New TV Show: Revolution

[dogmush]

I'll give it another couple episodes, but It's not looking great so far.

Writing was bad.

I'll give them a pass on the slow moving blackout front since we don't know what kind of suppression field is being used or how it's propigated.  I'd say it's pretty obviously NOT an EMP.  The flat spin of the planes was a little hokey but here's my BIG problem (and G98 touched on it): Fire obviously still works.  So do firearms.  So at a minimum, a mechanicly injected diesel would still be running.  Despite Google boy's assertion we don't use electricity for EVERYTHING, and what we do use it for we've had other things to cover in the not so recent past.  We'd still have cars, industry, machinery, trains and so on.  Where the heck was that stuff?

[seeker_two]

Question: Even if an EMP disabled modern electronics & most forms of power generation & delivery; wouldn't older, transitor-type electronics still work? What about local, small-area power generation like hand-cranked generators, solar panels, and rechargable batteries?

[Regolith]

Question: Even if an EMP disabled modern electronics & most forms of power generation & delivery; wouldn't older, transitor-type electronics still work? What about local, small-area power generation like hand-cranked generators, solar panels, and rechargable batteries?

All modern electronics are transistor-type, and an EMP will fry the crap out of them.

Basically, anything that's vulnerable to a surge in power is vulnerable to EMP.

[Harold Tuttle]

Once the EMP pulse has done its damage, a clever man could replace the fried components
or drive his bov out of his faraday caged garage. If there was an active electric power damping field,
It's got to run on some kind of power, and I would think suppressing electric microcircuits would give you a fatal headache.

Did you notice the iPod in the girls stash lunchbox? Something like that can be charged on a bicycle based dynamo. http://www.sp-dynamo.com/
I would expect 10 years later that wind, solar and water wheels would be powering the culdesac.

The flashback to her eating the last of ice cream indicated that her parents knew the power was never coming back on...

[Jamisjockey]

Question about EMP's
What about spare parts? stuff thats sitting around not being used?

[Gewehr98]

One of the biggest surprises to Western intel after the acquisition of Viktor Belenko's MiG-25 Foxbat was the miniaturized vacuum tube electronics found onboard (well, that and the amount of steel used in the airframe vs. the ungodly expensive titanium).   

Semiconductors don't do EMP well, and they are often permanently disabled by the pulse.  Vacuum tubes fare much better, but save for musical instruments, x-ray machines and home stereo amplifiers, folks on this side of the pond have pretty much migrated entirely to integrated circuits via silicon wafers. 

I'm assuming that as this show progresses, they'll explain why alternate energy sources like steam and mechanical-injection diesels haven't caught on in 15 years, while a USB dongle can power up a relic PC-XT in somebody's attic...   

[AZRedhawk44]

Watched.  Was annoyed.  Will give 1-2 more episodes a chance.

Felt more like I was watching the plot unfold to a new (and lazily written) video game rather than a TV series.

[MechAg94]

I just talked to a guy doing some work at one of our plants who had the hobby of building miniature working steam locomotives that were big enough to ride on.  If people can fabricate parts and such to build those, we can rebuild a steam/coal based industry.  The biggest challenge would be food distribution in the first 6 months or year.

[Ben]

I just talked to a guy doing some work at one of our plants who had the hobby of building miniature working steam locomotives that were big enough to ride on.  If people can fabricate parts and such to build those, we can rebuild a steam/coal based industry.

Except, wait for it, within a few episodes of this show there will be a character discussion about how people have become environmentally enlightened and could have built coal powered machinery, but chose to go without.

[AZRedhawk44]

Except, wait for it, within a few episodes of this show there will be a character discussion about how people have become environmentally enlightened and could have built coal powered machinery, but chose to go without.

Unless your coal mining facilities are too far removed from someone with the gumption to build a steam engine.


Distribution is the problem.  Even if someone near a coal mine built a steam locomotive or vehicle, he couldn't use the train rails since gigantic modern electric diesels would be straddling the tracks and blocking them, and he couldn't use the roads since tens of millions of vehicles are littering them, unable to be moved.

I don't think I've ever seen a steam powered plane, and the air is going to be about the only means of travel that is still open, other than horseback or foot.

[AJ Dual]

Unless your coal mining facilities are too far removed from someone with the gumption to build a steam engine.


Distribution is the problem.  Even if someone near a coal mine built a steam locomotive or vehicle, he couldn't use the train rails since gigantic modern electric diesels would be straddling the tracks and blocking them, and he couldn't use the roads since tens of millions of vehicles are littering them, unable to be moved.

I don't think I've ever seen a steam powered plane, and the air is going to be about the only means of travel that is still open, other than horseback or foot.

