Thanks to all who responded to my previous post. Rather than explain
things in that thread, where someone who has yet to respond might
stumble across it, I think it best to post the scenario separately.
I collect odd facts. I particularly love it when these tidbits combine
to create greater oddities.
One set has always intrigued me:
Researchers with the penchant for sticking electrodes into rats' heads
and seeing what they could twiddle found spots which would not put a
rat to sleep but would keep it under once it fell asleep naturally.
Some time later, other researchers fiddling around with ultrasonic
stimulation of monkey brains found a similar effect -- they could not
put a monkey asleep, but they could keep it there.
Piling oddity upon oddity, scientists sticking electromagnets around a
monkey's skull found they could achieve exactly the same effect.
(In none of these cases was this what the researchers were looking
for, so they're just footnotes to the primary studies.)
So -- why not a weapon that induces that effect worldwide? Anyone who
is or goes asleep will stay that way until you turn off the machine,
and for about 12 hours more because the effect takes time to wear off.
It has the benefit of limiting physical damage (no one is going to
pass out while driving or flying, most industrial processes will be
shut down when relief shifts don't appear, etc.) and minimal loss of
life. Perhaps the most important aspect is that if you want to land
invasion troops, they'll be able to move freely since the roads won't
be clogged with stalled cars.
Since it is limitations that create tension (Superman/Kryptonite, for
example), the weapon has to have some Achilles heel. In this case,
it's that anyone in a Faraday cage is protected from the effect.
Someone is bound to notice this, but it will take time. Even after
they figure it out and test it, they can't do very much except
broadcast the information because they'll be overwhelmed trying to
take care of their own people, leaving a considerable part of the
world at the weapon-wielder's mercy (i.e. if the weapon is used when
it is late evening/early night in North America, the vast majority
won't know anything about it before they go to bed, and by the time
those in Bangkok can tell anyone what to do to protect themselves,
those who were awake in Denver are going to be too sleepy to use the
information in any kind of widescale manner).
You work the graveyard shift and normally awaken about ten o'clock at
night. When your wife/girlfriend/so can't rouse you, you're taken to
the hospital where they are already becoming overwhelmed by similar
patients.
The staff can do nothing more than check for other problems and put
you where you won't be in the way.
Fortunately, you were stuffed into the MRI room. Whether that was by
pure chance or because someone had an inkling that the room's
isolation might help is a matter for conjecture.
Unfortunately, you were the first to have the effect wear off. If you
were the second, third, or whatever, there would be evidence (empty
gurneys) that others had also awakened, and you might wait a
considerable time to see if anyone else in the room will wake up on
their own.
It is therefore important for the protag to leave the room fairly
quickly and be out of the hospital before any/many more awaken.
The problem is that I'm not sure that's a normal reaction. I'm not
even sure it would be my reaction -- to me, hospitals represent a
certain level of safety, and I'm uncertain how quickly I'd leave one.
There are many motivations which could force a person out (seeking
loved ones, wanting to find news, etc.) but they feel forced.
The fact that so many indicated their first priority lies, in one
fashion or another, outside the hospital lends credence to the impulse
to leave.
Many thanks again to those who responded and those who will.
:)
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