| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Containment Zone Report |
| Date: | Fri, 20 Dec 1996 00:36:01 +0000 |
>>>>>[TO: D J H Coppinger, Director
Okay, boss, you asked for a briefing, here it is.
I wrote it and then Toad turned it into officialese for me, then I
edited it where the officialese changed the meaning, then he changed it
back, then I knocked over his coffee, then he punched me in the nose,
and when Lilith finally pulled us apart and mopped the blood off the
walls this is what we were left with. It'll do, but my own original
words were a little... blunter, shall we say.
As you asked, all the stuff is my own experience and standard Agency
computer models, I didn't enlist any other help on this or dig hard for
any of the information, or even try to confirm its accuracy on SLand. I
assume you have a good reason for that, since I'd say using only my own
opinions and data makes its accuracy rather suspect.
+++++include briefing.txt]<<<<<
-- 1Lt J R W Lynch <00:15:32/12-20-57>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
*****INTERNAL: SIGANet
>>>>>[TO: 1Lt J R W Lynch
Excellent.
Now, bounce it to Shadowland and collect any opinions, suggestions,
corrections, whatever you can get. We need ideas from _any_ source,
Lynch, and this might shake a few loose.]<<<<<
-- D J H Coppinger <00:17:34/12-20-57>
Director
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
>>>>>[Okay, everyone with any interest in the Containment Zone, check
this for accuracy and feel free to give me any comments.
Anyone else, skip it, it's a big chunk of data.
And apologies for the language, our tame Navy pilot turned it into
Pentagonspeak after I wrote it.
+++++begin briefing.txt
Briefing On, and Options for Resolving, the Chicago Containment Zone
Introduction
At the time of its creation, the central areas of Chicago now enclosed
by the Containment Zone held an estimated half a million citizens and an
indeterminate but large number of insect spirits. In the sixteen months
since then, these numbers will have changed. The number of insect
spirits is still not known, except that enough exist to control areas of
the Zone and to make forays against populated areas, even to make
occasional attacks against the Zone perimeter. The population can only
have dropped, perhaps precipitously.
Information remains sketchy at best. Operation inside the Zone is
compromised by the hostility of the inhabitants, who in many cases are
violently hostile to the UCAS government: since it has imprisoned them
inside the Zone with no apparent hope of escape or rescue, this
sentiment is perhaps understandable.
The occupants of the Zone have tended to band together for survival and
mutual protection: humanity presents as much of a threat to the
occupants as the insects, as competition for scarce necessities like
food, fuel and ammunition intensifies.
Supply Situation
As our intelligence on conditions inside the Zone deteriorates, it is
becoming harder to target relief supplies where they are needed: some
supplies are delivered to uninhabited areas, others fall within the
control of groups who proceed to use the supplies as "leverage" over
other citizens. This ranges from simple extortion of servitude, sexual
favours, et cetera in exchange for food (financial wealth is largely
meaningless inside the Zone) to citizens being forced into conditions
closely approximating slavery.
While attempts are made to subdue such behaviour, lacking adequate
information it is extremely difficult to either prevent such
misdelivery, or to act against the perpetrators of these crimes.
Reconnaisance data indicates an increasing frequency of armed attacks
against airdrop sites, but typically lacks the persistence or resolution
to identify clearly the parties involved, and our ability to strike at
such parties is being steadily eroded.
Weapons and ammunition are still being provided to some communities,
primarily to allow them to defend themselves against such predatory
groups. In an extremely disturbing trend, it is beginning to be observed
that armed groups of apparent humans - typically street gangs and the
like - are rounding up and herding away groups of citizens. While
similar behaviour involving human prisoners and/or corpses has been seen
and monitored for some time (as individuals and groups attempt to
satisfy the dietary preferences of the Cabrini Green ghoul enclosure in
exchange for food, arms et cetera) these recent incidents involve only
live subjects: corpses were ignored.
This suggests the conclusion that these incidents involve the capture of
host bodies for the insect spirits. If true, such a level of
collaboration could pose a considerable threat. Urgent efforts are being
made to determine the truth of these cases.
Several strong, physically discrete enclaves have sprung up and are
receiving support, most notably around the Field Museum of Natural
History and at Wrigley Dome. The Dome enclave is a particularly valuable
contact, since the training and experience of the founders makes them
perhaps our most effective base of operations and source of HUMINT.
