Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Chicago and New York were the first to go. Soon after, Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh, Istanbul, Mashhad, Aleppo, Dubai, and Kermanshah were buried under 400 megatons of mankind's most destructive creation. Or so we thought. In the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust, Russia seized her chance to conquer Israel once and for all without interference from the reeling America. No Russian alive now would have made that choice. Israel had entered into a secret alliance with China and South Korea as Christianity became the dominant cultural marker in the ancient kingdom. Israel had a new protector, and the slumbering giants of the east were awake.

China's 30,000,000 man army marched against the former Soviet Union unimpeded by the relatively small Russian army, and all believed the Kremlin would fall. Then President Molotov Stoevsky ordered the dropping of the 100 Megaton bomb on Seoul and Beijing. The untested monster failed to level the Korean capitol, but there was nothing left of the great capitol of China, and none will inhabit the ruins ever again. Nevertheless, Russia fell to the mammoth Chinese army in time, but not before its numbers had dwindled to the hundreds of thousands, victims of the vicious winter. America used the last of her strength to spare South Korea from annihilation by her northern neighbor.

For some years it seemed as though the fighting had ended. Europe reveled in its newfound superiority, since it was the only area of the globe not significantly affected. The Islamic Middle East was dominated by a newly strengthened Israel. Japan reached out to her one-time enemy and it seemed as though the healing process would complete. In a world without superpowers, there could not be super wars. We all believed this lie.

On the eve of a global summit of the western powers to discuss the future of the free world, IED's ripped through every single major western city. From Stockholm to Melbourne to Juno to Munich to Amsterdam, the remnants of the shattered Muslim world exacted their revenge on the "Great Satan." Quickly, the whole of the Middle-East was transformed into a parking lot by hasty Western leaders. Now a nuclear winter covers the globe, and survival for any of us looks doubtful. Islam has been wiped out as a major religion, but at what cost? Even as our atmosphere darkens, the last remaining forces of military power barricade their nations against a world ruled by strong-men and mutated beasts.

I am one of the remnant, Major Oliver Fate Ramstein, stationed at the Munich Survival Facility. Last night, a family of survivors just one mile out of the fortress was murdered by a rebel band suspected of over 20 murders in the past month alone. I am heading up a tactical team of our elite warriors to bring these men to justice. Heaven help us if this is the world we are to live in.

Where did the mutated beasts and strong-men come from?  I would like to join the rotation if you clear that up for me.

Entry will be closed this Friday, sign up before then if you want to participate.

Actually I'd rather have fewer people. The more we have, the less frequently each person gets to contribute.

Soooo... how does this fit into the whole agreeing on an outline thing? 

You were right about one thing... the negotiations were short!
~Obi-Wan

Fits in quite well, considering we're not going to try and agree on an outline

lol I like the idea for the most part, and you are good at describing utter confusion, but what genre do you really feel comfortable writing with? What style? From which perspective?

I've left it fairly open-ended. The direction I was thinking would be like a Turtledove alternate history/sci-fi except set a few years in the future, but it could be a spy novel or a normal war novel or whichever way it goes.

The intro was in first person but that doesn't mean the rest of the novel has to be.

Oooh you just had to say spy novel.


Yes, that would be my main criticism. I would alter the intro to match a more userfriendly foundation.

DO NOT POST HERE!

Oops.

If there is a line for this, I want to cut.

so the whole book is going to be about this group of elites that go out after this other group that has been killing people?

I doubt the scope will be that narrow. And you're free to create your character when your turn in the rotation comes up.

Up to you just try to keep to the plot (which is suspiciously like advanced wars: days of ruin :p) So when do I post my writings? And I post them here?

I suggest that you keep that thread locked to be a read only document. We can critique each other's work through PM's...?

Hey, some of us[like me] might make some spelling and grammar errors; we should have some people devoted to properifying and correcting each page, because we may well need them.

Those can be a part of the PM ciritiquing.