Indigo Squadron

Image of (incomplete) Indigo Squadron, so named because most of these came from Chapters/Indigo.

I've since filled it out to ten, five of each ship, but some are still WIP. I want one more of each, and then Indigo can serve as a fighter-bomber squadron, while Green, which I intend to be all X-wings, will provide their escort.

Space Fight (large image warning)

Work has slowed on the Dark North front, so I thought I'd share a couple other hobby projects of mine.

I don't FFG's X-Wing, though maybe one day I will, but I do love the ships from Star Wars. So, rather than spending $15 a ship, I've been painting the new Hasbro Micro Machines. They're almost the exact same scale - the X-wings are exact, everything else bar the B-wing is close - and they don't lack for detail. They just need a little paintwork to bring it out.

I'm working on two Rebel squadrons, and ideally an Imperial squadron as well, but they're a little harder to come by, for now. Hopefully the line continues for at least a year or two.

First up for today is my current WIP, the first two ships of Green Squadron.

 These come pre-painted as part of Red Squadron from A New Hope. With my first squadron, I just painted over, but that limits what you can do. But since these models are also incredibly soft, weak plastic (some kind of vinyl, I believe?),  I didn't want to try any of the usual soaks to get the paint off. I'm not sure what will happen . Which meant that for Green Squadron here, I just gently took some 150 sandpaper to it. Probably too rough, but it worked. Unfortunately there's some teensy detail on the upper surface of the wings I didn't notice at first and destroyed a bit.

Paint was just good ol', 15 year old Citadel Goblin Green. I know people hate Citadel, but most of my paints dried out completely and are now perfectly useable after a few days of sitting with a bit of water in them, and they're not even from the "golden age" of Citadel.

Atlantic Canada

I've largely ignored Atlantic Canada, as the rest of Canada is wont to do, mostly because I wasn't sure what to do with it. One of the big problems, of course, is Quebec, sitting there, splitting Canada in two. We've already looked at how BC handles being cut off from Canada (re: not well), but what about Atlantic Canada? I've decided to treat it as something of a sub-game within the broader Dark North. Time will tell how good an idea this is.

Atlantic Canada
With Quebec and Alberta's independence splitting Canada from its coasts, the affected provinces were forced to deal with the situation however they could.

In most of Atlantic Canada, there was no clear consensus. Newfoundland did what most of its population considered the only sane thing, in the face of expected American interest - or assault - and rejoined the British Empire as a Dominion. Labrador was quickly annexed by Quebec, but the British gracefully chose to permit this as they consolidated their newfound hold on the island, sending ships and soldiers to arm and defend - as well exploit. While the Royalists in Ottawa were quick to point to Britain's response to Newfoundland's request for aid, they were not so quick to acknowledge that that Britain, perhaps, was no so interested in preserving Newfoundland's sovereignty, as it was in stripping it bare.

Meanwhile, the rest of Atlantic Canada was forced to, essentially, fend for itself.

There were calls to submit to American rule, calls for the Maritimes to form their own country, and every suggestion in between. In the end, no decision could be reached, and New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island remained part of Canada.

This presented a problem, as Canada had very little ability to protect the Maritimes from Quebecois, British, and American interests. The Maritimes then, were quick to arm themselves, using what money Canada could supply them with.

Halifax became a kind of second capital for Canada, much to the chagrin of Cape Breton and much of the rural Maritimes, but there was simply no other choice. It was the largest and most well-defended port, and it was from there Canada launched its own effort in the Atlantic.

Dwarfed by the American and British Navies operating in the area, Canada's naval might consists of the Canadian Government Ship Halifax, and her eleven sister ships. A cutting-edge frigate class of Canadian design and manufacture, the CGS Halifax and her sisters form the backbone of Canada's defense in the Maritimes, but she is far from the only power in those waters.

Quebec maintains a small fleet of four Iroquois-class destroyers. Built in the '70s for anti-submarine warfare, the destroyers were designed and built in Quebec, and Quebec took them when it left Canada. Equipped with several helicopters each, they have become perfect raiding vessels, often operating in support of privateers acting in Quebecois' interest.

The Americans are ever at hand, being close to home and easily able to resupply. They operate a small, fast fleet, on a rotating basis.

The British operate from the Dominion of Newfoundland, and are supported by the HMS Canadian Victory, an Invincible-class aircraft carrier recommissioned specifically for the Canadian mission.

Aside from these four factions, pirates and rover gangs are an ever present threat.

_____________________

Now then, there's a bit of a base for who's who and what's what, and that's all well and good, but what about the cars? Ah, well. I think rather than cars, we ought to use hovercraft in the Maritimes, oughtn't we?

Keep on truckin'

I decided to skip spraying the truck, and did it by hand. And since it was a nice day, took some photos outside!

All that's left is basecoating the stuff in the box, and then a coat of gunmetal on the black, and then some rust detailing.

Meep meep

After Code White, I bought a Hot Wheels with the intention of mucking it up for Dark Future use - a '71 Plymouth Road Runner. But it was just so nice.

And I wasn't sure I could ruin that. But, ultimately I took some sandpaper to it, and tacked on a few pieces.

I didn't really like all of that, though.

It turned out I didn't much like that either.

Now I'm not sure what to do with it. But I think I'm going to leave it stock, and just do some paintwork to it.

Project Speeder Finished

Finally some finished pics of it! These took so long to get because I don't actually have the car anymore - I gave it to my dad for Father's Day last year.

Hay, Wood!

Next up on our Not Wheels series is a police car.

Haywood is a very dramatically-lit town. No one's sure why, but it does make their local theatre excellent.

Another cheap no-name car. The windows could pop out if you looked at it wrong, so it only got some light waste-landing.

You'd think the tactical unit would want more than wheel covers

This may turn into a fleet of Haywood peacekeepers, one day, to serve as disposable mooks while the real gangs fight it out.

Truckin' 'cross the C-A-N...ada

Branching out from Hot Wheels, a little while ago I found some cheap toy cars the same scale. They are noticeably cheaper, but when you're going to ruin them in the name of the Wasteland anyway, who cares?

First up we had a Ford F-150 Raptor that I've turned into a survivalist's dream. Or nightmare. Initially all I wanted to do was have loads and loads of stuff in the bed, and maybe a rambar.

Things got out of hand.

They got out of hand very quickly.

How do you get in and out of this thing? The better question is why would you want out?

All made from sprue and random bits. There is a piece of clear plastic scored to look like mesh covering the front grille and the gap on the roof. Paint will bring that out. The white discolouration is from the CA glue. And from me spilling the CA glue. Kinda a neat effect, but I can't keep it. It needs painting. It also needed some attention to detail.

So I used greenstuff to smooth out the "welds" on all the joints in the rollcage. Now it just needs a nice day outside for some spraypaint.

I picked up two of these trucks, because the F-150 is the most popular vehicle in Canada (also in the US) so if you're stealing a car in post-collapse Canada, it will probably be a Ford truck, and I'd like my table to reflect that, a little.

Where we DO differ from the US is that after the F-150, when you look at most popular car instead of overall, in the US it's a Toyota (Corolla or Camry, don't remember off the top of my head), and here it's a Civic. I do have plans to one day put together a gang using Civics and F-150s, but Civics are harder to come by in Hot Wheels-scale. So for now, truck it.

