# Hazard Rescue vs the One World Government tags: #articles #game/rpg/kingdom  *(The irony of that cut off is not lost on me.)* ## Welcome to the World Government The year is 2165. The nations of the world have largely consolidated into a single governing body known as the **One World Government**. The OWG is a largely urban organization, with the ruling elite housed in some of the densest high-value property on the planet. But not everybody's a joiner. ### OWG While ostensibly about the *"equitable redistribution of resources and wealth to the world's downtrodden,"* the OWG manages to redirect as much as possible into their own coffers and local urban communities, leaving vast swaths of the planetary surface condemned to effective corporatist serfdom. Access to advanced technology has been deeply restricted for those not considered *"properly socially minded."* Hydrocarbon fuels are tightly limited and controlled, generally the province of the global elite. For the most part, the masses are limited to electrically-based tools, equipment, and transport with limited range, limited lifespans, and accessibility to recharge at the whim of the urbanites. Life in the cities outside of the elite districts is marginally materially better but socially worse. Overcrowded conditions and easily controlled media lead to a populace which is demoralized, easily led, and intellectually unproductive. It is a time of global stagnation. The high frontier of space has been abandoned as *"a waste of resources."[^space]* Even the vast array of satellite communications elements have degraded and failed over years of neglect, which only plays into the elite's fantasies of control. ### Hazard Rescue Not everyone is on board with the New World Order. As has always been the case, independent thinkers, tinkerers, good old boys, rednecks, and hardcore geeks simply cannot be eliminated from the population. Some of them live out on 40 acres of a farm they barely keep running with their families, a couple of tractors and tons of elbow grease. Some of them maintain internal combustion engine cars in garages across the nation, keeping in touch with other automotive aficionados through encrypted message boards. Waiting for the day they can go tear-assing down a dry reservoir, trying to beat the feds to a bridge.[^rush] Some of them live in the inner city right next to the heart of the beast, making sure that subversive journalism doesn't fade from the all-seeing eye of mankind. Letting others know what's really happening and who's doing it. If you have a problem, if no one else can help you, and if you can find them, you may have a job for **Hazard Rescue**, an ad-hoc, entirely decentralized network of rebels, outsiders, and ne'er-do-wells who just can't leave good enough alone, and always seem to be there when there's real work to do. When the feds have abandoned you, and the cities have left you for dead, Hazard Rescue is probably going to roll up, pull out some tools, and get to work. If they have to break a few laws to do so, all the better.[^mules] What can they bring to the party? - Heavy industrial equipment - Farming gear without a remote cut-off - Scrambled radio communicators - Gasoline powered airboats - Caches of healthy food - Single Stage to Orbit spacecraft But perhaps the most dangerous thing of all is relationships with like-minded people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and save some lives. *Hazard Rescue* is the name of the ad hoc self-organizing group who is usually at the center of figuring out what resources need to be brought to bear, who has those resources, and whether they are available. There is no *formal* leader, though it's widely assumed that whoever has boots on the ground first is in charge of making sure that things go off without a hitch. ## Inspirations - Current Events (though this goes without saying) - **[Thunderbirds](https://www.gerryanderson.com/portfolio/thunderbirds/)** - **[Dukes of Hazzard](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078607/)** - **[The A-Team](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0429493/)** - **[Global Frequency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Frequency)** - **[Person of Interest](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/)**^[You've got to have some good old surveilance-state paranoia in here.] - **[One Piece](https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/One_Piece_Wiki)**^[Yeah, I know that seems really weird, but an opressive one world government, a bunch of misfit saviours who pop up to protect the common people, weird advanced technology in their back pockets? It's right in here.] - **[Knight Rider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Rider_(1982_TV_series))** - **[Street Hawk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Hawk)** - **[M.A.N.T.I.S.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.A.N.T.I.S.)** Essentially, take the **Thunderbirds** and the **Dukes of Hazzard**, network them together with **Global Frequency**, give the **A-Team** their own phone, turn the volume up slightly on the oppressive nature of government and surveillance. Then start loading in plenty of old-school 80s style, *"One man can make a difference"* attitude. ## System ![[Kingdom 2nd Ed (cover).jpg|400]] There's a couple of intriguing options here, depending on whether you want to focus on the exploits of a group who comes together to deal with these things or an individual, but because I'm more interested in the ad hoc community aspects of the situation here, there's one excellent choice. **[[Kingdom]]**. Surprisingly, that might not be the immediate and obvious choice for a lot of people. But for me, it's very clear. It's a system that is playable with as few as two players. There is no GM. It's all about the relationship between the aspects made manifest in the roles that the PCs possess, and it focuses on a particular crossroad threat at a time while crises lurk in the background. Frankly, it's perfect for this setup as long