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"The Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 American science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is a sequel to The Matrix, and the second installment in The Matrix film franchise. Reloaded premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and had its worldwide release by Warner Bros. on May 15, 2003, including a screening out of competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. The video game Enter the Matrix and The Animatrix, a collection of short animations, supported and expanded the storyline of the film. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $739.4 million worldwide, breaking Terminator 2: Judgment Day's record and becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time until Deadpool surpassed it in 2016. The Matrix Revolutions, which continues the story, was released six months after Reloaded, in November 2003. Plot Six months after the events of The Matrix, Neo and Trinity are now romantically involved. Morpheus receives a message from Captain Niobe of the Logos calling an emergency meeting of all ships of Zion. Zion has confirmed the last transmission of the Osiris: an army of Sentinels is tunneling towards Zion and will reach it within 72 hours. Commander Lock orders all ships to return to Zion to prepare for the onslaught, but Morpheus asks one ship to remain to contact the Oracle. As the Caduceus receives a message from the Oracle, one of the Caduceus crew, Bane, encounters Smith, who reveals that his previous encounter with Neo severed his connection with the Matrix and has made him a rogue program, then absorbs his avatar. Smith then uses the phone line to leave the Matrix and gain control of Bane's real body. In Zion, Morpheus announces the news of the advancing machines to the people. In the Matrix, Neo meets the Oracle's bodyguard Seraph, who leads him to her. After realizing that the Oracle is part of the Matrix, Neo asks how he can trust her; she replies that this is his decision. The Oracle instructs Neo to reach the Source of the Matrix with the help of the Keymaker. As the Oracle departs, Smith appears, telling Neo that after being defeated, he refused to be deleted and is now a rogue program. He demonstrates his ability to clone himself using other inhabitants of the Matrix, including other Agents, as hosts. He then tries to absorb Neo but fails, prompting a battle between Smith's clones and Neo. Neo manages to defend himself, but is forced to retreat from the increasingly overwhelming numbers. Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity visit the Merovingian, who is imprisoning the Keymaker. The Merovingian, a rogue Matrix program with his own agenda, refuses to let him go. His wife Persephone, seeking revenge on her husband for his infidelity, leads the trio to the Keymaker. Morpheus, Trinity, and the Keymaker flee while Neo holds off the Merovingian's henchmen. Morpheus and Trinity try to escape with the Keymaker, pursued by several Agents and the Merovingian's chief henchmen, the Twins. After a long chase, Trinity escapes, Morpheus defeats the Twins, and Neo saves Morpheus and the Keymaker from Agent Johnson. The crews of the Nebuchadnezzar, Vigilant, and Logos help the Keymaker and Neo reach the Source. The Logos crew must destroy a power plant and the Vigilant crew must disable a back-up power station, to prevent a security system from being triggered, allowing Neo to open the door to the Source. Haunted by a vision of Trinity's death, Neo asks her to remain on the Nebuchadnezzar. The Logos succeeds, while the Vigilant is destroyed by a Sentinel, killing everyone on board. Trinity replaces the Vigilant crew and completes their mission. However, Agent Thompson corners her and they fight. As Neo, Morpheus, and the Keymaker try to reach the Source, the Smiths ambush them. The Keymaker unlocks the door to the Source, but the Smiths shoot him dead as he closes the door. Neo meets a program called the Architect, the creator of the Matrix. The Architect explains that Neo is himself a program and an intentional part of the Matrix, which is now in its sixth iteration. Neo is meant to stop the Matrix's fatal system crash that naturally recurs due to the concept of human choice within it. As with the five previous Ones, Neo has a choice: either return to the Source to reboot the Matrix and pick survivors to repopulate the soon-to-be-destroyed Zion, as his predecessors all did, or cause the Matrix to crash and kill everyone connected to it, which would mean humanity's extinction when Zion is destroyed. Neo learns of Trinity's situation and chooses to save her instead of returning to the Source, to which the Architect responds dismissively. Trinity is shot as she and Agent Thompson fall off a building. Before she hits the ground, Neo catches her. He then removes the bullet from her heart and revives her. They return to the real world, where Sentinels attack them. The Nebuchadnezzar is destroyed, but the crew escape. Neo displays a new ability to disable the machines with his thoughts, but falls into a coma from the effort. The crew are picked up by another ship, the Hammer. Its captain, Roland, reveals the other ships were wiped out by the machines after