post_apocalypse_story/notes/archive.md

__Setting:__

* Post apocalypse 
  * (What happened?) 
    * Scenario criteria 
      * Needs to be partially man-made / caused by humans but they could have stopped it (kinda like our climate crisis but I don’t want this to be about that)
      * Needs to be able to contaminate areas so any life that sets foot there will perish
      * People will need to be able to hide from it underground
    * ~~Possible scenario: Flaky AI + biological sludge~~
    * ~~Possible scenario: Mix of nuclear and biological warfare~~
    * ~~Possible scenario: Aliens~~ 
      * ~~Aliens visit us to make friends~~
      * ~~They realize the shitshow that is human politics~~
      * ~~They get out of here and destroy civilization~~
    * Chosen scenario: Gradual downfall of civilization due to wars and neglect of critical infrastructure 
      * Humanity discovers some incredible new nuclear energy technology in the 1980s 
        * upsides: moar powar, less waste, relatively easy to get going
        * downsides: 
          * absolutely needs to be maintained well
          * horrible accidents 
            * huge explosions
            * spreads toxic and radioactive chemical sludge as globs scattered in the environment
            * releases some poisonous gas that decays slowly over time
      * Power plants with this stuff are built everywhere
      * As accidents happen, ppl cry for alternatives but nobody does anything because it’s not economically viable
      * A bunch of wars happen and a bunch of these power plants blow up as a result 
        * mostly traditional wars (not a nuclear war devastation scenario), possibly mild biological warfare if it benefits the story
      * Areas are abandoned and civil wars break out as living space gets sparse - as a result of that, more power plants blow up
      * Eventually, the atmosphere is so contaminated that ppl can no longer live at the surface
  * Years before the apocalypse, ppl start building safe places and start living in them but will still leave them regularly
  * Just enough time has passed for no living memory of how the world used to be to survive, slightly more than a century
  * Always need to watch out for <reason of apocalypse> when outside
  * In some areas, the landscape has been turned into a toxic wasteland
  * Weapons can be looted from various locations (guns, rifles, grenades, MANPADS, ...)
* Slight retro-futurism 
  * Computers: 
    * Personal computers are rare 
      * ~~Not sure which type (Altair 8800 / Commodore 64 / IBM PC)~~ IBM-PC-like but with big boi floppy drives and running INUX (as everything else)
    * Business computers are typically "mainframes" that are logged on to using dedicated terminals
    * UNIX-like systems dominate everything that can run them 
      * INUX lol
  * Cars: 
    * Mostly electric cars but they are oldtimers
* Early summer 
  * The story starts on Tue, 2106-06-01

__Locations:__

* Underground City 
  * Needs a name - Gleaming something something (an elegant name that would say something like light in the darkness implying there is hope for humanity in the shadows of the dome)
  * Location details: 
    * Built inside a gigantic hermetically sealed dome under a mountain
    * Past its prime but most things are intact
    * Semi-automated public transport system (trains, trams) to get around 
      * Can theoretically be used to enter/leave through big air locks but nobody has ever done that since the first inhabitants arrived 
        * As a matter of fact, it is strictly forbidden
    * Food (mostly algae and weird plants) is being farmed in big halls adjacent to the dome illuminated by hermetically sealed light shafts
  * Circumstances: 
    * People have been living completely isolated from the outside world for generations
    * People mostly go about normal lives, they have "normal" jobs
    * Waste water is recycled in a closed loop 
      * Slight water scarcity due to slow treatment process 
        * meant more like "don’t waste this, you don’t need to wash your car" and less like "if you shower now, we might have too little left to drink"
    * Relies on external facilities for electricity
  * Background information: 
    * Inhabitants never arrived in the numbers that were expected so while there are a lot of people there, roughly half of the buildings/homes are essentially time capsules
  * Places in the underground city: 
    * Annie’s work
    * Annie’s home 
      * single room apartment
    * Annie’s grandpa’s home 
      * two room apartment (living room, bedroom)
      * This is gonna be where they bring the stolen minicomputer
* Hydro Power Station 
  * Miraculously still works without ever being maintained
  * In dire need of repairs 
    * May or may not present a risk of flooding for everything downstream from it depending on whether that could contribute towards the story
* Ruin City - Siren’s Edge 
  * referred to as "Siren’s Rusthaven" by some people
  * Your typical post-apocalyptic ruined city
  * Located on the coast, has/had a port
  * Rusty cars and other vehicles in various stages of decay 
    * Some almost functional, some falling apart
  * Buildings in various stages of decay 
    * Sky scrapers that would fit right in in Horizon: Zero Dawn or The Last of Us
    * Apartment complexes
  * Decaying but mostly usable roads
  * Everything was left behind, definitely worth looting
  * Two groups and some individuals that have taken up residence there 
    * Fierce rivalry
  * Some sort of antenna tower that can be repurposed for long range communication
* Retro-futuristic data center 
  * Located on an island or in some location that is more convenient to reach by boat 
    * "Rogue Tides" or "Sentinel Beacon"
  * Used to be some sort of national archive backup
  * May or may not contain knowledge on all sorts of things
  * Protagonists go there to loot the hardware they need to establish communication with the moon
  * Buildings are in bad shape but some things are still running 
    * Including the automatic security system (gotta love them turrets)
* Cryogenic bunker 
  * "Outpost 53"
  * Built by Neotek Dynamics
  * An attempt to get people to survive beyond the apocalypse by freezing them in "preservation chambers" 
    * After a while, but decades before Jack wakes up, half of the bunker crew would have been woken up to send some sort of supplies to the moon 
      * After that, the bunker was not properly resealed and so a lot of the hardware degraded/failed (including the door and all but two of the remaining preservation chambers)
      * All except two preservation chambers have failed and the contained people have perished or escaped 
        * One of them automatically interrupts the "cryogenic sleep" of the contained person in an attempt to save the life of the contained person before a breakdown 
          * Jack
        * The last one is still intact and working 
          * Michelle
  * Has enough supplies to last the contained people for a couple weeks
* Ivydale South (train station) 
  * The first place Annie gets to see after leaving the dome city

