Adding a FEMA disaster to your game

The 1980′s Reagan Administration-run Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) wasn’t focused on hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters. The aging Reagan Administration was still obsessed with sixties radicals the cold war and, of course, the Evil Empire. So, when they took over FEMA from Jimmy Carter, they changed its focus from natural disasters to national security. FEMA became obsessed with environmental radicalists, terrorists, nuclear war, and border-storming “aliens”. In fact, FEMA launched what may have been one of the most frightening, potentially nationally disastrous, anti-American government conspiracy that’s been uncovered in the last 30 years – a scheme to commandeer the Bill of Rights.

In 1984, FEMA coordinated a “readiness exercise” called REX-84 with the military and other government officials through the Pentagon. The plan was that during the exercise FEMA would round up some 400,000 fictional “aliens” in a 6 hour period as they surged the Mexican border and detain them in military detention camps around the U.S. as there were probably moles hidden in the refugees escaping during the U.S. invasion of Nicaragua (which is what Rex-84 was supposed to really be about).

However, it has been argued that the Mexican border’s terrain is not hospitable enough to make possible such a sudden influx of such a high number. In fact, it has been suggested that the real exercise was to see how fast American citizens could be rounded up – perhaps in an effort to squash public protests in response to controversial government actions, such as an invasion of Nicaragua.

Rex-84 had far more to do with government control than catching illegal “aliens”. The Miami Herald reported that it had acquired a heavily censored FEMA memo that suggested a phase two – martial law. Despite the fact that the Posse Comitatus Act forbids the military from taking over the United States, the Pentagon prepared a document for FEMA to do just that – the Defense Resources Act. Theoretically, the plan was to let it gather dust until Congress was preoccupied so they could push it through. The Defense Resources Act would have given the President dictatorial powers, including the authority to censor communication, ban antigovernment strikes, nationalize industry, seize property for the national defense, and authorize loyalty oaths to the state. It would also have put FEMA in charge of all government agencies.

Shortly after Rex-84, other government officials became alarmed by FEMA’s power grab and it’s head resigned under pressure from the powers that be. FEMA went back to hurricanes, floods, and the other natural disasters that Jimmy Carter originally had in mind when he created the agency.

Or did it?

As a game master or storyteller, there are a lot of ways to use this real life near-nightmare in your own roleplaying game. There are a number of unanswered questions and there is always the possibility that FEMA has just operating a little more subtlety now.

• What was Rex-84 really about? A practice exercise to invade Nicaragua or an attempt to take over our own country?
• Were any real individuals detained in those detention camps during the exercise or were they really just fictional?
• Do any of those detention camps still exist today and if so, what are they being used for?
• Is the Defense Resources Act still waiting on someone shelf to be sent to Congress? Or maybe it’s already been slipped through the cracks while no one was looking? After all, we’ve been awfully distracted looking for terrorists since September 11, 2001.
• Is FEMA really just interested in hurricanes, floods, and natural disasters or do they still have their eye on something a little more powerful?
• What if those “fail safes” FEMA put in place to take over the government for the national security in the event of a national disaster such as an invasion or nuclear war are inadvertently initiated by such an event only FEMA is now really only qualified to handle hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters?

These are all questions a game master starts with. Where you go from there is entirely up to you and where you want your game to go and how dark you want your game to get. Certainly it would be interesting to be everything from a regular Joe to an FBI agent who accidentally uncovers a new plot by FEMA to take over the government for their own nefarious purposes.

Happy conspiring!