I’m not sure why but I’ve always found the Civil Defense to be really cool, and I often try to work it into my stories in one form or another (though none of those have been published yet). When I was helping with reorganizing FA!’s box text on the military, I thought it’d be a good addition.
It fulfills the role of being an organized, primarily civilian, primarily voluntary disaster relief organization. It has a long history in dozens of countries, in one form or another, all around the world. Its provided training, search and rescue, preventative measures, emergency response, and recovery, in everything from wars, to natural disasters, and even the Chernobyl disaster. And the different formats used in all those countries give us a historical precident for almost any organizational structure we choose. Want to make it an auxiliary of a military branch? The US did that at some points. Directly part of the military? Some Soviet countries ran it that way. A purely civilian volunteer charity? Britain has recently revived theirs and is running it like that. They can even function as a volunteer militia, like the British home guard, or the American Civil Air Patrol who Wikipedia claims once dropped bombs on axis submarines.
And they have history. People like that kind of lineage, the sense of being part of something that dug people out of rubble in the blitz, that cleared radioactive debris in Chernobyl. There's a long history of sacrifice and service to draw on. And one with comparatively few atrocities on the record.
They're even pretty cool visually. They have the iconic blue triangle motif common in most countries, and a blue and white color scheme not really associated with combat.
Whether you need someone to respond to wildfires, to assist paramedics, to build levees in a flood, or to distribute and build tornado shelters, it's not a far leap from what they've already done. Like Noir said on the discord, given the scale of the Global Climate Wars in the game’s backstory, it seems pretty likely that every government on the planet would start handing out shovels and white helmets again.
And I think it fits the anarchist influences in solarpunk. Putting some of the responsibilities and capabilities for disaster relief back in the hands of the community. It's also a decent role for a varied cast of characters in a RPG. People with regular lives and skills who can be tasked with a quest and be granted some degree of official legitimacy.
When I wrote up the Civil Defense section for the game manual, I tried to provide enough flexibility to allow players and GMs the option to adjust the local Civil Defense chapter to fit their campaign. I like the idea of modern chapters tracing their lineage to different local groups, a postwar militia here, a wildland fire fighter unit there. Like the Defense served as a way to bring various factions (especially armed ones) into the fold, providing them with improved legitimacy in trade for increasing oversight and standardization. So while they’re supplied and trained by the same organization, at the unit level they have some leeway in how they operate and what they specialize in, which can conveniently fit any campaign that wants to use them.
I will say, if you're getting into emergency response, absolutely expect the other responders to be assholes. At least coming from an office background, I've heard things that'll make a sailor blush. Not only in dark humor, which can be incredibly dark, but casual sexism, racism, transphobia, you name it. Many suffer from PTSD and alcohol abuse. Only recently has the attitude started to shift from "bottle it up and drink" to openly discussing mental health. And it's just starting to shift.
Also just recently there's larger awareness that the field of volunteer emergency response cannot afford to push away 60% of the potential volunteers, so it's slowly becoming more inclusive. Because volunteerism is at an all time low, my county is seeing several stations with only two or three active members. Several stations have closed already, and more will close every year unless they find a way to bring in more people. And this at a time when houses burn faster and hotter than ever because they're filled with petroleum products like plastic. So you see these old crusty firefighters making a depraved bigoted comment then immediately be like "shit, sorry, old habits" and legitimately be apologetic.
The hardest part for me has been the other responders. It's a different culture, different worldview. They're feeling extreme pressure as the systems are falling apart due to lack of money and volunteers. I'm sticking with it, but it's pretty hard sometimes. I decided I'm going to be the change I want to see in the service. I can't stand back and make an entire field change before I'll join up, so I join up and do things differently. If I waited for all the bigots to leave or change I'd be waiting forever.
Now depending on where you are, you could have volunteer EMS and Fire, or both career only, or a mix. I'm in an area that's almost entire volunteer fire and paid EMS. My station though is half paid and half volunteer for both (which yes it's super complex). The stations around us are all volunteer fire, but the volunteers get $5-10 per call as a stipend for pocket money. Go into the major city, and it's all career for both. So it really depends on how built up your local area is. If you really want to be a part, most volunteer stations will take someone from out of town, with the caveat that'll you'll need to just go hang out at the station (or even work from the station like I do) to get on enough calls to make the monthly minimum. My station has an area I can setup and work remote from, so I'll do that sometimes to mix it up. Often you'll get a free credit just for being there for a few hours.
That's very interesting, and I have a lot of admiration for your efforts to be the bridge. I had a friend who tried to become a firefighter in Los Angeles (and LA needs fire fighters). She was working as an EMT, and she happens to be a black woman. I have to emphasize that she's got great people skills. Very self assured by not aggressive, very considerate but not a pushover. I would describe her as someone with a really ideal attitude, and she said that eventually she just wanted to leave because there was a such a regressive culture, and there's only so much disrespect you can brush off.
I think you're right that change is hard, and having someone who understands the old culture and the new culture like yourself is probably really necessary.
What part of PA, btw? I'm from Pittsburgh, and went to Penn State for college in State College.