It is, though, highly troubling to observe that factions of an anti-UCAS
bent such as the Volk, or those of a violent and anarchistic nature such
as the "warlord" styling himself Ivan the Terrible, are somehow
obtaining supplies of heavy weapons. The area around Volksville has a
minimum-altitude advisory, as aircraft overflying are routinely engaged
by heavy machinegun fire. Where these weapons, their ammunition and the
training to use them, come from has yet to be explained: Volksville
presents a formidable, in fact at present impenetrable, target for
intelligence operations.
The source of these weapons should be investigated as a matter of
urgency, since it is considered probable that they - or at the very
least their current ammunitions - originated externally to the Zone. The
Volk pose a considerable obstacle to UCAS operations within the zone,
and the source of their support should be sought and eliminated with
dispatch. My personal opinion is that warning leaflets should be dropped
on Volksville one day, and a considerable volume of high explosives the
next, but this idea has not recieved widespread acceptance.
As a sombre final note, computer predictions suggest that of the
approximately 500,000 citizens initially believed to be caught inside
the CZ, under 300,000 remain alive. While crime and the insect spirits
are grave threats to occupants of the Zone, as it passes through its
second winter the lack of potable water, sanitation, power, heating and
medical supplies will exact an extremely heavy toll. Predictions further
suggest that by the spring of 2059 there will be under one hundred
thousand survivors remaining even if only cold, hunger and disease are
taken into account.
Current Policy
The strategy in place at the moment consists of heavy security
surrounding the Zone, to contain the occupants both human and otherwise,
combined with airdrops of food and other supplies and limited
INT/SPECWAROPS to gather data and attempt to maintain at least a
semblance of UCAS influence within the Zone.
There is no long-range policy beyond containment and relief efforts.
Such relief is greatly complicated by insufficient and inaccurate
intelligence, the insidious presence of the insect spirits, and by the
active hostility of several Zone factions; resulting in a patchy,
inefficient and frequently ineffective distribution of aid.
The following consist of possible measures to "deal with" the Zone. Some
are mutually exclusive, others are not.
Option 1 - Do Nothing
Maintaining the status quo is one option: continue to man the Wall and
distribute aid to the dwindling numbers of survivors. The end result of
this will be an enclosed urban wasteland teeming with insect spirits:
while we will be able to forego the relief and intelligence efforts, it
will be necessary to maintain the Zone in perpetuity.
Option 2 - Filtering
It is considered possible by some to distinguish normal (meta)human from
insect spirit. The possibility of allowing, under extremely controlled
conditions, egress from the Zone to those who pass such screening has
been mooted: this would take similar form to the processing of refugees
held in the camps around Chicago. The difficulty comes in the time taken
for the necessary investigation and the availabilty of sufficient
magically gifted individuals: processing at the Calumet and O'Hare camps
typically can handle only one to two hundred individuals per day per
camp due to personnel shortages. It is hoped to clear and close these
camps by the spring of 2058, however, as the numbers held have fallen
from nearly ninety thousand to less than twenty thousand.
There is also the grave difficulty that for many residents it is neither
safe nor practical for them to make their way to the borders of the
Zone, nor will it be easy to accomodate, feed, police and defend the
inevitable large camps that would form around such stations.
If these difficulties can be addressed (and they should not be
insoluble) then, given time, it should be feaasable to extract a
sizeable fraction of the surviving population of the Zone to safety.
This would leave us with the Zone occupied by insect spirits and those
who will not leave (it is debatable whether the Volk would move out: it
is highly doubtful that the ghouls of Cabrini Green would be willing to
leave what is, to them, a haven; to go to being non-citizens with
bounties upon their heads in the UCAS).
Option 3: Invasion
Storming the Zone with armed force is a concept often suggested, usually
by those devoid of any military experience. The Zone spans nearly two
hundred square miles, and is infested by between ten thousand and a
hundred thousand insect spirits (taking the more factual estimates as a
base). The insect spirits in their "true form" are remarkably resistant
to injury from mundane cause such as gunfire: even were heavier
supporting arms effective, the counter-productive nature of using
extensive artillery or air attack on urban areas is well documented.
