Why Chicago?

FLHerne wrote:

SWM wrote:Or perhaps it was a control center for the winning side of the Final War.

Seems unlikely - the HQ for the Western Alliance was under Cheyenne Mountain, until it got wiped out by a kinetic strike near the end of the Final War.

QUICKEDIT: Maybe that was solely military, and civilian leadership was in Chicago and not hit in the same strike. Or civilian leadership was destroyed in that strike, but in other cities, and Chicago was the largest city still generally intact?

Who did win that, anyway? (well, no-one, but...).

Duckk wrote:Could be something to do with the Final War. Perhaps it was one of the few metropolitan areas which survived relatively unscathed.

FLHerne wrote:

SWM wrote:Or perhaps it was a control center for the winning side of the Final War.

Seems unlikely - the HQ for the Western Alliance was under Cheyenne Mountain, until it got wiped out by a kinetic strike near the end of the Final War.

QUICKEDIT: Maybe that was solely military, and civilian leadership was in Chicago and not hit in the same strike. Or civilian leadership was destroyed in that strike, but in other cities, and Chicago was the largest city still generally intact?

Who did win that, anyway? (well, no-one, but...).

Weird Harold wrote:

Ensign Re-read wrote:That leaves Chicago as one of (if not THE) largest US City that is NOT near the coast(s).

"Global Warming" would affect the Great Lakes as wells as sea levels. If GW or tsunamis were the driving factor, Lima, Peru or Quito, Ecuador would be the surviving center of Western Hemisphere civilization (as several post-apocalyptic fiction authors espouse.)

Chicago became one of the premier cities of North America because it's central to several transportation networks and a central trans-shipment hub. As new transportation modes have been added/invented, Chicago has adapted to remain a central trans-shipment Hub.

If the center of civilization after a financial crash and or an apocalyptic final war was to be in North America. Chicago is a logical choice.

Personally, I'd expect South America, Australia, or some other southern hemisphere center of civilization would dominate a post-apocalyptic recovery, but I'm not writing the series, so my expectations don't matter.

cthia wrote:

Duckk wrote:Could be something to do with the Final War. Perhaps it was one of the few metropolitan areas which survived relatively unscathed.

You very well could be on to something. This month on The History Channel, Cities of the Underworld "Mob Underground" S02E07 is a very interesting documentary. It shows a secret underground labyrinth of interconnected tunnels and rooms beneath the city of Chicago connecting upscale restaurants, businesses, etc., so gangsters of that era could move their drugs and money and themselves around the city unseen. An empire of over $100M was moved under the city in those days. A fortune!

That network of rooms and tunnels could have been instrumental in survival during the Final War.

phillies wrote:nthropogenic global warming will do very little to the Great Lakes, which are self emptying as there is more rain. Polar cap melting is good for less than 350 feet level increase. This would leave my town as the largest city in Massachusetts and in New England. Tsunamis hit two mountain ranges and quit.

n7axw wrote:Hi Phillies,

There is textev for Cheyenne Mountain in the Final War. I'm too lazy at the moment to hunt it down. But off the top of my head, it happens in AOV when Caperelli enters ONI's domain called "the Pit" where it is commenented that unlike the control room at Cheyenne Mountain, its denesins (sp) never had to face a nuclear armed penetrator missile headed directly at them...or something like that. At any rate, its there.

As for Chicago, why not Chicago.... it's home to da Bears, da Bulls, and da Cubs....sounds completely reasonable to me!

Don