[QUOTE=Brain Wreck]
Given a certain small-area target, if you’re sure you can hit it accurately with one vehicle, then it’s better to hit it with a stronger warhead than a weaker one. It saves missiles and it saves unnecessary collateral damage.
[/QUOTE]
Isn’t it common sense to say it’s theoretically best to hit it with exactly enough force and no extra?
Given that a modern 2-stage hydrogen (fusion) warhead will completely destroy any manmade structure ever built with a direct hit, if you’re sure you can hit it accurately, you do not need a stronger bomb. A stronger bomb will necessarily produce more collateral damage, will it not?
If you’re talking about using multiple small bombs to hit a single military target, you might have something, but the development of high accuracy weapons makes that moot. If you’re hitting it on one try, you don’t need more. Yes, multiple smaller bombs, properly distributed, would do more area damage to a city, but that would only be attempted if your intent was to do so – a different scenario from what you seem to be discussing.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
So asking why we need a weapon more destructive than the atomic bomb is like asking why we need a weapon more powerful than the airplane or the machine gun or the crossbow or the chariot (all weapons which at one point were considered the “final” weapon).
[/QUOTE]
While I get your overall point, can you cite anyone actually saying each of those developments was the “final” weapon? I’ve heard such claims before, and I’d be interested to see an actual quote or something.
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Not likely. Even the most virulent weaponized bioengineered bacterial micro-organisms don’t survive very well in open, unprotected environments, and viruses are destroyed rapidly by even modest exposure to UV light, making wide aerosol dispersal almost useless. Contaminating municipal water supplies isn’t terribly effective, either; modern water treatment systems (where used), while not specifically designed to prevent biowarfare contamination, will pretty much eradicate the built of contaminating microorganisms via a combination of UV and MIOX-type ion purification. Bioweapons are mostly useful as a public terror tool rather than a practical weapon.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a limitation of the present technology. Combine something that spreads like the flu, with a longish incubation time so it can spread far ( especially if it’s undetected so there’s no quarantine ), and a near 100% lethality like AIDS and you’d have quite a nasty weapon. Fortunately, we can’t manage that yet.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
It’s hard to destroy the universe with mere nuclear weapons. How will we cleanse the universe of life in the name of the Dark Gods ( praise their unholy names ! ) without galaxy destroying weapons, at the very least ?
[/QUOTE]
See there. I knew you worshiped some God. Just a different one than me.
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
No such luck. The Deer People are vegetarians but they are fanatically devoted to their holy crusade to rid the universe of meat eaters. By their standards, we’re like the horrible brain sucking demons of so many movies and games. Their entire religion is based around the idea that God gave them sentience to rid the universe of the hell-spawned carnivores.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but they’re still deer. Mount some headlights on our fighters, and it’s open season on the interstellar highway.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
It’s hard to destroy the universe with mere nuclear weapons. How will we cleanse the universe of life in the name of the Dark Gods ( praise their unholy names ! ) without galaxy destroying weapons, at the very least ?
[/QUOTE]
Ah, but this weapon destroys 1 galaxy every second. My plan will come to fruition in a decade or so, right?
[QUOTE=Miller]
Yeah, but they’re still deer. Mount some headlights on our fighters, and it’s open season on the interstellar highway.
[/QUOTE]
If my vehicle is any indication, the cost is $4,000 per deer. Given a planet full of deerfolk, nukes would be more cost effective.
Even the atom bomb is useless against the terrorists,so perhaps instead of making bigger more powerful bombs that destroy people and infrastructure
perhaps we could come up with some kind of chemical Bomb that would make people more understanding of others and less inclined to use force to try to get their way… a fantasy of course but worth working on.
[QUOTE=monavis]
Even the atom bomb is useless against the terrorists,so perhaps instead of making bigger more powerful bombs that destroy people and infrastructure
perhaps we could come up with some kind of chemical Bomb that would make people more understanding of others and less inclined to use force to try to get their way… a fantasy of course but worth working on.
Monavis
[/QUOTE]
You mean like the gay bomb?
Or perhaps aerial spraying of Prozac. We could take a page from the Jamaicans and build a nuclear bong.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
A planet-killing device is essential to maintain the integrity of a Galactic Empire.
[/QUOTE]
Meh. As long as any of the enemy galaxy empires can blow up the entire LOCAL GROUP better and faster than we can, the future and destiny of the ONE TRUE GALAXY Empire will be in serious jeopardy.
[QUOTE=monavis]
Even the atom bomb is useless against the terrorists,so perhaps instead of making bigger more powerful bombs that destroy people and infrastructure
perhaps we could come up with some kind of chemical Bomb that would make people more understanding of others and less inclined to use force to try to get their way… a fantasy of course but worth working on.
[QUOTE=Muffin]
Planet-killing or star system killing?
[/QUOTE]
It’s better to go with Planet killing. Updating the data on the orbital trajectories that would be affected by the loss of a star system would be a pain in the ass, and the cost in computing power would be astronomical, no pun intended.
With a planet, you’d keep the mass more or less contained in the same system so its effects on the macrosystem would be negligible.
[QUOTE=True Blue Jack]
Meh. As long as any of the enemy galaxy empires can blow up the entire LOCAL GROUP better and faster than we can, the future and destiny of the ONE TRUE GALAXY Empire will be in serious jeopardy.
The One True (Blue) Jack
[/QUOTE]
Every true afficionado of Galactic strategy knows it’s a question of logistics, not tactics. It’s a matter of getting the power source that is capable of initiating the chain reaction from one galaxy to another.
[QUOTE=Zany Zeolite Zipper]
You mean like the gay bomb?
Or perhaps aerial spraying of Prozac. We could take a page from the Jamaicans and build a nuclear bong.
[/QUOTE]
What is a GaY bomb? Most gays I know are already a peaceful lot. The fact that we need or feel we need bombs just shows how uncivil the human race still is.
