Consequences of Morrow Project Planning
   Extrapolations and Inferences from the Manual and Modules
                       1998 by Doyle Hunt 
                huntdoyl@smtp.lmn.usace.army.mil

Disclaimer:  The opinions expressed in this document are my own, and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the Morrow Project game designers,
publishers, or players.

     In the Morrow Project game manual, we get a very brief overview of the
Morrow Project.  We know that the Project had access to technology that would
be considered science fiction to the average person.  We know that the Project
had a very convincing prophecy of a future manmade global disaster, convincing
enough to prompt a number of industrialists to pledge their vast resources to
helping Bruce Morrow prepare for rebuilding afterwards.  Rebuilding, not
prevention.  Was the war really inevitable?  Or was Bruce a lot more bitter
and cynical than everyone believes?  Did he want the war to happen so that
mankind would be forced to start over?  He certainly seemed to have a good
idea when the war would happen, after all, and knew far enough in advance to
set up the Project.

     That is only my opinion.  If you disagree, don't worry, because the
discussion which follows does not require Bruce to be the cause of the war. 
But before we go on, consider this... What if Bruce really did want the war to
happen so that humanity could get a fresh start, but the Council for Tomorrow
spent as much effort on prevention of the war as they did on rebuilding
afterwards, so that the war started later than in the game manual?

        The Council for Tomorrow and The Really Big War

     The war happened in 1989 according to the game manual, but Bruce formed
the Council for Tomorrow in 1962, a full 27 years sooner.  The days of the
Cuban Missile Crisis.  My guess is that he met with the industrialists who
would later become the Council, predicted the Missile Crisis and the Bay of
Pigs, and used those events of proof that: 1) he really could see the future;
and 2) that the world was going to Hell in an express elevator.  Back in those
days, when rabid patriotism was a lot more fashionable, the men of the Council
would have been eager to jump on the bandwagon with that kind of
demonstration, even if they weren't modern-day philanthropic Andrew Carnegies.

     A lot of Project Directors push the war date into the future from when
the game manual indicates.  Some do it to let the player characters have more
cool stuff.  Some do it to keep the game background more in line with Real
Life (  by the God of your choice).  But consider the consequences of that
simple change in dates.  Now, instead of 27 years of Project preparation
before the war, you've got closer to 40 years.  The industrialists who
initially formed the Council for Tomorrow would be dead.  You don't get to be
a major industrialist in your twenties, after all, or you didn't back in the
1960's at least.  Bruce himself would be a grandfatherly old geezer at best,
and dead himself at worst (unless he's immortal or something).

     So, if you want to push back the start of the war, push back the date
that the Project first gets started, too (unless you think that the Council
did work against Bruce's plans to an extent).  Scan your history books, find
an event about 25 years ago that would have scared the bejeezus out of an
intelligent, patriotic man, and set the formation of the Council for Tomorrow
shortly before that date.  Bruce could then have used that prophecy of the
event to "prove" that the Really Big War was inevitable.  Then move all of the
other prewar dates from Project events forward by the same amount.

                           Cryogenics

     There are five groups in the Morrow Project game who have or had access
to cryogenics:
          1) The Morrow Project itself;
          2) The Rich Five;
          3) The Snake Eaters;
          4) Krell; and
          5) The Frozen Chosen.

     Given that four other groups have the technology that makes the Project
possible, that means one of two things: 1) Project security was like tissue
paper; or 2) The technology was deliberately made available to others.

     The Bullets and Bluegrass module tells us quite a bit about the Rich
Five and the Old Two Thousand.  Think about that.  Two thousand followers, all
in cryogenic suspension.  They didn't stay that way for very long, so it's
possible that they didn't have fusion technology, but they must have gotten
the cryogenic technology from somewhere, in large quantities.  I doubt they
just found a bolt-hole and reverse-engineered it.  More likely, one of the
Rich Five owned the company that made the stuff for the Morrow Project.  Which
in turn brings up the possibility that one or more of the Rich Five was a
member of the Council for Tomorrow.  This makes the Rich Five even more of a
threat, since their knowledge of the Project is somewhat more complete.  At
the same time, it means that cryogenic technology was a lot more prevalent
than indicated in the game manual.

     The Snake Eaters (Ruins of Chicago) must have had a significant number
of teams, all frozen just like the Project.  I find it hard to believe that
the US Government would gain access to cryogenic technology and then use it
only to freeze Special Forces teams.  Think of what else they'd use it for. 
The space program, for one.  Imagine, if you will, a team of astronauts in
cryogenic suspension aboard Space Station Freedom, MIR, or even, for a 1989
war date campaign, Skylab (which would have been maintained a lot better and
in a higher orbit, and still be up there).  Now, how does the Project get them
down from there?  Or maybe the Government used cryogenic technology to
preserve samples of endangered species until cloning technology was perfected? 
This would allow Science teams to free the critters, which may or may not be
fruitful and multiply.

     If the Government and the Rich Five both have got the technology, it is
reasonable to assume that it's available for sale, too.  Hopefully it's too
bloody expensive for Joe Average to have one next to the deep-freeze in his
garage, but certainly major hospitals should have one or more in their trauma
or coma units.  If making people-sickles is a fast and easy process, there may
even be ambulances and air ambulances that have freeze tubes installed. 
That's a bit much for me, though, so I arbitrarily decided that it's a slow
and finicky process that requires attendance by a whole team of physicians to
do right.

