Post EMP dystopia, viability as a RPG setting?

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by malloyd

So why not just say that? How did that happen? Who cares? It's a setting assumption that it did somehow.

This is one of the advantages of zombies: they're easy to tune to what you want. In this case: zombies tend not to move far, so cities (where most of them were "born") tend to have lots of them, and so you don't try to live in them. Though you may well go in for heavily-armed looting expeditions.

[ak_aramis]

The big east cost blackout of 1989 (all of Quebec, many places on the US Eastern Seaboard) was a relatively low power EMP in weapon terms, triggered by solar flare activity across a wide region

It doesn't take long to recover from an EMP; many electronics will work just fine, and most of the generators will, too, within hours.

To get big enough of an EMP, you're probably talking an astronomical event - like a major supernova nearby;

[Anthony]

The easiest method for "makes unlivable, but doesn't prevent limited occupation, salvaging, and scavenging" is any effect where it takes months to years to build up a hazardous dose, or where you can protect yourself but the means of doing so are unduly onerous for long term use. Nuclear strikes are actually a pretty good candidate here, radioactive contamination is not something you want to live around long term, but it won't prevent desperate or well-prepared people from entering the area for limited periods.

[Luke Bunyip]

Thanks for your collective input. Instead of replying to each of you individually, I'll try to explain what I'm trying to do, and what I'm basing my assumptions upon.

First off, I'm going for a near future setting, so I was looking for a different or 'sciency' story device that wasn't conventional guided and/or iron bombs, or potentially residual, like NBC weaponry. Something which destroys a society's capacity to support complex weapon systems (like fighter bombers or mechanised military forces), and it's ability to make or repair those weapon systems.

Secondly, I want the actual impact to be off stage, hundreds of kilometres/miles/versts away from the small mining settlement in which I want to set the game. I'm going to resort to a handwaved assumption that damaged infrastructure could result in people fleeing cities (the nearest ones would be Adelaide {which has some defence related industry} and Whyalla {which has a large steel works}), and resultant poorly managed disaster relief (aka the opening chapters of S M Stirling's Dies the Fire).

Thirdly, I'm basing my assumptions on the technical capabilities of hypothetical EMP weaponry on the following:

• The Electromagnetic Bomb - a Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction: by Carlo Kopp (Long winded technical PDF - maybe more sense to those of you with a background in electrical engineering, which I am most categorically lacking)
• Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (Yes, I know this uses a nuclear explosion as the energy source for the EMP effect, but I like it because it's the opposite to the neutron bomb)
• Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP)

Question: I'm not overly attached to EMP weaponry; what I'm after is a setting dealing with the aftermath of a non conventional war, and one that doesn't leave residual effects, such as NBC contamination or 2000kg unexploded ordnance. Society and communities survive, but only by a whisker. What infrastructure remains functional does so by careful husbanding, and rampant scavenging for spare parts, uncorrupted software etc. What suggestions do you have for a scenario which could result in such a setting?

Postscript: In regards to the suggestion that the damage could have been caused by zombies... don't worry, they are on their way.

[Irish Wolf]

Perhaps a mutated bacterium or virus that subsists on some element common to modern society, like plastic (Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters) or rubber (toward the end of The Andromeda Strain)? That should have a salutary effect on modern society, while for our postapocalypse dwellers that should mean it's okay to scavenge from cities - as long as you clean anything you bring back pretty thoroughly (alcohol would probably work for that).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Something which destroys a society's capacity to support complex weapon systems (like fighter bombers or mechanised military forces), and it's ability to make or repair those weapon systems.

Kill enough people for economic collapse so they can no longer be manufactured. Most AtE scenaries seem to involve at least 90% population reduction, and pretty much any method of doing on a rapid time scale will cause a major collapse.

EMP, though, won't do the job by itself.

[(E)]

A hypothetical hacking or trojan attack maybe?

Possibly a very well planned strike on one or more weak points in a major network, food, water, power, transport or fuel all have some effect. The TV series Rubicon has a carefully orchestrated strike on an oil tanker in a key harbor disrupting a majority of crude oil imports into the US.

