ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DF Spoilers => Topic started by: Shift8 on October 04, 2020, 04:14:33 PM
-
Edited to remove spoiler content from subject.
- Griff
One of the most exciting things of the entire battleground book in my opinion was the scene where the Apache attack helicopters come at the end and royally fuck up the retreating Fomor. I waiting the entire book just for that scene, which I felt like I knew was coming the entire time since the arrival of the National Guard was foreshadowed numerous times. One of the best parts of the Dresden files more me has always been the relevance of the mortal world. In the DF, guns are not useless weapons. Magic and the supernatural are just different kinds of threats, and the combination of the two adds tremendous flavor the series.
In my head during the book I was hoping for a scene where a main battle tank arrives down a street and puts a sabot through some big baddie, but the helicopters were cool enough.
But the disappointing thing is that even though it is repeatedly stated over and over that this battle is simply to big to be covered up or missed, at the end of the book everyone is saying that it is successfully being covered up.
Sorry, but I call BS. Suspension of disbelief officially suspended. There is no fucking way that 8000 monsters attack a city, killing 20-60,000 people (the book listed different figures at different times), prompting the involvement of the military.......and it gets covered up. Eight Million people saw this shit go down. There is tons of destruction everywhere. Too. many. witnesses.
Also this story took place in time parallel to our own. Too many electronic devices to record things with, and too many ways for that information to leave the city. The explanation at the end about electronics and magic was bullshit. There are probably more phones and computers in Chicago than there are people. And not all of them would have been affected. Even in the places where there was the most reality breakdown due to magic, someones phone or camera was probably working. And Chicago is a big place. There were probably people who recorded things from a distance from tall buildings etc just like during natural disasters like the explosions that occurred in China not too long ago. Also we know for a fact, not even a conjecture, that at least some electronics were working in close proximity to the battle. The attack helicopters. There systems were clearly working or they would not have been able to operating their guns or even fly for that matter. Comms in and out of the city must have been working in come capacity as well, or how else did the NG and other emergency services even get called in or organized?
I really hope that in the next novel this gets undone and it the mortal world comes into knowledge of the supernatural. I think this will take the story in a very interesting direction.
-
One of the most exciting things of the entire battleground book in my opinion was the scene where the Apache attack helicopters come at the end and royally fuck up the retreating Fomor. I waiting the entire book just for that scene, which I felt like I knew was coming the entire time since the arrival of the National Guard was foreshadowed numerous times. One of the best parts of the Dresden files more me has always been the relevance of the mortal world. In the DF, guns are not useless weapons. Magic and the supernatural are just different kinds of threats, and the combination of the two adds tremendous flavor the series.
In my head during the book I was hoping for a scene where a main battle tank arrives down a street and puts a sabot through some big baddie, but the helicopters were cool enough.
But the disappointing thing is that even though it is repeatedly stated over and over that this battle is simply to big to be covered up or missed, at the end of the book everyone is saying that it is successfully being covered up.
Sorry, but I call BS. Suspension of disbelief officially suspended. There is no fucking way that 8000 monsters attack a city, killing 20-60,000 people (the book listed different figures at different times), prompting the involvement of the military.......and it gets covered up. Eight Million people saw this shit go down. There is tons of destruction everywhere. Too. many. witnesses.
Also this story took place in time parallel to our own. Too many electronic devices to record things with, and too many ways for that information to leave the city. The explanation at the end about electronics and magic was bullshit. There are probably more phones and computers in Chicago than there are people. And not all of them would have been affected. Even in the places where there was the most reality breakdown due to magic, someones phone or camera was probably working. And Chicago is a big place. There were probably people who recorded things from a distance from tall buildings etc just like during natural disasters like the explosions that occurred in China not too long ago. Also we know for a fact, not even a conjecture, that at least some electronics were working in close proximity to the battle. The attack helicopters. There systems were clearly working or they would not have been able to operating their guns or even fly for that matter. Comms in and out of the city must have been working in come capacity as well, or how else did the NG and other emergency services even get called in or organized?
I really hope that in the next novel this gets undone and it the mortal world comes into knowledge of the supernatural. I think this will take the story in a very interesting direction.
What I'm thinking is it will be in the later books that this slowly spreads and things start changing. Plus there is NO WAY it is business as usual in Chicago. Maybe they can convince the masses around the nation and world (there will be a HUGE 'conspiracy theory type group that doesn't buy it), but the people of Chicago know better. It will interesting to see how Jim plays this out in the upcoming books. there just wasn't time in this one to expound on it.
-
It becomes stuff of rumor and hearsay beyond someone who experienced it. A good RL example is the death camps during WW2, we'd heard tell they exist, not even all the german troops bore witness to them until shown after the war. And the war was outright denied in Cuba leading to the famous Remington quote,"if you furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." Also part of why they left auswitz, "one monument to the horrors perpetuated will do more to prevent it's reoccurrence than any history book or retelling ever will."(probably futzed that quote a little, but it conveys the idea readily enough.
-
Everyone in power wants to cover it up including the mortals. That does not mean they will ultimately succeed but it is a strong force. There is a rack in it and it will only get wider but we don’t get a completely different world in one day, it will take some time.
-
It becomes stuff of rumor and hearsay beyond someone who experienced it. A good RL example is the death camps during WW2, we'd heard tell they exist, not even all the german troops bore witness to them until shown after the war. And the war was outright denied in Cuba leading to the famous Remington quote,"if you furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." Also part of why they left auswitz, "one monument to the horrors perpetuated will do more to prevent it's reoccurrence than any history book or retelling ever will."(probably futzed that quote a little, but it conveys the idea readily enough.
Sorry, not the same thing at all. The death camps were somewhat sequestered from the general public, and even still rumors abounded (and higher ups knew it for a fact). Hiding the Chicago incident would be more like trying to tell Japan nukes dont exist after Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
-
Sorry, not the same thing at all. The death camps were somewhat sequestered from the general public, and even still rumors abounded (and higher ups knew it for a fact). Hiding the Chicago incident would be more like trying to tell Japan nukes dont exist after Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Nuclear bombs are natural. There is some sort of inner resistance in most mortals against really seeing the supernatural for what it is. A lot of people accept any explanation above the supernatural one. I think there is a supernatural explanation for that.
