Aliens attack! Nasty locust skull suckers with super tech built by slave worlds...

[GePap]

And to show why more but smaller warheads are better, if you were to drop the same 20,000 MT in the same way, but this time use 1000 20 MT bombs and not 20,000 1 MT bombs, the area you damage to this degree measures 8,820,000 Sq Km, or about 39% of the area using the smaller bombs.

This is an illustration why all the nuclear powers moved to smaller waheads they could deliver in a wider pattern. Same Magetonage, but very different areas affected.

[Ted Striker]

Cool links GePap

The nuclear weapons have been off the radar for the past 15 years. It is still quietly and expensively being maintained.

What the hell do we need 5000 nukes for though??

What I thought was cool was that they could recycle the rockets and use them to launch things into space, or use them as conventional missles.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Lancer
Ted, I didn't get into Europa Universalis though...did you?

GePap, like I said, what about the radiation?

'Mars Attacks' is on TBS, just by chance.

A 1 MT bomb sends out immdiately lethal radiation out to 2.3 km;s, or an area of 17 Sq Km, and causes acute radiation syndrome up to 2.9 Km's, or 26.4 Sq Kt. So within that area we devastated, only a total of 26,400 Sq. Km would die instantly of the radiation poisoning.

The fallout would certainly spread and cover vast areas. But look at the arae under Chernobyl- its not a "lifeless desert", life is there, certainly its not healthy to be there, and as I said, the risks of birth defects, cancer and being sterile are very high, but the fact is much of life is more resiliant than us.

So no, earth would not be a lifeless desert.

You would certainly do a lot to kill most human beings and other big animals, but life would soldier on.

And as I said, if aliens can cross the radioactively hazardous regions of interstellar space, they must have some great radiation shielding.

More on nuclear fall out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout

[Lancer]

The destruction of humanity would cause the locust brain suckers to leave for lack of food.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Lancer
The destruction of humanity would cause the locust brain suckers to leave for lack of ffod.

Fine, but then we lose anyways, don;t we.

Dead at their hands, or ours....

[Lancer]

Well no, they set up nests and start harvesting humans. That would go on forever.

[GePap]

Well, honestly then, as a species, the first outcome is better, because human beings stay around longer.

Think of it this way, we eact chickens, but there are more chickens today than there have EVER been. Thanks to our appetite for chicken, that species is secure.

So, which is better, and end of humanity, or humanity continuing, but as a food source?

In a cold, biological level, better to be cattle than dead.

[Q Classic]

uh.... lancer?

i wouldn't need such an extreme situation. i'd do it simply to hasten mankind's extinction.

aliens using humans for brain food.

[Lancer]

Some humans live on in underground shelters.

[Urban Ranger]

I haven't seen anybody mentioning the scenario is extremely improbable.

Beings evolved on another world is highly unlikely to have a taste of our flesh, let alone our brains. We may even be poisionous to them.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by GePap


Well, I did some little math.

If you take the Wikipedia site for the blast effects, you find that each 1 MT bomb can, depending on local conditions, cause 1st Degree burns out to 19 Km's, and moderate building damage out to 17 Kms.

That works out to about 907 Sq Km of space at risk of moderate building damage, and 1133 Sq Km at risk of 1st degree burns. Again, actual conditions vary.

So, lets imagine we had 20,000 1 MT bombs, and we were to set them all equadistand from each other over the whole world's land mass (none over water). If we were to set them all off, we would cause the level of damage I spoke about above to 22,660,000 Sq km. Certainly a vast area, or about 15.2% of the 148,940,000 Sq Km. of the world's land area.

I have no doubt that would be enough to wipe out human civilization. But turn the world into a lifeless desert? Hardly.

And after all the foilage not vaporized has burned? And after the rest was deprived of light for an extended period of time? How much of the surface could not be called a desert then?

[notyoueither]

You're causing first degree burns over 10% of the land surface of the Earth.

You think anything else survives even if it doesn't get directly scorched?

[Lancer]

"I haven't seen anybody mentioning the scenario is extremely improbable.

Beings evolved on another world is highly unlikely to have a taste of our flesh, let alone our brains. We may even be poisionous to them."

They eat brains. That's what they eat. Brains. Got it?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lancer
They eat brains. That's what they eat. Brains. Got it?

Yeah, but our brains are going to taste different from the Qulanntx from Beta Lyrae III.

[notyoueither]

UR has a serious lack of imagination if he thinks our brains could not taste better than those of the Qulanntx from Beta Lyrae III.