Making less-terrible Cthulhutech-esque RPG

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:55 am

1) The Mi Go are capable of, as has been said, putting a battleship above earth for every living human on the earth. But they don't. They don't because we say that they don't, and we say that they don't because if they did then it's Game Over. Not just for those PCs, for the whole campaign setting. You can't even play the next party's mission after the TPK, where you get handed the case about some operatives that went in over their heads and now they're missing and go investigate it to see what happened.

But the only reason that people don't do a thing is that they can't or they won't. So since we know that the Mi Go could eliminate Earth at any time, they won't for some reason. So something is staying their hand.

2) I'm not saying it is the Mi Go's true agenda, I'm saying that the Union doesn't know what the Mi Go's true agenda is, and there's probably several competing ideas on it. Both within the public and within the Military. I'm saying that it's better to have more different ideas be possibly be true at the same time than to have less. It's even good for setting realism purposes to have ideas that float around that people subscribe to even though they're demonstrably false in some way. We have a pretty solid grasp of exactly why Hurricanes do their thing, but people still blame the gays and women voting and other things for them.

3) The Anti-Spiral plan might just be a weird Xanatos Gambit for all we know. "Master This And You Can Have It!" stuff. I mean shit, Cthulhu thought that it was a reasonable enough plan to uplift proto-humans into ageless Deep Ones so that they could stand guardian over him for millions and millions of years as a way to avoid some sort of problem he was having at the time. These cosmic creatures do not think small.

Here's some options for why the Mi Go might want to do what they do:

Secret Miners: The Mi Go at Earth are a rebel/splinter fleet(s) that wants to recover the resources of Earth as secretively as possible, so they never contact the home empire.
Foundation Gambit: The Mi Go know that their empire will crumble within a billion years, and they need to ensure a galactic successor. Possibly because they are facing some sort of heinous enemy that will need to be battled even after they're gone, possibly just because they think the universe needs to be full of biological life. Anything really.
Anti-Spiral Gambit: Interstellar races without the self-discipline and fortitude will bring accidental destruction to their species, space, galaxy, or even the whole universe in some way. To prevent this, the Mi Go apply "light" suppression to all other species that they find, and those that last are considered to be most likely to not accidentally destroy everything. For the same reasons that even Good aligned DnD characters take magic items out of the hands of the peasants until they're higher level, the Mi Go don't let you just spread everywhere until you really know what you're doing.
Shadows Gambit: The Mi Go think that a species (and possibly the universe as a whole) can only unlock its full potential through continual strife and survival of the fittest. Even though they understand that too much strife causes extinction, they still fight all the time to keep things "moving forward", or to keep them "interesting", or because their dark god MiGoWeh demands it.
Proxy Warfare Theory: The Mi Go conduct battles and operations in the Earth area because somehow that is symbolic to them of a greater conflict elsewhere. Something like The Cold War, or A Taste of Armageddon, or the Ellimist / Crayak battle.
Predator Training Grounds Theory: The Mi Go don't want anything but operational experience from the Earth. Mi Go that die while doing something in the Earth area are considered to have not been good enough in the first place. The whole system is one giant training ground to them, and keeping it full of hazards is what they intend.

You could probably come up with more than that if you wanted.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:00 am

Artless wrote:If you readily recognize that the Anti-Spiral's tactic of "well we will fight them on equal footing, therefore we will have the advantage!" is baddumbwrong, why would you advocate it's inclusion as the Mi-Go's true agenda?

That's exactly how implementing it as a deliberate tactic by the Mi-Go would work. Repeated engagements on an equal footing with the Mi-Go would give the Union the ability to develop weapons and defenses against them, and allow them to cultivate agents trained specifically to fight the Mi-Go. The Union has no compunction to stay at the same level as their opponents, so why would the Mi-Go if they were making a conscious effort to eradicate us?

Aliens are not human and they can have whatever logic processes are necessary to the plot make sense to them. As long as its consistent internally it doesn't have to make any sense to us. As it happens, the Anti Spirals saw themselves as the protectors of the galaxy. Their motivation wasn't to kill all the humans, it was to force all the humans to give up and go back to living in caves. Simply killing all the humans or destroying the universe was well within their capabilities, but they considered doing that to be a loss rather than a win. That sort of non-standard goals for the opposition is totally possible, and much better than giving them a boring goal like "kill all humans".

