Philly Notes, Part 1

[camwyn]

- Philadelphia actually a moderately functional city, more so than the Pitt
- Schuylkill River still nasty but relatively viable
- Majority of destruction in Philly wrought by combination of Chinese agents on the ground and massive urban unrest rather than active nukes
- Which is not to say there weren't nuked areas, just that Philly wasn't a primary target for the hot stuff
- And when I say 'on the ground' I mean 'trying to screw with America's financial infrastructure'; there's a Mint and a Federal Reserve in Philadelphia
- Philly currently under the rule of the Blood Prince
- No he is not a vampire
- But he was born and raised in the city's western ruins
- And the playground that occupied most of his childhood has been replaced by a burn-pit full of the charred remains of his enemies
- He does in fact have an aunt and an uncle in Bel Air, Maryland
- He does not approve of barbarism and his goal is to make his city glorious
- But the idiots for miles around keep causing problems so he has to kill them a lot
- Not on the Camden side of the river, though
- There are man-eating tomato plants over there
- Seriously, Rutgers, wtf
- Buildings that are still at least partly viable: Wells Fargo Arena, the General Atomics world headquarters, the Fed, the Franklin Institute, the Custom House
- Seriously, have you ever seen the building standards for the Federal Reserve, you can't tell me they didn't bombproof that
- Buildings that are completely shot to hell except for maybe one or two rooms in the basement: the Mint, the Zoo, City Hall, anything named after Comcast
- Buildings that have at least two or three livable areas aboveground if you don't mind the horrifying wildlife: the Art Museum, Fairmount Water Works, Memorial Hall, the Masonic Temple
- If you are looking for Independence Hall I'm afraid there's not much left of it
- The Blood Prince did retrieve most of the Liberty Bell from its ruins, though
- Also the Ben Franklin Bridge is not really there except for the part leading up to the first tower
- There is a catapult\slingshot thing on the largest piece of that part of the bridge
- It is pointed at the New Jersey side
- It is customarily loaded with the Blood Prince's screaming enemies
- I trust I have made my point
- Elfreth's Alley is in bad shape but people still live there
- Supermutants are not really a thing here due to severe lack of FEV testing in the area
- There are some ghouls but mostly they are from out of town
- One of them claims to have been a Philly resident at the time of the War
- He has a truly amazing wig that looks like almost perfect hair
- He maintains the largest collection of pre-War music on record
- Despite the whole no-skin-no-nose thing he is actually fairly popular because he holds dance parties for teenagers every Saturday
- At this point you may be wondering why the city is not more widely known
- I mean, we've heard of the Pitt, Ronto, the Commonwealth, and 'Great Lanta'
- (Great Lanta being the home city of St. Monica, patron of lost children, if you hang around the church in Rivet City long enough)
- Reason number one: the I-95 corridor to the north is a horrorshow
- Where the highway is intact there are raiders and robber gangs galore
- Where the highway is not intact... well, there's a lot more not-intact
- Also there are Horrible Wildlifey Things - the point is, if you're going to the Commonwealth, don't take I-95, it will hurt
- Reason number two: a nuclear power generating station to the south had a truly spectacular war related meltdown some time back, making it unwise to attempt to come straight up the shoreline
- Basically the safest travel route to the Commonwealth involves going west of Philly by 50-100 miles if not more
- And let's face it, a functional city by post-war standards does not mean a safe one
- Especially not since the wildlife in the area is descended from the populations of the Philadelphia Zoo and the Camden Aquarium
- Would YOU like to try to make your way into a city with wild post-nuclear mutant hippos roaming the territory to the south
- I didn't think so
- At least they have a couple of meat sources; the African penguins managed to survive and adapt to some degree
- They still have cheez steaks; they use penguin meat
- Do not ask where the cheez comes from
- It is spelled that way for a reason
- I am not sure what the penguins eat
- Possibly the local river life wound up doing the radroach thing
- Maybe mutant jellyfish, they had those in Camden
- The hippos mostly graze on the Camden side of the river
- The hippos are the primary predators of the man-eating tomatoes
- Which were originally just transgenic Jersey tomatoes engineered at Rutgers NJ Agricultural Experimental Station as part of their desperate efforts to offset American food shortages
- That was before the radioactive fallout and other things on the wind activated exactly the wrong part of their transgenic genome
- WHAT HATH SCIENCE WROUGHT
- There are other plants growing on the Jersey side of the river too but the tomatoes are the funniest
- There are a handful of things growing in Philly
- It is considered a massive act of badassery to survive the trip into Jersey and return with a living prize
- Unless it is a tomato plant that started trying to eat you and hasn't let go yet, then it's just dumbassery


