Greetings, Professor Falken...

[zootsaxismyaxe]

I stumbled across a book  (http://www.amazon.com/Day-After-World-War-III/dp/0670258806) on emergency plans for nuclear conflict while I was blindly searching shelves of the library for something interesting.  In a footnote on page 59, the author relates the

Comments

[tskirvin]

Was the butcher knife meant to help the president, or the aide?

[zootsaxismyaxe]

I'd say the president. If anything were to help the aide, you'd think it would be a quick-acting poison of some kind so he wouldn't be still alive when he was hacked open for the codes. ...maybe that's just me, though.

[tskirvin]

What I was thinking would be that the aide would be able to defend himself from a nuke-happy president.

Always defend yourself against near-zombie scenarios.

[zootsaxismyaxe]

I just realized something. Under your scenario, the President would have to be very proficient in combat to respond to a nuclear strike. Therefore, the political system would have to, by necessity, be more similar to the Clans than it currently is to maximize the odds that the President could defeat his aide in mortal combat. How bad can any scenario be that makes real life more like Battletech? :)

[busbeytheelder]

I think you mean "how *awesome* can any scenario be that makes real life more like Battletech"

[zootsaxismyaxe]

I stand corrected.