The Flare was one thing I stole directly and shamelessly from Buck Godot. It was there, in part, as a "good thing we spread out, nyah nyah nyah Senator Proxmire" element; knowing my fondness for disaster novels and post-apocalyptic scenarios, I might have set it up to let me run adventures on a post-apoc Earth without invoking the depressimistic cliche of The Great Big War.

If I ever do dust this off and write it up for publication as an SF-RPG, I'd probably leave the Flare out. Shoot, I can get enough happy post-apoc weirdness just from environmental degradation.

I'm not sure I'd use this as my first choice for a published setting, though -- If I have mechanics that can handle nonhumans well, I'll want more possibilities for alien PCs.