Painted it Pink

Did this one up a while ago for a friend. Started life as a Mustang and after some sanding, we were ready to go.

Since it already had stuff sticking up out of the hood, I wanted to take that further, and make it look like it had ridiculous engine mods. I also added the standard armour; the back has the same Tau-grenade-turned-oil-slick/smoke-launcher as Code White, and the bit on top (which I believe might have been from a pen) either is a shotgun or laser. The armour on the windscreen is some thin plastic scored to look like mesh. The yellow bits are all from an old car model.

Pink was requested, and pink was had. (Though I would wind up wishing I had made it a lot brighter.)

Then came the usual drybrushing, washes, and weathering. I was particularly pleased with the exhaust staining, but again, I wish the base pink had been brighter initially.

Don't have a name for this one, but that's okay. All in all, I was quite happy with it, and so was my friend.

Canadian Politics

Everyone featured in my alternate history of Canada is real. They were all Canadian politicians (or, well, Canadian, at least), and they all more or less ran or represented ideas similar to how I've presented them. I've just done the Dark Future thing and given them all a shove into the ridiculous and/or extreme.

Of course, no offense is meant. This is all done as a parody. A parody of a by-gone political age, at that.

The Province Formerly Known as British Columbia

It's name is now an unpronounceable dance.

It's actually just Columbia. Read on!

The Province of Columbia
When Eaglesham declared Canada a republic, many trappings of all things British were stripped away from the country, most notably the British in British Columbia. Renamed simply Columbia, the province found itself cut off from the rest of Canada when the Northern Territories and Alberta declared their independence.

 Without the support of the rest of the country, the provincial government began to crumble under internal and external pressures. Alaskan and American predation was a constant worry, and internally, the cities experienced a huge rise in gang activity, with Indian and Chinese gangs openly warring in the streets and soon taking control.

As the provincial government fell apart in the face of these troubles, a new government installed itself. Loyal to the idea of Canada, the new government was formed by the Columbian Aboriginal Coalition, a group of BC Natives that wanted to remain a part of the greater country.

Taking control of the ever-worsening situation in Columbia, the CAC moved the government seat to Prince George, deep in the interior, abandoning the cities, more or less, to the control of the Indonese gangs, making deals with those that would deal, and defending against those what won't.

While the coast of Columbia is largely lost to Indonese gangs and Americans, Canada still controls a few ports, and deeper in the province, in the Rockies, former lumber camps have boomed into full-fledged towns as people flee the violence of the coast.

Lacking the military strength to deal directly with American incursions, Columbia has formed a frosty alliance with the Northern Territories. A mutual defence pact sees NorthWest Motorised Police aid in Columbia, in return for Columbian workers in northern diamond mines and oil fields. These workers are essentially indentured, paid only dollars a day, and are largely non-Natives.

Aboriginals in the Dark North

After Eaglesham declared Canada's independence, he was quick to address concerns raised by the Aboriginals of Canada. Many of their treaties were technically with the British Crown, and not the Canadian government directly. Eaglesham's government assured them that the treaties would be re-signed, and even renegotiated, in some cases, to right past wrongs.

The Eaglesham government was true to its word, and rewrote many of the treaties - without any input from the people they would apply to. Overnight, reservations across Canada found themselves without police, emergency services, or any help from their country at all. Many did not survive, with inhabitants abandoning them for cities or other communities, or dissolving in violence, but in others, a new sense of community bloomed.

Eaglesham had lost the native population of Canada overnight, and they, in turn, abandoned him.

Around a hundred reservations managed to form new, stable communities. As their populations swelled as others joined them, they took back land they had always maintained was theirs, they fortified, and they, as so much of the country began to do, declared their independence.

By 1995, most of the Aboriginal population of Canada either lives in these new, independent nations, or as part of the rest of the population in whichever Canadian nation they found themselves in during separation. Those that live in the independent nations, the First Nations, mostly just want to be left alone, even by each other, but they will defend themselves if provoked.

Still, there are those that range further afield, fighting a battle the rest of Canada cannot see, stalking the things that have begun to gnaw at the edges of reality. These small bands are joined in their quest by those that have seen what they have seen, and form the front line against the emergent threat of the truly weird in Canada.

Code White

In Ontario hospitals (and probably others, too), Code White is code for a violent person or situation.

Since the 240z is going to stay white, I'm going to call it Code White. Not sure on who the driver will be, yet.

(Once again, progress pics appear to be lost.)

Here she is, with gear primed and blacked. Actually, just two coats of black. Couldn't find any primer, and the black I used first dried shiny. That's a no-no. Fortunately, my good old Citadel Chaos Black was salvageable with just a couple drops of water. I have no idea how old that paint is, but it must be nearing ten years.

Drybrushed. This is the first time I've ever drybrushed properly, I found out, and I have to say, it's a great technique. The colour used was gunmetal, made from Mithril Silver and Chaos Black. Man, these paints are long-lived.

And now we skip some embarrassing steps where I screwed up the washes to see the finished product.

I asked for advice in a DF group, and got the suggestion of doing a black wash and wiping it off (actually ALL the painting choices came from suggestions. I was at a loss on my own.) Well, I made a wash out of that standby Chaos Black I keep mentioning, and let it sit much too long. Code White became Code Grey.

I plowed on, taking the next suggested step of a brown wash. Well, all I had, aside from some cheap shiny acrylics, was Dark Flesh. Turns out, Dark Flesh is a lot more red than you'd think.

So I'm faced with two layers of washes I did poorly and feel have ruined the look of my car. I tried wiping them off, but they were dry. I turned once again to sandpaper. Some careful scraping here and there removed most of the damage, and actually turned it into some almost-decent weathering.

Relieved, I touched up were some of the gear that had got sanded, and started picking things out with another round of drybrushing. I mixed up some rusty colour (Dark Flesh and Chaos Black, naturally) and filled in the wheels with that, as well as rubbing it here and there on the gear and the car itself. I did some straight black around the guns and oil/smoke dispenser, to make them look used and dirty, and gave the windshield a little love with whatever brown was left on my brush.

I think it could still use a proper brown wash/drybrushing, and frankly maybe even a white/bone one. Lotta salt on Canadian roads, after all.

Now then.


The Bad:

My washes were bad, the paint's too thick on the spoiler and the spoiler should probably have a more bare metal look, there's some bare plastic visible in the window grilles, the front around the guns is a mess, and there's a few nooks and crannies that still look almost untouched, and it still needs a matte spray/varnish/protection.

The Good:

I like it.

It's not going to win any awards, it's far from the best-looking DF car I've ever seen; but I like it.

I hate painting. This is the first mini I've painted in over ten years. But I enjoyed myself. There were a lot of reasons I left Warhammer, but painting was a big one. Converting and building minis - I could do that all day. Painting? It's stressful and annoying and makes me anxious. I'm too sure I'll mess up and ruin the model. So sure that I'd rather just not make the attempt. With this car, though, I actually enjoyed it.

If you're not having fun in your hobbies anymore, you need to stop. These games are supposed to be FUN, and that's something the community, thanks to its representation by forums, forgets.

"No, don't make a Chapter based off the missing legions like GW intended, that's lame and you're a stupid Mary Sue."

"No, don't call your Tau this just because it sounds cool, use this official glossary we've compiled, even though it barely has a handful of words."

