imported_Skepticism
09-11-2003, 05:35
Official USSS Government Broadcast, both on local and international frequences
Static resolves into a picture of a simple trench system. Several hundred soldiers, along with tanks and APCs, are revealed as the camera pans from side to side. The day is clear and mind; by rippling flags and touseled hair, the wind can clearly be seen blowing right at the camera. After several seconds, the image quickly zooms several hundred meters to an opposing defense line.
This one is far more advanced, with concrete blockhouses, thick belts of razorwire, and a complex maze of trenches and deep dugouts. Thousands upon thousands of plastic dummy soldiers take up positions, along with hundreds of simply made metal mock-up artillery pieces, tanks, and infantry carriers. A voiceover begins.
"As you can see, our brave progressive forces are faced with the task of overruning this defensive line. Were these dummies and models real soldiers and arms of war, the position would be nearly impossible to take, especially with the relative meager forces we have to oppose them. Despite the advances in squad weaponry, tactics, despite the new vehicles and airplanes and artillery, the USSS troops you see simply could not force a breech in these lines. However..."
As the announcer's voice trails away, a titanic flash fills the camera, forcing one to flinch involuntarily. The image quakes and shivers, before resolving itself again. The image is one that everyone knows by heart -- an image of death and destruction:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/programmes/tv/state_planet/picpops/images/prog1.jpg
Even as the mushroom cloud climbs into the sky, however, the USSS men and machines swarm out of the trench, sprinting across the gap, jumping into the "enemy" trenches and rapidly overruning the annihilated positions, the blockhouses flattened by the blast, the tank traps atomized, the deep dugouts collapsed in a heatbeat. As dust from the explosion drifts downrange, back towards the camera, the image refocuses on a simple piece of machinery, consisting of a single metal box with a single probe; a Geiger counter. It remains silent. The gauge does not move a jot.
The image rapidly shifts from one counter to another, more than a dozen in all, and none of them show any sign of radiation. The voiceover resumes.
"As you can see, we of the USSS have learned how to utilize the most destructive weapon known to mankind without also showering the earth with poison. The very aspect that has made atomic weapons unfeasible -- the decades-long radiation lingering, that polutes not countrys but continents -- has been eliminated. While we will of course not start throwing nuclear weapons around with wild abandon, let it be known to any that would disturb the soverign soil of the USSS that we shall utilize these new weapons against you, and if necessary, elsewhere as well. Any potential enemy of the USSS be warned -- we have mastered the atom, and will unleash it upon you if forced to."
Picture fades
NOTE: This is an explanation to demonstrate why this idea is not Godmodding. If I see my concept for radiationless nukes copied by anyone without permission there will be hell to pay; come up with your own ideas. This is not my nation telling your nation how to make non-nukes. This is me, personally, telling you, personally, a technological potential that I have decided the USSS will use. And no, they are not yet for sale. All you know is, somehow we (claimed to have) detonated a nuclear weapon that didn't give off radiation somehow. END NOTE
The radiationless nuclear weapon (or non-nuke) operates on a rather simple basis, but first one must understand where the radiation comes from. When an atomic weapon detonates, all of the fissile material is not turned into energy; the detonation is not 100% efficient. Also, the atomic blast itself gives off approximately 5% of its energy in a burst of hard ionizing radiation, which is the first result of the chain reaction going critical. Fallout results from not only unfissioned material but the ground which has been "baked" into radioactive byproducts by the intitial hard ionizing radiation.
The USSS weapons take a conventional, fairly small plutonium warhead (generally under 5 kilotons right now, perhaps more later) and wraps it in a layer of a special compound made of, among other things, uranium and cobalt. When the plutonium is compressed by the explosive lens at detonation, the ionizing radiation strikes this compound, transmuting it into an enormously radioative, but extremely (less than a fraction of a second) short-lived isotope. Doing so takes so much energy that, to the radiation, it might as well be lead -- it can penetrate no further. In that tiny piece of a second, the compound (code-named simply as BETA) emits enormous numbers of beta particles, which are directed by steel "mirrors" back into the plutonium, causing it to react and fission to a much further degree.
The result is nearly 100% efficiency in the reaction of the core, as well as the absorption of hard x-rays which induce radioactivity in other sources. The enormous neutron flux also "burns out" the hundreds of myriad byproducts caused by the fission itself. In short, all sources of radiation are contained before polluting the outside world.
Unfortunately, only small weapons can be made radiationless thus far, and it is likely that the limit will never increase significantly. Also, the BETA Compound is at present difficult and expensive to produce, although prices will drop as the government orders more weapons. Currently a 1-kiloton weapon costs something over a billion dollars to build, and BETA production problems may take some time to resolve.
USSS Diplomatic Jargon
Because there are no long-term effects whatsoever, and the weapons themselves will be almost all around or under a 1-kiloton yield, we have no complusions against using these weapons as we would a standard, very large bomb, such as the MOAB; for the same reasons, we hold that the use of non-nukes does not merit a traditional nuclear response, as in effect it is just a really, really big bomb, not a WMD.
