Chapter 01 · The SignalFM 93-07
The Signal
Someone is still transmitting from Greene County. This is the shape of what they built after Knox went quiet — and why it is not another pile of crates with a flag on top.
What the Network is
After Louisville stopped answering, the people around Ruckersville did not wait to be remembered. They claimed a patch of dirt. They put a stall in it. They hired whoever was still walking. They kept a radio on. That habit is the Ruckersville Zombie Survivor Network: not a government, not a charity, a county that decided property, prices, and the living still mattered.
The books are kept at Net Control. A claim, a purchase, a hire, an incoming crate — none of those are a handshake and a hope. If Net Control did not write it down, it did not happen. You request. The Network decides. You live with the result.
// NET CONTROL — RUCKERSVILLE
This frequency is for the living. Charters, tills, wages, and the sky. If you can hear this, you are close enough to be useful. If you cannot, someone else is already using your dirt.
Keep the radio on. Believe it last.
The six pillars
Six things hold the Network up. Each has its own chapter. Read the one that matches the life you intend to lead, or read them in order and then pick.
Settlements
Plant a Settlement Charter. Watch the border in green before you commit. Ranks, build rights, a flag in the dirt, a tax treasury on every trade inside your lines.
Chapter 05 · Territory →
Commerce
Vendor stalls on a ledger Net Control keeps — never a crate you can pocket. Buy and sell against real coin. The till is private. The tax is not.
Chapter 06 · The Market →
Dynamic events
Air drops, military cordons, distress beacons, supply contracts, contest parties. Announced Exact, Fuzzed, or Encrypted. The map never knows more than you were told.
Chapter 07 · Airwaves →
Survivor NPCs
Wanderers, traders, raiders, guards, companions, labourers, soldiers, rescuees, contestants. Hire them. Work them. They shoot back. Standing remembers.
Chapter 08 · Other Survivors →
Six workshops
Computers, Salvage, Chemistry, Gunsmithing, Commerce, Performance — each with its own skill, its own ladder, and the paper still sitting in county houses.
Chapter 09 · Workshops →
Twelve occupations
From Sysop to Street Performer. Who you were in June is who you still are in July. A life you can walk out as and still be living a month later.
Chapter 04 · Occupations →
What this is not
- It is not a new county. Knox Country is still the map. The Network is what you do in it.
- It is not a crate of miracle rifles. The workshop firearms wait on paper you find, or on a Gunsmith who already knows the patterns.
- It is not a handshake economy. If a window refuses you, it will say why. Forcing the issue does not move the books.
- It is not the dead with nametags. Survivors walk, fight, reload, and drop what they were actually holding.
How to read this book
Chapters 02 and 03 get you into the world. Chapter 04 is the character you will live with. 05 through 08 are the Network itself — dirt, money, the air, the living. 09 is the work of your hands. 10 is the Knox County survival that still applies, rewritten for a county where other people (and other survivors) have opinions.
Boxes printed in forest green are operator’s notes — standing orders from the field office, the parts that still have to be said plainly. Boxes in oxblood are cautions. Navy panels are radio traffic. Believe the radio last.