Questions tagged [weapon-mass-destruction]
For questions that deal with weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
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What drug and sensory weapons can be used instead of ballistic weapons?
I am working on a story where ballistic weapons are completely banned across the entire planet in favor of smell, sound, and drug-weapons.
For example, the police are equipped with somnambulizers ...
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When and how would Earth's history diverge if uranium/plutonium weren't present?
Let's imagine an Earth clone devoid of naturally occurring fissile materials—and, for comprehensiveness' sake, also devoid of fertile materials like thorium and americium that could be used to produce ...
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How would a pure fusion bomb change modern warfare
Currently most Nukes are actually thermonuclear fusion bombs ignited by a fission (uranium or plutoniom) bomb.
The fission bomb is like a lighting match that s needed to trigger the more powerful ...
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Piercing the Earth
How much force, momentum, and energy would be needed to have an object pierce through the Earth? I've tried to research this, but I could not find results for a mathematical value.
Assume the Earths ...
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Ecocide with a clear deliberate intent [closed]
So, I have this planet. Located on this planet is the call centre that keeps phoning at dinner time and will not shut up, even after I demanded to be added to their Do Not Call list, changed my phone ...
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Could we build and deploy a multi-gigaton nuclear bomb with today's technology?
Imagine you've somehow tranquilized or tied up Superman with a kryptonite rope or something, and the military wants to do a stress test so they can start building a series of anti-Superman bombs. So ...
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Could instrumentation on Earth detect a large scale nuclear exchange in a nearby star system?
Say a star system in the local neighborhood (~15 light years away max) has a species that did not survive its own version of the cold war. The result is the usage of tens of thousands of nuclear ...
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How quickly could a spaceborne missile accelerate?
Is there any practical g-limit for unmanned spacecraft, or could you theoretically push a missile to significant fractions of c in hours or minutes while pulling hundreds or thousands of Gs? I need to ...
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What's a safer design for a relativistic kill vehicle?
A large railgun mounted on the spine of a mega-scale starship (20-32km) or an antimatter-powered missile launched outside the ship? For clarification's sake, when I say "safer" I'm referring to "safer ...
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How do spaceship-mounted railguns not destroy the ships firing them?
And I'm not talking about the wimpy 32 MJ kind we have in the real world, I'm talking about the superweapon kind. Anyone familiar with Knights of Sidonia and their flagship's Heavy Mass Cannons will ...
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Creating an infinitely powerful weapon that doesn't make you infinitely dead
Let's say that hundreds of years from now our posthuman descendants finally do good on NASA's promises and build an Alcubierre drive or a true reactionless drive (either one works for this example). ...
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Planetary immolation part 2: gamma radiation blast
I am working on a book that features a form of "colonization" by destroying all life on a planet. The result of my first question related to this question : planetary-immolation resulted in a ...
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How a nuclear war in north hemisphere would affect the south hemisphere?
I'm trying to figure out how a nuclear war in the north hemisphere would affect the south (specially South America, where my story is set).
I read about the nuclear fallout and nuclear winter ...
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How bad is coulombs Force
Electrostatic force is number 2 in an ordered list of discovered fundamental forces by strength. So to test out its strength some highly advanced aliens think it would be great to check whether they ...
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Regeneration vs vaporization [closed]
Could someone capable of regenerating from a single cell or cell nucleus survive their body being vaporized? It doesn't have to be perfect vaporization, it just has to look like they've been turned ...
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Why not kill off most of humanity? [closed]
Climate change is accelerating at a terrifying pace, globalization is pushing more and more of the world to consume at an American scale, and world populations are growing at rates unimaginable just ...
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How fast is the shockwave of a nuclear bomb from 2-5m away?
Namely, would my superhero who can fly to the moon in minutes like Superman be able to outspeed the point-blank detonation of a nuclear bomb, thus defusing nearly all tension from any conflict not ...
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Could the moon be destroyed with current technology?
Terrorists gain complete control of the world's nuclear weapons and they want to destroy the moon. Could they do this with ICBMs? If not, is there enough power in the arsenal to destroy the moon if ...
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How might a capital ship keep its hangar secure without doors or force field
If force fields haven't been invented and ships must be able to deploy and return too fast for doors, how might a capital ship be able to protect its hangar from space debris and opposing fighters
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With current technology, genetically modified virus able to end mankind
Description :
Even in the ⅩⅩth century, biological warfare was studying only existing diseases.
But recently we're able to modify viruses in order to cure genetic impairments. Would it be possible to ...
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How can I make an anti-matter "rod" warhead for interplanetary delivery?
In the story I'm writing, a civil war is fought between Earth and Mars. Although there is a huge orbital and ground war campaign, conditions deteriorate to the point where Earth decides to unleash the ...
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Effects of a Moon-sized Sun-Cannon on Earth
Inspired by this answer, If that Lunar-plant is used as a weapon (pointed toward specific cities/forest/seas/lakes), how much damage it could really do? Is that able to burn cities, or anything?
I ...
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An Oil Pipeline--A Target for the Livens Flamethrower
Ranking highly on the list of the most devastating weapons in human history is a British invention for World War I--the Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector.
It measured 56 feet long and weighed two-...
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How would a self-propagating explosion like in the 1994 Independence day work?
In the 1996 movie Independence day, the Harvesters (aliens) had a devastating city-buster weapon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nahdy9SjbGs
This weapon, when fired upon a building from straight ...
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How would a nuclear blast on the moon affect its orbit? [duplicate]
Something I'm contemplating: If one faction destroys a large structure of an enemy faction with a nuclear device equivalent to a WWII atomic bomb on the moon. Would the force of the explosion be ...