-
This is discussed at the end of the book. How a major terrorist attack was declared. But everyone in the country would want a face to hate. And they would want blood. Look at the butchers bill from one attack which killed 3000 people. Google Maps takes street view pictures daily, somewhere, and if the cameras didn't work during the devastation, they would start working afterword and YouTube would be full of it. This isn't 1945.
-
I think the implication was that the first blast took out every electronic device within miles. Anything with a battery plugged in.
At that point, you think maybe some folks had devices without batteries in them, and they survived the blast. They loaded the batteries in to video tape the craziness outside...
And another blast fires and fries everything within miles.
Wave after wave of Murphionic energy was likely enough to truly, genuinely take out all electronic recording devices, and possibly fry hard drives and memory cards in the process.
Maybe there are film cameras out there with some shots. But how many clear shots did they get with no lights anywhere? Just pitch black night to take pictures from too far away to see anything.
I'm sure some footage would survive somehow, but then you'll have the Librarians sweeping in to steal that like they did with the loup video years earlier.
It's going to boil down to millions of people not seeing anything, millions seeing stuff and going into denial, and millions seeing stuff and believing.
And remember, Harry isn't the one saying things are contained. The others are. Harry is saying things are definitely out and they should plan accordingly. So despite all the efforts of the government and the Librarians and the Wamps and the rest, the seal has been broken.
-
Sorry, not the same thing at all. The death camps were somewhat sequestered from the general public, and even still rumors abounded (and higher ups knew it for a fact). Hiding the Chicago incident would be more like trying to tell Japan nukes dont exist after Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
that isn't even the same at all sorry. Trying to tell Hiro and Naga nukes don't exist is like telling chicago it never happened, that's NOT what they are trying to do. They are controlling the hear say that reaches beyond which is EXACTLY the same. Americans had heard of the camps, Germans had heard of them, but if you didn't see them they just weren't real to you. Plausible deniability in the extreme.
-
I think the implication was that the first blast took out every electronic device within miles. Anything with a battery plugged in.
At that point, you think maybe some folks had devices without batteries in them, and they survived the blast. They loaded the batteries in to video tape the craziness outside...
And another blast fires and fries everything within miles.
Wave after wave of Murphionic energy was likely enough to truly, genuinely take out all electronic recording devices, and possibly fry hard drives and memory cards in the process.
Maybe there are film cameras out there with some shots. But how many clear shots did they get with no lights anywhere? Just pitch black night to take pictures from too far away to see anything.
I'm sure some footage would survive somehow, but then you'll have the Librarians sweeping in to steal that like they did with the loup video years earlier.
It's going to boil down to millions of people not seeing anything, millions seeing stuff and going into denial, and millions seeing stuff and believing.
And remember, Harry isn't the one saying things are contained. The others are. Harry is saying things are definitely out and they should plan accordingly. So despite all the efforts of the government and the Librarians and the Wamps and the rest, the seal has been broken.
Right but we know that stuff was still working. Assuming every single device was taken out, especially given the large numbers, doesnt fly. Murphys motorcycle was able to start, for one. I'd have to reread it but my intuition tells me there were many things working, implied or otherwise, that were taken for granted before the council tried to claim this as a reason it will be easy to hide this event.
-
Right but we know that stuff was still working. Assuming every single device was taken out, especially given the large numbers, doesnt fly. Murphys motorcycle was able to start, for one. I'd have to reread it but my intuition tells me there were many things working, implied or otherwise, that were taken for granted before the council tried to claim this as a reason it will be easy to hide this event.
The only things said to be working are things with batteries taken out or run on gas without modern electrical components.
They kept swapping out batteries in their walkie talkies, and even those weren't lasting with swaps. I'm not sure what motorcycle Murphy had but it might have been an older one with a battery and not much else on the way of electronics.
Remember, the more modern, the more susceptible. So any smartphone or modem camera would be worthless. Only old school cameras would make it through a blast or two, but eventually the odds would be against them.
-
but if you didn't see them they just weren't real to you. Plausible deniability in the extreme.
Sorry but this is just absurd.
-20,000 to 60000 people were killed.
-There is massive property damage.
-The NG was called in. Do you understand the kind of coordination that requires? Guardsman had to be called in. Weapons and Vehicles had to be prepared. Civilians had to be coordinated with. Unleashing the military for a huge conventional assault on a city requires a massive level of involvement at many levels.
-The communications in and out of the city had to be sufficient enough to allow the decision to be made to employ the army. If communications simply died off, this response would never have happened.
-The attack helicopters knew exactly where to go in order to catch the retreating Fomor. This requires communications. Even if they spotting the Fomor visually or with thermal imagers, they had to know where the battle was taking place.
-If in fact an incident occurred and nearly all communications and recording devices were disabled, that in and of itself is enough of a red herring too make it impossible for anyone to believe the cover up. How does a city get attacked in the information age to the order of tens of thousands of casualties, and not a single video gets posted to the internet or the news etc?
-There is too big a leak at the government level. Even if the government tried to cut off the city, this would not work. Operations on this level cannot be kept under wraps after the fact. Too many people would have to be in the know. All of those chopper pilots saw what they saw, and their gun cameras recorded it. All of the NG troops on the way to help would have to have been briefed, even if vaguely, on what they were going in to face. And explanation would have to be provided to the literally thousands of government officials who would be involved in sequestering the city and dealing with the aftermath. Even if somehow the city of Chicago could be quarantined (which it cant btw) the rest of the nation is going to be discussing the matter and there are too many loose ends for a coverup to hold water.
-A terrorist attack is not going to make sense. No single non-nuclear weapon would have resulted in the level of destruction seen. There is no radiation and a nuclear detonation would have been seen internationally. 8000 terrorists could not sneak unnoticed into a major city in a developed country with the weapons and equipment needed to unleash that level of destruction on a city and inflict that many casualties. Moreover, they left no bodies, so a natural explanation is going to be impossible to make up. Especialyll when you have 8 million people saying otherwise. How are they going to stop the city from talking in this era? Are they going to cut off the internet/phones/cars from all of Chicago? The legal ramifications of doing so would be their own hilarity. How is that going to be justified to the rest of the country? How do you explain to the rest of the world why you are cutting off all travel and communications from a city that was just attacked?
-
I admit, it felt a bit weird to me too. And I suspect it really IS too big to contain.
