The Last Bastion: Bunker Chicago The Last Bastion: Bunker Chicago's General Information (READ THIS FIRST)

Nilum

The Wanderer Returned
Benefactor
“Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred, or disguised love of power.”
-Bertrand Russell.


From The Beginning

One hundred and sixty years ago, the world was ended with weapons beyond that of our understanding. For whatever, mad reason, the borderline utopian societies that came before us decided that the only solution to their problems was war, and death. Death on a scale that the planet had never seen before. The only hints we have of our end as civilizations, as peoples, are pockets of radiation and mutations that defy all laws of biology. For decades, a nuclear winter gripped the world, and choked from it any hope of rebuilding much beyond scrapheap villages which lived in the mercy of roving bands of raiders. Within thirty years, all that remained of the old world, were myths and legends... And what few scraps of books, and newspapers remained. The hollowed out husks of cities, which once housed millions, were now little more than a testament to human hubris, seemingly never to be repeated again.

This, however, all changed about sixty years ago.

Bunker Colonies started to arise on the East Coast of North America... Bunker colonies were little more than a military bunker, built up, with people deciding to settle around them. A clandestine organization, known simply as The Coalition, took over these colonies. They started simply as a mysterious group of elite soldiers, murdering raiders that dared to threaten any of these new colonies. Then, they ran them with an autocratic efficiency that was unmatched by any other surviving groups. Over the next ten years, several technologies from the old world were recovered—nanomachines, rudimentary AI, advanced machining techniques, enlarged battery lifetimes, radar, basic laser weaponry, advanced ballistics warfare, and so on.

Another ten years followed, and the unrelenting fist of The Coalition began to ebb and erode the trust of some of its citizens. They rose up into a new faction, known as the United-American Revival Movement, often simply shortened to U-ARM. What few scraps of knowledge of the old country known as the United States, combined with new interpretations of Christianity, and a sincere fear and distrust of mutants, formed the basis for this new faction. Diplomatic actions were short, and within weeks, the two factions were at each other’s throats. Casualties appeared on both sides, and among neutral parties, with raiders taking advantage of the chaos to sew misery and to steal from those who could not defend themselves.

This, brings us to Bunker Chicago. Formed forty years ago by survivors from the East Coast and the rest of North America, who were sick of base survival and of being pawns of others, created a new Bunker colony. Neighbours, they called themselves. Soon to be known as The Old Guard, as other factions started making probing interests into it. The Old Guard was run in a simple manner: Meritocracy judged your worth, your value. Hard workers, the intelligent, the cunning—all working together to build a new home. Within thirty years, the war that had taken its toll on both Coalition and U-ARM bunkers, had left the otherwise independent Bunker Chicago untouched. Bunker Chicago, thus, became the richest, most industrialized bunker there was, capable of regularly protecting the farms that sprouted up around it. For the first time in the history of this new world, there was the hope of a stable home.

The Coalition, thus, offered its aid in vanquishing the local raiders. The Old Guard took it, believing they could be rid of them later... Only for some of their own to defect to The Coalition’s side, believing in their cause over The Old Guard. Seeing this as a potential threat, U-ARM slipped in, and began working to try and convert the population to their side, instead of The Coalition. Ten, hard fought, bloody years later, and the last of the raiders were driven to their knees. With one last strike, the farmers could live in peace and freedom, and as such, Bunker Chicago could begin the real process of rebuilding the infrastructure of the Old World, ushering in a new era of human civilization, with technological marvels that could invent solutions for even some of mankind’s most fundamental of problems.

Things are never that easy.

A joint task force of Coalition and Old Guard forces moved to eliminate the last of the raiders, known as Bosho’s Raiders. They encountered a strange, grey fog, unnatural in origin, with properties that defied modern science. This fog was poisonous, forcing everyone to wear gas masks simply to survive within it. Fighting within the fog was brief, but intense, and not against Bosho’s Raiders: For they were utterly vanquished. Instead, it was against another enemy, of mutant humanoids of a level of power far beyond that which should be possible. Several casualties were sustained, though The Old Guard took the brunt of them, as The Coalition pulled out without warning before The Old Guard even knew what was happening.

