Alternate version of New America...

[waiting4something]

I think they called that The Morrow Project. If you are not familiar with it I suggest you check out that post-apocalyptic setting.



That's pretty much the people New America wants to recruit, even if those people wouldn't want to be part of New America if they understood it's agenda.



Well, I certainly agree that the size of the organization beggars the imagination. Unless the FBI and ATF all took a collective vacation, it requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief to imagine that an organization with the money and manpower of New America could exist.

I think the reason that New America's troops are made out to be substandard (or at least sub-standard to US troops who've just spent three years fighting the Red Army), is that most New America recruits were envisioned to be arm-chair warriors. The kind of guys who read Soldier of Fortune and Guns & Ammo, but who've never been willing to give up their time to actually serve their country. Posers, in other words.

I don't fully agree with that idea since there's no reason to expect that extremists ripe for recruitment by New America couldn't also be veterans of the US military. Timothy McVeigh for instance. The authors of the original TW2K seemed to believe that the culture of the military would weed guys like that out. Personally, I think the military culture just encourages guys like that to keep their mouths shut so they are harder to identify.

Certainly there's no reason why some NA cells couldn't be as deadly as the Holonists as they were portrayed in David Brin's novel The Postman. In the novel, the average Holonist was worth something like 10 militia men from any other group. After all, just because they have an evil ideology doesn't mean they can't be courageous and talented warriors. Just look at the Waffen SS or the Taliban.



I'm not sure how to say this without it coming off as a cheap shot, but I'd really like to hear your reasoning behind this conclusion.


A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

I was counting on someone to have issues with me saying that. Well, think about it New America grew up on it's own. No government funding, no pay check for joining, no reason for being there accept you wanna be. That's what I dig.
Yes, it's clear as day that they try to portray the New Americans as some loony toon 3rd Reich wannabe cult. I mean they just try to make them the ultimate bad guys to make the Twilight World more interesting. Your hereos can only be as good as your bad guys are bad. If you just had Civ Gov and Mil Gov fighting each other alone the story would be more blah. Civ and Mil gov are really not all that much different in some ways. They are both made up old of politics just one is more in favor of a marshal law type atmoshpere.
As far as New Americans being lesser warriors because they were not Europe or the Middle East, meh I don't know. Every unit has dirt bags period. I lot of how good people are in my own opion is do to morale. I have seen good units turn bad just from a simple change of command and vice versa. The Americans returning would have most likely had better weapons handling and understanding of tactics, but they were fighting convetionally too. Now home in the USA it's all guerrrilla warfare, which the New Americans and the State side military have been doing.
That's just my view, wrong or right.

[kato13]

I was counting on someone to have issues with me saying that. Well, think about it New America grew up on it's own. No government funding, no pay check for joining, no reason for being there accept you wanna be. That's what I dig.

As a child of the cold war I respected survivalists. I often had questions about many of their opinions on certain matters, but the go it alone mentality was interesting to me. I realize now I would never have been emotionally distant enough to be a successful one if the balloon went up (I would have ended up trying to help too many people), but planning to be one was a fun logistical exercise to me back in the day.

The fundamental problem is how do you unify what are by nature rugged individualists. The canon "New America" does this by instilling a sense or superiority and vilifying an external enemy. As has been seen in history that really can work.

I did not like that solution so I made them anti-government, anti refugee and strongly anti immigrant. This makes them a bit more of a gray enemy in my opinion. It also probably weakens the bonds between cells. However a charismatic leader can still motivate a majority of them.

[Webstral]

While I also have my doubts about how secret an organization like New America could be, New America makes for good story-telling. One can tweak NA to fit one's own limitations on suspension of disbelief. I've never been big on New America, but the organization can serve a purpose.

