Countup from Dystopia

A very minor note: GURPS OGRE.

It's not particularly earth-shattering or anything, but while consulting my copy of GURPS Ogre in preparation for the release of the game later this year I noted in the book's timeline that this year (2012) is supposed to be the one where the USA runs out of oil.

Which is, of course, not even remotely true.  But it's based on assessments that a lot of people took seriously ten to thirty years ago - and, to be fair, those people were generally acting in good faith when they received the information, even if the people that disseminated it may not have been - so expect a rash of curiously-dated gaming and SF material to intrude on one's consciousness.  So it goes.

Car Wars

Name: Car Wars, by Steve Jackson Games

Type: Board/Roleplaying Game (armored and armed car warfare on the dystopian highways of a future America).

Written in: 1980, to begin with; there have been multiple supplements since.  1996 is the publication date of the latest roleplaying supplement (GURPS Autoduel).

Set in: 2030-2046; I'm doing this one because according to the official timeline Rounds One and Two of Everything Turns To Crap were supposed to have happened by now.

Why it's a dystopia: For our purposes?  Well, at this point the country's supposed to have lost Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana in a civil war; legalized blood sports; watched the environment go Full Metal Ehrlich; and suffered through a decade of domestic terrorism.  And this is the part of the timeline that the future inhabitants are going to be nostalgic about.

Why it's significant: Honestly?  Much as I love this game - and I do, I do - I'm doing it because it's a handy referent to peak oil in popular culture.

What happened?  Well, the environmental estimates were as accurate as they always were - for some reason, radical Greenies really do tend to forget that rich people breathe oxygen, drink water, and metabolize organic material, too - but it's the peak oil thing that is probably the tell, here.