tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post5771245256883232067..comments2023-12-29T04:06:05.923-05:00Comments on The Blood Angels: by Jawaballs: Revolution? It's on... er... off...Jawaballshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06188462457051627625noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-72537701795804709952012-10-04T19:51:06.239-04:002012-10-04T19:51:06.239-04:00Yonkers is he crazy way too close to the city,I...Yonkers is he crazy way too close to the city,I'm on the Island that too would fill up from city refuges fast.<br />You need a boat and head north to Conn.<br />If you do not have your own boat,you better have a gun and take a boat.<br /><br />But the ultimate apocalypse escape device that is possible for anyone to operate is a hot air balloon Will Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03324842377402443887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-59220419752468344202012-09-27T20:57:18.250-04:002012-09-27T20:57:18.250-04:00Hey Bob any interest in playing paintball this wee...Hey Bob any interest in playing paintball this weekend? A big game is going on at Yankee Paintball and Im going.Jawaballshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06188462457051627625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-84528283802761954252012-09-27T20:14:07.699-04:002012-09-27T20:14:07.699-04:00Oh and yah, I know Chernobyl was not a nuclear exp...Oh and yah, I know Chernobyl was not a nuclear explosion, just a huge bang that resulted in a lot of nuclear waste being exposed to the atmosphere. I read a lot about it, info is surprisingly hard to find! I also saw a bunch of videos by a girl who sneaks into the area on her motorcycle. Interesting stuff. But I do know that had they not the ability and sacrifice to cap that sucker off with concrete, the would would be in much worse shape today. Jawaballshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06188462457051627625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-10067966055439834862012-09-27T20:09:26.086-04:002012-09-27T20:09:26.086-04:00Ordo Bob you are near Indian Point? Heh we should ...Ordo Bob you are near Indian Point? Heh we should plan and coordinate our escape routes! Fritz is in Westchester too! He has it in his head that he is going to defend his house just outside of Yonkers, I think he is crazy! I will actually be heading north through New Canaan and Ridgefield towards upstate NY where I have lots of family and friends, farmers and hunters type. It is pretty much a safe rural hike most of the way up past Albany on the eastern side of the waterways in Vermont, crossing over into NY around Ticonderoga. We even have a fortified island campsite! :)Jawaballshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06188462457051627625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-43376669661508225032012-09-27T20:01:22.157-04:002012-09-27T20:01:22.157-04:00I too have a survival pack and weapons ready to go...I too have a survival pack and weapons ready to go, not so much for something fantastical like this, but a hurricane, earthquake (haiti scared me), or....yeah, despite my rhetoric...something bad at Indian Point (my worry is more terrorist related than 'accident').<br /><br />I think The Road has been the most accurate portrayal of post-apocolyptic life. We're food, not much else.<br /><br />As for nuclear plants, the Control Rods actually stop fission, they're pulled out of the reactor to increase power, and held up by electrical 'latches'. When power goes away, the rods fall in, absorbing neutrons, and stopping fission. After that, it's just decay heat (which is manageable, but still potential meltdown material...but containment should remain intact).<br /><br />Remember, nuclear plants do NOT result in nuclear explosion. There's no where near the density of fissionables to achieve that (though Chernobyl came damned close!)...thank goodness.<br />Stupid Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00635724267013590918noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-17904355838121304962012-09-27T20:00:26.799-04:002012-09-27T20:00:26.799-04:00Oh I agree Hulk, I would imagine whatever populati...Oh I agree Hulk, I would imagine whatever population remained would move south and learn farming. I was just pointing out that it was not entirely unthinkable for an army of workers to clear out a sizable city. Say, a warlord wanted to claim the Chicago waterfront, and clear a zone from the the outskirts of the city to there. It would be possible. There are probably WAY better choices I know, but I am just trying to visualize how and why there would be inhabitants of Chicago 15 years after the blackout. <br /><br />Why would they fish there, when there are no doubt countless small towns with workable marinas dotting the shore.<br /><br />And I think the number would definitely be around 95%. Mostly due to just people killing each other though. Every time there is a fight at my school I catch glimpses of what it would be like in a chaotic post apocalypse. Order devolves and base human nature takes hold. We might as well cancel school for the day as there is pretty much no learning going on. I would definitely not want to be in that city after this blackout. <br /><br />And agreed on the houses. I didn't bother going there were many deeper bones to pick. <br /><br />I have to thank NBC though, it gave us something to discuss here that was not allies and fortifications! (Though Chaos reared it's ugly head)Jawaballshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06188462457051627625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-8591919670154618302012-09-27T19:19:57.875-04:002012-09-27T19:19:57.875-04:00Oh, and the die off would happen much faster than ...Oh, and the die off would happen much faster than a few years. I'd say after the first winter you'd be looking at a 95%+ die off in 1st world countries.Hulksmashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06417830994213666149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-39407495690336001372012-09-27T19:17:49.534-04:002012-09-27T19:17:49.534-04:00@Hermit
It is out :) Finished it last week.
