[ROCKMAN]

A little more about “Under the Dome” from a book review. Interesting that King began the project at about the same time a few folks started talking about potential future resource limits. About a year after my first mentor at Mobil Oil was warning me about PO.

“Stephen King turns in another 1,000-plus-page behemoth with Under the Dome, a book he started writing in 1976 but abandoned for more than three decades. More than 30 years later, he tackled the project again, this time completing a story that plumbs the depths of human wickedness. The town of Chester's Mill, Maine, is a pretty typical-seeming smallish New England community. Most of its 2,000 or so residents are good, honest people who genuinely care for each other and for their town.

The scene changes abruptly when a mysterious and invisible barrier materializes out of nowhere, completely cutting the town off from the rest of the world. As scientists and government and military officials scramble to find a way to break through the barrier, those inside the dome have to quickly adjust to their new reality. It's just a matter of time before that reality turns sinister. Within days, Chester's Mill turns into a depressing cauldron of murder, corruption, conspiracy, and increasing fear. The town's police fall under the control of a vicious town selectman with dictatorial ambitions. Resources are seized. Vocal dissenters are jailed--or worse. Soon the air quality inside the dome begins to change. Illnesses increase. Fear leads to anger, and people start to do things they wouldn't have dreamed of just days earlier. As tension mounts, the stage is set for a final cataclysmic showdown between those who will stop at nothing to enforce their agenda for the town and those who believe the town's increasingly dangerous leaders must be stopped at any cost.

On some levels, Under the Dome is almost allegorical. The town's blossoming dictatorship is reminiscent of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. The worsening environment inside the dome could be a picture of climate change. The fact that the villains are all right-wing fundamentalist Christians (extremely hypocritical Christians at that) is probably a statement of some sort, and there are a few references to Falujah that some might see as antimilitary. Under the Dome is not an easy book to read, and not only because of its size. There's plenty of violence, quite a bit of drug use, and lots of examples of people treating each other in all kinds of horrible ways. Though the dome is the reason the townspeople are in their predicament, the real conflict in the book is not people vs. the dome but people vs. each other. This book could just as easily have been titled The Worst-Case Scenario because on page after page, just when it seems the forces of good might be about to catch a break, King pulls the rug out from under them yet again. There's very little in the way of a redemptive message.”

Sounds like your basic doomer porn. Obviously the book must have a happy ending when the town folks discover alternative resources that allow them to prosper. Of course, they’ll then to fight to preserve the Dome to keep out all those who have not accepted “The Way”. LOL

[ROCKMAN]

pstarr – So true. In most sci-fi you have to ignore certain realities to enjoy the plot. Maybe King eventually explains the power source or not. Perhaps not import to his objective in telling this tale. It may just be nothing more than a contrivance to allow, as the reviewer suggest, the man vs. man aspect of the story. Not a story about Domes but man’s willingness to do whatever it takes to survive.

Much like a very old movie “Lifeboat”. X number of survivors in the lifeboat, limited resources, unknown time to be rescued. So decision to be made by the captain: who do you put over the side to increase the chance of survival of the remainder: the old, the injured, the unskilled at sea survival? Or do distribute resources equally and limit everyone’s survivability the same? In the context of the POD do we try to force an equal distribution of resources? Survival of the fittest (or the powerful/wealthy)?

King could have used a stranded Carnival cruise ship as the vehicle but just don’t think it would be the same. LOL.

[westexas]

Wikipedia summary (spoiler alert):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Dome

Hint: Think of an ant farm as an analogy.

[Lore]

So you think King was/is somehow concerned with resource limits? Interesting. Now that I think about it, maybe that is kind of the underlying theme of "World War Z" also. The zombies are faster, hungrier, dumber, greedier than us nice generous American humans. The zombies get everything, kind of like (fill in the blanks . . . but the Chinese come to mind.) My favorite sci-fi is often about resource depletion: the gas-theft scene at the beginning of the "Road Warrior" is a classic. So is "The Road." Yikes! A road and . . . no cars. The horror

Actually, King made the very case that resource limits and environmental parallels was exactly his aim when interviewed about the book and TV show on Sunday Morning.

[ROCKMAN]

Lore - Exactly. Why in particular I thought this would be a good topic here. Did it surprise you that the thought came to him in the 70's? Someone coming up with this theme in the last few years wouldn't be a big shock. Other than some of us geologists not many folks were thinking about PO 4 decades ago. It going to interesting to see how the gasoline, and especially the propane, issue develops under the Dome.