someone activated an EMP too early, and that they found only one survivor: the Smith- possessed Bane. Cast Zee was originally played by Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash on August 25, 2001, before filming was complete, requiring her scenes to be reshot with Nona Gaye. Production =Filming= The Matrix Reloaded was largely filmed at Fox Studios in Australia, filming began on March 1, 2001 and ended on August 21, 2002, concurrently with filming of the sequel, Revolutions. The freeway chase and "Burly Brawl" scenes were filmed at the decommissioned Naval Air Station Alameda in Alameda, California. The producers constructed a 1.5-mile freeway on the old runways specifically for the film. Some portions of the chase were also filmed in Oakland, California, and the tunnel shown briefly is the Webster Tube, which connects Oakland and Alameda. Some post-production editing was also done in old aircraft hangars on the base. The city of Akron, Ohio was willing to give full access to Route 59, the stretch of freeway known as the "Innerbelt", for filming of the freeway chase when it was under consideration. However, producers decided against this as "the time to reset all the cars in their start position would take too long". MythBusters would later reuse the Alameda location in order to explore the effects of a head-on collision between two semi trucks, and to perform various other experiments. Around 97% of the materials from the sets of the film were recycled after production was completed; for example, tons of wood were sent to Mexico to build low-income housing. =Visual effects= Following the success of the previous film, the Wachowskis came up with extremely difficult action sequences, such as the Burly Brawl, a scene in which Neo had to fight 100 Agent Smiths. To develop technologies for the film, Warner Bros. launched ESC Entertainment. The ESC team tried to figure out how to bring the Wachowskis' vision to the screen, but because bullet time required arrays of carefully aligned cameras and months of planning, even for a brief scene featuring two or three actors, a scene like the Burly Brawl seemed almost impossible as envisioned and could take years to composite. Eventually John Gaeta realized that the technology he and his crew had developed for The Matrixs bullet time was no longer sufficient and concluded they needed a virtual camera (in other words, a simulation of a camera). Having before used real photographs of buildings as texture for 3D models in The Matrix, the team started digitizing all data, such as scenes, characters' motions, or even the reflectivity of Neo's cassock. The reflectivity of objects needs to be captured and simulated adequately and Paul Debevec et al. captured the reflectance of the human face and Borshukov's work was strongly based on the findings of Debevec et al. They developed "Universal Capture", a process which samples and stores facial details and expressions at high resolution, then capture expressions from Reeves and Weaving using dense aka. markerless capture and multi-camera setup (similar to the bullet time rig) photogrammetric capture technique called optical flow. The algorithm for Universal Capture was written by George Borshukov, visual effects lead at ESC, who had also created the photo-realistic buildings for the visual effects in The Matrix. With this collected wealth of data and the right algorithms, they finally were able to create virtual cinematography in which characters, locations, and events can all be created digitally and viewed through virtual cameras, eliminating the restrictions of real cameras, years of compositing data, and replacing the use of still camera arrays or, in some scenes, cameras altogether. The ESC team rendered the final effects using the program mental ray. =Music= Don Davis, who composed for The Matrix, returned to score Reloaded. For many of the pivotal action sequences, such as the "Burly Brawl", he collaborated with Juno Reactor. Some of the collaborative cues by Davis and Juno Reactor are extensions of material by Juno Reactor; for example, a version of "Komit" featuring Davis' strings is used during a flying sequence, and "Burly Brawl" is essentially a combination of Davis' unused "Multiple Replication" and a piece similar to Juno Reactor's "Masters of the Universe". One of the collaborations, "Mona Lisa Overdrive", is titled in reference to the cyberpunk novel of the same name by William Gibson, a major influence on the directors. Leitmotifs established in The Matrix return — such as the Matrix main theme, Neo and Trinity's love theme, the Sentinel's theme, Neo's flying theme, and a more frequent use of the four-note Agent Smith theme — and others used in Revolutions are established. As with its predecessor, many tracks by external musicians are featured in the movie, its closing credits, and the soundtrack album, some of which were written for the film. Many of the musicians featured, for example Rob Zombie, Rage Against the Machine and Marilyn Manson, had also appeared on the soundtrack for The Matrix. Rob Dougan also re-contributed, licensing the instrumental version of "Furious Angels", as well as being commissioned to provide an original track, ultimately scoring the battle in the Merovingian's chateau. A remixed version of "Slap It" by electronic artist Fluke — listed on the soundtrack as "Zion" — was used during the rave scene. Linkin Park contributed their instrumental song "Session" to the film as well, although it did not appear during the course of the film. P.O.D. composed a song called "Sleeping Awake", with a music video which focused heavily on Neo, as well as many images that were part of the film. Both songs played during the film's credits. It was originally planned for the electronic band Röyksopp to create the soundtrack, but this offer was turned down."Kafka feat. Röyksopp at the Bergen International Festival ". Bergen International Festival. 