"No, don't question the company, of course they know what they're doing, despite ten years of proving exactly the opposite."

No, look. I'm here to have fun, that's all. I don't give a crap about how YOU think the setting should work, the game should be played, the models coloured, or anything. I want to enjoy myself, maybe tell some stories, and make some cool, bizarre, ridiculous miniatures and terrain, preferably with friends.

So yes. Code White fails spectacularly at even beginning to approach "well-painted." But I had fun making and painting it, and that is the only reason to do this hobby.

Fun.

240z Ready for paint

Tom Bork's 1969 Datsun 240z was the eighth ever produced, and went on to become a racing legend.

And I had two of them when I came across Dark Future, so it was a spare, and thus the first car I worked on.

I wasn't really sure what to do with it, so after sanding the decals off, it kind of just sat in the bitz bin while I worked on other cars.

After the disappointment of Project Spwhat, I was looking to get my hand back in, and decided, rather than start a whole new car, I'd finish up this one.

This is the first car I've done to actually have weapons. Mostly I don't like the look of them, they ruin the lines. But then I have been working on roadsters and drag cars. The Datsun has a beefier "proper car" look, and handles them much better.

The end of a Tau burst cannon made for grille-guns with some trimming, and a Kroot rifle serves as the hood-mounted gun. Don't know if it's a slug-thrower or a laser, but it could count as both.

Armour plating on the windshield, roof, and rear side windows comes from a grille from a model car, a . . . Ferrari, I think. The side windows have heavy armour screens from a chopped up plastic piece taken from another Hot Wheels, a military vehicle of some kind.

The rear piece on the back window is going to serve as luggage or a fuel cell a la the V8 Interceptor. It came from that Ferrari model kit, but I don't know what it was. The window will be painted over to look like just a metal sheet. I only thought to add armour plating after putting that piece on there, but it was too late to get the CA off.

The spoiler came from a ERTL label tag off an Impala model set, sanded to shape and blended in with some glue and careful sanding.

The little nubbin at the back will be a smoke/oil dispenser, and is a Tau grenade. At least I've always thought those were grenades. They could be power cells, or something.

Now it's on to paint, which poses a problem. Sprayed-black is of course the default, but I'm not sure I want to do that, with this car. I really like the beat-up white, but I'm not sure I'm a good enough painter to pick out the armour and weapons without ruining the white. If I just spray EVERYTHING, then it doesn't matter so much, and will be easier to correct mistakes.

But on the other hand, spraying and I are not exactly on speaking terms right now. So I'm going to let it sit for a few days. I'm busy this weekend anyway, and likely won't have a chance to spray for a while. (It's supposed to snow on Thursday!)

Regardless of how long it takes to get around to whatever I do for paint, I'm quite pleased with this one, and glad to have it done.

Project Spwhat?

(Note: This was originally several separate entries.)

Had some time to work on a car today, and I put it to use on what might be the most important car I've done so far.

About a year ago, I saw a picture of a black car with a skull painted on it and the front fender missing. I thought it was a customised model kit, and it looked amazing. It got me into this game, ultimately.

I would later find out, however, that it was a Hot Wheels car!

Project Speeder (I thought it was Speedster for the longest time.) This thing's a pretty cool car on its own, and a really neat idea for a Hot Wheels, but, more importantly, it looks like it was custom-made for Dark Future. And, considering that seeing one done up for the game what started me on my path to 1995, I had to pick one up for myself.

I found a green one, seen here with some other new metal and my first DF car in the back.

It's been a while since then, and I worked on Detachment 41 instead of these muscle cars. But I had free time today, and have been itching to work on more cars. So rather than going out and wasting money on new chassis to ignore, I looked at my backlog, and dragged the Speeder up for some work.

First, as usual, came sanding to get it down to (mostly) bare metal. Lot of nooks and crannies on this car. If I did another one, I'd definitely strip it instead of sanding. However, I'm not too worried about there being some paint left in the gaps on this one. I also took some care to not mess up the windows too bad, and they wound up in good enough shape that they'll stay clear once all is said and done.

(I'm missing most of the progress pics, unfortunately.)

Then the fun work began!

I set out wanting to give it a ridiculous wing and a front bumper. I'm still going to work on the wing, or maybe just make a smaller spoiler, but the bumper came together nicely, in a way I didn't expect.

It turned out to be more of a cage than a fender or bumper, but I like the look. There was a natural curve in the hunk of sprue I used for it, so I might try and tack on some kind of hood ornament there. A skull, perhaps?

Next up was some armour. I don't want the entire thing covered in big plates, but thin ones, with sharp edges, mostly maintain the lines of the vehicle. I probably should have trimmed the window piece down a bit more.

Driver's side is a bit more heavily protected. I want to find some good mesh to use to cover the window.

I still want to add some bits and pieces to it. Possibly more armour, wire screen on the driver's side window, maybe something over the windshield. And if I can find or make something appropriate, then a wing or spoiler. I think some kind of gun is going to get mounted on the passenger door, and I have a few things I test-fitted on the roof and trunk lid. Something that looks like it could work as a radio, another that looks like a big honking battery or fuel cell; there's a number of things I might yet add.

Once assembly is done, I just need a nice day where I can give the whole a spray. I'll tape the windows off, and maybe the wheels. I at least want the wheels to still be spinning, and while they shouldn't be so shiny, I can deal with that with a brush. I might try and cover up the engine, too, or if I don't then I may go back and paint it something else/silver again.

The car's going to be black, because I'm not sure what else to paint it. I don't know what gang this car will belong to, or if it even will be part of a gang. It might wind up a star sanc-op or other independent. I had originally purchased the Project Speeder with the Alberta Rangers in mind, but now I'm not so sure it's right for them. I figure having it black will help me decided on further paint scheme/faction.

Made a small gun out of toothpicks and epoxy putty. I'm not much of a sculptor, but I just made a little box and stuck sticks in it. How hard can that be?





 
It doesn't look amazing, but it more or less looks like some kind of tacked-on fantasy gun, I guess. I'm not a huge fan of guns on cars, but this kind of fits with the lines, and at SOME point I need an armed car. I played around with adding more armour today, but couldn't find anything I liked. I still want to add some window screen or something on the driver's window, but that can be tacked on later.

You'll also notice a generous amount of blu-tac. I don't want to paint the windows, and I don't want spray getting inside - because yes, definitely spraying this. I hate painting and I'm terrible at it, so spray will always look better, if I'm the painter in question. Anyway, tape wasn't gonna cut it. Well, I could literally have cut it, I suppose. But there's a big package of blu-tac sitting right there, so why not squish it into the needed spaces? The driver's window is also filled in with it, to prevent the inside from getting blasted. Now all I need is a good day outside to introduce Mr Car and Mr Spraycan.

There's a parachute under the back that I hated the look of and always planned to cover up. I had intended to just slap some flat plastic on and call it... I dunno. Something. But then I found a piece of sprue with two little nubs that fit perfectly.

The top bar has two small pieces that connect it to the underside of the car, giving the illusion of the giant ram-bar being attached to the frame. The one on the bottom is just stuck there, but whatever. It covers up the parachute and adds some much-needed protection to the back.

You can also see a little patch behind the gascap where I had added more armour, but it was just a little piece and looked out of place, so I sanded it away. It looks pretty smooth, but I imagine the paint will pick it up. That should still work, though, as it will look like some body work or repairs.

