Ability of the US Gov (state and federal) to deal with invasion by teleportation

Michael Thayne · 08-12-2016, 12:20 PM

I'm planning on running a supers campaign in the near-future, going for a "supers in the real world" approach. This has me wondering: just how "super" does a threat have to be to demand a superheroic response?

As a baseline, I'm thinking many scenarios likely involve, functionally, an enemy ground-force "teleporting" into/near a major population center without warning. This could be literal teleportation, but really this is a catch-all for aliens landing craft decloaking/zombies plague/portal to Hell/robot uprising/whatever where the key features are (1) surprise and (2) inability to rely on the Navy or the USAF to intercept them before they reach their target.

What kind of forces could the US Gov bring to bear in that situation? Looking the number of National Guard deployed in response to things like the LA riots and Hurricane Katrina might be a useful guide, but I'm not sure. I know the US Military has plenty of forces stationed in bases throughout the US, but I don't know how quickly they could be mobilized in response to something totally unexpected, and of course there could be significant reluctance to use them for a variety of reasons, such as laws against using the military for law-enforcement purposes, and fear of using artillery and air power near US civilians. The "reluctance" factor will be a much bigger deal if the nature of the threat is unclear.

Thoughts?

08-12-2016, 12:20 PM	#1
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	Ability of the US Gov (state and federal) to deal with invasion by teleportation I'm planning on running a supers campaign in the near-future, going for a "supers in the real world" approach. This has me wondering: just how "super" does a threat have to be to demand a superheroic response? As a baseline, I'm thinking many scenarios likely involve, functionally, an enemy ground-force "teleporting" into/near a major population center without warning. This could be literal teleportation, but really this is a catch-all for aliens landing craft decloaking/zombies plague/portal to Hell/robot uprising/whatever where the key features are (1) surprise and (2) inability to rely on the Navy or the USAF to intercept them before they reach their target. What kind of forces could the US Gov bring to bear in that situation? Looking the number of National Guard deployed in response to things like the LA riots and Hurricane Katrina might be a useful guide, but I'm not sure. I know the US Military has plenty of forces stationed in bases throughout the US, but I don't know how quickly they could be mobilized in response to something totally unexpected, and of course there could be significant reluctance to use them for a variety of reasons, such as laws against using the military for law-enforcement purposes, and fear of using artillery and air power near US civilians. The "reluctance" factor will be a much bigger deal if the nature of the threat is unclear. Thoughts?