Soviet Amerika [OOC] - Alternate History, Red Dawn-style

[HeySeuss]

The Soviets have invaded the USA!
The commies are here to take your freedom away.
What are YOU gonna do about it?

Uncle Sam might be down, but he ain't out;
the Resistance are recruiting willing Americans
It's time to fight the red menace and take back our freedom!
(OOC - Totally recruiting right now.)

< In Character Thread >

Movie poster promoting Red Dawn, the movie that inspires this RP

TL;DR Summary:

• Alternate-History
• Modern, 2013 or so.
• GM's: HeySeuss and Ruby
• The setting takes place in a resort town in Vermont; because the tourist season is usually on from summer through winter, lots of people have a reason to be in Vermont; this makes it easy for a character from Texas or California to wind up there somehow.
• The United States is no more; it is under occupation by the communist forces (see alternate history below).
• There are pockets of resistance, and the characters are part of this -- we probably start the RP as the Soviets are still consolidating their invasion and haven't quite taken over all of the US yet, but it's obvious that the US will fall.
• Moral themes will crop up, such as the efficacy of killing on the basis of suspicion and taking no chances with potential collaborators -- the KGB will be ruthless, taking friends and family hostage, using them against resistance fighters to make them into moles that provide them information.
• I am open to suggestions on where to place this RP geographically.
• The RP is meant to be psychological. Moral decisions, differences of opinion, expediency versus principle all come into play.
• Google Docs might wind up being used for collaboration.
• I'm limiting the number of ex-military characters and am applying very stringent standards on them -- I'd rather see people playing civilians or police or something instead of their ideal of what a SEAL is.
• If you're a chick and you're reading this, yes, girls can play guerrilla too.
• See the below section for character background ideas, though you can certainly come up with your own, too.
• Politics discussions not germane to the roleplay are verboten; that's what Off-Topic Derpbating Discussion is for.
• Feel free to PM me about character creation with ideas and so forth or to even come to the Guild's Chat (web browser based) to discuss it with me there.

Table of Contents:

• In Character Thread
• Link to the Chat for the RP
• Daniel Martin (HeySeuss) - The black sheep son of a US Congressman that recently returned to Aquitaine, Vermont. His father fled the invasion for Canada, his brother is collaborating with the enemy, as an assistant to the Soviet Military Governor of Vermont, while Daniel is the unlikely guy doing the recruitment for a local resistance cell.
• Adam Zajac (MelonHead) - A Polish immigrant that was part of a resistance movement in Warsaw and managed to flee when things got too hot. He's spent his time in America drinking away the painful memories only to find that the Soviets are here now. His experience as an urban guerrilla make him valuable beyond measure to his new cell in America.
• Dr. Joe Partain (Byrd Man) - A veterinarian who witnessed his family's death by Soviet artillery strike and found his will to fight; he puts on a cheerful exterior, but it's the facade of a man with nothing left to lose.
• Natasha Hastings (Bela) - The daughter of the recently deceased president of the United States, Natasha Hastings was one of the most wanted women in America, though she managed to narrowly escape what looked like her death (which was essentially the death of her Secret Service detail) and is now on her own.
• Emily Decker (Ruby) - A former NSA tech specialist whose particular projects tended to involve compromising wireless devices and network, she now finds herself enmeshed in the resistance as part of a CIA attempt to locate Dr. Donald York, an MIT professor of quantum mechanics and a man wanted by both sides.
• Yuri Richinoff (Baconn96) - A Russian that served in the War in Afghanistan (which ran from 1979-1997 in this timeline) he then used a 'ratline' out of the East Bloc and defected to the United States. He is a skilled mechanic, as that is most of what he did in Afghanistan as well as a hunting enthusiast. He has little to no love for his former country.
• Arthur "Roy" Tyler (Gunther) - A former US Army mechanic that served in the 101st Air Assault Division, he is the son of an outlaw biker. When the Soviets invaded, he took his '61 Harley and found the resistance in New Hampshire. He has since been recruited into the Aquitaine, Vermont cell, the survivors of months of attrition among the guerrillas.
• Approved Characters and links to things like the In-Character Thread and various reference sites will be posted here.

In Character Info:

In 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power; he had alienated factions within the USSR's government that engineered his removal from office. His successor, Leonid Brezhnev, was a weaker leader, one that deferred to a stronger role within the CPSU (Communist Party, Soviet Union.) However, in the wake of the Kosygin Doctrine's failure and the Prague Spring of 1968, the hardliner Valentin Igorvich Sokolov, took and consolidated power from Leonid Brezhnev.