From a playability standpoint, the Mi Go want to show up piecemeal in skirmish groups, infiltrating squads, or small numbers of giant robots so that the player characters can fight them in tactical set pieces. And whatever goals, morals, and logical processes they happen to have, the end result has to be that they attack Graviton City with a single giant monster at a time rather than shelling the planet with mass drivers.

Now the big trump card we have here is the Flutes of Azathoth. Those can have whatever properties we want them to have. So if wiping out all life on Earth with a mass driver assault from space would (or even could trigger the blind idiot god to come and destroy everything in this region of space, the Mi Go can be expected to not do that. It is entirely possible that by creating and then dashing hopes they are saving the galaxy. And it doesn't even have to be true, it could just be something the Mi Go believe or even just something they are afraid might be true.

-Username17

Artless · Post by **Artless** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:43 pm

I had a big response all edited up and scrutinized, but fuck that huge waste of time. What I basically want to say is:

I support giving the threats and the protagonist factions dimension by including more explanations for the state of the world.

I support including a theory that the Mi-Go are just trying to get us to collectively shit our brains out our pants. I do not think inserting the idea that the Anti-Spirals are representative of their efforts is useful, because they had shitty methods, everything they did ran counter to their goals and they tried their hardest to lose at every opportunity, so I feel like it would deflate the Mi-Go as a threat.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:59 pm

Personally, I don't think making the Mi-Go want to crush us is at all useful to the Cosmic Horror aspect of the setting. Perhaps the Mi-Go really don't give a shit about us at all and only kill us because we're in their way.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Fri Mar 22, 2013 1:56 am

hyzmarca, you're exactly right. They shouldn't want to crush earth. But they're at earth at all, so they want something. However, for the game, the requirements are only that they show up in small squads or one to two kaiju at a time. So since there's a lot of reasons that might be, and since they're not a faction that should be negotiated with, it doesn't matter what the specific reason is, and it can even be different from campaign to campaign based on what the GM wants to do with it.

Artless, my point wasn't that the Mi Go would necessarily actually be the anti-spirals, but that some portions of the humans of earth would think that they're doing all that. The point I've been trying to get across, and failing to I suppose, is that what the Mi Go think is going on and what the Union thinks is going on can and probably should be totally different. So regardless of what the actual explanation for what the Mi Go turns out to be, Union officials and Union citizens are going to think all sorts of strange things, and there's gonna be cults and policy decisions bubbling up based around the uncertainty. It's a perceptual issue.

Anyway, we can move off the point I guess, I just wanted to keep the thread going with something interesting and not let it die too much.

Artless · Post by **Artless** » Fri Mar 22, 2013 2:45 am

I understood after your point was clarified in your first response. Apologies for the error. I agree that there should be deliberate ambiguity over some of the enemy factions' motives, so I suppose I'll just rescind any complaints.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Mar 23, 2013 6:44 pm

So what's the end game look like here? Cthulhu has woken up, so what is he up to? And Thoth-Amon

So far the project has been about the history, so I'm wondering what each faction does if they achieve their major goal, what that goal is, and what it looks like if they do.

I don't think all, or even any of them, would be "Game Over".

Even if it does make for an awesome picture.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Mar 23, 2013 8:38 pm

Cthulhu's endgame is to party like it's 19992099. He's Beyond Good and Evil. Cthulhu's endgame is spelled out clearly in Call of Cthulhu, to shout and kill and revel and enjoy himself. He isn't the for the lulz sort of guy that Nyarly is, but he does enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle. The phrase used in Call of Cthulhu is "and all earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom." All of humanity would essentially be his slaves, but only because he's the biggest mofo around. Mostly it would be an ultra-hedonistic anarchy. Humanity would actually learn a great deal under his tutelage and become more like the Old Ones as a result.

