'Pounce on this like a ninja'

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Movies & TV Star Trek: Discovery The Breen Mile — Star Trek: Discovery’s “Erigah” The latest episode attempts to give us some genuine insight into the Breen By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on May 9, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share The Breen have never been interesting. There, I said it. First mentioned as a throwaway “other nasty empire” in a few TNG episodes here and there, we finally saw one in DS9’s “Indiscretion,” where they were pretty much just generic bad guys who looked like Leia’s disguise in Return of the Jedi. Later, DS9 had the Breen enter the Dominion War on the side of the Dominion, but even there, they were just a plot device—something to make it clear that the Cardassians were just one of many species subsumed to the Dominion and that the Gamma Quadrant empire would do whatever was necessary to win and expand. But we’ve never once gotten any sense of what the Breen are, or who they are. Supposedly, that was the point, that they were mysterious, wearing their encounter suits all the time and such. To me, though, it just felt like they were a plot device—and a cheap one, at that, because the fact that they don’t have comprehensible dialogue means you can just hire extras to play them and not pay them as much. (Given that pretty much every episode of the last two years of DS9 had guest-star lists longer than one’s proverbial arm, you can see why they wanted to cut corners, but still.) Both “Mirrors” two weeks ago and “Erigah” this week make an attempt to finally change that, to give us some genuine insight into the Breen. And, well, they’re still not interesting. Credit: CBS / Paramount+ Folks in the comments of “Mirrors” pointed out that having the Breen be just another set of Forehead Aliens is disappointing, having expressed hope that they might be more complicated than that. As an example, author David Mack—who, full disclosure, is a close friend of your humble reviewer—established in the Typhon Pact novel Zero Sum Game that there are multiple species in the Breen Confederacy, and that “Breen” is a culture, not a species. Dave did this by way of explaining the contradictory facts that had been established about the Breen. (Indeed, Dave’s notion is still compatible with what’s been revealed on Discovery so far, since L’ak and L’ak’s uncle remain the only Breen we’ve seen without the encounter suit.) But the Breen culture we get is one of factions all vying for power, and didn’t we already do this with the Klingons in season one? And L’ak is important because he’s a scion of the royal family, so we get yet another alien species that has futuristic technology alongside medieval notions like primogeniture and the political importance of genetics and bloodlines over more relevant criteria, and bleah. It’s been done before and nothing interesting is done with it here. On top of that, we get some other tired clichés here, including one of my least favorite: Incompetent Starfleet Security. Moll moves to escape sickbay after L’ak distracts everyone by overdosing on tricordrazine. (How the super-duper 32nd-century technology can allow a patient to possibly overdose themselves is left as an exercise for the viewer. Especialy since it winds up killing him.) The two nameless security guards are taken out in nothing flat, and then Culber tries to stop her and he actually does better than the trained security personnel, mostly because he’s an opening-credits regular and therefore a bigger badass than the trained security personnel. Sigh. I do like that Moll isn’t really able to get anywhere on the ship because even she’s not that good. And it’s good to see Rachael Ancheril back as Nhan in charge of the security detail holding Moll and L’ak. Credit: CBS / Paramount+ Okay, I’ve spent almost 600 words dissing the Breen and this episode, so I should probably at this point mention that I generally actually liked this one. In particular, I enjoyed the negotiating done by T’Rina, aided by Vance, Burnham, and Rayner. T’Rina is the one doing it because Rillak is elsewhere and so she delegates it to Ni’Var’s president. By the way, this makes absolutely no sense. It was established back in “The Galactic Barrier” that Rillak has a vice president who would be in charge in her absence. But I’m willing to accept it because Tara Rosling just kills it in this episode, and her steel and her logic and her resolve are all magnificent. Anyhow, we get some more background on Rayner, as we find out that one of the Breen factions subjugated the Kellerun people a while back, and Rayner was under their power. But it also means he knows a lot about how that faction works, and they’re able to use his knowledge to convince the Breen standing in front of them that they’ve negotiated with another faction to turn L’ak over. In the end, Moll convinces the Breen that she’s L’ak’s wife—and they have the tattoos to prove it!