What Happens If China Steals US Water? I went to Secret Wars to find out

The second day of The comparison is coming, and Corman is explaining a new reality: Most of the water mains across the country have broken. Man-made droughts have spread to hospitals, warehouses, refrigerators, and manufacturing industries.

Then Corman throws in another curveball: He plays a video clip of a fictional warlord asking insurance companies for help in response to a threat from China, the first time the country’s name has been mentioned in the game so far. “I am very concerned about our ability to protect our military, a vital element of national security,” the official told them.

Corman presents a second day’s work: As the crisis unfolds, what will he prioritize? now What water tools are a must-have? The answers of “big customers-first” or “first come, first served” from previous groups, a few minutes ago, now seem hopeless. Will they focus on improving water in places where it can save more lives, such as cities full of hospitals? Or will they want to reduce the financial burden? Or heeding the military’s call to focus on national security, prioritizing a military response to China’s invasion of Taiwan?

Fortunately, no one in the room is a monster. After 15 minutes of discussion, the groups around the room give the same decision, that the most important thing is to save people’s lives – although no one can explain how to make the permanent decisions that follow the answer.

Only one person, after all six groups have given the same answer, speaks to raise an unpleasant point. Prioritizing harming people above all else is not an option. “The simple answer is human security, human life,” he says. “The most difficult thing is when I have a director or someone on the phone, who is asking questions.”

“If the Treasury is calling and asking for numbers, and we’re saying we’re focused on human life, I don’t know if that’s a real way of communicating,” he says, using the marketing jargon to write a voicemail for customer service. Or, he adds, if an employee tells the company that it needs to focus on mobile or “dual-use” products — meaning things that might be useful in the military — that could be “primary,” he says.

In other words, taking direct action to protect civilians from harm in the midst of a cyber disaster may require breaking treaties, ignoring the interests of the military, or directly contradicting US government policy in the early days of an impending war.

“We didn’t agree on that as a table,” he says. “There will be no agreement.”

At this point, suddenly and mercifully, Corman ends the game to begin the study session. During this round, he put up a slide that represents some of the things that have been compromised by the secondary effects of internet hackers. Next to each is a long line of multi-colored dollar signs and human notes, representing economic loss and human injury.

There’s no need to read this as some kind of script or error, Corman assures me when I ask later. They are less a measure of loss of losses than a quality assurance that things have gotten worse. You’ve got the point: If the game has a winner, they’re not in the room.