Sokolov, a younger man, turned out to be a much stronger leader than his two predecessors, and more stable than Stalin was -- he was cunning and calculatingly ruthless, a man hardened to necessity in the Great Patriotic war. Under his leadership, relations with Mao Zedong, of the People's Republic of China, were mended and the Soviet presence in Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and the Middle East were strengthened. Under Sokolov's leadership, the Soviet industrial infrastructure was modernized from its lamentably moldering state and reforms were made to increase efficiency without compromising the Soviet position.

In the wake of the US loss in Vietnam, Sokolov moved aggressively -- the mood of the American people was such that they had little to no tolerance for another confrontation with communism. An aggressive program of supporting insurgency in South and Central America yielded strong results against US-backed juntas in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador and Nicaragua, and eventually the Soviets found themselves with strong alliances and popular support in the region.

Things came to a head in the middle east; Kuwait was caught slant-drilling Iraqi oil fields, which gave Saddam Hussein all the reason he needed to invade his smaller, weaker neighbor, it came to the point where the US went to war on behalf of Kuwait and found itself facing a similar Soviet force in Iraq, defending Saddam Hussein's position that the Kuwaitis were slant-drilling the Iraqi fields. When the two forces met in the desert, the US force found itself overwhelmed by the sheer numbers involved, because Soviet forces were allowed to move by rail line through Iran and into Iraq; the Ayatollahs hated the US for the Shah more than they hated the Soviet Union, who forced Saddam Hussein to return disputed border territory to the Iranians in return for the assistance of the Red Army.

Coalition forces were unprepared for the size of the Russian force in Iraq, supplied overland and prepared to In the wake of the terrible defeat in the battle of Hafar al-Batin and the evacuation from Al Mis'hab, known as "Dunkirk II", France, Spain, the UK and Italy, as well as many others, all made separate arrangements with the Soviet Union, leaving the US alone and defiant in the world. World War III seemed lost in the desert and even the US started to negotiate for a settlement that included the return of POW's held by Soviet forces.

During these negotiations, when the guard of the US was down and when the citizens were war-weary, the Soviets used an old trick; they invaded US air space with commercial airliners that dropped paratroopers, or landed other troops in a daring coup de main. Other Soviet allies, such as China and the Cubans, the South Americans and the Vietnamese, as well as the Warsaw Pact nations, mustered their strength and moved in to follow up on the initial Soviet invasion.

The US military, demoralized and way outnumbered, still in tatters from the Gulf War that they lost, melted away when it didn't surrender, unable to take the Communists in open battle.

DC fell, the president shot himself in the head and the Vice President was killed by Spetsnaz when he elected to go down fighting rather than be taken alive. The Speaker of the House surrendered, in power long enough to hand over the nation to the Soviets and then retired to Siberia.

A new president, a man by the name of Frederick Chambers, was installed as the president of the United Socialist States of America, but it was Che Guevara (yeah, he's alive in this) who delivered the keynote speech at Chambers' inauguration, gloating at the victory of worldwide socialism and the end of the Norteamericanos, that America was finished as anything but a humbled former enemy, a fine new addition to the likes of Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Bulgaria...

In living rooms and bars, in garages and factories, in California, in Texas and in New York, Americans were saying, "The fuck it is..."

Out of Character Info:

Right, so the concept is pretty simple. The characters in this would be resistance fighters in the occupied United States. We'll establish where in the country this takes place, though I tend to favor New England, and so forth if there is interest.

As a note, the alternate history thing is something I just thought up with minimal research, so it's off the top of my head. Details are missing; for example, exact information regarding what went on in this alternative Gulf War where the US got handed a defeat. I also omitted information on nuclear weaponry that may or may not have been employed, though I am leaning toward some sort of virus akin to Stuxnet that disables the tech to allow for a strike -- perhaps Russian capabilities in this field were dramatically underestimated (in conjunction with a couple key defectors/agents). I also didn't put much down regarding the economics in this timeline, though I am thinking that the US has been in a recession or at least in economic hard times for a while; maybe it never got back on its feet after the 1970's. (What would America look like without the optimism of the 80's, right?)

On the other hand, I want to keep the focus on the individual characters. In the end, if there are things that strike one as highly improbable and so forth...it's fiction, and it's an RP and this stuff is pretty much just background to set the scene. A second thing to note is that I avoided using real life names of US politicians and so forth, because I don't want to cloud the issue with partisan bickering -- and I'm taking the moment to say right off the bat that I put aside any political beliefs and just wrote this out. The point is to have fun, after all.

