Basically, I have a story set in the zombie apocalypse that revolves around two warlords trying to get their hands on information (a book) that will give them information on how to do all sorts of end-of-days stuff (like a buffed-up [and accurate] version of The Anarchist's Cookbook). It's been in one of the warlord's possession for a little while now, and he's started to rebuild all the factories in his area (formerly Pittsburgh). Well, the book is stolen by someone, who is made to bring the book to another warlord under duress. Basically, I want to show a scene where this warlord is preparing the mass production of these explosives/artillery/chemical weapons before having, ya know, the necessary knowledge to actually make them. It doesn't need to be insanely detailed, but I'm not sure it would be so realistic to show his men mining coal and working in a coal-powered steel mill (unless it is?). And for the first warlord, he'd only had it for a short time, so I want to somehow show that he's still in the early stages of building his dictatorial arsenal. Just want to be as realistic as possible to better inform my scene-writing.
I'd think about the presuppositions that the warlords, etc. have about this technology, and compare that to the realities that they learn when going through this knowledge. Perhaps they revere the technology as some sort of magic. When reading about it they think "really, this is how it works?" Also they may find it much more difficult than they expected, and could run into serious trouble with safety, manufacturing processes, etc. Some possible sources of inspiration: The extreme care performed in early production of dynamite. Very slowly and carefully moving carts full of nitroglycerin. The attitudes that the rulers have towards "The Magister's" gunpowder technology in Michael Crichton's Timeline General research on how manufacturing works
How bad is this apocalypse? You mentioned before that Whataburger, in some form, still operated, so I'm just wondering what this arcane knowledge would be. It just doesn't seem like civilization was so far gone from your other posts for one book to be that significant. Unless the warlords were somehow superstitious or not too bright. I could see some scenario where there is a book with codes to operate a nuclear power plant or even some type of regular power plant. This sort of reminds me of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and 'Master', the diminutive half of MasterBlaster who was the only one that knew how the power grid based on methane from pig gas. The last part of the movie involved Auntie Em trying to bring him back to Barter Town when he escaped.
It's a big question how far detached the warlords' current knowledge is from pre-war times. Something very specific you can show in preparation of weapons production is the warlord restarting a steel mill and steel production. Fallout 3 had a similar depiction for Pittsburgh in a DLC; I especially liked the idea there that they didn't mine iron / coal but instead re-smelted & re-cast steel scavenged from ruins and vehicles. What kind of artillery / weapons would you have them manufacture based on the book? I would reason that in a post-apocalyptic setting, creating Napoleonic artillery is far, far easier than modern artillery (compared to complex designs of breech loaders and their percussion-fuzed shells).
Rather than the Anarchist Cookbook, look into TM 31-210: Improvised Munitions Manual. It's a legit Army publication from 1969 that was meant to teach soldiers behind enemy lines/SF cadre how to make a whole lot of bad stuff from things you might find around the village. Got recipes for black powder, improvised plastic explosives, shaped charges, etc etc. You can buy it on Amazon.
Thanks for the suggestion! It's never named, so kinda just making it into something that has a bit of everything. One of my characters, for example, uses something in there to make an improvised phone charger for another character (he listens to music on his phone all the time, keeping it charged with a solar backpack, but turns out, the panel malfunctioned some time ago, and he's just been pretending). Perhaps it could also be that this character repairs the solar panel. I'm not sure. Might be a dumb plot point that I'll get rid of, in which case, just a improvised munitions book would suffice.
Perhaps I can be vague with this, and just have it mentioned that it contains information that would put dangerous weapons in the hands of evil warlords. Still trying to figure out if the character repairing the broken phone/panel/charger/whatever is a stupid plot point. Perhaps, instead of having all sorts of post-apocalypse stuff, the book is only about munitions, and the character fixing the phone/making an improvised charger/whatever has nothing to do with it, and that character is just really knowledgeable on electronics. It's really just a device to get the MC to start to respect, almost even like, a character he hadn't up until that point (his ex-wife's new lover).
For what it's worth, in the movie 'The Book of Eli' there is a scene where the protagonist seeks out a sort of electric gadget expert/general store guy and barters with him to get him to charge his iPod.
Interesting. I very well may add something like this, but it might be overkill. Basically, the story is about how my main character is selfish, and he learns to be selfless instead, but his character growth comes at a high price. This character is always listening to music, and initially, his character development was not about him being selfish, but about him feeling alone/abandoned after his wife broke-up with him. He listened to music because the songs were the only voices he would hear, and it helped drown out the sound of the zombies. I've since abandoned that, and gone to the selfish thing, but the idea was that apparently his music had stopped working some time ago, and it was just all in his head. He runs into his ex-wife and her new lover, and he starts to respect -- even like -- the new lover after he fixes his phone/headphones. I really want to keep the scene as a device for the MC and the new lover to become friends, but it wouldn't make sense for the character (because his story isn't a sad one at first, since he loves the apocalypse). Perhaps it can just stop working in the middle of the story, and then Andy (the new lover) fixes it on his own. Still the same outcome (they become friends), but doesn't come with the contradictory sad story of the music not working for a while. I have a scene where the MC and his ex-wife make-up, and perhaps I could find a way to slip that into the scene, so he's kinda accepting them both to the team simultaneously. EDIT: But regarding the stuff in the OP, if it's just something Andy does on his own, and it's not part of the book, it means I can be very vague with things (it's a screenplay, so doesn't need to be really detailed, especially since neither warlord actually succeeds in getting the book and building their stuff).
Don't know if this helps or not,but since the warlord is in a preparation state, maybe there could be a scene where prisoners are being "made ready" as test subjects by having them being locked up to be injected(or infected in some other way) with the virus or bacteria that is going to be used in the chemical weapon once the warlord is confirmed to be in possesion of said virus/bacteria.
That's not a bad idea. That said, not sure I want the warlords to go that bad, going so far as to infect people just for shits and giggles. Both actually want to exact revenge on each other, and are willing to accept whatever collateral damage necessary. They're bad men, yes, but not bad just to be bad.
