Isle Royale Shoreside Support Facilities

The Morrow Project is Copyrighted and owned by Timeline Ltd. This page is in no way intended to infringe on their Copyright. All articles are for non-profit, recreational use only, of Players and Gamemasters alike.


BASE 4 (Isle Royale Manned Supply Base)

Shoreside Support Facilities 1 and 2


MAP - EXTERIOR (GROUND LEVEL)



MAP KEY - EXTERIOR (GROUND LEVEL)

  1. MAIN GATE. Gate is standing open.
  2. CARD BOX. Normally used for storage area gate. No longer functions.
  3. PARKING LOT. Add vehicles (in appropriate condition) as desired.
  4. LOBBY INTO WAREHOUSE. Doors outside are glass, and broken. Lobby is stripped. Inner doors are covered by steel shutters, which are intact.
  5. LOADING DOCKS. There are no trucks present, and the doors are windowless. The doors are intact.
  6. WAREHOUSES. The eastern warehouse has windows on its east side, all broken. The windows lead to a set of offices and a cafeteria. All the rooms have inside doors sealed with metal shutters. The southernmost shutter has been ripped out; probably by a truck, using chains. Behind the shutters is a bare concrete corridor, running the length of the office area, with doors to the lobby and the other offices. There is no access from the corridor to the warehouse interior.

    The interior of the warehouses, once gained from below, are singularly unremarkable. They consist of huge reinforced concrete structures which are nothing more than garages and staging areas for incoming cargo from the base and teams requisitioning equipment from Base 4. The warehouses are divided into two sections each: The LCAC staging area, which dominates the southeastern end of each one, and the loading docks, which fill the northwestern ends.

    The staging area’s largest single feature is a huge set of doors built into the floor. The doors are 75 feet wide by 105 feet long (total) and are surrounded by a 10’ black and yellow striped danger zone. The doors are designed to serve as a stable floor for large amounts of weight. When the doors open, they slide down and then out to the sides into frames visible from the garage area on the level below. The space is then open to accept the LCAC lift from the level below.

    The loading docks look pretty much identical to loading docks everywhere. In the days before the war, they were used to unload trucks full of equipment bound for Isle Royale. Their mission after the war was the opposite; Morrow teams and trucks would load cargo requisitioned from Base 4 at the docks. Each warehouse has a pair of 15’ square cargo lifts that function much like the larger LCAC lifts. In normal operation, the LCACs would bring the cargo across and be lowered into the garage area. Members of the requisitioning team along with personnel from the transport facility would offload the cargo, perform and prep work required, and send it up on one of the smaller lifts to the loading docks.

  7. CONCRETE APRON. Partially submerged by the encroachment of the lake, this runs up to the warehouse. At this end, the warehouses are dominated by huge doors which appear to be wooden hangar-style construction, but are in fact heavily armored. The apron is cracked and potholed, and is covered with flotsam.
  8. WATCHTOWER. This appears to be a guard tower for the facility; in fact, it’s a combination lighthouse/radio antenna/radar tower. Most of the real equipment is sealed in the facility, and must be mounted.
  9. HELIPAD. The concrete pad is heavily scarred from the elements; the strobes are all either missing or broken. Beneath all that, however, is another pad, this one made of steel and synthetic materials. This pad was designed to be exposed by the base crew., and is also an elevator platform which descends into a small hangar facility below. The elevator is capable of handling up to a UH-60.
  10. YARD OFFICES. A small suite of dumpy offices, long since looted. The suite only takes up half of the actual space, with the still-concealed remainder consisting of the security checkpoint and main facility entry which would be the only way into the cargo facility once it became fully operational.
  11. STORAGE LOCKERS. Look just like storage lockers everywhere, but much better built. Nothing can open the doors along the sides, since they aren’t real. The only true doors are those at (12); the primary purpose of the structures is to house the above-ground equipment of the base, including compressors, ventilators, chillers, exhausts, and uplink gear.
  12. TEAM ACCESS. There are 9 doors on the "inner" ends of the buildings. These are the individual Field Team access doors, to be used to access the facility before it is actually brought on-line. (See detailed description in text.)