Anyway, I don't have specific ideas for the characters. I have basic ideas but nothing firmly set in place besides the idea that they're Americans caught up in events -- perhaps there's a reason why they go guerrilla, such as knowing that the KGB would go after them period as part of a class of people they automatically suspect as dangerous. I'd prefer to avoid too many characters that are all gung ho military, particularly since I'd like this RP to focus on the people and how they deal with the problems from an everyday perspective.

The best thought I have for the plot is that the characters are somehow part of the resistance/guerrilla cell that has one or some of the bigshots of the US Government in it; perhaps an ex-US president or prominent senator, or similar, someone who managed to escape the KGB's net. That would make our characters close observers/makers of very high level decisions and so forth. It's just a thought, at any rate, for what direction we can take with the RP.

If you're interested, feel free to post. If you're here to just shoot holes in the plot, please don't.

Character Guide

The important thing about this roleplay is this; it is not all action. And it is not meant to be all about military stuff, though military stuff is a huge part of the RP. There are a few things that I am trying to head off by writing down my character sheet expectations.

1. No Special Forces/SEAL/Force Recon/Etc without really working it and I'm going to nitpick these sheets way harder than anything else. If you aren't sure, or if you're basing it on a movie overmuch, reconsider.
2. Weaponry; the characters should have a plausible reason for having the weapons and accessories for said weapons that they have. This is the opening stage of a guerrilla movement, and weaponry is going to be a real hodge-podge.
3. Incidentally, the US Armed Forces isn't as experienced as it is in the real world; 9/11 never happened, because bin Laden was too busy fighting the Soviets to attack the United States. (Spetsnaz got him in a raid.) That means the GWOT/OEF/OIF didn't happen; we bumped back the Gulf War to 2011 or so because it took that long for the US to decide to bestir itself and actually intervene somewhere in substantial fashion.
4. Characters should have a diverse skillset. By diverse skillset, I mean mechanics, plumbers, engineers, cops, criminals, desk-jockeys, electricians, cooks, kindergarten teachers, pet store cashiers, librarians, college students, dishwashers, waiters...you name it. I'm sure that even with a very humble and 'normal' background, they have skills and hobbies that may come in handy.

That said, here's a list of character requests -- roles that I would like to see filled;

• Law Enforcement - Law enforcement types are bound to be torn a bit on this -- some of their number are cooperating with the Soviets, who are maintaining local police forces (though they are carefully supervising them). For a guy with a family and so forth, there's a lot of reasons to shut up and do your job. Also, some guys just can't wrap their heads around the idea of going guerrilla or becoming criminals, essentially. On the other side of the coin, a lot don't show up to work and head for the hills. In the case of Federal Law Enforcement, the choice is probably also there.
• An Action Movie Actor - Say what? Yeah, I thought it might be amusing to play a character that does action movies that is suddenly thrust into a real Soviet invasion. Maybe the guy made a living off anti-communist flicks (Chuck Norris, Sly Stallone, Ahnuld, Dolph Lundgren all come to mind...)
• Medical - When you're in the wild and your medical supplies are limited, someone that knows what they're doing can really make the difference between life or death. Don't believe me? Note that Che Guevara's biggest influence in the Cuban Revolutionary War was this: he was their doctor.
• Others - The gamut of Americans, basically. Normal folk, not superheroes. You can submit any character concept you like, but the above are suggestions/requests.

Character Sheet:

Name:
Gender:
Age:

Appearance:

(Picture or Text; your call. I'm more of a text guy, myself.)

Bio:

(Education, background. If you want, you can describe how your character wound up in Vermont and joined the resistance, though I can help discuss the how and why of getting into the Resistance in detail if you want ideas and help.)

Psychological Profile:

(A basic description of the person, how they relate to people and how they are reacting to the situation right now -- this should be a breeze if you do the bio first.)

Skillset/Occupation:

(List formal training and hobby-related skills here, or even stuff dad taught your character when they were a kid. While there is a huge temptation to play military types, the reality is that there are a lot of skills involving sustainment and maintenance that are not necessarily covered by the military's skillsets, or at least, not in large numbers. The ability to repair and maintain, to scrounge and even farm, to treat wounds and a whole bunch of other civilian trades are extremely useful. A guerrilla army has to live off of what it can find and gather, and civilian skills are more in demand in this sort of environment, particularly ones that make them more self sufficient.)

