WWDE, Effects

BC 04/1 Because of the almost total destruction of technology and industrial production, most governments had fallen. Though there were centers of light, beacons of hope scattered across the world, most of it had descended into violent feudalism of one sort or another. All countries had their good and bad people, (Terry Henry Walton Chronicles, Second Dark Ages, Boris chronicles series).

Governments: Boris had maintained a relatively benevolent dictatorship in the Russian/Siberian area, sending his children to maintain relationships with other countries who had retained some form of civilization. Fiona (Boris' second child) was helping the Mongolian pack against the Sacred Clans. His youngest boys, the twins Anatoly and Leo, had been scouting the central regions and acting as diplomats to the Finnish government—one of the few true governments to survive the Fall. They’d also led missions to contact the rulers of the regions that encompassed the former states of Estonia, Latvia, and the reinvigorated royalty of Sweden. They’d gotten a few refugees from the Ukraine/Belarus region over the years, and it was a disaster area. Every faction had taken up arms, and the country had been a war zone for at least thirty years. Although Boris hadn’t investigated it for the last ten years, it had only recently been recovering to small organized towns. Usually under one strongman or another. Most of the towns of a decade ago would have struggled to muster a platoon of men with the ability and inclination to soldier.

Boris maintained his authority over the weres and people by enforcing a simple code. Harm not those weaker than yourself. Seek to protect. If you must steal, no more than your needs for a week and a day. It was the best he could do when he traveled across the steppes for a month a year. Once a year, most years at least, Boris and the central pack traveled to mete justice to his Siberian pack. First offenses were held over until he arrived. Repeat offenders might be brought into New Romanovka or punished in place by neighboring Shifters. Occasionally, a troublemaking individual or small group would make it to his borders. Capturing them when they did was a point of pride. Boris hated wasting potential, but at least one in three of the captures was too feral for life in his pack. They were too unwilling to change their ways for a second chance. And it was slowly getting worse. Boris considered banditry to be rebellion if they had been from his lands. He responded firmly and violently to it. There were no survivors from bandits who had originated from his lands.

Roads: In the Ukraine and Belarus, Ukraine and Belarus, even fifty years of winters with minimal repairs hadn't destroyed the highways. Without heavy trucks constantly running along them and breaking them down, the lighter traffic preserved them for the most part, and they were still more than adequate.

Vehicles: With the breakdown of most of the oil industry, cars, trucks, and armored vehicles had to be used sparingly. New ones couldn't be built anyway, with what limited heavy industry was available. The few heavy tanks they had managed to scavenge shortly after the Fall were mostly in bunkers around Lilith's caves—that site was too important to risk falling into anyone else's hands. His history as a Cossack had taught Boris an important lesson about horses. Even though his artillery still used them, they ate a lot every day. That made them a logistical nightmare. The fact that they were better off-road than even wide-rimmed bicycles made up for that liability with artillery. But his infantry was trained as a form of ‘Dragoon,' mounted infantry. The major difference was that the ‘mount' was a specially designed pedal-powered bike. It was something that had repeatedly been used from the middle of the twentieth century AD. Boris's single logistics battalion was fitted entirely on tricycles with a wagon bed on the back. These vehicles could carry well in excess of a ton of supplies each with trained riders. Normal bikes were restricted, even with modifications and a trailer, to three-quarters of a ton. Overall, the logistical capability was a trick stolen from the Vietnamese in their wars of the 1960s and 1970s. Without helicopters to interdict the supplies, or aircraft to bomb the roads, Boris was immensely confident his logistics would be nearly impossible to cut. If someone managed to get a force across his supply lines, then his Were patrols would savage it.

Weapons: Boris controlled one of the very few areas that still produced ammunition at all. Boris had managed to relocate a small production facility for artillery ammunition as well as ammunition for their rifles. With the efforts to minimize artillery use, they had a decent supply for even a significant period of conflict. BC 04/3 Every adult in Boris's region was capable with gun or bow from a defensive position. Even many of the teenagers were. Hunting was a major supplement of foodstuffs. The extra meat for normal humans over the still bitter winters helped survival in the smaller villages and farmsteads. For Weres, it became a competition with the normals. Since many of the independent settlements surrounding Boris had no ammunition, even if they had guns, bows had made a comeback. Just about every person in the militias could make an arrow, even if the accuracy of their product was inferior. Some weapon was better than no weapon. Most of the materials for weapons were being reclaimed from abandoned vehicles and scrap metal, although limited trade with Finland provided an additional source of minerals for the brass in the rounds they preferred. Light body armor made of a material that one of the modified crops that Lilith created for them was used instead of the synthetic body armor that was ubiquitous in the early twenty-first century. Incorporating metals and silica into its fibers as it grew, it had superior stopping power to the ceramic plates in many early twenty-first century armors, and lighter weight. It also grew the fibers long and ready for weaving. The biggest problem with it was that special tools were needed to cut it. The specialty weapons were also manufacturable in the facilities Boris had up and running. Slightly less accurate than western sub guns, the BIZON was still a preferred weapon for a scout due to its standard-issue flash suppressor and silencer. The marksmen and snipers were equipped with Dragunov rifles. Because of ammunition compatibility considerations, Boris had chosen the RPK-74M as the squad light machine gun. Several AA-12 fully automatic shotguns for close combat assaults were distributed amongst every squad as they saw fit.

The Pogroms . Weres had suffered, though not as severely as the Vampires. His father estimated that in the first five years after the Fall, anywhere up to ninety percent of the active Vampires had been killed. But all the Weres had been pushed either east or west from those nations. Few had been killed, but in Romania, Latvia, Belarus, Serbia, and a few other nations, they had been forced out. The people had been afraid and had needed to take that fear out on one group or another. In some ways, it was better for the Weres and Vampires to be a target. Vampires are restricted in their travel habits. Weres are not. Once the fear had become evident to them, many had fled to the wilds and kept hidden. Others had lived in their animal forms. Whereas Vampires were dragged by mobs into the sun, killing them. Not only that, it had driven many Weres to Boris’s realm, bolstering the numbers there. The extra help with hunting had made it possible for him to rescue and provide for more refugees. Still, given the general antipathy between Weres and Vampires after the Fall, it would have been just as likely that they would have been a boost to the guerrilla movement.