The Kudzu Files

Subways fascinate me. I’d never ridden on a subway until the early 90s, when I had to travel frequently to Washington for my job, and I got very familiar with the Metro, since I averaged being in DC about once a month for 3-4 years. Later I had the chance to ride the “L” in Chicago (I know, it’s mostly elevated, but it’s underground in some places), and New York’s subway. And somewhere along the way, I heard about abandoned stations underground. Maybe the most famous is New York’s City Hall Station:

This station was opened in 1904, and was supposed to be the crown jewel of the subway system, but was closed in 1945 when new, longer cars made the curved platform dangerous because of the gap between the platform and the new cars (You can read more here). But it really was a beautiful bit of architecture:

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Well, yes. I’m not sure what’s got me going on the underground stuff this week. But now that it’s started, I’m blogging my way through it. So, for the third installment…..

Korean Infiltration Tunnels!

I’ve heard claims about tunnels under the DMZ almost as long as I’ve heard about the Korean War, which is most of my life (my dad was called back to active duty in the summer of 1950, although he never actually got sent to Korea). The suspicion was that Kim Il Sung, and later Kim Jong Il, had ordered the construction of tunnels to provide a path for massive infiltration behind the front lines in the event of a second Korean conflict. Sometimes these were rumored to be relatively small, just big enough to allow units of soldiers to pass in single file; sometimes wide enough to allow tanks to go through. Sometimes there were only a couple of tunnels, sometimes there were dozens or even hundreds. The one consistent thing was that everything I ever read agreed that tunnels were definitely there.
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Some sort of ancient temple, maybe? Or the set of a science-fiction movie? Actually, it’s part of a massive underground stormwater system in Tokyo. And when I say massive, that’s exactly what I mean: “five 32m diameter, 65m deep concrete containment silos, connected by 64 kilometers of tunnels 50 meters deep underground”. In times of heavy rains and swollen rivers (Tokyo has several), the city can pump 200 tons of water every second with huge turbines like this:

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My dad once told me I was alive because of the atomic bomb. He was slated to be in the first wave of the invasion of Japan, as commander of an artillery battery; his unit would have been put ashore on landing craft that would be beached, with one 8″ howitzer per craft, with orders to fire until killed. There was no other way, the planners thought, to get close artillery support on the beach during the initial wave. So, when the atomic bomb caused Japan to surrender and the invasion was cancelled, he came home, alive and well and ready to start a family.

Nine years later I was born (after three older sisters). I grew up in the height of the Cold War, with the threat of nuclear bombs and missiles just over the horizon. Somewhere around the age of 7 or 8, I became aware that one of our neighbors had something called a “fallout shelter”. I didn’t really know what it was – these weren’t people I knew, they had no kids my age, so I never went to their house, and I never saw the shelter. This being the early 1960s, however, most of the houses in my neighborhood had carports instead of garages, and we could see through the carport into the backyard. And there, behind their patio, we could see the brick structure that was the entrance, with a ladder descending into the ground. I have no idea what it was like inside. We thought these people were “rich”, because their house was bigger than most on the street, but I now know that it was just another solidly middle-class home. No houses in our area had basements – basements were, and still are, essentially unknown in Mississippi. So this was separate from the house, and probably not large at all – something like this:

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I’m one of many (12 million+) who love “The Walking Dead”. I’m also one of the much smaller group (about 6 million) that also watches “Revolution”. Both post-apocalyptic dramas, one features civilization’s end brought on by zombies brought to life by a mysterious virus, the other brought on by electricity stopping due to an even more mysterious cause. And each primarily follows the efforts of one band of survivors trying to make a go of it. In each case, we eventually find that the obvious obstacle to survival (zombies, electricity not working) isn’t the real villain. But I started wondering – what would happen if these two groups faced off?  Let’s compare and contrast:

The Walking Dead features a group of survivors from diverse backgrounds, fighting to stay alive in a world where much (most?) of humanity has been killed or turned into zombies by a mysterious virus. The leader of the group is Rick, a former sheriff (or deputy, I forget) who has slowly changed from a law-abiding, upstanding citizen to a hard-hearted, sometimes delusional man whose son is even more cold-blooded. He leads an eclectic group that includes his son, who is not yet a teenager, a young Asian man, a country vet and his two daughters, a survivalist (Daryl) whose favored weapon is a crossbow, and a mysterious African-American woman. There were other main characters – Rick’s wife, the survivalist’s bigoted brother, others – but they were killed off as the show progressed. You can’t afford to get too attached to characters in The Walking Dead. They’ve been in various stages of “on the run” for three seasons now, although season two had them sheltered at the country vet’s farm for a while, until the zombies arrived again, and season three had the ensconced in an abandoned prison, threatened as much by another group of survivors as by zombies. One thing about the group in TWD – they look like they’ve been on the run in a world where civilization has collapsed. They look like they haven’t had a shower in months, nor a change of clothes. It’s a grimy, grungy bunch of folks.

Revolution likewise is set in a world where civilization has collapsed. In this case, all electricity and electronic technology has stopped working. The time lapse is longer – it seems to have happened several years previous – but the world still seems to have many fewer people in it. There’s a small band of survivors who are seeking – something. Honestly, I’m not sure what they’re after. Maybe it’s to find a secret device that started the whole mess. The group is led by a young woman (Charlie) and her uncle Miles, who in this show is something of the counterpart to TWD’s Rick – although his past is mysterious, he has a military background, compared to Rick’s law enforcement. In Revolution, the opposition isn’t zombies, though – it’s the militia, who have established an apparently despotic reign over the United States, or part of the United States, or something – they are headquartered in Philadelphia. The survivors in Revolution also have a crossbow! Charlie wields it, although her crossbow is not nearly so impressive as Daryl’s in TWD. And here’s another difference – the group in Revolution always looks like they just stepped out of the mall. Always dressed nicely, always clean and coiffed. It’s amazing how, in a world without electricity, they can always look so good.

So, if they faced off, what would happen? No doubt in my mind. It would be over in short order, and the Walking Dead gang would still be out there fighting zombies. The ex-military guy from Revolution would give them a little trouble, but he’s nothing they haven’t dealt with, while the Revolution crew haven’t seen anything like the bunch from TWD. Plus, as I said, the TWD crossbow is way cooler.