Modern vices...

[HarleeKnight]

It's canon that coffee is available, at least to some, in North America. Hagan drinks it for breakfast in SB 1, revised. What about the rest of the people? Is coffee generally available? If it is... how? What about chocolate? Coconut and pineapple? There is a ton of food that isn't normally indigenous to North America that we take for granted today, but how much of it is still around after the cataclysm?
I know it just adds flavor to the world, but do any of you use it in your own Rifts worlds?

[glitterboy2098]

i suspect that since the CS has diplomatic ties to Columbia, real coffee is available. though it is likely more of a luxury good than today. the average person would most liekly get by on various coffee substitutes.. roasted acorns, chickory root, roasted barley, etc. some might have used the leaves of the Yaupon holly to make a caffinated drink. with or without mixing in the other options listed.

Chocolate would likely be harder to come by in its real form.. most Cocoa plants nowadays are grown on the ivory coast of africa, and or in mexico. the first has few if any ties to anyone in rifts, and the latter is the domain of Vampires. so North America might get some chocolate, but the real thing would likely still be a luxury item.
that said, imitation chocolate is fairly easy to make with industrial chemistry, so i suspect that there is a lot of 'chocolate flavored' stuff out there on the market.

Pineapple and coconut.. Pineapple is grown in southern south america (and until recently, Hawaii) so odds are it is a very rare luxury item. Coconut also cannot be grown in most of the continental US (mostly grown in south east asia, the pacific islands, and central africa) but parts of southern Florida have them. so Coconut is likely to be a fairly rare luxury item for most of the united states.
that said pineapple and coconut are also flavors that can be duplicated chemically, so candy and 'juice' might be around using artificial versions of the flavor.

another item that would be fairly hard to find would be Dates, since the Date Palm is predominantly a african and middle eastern agricultural focus (there are a few small farms in southern california), and require very specific climate and soil conditions, so Dates would be incredibly rare outside those regions.
Figs would also be almost unheard of in north america as well, those are also mostly africa and middle east.

[taalismn]

Given that ARCHIE-3 is babysitting a massive stasis facility that was fully stocked by NEMA for disaster and recovery, I imagine NEMA thought it prudent to include a strategic coffee reserve as part of the supplies. Hagan may be drinking centuries-old heritage bean, unless he's buying through Cyberworks' black market connections....

[Freemage]

Don't underestimate the level of science fiction of the setting, either. While it's pretty clear we're not looking at food-replicator technology, it's quite likely that synthetic fabrications of many foodstuffs exist--products of a lab, resembling the original only in the final form. Of course, such would likely be most plentiful in the upper echelons of society. Then similar products, but diluted in content, probably get smuggled out by Black Marketeers to the hoi polloi of the 'Burbs and Pecos. Like drugs in the modern era, each iteration involves another 'cutting' of the original product. Mix 'real synth-coffee' with hickory brew and maybe some ground-up caffeine pills, and presto, you've got something that could get drunk around a campfire in Lone Star.

Of course, this means that every once in awhile, someone gets the equivalent of drain cleaner in their 'chocolate bar', but hey, life's cheap on the frontier, right?

[taalismn]

Don't underestimate the level of science fiction of the setting, either. While it's pretty clear we're not looking at food-replicator technology, it's quite likely that synthetic fabrications of many foodstuffs exist--products of a lab, resembling the original only in the final form. Of course, such would likely be most plentiful in the upper echelons of society. Then similar products, but diluted in content, probably get smuggled out by Black Marketeers to the hoi polloi of the 'Burbs and Pecos. Like drugs in the modern era, each iteration involves another 'cutting' of the original product. Mix 'real synth-coffee' with hickory brew and maybe some ground-up caffeine pills, and presto, you've got something that could get drunk around a campfire in Lone Star.

Of course, this means that every once in awhile, someone gets the equivalent of drain cleaner in their 'chocolate bar', but hey, life's cheap on the frontier, right?

"Leroy's foaming at the mouth again, and I don't think it's too much whipped cream with his mocha...."

[boring7]

In terms of ARCHIE-3; hydroponics and greenhouses are incredibly easy to do on a small (he's feeding one person) scale. You need at least one starter (seed, bulb, clipping, whatever) and the equipment to grow stuff.