    Built on the side of a mountain so it overlooks a valley
  * Building details
    * many tracks / platforms across two levels
    * roof has fallen in in many places 
      * the "skeleton" of it is still standing
  * Completely overgrown
    * grass on the platforms
    * trees in places
    * bushes growing in the tracks (the one where Jack came through with the train has been cleared... by the train)
    * ivy and vines growing up the walls and on the ceiling portions that are still there
* Moon habitat 
  * There is some kind of permanent moon habitat that would have had people living there when the apocalypse happened. 
    * The inhabitants of the moon colony would have thrived for a while, but the population would shrink.
    * people get sick and die of some dangerous pathogen a couple months before the story starts. When Jack gets in touch with them, there are like three ppl left. All but a young girl die. The girl recovers by some miracle and makes it down to Earth.

__People:__

* Annie (protagonist) 
  * From the underground city
  * Completely inept in regards to computers but also incredibly curious
  * Works at an agriculture organization - AgriWorks - that is kind of a mix of a company and a regulatory body 
    * Has a tendency to stay late
    * Is seen as a bit of a dreamer by her coworkers
  * Will have to figure out how to interact with a terminal on her own at the start of the story 
    * Her attention gets pointed to it by the dude from the cryogenic bunker sending a message and spamming the BEL character to get attention/help
  * Wants to see the outside world once she realizes that such a thing exists 
    * ~~Possible ending for her storyline: She either gets a plane going and flies somewhere else to explore the world or dies in the attempt - maybe left ambiguous~~
* Annie’s grandpa 
  * Also from the underground city (Who would have guessed?)
  * Has studied the plans for the city *a lot*...
  * Knows a few bits and pieces about the outside world - things his dad told him about his childhood
  * By no means a computer genius but he knows how to use one
* Annie’s grandpa’s dad 
  * Is dead when the story happens
  * Was 8 when the apocalypse happened and he moved into the underground city
* Jack (protagonist) 
  * A dude from the old world
  * Starts out in the bunker after his cryogenic sleep gets interrupted
  * Knows how to drive a train
  * Used to live in the ruined city
  * Wears his Neotek shirts and jacket with pride - this might become a problem for him later
  * When ideas that are on the border of ingenious and incredibly stupid are *somehow* put into action, he probably had a hand in it
  * Jack’s and Michelle’s mission is to get in touch with the ppl on the moon to find out if they need resupplies and to somehow get them up there by any means possible.
* Michelle (protagonist) 
  * A gal from the old world
  * Starts out in the cryogenic bunker
  * Has some important skill or skill set 
    * machine shop skills?
  * Used to live in the ruined city
  * Likes to hide the fact that she came from the old world - this might be relevant for the story, or it might not :)
  * Moon support mission
* The Nomad (protagonist) 
  * A dude who wanders the world
  * Experienced survivalist
  * Has had good and bad human encounters
  * Has seen places across various countries
  * Has a dog
* Electronics Tinkerer 
  * has a drug problem
  * relevant for the story because he is an absolute computer genius

