo units. Disadvantages would include per unit cost, as well as the necessary increased size of tunnels to allow for the easy storage and access to needed supplies.

[tsofian]

In my games, I often have the players hired into one of Morrow Industries defense technology divisions, helps when the government handles those security background checks...

I have done the same, or at least had Morrow get access to government files.

[Desert Mariner]

Agreed. For a 50,000 person active Project, people and secrecy are the problems, not money. A project that make thousands of vehicular fusion reactors and tens of thousands of freeze tubes has money to spend on pouring concrete.

Perhaps secrecy isn't the issue we all think it is. Take a look at the sites below and imagine the possibilities of the Project operating in the open.

http://www.terravivos.com/secure/vivosxpoint.htm

https://www.hardenedstructures.com/

[cosmicfish]

You make a lot of assumptions that I don't see as being the only path forward. If Bruce is smart he will bring back tech items that can be made with the manufacturing technology of the 1960s-1970s. For a person with the genius of Bruce it would be obvious that bringing back anything that requires a huge investment in new technology or exotic tooling is going to increase costs and reduce security.

I look at it this way. A 16 year old kid can turn smoke detectors into a functioning neutron gun in a shed in his mom's back yard using nothing but simple tools. It cost Billions of dollars to run the Manhattan Project, but once the basic principals and materials were discovered the investment has been made and the science and technology may possibly be produced more easily, more cheaply and on a different scale.

If I was Bruce I'd either have items specifically designed in the future for construction in a series of war surplus factories in 1965 or at least ensure that all the really hard R&D had been done. For all we know a fusion reactor could cost no more than a jet engine, or even no more than a high end Color TV set.

Yes, yes I do make a lot of assumptions. I make those assumptions as someone who finished college applying to grad programs in fusion technology, switched into advanced optical systems, and then made a career as an R&D engineer trying to turn "simple" concepts into high performing pieces of working technology.

That kid was able to build a neutron gun in his mom's shed, but what he built performed really poorly and was in practice little more than a massive public health hazard. Someone with access to select materials could build a working atomic bomb without all the R&D, but what they built would be unreliable and unsafe, likely to kill anyone who spent too much time near it, unlikely to go off when desired, likely to go off by accident, and delivering a relatively low yield for the amount of radioactive material.

One of my college professors (a laser specialist) used to have his students build a laser using a particular brand of toothbrush - the dye in the translucent handle made an effective lasing medium, and the ends could be polished to form the laser cavity, needing only a modest pumping source to lase. That doesn't mean those lasers are useful for anything more than demonstrating the concept.

The Project doesn't need concept demonstrators, they need high performing technology that is compact and reliable, and that isn't something you are going to be able to do in mom's shed. You need advanced materials, and high power computing, and precision machining, and lots and lots of other foundational technologies. Heck, half of my work consists of taking concepts that have been around for decades just waiting for someone to develop the dozens of other technological advancements necessary to make those concepts practical.

And as a final note, the only reason jet engines and tv sets are as cheap as they are today is because of massive investments in dozens of technologies and hundreds of industrial processes. It is a massive conceit to think that someone could build a compact, reliable, long-lasting fusion reactor cheaply using 1980's technology when hundreds and thousands of incredibly intelligent, specially educated people who were trying to accomplish that very thing all failed miserably. What you are suggesting is neither more nor less than magic.

As for land purchases. If this was my project I'd buy up land right off the go. Land won't get any cheaper. Any surplus can probably be sold at a profit. A bolt hole will be expensive to build and fairly large but a cache is about the size of a basement for a standard house, or even smaller. Until they get loaded up they are just concrete boxes in the ground. There are huge numbers of such things serving dozens of purposes all across the civilized world. No one really notices them.

I agree across the board. Early land purchases make perfect sense. You can probably even pour the concrete, provided you have plans that reflect the technology that will be installed decades later.

If the project bought up a lot of form military land no one is even going to wonder about concrete boxes in the ground, unless they find a bolt hole...

I think this makes a reasonable partial solution, but it only goes so far. The Project needs a lot of land and doesn't want to be predictable. It all goes to heck if someone starts to notice that everyone buying a particular type of property is also doing the same other suspicious things.

[cosmicfish]

Perhaps secrecy isn't the issue we all think it is. Take a look at the sites below and imagine the possibilities of the Project operating in the open.

http://www.terravivos.com/secure/vivosxpoint.htm

https://www.hardenedstructures.com/

Those groups are heavily investigated, and don't have super-futuristic or illegal military equipment. Secrecy is a huge issue.

And as a note on SSBI vs Project investigations, it is worthwhile that there are some hugely important differences. The government is looking for patriots, the Project is actually looking for a special type of traitor. The government can enforce their negative decisions (clearance denials, violations of laws regarding the handling of classified information, etc) with the force of law and an existing legal infrastructure, while the Project needs to get it right close to every time or the main expense of the Project will quickly become "disappearing" people who don't want to join but now know too much. The government can make reasonably accurate estimates of who will betray them based on past performance, the Project needs to take a fantastical hypothetical and find people really willing to abandon everyone and everything to make it real.

It should also be noted that people with higher clearances are tracked, to varying degrees, even after they end the employment that led to those clearances. There are people whose jobs are to know immediately if certain people try to leave the country, or publish anything without prior approval, or are being targeted or recruited by a potential enemy of the country... and EVERY organization is a potential enemy.

