Yesterday I watched an episode of Two And A Half Men. It was an episode that involved Walden and an old business partner of his developing a bit of software that ultimately, could be used to turn off the power to any region in the world. I hope the producers of the show realise that Walden would be legally accountable for any accident that may have occured during this 'blackout' and quite frankly, such an act could also be considered terrorism. Think about that next time you watch the show.
As much as I love to nitpick, this is not what this blog post is about. This episode actually raised quite an interesting point. We live in an age of information. Just about every aspect of our lives can be fulfilled by a gadget or computer program. Now, with my Dogs Of War TV series idea, I try to be as accurate as can be when it comes to how a world war may be fought. As you'd expect from the title, my series is all about war, with fighting, shooting, explosions and soldiers rolling in to smack the crap out of everyone. In other words, conventional warfare. However after watching the aforementioned episode of Two And A Half Men, perhaps my apporach is all wrong. Imagine if you could do something like remotely deactivate the power grid to any nation. You could cripple a country without firing a single shot. Yes, various institutions may have backup generators, but for the most part you could bring a nation to it's knees. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but a computer mouse trumps them all. I know warfare today is still about shooting and blowing things up, but these are smaller engagements. I'm looking more at what a World War could end up like, should the world go mad again.
I feel I should say that I'm not planning to go to war, goodness no, nor am I encouraging anyone else to do so. The reason I have such an interest into how a war can be fought is purely for research purposes for my TV series. There. That's the legal kerfuffle out of the way.
