MAINE

1) NUCLEAR TARGETS

Portland, SS-N-17
Augusta, SS-17
Loring AFB, SS-17
Bangor, SS-N-17
Lewiston, SS-N-8
Maine-Augusta nuclear reactor, Bath, SS-N-17

2) MORROW PROJECT ASSETS

Commo Base Kilo Delta: Located near Brunswick.
Recon Team ME-R-1: 6 Men with 1 M888 w/20mm, a FAV w/MAG and a Fusion SPAD. Team tasked with scouting northern Maine and assessing condition of coastal communities. Team is still sleeping peacefully.
Recon Team ME-R-2: 6 Men with 3 FAVs (MAG, M2HB, Mk19). Team Buried Near Bald Mountain and is tasked with protecting /scouting for ECS-63. Team bolt hole wired to wake up when ECS-63 is activated.
Recon Team ME-R-3: Composition and location unknown
Science Team ME-SM-1: 12 men with 1 BV-206 and 1 M888 w/ a towed medical trailer. Team buried Just outside of Waterville.
Engineering, Construction and Survey Team ECS-63: 18 men equipped with a Caterpillar Bulldozer, 2 HEMMITTs, a Fusion SPAD and assorted heavy mining equipment including an Arc Furnace/ Smelter. Team Bolt Hole is NOT disposable and Fusion Plant is of the 50 year/800MW version. Team buried 2 miles NW of Hersey; near the base of Bald Mountain.
Marine Supply Depot MMSD-71: 8 mechanic/technician team with 2 8 ton heavy cargo trucks and a 25 ton tracked crane. The depot contains various lathes, drill presses, milling machines and wood working equipment and several tons of stock. There are also 100 Fusion powered marine motors: 50 150 Hp Outboard and 50 300 Hp Inboard. Facility buried and located in hillside adjacent to Belfast Reservoir #1 just south of the township of Belfast on Penobscot Bay.

3) ICE AGE

Maine was isolated before the war, and afterwards was nearly lost to the icy wilderness. Most of the urban areas were nuked, driving refugees into the deep woods in wintertime, where nearly all of them eventually perished. Up in the small towns, people held on longer, often banding together for mutual protection. The rapidly changing weather killed them off in short order as well, forcing the survivors back towards the coasts. Within twenty years, Maine had been reduced to a collection of tiny coastal communities with a total population of about 5,000. Over time, this number rose and fell as the people worked to recover and guard against predators, both animal and two-legged. The coastal towns were slowly organized, fishing was taken up again, and foreigners began to visit.

In the last 150 years the average temperature in the northeastern part of North America has dropped as much as 20 degrees below pre-war levels. The freak combination of a shifted jet stream and a growing Arctic ice cap caused by dust in the atmosphere from the nuclear war have brought the beginnings of a new Ice Age to this region. Most of the major changes have occurred in far northern Canada and along the eastern provinces as far south as New Brunswick. The further north you go, the worse the change. In America, just on the edges of the extreme northeastern states have the changes been as severe, in the northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and even parts of upstate New York. Further south, all the way down into Massachusetts even, the weather is colder and wetter in the winter, causing massive changes in the way people live.

4) THE ICELANDERS

If there was ever a people group that could excel in these new colder times, it would be the Icelanders. The northern coastline of Maine is home to several colonies of Icelanders, people who have come to America in the last century to look for natural resources. They are mostly interested in timbers for their ship building industry, as high-quality wood is rare in Iceland, but the colonies have expanded into other areas of trade and production. These people are generally friendly and open to visitors, providing they play nice. They have few aspirations for conquest, though they probably could dominate the region if they wanted to, and are content to log the coastal areas in the summer months and toss out their fishing nets. They are heavily colonizing the coastlines of the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but have only come to northern Maine so far. In a few decades, at their present rate, the Icelanders may be as far south as Boston. They currently have one large Maine colony in the Cobscook Bay area and numerous small seasonal logging camps spread out about the northeastern quarter of the state.