In larger terms, the biggest issue is the various plants and animals that can't really exist without humans. Bananas, for example, are basically clones of each other and can't reproduce naturally. Chocolate, coffee, and most other tasty crops are genetically engineered to be so tasty but also vulnerable to fungal and other infections.

A LOT of things would die out or change if human industry suddenly disappeared from it. Even without the aid of radiation/magically-induced evolution (The fluff for psi-stalkers is not how real evolution works) history has examples of domesticated animals going feral and changing fairly radically to their wild life. The Texas Longhorn is an example of a domesticated breed getting loose and surviving in the wild (and adapting to it) for generations.

I mean, genetics can't change (without "art major biology") over a mere couple of centuries, but the gene pool can very quickly winnow down, outside appearance can shift (due to the change in upbringing) and behavior patterns can shift quite a bit.

Also there's the potential for good old dimensional shenanigans. It's possible that the most popular food in the Coalition is derived from the Cocoa Bean, which is a giant, coconut-sized plant that grows like a cabbage in temperate climates like Ohio. Anyone who says that this is not a true cocoa bean, and was actually brought into North America by a displaced Dwarven farmer during the cataclysm is told to shut up dammit this stuff tastes awesome.

[glitterboy2098]

actually the 'artificial' varieties in that 2nd site aren't gene engineered in the fashion we use the term.. they are the results of centuries of selective breeding.

which admittedly amounts to much the same thing as far as the genes themselves are concerned, i just wanted to head off the arguments over gene-splicing..

another example of domesticated animals going feral and adapting their physical forms rapidly.. the Mustang's of the american west (descendants of several varieties of horses the spanish imported), and the Razorbacks and javalina's of america (descendants of domestic pigs introduced by the spanish), and the Dingo's of Australia (descendants of dogs brought over by early man)

[Library Ogre]

I'd also add: Controlled Environments and Genetic Engineering

Want to grow coffee in North America? Set up a controlled environment to do it. Hydroponics, greenhouses, etc. Expensive in long-term resources, but imagine being the sole source of coffee in North America.

IIRC, there's someone at Lone Star who specializes in plant genetics. Want a cultivar that tastes like real coffee, but grows in vast plantations at sea level? Given that they can make completely novel creatures out of completely non-earth genetic materials... I think they can make coffee that grows like wheat and tastes Colombian.

[Freemage]

Of course, on the non-CS side, you have Dunscon and Co. Having access to and control of multiple Rifts means being able to trade with worlds where particular plant goods are abundant to the point of being treated as weeds. That's why the nascent coalition's demand that Dunscon Sr. stop trading with 'aliens' was always going to be a deal-breaker. I bet a considerable portion of the Federation's funds come from bringing in goods that are common elsewhere and rare/in demand on Earth. And of course, that means that many folks in the Burbs, Pecos, etc, have a little incentive to not buy into CS anti-D-Bee propaganda; sure, they're evil monsters, but dammit, man, I NEED my morning coffee!

[taalismn]

Of course, on the non-CS side, you have Dunscon and Co. Having access to and control of multiple Rifts means being able to trade with worlds where particular plant goods are abundant to the point of being treated as weeds. That's why the nascent coalition's demand that Dunscon Sr. stop trading with 'aliens' was always going to be a deal-breaker. I bet a considerable portion of the Federation's funds come from bringing in goods that are common elsewhere and rare/in demand on Earth. And of course, that means that many folks in the Burbs, Pecos, etc, have a little incentive to not buy into CS anti-D-Bee propaganda; sure, they're evil monsters, but dammit, man, I NEED my morning coffee!

Dunscon Coffee Importers, Unltd.
"Brew as Black as My Withered Heart Good"

Necromancer's Choice Blend

[Freemage]

Of course, on the non-CS side, you have Dunscon and Co. Having access to and control of multiple Rifts means being able to trade with worlds where particular plant goods are abundant to the point of being treated as weeds. That's why the nascent coalition's demand that Dunscon Sr. stop trading with 'aliens' was always going to be a deal-breaker. I bet a considerable portion of the Federation's funds come from bringing in goods that are common elsewhere and rare/in demand on Earth. And of course, that means that many folks in the Burbs, Pecos, etc, have a little incentive to not buy into CS anti-D-Bee propaganda; sure, they're evil monsters, but dammit, man, I NEED my morning coffee!

