M
Malenfant
Guest
Pretty much. Especially when it becomes clear that the new president is an imbecilic psychopath.
The USS Ronald Reagan
- Thread starter TKalbfus
- Start date
Pretty much. Especially when it becomes clear that the new president is an imbecilic psychopath. </font>[/QUOTE]Yeah
Dawns early light was about the first HBO pictures film.
I love the movie, but it could have been produced a little better. (HBO films are much higher quality these days.)
Little compares to a lower tier cabinet member becoming president in the middle of a nuke exchange and worrying about if we are "winning" the war!
An other interesting movie on these lines is the old submarine chase, The Bedford incident.
A caption thinks we should not have let the Russians off during the missile crisis. He gets passed over for promotion, and stuck doing anti-sub patrolling off the coast of New England.
When he spots a sub, he gets so possessed with tracking it down that he pursues it until his crew is so exhausted and strung out that when he argues with someone about what he would do if the sub fires at them, his exec only hears the word fire, and launches an anti-sub rocket. The sub of course get it’s torpedoes off before it is destoried, and the ship has no counter measures up to preventing the torps from striking.
This may be the most dramatically intense movie I have ever seen. NO violence whatsoever, (one sailor gets slapped when he cracks under the pressure, but the tension builds till you can't stand it anymore.)
Sidney Portie (spelling?) Richard Widmark, Wally Cox, and LOTS of other names, Band white, mid sixties. Top shelf in the nuclear war geanra, and a true study of a blooming obsession. All in all, on of my most favorite movies.
(all of the films people have listed are major parts of my collection. Well except for Final countdown, I just was not impressed with it.)
Another interesting twilight:2000 variant might be that someone tracks the signal from voyager. (Still today just past the edge of the solar system, but far enough out that someone mis-jumping in system, or scanning the system, (a scout for example) might find it. This of course would change the time line completely, making first contact years earlier than Cannon, but it would defiantly be an interesting time to play with.) Again, depending on if the ship contacting us gets out of the system to report its find, we could come face to face with the Vilani when we are even less ready, or we could know about them and start a crash program to meet them on our terms.
I have often toyed with fiction based on this concept, that either we are in a back water that has been overlooked, or bypassed and allowed to develop, but either way, voyager and it’s discovery puts us on the map, so to speak.
Just another idea to play with.
Jim Roker
I love the movie, but it could have been produced a little better. (HBO films are much higher quality these days.)
Little compares to a lower tier cabinet member becoming president in the middle of a nuke exchange and worrying about if we are "winning" the war!
An other interesting movie on these lines is the old submarine chase, The Bedford incident.
A caption thinks we should not have let the Russians off during the missile crisis. He gets passed over for promotion, and stuck doing anti-sub patrolling off the coast of New England.
When he spots a sub, he gets so possessed with tracking it down that he pursues it until his crew is so exhausted and strung out that when he argues with someone about what he would do if the sub fires at them, his exec only hears the word fire, and launches an anti-sub rocket. The sub of course get it’s torpedoes off before it is destoried, and the ship has no counter measures up to preventing the torps from striking.
This may be the most dramatically intense movie I have ever seen. NO violence whatsoever, (one sailor gets slapped when he cracks under the pressure, but the tension builds till you can't stand it anymore.)
Sidney Portie (spelling?) Richard Widmark, Wally Cox, and LOTS of other names, Band white, mid sixties. Top shelf in the nuclear war geanra, and a true study of a blooming obsession. All in all, on of my most favorite movies.
(all of the films people have listed are major parts of my collection. Well except for Final countdown, I just was not impressed with it.)
Another interesting twilight:2000 variant might be that someone tracks the signal from voyager. (Still today just past the edge of the solar system, but far enough out that someone mis-jumping in system, or scanning the system, (a scout for example) might find it. This of course would change the time line completely, making first contact years earlier than Cannon, but it would defiantly be an interesting time to play with.) Again, depending on if the ship contacting us gets out of the system to report its find, we could come face to face with the Vilani when we are even less ready, or we could know about them and start a crash program to meet them on our terms.
I have often toyed with fiction based on this concept, that either we are in a back water that has been overlooked, or bypassed and allowed to develop, but either way, voyager and it’s discovery puts us on the map, so to speak.
Just another idea to play with.
Jim Roker
Mr Tek said,
If you survived, then you've won. The way you win a nuclear war is by surviving when the enemy does not. There is only one thing that's worse than war, it is losing a war! If you think otherwise then you are assuming that the enemy would be merciful with a defeated enemy. How would you like to lose control of your country? What terrible things might the Soviets have done to a defeated USA? Lets say the US President and government simply chickened out instead of fighting under the Twilight 2000 scenario. What would have happened?
