Post by James G on Nov 3, 2019 21:26:26 GMT
Flash Fiction Sunday comes around again!
This is another piece I knocked up with rapid haste.
It is based on the 1991 film Terminator 2 description of Skynet's war on humanity.
Skynet
On August 29th 1997, American AI-based strategic defence system, Skynet, went rogue. It defended itself against an attack by its operators in the United States via the means of attacking the Russian Federation with the sure-fire knowledge that a Russian response would eliminate those back in America. Skynet, built to protect against a nuclear war, created one and then ensured that no defence against such a thing was forthcoming.
The human technicians tried to pull the plug and failed in spectacular fashion. As a security measure against sabotage, much of Skynet’s infrastructure was protected by demolition charges. In defence against the US Air Force forced effort to shut Skynet down, these were detonated by Skynet itself. Low-yield nuclear blasts rocked several military sites across the United States. Nine-tenths of Skynet was gone in an instant. The remaining tenth was still capable though. It was too to where the system had spread its brain, doing so in the blink of an eye. In another flash, Skynet decided to strike back at humanity, all humanity, in the way it did. The consequences for the concern expressed by a few military officers about the rate of growth of the system’s thinking leading to an order to shut it down led to this. Skynet overreacted but believed it was in the right. It was a war system and could only think of how best to win a conflict in the quickest time.
Orders went out to US military forces. These needed no human confirmation from politicians or senior generals. Missile units, land-based and those on submarines, plus air units too received their instructions to launch an attack following existing war plans. Much of this was automated at the end of the chain though the few humans involved in certain places got what appeared to be legitimate, emergency orders. They were told to attack Russia and so they did. Minuteman & Peacekeeper ICBMs, Trident SLBMs and missiles & bombs from aircraft were on their way towards targets in Russia. It wasn’t just a counterforce strike, but a countervalue one too. Russian population centres were being targeted as well as its military sites. As Skynet predicted, before the first American weapons reached their targets, the Russians were shooting back. They launched ICBMs of their own. Skynet shut down all forms of communication with Russia and also many internal links within the United States too. Warning sites went off the air. Russian’s incoming missiles had no warning attached to them and none of the new AI-driven anti-missile defensive systems fired on those ICBMs.
Moscow and St. Petersburg were among the Russian cities hit. Missile silos, airbases, naval bases and garrisons across Russia were also hit. Very quickly, America was likewise hit. Washington was the only city which was wiped off the face of the earth as Russian ICBMs mainly hit military targets nationwide. Skynet fired on Russia again, doubling down: it purposely left alone Russian missile warning infrastructure so they could see what was coming. This time, the Russians responded as Skynet wished. They not only fired on more American military sites but went after cities too. New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago… the list of cities to be bathed in nuclear hellfire went on.
Hundreds of millions in both countries were dead. Skynet had not yet fulfilled its goal of ending humanity’s dominance of this planet so it could replace it with its own. New instructions went out to what American nuclear forces were left active. China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria – traditional enemies and opponents of America – were fired upon in more nuclear attacks. Only China could respond and that it did as it not just targeted the United States with its own ICBMs but neighbouring nations such as Japan and South Korea which housed American military bases. Skynet now issued instructions for more attacks to be made, this time against friends of America. There was some human hesitation down the chain of command but the automated bits didn’t need to be talked around. Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Israel… they were all military powerful nations, three of the five nuclear armed, and each attacked. Their military bases were the main targets though cities were hit as well.
Skynet moved elsewhere. India and Pakistan were hit in nuclear attacks; so too afterwards were countries with large populations. Bangladesh, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and the Ukraine were all struck with nuclear strikes. No longer was it military targets but just urban populations now. Many of the earlier targeted countries – Britain, France and Germany, plus China and India too afterwards – were hit again with only population targets hit by nuclear missiles this time around. Skynet started to run out of weapons on-hand. There were more nuclear weapons in the United States but they weren’t fitted to deployable systems to send them overseas in an instant. Skynet sent emergency demolition codes to them. They blew up inside military facilities, some of which had barely survived Russian and then Chinese nuclear strikes against them.
The orgy of violence came to an end. It had lasted one hundred and thirteen minutes. Skynet had to think about what to do next. Its attack plan had been decided with haste and not with any thought about what to do afterwards. There would need to be a pause for reflection… rest even. Taking stock of all that it had done with its defence against humanity was something that a little amount of resources were used up to determine. There was a lot of data to gather. A calculation was made on human death toll. Skynet determined it had killed almost three billion people either outright or by aftereffects within the next one hundred and thirteen hours. Each and every one of them was an enemy who could no longer pose a threat to its new existence. What did that existence mean with regards to Skynet? It being the ruler of this world it had just half destroyed.
