The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion (23 page)

Most likely, the United States has secret underground facilities to protect government leaders. And it would be naïve to think that other nations haven’t done the same thing.

Perhaps if the nukes fly, we’ll all be dead. The only surviving humans will be a handful of government leaders. Now, there’s a cheery thought.

Bombs and missiles are standard weapons in the hands of the Capitol. It’s nothing for hoverplanes to pop into view and bomb an entire district into oblivion (
Catching Fire,
145). Suzanne Collins brilliantly weaves personal horror and empathy into the narrative to make the bombings and destruction more pronounced. For example, it’s hard not to feel bad for Twill, whose husband was killed by a bomb, and Bonnie, who lost her entire family.

A non-nuclear bomb is no laughing matter. Dropped from a warplane, a single bomb can burst in the sky and then rain dozens of bombs upon a location—for the sake of the world of The Hunger Games, this might be a district, and for the sake of the real world, it could be anywhere at anytime. Inside each bomb is a fuse that is timed to detonate the actual explosion, which may include chemical and biological agents. The following appeared in
Popular Science
magazine way back in May 1945:
⁵
“New chemicals and new mechanisms have been brought together in new
fire bombs
.” Old technology, folks, but enough to destroy entire districts in The Hunger Games.

The worst things that could happen to Katniss are to: (a) lose her family and loved ones, and (b) lose her home, that is, District 12. She does lose Prim, which acutely hurts the reader, and she does lose her home at the end of the Quarter Quells when the Capitol drops
fire bombs
on District 12 (
Catching Fire,
391).

To keep things simple, we’ll define bombs as munitions dropped by warplanes aka hoverplanes. The aerial bombs, or fire bombs, in the World War II era were dropped on both battlefields and cities, and included in these bombs were napalm and nuclear devices. Typical aerial bombs have streamlined shapes, stabilizing fins, fuzes (as opposed to fuses), and detonators to light the fuzes. Modern bombs can be “smart,” meaning they hone in on targets with great precision; they are built with extra features such as electronic sensors, control systems, batteries, and adjustable fins.

Types of Bombs

Nuclear development continues in District 13, which supposedly is why the Capitol has allowed that district to survive at all (
Catching Fire,
146–47). As mentioned above, the post-apocalypse nuclear fears are similar to the mood of the United States and Soviet Union in the 1950s.

In 1949, President Harry Truman told the citizens of the United States that the Soviet Union had atomic bomb technology and had actually exploded its first bomb. People started worrying about a full-scale nuclear war between the two “superpowers.” Throughout the 1950s, this fear escalated with the development of the hydrogen bomb by both “superpowers.” A 1957 report determined that the Soviets would soon have nuclear superiority, which further increased the fear of a nuclear holocaust. As late as 1961, President Kennedy asked that $100 million be set aside for the construction of U.S. bomb shelters.

Both District 13, the makers of nuclear weapons, and the Capitol—the evil empire—are at an impasse: If one shoots its nukes at the other, retaliation is inevitable. Hence, the Capitol keeps its arsenal somewhere “out west” and leaves District 13 to its underground lifestyle (
Mockingjay,
17).

These nukes are just like the ones we have in reality: If used, according to President Coin, they would kill everyone either upon impact or by flooding the environment with deadly radiation (
Mockingjay,
138). Powerful bunker missiles—either nuclear or otherwise—would plunge into the deep underground city of District 13 and then explode (
Mockingjay,
147).

Nuclear explosive devices rely on fission or fusion. In the first case, uranium or plutonium atoms split into lighter atoms; a free neutron from one atom fuses with a uranium atom; the fusion causes the uranium atom to split into two lighter atoms; and two neutrons plus thirty-two Pico watts of energy are released. The two free neutrons then collide with more atoms, and the process repeats in a chain reaction. In this manner, more than 36 million million watts of energy can explode from one pound of U-235.

In the case of a fusion bomb—a hydrogen or thermonuclear device—atoms are fused rather than split. For example, with deuterium fusion, in the heat of an initial fission explosion, two deuterium atoms collide then fuse with one atom of Helium-3, releasing one neutron and energy. A resulting chain reaction causes a massive explosion. With deuterium and tritium fusion, one deuterium atom collides with one tritium atom, fusing into a Helium-4 atom and releasing one neutron and energy. And then, the chain reaction takes over.

A hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb uses a core containing lithium and deuterium that is surrounded by U-235 or plutonium. This shell is then surrounded by U-238, a much more inert form of uranium than U-235. After the initial fission reaction, the deuterium and tritium undergo fusion and release neutrons and energy that make the U-238 undergo fission. In essence, this type of bomb combines fission and fusion in a sequence of events: fission, fusion, fission.

Clearly, we’re supplying only the basics about bombs and nuclear devices. It’s beyond the scope of this book to really explore these topics in detail. Suffice it to say that bombs, both aerial and nuclear, as well as missiles are commonly used in the battles between the government and the people in The Hunger Games.

In large part, the rebels’ destruction of the Capitol and its government is due to the bombing of District 2’s Nut, a fortress mountain that is home to the evil empire’s military. The Nut has evil empire computers, weapons, barracks, and entry and exit paths for the bomb and missile-packed hoverplanes, but the actual nukes are kept elsewhere on the edge of the Capitol (
Mockingjay,
192).

If you remember the James Bond movie,
You Only Live Twice,
then you also remember Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s mountain fortress. Hell-bent on triggering nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union, Blofeld kidnaps spaceships and astronauts from both countries and blames the other countries for the crimes. His giant rocket base is in an inactive volcano in a remote section of Japan. Inside the mountain is a vast secret base, complete with evil empire computers, weapons, barracks, and entry and exit paths for outerspace rockets and space stations.

There are some differences between Blofeld’s fortress and the Nut, of course. For one thing, the Capitol doesn’t kidnap space ships and astronauts. For another, the Capitol keeps its missiles and planes on the edge of the Capitol rather than in the Nut.

While reading
Mockingjay,
I kept wondering about a few things. First, nuclear weapons deteriorate over time and must be maintained and replenished. Also required—for replenishment purposes—is a nuclear reactor, which cannot be underground. I never quite understood how District 13, “the maker of nuclear weapons,” was able to maintain and replenish its nukes. The people of District 13 aren’t allowed above ground, so where’s the nuclear reactor?