The truth is out there, and today is the day some
idiotsbrave souls will naduro-run at it. I figured that's worth a thread!
So in case you've been living under a rock for this past year, some guy created a Facebook event "let's raid area 51". The idea is the US army can't stop all of us (spoiler: they can) and if we naduro-run we can be faster than bullets (spoiler: we can't), so let's go see some aliens! (spoiler: we won't). Though meant as a joke, the event gathered enough attention to get an official respones from the Air Force, and to spin off a weeked-long music festival, Alienstock.
So, let's talk about the events happening this weekend, and maybe Area 51 news in general!
Posts
Edit: "idiots" seems flippant, I realize there's a lotta crossover between this crowd and the Qanon types, and a not insignificant portion of them seem mentally unsound and vulnerable to thinking it's actually a great idea to run in there.
I expect zero casualties caused by the application of lethal force by paramilitary security. If any people die, it will be due to them being ill-prepared physically and/or logistically to operate in desert conditions.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
These are, you know, actual military bases. Not Haliburton operations.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
At the same time, this was easily the most likely outcome.
Eating contests are not a thing in Norway. However, a local sausage manufacturer decided to host one. This garnered a lot of media attention (since, again, eating contests are not a thing).
End result was that all the contestants withdrew, save one, when they saw the massive media presence. The one remaining contestant ate a single sausage and won.
With luck, we may be seeing something similar here.
Somebody's going to cross the line for clicks, but they'll end up like the two YouTubers last week who were detained and then sent home minus a camera drone, they won't get within twenty miles of the lethal force zone.
If anyone actually dies it'll be exposure. Or landowners. There's an organized and armed civilian night watch in Rachel just waiting for somebody to camp on posted land.
Like, wishing and hoping someone trespasses so they can legally murder them?
Yes
The history of rural landowners patrolling their lands with guns and radios doesn't bode well for the guy who parks his camper on the wrong side of a sign.
Nobody wants to end up shooting someone for being an idiot. And a lone individual is easy to just apprehend, and there's no way to sneak up when its in the middle of flat open land like that.
An actual rush of lots of people wouldn't leave that option, but I don't know how they'd actually react. There's a difference between what they can legally do and what they would actually do (or what their standing orders are).
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I can say they would set up non-lethal force first. Most folks won't really try to push past some water cannons and tear gas. Anyone who tries to cross that will be in small enough numbers the military can arrest them.
This was all very likely to lead even in the giant run at the base to no one being killed unless someone was dumb and pulled a weapon.
It will be hilarious if somebody gets a face full of sand and an MP boot on their back while streaming live, and that person will be internet legend for at least a month before we all forget about them.
And then briefly again in six months when some tabloid rag notes that all their social media accounts are still idle.
Even if it were a movie World War Z horde, I assume base security would first use the latest in non-lethal crowd control devices before mortars and hummers with miniguns get rolled out.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
The gates at major bases are run at on a somewhat regular occurrence with no real incident beyond the occasional arrest.
Whatever few dozen people decide to run at the gate will discover very quickly how effective less than lethal ordinance is. And given the advanced notice the base likely just shut down and locked up everything non-essential.
There's also the incredibly effective countermeasure of reinforced locked doors.
Steel and concrete don't really care how many people managed to jump a fence.
A good point - then they can just take their time detaining people. And the average person there would probably be stopped by your average magnetic lock door, wouldn't even need reinforcement.
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I think he might be dumb.
My preferred response would be that the gates get rushed, but they open before anybody can reach them. Waiting for the mob is a collection of tour guides who walk them through an open tour of what is now a completely boring, normal training base, except for a couple locked broom closets with "SECRET" hastily spraypainted on them. Then they shuffle the mob out at taserpoint, thus guaranteeing a million more years of idiots insisting talking alien heads are being kept at Area 51.
These folks are begging to be made an example of, and the point to be made is that 'us telling you to stay away from secure facilities is not a polite suggestion.'
I'm not saying they should break out the tear gas and riot shields from the start, but at best 'here's a bottle of water, go back the way you came, you have 15 seconds to comply' sort of handling. It need not be violent, but 'this was a futile endeavor that others would be wise not to attempt to repeat' is what I feel is most likely to be conveyed.
When it spills over into the news and real life I just feel... so tired. So disappointed in my fellow man.
It would be like the alien autopsy room in the Pentagon.
Except that room is actually a bunch of tech nerds not a broom closet.
We literally put witches on the police uniforms in my city cause witches are why we're famous, and what brings us tourism dollars every year.
Dunno, seems like dude just wanted to take a vacation to Vegas. If he wants to Naruto run, at least when he's done he can go play some Blackjack.
He also has no money and spent the last of what he had on hotel and airfare TO Vegas and the bus ticket. He makes his own like pins and plans to sell enough somehow at Area 51 to get airfare back home.
Except hes not going today. When the event is happening.
I think Rachel, NV just got a new permanent resident.
Like, if you got wind of what USAF base certain research was happening at, you could try to create a memetic weapon and gather a mob there to shut down the development or get it moved as a security precaution. Totally deniable, nobody there connects back to you... That's some cyberpunk shit
Well I mean we've lived in a cyberpunk dystopia for almost a decade now so it makes sense.