     The Frozen Chosen can be glossed over at this point.  There were only a
few of them, and they awoke soon after the war.  What has already been said
about the consequences of the Rich Five and the Snake Eaters could be used as
a justification for the Frozen Chosen as well.  They simply bought theirs in
secret using all of those donations from the gullible.

     As for Krell, we already know how he got his cryogenic technology.  He
stole it from the Project.  The various official game materials say so.  The
Prime Base module states that there was one unnamed Project planner fired for
"inefficiency and embezzlement".  I assume that's Krell.  Stealing cryogenic
technology certainly qualifies as embezzlement!

                          Fusion Power

     Fusion power is another one of the science fiction technologies which
make the Project possible in the first place.  At least one other group in the
game had fusion technology before the war, the Snake Eaters.  It's never
explicitly stated that they had fusion, but in Ruins of Chicago, the Snake
Eater team remained frozen almost as long as the Project team, so the presence
of fusion power is a reasonable assumption.  Again, since the Snake Eaters
have fusion, it's reasonable to assume that the rest of the Federal Government
does as well, or at least the Department of Defense.

     They may not have fusion-powered vehicles, since that also requires
other advances such as high-efficiency sealed electric motors.  But any
active-duty military installation that survived the war probably has fusion
power as well, or did at one time.  Such a facility is probably the only place
in the immediate area that has a reliable source of electric power, which
would make it a bastion of technology in the middle of a howling wilderness
long enough to become a power base for the residents before the power plant
wore out.

     The question is, did the Project have any knowledge of the Government's
ownership of fusion, the same way that the Government knew about the Project? 
If not, then the player characters could be in for a very rude surprise.

                Outside Knowledge of the Project

     Again using the Snake Eaters as an example, with information given in
the game manual and the Ruins of Chicago module, there was a least one group
that had knowledge of the Project before the war, but had no ties to the
Project.  The US Government.  It's stated in the official game materials that
the Snake Eater teams were frozen for the purpose of finding out what the
Project was up to.  I submit to you that the Government already knew, and
instead simply froze the Special Forces teams to act as policemen to keep the
Project from getting too uppity.

     Consider that the Snake Eater teams were frozen using the same
technology as the Project, both fusion and cryogenics.  They were intended to
wake up upon receipt of a Morrow Project wake-up call, and so found themselves
in the same situation when Prime Base bit the dust.  Now, if they were to
receive a Morrow Project wake-up call, then they had to know the frequencies
and codes used by the Project, and be able to unscramble the signals as well. 
If the Government really didn't know what the Project was for, they could have
simply used those codes and frequencies to wake the teams up early, prewar,
then arrest and interrogate them.  If they thought the Project was up to no
good, there would have been no reason to freeze the Snake Eaters in the first
place.  Therefore, the Snake Eaters know exactly what's going on with the
Project, and chose to support it, in their own way.

     That's also why US Army Green Berets were chosen.  Certainly the Special
Operations Command has counter-terrorist groups that could have been frozen
instead.  But Green Berets are intended to be used as training cadres for
insurgents.  They work with the locals, going native, as a standard operating
procedure.  In other words, they're the Government's nearest equivalent to the
Project.  Any animosity on the part of the Snake Eaters for the Project should
be due to the fact that the Project are amateurs, as likely to screw up as to
get it right.

     It's entirely possible that the reason why the Snake Eaters have that
knowledge about the Project is because Bruce himself told them.  If he knew
that the Project's preparations weren't progressing as quickly as they needed
to, Bruce could easily have gone to the Government to recruit the Special
Forces to make up the difference, and simply given them the technology.

                          Early Teams

     According to the dates listed in the game materials, construction of
Prime Base wasn't even started until after some teams were already frozen. 
Suppose Bruce had been wrong, and the war started sooner than he thought?  I
can't believe that the early teams were frozen with the intention of being
awakened by Prime Base before construction on Prime Base had even begun. 
Perhaps at the time they were frozen, they were set up with a timer system to
awaken them on a certain date.  When the bolt-holes were updated, these teams
would have had their alarm clocks changed out for a recall system keyed by
Prime Base.  Such a team should be surprised to receive even a random recall
signal, and would have no reason at all to assume that they had overslept. 
They wouldn't know that Prime Base even existed, and would have no reason to
go looking for it.  They'd still want to check in when they awakened, but with
a regional commander or some such, and would still find out that they're on
their own when no one answers.

     Imagine their confusion when the Phoenix Team get Prime Base up and
running again, and calls one of these early teams.  Prime who?

     For that matter, some teams were even frozen before fusion power was
available.  This is any team frozen before 1979.  How were their bolt-holes
powered?  However it was done, when the bolt-holes received upgrades, they
would have been given fusion power as well.  This means that the bolt-hole
power plant must have been accessible to the people doing the upgrades in
1987, which contradicts the bolt-hole descriptions in the game manual and
modules.  If it was accessible to them, it must be accessible to the team as
well.  Maybe it's too big to move, maybe it's too depleted to salvage, but a
pre-fusion team should still be able to open the power plant maintenance hatch
(in the floor?) and ask, "What the Hell is that?"

                           Conclusion

     The Morrow Project is a great game system, with a compelling premise. 
But look beyond the information presented in the game materials, and you will
find many thought-provoking tidbits that you can expand upon to make your own
game truly unique.