—and is therefore part of the royal family now, plus she has information about the Progenitor technology. The Federation agrees to let the Breen have Moll in exchange for the Breen’s incredibly big ship not opening fire. (Burnham and Rayner saw a possible future with Federation HQ destroyed by the Breen in “Face the Strange,” and so everyone’s priority is, understandably, to avoid letting the shooting start.) Now it’s a race. Moll doesn’t have any of the physical evidence or clues, but she has knowledge, and now a big-ass Breen ship. Starfleet has the Romulan notebook, most of the puzzle pieces, and a ship with a spore drive. The B-plot is more of what Discovery does best, which is figure shit out. Tilly and Adira discover that the piece of metal that they found last week is, basically, a library call slip. Back in the 23rd century, Reno was part of a gaggle of rare-book enthusiasts who kept things in a traveling library. It’s still around nine centuries later, and Reno doesn’t know anyone connected to it now, obviously, but it’s enough to get them moving in the right direction. Credit: CBS / Paramount+ Something Discovery has continued to excel at is intense discussions, negotiations, debates, whether it’s Osyraa and Vance in “There is a Tide…” or the grand debate about how to approach Species 10C in “…But to Connect” or the T’Kal-in-ket in “Unification III.” T’Rina’s negotiations with the Breen live up to that standard, and it’s beautifully done, making the climax of the episode far more intense than a shooting war would be. (And if you desperately need action, there’s Moll’s escape.) Next week, it looks like we’re back to the chase for the Progenitors’ tech. Cha cha cha.[end-mark] The post The Breen Mile — <i>Star Trek: Discovery</i>’s “Erigah” appeared first on Reactor.

No one wants to talk about it. Not about how illegal immigration on the U.S. southern border, facilitated by brutal Mexican cartels, “dehumanizes” people. Not about the “broken young women,” who—hopeful for a new life and having paid thousands of dollars to the cartels—must comply “with anything” to be trafficked across the border. Not about the raped, the shot, the exploited women and children in “drop houses” on the U.S. side of the border. Not about the bar-coded bands on women’s wrists—labeled like livestock—so that they and the money they owe can be tracked by the cartels. No one wants to talk about any of it—not President Joe Biden’s administration, nor a complicit Congress. But you can see it in her eyes. This was described to me by two veteran emergency services professionals, one working in Del Rio, Texas, and the other working in the Firefly Border Patrol Processing Center at the Texas-Mexico border. The center is a soft-sided tent “city” (described as “about the size of four Super Walmart stores”) set up as a Border Patrol processing camp just off Firefly Road in Maverick County, Texas, between Del Rio and Eagle Pass, Texas. The EMS professional working at Firefly says that in addition to the obvious physical signs of rape and beatings, he recognizes the trauma in the eyes of these “broken young women,” some of whom are just teenagers, and wonders—with tears in his own eyes—what will become of them. He speculates they will be absorbed into immigrant communities all over the U.S.—ignored, lost, and forgotten by the Biden administration, the other politicians, and the self-absorbed government opportunists who, for their own political agendas, open U.S. borders and allow cartel businesses to thrive. “Their design is to get to the U.S., and it’s the price they pay for going through,” he says. “They’re either going to pay upfront (with money), or pay afterward with indentured servitude or sex service, but someone’s got to pay. What’s strange is that our government facilitates [trafficking]. Once they cross the border, they get them where they need to go.” He continued, “You can see the trauma on their faces, and they’re broken young women … . They are ‘product,’ labeled and tracked by the cartels. They’re broken people, and now they’re ours—going to school with our grandkids, in our systems and our communities.” So, who will tell her story? She will be forgotten. The long-term effects of the emotional trauma of these women—and of the U.S. medical professionals and Border Patrol agents tasked with helping them—are already being forgotten. A senior Border Patrol official in McAllen, Texas, reported to me that suicide rates, domestic violence, and alcoholism are significantly higher now among Border Patrol agents than before Biden took office. Agents have been “greatly impacted” by observing on a daily basis the abuse of illegal aliens by the Mexican cartels—rapes, killings, and assaults in “drop houses” located on the U.S. side of the border, where illegals await trafficking into the interior of the United States. Biden declared his immigration policies to be “humane, orderly, and safe.” What deception. What disregard for human dignity.   No one wants to talk about it, but this is illegal immigration: Potential immigrants, wanting a new and improved life, are emboldened by Biden’s executive orders that opened—no, make that destroyed—U.S. sovereign borders to collaborate with the Mexican cartels. No one gets across the border illegally without paying the cartels and receiving their authorization. Those who try to “freelance” across are killed. Many illegal immigrants are ignorant of the emotional cost and the potential life-changing trauma. But Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas are not. Senior government officials—Democrats and Republicans—visit border communities, giving hope that officials would finally “see and understand” the trauma, the warlike zone at the border, the daily car chases, the chaos and inhumane conditions so they will finally “do something” about it. But, according to angry and disheartened border residents, when the same officials return to Washington, D.C., all is forgotten. The casual dismissal of Mayorkas’ impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate was, in their words, like “a gut punch.” For the U.S. government, “it’s not about stopping it,” the emergency services professional says. “It’s about processing [illegals] faster … and we will all have to deal with the consequences of this. Beyond the economic impact, it’s going to have tremendous psychological and health impacts—for years and years.” The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. The post Who Will Tell Her Story? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, doesn’t take gun crimes seriously. The result has been more murder, mayhem, and carnage across the nation’s capital.  And now there is more data to prove that point, in the form of the 2023 annual report by the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission. The Sentencing Commission’s report focuses exclusively on how Graves handled cases last year in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. The report doesn’t cover cases in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where Graves has the option of bringing many cases.   In the interests of transparency and government accountability, we have sent a request under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, to Graves to find out how many cases of a felon in possession of a firearm have been sent by the prosecutor’s office to the federal District Court, as opposed to the local Superior Court for the District of Columbia.     Graves’ office has this information at their fingertips and should be able to produce it quickly. Why is it important to get this specific information? Because the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia—Graves’ office—has the option of taking cases of a felon in possession of a firearm to federal court, where those criminals can be prosecuted under federal law (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)). In federal court, according to the United States Sentencing Commission, 97.4% of those convicted of this offense across the country receive an average prison sentence of 63 months.  Instead of doing the right thing and taking such felon-in-possession cases to federal court, though, Graves sets policies that result in his prosecutors dropping charges, watering down charges, or plea-bargaining away gun cases for next to nothing in Superior Court, as the facts from the local report show. We think that when Graves voluntarily provides this information (or is forced to do so), it will show that virtually all felon-in-possession cases under his watch go to the local Superior Court, not to U.S. District Court.      DC’s criminal justice system needs to change to deal with the flood of illegal firearms in our community. Thank you @Fox5 and @RamirezReports for having one of those conversations with me: https://t.co/I15otrr8zZ— US Attorney Matthew M. Graves (@USAttyGraves) December 7, 2023 Some Background The nation’s capital once again has a massive crime problem. It is a man-made problem, driven by policy choices and political appointees and elected officials who simply aren’t up to the job of keeping residents and visitors safe.  The D.C. Council, currently comprised of two independents and 11 Democrats, also has played a role in contributing to a culture of violence in the city. Fortunately, however, after bipartisan majorities in Congress overrode the council’s radical rewrite of the city’s criminal laws, sufficient laws are on the books to vigorously prosecute violent gun-wielding criminals and hold them accountable for their crimes. Graves, like all top prosecutors, federal or state, is the gatekeeper to the criminal justice system. The prosecutor decides who gets prosecuted and for what crimes. In the District of Columbia, the prosecutor also gets to decide where to prosecute the case: the local Superior Court or the federal District Court.  After his appointment by President Joe Biden, Graves took office as the city’s top prosecutor in November 2021. Since he implemented his hands-off approach, an average of 234 homicides a year has occurred. That compares to an annual average of 149 homicides during the 17 years before Graves took office.  A total of 274 homicides occurred in the city last year—the most in over 20 years.  