as you intend to be playing with some other people. Having picked a system, what might the setup look like? I'm glad you asked. ### Kingdom Setup: Hazard Rescue An ad hoc group of rebellious spirits with access to technology, skill, and grit the OWG would rather no one have, with which they save every life they can. #### Threats - The feds have sealed off the affected area. - Fuel and supplies are in short supply. - Armed looters are scattered across the zone. - Another storm is headed in to already ravaged areas. - Some of our people have been arrested. - The terrain is too rough to bring wheeled vehicles in. - People have been days without access to medicine or medical personnel. #### Locations - The temporary HQ site under tents - An open field in rural, isolated farmland - The mobile workshop, built out of the back-end of an 18-wheeler - The cockpit of the Atlas, an orbit-capable heavy cargo lifter - On a washed-out road winding through a mountain pass - In the desert, nothing as far as the eye can see - On a rooftop overlooking the city^[Obviously watching it flood, burn, or riot, your choice.] - In the Hazard Rescue chatroom #### Sample Characters ##### POWER: Bill Hodgeston Owner of the Atlas, the heavy lift orbital vehicle that Hazard Rescue sometimes uses to get places in a hurry. Bill used to be a pilot for OWG's aerospace arm but retired when he could no longer stomach watching politics trump the safety of others. He and a dozen others who helped establish Hazard Rescue built the Atlas and the rural Tennessee mountain base from which it's based over a number of years. Bill doesn't think of himself as a leader but when there's a problem, others look to him for answers. He wants to be with Lucy but feels the mission always comes first and is reluctant to do that to her. - Cockpit of the Atlas - The temporary HQ site ##### TOUCHSTONE: Lucy Lucerne There are those who do and those who stand and watch; Lucy never could stand in one place for long. She has the build of a woman who spends a lot of time out in the field running a farm because that's just what she does. When it comes to figuring out how to feed people, she's the one to talk to. Being in the trenches with people doing the good work, she sees them at their best and their worst, and knows what the pulse of public opinion really is. She feels motherly-protective of Damien, sometimes too much mother hen for his taste. - An open field - On a washed-out road ##### PERSPECTIVE: Damien Waller Son of Angus Waller, original designer of the Atlas, Damien is reluctantly following in the footsteps of his deceased father. Born in Seattle and educated in the best universities in the OWG, he has a certain sympathy for the plight of the downtrodden urban masses. He often turns a gimlet eye on the work of Hazard Rescue, seeing problems *and* opportunities others might miss. If - or when - it comes to using force, Damien is usually there on the front line. He is resentful of Bill's history with Angus and secretly blames Bill for his father's death. - In the Hazard Rescue chatroom - On a rooftop ##### Others - Wrightson, rebellious helicopter pilot - Hendricks, mountain old-timer - Hasting, mule-driver - Bubba, redneck out to have fun and fuck the feds - Arlene, redneck out to fuck everyone she can - Shelia, damsel in distress - Sheriff Gains, local sheriff with a problem flood - Clifford, big red hound - Xavier, bush mech pilot #### Potential Crossroads - Travel in and out of an area that's suffered a radiation accident and which Hazard Rescue is already working has been limited by the OWG. Do we continue the operation? - A second storm is bearing down on part of the large area a rescue effort is currently underway. Do we focus entirely on the new zone? - Feds are sniffing around the Atlas launch hanger. Do we clear out and try to relocate? - The OWG has sent agents to round up people associated with Hazard Rescue. Do we fight back?^[Everyone needs a [Ruby Ridge](https://medium.com/americanexperiencepbs/ruby-ridge-part-one-suspicion-aaac4d44977f) reference when you're talking about the feds.] - A small desert town has been cut off by flash flooding but Hazard Rescue resources are heavily engaged working elsewhere. Do the second stringers and locals step up to the plate to do a good job? #### Potential Crises - The feds manage to round up the major players in Hazard Rescue - Atlas base is destroyed by military action - The chatroom system is compromised - Hazard Rescue splits along ideological lines - The OWG shifts into an aggressive focus on near-Earth space - Bill Hodgeston dies in a rescue attempt ## Exunt That's really all you need. You've got a setup. You've got characters. You know what they need to do. You know what the dangers are. **Kingdom** is such an interesting possibility for this game simply because it focuses very specifically on how individual people interact with the problem. Not necessarily directly, but as representative aspects. While the Power certainly gets to decide what the kingdom does when it comes to how to deal with the crisis, the Touchstone really speaks for everyone who isn't a player character but is part of the kingdom. The Perspective can tell you what the outcomes are going to be without question until and unless someone pushes back and gives a good reason why it should be different than what the Perspective agrees with. If you are unfamiliar with **Kingdom** and how it plays, I definitely suggest that you pick up a copy and play it with your friends. Or I suppose you could watch me play it with my friends a long, long time ago. We have the technology for that.  *There's people that need rescuing. That's why there's Hazard Rescue.* [^space]: How we got here …  [^rush]: You know where this is going.  [^mules]: Off-roading around the feds? It's more likely than you think!  Tucked away in garages, under tarps, beneath trees, and sometimes even in fully retractable subterranean bases, you'll find any number of things that the OWG would really rather the plebeians not possess: