glitterboy2098 wrote:So had a thought.. when the NEMA forces from atlanta relocated to chicago (the fiction bit at the start of the CE main book).. did they bring their dependants? The families of their troops, i mean.
Given they flew up on aircraft per the story, could go either way, especially given they were trying to bring as much gear as possible, and every dependant along is that much less space and mass for equipment
Also, what do you think they left behind? A token garrison? Or just a base with defenses and robotics set to automatic? they probably would have left some gear behind, even if they took nearly all the power armor, robots, infantry gear, etc they could.
Let's assess...
1. Atlanta is at elevation and not at risk from the tsunamis.
2. They had to travel north in the dead of winter. In Dec, Atlanta is typically mid-50s, while Chicago is mid-30s.
3. They were travelling through obviously dangerous territory with several unknown factors, with ley lines and nexuses increasing in frequency the further they travelled through what would become the blue zone.
4. Due to ashfall, airborne travel would be severely restricted and the NEMA forces didn't sound particularly air mobile except for Silver Eagles and such (it took 6 days to "trek" [pg 23] the roughly 600 miles, which includes the detour towards St Louis for some reason). Let's not mention that projected ash distribution of such an eruption would show much higher ash levels near Chicago than Atlanta.
5. Ignoring stragglers, by January, total NEMA strength in Chicago is brigade strength (3600, pg 24). Therefore a smaller force must have moved from Atlanta to Chicago to join existing forces there (my guess a battalion, ~1000).
Realistically, if they assessed the hazards of moving north, it is doubtful they would bring dependents. The city of Atlanta might have been on fire and rioting (yet Chicago miraculously wasn't?), but Chicago has a population 5x larger and scared humans en masse are dangerously unpredictable. Also, food disappears fast in the winter as people eat to stay warm. Better to secure dependents in a less densely populated, warmer region than dragging them through hell to become just another refugee freezing and/or starving in the snow.
Considering the size of the NEMA force on the move, it is likely they left regular military forces under a small NEMA command unit in Atlanta to address local chaos or, more likely, secure dependents in a defensible position. I would also presume that there would be a substantive number of CDS to supplement these defenses. Though no CDS manufacturing facility for the SE region is listed on pg 73, it would be safe to assume a large stockpile would be in the area to assist during times of normal emergency, such as hurricanes. These would have been commandeered by NEMA early on.
It should also be noted that Atlanta and Macon accounted for the highest percentage of urban survivors in the southeast. (Rifts WB26 pg 8 )
All in all, the move to Chicago was unrealistic and a strategic error, saved only by the conceit of the game setting. In fact, the NEMA migration should have been the reverse - abandon cold ley line saturated Chicago for the warmer south and secure KLS and Cyberworks facilities throughout the SE region, ultimately expanding to set up strongholds in Texas where there is substantively less ley line wonkiness (except in and around Dallas-Fort Worth), adequate food and energy resources, and a better climate.