MAP - INTERIOR (SUBTERRANEAN LEVEL)



MAP KEY - INTERIOR (SUBTERRANEAN LEVEL)

  1. FOYER. Opens into airlocks and main entrance tunnel. At the moment, the main entrance tunnel is sealed. 4 ladders in this area lead up to the team entrance sections of the bogus storage buildings; the tunnel leads to the main entrance in the fake Yard Office building. The foyer contains a computer terminal with a card slot, a few benches, and little else.
  2. MAIN ENTRANCE. After facility activation, this is the normal personnel entry/exit. It contains an elevator and a stairwell.
  3. AIRLOCKS. Identical; each requires an MPID at each end. The purpose of the airlocks is to prevent contamination and spray from any vehicles in the garage area.
  4. WAREHOUSE FLOOR / GARAGE. Looks very empty, except for the vehicles and stakc of manuals. Floor is concrete, painted with white non-skid paint.
  5. SMALL LIFT PLATFORMS. These 15’ square lifts carry cargo to the loading docks above. There is a 10’ black and yellow striped danger zone around each.
  6. LCAC LIFT PLATFORMS. On each of these heavy-duty lifts sits a fully equipped LCAC, fusion-powered. Both are in a "shipping" state, however, and will take a crew several days to get fully operational. A team with no LCAC experience, or without any other hover experience, just can’t do it.
  7. WAREHOUSE SPACE. This area is presently empty.
  8. HANDLING EQUIPMENT / MACHINE SHOP. Stored here are 4 towmotors, 2 tractors, and 3 HAAM suits, along with a machine shop and a stock of spare parts.
  9. QUARTERS. Transient and personnel lodging, sleeps 30, with a kitchen, bathrooms, showers, lounge, wardroom, classroom, and commo room. The area is currently empty; it is designed to be filled by construction efforts at a later date.
  10. WAREHOUSE SPACE. This are is currently full of the supplies for the Quarters area with the components for these sections stored in crates and on pallets. (The interior walls are not intended to be permanent.)
  11. HELICOPTER BAY. Full service hangar, can hold several helicopters for storage, repair, or maintenance. There are no aircraft here at this time.
  12. HELICOPTER LIFT. Leads to helipad.

USING THIS FACILITY

NOTE: This base is intended to be used by a team which has recently completed PF-02, Damocles. Therefore, all references within refer to that team and that situation. If you are using this facility with another team from another location, feel free to modify the information as reuqired for your campaign.

Team G-9, by now curious about Isle Royale from both Damocles’ description and the Lakers’ tales, will try to find out what's out there.

There is no marker of any kind on any of the team’s AutoNavs for an MP installation on the island, nor is there any other MP facility along the RDF line from transmissions Damocles received.

There are two possible sources of data on which to base a search for the mystery base. First, a query in the Scout’s database will (if properly worded and delimited) turn up a place called "Morrow Moving and Storage" in Grand Portage, Minnesota. There is no specific location given, just information stating that such a place exists. Second, a very carefully worded question to Damocles will reveal comm traffic between Isle Royale and Grand Portage (and Isle Royale and Ontanogan, Michigan) during a 3-month period three weeks prior to the War.

Assuming that the team undertakes the run to Grand Portage, they find a mostly abandoned city slipping slowly back into Lake Superior, due to erosion and a steadily rising lake level. Morrow Shipping and Storage is a typical small-time shipping operation, with two large warehouses, four lines of rental-storage lockers, some small piers, and the remains of a helipad.

There is no overt indication of a Morrow facility. In fact, the team could easily miss the thing entirely; there are no signs left outside the immediate area of the buildings. A tall fence surrounds the rental-storage area, but it’s far from intact. A small card-box sits atop a rusted and bent pole outside the broken gate. If an MPID is inserted, a hideous grinding sound issues from the ruined gate motor, but stops quickly. It will not work, or even try to, ever again.

Inside the fenced area are the usual do-it-yourself storage lockers. These units must have been particularly well-made; none look damaged, although several show signs of attempted forced entry. The lockers range from 10’ wide to 3’ wide. The 3’ doors are on the ends of each row of lockers, and are labeled G 1 thru 9, H 1 thru 9, I 1 thru 9, and J 1 thru 9. (PD Note: These are the field team entries, to be used before the base is activated. The larger doors are not actually doors, as is explained later.)

Unlike most U-Store-It facilities the team may be familiar with, each door has an electronic locking mechanism with a card slot. Thus, even a really dense team, upon reaching this point, should figure out the blisteringly obvious and insert their ID’s into the door with their team designator on it. At that point, the appropriate 3’ door slides up, revealing an empty cubicle 4’ wide by 10’ deep.

If the team or any member of it enters the cubicle, the door closes (if not obstructed) and hidden lights click on. A small portion of the wall bearing a sign [Warning: Rat poison distributed monthly] opens, revealing a panel. The panel contains a card slot, a thumbprint recognition panel, and a speaker grille. At the same time, a small hiss followed by a loud click can be heard coming from the door. A check of the door will reveal to a smart player that the cubicle is now airtight; the noise was a series of seals inflating around the door.

