Nuking Boston, Repercussions and shockwaves Options

[Pepsi Jedi]

Just off the top of my head..

Small drone. goes in and attaches itself to the hull via some sort of glue. (( not magnetic because that could be detected)) or actual mechanical attachment (( grabs hold with little drone hands or some shit)) Sits there and lets the sub pull it around. Some of it's programing allows it to be smart enough to detach and 'hide' if someone comes out in scuba gear to go over the hull. It's not like Subs jump up out of the water to be visually inspected. They would of course be specifically designed not to add drag to the sub or change the aquatic acoustic fingerprint of the sub.

Other than that. They could attach themselves via a grapple to the sub some how and be towed. (( much like towed sonar bouies are)) or any of a half dozen other ways.

Subs just aren't that fast. They don't go tooling around like the Seaquest. (( whom I might point out had it's own drones. lol "Whiskers')) I mean if I can come up with a couple ways for it to work in a few seconds thinking about your post, how many ways would real military scientists get to do it with some dedicated thinking and implementation?

[Manunancy]

On teh sub's end you can have a shoal of drone inspectign the hull at every stop or even making a pass around. Or one can design a nanotech-laced hull coating that will destro any unwanted crap attaching istelf to the hull. Sure you can pay scientists to devise new and improved ways to find the subs but what's to prevent you from spending the same sort of cash to find ways to defeat those new toys ? There's no reason why the guy designing the cuirass would be any dumber than the one designing the sword.

Play that game of counter-counter-counter-measures for long enough and you'll end up jacking the cost into absurdity. Most corps will toss the towel way before that, especially for systems they have no real use for.

One comment about nuclear propulsion and speed : even if the sub moves slowly when it's on station, nuclear power means the sub can move from station to station fast (up to 25 knots for modern subs), sustaining that speed 24/24 and 7/7 wihtout worrying about fuel. That sort of strategic mobility isn't easy to match, even if at those speeeds a sub is definitevely noisy..

[Pepsi Jedi]

On teh sub's end you can have a shoal of drone inspectign the hull at every stop or even making a pass around. Or one can design a nanotech-laced hull coating that will destro any unwanted crap attaching istelf to the hull. Sure you can pay scientists to devise new and improved ways to find the subs but what's to prevent you from spending the same sort of cash to find ways to defeat those new toys ? There's no reason why the guy designing the cuirass would be any dumber than the one designing the sword.

Play that game of counter-counter-counter-measures for long enough and you'll end up jacking the cost into absurdity. Most corps will toss the towel way before that, especially for systems they have no real use for.

One comment about nuclear propulsion and speed : even if th sub moves slowly when it's on station, nyclear power means the sub can move from station to station fast 'up to 25 knots for modern subs), sustaining that speed 24/24 and 7/7 wihtout worrting about fuel. That sort of strategic mobility isn't easy to match, even if at those speeeds a sub is definitevely noisy..

The first half of your post is my exact point. For every sneaky thing they develop they come up with a counter. and sure a sub can PLOW through the water if it trys but that cuts out all tactical advantage of being a sub. And they can't go flank speed indefinably, the engines and what not aren't built for it.

But yes. The point is, that it's cost prohibitive for little return on investment. In the day's of thor rounds and what not wouldn't that just be easier?

[hyzmarca]

The Entire Eastern Seaboard is FUCKED. How big was the explosion, how wide is the Radiation fall out. Luckily most crap flows North in Eastern US, so Quebec is going to be taking it up the tail pipe.

If you're targeting population centers then you're using an airburst. Airbursts don't dig up huge craters and thus they don't throw out much radioactive materials.

Ground detonations are only used for bunkers and missile silos, as they're extremely inefficient. And it's ground detonations that cause fallout by throwing up clouds of radioactive dirt.

Boston is fucked. Exactly how much depends on where the nuke detonated exactly. There is a fairly large margin there. ICBMs are not precision weapons (which is one of the reasons why you need many tens of thousands of them if you want to seriously fight a nuclear war).

[Dahrken]

To Kzt : The missile signatures can prove that they are an S-K model, but this not prove they have been fired by S-K. Considering the development cost of those beasts I find extremely unlikely they are the only users of the design. If a guy is shot dead with an Alpha, does it make Ares the perpetrator ?