Just, not yet. For a while, Chicago (and NG-inclusive hinterland) can be a woke island in a sea of the unknowing, with information slowly trickling out. I think the coverers-up are making a mistake, and it will cost them when the truth gets out, but eh, that might be after the next election.
-
The only things said to be working are things with batteries taken out or run on gas without modern electrical components.
They kept swapping out batteries in their walkie talkies, and even those weren't lasting with swaps. I'm not sure what motorcycle Murphy had but it might have been an older one with a battery and not much else on the way of electronics.
Remember, the more modern, the more susceptible. So any smartphone or modem camera would be worthless. Only old school cameras would make it through a blast or two, but eventually the odds would be against them.
Except there are several problems with this. For one, the batteries in a walkie talkie are different from those in other devices. We dont know how different batteries are affected. Additionally, the motorcycle requires electronics to start. A battery and electrical wiring etc. There are also lots of devices that can record video without a battery. My laptop can be plugged in without the battery inserted. And on top of that, murphys radio proves that electronic devices were not totally wiped out. Her radio worked, and long enough between battery swaps to be tactically useful.
There is also the glaring issue of the attack choppers. Those things are full of electronics required for function, both in the weapons and for flying. They are basically flying computers. Those worked but I am supposed to believe that no one got footage of the attack? Rubbish.
The Formor literally discussed the arrival of the "mechanical weapons" of the NG arriving. They discussed it as a matter of concern, so clearly they were also not confident that if they were still fighting by the time the NG arrived that the magical energy present would somehow save them.
-
I admit, it felt a bit weird to me too. And I suspect it really IS too big to contain.
Just, not yet. For a while, Chicago (and NG-inclusive hinterland) can be a woke island in a sea of the unknowing, with information slowly trickling out. I think the coverers-up are making a mistake, and it will cost them when the truth gets out, but eh, that might be after the next election.
Nobody expect it to hold indefinitely but if they can get rid of the fomor and get some time to think and prepare before the masquerade crumbles it would be worth the effort.
-
I dont see how a coverup is even beneficial. From either the mortal authorities or from the supernatural. If the truth is going to get out eventually, and relatively quickly, then the best way to handle the situation from both sides is to get on top of the situation by telling the truth, or at least most of the truth. Covering things up just breeds bad relations when everyone see's the lie that even the super natural council said at the end is eventually going to get out.
I was hoping Harry would do this but he didnt quite go this far when he was telling winter what they should do in order to avoid mortals starting witch hunts and other things in the aftermath.
What the super natural forces that met in the council at the end should be doing is announcing themselves to the world. Lots of people in Chicago saw them helping in the fight. Instead of hiding or trying to cover it up, they should be taking this opportunity to come out of the woodwork on terms that are favorable to them. Right now all the people who saw them saw them fighting on their side against the Fomor.
-
It is about gaining time. How useful that is depends on how that time is used.
-
Except there are several problems with this. For one, the batteries in a walkie talkie are different from those in other devices. We dont know how different batteries are affected. Additionally, the motorcycle requires electronics to start. A battery and electrical wiring etc. There are also lots of devices that can record video without a battery. My laptop can be plugged in without the battery inserted. And on top of that, murphys radio proves that electronic devices were not totally wiped out. Her radio worked, and long enough between battery swaps to be tactically useful.
There is also the glaring issue of the attack choppers. Those things are full of electronics required for function, both in the weapons and for flying. They are basically flying computers. Those worked but I am supposed to believe that no one got footage of the attack? Rubbish.
The Formor literally discussed the arrival of the "mechanical weapons" of the NG arriving. They discussed it as a matter of concern, so clearly they were also not confident that if they were still fighting by the time the NG arrived that the magical energy present would somehow save them.
It's not just batteries. Guns jam. Motors break. It's just that electronic equipment seems to be more susceptible. So even non-battery operated equipment is going to break.
As for the choppers, they came in from outside the affected area. That's why it took so long. Anything close to Chicago was fried. When on the boat, I think he commented that the waterfront was dark, and only the distant light from Aurora (42 miles west of chicago, an hour commute) were visible on the cloud cover.
(Admittedly it shouldn't have taken all night for the Guard to get there, but that's another argument)
The best bet is that those in the know in the government guessed what was happening, and had the Guard hold off until morning because anything sooner might be just wasting assets.
The Librarians will secure and recordings from the Guard, and anything that goes public will disappear in short order.
The thing is, none of us are arguing that things won't be changed and the local public won't know. We're arguing that there won't be overwhelming evidence of what happened. Conspiracy theorists will spread the word, but the rest of the country and the world will fall in line with the official story.
-
It's not just batteries. Guns jam. Motors break. It's just that electronic equipment seems to be more susceptible. So even non-battery operated equipment is going to break.
As for the choppers, they came in from outside the affected area. That's why it took so long. Anything close to Chicago was fried. When on the boat, I think he commented that the waterfront was dark, and only the distant light from Aurora (42 miles west of chicago, an hour commute) were visible on the cloud cover.
(Admittedly it shouldn't have taken all night for the Guard to get there, but that's another argument)
The best bet is that those in the know in the government guessed what was happening, and had the Guard hold off until morning because anything sooner might be just wasting assets.
The Librarians will secure and recordings from the Guard, and anything that goes public will disappear in short order.
The thing is, none of us are arguing that things won't be changed and the local public won't know. We're arguing that there won't be overwhelming evidence of what happened. Conspiracy theorists will spread the word, but the rest of the country and the world will fall in line with the official story.
-Right except they don't. Its been established over the course of the series that most things dont actually break. Murphy even has a conversation with Dresden about this. It never seems to cause any problems for her or any of the bad guys with various guns and other gear. Or really for anyone's phones 90% of the time.
-The choppers came from outside yes. But they had no issues flying over the battle and doing what they do. There was still tons of magical energy in that area at the time. And there are plenty of other issues there was as well. How did the choppers know who to engage and where? Specifically, how did they know who the bad guys were? If they knew who the enemies were by sight, this would require and extensive briefing, which would itself require extensive communications via electronic devices in order to show pictures of the enemy to the pilots. If they were being ground controlled either by someone on the ground or by drone that had been observing for a longer period of time in order to know who was who, then they had communications near the battlefield.
-The librarians might secure those tapes. But this is the United States not China. There is no infrastructure in place to control the internet like that. Even in China this would be next to impossible.