I like the Neo-Nazi racism foundation for New America because for me it taps into some very deep, dark stuff. For better or for worse, my father was a history major at a liberal arts college. I grew up on WW2 history. I got a stiff dose of Holocaust awareness in my at-the-dinner-table and riding-in-the-car and fishing-at-the-local-pond education. Flash forward in time, and I'm married to a woman whose parents are African-American and Asian-American. To the Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and Aryan Brothers of the nation, my son is an abomination, while I am a blood traitor. I like having the story-telling tool of New America available specifically because I'm not remotely neutral about the New American racism.

Getting to the story-telling part, I have been sketching out ideas for the New American power in Idaho so I can show these guys in action. New America is a device for showing how the kind of evil that overtook Germany can overtake at least a slice of the American population. Not every white person in the Idaho cantonment has to be a racist. Like the Germans, the non-NA folks along the Snake River simply have to go along with the program.

In The Final Solution, a New American cell has enjoyed huge success in the Snake River Valley of Idaho. Unlike the Tampa New American organization, the Snake River New Americans have gone with a more traditional Holocaust-style of treatment of the untermenschen. Concentration camps have been set up, and the non-Aryan internees are worked to death. It's pretty straightforward, really.

From a story-telling standpoint, I get my dramatic release from two events. The first is the friction that develops between the Shogun in Nevada and the New Americas. The Shogun is a warlord, but he's an equal-opportunity warlord. He's Japanese-American, and the outward apsects of his army (the Gunryo) are heavily Japanese partially as a means of fostering internal cohesion among his troops. The Gunryo has a lot of bikers, but the few racists have been... weeded out. The Shogun gets wind of what is happening in Idaho and executes a major raid with his army of mobile marauders. He "liberates" a number of people from the concentration camp, then promptly adds them to the peasant population under his thumb in Nevada. Mind, I'm not trying to make the Shogun a hero. I just like the irony of the Shogun and New America being at each other's throats.

The second event is Operation Manifest Destiny. The Snake River has to be opened up to barge traffic so that the Colorado and the Puget Sound cantonments can be linked logistically. Skipping over the preparations to build an expeditionary force that can do the job (which could fill a thick novel), I imagine American troops gathered from all over the country (including a reinforced battalion from SAMAD) pushing forward an offensive to crush the New Americans and liberate the surviving Americans in the concentration camps. So yes, it's a fairly simple good v evil story for me. I happen to like it because it touches me in a very personal, very fundamental way.

Webstral

[Targan]

I like the Neo-Nazi racism foundation for New America because for me it taps into some very deep, dark stuff. For better or for worse, my father was a history major at a liberal arts college. I grew up on WW2 history. I got a stiff dose of Holocaust awareness in my at-the-dinner-table and riding-in-the-car and fishing-at-the-local-pond education. Flash forward in time, and I'm married to a woman whose parents are African-American and Asian-American. To the Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and Aryan Brothers of the nation, my son is an abomination, while I am a blood traitor. I like having the story-telling tool of New America available specifically because I'm not remotely neutral about the New American racism.

I'm glad you wrote this Web. I have held off posting in any threads about New America because the whole concept of NA makes me very uncomfortable. Of all the things in modern society that I can not abide, racism is high on my list. I often say (only half jokingly) that you can always find much better reasons to hate someone than the colour of their skin. I don't like speculating on what New America would or would not do because I don't want to have to put try to put myself inside the head of a New America member. I'm normally pretty good at being empathic and trying to see things from other peoples' points of view but with NA I find myself really not wanting to.

[pmulcahy11b]

I like to have the racist New America as bad guys, for the reasons Targan mentioned. My mother is a concentration camp survivor, and that contributes as well.

As for myself, racism is basically institutionalized hate, and in the US we're already seeing it reassert itself. But It doesn't make sense to me -- there are so many reasons to hate people as individuals that hating them as a race doesn't make any sense. Dogs are altogether better people -- most of the time they love unconditionally, and when they don't, people probably made them that way.

[sglancy12]

Well, thing about it New America grew up on it's own. No government funding, no pay check for joining, no reason for being there accept you wanna be. That's what I dig.

Yeah well, that could also describe the RUF, the Sendero Luminoso, the Taliban, Al Queda, and the Khmer Rouge... none of which I would describe as "cool." Interesting maybe. Even fascinating... but not cool.