Iceland in the war: One SS-16 warhead obliterated the US Air Force presence in Iceland at the Keflavik NATO airbase. The expected big nuke on Reykjavik, however, never came. In the end, the war petered out and the Icelanders came out of their shelters and their basements to find their island relatively intact. Isolation was the byword for about a generation, as real fears of disease and radiation forced them to keep foreigners away. The exception to this was 4 shiploads of European and American cruise ship survivors with no homes to return to and the Icelanders mercifully took them in. This generosity would pay off a hundred fold in the coming century. This also allowed them time to build a viable infrastructure and a small but modern industrial base. Icelanders as a people were not interested in traveling to other places, as they liked their predictable existence. The Tech level of Iceland is B+ with Hydrogen Fuel Cells and basic computers. The children of the castaways, however, were filled with wanderlust. Besides, Iceland was becoming crowded after a 30-year baby boom and resources were running thin.

By the late 2030s, the former castaways children were ready to move off the island and re conquer their parents homeland. At first, they were looking for survivors and military threats. Not finding any threats, the settlers began building settlements, trade and travel networks throughout Coastal Europe and the Newfoundland and Maine areas of North America. They also regularly trade with the United States of America in West Africa. The are slowly moving south from Maine and will likely be in the Boston area by the next decade..

Westward: It was only natural that they would cast eyes to the southwest. Though aware that America and Canada had ceased to exist as nations, the Icelanders were curious about what conditions were. Occasional traders were coming in from eastern Canada bringing stories of natural resources just waiting to be exploited in the absence of any government. Expeditions were organized, at first small recon missions, then larger survey and exploration missions.

Beginnings: At first there was some conflict. Villagers struggling to survive were unprepared for an influx of technologically advanced seafaring people. Diseases were exchanged, shots were fired and it was years before the Icelanders were able to get a foothold in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. From these colonies, they expanded west into the interior and southwest along the coast. The rapidly cooling weather worked in their favor, as it pushed the populations of these areas towards the coasts where the Icelanders could trade with them better.

Middles: Over the years to follow, the Icelanders became the power in the region, easily supplanting the warlords and petty tin pot dictators who had sprung up like weeds. Common people began to recognize the value of powerful friends and Icelandic colonies slowly became cosmopolitan.

Endings: By today, 150 years after the war, the Icelanders are rarely thought of as foreigners or strangers. Generations of colonists have been born and raised in America and Canada, many of them never traveling back to their ancestral home island. Trade has become established, and the economy of the region has long ago stabilized. In addition to timbers, they specialize in such things as grapes, wheat, salvage, fish, etc.

Icelander society in America: Icelander communities are semi-autonomous, only meeting every few years for an "Allthing". Language in these areas is exclusively Icelandic, making things tough on any MP team that wakes up here. The percentage of literacy is still be very high (80-90%) and there are print shops that churn out books in Icelandic. The Icelanders have traditionally been big on chess and coffee, and the coffeehouse is a standard feature which can be found in every community. Coffee and tobacco are traded for from the New Confederacy merchant ships that make it this far north.

The Tech Level of the colonists is Tech level C+ with med tech Level B. The equipment can be summarized as simple, rugged and very high quality. The Icelandic military has access to modern military hardware produced in very limited runs. It is NEVER traded and rarely seen outside of the home island. Colonists are exclusively equipped with exact copies of the venerable Sako M88 bolt action rifle in .308 and a revolver identicle to the Colt Python in .38. These are only produced in Iceland and are issued as needed in small numbers. Game stats for these two weapons here. Colonists utilize Sailing vessels similar in performance and ability to Clipper Ships of the 18th century, except that the colonial vessels have short wave radios and are each armed with 6 Brukt Inn ("Colonial Enforcer") deck guns--20mm self defense cannons of the Oerlikon style, 3 per broadside. The Icelander Colonists in America, especially Loggers, have access to steam-powered Heavy Equipment--cranes, trucks, and the like--which, while powerful, are quite slow and of limited operational range.
Game stats for unique Icelander ships, vehicles, and machines.