Static resolves into a picture of a simple trench system. Several hundred soldiers, along with tanks and APCs, are revealed as the camera pans from side to side. The day is clear and mind; by rippling flags and touseled hair, the wind can clearly be seen blowing right at the camera. After several seconds, the image quickly zooms several hundred meters to an opposing defense line.
This one is far more advanced, with concrete blockhouses, thick belts of razorwire, and a complex maze of trenches and deep dugouts. Thousands upon thousands of plastic dummy soldiers take up positions, along with hundreds of simply made metal mock-up artillery pieces, tanks, and infantry carriers. A voiceover begins.
"As you can see, our brave progressive forces are faced with the task of overruning this defensive line. Were these dummies and models real soldiers and arms of war, the position would be nearly impossible to take, especially with the relative meager forces we have to oppose them. Despite the advances in squad weaponry, tactics, despite the new vehicles and airplanes and artillery, the USSS troops you see simply could not force a breech in these lines. However..."
As the announcer's voice trails away, a titanic flash fills the camera, forcing one to flinch involuntarily. The image quakes and shivers, before resolving itself again. The image is one that everyone knows by heart -- an image of death and destruction:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/programmes/tv/state_planet/picpops/images/prog1.jpg
Even as the mushroom cloud climbs into the sky, however, the USSS men and machines swarm out of the trench, sprinting across the gap, jumping into the "enemy" trenches and rapidly overruning the annihilated positions, the blockhouses flattened by the blast, the tank traps atomized, the deep dugouts collapsed in a heatbeat. As dust from the explosion drifts downrange, back towards the camera, the image refocuses on a simple piece of machinery, consisting of a single metal box with a single probe; a Geiger counter. It remains silent. The gauge does not move a jot.
The image rapidly shifts from one counter to another, more than a dozen in all, and none of them show any sign of radiation. The voiceover resumes.
"As you can see, we of the USSS have learned how to utilize the most destructive weapon known to mankind without also showering the earth with poison. The very aspect that has made atomic weapons unfeasible -- the decades-long radiation lingering, that polutes not countrys but continents -- has been eliminated. While we will of course not start throwing nuclear weapons around with wild abandon, let it be known to any that would disturb the soverign soil of the USSS that we shall utilize these new weapons against you, and if necessary, elsewhere as well. Any potential enemy of the USSS be warned -- we have mastered the atom, and will unleash it upon you if forced to."
Picture fades
NOTE: This is an explanation to demonstrate why this idea is not Godmodding. If I see my concept for radiationless nukes copied by anyone without permission there will be hell to pay; come up with your own ideas. This is not my nation telling your nation how to make non-nukes. This is me, personally, telling you, personally, a technological potential that I have decided the USSS will use. And no, they are not yet for sale. All you know is, somehow we (claimed to have) detonated a nuclear weapon that didn't give off radiation somehow. END NOTE
The radiationless nuclear weapon (or non-nuke) operates on a rather simple basis, but first one must understand where the radiation comes from. When an atomic weapon detonates, all of the fissile material is not turned into energy; the detonation is not 100% efficient. Also, the atomic blast itself gives off approximately 5% of its energy in a burst of hard ionizing radiation, which is the first result of the chain reaction going critical. Fallout results from not only unfissioned material but the ground which has been "baked" into radioactive byproducts by the intitial hard ionizing radiation.
The USSS weapons take a conventional, fairly small plutonium warhead (generally under 5 kilotons right now, perhaps more later) and wraps it in a layer of a special compound made of, among other things, uranium and cobalt. When the plutonium is compressed by the explosive lens at detonation, the ionizing radiation strikes this compound, transmuting it into an enormously radioative, but extremely (less than a fraction of a second) short-lived isotope. Doing so takes so much energy that, to the radiation, it might as well be lead -- it can penetrate no further. In that tiny piece of a second, the compound (code-named simply as BETA) emits enormous numbers of beta particles, which are directed by steel "mirrors" back into the plutonium, causing it to react and fission to a much further degree.
The result is nearly 100% efficiency in the reaction of the core, as well as the absorption of hard x-rays which induce radioactivity in other sources. The enormous neutron flux also "burns out" the hundreds of myriad byproducts caused by the fission itself. In short, all sources of radiation are contained before polluting the outside world.
Unfortunately, only small weapons can be made radiationless thus far, and it is likely that the limit will never increase significantly. Also, the BETA Compound is at present difficult and expensive to produce, although prices will drop as the government orders more weapons. Currently a 1-kiloton weapon costs something over a billion dollars to build, and BETA production problems may take some time to resolve.
USSS Diplomatic Jargon
Because there are no long-term effects whatsoever, and the weapons themselves will be almost all around or under a 1-kiloton yield, we have no complusions against using these weapons as we would a standard, very large bomb, such as the MOAB; for the same reasons, we hold that the use of non-nukes does not merit a traditional nuclear response, as in effect it is just a really, really big bomb, not a WMD.