I want hope

[Seggybop]

Plan #15. SIOP-5D. March 1980. 40000 targets.

Is that 40000 nuclear attack targets?! O_O

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yes. I also imagine I'd be close to some major ones, since I have Liverpool - a very major port - close by and Sheffield was bound to be hit too, being a military and metal smelting centre.

[SirNitram]

You want hope?

The biggest bogeyman that can be conjured.. Iran.. Is falling apart as it's population drops from both low fertility rates and emigration, and it's economy is in the toilet.

That's it. You listen to the fucktards talking about Iran being worse than the USSR and you remember that. Then you'll realize that the future isn't scary at all, and that's without the knowledge that science is making our lives better by the day.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Could be worse. We could finally get peace and unity on Terra, and then, out of the blue, someone not of our species has their old decision not to let us prosper come to a climax.

All the energy put into achieving that velocity had transformed the Intruder into a kinetic storage device of nightmarish design. If it struck a world, every gram of the vessel’s substance would be received by that world as the target in a linear accelerator receives a spray of relativistic buckshot. Someone, somewhere, had built and was putting to use a relativistic bomb -- a giant, roving atom smasher aimed at worlds...

The gamma-ray shine of the decelerating half was also detectable, but it made no difference. One of the iron rules of relativistic bombardment was that if you could see something approaching at 92 percent of light speed, it was never where you saw it when you saw it, but was practically upon you...

In the forests below, lakes caught the first rays of the rising Sun and threw them back into space. Abandoning the two-dimensional sprawl of twentieth-century cities, Sri Lanka Tower, and others like it, had been erected in the world’s rain forests and farmlands, leaving the countryside virtually uninhabited. Even in Africa, where more than a hundred city arcologies had risen, nature was beginning to renew itself. It was a good day to be alive, she told herself, taking in the peace of the garden. Then, looking east, she saw it coming -- at least her eyes began to register it -- but her optic nerves did not last long enough to transmit what the eyes had seen.

It was quite small for what it could do -- small enough to fit into an average-sized living room -- but it was moving at 92 percent of light speed when it touched Earth’s atmosphere. A spear point of light appeared, so intense that the air below snapped away from it, creating a low-density tunnel through which the object descended. The walls of the tunnel were a plasma boundary layer, six and a half kilometers wide and more than 160 deep -- the flaming spear that Virginia’s eyes began to register -- with every square foot of its surface radiating a trillion watts, and still its destructive potential was but fractionally spent.

Thirty-three kilometers above the Indian Ocean, the point began to encounter too much air. It tunneled down only eight kilometers more, then stalled and detonated, less than two-thousandths of a second after crossing the orbits of Earth’s nearest artificial satellites.

Virginia was more than three hundred kilometers away when the light burst toward her. Every nerve ending in her body began to record a strange, prickling sensation -- the sheer pressure of photons trying to push her backward. No shadows were cast anywhere in the tower, so bright was the glare. It pierced walls, ceramic beams, notepads, and people -- four hundred thousand people. The maglev terminal connecting Sri Lanka Tower to London and Sydney, the waste treatment centers that sustained the lakes and farms, all the shops, theaters, and apartments liquefied instantly. The structure began to slip and crash like a giant waterfall, but gravity could not yank it down fast enough. The Tower became vapor before it could fall half a meter. At the vanished city’s feet, the trees of the forest were no longer able to cast shadows; they had themselves become long shadows of carbonized dust on the ground.

In Kandy and Columbo, where sidewalks steamed, the relativistic onslaught was unfinished. The electromagnetic pulse alone killed every living thing as far away as Bombay and the Maldives. All of India south of the Godavari River became an instant microwave oven. Nearer the epicenter, Demon Rock glowed with a fierce red heat, then fractured down its center, as if to herald the second coming of the tyrant it memorialized. The air blast followed, surging out of the Indian Ocean -- faster than sound -- flattening whatever still stood. As it slashed north through Jaffna and Madurai, the wave front was met and overpowered by shocks rushing out from strikes in central and southern India.

Across the face of the planet, without warning, thousands of flaming swords pierced the sky...

Then out of no where -- out of the deep impersonal nowhere -- came a bombardment that even the science fiction writers had failed to entertain.