Relations with neighbors: The Icelanders trade and travel in Europe extensively, especially in the Iberian Peninsula and Scandinavia. They also have mutually beneficial trade agreements with the New Confederacy in America, and NC ships often visit Reykjavik. The Quebec Alliance was at first hostile to the Icelanders, but in the last few decades has seen the wisdom of having a powerful seafaring ally in the Atlantic.

Cobscook Bay: An Icelander colony for many generations now. Some 350 people live here, nearly all involved in logging and fishing. The bay remains mostly ice-free, even in the harshest winters. It is here that ships from the homeland come to pick up timber, leaving behind goods and food. To help patrol the area from pirates, they have a small navy of four steam powered patrol boats and seven sailboats, most armed with light deck guns and small arms. They have a log and earthen fort set up on Campobello Island to monitor the approaches to the bay.

5) MAINE ATLANTIC COAST

Bitterly cold winters and insane snowfall amounts in the interior mean that nearly everyone lives along the coasts except for the southern quarter, where settlements are more spread out. The towns not part of the Icelander territory include the following.

Cherryfield: At the mouth of the Narraguagus River, this small seaside community of ethnic Americans is flourishing because of the semi-prosperous gold mine located nearby. The people currently trade the gold with the Icelanders further up the coast for weapons and ammunition.

Mount Desert Island: The people remaining on this island live in small, loosely organized familial groups that are governed by a few civic leaders. Only about 245 people reside on Mount Desert Island, most of them concentrated in the sheltered bays and coves of the southern coast of the island. They live on fishing primarily, along with a few small community garden plots.

The Whale Worshippers: The coast of central Maine from Camden south to Rockland is occupied by several villages of Whale Worshippers. Since coming here from Newfoundland ahead of the ice 115 years ago, they have been a relatively peaceful people, living on this secluded strip of coastline. The only thing that the Whalers have ever really feared is the occasional raids from pirates. The pirates have been known to take Whaler women as slaves, a fact which can send the community into mourning for months. They tend to shy away from contact with the Icelanders, as they are offended with the way that the islanders treat their sacred whales as simple food and oil products.

Matinicus Island: Because of its geographic location, this small island is sometimes used as a temporary base for pirates and other raiders of the sea. Occasionally, weapons, equipment and machinery, even small boats, which were considered too broken to fix can be found scattered about the island. Whalers from Rockland and Camden sometimes sail to the island to scavenge spare parts and what little salvageable equipment that is left behind by the pirates.

Bath: With the facilities of the Bath Naval Shipyard and environs fairly intact, it has been home to local fishing boats for a long time. The townspeople are occasionally menaced by members of a local Cannibal clan, though the danger is infrequent. The Cannibals are such by choice, and it is more part of their unique religion than anything else. There are still two US Navy warships and merchantmen afloat in the harbor, everything else is resting on the bottom. These are the hollowed-out Knox class FF-1075 Trippe, and a stubby, rust-covered Landing Craft Utility. Neither of them have left the harbor in 140 years, and having been towed out to the center of the harbor generations ago, they now have inglorious uses. The LCU serves as a floating quarantine for people suspected of having a communicable disease and the frigate as a secure prison for criminals. The near-freezing water temperatures most of the year have helped to keep their hulls intact for the most part. At least once a winter, there is a real danger that either one of them will suddenly crack in half and sink.

The ruins of Portland: Nuked hard in the opening rounds of the nuclear exchange, the ruins were repeatedly sacked and devastated after the war. Few people live in the area, preferring the more secure coastal areas to the north and south.