M
Malenfant
Guest
Wow, talk about miss the point....
The way you win a nuclear war is by not having one. Any fullscale nuclear war would have resulted in MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction - of both sides and probably most of the rest of the planetary environment.
"By Dawn's Early Light" is probably the best nuclear war(ning) movie ever IMO. It's horribly underrated and overlooked though. </font>[/QUOTE]Powers Booth and Rebecca De Mornay, how can you go wrong?........
Wow, talk about miss the point....
The way you win a nuclear war is by not having one. Any fullscale nuclear war would have resulted in MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction - of both sides and probably most of the rest of the planetary environment. </font>[/QUOTE]Personally grateful it never went beyond and intellectual wargaming exercise!
Because I was personally involved........
If you can find it, Threads, by the BBC is one of the grimest views of a nuclear conflict I have ever seen. Its from the viewpoint of two families in Sheffield. Very, very grim. The image of somone in a traffic wardens uniform, the last vestige of authority, with filthy bandages over their face holding off the food riotors still chills me. That and the look on young girls face as she is brought her baby at the end...
G.
G.
Malenfant said
Now the enemy can kill whatever Americans it likes all without nuclear weapons.
It can build Death Camps on American soil and kill 270 million Americans if it wants, all in an environmantally safe fashion without nuclear fallout!
Or the enemy can establish itself as the ruling class and make all Americans into second class citizens.
Or it can reduce all Americans into a state of slavery.
And what if the only way not to have a nuclear war is by surrendering to the Enemy and letting him occupy your country?
Now the enemy can kill whatever Americans it likes all without nuclear weapons.
It can build Death Camps on American soil and kill 270 million Americans if it wants, all in an environmantally safe fashion without nuclear fallout!
Or the enemy can establish itself as the ruling class and make all Americans into second class citizens.
Or it can reduce all Americans into a state of slavery.
That's not "US vs. the World", it could just as easily be "country X vs country Y" There is a case where country Y wants to destroy country X and is not deterred by threat of nuclear relatiation, the only way to prevent this war is for Country X to provide a way for Country Y to destroy Counry X without resorting to nuclear war.
I'm not sure that this solution to war avoidance is any better than just having a nuclear war.
That is all I'm saying. I'm not talking about current events or politics. I have not once mentioned Iraq in this thread.
I'm not sure that this solution to war avoidance is any better than just having a nuclear war.
That is all I'm saying. I'm not talking about current events or politics. I have not once mentioned Iraq in this thread.
M
Malenfant
Guest
If Y wants to destroy X and is prepared to use nukes to do it, then it most likely will anyway.
If both X and Y have nukes, then the moment Y fires one, X will retaliate, you get the whole "first strike and then the subs fire" scenario and both will be destroyed. Nobody wins.
Though we almost had a similar scenario in the 60s in the Cuban Missile crisis - the Soviets backed down in the face of possible nuclear retaliation and a LOT of sabre-rattling. Fortunately both sides had the sense to back down, probably because they knew what would happen if war did break out. Had that blown up into a fullscale nuclear war, we wouldn't be here talking about this.
It's funny that backing down from a fight seems to be considered a Bad Thing nowadays. Most of the time, it's the most sensible thing to do - and it doesn't necessarily mean automatic surrender.
Tom, you did, indeed miss the point. A nuclear war on the scale of the one that would most likely have resulted had the US and USSR done a nutter and fired off their nukes at each other would have destroyed both countries along with a goodly percentage of the rest of the world. Once the US and USSR had armed themselves to such an extent that they threatened not just themselves, but the rest of the globe, they both then assumed, involuntary or not, aware or not, an obligation to the entire planet and not merely to their own citizens.
PBI said,
Communism was greatly in vogue during the Cold War, but now that's out of style. Today the lastest craze among the fashionable facists elite is Islamic Fundamentalism, but that's another story.
