NationStates Jolt Archive

The Mirfakan military's research organizations have begun looking into seismic technology for destructive purposes, according to a report released this week. "We already use seismic stabilizers to prevent damaging earthquakes," said research director Jiwil Nartin in his proposal, which was also released with the report. "The military applications of a technology that could actually cause high magnitude earthquakes are obvious."
The technology, still in its infant stages, seems applicable in a variety of ways. "Early investigation suggests that local machinery, energy pulses, or even rays of properly-modulated energy could serve the purpose of creating a seismic event [of considerable magnitude]," the report reads. Mirfak, which has just completed an unprecedented military expansion and is still in the midst of heavy reforms over two decades after being granted independence, has sovereignty over five star systems across four galaxies, only one of which, the Mirfak System, is inhabited. Whether the military plans to implement the research on this new terrestrial weapon is unknown.

((OOC: Sorry, I just have to critique this.

Earthquakes are caused by one land mass rubbing up against another one deep underground. The places where this occurs are called "faults", and I'm sure you know this. However, you propose to fire some sort of pulse or beam or some such at the ground to create this earthquake. I'm not going to pretend I know if this will work or not, but I definately can ask: Wouldn't it be so much more economical to funnel all that energy into, say, a giant laser beam that would fry everything and leave no debris? Just asking.))

[ooc: I too feel obliged to add my two cents:

While a beam will fail miserably at causing earthquakes, pumping gasses into the Earth's mantle near a fault can and will cause a massive earthquake. In fact it has happened and when it did a bunch of nuclear waste acted as a lubricant and the San Andreas fault sliped twenty feet in two seconds. If this were designed as a weapon the results could be cataclismic.]

ooc: Mmmm, he said lubricant......

Dear Governors,

Earthquake war technology is great over war contents, particularly in the case of destroying all enemies. But, in history most of the time earthquake has yielded to destruction of society.

Unlikely, earthquake will destroy military equipment and armies as well. Further, developing such technology would be anty-economic since the purpose of war (Sun-Si: The Art of War) is to conquer other lands, preserve its people and keep the resources from within. This means that using earthquake for weaponry will only complicate invations since there will be no supply. The infrastructure will be more likely than no all destroy and the costs of rebuilding the society will imply anarchy control easily used by the resistance to increment costs of settlements and new governorships.

I must ask to rethink this issue. Earthquake technology for war could be usefull if we wanto to stop a good economy, but developing and small economies will more likely reduce their operations capabilities imploding their growth and stagering the GDP and other Macro-factors.

Finally, the fact is that to become successful in earthquake attack, it is very important to know the gology of the terrain. In this lead, chances are we may help the enemy by increasing its opressing or military power. Remember that must of the citizens of stagering economies tend to joint government military or paramilitary forces...

Thank you all for reading and please visit Ikeraland to foster this issue.
Governor of Ikeraland & House of Senates.

From the Mirfakan military research institute, general address:

While we cannot publicly address the actual components of the system, not only because it has not yet been designed but also for security reasons, we can tell you that we are quite aware of the impact of earthquake weaponry, and how it may be implemented. This is hardly a flawless concept, as are all such weapons, but it provides an alternative mode of attack which does not currently exist. While we are perfectly capable of firing lasers at things, shielding technology limits the effectiveness of most such conventional weaponry. The technology we are developing is designed to essentially accellerate the natural process of seismic activity along fault lines, possibly following a theory not dissimilar to the unneeded explanation by Largent. Some critics have cited the limited applications of such a weapon, which we are of course well aware of. This would be a special deployment weapon, hardly a conventional piece. As to comments made regarding the mechanics of war and invasions at large, we can only reiterate that this would be a weapon designed to destroy planetary regions, not vacate them for habitation or other purposes. If placed into service and deployed, it would be used for the purpose of levelling an area and killing or disorganizing its population to an extent where organized resistance would be crippled. We thank you for your interest in our developments, and encourage you to contact us with any further questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Nilira Narek : MMRI communications division

OOC: My two cents too...

Has anyone seen that TV based movie called "10.5" ? Although the concept itself is farfetched, the idea of a superfault, one that tied a number of smaller faults (in the movie, it was along the entire western coast of the USA). According to the movie, a series of events began to have a dominoe effect, causing larger and larger earthquakes, starting in Seattle, Washington.

I liked the movie enough to buy it, and I've watched it recently once again. What's interesting is that in order to stop the superfault from causing great casualties and destruction in heavily populated areas, the government opted to use nuclear weapons drilled deep into the earth to "stabilize" the superfault.

Now, to have a weapon that would cause the reverse effect would be most dangerous to be used. One would have to consider the side effects, what might happen if it started off a world-wide series of catastrophes, etc.

Meh, I'm done now.