Graves’ office, which includes 330 prosecutors, has an abysmal 67% declination rate, meaning prosecutors decline to prosecute two-thirds of the cases brought to them by law enforcement officials. That’s a policy choice.  Compare this record to the San Diego District Attorney’s Office, which also has 330 prosecutors but only a 22.6% declination rate for the past 20 years in over 500,000 cases. The difference?  A pathetic, weak prosecutor in D.C. who doesn’t take crime seriously, doesn’t prosecute felons to the fullest extent of the law, and hires social justice warriors instead of hard-charging, fair-minded prosecutors. San Diego has a real top prosecutor who hires other prosecutors committed to keeping residents of that community safe and holds criminals accountable.  It’s that simple. Graves has claimed there’s nuance in his policies, but there’s not. We’ve heard enough from his public statements, and those of his deputies, to know that his “nuance” is to undercharge criminals. No need for further explanation. The facts and statistics speak for themselves. Felons in Possession of Firearms Every day, law enforcement officers in the District of Columbia arrest felons who are in possession of a firearm. Every day, those cases are presented to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for prosecution. Under Graves’ tepid leadership over the past two years, over 2,000 gun cases either were not prosecuted, dropped, or pled down to lesser charges in D.C. Superior Court, according to the D.C. Sentencing Commission’s annual report. Graves could order his prosecutors to take all felon-in-possession cases to U.S. District Court and indict them under the law mentioned earlier, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). But he won’t. As stated, the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s report for fiscal year 2022 found that 97.4% of offenders under this statute were sentenced to prison for an average of 63 months. Many of those felons in possession of a firearm would qualify as armed career criminals, making them eligible for a sentencing enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act, or ACCA. The average prison sentence for offenders convicted under section 922(g) and sentenced under ACCA was 186 months (or 15.5 years).  Of course, Graves knows this, as does every line federal prosecutor in the country.  D.C. Sentencing Commission Findings If you only read the letter accompanying the D.C. Sentencing Commission’s report or the executive summary of the 71-page study, you could be excused for believing that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the nation’s capital is doing a good job at protecting the public and that more criminals are going to prison for more crimes.  But when you read the actual report, it’s difficult to ignore how abysmally Graves has handled cases, especially gun cases.  Highlights (or lowlights) of the report, as detailed in a thorough report by an anonymous D.C. crime blogger, include: 2,262 gun cases over the past two years were not prosecuted or were dropped or pled down to lesser charges. 79% of adults arrested with an illegal gun in D.C. get away without a felony conviction. Felony convictions fell, with a 3% reduction in criminal charges and a 12% reduction in both cases and individuals sentenced. Compared to the span of 2014 through 2018, his office secured 36% fewer felony counts. Even though the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department has ramped up gun possession arrests, the U.S. Attorney’s Office secured 39% fewer felony convictions per gun possession arrest. As the anonymous D.C. crime blogger wrote, this is the Matt Graves “filter” for gun possession cases: Declined to prosecute 33% of arrests for felony gun possession. Eventually dropped 37% of initially charged cases without obtaining a conviction. Pled down 50% of convictions to misdemeanors instead of felonies. Achieved felony convictions for only 21% of adults arrested for having an illegal gun. As if that’s not bad enough, this same blogger points out the following: In 2018, over three years before Graves took office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted 85% of gun cases, with  the standard charge being “Carrying a Pistol Without a License,” or CPWL. In 2022, under Graves, the office prosecuted only 53% of such cases. That number went up to 68% last year, but only after Congress and the public started putting pressure on Graves to do his job. In 2018, 71% of convictions for carrying an unlicensed pistol were for felony convictions.  In 2023, that fell to 40%, with 60% of convictions for the lesser misdemeanor.  An Abject Failure Defense lawyers in the District of Columbia call those sweetheart deals the “golden ticket.” Here’s the worst part of those deals: Matt Graves claims to the public that his office “earned” a conviction, but in reality, the criminal gets no jail time.  