In what could potentially be one of the most, or least, significant actions of his term in office, President Trump Tuesday signed an Executive Order requiring federal agencies to strengthen critical infrastructure against ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) attacks.
EMPs occur for a variety of natural and man-made reasons including, most notably, Nuclear Explosions and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), either of which could potentially take out entire sections of the country's electrical grid and other infrastructure and capabilities, requiring require years or decades to recover from.
Members and supporters of the decommissioned US Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse have long warned of the possibility of an EMP attack, with some individuals, such as Peter Pry, who previously led the congressional EMP commission, asserting that an EMP attack on America could kill off 90% of the US population.
This is because a man-made EMP has the advantage of being highly asymmetrical. A small country able to pull one off would cause potentially massive disruption to a large tech dependent country such as the United States.
Past EMP related coverage here, here and here
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:53PM (1 child)
Well, I'd originally dated Anunnaki first contact to about the Middle Uruk period (3800 - 3400 BCE). But it could have been earlier. This isn't Star Trek, so we have to think about how difficult it would be for a technological civilization to detect signs of a primitive technological civilization after arriving at a strange new planet.
I'd always assumed that FTL travel isn't possible (probably 0.01c tops, even for sufficiently advanced technology), but could about 5 to 10 colony ships dropping out of warp generate an EMP to create glass like that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @09:04PM
And why do you think this hypothesis is worth considering? Does it predict anything different than the solar micronova one?