Dunscon Coffee Importers, Unltd.
"Brew as Black as My Withered Heart Good"

Necromancer's Choice Blend

Also: Diabolically Dark Chocolate: "Worth every drop of blood in the contract"

[taalismn]

[
Also: Diabolically Dark Chocolate: "Worth every drop of blood in the contract"

Shadow Chocolate---'Taste the Darkness"

[SycophantNagaraja]

Dunscon Coffee Importers, Unltd.
"Brew as Black as My Withered Heart Good"
Now with bold new flavors such as Necromancer's Choice Blend

And try our amazing line of candy to DIE for!
Diabolically Dark Chocolate
Shadow Chocolate
Wasabi Kitkat (Sellers note: ok we don't get it either but our friends in Japan say it's all the rage)

[boring7]

In our empire-building side-project (we knocked over Muluc and made nice with Mexico City) we're throwing together plantation-level fruit growing on the east side of Mexico.

Then there's alcohol, which you can make out of damn near anything.

Tobacco would probably fall back to the really poor-quality wild stuff (current leaf tobacco is exceptionally fragile) and I should probably stop before we get into the "currently illegal IRL" stuff.

A lot of products would probably "fall back" to the standards of the middle of the 20th century (or earlier). Citrus would sell (there's enough business crossing the Grande Rio, and enough semi-independent farmers) but with tech levels varying wildly it would be in canned and concentrated forms. Likewise the Red Delicious apple would become popular again because while it doesn't taste great, it lasts longer at room temperature when it has to travel by wild-lands caravan.

Fun fact about autocratic governments: a lot of them have a history of getting their populace hooked on uppers and stimulants. Whether it's the Nazis who literally handed out Chocolate Meth, African Warlords dosing their soldiers with Khat, or North Korea with Meth (again), giving the populace something that makes them work harder, hurt less, and feel dependent on you for their next fix is win-win.

And in RIFTS, a world where drug-fueled super-warriors and other "this will kill you, but it makes you awesome for a while" things are popular, it hardly seems out of place. Juicer Uprising and Mercenaries (or merc ops?) have more future drugs.

But moving away from that topic before I get in trouble, There's also a black market book. I would presume it has vice trade.

[glitterboy2098]

actually the tobacco being farmed today is not much different from the varieties farmed in the 18th and 19th centuries, and many of the methods remain the same. the differences are mainly in terms of superior seedling growth (the switch to hydroponics and greenhouses for that means more seedlings survive to be planted in the fields), and the superior fertilizers and pesticides used, which means the plants grow faster and larger, and are less likely to be subjected to hornworm and other pests. even the post harvesting processing is more or less the same today as it it was then, only on a far larger scale, and using mechanization rather than mass-labor for many of the steps.

it is likely that in regions where Tobacco does well (such as northern missouri) it would remain a cash-crop. it is just likely that a reversion to non-mechanized methods would have occurred in many areas. it is very likely that some sort of debt or wage servitude, or outright slavery, cropped back up, since it requires a lot of manpower working the fields to ensure the crop is properly tended (particularly when it comes to getting rid of hornworm, where you must closely inspect each plant every day) and to harvest and process it. this manpower requirement was one of the reasons Tobacco farming, like cotton, was a driving factor in american slavery before the civil war, and the abuse of sharecroppers after it.
the Plantation Economy would rear its ugly head again in rifts, given that it is one of the most cost efficient ways to farm tobacco without mechanization.. although it carried with it a lot of uglyness. given the nature of rifts, it is likely that the slaves would be predominantly D-bee.

the CS likely reintroduced mechanization to the industry when it formed CS missouri, but it is likely that the plantations would remain, and the plantation owners would retain their slaves/servitors for a fairly long period of time (since upgrading to machines would be pricy, while switching to hydroponics seeding sources and using industrial fertilizers and pesticides would be comparatively cheap.)