__Scene Ideas:__

* ~~After stepping outside for the first time, Jack returns absolutely stoked: "Michelle, they actually left the bus exactly where I parked it and seem to have used it." - "Madlads." They start laughing. Jack had parked his party bus in a slightly inconvenient spot. Instead of moving it, the bunker personnel used it and left a note to Jack. \[It will be very faded and slightly rusty and some materials will have deteriorated, but it should be easy enough to be fixed up for use in the rest of the story. It could have been parked under some kind of roof or something.\]~~ *Funny, but I don’t think it fits into the story*
* When Annie asks for the manual at the library, she gets told that it got classified not too long ago because someone had tried to escape the dome. The librarian behind the counter says something along the lines of "Hey, I need to write down your details because you asked for classified materials, let me just get the list." and winks at her. She gets the hint and gets out of there. Outside, she hears the librarian say "Dorothy, she took her library card and ran, what do I do?" ~~\- she did not take her library card (facepalm moment). The following evening, the librarian shows up at her place, hands her the keys to the library while grinning and saying something like "I probably lost them on the way home... There are computers in the basement. I wrote down a login on this card." Annie will end up breaking into the library and she will have to figure out how to get the relevant file onto a floppy disk.~~ The librarian had written a note on her library card and given it back. The note says something like "midnight metro station xyz".
* One morning, Annie gets awoken at work by her coworkers who find her asleep at the terminal. The coworkers should say things like "Oh, Annie the computer expert? Why the sudden career change?"  
  While she won’t find it funny in the moment, it’s nothing mean-spirited or anything the like.
* \[DONE\] Annie waits at the train station that her and Jack have decided on. At the same time, a train and "keepers of order" (police) arrive at the station. Annie panics for a moment before she realizes that it is a single, very rusty railcar - it had to come from outside. She also sees that the driver is wearing a Neotek jacket. The doors open as she runs towards it. Inside, Jack runs to the other side. The railcar starts to move again (in the opposite direction) as Annie reaches it. She jumps inside. It leaves the station and the doors close.
* \[PARTIAL\] Annie and Jack arrive at the first train station outside the dome city. They go for a walk. Annie is completely unfamiliar with most elements of nature - maybe not necessarily with the concept of grass and trees, but many similarly basic things. When they arrive, most of the station is in shade (early evening) so they walk to a balcony or some place where Annie can experience the sun for the first time. This would also be a great opportunity to introduce the cause of the apocalypse (something along the lines of "look there, where everything is brown, nothing will ever grow there and it’s dangrous to even go close to that area").
* Annie, in her search for an alternative to whatever the underground city has as "coffee", obtains some drug from the electronics tinkerer. She proceeds to get high as the sky and really fucks up whatever she’s doing (failing a quest of medium importance or breaking an item of medium importance) before the others catch on to what’s going on.

__Story:__

Subplot to get the story started:

* Annie and Jack get into contact through a terminal at Annie’s workplace.
* They later establish contact from Annie’s grandpa’s place.
* Jack is stuck in the Neotek bunker and needs a manual to fix a door so he can leave.
* Annie finds it unexpectedly difficult to procure a copy of said manual 
  * Apparently any information about that type of door is top secret
  * She almost gets put on a watch list trying to get the manual at the library
  * She sneaks into some place and steals a floppy disk that holds a copy but it turns out to be encrypted
  * Somehow, they come to the conclusion that hijacking a minicomputer to break the encryption would be a great idea - they end up stealing one (an entire half-height rack filled with stuff)
  * At the end of it, Annie wants to sneakily return any stolen property back to its rightful owners (at this point, she is definitely being watched, so she has to be extra careful)
  * This happens in a matter of days to a week. During this time, Annie quits her job with nothing lined up as she makes plans with Jack for how to leave the city (which might be what makes her suspicious) 
    * Quitting her job may be inspired by a nightmare about being stuck in a building
* Once Jack finally manages to open the door, he unfreezes Michelle 
  * they use the bunker as a base and set up a sort of open air workshop around the entrance
* They stay in contact with Annie and continue working on the escape plan 
  * somehow, this has to end with Jack driving a train into the dome and picking up Annie before making a hasty exit
  * They have to set up some sort of encryption as the phone lines are being monitored by that point

In the outside world, Jack and Michelle have a mission: They need to get into contact with the people living on the moon.

* They need to go on some quests to even get communication equipment going
* Once they do, they learn that the population of the moon has been decimated by a dangerous pathogen 
  * three or four people are still alive including the moon girl
  * they are all sick and very aware that they will die soon
* By a miracle, the moon girl survives and recovers 
  * she returns to Earth using a rescue shuttle or capsule 
    * Two ways this can go: 
      * Either, the protagonists are there as the girl lands in a shuttle
      * or they find a crater with the remains of the rescue capsule and a parachute in the vicinity leads them to the location of the girl