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**DONOTDELETE**
Guest
Re: The \"Firewall\" Thread (Spoilers)
I stumbled on more questions about leftover technology and society. I asked myself this: if Earth would be hit by some especially horrible bioweapon, which systems would fall last? Which could endure the outbreak? I suspect the following:
<font color=yellow>1. Nuclear submarines</font color=yellow>
The largest missile subs have awfully long independent operating times. Some can remain submerged for a year (provided that food supplies exist) and operate without new fuel for years. Motivated by despair, they might remain underwater for much longer times.
It would be natural that when the oubreak started, someone instructed the big fish... to stay underwater as long as humanly possible, surface only in remote and uninhabited places, observe what happens in populated places... and wait for contact.
Some might still be cruising the oceans, conserving fuel, observing and waiting. Should anyone manage to contact such a "first one" they might gain incredibly valuable information, and perhaps a destructive power much greater than viruses. They might gain weapons which can destroy not only humanity but also the ecosystem.
<font color=yellow>2. Space stations</font color=yellow>
Space stations have long idependent operating times. If anyone up there would see the planet going to hell in a handbasket, they would probably try three things. First, they would try to last long and gather information. Second, if they would run out of supplies, they would land and see if they live.
Third and most important, even if landing, they would probably try to keep the info they gathered accessible. They would set the station (or reprogram some satellites) to transmit that information to anyone who can tune in. Anyone who can tune in to the collected last words of the previous civilisation might have a chance of curing the Big Death, or restoring some degree of a functioning society.
I stumbled on more questions about leftover technology and society. I asked myself this: if Earth would be hit by some especially horrible bioweapon, which systems would fall last? Which could endure the outbreak? I suspect the following:
<font color=yellow>1. Nuclear submarines</font color=yellow>
The largest missile subs have awfully long independent operating times. Some can remain submerged for a year (provided that food supplies exist) and operate without new fuel for years. Motivated by despair, they might remain underwater for much longer times.
It would be natural that when the oubreak started, someone instructed the big fish... to stay underwater as long as humanly possible, surface only in remote and uninhabited places, observe what happens in populated places... and wait for contact.
Some might still be cruising the oceans, conserving fuel, observing and waiting. Should anyone manage to contact such a "first one" they might gain incredibly valuable information, and perhaps a destructive power much greater than viruses. They might gain weapons which can destroy not only humanity but also the ecosystem.
<font color=yellow>2. Space stations</font color=yellow>
Space stations have long idependent operating times. If anyone up there would see the planet going to hell in a handbasket, they would probably try three things. First, they would try to last long and gather information. Second, if they would run out of supplies, they would land and see if they live.
Third and most important, even if landing, they would probably try to keep the info they gathered accessible. They would set the station (or reprogram some satellites) to transmit that information to anyone who can tune in. Anyone who can tune in to the collected last words of the previous civilisation might have a chance of curing the Big Death, or restoring some degree of a functioning society.