By any reasonable measure, Graves has been an abject failure as the chief prosecutor in Washington, D.C. His lenient policies at the charging and plea-bargain stages have enabled career criminals and violent, gun-wielding gang members to roam the streets and shoot, kill, and rob with reckless abandon.  And when we get the information on how few cases involving felons in possession of a firearm he has sent to federal District Court during his tenure, it will be even more obvious that the nation’s capital needs a real prosecutor. *** Here are the questions submitted Wednesday by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia under the Freedom of Information Act. We expect an answer in short order, since this information is readily available and easy to produce. Our questions have been lightly edited or paraphrased here for a general readership. For the past three years, from February 2021 until April 2024, how many arrests has the Metropolitan Police Department, or any other authorized law enforcement agency, made of convicted felons for possessing an unregistered firearm or carrying a pistol without a license? Please list the number by year and month.  Of those arrested in that period for that offense, how many were charged in D.C. Superior Court and how many were charged in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia? Of those charged in the local court rather than the federal court, how many were convicted of the felony of carrying a pistol without a license, possessing an unregistered firearm, or possessing an illegal weapon?  Of those who were convicted of the felony on any of those charges, what was the sentence imposed by the judge in each case? Of those listed in Question 2 who were charged in U.S. District Court, how many were charged under any subsection of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)? Of those charged under that statute, how many were convicted? What was the sentence of each person convicted? For each question, could you please provide the requested data by year and break that data down by month? The post FOIA Questions for DC Prosecutor Matt Graves: Why Don’t You Take Gun Crimes Seriously? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. With a verdict defending the rights of minors against premature judgment, two teenagers from California, formerly ousted from an illustrious Catholic high school for alleged “blackface” activities that went viral on social media, emerged victorious in court this week, receiving a $1 million reward and reimbursement for tuition fees. A jury from Santa Clara County backed the teenagers, known by their initials A.H. and H.H., about the issues of violated verbal agreements and denial of due process. Three years ago, the youngsters sued Saint Francis High School after photographs of them wearing acne treatment masks sparked a widespread controversy. Accusations of “blackface” performance led to their coerced withdrawal from the esteemed institution in Mountain View. “It was quite clear the jury believed these were innocent face masks,” affirmed Krista Baughman, the boys’ attorney, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle in the aftermath of Monday’s judgment. Despite their landmark victory, the plaintiffs did not succeed on all fronts, losing out on three other allegations about contract breach, defamation, and impingement of free speech. When the lawsuit was initially filed at Santa Clara County Superior Court, the teenagers sought $20 million in damages, stemming from an incident three years prior when they and a friend – not involved in the legal case – posed for a selfie wearing acne treatment masks with a dark green hue. This photo, innocuously depicting a skincare routine, was later repurposed as racist evidence against the students years later. A fellow student, who had procured a copy of the photograph from a friend’s Spotify account, uploaded the image to a group chat in June 2020, amidst the global upsurge in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The photo surfaced coincidently with a meme posted by recent SFHS graduates commenting on the death of George Floyd, thereby creating its own share of backlash. Building on assumptions of “blackface,” the student went on to distribute the photo across the school community, portraying it as an example of the school’s racist culture. The parents of the accused teens maintained that the green masks had been used with no malicious intent or racial bias; they claim their sons were unaware of the implications of “blackface” at the time. As matters spiraled out of control, the school administration, instead of investigating, leaned towards the side of public sentiment. No assistance was offered by the SFHS administration in refuting these allegations or in containing the spread of the photograph. Instead, Principal Katie Teekell pressured H.H’s parents into having him “voluntarily” withdraw from the school, ostensibly to avoid public humiliation. Yet, regardless of her assurances, the school was compelled to reveal H.H.’s previous actions, leaving him prohibited from participating in athletics for a year according to regional rules. The court has decreed that