-Lastly the Guard took a long time to get there because it takes a long time to mobilize the Army, especially the guard. The battle started at night. It would have taken some time before it was established the threat justified using the Army. The closest base is 3 hours away (discounting NTC which is Navy basic training). Troops had to be called in. Since its the middle of the night, many would have gotten the phone call late or not at all. Then those troops have to be organized. All sorts of things have to be done. It would have taken hours at the least. I cant even begin to describe in just this paragraph all the things that have to go down to make troop movements like this happen, and thats before we starting mapping out what equipment is at what bases in Illinois and whether we want to include active duty troops etc. When I was in Afghanistan in 2011, it took at least over an hour for an Apache helicopter to arrive at my base to deal with some insurgents. And that was with the base being only 40min drive by car south of where I was at and everyone constantly being on the alert. It takes time for things to happen.
-
As I read it the blast at the end of peace talks was the intentionally hex everything blast. So the people in the know who keeps stuff like a motorcycle and walkie talkies protected within magical circles still have functioning electronics, everyone else don't. Then when they take those electronics out of the circles they start breaking down fast because of all the magical energy in the air, but that is very far from the super hex in the beginning.
That attack helicopters arrive after Titania's water cleansing of the city and after dawn, so that is entirely different.
It does not seem odd to me that the army can send choppers to shoot stuff and make the pilots not talk aboit it afterwards and disappear the footage.
If it happened today and we knew about the losses, and then someone said that the magical frog people did it. I honestly think it would take quite some time before (of ever) the majority of people would take that seriously over chemical weapons of some sort and other advanced weaponry. But I think you are right about that someone needs to be blamed for it to be semi-believeable. Some middle eastern country maybe?
-
Right but we know that stuff was still working. Assuming every single device was taken out, especially given the large numbers, doesnt fly. Murphys motorcycle was able to start, for one. I'd have to reread it but my intuition tells me there were many things working, implied or otherwise, that were taken for granted before the council tried to claim this as a reason it will be easy to hide this event.
Murphy was able to start her Harley because she kept it behind wards.
-
Murphy was able to start her Harley because she kept it behind wards.
Was it behind wards when everything went down? Did the spell that shorted out everything just go away? Since she had no magical power of her own, how did she keep the bike warded? Why didn't she offer it to Harry when he had to "borrow" a bicycle to get to the castle? How is it with knee, shoulder, and elbow still weak and injured could she right a motorcycle in the first place?
-
Sorry but this is just absurd.
yes it is absurd, I find the holocaust deniers absurd too, but they do exist... And nobody even tried to cover that up, we promote it as an important part of history. Military assets, both human and technology are routinely kept silent to the public. The masses no nothing of what happened but what they are exposed to. not saying it will work forever, but by and large for the purposes of the story it is going to have effect. And it's not like it's just the government trying to cover it up, all the supernatural apparently plan to do so as well.
-
As I read it the blast at the end of peace talks was the intentionally hex everything blast. So the people in the know who keeps stuff like a motorcycle and walkie talkies protected within magical circles still have functioning electronics, everyone else don't. Then when they take those electronics out of the circles they start breaking down fast because of all the magical energy in the air, but that is very far from the super hex in the beginning.
That attack helicopters arrive after Titania's water cleansing of the city and after dawn, so that is entirely different.
It does not seem odd to me that the army can send choppers to shoot stuff and make the pilots not talk aboit it afterwards and disappear the footage.
If it happened today and we knew about the losses, and then someone said that the magical frog people did it. I honestly think it would take quite some time before (of ever) the majority of people would take that seriously over chemical weapons of some sort and other advanced weaponry. But I think you are right about that someone needs to be blamed for it to be semi-believeable. Some middle eastern country maybe?
-The Fomor didnt seem to think that it would have mattered if Titania did her thing or not. Nor do any of the other people in the books seem to think this would matter. The arrival of the cavalry, literally the cavalry, is foreshadowed the entire time. It is never once implied that mortal forces would have any difficulty whatsoever handling the Formor. Both sides were racing agaisnt time. For the defenders of the city, it was to last long enough for them to arrive. The Fomor discussion we overhear makes it quite clear that they are very concerned with still being in the city by the time the Army arrives. If they thought they could be dealt with simply by flooding the area with magic, they were apparently clueless to this.
-I went over blaming this on terrorists or some middle eastern country. Not going to work. Not even remotely possible or believable.
-
Was it behind wards when everything went down? Did the spell that shorted out everything just go away? Since she had no magical power of her own, how did she keep the bike warded? Why didn't she offer it to Harry when he had to "borrow" a bicycle to get to the castle? How is it with knee, shoulder, and elbow still weak and injured could she right a motorcycle in the first place?
I eyed the motorcycle. Then her. “How?”
“Like I don’t keep this old baby behind wards,” she said. “The Ordo Lebes did it for me years ago. And bikes are the only things that can get through the streets.”
As for your other questions, no clue. Except I felt Murphy being to do just about anything after ripping her casts off was way unbelievable anyway so riding a motorcycle wasn't the biggest problem there.
-
We think about this more than Jim does. The damage should boggle your mind.
Anything on final or taking off at a Chicago Airport would have fallen out of the sky. Everybody with a pacemaker or defibrillator would have seen them fail. Anybody in a ICU would have died. There are three nuclear reactors near Chicago, including, wait for it, the Dresden Generating Station. Depending on the range of the effect it would have taken them out. The damage in Japan was caused by the loss of power.
Any railroad locomotives would be dead since they are diesel electric. Every transformer in the city would have died and it might take years to replace them. All appliances, all blood storage. Any insulin requiring refrigeration. And almost all streetlights. Every car, motorcycle and ambulance. Every bank and financial institution. And every water pump in Chicago. Plus thing's I'm forgetting.
When you hex technology this is what to expect. And Jim always says it destroys, not that it stops working until the hex is removed.
-
We think about this more than Jim does. The damage should boggle your mind.
Anything on final or taking off at a Chicago Airport would have fallen out of the sky. Everybody with a pacemaker or defibrillator would have seen them fail. Anybody in a ICU would have died. There are three nuclear reactors near Chicago, including, wait for it, the Dresden Generating Station. Depending on the range of the effect it would have taken them out. The damage in Japan was caused by the loss of power.