The action takes place in Illinois. The entire state is one big coal-shelf. You can dig almost anywhere in the state and find some.

http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/maps-data-pub/coal-maps/county-index.shtml

[Harold Tuttle]

This is why APS knows where the NR-1 is stored,
OUr culdesac will be nuclear powered

[Gewehr98]

he couldn't use the train rails since gigantic modern electric diesels would be straddling the tracks and blocking them

Not that big a deal.  Teams of horses with block and tackle can topple an EMD SD-60 and roll it like a turtle, or those same teams can pull it on the tracks to the nearest turnout or wye.

We use elephants in the summer here to load and move railroad flat cars at the circus museum, and that's just for show.   

People built Stonehenge and the pyramids without steam power or electricity.  All those post-apocalyptic kids sans video games represent a huge kinetic energy resource.

[Jamisjockey]

Not that big a deal.  Teams of horses with block and tackle can topple an EMD SD-60 and roll it like a turtle, or those same teams can pull it on the tracks to the nearest turnout or wye.

We use elephants in the summer here to load and move railroad flat cars at the circus museum, and that's just for show.   

People built Stonehenge and the pyramids without steam power or electricity.  All those post-apocalyptic kids sans video games represent a huge kinetic energy resource.

This.  15 years is nothing given the knowledge base possessed by mankind.

[AZRedhawk44]

Not that big a deal.  Teams of horses with block and tackle can topple an EMD SD-60 and roll it like a turtle, or those same teams can pull it on the tracks to the nearest turnout or wye.

We use elephants in the summer here to load and move railroad flat cars at the circus museum, and that's just for show.   

People built Stonehenge and the pyramids without steam power or electricity.  All those post-apocalyptic kids sans video games represent a huge kinetic energy resource.

300 million people that predominantly own no livestock.

I was talking with a horse-owning friend about this, this last weekend:  Given an EMP or dramatic fuel scarcity, horses are gold.  Even with a 19th century population level, our current raw horse population is insufficient to have 1 horse per household.  I'd be shocked if there were 10 million horses in the United States.  That would be 1 per 30 people, or about 1 per 10 households.

OK, so people die off and only 50 million are left alive.

Horses will die off, too.  Supply chains are horribly mangled from no functioning tractors to bail the hay, no trucks to deliver it to ranches, the people that own horses being gang-robbed for the animals by people who don't know how to maintain livestock, et cetera.  Maybe a million horses left once supply chains stabilize?

Yeah, it becomes vogue to breed horses again... and the remaining few hundred thousand or a million become more significant after a few years.

I dunno.  A lot of assumption to think that livestock are going to be put to work for communal issues like clearing non-functional railway, rather than pulling plows and facilitating travel.

[Harold Tuttle]

Not eating the horses took a long time to get ingrained in human behavior.

[AJ Dual]

There'd be a huge die-off in the first 5 years, but after that, I'd imagine that in the subsequent decade, people would get back to a Civil War/Steam era of tech pretty quickly, especially since there's an over-supply of housing that would still be standing (minus wildfires, which could admittedly be bad until enough fire-breaks were cut, or the fires themselves did it...) so that means there's only a time-sink for food going on, and the HUGE amounts of metals and tanks, pipes, chassis, parts, chains & cables that could be salvaged and re-purposed.

Not that big a deal.  Teams of horses with block and tackle can topple an EMD SD-60 and roll it like a turtle, or those same teams can pull it on the tracks to the nearest turnout or wye.

We use elephants in the summer here to load and move railroad flat cars at the circus museum, and that's just for show.   

People built Stonehenge and the pyramids without steam power or electricity.  All those post-apocalyptic kids sans video games represent a huge kinetic energy resource.

Agreed. And even if they can't topple the heavy diesel electric locomotives in one go with plow animals, they can do it bit by bit, and shore up the tipping locomotive with logs and cribbing until it does topple, inch by inch. Would only take a few days time.

Although honestly, all the technical and social nitpicking and MMQB'ing, like the tech level, or the people being too clean (I don't imagine folks in the 1800's LOOKING much dirtier than they did today, unless in battle, or working in a mine or something...  doesn't bother me with this show.

It's that the writing and that the show is devolving immediately into the usual TV tropes and memes right away. It's like when you got too old for those "choose your own adventure" books, and you could extrapolate all the plots ahead of time.

I gave them a fair shake.

I'm going to pass.

[brimic]

http://www.amazon.com/One-Second-After-William-Forstchen/dp/0765356864/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348083447&sr=1-1&keywords=one+second+after

Probably glean more realistic scenarios from the above book than from anything on tv.

There'd be a huge die-off in the first 5 years,

They author predicted some pretty staggering die off figures- within the first year of such an event, with some areas of the country becomeing nearly completely depopulated.

