Power Outage

sinoth · December 2005

A few days ago, the power in my apartment complex went out. This is an annoyingly common occurrence, but usually its only out for a few minutes. Not this time... it was out for a good 6 hours, starting at almost midnight. Turns out, it was quite a few power grids that went down, and most of the city was plunged into darkness. I decided to drive around and look at what the city would be like without power, and it was an awesome experience.

A city without power is an amazingly quiet, peaceful place (before the crime and looting starts). I live in a college town, so there were still a lot of people out at this time of night, but the sounds were completely different without the hum of electricity. My roommate was actually at a bar when the power went out, which turned out to be an interesting experience in itself. The bar, lit now by a few candles, was full of slightly inebriated people and devoid of any TV or music. A good portion of the people there, as if driven by some tribal instinct, began stomping the floor and clapping, creating their own music while the rest of the bar danced in the candle light.

I personally felt a sense of liberation, which seemed to be shared by a lot of the people I talked to. How much have we become slaves to technology we take for granted? Without power, society would fall very close to the chaos seen in a post-apocalyptic world. Without our ease of communication, everyone would become shut off from the big picture that we are so used to seeing.

What if the power never came back on?

What I experienced was a small fraction of the feeling those who suffer through hurricanes and other natural disasters must feel. Still, it reminded me very much of Fallen Earth and I thought I'd share it with you guys

Edgtho · December 2005

Originally posted by sinoth
A few days ago, the power in my apartment complex went out. This is an annoyingly common occurrence, but usually its only out for a few minutes. Not this time... it was out for a good 6 hours, starting at almost midnight. Turns out, it was quite a few power grids that went down, and most of the city was plunged into darkness. I decided to drive around and look at what the city would be like without power, and it was an awesome experience.A city without power is an amazingly quiet, peaceful place (before the crime and looting starts). I live in a college town, so there were still a lot of people out at this time of night, but the sounds were completely different without the hum of electricity. My roommate was actually at a bar when the power went out, which turned out to be an interesting experience in itself. The bar, lit now by a few candles, was full of slightly inebriated people and devoid of any TV or music. A good portion of the people there, as if driven by some tribal instinct, began stomping the floor and clapping, creating their own music while the rest of the bar danced in the candle light.I personally felt a sense of liberation, which seemed to be shared by a lot of the people I talked to. How much have we become slaves to technology we take for granted? Without power, society would fall very close to the chaos seen in a post-apocalyptic world. Without our ease of communication, everyone would become shut off from the big picture that we are so used to seeing.What if the power never came back on?What I experienced was a small fraction of the feeling those who suffer through hurricanes and other natural disasters must feel. Still, it reminded me very much of Fallen Earth and I thought I'd share it with you guys

I'd still be living out on the frontier, and I probably wouldn't know the difference

Slagathor · December 2005

Originally posted by sinoth

What if the power never came back on?

It could happen, you know! Y3K is coming!!

In all seriousness though, it's said that no country is more than three meals away from a revolution. If you introduce enough chaos into a situation, it will become self sustaining until equilibrium is reached.

Hardware-DC · December 2005

What you experianced is pretty much the game we will be living. No 7-11 slurpie vendors, not free to walk around the forest and not be killed parks, and no more person to person sex. It will all be simulated like in Demolitionman!!!

Cthulhuvong · December 2005

You mean Demolition Man ::::35::

drycat · December 2005

I don't know. I beleive anarchy is more oriented to people, rather than situations. Chaos ( in a societal sense ) is a product of people, not a product of a situation. I just think people use situations as excuses for chaos. I'll make a short example that may or may not describe a thing at all, depending on how you choose to look at it:

Let's say that we have just suffered through the apocolypse.. Everything on Earth has been completely destroyed, inlcuding most of humanity. You are a survivor. You walk for miles through the devastation that once was your home ( this is assuming that the fallout doesn't kill you first ). You happen to come across another person, at night by a fire .. ( this is assuming the person you see has found some way to start a fire ) What do you think your first reaction is going to be? Mind you, the chaos you are describing is right there.

At this moment, what reaction would you have?

I'll let you fill in the blanks.

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