The Revolution pilot is online now...

Ah yes the Nuclear Power Plants!

With no pumps to pump fresh water in, the rods would surely go into meltdown, radiating a good area.

 

Nuclear plants have manual and passive safety mechanism that don't rely on electricity to prevent meltdowns. So not every plant would meltdown.

 

^ And perhaps whatever has caused the power to go off will also prevent nuclear explosions from occurring? It's Alien Space Bats, just like the Emberverse.

 

Sadly, it is not Alien Space Bats in Revolution. It is some man-made phenomenon that they are already trying to work into the story. Some combination of buzzwords will be strung together at some point to try to make it believable. "It was a nano-technological experiment in the quantum foam of the universe!"

And it will likely be explained away as,

a) A DOD military project gone horribly wrong(most likely so far)
b) An attempt to create a clean alternative energy source gone horribly wrong
c) A fringe environmentalist plot to prevent the rape of the planet and get mankind back in touch with nature

 

Space bats or nanotech, they'll probably include nuclear reactions as things that "just don't work".

 

But that means it happens as soon as the power comes back because I don't think the pumps etc. in the power plants have been maintained and are still in working condition after 15 years.

 

Not an expert in this area by any means, but thought the bulk of the passive safety mechanisms were essentially the shielding and cement domes? Does nothing to prevent meltdown, just tries to contain the radiation when it DOES meltdown. Most of the stuff to prevent the meltdown looked like it involved pumps and water to cool the reactor, and that would be a no-go in this situation.

So they may ALL melt down, and most will just be contained. For now. Give it a few years, and weather, natural disasters, plant life, etc will eventually start cracking open the ones that had contained the spill previously. Sooner or later, it won't be pretty.

 

Um... anyone with even a passing interest in baking knows how to make bread. And cake. And biscuits.

I'm hungry now.

 

Yeah, I've never made bread but I know I could do it, it's not a big deal. Growing and harvesting wheat (assuming the flour ran out) is not that hard, turning wheat into flour is easy, you don't need a mill, just a mortar and pestle aka a pot and a thing to crush stuff and you can do it by hand. Forget making yeast, it's not necessary, just make sourdough using the yeast spores already in the air, all you need is flour, water and patience. Everything else can be worked out using good old trial and error.

 

Nah, if Scout101 doesn't know how to do something, that knowledge is lost should the electricity goes out.

 

That it, you've nailed my point exactly! Or something... If you're just going to ignore what I say in favor of boiling it down into misrepresented talking points, why bother? Not what I said, and we both know it.

Just saying that there's a TON of things we take for granted that people used to know how to do by heart, and not a lot of people know how to do them from scratch anymore. Not that they are impossible, and not that SOME people don't still do them daily, just that they are no longer common, everyday skills. Odds of people that have these skills go down fast when you kill 90% or more of the population in the first month or two. And the survivors are going to trend towards the strong/aggressive/armed types, not the cupcake baker (unless she's being held captive by the group to feed them).

Even in the best-case scenarios being presented, it's still a huge challenge. Hell, look around your room right now. Tell me without thinking much about it where you can find wheat seed to grow. Probably eventually think of a farm supply store somewhere, although it might be a day's walk or better. You've decided this is top priority, so immediately head off, and either are ignored or otherwise lucky and don't get attacked on the way. Gotta a be a few others that thought of this, so maybe there's stuff left, maybe not. Say you grab some seeds. Now gotta get FAR away from large populations, it's going to get ugly. Next month is spent salvaging things as you head off, hopefully with a group to help protect you. Find somewhere to hide, somewhere you can defend, and even where you can plant stuff. Whether you get to work or try to find enough salvaged food to fend off starvation depends on what season it is. If it's already fall, like today, you might be in some trouble. Assume somewhere along the way you found farming implements, and maybe they've doubled as weapons. Hope you've got a decent sized group to help get the planting done, and protect you while you're doing it. Not too big, though, because it's a delicate ratio between needing the help and being able to feed yourselves. Same deal with the harvest, and it'll likely be a small yield at first as you learn what you're doing, and waste a lot between harvest and poor storage. NOW you can grind it up, figure out the yeast situation, build a wood oven, and experiment with baking. Not too bad for a loaf of bread, right? With luck, you've got other stuff to harvest as well, and are in an area where you can find stockpiles of supplies that survived the initial chaos, and with decent hunting. With a lot of luck, your small group just survived to spring. Hovered close to starvation, but might have just made it. Now you can start trying to expand, maybe build up your defenses, see about taking in some more people to help out. None of this really feels like much of a stretch...

