Posted on 08/20/2012 6:13:28 AM PDT by raptor22
National Security: A new TV series demonstrates graphically how vulnerable our society is to an attack using weapons our enemies, including rogue state Iran, could use tomorrow — and the importance of missile defense.
Set in a future "where every single piece of technology — computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights — has mysteriously blacked out forever," according to the promos, the drama series is fiction, but the threat it depicts, the end of technological society and life as we know it, is a frighteningly real possibility.
We've warned of the threat many times, but the damage an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy caused by an explosion of charged particles, such as by a high-altitude nuclear detonation, is a subject that makes eyes glaze over.
Let's hope this series will show the apocalyptic nature of this threat in terms average people can understand.
Eric Kripke, one of the show's executive producers, said, "We did our homework and came up with something that's actually plausible." Indeed, the script could have been taken directly from a report from the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse, which was established by Congress to assess the dangers of an EMP attack.
The report warned that it "has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of U.S. society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power."
As the Heritage Foundation reports, an EMP attack "would fundamentally change the world. Airplanes would fall from the sky; most cars would be inoperable; electrical devices would fail. Water, sewer and electrical networks would fail simultaneously. Systems of banking, energy, transportation, food production and delivery, water, emergency services and even cyberspace..."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
I have two old cars that will still work. So does my son-in-law. As for gas, there will be thousands of non-op cars everywhere. Take a low-profile bucket of the type for draining oil, but use it to catch gas after punching a hole in the bottom of car gas tanks with an awl and screwdriver. Plenty of gas for the road. This is what the Road Warrior did.
Yes cars & internal combustion engines that don’t have solid state electronics bout the older points & condenser ignitions would work . Diesel engines without electronic fuel injection could also work. The key is not having electronic controls in the machinery. Also vacuum tube radios would work if they can get power.
One is now a soccer stadium the other a park.
They are not hot spots humans cannot go to for 20,000 years as we were told years ago.
On electronics older stuff tubes relays type stuff will not be affected.
I mailed my son one of these, and every New Yorker, and elevator riding city dweller, should have one on their key chain.
This $12.00 light burns a single AAA battery for 21 hours, and is regulated to give the same brightness, through much of those 21 hours, and it is totally bullet proof. Fenix EO1 key chain flashlight
You write this as though I am expected to bow my head in the presence of a Jew when in FACT most of them are Democrats!
So in the future, how about saying, "Expect this show to trash conservative Christians and Jews."
Point taken. Expect this show to trash conservative Christians and Orthodox Jews...
I know people in Western states who have reloading equipment and make their own ammo. It's actually not that difficult.
Hollywood has always been into firearm alternatives: bows, knives, swords and whips. They must think they are super-heroes.
These anti-gun, holier-than-thou, brie-eating, wine-sipping firearms-poo-poo'ers will discover the ineffectiveness of ancients weapons in the hands of the untrained/unskilled against armed opponent(s). Firearms will be key in fighting off mass attack.
But more than shooting skills are needed: Fieldcraft ("tactics and techniques") should be a topic of study as well. Better start "networking" now. Because the sole survivor will have no one to watch his 6, 3 or 9.
First, the title of this post is wrong. It has nothing to do with an EMP attack. According to the web, the show follows a “magical event” in which chemistry — including such basic compounds as gunpowder — stops working (at which point all life would instantly cease), all electronics stop working, and every machine stops working. This isn’t sci fi, it’s fantasy. Bleah. Abrams remains the most over-rated writer I can name.
Yeah, Whitley Streiber tends to be a bit spotty in the quality of his work. “Nature’s End” isn’t bad, either, but not as good as Warday. For reason, I also like the one movie, Wolfen, based on his novel of the same name, but others on FR (and elsewhere) have dissed it.
“Humm, tell me more. What can you do to put the power back on for the 260 million of the rest of us?”
I’m also fairly positive that there are more people like me out there. Don’t worry. It won’t be as bad as you are apparently being led to believe.
There were some depressing movies made then, even a miniseries on the Soviets conquering us, “Amerika”, the BBC made “Threads”.
This movie is an Apocalypse classic, “The Day After” that affected Reagan deeply, and our national policy, “Testament” was so depressing that when it ended, the theater was so silent and sad, that it set me and my brother into a laughing jag.
The Soviet Union seemed to have some veto powers over Hollywood at the time, and Amerika almost never got shown, but conservatives started demanding that ABC release it.
A truly great post apocalyptic movie is from 1975, “A Boy and His Dog”
I know this movie of which you speak. Amazing ending.
It did happen -- look up "Starfish Prime".
The two important factors are :
1) height in the atmosphere (250 miles is pretty good)
2) Gamma rays produced by the warhead (knocks electrons in the upper atmosphere loose, they get accelerated by the Earth's magnetic field).
Try looking at this post and follow the links in it.
Cheers!
They showed “The Day After” during my freshman year in college, when I was in ROTC.
Me and my buddies were laughing and cheering when the “crowd pleasers” were detonating all over Kansas.
Some people just can’t take a joke.
I can see stumbling around in the dark for a few days after an event like this, but the main story is supposed to take place 15 years after the lights go out. You’d expect anyone who has managed to survive that long to be fairly adept. Even the younger characters would be as good with the postindustrial technology as modern teens are with smart phones and computers.
The future isn’t what it used to be.
I would bet a lot of Steammpunkers will save the world.
What is Steampunk?
Personally I love the concept, almost anything we take for granted is run instead off of steam, trains, tanks, cars, even computers. Many a surrealistic anime film has been made and its a very popular underground cult.
Of course Hollyweird wouldn’t DARE create a film on how all America after such an attack reverts to steam without falling into a nationwide ruin.
BTW this series is on a prime time station? so I won’t see any of it then.
Oh yeah it may be inevitable about an EMP attack, so its time to hoard your coal and get yourself a steam engine conversion for your SUV.
What slackers. The family of five in The Swiss Family Robinson had disassembled a shipwreck and built their treehouse with running water within days of their life changing "disaster". In their spare time, they hauled the ship's organ off the wreck and installed it into their treehouse for entertainment.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.