MercurySetting
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The Surrounding Geography
The characters are living in a small college radio station adjacent to the marine science building at a coastal university. Within sight of the station is Gipstein Lighthouse.
The precise geography is not strictly relevant to the story. For episode-writing purposes it can be assumed that it is a coastal area that experiences all four standard seasons - cold, snow, and ice in winter, extreme heat in summer, moderation in spring and autumn.
Gipstein Lighthouse
Gipstein Lighthouse is approximately 1 mile off the coast and has its own set of residents, the Longs. More information about the Longs is contained in the Character section of this site. The Longs chose the lighthouse for the increased security, but they must still come ashore periodically to recover supplies. The lighthouse does continue to operate on automated systems and is powered by a tidal power plant [1], [2], although the characters do not know or understand how it works in the early episodes. For the time being (as of 2017-08-11) characters can ponder why the lighthouse is still lit, but they will find out the details at a later time.
The Building
The station is divided into two sections - the broadcast room and a lounge area. The broadcast room consists of a small sound-resistant recording booth, big enough for as many as four people if they're friendly, and a control area outside the booth. The booth does have a door that can shut, but for most broadcasts it will be left open as there is no need to close it. There isn't much room for anything else in the broadcast room. There is also a door that goes from the broadcast room to the lounge that can be shut, but, again, will be left open most of the time. The lounge area has a sofa and a few chairs, but not much other furniture. There is one small window, not big enough for a human to fit through, that illuminates the room during the day. At night the residents sometimes use candles, but mostly just go to sleep at sundown to conserve supplies.
The broadcast setup is in a small separate building with the tower antenna and is surrounded by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire. The original intent was to keep people from interfering with the broadcast equipment, but now it keeps zombies at bay. Daily, the characters will walk the inside perimeter and dispatch any zombies that have gathered nearby through the fence. Once the coast is clear, the residents will clean the bodies out and throw them into the nearby ocean to prevent them from piling up. If there are too many zombies to clear, the residents can retreat to a small outboard boat and either keep watch from a short distance off the coast or can retreat as far as the lighthouse temporarily.
The residents do have a laptop computer, but mostly leave it powered down to conserve electricity. There is no WiFi, but there is a hardline internet cable available. The off-site internet router, however, has no power and therefore the computer cannot connect. Each character has a cell phone, but there is no service.
The Marine Science Building is approximately 25 yards away from the broadcast antenna and requires an unprotected walk to access. The building is useless for shelter, as it has no outside barrier and the exterior of the building was made of a substantial number of glass panes, some of which are broken, leaving the building very insecure. The remainder of the University buildings are in a similar state of disrepair. The University is a commuter campus with no dorms and the nearest residential homes are a good distance away. Some of the buildings show signs of looting, but the marine science building appears to have been left largely untouched.
Electricity for the broadcast is supplied by a gas generator, which limits broadcasts to 5-7 minutes per day as they ration the gasoline. More gasoline must be collected from nearby abandoned service stations, by siphoning it from cars or boats, or from passers-by who are willing to make a donation of gas to keep the station broadcasting. For the purposes of this series we will assume that the gas will never actually run out, but will be a constant source of concern as they attempt to gather and conserve it. We will also assume that the gasoline doesn't break down and go bad (even though it does in real life). Perhaps if the series ever ends the final episode will focus on the degradation of the gasoline, but it shouldn't be a concern on a day-to-day basis.
NOTE: As of 2019-03-12 (Broadcast Day 522) the generator has been modified to burn methanol. At this stage it is taken for granted that all of the gasoline has either gone bad or is so scarce that there is not enough left to power the generator. The team now makes methanol from local plant matter, but their production is still slow enough that the broadcast's time restrictions (5-7 minutes) are still in place.
NORMAL Power Station
The NORMAL (Natural, Ordinary, Regular, Mundane, Average, Legitimate) Power Station is an approximately 12' windmill that was relocated from the back yard of someone's abandoned house to a cliff overlooking the ocean nearby to the station. The breezes on the cliff are sufficient to turn the windmill, which has been set up to be able to generate electricity. The electricity is stored in car batteries that people can bring by, swapping out full batteries and replacing them with empty batteries to charge. The batteries are used by the station to run the ham radio and charge the SCUBA tanks. There is insufficient wiring to be able to run the power directly to the station.
As of Day 866 (2020-02-19) the windmill is back up after having been dismantled in preparation for the zombie horde Medusa. Many of the batteries were ruined by the salty ocean air and now the station only has a couple. Electricity is still being generated, but the team's ability to actually use it is hampered. The only things they can really do are power the ham radio and the air compressor for the SCUBA tanks.