@Jaw...@Hermit<br /><br />It is out :) Finished it last week.<br /><br />@Jawa<br /><br />I think you're taking way to much for granted. Where are you going to find 10,000 people after the die off to clear out a city like that? Where are you going to find the food for them? We're talking high calorie diets if you don't want them to die and compound the problem. How are you going to handle the disease that will happen handling dead bodies all day and without modern plumbing? Why reclaim a city where food transport is going to be nearly impossible? <br /><br />Every hand on the planet that's still alive is going to be focussed on food. And that's going to take years to learn those skills and start to create a surplus.<br /><br />How many people know how to live through an upper midwest winter without power? <br /><br />Sidenote, the fact that they have an entire cul-de-sac of suburban homes that are in pretty perfect condition after 15 years of upper midwest weather. I call bullshit!Hulksmashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06417830994213666149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-77279790547395943362012-09-27T16:18:23.651-04:002012-09-27T16:18:23.651-04:00Thanks for clearing up some of the questions on th...Thanks for clearing up some of the questions on the nuclear reactors guys. Silos were a minor issue. Not too concerned with them. My basic knowledge of how a nuclear power plant works is that the rods boil water to create steam that turns turbines that generate power. <br /><br />At the very least my understanding is that the rods have to be cooled while they do their job or things go boom. Meltdown. That is where I get the concern. If this power stopping event were to occur while the rods were engaged in doing their thing, wouldn't their thing go on and on, escalating until explosion? Unless of course the failsafes that disengage the process work without power. <br /><br />And hulk you are spot on. I am thinking Donner Party meets The Road. Now, the narrator at the beginning did say that if you did not leave the city, you died. I think we can assume that this level of destruction happened. The people that we see now are the remnants of the people who got out. <br /><br />I would imagine the first five years of The Revolution would have been truly devastating while the populations shrunk to managable sizes that could be supported by themselves. <br /><br />I picture piles of burning bodies and Chicago would be a tomb.<br /><br />BUT it is not unthinkable that a group of survivors could recover.<br /><br />Some grizly numbers:<br /><br />Lets say there are ten thousand able bodied survivors. They are put into bands of 10, and tasked with clearing out 50 bodies per day, per band. In a month, that is one million bodies cleared out of buildings and hauled off to a truly massive burning pit. In three months, chicago could be taken off the "Tomb" list. <br /><br />Chicago in this show now is probably no more than a trade market and fishing village. <br /><br />Living just outside of New York, I shudder to think of the carnage that would happen here within days of this event. This is why I keep a survival pack ready to go. :) Rifle in hand I would load my son into his little red wagon, sling my pack, and head north on the quick.Jawaballshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06188462457051627625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-79120065801898315522012-09-27T15:51:04.643-04:002012-09-27T15:51:04.643-04:00"Dies the Fire" is the story they seemed..."Dies the Fire" is the story they seemed to have ripped off to make "Revolution". One day for no reason all electric stuff just stops working and the world goes to hell in a basket pretty quick. In "DtF" though it goes farther, steam power and even gunpowder doesnt work. What the people in "DtF" though do to to live through it is alot diffrent. S M Sterling is on book 8 of the series now, hopefully 9 will be out soon (cross fingers and toes). Its a good read. I would recomend it. Hermithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10660059144530844658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-36822883170830128042012-09-27T15:06:41.509-04:002012-09-27T15:06:41.509-04:00Regarding the hamlet so close to Chicago let's...Regarding the hamlet so close to Chicago let's really break this down:<br /><br />Chicago has a total population right now of approximately 2.7 million. The estimate of the metro area is over 5 million. How much food and water do 5 million people eat and drink? 5 Million people without running water, food rotting within days, no food trucks bringing in food and who have never had to hunt or prepare food from scratch over a fire they made themselves.<br /><br />Guess which food is the easiest to catch once stuff in the markets starts to run out? We are. Let's be generous and assume the electricity ran out at the optimum time. Enough time for people in farming counties to realize what's happened, get enough people together, and get a small percentage of the harvest in (no way they would manage more than 50% and that is way stretching). They have to keep enough seed so there will be food next year and now there is no way to transport food to major centers of people. <br /><br />Do you know what's within 80 miles of downtown chicago? Suburbs....Guess how far most people would manage to walk in a day? Not far enough. The die out would be massive, the diseases would be insane, the total lack of available food and clean water would be unimaginable. With few exceptions cities would become giant graves. The ones that live would be the ones who got out early, fast and far.<br /><br />A suburb wouldn't do it. And this is the simplified version.Hulksmashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06417830994213666149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-1374856492523662882012-09-27T15:01:53.931-04:002012-09-27T15:01:53.931-04:00I agree, I mostly like the show, but they missed o...I agree, I mostly like the show, but they missed on a lot of small stuff, my first thought was why do all these people look like they walked out of an Abercrombie add, when they ahve been hand making clothes for 15 years. That thought was quickly followed up by the thought that the amish would be thriving in this situation. breng77https://www.blogger.com/profile/14856443949878311347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-74789658771206392122012-09-27T14:51:35.614-04:002012-09-27T14:51:35.614-04:00Dies the Fire follows a couple of individuals/grou...Dies the Fire follows a couple of individuals/groups after an "event". <br /><br />The "event" is basically all energy function above a certain level stops (energy seems to bleed off but this is only briefly discussed later). Basically guns don't shoot, electricity doesn't work, even steam generation and we're pretty much back to wind, water, and muscle. <br /><br />The first three books in the series are basically about the time directly after everything stops and the growth of various societies. It has a lot of interesting things going for it and addresses most of your issues with show :)<br /><br />After the first 3 books it takes on a slightly more post-apoc fantasy feel as it opens up with the kids of the original series who have grown up in a world without anything and follows them on a trip from west coast oregon to nantucket off the east coast.