Okay, that's the first round of notes. More to come.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

I love all of this especially how all of the Comcast stuff is gone. You might want to consider doing something with Penn's Landing too, there are some strange structures there which could turn into other things.

[ymfaery]

Two thoughts:

1) I suddenly had "Teenage Mutant Ninja Tomatoes" pop into my head. Rather amusing as I've never watched/read any of the Turtles in their various media formats.

2) I get the impression you really liked "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". ;)

[camwyn]

Would you believe I've never watched it? Seriously.

The tomato thing is my reaction to the number of people from other parts of the States whose only impression of New Jersey is the industrial hell you see from the Turnpike, or when you fly into Newark and drive or take the train to New York. New Jersey may be the most densely populated state in the Union these days, but it really does have green territory and a decent amount of agriculture, and the agricultural product of which we are generally the most proud is the New Jersey tomato- particularly the Rutgers tomato. Fallout has already demonstrated several different varieties of evil killer death plant in the post-War world, including the horrifying zombiemaking things in Vault 22 and the spore plants around Arroyo in Fallout 2. I see no reason why the plants of the East Coast shouldn't be allowed to get in on the fun.

(The cranberry bogs and the Pine Barrens plant life are probably somewhat less mutated, but those areas have other problems.)

[ymfaery]

Hah, that's pretty funny. I'd have watched it except I don't care for horror movies, even funny ones.

I didn't really have an impression of NJ until recent years, but I figure it's called "The Garden State" for a reason. Plus brother #3 lives there with his family and I visited him with mom a while back. (He was stationed at Fort Dix.) There was a lot of driving around involved, which resulted in passing a lot of green areas, including but not limited to farms and ranches.

[camwyn]

Most people who see the nickname for New Jersey and feel the need to pay any attention to it start going HURR HURR HURR OXYMORON or something similar, in my experience. Fort Dix is located in the biggest county in New Jersey; Burlington County has a good deal of farming going on, and even a couple of wineries. I haven't spent much time there, but what I've seen of it's been pretty decent territory.

[ymfaery]

Honestly not sure I'd be able to handle living in the area due to how far away the Asian stores/restaurants are, and I couldn't tell if there was bus service. Although admittedly there's an Asian buffet not far from brother's house; I found it hilarious that they had, in addition to the Chinese food, clam chowder and chicken nuggets. XD

[camwyn]

Urk. The only Chinese population I know to any great degree in New Jersey is all the way up in Morris County- Parsippany is supposedly the most ethnically diverse suburb in the US, and there's Asian groceries, proper Asian groceries, all over the place there. Also in Hudson County, but that's practically New York City anyway.

... man, now I miss the Emack and Bolio's run by the Chinese guy who sold bubble tea alongside the ice cream. And the vegetarian Chinese restaurant on route 10 that catered primarily to the local Jewish population.

[ymfaery]

IIRC, brother and family makes weekend trips to the nearest Asian grocer to stock up, which is about an hour drive one way. (Unless that place closed since I was there.) But it's not like they (and I) can't eat non-Asian food. ;) I just prefer it 50% of the time (which is kind of odd, since I didn't have a strong preference when I was younger). Is there some correlation between Jews and Chinese food? I seem to keep running into that in my (fan)fiction reading lately.

Parsippany? Interesting. I'll have to look it up and see how far they are from brother's house. :)