Toth-Amon's goal is the classic evil overlord world domination. He doesn't want to crush the world so much as he wants everyone to recognize his greatness and follow him. Think Dr. Doom crossed with Serpentor. His endgame is basically one world order organized under the immortal god-emperor. It's substantially less insane than Cthulhu's endgame. It's basically like today, just with more people shouting "heil Toth-Amon".

Serpent Command's endgame is well, fuck if they know. They want unlimited powah but don't actually have any policies or plans about how to use it. They'd attempt to build something, but with all of their conflicting ideals and instability, they'd just tear down the old order and destroy civilization and then fall apart due to infighting. The plan is probably something like "boot on face forever" but they're never going to get that far even if they do win.

The Lemurian Endgame is to reclaim the Earth for 'humanity' and 'purify' it. This basically means murdering billions of people. Earth under their control has a really tiny population. This isn't because they believe in population controls or anything. It's just that most of Earth's population by this point is using mythos-derived meditech and gene therapies and none of those people have a place in the Lemurians' 'pure' world. It would be the future of the 50s with a white apple sheen added on and death camps in every city (fully automated, of course, so that no human has to see the unpleasantness). Robot Maids, Wholesome Middle-Class Surburbia, and kilometer-deep mass graves.

The Migo Endgame is that they mine all of our Tok'l and leave. They're here for rare minerals that only exist on planets with significant Great Old One populations. (I'd suggest that Tok'l is essentially Great Old One Poop, a waste product produced by n-dimensional beings and thus is rather rare in the universe, and worth fighting over). As such, they're basically alien fungus RDA. If we're in the way they kill us, if we're not then they don't.

The Cthonian Endgame is "the surface dwellers stop all that racket." They're trying to murder us all because we're loud and annoying and don't have any major goal beyond getting us to turn the music down, metaphorically speaking.

The Moon-Beasts rebels in the Underworld, of course, just want revenge for their previous defeat. Their endgame is to retake the moon and possibly occupy the Earth.

Shubby's Endgame is to get the Chimes of Azatoth and leave. She might, might, use them to blackmail some of her relatives. She might even destroy the Earth with them just for fun, (though there's no point in doing so). She probably doesn't want to end the universe, as she wouldn't survive it, but that sort of real cosmic power is her goal. She doesn't give a shit about this blue orb. But there is a non-zero chance that she might accidentally destroy the universe, so there is that. (Nyarly doesn't care because he can actually survive the destruction of the Universe and nag Azatoth into creating another).

Among the minor factions, the Boreans also want the Chimes but haven't told the Migo this. They're endgame is also ultimate cosmic power.

There are also a whole host of minor groups with a variety of goals.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Mar 23, 2013 9:49 pm

Then it sounds like Toth-Amon's best bet is to play long-term. Get to be a big figure in the Union, work with it, try to strengthen it and centralize its power more, and then get himself declared President of the Union.

Maybe he'd even bring up the Roman origin of Dictator--someone given unilateral authority in emergency situations, when speedy decision-making is essential.

Anyway, if I were an immortal serpent-sorceror, it's how I'd play it--long term, and with good PR.

Hell, Toth-Amon being in charge wouldn't be so bad in that case. I mean, he probably wants to get all the nations unified under him and that's gonna be messy, but not nearly so much as Cthulhu having Nude Twister parties in Tokyo.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Mar 23, 2013 10:43 pm

Maxus wrote:Then it sounds like Toth-Amon's best bet is to play long-term. Get to be a big figure in the Union, work with it, try to strengthen it and centralize its power more, and then get himself declared President of the Union.

Maybe he'd even bring up the Roman origin of Dictator--someone given unilateral authority in emergency situations, when speedy decision-making is essential.

Anyway, if I were an immortal serpent-sorceror, it's how I'd play it--long term, and with good PR.

Hell, Toth-Amon being in charge wouldn't be so bad in that case. I mean, he probably wants to get all the nations unified under him and that's gonna be messy, but not nearly so much as Cthulhu having Nude Twister parties in Tokyo.