Just nine days short of America’s tricentennial celebrations, every inhabited planetary surface in the solar system had been wiped clean by relativistic bombs. Research centers on Mars, Europa, and Ganymede were silent; even tiny Phobos and Moo-kau were silent. Port Chaffee was silent. New York, Colombo, Wellington, the Mercury Power Project and the Asimov Array. Silent. Silent. Silent.

A Valkyrie rocket’s transmission of Mercury’s surface had revealed thousands of saucer-shaped depressions where only hours before had existed a planet-spanning carpet of solar panels. The transmission had lasted only a few seconds -- just long enough for Isak to realize there would be no more of the self-replicating robots that had built the array of panels and accelerators, just long enough for him to understand that humanity no longer possessed a fuel source for its antimatter rockets -- and then the transmission had ceased abruptly as the Valkyrie disappeared in a silent white glare.

Presently, most of the station’s scopes and spectrographs were turning Earthward, and Isak found it impossible to believe what they revealed. The Moon rising over Africa from behind Earth was peppered with new fields of craters. The planet below looked like a ball of cotton stained grayish yellow. The top five meters of ocean had boiled off under the assault, and sea level air was three times denser than the day before -- and twice as hot...

The sobering truth is that relativistic civilizations are a potential nightmare to anyone living within range of them. The problem is that objects traveling at an appreciable fraction of light speed are never where you see them when you see them. Relativistic rockets, if their owners turn out to be less than benevolent, are both totally unstoppable and totally destructive. A starship weighing in at 1,500 tons (approximately the weight of a fully fueled space shuttle sitting on the launchpad) impacting an earthlike planet at "only" 30 percent of lightspeed will release 1.5 million megatons of energy -- an explosive force equivalent to 150 times today's global nuclear arsenal...

The most humbling feature of the relativistic bomb is that even if you happen to see it coming, its exact motion and position can never be determined; and given a technology even a hundred orders of magnitude above our own, you cannot hope to intercept one of these weapons. It often happens, in these discussions, that an expression from the old west arises: "God made some men bigger and stronger than others, but Mr. Colt made all men equal." Variations on Mr. Colt's weapon are still popular today, even in a society that possesses hydrogen bombs. Similarly, no matter how advanced civilizations grow, the relativistic bomb is not likely to go away...

[D.Turtle]

THAT is scary Admiral Valdemar.

Is that 40000 nuclear attack targets?! O_O

Remember: 40000 targets does not mean 40000 nukes. Several targets could be close enough together to be hit by one nuke.

Still alot though.

Read more here in the SANDIA report:
A Primer on U.S. Strategic Nuclear Policy
This report is a good start for learning about US nuclear plans.

That was a very interesting and educational read. Thanks for the link.

[Joe]

You want hope?

The biggest bogeyman that can be conjured.. Iran.. Is falling apart as it's population drops from both low fertility rates and emigration, and it's economy is in the toilet.

That's it. You listen to the fucktards talking about Iran being worse than the USSR and you remember that. Then you'll realize that the future isn't scary at all, and that's without the knowledge that science is making our lives better by the day.

So you're arguing that the soon-to-be nuclear Iran is less dangerous because the country is falling apart?

[Broomstick]

Hmm... I would have pegged North Korea as the Big Bogeyman. But hey, Iran will do.

[SirNitram]

You want hope?

The biggest bogeyman that can be conjured.. Iran.. Is falling apart as it's population drops from both low fertility rates and emigration, and it's economy is in the toilet.

That's it. You listen to the fucktards talking about Iran being worse than the USSR and you remember that. Then you'll realize that the future isn't scary at all, and that's without the knowledge that science is making our lives better by the day.

So you're arguing that the soon-to-be nuclear Iran is less dangerous because the country is falling apart?

I'm arguing that it's unlikely to get nuclear as it'll have to hobble along for a while yet to get there. The costs are not going to be easy to pay with that situation.

[SirNitram]

Hmm... I would have pegged North Korea as the Big Bogeyman. But hey, Iran will do.

You haven't had the misfortune of wandering onto Headline News, finding some jackass babbling there called Something Beck, about how Iran is worse than the USSR, Hitler, yada, yada.