My personal projection concerning an attempt to liberate the Zone would
require the clearance of several square miles at a time, pinching out
"pockets" and building additional fortification to enclose an area, then
methodically clearing every building within that pocket. To do so would
require two battalions to secure the additional wall (since it would
have to defend against attack and intrusion from both directions, not
merely one, far higher manning levels become necessary) and a full
division of infantry for a methodical house-to-house clearance and
demolition operation.
Executing this plan would require approximately three to six weeks per
pocket cleared, assuming a scheme somewhat as shown:
+++++include map.jpg
It is therefore easily seen that this proposal would require, very
approximately eight years to clear and secure the Containment Zone, if
done in series and if manpower does not become critically depleted.
On current force projections, if tensions with NAN continue to abate and
the risk from Aztlan is discounted, it might be possible to assemble a
second division of troops, reducing the time required to approximately
five years in a best-case scenario. And if you believe that, I have some
prime real estate for sale.
Casualties for this option are projected at between five and twenty
thousand UCAS military fatalities and fifty to one hundred and thirty
thousand wounded, depending on the number of insect spirits and the
tenacity of their resistance. Civilian casualties, assuming no prior
evacuation, would be approximately five to ten per cent fatalities and
twenty to thirty per cent wounded.
Option 4: Annihilation
This option is the simplest and most direct, and involves a massive
attack upon the Containment Zone with the intention of killing every
insect spirit therein. Given the size of the Zone, weapons of mass
destruction would be required: it is nearly a century since any nation
possessed the means to level that much city with only conventional
firepower.
The options will be considered in turn.
1. Nuclear Arms
By conventional projections and assuming the insect spirits to be as
vulnerable to nuclear weapon effects as humans (but see below), the use
of between sixy and eighty quarter-megaton weapons - specifically air-
dropped W-127s - in the airburst role at an average detonation altitude
of 2,700 feet would suffice to kill (by standard tables) 80% major life
forms within the Containment Zone within one hour and 95% lethality
achieved within seven days. Achieving simultaneity of explosion would be
challenging, but by transporting the weapons by expendable drone it
could be achieved.
In strategic terms, this represents a significant depletion of the UCAS
nuclear arsenal. Fallout from the explosions would be significantly
dangerous to a downwind area of approximately one hundred miles in
length and fifty miles in breadth, carried by the wind and dependent
upon precipitation. Magical assistance of sufficient power (e.g. potent
air elementals, sky spirits et cetera) might be able to partially or
completely contain the contamination within the Zone. The use of air
bursts significantly enhances the blast effect while greatly reducing
the quantity of radioactive fallout produced, and is considered the only
sane option for the use of nuclear weapons.
The presumption that the insect spirits will be significantly injured by
a nuclear attack, however, appears uncertain. Ares Macrotechnology used
a small nuclear device against the insect hive in the Cermak power
station, the results still visible: their assertion as to the device's
type and yield appear incorrect by as much as an order of magnitude from
the observed effects. In addition to the greatly reduced effectiveness
of the weapon, the immediate area surrounding the blast site is highly
radioactive, yet the insect spirits seem little affected by this.
Cconventional explosives, concussion, fragmentation et al do have
notable effects on insect spirits, and for airburst explosions in an
urban area these would be the dominant effect. In addition, theories
concerning the astral effects of nuclear weapon are varied and remain
unproven, thus the effect on any astrally-active spirits cannot be
accurately predicted. Similarly, the long-term effect of such a
bombardment upon the astral plane is unknown.
However, the preference of many species for underground nesting sites
must be remembered, and this very significantly skews the effectiveness
of the strike described: even assuming the subterranean spirits are in
shelter according only 3A protection, the one-hour lethality of the
nuclear attack would be only 50%: and for these beings the one-week
lethality would be but little better, perhaps 55% to 65%. While this is
significant, it would be accompanied by the death of almost the entire
(meta)human population of the Zone.
2. Biological Weapons
The concept of using a bioweapon against the insect spirit circulates on
a regular basis, again usually among the less informed. A fundamental
problem is that the flesh form spirits are, essentially, warped and
changed (meta)humans: thus any disease tailored to attack them will be
likely to attack normal (meta)humans as well. Meanwhile, the true form
spirits are essentially manifest beings, and their vulnerability to such
a disease is likely to be low to nonexistent.
