Sunnydale evacuation theory
Oct. 3rd, 2004 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffuturesAs part of The Key to Byzantium I've been trying to come up with a "rational" theory to explain the evacuation of Sunnydale that doesn't involve hallucinogenic gases. How does this sound?
"Something I've been meaning to ask," said Jack. "Who organised the evacuation of Sunnydale? The police? The national guard? Army?"
"Try none of the above. The way it happened, over the course of a few days everyone in that town seemed to get kinda frightened, started evacuating the place by themselves. Eventually there weren't enough people there to keep the power and phones running, and that spooked the rest."
"Some scientists think it was caused by infrasound," said one of the crime scene investigators working on the Winnebago.
"Infrasound?"
"Ever been at a rock concert or a political rally, stood close to the speakers when they were playing a low note?"
"Sure. What about it?"
"If the note's loud but too low a frequency to hear it can still affect your body and your inner ear. Some of the really low notes, a cycle every couple of seconds, can make people feel paranoid, dizzy, nauseous. It's one of the things they have to watch out for when they're designing cars and concert halls."
"What's that got to do with Sunnydale?"
"The theory is that there was a natural resonant chamber, part of the cave system under the town. As the caves started to collapse steam or escaping gas made it vibrate in a really low note, and that set the whole place shaking. Enough people were affected to start the stampede."
"Any proof of that?"
"Zilch."
"Something I've been meaning to ask," said Jack. "Who organised the evacuation of Sunnydale? The police? The national guard? Army?"
"Try none of the above. The way it happened, over the course of a few days everyone in that town seemed to get kinda frightened, started evacuating the place by themselves. Eventually there weren't enough people there to keep the power and phones running, and that spooked the rest."
"Some scientists think it was caused by infrasound," said one of the crime scene investigators working on the Winnebago.
"Infrasound?"
"Ever been at a rock concert or a political rally, stood close to the speakers when they were playing a low note?"
"Sure. What about it?"
"If the note's loud but too low a frequency to hear it can still affect your body and your inner ear. Some of the really low notes, a cycle every couple of seconds, can make people feel paranoid, dizzy, nauseous. It's one of the things they have to watch out for when they're designing cars and concert halls."
"What's that got to do with Sunnydale?"
"The theory is that there was a natural resonant chamber, part of the cave system under the town. As the caves started to collapse steam or escaping gas made it vibrate in a really low note, and that set the whole place shaking. Enough people were affected to start the stampede."
"Any proof of that?"
"Zilch."
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Date: 2004-10-02 05:17 pm (UTC)Of course I'm a generalist, with no scientific qualifications beyond A-level Physics, but I watch vast amounts of science TV. Not always by my own choice; my wife watches it obsessively and I'm just stuck in the room.
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Date: 2004-10-03 06:52 am (UTC)Still, this makes sense: some people hear it and can't take it so they leave. It drives away enough people that town services are beginning to be affected. Throw in that (in RL) at the time the economy was going sour (California was particularly hard hit when the tech bubble burst) and you probably had some people early one deciding they might as well sell their homes and move to a less competitive environment. That further spirals down as more people leave town. Then you have the group that's now getting spooked because every other house is for sale or abandoned, so they start to leave.
But I still maintain that you had some stubborn people that went down with the town. There are examples of this ranging from Chernyobyl to Centralia, Pa. (site of a still-burning coal mine fire that's poisoning a now-empty town and causing the ground to collapse). It's human nature. I personally maintain that a lot of people still got killed when Sunnydale went down and that (no matter how hard the writers want us to believe it) the Sunnydale wasn't completely abandoned when the Hellmouth collapsed.