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How to ignite the atmosphere?
Before the first nuclear weapon was dropped, a scientist (whose name has escaped me) had a thought: could it ignite the atmosphere? But this was during World War II, when they didn't have the maths it ...
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If all of the world's nuclear weapons were simultaneously detonated in one place, what would be the effect of this on the opposite side of Earth?
If all the world's know nuclear cache were to be placed in a single location and detonated, how would it effect the opposite side of the world?
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Utilize virus & bacteria to perform fast kills
Assume a supernatural character, who has control over billions of billions of virus and bacteria. It's not always an interesting concept, ss infections typically spread slow, and moreover, the nature ...
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A Non-Nuclear Apocalypse
The largest manmade explosion on record is Tsar Bomba, detonated at a yield of 50 megatons. There were other nuclear explosions that were given sensationalist names--Castle Bravo, the most powerful ...
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Planetary immolation
I am working on a book that features a form of "colonization" by destroying all life on a planet by basically doing on a large scale of what a "fuel-air-bomb" does. My question is what would be the ...
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Klemperer rosette vs Relativistic Kill Vehicles
In the book The Killing Star, Relativistic Kill Vehicles (RKV) are described as the ultimate weapon.
They are described as impossible to stop, so that any civilization that develops them better ...
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A nuclear weapon to destroy the earth - in public domain!
Aliens (or atleast we presume it's aliens) have radio broadcasted from a distant part of the universe. They have provided a method to create a nuclear weapon powerful enough to blow up the entire ...
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What is the highest magnitude of destruction practical for a WMD? [closed]
For my new short story, I was thinking about future weapon technologies, and there is one thing that does not leave me rest:
I can think about (SF-class, like anti-matter guns, space distortion ...
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How much energy to destroy the crust of a planet?
In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode The Die is Cast. A planetary bombardment scene occured where 17 shots was stated to have destroyed 30% of a planet's crust. Now obviously that's a HUGE amount ...
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How long after a global nuclear disaster would the world become habitable by humans again?
So at some point in the future, humans have small colonies on the Moon, on Mars and many space stations in orbit of all the planets in the solar system. Everything is going great until one day ...
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How can I kill off 75-90% of humanity by a non-biological weapon, but leave structures standing?
I'm making a world where approximately 75-90% of humanity was taken out by a non-biological weapon (i.e., no viruses or bacteria), but the majority of major structures, such as tall buildings, exist ...
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A weapon to attack the Solar System
Basis
We are in the universe we call our own, on the planet we call Earth, in the physics-set and known reality we assume. There is no flat-out "magic" or other things along those lines, so ...
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Supernova Rifle
Style
My crack team of engineers and scientists is building a new weapon; the Supernova Rifle. They assure me it's going to be very powerful but as Galactic Emperor I'd like to know that my space ...
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How deep underwater do I have to dive to be safe from a 1MT Hydrogen bomb detonation above?
It's just my typical luck: I discover and recover the billion-dollars worth of gold on a sunken galleon on the same day my arch-nemesis decides to detonate a one Megaton hydrogen bomb right above my ...
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How would the inhabitants of one planet kill the inhabitants of the other?
Two planets rotate each other and are tidally locked. They are where earth is around a star nearly identical to the sun. One planet is much wetter, featuring oceans, swamps, jungles, and forests. The ...
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Optimal way of galaxy destruction ?
What would be the most time/energy efficient way of converting entire galaxy into unusable heat ?
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How to destroy/decimate life on earth with chemicals?
If a country could produce compounds magically within a foot of them, given that the necessary atoms/elements are already there (could convert water to hydrogen peroxide, coal to diamond, Salt and ...
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Space Travel Without Understanding How to Create Atomic Weapons?
I have a universe where humanity has produced various civilizations on multiple planets (and no planet has achieved a single world government); and very few of these countries possess the know-how of ...
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How far would I have to be from a nuclear detonation in space in order to survive it?
Assume someone detonates a Hiroshima-sized nuclear bomb in space. Since in space there's no air, the bomb will behave differently than on Earth. In particular, there will not be an air pressure wave, ...
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Civilization self destruction prevention
In 1950 physicist Enrico Fermi wondered why we have found no alien civilizations even though there are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the observable universe.
Among other things, he ...
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What's the effect of a standard bullet hitting Earth at 0.99 c? [closed]
Let's say that some aliens got mad at us and decided to destroy Earth. A young child on one of the alien starships was playing with his toy gun which could shoot normal bullets at relativistic speeds.....
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Killing all adult people [closed]
My original idea is:
A group of scientists decides to kill all adult people (say people
over 18 years, include themselves) and leave the world for
children/youth, because the children are not ...
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Could a strong solar flare blind the eyes of living things that were out in the open?
I would like to know on how powerful a solar flare must be to affect blind the eyes of living things, if it's indeed possible. Will it blind only half of the planet, or will it emit for a day or two? ...
user10476
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What would be the consequences of detonating all nuclear weapons on the edge of space?
In today's Dr McNinja, the Vice President of the US (who is also a wizard) detonated all of Russia's nuclear weapons on the edge of space at once:
Copyright belongs to Christopher Hastings, 2015. ...
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How many years it is going to take to retain technology if Aliens attacked earth and destroyed every machine on earth?
Situation:
Aliens attacked earth. They used a weapon which produces waves, say "destorymachinewaves". It destroys the machines and takes them to space. So every machine on the earth was Destroyed. ...
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