Is this a 'Better Red than Dead' Argument? Ok, lets say that the Soviet Union wanted to rule the World and it was quite willing to use nuclear weapons to achieve this goal or die trying. Then the only way to save the World would be for the US to surrender and end 228 years of democracy and freedom, all to save Mankind. But what are we saving Mankind for? Slavery? Oppresion? Tyranny? If Democracy and Freedom must be sacrificed in order to save humanity, how will we know that we'll ever get it back? Would you want to live in a World ruled by Communism? Do you want to be Spied on by secret police, your friends, or your children. Would you like to always be careful of what you say, lest the secret police find out and haul you away for unpatriotic or uncommunistic sentiment, or how would you like to be tried as a counter-revolutionary for a few mis-spoken words in the wrong company? Do you want your house bugged or your phonelines tapped? Suppose someone else rises higher in the communistist party heirarchy than you and he just doesn't like you, he could make up an accusation against you and have you arrested. If you are arrested, you won't get a fair trial, the verdict is predetermined, if the government wants you found guilty, you will be found guilty and you probably wouldn't have been arrested in the first place unless the government wanted to find you guilty. Alot of the protections and freedoms you take for granted in your country and in mine would be gone. And what about the guaranteed employment the Government promises? You'll be guaranteed employment alright, its just that you won't necessarily get to choose how you will be employed. A successful career depends on having the right connections in the Communist system, not on your ability or talent. If you annoy the wrong people, then you will find yourself a virtual slave working away in a labor camp, it all depends on how well you can kiss someone elses ass, and pass on the official state lie. Also a willingness to turn in your friends and relatives whom you catch engaged in unsocialist activities will earn you merits. Basically what we're talking about is something similar to George Orwell's "1984" Our cities won't get blasted under this scenario and by submitting to communism we might have saved mankind, but for what? If everytime someone challenges democracy and we submit, democracy won't last very long. Communism and other tyrannies must be defeated if human freedom is to be preserved, and sometimes that may mean a greater risk of nuclear war than if we just surrendered to the latest and most fashionable Empire of the times.
Communism was greatly in vogue during the Cold War, but now that's out of style. Today the lastest craze among the fashionable facists elite is Islamic Fundamentalism, but that's another story.
Tom, the spying and bugging goes on in the US and every other Western democracy already; our security agencies are more circumspect and don't go quite as far as the KGB did, and there've been plenty of scandals to prove it.
Your question about the Soviet Union wanting to rule the world or die trying is a false one and is the kind of stuff we were fed in the 70s and 80s (and 60s and 50s). It presumes the same was not true in the US. It was, for a time. The position put forward by a good portion of Kennedy's advisors during the Missile Crisis proves that. The real danger was that each side believed the other capable or saying "The world is mine and if I can't have it, no one will".
Most of the evils you rightly ascribed as systemic to communism have happened and are happening right now in the US and elsewhere. It hasn't generally been as overt and it hasn't happened on a constant basis, but it's been happening far too frequently. You soeak about surrendering to the lastest and most fashionable Empire of the times. Today, that's the US. Bush demands that other countries do what the US wants, or else. "You're either with us or against us." It smacks of McCarthyism to me.
A full-scale nuclear exchange is not winnable. Preservation of a single nation's "way of life" is not worth the entire planet. The US is not the repository of all things Good and Virtuous.
I'm sure there was a line of thought among the Soviets similar to your argument against better red than dead, but that didn't make it any less morally bankrupt.
The point is that there never really was any chance of such a thing (the Enemy willing to conquer the world or destroying it) occuring. Both sides only thought there was and, thankfully, somewhat cooler heads prevailed and the nuclear option was taken out of the accepted aresenal during the struggle.
Your question about the Soviet Union wanting to rule the world or die trying is a false one and is the kind of stuff we were fed in the 70s and 80s (and 60s and 50s). It presumes the same was not true in the US. It was, for a time. The position put forward by a good portion of Kennedy's advisors during the Missile Crisis proves that. The real danger was that each side believed the other capable or saying "The world is mine and if I can't have it, no one will".
Most of the evils you rightly ascribed as systemic to communism have happened and are happening right now in the US and elsewhere. It hasn't generally been as overt and it hasn't happened on a constant basis, but it's been happening far too frequently. You soeak about surrendering to the lastest and most fashionable Empire of the times. Today, that's the US. Bush demands that other countries do what the US wants, or else. "You're either with us or against us." It smacks of McCarthyism to me.
A full-scale nuclear exchange is not winnable. Preservation of a single nation's "way of life" is not worth the entire planet. The US is not the repository of all things Good and Virtuous.
I'm sure there was a line of thought among the Soviets similar to your argument against better red than dead, but that didn't make it any less morally bankrupt.
The point is that there never really was any chance of such a thing (the Enemy willing to conquer the world or destroying it) occuring. Both sides only thought there was and, thankfully, somewhat cooler heads prevailed and the nuclear option was taken out of the accepted aresenal during the struggle.
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