SFHS must cover the teenager’s relocation costs after he relocated with his family to Utah so he could continue playing football for his senior high school year. SFHS and its leadership had refused the families’ multiple attempts to rectify the misunderstanding and flatly refused to entertain the truth, as alleged by the boys’ families. Ultimately, Judge Thang Barrett opted not to dismiss this significant lawsuit in January 2021, acknowledging the school administrators’ apparent lack of due process. The school maintains its dissent with the jury’s findings and is currently examining potential legal recourse, which may include an appeal. “We want to sincerely thank the jury and the court system for helping our boys and our families find justice, which now paves the way for their names to be cleared for things they never did,” said a statement from the family of one of the boys, as supplied to Reclaim The Net. “Because that’s why we filed this lawsuit, and endured four years while it worked its way through the court system. Twenty percent of our boys’ lives have been spent seeing this process come to fruition. But the sacrifice is worth it to clear our boys’ names, and to try and make sure that St. Francis can never again assume a child is guilty without giving a child the opportunity to show their innocence. To never again sacrifice any child to protect the school’s reputation like they did our boys.” This case creates new legal precedent by expanding the fair procedure rights established by the California Supreme Court in Boermeester v. Carry from private universities to private high schools, including religious ones. It ensures that students at these schools are given proper notice of charges and a fair chance to respond before disciplinary actions are enforced. Following the court’s decision, this incident throws a spotlight on the broader societal conundrum of cancel culture and the perils of policy overreach. The tale of two California high schoolers mistakenly tagged as racists for wearing green acne masks is a stark illustration of how swiftly and harshly the online world can judge, often without all the facts. The school’s rush to placate public outrage without diligent inquiry into the matter is a clear-cut example of policies stretched too thin, motivated more by the fear of public shaming than by justice. Such knee-jerk decisions not only skip due process but also trample on fairness. The post Green Masks, Red Faces appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Joe Biden Sets New Personal Best for Worst Foreign Policy Decision Ever

'Therapy With Hillary'

An update from Neuralink on its first in-human brain implant has revealed that the study hasn’t all been smooth sailing – part of the implant’s system of ultra-thin electrodes has experienced a problem.The N1 device was surgically implanted into 29-year-old Noland Arbaugh earlier this year, as part of the company’s goal to create a brain-computer interface capable of allowing humans to control devices with their minds alone.The implant itself consists of over 1,000 electrodes combined into 64 thinner-than-human-hair “threads” designed to channel signals from neurons. The flexible threads were surgically attached by a robot to the brain’s motor cortex, the region of the brain that’s involved in voluntary movement.It’s these threads that were the source of the problem.“In the weeks following the surgery, a number of threads retracted from the brain, resulting in a net decrease in the number of effective electrodes,” said Neuralink in a blog post. As a consequence, the study’s task involving controlling a computer’s cursor with only the mind took a hit to its speed and accuracy, measured in bits per second (BPS).Though the Wall Street Journal reported that Neuralink did consider removing the implant, it’s a problem that the company says has now been overcome by making changes to the algorithm involved in the recording of neural signals and how these signals are then translated into cursor movements.According to Neuralink, these alterations led to a “rapid and sustained improvement in BPS, that has now superseded Noland’s initial performance.”The implant’s capabilities were first shown off to the wider public back in March, when Arbaugh participated in a livestreamed demonstration on social media platform X. During the stream, Arbaugh, who is paralyzed from the shoulders down, was able to control a cursor in order to play a game of chess. "I love playing chess, so this is one of the things that you all have enabled me to do. I wasn't able to really do much the last few years, especially not like this," said Arbaugh at the time. "I had to use my mouth [device], but now it's all being done with my brain."Neuralink founder Elon Musk likened the action to “telepathy”.However, the research has not been without controversy. Shortly after it received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to carry out human trials, Neuralink’s animal research facility became the subject of a federal investigation that uncovered numerous problems.