A lot of pointed questionning and accusations punctuated by a lot of sabre rattling is likely to arise, but not instant and outright "go for the throat" aggression. S-K is probably a major actor on Boston's stock market (like all the other AAA) and would shoot itself in the foot by nuking the city, and both the launch pattern and the follow-up actions by S-K are not consistent with a preemptive attack of any sort, suggesting some terror plot using captured/stolen S-K hardware rather than an S-K plot.

This obviously would be a major setback for S-K, they would have to finance most of the clean-up and reconstruction and pay hefty compensations, but I don't think this would result in an Omega order on them.

If Ares reacted as swiftly and violently as Kzt suggested, IMHO the others megas would be more likely to stand and watch the fight, then gang on the weakened survivor, than to back up one of them...

An again, if a private actor like Ares (even considering it's ties into the UCAS government) feels the need and is able to pinpoint the location and ownership of each and every single nuclear submarine on the planet real-time, this simply means that the technology is obsolete and Lofwyr is unlikely to invest into it for S-K use, negating the whole scenario from the start.

[kzt]

Boston is fucked. Exactly how much depends on where the nuke detonated exactly. There is a fairly large margin there. ICBMs are not precision weapons (which is one of the reasons why you need many tens of thousands of them if you want to seriously fight a nuclear war).

On inertial a D5 warhead requirement was a CEP of 90-120 meter, actual demonstrated accuracy is supposed to significantly better. Using GPS a warhead is good for about +- 5 meters. And close does count with h-bombs.

[RainOfSteel]

So what, hypothetically, might happen if 6th world Boston got hit with a ballistic missile? I ask because an, erm, friend of mine might have had this come up in a game session the other day and he's not quite sure what the global fallout (no pun intended (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ) should be.

Most responses seem to be based on the political ramifications and retaliation. If you're interested in what happened to Boston itself, then:

The Effects of Nuclear Weapons

[Manunancy]

The Fallout manual also includes a good descritpion of effects, smilar to a compact version of tha post, along with destruction radii for different powers of weapons.

[Dahrken]

HERE IS A LINK to the Fallout manual.

[kzt]

Most responses seem to be based on the political ramifications and retaliation. If you're interested in what happened to Boston itself, then:

The Effects of Nuclear Weapons

Choose an aimpoint, choose a warhead yield, and draw a series of concentric circles.

[Ogrebear]

My thoughts on this are given the OP said the nukes went off that S-K could have played the 'our sub has been seized' card and gone to the CC and warned the other Corps even as the missiles was in the air. They throw spirits, drones etc at it, along with the other Megas but somehow one gets through and Boston goes Boom! Now if its a ICBM and a multiwarhead one perhaps the Runners/Mega's efforts got all but a warhead or two and thus the damage is hideous but not as total as a full load of an ICBM would have landed.

Given 'they tried' S-K then comes off much better than if the truth comes out later. They can spin to the CC that 'terrorists' seized their facility. Its not unheard of on SR Earth going back to the Long Eagle incident through to Winternight. I would not be surprised if S-K did not offer the Runners up as their sacrifice to the media/CC.

S-K survives this intact, if not in fact a little ahead if they finance the rebuilding of Boston on their own lines/terms. Very unlikely the other Mega's can do much about it if Scaly spins it right.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Very unlikely they can do much about it? If you launch a nuke and take out one of the biggest cities in the UCAS and one of the oldest cities in the country and one of the ones with the most history and a few million people. "Oops our bad. We tried" isn't going to do ANYTHING To slow down the CC.

Part of 'having nukes' is the responsibility that comes with them. If you can't insure beyond a shadowof a doubt that there's no way, no possible WAY for someone to just take one and take out Boston then you shouldn't have them. If you DO have them and you ---allow--- them to be taken and used against a civilian target.... whoooo.

No way Ogrebear.. They're toast. Even in the jaded world of Shadowrun and 2072 if you NUKE Boston... you're buggered but good. There's pretty much no excuse on how/why that's going to slow people down.

Remember SK is on top. it behooves the other members of the CC to take them down. It's pure win for them. EVERYONE is going to want a bite of that pie when it's put on the table and that Omega order comes down. When they go after SK they're going to do it with a giggle and a smile and they're going to TAKE as much as they can as SK is ripped up.



