"Scariest real life scenario...." Topic

Which real-life scenario would frighten you the most!

1) AIDS mutates into airborne version.
2) Zombie Virus (spread by body fluids)smuggled out of Russian military base and sold on black market.
3) Earth to pass through 24 hour long asteroid shower.
4) The Earth shifts its access so that Egypt is now the North Pole.
5) Rage Virus infected monkeys escape lab in USA Big City.
6) Islamic Militants post video of themselves putting finishing touches on suitcase borne nuke.
7) Near Earth Object 1/4 the size of our moon has 66% chance to pass through our atmosphere in 2012.
8) Cancer found to be spread through body fluids.
9) Starting in 2010, 1 in 1 million babies are born with genetic defect that both prevents them from being in sunlight and necessitates they drink fresh uncoagulated human blood to survive.
10) A very well armed and highly sophisticated spaceship collides with a commercial airliner while entering atmosphere, killing all 4 Aliens on board.
11) Russia finally admits that during the fall of the Soviet Union they "lost" track of 13 Hiroshima size nuclear warheads.
12) Uncurable form of Mad Cow disease infects world Bovine and chicken population.
13) A 100,000 year old "lifeboat" style spacecraft is found buried on Earth. Upon deciphering alien ruins inside the craft we learn that all "humans" are the descendants of a race that escaped a dying planet. They further prove that all of Earth's religions' "creation" histories (and therefore their basis) are incorrect!
14) A grandson of a WWII era German Nazi party member reveals that his recently deceased grandfather's diary shows Hitler's DNA was smuggled out of Germany to Argentina before the fall of Berlin.
15) After a brief but bloody coupe-de-tas, is declared Dictator for Life in 2010.

Uesugi,

I was really, really into it until I read your #15.

So, now I feel compelled to add a #16:

16) After all opposition news media is silenced once and for all, is "unanimously" declared Dictator for Life and Socialism rules the land.
All Glory To The Hypnotoad! YouTube link

CC

lol….Ok, what was your pick before you read #15?

Well now that is just depressing…this was supposed to be fun.

LOL.

Uesugi, I gave it a lot of thought and I say it would have to be #1 (Airborne AIDS).

I may try to find isolated parts of the world to live in and survive many other cataclysms, but I find it hard to believe that I could keep my family from breathing contaminated air for very long.

CC
PS. NEOs, Polar Shifts and UFO collisions sound cool though.

My wife stops letting me buy miniatures and tells me to grow up.

Some of those hardly qualify as "real life" scenarios.

Number 1 is so unlikely in biological terms that it can be discounted.

Ditto Number 2.

Number 3. Where were all our astronomers looking the months that this asteroid shower was sneaking up on us?

Number 4. If the Earth shifted THAT much, it would destablize and fall out of orbit. But the scenario violates numerous physical laws. What causes it? Where does the energy come from?

Number 5. IF Rage Virus existed, the labs wouldn't be in big cities.

Number 6. this is the closest to realistic, and it isn't very much so. contrary to the 'build a bomb in your basement' crowd, it isn't that easy.

Number 7. See number 3.

Number 8. As if that wasn't the first vector cancer researchers checked out.

Number 9. See Number 1.

Number 10 posits a highly sophisticated spaceship with atmospheric flight capability that doesn't have any collision avoidance system.

Number 13 ignores the fact that genetic mapping proves that Homo sapiens evolved on Earth. And that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, at least, do not depend on their joint creation story. They have been getting along just fine without it for a century and a half.

Number 14. Get real. 'Bad blood' has been disproved as a socio-psychological theory for nearly half a century. There is no reason that a Hitler clone that didn't go through his traumatic childhood and adolescence couldn't be another Albert Schweitzer.

Number 15. Quit listening to the paranoid rantings of the . They are at least as far off base as . Who would be running this coup-de-etat? Certainly not the US military. This is nearly as dumb as 'Black helicopters'.

"Some of those hardly qualify as "real life" scenarios."

Its a "what if"…. I guess you missed that part. ;-) Use you imagination a little. And don't take it too seriously.

Rmaker, I can see you are the type of person that likes to go to a Sci-Fi or Superhero movie and explain to everyone within earshot in the theater how nothing they are watching on screen is physically possible. What a joy you must be to have at parties! A friendly piece of advise Mate….Put down the miniatures, turn off , get out of the basement and enjoy life for a minute. Its short.

But that IS the fun of "what if" isnt. Otherwise there wouldnt even be a Sc-Fi miniatures/game market (hello, space ships fighting other ships in space!!!!!!).

"turn off "

Uesugi!!! Didn't you read my #16??? :)

CC

What, no famine scenario?