You can take some of those people, you probably can't get that many without raising some uncomfortable suspicions, and most of those people would be more likely to report the Project than join it anyway.

[Desert Mariner]

Those groups are heavily investigated, and don't have super-futuristic or illegal military equipment. Secrecy is a huge issue.

I should have clarified, I was referring specifically to construction of boltholes, caches, etc., not stocking said structures.

[tsofian]

Those groups are heavily investigated, and don't have super-futuristic or illegal military equipment. Secrecy is a huge issue.

And as a note on SSBI vs Project investigations, it is worthwhile that there are some hugely important differences. The government is looking for patriots, the Project is actually looking for a special type of traitor. The government can enforce their negative decisions (clearance denials, violations of laws regarding the handling of classified information, etc) with the force of law and an existing legal infrastructure, while the Project needs to get it right close to every time or the main expense of the Project will quickly become "disappearing" people who don't want to join but now know too much. The government can make reasonably accurate estimates of who will betray them based on past performance, the Project needs to take a fantastical hypothetical and find people really willing to abandon everyone and everything to make it real.

It should also be noted that people with higher clearances are tracked, to varying degrees, even after they end the employment that led to those clearances. There are people whose jobs are to know immediately if certain people try to leave the country, or publish anything without prior approval, or are being targeted or recruited by a potential enemy of the country... and EVERY organization is a potential enemy.

You can take some of those people, you probably can't get that many without raising some uncomfortable suspicions, and most of those people would be more likely to report the Project than join it anyway.

In 1960 things are very different than in 2018 or even in 1990. In the 1960s there are thousands or tens of thousands of fallout shelters being built all across the USA (and the rest of the world-it is estimated that Switzerland alone has 300,000 shelters). Today if you tell your neighbor you are building a bunker in your back yard you are a loony prepper and possibly get a visit from DHS. In 1963 if you said the same thing they might share their plans and design features and compare notes.

Average Citizens and Companies were ENCOURAGED by the Federal Government to build shelters. There were plans for ones with swimming pool entrances and swimming pool contractors were building them for civilians.

https://aquamagazine.com/builder/when-pool-builders-built-bomb-shelters.html

Before 1971 no one in the federal government is really regulating underground construction (https://www.osha.gov/Publications/osha3115.html). MSHA only gets mining, not tunneling, except for mineral extraction. (https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/mou/1979-03-29)

If red white and blue American companies are building fallout shelters from 1957-1970 I wonder how much scrutiny they would get from anyone Who would inspect them Unless the FBI wants to investigate who would have jurisdiction The Military doesn't. The department of Labor doesn't have an organ that does this yet. Some States might, but again who would notice or really care What laws are being broken It would be hard to tell a group-"hey were are going to investigate you for doing what a Presidential Kennedy told them to do!

From Wikipedia
In November 1961, in Fortune magazine, an article by Gilbert Burck appeared that outlined the plans of Nelson Rockefeller, Edward Teller, Herman Kahn, and Chet Holifield for an In the U.S. in September 1961, under the direction of Steuart L. Pittman, the federal government started the Community Fallout Shelter Program.[3][4] A letter from President Kennedy advising the use of fallout shelters appeared in the September 1961 issue of Life magazine.[5]


In November 1961, in Fortune magazine, an article by Gilbert Burck appeared that outlined the plans of Nelson Rockefeller, Edward Teller, Herman Kahn, and Chet Holifield for an enormous network of concrete lined underground fallout shelters throughout the United States sufficient to shelter millions of people to serve as a refuge in case of nuclear war.[6]


So in the Fortune article a group of wealthy and important people may have planned to build "an enormous network of concrete lined underground fallout shelters throughout the United States"

Between all the efforts to provide fall out shelters who is going to notice that some of these shelters are much bigger than others That some are far better built than the norm and that they seem to be designed to be upgraded

Hell an easy way to hide a bolt hole of a cache is to put it UNDER a marked and provisioned fallout shelter. If the war happens the shelter may or may not get used. The occupants may or may not survive (it would be creepy to have a team exit a bolt hole into a shelter filled with skeletons, welcome to the new world team!). But given how many of these things have been "lost" for decades I think it is safe to say that many many of these things have been completely forgotten by the vast majority of people.

A lot depends upon what the project saw as its own timeline. The initial Project may have been nothing but families of "preppers" with associated bomb shelters into which they would enter in case of alert. The holes were designed to be upgraded if or when new technology might advance to fusion and cryo.

Re-provisioning or upgrading a bolt hole or cache is far less obvious then building one. As urban sprawl creeps out some bolt holes and caches will become unavailable for upgrading. These might be abandoned or possibly recovered and placed somewhere else. If they are relocated they might be filled with grout after everything critical has been removed.

There are a number of first principals-
1955-1970 is not 2000+

The entire landscape of regulations and surveillance has changed.

Personal Patriotism and loyalty to the nation changed dramatically in the early 1970s due to Vietnam. Finding volunteers and also keeping secrets would have been far less of an issue before that.

Even for 4th edition if this is the foundation of the Project it may have remained hidden for the entire period.

Hiding things would have been far less of an issue before 1970 then it would be afterwards and it might certainly be impossible today.

[dragoon500ly]

Good Catch!

I had completely forgotten that corporations were taking part in the shelter craze. Certainly gives additional cover for Project activities!

[tsofian]

Good Catch!

I had completely forgotten that corporations were taking part in the shelter craze. Certainly gives additional cover for Project activities!

Thanks!