BUT


I STILL


Reiterate

The Golden Wyrm is not that stupid. He would not have nukes that could be taken from him and used against him in such a manner with out havint 471 different ways to stop them before impact. He's presented as levels of magnitude smarter than people in Shadowrun. He's many levels smarter than your average RP'er. He's thought this crap out. If he HAS nukes. _____HE______ Controls them. Not the people on the boat.

[CanRay]

Wouldn't he just shot-put the nukes from Germany? I mean, he is a Great Dragon! Just throw them up, levitate them until the Gaiasphere runs out, and it comes down in a ballistic arc. Wouldn't even need rockets.

Put in some steering fins and an optical sensor in the nose to direct them, and it's even a smart munition. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Nath]

Very unlikely they can do much about it? If you launch a nuke and take out one of the biggest cities in the UCAS and one of the oldest cities in the country and one of the ones with the most history and a few million people. "Oops our bad. We tried" isn't going to do ANYTHING To slow down the CC.

Part of 'having nukes' is the responsibility that comes with them. If you can't insure beyond a shadowof a doubt that there's no way, no possible WAY for someone to just take one and take out Boston then you shouldn't have them. If you DO have them and you ---allow--- them to be taken and used against a civilian target.... whoooo.

No way Ogrebear.. They're toast. Even in the jaded world of Shadowrun and 2072 if you NUKE Boston... you're buggered but good. There's pretty much no excuse on how/why that's going to slow people down.

Remember SK is on top. it behooves the other members of the CC to take them down. It's pure win for them. EVERYONE is going to want a bite of that pie when it's put on the table and that Omega order comes down. When they go after SK they're going to do it with a giggle and a smile and they're going to TAKE as much as they can as SK is ripped up.

One thing is bugging me here. The very basis of the story is that Saeder-Krupp has nukes. So, when confronted with an Omega Order and the military forces of all the other prime megacorporations, what Saeder-Krupp is going to do with all the others nukes it has if they're toast ?

There was an expression coined for that : Mutual Assured Destruction.

[Pepsi Jedi]

That's just the thing. Having nukes and USING them are far different. You have nukes to keep others from using nukes on you. Even in war you don't jump straight to nukes. Conceivably if the triple A's have nuclear capibile weapons delivery platforms (( like boomers)) they keep an eye on the other's boomers. If one launches and destroys Boston the CC Meets, in emergency and the order comes down from Orbital. Then the other 9 act almost instantly based on their contengancy plans for.. "If one dumb ass corp launches a nuke that takes out boston" and the one dumb ass corp that did it isn't hit slowly with an attack here or there but with 9 mega corps all moving with ill intent and free hand.

If they try and fire off more nukes, the other 9 are watching and ready and the intercepts.

If you didn't PURPOSEFULLY Launch a nuke to take out Boston, you're not just going to go "Aww frak it. Launch the rest of them. might as well destroy the world if they're coming for us."

[Ascalaphus]

Instant massive retaliation is such a bad idea.

- What if you have a miscommunication and think the enemy attacked? If you don't wait to confirm that it really is war, you might start the war yourself.
- Or what if enemy A is framed by enemy B? If you launch before checking, then you and enemy A might be nuking it out all for enemy B's benefit.
- What if it's really just one nuke, by accident? Is that really worth burning down the world?

If global nuclear war starts, then the corporations lose everything. After a global thermonuclear war, there won't be any economy anymore. Nuyen has lost all meaning.

You can't actually win a nuclear war; in a nuclear war, everyone loses. The purpose of nukes is to make sure nobody can take you out without going down himself too.

You can't gamble that you'll be able to intercept "acceptable" amounts of enemy missiles. If even 5 modern nukes get through on say Japan, that would annihilate Renraku, Shiawase and MCT - both their own holdings and most of their market. They're not willing to risk that.

[CanRay]

They'll have to switch from the Nuyen to the Bottlecap. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[kzt]

You can't gamble that you'll be able to intercept "acceptable" amounts of enemy missiles. If even 5 modern nukes get through on say Japan, that would annihilate Renraku, Shiawase and MCT - both their own holdings and most of their market. They're not willing to risk that.

The threat is why preemption exists. Once someone shows they are an active deadly threat you kill them. You don't talk to them, except as part of tactical maneuver. And the Japaneses are the ones with dozens of tens of thousand of ton solar power satellites that beam gigawatts of power down via microwaves. You can deliver that same power in other forms, say at a much shorter frequency with a much higher degree of collimation. And gigawatt scale beam lasers can do other things than swatting missiles out of the air.

