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Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Why Aren't They Digging?

This is Steven Petrick posting.

So far, I have watched one episode of "Under the Dome."

Being me, questions come up that I want answered.

Why is no one on the outside trying to dig?

This is on two levels. First, a shallow hole. (Does the line in the ground go very deep, or does it only go down ten or twelve feet? Does it seem to go deeper as we dig?)

Second is the driving a mineshaft hole. It is unlikely that the dome has formed a complete globe around the town, and if there is a chance that it adjusts to digging at its edge, perhaps we can dig a shaft twenty or thirty feet down and get under it?

The dome quite clearly crosses water (the truck that smacked into the dome was crossing a bridge). What happens where the dome and flowing water intersect? If there is a water source inside the dome, has it been cut off (the dome does go all around the town underground so that ground water is no longer flowing)? If a  stream inside the dome is still flowing, is it backing up and flooding where it hits the dome (this means there is a limit to the dome's depth as it is not blocking the rise of water within its confines)? In point of fact, is the flooding of the fall out shelter something caused by the dome's blocking the flow of ground water out of the enclosed area?

Has anyone tried explosives yet? We know it cracked up a plane and contained that small explosion, but how about putting a 120mm tank round into the dome? Or start smaller with bullets and increase the force until  you get to that tank round. See if we can crack it, and what level of force is needed to do so. (And, yes, it might eventually get to a shaped charge nuclear blast.)

The above is stuff that could clearly be done or determined on the first day (well, okay, you will definitely not get to the nuclear blast for a month or so, but you will get there if this is not resolved soon). The truck that hit the dome had mass and inertia (and was smashed flat worse than if it had gone head on with another truck exactly like it). Bullets and other projectiles have more velocity even if less mass.

Right now, I lean towards the dome being "extra-terrestrial," and that it is essentially an "ark." The aliens know planet Earth is going to suffer some horrible calamity, and they are arranging for some of our species to survive (why this particular location is not known, but the methodology of aliens is an obvious mystery). Or the aliens are conducting an experiment on human society and the townspeople are just "lab rats" to them. No other possible explanations make any sense to me at  this juncture (I have never read Stephen King's book, and I am unlikely to do so from this show).

I am more than a little uncomfortable with the lack of leadership inside the dome. Gas supplies have been cut off, yet everyone is still running around in their cars. No food is getting in, but no one has taken charge of the available food stores and set up rationing (yes, people will hoard and defend what they have if you try to impose such, but the survival of the whole requires it, and the sooner it is implemented the more likely more of us will survive as long as possible).