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Comments on What could be a believable reason for technologically advanced underground people to not notice the end of surface war for hundreds of years?
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What could be a believable reason for technologically advanced underground people to not notice the end of surface war for hundreds of years? Question
Consider the following scenario:
We are in a far future. Technology has advanced quite a bit.
A large, devastating global war has broken out. One faction decides to hide from that war underground; thanks to their technology they can create an autonomous society that's completely separated from the above-ground societies. There still exist a few connections to the outside world, but those are well hidden from the outside, and have protection technology to keep surface people out who might accidentally discover those.
The war has now ended hundreds of years ago, and the people on the surface have lost all advanced technology. However for some reason the underground people didn't notice the end of the war, and still believe it is going on.
My question now is: What could be a believable reason that those underground people, who never lost their advanced technology, would not notice the end of the war for hundreds of years, and nobody ever went to the surface to look, despite the entrances still existing and being usable?
I don't think that anyone can really answer that without first answering how they expected to know in the first place. …
2mo ago
The war was devastating but nobody thought it would be so bad they'd nuke all advanced technology from their memory. Eve …
2mo ago
I've read one novel with a similar setting where the answer was: a small number in the government know the truth, but th …
2mo ago
They can only see a cut-out of the reality Depending on their technological capabilities underground people might hav …
2mo ago
An alternative Maybe they did notice the war had ended, but still chose not to leave the safety of their underground so …
2mo ago
Philip K. Dick would posit[^the-defenders] that the surface war is all done by robots. The robots lie about what is happ …
2mo ago
The underground society may be technologically advanced, but they are still humans, and humans have a tendency to create …
2mo ago
Vault-Net has control It was considered at some point to install an AI that would help the underground people to have …
2mo ago
If they are acting rationally, it's not possible. It is only logical for them to monitor the progress of the situation t …
2mo ago
First, this scenario is highly implausible. Surely the people that went underground intended to pop up again once the w …
2mo ago
They lost the key The outside gate was rather "low tech" like a vault door. Then over time need arised to add layers …
2mo ago
Undergrounds is a garden of Eden The people undergrounds love to live there. They have all they need and have not dev …
2mo ago
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They lost the key
The outside gate was rather "low tech" like a vault door. Then over time need arised to add layers of improved gate technology in the inner area. Also maybe adding several layers of defensive systems (turrets, mines, drones, ...).
The innermost door now is a computer controlled thing that needs a advanced cryptographic secure key to open up. If the wrong key is used, the door either don't move at all or still opens up but the defensive systems are attacking anyone. This was intended to prevent underground people from trying to exit without the consent of all.
At some point they either lost the "usb-stick" (of course some gold-plated key card is cooler) with the key on it, it got damaged or they deliberately decided to destroy it and stay undergrounds forever.
Story could focus on the social conflicts and behaviors among humans in dire situations. The one or the many - who decides things, etc.
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