The fog then turned to an orange hue, and the mutants within soon after became known as “The Children of Eve.” For in what few people they spared, they left one, simple message: Not to interfere with them, or any of their plans. To simply, leave them alone, to follow what appeared to be their leader: Eve. Soon after this warning was given, one mutant from the fog was spotted wandering around, on his own, aimlessly. The Coalition and The Old Guard once again stepped in a join operation to capture him, each planning to betray each other if necessary to secure the prisoner. The Children of Eve also stepped in, and another, final, unknown faction, finally showed its face: Red Star. In the end, The Coalition secured the prisoner, only to be betrayed by The Old Guard en route back to Bunker Chicago, and forced to surrender the prisoner at gun point.

It has been one month since the orange fog has come to blanket most of the city ruins of Chicago. The Coalition and The Old Guard’s alliance crumbles away as their soldiers line the streets of Bunker Chicago and stare at each other with immense distrust. Red Star has begun regrouping its few forces and preparing to work in conjunction with a tenuous, last minute alliance with The Old Guard out of mutual self-interest. U-ARM’s spread of propagandist papers has grown to an all-time high, as they prepare for what can only be assumed to be a major change in their operational stance. The Children of Eve work in secret from the shadows, slowly recruiting mutants to their cause, and turning them into something... More.

An uneasy quiet has reached the last bastion of civilization... A calm, before the inevitable storm.

Where will you stand, when the dust settles? Where will you stand in the history books of the victor?

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What is The Last Bastion: Bunker Chicago?

The Last Bastion: Bunker Chicago is a role play started months before I came to Storytellerscircle. It’s a post-apocalyptic near(ish)-future science fiction survival story about a few survivors each trying to find their own way through the cold, dark world they live in. The story is centered around Bunker Chicago—a city, built around an emergency bunker, situated a few miles away from the city ruins of Chicago. The story focuses on player characters attempting to survive and scramble their way to the top of the pile, sometimes working together, sometimes betraying and even killing each other. To this extent, a player character alone is often incredibly vulnerable, and thus they associate to various factions each struggling to accomplish their own objectives, in order to accomplish their own vision for Bunker Chicago and the surrounding area.

“The Last Bastion” part of the title is in reference to the fact that this is the first city in the past 160 years to become fully self-sufficient at a population greater than 50,000. In other words: It’s the first serious contender for bringing back civilization, and whoever ultimately controls it, will control how the first truly self-sufficient civilization will form.

This role play is also built around my two core rules for every story I create.

  1. Everyone Dies: This isn’t to say that I’m a bloodthirsty maniac! I just make it a rule of thumb that every character in a story will die at some point—be it in the epilogue from old age surrounded by family, or cut down tragically in their prime halfway through the story. It makes every risk more poignant when the risk of death is actually present, rather than being a cheap illusion.
  2. Every (In)Action Matters: Whether your character does anything, or chooses to do nothing at all in any given situation, the universe will account for this. You’ll have to weigh the risks of every action you take, and decide if the risk is worth it in the end. You’re not an immortal demigod and you can’t change everything you find at a whim, but you can make any choice you wish, that you can envision—and live with the consequences of that choice.

tl;dr: Political moves, violence, an emphasis on choices and their consequences, and a living, vibrant universe to get lost head over heels in... All wrapped in a delicious dystopian science fiction post apocalyptic genre.

Story Structure?

The Last Bastion progresses through the story in a cyclical manner: Hub World -> Missions -> Hub World -> Missions, et cetera. What occurs in the missions causes impacts and changes on the Hub World, which manifest most strongly in the overall atmosphere of Bunker Chicago, and how important NPC’s develop as characters (or, if they’re even still alive, for that matter!)

