2

Like the whole OMG THERE'S A PRISIONER AMONG US cliche hasn't been done to death

[Edited on September 28, 2006 at 2:18 PM. Reason : a]

9/28/2006 2:18:01 PM

Quote :

"Of course the one guy could survive the armshot."

He could become the town's local mutant since he was left outside in the radiation.

9/28/2006 2:33:36 PM

so how long are they planning on staying underground?

9/28/2006 4:26:26 PM

They have geiger counters. Plus, if it is correct that only 8 or so cities have been nuked then the worse will pass in a day or so and after that all you need to do is keep your children away from the fresh milk.

Hell, they may all be wrong. The rain cloud that "came from Denver" may have had nothing to do with the blast, just your average storm front passing through dropping ordinary non-radioactive rain on everything, including Denver.

The issue is that a single detonation is not that much radioactive material. Yes, Denver is fucked for quite awhile, but the airborne radioactive elements will disperse following the wind patterns. We must remember that nuclear bombs were detonated all the time to very little ill effect, it is only when you start setting off dozens or hundreds that you saturate the environment with radioactive material, requiring you to hunker down for as long as possible to survive.

9/28/2006 11:00:02 PM

Given the state of that fallout shelter, I hope that the geiger counters are still in good working order.

Has anyone figured out the significance of the cities that were hit? The only thing that I thought of was that they're all well-known cities, and all have NFL teams. I hope someone has a better theory than my "Major League Baseball is wiping out the competition" proposal.

9/29/2006 9:32:22 AM

Alas Babylon

9/29/2006 9:37:46 AM

Well, if we assume the other three cities were New York, Los Angeles, and Houston, then it seems to me they just wiped out the largest cities with the hardware they had. You know, ran out of bombs to reach Charlotte, Miami, etc. Of course, looking at the list of "Largest Cities", Denver is quite a ways down the list. But it is centrally located, and it would make sense to make an exception for the central transport and food processing hub that is Denver.

9/29/2006 9:38:57 AM

Atlanta's also pretty far down the big city list; farther down than Denver or Charlotte. Though if they're taking out Denver as a transport and food processing hub, I guess Atlanta makes similar sense.

Alternately, the goal might have been to hit a major city in each region of the US, rather than just our top cities. In that case, the three other unknown cities might be, say, Seattle/Tacoma, New Orleans, and Minneapolis to cover the Pacific Northwest, South, and north central US. (Just an example, of course; I have no expectation that those three are any more likely than NY, LA, and Houston.)

The fact that it wasn't, say, Norfolk, Fayetteville, Minot, and Colorado Springs seems to indicate that it wasn't meant to be a strike on our military forces. Of course, we don't know that those aren't the three unknowns, or even that there are exactly three unknowns. There could be one additional city that was hit, and the guy took two extra pins to fasten the map down, or there could be a dozen additional cities and we only saw him mark the first three of them.

9/29/2006 12:26:01 PM

Why not D.C.? That'd be a high priority target I'd think.

[Edited on September 29, 2006 at 12:49 PM. Reason : ]

9/29/2006 12:49:12 PM

Quote :

"Atlanta's also pretty far down the big city list; farther down than Denver or Charlotte."

Maybe smaller then Denver, but for sure bigger than Charlotte


You think they'd ever have an Olympics in fuckin Charlotte?

9/29/2006 1:42:51 PM

Quote :

"Atlanta's also pretty far down the big city list; farther down than Denver or Charlotte."

Well if you go by actual city population, then yes, but the Metro areas are what really count. Atlanta is weird because its a huge city, but hardly any of its population lives in the actual city limits of Atlanta. But to think Charlotte is bigger than Atlanta is just an idiotic statement.

Atlanta city limits has a population of only around 470,000. Which puts it in 35th position.

Its metro population, which is what is most relavant is over 5million, which puts it 9th

Denver is 22nd at around 2.4mil

And Charlotte isn't even in the top 25 coming in at 36th with only 1.5mil


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_metropolitan_areas

.

[Edited on September 29, 2006 at 2:48 PM. Reason : ,]

9/29/2006 2:38:07 PM

^ Ah, thanks. I wondered why Atlanta seemed to be so far down the list for what seems like such a big place.

9/29/2006 3:27:01 PM

Yeah, the city limit here is all fucked up

9/29/2006 3:27:44 PM

Major Dad

9/29/2006 10:23:36 PM

i really like this series so far - to speculate over why they didn't attack other cities as opposed to the ones that are confirmed attacked

we don't know the ones that were missed at the end - and that report could have been old and repeating - the guy that was updating it died maybe - there are too many unknowns to guess

9/29/2006 10:27:07 PM

All this speculation is great.

However, given the cities we have on the list almost none have any military value (except for the odd military academy, a depot, and national guard center). So I think we can discount the military assault angle.

