Last night I watched Jesse Ventura’s “Conspiracy Theory” show which centered around the government’s cover up of the coming 2012 scenario. The show featured people converting missile silos to survival bunkers. Historical precedent will quickly point out a glaring problem with this approach.
Consider that relative to the technological level of their day, European castles were more heavily fortified than any bunker being built today (by virtue of the fact that your average monarch of Medieval times had far more resources available than anybody seeking to build a shelter). Still, no castle ever withstood siege indefinitely. No matter how much planning, preparation and defense was put into a stronghold, it was eventually overrun, and in these cases the incentive to do so was a fraction of what it will be in the coming scenarios. Today the ante has been upped; more tech exists to create these bunkers, but the same level of tech exists to break down their defenses and it all comes out in the wash. Bunkers will suffer the same fate that any medieval castle suffered, if people know they exist. Given the social chaos that’s going to hit well before the 2012 solar event(s), history will repeat itself. If people know a shelter exists, it’s going to become a target when they become desperate enough (which isn’t going to be long). Being holed up in one of these places, you just became a resource for every starving person who didn’t plan ahead. Hordes will gather in desperation to raid a shelter and retrieve whatever is inside. What’s actually inside doesn’t matter; what will drive these hordes will be what they think is inside.
The best possible defense is to be invisible. People won’t raid what they don’t know is there. My own plans are quite meticulous in the area of staying hidden. Nobody in town (a rural Central Georgia town) knows that I even know what a shelter is. The subject is never discussed. Building is done in secret. Rammed Earth construction is used for the shelter itself because I don’t have to go out and purchase an inordinate amount of materials which people will be wondering what I did with. What I do need to purchase is broken up among various hardware stores in the metro Atlanta area so that I don’t spend too much time or money in any given store.
What about covert power sources? Here is one theoretical approach: Milkweed grows just about anywhere; it grows very quickly and breaks down even faster in salt water. Since salt water is an excellent conductor of electricity, putting current through the water may help the milkweed break down even faster. The goal is to generate methane with the milkweed dissolving in an enclosed container. Methane can run a generator. Organic trash goes into this container as well.
Air filtration has outside air running through several stages of an algae-rich water system; exhaust air goes through the same system. Algae converts CO2 to oxygen quite efficiently. A very high voltage Tesla coil in the filtration water ionizes the water and breaks down impurities; this is applied in a later stage of filtration, after the incoming air has passed through the algae-rich water stage. Further filtering (charcoal, etc.) as a final stage completes the process.
Waste is recycled. Like a septic tank, solid waste is separated from liquid waste. The solid waste is dried (in an enclosed airtight container), pulverized, then burned to help heat the shelter. Handling of liquid waste is still being explored; ammonia and other chemicals need to be extracted but can be bonded with other elements to produce something useful.
Go too deep underground and you get into very negative biological effects on the human body. These are very subtle and gradual to start, but with prolonged, consistent immersion in a deep underground environment, they do intensify.
From the beginning of time, history has shown that unless you have a Mongol horde behind you, you’re going to fall if there’s any reason to attack you. The Maginot Line was simply marched around and France fell in a few days. The Normandy defenses took a lot of American lives but still fell in a matter of hours. Those attacking you will not be restricted to isolated individuals wandering onto your land. If it’s perceived that you have goodies inside (i.e. food), you’re going to face mobs and hordes that your little home defenses are not going to compete with. Staying hidden is your only real defense. The government thinks they’re going to be safe in their massive bunkers, but they hired countless contractors who helped build the things. These contractors, in desperate times, are going to gather together large assault forces (not difficult to do when everybody is starving) and go after what’s inside. My guess is, nearly every government bunker is going to be overrun well before the 2012 event(s) ever occur because social breakdown is going to hit well before that time and the necessity of raiding these shelters will be extreme.
Historical precedent says that you’re not going to fight your way through this, no matter what you do. If people know you’re there, they’re going to come after what you have, in droves. The best option anybody has is to avoid being attacked in the first place. The only way to do this is to remain hidden. – Chris