Yes is it possible to hide a Gulch in the real world?

eddieh: Yes and yes and again YES.

Good choice! +1

The Committee of Safety would take that in hand. That means Francisco and John (as proxy for Midas).

Put them immediately to sleep with a shot of a good dose of some sleeping med., bring them to a hospital in time to wake up and believe that they were hallucinating.

If Nancy was a POW, who would be responsible for feeding and housing? And would she have been eligible for plastic surgery at the Gulcher's expense?

Here! Hear! :-)

Somewhat in line to your question, I can say that I worked in the Pentagon shortly after the plane hit, so the subject was fresh in everyone's minds. While there, one often sees white top-colored helo's carrying VIPs, including Marine 1. So, as one's imagination runs wild, I've asked myself as to what would I have done had I seen a Marine 1 go down in similar circumstances. On the one hand, I felt a duty to do what I could; on the other hand I have a family that expects me home. Well, after much deliberation, I decided that I would risk my life and try to pull the pilot out.

Now that would be interesting.

Midas Mulligan never did mention exactly how he camouflaged the northern, downstream road, the one that follows the Uncompahgre River out of the mountains. Midas had cut off the Million Dollar Highway, that approached the valley from the south. Now maybe he turned the northern road into a maze.

Still...actually, the only reason Dagny became a problem was that she was brave, or reckless, enough to descend to Flight Level Zero Zero Eight Point Seven. I wonder whether even a USAF pilot would have been brave enough to make such a descent. And I certainly wouldn't expect him to be following John Galt's plane.

Agreed - but only if she could make it out on her own power. Therein lies the entire solution. For the pampered elitists like Pelosi, it's unlikely she could do anything without her aides and hangers-on.

And for an added measure of protection, one could always set up a trip-wire at the exit. If they manage to make it that far, you could take other steps. I'm sure that Dr. Hendricks could slip a little something into their drinking water that would reduce them to babbling idiots. Oh, wait - to unintelligible, babbling idiots. ;)

The essential difference between the two cases is: Dagny would never have ratted the Gulch out. Pelosi would have.

You've just identified the first occupants of the Galt's Gulch jail.

I would remind you that Dagny's act was also a security breach. The difference was that she had something to offer to the members of the Gulch - the products of her mind.

Now one can argue that it was an initiation of force to breach the barrier in the first place, but I find that to be pretty flimsy reasoning to justify what essentially boils down to slavery.

Here's another option: set them to work on one of Ragnar's ships as a deck hand. They'll either go mad watching their own products destroyed before their eyes, or they'll be forced to confront their own laziness.

Upon entering the wreckage and discovering who was on board... Light a match.

No worries. Nancy pelosi wouldnt have gotten it off the ground in the first place. Interesting thought though.
She would have to be given some sort of memory losing drug and taken back to her moocher-land. Could be allowed to turn over atlantis to the moochers. She gave up her human rights by doing the things that she has done, so the question is just a practical one- how to protect the residents of the gulch.

That would have been a security breach. Galt would have had little choice: hold them prisoner-of-war, at menial labor.

But it's still a question: what would you do with her? And what would you do with the pilot?

I say turn the pilot over to Ragnar Danneskjöld for interrogation. That ought to be an interesting psychodrama. The two men would have spoken close to the same language. The pilot would have been more likely to "turn."

Prisoners of war are in a different category.

Set them to menial labor under close supervision. If it was good enough for a few square-pegs-in-round-holes who had to get jobs as linemen and so on, then it should be good enough for Nancy Pelosi.

We are talking about pigs in the novel, Animal Farm. In this case, pigs who can fly.
Let some of the Gulch livestock be what they eat.

I am of the mind that neither of them would have the testicular fortitude to have followed the first plane.

He would have made them prisoners of war.

But that assumes Nancy Pelosi would have had the skill actually to fly an aircraft.

Now I suppose you really want to ask: how if a USAF pilot, assigned to the 89th Airlift Wing, had been at the controls of what would have been a C37, with Nancy Pelosi as a passenger?

My guess: he would have held both as POWs. The pilot he would have turned over to Ragnar Danneskjöld for interrogation. Because Ragnar would have known exactly what psychological buttons to push, to "turn" that pilot. That would have been quite a psychodrama right there.

Less interesting would have been the interrogation of Pelosi, by Midas Mulligan, the owner of the valley. Or by Galt himself. It would have been the reverse of the session between John Galt and "Mister Thompson" in the penthouse suite of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. And I'm not sure at all that Galt would have succeeded in changing her mind.

He therefore would have had no choice but to keep her firmly and closely imprisoned and guarded until the collapse came. And then turned her loose, saying, "Behold the world you created. And if you know what's good for you, just stay out of our way until we can bring order out of this chaos."

Ok, Eddieh, this is the funniest thing I have seen today!

JeffG: What a beautiful plane!

Compliments on having that part in the movie- an indelible experience.

Thanks for the laugh too!

Nancy would have never been flying the plane. She would have had a government paid pilot!

I would have buried them even though they kept saying they were still alive. You know how much they lie.