Also, as pointed out, by population they did a poor means of choosing targets.

Therefore, my favorite theory is pmc's first alternative: "the goal might have been to hit a major city in each region of the US" (see above).

This is the only theory that fits all the cities given perfectly, at it makes sense as it would have the effect of causing the most confusion and maximizing dislocation.

For example, if they had concentrated on the north east and California, the death toll would have been larger but it would have left the rest of the country in-tact and able to render assistance. However, as it is, each region is going to concentrate on its own lost city, perhaps to the detriment of national unity?

Of course, this being the apparent goal does not answer who the attacker was. We can eliminate Russia as the city-toll would be far greater than 8. Didn't the St. Lois cop say he thought they were hydrogen bombs? If so, then that would rule out China, Pakistan, India, Israel, etc, as they only have fission technology (1950s A-Bombs). This only leaves terrorists which stole the bombs from either France, Britain, U.S., Australia, or Russia (or one of the break-away republics). And such a list would include domestic terrorists which infiltrated Norad

[Edited on September 30, 2006 at 10:06 AM. Reason : desc]

9/30/2006 10:04:14 AM

you all are thinking about this waaaay too hard

9/30/2006 10:18:18 AM

heres hopin skeet ulrich takes his shirt off soon

9/30/2006 12:40:59 PM

There is nothing good about what you do or who you are.

9/30/2006 10:04:37 PM

Quote :

"you all are thinking about this waaaay too hard"

I agree. I didn't give it much consideration, but I just assumed that if cities like Denver and Atlanta had been hit, that L.A., D.C., and N.Y.C. were givens. I'm not sure where some of you were assuming that there were only x number of cities that had been hit, but my take on the final push-pin scene was that he was taking several handfuls of pins out in order to list the numerous amount of cities that had been hit. I was half expecting the camera to pan out at the end and show the map with 25-30 pins in it, if not more. And those would just be the ones that had been reported or whatever.

but, yeah, with the info we were given...

you all are thinking about this waaaay too hard.

9/30/2006 11:17:51 PM

"Isn't it nice that you have something to do with your time."
-- Old Lady in California

10/1/2006 11:35:30 AM

The website has both episodes in the series online now and apparently will do so throughout the entire season.

I love them doing this, so you don't have to worry about missing one night and then being SOL the reast of the season.

10/1/2006 12:01:01 PM

^^ I really like that they offer the episodes online, but it sucks for me since they wont allow them to be viewed from outside of the US.

10/2/2006 6:24:46 PM

10/2/2006 6:35:09 PM

Just watched the two episodes online (first, that is awesome, good job CBS), I think this can be a good series.

Quote :

"I agree. I didn't give it much consideration, but I just assumed that if cities like Denver and Atlanta had been hit, that L.A., D.C., and N.Y.C. were givens. I'm not sure where some of you were assuming that there were only x number of cities that had been hit, but my take on the final push-pin scene was that he was taking several handfuls of pins out in order to list the numerous amount of cities that had been hit. I was half expecting the camera to pan out at the end and show the map with 25-30 pins in it, if not more. And those would just be the ones that had been reported or whatever."

I think D.C. is a given. They were showing in the first episode the State of the Union address by the President right before the nuke hit.

10/2/2006 10:49:07 PM

if this show is smart, it'll only last one season

10/2/2006 10:59:44 PM

^^ I missed that. I need to go rewatch the first episode. I don't even know the characters' names.

10/3/2006 12:19:03 AM

Quote :

"The power grid should have stayed up for most of the country, except for a few tripped breakers, but restoring it to the areas that depended upon the named cities for power would require running new lines, possibly taking months. "

Remember a couple years ago when one down power station (in Ohio I think) knocked out the northeast?

10/3/2006 10:31:54 AM

^ Yes I do, that was a bunch of tripped breakers.

But the nice thing about a nuclear war is that it tends to reduce the demand for electricity by vaporizing the load. As most power-plants are located far from urban areas they are still in working order.

Therefore, there will be a giant voltage spike, which trips the breakers within seconds of the attack, and over the next day or so the technicians flip everything back on.

Quote :

"I think D.C. is a given. They were showing in the first episode the State of the Union address by the President right before the nuke hit."

Not necessarily. We saw no evidence that Jericho has its own television station, therefore odds are good that they were picking up their broadcasts from Denver, which would not fare well against a Nuke.

10/3/2006 11:07:42 AM

^ I know, I'm just saying that if I were Evil Dictator and I nuked the United States during the State of the Union, I think I'd nuke where the State of the Union was taking place to knock out the President, Congress, all but one of the Cabinet members, the Joint Chiefs...