[John_A]

Sounds like your basic doomer porn. Obviously the book must have a happy ending when the town folks discover alternative resources that allow them to prosper. Of course, they’ll then to fight to preserve the Dome to keep out all those who have not accepted “The Way”. LOL

The villagers figure out how to frack the local fresh water aquifer which contains mucho biogenic methane, thereby getting all the energy they need but polluting their water supply...which is okay because they have all stored water in their bathtubs to get them through? Yeah...doesn't sound happy enough to me either.

[Lore]

Lore - Exactly. Why in particular I thought this would be a good topic here. Did it surprise you that the thought came to him in the 70's?

Not really, since I'm sure King was affected by the oil embargo of that time and back to the land movement. As I recall going to collage during those years there was a general concern, see "Silent Spring", that something was going on that wasn't quit right with the way we were conducting ourselves. Mostly forgotten as that generation moved into the working world.

[agramante]

Reminds me a bit of Lord of the Flies, if not for the religious and environmental components, then at least for how evil a few members of a suddenly cut-off community become.

[ROCKMAN]

John - But there's another hitch. If the TV show follows the book their atmosphere is also a closed system and thus burning your biogeneic methane (or even the cow patties) will have very negative effects. I still think it will be up to the Professor to build those solar panels that will run the oxygen generating system that will save them. Hopefully he won't get distracted swapping "assets" with Ginger to get 'er done.

Can't wait to see how those bastards controlling the resources begin to squeeze the life blood out of the town folks. My heroes! LOL

[Tanada]

I have seen the original version of this story several times. It might have been a classic Twilight Zone episode or an Outer Limits episode, either way it was in black and white and ran on TV reruns during the 1970's. Probably still runs today on RTV or TVLand channels. In the original a small plane is forced to land due to engine trouble and when they go to the town they landed next too they find it sealed off by an invisible wall. The problem is what to do because no supplies are coming in and after a few days the store is running out of food to sell. The hero's take over a building next to the barrier that has a basement so they can tunnel out of sight. They dig over to the barrier, then down until they find the bottom edge to go under it. Just as they plan their escape whoever or whatever set up the barrier takes it away again and things return to normal.

I didn't know Stephen King had written a version of it, didn't even know he was connected to the miniseries until ROCKMAN started typing about it on here lol. I had just assumed that like every other interesting idea out of Hollywood these days it was a remake of the classic 1960's original.

[ROCKMAN]

Tanada – Yep…hundreds of books and movies with the same theme: either surviving or making the ultimate sacrifice so other might survive. Even making decisions about who will survive and who will be sacrificed to make that happen. It reminds me of a bit of trivia I’m always surprised to discover how few trekkies know the origin. They can all recount in detail the Star Fleet Kobayashi Maru test. But they almost never know who Kobayashi was. He was the Admiral commanding the Marshall Island region during WWII. He knew he was facing a no-win situation trying to defend those islands so distant from Japan. Iwo Jima is a good example. He ordered his commanders to hold the islands and fight to the death. There would be no relief…no rescue. They were to be a delaying action while the perimeter closer to Japan was fortified. No relief…no surrender…no survival. And being “good marines” that’s exactly what they did.

The story lines don't change much...just the settings. From a dusty street in "High Noon" to the reactor room on the Starship Enterprise: the need of the many out weights the need of the one.

[Tanada]

Tanada – Yep…hundreds of books and movies with the same theme: either surviving or making the ultimate sacrifice so other might survive. Even making decisions about who will survive and who will be sacrificed to make that happen. It reminds me of a bit of trivia I’m always surprised to discover how few trekkies know the origin. They can all recount in detail the Star Fleet Kobayashi Maru test. But they almost never know who Kobayashi was. He was the Admiral commanding the Marshall Island region during WWII. He knew he was facing a no-win situation trying to defend those islands so distant from Japan. Iwo Jima is a good example. He ordered his commanders to hold the islands and fight to the death. There would be no relief…no rescue. They were to be a delaying action while the perimeter closer to Japan was fortified. No relief…no surrender…no survival. And being “good marines” that’s exactly what they did.

The story lines don't change much...just the settings. From a dusty street in "High Noon" to the reactor room on the Starship Enterprise: the need of the many out weights the need of the one.

