“Helena: Will they be happier when they can feel pain?
Dr. Gall: On the contrary. But they will be technically more perfect.”
― R.U.R.
Three high school kids, in a suburban wasteland at the foot of a mountain range, try to keep things together in the early-nineties.
To learn more about how Things from the Flood is played check out our primer episode.
To get a sense of where these characters started take a listen to our Tales from the Loop story:
The World: Pittsfield and the Lenox Loop.
Pittsfield, MA - in the Berkshire mountains on the border of NY and Western MA. In the 1940’s GE, MIT and a Federal Research Facility carved a particle accelerator into the deep rock beneath the mountain range just south in Lenox, MA. They also carved cooling towers from the rock itself. The loop passes just under Pittsfield proper. The center of the city the large GE plant has long since been abandoned and retrofitted into housing for refugees from the lowlands.
To the south, a mile or two down South St, HWY 20 is the turn off to Bousquet Mountain, a ski area. A bit further south are the cooling towers and the subsurface labs.
In ‘89 two things happened- the wall fell, ending the cold war, and the flood came. The Loop and its labs are suspected as causing the flooding, which spread out from the hills and turned the middle of New England into a massive tidal floodplain. Under severe scrutiny over its part in the flood GE and facing massive fines, declared bankruptcy.
Normally the death of the industry would kill a town like Pittsfield, but all the displaced people from Boston and the farmlands moved en-masse into the Berkshires, or neighboring upstate New York. Service industry sprung up along with real estate and other infrastructure works, the once sleepy, lightly industrial nearly rural Pittsfield, has become a bustling suburb to Lenox to the south.
Lenox itself has become a large city, though the cooling towers and structures of the now flooded and abandoned labs are given wide berth. The once spread out development south of Pittsfield center is now a dense suburban development. The ski lodge has been converted to Condos and year-round living.
The other big event to note, in 90/91 rifts began to open in the swamps to the East. Emerging from these rifts came the Beasts- large dark shapes in crystalline armor. The government scrambled and with the help of a quintet of mysterious giant robots, were able to repel the waves and waves of creatures. This threat has become a part of life after the Flood.
The Teens:
Ollie Barker - Lone Wolf (Dan McCoy) withdrawn and serious, sets themselves outside.
Chad Dawson - Party Animal (Stuart Wellington) drinking and partying his way through high school, assuming he every gets out.
Rush McKenzie - Hacker (Ken Breese) from exploring the outdoors to now exploring the wilderness of the early internet, he's put on weight and lost himself in conspiracy theory.
Find Dan McCoy on twitter @dankmccoy
Find Stuart Wellington on twitter @flophousecat
Find Stuart and Dan's podcast The Flophouse on the flophousepodcast.com and on the MaxFun network. You can also follow the podcast on twitter @theflophousepod. The Flophouse has a number of live shows coming up this Summer and Fall so be sure to check them out if they're in your area!
Find Stuart's podcast Till Def Do Us Parrdy on soundcloud and through itunes. You can also follow the show on twitter @tilldef
If you're in NYC make sure to get over to The Hinterlands, Stuart's bar in Kensington, Brooklyn and their new bar in Sunset Park, Brooklyn- Minnie's
If you want to play some games we host a regular game night on Tuesdays at the Hinterlands.
Find John on twitter @LordJoho
Find Ken on twitter @Berlingsbeard
Follow us on twitter @boredghostworld
Our Bored Ghost theme comes from the amazing Pat Cupples, see his band website Hotels and Highways.
Bored Ghosts we hope you found some distraction from your eternity in the void this week!