Other ideas that may contribute if more than one is used.
- Panic, a false alarm for something like an Ebola outbreak, meteor strike or Yellowstone eruption may cause lingering chaos.
- Wheat blight, year without summer, something very significant happens to global food supply.
- major weather event.
- An economic depression or meltdown.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Kill enough people for economic collapse so they can no longer be manufactured.

Not after a collapsed society, just moderately degraded.

Originally Posted by Anthony

...EMP, though, won't do the job by itself.

Coupled with one or more of the scenarios which E mentioned?

Originally Posted by (E)

A hypothetical hacking or trojan attack maybe?

...a ... strike on one or more weak points in a major network, food, water, power, transport or fuel all have some effect.

[Jack Sawyer]

I think what you're looking for is 'area denial' or the more complicated anti-access/area denial which has become the more recent military jargon for such things. Basically its stuff that either keeps things out (like invasions) or otherwise keeps things occupied (eg unlivable) since a big part of warfare is control of the battlefield and denying mobility to your opponent. Scorched Earth policies can also be part of that, and the symbolic/traditional version is salting the earth.

Anthony mentioned nukes, which have been historically one of the big area denial weapons because of the long term radiation (fall out). Any sort of radiation could probably do that (but I think that would become an issue of 'terrorism vs nuclear war' boundaries. fallout as a result of a nuke is more expected than a 'long term radiation' attack itself.) Technically any chem or bioweapon could do the same but aren't as good. Bioweapons are dangerously unpredictable and chem weapons are the same to some degree but also less effective IIRC than radiation. But I suppose chem and radiation could lead to the outcome you want.

The other benefit of nukes I can think of is that dispersion is generally the easiest countermeasure against nuclear attack (although that's mostly with mobile, rather than static formations) so you might argue dispersing into a larger number of smaller settlements (or more likely, below ground) would be preferred, but I'm less sure of that.


The non nuclear equivalent would be dirty bombs I believe.

Non nuclear EMP really isn't an 'area denial' weapon AFAIK, except in the sense you might use it to destroy vital infrastructure that makes an area habitable. But in such cases conventional weapons or nukes are a much simpler route to that (with added benefits.)

If you didn't want to use nuclear weapons I think smart/autonomous weapons (self replicating maybe, but that could be risky) would be another viable option for Sufficiently Advanced technology. One thing that you learn about weapons is that lots of smaller-yield weapons are efficient than one big one. It's why we went to MIRVs rather than unitary nuclear warheads, and its why DPICM and cluster munitions were a thing. And smart weapons coupled with cluster munitions (especially if the submunitions are THEMSELVES smart) would be even more devastating. You could 'mine' an area with persistent smart/autonomous weapons and it would probably remain unviable for as long as they existed (they'd need to be cleared out before the area could be 'livable') If they are self replicating or the means of on-site fabrication is hard to target/destroy (or they can be easily resupplied by aerial or even artillery deployment) it could be even harder to clear them out. And if it were persistent/resilient enough a threat, it may not be cost effective (at least in the timeframes of any real war.)

I imagine there could be some real hazards with such a device (esp self replicating ones) and there's almost certainly ethical issues (but then again probably most area denial weapons would face a similar issue, anyhow...) Also NNEMP and directed EMP would be something you would NEED to harden these devices against.... )

It also just occured to me you can combine 'smart weapon' and 'dirty bomb' to create a selective area denial weapon that might lack much of the destructiveness of a nuclear warhead, but would also serve as an effective area denial weapon (still morally dubious though, but plausible, I think?) That also staves off the concerns about 'smart mine' type munitions and EMP concerns, although there's no reason you couldn't use a combination of factors (nukes, dirty bombs, and persistent/autonomous 'smart' munitions. Or even some chemical weapons I suppose) In practice having multiple approaches to the same outcome is more desirable anyhow.

You could also use a variation of the 'Inbihitors or ME Reaper style logic: If a human settlement gets above a certain pre-defined level of sophistication or size, it gets bombed to the stone age. This is harder to work in, but if you had some sort of outside/external threat imposing it (alien invaders or some extra-planetary human colony/empire, some out of control AI-controlled, self-sustaining orbital network, etc.) you could pull it off.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Coupled with one or more of the scenarios which E mentioned?

A large scale EMP attack would be an abrupt economic shock, but bear in mind that an inactive piece of electronics stored in an antistatic bag is basically immune to EMP, which means anything in the supply chain.