Any railroad locomotives would be dead since they are diesel electric. Every transformer in the city would have died and it might take years to replace them. All appliances, all blood storage. Any insulin requiring refrigeration. And almost all streetlights. Every car, motorcycle and ambulance. Every bank and financial institution. And every water pump in Chicago. Plus thing's I'm forgetting.
When you hex technology this is what to expect. And Jim always says it destroys, not that it stops working until the hex is removed.
On that note Dead Beat should have been an absolute slaughterfest too since Cowl set up a sustained version of Ethniu's hex (on top of everything else).
-
This is the entire problem with this particular plot device in the Dresden files. The bulk of examples of it and characters comments about it mostly tend to suggest that it is annoying but not truly debilitating problem to technology. In other words, over the course of the series things work more often than they don't, even in the direct presence of magic. To boot, this is directly commented on by some characters in the series both explicitly and implicitly.
Then you get cases like Murphy's motorcycle where Dresden's reaction is almost like a retcon, except that it only seems to apply where Jim wants it to. It would be one thing if Harry was concerned the bike might fail. Its another thing entirely for him to be flabbergasted that it works and for Murphy to have gone to the trouble of putting up wards.
Morris Walters made some good points about the damage that would have been done if we assume that the ability to cancel electronics is as devastating as some parts of the book imply or some here think are certainly the case. The point about dead beat is also good. If magic was really such a consistent detriment to technology than the entire series would have played out differently. The super-natural would not be in hiding from mortals, it would be the other way around.
Id also like the point out that in the first few books Harry talks alot about how he can't go in hospitals because of the risk to the delicate machines there. But when Micheal is hurt he spends quite a lot of time in a hospital. He has some concerns, but clearly the risks were low enough that he was ok risking all of the people in the hospital...not to mention Micheal.
-
Indeed, the amount of times things in the Dresden Files should have caused more damage than they should have is a big question mark.
I very much agree that it seems absurd that the end of the book seems to be a return to mostly normal but more people are spooked. Ridiculous. I wrote in another thread how that little dust-up in NY in September 2001 changed everything. Security went to a whole new level. Wars were started that still haven't ended. Economies crashed and were made. And that was a few buildings and 3000 people.
60,000 people and 50 buildings (give or take)? No one would accept that. Not to mention when the National Guard showed up and saw all that damage and no enemies and reports of monsters...they must have seriously started scratching their heads.
So the question really becomes...how does something like the attack on Chicago get covered up? Have such events been done before?
The only plausible explanation for people "accepting" this as a mere terrorist incident (with no build-up or chatter, mind you - that's what the NSA etc spend much of their time listening out for) - would be that the US government in the Dresden Files DOES known about the supernatural and has the capabilities to cover such things up...at least to a point.
Anything less than a full-scale cover up with semi-magical resources will be completely implausible and break immersion. At least, that's my take.
-
And they didn't even use any of the nerve gas bombshells for this big assault when just dropping a few of them in residential areas far from where the accords forces were clustering would be a great way to kick off festivities for the Fomor.
-
Well, they did kill the Fomor Lord responsible for making them (in Bombshells I believe).
But perhaps they did use such tactics away from the main fight. Harry might have been at the center of the conflict for the most part, but who knows what happened outside of that? We don't get much fill in.
Hopefully Jim will mention such things later on.
-
The only things said to be working are things with batteries taken out or run on gas without modern electrical components.
They kept swapping out batteries in their walkie talkies, and even those weren't lasting with swaps. I'm not sure what motorcycle Murphy had but it might have been an older one with a battery and not much else on the way of electronics.
Remember, the more modern, the more susceptible. So any smartphone or modem camera would be worthless. Only old school cameras would make it through a blast or two, but eventually the odds would be against them.
They weren't switching batteries. Murphy put new batteries in a new walkie after the first burned out. The one's that kept working were behind wards. I imagine the ones in the field had been stored behind wards. Murphy's Harley was also stored behind wards.
I admit, it felt a bit weird to me too. And I suspect it really IS too big to contain.
Just, not yet. For a while, Chicago (and NG-inclusive hinterland) can be a woke island in a sea of the unknowing, with information slowly trickling out.
This is basically my take.
There is also the glaring issue of the attack choppers. Those things are full of electronics required for function, both in the weapons and for flying. They are basically flying computers. Those worked but I am supposed to believe that no one got footage of the attack? Rubbish.
They weren't in Chicago, and Titania got rid of most of the magical energy flying around. The sunrise would have too, and that's when they were expecting the NG.
The attack choppers have footage. I'm not sure what the footage will be like. Will it be heat signatures or what? My point is that I'm not sure it would be self evident what was on the footage. The footage will be in government hands. It would probably leak eventually.
-Right except they don't. Its been established over the course of the series that most things dont actually break. Murphy even has a conversation with Dresden about this. It never seems to cause any problems for her or any of the bad guys with various guns and other gear. Or really for anyone's phones 90% of the time.
Fire wasn't working right when Harry did his Egg Shen routine.
The coordination on the ground with the NG was probably being handled either by Lara's people or Marcone's with the warded radios. Both of the have people in state government.
To Morris's point, Harry does mention that they had people dying from lack of clean water that summer. Chicago is also one of the big financial centers of the world. This attack would probably also cause a global recession if not depression.
-
Remember, the more modern, the more susceptible. So any smartphone or modem camera would be worthless. Only old school cameras would make it through a blast or two, but eventually the odds would be against them.
Lots of photo-nerds believe in using old-school analogous equipment. There are lots of cameras out there that work without batteries. Maybe on the attic in a box with grandfather's stuff ...
-
Edited to remove spoiler content from subject.
- Griff
One of the most exciting things of the entire battleground book in my opinion was the scene where the Apache attack helicopters come at the end and royally fuck up the retreating Fomor. I waiting the entire book just for that scene, which I felt like I knew was coming the entire time since the arrival of the National Guard was foreshadowed numerous times. One of the best parts of the Dresden files more me has always been the relevance of the mortal world. In the DF, guns are not useless weapons. Magic and the supernatural are just different kinds of threats, and the combination of the two adds tremendous flavor the series.
In my head during the book I was hoping for a scene where a main battle tank arrives down a street and puts a sabot through some big baddie, but the helicopters were cool enough.