[Dennis Toy]

North Korea is nothing more than a country that loves to Sabre-rattle. Its missiles are 25 years behind us. The most advance they have i heard can only reach the Pacific Ocean about 10 miles from the coast of california. North Korea's econonmy is in the shits too. I heard that people live in such piss-poor poverty while Kim Jong is indulging himself in luxury.

[Frank Hipper]

Then, looking east, she saw it coming -- at least her eyes began to register it -- but her optic nerves did not last long enough to transmit what the eyes had seen.

I can't stop laughing..this?

In a thread about needing hope?

THIS?

*laughs and pisses pants, then laughs some more*

Seriously, though:

You want hope? Consider this.
Between 1914 and 1945, Western Civilisation consumed itself.
Most governments were obliterated, and no nation survived this as it was before.
Most major European cities suffered unimaginable damge and slaughter, the simple loss in books alone is enough to make any person with an interest in education sick to their stomach.
Ways of life, governmental systems, arbitrary lines on maps were erased by those events; yet, here we Westerners are.
Fat, dumb, and happy, enjoying an abundance of living that our great-grandparents never hoped to dream about.

Things are bad, yes, but things have never been especially good if you allow yourself to think about it.

Today is not July 31st, 1914, nor is it August 31st, 1939.

Saber rattling resulting in war will be with us forever, as long as tribal notions of nationalistic pride are with us, but all things being relative, most of us should be happy that we live when, and where, we do.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Hmm... I would have pegged North Korea as the Big Bogeyman. But hey, Iran will do.

You haven't had the misfortune of wandering onto Headline News, finding some jackass babbling there called Something Beck, about how Iran is worse than the USSR, Hitler, yada, yada.

Glenn Beck, it sounds like.

[Noble Ire]

Hmm... I would have pegged North Korea as the Big Bogeyman. But hey, Iran will do.

You haven't had the misfortune of wandering onto Headline News, finding some jackass babbling there called Something Beck, about how Iran is worse than the USSR, Hitler, yada, yada.

Glenn Beck, it sounds like.

That man really disgusts me. CNN Headline News fell from its prime a while ago, but he really killed it for me. Beck's brand of inconsistant, ignorant, alarmist punditry is something I've come to expect more from Fox News, especially considering the fact it's delivered with all the tact and impartiality of a Nancy Grace interview. The first segment I saw of his revolved around an anti-Mexico border wall rally somewhere in the Southwest that had a few, "This land belongs to Mexico" nut job speakers; Beck turned it into an invalidation of every immigrant's right movement everywhere, and essentially called anyone who didn't advocate the forceful removal of illegal immigrants a treasoner. After that, gibbering incoherently about the evil Iranian empire isn't much of a strech.

[K. A. Pital]

Glenn Beck? "Second Coming of Jesus when Iran triggers Nuclear Apocalypse and All Agnostics Will Pray to Jeesus If ChristoNazis don't Round Up Muslims and Shoot Them In the Head" Glenn Beck?

Oh, that one... Well, some quotes.

http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/people/glennbeck

1. GENOCIGAL

BECK: Did you see the attack on our embassy in Syria? The Middle East is being overrun by 10th-century barbarians. That's what I thought at 5 o'clock this morning, and I thought, "Oh, geez, what -- what is this?" If they take over -- the barbarians storm the gate and take over the Middle East (this is what I'm thinking at 5 o'clock in the morning) -- we're going to have to nuke the whole place.

Well, geez, I don't want to be thinking that. And I certainly don't want to get on national television and say it later. But as nuts as that sounds, here's why that insane thought went through my head today, and it's because I know about this much of the history of the Middle East.

Let me introduce you to some other insane thinkers. It's called the government of Syria. They are no stranger in fighting terror. In the 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to overthrow the Syrian government. How did the Syrian government respond? They basically slaughtered as many as 40,000 people. Nuts, right?

But here's what I was thinking this morning. Did they do that because they're monsters that I just can't relate to or are they doing that because that's the only way to defeat extreme evil, to wipe it out completely?

And remember, the Syrians -- not really the good guys in our scenario. I don't want to become the Syrians, but what are the other alternatives when you're dealing with people who won't stop. I mean, nothing will stop them until they kill you. And it's a pattern in the Middle East. Or at least it feels that way.