[Blue_Lion]

Lazlo Rifted imports. Bringing all the best from the megaverse to your door step.

Magical nations are not limited to just what is on Rifts earth 1, in SoT 6 Tolkeen was stated to have a system to import straight from phase world. It is reasonable to assume they may export some of their imports to sustain the economy at a mark up. You import coffee from phase world to buy raw goods from small towns to sale for more coffee and profit.

[Riftmaker]

Yea if anyone had freeze dried lasts forever coffee substitute its the us military.

[SycophantNagaraja]

A lot of the tobacco and other types of "crops" sounds a lot like Season 1 of Into the Badlands, which is a pretty good series and one could draw plenty of ideas from it if you wanted to corner the market in a crop

[Freemage]

You can bet that any 'native' products are sweetened with corn syrup, since virtually all the cane sugar currently being grown for U.S. consumption is now either Vampire or Dinosaur territory. OTOH, the CS has turned Iowa into even more of a giant wheat, corn and soybean field than it is now. (Note: Third biggest risk to CS citizens after "Filthy D-bees" and "Vile Sorcerers" is "Diabetes".)

[Riftmaker]

In one of my games a towns main product for export was " free roaming meat corn " alien corn with huge jaws on one side that ripped to shreds anything that tried to eat it. The gore fell to the earth and fertilized the plants. The town had steam punk " lightning fences " that kept the corn hemmed in, and stunned them before harvest. They tasted like lean hamburger.

Now that im done sharing lets make up some nice rifts cash crops.

[taalismn]

Yea if anyone had freeze dried lasts forever coffee substitute its the us military.

Each trooper in the NEMA bunker is asleep with a bag of coffee at their feet...

[guardiandashi]

The future of gmo crops dandilions that have coffee beans as "fruit "
And blackberry vines that grow cocoa beans

[dreicunan]

You can bet that any 'native' products are sweetened with corn syrup, since virtually all the cane sugar currently being grown for U.S. consumption is now either Vampire or Dinosaur territory. OTOH, the CS has turned Iowa into even more of a giant wheat, corn and soybean field than it is now. (Note: Third biggest risk to CS citizens after "Filthy D-bees" and "Vile Sorcerers" is "Diabetes".)

Nope. Page 68 of Lone Star makes it clear that the CS has Diabetes amongst the list of diseases that the Coalition can eliminate or control due to their genetic knowledge (to the point that most citizens in the Coalition have never even heard of them). It also mentions that for CS citizens obesity and dieting are things of the past.

[glitterboy2098]

we're actually getting pretty close to eliminating type 2 diabetes IRL, and it is probable that given the CS screens for genetic mutations, they probably screen for the genetic factors that allow for both type 1 and type 2 to develop as well.

as far as obesity and dieting.. well the city dwellers probably get pretty good centralized state provided healthcare, and if people start getting overly fat said medical care can intervene to help reverse it. (i doubt that they have eliminated it entirely.. just keep it from getting major. dieting probably exists in the medical sense of 'planning what one eats" and portion control.. but the fad diets and other such extreme dietary plans you see IRL would be pretty much dead)

of course this would only apply to citizens.. the burbs and more rural parts of the CS would still have issues.

[dreicunan]

we're actually getting pretty close to eliminating type 2 diabetes IRL, and it is probable that given the CS screens for genetic mutations, they probably screen for the genetic factors that allow for both type 1 and type 2 to develop as well.

as far as obesity and dieting.. well the city dwellers probably get pretty good centralized state provided healthcare, and if people start getting overly fat said medical care can intervene to help reverse it. (i doubt that they have eliminated it entirely.. just keep it from getting major. dieting probably exists in the medical sense of 'planning what one eats" and portion control.. but the fad diets and other such extreme dietary plans you see IRL would be pretty much dead)

of course this would only apply to citizens.. the burbs and more rural parts of the CS would still have issues.

Regarding obesity and dieting, it is presented in the section "Molecular Medicine" on page 68 that is talking about results of genetic research. While "planned diet" could be construed as a result of that research, it would not be in line with "Even obesity and dieting is a thing of the past, at least for citizens of the Coalition States," if you take the word dieting on its face rather than limit it to the subset of "fad dieting."