[Edited on October 3, 2006 at 1:16 PM. Reason : /]

10/3/2006 1:15:05 PM

Yea hmmm, Mile High Stadium and a few other lesser cities, or decapitate the leadership of the free world in one fell swoop.

If they have the sophistication to pull off an attack of the magnitude we have seen on the show (even if they only nuked just the cities he pushpinned and no more) then they would be fucking stupid to not hit NYC and DC.

10/3/2006 1:20:04 PM

maybe it was an accident where nukes were stored in those cities and for some reason they were all detonated at the same time

just a random thought i seriously just came up with because terrorism and evil dictators don't make for good tv

10/3/2006 6:20:04 PM

^^ I agree, but there are other targets they overlooked as well. It would not have been that difficult to spend a nuke or two crippling our ability to make war on them in retaliation, they did not do so. But I think concluding "Obviously a dictator would hit washington" is begging the question: was it a foreign dictator? Maybe it was space aliens? And if it was a foreign power, how come the cop from St. Lois knew ahead of time it was going down?

If I had to guess, from the foreshadowing given, it is going to turn out to be a war on the U.S. waged by elements inside the U.S., in-which nuking Washington may not have been beneficial to their cause.

10/3/2006 9:55:05 PM

New episode tonight @ 8.

10/4/2006 12:56:16 PM

12 minutes, gtfo and watch it

10/4/2006 7:48:32 PM

Black guy know too much.

10/4/2006 8:06:10 PM

Black guy is armed like a fucking terrorist.

And what are the tanks doing rolling to Denver? Just some random soldiers who said they are gonna go fuck some terrorists up?

10/4/2006 8:09:47 PM

The armories that are spread out all over the country?

(Although the terrorists, if in Denver, would be dead wouldn't they?)

OMG! We attacked ourselves to pre-empt the terrorists!

[Edited on October 4, 2006 at 8:11 PM. Reason : /]

10/4/2006 8:10:12 PM

Oh wow no new cities, but noticeably absent was DC & NYC.

10/4/2006 8:29:38 PM

^ Thought Dallas was on there.

10/4/2006 8:38:36 PM

I was trying to pay too much attention to the DC/NYC area on that one.

I'm sure a screencapture will be up ASAP of it though. Was there one in the middle of the northern part of the Midwest which could indicate Omaha. I think they mentioned it later.

10/4/2006 8:42:43 PM

Only thing I learned from this episode was that Kansas City and a city in Texas and a city in the Northwest were hit.

Seems like the rain was a big deal over nothing. This show isn't keeping my attention like Heroes is.

[Edited on October 4, 2006 at 9:33 PM. Reason : ]

10/4/2006 9:29:56 PM

Philly didn't look like it had been judging from what was shown on the TV in the bar.

10/4/2006 9:34:29 PM

Yah, I'm leaving it on my list since it was where he put one of the pins in episode two.

It looked like the cop from St. Louis put more pins into the map in episode two than were shown on the map in the broadcast in episode three.

[Edited on October 4, 2006 at 9:47 PM. Reason : ]

10/4/2006 9:46:03 PM

Quote :

"Only thing I learned from this episode was that Kansas City and a city in Texas and a city in the Northwest were hit. Seems like the rain was a big deal over nothing. This show isn't keeping my attention like Heroes is. "

Well, in the preview for next week's episode, a drifting Denver survivor is shown with severe radiation exposure.

The Asian telecast to the bar gave hints that the rest of the world knew what was going on, and the tanks adding a "huh?" element as well as the flight recorder. Although that's what they were intended to do.

They should've showed us what the 2 dead prisoners looked like when they left the cellar at the farm.

Hawkins is an interesting character. The mine owner/mayor's political rival can be based on tonight's episode. Very cruel letting the guy die of a heartattack just to win a mayor's election.

[Edited on October 4, 2006 at 10:15 PM. Reason : /]

10/4/2006 10:09:29 PM

I paused it online when it got to the Chinese broadcast. The cities it indicated were: Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, NYC.

Obviously that's not it though, since we found out Kansas City was hit too. And Philadelphia wasn't on that map, and we know it got hit...Plus DC was absent.

I'm definitely liking this show so far, but it's so frustrating to only get a little bit of the big picture each episode.

10/5/2006 2:08:48 AM

^ha, dont watch Lost then

[Edited on October 5, 2006 at 2:31 AM. Reason : if that frustrates you]

10/5/2006 2:31:26 AM

Skeet's brother looks just like Eli Manning

I dont even know his name on the show, I just call him Eli

and his dad is Grizzly Adams

10/5/2006 4:51:25 AM

no, his dad is Major Dad!

10/5/2006 5:27:25 AM

just starting watching this

acting is pretty horrible sans the dude from scream

next week looks like it's gonna be good though

set em up

10/5/2006 11:39:19 AM