Like you, I don’t agree with the OP that playing Batman in the Boondocks is feasable. I wasn’t clear about it but in my view a year or two of food storage will get anyone through most of the chaos of a collapse. After that, I think that society will be back on its feet for the most part. I think it took Zimbabwe a year for their stores to go from completely empty to full again. As James Rawles states, “Given the historic short life expectancy of hunter-gatherers, I’ve opted for a well-defended Deep Larder approach. Your mileage may vary.”
It wouldn’t take UFO’s. Anything that could knock out the power-grid would do it. Setting off a nuke high in the stratosphere would create a massive EMP that would fry just about all of the country’s electric systems, including disabling modern vehicles. Or, merely a repeat of the solar storm of 1859 would do it:
In September 1859, the sun unleashed one of the most powerful storms in recorded history. The solar eruption induced electrical currents that set telegraph offices on fire and sparked dramatic displays of northern lights over Cuba and Hawaii.
Scientists and officials from a range of organizations gathered in Washington, D.C., yesterday (June 21) to ask a simple but frightening question: What if it happens again?
“A similar storm today might knock us for a loop,” Lika Guhathakurta, a solar physicist at NASA headquarters, said. "Modern society depends on high-tech systems such as smart power grids, GPS and satellite communications — all of which are vulnerable to solar storms.
While the 1859 storm halted telegraph messages and puzzled a lot of skywatchers in the tropics, an eruption of that magnitude today would be much more serious, researchers said.
Worldwide blackouts could last for months as engineers struggled to repair damaged transformers, for example. Planes and ships couldn’t trust GPS units for navigation, and banking networks might go offline, seriously disrupting global commerce.
According to a 2008 report from the National Academy of Sciences, a massive solar storm could have the economic impact of 20 Hurricane Katrinas. That hurricane caused an estimated $80 billion of damage."