In short, your explanation is probably more plausible in terms of real life science, but the impression that I get from Lone Star is that this is supposed to be more SCIENCE! than science.

[Eagle]

Historically, obesity was never a serious health problem until the late 20th century. I wouldn't say that getting rid of it is necessarily a good thing. Obesity isn't a problem for people in the Sudan either, I don't think you want to swap places with them. I'd rather be fat than be starving.

In the west, obesity is a problem because we generally have sedentary lifestyles, we have access to as much food as we want, and we're predisposed to seek out sweeter foods (when your ancestors had to chase down an antelope to eat, sugar provided great concentrated energy). Processed food lasts a lot longer than fresh food, which allows you to feed more people more easily. And food suppliers in a competitive marketplace learned that people would pick their food more often when they made it sweeter and/or saltier. Our bodies still store energy like when we used to hunt the buffalo, but instead we watch TV, so we get fat.

In the Coalition, you probably have much less available food than we do today, both in quantity and in choice. I doubt a group of nerds in Chi-Town sitting around on game night, playing future D&D, can order 3 large pizzas, smother it in ranch dressing, drink 10 liters of Mountain Dew, and eat 2 bags of Funyuns. I don't think that much junk food is even available. The Coalition isn't a free market economy. On Rifts Earth, you're in a good place if you have enough food to eat. I'd expect that the food the Coalition supplies is generally pretty healthy, though it's probably packed with preservatives. But it's also probably rationed, so normally you're not going to get enough to get really fat.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

You can bet that any 'native' products are sweetened with corn syrup, since virtually all the cane sugar currently being grown for U.S. consumption is now either Vampire or Dinosaur territory. OTOH, the CS has turned Iowa into even more of a giant wheat, corn and soybean field than it is now. (Note: Third biggest risk to CS citizens after "Filthy D-bees" and "Vile Sorcerers" is "Diabetes".)

Most sugar (granulated type) in the US comes from beets. And according to Google, via http://www.sugarindustrybiotechcouncil. ... r-beet-faq:

Where are sugar beets grown?
Sugar beets are grown commercially throughout the world in cooler, temperate climates. The main producers around the world are the European Union, the United States, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, Iran, Japan and China. In the United States, sugar beets are grown in California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

So it stands to reason that there would still be a lot of sugar coming from beets in Rifts Earth.

Actually, I think that the majority of sugar in North America would be from beets, unless the CS continues the US.gov corn subsidies (for some reason that I can't even reasonably conceive).

[RockJock]

Wild hogs/razorbacks are domesticated animals gone wild. Javelinas are actually not pigs, but a kind of new world peccary. Just wanted to clarify the biology:).

[Freemage]

You can bet that any 'native' products are sweetened with corn syrup, since virtually all the cane sugar currently being grown for U.S. consumption is now either Vampire or Dinosaur territory. OTOH, the CS has turned Iowa into even more of a giant wheat, corn and soybean field than it is now. (Note: Third biggest risk to CS citizens after "Filthy D-bees" and "Vile Sorcerers" is "Diabetes".)

Most sugar (granulated type) in the US comes from beets. And according to Google, via http://www.sugarindustrybiotechcouncil. ... r-beet-faq:

Where are sugar beets grown?
Sugar beets are grown commercially throughout the world in cooler, temperate climates. The main producers around the world are the European Union, the United States, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, Iran, Japan and China. In the United States, sugar beets are grown in California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

So it stands to reason that there would still be a lot of sugar coming from beets in Rifts Earth.

Actually, I think that the majority of sugar in North America would be from beets, unless the CS continues the US.gov corn subsidies (for some reason that I can't even reasonably conceive).

Ooh, good catch. Okay, yes, beet sweetener it is.

[Library Ogre]

Ooh, good catch. Okay, yes, beet sweetener it is.

Hard to beet research.

[Kelorin]

Never mind pre-Rifts weapons factories. The real treasure troves are seed banks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_bank

One of the last two global facilities on the list is in North America:
National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States

Once you have the seeds, Lone Star and their Hydroponics facilities should be able to do the rest.