The Yellowstone Caldera –  one of the world's largest active volcanic systems – is a sleeping giant that will raise havoc when it wakes from its slumber. The good news is that the supervolcano is not “overdue” for an eruption, despite what you may have read online. The bad news is that volcanic activity is infamously difficult to forecast and their outbursts do not follow predictable schedules.The Yellowstone Caldera is a 70- by 45-kilometer (43- by 28-mile) crater located in northwestern Wyoming, filled with hot springs, geyser basins, and other signs of hydrothermal activity. Beneath this vast caldera sit two enormous chambers of magma that threaten to burst open, spewing lava and ash across the surrounding region. According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), Yellowstone has had three immense explosive volcanic eruptions over the past 2.1 million years: one 2.08 million years ago, another 1.3 8 million years ago, and the latest 631,000 years ago. Based on these three events, Yellowstone has a recurrence interval of about 600,000 to 800,000 years, with an average of about 725,000 years between eruptions. Since the last major eruption was 631,000 years ago, you could infer that the Yellowstone supervolcano is due for another flare-up. However, this is misleading – volcanoes don’t work on regular schedules like clockwork.A rough illustration of the Yellowstone caldera and what can be found beneath.Image credit: Agil Leonardo/Shutterstock.com Furthermore, many scientists think that Yellowstone’s supervolcano doesn’t have the oomph it needs to deliver another disastrous eruption. The rhyolite magma chamber beneath Yellowstone is only 5 to 15 percent molten (i.e. melted and viscous), so there might not even be enough magma beneath the caldera to feed an eruption.It’s also possible that Yellowstone might have a minor bout of activity without destroying North America and beyond. Around 70,000 years ago, rhyolitic lava flows erupted from the supervolcano. While it reshaped the geology of southwestern Yellowstone National Park, it wasn’t exactly catastrophic to life on the planet.That said, anything is possible. Its surrounding geological layers could collapse or its volcanic chambers could receive a fresh injection of magma, reinvigorating the beast from beneath. If a major eruption were to hypothetically occur today at Yellowstone, the impact would be felt across the world. Vast swathes of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming would become covered in pyroclastic flows of hot gas and volcanic matter. Estimates vary, but some suggest this could kill up to 90,000 people immediately.A map showing the approximate ash coverage across the US following a supereruption of Yellowstone.Image credit: USGS/Public DomainIn the three previous “big ones,” volcanic ash covered much of the western half of North America. Within several hundred kilometers from Yellowstone, this layer of ash was likely a foot deep. Recent models suggest that an area about 80 kilometers (50 miles) around the vent would be caked in 3 meters (about 10 feet) of ash within just a few days. Relatively nearby locations like Salt Lake City would be buried beneath 1 meter (3.3 feet) of ash. In fact, much of mainland US – from Florida to New England – would receive a light dusting of volcanic debris too.One of the biggest problems would be ash being swept across the planet and into the stratosphere where it would block out the Sun. Temperatures would drop and sunlight levels would be slashed, leading to ecosystem collapse, food shortages, and famine.This is probably what happened around 74,000 years ago when a major “supereruption” occurred at the volcano in present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. Some researchers believe that the eruption was so catastrophic it reduced the human population to less than 10,000, creating a genetic bottleneck in what’s known as the Toba catastrophe theory.Others contend the impact on the human population wasn’t this severe, but it’s clear the supereruption had a profound impact on the planet. In today’s world, home to over 8 billion living people, the scale of human suffering would be even more immense if a supervolcano threw a hissy fit.Fortunately, the chances of this grim fate occurring tomorrow are very slim – but not zero.