I hope to get the painting done this weekend. Well, the spraying, anyway. I'm going to try some weathering effects, too, but it's the black spray I really want done.

So the big project is sidelined in the paintshop while the spray-slaves try and figure out where they went wrong.

Here's a hint: I didn't read labels.

Confidently strutting outside, spraycan rattling in one hand, car in the other, I took advantage of a gorgeous day and started painting the car.

And immediately realised something was wrong. The paint, which I have always used when spray painting something, was not coming out right, or going on right. It was shiny, and runny, and it smelled much stronger than I remembered.

Turns out, I had grabbed the wrong can. It wasn't black spray paint, it was black Tremclad rust paint. The spray can I THOUGHT I had grabbed turned out not to have even been unpacked yet, and was still sitting comfortably in a box.

The car isn't ruined, but it was a waste of time and paint, and I lost interest in fixing it.

Also.

Also.

Do not use blu-tac to mask; not if there's crevices. THAT might actually be bad enough to consider the car ruined.

No pics of this failure. Will post when it's fixed up, if I fix it up.

In the meantime!

It's been wet out and I haven't had had the interest in working on Dark Future since the spwhat-up, so not much news to report. 40k's been drawing me back in slowly, with audio dramas, and mostly, because Chapter Master was released. Oh, my god. Chapter Master. You done good, /tg/. You done real good.

Anyway, yesterday I dug out the very first car I ever worked on for DF, a 240z, and gave it another look. I never did anything to it other than sanding down the tampos, I didn't even take much paint off. Yesterday I slapped some armour on it, and started adding other bits. It's actually got guns - my first DF car to sport them. I added a spoiler and a random piece to the back that can serve as luggage or a fuel cell, and some other odds and ends here and there. Tau grenades for oil slick/smoke dispenser. The spoiler needs a bit of sanding, to "blend" it in, and I'm considering adding a few more pieces, if I can find small detail things. Pics tomorrow, of that project.

Ultimately, I did get Project Speeder finished, in black and rust, and gave it to my father on Father's Day. I'll add a pic later.

Back to Ottawa

Today we explore Ottawa a little bit more.

Gangs
Like any city, Ottawa has its gang problems. Beyond the Royalists and the separatists, there are still plenty of ordinary, every day gangs festering in Ottawa's dark corners. The two largest and most powerful are the Coyotes and the Snappers.

The trickling brown sludge of the Rideau River defines the border between the two gangs' territories. While the Coyotes tend to stick to the area around Barrhaven, their territory ranges as far as the west bank of the river. Dressing in brown, and known for their large packs and generally skittish but by turns savage behaviour, the Coyotes can be difficult to avoid in Ottawa.

On the east side of the river, sticking much more closely to a defined area than their rivals, the Snappers are easier to give a wide berth, and they are less likely to pursue any perceived threats. Marking their members and territory with dark green, the Snappers are content to sit in their heavily-defended cribs, though they are vicious and dangerous when provoked.

The Farm
Once a centre of Canadian scientific discovery and research, the Central Experimental Farm has become Ottawa's dark garden, a place all willingly avoid.

Covering four square kilometres in a loose, bulging L-shape, the Farm has become a series of decaying fields, where overripe crops rot where they fall, and cloying vines seem to move with a malignant intelligence. And yet, despite the apparent abandonment of the facility, the fields are not in total disrepair. Indeed, they still appear tended and tilled, sowed and planted each year. By whom, no one can be sure, but figures have been seen moving through the fields on dark nights.

In truth, the Farm's fields are tended to by the decrepit scarecrows that can be seen standing watch by day. No mere straw, these scarecrows are the semi-living remains of trespassers, remoulded with metal and plant matter into cyborg slaves.

Duty as a scarecrow is not the only fate that can befall foolhardy trespassers of the Farm, and far more foul things have been seen stalking the fields.

Cobwebs lay thick between rows of bloodwheat, too thick to have been made by any ordinary infestation. The braying of goats can be heard at strange hours, braying that sounds uncomfortably similar to human screams.

What the truth of the Farm is, none know, but rumours exist of dark masters, dwelling deep within, at the old research buildings. From the remains of a bastion of progress they draw their plans, scanning the stars from their observatory, and tampering with nature in ever more horrific ways, in the name of some mad plan.

More History

Throughout the 1960s, the economic and business reforms in the US saw Canada enter an economic golden age, as the American demand for oil and natural resources skyrocketed. Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson was slower to implement the changes occurring in the US, but they did happen, with some slow social changes taking place and the business and tech sectors becoming much more free to operate.

After the collapse of rock 'n' roll in 1961, Canada was seen as something of a safe haven. While rock music was not popular in the country, it was not quite as maligned as in the US, and it died a slower death. But it was still a symptom of Canada's reluctance to get entirely on board with American social policies, something that Nixon's government made clear could become costly for the country.

Paying no heed, in 1968 Canada elected the wildly popular Pierre Elliot Trudeau as Prime Minister. Riding a high of previously unseen economic success and industrial and trading power, Canada was in a golden age, and Trudeau let the world know. He was a bad boy Prime Minister, wild and free, and hip. And very, very much not in the Americans' good books.

Trade began to suffer under Trudeau's antics. Scandal after scandal took its toll on American purchases of Canadian resources, and when Margaret Trudeau, the PM's wife, did a nude centerfold in McLean's, a national magazine, that was the final straw. The US cut off all trade with Canada.

Without American money pouring in, Canadians began to notice the problems that had been growing in their country. The Great Lakes were getting smaller, the Badlands were getting badder, the ice was melting and oceans were rising. They wanted something done. As millions found themselves out of work, the country began to fracture.

In 1979, the Trudeaus, already having been out of the public eye for some time, vanished, and Alex Eaglesham's Libertarians won a majority government in the resulting emergency election.

Over the next five years Eaglesham worked to normalise relations with the Americans, implementing many of their social policies, though often in somewhat watered-down forms. Things improved, somewhat, but Eaglesham had so far only stemmed the tide. Something more had to be done.

In 1984 Prime Minister Eaglesham severed all ties with Great Britain and the monarchy, declaring Canada a republic, and drafting a new constitution that solidified and strengthened many of the changes his government had made. This was a popular move, but it would prove fatal for Eaglesham's government.

Over the next several months, Alberta, Quebec, the Northern Territories, and part of Ontario all declared their own independence, separating from Canada. By the time the Republic of Canada's first election arrived, Eaglesham was drummed out as a weak fool.

Elmer Knutson became the first president of Canada, on a promise to reunite the country, but in a way that would see the interests of the new independent nations respected. He called this idea the Confederation of Regions, and the Confederation government proved attractive to what was left of Canada.

The separatist states, meanwhile, had looked to their own interests. All began arming to defend themselves from each other, Canada, and the US. Alberta began selling oil to the Americans again, while the Northern Territories began exploiting the Arctic as never before. Southern Ontario, now the Protectorate of Upper Canada, became its own power, fighting an early war with the Americans to defend its place in the world. Quebec isolated itself, withdrawing from the rest of Canada to finally become its own country.

After several years of Confederation governance, the Reform Party, having formed in 1987, vowing to reunite Canada regardless of what the separatists wanted. This position proved highly popular, and in 1988, Knutson's Confederationists barely squeaked by to a minority government in light of Reform support.