SCUBA
As of Broadcast Day 276, the team now has access to SCUBA equipment. Dr. Clark is the only one formally trained on how to do it, but there are plans for her to teach the others. The tanks are filled by a small air compressor, which does need electricity. Episodes using the SCUBA equipment should focus on things that Dr. Clark (and later the others) are doing underwater, how this new area of exploration makes them feel, and how doing this will help their survival.
Ham Radio
As of Broadcast Day 284, the team now has access to a ham radio. They scan the emergency frequency (146.520) and try to make contact with other survivors. Max doesn't know much about the radio setup, having grown up with his dad being a ham but not having much interest in it himself. He knows just enough to get it to turn on and change frequencies. As a result, the radio can only receive and not transmit. As of Day 516 the team now has batteries that are being charged from the local windmill, the NORMAL Power Station. Since the radio only receives the team chooses not to turn it on during the broadcast, but instead checks several frequencies every few nights to see if they can get a signal from anyone.
They do find someone speaking into the airwaves every so often and use a portable recorder, with rechargable batteries, to record the transmission and will play some back on the air from time to time.
Submission Guidelines For Ham Radio
In the real world the Mercury writing team will write some episodes for this format and will put out a call for guest voices. Guests for these episodes do not have to come to ARTC Studio to record like the rest of the team or in-person guests do, but can record their lines on their phones or whatever other recording devices they have handy. It is asked that you do your recording somewhere away from modern sounds like cars, air conditioners, construction equipment, and the like. This is still the zombie apocalypse, after all.
Contributors are also encouraged to write and record their own monologues on the subject of survival during the zombie apocalypse. You have a lot of freedom here because, since you aren't on-site at the station, you do not have to conform to many of the guidelines of settings, nor do you have to worry about writing for the existing characters. You can be from anywhere and be doing anything. We do ask for the following:
- The series is about hope. Please do not do a broadcast about a town getting wiped out by zombies unless you can make that hopeful.
- Please do not introduce new infrastructure. Small things like methanol-burning generators and solar arrays are ok, but no gas refineries and the military didn't come save you.
- The series works best when it's about stories and emotions. Talk about your survival journey. Use the zombies as a metaphor for some other, real-world, hardship you overcame. Tell a story about a time when you learned a lesson the hard way and turned that into something to build on for the future.
Email finished audio to mercury AT artc DOT org or you can upload them to a Google Drive and share to that address. Target length is 5-7 minutes, roughly 800-1000 words. The team will write introductory and closing material and edit your audio into the broadcast. Not all submissions will be used, depending on the content and how many of these we get.
Max's Farm
Max has a long-term goal of starting a farm complete with crops, livestock, and the whole nine yards. As of Day 1928 (2023-01-16) he has a female Anglo-Nubian goat named Steve, which was acquired by Agnes through a complicated series of trades in order to get Max a Christmas present in 2022. Which she didn't need to do because the team had decided not to exchange presents, but somehow Max was the only one who knew that. Steve came to the group from a community called Teagarden that we know nothing about because it's too far away to visit. Teagarden was referred to us by the community of Gritty Gulch.
Notable Groups
Medusa
Medusa is the name given to a massive horde of zombies that came through the area. The exact number of the dead in it was never definitively determined, but it was estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. Introduced on Day 661, 2019-07-29, the horde menaced the team and the surrounding area with its impending arrival until Day 774, 2019-11-19 when it arrived. Many people evacuated, but there were also heavy casualties. See the note about Communities below. On Day 782, 2019-11-27, it was revealed that Medusa's final fate was to march up to one of the nearby cliffs and plunge into the ocean. Many things that the team had relied on up to that point were destroyed and most buildings that had been cleared are re-infested with zombies. The main team was off the air for 5 days, replaced by the characters Jayme Bristowe, Mary Striker, and Adam Allen who rigged up their own transmitter in order to keep Mercury on the air in some form while the main team evacuated to Gipstein Lighthouse.
Chrysaor
Chrysaor is the name given to the group of survivors following in the wake of Medusa, looking for people who need help. The group came out of a band of three people whose original purpose in following Medusa was to loot supplies and take advantage of people who had left things behind in their evacuation, but over time their mission changed. Members of Chrysaor helped the Mercury team put the NORMAL Power Station back together. The group has an unusal leadership dynamic in that a new leader is elected each day. Chrysaor stayed in the area for several days and then moved on. Episodes written about them at this stage should take the form of letters received or memories the characters have of the time when they were still here.
The Broadcast of Hope Network
During the 5 days the main team was off the air, having evacuated to Gipstein Lighthouse, Jamey Bristowe, along with Mary Striker and Adam Allen, cobbled together a small transmitter and filled in for them. When the main team got back on the air the Broadcast of Hope Network left their gear behind and set off into the world.