2015 Reception =Box office= The film earned an estimated $5 million during Wednesday night previews in the United States and Canada. Reloaded grossed $37.5 million on its Thursday opening day from 3,603 theaters, which was the second highest opening day after Spider-Mans $39.4 million and highest for a Thursday. The film earned $91.7 million in the United States and Canada in its first weekend from 3,603 theaters and $134.3 million in its first 4 days, including the previews. Internationally, it opened in 13 territories, including Australia and France, and grossed $37.5 million in its first week. It expanded to most international territories (62) the following weekend, except Japan and India, and became the first movie to earn more than $100 million outside the U.S. in one weekend, taking its overseas total to $176 million and worldwide total to $385 million. It ultimately grossed $281.6 million in the US, and $739.4 million worldwide. The film sold an estimated 46,695,900 tickets in North America. =Critical response= On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 73% based on 245 reviews, with a weighted average score of 6.81/10. The site's critical consensus states: "Though its heady themes are a departure from its predecessor, The Matrix Reloaded is a worthy sequel packed with popcorn-friendly thrills." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score 62 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Positive comments from critics included commendation for the quality and intensity of its action sequences, and its intelligence. Tony Toscano of Talking Pictures had high praise for the film, saying that "its character development and writing...is so crisp it crackles on the screen" and that "Matrix Reloaded re-establishes the genre and even raises the bar a notch or two" above the first film, The Matrix. Negative comments included the sentiment that the plot was alienating, with some critics regarding the focus on the action as a detriment to the film's human elements. Some critics thought that the number of scenes with expository dialog worked against the film, and the many unresolved subplots, as well as the cliffhanger ending, were also criticized. Other criticisms included the film's perceived lack of pacing. Entertainment Weekly named it as one of "The 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made". =Awards= =Censorship= The film was initially banned in Egypt because of the violent content and because it put into question issues about human creation, "which are related to the three divine religions." Home media The Matrix Reloaded was released on VHS and DVD on October 14, 2003. A Blu-Ray release followed on September 7, 2010. The Matrix Reloaded was released as a part of The Matrix Trilogy on 4K UHD Blu-ray on October 30, 2018. See also * Simulated reality * List of films featuring powered exoskeletons Notes References External links * Category:2000s action thriller films Category:2003 martial arts films Category:2003 science fiction action films Category:2003 films Category:2003 science fiction films Category:American action thriller films Category:American films Category:American science fiction action films Category:American science fiction thriller films Category:American sequel films Category:Cyberpunk films Category:Drone films Category:Films about mathematics Category:Films about rebellions Category:Films about telepresence Category:Films directed by The Wachowskis Category:Films produced by Joel Silver Category:Films scored by Don Davis (composer) Category:Films shot in California Category:Films shot in Sydney Category:Films with screenplays by The Wachowskis Category:French- language films Category:Gun fu films Category:Kung fu films Category:Martial arts science fiction films Category:Resurrection in film Category:Warner Bros. films Category:Silver Pictures films Category:The Matrix (franchise) films Category:Village Roadshow Pictures films Category:Works about computer hacking "