What if we lost the ability to grow the grain crops that provide the bulk of our diets? Losing Wheat, Rice & Corn/Maize alone would create an interesting future.

Anyone familiar with the potato famine?

How about Monsanto accidentally release a genetically modified crop that is so aggressive it takes over the entire US wheat belt in a single season, proves impervious to pesticides and is unpalatable to humans and livestock?

Hmmm… Now I'm hungry…

Put down the miniatures, turn off , get out of the basement and enjoy life for a minute. Its short.

First political (#16 from your list), now condescending and political.

Hey, #16 was mine!!! :)

CC

All credit to you C.C., it's just getting out of hand.

Let's not forget scary scenario #17….

picture

"What, no famine scenario?"

Well actually, thats what #4 was supposed to be. Figured the axis changing would destroy the worlds grain belt. Should have elaborated more.

"now condescending and political, it's just getting out of hand.":

Ahhh come on… anyone who can't see the above poll (especially #15…and now #16) for the "tongue in cheek" quality it was intended for DOES need to turn off the tv, put down the miniatures and lighten up! Go see Zombieland, now playing in a theater near you!

Next I suppose a Russian members of TMP will chime in for me bad-mouthing Russians in 2 two of the above choices…or the TMP Islamic Militant Faction will nuke me for accusing them of trying to obtain suitcase nukes….where does it end people!! Where does it end…

;-)

PS. Mlatch221…ive posted FAR more inflammatory threads than this one Mate and havent been 'housed yet….cant imagine anything posted above would cause me to be so…and if it DOES, then CC is right….we ARE living in a true socialist state!

Sorry Uesugi but your belated "tongue in cheek" defense isn't working. There was nothing in the OP (an emoticon maybe?) to indicate "tongue in cheek", you were called out on the political comment 10 minutes after you made it but didn't see fit to edit it, and now you're dancing around the edge of a personal attack.

Just so you know, it didn't come across as tongue in cheek and it still doesn't seem like you meant it that way, it just seems like you want to avoid the DH.

In case you have any doubt, I'm the one who pressed the ! button.

#15 should be that ! A dictator would require more work and imagination than he has!

#13 would be the most enjoyable. How long would it take to "make" new religions? And how long would it take religious zealots of all faiths to declare their religions still valid but just a slight re-emphasis needed in doctrine! Wait that is scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think #2 would be the scariest!
William

Well played WKeyser!

"Sorry Uesugi but your belated "tongue in cheek" defense isn't working. There was nothing in the OP (an emoticon maybe?) to indicate "tongue in cheek""

Uh….so the words "Zombie Virus", "Rage Virus infected monkeys" (lol), "babies drinking blood", "Uncurable form of Mad Cow disease" don't strike you as tongue in cheek??? Steve my friend…you clearly HAVE been in the basement FAR to long playing with the minis.

Oh, and I was "called out" by Mr. CC was I. I hardly think his humorous retort was "calling me out" Bubba. I think it was a witty reply, much in line with the original intent of the poll.

So please, "Highlandcatfrog"….stiffle me, report me, stay out of my polls, or do whatever, but mostly… get over yourself buddy.

"13) A 100,000 year old "lifeboat" style spacecraft is found buried on Earth. Upon deciphering alien ruins inside the craft we learn that all "humans" are the descendants of a race that escaped a dying planet. They further prove that all of Earth's religions' "creation" histories (and therefore their basis) are incorrect!"

You got that one slightly wrong. It was 2 million years ago and it was the B-Ark from Golgafrincham!!

I think 3,4 and 5 are all extinction level events, so pretty bad for every body. 7 could be pretty bad as well, but some people would survive.

The rest? well, it is just business as usual.

I thought Shifter's answer was pretty darn SCAREY! (no more miniatures?!!!! AAAARRRRGHHHH!!!) oh, right…that's why I have TWO ex-wives…..D'oh!

ACTUALLY….the 'Scariest Real World Scenario' is the one NO-ONE really expects/suspects/could possibly be prepared for and wipes us all out before we even realize it!

Since it'd be over before we could name/realize it, with no 'appeal'/possibility of survival etc…there wouldn't be much we could do (nor worry about) on it. On the other side of the coin…any 'long-goodbye' type scenario…more than a few days, weeks or even months…but still totally inevitable/unavoidable/inescapeable…would be equally terrible because you couldn't DO anything about it but 'wait for it'…and you would have time to WAIT for it…

Like the sun going NOVA in 50 years or less, a black hole grazing the solar system…a Gamma Ray Burster within 10,000 light years of us exploded 10,000 years ago and the wave front starts arriving at speed of light???