2. NAZI

All you Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time and have not been marching in the streets and have not been saying, "Hey, you know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head." I'm telling you, with God as my witness, America is -- no I'm not going to make this an American thing -- human beings are not strong enough, unfortunately, to restrain themselves from putting up razor wire and putting you on one side of it. When things -- when people become hungry, when people see that their way of life is on the edge of being over, they will put razor wire up and just based on the way you look or just based on your religion, they will round you up. Is that wrong? Oh my gosh, it is Nazi, World War II wrong, but society has proved it time and time again: It will happen.

3. APOCALYPTIC CHRISTIAN

BECK: Now, if you watch the show a lot, you probably know that -- you know, nobody is ever really going to accuse me of not talking enough about Iran or World War III or the massive fight we're undertaking against terror and extreme Islam. But even somebody like me -- I mean, somebody who gets up every morning and gets on that paranoia express to go to work can't quite go as far as our next guest is willing to go.

So before we get to him, let me give you a quick test to see how far down Apocalypse Avenue you're willing to -- you're willing to drive tonight. One, do you think Iran has nuclear ambitions? Do you believe that the U.N. [United Nations] won't aggressively stand up to them? And, three, do you believe that Iran and Russia will come together to invade Israel, resulting in a world war of biblical proportions, an eventual peace treaty, and the beginning of the seven-year tribulation period, and the eventual revoking of the peace treaty by a leader who turns out to be the Antichrist, and a campaign of Armageddon, and the second coming of Christ?

If you're still shaking your head "Yes," you are going to love Mark Hitchcock. He is the author of Iran: The Coming Crisis [Multnomah, June 2006], and the stage being set for the end times.

Mark, I've got to tell you, I believe in the second coming of Christ. Is this it? Do you think this is it?

Nuff' said. And this man is airing during CNN's Prime Time.

[K. A. Pital]

Oh, and don't forget to check that out. I don't think that any conservative that I heard of previously ever topped that.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200604120003

Bomb de tropical. That kind of sounds nice. We could use that one in Venezuela.

[Darth Wong]

I recommend that all of you young 'uns watch the Clint Eastwood movie Firefox. Notice how the Russians are portrayed in this movie: as an oppressive regime with superior military technology. As comical as that may sound today, the fact is that Russian military technology was widely believed to be easily at parity with western military technology in the 1980s, if not better.

That movie is a bit of a time capsule today. You kiddies have no idea how fatalistic people were about nuclear war in the 80s. Most of us believed it was only a matter of time.

[K. A. Pital]

I recommend that all of you young 'uns watch the Clint Eastwood movie Firefox

Oh, that bullshit where the "eeevil" Russians have "thought-controlled" uber-plane and some Brave American Superhero steals it with help from political opposition to the USSR? And people wonder why Russians hate the American portrayal of them.

I have a better advice yet: watch "Red Dawn". It's 2 years later than "Firefox", and it's built upon a craptastic heap of alternative history Russophobic lies, distortions and bullshit, where the Super-Uber USSR with Latin American allies invades the United States (real history: never in it's entire history had the USSR any capability for projecting it's military power to the American continents. Only the U.S. had (and used) this capability). Combined with incredible knowledge of Russian, too - the actors in "Red Dawn" just speak silly Russian-like words.

The truth, quite plain and simple, is that the USSR never had an open seas navy, and even the mere plans to support such an enormous money wasting project have strained it's military-industrial complex greatly. USSR also never used the Navy to project it's power over continents.

The movie came out in 1984. A year later political liberalisation of the USSR ensued.

[Darth Wong]

I recommend that all of you young 'uns watch the Clint Eastwood movie Firefox

Oh, that bullshit where the "eeevil" Russians have "thought-controlled" uber-plane and some Brave American Superhero steals it with help from political opposition to the USSR? And people wonder why Russians hate the American portrayal of them.

Wait, you're saying it was inaccurate? Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that they had bright colours in Soviet Russia, instead of everything being gray and brown.

[Rawtooth]

Until we get to the point described in my sig from 1984, there is always hope.

[Dennis Toy]

I recommend that all of you young 'uns watch the Clint Eastwood movie Firefox. Notice how the Russians are portrayed in this movie: as an oppressive regime with superior military technology. As comical as that may sound today, the fact is that Russian military technology was widely believed to be easily at parity with western military technology in the 1980s, if not better.

