Sleds

SkynetV4

SkynetV4

Mildly Dipped
I'm thinking of writing a Fallout 2 fanfic. One of the characters has to assassinate Tandi. The character needs to sneak out of a Tandi-loving NCR after the job. I couldn't get a realistic approach for the character to live unless I give the character a car (which would screw up the character's background (poor but very wily and cunning) and the need for the quest). A brahmin caravan is out of the question because they all get searched and they are too slow anyway. There are no horses and and couldn't find a believable way for the character to outrun her pursuers. The answer came to me as I was watching the Good, the Bad and the Ugly with my father last night. Carriages and the good ole wagon. I remember reading a novel by Verne regarding fur traders up there in canuckland and I thought sleds might be feasible too.

Which brings me to the point of this thread: I wanted to know in your opinion, are sleds, wagons and carriages viable transport options in a post-apoc world that is very short on gas and fusion? I was thinking of perhaps using dogs as sled pullers but I don't know how would a sled work in a desert environment. Carriages and wagons would require animals larger than dogs to pull them (or a completely ridiculous amount of dogs to pull) so I thought maybe mole rats (they are as big as ponies IIRC). Perhaps a tough or talented animal handler could train deathclaws (unlikely), centaurs (they are very slow and quite feral) or even golden and fire geckos (not likely as they don't strike me as being very strong).
 
Regarding sleds, I'm not an expert on this, but I've come across mentions of camel-dragged sleds. Now, camels normally dwell in deserts, so I imagine this is where the sleds would operate.

I also included sleds in my P&P RPG as a means of post-apocalyptic transportation.

Of course, keep in mind that sleds are best suited for fine, sandy deserts, which is not exactly a typical North-American desert.

EDIT: A good idea with the domesticated rats.
 
The mole-rat pulled carriage sounds pretty good. I can see the mole people transporting goods to Modoc via mole-rat pulled carriages.
Not a bad idea, that.
 
Maybe you can use mole-rats to pull a car that isn't working anymore but is still in a condition where it can be pulled without too much trouble.
 
those mole rats? they'd eat you heh heh. unless they're domesticated like some dogs. just think of it domesticated mole rats sort of like dogs, a lot of people own these giant rats. like guard dogs. or like kids think they're so cute and cuddly like dogs wow strange
 
Well, the Slags had them domesticated underground yeti. That was what spurred me to find other options for travel in the wastes. Deathclaws would be fast I guess but YOU try domesticating a deathclaw (its like trying to domesticate Rosh only deathclaws don't have high-molar acid saliva and aren't normally on fire). Silencer has a good point, I don't live in the US and we only have one desert in Panama (Sarigua desert (made by stupid woodcutters)) and its quite arid and the land is all cracked so I guess that would fubar any attempts of using a sled. So that means I would have to use wagons for the DARING! escape (fic-wise). Now how fast do you think these respective animals would travel: dogs and mole rats?
 
Well... you could let some mole-rats or something pull a broken down 4WD... do they have broken down 4WD in the Fallout Universe?
 
Hmm, maybe a very decayed (sp?) carcass of a 1950 Barney Wagon(http://www.ggw.org/~cac/SpotLite/BarneyWagon.JPG). I was thinking also that a wooden wagon (not spaghetti-western style) covered in Brahmin hides or what not with wooden wheels or using the axle from a broken down car could work. Keeping the weight down would be good because I don't know if mole rats would be very fast. Perhaps a wagon with a sail made of brahmin hide would be possible?
 
youd think there would be other animals other than mole rats that could pull a sled or wagon. besides brahmin maybe dogs might be good, but they're all wild and i guess it'd be hard to get like a whole sled team of dogs
 
Also (and this would add a more creepy element to your fic) since slave trading seemed so popular in the wastes. People pulled wagons and sleds... They never seemed to delve into that too much in fallout.. There were always the slave traders but you never seemed to meet anyone with a large group of slaves. Must have been some geezer out there somewhere building a pyramid......we just never found him.
 
Interesting topic. I've thought about this myself. If molerats inherit the intelligence of rats, they would be good candidates. I'm writing a locale design that includes animal trainers that capture the creatures young and train them up. One rogue outcast has a few juvenile DC's who have imprinted on him (but will likely have him for dinner one day when they mature).

As for vehicles, I liked the "chariot" concept: two or three wheeled carts build from scavenged parts. Light and fast ones with mountainbike wheels for example.

Dog sledders do use "training carts" on dry ground. see here:
http://www.bewe-sleds.de/english/TOURI.htm
http://www.mushinginnovations.com/carts.htm

This is a cool article:
http://www.dogsledadventuresmontana.com/mushing.htm
In winter Ulsamer runs Dog Sled Adventures in the mountains outside Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In warm weather, like many mushers, he uses a three-wheeled cart to run the dogs. However, Ulsamer's cart is actually a fiendish species of tricycle; it sports a Harley Davidson front-end and seat welded to the rear wheels and frame of a Honda Civic.
Click to expand...


The coolest idea I read was a guy who says he used a motorcyle/dirt bike (with the engine removed to save weight).
Somebody needs to illustrate that one. Imagine rolling into the Hub on the back of your Harley with a pack of tough "hogs" (pigrats) snarling at anyone who gets close.
 
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