[hyzmarca]

You can't gamble that you'll be able to intercept "acceptable" amounts of enemy missiles. If even 5 modern nukes get through on say Japan, that would annihilate Renraku, Shiawase and MCT - both their own holdings and most of their market. They're not willing to risk that.

You wouldn't get all their assets, not even close. Not with so few weapons and certainly not limiting attacks to one country. Remember, AAAs operate globally.

Also remember that nukes obey both the the cube root law and the inverse square law. Apparently, a city such as London or Tokyo would survive a nuking mostly intact, unless hit multiple times.

[Nath]

You wouldn't get all their assets, not even close. Not with so few weapons and certainly not limiting attacks to one country. Remember, AAAs operate globally.

Any way, an Omega Order is never going to result into a simultaneous global strike against all the targeted corporation assets at once. Assuming the Corporate Court does some planning for such operation, they will first "cordon off" the area to limit the amount of damage on the economy (like, closing stock markets and having the major financial players withdrawing their money before the bust), then strike the security and military assets, and it is only the last stage to destroy and seize other valuable assets to effectively enforce the penalty. Operation Reciprocity (which was or wasn't an Omega Order, depending on whom you ask) actually did not go much past the second phase. The only final target was a military complex in Ensenada.
Compare to the ongoing operations in Libya : they did not try to enforce a no-fly zone before actually blowing up the ground air defenses.

When the objective is to destroy valuable assets, nuclear weapons certainly are an overkill. However, they also have a sub-strategic and tactical value that may comes in hand during the second phase. If the targeted corporation has ICBM silos, an aircraft carrier group at sea, or an underground bunker full of magicians, nuke is an option. It is not the only one available, but it is nonetheless an option.

But that's from the attackers point of view. MAD works well to prevent the use of nukes as a first strike weapon. The real risk is nuclear escalation when one side is on the brink of losing. Get a few armored divisions within a click of Moscow, Pyongyang, Jerusalem or any capital of a country with nukes, and see what happens. A full-fledged Omega Order against a corporation is just the same : you give them the promise of a total dismantlement of the corporation no matter what they do (plus, in our case, probably standing trial for the Boston attack). Oh, the guy in charge or the soldier with the button may decide to be a hero and save the world. Or not. The question is, would you give it a try ? The question is, would you give it a try with Lofwyr ?

The reason behind the veto right at the UN Security Council is that any attempt to effectively punish US, USSR, China, Great Britain or France would result in a huge devastation (it worth noting that was before most of them actually had nukes, while GB and France still had their colonial empires). The Corporate Court has no such provision to avoid this. It doesn't mean they're dumb enough to try it.
All the prime megacorporations would love to destroy a competitor. If all they really needed was an excuse, they would have done it a long time ago. The Corporate Court role is not to punish bad deeds, it is to maintain a good business environment and keep the nuyen flowing. Operation Reciprocity goal never was to punish Aztechnology for supporting nationalization in Aztlan (you f'in human-sacrificing Horrors-aligned communists !). It was to have them stopping the nationalization.

So, Boston downtown is history. Trying to destroy Saeder-Krupp is not going to help or bring it back. And just attempting to get that may result in a disaster. Asking them to repay for the destruction, and relinquish their nuclear weapons, sounds more reasonable. Launch a few surgical strikes if they refuse to comply, and ban countries and megacorporations to have business with them. It may still result in a total war if Lowfyr is in a bad mood. But unless he was already looking for an excuse to go at war, chances are he will accept.

[Pepsi Jedi]

While that was a very nicely thought out and very well articulated post, it rules out the fact that SK just nuked a major city of a soviergn country. There's going to be more than just "pay a fine" which is bascily what yours comes to. "Pay a fine or get spanked"

the UCAS could revoke the extraterritoriality of the corp or just open up in global war as they were attacked with Nuclear weapons. If China nuked Boston and went "oops our bad" we're not just going to go 'No worries. Toss us 2.5 trillion and we'll call it even." There's going to be reactive action. Not only by the country that was attacked with nukes but all their allies and their allies allies.

Your post was very nicely put but it's leaving out the part where someone ----NUKED----- Boston and killed millions of people.