That movie is a bit of a time capsule today. You kiddies have no idea how fatalistic people were about nuclear war in the 80s. Most of us believed it was only a matter of time.

oh i remember all too well, i remember the people stocking up in case the russians were a throwin' nukes and i remember the "Star Wars" defense.

Another movie i recommend to watch is a sci-fi flick called "Collosus, the Forbin Project" It's about this computer that takes over the world by getting control of the nuclear stockpile. It has the tension between US and Russia.
Like wong said up above, you can see that people feared Russia and thought it had equal military technology.

[K. A. Pital]

Wanna have a really good laugh?

I bet some of you do know about this wonderful, old gem of a Cold War movie and a scene that will be remembered for ages to come, because it was so damn "moving" and "patriotic":

And, thankfully, the film's most over-the-top scene, as noted in the preface to this article, takes place inside a church that has been modified by the State to be a "People's Museum" featuring "Soviet Inventions." When the museum's curator, Comrade Malenkov (a chap whose appearance is clearly intended to evoke Stalin) cautions Donovan to lower his voice, Donovan goes berserk. But before trashing the museum in a fit of fury, he brandishes an exhibit (of a telephone) at Malenkov and snarls: "This, this was not invented by a RUSSIAN. The man's name was Bell, Alexander Graham Bell and he was an AMERICAN! Get that Comrade!"
...
The hero's appalled rage at the Communists trying to take credit for Alexander Graham Bell's telephone—in a house of worship no less—is nothing short of a defining moment in the annals of Soviet America cinema.

Thanks "Comrade"! And now... From my bookshelf, with sincere amazement, I present you... Alexander Bell!
[/size]

[Patrick Degan]

Wanna have a really good laugh?

I bet some of you do know about this wonderful, old gem of a Cold War movie and a scene that will be remembered for ages to come, because it was so damn "moving" and "patriotic":

And, thankfully, the film's most over-the-top scene, as noted in the preface to this article, takes place inside a church that has been modified by the State to be a "People's Museum" featuring "Soviet Inventions." When the museum's curator, Comrade Malenkov (a chap whose appearance is clearly intended to evoke Stalin) cautions Donovan to lower his voice, Donovan goes berserk. But before trashing the museum in a fit of fury, he brandishes an exhibit (of a telephone) at Malenkov and snarls: "This, this was not invented by a RUSSIAN. The man's name was Bell, Alexander Graham Bell and he was an AMERICAN! Get that Comrade!"
...
The hero's appalled rage at the Communists trying to take credit for Alexander Graham Bell's telephone—in a house of worship no less—is nothing short of a defining moment in the annals of Soviet America cinema.

Thanks "Comrade"! And now... From my bookshelf, with sincere amazement, I present you... Alexander Bell!
[/size]

Heh... We had that film for the New Orleans Worst Film Festival one year.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Wait, you're saying it was inaccurate? Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that they had bright colours in Soviet Russia, instead of everything being gray and brown.

It was, if anything, entertaining and a platform for a whole host of Firefox browser related jokes (okay, just the one).

Anyway, my previous post with regards to Threads. Watch it. You'll see what Mike means, if only from the perspective of those from Sheffield. Yes, it's dated now and they speak funny there too, but nothing portrays the very real horror of total nuclear war affecting Joe Blog on the street more than this TV movie.

[K. A. Pital]

Threads. Watch it. You'll see what Mike means, if only from the perspective of those from Sheffield. Yes, it's dated now and they speak funny there too, but nothing portrays the very real horror of total nuclear war affecting Joe Blog on the street more than this TV movie.

I would also recommend Threads - and as one of the more realistic portrayal of nuclear strike and post-Nuke society. Total collapse of everything, barbarism, decay, death. Between extreme apocalyptic fantasies like "The Beach" (all died) and "Mad Max"/"Fallout" (Post-Apoc romance) "Threads" provides a healthy dose of realism.

[Rye]

Things are bad, yes, but things have never been especially good if you allow yourself to think about it.

This is the best we've ever had it, and this is still pretty goddamned lame. Why isn't this a cause for despair instead of hope?

The future of humankind never seems to be pretty, the past is even worse, where is hope?