"Transdifferentiation, also known as lineage reprogramming, is an artificial process in which one mature somatic cell is transformed into another mature somatic cell without undergoing an intermediate pluripotent state or progenitor cell type. It is a type of metaplasia, which includes all cell fate switches, including the interconversion of stem cells. Current uses of transdifferentiation include disease modeling and drug discovery and in the future may include gene therapy and regenerative medicine. The term 'transdifferentiation' was originally coined by Selman and Kafatos in 1974 to describe a change in cell properties as cuticle producing cells became salt- secreting cells in silk moths undergoing metamorphosis. Discovery Davis et al. 1987 reported the first instance of transdifferentiation where a cell changed from one adult cell type to another. Forcing mouse embryonic fibroblasts to express MyoD was found to be sufficient to turn those cells into myoblasts. Natural examples The only known instances where adult cells change directly from one lineage to another occurs in the species Turritopsis dohrnii and Turritopsis Nutricula. Rather, cells dedifferentiate and then redifferentiate into the cell type of interest. In newts when the eye lens is removed, pigmented epithelial cells de-differentiate and then redifferentiate into the lens cells. In the pancreas, it has been demonstrated that alpha cells can spontaneously switch fate and transdifferentiate into beta cells in both healthy and diabetic human and mouse pancreatic islets. While it was previously believed that oesophageal cells were developed from the transdifferentiation of smooth muscle cells, that has been shown to be false. Induced and therapeutic examples The first example of functional transdifferentiation has been provided by Ferber et al.Ferber S, Halkin A, Cohen H, Ber I, Einav Y, Goldberg I, Barshack I, Seijffers R, Kopolovic J, Kaiser N, Karasik A (2000) Pancreatic and duodenal homeobox gene 1 induces expression of insulin genes in liver and ameliorates streptozotocin-induced hyperglycemia. http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v6/n5/full/nm0500_568.html by inducing a shift in the developmental fate of cells in the liver and converting them into 'pancreatic beta-cell-like' cells. The cells induced a wide, functional and long-lasting transdifferentiation process that reduced the effects of hyperglycemia in diabetic mice.Sarah Ferber, Amir Halkin, Hofit Cohen, Idit Ber, Yulia Einav, Iris Goldberg, Iris Barshack, Rhona Seijffers, Juri Kopolovic, Nurit Kaiser & Avraham Karasik (2000) - "Pancreatic and duodenal homeobox gene 1 induces expression of insulin genes in liver and ameliorates streptozotocin-induced hyperglycemia" Moreover, the trans- differentiated beta-like cells were found to be resistant to the autoimmune attack that characterizes type 1 diabetes.Shternhall-Ron K et al., Ectopic PDX-1 expression in liver ameliorates type 1 diabetes, Journal of Autoimmunity (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jaut.2007.02.010. http://www.orgenesis.com/uploads/default/files/shternhall-jai-2007.pdf The second step was to undergo transdifferentiation in human specimens. By transducing liver cells with a single gene, Sapir et al. were able to induce human liver cells to transdifferentiate into human beta cells.Tamar Sapir, Keren Shternhall, Irit Meivar-Levy, Tamar Blumenfeld, Hamutal Cohen, Ehud Skutelsky, Smadar Eventov-Friedman, Iris Barshack, Iris Goldberg, Sarah Pri- Chen, Lya Ben-Dor, Sylvie Polak-Charcon, Avraham Karasik, Ilan Shimon, Eytan Mor, and Sarah Ferber (2005) Cell-replacement therapy for diabetes: Generating functional insulin-producing tissue from adult human liver cells This approach has been demonstrated in mice, rat, xenopus and human tissues (Al-Hasani et al., 2013). Schematic model of the hepatocyte-to-beta cell transdifferentiation process. Hepatocytes are obtained by liver biopsy from diabetic patient, cultured and expanded ex vivo, transduced with a PDX1 virus, transdifferentiated into functional insulin-producing beta cells, and transplanted back into the patient. Granulosa and theca cells in the ovaries of adult female mice can transdifferentiate to Sertoli and Leydig cells via induced knockout of the FOXL2 gene. Similarly, Sertoli cells in the testes of adult male mice can transdifferentiate to granulosa cells via induced knockout of the DMRT1 gene. Methods = Lineage-instructive approach = In this approach, transcription factors from progenitor cells of the target cell type are transfected into a somatic cell to induce transdifferentiation. There exists two different means of determining which transcription factors to use: by starting with a large pool and narrowing down factors one by one or by starting with one or two and adding more. One theory to explain the exact specifics is that ectopic Transcriptional factors direct the cell to an earlier progenitor state and then redirects it towards a new cell type. Rearrangement of the chromatin structure via DNA methylation or histone modification may play a role as well. Here is a list of in vitro examples and in vivo examples. In vivo methods of transfecting specific mouse cells utilize the same kinds of vectors as in vitro experiments, except that the vector is injected into a specific organ. Zhou et al. (2008) injected Ngn3, Pdx1 and Mafa into the dorsal splenic lobe (pancreas) of mice to reprogram pancreatic exocrine cells into β-cells in order to ameliorate hyperglycaemia. = Initial epigenetic activation phase approach = Somatic cells are first transfected with pluripotent reprogramming factors temporarily (Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, etc.) before being transfected with the desired inhibitory or activating factors. Here is a list of examples in vitro. =Pharmacological agents= The DNA methylation inhibitor, 5-azacytidine is also