Essentially, your character...
  • Joins a faction (whether temporarily or permanently is up to you).
  • Attempts to accomplish the objectives of the next mission set out by that faction. (How you attempt to accomplish these objectives also notably impacts your character’s reputation with other factions, and the general bunker populace.)
  • Assuming they don’t die, they return to Bunker Chicago where they end up debriefed by their faction, having their decisions questioned should the faction have any reasonable way of knowing about them.
  • They’re let out into Bunker Chicago, where the impact of their actions in missions manifests as changes in the bunker itself, and they’re free to socialize and pursue their own agendas however they wish to do so.

I basically stole the structure verbatim from classic video game RPG’s, like Knights of the Old Republic, who in turn stole it from Greek plays that reused set scenes to save on the production costs. If you know what these things are, this should all be intimately familiar to you.

What is each section used for?

The purposes of each section are...

  • The Last Bastion: OOC: To chit chat about whatever you wish, so long as it’s at least tangentially related to The Last Bastion. The FAQ threads are places where you can openly present questions to be answered!
    • Sign-Ups: Here is where you sign-up for the roleplay, using a CS format I’ll post as a stickied thread at a later date.
      • Approved: I’ll move approved character sheets here, after posting my stamp of approval in them in the Sign-Ups area. This is to ensure that approved characters and characters awaiting approval can be easily filtered.
      • Dead/Inactive: I’ll move otherwise approved characters into this area when they either die within the story, or become inactive as a result of a player leaving or abandoning the role play. I’ll usually wait a minimum of 3 weeks before deciding whether or not a character has gone inactive.
    • World Information: Here is where threads containing information about the world will be posted. There is also an FAQ thread here to ask questions about the world at any time, when there’s something established lore threads don’t answer. Like whether or not cats and dogs survived the apocalypse.
    • Story So Far: A section dedicated to archived story beats, character achievements, and notable decisions and consequences players have made or will make. This section will receive infrequent updates.
  • The Last Bastion: IC: To actually participate in the role play in-character, you go to one of its subforums.
    • Hub World: Here is where scenes in Bunker Chicago (and other as of yet to be revealed areas) are generally role played. There are few rules here beyond simple player etiquette, and most threads here will likely be short (only 1-2 pages long) and focus primarily around 2-4 characters (PC’s and/or NPC’s) engaging in dialogue sections. That being said, beware: The Last Bastion is a very dangerous universe, and if you sufficiently anger another faction that they see you as a genuine threat, they may try to kill you in the Hub World.
    • Missions Area: Here is where missions established by factions are participated in. These are dangerous, they have more posting rules (specifically to try and stay to one post per GM round as established in the Rules and Guidelines thread), and it’s where a great deal of change tends to happen in short periods of time.
    • News/Interludes: Here is where I’ll post events about what’s happening to the world as a result of your choices, or the simple, normal progression of events as factions continue to pursue things independently of you. You won’t likely be posting much, if anything, here.
How to join?

You can only join while the world is in a hub world section, and not in the middle of a mission.

Step 1: Go here.

Step 2: Fill out the character sheet. You’ll have a little reading to do about how the mechanical aspects work, but outside of a small initial bump in the learning curve, it shouldn’t be too hard. If you have any questions, simply ask me in the FAQ threads, or try asking me on the site chat. (Though if the site chat moves too fast, I may miss your question.)

Step 3: Post your character sheet in the Sign-Ups area.

Step 4: Wait for me to approve it, and hand the final pieces of information for your character to help ensure they fully fit in the world.

Step 5A: I found an error in it. I’ll tell you what went wrong, and after you fix it, post your fixes, and repeat step 4. (More likely to occur.)

Step 5B: It’s fine, it gets approved, and I move it to the approved section.

Step 6: You can now start posting in the role play. Hooray!

THE MAIN OUT OF CHARACTER DISCUSSION THREAD IS HERE. Subscribe to it for announcements in the RP--such as when IC posts go up.
 
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