Have Plasma, Will Travel

Have Plasma, Will Travel is a post-War pulp magazine series popular on the West Coast during 2281. It is a semi-fictional series starring Sergeant Granite and the Enclave Control Company after the destruction of Control Station ENCLAVE, as well as their founding of the Liberty Company mercenary group.
==Background==
Roughly a decade after the destruction of the Enclave’s oil rig, the wild stories of Granite’s Control Company and their mainland exploits found popularity in the young adults of New California and Nevada. An anonymous young writer would submit a story to Californian Tales, a pulp magazine series printed in New Reno. The writer claimed they had heard the story from Granite himself and was determined to share it with others. Published in the magazine under the name “Tough as Granite,” it told the tale of Granite’s squad saving a settlement from a band of raiders in Nevada. Extremely popular, the story over doubled Californian Tales’ sales and the publisher eventually convinced the writer to produce more for the magazine.
The Have Plasma, Will Travel series and other popular stories in the magazine are believed to have spurred the writing and journalism movement of the NCR’s Tibbett-era. The stories of the series are highly embellished and often outright fictional retellings of the mercenary group’s adventures, a well-known fact that has had little impact on its popularity. 
==2250s crackdowns==
Elected in 2253, President Wendell Peterson created the Department of Internal Security to consolidate law enforcement and internal security in the growing New California Republic. One branch of this department known as the Directorate on Unpatriotic Activities began to crack down on media that they deemed to “conflict with New Californian values.” Californian Tales was targeted heavily due to the content of Have Plasma, Will Travel, officially for “glorifying anti-NCR terrorists,” however many fans believe that the real reason is for its critiques of the NCR’s government. 
Several stories feature a recurring antagonist, an NCR brahmin baron that uses a variety of underhanded means to steal land from smaller landowners. Another features Granite’s squad and an NCR detachment putting aside their differences to protect a community from a jet cartel.After defeating the raiders the NCR detachment’s leader is to be court-martialed for working with ex-Enclave forces but later escapes and joins Granite’s mercenaries. This is strikingly similar to the actual defection of an NCR officer now believed to be working for Liberty Company. Newer stories show the mercenaries being outright hired by the Republic to deal with issues they are unequipped for or don’t have the jurisdiction to directly get involved in.Likely inspired by the evidence found by an advocacy group within the NCR which implicates the military in hiring private military companies, possibly even Liberty Company itself, to act as proxy forces in the parts of Oregon and Nevada where the Republic’s jurisdiction does not officially extend. The DIS outlawed the sale of Californian Tales within the NCR, which forced the magazine to pull the series in 2258 despite much outcry from fans. A rival magazine known as the Armageddon Rag used the temporary banning of Californian Tales to surpass its rival and eventually becoming the most popular pulp magazine in NCR territory. Californian Tales returned some time later after dropping Have Plasma, Will Travel, but never met the same success as it had before.
It wasn’t until the 2270s, over a decade after being removed from print, that the series would resume as its own independent pulp magazine. Have Plasma, Will Travel short novellas take up the majority of issues, telling the story of Granite’s mercenaries after restructuring into the Liberty Company in the 2260s. Produced outside of NCR territory, the issues are smuggled through the Republic’s overstretched Customs and Border Security Service. Many issues feature short stories and other writings similarly banned in the NCR.Issue #7 features a short story, “The Maw of the Bear,” written by a member of a tribe detailing the discrimination they and other “tribals” face under the NCR and the abolishment of many traditional ceremonies under the War on Chems.
==Notes==
Category:Periodicals