known to promote phenotypic transdifferentiation of cardiac cells to skeletal myoblasts. In prostate cancer, treatment with androgen receptor targeted therapies induces neuroendocrine transdifferentiation in a subset of patients. No standard of care exists for these patients, and those diagnosed with treatment induced neruoendocrine carcinoma are typically treated palliatively. = Mechanism of action = The transcription factors serve as a short term trigger to an irreversible process. The transdifferentiation liver cells observed 8 months after one single injection of pdx1. The ectopic transcription factors turn off the host repertoire of gene expression in each of the cells. However, the alternate desired repertoire is being turned on only in a subpopulation of predisposed cells. Despite the massive dedifferentiation – lineage tracing approach indeed demonstrates that transdifferentiation originates in adult cells. = Mogrify algorithm = Determining the unique set of cellular factors that is needed to be manipulated for each cell conversion is a long and costly process that involved much trial and error. As a result, this first step of identifying the key set of cellular factors for cell conversion is the major obstacle researchers face in the field of cell reprogramming. An international team of researchers have developed an algorithm, called Mogrify(1), that can predict the optimal set of cellular factors required to convert one human cell type to another. When tested, Mogrify was able to accurately predict the set of cellular factors required for previously published cell conversions correctly. To further validate Mogrify's predictive ability, the team conducted two novel cell conversions in the laboratory using human cells, and these were successful in both attempts solely using the predictions of Mogrify. Mapping out cell conversion Mogrify has been made available online for other researchers and scientists. Issues =Evaluation= When examining transdifferentiated cells, it is important to look for markers of the target cell type and the absence of donor cell markers which can be accomplished using green fluorescent protein or immunodetection. It is also important to examine the cell function, epigenome, transcriptome, and proteome profiles. Cells can also be evaluated based upon their ability to integrate into the corresponding tissue in vivo and functionally replace its natural counterpart. In one study, transdifferentiating tail-tip fibroblasts into hepatocyte-like cells using transcription factors Gata4, Hnf1α and Foxa3, and inactivation of p19(Arf) restored hepatocyte-like liver functions in only half of the mice using survival as a means of evaluation. =Transition from mouse to human cells= Generally transdifferentiation that occurs in mouse cells does not translate in effectiveness or speediness in human cells. Pang et al. found that while transcription factors Ascl1, Brn2 and Myt1l turned mouse cells into mature neurons, the same set of factors only turned human cells into immature neurons. However, the addition of NeuroD1 was able to increase efficiency and help cells reach maturity. =Order of transcription factor expression= The order of expression of transcription factors can direct the fate of the cell. Iwasaki et al. (2006) showed that in hematopoietic lineages, the expression timing of Gata-2 and (C/EBPalpha) can change whether or not a lymphoid-committed progenitors can differentiate into granulocyte/monocyte progenitor, eosinophil, basophil or bipotent basophil/mast cell progenitor lineages. =Immunogenicity= It has been found for induced pluripotent stem cells that when injected into mice, the immune system of the synergeic mouse rejected the teratomas forming. Part of this may be because the immune system recognized epigenetic markers of specific sequences of the injected cells. However, when embryonic stem cells were injected, the immune response was much lower. Whether or not this will occur within transdifferentiated cells remains to be researched. = Method of transfection = In order to accomplish transfection, one may use integrating viral vectors such as lentiviruses or retroviruses, non-integrating vectors such as Sendai viruses or adenoviruses, microRNAs and a variety of other methods including using proteins and plasmids; one example is the non-viral delivery of transcription factor-encoding plasmids with a polymeric carrier to elicit neuronal transdifferentiation of fibroblasts. When foreign molecules enter cells, one must take into account the possible drawbacks and potential to cause tumorous growth. Integrating viral vectors have the chance to cause mutations when inserted into the genome. One method of going around this is to excise the viral vector once reprogramming has occurred, an example being Cre- Lox recombination Non-integrating vectors have other issues concerning efficiency of reprogramming and also the removal of the vector. Other methods are relatively new fields and much remains to be discovered. Pluripotent reprogramming *Almost all factors that reprogram cells into pluripotency have been discovered and can turn a wide variety of cells back into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). However, many of the reprogramming factors that can change a