[Harold Tuttle]

I think a fall from grace would land you back at pre industrial era really quickly.
Many colonial skills were caste and guild based and no one knows how to make bricks like they did in 1620.
Our current disposable tool culture is lacking in pit saws and people that will run them properly all day long.

[JonnyB]

I sort of figured - incorrectly, it turned out - that the show would be patterned after Stirling's "Change" series of books.

In those books, most modern technologies were inhibited by some sort of other-worldly "magic spell". Gunpowder (propellant) simply burned, and very slowly. Only low-pressure steam could be generated; barely above atmospheric. Gravity, spring tension/compression and muscle power were the primary sources of power.

Horses were valuable. Bow & arrow and sword & pike were the 'modern weapons. Trebuchets, catapaults and ballista were the "artillery".

Fire was the only source of heat and light.

Mrs. B. and I turned off "Revolution" after 15 minutes but I was done watching after the first confrontation. Lame. Utterly lame. Hell's bells! They didn't even have lookouts. The "militia" walked in not only unopposed but unanounced. Gah! Why have walls around the compound if the gates are open and ain't nobody on guard?

I did read the entire series of Stirling's books, though. They're pretty good. Repetitive but good. Sound tactics and strategies; Stirling does good research.

jb

[AJ Dual]

I think a fall from grace would land you back at pre industrial era really quickly.
Many colonial skills were caste and guild based and no one knows how to make bricks like they did in 1620.
Our current disposable tool culture is lacking in pit saws and people that will run them properly all day long.

True,

But I still contend that the survivors will be able to "coast" on the remaining infrastructure. There'll be literally thousands of structures to be used as houses and barns that will last without significant rebuilding for a few generations.

There'll be tons of hand-tools to go around. And tons more metals pipes and fittings that can be salvaged to make boilers, forges etc. And the other examples like using rail cars pulled by draft animals higher up in this thread. Even the existing roads, no longer pummled by cars will make wagon and horse travel extremely easy.

So I think a 1890's level of civilization, save for the telegraph etc. would be do-able within a generation of the rebuilding.

I admit it COULD definitely regress further, but a lot of things, people just wouldn't need to worry about. Like your example of colonial brick making. Why would they need bricks? There's a surplus of buildings that can be used as-is, or scavenged for materials, assuming about a 90-95% die-off in the population in the initial disaster. That leaves more time to get going on the steam engines and boilers and coal...

[Harold Tuttle]

but what if there were zombies in the cities?

there was a quote about how the people that stayed in the cities died
lack of ventilation, sanitation and no food deliveries prolly made them un fun rather quick

i gather all the ar15 ammo was used up in the revolution scenario

[brimic]

How long after Rome fell was it before there was running water and sanitation in Europe again?

From steam power through Apple iphone (5 is it now?) happened in a blink of an eye, but if the lights go out, we'll be starting well before the steam engine, all of the old skillsets are gone, as well as the societal organization.
Its pretty hard to worry about advancing technology when you are scratching for food to eat while fighting off the 'barbarians' in the neighboring village who are trying to do the same.

[Perd Hapley]

Unless your coal mining facilities are too far removed from someone with the gumption to build a steam engine.


Distribution is the problem.  Even if someone near a coal mine built a steam locomotive or vehicle, he couldn't use the train rails since gigantic modern electric diesels would be straddling the tracks and blocking them, and he couldn't use the roads since tens of millions of vehicles are littering them, unable to be moved.

When steam locomotives operated beyond coal supply lines, which was often the case in frontier areas, they used wood.

Also, once roads are cleared, steam-powered automobiles might be employed, like in the old days.

[AJ Dual]

How long after Rome fell was it before there was running water and sanitation in Europe again?

From steam power through Apple iphone (5 is it now?) happened in a blink of an eye, but if the lights go out, we'll be starting well before the steam engine, all of the old skillsets are gone, as well as the societal organization.
Its pretty hard to worry about advancing technology when you are scratching for food to eat while fighting off the 'barbarians' in the neighboring village who are trying to do the same.

Rome isn't exactly a fair example. It had higher tech, but most of it was an issue of planning and hand-skilled artisans. It really was the "same tech" as the Dark and Middle Ages. Stacked rocks and wood, with some iron. The Romans just did it better.  And like in my example, the Roman stone that was cut was used in new castles and structures, and the roads saw lots of use, which arguably kept the Dark Ages from being even "Darker".

So I'd think a comparable "fall" from the 21st century to the late 19th would be a fair comparison. With so much metal and salvageable mechanicals, the ruins of 21st century America would be infinitely better pickings than the stones and the occasional lead pipe of Rome.  I'd even wonder if someone could figure out a crank or cartridge fired compression diesel that had no electronics at all. We know those existed, and could possibly be retrofitted from scrap cars.

And it's arguable that all would be banditry and warlords so quickly, coming from a population of folks who'd lived their entire lives in a democratic republic.