NCTAMS Cutler: Located 23 miles southwest of the Canadian border, and five miles south of Interstate 1 on the Atlantic Coast of Maine, lies the long forgotten settlement formerly known as NCTCS Cutler. Built in the late 1950's, Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Cutler was the Primary ULF ELF Transmission station for the US Navy. The Station had a series of standard and high-capacity transmission towers with a nominal signal output of 2 million watts. As such, it was the most powerful radio transmitter system in the world. Signal range was global in scope, and any US submarine could be contacted anywhere in the world at any time (assuming they were listening and had their antenna up).

It was realized by the Navy Logistics Department very early on that to run such a generator on a 24/7 basis would require an enormous amount of fuel, and due to its remote location, refueling by road or by sea was problematic. As the technology for small fission plants was still a ways off, a natural gas plant would work just fine. Coincidentally, this installation is located over a fairly large natural gas field. Uninterrupted fuel for about 400 years at pre-war usage solved a lot of issues, and operational costs were cut by 90%. In addition, satellite up-link capability was continuous and uninterrupted.

When the war occurred, due to its remote location and surrounding geographical features, the station sustained only minor damage from EMP and virtually no damage from blast effects. Fallout was also negligible due to the former position of the gulf stream. The station personnel figured out very quickly the scope of the war, and realized that they were on their own for the foreseeable future (as this duty station was remote, any station personnel that wanted their families with them had that option and all did). With no loved ones to track down, the station personnel had no immediate reason to leave.

However, when the pre-war stock of food ran low, a solution was needed. Tech Sgt. David Thompson was a farmer before his military service, and devised a way to use glass from the various bungalows of the navy lodge and steel from the smaller radio towers to build a series of long, high-strength, high-efficiency greenhouses. The greenhouses, combined with expanding several rabbit hutches owned by local children and the abundant hunting in the forests of northern Maine, made Cutler self-sufficient in food and vegetables within a few years; they were even able to trad e a small surplus with other survivor communities in the immediate area.

Over the generations, parents passed down traditions and training to the next generation, as well as keeping the power generators on line and the transmission towers intact. The colony has a small stock of pre-war weapons and ammo for self-defense, but due to their remote location, this is largely redundant. Another treasure they possess is a vast supply of radio and computer parts still in their original packages, as well as a fair amount of equipment salvaged from the towers used to fabricate the greenhouses. Also, they have four operational Snowcats for clearing snow (LP powered) and one truck. They have also maintained the base infrastructure; every home has electricity, running water, and working sewers. There is a school, a library, an even a Medical Clinic.

Today, the small community of Cutler has 275 residents, and is governed by a "Base Liason Council" (just a standard City Council with a fancy name), and instead of calling their headman "Mayor", the elected leader of Cutler is called "Base Commander". The site is in tentative contact with the government of the United States of America in Virginia as well as New Washington in West Africa. Curiously, the station has not let either on to the existence of the other. When the Icelanders came to Maine, the colony was careful to appear non-threatening, and even welcomed several parties of Icelandic sailors in for winter feasts. As such high-tech radio equipment is not high on their list of priorities, the Icelanders have so far left them alone. There is uneasiness, however, that this situation might change before too long as the Icelanders expand their empire and begin to need a better way to keep in touch with their explorers and traders. Such a find would be a massive asset to the Project and worthy of virtually any effort to bring on board.

Site-L: This single-team Snake Eater Base is located 12 miles due east of Augusta. Their tasks were to verify the conditions of Bangor, Portland and NCTAMS Cutler immediately after an atomic war and aid until relief arrived. Unfortunately, their long range antenna was faulty in instillation and failed to receive news of the attacks. Their secondary protocol will revive them when Morrow Command Base KD comes online, hopefully.

6) INTERIOR MAINE

Much of the interior of Maine, north of roughly the Brunswick-Lewiston-Auburn area, is a harsh realm of nine-month winters and short, still-too-cold summers. Few settlements exist in this area, and vast areas have not seen a human being in decades. Reports of large packs of wolves and even mammoth bears filter in from trappers and loggers, adding to the legendary quality of this frozen wasteland.

People who have contributed to this entry:
John Raner
Karl Zohler