Desperate to appear strong, Knutson passed the Adams Act in 1988, privatizing law enforcement. He ensured Canadians that this would allow them to deal with the independent nations more effectively, but the country responded better to Defence Minister Bryan Adams the namesake of the act and soon-to-be star sanctioned operator, than they did Knutson's placating speeches.

In 1993, it was time for an election again, and the Reform Party swept in to a majority, with Preston Manning becoming the new president. The country had grown tired of Knutson's weakness in dealing with the separatists, especially after the recent Meech Lake Accord. A trade and defence deal between Canada and the separatists, the Meech Lake Accord had been negotiated hugely in the separatists' favour, and Canadians were angry.

President Manning repealed the Meech Lake Accord, and remains in power in 1995, but his government is still being pressed to do something about the separatists.

Renegades in Canada

I've been spending all my time working on various "good guys", and I've been overlooking the bad guys! Er, worse guys. So here's some spit-balling I've done for Ontario renegade gangs, as well as a more national one, to try and give Canada something similar to the Brethren of Joseph.


Ontario Gangs
Red Last: Generic renegades; drive whatever they can. Black w/ red rear ends
Devil's Mounts: Depraved slavers and sexual deviants; sexy exotics w/cages, chains, etc.
The Voners: Hillbilly family, drugs and alcohol; pickups and wagons
Satan's Paradise: Small-time gang; maybe hot rodders
The Trus: Trudeau-born bastards out of Quebec; sports cars. Blue and white.


National Level
The Rhinoceros Party: animal hybrids and lab-grown monsters; low-riders, El Caminos, etc

Jacques Ferron, Leader of the Rhinoceros Party of Canada
-army medic
-became your standard mad scientist, created animal hybrids
-died in 1985 of a heart attack
-resurrected as Cornelius the First, a human-rhino hybrid

Detachment 41, 10-8

Detachment 41 of the Ontario Peace Patrol is ready for duty.

Consisting of only five drivers and a handful of support personnel, Detachment 41 is a small and undesirable posting for officers of the Ontario Peace Patrol. Commanded by Sgt. Major Sawyer, Detachment 41 patrols a backwoods section of the 401 corridor of no real significance.

Sgt. Major Sawyer, 40; a veteran of the Detroit-Windsor War, is believed to have once enjoyed a much more prestigious position within the OPP. What transpired to see him shuffled off to the boonies, his men don't know, but they respect him nonetheless, if for no other reason than he's their top pursuit man.

Sergeant Spirit, 38; Sawyer's second in command, is a tough and loyal officer, and is closest to Sawyer of all of them, in age, skill, and attitude. Because of this, she sometimes serves as a bridge between Detachment 41 and their commander, being perhaps a bit more understanding than Sawyer at times is.

Constable Jacob, 26; he fills the role of unit sharpshooter, having a record number of ranged kills. His kills are high enough, in fact, that he has been offered transfers to other, better units. Thus far he has chosen to remain with 41, although how long the young sniper will stay is a question that weighs heavily on Sawyer.

Constable Red, 30; Detachment 41's resident daredevil. A skilled driver, he could likely take his commander's place as top pursuit man, if only he took fewer unnecessary risks. Red has caused nearly as much damage to his own vehicle as those of the renegades he runs down.

Constable Echo, 18; still called 'Cadet' by the rest of her unit, is fresh out of the Ontario Peace Academy. A native of the GTA, Echo is no stranger to violence, but is still adjusting to life outside the city.

Detachment 41 is poorly funded and rarely receives support. The veterans of the unit, Sawyer and Spirit, barely bother maintaining the appearance of their vehicles anymore, only repainting the trademark gold stripe of office a couple times a year. Their Junos are older machines, equipped with turbochargers, while the rest of the unit runs plain V6s.

Rough Timeline

When you start rewriting history for a whole country, you realise how much work really went in to Dark Future, to make it clever and "counter" feeling. I'm not super concerned with my Dark Future Canada feeling quite as authentic, because frankly there's one person working on this and I'm not getting paid for it. I just need enough space to play in, and I'm slowly building that. Still, I've been focussing on the little parts that left Canada, and I thought I should work on some of Canada as a whole.

I've worked out a rough timeline of things. A little bit more history/pop culture research and I could probably make this feel a lot more like Dark Future, but, again, for now I've got a sandbox to play and build in. Suggestions and participation are always welcome, though.

-Trudeau PM till 1979
  -this was Canada's economic ascendancy, and Trudeau's morally bankrupt behaviour
-Alex Eaglesham's Libertarians win a majority in 1979
-Prime Minister Eaglesham delcares independence from Great Britain in 1984, and drafts a new constitution, solidifying the many changes his government has made since 1979
-Alberta seperates
-Quebec seperates
-Upper Canada seperates
-1984 election, Elmer Knutson becomes the first elected President of Canada, on a promise of re-integrating the country, but in a way that would allow the independent nations to essentially remain as such. Calls this idea the "Confederation of Regions"
-the Reform Party was formed in 1987, seeking to return Canada to a single nation, regardless of independent interests, and is viewed as strong because of this
-Knutson's Confederation government wins a second term in 1988, but only a minority
-the Enderby Amendment is mirrored in 1988 by the Adams Act, privatizing law enforcement in an effort to make Knutson's government appear stronger
-Bryan Adams, then defence minister and namesake of the Act, became Canada's star sanc-op, and became hugely popular
-in 1993, the Reform Part is elected after people have become tired of the Confederation's weakness in dealing with the separatist states, especially the Meech Lake Accord, a trade and defence deal negotiated between Canada, Upper Canada, Quebec, Alberta, and the Northern Territories by the Knutson government which vastly favoured all parties but Canada itself
-Preston Manning becomes President of Canada
-Manning is still President in 1995, but his government is hard-pressed by its people to do something about the separatist states soon

Maple Leaf Muties

For a long time, Sudbury was a joke. And by joke I mean industrial hellscape John Blanche would be proud of. Nickle mining, refineries, underground science experiments; they took their toll. Things were bad enough that NASA tested their rovers there. You know, the unmanned vehicles that explore airless desert worlds constantly bombarded by radiation?

Yeah. NASA thought Sudbury was a good simulation of that.

Things have improved in the last decade or so. But of course, the efforts to fix things never would have happened in Dark Future, and the situation would have been much worse to start with.

So let's go mess up Sudbury (and as a bonus, Windsor) in the name of Dark Future!

Sudbury
Throughout the economic ascendancy Canada enjoyed in the 1960s and into the '70s, Sudbury was a major player. The mining, metals, and technology industries saw runaway growth, creating a huge boom. But when the environment started to turn, and the economy fell out from under Canada, Ontario begin to pay the cost of its progress.

The Sudbury region had become a polluted wasteland, one of the worst in North America. Rampant mining had torn the landscape apart for miles around the city, and the byproducts of advanced and unchecked metallurgy lay in massive slag heaps. Underground, a less obvious but more sinister contamination had occurred.

Where once there had been the slow, steady march of progress, the tunnels and caverns below Sudbury had become home to a headlong race into the future, in the name of science and wealth. Corporations were free to pursue any wild aim, without the prying eyes of regulation and government oversight. Rivers of toxic waste, stockpiles of re-engineered genes, chemical weapons, and other, more esoteric developments were all left when Sudbury was abandoned by corporations seeking for fertile waters. With no one left to mind them, these abandoned laboratories soon fell prey to marauders, and gave up their corrupting secrets.