Look at what happened when 3,000 people died in 9-11.

Now imagine ___nuking___ Boston.

There's going to be alot more than a fine and paid reparations.

[Ogrebear]

Thing is... yes part of Boston got nuked. Yes lots of people will die. Yes lots of history was wiped. Yes there are annoyed UCAS politicans and public.

And?

The CC and the Megas are not going to order the destruction of S-K - its would be a very hard task, a very painful one and the gains are probably not worth it to them given the balance of loss of life, biz and having a dragon frakked off at them. Lofwyr knows a lot of secrets, knows a lot of magic and knows a lot of Shadowrunners and other assets he can put into play the second someone even suggests an Omega Order. Heck if they did try it odds are it would spark a global Megacorp war not just 'Them vs S-K' - Lofwyr knows how to handle situations so its everyone vs everyone.

Also I simply cannot see the CC acting without finding out what exactly happened and verifying that it was indeed S-K's missiles, and indeed S-K did or did not intend to declare war. Once it comes down to an investigation and talking S-K and Lofwyr will get out of any sort of attempt to close them down. I suspect there will be lots of opportunities for Shadow strikes at S-K assets assessing their defences or stealing their stuff ahead of any final CC decision.

Remember one thing about SR; terrorists (Sears Tower), Shadowrunners, rouge AI (Stock Market crash) etc all routinely take over assets not belonging to them and use them to cause harm- yes the outcome is bigger than normal here, but there is total president for S-K to turn around and say 'we lost control' and get away with it.

[Pepsi Jedi]

You're failing to see the base point of the equasion. Your "And?" Pretty much sums it up as much as "Yes there are annoyed UCAS politicans and public"

Annoyed?

If one of their largest Citys and stock market was NUKED? lol "Annoyed"?

Sorry but we're just not talking about the same universe. if nuking a major city only makes some people a little annoyed... then your game is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy different than mine and way different from anything resembling realistic response to such an occurrence. (( and yes. it's a game with dragons and elves, but there's also the presumption that there's logic and nations react as nations would and all))

My suspension of disbeleife doesn't extend to 'Oh .. we're very annoyed with you, Mr Naughty Dragon. Don't nuke our cities... and you have to rebuild what you burned up and irradiated... and we'll just shove the few million people you killed under the rug and call a mulligan"

[kzt]

At the very least it's likely hit a record high temperature in Essen. Hope you wore you SPF 25,000 sunblock.

[Ascalaphus]

The UCAS could go to war, but then the most likely result is that the rest of the UCAS gets nuked too.

Notice how no country with nukes was ever attacked in open war by another country with nukes? Compare Iraq to North Korea. Attacking NK is out of the question because they could nuke Japan in retaliation, and everyone knows the regime is crazy enough to do it.

So what other options does the UCAS have? Demand reparations, demand the "dismantling of S-K's nuclear arsenal", demand that heads roll in S-K upper management. They could get that. But destroying S-K isn't an option.

---

Anyway, I vaguely remember that the CC members actually have veto power. Operation Reciprocity took a loooong time to plan because they had to do all kinds of maneuvering to get around Aztechnology's back. And S-K is a lot better at that kind of thing: it'd be very hard to do any kind of "by the books" job.

So if the CC ordered an Omega Order, they'd also be violating their own dearest principle: that the permanent members are invulnerable. They probably expect Zurich Orbital to be rigged to explode if they vote to attack S-K, too.

Look at how Lofwyr seemed to be one step ahead of everyone during Crash 2.0. Of course Lofwyr has a plan just in case the other AAA's ever turn on S-K. Dare they really find out?

Lofwyr is the kind of dragon who would probably burn down the entire world if someone tried to take him down. And given the time and resources he's had, it's totally certain he can. We'd be talking worldwide VITAS-6 epidemics, nukes on oceanic fault-lines that do go off as planned to wash away everything on every coast, the Matrix destroyed, satellites dropping down. Doppelgangers in every major corporation, sleeper agents becoming active. Nukes turning on their owners, astral rifts to let in the Shedims' bigger brothers, perhaps asteroids on a collision course. Enough overkill that nothing would remain for the AAA's to look at and even pretend it was anything other than total defeat.

I don't think the CC would stand by and let the UCAS do something as stupid as engaging S-K.