But the disappointing thing is that even though it is repeatedly stated over and over that this battle is simply to big to be covered up or missed, at the end of the book everyone is saying that it is successfully being covered up.
Sorry, but I call BS. Suspension of disbelief officially suspended. There is no fucking way that 8000 monsters attack a city, killing 20-60,000 people (the book listed different figures at different times), prompting the involvement of the military.......and it gets covered up. Eight Million people saw this shit go down. There is tons of destruction everywhere. Too. many. witnesses.
Also this story took place in time parallel to our own. Too many electronic devices to record things with, and too many ways for that information to leave the city. The explanation at the end about electronics and magic was bullshit. There are probably more phones and computers in Chicago than there are people. And not all of them would have been affected. Even in the places where there was the most reality breakdown due to magic, someones phone or camera was probably working. And Chicago is a big place. There were probably people who recorded things from a distance from tall buildings etc just like during natural disasters like the explosions that occurred in China not too long ago. Also we know for a fact, not even a conjecture, that at least some electronics were working in close proximity to the battle. The attack helicopters. There systems were clearly working or they would not have been able to operating their guns or even fly for that matter. Comms in and out of the city must have been working in come capacity as well, or how else did the NG and other emergency services even get called in or organized?
I really hope that in the next novel this gets undone and it the mortal world comes into knowledge of the supernatural. I think this will take the story in a very interesting direction.
We saw that the government still attempt to cover things up. Whether or not the attempt will be successful however is a big question mark in my opinion. The fact that the government still try to cover up is not surprising, and though it would likely take effect for now I doubt it would work long term.
-
Even just denying everyone an official narrative that lines up with reality would do a great deal to obfuscate what happened. One of the major weaknesses of conspiracy theories is that you have conflicting explanations for the same event. So the government says terrorists which is obviously garbage but none of the stories coming out of Chicago agree with each other. Some people are saying aliens and other people are saying fairies and other people say it was the Iranians and still others saying it was a Chinese attack and other other people are saying the Feds were testing an EMP device and it went horribly wrong. There isn't one voice providing an explanation and there'd be almost nothing of what we've gotten used to qualifying as evidence.
So I don't think the cover-up will result in large numbers of people believing the official narrative but it will allow people to reject uncomfortable facts about what happened.
The big thing we aren't going to get answered is how it would affect US domestic and international politics. Responsibility for the attack would have to be assigned to someone and that someone would be destroyed.
-
The big thing we aren't going to get answered is how it would affect US domestic and international politics. Responsibility for the attack would have to be assigned to someone and that someone would be destroyed.
This would be highly out of character for the U.S. government. The U.S. Government has done its fair share of unseemly acts, but completely making up an enemy and attacking them as a cover up is something it has never done. If there is some event like this that I am not aware of it either happened a very long time ago or was not done on this kind of scale.
And there is a reason it has not been done on this kind of scale, if ever. Governments cannot cover up things on this kind of scale, and blaming a foreign power or terrorist group would be so easily falsified that it would be completely pointless to try. Not only would be incredibly easy to falsify, but there would be too many layers of government involved for this to even be practical. Something like a CIA coup in the 1950's or 1960's was possible without anyone knowing because the entire operation was clandestine and could be authorized and carried out without having to involve anyone outside of the executive branch. This wont work with the battle of Chicago because it is a massive event and everyone will be involved. Congress, state governments, local governments etc.
-
This would be highly out of character for the U.S. government. The U.S. Government has done its fair share of unseemly acts, but completely making up an enemy and attacking them as a cover up is something it has never done. If there is some event like this that I am not aware of it either happened a very long time ago or was not done on this kind of scale.
And there is a reason it has not been done on this kind of scale, if ever. Governments cannot cover up things on this kind of scale, and blaming a foreign power or terrorist group would be so easily falsified that it would be completely pointless to try. Not only would be incredibly easy to falsify, but there would be too many layers of government involved for this to even be practical. Something like a CIA coup in the 1950's or 1960's was possible without anyone knowing because the entire operation was clandestine and could be authorized and carried out without having to involve anyone outside of the executive branch. This wont work with the battle of Chicago because it is a massive event and everyone will be involved. Congress, state governments, local governments etc.
I'm pretty sure they've done it since WW2 but I don't feel like looking it up right now. It's true that real false flag attacks, by any government, aren't on this scale.
However, the lie could go farther than you think. After all, they didn't invent an attack. If you line up enough "experts" to go out there and say "It was the Iranians!" enough people will fall for it because they will want to believe that there's something that can be done to stop it from happening again. The alternative is for the President to go on record saying "there is no effective action we can take to stop this from happening again." That's just not going to happen.
Will the truth come out? Sure. But the only people who have anything close to a complete and accurate picture of what happened aren't talking because they're the ones who decided to cover it up. By the time there's clear and convincing evidence it wasn't Iran, or whoever, the consequences of the lie will be manifest and there will be no going back.
-
I'm pretty sure they've done it since WW2 but I don't feel like looking it up right now. It's true that real false flag attacks, by any government, aren't on this scale.
However, the lie could go farther than you think. After all, they didn't invent an attack. If you line up enough "experts" to go out there and say "It was the Iranians!" enough people will fall for it because they will want to believe that there's something that can be done to stop it from happening again. The alternative is for the President to go on record saying "there is no effective action we can take to stop this from happening again." That's just not going to happen.
Will the truth come out? Sure. But the only people who have anything close to a complete and accurate picture of what happened aren't talking because they're the ones who decided to cover it up. By the time there's clear and convincing evidence it wasn't Iran, or whoever, the consequences of the lie will be manifest and there will be no going back.
How are you going to get these experts? If the government somehow convinces some people to lie on TV, there are going to be quadruple that number taking them to task in public. If they use fake experts, everyone in those fields is going to be scratching their heads where these people came from and that is going to rapidly be public information.
It was the Iranians? What coherent explanation is going to make that make sense? With what weapons? How did they move that many personnel in secret? These things are impossible. No one is going to believe that. Even the average lay person is going to have a hard time swallowing this kind of explanation. Especially since we have 8 million witnesses and tons of physical evidence. You are also forgetting that an accusation like that is going to be refuted by Iran and everyone else internationally. It would be impossible to generate convincing false evidence of an attack on this scale and very easily falsified. Large troop and weapons movements cannot be hidden easily, and they are never covered up long term. This just does not happen.
