Terminator Salvation: Do they answer how...

[Norrin Radd]

...humans are able to survive on the planet after multiple nuclear detonations from Skynet? I can't imagine human life being sustainable due to the resulting radiation.

Possible solution: machines aren't able to function because of the radiation either, so Skynet somehow "cleanses" the atmosphere, though I don't know how it'd go about that.

 

[nx1701g]

Humanity has lived underground for the previous ten years in fallout shelters, isolated regions, etc waiting for the radiation to subside. The Machines have dominated the Earth for ten years and taken over the remnants of the cities.

Also, Skynet is trying to terraform Earth so that NO LIFE AT ALL could continue to exist.

This is a recently released pic where we get a good look at the sky:

Spoiler: Let's look at the sky

 

[Haytil]

Do the nuclear bombs have to completely and utterly irradiate the entire planet? Can't they simply be dropped on major population centers, and allow famine, chaos, and conventional weaponry to take care of the human survivors in the more rural areas?

 

[nx1701g]

^ I don't know of any continuities (film, television, novel, or comics) where humanity has been completely wiped out. There was one in a video game where Skynet had destroyed all of humanity, but that timeline was repaired by the T-850 in T3.

 

[3D Master]

No, unlike popular dramatizations and exaggerated doomsday scenarios, we do not actually have enough nuclear weapons to destroy ourselves, not even enough nuclear weapons to spread radiation everywhere.

 

[Nardpuncher]

^^^ That's what I've read too.
Surprising, but apparently nuclear bombs aren't as bad as we were lead to believe. Not that we should ever use them,of course, but the idea of them ruining the whole planet for centuries is not true.

 

[bdb]

From what I understand, there is a trade-off between a nuke's ability to produce fallout, and its destructive power.

What we think of as fallout is stuff in the ground that a nuke irradiates. So, in order to produce a lot of fallout, a nuke should be detonated on the ground.

However, if a nuke is detonated on the ground, it is not as destructive as if it were detonated in the air, because the only effective part of the shockwave is the horizontal circumference of the blast. The rest of the shockwave goes into the ground, or up into the air.

 

[captcalhoun]

yes, air-burst nuclear detonations are more destructive in terms of area flattened by the shockwave and over-pressure effects. a surface detonation will cause more fall-out, but fall-out is basically irradiated dirt and so on thrown up into the air by the blast effects whether it's a surface detonation or an air-burst.


see, kids, you really can learn stuff from Tom Clancy!

This post was brought to you in association with "The Sum of All Fears" - the novel not the shitty movie.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

^ Somewhere Ben Affleck's ass is chaffing.

 

[nx1701g]

see, kids, you really can learn stuff from Tom Clancy!

You sure can. He has some of the best (and accurate) military novels I have ever read.

 

[John Picard]

yes, air-burst nuclear detonations are more destructive in terms of area flattened by the shockwave and over-pressure effects. a surface detonation will cause more fall-out, but fall-out is basically irradiated dirt and so on thrown up into the air by the blast effects whether it's a surface detonation or an air-burst.


see, kids, you really can learn stuff from Tom Clancy!

This post was brought to you in association with "The Sum of All Fears" - the novel not the shitty movie.

And that's what we were taught in the military. The air burst is better as the radiation disperses quickly, whereas with a sub-surface burst, there is irradiated debris thrown up into the air and disbursed/scattered everywhere.