Oh, certainly. But he's been dead since the Hyperborean age and was only recently resurrected. While he's made an effort to learn about modern political systems and institutions, old modes of thinking die hard. He still thinks like a Hyperborean sorcerer-king, rather than a modern politician. He probably doesn't even know about Rome, except for the most cursory grade-school knowledge, because that isn't something you study in-depth when you need to take a crash course on the 21st century.

Dagon at least had the advantage of living through the industrial revolution and the rise of modern democracy, even if he wasn't paying any attention at the time.

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 12:21 am

Cthulhu's endgame is to party like it's 19992099. He's Beyond Good and Evil. Cthulhu's endgame is spelled out clearly in Call of Cthulhu, to shout and kill and revel and enjoy himself. He isn't the for the lulz sort of guy that Nyarly is, but he does enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle. The phrase used in Call of Cthulhu is "and all earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom." All of humanity would essentially be his slaves, but only because he's the biggest mofo around. Mostly it would be an ultra-hedonistic anarchy. Humanity would actually learn a great deal under his tutelage and become more like the Old Ones as a result.

Okay. I actually love this idea.
Which reminds really brings home the idea that what cthulhu is to most people is some kind of psychotropic weapon. In that colder war stroy by charles stross...

"Uh -- in a moment.'' Roger shakes himself. Remembering time-survivor curves, the captured Nazi medical atrocity records mapping the ability of a human brain to survive in close proximity to the Baltic Singularity. Mengele's insanity. The SS's final attempt to liquidate the survivors, the witnesses. Koschei, primed and pointed at the American heartland like a darkly evil gun. The "world-eating mind'' adrift in brilliant dreams of madness, estivating in the absence of its prey: dreaming of the minds of sapient beings, be they barrel-bodied wing-flying tentacular things, or their human inheritors.

Koschei aka "Cthulhu" Was a mental devourer that starts to eat the minds of everyone within who get with 1000 miles then shits whatever he wants
back into it.

This is fucking awesome because what Cthulhu's endgame looks like
to his cultists and starspawn but especially Cthulhu itself is this video:
with Cthulhu and his servitors as the star of the show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZlWBCt ... re=mh_lolz
Probably sounds like that to them to come to think of it.

To outsiders Its would be this with more murdering and orgy and most importantly MUTATION since he makes us more like the old ones etc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ6zr6k ... 1364254897
"Every since that thing woke up everyday...." ironically based on 28days later

Invariably whats going on are the things that happen in "Crossed"
And that makes traditional societal advancement just stop cold, so all you can really do is old one you're way out.
Ultimately, under this design, Cthulhu is 1 part rockstar/1 part hentai monster... which likely one of the many reasons it's the poster-child of the mythos

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 7:28 am

Another thought about Cthulhu's side of things:

Cthulhu's there, sure. He participates in some battles, sure.

But he spends a lot of time having fun. He likes rock concerts and drugs and watching movies and cartoons on drive-in-sized movie screens.

That's a frustration of some of his underlings--Cthulhu could beat Dagon's ass, and probably will if he runs into Dagon, but Cthulhu isn't in any rush and he's stated his intention is to thoroughly enjoy himself while he's here.

On the plus side for them, Cthulhu's not hard point in a direction. You just have to make it sound fun. And Cthulhu suffers from battle mania--he may think fighting's a drag, but once he's into a battle, he's cackling and shouting and taking risks and enjoying it just like he would a tanker-truck-sized shot of heroin, REALLY LOUD MUSIC, or marathons of Bugs Bunny cartoons.

This would mean the optimum Union strategy is to pull out as quickly as possible once Cthulhu's on the field. Under no circumstances try to engage him with other kaiju, especially multiple kaiju. He'll get bored, disappointed and sulky, and then probably not let himself get baited into showing up for a battle for a while, and instead stay put and have fun. While he's on his sulk, that's when the Union can aggressively advance and gain territory. As long as they don't attack him directly or look too interesting, Cthulhu will stay out of it.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 7:57 am

I thought that, at this point in the timeline, Cthulhu was almost continually asleep, and only woke up in response to summoning rituals, and then he'd just go back to sleep under the ocean after smashing things for a bit.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 9:31 am

Lokathor wrote:I thought that, at this point in the timeline, Cthulhu was almost continually asleep, and only woke up in response to summoning rituals, and then he'd just go back to sleep under the ocean after smashing things for a bit.