cell's lineage have not been discovered and these factors apply only for that specific lineage. *The final products of transdifferentiated cells are capable of being used for clinical studies, but iPSCs must be differentiated. *It may become possible in the future to use transdifferentiation in vivo, whereas pluripotent reprogramming may cause teratomas in vivo. *Transdifferentiated cells will require less epigenetic marks to be reset, whereas pluripotent reprogramming requires nearly all to be removed, which may become an issue during redifferentiation. *Transdifferentiation is geared towards moving between similar lineages, whereas pluripotent reprogramming has unlimited potential. *Pluripotent cells are capable of self-renewal and often go through many cell passages, which increases the chance of accumulating mutations. Cell culture may also favor cells that are adapted for surviving under those conditions, as opposed to inside an organism. Transdifferentiation requires fewer cell passages and would reduce the chance of mutations. *Transdifferentiation can also be much more efficient than pluripotency reprogramming due to the extra step involved in the latter process. *Both pluripotent and transdifferentiated cells use adult cells, thus starting cells are very accessible, whereas human embryonic stem cells require that one navigate legal loopholes and delve into the morality of stem cell research debate. See also * Epigenetics * Induced pluripotent stem cell * Induced stem cells * Reprogramming References * Category:Biological processes Category:Induced stem cells "
"Alas, Babylon is a 1959 novel by American writer Pat Frank (the pen name of Harry Hart Frank). It was one of the first apocalyptic novels of the nuclear age and has remained popular more than half a century after it was first published, consistently ranking in Amazon.com's Top 20 Science Fiction Short Stories list (which groups together short story collections and novels) and has an entry in David Pringle's book Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels. The novel deals with the effects of a nuclear war on the fictional small town of Fort Repose, Florida, which is based upon the actual city of Mount Dora, Florida. The novel's title is derived from the Book of Revelation: "Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come." The cover art for the Bantam paperback edition was made by Robert Hunt. Plot The story is set in a fictional 1959, following two years of escalating tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union for dominance in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean Sea. The Soviets are menacing Turkey from three sides through their proxies in Egypt, Syria and Iraq in order to gain control of the Bosporus and give free passage to their large Mediterranean fleet. To counteract the Soviet menace the United States established a military presence in Lebanon and are providing aid to their Turkish and Israeli allies. As detailed in the book, the Soviets gained a temporary space supremacy through the launch of a massive fleet of militarized Sputniks; moreover, they are aware that, within three or four years, the United States will cover the gap. Intelligence from a Soviet officer who defected in Berlin provided information about a Soviet war plan involving a sudden, overwhelming nuclear first strike on U.S. and NATO military and civilian targets, in order to minimize retaliation and become the leading world power. According to the leaked war plan the Soviet leadership considers acceptable the loss of 20 to 30 million of their own civilian population due to the retaliatory strike by NATO. Narration follows the point of view of Randy Bragg, who lives an aimless life in the small Central Florida town of Fort Repose. His older brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, an Air Force Intelligence officer, sends a telegram ending in the words, "Alas, Babylon", a pre- established code between the brothers to warn of imminent disaster. Mark flies his family down to Fort Repose for their protection while he stays at Strategic Air Command headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. Soon afterward, a U.S. fighter pilot, attempting to intercept an enemy plane over the Mediterranean, inadvertently destroys an ammunition depot in a large Soviet submarine base in Latakia, Syria. The explosion is mistaken for a large-scale U.S. air assault on the military facility and, by the following day, Soviet Union retaliates with its planned full-scale nuclear strike against the United States and its allies. U.S. missiles, with Mark as a witness, are sent in retaliation. Randy and his guests awake to the shaking from the bombing of nearby military bases; one explosion temporarily blinds Peyton, Randy's niece. Fort Repose descends into chaos: tourists are trapped in their hotels, communication lines fail, the CONELRAD radio system barely operates, convicts escape from prisons and a run on the banks causes currency to become worthless. In the weeks and months after the attack sporadic news gathered through an old but still-functioning vacuum tube radio receiver show that many major cities of the U.S. are in ruins and vast regions of the Continental United States are labeled by the government