Campaigning in the World
of Atlas Shrugged
 

The storyline that emerged was somewhat unusual for a role-playing game, in that the characters actually didn't all meet and work together until the very last episodes. Rather, the "camera" would focus on one or two characters at a time. Cavalieri started out with a contract working for Eden, providing transportation and surveying the countryside; Eden fairly quickly made contact with Kennealy, who thought trade with the United States would be a great opportunity to make Illinois more prosperous. Stark encountered Beauchamp on his way north to Chicago, where he intended to look for work, and over the course of the campaign the two became lovers.

The first half of the storyline alternated between the building of the bridge and the war with the Chicago regime. Both Kennealy and Stark went into Chicago and made contact with various of its residents. Stark and Beauchamp also set up a factory to make ammunition and arm the farm communities, which began refusing to submit to food raids from Chicago. Eventually this led to an uprising in Chicago, the overthrow of its regime, and the arrest of the survivors.

In the meantime, Cavalieri and Eden found evidence of the socialist regime in Iowa and of the remnants of a National Guard unit in Missouri, whose commanding officer considered the new United States an outlaw regime founded by traitors and aspired to capture and try most of the heroes of Atlas Shrugged. Eden recommended building the line through Iowa, largely because the farm colony in the southeast was strongly supportive of the railroad and provided a labor pool.

After the track was laid through Iowa, as the new bridge was nearing completion, I introduced the second major plot element: The government of Texas, seeing that the bridge would give the United States a major strategic advantage, started moving an army up to seize control of it, with the support of the Missouri National Guard forces. They sent along an experimental invention, a prototype jet, whose pilot tried to force Cavalieri down, but without success, owing to the incredible maneuverability her plane derived from its Rearden metal structure.

Instead she captured him and took him back for interrogation, though he managed to escape before long. Cavalieri went south again to try to salvage the wreck of his plane, but was captured by the Texas army. In the climactic sequence, Stark showed up with a small cavalry force and rescued her, and the two rode north, following the Missouri forces on the west bank of the Mississippi, while the other three led the resistance to the Texas forces on the east bank, and Eden made sure the bridge was wired with explosives so she could destroy it rather than let it be captured. As it turned out, the Illinoisan forces held out and the campaign ended in victory.
 

© 2001 William H. Stoddard