The Fall of New York: Story Discussion Thread

The classic 90's loose Soviet nuke sold off on the black market scenario might work in terms of allowing you to play with the actual terrorists themselves, such as the anarcho-primitivists suggestion. Plus, even if in the timeline it completely fails to have this effect, rather than the goal being the kind of indirect decline and fall of a civilization the way the thread is going (and what is really the awesome core of the idea you have) it might be more plausible that the terrorists themselves thought that the detonation of a nuke that could be identified after the fact as having been Russian would have triggered a global thermonuclear war.

It almost emphasizes the devastation of the hostage taking and eventual destruction of New York if that element of the plan, tricking the world into committing nuclear suicide, isn't required to throw Western Civilization off the cliff.
 
The classic 90's loose Soviet nuke sold off on the black market scenario might work in terms of allowing you to play with the actual terrorists themselves, such as the anarcho-primitivists suggestion. Plus, even if in the timeline it completely fails to have this effect, rather than the goal being the kind of indirect decline and fall of a civilization the way the thread is going (and what is really the awesome core of the idea you have) it might be more plausible that the terrorists themselves thought that the detonation of a nuke that could be identified after the fact as having been Russian would have triggered a global thermonuclear war.

It almost emphasizes the devastation of the hostage taking and eventual destruction of New York if that element of the plan, tricking the world into committing nuclear suicide, isn't required to throw Western Civilization off the cliff.
I am glad someone else agrees, the timeline on the whole will be less about the actual event of the terrorist attack on New York but about the end of this era of civilization.
 
If you're using anarcho-primitivists, you'd first need to have a POD where anarcho-primitivism is actually an accessible ideology, not just an interesting footnote in history of anarchism, and perhaps you'd need to evangelise it like OTL radical Islam.
 
One possibility is, the same way militias and patriot groups opposed government crackdowns on weird cults not out of ideological agreement but mutual opposition to the central government, a Unibomberish sect blending into the greater 90's militia movement and being the ones who formulate the scheme to start nuclear war as a way to crash civilization, with the other militias they cooperate with to get there just thinking they can bring down the government by attacking the den of inequity that is NY.
 
It should be noted that the NYT published "Industrial Society and its Future".
It should also be noted that said work is full of scorn for liberals- which could open it up to a right-wing audience.
 
One possibility is, the same way militias and patriot groups opposed government crackdowns on weird cults not out of ideological agreement but mutual opposition to the central government, a Unibomberish sect blending into the greater 90's militia movement and being the ones who formulate the scheme to start nuclear war as a way to crash civilization, with the other militias they cooperate with to get there just thinking they can bring down the government by attacking the den of inequity that is NY.
Sounds fantastic! It seems setting this in the mid-90's at the height or the militia movement and after the collapse of the USSR would work out best
It should be noted that the NYT published "Industrial Society and its Future".
It should also be noted that said work is full of scorn for liberals- which could open it up to a right-wing audience.
I'll have to check that out.

So who is interested in contributing?
 
I'll contribute.

I knew could count on you!
So as a basic premise I think we have it taking place in the mid-90's, at the height of the militia movement and have an anarchist terrorist cell aquire a Nuclear weapon from a Russian arms dealer.
Any further suggestions.
 
An interesting scenario, however let me be a devil's advocate and pose a couple of questions.

The NYPD is sometimes counted as the world's 4th largest army. It is a well equipped and reasonably trained force. How are they overcome?

If the cops can't cope then the Mayor will request assistance from neighbouring police forces and then the National Guard. How do the militia overcome these forces?
 
An interesting scenario, however let me be a devil's advocate and pose a couple of questions.

The NYPD is sometimes counted as the world's 4th largest army. It is a well equipped and reasonably trained force. How are they overcome?

If the cops can't cope then the Mayor will request assistance from neighbouring police forces and then the National Guard. How do the militia overcome these forces?
Good questions, if we are following the model of the Dark Knight Rises the police force get a bomb threat from the sewers and move in force to NYC's underground before collapsing the tunnels through bombs.
How would a more realistic group accomplish this given the time and location?
 
Militia-affiliated mutineers in the State Defense Force, along with the upstate NY militia, raid the armory of the army/national guard unit stationed right outside NYC (I forget which it is specifically), drawing them into a firefight. During that time the primitivists, cult, or whatever announces the bomb, which causes riots all over the city. All they have to do is hunker down until they want to detonate, and maybe have agents or allied militia friendlies among the mobs helping to encourage the chaos; the riots should occupy the police.
 
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