-If the truth comes out later the lie will be worse than useless. It will backfire. Nobody lies when they know for certain that they wont be able to pull off the lie. That defeats the purpose.
-
This would be highly out of character for the U.S. government. The U.S. Government has done its fair share of unseemly acts, but completely making up an enemy and attacking them as a cover up is something it has never done. If there is some event like this that I am not aware of it either happened a very long time ago or was not done on this kind of scale.
And there is a reason it has not been done on this kind of scale, if ever. Governments cannot cover up things on this kind of scale, and blaming a foreign power or terrorist group would be so easily falsified that it would be completely pointless to try. Not only would be incredibly easy to falsify, but there would be too many layers of government involved for this to even be practical. Something like a CIA coup in the 1950's or 1960's was possible without anyone knowing because the entire operation was clandestine and could be authorized and carried out without having to involve anyone outside of the executive branch. This wont work with the battle of Chicago because it is a massive event and everyone will be involved. Congress, state governments, local governments etc.
There's not much I can say to this that won't run straight into touchy topics.
-
I realise it does not work so well with the fomor. But if it had been e.g. the red court, then the attack would have come from another country. It is not not the goverment of that country, just like another terrorist group who had kind of taken over a country.
I think it is worth pointing out that there is really big difference between an active hex and the "murphionic field". Harry can stand next to someone with a walkie for a reeeealy long time without affecting it. But he can also hex it in a couple of seconds.
I am pretty sure that a good wizard can hex a helicopter if he is close to it, but I would guess that the apaches can engage the wizard from pretty far away.
When reading I try to chose the interpretation that lets me enjoy the text the most. In regards to the super hex I would think that very reliable systems that is not too close to the source, such as nuclear generators, might be less affected. But I think the people in hospitals are out of luck. With the pacemakers, maybe there is some protection to be had from being inside a human? It would make the use of the swallowed usb device even smarter.
-
How are you going to get these experts? If the government somehow convinces some people to lie on TV, there are going to be quadruple that number taking them to task in public. If they use fake experts, everyone in those fields is going to be scratching their heads where these people came from and that is going to rapidly be public information.
It was the Iranians? What coherent explanation is going to make that make sense? With what weapons? How did they move that many personnel in secret? These things are impossible. No one is going to believe that. Even the average lay person is going to have a hard time swallowing this kind of explanation. Especially since we have 8 million witnesses and tons of physical evidence. You are also forgetting that an accusation like that is going to be refuted by Iran and everyone else internationally. It would be impossible to generate convincing false evidence of an attack on this scale and very easily falsified. Large troop and weapons movements cannot be hidden easily, and they are never covered up long term. This just does not happen.
-If the truth comes out later the lie will be worse than useless. It will backfire. Nobody lies when they know for certain that they wont be able to pull off the lie. That defeats the purpose.
Same place they already get experts for hire. The key thing is that no one will be able to contradict them without sounding like lunatics to anyone who wasn't in Chicago. They don't need to invent experts, just provide them with words to say. The experts will also want to believe an easier truth, as well. It's very difficult to refute something without being able to provide an alternative explanation. The innocent and guilty alike would say "it wasn't us but we have no clue what actually happened."
There's less than eight million survivors. That's not the same thing as witnesses. Not to mention, the lie isn't about anything that happened. It would be about why things happened. Since barely anyone knows why the attack happened, the lie will be fairly resilient.
Never underestimate the stupidity of politicians facing an out-of-context crisis.
-
This would be highly out of character for the U.S. government. The U.S. Government has done its fair share of unseemly acts, but completely making up an enemy and attacking them as a cover up is something it has never done. If there is some event like this that I am not aware of it either happened a very long time ago or was not done on this kind of scale.
And there is a reason it has not been done on this kind of scale, if ever. Governments cannot cover up things on this kind of scale, and blaming a foreign power or terrorist group would be so easily falsified that it would be completely pointless to try. Not only would be incredibly easy to falsify, but there would be too many layers of government involved for this to even be practical. Something like a CIA coup in the 1950's or 1960's was possible without anyone knowing because the entire operation was clandestine and could be authorized and carried out without having to involve anyone outside of the executive branch. This wont work with the battle of Chicago because it is a massive event and everyone will be involved. Congress, state governments, local governments etc.
This was explicitly proposed by the CIA as a means of legitimizing an invasion of Cuba during the Missile Crisis- hitting Florida with an American nuke and blaming the Russians/Cubans.
Kennedy, to his credit regardless of what other opinions people may hold, flipped his lid over it and essentially told the CIA to stuff it for the remainder of his presidency.
-
There is the old saying, "say a lie long enough and loud enough, people will believe you." I am surprised that they didn't add that gas bombs containing hallucinogens were set off less than five minutes into the attack, followed by a short lived virus that tainted the city's water system that attacked a special part of the brain causing major paranoia, causing citizens to actually turn on each other with the weapons they had on hand...
-
To the OP:
Think this. Imagine that tomorrow, in middle of this pandemic, future elections, and things like that Chicago is all but destroyed. You are not there. But perhaps you or something you know have family there. And that family survived and tells you all what happened. A big Titan, monsters in the streets. At the same time you read in newspapers, social networks (Supernatural people uses social networks too, except for the wizards), TV, radio tells you that there was a terrorist attack, and some massive allucinations around, probably because of gases or drugs or whatever.
Who would you believe? Wouldn't you think that perhaps the Chicagoan were traumatized for so much slaughter, pain, destruction?
I have an example more on point that WW2 or the nuclear bombs, which were natural. Do you believe the Fatima miracles actually happened? Only around 100 years ago, not 600 or anything, in a time were some cameras already existed and some skepticism were around, literally hundreds of people claim to have seen the Virgin Mary. And more than once. Yes, there are not 8 million people, but there are quite a bunch. And do you, personally, believe it? Probably not, because they told you that they are lying or they had been victims of massive hysteria. Why wouldn't the same logic apply to Chicago?
That said, it's obvious that not everyone will believe the official story. But if denial happens even about tragic real natural things why wouldn't it happen for supernatural things, and much more. We all want to sleep better at night.
Still, I wouldn't go with terrorism. I would have gone, as suggested, with a hurricane or something. And then I would have said that gangs terrorized people who where in such a state of desperation, panic and pain that they thought they were monsters.