Today, Sudbury stands as an undesirable affliction on Canada. Lord Protector Peart has no interest in it, nor does Ottawa, or even the Americans. Even renegades steer clear of its mutant-occupied streets.

Windsor
Another former industrial capital, Windsor was devastated by Upper Canada's only real war. When Protectorate and American forces clashed over the city, it was gain control of the industrial capacity there, or to at least deny it to the enemy. This meant that what could not be held, or removed to a safe site, was destroyed, and in the end, Windsor-Detroit was left undesirable to both countries.

Without much foreign interest, Windsor has become a safe haven for renegades and marauders of all types. Or, at least a haven, if not a safe one, since there is one faction still interested in the city.

Wandering through Windsor's broken streets and crumbling buildings are the leftover robotic workers of the '60s and '70s. Largely ignored during the war due to their ease of replacement, the industrial models were abandoned along with the city they served.

Now, having operated years beyond their capacity and having gone without instruction for just as long, the robots have turned, in a word, feral.

Without instruction and without proper human maintenance, the robots left in Windsor were forced to fend for themselves - something which they should have been incapable of doing. Somehow, though, the robots have survived, repairing themselves from scrap and, occasionally, parts of unfortunate humans. There is no real organization to them, although loose groups do exist. Mostly independent, robots will work together if they wind up together, and sometimes remain in that group, at least for a while.



---

I'm not a huge fan of the robots in the setting, honestly. I like a more Mad Max setting: things are bad and tough, but demons and robots don't roam the radioactive wasteland. But I do like the outright insanity and ridiculousness of the setting, so instead of rewriting and ignoring that stuff, I try to mostly gloss over it, and use it sparingly. Besides! This is Canada. Whose to say things are the same as they are down south?

Organizations in the Dark North

We've heard a bit about the Ontario Peace Patrol and the Protectorate of Upper Canada, and they will probably be my main focus for a while, but let's take this opportunity to look at some of the other places and people in Canada in 1995.


Ottawa
The City Fun Forgot . . . and was then mugged and killed in while passing through Vanier, buried in a shallow grave in the Calabogie Hills, until a few years later when it was dug up and used as a hood ornament in races on Sparks Street.

The nominal capital of Canada, Ottawa presides over a divided country, and is, itself, divided. After Alberta and Quebec left Canada, Ottawa had a difficult time doing anything on a national scale. This was compounded by new factions sprouting up within the city to vie for control.

The Royal Loyals, or Loyal Royals, are an odd mix. A gang composed of elderly Canadian citizens and young punks, the Royals believe that the answer to Canada's problems can be found in England. Old or young, the members of this movement all place their faith firmly in the monarchy across the Atlantic.

When it comes to combat, the Royalists refuse to use anything domestic, exclusively driving British vehicles. They rarely range outside the city, sticking close to Ottawa's loosely-defined PZ and outskirts, especially the downtown core and Parliament buildings.

Quebec
Extremely isolationist, Quebec does participate in some broader events within Canada, namely continual attempts to annex Ottawa. Quebec is mostly united, save for Montreal. As the Saint Lawrence dried up, Montreal became inaccessible save by bridge or air. Controlling the bridges meant controlling Montreal, and the city chose not to be controlled, declaring its own independence from Quebec and Canada both, though it still maintains very tenuous connections with them.

Alberta
As things turned bad in the US and global trade disintegrated, the Americans began relying on their northern neighbours more and more. This created an economic boom for Canada, but this couldn't last. When Canada's economy started to fail, Alberta, one of the primary sources of the country's recent wealth, began to feel bitter towards the policies that had left it, and the country, weaker than it ever had been.

In a shocking move, though perhaps no one was actually surprised, Alberta seceded from Canada, taking its oil with it. Selling directly to the Americans when they could afford it, and the Chinese when they couldn't, Alberta rebuilt its wealth - and built itself an army, with the help of the Chinese.

Oil wells became heavily guarded forts, and Calgary became one of the largest, most secure PZs in Canada. Edmonton was razed to the ground in the early days through a series of brutal conflicts among rival oil barons. This disaster led to the introduction of the Alberta Rangers, a force to keep the peace between the oil forts and maintain their trade routes.

The Rangers are primarily former federal police and agents who felt more loyalty to province than country, but can come from all walks of life. They straddle the lines between bounty hunters, frontiersmen, and police, making endless circuits of the highways and trades routs between the oil forts. Because of this, Rangers travel heavily armed, loaded for bear with Chinese ordinance and driving massive muscle cars. These vehicles are provided to the Rangers by Alberta, and are often reproductions of Chinese origin, leftover from when trade was regular between the two nations. Ranger vehicles are typically yellow or blue, the national colours of Alberta, or bare steel.

Highly independent, Rangers rarely travel together, preferring to operate alone. On the rare occasion when the Rangers ride together, the results always become legendary throughout Alberta, further perpetuating the myths and reputations of the Rangers.

The Northern Territories
The environment fractured along with the country, and the True North became a very different place.

While the Great Lakes dried up and the Prairies became a dust bowl, the tundra of the north changed for the better. As the ice melted, water became freer and easier to get than almost anywhere else in North America. Beyond this, the loosened grip of winter, and the non-existent state of federal protection for wildlife and the environment, led to a rabid explosion of resource exploitation.

New diamond mines dotted the landscape; oil wells were sunk deep into earth unfrozen for the first time in millennia; and everywhere water ran, free to be hoarded and sold.

The Yukon became rife with mines and oil wells, while the Northwest Territories became a new breadbasket. The Boreal Forest was clearcut and burned, to turn the tundra into fertile land.

From the PZs of Yellowknife and Whitehorse the Northern Territories command a powerful position within Canada. The diamond has become a new dollar through the north and much of the rest of Canada, and everyone is eagre to trade for food and water.

The territories themselves have a rivalry with one another, and raids between them are not unheard of, but they depend on one another too much for any real violence to take place. The Yukon provides diamonds, oil, and metals, as well as serving as the border with Alaska, and the Northwest Territories provides food and most of the troops to guard that border. Both territories exploit the Arctic Ocean as much as possible. The mines, farms, reservoirs, and fisheries of both territories are well defended by  private forces, but the main concern for the Northern Territories is not each other, or even the rest of Canada, but Alaska and American predation.

Against this threat the Territories place the Northwest Motorised Police. Officially considered any recognized force operating outside of a PZ, the NWMP is, at best, a loose para-military organization. Made up of few standing troops, the NWMP includes bounty hunters, independent sanc ops, and even citizen militias. Driving hardy vehicles and customised snow machines, these new frontier lawmen serve as the first line of defence against American invasion.

After Alaska and the Americans, the next greatest concern for the Northern Territories is Alberta, the other Canadian oil nation. Bother powers have a comfortable if competitive peace. The Yukon and Alberta both have oil, and both want the Northwest Territories for their arable land and water. The Northwest Territories plays this to its advantage, often setting off bidding wars between the other two nations over its food. Even so, things are relatively peaceful between the Territories and Alberta, and it is not uncommon to see a Ranger in the North or a NWMP officer in Alberta, even cooperating to solve larger problems. The Territories trade grains, produce, and fish south to Alberta for meat, pork, and dairy products from the ranches there. The system works, with the oil of both nations keeping aggressions in check, for the time being, at least.