So long as 'the One' is a voluntary hero I got no problem with that, but then when others start deciding the fate of the Hero, well its back to that thorny "who decides?" question that keeps rearing its ugly head. Greater love has no one, but that he sacrifice his life for another. I truly believe that too my core. But Greatest pity is for those who are sacrificed by others for the benefits of others. Look at all those 14 year old boys the Nazi's drafted to defend Hitler in Berlin in 1945. They had no choice, they had no life experience to guide them, and yet they were sacrificed to give an evil man just a few more hours of life. What a horrible and pointless waste.

At least Kobayashi knew what he was doing, trying to buy time for a negotiated settlement instead of the unconditional surrender demanded by the Allies. The Japanese really thought, many of them anyhow, that unconditional surrender meant a complete end to their way of life and Emperor who they traced back lineally thousands of years. For them the choice was seen as death for themselves, or extinction for their whole culture. In the end though they died they convinced the USA that invading Japan was going to be horribly expensive in terms of lives and treasure lost.

[ROCKMAN]

Tanada – Yep…those unintended consequences. So we don’t invade and drop the BOMB instead. Which, in the grand scheme of things, may have been better for Japan.

So back to the thread: what drastic measures might society/govt take when the real horrors of the POD begin to manifest themselves? And what might be the unintended consequences of those reactions. I suspect we’ll see these same dynamics develop in “Under the Dome”.

One of many possibilities: oil prices spike so the govt institutes prices controls or an excess profit tax on domestic production. Good news: prices go down. Unintended consequence: the value of US oil company stocks plummets causing tens of millions of Americans (the vast majority owner of Big Oil) to lose $trillions in the IRA’s, pension accounts, etc. Domestic drilling falls off the cliff. Domestic production, so dependent on the short term effects of the shale plays, declines quickly. Global oil prices jump thanks to the drop in oil company activities around the globe and thus eventually increasing costs to US citizens. So the govt reduces the amount companies can pay for imported oil. They’ve tried that before. So global oil prices may drop. Unintended consequence: China can come to the rescue of the oil exporters and offer them long term supply deals at above the then low market price. Now China has locked up more future production taking it off the market place.

All of that could happen…some of it…maybe none of it. That’s the problem when trying to predict a complex system where the psychology of the consumer/producer can have as much impact as the physical attributes. We’ll see how close King comes to the reality some of us anticipate.

[kublikhan]

The wall goes up . . . but what powers it? Is the energy free? Invisible? Or is there a big fat electric cord stretching all the way to Venus? I know my critique sounds kind of stuffy or pedantic or obvious or something . . . but it really grates me the way screenplays and audiences are so damn ignorant of thermodynamics. Energy seems to be a complete mystery to most Americans.

This is a common response when audiences view technically inaccurate details in their field of expertise or study. For you the pain point is thermodynamics. When I was talking to geologists, it was the movie Volcano that made them groan. Climate scientists roll their eyes at the "science" in The Day After Tomorrow. Tech guys groaned watching the inaccuracies in Hackers. It seems it is harder to suspend disbelief if you are an expert in the field in the story. Bad writing doesn't help.

That's one reason I like to watch parodies, they often poke fun at things that made you roll your eyes the first time around.

Dr. Evil: Scott, I want you to meet daddy's nemesis, Austin Powers.
Scott: What, are you feedin' him? Why don't you just kill him?
Dr. Evil: No, Scott, I have a better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.
Scott: Why don't you shoot him now? I mean, come on, I'll go get a gun. We'll shoot 'im together. It'll be fun. BANG! Dead. Done.
Dr. Evil: One more peep out of you and you are grounded, mister! And I am not joking!

The Dark Knight- Joker Interrogation Scene Spoof

Dalek Plumber

[ROCKMAN]

K – “the pain point”. I like that. My engineer is a former volunteer fireman and can’t watch firemen movies. My worst paint point came in “Armageddon” when the drill drew was laughing and congratulating each other as the oil was blowing thru the derrick. I doubt the 11 on the Macondo well were doing likewise when it came in on them. Such is the way of Hollywood.

We have a very balanced group here with a wide range of experiences. It would be interesting for each to chime in with the various pain points they observe in “Under the Dome”. Perhaps it will be a forerunner of what we see in misunderstandings by the public as we stumble down the PO path.

[Keith_McClary]

I have seen the original version of this story several times. It might have been a classic Twilight Zone episode or an Outer Limits episode, either way it was in black and white and ran on TV reruns during the 1970's.

I think this and many other Twilight Zone episodes were based on "Golden Age of SciFi" stories (which were mentioned in the credits?). Unfortunately, these are no longer in print and not otherwise available due to Mickey Mouse copyright.