<br /><br />It's an excellent series in my opion but the first 3 books are amazing.Hulksmashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06417830994213666149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-42441610648362603572012-09-27T14:14:31.318-04:002012-09-27T14:14:31.318-04:00I had a giant response typed up...took me hours......I had a giant response typed up...took me hours...but blogger won't let me post it: apparently my junk is too big.<br /><br />This happens to me all the time.<br /><br />So, the short version: I operated naval nuclear propulsion plants for 10 years. I have a pretty good working knowledge of how a PWR works, and a basic understanding of other types.<br /><br />Skipping around a bit, you do not need to shut down a nuclear weapon. Quite the opposite, you need electricity to set it off (most use conventional explosives to compress fissionables to generate neutrons to fire fusion...that needs detonators and precise firing sequence). I don't understand what your concern about weapon silos are. They're just big (VERY big) paper-weights now.<br /><br />Nuclear plants similarly do not need power to shut down. The "rods" that move inside are made of neutronium, a substance that absorbs neutrons that are required to sustain the fission reaction. When the rods go out of the core, more neutrons stay in, fissions increase, power increases. When the rods go in, more neutrons are absorbed, fissions decrease, power decreases.<br /><br />If all electricity stopped working, all reactors would shutdown automatically.<br /><br />There is still a problem of decay heat removal, but in MOST reactor designs this can be handled without electrical power, at least to the point of preventing release of fission products outside the primary containment.<br /><br />Even those that do will be small localized radioactive hot-spots inside buildings that are inside buildings. <br /><br />Moreover, the release of fission products and radioactive contamination from the plant that would most closely resemble this type of event (Kyoto) has been really minimal. Just because there's a detectable increase in radiation above background does not mean it is anywhere near enough to have any adverse physiological effect.<br /><br />My big problem with the show...what about the electricty in living organisms...you know, like the stuff that makes our neurological systems work?<br /><br />How can terrorists stop one of the primary forces of nature: charged particle interactions.<br /><br />The show is bullshit. No suspension of disbelief for me!Stupid Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00635724267013590918noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-55375192235496204512012-09-27T14:11:05.594-04:002012-09-27T14:11:05.594-04:00On the nuclear reactor I work on if the power goes...On the nuclear reactor I work on if the power goes out then the absorbtion rods drop in. This stops any cascade reactions and renders the plant safe. Don't know how they all work everywhere else but a loss of power is not fatal to all nuclear plants. Although I am looking forward to this TV progeamme coming to the UK.Runitsgoggalorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17051728251258984223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-8635520332708081552012-09-27T13:55:32.275-04:002012-09-27T13:55:32.275-04:00Anything capable of arresting electrical devices l...Anything capable of arresting electrical devices like batteries or stop an alternator from creating power most likely would destabalize our planets electrical field enough to knock out our ozone layer killing everything on earth instantly.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07645184073316166675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-78610994171727400082012-09-27T13:54:29.875-04:002012-09-27T13:54:29.875-04:00And yah, I am willing to accept the Nuclear thing....And yah, I am willing to accept the Nuclear thing. Sure if they had the power to disable all electrical function, they could have hacked and shut down the Nuke plants. But it is something that needs to be dealt with. Jawaballshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06188462457051627625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-33838847053894440352012-09-27T13:53:21.004-04:002012-09-27T13:53:21.004-04:00So you are saying that there is no way that little...So you are saying that there is no way that little hamlet would have survived so close to the absolute anarchy that would have devolved near Chicago? Elaborate! I will check out Dies The Fire. Whats it about?Jawaballshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06188462457051627625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2376208744490382379.post-75249032584402781892012-09-27T13:48:05.967-04:002012-09-27T13:48:05.967-04:00We're pretty much in the same boat but for dif...We're pretty much in the same boat but for different reasons. I'll explain :)<br /><br />Personally, I'm willing to forgive the nuclear meltdown thing. It's science fiction, a simple nod at some point to how people able to shut down electical movement could probably hack computers and shut down nuclear plants.<br /><br />What I'm not willing to forgive? The absurdity of "making" it thru the loss of electricity within a few days walk of downtown Chicago. Really? No power in the 4th largest metro area in the country and they managed to fort up less than 80 miles from downtown?<br /><br />If you haven't read it I'd suggest Dies The Fire by S.M. Stirling. Anyone who's read this would understand why I'm at least a little annoyed at the show. <br /><br />That said, I'll watch it since there isn't much decent tv out there but I expect it to last a single season without modification, if that.Hulksmashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06417830994213666149noreply@blogger.com