AW: [DL] What would the Reckoners do?

[<markus.finster@chello.at>]

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Well, I have a few HOE-books, though I never played it - but there it mentions a SoCal and a NorCal - each belonging to the CSA and USA respectively.
In Rain of Terror, there's an election held where California could become a free state, an independent nation. Now, war weariness or not, neither the North nor the South could afford to lose the Ghostrock.
So maybe they agree on invading California together. (Like the various splittings of Poland between Prussia, Russia and Austria). With their combined effort, I'm pretty sure there would be not a long  war, it would be more like a police action. All they have to do is put some troops there and kick the Californian Government out of office, replacing them with new governers.
Since California doesn't have a big militia, how could they oppose them?

Markus

I'm pretty well convinced by Mr. McGlothlin's superior History-fu as to my Union-getting-the-living-hell-kicked-out-of-it question, so I thought I'd share some of my ideas on future-history here...



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Now, as far as I know, the war seems to be winding down, what with the Richmond explosion (I assume that in Dead Presidents it blows pretty much according to the plan outlined in Back East: The South?) and the Union's terrible war-weariness.

The Reckoner's aren't strong enough to prolong the war between the states much longer. Let's say peace is achieved in 1879 or 1880, with the CSA getting Arizona,  New Mexico, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kentucky. The Union ends up with Kansas, and Colorado, with gaping holes where Utah and the land taken up by the Sioux nations used to be. The Union, might angry with Britain, gets Detroit back, but too war-weary to care, lets the Mormons have Deseret and the Sioux have their nation. 

The biggest question is, of course, what happens to California. To keep both the CSA and the USA powerful enough to fight each other to bloody stalemates whenever they both go to war, both countries need a good supply of Ghost Rock. The Maze is obviously the best bet.

But, what would the Reckoners want? They are going to want both sides to be able to fight a "Round 2" later on, after a generation or so, when people are young and stupid enough to go to war again. Until then, they're going to need bloodshed and lots of it. The Union is far too war-weary to go to war again, but the CSA can be encouraged to go to war to ensure it's own survival- against Mexico.

Let's say the Union gets California. Now the CSA is in dire need of Ghost Rock- and where is a large deposit discovered? Mexico. Now the CSA has to go even further South. Santa Anna's invasion is a wonderful way to turn Texas into a war zone. 
A CSA-Mexico war soon after the Civil War ends makes sense for the Reckoners. I'd wager that Mexico would lose and the CSA would try to conquer it in response (for revenge and for Ghost Rock), getting themselves into years and years of fighting resistance, crushing local guerillas, and all manner of fun. The CSA's economic future is assured so it can fight the North again one day, and until then, the Reckoners get to have plenty of fun South O' the Border. 

In terms of my old, planned campaign, I was going to have the players in Texas opposing the Army of the Night when it invaded, and the CSA almost sputter and die as the Union let out it's last gasp- retaking a great deal of lost territory. Throw in Richmond blowing sky high, and the fear level in the CSA was going to go up up up.
Stopping Santa Anna was going to be the focus of that campaign, with all manner of Aztec-related hijincks. (I liked South O' the Border a lot...)

(And the military occupations of Kentucky, Missouri, Utah, etc, by the Union weren't going to be all that much fun, either. I had ideas for a "Confederate Resistance" campaign in occupied territories, but that never got off the ground...)