The speaker will intone, in a mechanical male voice:

If this is not done, the air will be evacuated from the cubicle in 20 seconds. If it is done, the speaker says,

Again, after 20 seconds, if it’s not done, all in the cubicle will die. If it is done, and if the print and the voice match the stored data on the card, the rear wall of the cubicle pivots in the middle. Behind lies a corridor which obviously runs behind all the end units. In the center is a recess in the wall with a ladder leading down.

The ladder leads to the anteroom, 50’ down. This room contains 4 ladders, a computer terminal with a card slot, a desk, some lockers, and various other appropriate items. It also contains 2 airlocks. The airlocks will remain sealed until the facility has been pressurized.

The computer is on, and the following message and menu is displayed on the monitor:

If a proper MPID is inserted into the slot on the desk, a menu appears:

  1. PRESSURIZE FACILITY
  2. INITIALIZE FACILITY SYSTEMS
  3. BRING FACILITY ON-LINE
  4. ACTIVATE BEACONS
  5. ACTIVATE FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT
  6. BASE 4 REMOTE SYSTEMS ACCESS
  7. BRING FACILITY INTO PRIMARY MISSION MODE AND RECALL PERSONNEL

To enter the facility, only option (1) is required, but (2) and (3) will activate things like environmental control, lights, plumbing, computers, etc. (4) activates a homing beacon which pulses every 10 seconds on a frequency that the team’s radios don’t have; Damocles will detect it, however. If (5) is entered, this appears:

If (6) is entered, the following message will appear:

Under normal circumstances, this selection would allow full access to Base 4’s computer systems, allowing a team at this end to awaken the Isle Royale team, use the Base 4 commo array, or a number of other options.

If (7) is entered, the following message will appear:

This selection, combined with a command access card, places the base systems in "operational" mode and automatically initiates a recall of the team assigned here if an antenna is available (such as through the remote link to Base 4.)

Base pressurization takes 3 hours, and it’s LOUD. After that, entry is allowed via the airlocks.

Once inside, the team will probably explore. No matter what they do, make these things clear:

  1. They can’t use the LCAC’s (unless, of course, one of the characters actually knows how…)
  2. There are no freeze tubes.
  3. There are no aircraft.
  4. The only weapons here are those for the LCAC’s, still crated, and the HAAM suits.
  5. THIS IS NOT BASE 4.

If the team is now totally clueless about Base 4, throw them a clue bone. Throw a map on the wall or let them activate one of the LCAC’s AutoNav units.

The HAAM suits work, but the team shouldn’t find a way to get one to Isle Royale, at least not yet.

Unless the Krell threat is extremely pressing, the team can stay here for a couple of days, provided they unpack some supplies.

Upon leaving the facility, the foyer computer displays the following menu:

  1. RETURN FACILITY TO FULL STANDBY MODE
  2. TAKE FACILITY SYSTEMS OFF-LINE
  3. DISABLE INDIVIDUAL TEAM ACCESS DOORS
  4. ACTIVATE FACILITY SELF-DESTRUCT SYSTEM

Note that selections (3) and (4) are not actually available without security level 3 or higher clearance.

If the team mounts the tower hardware they have access to the commo equipment. This is a rather sophisticated yet compact system, and includes miniature Doppler and phased-array radars, long-range video, and a number of other sensors.


Designer's Notes

I put this little place together to answer a glaring need. In Damocles and Lucifer, a Morrow Project Manned Supply Base located on Isle Royale in Lake Superior is mentioned several times. Unfortunately, there is no detail. The entire place is left up to the imagination of the PD.

I haven’t gotten around to designing Isle Royale yet, (Base 4 to me) but that was nowhere near as important to my game as the small shoreside bases needed to actually make Base 4 work. Building the base on an island makes good defensive sense, but there needs to be an easy way for legitimate Project teams to use the base as a resupply point. The shoreside bases provide the answer.

It should be obvious, looking at the scale of this facility, that I have made some aspects of my Project larger than life. That’s true. The Project didn’t cut corners, didn’t think small, and didn’t worry about running up their corporate loans. After the war, it would be a while before large-scale construction projects were undertaken by anyone. The Project planners built for the future, for unseen contingencies, and for as many worst-case scenarios as they could think of. The built big, strong, reusable facilities. If the scale of this base is too large for your campaign, you could consider leaving off the subterranean level and placing some of the hardware inside the warehouse shells instead.

In any case, enjoy.

Thomas A. Kozak