Astelon wrote:I don't see a lot of extra anger over the gas attacks either. Maybe a little over such an indiscriminate killing weapon, but it's not much worse than artillery.
As for R&D to defend against and use gas weapons of their own, Earth had crude gas masks in the 9th century. It was originally used for miners. Sharon probably has some version available for modification and military use. They may even have developed poison gasses and not used them yet (no major wars recently).
I will almost guarantee that Sharona has gas masks of some kind already in production. Some of the compound developed from coal tar chemistry are nasty, and if they are refining kerosine in significant quantities some of the by products there are not much better. An example of the nasty products that a refinery may have for which protective suits are required is high purity an-aqueous ammonia (corrosive and flammable). Note ammonia is used in production of fertilizers and high explosives.