-
Still, I wouldn't go with terrorism. I would have gone, as suggested, with a hurricane or something. And then I would have said that gangs terrorized people who where in such a state of desperation, panic and pain that they thought they were monsters.
It could work if one goes with that the water and air were poisoned, and it affected people's minds to the point where absolute chaos ruled. Private citizens in this country have access to weapons and things to inflict that kind of damage on themselves and their city under the influence of a mind altering drug. Then the national government could take up the cause, they don't really know what happened but they cannot admit to that.. So they will pick one of the usual suspect groups from one of the usual suspect countries, blame them and retaliate! Many will die and we will all feel better because the deaths were avenged..
-
There's not much I can say to this that won't run straight into touchy topics.
There's the Spanish American war, but yeah. Plenty of examples in my lifetime. Sure, none of them are at this scale, but how could there be? There hasn't been a mass casualty event like this on American soil since the Civil War.
With the pacemakers, maybe there is some protection to be had from being inside a human? It would make the use of the swallowed usb device even smarter.
This wouldn't surprise me in the least. It seems consistent with what we know if not probable.
-
To the OP:
Think this. Imagine that tomorrow, in middle of this pandemic, future elections, and things like that Chicago is all but destroyed. You are not there. But perhaps you or something you know have family there. And that family survived and tells you all what happened. A big Titan, monsters in the streets. At the same time you read in newspapers, social networks (Supernatural people uses social networks too, except for the wizards), TV, radio tells you that there was a terrorist attack, and some massive allucinations around, probably because of gases or drugs or whatever.
Who would you believe? Wouldn't you think that perhaps the Chicagoan were traumatized for so much slaughter, pain, destruction?
And then I would have said that gangs terrorized people who where in such a state of desperation, panic and pain that they thought they were monsters.
Except this analogy doesn't work because its not as simple as "chicago was all but destroyed." We have a very specific form of attack with far too many witnesses. We dont need to bring the super natural into this. This would be like an asteroid hitting Chicago and the government trying to tell people it was a terroist attack and there was no asteroid. Aint gonna happen. Drugs do not cause consistent hallucinations of the same thing across a group of people that large of that large of an area. There is no chemical weapon that has such effects either. And even if there were, chemical weapons are highly irregular weapons. They would not have effected all of the people in the city, not even close to most of them. What is going to happen is that 8 million people are going to be telling an entirely different story with with a high degree of consistency. It is also impossible for the people of the city to all be in a conspiracy.
"I have an example more on point that WW2 or the nuclear bombs, which were natural. Do you believe the Fatima miracles actually happened? Only around 100 years ago, not 600 or anything, in a time were some cameras already existed and some skepticism were around, literally hundreds of people claim to have seen the Virgin Mary. And more than once. Yes, there are not 8 million people, but there are quite a bunch. And do you, personally, believe it? Probably not, because they told you that they are lying or they had been victims of massive hysteria. Why wouldn't the same logic apply to Chicago?"
No I dont believe in the Fatima BS. People who have religious "hallucinations" (this presumes I dont think they are just liars), already have a concept of thing they claim to see. They also have clearly assumed ulterior motives. Not to mention that their experiences are not repeatable, are generally highly vague. To boot you have that people in the Fatima thing were claiming to see things right after they looked directly into the sun...I could go on but the entire event is entirely nonsense that only a fool could believe. Just like all religious experiences.
This is going to start getting into epistemology, and part of the problem here is that the Dresden Files is already on shaky ground on this regard because the fact that the supernatural world exists and no one is aware of it requires considerable suspension of disbelief. Exploiting this plot device beyond the general hum drum of the detective cases starts to get into absurdity, especially when it was deliberately set up and foreshadowed for the entire novel until it got ret-conned at the end.
-
Ok, as you just call me a fool, I am not going to keep arguing with you.
-
Ok, as you just call me a fool, I am not going to keep arguing with you.
You actually think Fatima happened? Really?
And don't be melodramatic. I didn't call you a fool any more than someone accusing another person of lying is calling that person a liar. If you really do think that those experiences happen (or are real), or that Fatima happened, I think your are being extremely foolish.........but that does not mean I think you are fool as a defining characteristic of your character. Especially since they way you presented the Fatima examples made it seem to me that you yourself would find someone who believed it foolish, since you seemed to be implying that people would find the Chicago claims absurd just like Fatima.
So no, I do not think you are a "fool."
-
Seeing as we've reached the point where you're openly demeaning real world events that some people take on real world faith, I'd say it's time to stop.
Either get the thread back on subject without belittling people's religious opinions, or the conversation will stop.
-
Thanks Griff. We'll do.
My belief about Fatima is "it could have happened. Many witnesses, several times. And I am sure Sor Lucia believed it" but my personal opinion is irrelevant. I understand a lot of people will have their doubts and utterly disbelieve it, and that was my point. Because basically I am saying that "yes, many people will understand the supernatural exists" but many others won't.
But what affected me was this sentence: "I could go on but the entire event is entirely nonsense that only a fool could believe. Just like all religious experiences". Because I do believe in other religious experiences (that I won't mention here).
So, on topic, do you really think all the versions about what happened in Chicago are coherent? That they will all tell the same thing? Remember that no many people were first hand witness. Most humans were hidden, running, trying not to be seen. The closer they were to the real thing, the more probable is that they were hurt. So more reason not to be trusty storytellers. And those who really watched it...what is your idea about the rate Rudolphs/Bradleys? I think most people would react in panic and denial. There was a big Jotun corpse there and Rudolph complained because Murph had killed it! And yes, I think the denial is stronger in the Dresdenverse than in our world (perhaps for influence of supernatural forces).
That, 'nuff said. I'll try to stay shut this time.
-
One thing I came up with...
What if it's all the Archive?
We know the Archive has worldwide reach, and its/her goal is to make mortals forget supernatural nasties. What better way than blanketly suppressing the knowledge of supernatural events? Sure, you can't make people disbelieve Harry Dresden exists, but if they disbelieve he's a wizard it makes it much easier to hide the very existence of faeries, jotuns, and icky fish-people. Not to mention the big nasties.
Therefore we don't need it to truly make sense, anymore than it had to make sense that Harry's volunteers stood and fought with a casualty rate that would break the most hardened of elite troops - supernatural power is wielded to make it so.