Personally, I think the 'end', if you want to call it that, will probably be a combination of different disasters/eco/social/etc….and there will be massive changes that even the most prepared may or may not 'survive'…

So depending on your belief system…make sure you're 'in tune' with your higher power….BUT, 'keep your gunpowder dry'…(a good supply of lead figures couldn't hurt either…8-)

Slishfully,
Sgt DWW-btod

"8) Cancer found to be spread through body fluids."

"Number 8. As if that wasn't the first vector cancer researchers checked out."

Actually, one of the leading virologists made a prediction a few years ago that most cancers not triggered by carcinogens would turn out to be triggered by viruses. (Virii?)

Ffwd a decade and now we're immunising girls against HPV, because everyone who gets malignant cervical cancer has been infected with HPV.

Since then research finds XMRV seems to be linked to prostate cancer plus it's a known trigger for sarcoma and leukemia in animals. Merkel cell polyomavirus causes Merkel cell cancer. HHMMTV plus genetics appears to be at the root of most breast cancer…

Currently it's a pretty good working hypothesis that cancer gets caused by smoking, viruses, exposure to pollution in roughly that order of commonality.

And hence, since the viruses are transmitted by bodily fluid exchange, the statement is pretty much true.

11's alleged to be sort of true as well. Only it was more than 13 weapons were mislaid…

Number 8 has already happened. Check out the vaccination programme against cervical cancer.

You might want to add:

18 The Yellowstone Cauldiera explodes. A massive VEI 8 event devastates the Americas and plummets the world into a global famine. Massive unrest and wars follow and the surviving nations fight for resources. The survivors call it the decade without a summer.

Sure scares the Bleep out of me!

Guy

"Number 8 has already happened."

I'm talking more of an instant "infection" rather than a possibility of transmission over a period of years.

"18 The Yellowstone Cauldiera explodes"

I saw a Discovery World (?) show on this. Pretty scary indeed! Good call.

Uesugi…. have you considered switching to decaf!? It's like an Apocalyptic Sci-Fi compilation album!
Random stuff:

2: Assuming they're classic 'Destroy the Brain' zombies, then the future of humanity belongs to the well-armed. In fifty years time, the world will be zombie-free, but dominated by the superpowers of Alabama and Somalia.

5: I've always said monkeys were evil. I knew it! Open season on monkeys! Double points if they've got little clown hats or cymbals.

9: Plenty of children are born with conditions requiring regular blood transfusions. It wouldn't be a problem unless these kids came complete with classic folklore-Vampire abilities and invunerabilities, and, crucially, the ability to 'infect' others.

10: What the hell were four aliens doing on board an airliner?! Good thing that spaceship took them out!

11: Traditional wisdom dictates that you should check down the back of the sofa.

12: Mad cow disease & human variant-CJD ARE incurable. But never mind, pork is tasty.

13: Tch. Just business as usual for us atheists. Those who still want to 'believe' will find justification to do so somehow. Those who don't will find that life goes on just fine without Odin/Yaweh/the 33,000 divine beings of Hinduism, PLUS they've got Sundays free.
(Although… 'Alien Lifeboat'?! Isn't that what the Scientologists were blathering about?)

If tall buxum women invade the planet from mars in scantilly clad outfits, and force the men to do thier bidding…

But I guess I could live with it somehow. And maybe in 10 or 20 years, I would mount a resistence movement to dominate the invaders. Or at least have equal say.

19. Dancing With The Stars is on TV every night of the week.

I think this is every husband's nightmare. It is mine!

After a build up of really bad sci-fi & fantasy films and tv shows, people start suffering from an irrational hatred of nerds and geeks. After a committee reviews many RPG and miniatures websites, it is decreed that such hobbies are an abomination against Man and God.

Nerd hunts and geek burnings are commonplace.

3. It depends on how many asteroids and their size.

Trouble with these things is they sound real but on deeper examination, they;re highly unlikely. "Real life" is more verisimilitude than veracity.

And for #15… I'm disappointed. It's a cheap shot that doesn't belong here.

The likeliest scenario would be a Yellowstone or Cumbre Vieja event. Devastating, but not enough to kill everybody.

Such a dramatic global disruption is most likely with major shortages of food, fuel and wargaming products.

When it comes to "the end of the world" it would probably be a long slow agony rather than a merciful kaboom. Fate is a cruel bitch …

Agree with Gecoren – the Yellowstone volcano is one big thing to worry about – I also saw the Discovery Channel program, very scary – especially as it appears that coastal China and the southern bit of Europe on the Mediterranean emerge as the big world leaders

So, now I feel compelled to add a #16:

Well, to be fair, we have heard some people (and they don't seem all that unsympathetic to the idea).

OTOH I haven't heard anyone . If they had, then your 16) would make some sense as a retort.

