Your thoughts on the (cannon) Presidential line of succession?

[Legbreaker]

May not have been by choice. Could be the speaker was out of touch because to the impact EMP had to the available communications. Could well have been greater than expected - we already know certain elements of real world physics have been slightly altered by GDW (such as radiation half life), no reason this should be any different.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

May not have been by choice. Could be the speaker was out of touch because to the impact EMP had to the available communications. Could well have been greater than expected - we already know certain elements of real world physics have been slightly altered by GDW (such as radiation half life), no reason this should be any different.

US military communications are built to survive exactly the kind of EMP effects that T2K shows - in fact they are built to handle worse than that. The Soviets never used an EMP specific bomb - i.e. high altitude bursts - to burn out the electronics - the effects were strictly localized. Also keep in mind that in 1997 most of the country still had good old fashioned hard lines not cell phones.

And one big reason the communications are that good is that the guys in the launch centers have orders to launch the missiles on their own if they lose communications. Once that timer goes to zero they own the birds. And the game definitely doesnt have the launch control centers salvoing every missile they had - i.e. they maintained communications even during the TDM and only launched as directed - thats why the damage was as limited as it was - i.e. neither side launched a general nuclear attack.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

US military communications are built to survive exactly the kind of EMP effects that T2K shows - in fact they are built to handle worse than that.

Yes, I'm aware of that and believe I've referred to it in my earlier post.
However, just because it was built to cope with what was expected doesn't mean it actually performed that well. Could be the various assumptions made did not meet the "reality" of T2K and it's slightly altered real world physics. Could be there was a fault in a critical element of the system which turned out to be fatal. Could be a cyber attack disabled it in the minutes before the strikes. Could be any number of factors, real or fictional (as far as OUR reality goes).

Really, it doesn't matter WHAT the reason was. All that matters is the system failed in some manner and the Speaker was out of contact. It may well be that the inhabitants of the T2K universe never find out what went wrong. It may remain a mystery to all (and perhaps a story hook to potentially expand on at some point). Could be that generations to come look upon that failure as many now do with the Kennedy assassination or moon landing.