They wake him up, he goes on a week-long bender in Australia and then collapses back into the ocean to sleep off his hangover until the stars are right again.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 3:44 pm

I thought the current state of the timeline, Cthulhu's been woken up a couple of times.

But now the stars are right and are going to be so for a good while. Cthulhu's awake, and it's on.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 3:59 pm

Maxus wrote:I thought the current state of the timeline, Cthulhu's been woken up a couple of times.

But now the stars are right and are going to be so for a good while. Cthulhu's awake, and it's on.

We could probably give the option to push that back a a bit, for GMs who don't want to deal with it, but the general assumption is that someone will have to wrastle Cthulhu soon. But the assumption is also that Cthulhu can't take on the whole world all at once. This is merely the beginning of the end.

But one of our major first principles is that there will be no metaplot. We'll have a historical timeline and a setting and possibly some adventures, but the big point is that history hinges on the PCs actions and you can't really have that and a metaplot at the same time. Metaplots only work if the PCs are, by default, totally useless. That's Cthulhutech's biggest weakness, even worse than the Dachau Rape Machine.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 6:07 pm

hyzmarca wrote: But one of our major first principles is that there will be no metaplot. We'll have a historical timeline and a setting and possibly some adventures, but the big point is that history hinges on the PCs actions and you can't really have that and a metaplot at the same time. Metaplots only work if the PCs are, by default, totally useless. That's Cthulhutech's biggest weakness, even worse than the Dachau Rape Machine.

I don't think that's fair. Truly metaplotless games aren't as good as ones where there is a metaplot of some kind. For all I rag on Planescape, the fact that stuff actually happened was better than the alternative. World of Darkness had a fairly terrible metaplot, but even that was better than New World of Darkness. When Shadowrun's metaplot petered out and died, it pretty much took the game with it. And so on.

The goal isn't "no metaplot", it's "have a metaplot that doesn't invalidate PC actions". That means to my mind the following types of metaplot events are "good":

Here comes a new challenger! The [Fill In New Enemy] is now attacking the Earth instead of not doing that.
Here come new player options! New Spells or Technology is discovered.
Here come new player types! The [Fill in Race] has had some percentage of its people defect to the Union and now you can play one.
Major Events happened Far Away! World events that aren't in places where the PCs will be assumed to be playing happen. The border gets moved this way or that in Thailand or the Lemurian director of Propaganda gets assassinated.
News happens in the players' area! New councilors get elected, freak snow storms, product launches, and other events that make it seem like Graviton City or Angel Grove is a living place.

I admit freely that announcing that Angel Grove gets wiped off the map would be as stupid as when Shadowrun had Denver conquered by Godzilla. But you don't have to write metaplot like that.

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 6:19 pm

You forgot one:

New Zone Unlocked! Previously unplayable/travelable location is now open for exploration/adventure! This could be a Mythos location like Carcosa or a loosening of travel restrictions a la East Berlin. Either way, it's a different mini-setting where the players don't always operate like they do everywhere else.

Sir Neil · Post by **Sir Neil** » Fri Mar 29, 2013 1:05 am

This is a great thread, btw. I can't wait to use some of these ideas in my supers game: Japan's national super team will be Power Rangers and Sailor Scouts. Scouts will have more power (Usagi threw a freakin' subway train car at a Youma once), but Rangers are more skilled.

Also comics alliance had an interesting article that seemed relevant to this thread.

Scouts in the Danger Room.

squirrelloid · Post by **squirrelloid** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 6:42 am

So, one thing to keep in mind is part of the setting involves melting the polar ice caps, all of them. (We sunk the Borians stargates, remember?) This means global sea levels rose at least 60m. Actually, this is cool, because it really changes the face of the world quite a bit.

-The top of the Sphinx's head is ~20m underwater. (The pyramids are now beachfront property).

-Mesopotamia is now submerged and an extension of the Persian Gulf.

