TFT out of order snippet

thanatos wrote:But I think that they were probably think in terms of 50 years tops (or may be until all the Adams and Eves died) before something like that happened, not 800 years.

Not sure. In theory, some "fallen" could stash cryosleep system or VR personality module (taken from the Hamilcar or manufactured on his manufacturing module) & wait MUCH longer. Even if they considered last-generation PICA outside the Fallens limited production capabilities, they obviously could build some simpler robotic bodies - nothing more than radio-controlled primitive android for stored personality to hang around.

Dilandu wrote:

Randomiser wrote:
Thing is, I'm just not too sanguine about Chihiro's sanity. He might decide the millions in North Harchong who "aren't candidates for industrialisation" were enough to start over with and destroy everyone else.

Planetary-scale bombardment would NOT spare North Harchong from aftereffects. Nuclear winter, the tremendous ecological damage, maybe even collapse of planetary climate system. And Chichiro actually seems to be more like completely immoral shadow mastermind, than outright mad fanatic.

Unfortunately, the OBS is not the only weapon of mass destruction a returned Chihiro could employ, theoretically at least. Some kind of weaponised very nasty disease with a relatively short active life and a self destruct built in, spread everywhere but North Harchong, which had orders to cut itself off from the Apostates for a time could effectively wipe out the opposition without doing permanent damage to the planetary ecostructure.

Randomiser wrote:
Unfortunately, the OBS is not the only weapon of mass destruction a returned Chihiro could employ, theoretically at least. Some kind of weaponised very nasty disease with a relatively short active life and a self destruct built in, spread everywhere but North Harchong, which had orders to cut itself off from the Apostates for a time could effectively wipe out the opposition without doing permanent damage to the planetary ecostructure.

Too rosky. The opposing side (I mean, Merlin & Co) could easily retaliate in kind, hitting the North Harchong too, and threatening to essentially depopulate the planet. Biological warfare may be useful, yes, but not in the situation when both combatting sides are basically invulnerable, and the only one suffering is their proxies.

However, the threat of biological warfare may actually be a deterrence factor for both sides, preventing them from too direct actions against each other. Basically a "Dead hand" strategy.

Dilandu wrote:Planetary-scale bombardment would NOT spare North Harchong from aftereffects. Nuclear winter, the tremendous ecological damage, maybe even collapse of planetary climate system. And Chichiro actually seems to be more like completely immoral shadow mastermind, than outright mad fanatic.

How bad would it be if the OBS "only" took out every major population and industrial center? There's no need to give the mainland and even the islands the full Armageddon Reef treatment. If you do enough damage to the infrastructure, the remaining population will starve to death. It might be enough that North Harchong only has a couple of bad years.

noblehunter wrote:
How bad would it be if the OBS "only" took out every major population and industrial center? There's no need to give the mainland and even the islands the full Armageddon Reef treatment. If you do enough damage to the infrastructure, the remaining population will starve to death. It might be enough that North Harchong only has a couple of bad years.

Not good. The exact amount of damage is hard to calculate, of course, and since it's a kinetic strikes, they would not have much radiation fallout (albeit they would threw so much vaporized mass, that the chemical fallout would be horrifying), but clearly the destruction of "every major population and industrial center" would seriously damage the planetary ecology.

noblehunter wrote:

Dilandu wrote:Planetary-scale bombardment would NOT spare North Harchong from aftereffects. Nuclear winter, the tremendous ecological damage, maybe even collapse of planetary climate system. And Chichiro actually seems to be more like completely immoral shadow mastermind, than outright mad fanatic.

How bad would it be if the OBS "only" took out every major population and industrial center? ...

It should be remembered that Safehold is still predominantly "Unsanctified" outside of the major population centers and the immediate vicinity thereof. That includes North Harchong.

Survivors of an OBS strike wouldn't be able to run into the wilderness and "live off the land," so the destruction of population centers would be far worse than similar strikes on Earth. Global ecological consequences would likely fall harder on terraformed areas than "unsanctified" areas.

Dilandu wrote:

noblehunter wrote:
How bad would it be if the OBS "only" took out every major population and industrial center? There's no need to give the mainland and even the islands the full Armageddon Reef treatment. If you do enough damage to the infrastructure, the remaining population will starve to death. It might be enough that North Harchong only has a couple of bad years.

Not good. The exact amount of damage is hard to calculate, of course, and since it's a kinetic strikes, they would not have much radiation fallout (albeit they would threw so much vaporized mass, that the chemical fallout would be horrifying), but clearly the destruction of "every major population and industrial center" would seriously damage the planetary ecology.

If you use kinetic strikes equivalent of around 1 ton of TNT you don't need that many to flatten towns and cities without the associated problems of thrown up dust and ecological impact.

Of course, this means there has to be a lot of strikes.

Joat42 wrote:If you use kinetic strikes equivalent of around 1 ton of TNT you don't need that many to flatten towns and cities without the associated problems of thrown up dust and ecological impact.

Of course, this means there has to be a lot of strikes.

How big a bang to you need to "destroy" a city anyways? Would a crater the size of downtown do it? Or do you need one big enough to cover the suburbs, too? Or just take out the granaries and food distribution system.

Now I want a reverse civilization game where you try and destroy civilizations at different levels of development. Hunter gatherers would be pretty resilient but take out a few power plants or major power lines and a post-industrial society is toast.

noblehunter wrote:

Joat42 wrote:If you use kinetic strikes equivalent of around 1 ton of TNT you don't need that many to flatten towns and cities without the associated problems of thrown up dust and ecological impact.

Of course, this means there has to be a lot of strikes.

How big a bang to you need to "destroy" a city anyways? Would a crater the size of downtown do it? Or do you need one big enough to cover the suburbs, too? Or just take out the granaries and food distribution system.

Now I want a reverse civilization game where you try and destroy civilizations at different levels of development. Hunter gatherers would be pretty resilient but take out a few power plants or major power lines and a post-industrial society is toast.

Here is a quite good write up of power grid wargaming scenarios. It's an interesting read.

Joat42 wrote:Here is a quite good write up of power grid wargaming scenarios. It's an interesting read.

Math.

I confess to being the sort of David Weber fan who converts all the numbers into qualifiers. I just need to know there are a lot of missiles going faster and only a few are stopped by defenses or miss.