The Zombie Friends Association
The Zombie Friends Association is a cult inspired by the rhetoric of Alaska Chance, who has since renounced the group. They fight for zombie rights, insisting that the living and the dead can live alongside each other. They kidnapped Max for a week, trying to recruit him, but although he had more sympathy for Alaska than the rest of the team, his views didn't extend as far as what the ZFA wanted and they let him go. The ZFA has allegedly moved out of the area and their current activities are unknown, but they remain a threat, at least in Max's mind. The ZFA moved out of the immediate area, but remains in communication with the group. They have taken the side of Goose Lake in the ongoing dispute regarding the allegedly pregnant zombie (see "Goose Lake" below)
The Wonderland Zoo
The Wonderland Zoo is a nearby zoological institution first introduced to the series on 2018-12-26 (Day 446) when Agnes found herself stalked by a lynx. The staff at the Wonderland Zoo had been trying to keep things going after the zombies came, but without regular food shipments it became too challenging. They made the difficult decision to euthanize the larger carnivores (lions, tigers, etc) and released the rest. Local communities, however, decided that they'd rather help gather food for the animals than to have them running around loose, plus many of the animals had become dependent on their keepers and no longer knew how to forage for themselves, and so they were all gathered back up a few days later with plans to provide food for them. On Day 1397 (2021-08-03) it was revealed that the last of the elephants at the zoo had passed away. On Day 2176 (2023-09-21) it was revealed that the Wonderland Zoo was actively involved in taking in animals from other zoos around the country to centralize the care they would need, thus restoring the elephant herd. They also reacquired lions, tigers, and bears (oh, my) with promises from the local population to keep hunting levels up so as to keep them fed. On Day 2627 (2024-12-16) The Wonderland Zoo contacted the team to let them know that a baby elephant had been born there.
Communities
Amauria
Amauria is a community very close by to the station, formed from the old dorm rooms of the college. It has four floors, plus a basement that is combination storage and rec room with a ping pong table (but no ping pong balls), and approximately 120 rooms available, each designed to hold two people each, although in many cases small groups will take up a single room to stay together. Max envisioned it as a stable community, similar to Deerfield, but the reality is that attracting people to it has been challenging and most people just pass through. Permanent residents include Gully (he/him), a former traveling trapper, and Sousa (they/them), an animal trainer who has been working with the local dog pack and has a couple of horses. Amauria is protected by a ring of old cars that were dragged into place and is referred to as New Carhenge. It has some amenities, including a casino (where betting is normally done with acorns or pine cones or similar low-cost items) and a brothel, at least when there are any women willing to participate. Amauria is supported by former realtors Magda and Gomez who travel the surrounding area and try to get people to move in. Another person nearby, John, seeks to rebrand the facility not as a community in the traditional sense, but as a seaside resort.
Amauria, having not been successful as a residential community, has transitioned to a seaside resort. It has a number of permanent residents now who act as staff, receiving supplies in exchange for performing needed tasks. These currently include:
- Gully - Former trapper. Technically a legacy resident rather than actual Amauria staff.
- Sousa (they/them) - Animal trainer. Works occasionally with the local dog pack and also has a small number of horses they lend out when needed or make avaiable to resort guests.
- John - Primary organizer of the resort aspect of the facility.
- Magda and Gomez - Married couple, former realtors, who work to attract either residents or resort guests to the area.
- Sparky - Electrician. Primarily helps out with maintenance of the NORMAL Power Station windmill.
- Gil Cassidy (he/him) - Housekeeper.
- Julian and Marion Holloway - Married couple. Julian is a barber, Marion is a landscaper who tends the grounds. They have an as-yet unnamed toddler (2022-12-22).
Haven
Haven is a community of uncertain location that is specifically catering to younger children who have been orphaned by the zombies. The caretakers there have experience and background in early childhood education and routinely gather resources, primarily age-appropirate books, to ensure the care and education of this vulnerable population. Need to find when we introduced it. Prior to 1554 is all I have so far.
Fiddleback Hollow
Fiddleback Hollow was a community about a full day's journey away from the station, first discovered in Year 3 (2020/09/09 Day 1069). Led by the enigmatic Christine Easterlin, Fiddleback Hollow was famously reclusive and resisted all efforts to enter into any kind of trading relationship or anything else with other nearby communities. Eventually, after not hearing from Christine for several days, Max went to check on them and found the community abandoned. He returned with a diary indicating that the entire community had been no more than 5 people the entire time, four of which had been turned into zombies. Christine Easterlin has relocated to parts unknown and still communicates with the group via ham radio transmissions and insists she is still the leader of a full-fledged community, despite the evidence suggesting that she is living on her own.
Iron Cauldron
In response to certain communities (notably Fern's Gully, Goose Lake, Bricklayer's Mortar, Scott's Glen, but there are potentially others) who have begun asking certain questions of prospective residents to weed out "witches," who the communities in question blame for the zombies, rejects from those communities started their own and embrace the witchiness of it.