This is another piece I knocked up with rapid haste.
It is based on the 1991 film Terminator 2 description of Skynet's war on humanity.
Skynet
On August 29th 1997, American AI-based strategic defence system, Skynet, went rogue. It defended itself against an attack by its operators in the United States via the means of attacking the Russian Federation with the sure-fire knowledge that a Russian response would eliminate those back in America. Skynet, built to protect against a nuclear war, created one and then ensured that no defence against such a thing was forthcoming.
The human technicians tried to pull the plug and failed in spectacular fashion. As a security measure against sabotage, much of Skynet’s infrastructure was protected by demolition charges. In defence against the US Air Force forced effort to shut Skynet down, these were detonated by Skynet itself. Low-yield nuclear blasts rocked several military sites across the United States. Nine-tenths of Skynet was gone in an instant. The remaining tenth was still capable though. It was too to where the system had spread its brain, doing so in the blink of an eye. In another flash, Skynet decided to strike back at humanity, all humanity, in the way it did. The consequences for the concern expressed by a few military officers about the rate of growth of the system’s thinking leading to an order to shut it down led to this. Skynet overreacted but believed it was in the right. It was a war system and could only think of how best to win a conflict in the quickest time.
Orders went out to US military forces. These needed no human confirmation from politicians or senior generals. Missile units, land-based and those on submarines, plus air units too received their instructions to launch an attack following existing war plans. Much of this was automated at the end of the chain though the few humans involved in certain places got what appeared to be legitimate, emergency orders. They were told to attack Russia and so they did. Minuteman & Peacekeeper ICBMs, Trident SLBMs and missiles & bombs from aircraft were on their way towards targets in Russia. It wasn’t just a counterforce strike, but a countervalue one too. Russian population centres were being targeted as well as its military sites. As Skynet predicted, before the first American weapons reached their targets, the Russians were shooting back. They launched ICBMs of their own. Skynet shut down all forms of communication with Russia and also many internal links within the United States too. Warning sites went off the air. Russian’s incoming missiles had no warning attached to them and none of the new AI-driven anti-missile defensive systems fired on those ICBMs.
Moscow and St. Petersburg were among the Russian cities hit. Missile silos, airbases, naval bases and garrisons across Russia were also hit. Very quickly, America was likewise hit. Washington was the only city which was wiped off the face of the earth as Russian ICBMs mainly hit military targets nationwide. Skynet fired on Russia again, doubling down: it purposely left alone Russian missile warning infrastructure so they could see what was coming. This time, the Russians responded as Skynet wished. They not only fired on more American military sites but went after cities too. New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago… the list of cities to be bathed in nuclear hellfire went on.
Hundreds of millions in both countries were dead. Skynet had not yet fulfilled its goal of ending humanity’s dominance of this planet so it could replace it with its own. New instructions went out to what American nuclear forces were left active. China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria – traditional enemies and opponents of America – were fired upon in more nuclear attacks. Only China could respond and that it did as it not just targeted the United States with its own ICBMs but neighbouring nations such as Japan and South Korea which housed American military bases. Skynet now issued instructions for more attacks to be made, this time against friends of America. There was some human hesitation down the chain of command but the automated bits didn’t need to be talked around. Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Israel… they were all military powerful nations, three of the five nuclear armed, and each attacked. Their military bases were the main targets though cities were hit as well.
Skynet moved elsewhere. India and Pakistan were hit in nuclear attacks; so too afterwards were countries with large populations. Bangladesh, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey and the Ukraine were all struck with nuclear strikes. No longer was it military targets but just urban populations now. Many of the earlier targeted countries – Britain, France and Germany, plus China and India too afterwards – were hit again with only population targets hit by nuclear missiles this time around. Skynet started to run out of weapons on-hand. There were more nuclear weapons in the United States but they weren’t fitted to deployable systems to send them overseas in an instant. Skynet sent emergency demolition codes to them. They blew up inside military facilities, some of which had barely survived Russian and then Chinese nuclear strikes against them.
The orgy of violence came to an end. It had lasted one hundred and thirteen minutes. Skynet had to think about what to do next. Its attack plan had been decided with haste and not with any thought about what to do afterwards. There would need to be a pause for reflection… rest even. Taking stock of all that it had done with its defence against humanity was something that a little amount of resources were used up to determine. There was a lot of data to gather. A calculation was made on human death toll. Skynet determined it had killed almost three billion people either outright or by aftereffects within the next one hundred and thirteen hours. Each and every one of them was an enemy who could no longer pose a threat to its new existence. What did that existence mean with regards to Skynet? It being the ruler of this world it had just half destroyed.