Equipment:

(This encompasses the personal gear the characters have; vehicles aren't a concern at the moment. Firearms and the like will be scrutinized carefully; don't take it the wrong way, but have a good explanation for why you have military grade equipment if you have any.)

Relationships and Acquaintances:

(You do not need to fill this out immediately, but this should include other characters, after you talk it over with various players as the RP fills out.)

[MelonHead]

Hmm, this is so deliciously Cold War...

I'd happily fill the Polish immigrant slot, although if I can decide on another suitable nationality I'll go for that instead. Provided you'll have me :|

[HeySeuss]

Well, you've never pissed me off, so I give everyone that hasn't pissed me off a chance to submit a character.

I can't guarantee slots, because I want people to feel it in their bones and do their best. Beyond that, you can pick any nationality you please and work things out. I'm pretty laid back about people being creative with the setting or specific things in the setting, so if you need to invent events, feel free.

[Jannah]

I'm so torn on which kind of character I want. A criminal perhaps? I thought about playing an undercover Soviet agent, but I figured it would go against the flow of the general group you're trying to make here.

[HeySeuss]

I will entertain the idea of traitors or people playing Soviets. A Soviet defector might also be a good addition, except that they will be distrusted and I want a good story for why someone in the Soviet (or other Warsaw Pact) Army might defect -- of course, if they are related to people that have run afoul of the KGB or other intelligence services or the Party, that might make for a good story -- part of the victorious juggernaut and then suddenly under suspicion. Perhaps they found out that their family is executed or something. It's entirely possible such a character was an officer and is part of the nomenklatura; their family was in the wrong faction and got in deep shit.

[Jannah]

Ok, cool. I was thinking of making a character who appears sympathetic to the Americans but is actually helping them in order to gather information for the Soviets.

[HeySeuss]

I'm fine with traitors as well, though they should probably be American.

[Jannah]

Well my character would be an American, but he's sympathetic to the Soviets.

[Byrd Man]

Here we go, let me know if anything needs to be changed.


Name: Dr. Joe Partain

Gender: Male

Age: 31

Appearance:
Joe is thin and lanky (about 6'2 and 180 pounds) He has dark brown hair and a mustache. He wears black-rimmed glasses.

Bio:
Originally from Connecticut, Joe grew up on a farm outside of Chaplin. After high school he attended Uconn and their veterinary medicine school. He graduated and became a veterinarian in Bridgeport, in the greater New York metro area. Joe married his college sweetheart, Victoria, after setting up his practice. They had two daughters and life for a time seemed like it was going fine. Until the Soviets came. The city of New York was one of the high priority targets in the brief war. When the Soviets took the city, they were merciless. Joe and his family had hunkered down in their home during the fighting. Joe ventured outside one night upon hearing the sound of an intruder. He was in the backyard when an artillery strike hit the house, killing his wife and children.

After their deaths, Joe was basked in deep depression to the point of contemplating suicide. He found refuge in a refugee shelter the Soviets had set up as they began a brief siege of Manhattan. He helped and tended to any hurt or wounded refugees while the Soviets watched. Surrounded by the people who took his family's life, Joe was at his emotional worst. The only bright point was the whispers of a growing resistance movement that was starting up even as the old America surrendered to their communist masters. A nosy Russian who had run the shelter had found out Joe was a vet, and prepared to conscript him into the Red Army as a medic. Angered, Joe fled from the shelter in the middle of the night and to his veterinary office. There, he rustled up food and medical supplies, his father's old shotgun that he had kept in his storage room, and the framed picture of his family from his office desk. With these items in hand, he headed north towards the supposed location of the resistance.

Psychological Profile:
Good natured to those he knows and likes, Joe is dependable and loyal to his friends. The cheerful persona can be a facade at times for him to mask his pain and loss. Not a violent man by nature, he has become one after the events that killed his family. While kind to the loyal Americans with him, he can be cruel to the Soviets and anyone who sides with them.


Skillset/Occupation:
As a vet, Joe has basic medical knowledge when it comes to humans and can work as a field medic in a pinch. His childhood on the farm also means that he knows about farming, hunting, and shooting a gun. He's not a survivalist by any means, but he has a basic skill set


Equipment:


Medical bag filled with bandages, stitches, sutures, and some medicine (mostly of the animal variety, but it can work on humans)
A Browning Auto-5 Shotgun that was his fathers.
A backpack filled with clothes, light food supplies, and a photo of his family.

Relationships and Acquaintances:
To be added later as the game progresses.