Goose Lake
Goose Lake is a community that adheres to its own version of morality. Their most noteworthy event is that they have taken in a woman who was pregnant and also bitten by a zombie. The woman wanted to terminate the pregnancy, but the community confined her on the assumption that she could have a healthy baby and determined to force her to carry to term. Zombies being corpses, they cannot gestate anything and the most likely outcome is a stillbirth, but the community will not be dissuaded. As of Day 2146 (2023-08-22) the war with Goose Lake and the Zombie Friends Association ended. Goose Lake turned out their old leadership council, elected a new one, and is a more peaceful community. They still have definite beliefs about morality, but they do not hold zombies captive and do not seek conflict.
Known residents of Goose Lake
Goose Lake is a community of unknown size, but it has at least several dozen members. So far in the story we have been introduced to three.
- Paul White (played by Joe Ravenson) is a member of the advisory council and acts as a de facto leader. He is uncompromising and wants to win.
- Michael "Mike" Price (played by Brian Smith) is an Everyman member of the community. Not a member of the advisory council, but he has his ear to the ground and knows what's up. Considers the zombies to be the direct result of sin. Pretty stereotypical religious fanatic. Sees nothing wrong with witch trials and stealing supplies from suspected witches.
- Rebecca Crowell (played by Paige Steadman) is a fairly plain member of the community. She was brought on by the advisory council to make them seem more human and relatable.
Jude's Progress
Jude's Progress is a mobile community of about 342 people who had been living in the St. Jude's apartment complex, which was made uninhabitable by flooding. They have been on the move, bravely sticking together as a cohesive unit ever since. They stopped in at Amauria briefly, and considered moving into the old Fiddleback Hollow space, but ultimately rejected that idea on the grounds that Christine Easterlin was too unstable and a potential threat. Current whereabouts are unknown. Max grew somewhat close to one of the members of the leadership council, Treva, but she left with the rest of the community.
In November 2022 Jude's Progress returned to Fiddleback Hollow to take up permanent residence there. Max and Treva did not progress their relationship.
In September 2024 (Day 2536) Jude's Progress offically rebranded to Jude's Hollow to reflect their permanant residence status.
Teagarden
Teagarden is a community far to the north of the station. None of our characters have been there and we don't know much about them, but this is where Agnes got Max's goat, Steve from, so they must have livestock.
Legacy Communities
NOTE: As of Day 796, 2019-12-11 the team has heard from all communities affected by Medusa. All were wiped out and are currently uninhabitable by the living. These notes are for historical purposes only.
Deerfield
"Deerfield" is a small community of about 100 people situated about 30 miles northwest of the station. They are within broadcast range and tune in when they're able. Periodically Jamey Bristowe will drop by with news and information about what's happening in the community. Short stories about what happened recently to characters who don't typically make the journey.
Tales From Deerfield
This is an homage to the "News from Lake Woebegon" segment of "A Prairie Home Companion". Jamey will stop by occasionally with a story that might need different characters than the ones who typically come on-air or that might be too complicated to try to tell with multiple characters. Each segment will begin with "Well, it's been busy in Deerfield, my home for the last few months up there in the hills." and will conclude with "But other than that, not much happened." He should be introduced by one of the Resident Characters (Max, Agnes, Dr. Clark) but otherwise the broadcast should be a monologue with the only interaction being at the beginning and end.
Characters in Deerfield
Starr's Mill High School
Starr's Mill High School is the education facility that has been set up by the residents in Deerfield for the variously-aged children. The students are named as follows (after the students who contributed to the series in 2016-2017)
Community Leadership
Community Leadership is made up of particularly engaged fans on Twitter
Community Residents
Community residents are made up of Patreon supporters. As new supporters come on, they can move into the community. If a Patron stops supporting the show, the resident will move out to a different community.
Saint Eloise Row
To the south of the station. A group of farmers down the 20 mile stretch of County Road 65. Excellent food production. Led by Bobby Blue.
Rockport Community Project
About 40 miles north. It’s a culmination of some former subdivisions with a total number of around 120 people. Think upper class, upper middle class folks — attorneys, web developers, doctors, engineers — those kinda people. They are near the coast and have an impressive 20-foot steel barricade that covers the perimeter. Led by James Kingston. Rockport and St. Eloise have an uneasy trading relationship due to an incident that left Bobby Blue's son with a gunshot injury, although the boy survived.
Music on site
While WEHG is a college radio station, the primary format was talk, therefore there is not much music on site. The equipment necessary to interface with the broadcast tower was disassembled and parts were used to repair the broadcast equipment, so no music will be part of the broadcast. Furthermore, to conserve power the characters will not listen to much music off-air either. That said the characters do have access to a small handful of CDs that include the overplayed classics - Ravel's Bolero, Pachelbel's Canon in D, and a few other orchestral works.