Caribou

Operator CARIBOU/ Station LIZ-1 -- Cape Lisburne Air Force

Station (Callsign LIZ-1) -- Defense Early Warning (DEW) Facility

SITUATION
It is Christmas Eve, 1971. You are an electronic warfare technician in
the 711th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron. You watch a little
glowing screen and, if dots appear on it, you tell your boss. Those
dots will be Soviet bombers en route for American cities or possibly,
tonight, Santa and his God-damned reindeer.

You are sitting in a chilly steel prefab on the edge of the Arctic ocean,
445 kilometers west of Point Barrow, which is, itself, the tick in the
ass end of creation. You could not be more remote, but one place
you aren’t is Viet Nam, which was your plan all along. You are bliss-
fully alone -- all the other techs and officers scuttled home for
Christmas like roaches.

PERSONALITY
You are a lazy slacker, but you are also smart. Maybe those two traits
go together, huh? Clever, always looking for an angle, always ready to
get that fence painted Tom Sawyer style.

PLAYER ROLE
In this scenario, your job is to find the common thread that ties all
these problems together. You’re the analytical one, so voice your
conspiracy theories in a logical manner.

RELATIONSHIPS
Uncle in Clear: Uncle’s in charge, Uncle has the telephone to God.
Hacksaw at Tin City: A little bit uptight.
Dozer on Anvil Mountain: Civilian, free spirit, lovable asshole.

ViewScream: Cancel Christmas

www.rafaelchandler.com
SUSPICION
At some point, you’ll be pushed too far. Someone’s going to insult
you or belittle you, and it’s going to push you over the edge. You’ll
freak out completely, and you’ll tell the truth about Hacksaw. You
heard the whole thing, and you’ve got it recorded on quarter inch tape
if anyone doubts your word. They’ll sure as hell take you seriously
when they learn how far you’re ready to go.

PROBLEMS
1. Uncle in Clear: You definitely have radar returns from high-flying
unidentified aircraft..
2. Hacksaw at Tin City: The Diplex Gating Unit (DGU) has always
been glitchy and now it is working intermittently and giving false read-
ings.
3. Dozer on Anvil Mountain: You cannot hail DEW stations POW-1
(Point Lonely), BAR-1 (Komakuk Beach), COB-2 (Driftwood) or LIZ-
2 (Point Lay). They have gone dark.

SOLUTIONS (Failure 2, Success 2)

1. You’ve got a 200 track random access LFE drum driving that thing;
clear it out and if necessary hit it with a bulk eraser.
2. This will sound crazy, but wedge a piece of aluminum foil in the
gap between the housing and the tube-mount. Works like a charm!
3. A burned out dual modulation klystron transmitter is a pretty good
guess.
4. You’re running the old RCA 501 computer with 32K high speed
memory, right? Hit FCN, then type in 2271, then hit SND and see
what happens. Have a fire extinguisher handy.

TERMINAL EVENT (announced with 5 minutes remaining)

You are seeing radar signals of ballistic warheads incoming in
Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) configuration -- low-
angle trajectories with minimal line-of-sight range. Either that or a
large flock of geese. You need somebody to confirm, fast.

TECHNICAL STUFF
1. AN/FPS-19 search radar ensconced inside massive dome
2. Pulse frequency modulator, set to 0.6 microseconds
3. Antenna elevator, set to 2.8 degrees horizontal
4. Rusty gun truck with quad fifties on the back, for shooting down
Japanese zeroes perhaps