[MelonHead]

Name: Adam Zajac

Gender: Male

Age: 28

Appearance: Nondescript facial features, with pale skin marked with scars in unseen places, only one thin cut across his brow visible normally. His eyes are a dull shade of bluish grey, and his hair a light brown almost faded to blonde. It’s never grown properly anyhow, but he keeps it cut short as much as possible so it’s rarely more than a grade 2. His nose is somewhat crooked but of average size, apart from that he’s completely unremarkable. His physique is somewhat more impressive, athletic at the very least edging towards built. He stands at about five foot nine inches in height.

Bio: Adam was born in Warsaw; although technically speaking the Russians had renamed the Polish capitol for their fear of such nationalistic and patriotic behaviour, as a sign of their final triumph over the resilient Poles. His father was probably what could be considered a passive resister, and his other family lived in the countryside where they would be safe. The Soviets had won the country during the war, Warsaw and the Polish had fought the Germans alone, and when they were broken the Red Army had marched in to claim the ruins. Adam’s father’s father's father died in that battle, died fighting it.

Adam wanted to fight as well, and he kept that opinion close to his chest but for his father who scoffed at his childish desired. He told him to go to school, to learn to question what he was told, but also to take what truth there was from the lessons. With the most basic and twisted education one could likely find, indoctrinated in the inevitability of Communism and angered by the humiliation of his people, Adam grew up grim and determined. He tried to make a life for himself but couldn’t take the Soviet sympathisers in school, dropping out at fifteen to live at home. Adam's father taught him English as best as he could yet his father’s ‘injuries’ prevented him from working and Adam took it upon himself to get them a steady income. He worked in a bunch of menial jobs, learning no real skills but hardening his body for the war to come.

He took to an underground fighting ring, where he learned to beat people into submission with a steely determination. He got into gangs at the age of seventeen, surviving a number of brawls and minor skirmishes with Soviet sympathisers, and he learned to use the city to his advantage. He could climb faster and jump further than the best of his gang mates, because he was the most determined. Possibly the only real thing he had, a steely determination.

He took to message carrying in the Polish resistance at the age of twenty five, leaving his gang past behind by carrying his skills forward to finally join in on the fight. It was there he learned how to kill, but little did he know it was his own organisations ruthlessness that attracted the fatal attention of the KGB. The Russian secret service was elite, with skills inherited from the long gone Okhrana they easily infiltrated his group, and when they had enough they struck.

At the age of twenty seven, Adam’s father was killed in a raid on their small apartment, a raid which was aimed at him. When he found out, and his resistance group were brought down one by one, he did what was natural. He fled, using the city to his advantage, using his skills. He escaped Poland with naught but regrets and knowledge and determination. Except for an old pistol with three shots, and an army knife stained with blood.

He arrived in America under cover, taking the journey as many did with one of the more shady groups who ferried refugees across the ocean for significant sums of money, Adam was willing to give them what he had. He jumped off the boat with just the tracksuit on his back and found the first bar to drown his sorrows.

He was found there later; when he gave in to complete despair finding that those who he feared and hated had followed him over the oceans. Even America wasn’t safe, but the desire for revenge rang out in his very soul and when the bulge in his jacket drew the attention of resistance recruiters, his unique experience gave him the opportunity.

Psychological Profile:

Grim yet determined. He gives respect out grudgingly and holds his secrets close to his heart. He could be considered a sociopath as his unique upbringing and experience has shown he shows no remorse in hurting and killing his fellow man.

Skillset/Occupation:

Manual labourer and waster was his occupation. However beneath that was a talented resistance fighter with an aptitude for moving quickly through the city or remaining unseen in crowds. Stealth wouldn’t necessarily be the word for it, street smarts possibly. He’s also physically fairly capable, and can shoot and cut with some familiarity although marksmanship is by no means his talent. A by-product of his determination is a formidable endurance; he can push himself to the very limits. He’s for all intents and purposes a survivor. He also has an incredibly informal gang education, with knowledge of certain guns and behaviour, as well as drugs and their effects though he never took them himself. (He does smoke however)

Equipment:

Combat knife, kept in relatively decent condition. It cuts through flesh easily enough at any rate; he also has its sheath which he keeps under his shirt at his side.

An old P-64 pistol with three rounds left in its final magazine, which he picked up through his time in a street gang. He was given four magazines initially, but used most messing around/training with the pistol, and has only ever fired it at someone once, clipping them but not fatally. Its only real benefit is it takes 9x18 Makarov ammunition, which is still somewhat attainable.

Relationships and Acquaintances: