Back in March we spotted a news story coming from North Korea about an EMP bomb that was being developed, mirroring the early events in THQ’s Homefront title. In another twist close to the storyline, the news this morning of Kim Jong-il passing away (and the probably replacement by his son Kim Jong-un) has got a few people digging out the Homefront timeline once again. Sure enough, listed under 2012 – not long after a UN sanction as a result of their weapons testing – is this exact event. A couple of weeks ahead of schedule maybe, but not a million miles off.
This, of course, is probably just coincidence. But it goes to show just how close games can imitate real life, and you never know, we might be seeing the unification of North and South Korea over the next 18 months. If that happens, I’m stocking up on baked beans and heading for the hills…
This is what we wrote about the previous bit of news back in March:
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The storyline behind Homefront has been both praised and frowned at for just how close to the wire it is. A string of events that before today seemed quite feasible but collectively unlikely, leading to a Korean invasion of the USA, has been pushed home by THQ in their advertising strategy. For many, us at TGR included, it’s a master stroke and a fantastic way to bring gamer’s closer to the action with believable consequences, but for some it was just a little too edgy considering the state of the world’s politics right now.
The start of the Homefront timeline begins with the following:
2011: North Korea faces another UN sanction over its latest nuclear test.
A couple of years later, General Motors file for bankruptcy again and fuel prices hit a record high. By itself, it’s a timeline that’s enough to scare most people, as events lead up to the 2025 even of Korea detonating an EMP satellite wiping out 99.9% of the electrical equipment in the US.
The scary just got scarier.
News Room America are today reporting that North Korea aren’t far off developing an electro-pulse weapon that could potentially destroy electrical equipment over a huge area. Sound familiar? It should. According to the Homefront timeline it’s due in 14 years from now.
North Korea is believed to be close to developing an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if detonated over a target area, would cause irreversible damage to an adversary’s electric grid and electronic infrastructure.ABC News reported Wednesday that North Korea, in protest of current U.S.-South Korean military exercises, has been trying to jam electronic communications and devices that rely on GPS signals from satellites to operate.
The report said the North Koreans are employing a truck-mounted jamming device purchased from Russia around 2000 that they have used to develop two modified versions. Pyongyang has also, in recent years, offered them up in sales catalogs to nations in the Middle East, the report said.
So far that effort has produced minimal disruption, but it has led military officials and other analysts to become increasingly concerned about Pyongyang’s efforts to develop and deploy an EMP weapon that would have devastating effects on electronic infrastructure.
Military experts say a large-scale EMP attack would most likely cripple modern military operations by knocking out all electronic and satellite communications. Also, such weapons are capable of disrupting mobile phones, computers, radio and radar. Such weapons would also wipe out much of the infrastructure utilized in modern societies, such as banking, electrical grids, and transport.
Worrying enough on its own, without the Guardian chipping in with reports that fuel in the UK has hit its highest ever price, at over £6 per gallon, making some journalists suggest that the reign of the standard fuel-powered car is coming to an end. Combining these events with the fact that Libya are now drawing the American forces’ gaze, stretching them even further as they continue to also linger in Afghanistan and Iraq and all of a sudden that feasible Homefront storyline has a few people keeping a slightly closer eye on the news channels over the next few months.
You should really update this again. North Korea is to launch a missile with in the next few days that contains a so called “satalite”. Also, an article I read about two weeks ago, from the general that oversees US troops in south korea has reported a massive mobilization of North Korean assets like nothing he had ever seen before.
Wow. This should be updated now.