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→Defense
== Defense ==
== Defense ==
Galt's Gulch had no defense other than its seclusion. John Galt's system of directed-energy beams, which he called "refractor rays," heated the air seven hundred feet off the ground and projected a false image. From above, any pilot looking down into the valley would see nothing but a desolate-looking crater ringed by nearly shear cliffs. In fact, that was the appearance of an actual rocky valley about five miles distant.
=== Physical defense ===
Galt's Gulch had no ''physical'' defense other than its seclusion. John Galt's system of directed-energy beams, which he called "refractor rays," heated the air seven hundred feet off the ground and projected a false image. From above, any pilot looking down into the valley would see nothing but a desolate-looking crater ringed by nearly shear cliffs. In fact, that was the appearance of an actual rocky valley about five miles distant.
The only pilot ever to penetrate the screen uninvited was [[Dagny Taggart]]. She came in hot pursuit of Galt after one of his recruitment flights, and descended to 8700 feet altitude, lower than Galt or any of the other strikers thought that anyone would be brave (or foolhardy) enough to descend. The rays blinded her temporarily and shorted out her aircraft's engine. She came down in a barely controlled crash landing and was injured. Happily, her injuries were easily treatable, and by then Galt's Gulch had a resident physician. (He had joined the strike when the federal government had promulgated the socialization of [[medicine]] several years before Dagny's surprise visit.)
The only pilot ever to penetrate the screen uninvited was [[Dagny Taggart]]. She came in hot pursuit of Galt after one of his recruitment flights, and descended to 8700 feet altitude, lower than Galt or any of the other strikers thought that anyone would be brave (or foolhardy) enough to descend. The rays blinded her temporarily and shorted out her aircraft's engine. She came down in a barely controlled crash landing and was injured. Happily, her injuries were easily treatable, and by then Galt's Gulch had a resident physician. (He had joined the strike when the federal government had promulgated the socialization of [[medicine]] several years before Dagny's surprise visit.)
Technically, the Gulch had a one-ship navy, that being [[Ragnar Danneskjöld]]'s [[privateer]]ing vessel. But Danneskjöld's activities were limited to seizing government "relief" shipping, destroying the ships of the D'Anconia Copper Company at Francisco d'Anconia's request, and a one-time shore raid on a steel mill on the coast of [[Maine]], after Orren Boyle's Associated Steel Company attempted to make Rearden Metal at that site. For much of the history of the Gulch, these were the only offensive military actions that any member of the Galt's Gulch society took.
Technically, the Gulch had a one-ship navy, that being [[Ragnar Danneskjöld]]'s [[privateer]]ing vessel. But Danneskjöld's activities were limited to seizing government "relief" shipping, destroying the ships of the D'Anconia Copper Company at Francisco d'Anconia's request, and a one-time shore raid on a steel mill on the coast of [[Maine]], after Orren Boyle's Associated Steel Company attempted to make Rearden Metal at that site. For much of the history of the Gulch, these were the only offensive military actions that any member of the Galt's Gulch society took.
=== Social defense ===
The ''social'' defense of any community is the specific organization or agency that the community charges with its defense. In any conventional government, this is classically a Ministry (or Department) of Defense. But Galt's Gulch had no government of any kind. As John Galt explained to Dagny Taggart, it was a voluntary association of a landlord and his tenants, nothing more.
Such an association often forms a [[Committee of Safety]], consisting of the largest property owners in the community. These are the people having the most to lose in case of an attack from the outside. Naturally they would have the best incentive to build a cooperative, and integrated, defense.
The novel never mentions the Galt's Gulch Committee of Safety by name or in any detail. The best clue is that the three original strikers, i.e., [[John Galt]], [[Francisco d'Anconia]], and [[Ragnar Danneskjöld]], met for breakfast on the first day of June in every year until the strike was "settled." Also, in the last year of the strike, Francisco, Ragnar, [[Dagny Taggart]], and [[Henry Rearden]] banded together to rescue John Galt from the secret laboratory of the [[State Science Institute]].
The best inferences are these: the first members of the Committee of Safety were the same as the original three strikers. John Galt would be a member, not on his own account, but as a [[proxy]] for Midas Mulligan. Francisco and Ragnar would be members in their own right. Francisco had his mine to protect, and for many years "D'Anconia Copper Number One" was the most valuable piece of property other than the valley itself that the strikers held. Ragnar had his ship, and he, alone among the Committee's members, would provide the Committee's offensive strength.
Membership in the Committee would be strictly voluntary. Each member would contribute whatever resources he had at his command to the community's mutual defense—and the other members understood that any member might quit at any time if the Committee demanded of any member more than he was willing to provide. The Committee ''never'' asked for any remuneration from non-members. The Committee's members accepted that they were guarding their own interests, and they could most efficiently do this in cooperation with one another. If other members of the community benefited from their defense, that did not negate the efficiencies that each member realized in securing, not just his own property line, but the "town limits" of their community.
So John Galt's refractor-ray screen, and the camouflage of the northern road, were his (actually Midas') contributions to mutual defense. Francisco provided the first perimeter guard force, especially at the Red Mountain Pass; the few men whom he employed to dig copper out of the mountainside also guarded the pass. Ragnar, of course, carried the "war" to the looters with his privateering activities.
In the fall of 2019, Henry Rearden came to Galt's Gulch, and brought his most loyal workers with him. Their fresh memories of the November 4 riot and the near-death of Rearden convinced them to guard their initial reconstruction site with armed men. Galt and d'Anconia recruited Rearden into the Committee of Safety after seeing the defenses he set up. This would prove critical to John Galt's plans to return to New York after making his famous speech, hoping to recruit Dagny Taggart.
Dagny Taggart likely joined the strike and the Committee of Safety on the same day. She would likely remain a key member, as soon as she came to the Gulch to rebuild the old Denver-Rio Grande narrow-gauge line as the first line of the New Taggart Transcontinental Railroad.
== Retransformation ==
== Retransformation ==