Yes, it's clear as day that they try to portray the New Americans as some loony toon 3rd Reich wannabe cult.

The "they" to which you refer are the authors of the TW2K game setting. They don't have to try to portray the New Americans as some loony toon 3rd Reich wannabe cult because New America absolutely is a loony toon 3rd Reich wannabe cult.

You sound like you think the New Americans are getting a bad rap from the former staff writers at GDW.

Am I reading your comments correctly

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[kalos72]

I will be honest, NA is good for my campaign as it gives the MILGOV/CIVGOV forces some ones else to worry about.

Personally, I see NA being the source of a fair amount of "rebuilding". Organizations with this much power tend to be a catalyst for other reforms and such to counter them as well.

[waiting4something]

Yeah well, that could also describe the RUF, the Sendero Luminoso, the Taliban, Al Queda, and the Khmer Rouge... none of which I would describe as "cool." Interesting maybe. Even fascinating... but not cool.



The "they" to which you refer are the authors of the TW2K game setting. They don't have to try to portray the New Americans as some loony toon 3rd Reich wannabe cult because New America absolutely is a loony toon 3rd Reich wannabe cult.

You sound like you think the New Americans are getting a bad rap from the former staff writers at GDW.

Am I reading your comments correctly

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

Well Robin Hood was pretty cool and he didn't go with the government grade and was self promoting too.

As far as "they" I I'm refering to the authors of TW2K. They are the ones that made the NA what they are, are they not I mean they could have made them dudes that just where anti government, didn't like typical U.S. politics, or waiting for hard times ahead. No they made them to be the typical Hollywood racist redneck militia. And why not build them like the Nazi's they are the popular guys to hate on. Years of movies and TV have taught us well on that. Hell even the film Star Wars had bad guys based on Nazi's.
You Mention Khmer Rouge which I give you props for, because most people don't even know or remember them and they happened after the nazi's. Bad guys and the groups they run can be different from the nazi's yet this always goes unnoticed, because we are so brainwashed on what we are fed by the media. Hell some other evil could lurk up on us, because we are so focused on nazi's. Look at Africa do we know what happens there- no, we don't care. Why because they aren't popular.
So yeah the writers did make the NA bad guys. A group like that couldn't get that big, because everyone is looking for that type of evil. They could of made them less flamboyant bad guys or not bad guys at all, just another group that doesn't see eye to eye with the other two.

[John Farson]

I've always thought of NA as coming to the fore after the nuclear exchange, offering law and order, food, security and protection against raiders, rebuilding etc. etc. In the sorry situation the U.S. is in, I'd think that a lot of people would be quite open to all that.

Naturally, NA would use propaganda to mask their more odious true nature from the general public. I doubt they'd immediately go "RAR! We are teh Aryans!!! We gonna kill all the filthy niggers, jooze, fags, mormons and anyone else we don't like!" They'd be more clever than that, which would make them all the more dangerous. This reminds me of a joke I once read in MAD magazine about the "patriot" who ends up hating about 90% of Americans.

[Legbreaker]

The Khmer Rouge of course were Communists who took it to the absolute extreme. Fortunately their reign over their country was relatively short, but did they know how to kill people!
Of course the majority of the people they killed were their own, which many people pointed the finger at just to save their own skins (and then most still died).

A truely horrific group which unfortunately still exists in the more remote regions...

[headquarters]

NDP

The Khmer Rouge of course were Communists who took it to the absolute extreme. Fortunately their reign over their country was relatively short, but did they know how to kill people!
Of course the majority of the people they killed were their own, which many people pointed the finger at just to save their own skins (and then most still died).

A truely horrific group which unfortunately still exists in the more remote regions...

I always saw the ndp as something along those lines ( NDP -NEW DAWN PARTY in our campaign) .Not communist and totally different setting , but you know-totalitarian ,fear fuelled obidience and uniformity.