Detachment 41, Part One

My gang for Dark Future, or at least my first one, is going to be Detachment 41, a branch of the Ontario Peace Patrol sanc-op. (Well I say sanc-op, but it's basically a government organization.)

Detachment 41 is a small branch of the OPP, tasked with patrolling a long stretch of rural highways along the 401 corridor. Not a glamorous assignment. They receive little in the way of support or funding, and live in perpetual unease for the day Superintendent Lee might come for an inspection.

In my Dark Future, Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart runs Ontario (Upper Canada, to be precise). I tried to find out what his favourite car is, but he's more of a motorcycle guy. Even so, whenever a car and Neil Peart are mentioned together, it tends to be a roadster. I love roadsters too, and the colour scheme I  already had in mind - the official colours of Ontario, green and gold-  reminded me of a certain Hot Wheels car: the Rrroadster.

Last year the Rrroadster was sold in green/yellow and silver green. This year in blue and orange. I wasn't expecting to be able to find any green ones, but happily did. Here they are before work.

According to the packaging, the Rrroadster was created in 2013 in El Segundo California, and sports a 5.0L supercharged V8 spitting out 1100hp. Well. That all has to go.

The fiction wasn't all that had to go. The numbers had to go, and that left big dull scuffs, so I decided to scuff the rest of the cars up, take their shine off, kick them around a bit. The gold stripe was added with a sharpie and masking tape.

Flash picks out the bare metal. I tried to beat up each car a little differently, to give them some character. Maybe that one sideswiped someone recently, maybe the other rams people a lot, maybe the driver of the other spills a lot of gas.

I'm very pleased with the stripe, and the overall look. And the fact that I even found all three of these cars on my first day looking. I didn't get the tape down perfect in every spot, as you can see, but it came out so well that now I'm thinking about completely repainting these cars. The gold looks so good, and while I like the beat up look, the green looks kind of awful, by comparison. I also want to try and add some weathering effects. Ontario may not turn into a dusty wasteland in Dark Future, but I think some roadsalt stains would be a very Canadian touch.

Now that the paint's been changed, let's look at some replacement fiction for this car that never could have been made in Dark Future.

Most of the vehicles driven by the Ontario Peace Patrol are locally produced within the Protectorate of Upper Canada, and are based on a vehicle acquired by Lord Protector Peart's agents during the Detroit-Windsor war.

The Juno, once lovingly hand crafted by a small team of Canadian artists working for the specialty car manufacturer Beacon-Mitchell, became the basis of the OPP's highway enforcement following the war. Originally built in small numbers during Canada's economic ascendancy during the '70s, the Juno was a powerful sport roadster, more at home on the track than the road.

After things fell apart, Beacon-Mitchell stopped producing cars, dwindling to little more than a repair shop. Located in Windsor and under constant threat from the south, the small company agreed to relocate to Toronto during the Detroit-Windsor war.

With much of their specialty equipment and materials impossible to replace, Beacon-Mitchell now produces a much cheaper version of the Juno for use by Protectorate forces. Typically cheap, built light so that smaller engines can do more with the car, the Juno serves as the workhorse of the Ontario Peace Patrol. Most are fitted for pursuit duty with the VP6, a Beacon-Mitchell-made 2.4L V6 engine. A small handful have turbocharges as well, and there are even rarer Junos that have been hand-tuned by Lord Protector Peart's chief mechanic himself; a Serbian-born genius named Zivo.

Even in their original configuration, the Juno never would have been any use in Canada of old, with its long, harsh winters and icy, snow-buried highways. But as the environment as become harsher and warmer, and snow and ice scarce, the Juno has become a symbol of Lord Protector Peart's power.

The Junos of Detachment 41 are driven by Constables Jacob, the unit's sharpshooter; Red, the resident daredevil; and Echo, an OPP rookie and newest addition to the unit.

Symbols of the Ontario Peace Patrol

The official colours of Ontario are green and gold, so the vehicles of the Ontario Peace Patrol are green with a gold stripe.

This is the badge that appears on the doors, quarter panels, wherever:

And this is how it looks as a badge, with nameplates for rank, name, motto, branch, etc.:

I'm either going to print the first one up as small stickers, or just try and fake it with paint/a gold sharpie.

A Brief History of the Dark North

Since I'm Canadian, and I love my country, the best thing I could do for it was to ruin the hell out of it in the name of Dark Future. What follows is a brief overview of where things are in Canada in 1995, at least in the areas I'll be operating in. There's a lot of work to be done, especially in getting from the '70s to 1995, but I'll probably fill things out as I need them.


A Brief History of Canada

As global trade broke down, the States began looking to Canada more and more for oil. This created a period of economic ascendancy for Canada, under Prime Minister Trudeau. But it couldn't last, and Canada entered a stark depression, into which the social reforms taking place in the south found a perfect breeding ground.

Trudeau was remembered for his extreme excesses, on which the country was ready to blame their growing list of problems, and things began to change in Canada, as the country began adopting changes they saw in their neighbours to the south. Rock and roll was banned.  Objectivist philosophers became increasingly popular. The Private Peacekeeping Act was passed.

As things broke down further, Canada's position as a country became tenuous. Oil-rich Alberta turned to China when the US stopped buying, arming itself with Chinese weapons in the process, and shortly thereafter declared itself sovereign. But when continued trade with China became difficult, Alberta began selling to interests in the US again, establishing a heavily patrolled border to the south to ensure their trade routes remained open and unmolested.

Quebec was quick to follow Alberta’s lead, taking another huge portion of Canada's natural wealth with it.

Ontario began to fracture under the strain, with Toronto not seeing a point in Ottawa any longer. Under the philospher-turned-politician, Neil Peart, Southern and Eastern Ontario seceded from Canada.

Lord Protector Peart declared Toronto the new capital, and his protectorate the "true" north. The new Protectorate of Upper Canada was quick to arm itself against southern invasion and reprisals out of Ottawa. Several short, brutal wars were fought in southern Ontario, along the old American border. The fighting was fiercest at the Detroit-Windsor crossing, ultimately leaving much of the production capacity there useless, but providing Upper Canada with enough raw material and spoils of war to outfit its own para-military force: the Ontario Peace Patrol.

As Lake Ontario dried up, decades of industrial slag and waste were revealed, providing a new resource to exploit as the waste of yesterday became the mines of tomorrow. With Niagara Falls running dry, power became a serious problem for Upper Canada, and is still strictly rationed outside of the Toronto PZ.

The Toronto core became a heavily guarded PZ, with the Greater Toronto Area essentially being left as it was. The GTA began attracting people from across the new protectorate, fearing as they did more war coming up from the south, or from Quebec. They wanted safety, and the GTA offered that, at least from outside forces.

While other, more high-class state forces guard the citizens of Toronto, the Ontario Peace Patrol ranges across Upper Canada, from the Niagara grow-ups in the south, to the lakebed mines, up the 401 even as far as Ottawa itself, though they never act to help the former capital.

Ottawa, meanwhile, became a battleground. Qubecois separatists wanted to annex it for Quebec, staunch Federalists wanted to keep it as the capital of Canada, and resurgent Loyalists (an oft-used term, in Ottawa) supported the idea that Britain would, somehow, solve all of Canada’s problems.