Research is believed to be ongoing into the possibility of such a
weapon, probably a highly specialised bacterium or fungus, and in my
opinion tailored heavily to attack true forms: this greatly reduces the
danger of the organism becoming effective against humans, and also
eliminates the hardest targets: flesh forms are comparatively easy to
kill with conventional means, the true forms are the most difficult due
to their highly magical nature. However, there appear - at my clearance
level - to be no breakthroughs imminent.
3. Chemical Weapons
The most obvious choice would be to kill the insect spirits with a mass
bombardment of persistent insecticide or an analogue. The only such
agent readily available in sufficient quantity is a organophosphorous-
based cholinesterase inhibitor - in other words a nerve agent - to be
delivered in thickened form as an aerosol by aircraft, backed by
artillery where concentrations appeared low.
This would produce 100% fatalities against all exposed, unprotected
major life forms within one hour, and the agent would contaminate all
surfaces in an extremely tenacious manner, remaining active for up to
five years in areas not exposed to direct sunlight or precipitation. The
agent, being absorbed by contact, would thus ensure any insect spirits
emerging from underground areas would suffer its effects.
Doubts persist as to the effectiveness of such agents against true form
spirits, in any case the most dangerous threat. Also, I have been made
aware that such an attack may cause a pollution of the astral plane in
the area, which would be less injurious to surviving insect spirits than
to ourselves. Finally, once again this solution involves _total_
fatalities among the civilian population.
Option 5: Watcher Bombs
"Bombarding" the Zone with Watcher spirits ordered to attack any insect
spirit they saw was suggested on Shadowland, some months after an
experiment tried exactly that. The small-scale experiments to date have
been disappointing, due to the low power and limited intelligence of the
spirits deployed (and the very limited number of participating
magicians) but the concept of scores or hundreds of Watcher spirits of
adequate strength attacking the Zone has a certain merit.
Recruiting, hiring or borrowing magical talent from corporations, allied
nations, and any other sources (including the shadows if necessary)
would be expensive in terms of money, materials supplied, magical
talent, and time, but given the means to sustain and hold sufficient
Watchers, an attack of quite notable significance could be mounted at
little risk to life either within or without the Zone.
Option 6: Ghost Dance
A delicate subject to many, perhaps, but given the demonstrated power of
the Great Ghost Dance in opposing the armed forces of the then-United
States, perhaps it or a variation could be harnessed to destroy, dispel
or drive off the insect spirits infesting Chicago: preferably without
harm to the human occupants, though experience suggests such subtlety
may be difficult to guarantee. This would require close and considerable
co-operation from the Native American Nations.
Family experience leads me to warn against the use of this option
without great caution and considerable trepidation.
Option 7: Abandon the Zone
Perhaps a rather radical idea, but one to be considered nonetheless:
dismantle the Containment Zone and allow the refugees to escape
effectively unchecked. Most flesh form and true form spirits are
reasonably identifiable: the "good merges" are dangerous and would have
to be guarded against, but this is already the case. It is also of note
that the Zone is distinctly pervious to skilled individuals even without
the correct identification and credentials: I know of a number of people
who have escaped the Zone by various means. In one case, a member of the
escaped party subsequently proved to be a "good merge" Mantis spirit,
this having gone undetected in over two years of close association with
the group.
Option 8: Tir Taingire Assistance
Shyeah, right. <Toad, touch this paragraph and die... I don't _want_
this translated into Bureaucrat>
Supposedly the Council of Princes might be able to find a solution to
the problem and help us out. My personal, biased, opinion is that this
hurts us and ties up a large chunk of the Army and some of the Marines,
and the Tir likes that and wishes the situation to continue.
Lofwyr's involvement throws that out a little, but the cynic in me says
he sees more opportunity in our maintaining the Zone than in other
solutions and so is playing along for that reason.
Again, until we get a clearer, fuller statement from these jokers, I say
we discount what they have to say and make our own decisions. If it's so
important that we should or should not do something, they can damn well
tell us why.
Option 9: Negotiate
Included for completeness: that we should open communications with the
insect spirits, discern if they have leaders, attempt to find a
compromise solution which will allow them to co-exist with humanity.
No, I don't think that's particularly practical either, but I was asked
for _all_ the options.
+++++end report
Comments positively solicited.]<<<<<
-- Lynch <00:35:35/12-20-57>