#20 When all the s are gone.

If the unicorns die and their horns are removed, the Lord of Darkness can ensure that dawn never again breaks, and sunshine never returns.

I am gunna go with;

21) Unpainted lead/resin/plastic/pewter caused a deadly disease…

The potential for most of the first posted events, taken with a huge dose of fantasy to make them equal something other than global extinction level event…I would say 3, 4, or 7.

These do not scare me…as they are mostly fantasy and I have been numbed by modern media…but those at least offer some gaming potential, which I assume is why it is posted here right?

SORRY
the scariest of them all:
an unending thread on TMP about scary scenarios that try to endlessly one-up-the last comment?

Number 5 almost happened. Monkeys in the Hazlelton Labs monkey house near Dulles airport in Washington DC contracted airborne Simian EBOLA. Almost wiped out all the monkeys. They contained it and there was no cross over to humans. Happened in 1989. But what if?

SORRY
the scariest of them all:
an unending thread on TMP about scary scenarios that try to endlessly one-up-the last comment?

Agreed -- truly terrifying!!!

If tall buxum women invade the planet from mars in scantilly clad outfits, and force the men to do thier bidding…

Let the snoo-snoo begin!

Of course if they were the tall buxom octopoid women from Mars, that would be a nightmare (although the engineer from Galaxy Quest seemed to have a good time).

#3 happens all the time. Ever hear of the Perseid meteor shower?

Oh, wait, you meant rocks big enough to actually hit earth's surface.

*That* would be scary. Imagine a near-total loss of satellite communications due to the smaller stuff that burns up thinking about entering the atmosphere, and then significantly larger impactors most likely wiping out large chunks of arable land, coupled with so much dust in the air that we have a "nuclear winter".

#4 is highly unlikely, the Moon acts as a stabilizer on the Earth's gyroscopic precession.

#7, the briefcase nuke, doesn't work well as a scenario. It's just not that easy to make an implosion-based nuke. about the smallest cannon atomic warhead (Little Boy style) you can make fills the trunk of a full-size (American) Ford or most of the bed of a pickup truck. And most countries in the Non-proliferation treaty have *very* sensitive radiation detectors to make it hard to smuggle any radioactive materials across borders.

Highlandcatfrog,

Uesugi did his #15 and I did my #16. We both took as fun. We don't have to agree on politics to be TMP buds, as long as we understand that we can agree to disagree, and that each can voice his own.

I took his as non-offensive and, I know, he took mine in the same vein.

As long as we can both joke about our greatest political "fears" without taking offense, regardless of how polarized, I think we can keep this thread on track.

CC
PS. By the way, I didn't really "call him out". I think that phrase sounds a bit too hostile for what I did, and Uesugi and I have no hostility between us. I just reminded him, in a very friendly way, that we have different views on what would be a nightmare scenario for some of us. It's all good. :)

Lion in the Stars: "rocks big enough to actually hit earth's surface. *That* would be scary. Imagine a near-total loss of satellite communications"

I think you've hit on a good point. Besides, that would be a perfect time for rival countries with nukes to do what they have wanted to do for quite some time.

So, it wouldn't just be the showers that would be scary.

CC

Regarding no.4 (Earth shifts axis – Egypt at North Pole), as said not going to happen unless the planet is hit by something big enough to evaporate the lot of us instantly.

However, the magnetic poles do wander around a bit and every few hundred thousand or million years swap around, so magnetic North will be at the Geographic South pole and vice versa. See here-
link

Effects unknown pretty much, though possible increase in cosmic rays etc. Maybe comms, satellites, electric stuff goes haywire? Migrating animals get lost? Any other idea what would happen? Speculation, bluster, downright panic mongering lies, go-on!

Judging by 'recent' reversals we're overdue (780,000 years since last one).

Egypt at the North rotational Pole would still have the American Great Plains in a temperate zone, though it would be the south temperate zone instead of the north, and rain patterns would be quite different. The European and Russian growing regions would be DOA, though. Farthest Siberia gets a new lease, and much of the Asian Pacific Rim will be in a good spot for temperature.

The land grab for Antarctica will be epic.

Uesugi, when you say "real life", you should expect to be taken seriously. I will pass over the borderline personal attack, but note that many of my friends are getting chuckles out of your assumptions regarding my politics and viewing habits.

Scariest real-life scenario # whatever:

Due to a shift in attitudes on the part of the psychiatric profession and various "well-meaning" social workers, the obviously mentally ill are released from institutions to wreak havoc on an otherwise-helpless world populace, as shown by this thread and its reality-warping ideas.

I love the line . . .

"The world is in such bad shape, who wouldn't welcome a savior right now?"
abc.go.com/shows/v

CC