Oh, one more thing, I apologize if I ruined people's anticipation (if there was any) about the movie. There was really only one way to quickly summarize it. Nevertheless, it's good for at least one viewing.

I think that this project should be noticed by the International Community and then halted, for any misuse, overuse, or casual mistake is clearly a threat to the structural integrity of continents and of a planet, hence if you attack someone you could also hurt for example me, since there's no perfect way to control such a powerful force.

It's a very imprudent thing to go further, and if we get unusual sismic activity we will sure be blaming you for it.

Kaiser M. Martens

From the Mirfakan Grahalel, addressed to Kaiser M. Martens:

Mirfak realizes the peripheral effects of such weaponry, and would most likely not use a weapon of this nature on a planet housing multiple nations. Since it is not a precision device, testing on any working units will be done in one of Mirfak's peripheral systems. As for your intention to blame us for unusual seismic activity, I suggest you take a more realistic view of our position and yours. Unless we have reason to use force against you, you can be sure that we will not. Besides, such densely populated and diverse planets as yours are best left to ground forces and precision weaponry, for the sake of galactic peace. All that said, I can say quite honestly that Mirfak has absolutely no current interest in using any weapon against you or other nations on your planet.

OOC - How was I supposed to know it was one of those future nations anyways that have many planets. >>' **Dislikes that FT stuff, but bitching would be offtopic** So, since things are that way, I'll void my last post. Since it'd make no IC sense whatsoever.

Ok,
Perhaps I did not make myself clear the last time.

Characteristics of Earthquake:

General Destruction of every infrastructure. This means water, electriciy, drain systems, subways, telecomunications, etc...

Main malfunctioning of all infrastructure: Healthcare, medicare, foodsupply, roads, banking, TV & Radio etc. Thus the population is in fact blind.

Killig large amounts of civilians (which are the first factor to rebuild a society after war or catastrophies,) while leaving the military mostly untouched (Military is a shock repressive force, they are not prepare to provide help in catastrophies. Further, the reason why they participate in catastrophies is because they hold the best logistics and transportation technology, but they do not rescue or give first/paramedic/hospital help.)

Leave an overwelming army of paramilitary people willing to join the military and the rest willin to create anarchy. The local military, meaning the government in some cases will have the people time and willingness, not to mention the devotion and the sacrifice factor on the table of war. Remember that people who has nothing to loose, they ended up in military or guerilla war, not to mention terrorism.

It is very important to understand that the local government could manipulate the little information it could hold to generate massive adversion to new commers. This in a devastated society means endless resistance, costly military casualties and operations and no region completely secured. Lets, remember the historical cases of Bosnia, Iraq, Afganistan, and Laos.

Historically, only one country has been devastated onto the end and that was because the military and the locals were mixing together, but this was the last resource, the allieds did not use this resource until they exausted all the others in 1945. The results were, anyway, the breackdown of the country and the caos inside the society.

Addtionally, from a military standpoit, whenever using earthquake, you are sponsoring terrorism, because you are not terminating the war cells. This is the most important factor in war. US has determined humongous amount of funds and efforts to create weaponry of pinpoint accuracy war. The reason of this is because it is much better and economic to destroy the war cells than to use social terror in order to force surrenderings, which, in the end never happens completelly.

Finally, the enemies weaponry and military will be intact. Most of military infrastructure are earthquake resistant. This means that you are causing very little if none impact into military infrastructures. This translate of fully capacity of firepower with a plus of recruitpersons willing to joint the military, and the easily usage of civil infrastructure for closed environment of combat and war, including guerrilla.

The diplomant factor, is that as the invador nation, one cannot fight or open fire in areas designated by the UN as civil areas (i.e.: cities, towns, etc.) The fact that is racked by an earthquake does not means you can bomb it. You need to have the international recognition that the area is a war zone. And believeme Mirfak, it is very unlikely that this happens quickly, espacially with the TV and media covering every event of this kind.

The Itelligence department of the NSA of Ikeraland

From MMRI communications, addressed to the Ikeraland intelligence department:

Your message does an excellent job of stating the obvious, but we are unsure of how it applies to what we are doing here. We're sure you realize that MMRI and the military at large knows all of what you've been telling us. That said, our concern is only with development. If you wish to address concerns on the weapon itself, should it be completed, you must contact the strategic division of the military.

ooc: Mmmm, he said lubricant......

Mmmm, so did you.... ;)

Official statement from the MMRI: While our efforts have yeilded excellent test results of a seismic weapon, its limited applications and complexity of deployment has caused us to dismiss it as a viable field technology. For that reason, we are suspending implementation of our prototypes and instead delivering them to military facilities for storage. It is our hope that there they will be kept in good repair for limited implementation whenever a future situation may demand it.
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Mirfakan Seismic Weaponry Program terminated March 9, 2918.