Shelter-Bread-Leadership

the creed of the NDP who woved to give all a berth and space in a bunker ,calories enough to feed all and of course a 23 hour and 45 min program for how the populace would spend their days in their bunkers.

Yeah -I know -that 15 min gap proves it . They are softies.

They do have a death mine though , for dissidents.They inherited it and renamed it from The General Pain Asbestos CO. Ltd when the glorious reign of teh General collapsed during the first MilGov invasion /liberation attempt in 2014.( Yeah.Some call it this ,some that ,depending on loyalties..)

Much the same clientele .

[Legbreaker]

Something that was half joked about when I was in the army was that we were not allowed to be worked more than 23 hours and 45 minutes in a day as anything more could be described as slavery.

[sglancy12]

Well Robin Hood was pretty cool and he didn't go with the government grade and was self promoting too.

Don't think Robin of Loxley would much appreciate being grouped with Pol Pot and Carl Hughes.

And why not build them (the New Americans) like the Nazi's they are the popular guys to hate on. Years of movies and TV have taught us well on that. Hell even the film Star Wars had bad guys based on Nazi's.

Frankly the Soviets get to fill those shoes in TW2K. Got yer spiffy uniforms. Got yer brutal secret police. Got yer massive army. Even got Gulags to stand in for concentration camps.

You Mention Khmer Rouge which I give you props for, because most people don't even know or remember them and they happened after the nazi's. Bad guys and the groups they run can be different from the nazi's yet this always goes unnoticed, because we are so brainwashed on what we are fed by the media. Hell some other evil could lurk up on us, because we are so focused on nazi's.

You are all over the place dude. First you ask "Why weren't New America more like the Nazis" then you complain that Nazis have been overused

Look at Africa do we know what happens there- no, we don't care. Why because they aren't popular.

Hey, I mentioned the RUF didn't I Maybe I should have thrown in the Lord's Resistance Army from Uganda. Those guys are 8 cylinder, fuel-injected psychos.

So yeah the writers did make the NA bad guys. A group like that couldn't get that big, because everyone is looking for that type of evil. They could of made them less flamboyant bad guys or not bad guys at all, just another group that doesn't see eye to eye with the other two.

I mean they could have made them dudes that just where anti government, didn't like typical U.S. politics, or waiting for hard times ahead. No they made them to be the typical Hollywood racist redneck militia.

Okay, I still don't get your point. Are you turned off because the New Americans were made out to represent the worst aspects of the survivalist movement Do you see the New Americans as a deliberate slight against anyone white, christian, rural, politically conservative and dedicated to self-sufficiency

I don't think the authors intended the New Americans to represent the entire survivalist movement. There is plenty of room in the canon for survivalist philosophies that do not include the fascism and racism of New America. I will admit that as written in TW2K the survivalist movement was a prime recruiting ground for New America, just like in real life many of the white supremacists and racial separatist movements attempted to recruit from the survivalist and the later militia movements.

The New Americans were certainly influenced by David Brin's Holonists from "The Postman." In that book survivalists are depicted as the reason the government fails to recover after the limited nuclear exchange and why the country breaks down into anarchy and chaos. But I don't think that the authors at GDW had an agenda concerning the depiction of survivalist.


A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[kato13]

I don't think the authors intended the New Americans to represent the entire survivalist movement.

I have to say that I cut GDW a little slack on the attaching of Facist/Nazi characteristics to New America as when they did it (mid to late 80s), it was not nearly the cliche that it is now. It was actually kinda novel back then (at least to me) and given the tone of some survivalist groups, potentially accurate..

In today's world you see the fact that the movie version of "Sum of All fears" change the villains from Palestinian terrorists to, you guessed it, neo Nazis. Even thought the origin or fissile materials they used was a lost Israeli bomb found in Syria. This just smacks of lazy writing or a desire not to be controversial. Nazis are just such an easy target.

[pmulcahy11b]

Neo-Nazis are an easy target -- but they're also an easy plot device. Sometimes, those are necessary, as long as those easy plot devices aren't overused.