Today, Ottawa retains a tenuous relationship with the rest of Canada. While still nominally a country, Canada is broken up by independent nations. Quebec separates most of Canada from the Maritimes, who themselves are subject to piratical raids on their oil reserves; the Free Metis Nation controls much of southern Manitoba; Native bands have declared dozens of nations across the country; Alberta stands on its own, Saskatchewan is a flat and dusty canvas for brutal motorized gang wars; BC is isolated by the Rockies, but deals with the remnants of a large influx of Asian gangs and American predation; the North has become a country almost unto itself. With the environment ruined, the ice melting, and government protection a thing of the past, the north has become easier than ever to exploit, resulting in new oil wells and mines popping up everywhere, along with a lucrative trade in freshwater. Diamonds from northern mines have become so common they have formed a kind of currency in the north, a new gold dust, and while Ottawa still officially endorses the loonie as the national currency, many across the nation just use the new, diamond standard.

In Alberta, the oil wells have become heavily guarded, walled cities. The Albertan oil forts are among the most well defended sites in all of Canada, and while Albertan PZs are protected by a powerful army, they sometimes suffer raids. Not so, the heavily defended oil forts.

Due to the isolation of the oil forts, Alberta required a force to patrol the lanes between them, resulting in the creation of the Alberta Rangers. Equipped with powerful muscle cars of Chinese make - modern reproductions of older American cars - these brutal lawmen go where sanc-ops don't, keeping the Albertan wilds some semblance of safe.

The claim to the True North is now a disputed one, with Canada fracturing under the grim pressures of the dark future.

Oh, Canada!

Dark Future is a Mad Max-inspired wargame, long since out of production. Played with Hot Wheels, hair metal, and a lot of crazy, it's currently enjoying something of a resurgence on the internet, and may in fact be getting updated and re-released sometime soon.

The game is set in the US, and I decided to migrate it northwards, to my home country, and bring Canada into the war-torn highways of 1995. You can think of this project like an expansion, or just the scribblings of a cold Canadian trying to survive the winter.

None of this is canon, and I'm not too worried if it doesn't all fit with whatever might have been said about Canada in Dark Future. That said, suggestions are welcome, and I hope you find something here to enjoy, or even incorporate into your own gaming.

Dark Future's all the rage these days, and you can see why!

You're telling me that, to play this car combat game set in an awesome, 80s, Mad Max-style alternate future version of the 90s, I need to go spend less than $10 on Hot Wheels to get more than enough models for my entire army, and then, if I so choose, go crazy gluing spikes and guns and anything else I can think of to them?

Heck. Yes.

So here's my little slice of the wasteland.

I love the Dark Future setting, the proper one, the 1995 one. Don't care for updates or reboots or whathaveyou. If 40k can stay in the same damn year for 20 years, so can this game! It's fun. It's goofy. I like it and don't see a need to add iPhones and modern geo-politics. (Although Lady Gaga would certainly be an interesting character in an updated version...)

But the thing about Dark Future is, no Canada! Canada still exists, as much as the US does, anyway, but it understandably is not prevalent or relevant at all.

So I aim to change that.

This blog is going to document my modeling and gaming for Dark Future, and also share some of the fiction and setting I intend to develop for the Tru(ly dark) North.

I want to add, here - I feel it's important too - that this is just my personal version of things, of how Canada could turn out in 1995. I haven't read the Dark Future novels, so I don't know how much Canada actually is or isn't mentioned. But I assume it's very little. This game is, above all, FUN. It's a ridiculous setting, it has an incredibly low, cheap entry fee, and BEGS for creativity. So I'm being creative. You're welcome to play in my world and share it, build on it, expand it, however you wish. I certainly welcome my fellow Canadians to contribute and get Dark Future rolling up here. But please, don't take anything I say as "canon". It's not, and I don't care. It's just meant to be fun.

I love Dark Future. And I love Canada! So, two great tastes that taste great together.

But.

They need some work for that to happen.

I like the Dark Future setting. It really appeals to me. The 1995 presented in the game is so crazy it just might work, to borrow a phrase. But there are parts of it I don't love, to be honest. PZs don't appeal to me, very much. They're limiting, the armies of robot workers is limiting, and having the rich so physically isolated is a missed opportunity, I think.

Along with that, nogos seem misused. They should be truly awful places, not just anywhere but downtown.

I don't really have much interest in the demons and magic, either.

Now, well, it sounds like I don't like the setting, doesn't it? But that's not the case.

Dark North is an expansion. Canada is a different country, much as some may not believe that, and things can happen differently there, in the Dark Future of 1995. And, well, they're going to.

My PZs are more loosely defined, except in places like Alberta where the oil forts are literally walled cities. Downtown Toronto, for example, is relatively safe - it's essentially a PZ, but not really in name. The GTA around it, well, there's still cops and the OPP, but you're a lot more likely to get mugged and murdered - but it's not a lawless wasteland. Outside the GTA though, you might be fair game for the renegades, unless you're traveling with a sanc-op or an OPP patrol happens to be nearby.

So, looser PZs. Fewer robots. More horrific no-go zones (re: Sudbury, Windsor, the Experimental Farm).

That's the big structure change, but there's also demons and physics breaking down to deal with. And my solution to dealing with that is:

Not to.

Dark North has mutants and robots and animal hybrids and some horror-themed things going on in the dark corners, but mostly, I'm just going to not talk about demons and hacking and hacking demons. I may talk about those things, in specific instances, but it's not going to play in to my picture of what life in the Dark North in 1995 is like.

That, in fact, is pretty much my way of dealing with anything from the setting I'm not entirely keen on. I don't like that foreign companies are somehow still involved in North America even though things have broken down so far, so I strike a balance of maybe things haven't broken down as much (more Mad Max than Road Warrior), and maybe trade has broken down a lot more. But - I'm just going to avoid talking about it, more or less. That way, I don't step too much on the toes of what has come before, and I don't restrict myself by it, either.

And, as always, this is just a sandbox to play in. Please don't take any of it for canon, please don't put any of it up on any wikis, and please, don't try to start fights about it. If I've made a mistake and contradicted something the books said about Canada, or the way the world works in general, well, oh well. I happily, eagrely welcome suggestions and advice and criticism, but I've no stomach for canon arguments, or any arguments about it at all, really. I enjoy this game and hobby too much to get into anything like that.

In addition, while this will in no way be an "adult" blog, there will occasionally be some swearing, mention of alcohol and drugs use, passing reference to sex, and some potentially scary stuff. Yes, Dark Future is a game played with Hot Wheels and you should definitely enjoy it with your kids, but no, your kids don't need to know all the nitty gritty details of the setting, especially not mine.

Furthermore, historical figures are going to be deliberately misrepresented. No, I'm not going to take a Canadian politician from the '80s and turn him into a racist murderer. But I might say he won an election by being a bit more outrageous than he really was. None of this will ever be meant to be insulting or offensive. It's a goofy alternate history. That said, if the people I might talk about do get offended, they just have to contact me, and I will have no problem at all taking their names out.

Now that that's out of the way, please; Continue to enjoy all the Dark North, fragile and bound, has to offer.

You'll find there's less maple syrup than in the old days, but we're still good for rye.