NationStates Jolt Archive

"So General, what do you have for me today?" Emperor Alexander I asked.

The man across from the leader of Scandavian States was in charge of the Joint Weapons Research Laboratory. "A new possibility for a strategic weapon, sir."

This made Alexander sit up and pay attention, "Nuclear or chemical? It had damn well not better be biological, you know how I feel about that particular abomination."

"Nuclear, sir, although not in the traditional sense. It doesn't use fission or fusion to get its results and there's more harmful byproduct from an X-Ray. Basically, you take Niobium, Hafnium, or Talatum isotopes and pump them full of X-Rays. Once you reach a certain energy threshold within the atom, the radioactive decay is explosively accelerated. Since there's no critical mass involved, we could use a gram of the stuff and make an explosion equivalant to fifty kilos of TNT. We think we can do even better, but that's what our tests show so far." General Rong explained.

"That sounds good, but it doesn't sound anywhere near efficient enough to use as a strategic weapon. Furthermore, I'm assuming those elements are rather rare, so where do we get them?" It was a good question.

Rong smiled like a master to a pupil who makes a perfectly logical but ill-informed asumption. "Actually sir, all three elements are rather common. Niobium and Talatum are used in military and construction-grade alloys all the time, especially in Titanium alloys, they're just not common as the required isotopes. Hafnium, on the other hand, is exceptionally common as an isotope in this country because of the fact that all of our combat ships use nuclear reactors, it's used in control rods and the byproduct is the isotope we need."

The Emperor nodded in understanding and approval, "It sounds like you have all of the materials you need, General, you have my approval to start work on this."

"Actually sir, I need money and authorization to use our linear accelerator to process the Niobium and Talatum into the materials we need. Beyond that, we do have everything we need. I can have a Hafnium weapon ready in a year and a Niobium and Talatum in two-and-a-half. Mind you, they won't be nuclear scale for quite some time, mainly because our processing is still too crude. In fact, we won't be able to manage it until we perfect the photon bombardment process, which is still a theory at this point. Call it ten years to be able to produce the weapons and another five to completely replace our nuclear weapons." General Rong explained.

Alexander nodded his approval again, "Okay General, you still have my approval. I'll arrange it with the Reserves Bank for you to be able to withdraw the funds on a as needed basis."

OOC: Did I mention that only God Himself has a higher clearance than the fifty or so people who are working on this? If not, you don't know about it until we conduct a weapons test. Period.

[TAG! Me likes isomer bombs.]

One year later...

A six aircraft squadron consisting of five F-28 Wolverines and a single F-35 flew over the black sands that gave the twin isles their name. Strangely enough for a weapons test, the escorting fighters were armed to the teeth and ready to fight at a moments notice. The F-35, or rather its pilot, seemed oblivious to all of this, he was contantly checking his flight path and the diagnostics on the lone weapon it housed, a modified GBU-31 JDAM.

"Lightbringer, this is command, you are go for sword sharpening. Acknowledge."

"Command, Lightbringer acknowledges. Now climbing to angels forty."

"Roger, Lightbringer, walk us through this."

"Okay... Leveling out now... one minute to release point, objective in sight... Thirty seconds... Ten seconds, opening bay door... Pickeling package and a good release... Climbing to fifty for observation... Arclight! I say again, Arclight!"

At this, the command center burst into cheers. "Roger that, Lightbringer, initial reports suggest a ten kiloton-range detonation. Return to base for debriefing."

"Roger that , Command, RTB in one hour."

The target was a series of two hundred concrete buildings spread over a twenty mile radius. Those that were inside the crater that marked the blast radius were so completely destroyed as to have not existed and those that were outside the crater looked completely untouched. Inside the building still standing, where various livestock had once resided, there were only unidentifiable charred corpses or ashes scattered to the winds by the explosion, depending on how close to the detonation they were. The dead were the product of immense levels of gamma radiation that lasted only as long as the reaction did and left little radioactivity behind.


OOC: *grins* I agree Eniqcir, they are so nice precision weapons of death. Just wait till I bust out the real warheads and the refined Talatum and Niobium, that's going to make some heads spin! If this doesn't paint a DON'T F*CK WITH ME! sign on my nation, it will when I get to the real tests.

OOC: This is similar to a neutron bomb yes?

OOC: Only in that they are designed to emit a specific wavelength of radiation, but that's where the similarities end.

OOC: got it.

This was a weapons test, in his heart Captain McKeon knew that, but it still creped him out to be receiving launch orders. No boomer Captain liked that prospect, test or no. “XO, does the confirmation code match today’s?”

“Yes, sir, code does match.” His XO answered dutifully.

“Very well, let’s go over to the launch console.” McKeon ordered.

They did the one, two, three count and turned the key at the same time, causing the shock and bulletproof glass to allow access to the launch console. They both pressed their thumbs against the isometric scanner and when the light turned green a white card with red text popped out. That card contained the authentification code, which today read, “sierra sierra delta delta theta indigo alpha charlie foxtrot”. They then put their fingers against the isometric scanner that was next to the number twenty light that represented the number twenty missile. That light turned from the yellow of standby to the green of ready and just as he was about to give the weapons operator the order to launch the sonar officer called out, “Multiple contacts, multiple bearings. No class identification but it’s two subsurface and eight surface, that makes it a standard battlegroup.” Which made it foreign and potentially hostile, and since they made sure this stretch of sea was deserted of friendlies, those ships could only be presumed to be hostile.

“Have our escort kill the little bastards, lets see how they like having thirty torpedoes loaded with Talatum isotopes stuffed down their throat.” McKeon ordered.
The Upholders accelerated to just below forty knots and then disappeared completely from their scope. Shortly after, the contacts also disappeared, but in massive explosions instead of the ghostlike ways the SSNs had.

“Weapons, launch that damn bird right the hell now. Conn, as soon as the bird breaks the surface, take us down to twelve hundred meters.”

It was a relatively short flight for the missile, its twenty or so MIRVs breaking separating and diving right back down, their ECM and decoy systems jamming and making the radars that could burn through think their were sixty birds instead of twenty. In the end, just short of two megatons worth of explosives leveled the same area the first test had been conducted, but this time far more building were destroyed and the animals were killed further out.