I Never Noticed That Before!

[Red Shirt]

Once Michael signs his new orders and gets filled in by Kimmet at Irwin we are told that Irwin has outposts 'all over the place' on various 'special missions'. We know about the team to Pantex to get the nukes (though that was when they first arrived) and we know about the team to Long Beach where Long gets hit. But what other teams? Where did they go? Were they taken out in the nuke blasts as well or was Kimmet embellishing a little on how many teams they had in how many places? Or will we run into another team at some point who was out when the blast happened and has been wandering looking for other survivors since?

That was the "Info Dump" briefing that tool place at the beginning of Chapter 29; 2/3. I summarized it HERE, but the juicy parts you are referring to are:

• Ch. 29 2/3 @ 1:32 "There has been a great deal of time and energy establishing a decent range of communications." (Implies relay stations.)
• Ch. 29 2/3 @ 1:42 "This map shows Irwin and all the current locations of our personnel." "They're scattered all over." (Rescue, Special Ops, Recon mentioned later.)
• Ch. 29 2/3 @ 3:12 "...and how many out in the field?" "By last count, I think 182." (The "in the field" count may not include outposts.)

Something worth mentioning in the second pass minutiae vein was something that happened later that relates to the content of the briefing. (I also mention it with the summary.)
During the siege and fall of Ft. Irwin at 11:43, Kimmet kicks Michael and Puck out of the C&C. Before Michael leaves he steals a sat phone and a directory. Later at 11:59, "What'd ya swipe?" "One of the sat phones and the directory. All the line numbers."

In real life, Dick Cheney came in and put RR's Continuity of Goverment on steroids. I still think the damage to the country was so much that many sites went dark and off the air. I hope they begin to awaken at the one year mark. But, I think a lot more is known about the world than is written into the story, because it is about the characters and events surrounding Michael.

Continuity of Government, also known as Continuity of Operations, is a fascinating, yet eerily terrifying subject. Not just Regan era... the entirety of the Red Scare "Duck and Cover" Cold war era. Also included among them are the Civil Defense, CONELRAD, the NEAR Program, Autovon and the DSN, EBS & EAS... Primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary and so on layers of operational redundancy that are a rabbit hole of operational contingencies. It's no wonder that some of those programs and activities use names and phrases from Alice in Wonderland. Operation Looking Glass, Wonderland and so on.

Among those, I would like to know the status on NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain. The facility was built to withstand a 30 megaton blast within one mile of the facility. I'm sure once it went hermetic, nothing would get in there.