Of course, your plan immediately calls for you to invent the steam engine again within minutes anyway, because the 2nd half of your plan requires carrying the entire New York Public Library out of town on your back otherwise. Could try to fortify the library and make it your base, but there's no farming or hunting ability handy, and 8-10 million hungry people outside that might resent your hoarding of supplies...

All of these things are documented in books, and many probably even broken down enough that you could reproduce them from scratch. Just seems to me that in this sort of situation, you're pretty much going to be limited for a while to what you have on hand, and what you can quickly salvage as you get out of dodge. Might be able to spare room for a book or two, but they better be good ones. Something like the Boy Scout handbook would probably be a much better choice in the short term than how to build a steam engine. That's a problem for 5-10 years later, when things settle down to the new 'normal', with sustainable population again.

 

Making bread is a pretty widely known skill, even by people that don't make bread. A better example would be blacksmithing. How many people would survive that know how to work steel?

 

Wide spread, perhaps but today I can't tell you if I am looking at a weed or a stalk of wheat. Corn I can make out.

 

I guess it's corn bread for you.

 

I keep thinking of the character in Lucifer's Hammer that buried a set of The Way Things Work in his back yard before the meteor hit, so that when the initial disaster had subsided, he could go back and dig up all the volumes to help rebuild society. Of course, in that story he had time to prepare for it, but I don't think you need a truckload of books to set up a serviceable and self sustaining village. A relative handful to establish yourself after the chaos ends, and then you can branch out for more. And the survivors would probably be learning new skills at a crazy rate (or they would die). Naturalists and jacks-of-all-trades would probably do well.

And I would bet that a government like the USA probably has all kinds of contingency plans for a widespread and lasting blackout to ensure the preservation of the core government and strategic places to retain control over.

 

A good set of books would be the Foxfire series for a knowledge base of basic homesteading skills.

 

I could barely get through this episode--the pointless death of a plot device=Maggie, the bland characters, the aimlessness, the lack of urgency in storytelling, the silliness of a tornado, no compelling villain. I'm done. Yet another epic mystery series that sucks--well at least it isn't alone--Last Resort, Caprica, V, Flash Forward, Alcatraz, Persons Unknown, Harpers Island, Surface, Invasion, The Event, The River, Vanished, Reunion, The Nine, Heroes, Kidnapped, Once Upon a Time can keep it company.

Now will networks finally realize these type of shows just don't work and go back to more basic, open-premised, shows with smaller more interesting characters and more streamlined season long arcs like many primetime dramas used in the 80s and 90s before LOST came along and everyone wants to do a LOST type serial with large casts, non linear storytelling, boring flashbacks, interconnectedness, too densely plotted to give a scene enough room to breathe etc.

 

Monroe is an idiot. If steam power has worked all this time he should have much better than idiots with muskets. The things you could do!

 

I'm not really into this show, but I leave it on in the background and pay attention when it looks like something important or relevant to the big mystery is happening.

I enjoyed Captain Neville's backstory. It was very reminiscent of Locke's first flashback from Lost, knife and all.

 

Steam yes.

19th century forge/factories no.

Did you see the front of the train?

That fucker had been rebuilt by hand.

Working iron plate like that is difficult if not impossible if you want it precise enough not to blow up.

But yes.

they should have gotten this shit off the ground in year 2, not year 16.

Fuck it.

How hard is to retrofit a trolley into a hand cart?