as off-limits, "contaminated zones". The whole of Florida is among the contaminated areas, leaving the stranded survivors of Fort Repose without hope of immediate assistance. Most of the government has been eliminated, with the U.S. presidency defaulting to Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown, the former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Other international broadcasts reveal that Western Europe was badly hit by Soviet missiles as well (a dire situation in southern France is mentioned). Soviet leadership was eliminated by U.S. retaliation and the capital of the Soviet Union was moved to Central Asia, but war still rages for months after the attack, although it is fought mostly between the remnants of U.S. Air Force and scattered Soviet Navy nuclear submarines. Since Randy was an Army Reserve officer before the Soviet attack, a radio dispatch by President Vanbruuker-Brown formally empowers him as the local authority under the current emergency situation. Randy then organizes a community self-defence team against bandits and tries to rid the community of radioactive jewellery taken into Fort Repose from the radioactive ruins of Miami. The search for alternative food sources is also prominent in the months following the attack, leading to the launch of a rag-tag fleet of fishing boats to sift the surrounding swamps for fish and to a desperate search for the much-needed salt. The following year, an Air Force helicopter arrives at Fort Repose. The crew assess the status of the residents and the local environment, explaining that the area around Fort Repose is perhaps the largest patch of non-contaminated soil in the whole State of Florida and that, after all, the survivors of Fort Repose managed to fare better than many other places in the U.S. Randy also learns that his brother Mark has most likely died when Omaha and Offutt Base were destroyed by multiple hits. When the crew of the helicopter offer to evacuate the residents out of Florida, the residents choose to stay. It is finally revealed that the United States won the war, but at a tremendous cost: it lost most of its population (45 million survivors are estimated overall), its military, its infrastructure and most of its natural resources (ironically, the government is planning to use the large stockpiles of military-grade uranium and plutonium left from the war to power the surviving towns and cities). The U.S. is now receiving food, fuel and medicine aid from third-world countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Venezuela. Apparently, the "Three Greats" (deliberately left unclear but likely India, China and Japan) have taken the role of world leading powers in place of U.S. and Soviet Union. Reception Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale gave the novel a mixed review, rating it three stars out of five and concluding: "Frank stopped too soon with too little." Effects of the novel on others Cover of Bantam Books 1979 paperback edition, =People= *John Lennon, known for his pacifist views, and for his books, In His Own Write (1964) and A Spaniard in the Works (1965), was given a copy of Alas, Babylon by journalist Larry Kane in 1965. Lennon spent all night reading the book, fueling his anti-war fervor and envisioning the world's population attempting to crawl their way back from the horrors of a nuclear catastrophe. =Literature= *In his critical study The Modern Weird Tale (2001), S. T. Joshi compares Alas, Babylon favourably with Stephen King's The Stand, calling the former "a more interesting treatment of the same basic theme." *In the foreword of the 2005 edition of Alas, Babylon, David Brin notes that the book was instrumental in shaping his views on nuclear war and influenced his own book, The Postman (1982). *In the acknowledgements section at the beginning of his post-apocalyptic novel One Second After (2009), William R. Forstchen credits Alas, Babylon as an influence in writing his novel about the small town of Black Mountain, North Carolina. The novel is set in a time after numerous electromagnetic pulses strike around the world, cutting off all sources of electricity to the town, and depicts the ensuing aftermath of sociological breakdown. *John Ringo's 2013 Under a Graveyard Sky, the first in his Black Tide Rising series, starts with an emergency code using the phrase "AlasBabylon." Frank's book is referenced as the characters' inspiration for that code, and is briefly synopsized. Adaptations An adaptation of Alas, Babylon was broadcast on April 3, 1960, as the 131st episode of the Playhouse 90 dramatic television series.Playhouse 90 Episode Guide, TV.com It starred Don Murray, Burt Reynolds, and Rita Moreno.IMDb "Playhouse 90" Alas, Babylon (1960) See also *List of nuclear holocaust fiction *Survivalism References External links Pat Frank’s ‘Alas, Babylon,’ 50 years later in The Florida Times-Union Category:1959 American novels Category:1959 science fiction novels Category:American science fiction novels Category:American post-apocalyptic novels Category:Novels set during World War III Category:Novels set in Florida Category:J. B. Lippincott & Co. books Category:Novels about nuclear war and weapons Category:Novels adapted into television shows Category:Novels by Pat Frank "