-The dead sea now stretches from the Sea of Galilee to about the same latitude as Petra, cutting the land between it and the gulf of Aqaba in half. It also connects to the mediterranean by way of a channel somewhat south of Nazareth that lets out near where Haifa was. (Much of coastal israel is just gone as well).

-Shandong province in China is now an island. (Much of Shanghai to Beijing is underwater).

-The caspian and aral seas now have salt water connections all the way to the Black Sea. Sevastopol is sunk, but much of the land near it is now an island.

-Florida is gone, as is much of the eastern seaboard and substantial portions of the caribbean. On the other coast, the bay area now has a second bay that's drowned Sacramento and quite a bit of additonal real estate.

-Argentina loses a huge chunk of land (including Buenos Aires), much of the Amazon turns into a large ocean inlet, and substantial portions of central and northern south America vanish. Of particular note, Lake Managua and Lake Nicauragua now connect to each other and the Pacific, and the Costa Rica / Nicauragua border is almost an Atlantic-Pacific connection. (Barring a crazy high mountain there, it might be desirable to create a new canal there, since it would bring the pacific exit farther north and away from Rlyeh - the distance is quite a bit shorter than the current panama canal).

-Bangladesh is pretty much entirely submerged, along with various other portions of south and south east asia.

-Oceania loses about half its land area. Of course, if R'lyeh owns most of this, there may be no one there to care.

-There's an ocean inlet from Venice to basically Milan. London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Berlin are all underwater.

(See here: http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=27.0396,-81.4966&z=10, set it to +60m)

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 8:11 am

That actually makes me reconsider whether melting the ice caps to get at stargates is a good idea. The land is unchanged except for a few bullet points where things are weird. That's kind of cool but not a big deal. On the other hand, a solid ninety percent of the cities we would actually want to interact with are now underwater. The loss of both the American and the Chinese eastern coasts is pretty devastating to the list of stories you might tell. I really like what happened to Europe, though. A lot of big name cities go underwater, but similar ones remain dry so that you can have the same basic setting. Munich is the new Berlin, Birmingham is the new London, etc. etc. Shame about Denmark, though.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 8:14 am

That... does oddly little to Japan.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 8:16 am

It does put Tokyo underwater, but that just gives us an excuse to make some place like Nagano or something into Neo Tokyo.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 8:52 am

Remember that Amsterdam is already "underwater", and has been for centuries. They keep the sea out with a combination of levees and pumps. A considerable rise in sea levels doesn't necessarily mean that any particular city is lost, just that it has to have been transformed into a bubble city or that it has to have developed a system of levees, canals, and pumps that would leave the city in constant danger of being flooded out by storms or having the dams burst during giant monster attack.

-Username17

squirrelloid · Post by **squirrelloid** » Wed Apr 10, 2013 2:40 pm

Chamomile wrote:That actually makes me reconsider whether melting the ice caps to get at stargates is a good idea. The land is unchanged except for a few bullet points where things are weird. That's kind of cool but not a big deal. On the other hand, a solid ninety percent of the cities we would actually want to interact with are now underwater. The loss of both the American and the Chinese eastern coasts is pretty devastating to the list of stories you might tell. I really like what happened to Europe, though. A lot of big name cities go underwater, but similar ones remain dry so that you can have the same basic setting. Munich is the new Berlin, Birmingham is the new London, etc. etc. Shame about Denmark, though.

Losing many major cities just means that we get to make up new cities which we can define ourselves. (Or promote existing cities which substantially change).

I don't see how lacking particular cities affects the stories we'd want to tell at all, especially since most of the significant ones would have been nuked in the moon beast war *anyway*, so even if they weren't sunk, they wouldn't look like the cities we know.

I do think we *want* significant islands on which the Union is building its fortress cities, because there are defensive advantages. (And with deep one allies, guarding underwater is not a major liability). Taiwan, Shandong, Japan, 'Sevastopol' (I don't know what else to refer to that area as, but this works) would all make great places to locate fortress-cities. Possibly also what's left of Staten Island. (New York City definitely got nuked though, so we can build totally new construction however we want).