post_apocalypse_story/notes.md

Setting:

• Post apocalypse
  • (What happened?)
    • Possible scenario: Flaky AI + biological sludge
    • Possible scenario: Mix of nuclear and biological warfare
  • 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 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, many 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
  • Your typical post-apocalyptic ruined city
  • Located on the coast
  • 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
  • Used to be some sort of national archive backup
  • Contains vast amounts of knowledge on all sorts of things
    • Somehow, the protagonists need to get at that knowledge
  • Buildings are in bad shape but some things are still running
    • Including the automatic security system (gotta love them turrets)
• Cryogenic bunker
  • Built by CryoCorp (slogan: Preserving The Future)
  • An attempt to get people to survive beyond the apocalypse by freezing them in "preservation chambers"
    • All except two 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
    • The last one is still intact and working
  • Has enough supplies to last the contained people for a couple weeks

People:
Just some ideas for characters, may or may not be protagonists

• Annie
  • 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
  • A dude from the old world
  • Starts out in the cryogenic bunker after his cryogenic sleep gets interrupted
  • Knows how to drive a train
  • Used to live in the ruined city
  • Wears his CryoCorp 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
• Michelle
  • 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 :)
• The Nomad
  • 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:

• 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.
• 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 CryoCorp 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.

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 CryoCorp 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 prompted 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 use code words as the phone lines are being monitored by now