-2
$\begingroup$

500 years after The Apocalypse decimated the world, North America is a wasteland. Backwards people reduced to using 1680s technology at best, early Bronze Age technology at worst. There are only a few powerful nations in the continent, and raiders, marauders, slavers, cannibals and mutants stalk the vast stretches of wilderness in between major settlements. If you go out of a town, unarmed, you're guaranteed to got robbed and killed if you're a man, and robbed and enslaved if you're a woman. Slavers are even seen as honorable businessmen, not cruel monsters (for example, in Midwest Empire, 90% of people own at least one slave). Vicious animals are also there, and will happily eat any trader or merchant they see.

Around the late 30s of the 26th century, a new company is founded called Interstate Caravans. It starts out as a small trading company, with only about 30 employees, but it eventually wants to expand, connecting the East Coast and West Coast, like the Silk Road of ancient days. My question is, how could they go about this?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
16
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Talos, you have got to figure out how to register your account. You're asking too many questions without it being in place. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Commented May 13, 2018 at 18:44
  • $\begingroup$ A question very similar to this was asked a month or so ago, just without mentioning the Silk Road. $\endgroup$
    – RonJohn
    Commented May 13, 2018 at 18:45
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ (1) Drop the inflammatory language. It adds nothing of value, and at best seems to run counter to the spirit of the be nice policy, if not its exact words. (2) How is the question about building a world? Seems more story-based to me. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented May 13, 2018 at 18:48
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ "90% of the people own at least one slave": no they obviously don't, unless slaves can also own slaves. BTW, there has never been a caravan which travelled all the way on the so called Silk Road. Caravan A goes some distance; then the goods are sold and some are picked by Caravan B, which also goes some distance, and so on. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented May 13, 2018 at 18:58
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of How to set up a trade network from one coast to another? $\endgroup$
    – RonJohn
    Commented May 13, 2018 at 19:41

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3
$\begingroup$

It's unlikely.

  1. There is no silk here. You need something valuable to trade.
  2. To have long distance trading, you need to have fairly large cities to make it worth the trip through the deserts and mountains. I doubt you have that.
  3. The journey needs to be relatively safe or merchants won't use that road. If traveling means a certain death, nobody will do it unless it pays a lot.
Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .