From the article archive
The Postman, Chapter One: The End of All Things
This series of articles is about the book The Postman, written by David Brin. Or perhaps more accurately, it is about the ideas and themes presented in the book. In my accounts of the events from this alternate history I have drawn ideas from several sources. The original text which this article is based on is taken from www.sol-3.net. The author is Kurt Feltenberger, who was gracious enough to let me use his work.
My in this column is to create a detailed, intriguing, believeable world in which you can set your own post apocalytptic epic.
To learn of the author's original intentions for the book and the I suggest you go to http://www.kithrup.com/brin/postmanmoviearticle.html and I strongly recommend you go to http://www.kithrup.com/brin/othersfbooks.html for learning more about the book. My thought of the moral is this, we are responsible for the fate of our nation because we govern ourselves. We chose freedom and with that freedom come responsibility.
Now, on with the story...
At the turn of the 20th century the world had truly globalized and technology was developing at a pace only dreamt of decades before. No one could have predicted the long chain of events leading to it, nor did anyone think that it could unravel so quickly.
On February 12th, 2003 Taiwanese planes were making a routine patrol in international air space when they were strafed by Chinese MiGs. Along with these aggressive air tactics China had made internal troop movements and begun the prepping the Second Artillery Corps in Bejing, which was equipped with 400 strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. It was part of a “national re-consolidation and policing effort.”
International relations had been degrading since March of 2002 with the release of a U.S. nuclear review listing China as a potential target. Chinese President Jiang Zemin then died of an apparent heart attack in June and an “emergency” meeting of the 16th Party Congress was held to elect a new President. Out of it came Hu Zhaoxing, China's ambassador to Russia. Little known outside of China, he was an unlikely choice but a logical one considering the situation. He was a former Chinese general and outspoken ultra-nationalist with powerful allies in the Party and the Military.
He continued an already initiated effort to modernize the Chinese military, except he quadrupled the budget for it. Part of this effort was building a nuclear arsenal. The warheads that weren't manufactured were smuggled in or bought of the black market. Entire towns were conscripted into the Chinese military. Arms were manufactured without troops to issue them to.
In response the U.S. made Top Secret resolutions to manufacture and stockpile brand new weapon platforms like the F-22, V-22 Osprey, and the AH-66 Commache, as well as supply caches of arms and ammunition. Preliminary missile defenses were put in place and key missile bunkers were brought back online.
The “July '03 incident” brought forth a large alliance of Chinese defectors and refugees to Capitol Hill to testify with mounds of evidence on the human rights abuses of China at a joint session of the U.S. House and Senate. This was the turning point. Units would be deployed in defense of Tawain as promised by the President. The The Kitty Hawk Battlegroup embarked from Japan with her airwing, support ships, the ESSEX Amphibious Ready Group, an added contingent of Marines, and fifty imported Tomahawk nuclear cruise missiles.
Three weeks passed with strafing by the Chinese and general intimidation tactics. Then one night there was a large flash and shockwave from the Chinese mainland. American planes had been out on patrol. The Chinese said that the Americans had dropped a nuclear bomb and produced a grainy tape of “long range” footage of an unidentified plane dropping something from its fuselage. The Americans contested that they had never made the order for that attack. It argued that it must have been prematurely detonated warhead. Unfortunately, the U.S. couldn't produce any solid evidence contrary to China's claims. The explosion had happened in between the fifteen minute window of satellite orbits.
In the eyes of the world there was a possibility that the U.S. had lost control of its nuclear arsenal at the highest levels of government. Rising calls for nuclear disarmament mixed with China's political efforts to play up the doubt of the situation made the scandal grow. It was enough for the U.N. to make an emergency resolution for inspection teams to go in and look at all active and reserve warhead stockpiles in both China and the U.S. China put on an act of benevolence by simply dumping their weapons into unmarked sites and ripping equipment out from sensitive facilities. It put half of its stockpile on display. The U.S. teams were made up of experts from Japan, Russia, Egypt, China, and Singapore. Multiple teams were deployed and inspections went smoothly until some of the inspectors all but demanded entry into highly restricted sections of Los Alamos and non-nuclear bunker systems that were classified. It was later discovered that the two of the Chinese inspectors had stolen restricted materials from one of the sites and had been assisted by an Egyptian inspector. The Chinese and Egyptian inspectors were immediately deported from the country and the operations of the remaining teams were severely curtailed.
Several new inspection teams were sent, each time with a composition of inspectors from China and Arab nations with less than friendly relations with the U.S. The reason given was that a balance of nationalities needed to be maintained. The U.S. didn't accept the justification and sent the teams back to where they came from.
In the words of the U.N. Secretary General, “The U.N. resolution specifically called for inspection of U.S. strategic assets. The U.S. has broken the trust of the International Community. Unfortunately, drastic actions must be taken in light of these developments.” The U.S. President countered with a direct and eloquent speech pointing out that though the language of the resolution was open-ended that it had been clearly noted in transcripts that the stated interest of the General Assembly was only to look at nuclear assests. Other military platforms were to be left untouched.
The speech seemed to have fallen on deaf ears as the Secretary General directed the new U.N.N.A.G. (United Nations Nuclear Observation Group) to be moved from Russia, where it was on a joint operation with the Russian government, to the United States where they would “transparently monitor” her nuclear arsenal, navy, and air force. In effect the Secretary General was trying to maneuver around the jurisdiction of the Security Council by using the vague language in their mission statement, “to secure all questionable nuclear arsenals and their potential deployment platforms.”
The U.S. tried to call an emergency meeting of the Security Council but Chinese officials were conveniently absent from the U.N. headquarters. In an emergency meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations, a vote was taken on the legality of the Secretary General's actions. The US, England, France, Israel, South Africa, Russia, Canada, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey voted no but over two thirds of the Member States affirmed their opinion that it was legal. U.N.N.A.G. was deployed...
The resolution called for the first deployment within forty-eight hours. The first three 747’s of Pakistani peacekeepers landed at JFK in New York two days later. The aircraft were surrounded by transit police and when it was found that the Pakistanis had no visas. Immigration was called in. The whole scene had an air of the unreal until the Pakistani Colonel in command panicked. He ordered arms issued and attempted a breakout.
The ensuing firefight killed or wounded sixty-seven people and saw the peacekeepers break out of the airport. It would be several months before the peacekeepers would be cornered and brought to justice.
Throughout the months of April and May, terrorism in the United States rose at an alarming rate, with recruits being drawn from isolated ethnic communities, fringe groups, and reactionary militias in the U.S. where anti-government sentiment was high. For most of 2003 there averaged one major incident every two weeks. Besides car bombings and shootings there were hacker attacks on utilities, telecom centers, and internet backbones. To combat this increase of terrorism the President issued Executive order 2003-21. This order directed US military personnel to be utilized by Federal law enforcement authorities as necessary. This was made possible by the use of FLO’s or Federal Liaison Officers. These were designated agents from various law enforcement agencies who would accompany special operations teams to the site where they would be needed. The FLO would then assess the situation and request assistance from the closest unit available to render aid, the special operations unit the FLO had already accompanied to the scene.
March of 2003 also saw sanctions on the US by many third world countries. These sanctions prohibited US business from shipping products produced in those countries to the US, effectively cutting off a majority of the raw parts US manufacturing had come to rely on. This caused a reaction in America that was unexpected...life went on. And an emergency session of Congress produced a major, far reaching piece of legislation.
The bill, which was signed immediately by the new president, contained five main provisions:
1. All corporate assets held by countries supporting the sanctions were seized and auctioned off for pennies on the dollar of their actual worth to American business.
2.All debt owed to countries supporting sanctions is suspended, and will not be paid.
3.All Treasury notes and bonds held by said countries or their resident citizens are null and void.
4.A massive crash building program and full mobilization of US industry will be funded to replace vital, strategic commodities now denied the US.
5.All agencies of the US government will be utilized in their special capacities to help expedite this legislation.
The first four points were made public and met with both support and surprise from the public and world at large. The fifth point was classified Top Secret, with only certain Congressional leaders knowing the full extent of the legislation.
In June of 2003 Southern and Eastern Asia suffered a three week cold front that caused temperatures to plummet 10 to 40 degrees below normal. This effectively killed agricultural food production in the region. On the other side of the planet, the US and Canada were having perfect weather and crops that were breaking every record in the book.
The Asian countries appealed to the world for help and the U.N. asked the U.S. and Canada to give their excess food to the various Asian countries that needed it. They requests were met with denial, but a few conditions if done, would lift the denial. The conditions were that China and other Asian nations would permanently abstain from human rights abuses, lift sanctions, and that China would rescind its statements.
The conditions were not met and no food was sent.
By August famine was beginning to spread and there was talk among the various governments of contingency plans and even accepting the American challenge. The coup in India changed things forever.
On August 19th, senior military officials in the Indian Army seized power and declared the old government dissolved. Almost overnight, several other countries governments fell to coup d’etats. The Chinese, Mongolia, North Korea, and Vietnam among other nations gave their support and recognized the new governments. These new governments issued an ultimatum: food or war.
The time for compromise was over.
Officially the war started on September 6th with the attack on the Jefferson Battlegroup. No losses were sustained, but the genie was out of the bottle.
At first there were no great battles, invasions or attacks. Just a confused period of time where no one was really sure what to do next.
That period was shattered in the early morning hours of Sunday, November 9th, when the Mexican Army, under the control of the newly elected government and supported by Indian and Chinese assets, invaded southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The shock of such a surprise attack and the current stationing of Army units farther east meant that US response was painfully slow, not really coming together until late Sunday night and early Monday morning. For a whole day, local forces composed of Police, ad-hoc National Guard Units, Border Patrol and average citizens fought the invading army for every inch of territory it took.
Some lead units of the invasion managed to get to the Colorado border before being captured or destroyed. Generally, the invasion never reached more than two-hundred miles and was held at the I-40 salient. It would be three weeks before the majority of the invading forces would be routed out and over two months for the stragglers. For the locals, who had been deputized far and wide, it was hunting season with no bag limit.
In late November, word was received from the Cuban government that Fidel Castro was retiring from office and political life. The Cuban government also stated that it had been approached to join in the war against the US and that they refused. Furthermore, there were four converted supertankers that were heading to the US, supposedly filled with crude oil from the friendly Saudi oil fields, but instead three were carrying troops and equipment for a second invasion into Texas, while the fourth was configured as an aircraft support platform for helicopters and VTOL aircraft.
The three tankers carrying troops were sunk by surface gunfire from the USS Missouri after they reused to surrender and fired Silkworm missiles at Missouri. The fourth tanker had already been captured by SEAL Team Six. Found on board were twenty nuclear devices and operational orders on where to deploy them. The orders showed a timetable of where and when the bombs would be used. They were not there for a contingency, they were there for a first strike. The papers also showed Saudi Arabia’s cooperation in the plot.
The next eight to ten months saw NATO troops deployed all over the globe in offensive operations. The loose confederation of dissident Asian nations organized into a mutual military pact called the Independent Liberation Army. The initial attack by the ILA was a combined force of Chinese, Iranian, Iraqi, and Saudi troops that marched into Georgia and Turkey. The war raged over Eurasia and the Siberian/Alaskan border. Baltimore, Vancouver, St. Petersburg (Russia), Krakow, Anchorage, and Izmir (Turkey) were all lost to nuclear attacks. But, by the end of 2004 the ILA had lost eighty percent of their forces and surrendered unconditionally at Bejing. The world thought it was over.
A converted cargo ship carried a nuclear warhead so large that the radiation would kill all human life in North America. It was set off near the North Pole. A tsunami rip through an unstable ice sheet, sending it into the North Atlantic. This caused a partial impediment of the the North Atlantic Conveyor (an ocean current that delivers heat to the North Atlantic) and caused a small ice age. The ice particles (with radioactive laden dust in them) were spread through the atmosphere. The Death-rains fell, causing sporadic crop failure, as well human and animal deaths across the world. The Three Year Winter had begun...
My in this column is to create a detailed, intriguing, believeable world in which you can set your own post apocalytptic epic.
To learn of the author's original intentions for the book and the I suggest you go to http://www.kithrup.com/brin/postmanmoviearticle.html and I strongly recommend you go to http://www.kithrup.com/brin/othersfbooks.html for learning more about the book. My thought of the moral is this, we are responsible for the fate of our nation because we govern ourselves. We chose freedom and with that freedom come responsibility.
Now, on with the story...
At the turn of the 20th century the world had truly globalized and technology was developing at a pace only dreamt of decades before. No one could have predicted the long chain of events leading to it, nor did anyone think that it could unravel so quickly.
On February 12th, 2003 Taiwanese planes were making a routine patrol in international air space when they were strafed by Chinese MiGs. Along with these aggressive air tactics China had made internal troop movements and begun the prepping the Second Artillery Corps in Bejing, which was equipped with 400 strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. It was part of a “national re-consolidation and policing effort.”
International relations had been degrading since March of 2002 with the release of a U.S. nuclear review listing China as a potential target. Chinese President Jiang Zemin then died of an apparent heart attack in June and an “emergency” meeting of the 16th Party Congress was held to elect a new President. Out of it came Hu Zhaoxing, China's ambassador to Russia. Little known outside of China, he was an unlikely choice but a logical one considering the situation. He was a former Chinese general and outspoken ultra-nationalist with powerful allies in the Party and the Military.
He continued an already initiated effort to modernize the Chinese military, except he quadrupled the budget for it. Part of this effort was building a nuclear arsenal. The warheads that weren't manufactured were smuggled in or bought of the black market. Entire towns were conscripted into the Chinese military. Arms were manufactured without troops to issue them to.
In response the U.S. made Top Secret resolutions to manufacture and stockpile brand new weapon platforms like the F-22, V-22 Osprey, and the AH-66 Commache, as well as supply caches of arms and ammunition. Preliminary missile defenses were put in place and key missile bunkers were brought back online.
The “July '03 incident” brought forth a large alliance of Chinese defectors and refugees to Capitol Hill to testify with mounds of evidence on the human rights abuses of China at a joint session of the U.S. House and Senate. This was the turning point. Units would be deployed in defense of Tawain as promised by the President. The The Kitty Hawk Battlegroup embarked from Japan with her airwing, support ships, the ESSEX Amphibious Ready Group, an added contingent of Marines, and fifty imported Tomahawk nuclear cruise missiles.
Three weeks passed with strafing by the Chinese and general intimidation tactics. Then one night there was a large flash and shockwave from the Chinese mainland. American planes had been out on patrol. The Chinese said that the Americans had dropped a nuclear bomb and produced a grainy tape of “long range” footage of an unidentified plane dropping something from its fuselage. The Americans contested that they had never made the order for that attack. It argued that it must have been prematurely detonated warhead. Unfortunately, the U.S. couldn't produce any solid evidence contrary to China's claims. The explosion had happened in between the fifteen minute window of satellite orbits.
In the eyes of the world there was a possibility that the U.S. had lost control of its nuclear arsenal at the highest levels of government. Rising calls for nuclear disarmament mixed with China's political efforts to play up the doubt of the situation made the scandal grow. It was enough for the U.N. to make an emergency resolution for inspection teams to go in and look at all active and reserve warhead stockpiles in both China and the U.S. China put on an act of benevolence by simply dumping their weapons into unmarked sites and ripping equipment out from sensitive facilities. It put half of its stockpile on display. The U.S. teams were made up of experts from Japan, Russia, Egypt, China, and Singapore. Multiple teams were deployed and inspections went smoothly until some of the inspectors all but demanded entry into highly restricted sections of Los Alamos and non-nuclear bunker systems that were classified. It was later discovered that the two of the Chinese inspectors had stolen restricted materials from one of the sites and had been assisted by an Egyptian inspector. The Chinese and Egyptian inspectors were immediately deported from the country and the operations of the remaining teams were severely curtailed.
Several new inspection teams were sent, each time with a composition of inspectors from China and Arab nations with less than friendly relations with the U.S. The reason given was that a balance of nationalities needed to be maintained. The U.S. didn't accept the justification and sent the teams back to where they came from.
In the words of the U.N. Secretary General, “The U.N. resolution specifically called for inspection of U.S. strategic assets. The U.S. has broken the trust of the International Community. Unfortunately, drastic actions must be taken in light of these developments.” The U.S. President countered with a direct and eloquent speech pointing out that though the language of the resolution was open-ended that it had been clearly noted in transcripts that the stated interest of the General Assembly was only to look at nuclear assests. Other military platforms were to be left untouched.
The speech seemed to have fallen on deaf ears as the Secretary General directed the new U.N.N.A.G. (United Nations Nuclear Observation Group) to be moved from Russia, where it was on a joint operation with the Russian government, to the United States where they would “transparently monitor” her nuclear arsenal, navy, and air force. In effect the Secretary General was trying to maneuver around the jurisdiction of the Security Council by using the vague language in their mission statement, “to secure all questionable nuclear arsenals and their potential deployment platforms.”
The U.S. tried to call an emergency meeting of the Security Council but Chinese officials were conveniently absent from the U.N. headquarters. In an emergency meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations, a vote was taken on the legality of the Secretary General's actions. The US, England, France, Israel, South Africa, Russia, Canada, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey voted no but over two thirds of the Member States affirmed their opinion that it was legal. U.N.N.A.G. was deployed...
The resolution called for the first deployment within forty-eight hours. The first three 747’s of Pakistani peacekeepers landed at JFK in New York two days later. The aircraft were surrounded by transit police and when it was found that the Pakistanis had no visas. Immigration was called in. The whole scene had an air of the unreal until the Pakistani Colonel in command panicked. He ordered arms issued and attempted a breakout.
The ensuing firefight killed or wounded sixty-seven people and saw the peacekeepers break out of the airport. It would be several months before the peacekeepers would be cornered and brought to justice.
Throughout the months of April and May, terrorism in the United States rose at an alarming rate, with recruits being drawn from isolated ethnic communities, fringe groups, and reactionary militias in the U.S. where anti-government sentiment was high. For most of 2003 there averaged one major incident every two weeks. Besides car bombings and shootings there were hacker attacks on utilities, telecom centers, and internet backbones. To combat this increase of terrorism the President issued Executive order 2003-21. This order directed US military personnel to be utilized by Federal law enforcement authorities as necessary. This was made possible by the use of FLO’s or Federal Liaison Officers. These were designated agents from various law enforcement agencies who would accompany special operations teams to the site where they would be needed. The FLO would then assess the situation and request assistance from the closest unit available to render aid, the special operations unit the FLO had already accompanied to the scene.
March of 2003 also saw sanctions on the US by many third world countries. These sanctions prohibited US business from shipping products produced in those countries to the US, effectively cutting off a majority of the raw parts US manufacturing had come to rely on. This caused a reaction in America that was unexpected...life went on. And an emergency session of Congress produced a major, far reaching piece of legislation.
The bill, which was signed immediately by the new president, contained five main provisions:
1. All corporate assets held by countries supporting the sanctions were seized and auctioned off for pennies on the dollar of their actual worth to American business.
2.All debt owed to countries supporting sanctions is suspended, and will not be paid.
3.All Treasury notes and bonds held by said countries or their resident citizens are null and void.
4.A massive crash building program and full mobilization of US industry will be funded to replace vital, strategic commodities now denied the US.
5.All agencies of the US government will be utilized in their special capacities to help expedite this legislation.
The first four points were made public and met with both support and surprise from the public and world at large. The fifth point was classified Top Secret, with only certain Congressional leaders knowing the full extent of the legislation.
In June of 2003 Southern and Eastern Asia suffered a three week cold front that caused temperatures to plummet 10 to 40 degrees below normal. This effectively killed agricultural food production in the region. On the other side of the planet, the US and Canada were having perfect weather and crops that were breaking every record in the book.
The Asian countries appealed to the world for help and the U.N. asked the U.S. and Canada to give their excess food to the various Asian countries that needed it. They requests were met with denial, but a few conditions if done, would lift the denial. The conditions were that China and other Asian nations would permanently abstain from human rights abuses, lift sanctions, and that China would rescind its statements.
The conditions were not met and no food was sent.
By August famine was beginning to spread and there was talk among the various governments of contingency plans and even accepting the American challenge. The coup in India changed things forever.
On August 19th, senior military officials in the Indian Army seized power and declared the old government dissolved. Almost overnight, several other countries governments fell to coup d’etats. The Chinese, Mongolia, North Korea, and Vietnam among other nations gave their support and recognized the new governments. These new governments issued an ultimatum: food or war.
The time for compromise was over.
Officially the war started on September 6th with the attack on the Jefferson Battlegroup. No losses were sustained, but the genie was out of the bottle.
At first there were no great battles, invasions or attacks. Just a confused period of time where no one was really sure what to do next.
That period was shattered in the early morning hours of Sunday, November 9th, when the Mexican Army, under the control of the newly elected government and supported by Indian and Chinese assets, invaded southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The shock of such a surprise attack and the current stationing of Army units farther east meant that US response was painfully slow, not really coming together until late Sunday night and early Monday morning. For a whole day, local forces composed of Police, ad-hoc National Guard Units, Border Patrol and average citizens fought the invading army for every inch of territory it took.
Some lead units of the invasion managed to get to the Colorado border before being captured or destroyed. Generally, the invasion never reached more than two-hundred miles and was held at the I-40 salient. It would be three weeks before the majority of the invading forces would be routed out and over two months for the stragglers. For the locals, who had been deputized far and wide, it was hunting season with no bag limit.
In late November, word was received from the Cuban government that Fidel Castro was retiring from office and political life. The Cuban government also stated that it had been approached to join in the war against the US and that they refused. Furthermore, there were four converted supertankers that were heading to the US, supposedly filled with crude oil from the friendly Saudi oil fields, but instead three were carrying troops and equipment for a second invasion into Texas, while the fourth was configured as an aircraft support platform for helicopters and VTOL aircraft.
The three tankers carrying troops were sunk by surface gunfire from the USS Missouri after they reused to surrender and fired Silkworm missiles at Missouri. The fourth tanker had already been captured by SEAL Team Six. Found on board were twenty nuclear devices and operational orders on where to deploy them. The orders showed a timetable of where and when the bombs would be used. They were not there for a contingency, they were there for a first strike. The papers also showed Saudi Arabia’s cooperation in the plot.
The next eight to ten months saw NATO troops deployed all over the globe in offensive operations. The loose confederation of dissident Asian nations organized into a mutual military pact called the Independent Liberation Army. The initial attack by the ILA was a combined force of Chinese, Iranian, Iraqi, and Saudi troops that marched into Georgia and Turkey. The war raged over Eurasia and the Siberian/Alaskan border. Baltimore, Vancouver, St. Petersburg (Russia), Krakow, Anchorage, and Izmir (Turkey) were all lost to nuclear attacks. But, by the end of 2004 the ILA had lost eighty percent of their forces and surrendered unconditionally at Bejing. The world thought it was over.
A converted cargo ship carried a nuclear warhead so large that the radiation would kill all human life in North America. It was set off near the North Pole. A tsunami rip through an unstable ice sheet, sending it into the North Atlantic. This caused a partial impediment of the the North Atlantic Conveyor (an ocean current that delivers heat to the North Atlantic) and caused a small ice age. The ice particles (with radioactive laden dust in them) were spread through the atmosphere. The Death-rains fell, causing sporadic crop failure, as well human and animal deaths across the world. The Three Year Winter had begun...
Recovered from the Gaming Outpost database backup. Original wording is preserved; damaged punctuation and presentation markup have been repaired. Historical links without a local match point to the Internet Archive.