Yeah, I sure as hell wouldn't want tungsten bone lacing, but I'd much rather take that than depleted uranium bone lacing if I had to choose.

Well, if your campagin continuously has players entering nuke plants or getting atomic weapons trained on them, whatever floats your boat....

It's just something you're not immune to, is all.

{deleted}

C'mon guys, it wasn't a serious question. Maybe I should've posted a smiley after it...

Cutter, this is the last time I answer any of your rediculus ideas, unless you're willing to put your actual credentials down (not "I looked at a website once"). No one said DU could not be shielded. What we just about all said was that due to the toxicity and radiation, the amount of shielding that would be required for a lacing proceedure would be significantly more than the amount of actual DU, by a factor of 4 or more most likely, since radiaiton shielding has to be thick and only some materials (read: dense materials that have to be shielded in their own right in the body) could function in that role. So you'd end up with tiny strands of DU, maybe half a millimeter of the stuff, with perhaps a full milimeter around sheath of lead (and if you remember your geometry, putting a 1 mm thick sheath around a 1/2 mm diameter wire results in a heck of a lot more material in the sheath than the wire), and then another 1/4 mm sheath of some inert material like titanium protecting you from the lead. So now we've got an enmourmous 1 1/2 mm radius, or 2 1/2 mm diameter... that may not sound like much, but it's pretty thick, and only a tiny fraction of the stuff is actually DU, so you really don't get the properties of DU in your bones, you get the properties of lead wrapped around by titanium. In other words, the shielding makes the whole thing unfeasable, which is what we've been saying... the added problem of course is that if the shielding is damaged, which is quite likely considering the purpose of bone lacing, then the body of the runner is exposed to all sorts of nasty toxic and radioactive goodness.

As for other cyberware, the issue you've missed here is surface area. Let's say for the moment that cyberware memory requires a small radioactive power source. Due to nano technology, that source is perhaps 1 cubic milimeter. Now, using the same figues as above, we'll coat that in 1 mm or so of shielding. Okay, now we've got a single box that's about 2 1/2 mm on a side. Now, this memory is for your brain, so this box is inside your skull. It's protected from damage (if inside your skull takes enough damage to crack the shielding, you're dead anyway). So we don't have to worry nearly as much about the shielding taking damage. The total area is also tiny. There's no problem here at all, in fact.

Anyway, that's the last time I respond to your innane, uninformed, ignorant ranting until you can post some kind of reason why we should be listening to you... I want to see some credentials. I want to know where you're getting this BS from. Either that, or I want you to never post again that crap about knowing when to shut up, because clearly, you don't.

And, jumping into the more fun parts of the conversation, I think immunity to Alpha or Beta radiation could be pretty doable, perhaps as an adept power, or perhaps as some funky mutation thing, especially if your character was from some very radioactive area (chernoble is still about, right?). I'm not sure I'd buy gamma radiation immunity, though even that is possible... I mean, in a game where you can summon fire elementals or get magical armour, stopping a few helium ions or electrons seems like something that SOMEONE can do, though it's likely rare.

And hey, did anyone else get a thought when reading about when tungsten gets to melting... a fire elemental with tunsten bone lacing! Wheeeeee!

Okay, maybe that was just me.

JaronK

Besides, if I remember correctly most all cyberware power sources--except high-drain systems like eye lasers and the like--work by siphoning electrical energy off of the nervous system itself, so there is in fact no mini-nuclear reactor or anything else implanted in the body, which would be pretty stupid anyway because that tiny amount of uranium wouldn't last more than a few minutes anyway before dropping exponentially in power.

Exponentially? Hardly. In fact, I'd guess that a uranium power source would lose about half it's power in, give or take, 4.5 billion years, assuming we mean U-238 here. Anyway, I was just giving an example of how you could shield a small device that wasn't designed to get smash about so much, but that it would be far harder to shield something with a massive surface area, like bone lacing.

Hmm, I didn't read that cyberware draws it's power from the body's nervous system... that would sure explain essense loss!

JaronK

I never thought of that before now. It DOES explain essence loss---it all makes sense now!

But I doubt bone lacing needs more juice than a radio...

Well, it explains a part of essense loss anyway. Though bone lacing, being heavier, would make it take more energy to move... meh. Anyway, it's a nice thought. It could also lead to a pretty interesting campaign idea, where a corp decides that the only reason you lose essense is nueral power loss, and decides to compensate for that with an internal mini-nuclear power plant, and you end up with some crazy form of cyber zombie with tons of cyberware, but something else wrong with him... who knows what, the GM could make something fun though.

JaronK

It's all in Man and Machine. Something about superconductors and the like basically operating cyberware off of your bioelectricity (though magically only drawing enough off that it doesn't really bother you). Unless you go base cyberware, you're probably running with myomers or other motivational motors that could work like muscles anyway, so no need for servos and the like.

I wish I paid more attention in engineering instead of biology, I really am talking out my ass now. If only we were talking abut bioware...

That would be true, if U-238 could be used in a fission reactor. Unfortunately it can't; species with such a long half-life simply do not generate a significant amount of electricity in a useful amount of time. The types of uranium, plutonium, etc. that are useful in nuclear reactor are the ones with shorter half-lives, like U-235 with its half-life of ~23 minutes, or ones like Pu-239, which still have such a long half-life that they must be extremely pure to ever produce a significant amount of power.

Cray74: Interesting. You'd think something that widely used (at least in some areas) would have had better studies of it's toxicity made. So it's probably somewhere between As Toxic As Lead and 1/20th As Toxic As Lead?

In any case, because you wouldn't need shielding against radiation, only to stop it from leaking into your body, we all agree that tungsten would be better than depleted uranium in almost every way, right?

Probably yes, but then you have to wonder... what's the point of putting something in the body that's just heavy? Still, I suppose with enough muscle augmentations it might be worth while... you'd have an intense amount of mass, combined with the power to drive that mass... you'd hit like a mack truck (and weigh about as much!). I'm not sure it would make sense on the open market, but as an NPC in a game it might be pretty cool. Perhaps a giant troll with all the appropriate strength upgrades, with Tungsten laced bones (with the appropriate titanium outer layer for protection). Have him do something like 20D damage in hand to hand or something. It seems like a very nice James Bond-esc villian.

U-235 has a half life of 704 million years, by the way, and works in nuclear reactors... I'm assuming that with future tech you could somehow create a tiny power plant with it. Anyway, it's not necessary if you get your power from the body itself, but it's an interesting thought... perhaps a nuclear powered cyber arm? Hmm, tack that one on to the troll above... hmm... I'm liking this character concept...

Now, U-239 has a halflife of 23 minutes... is that what you were thinking of? You create that by bombarding U-238 with neutrons. Quoting from http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele092.html now,

"Uranium-239 forms when uranium-238 absorbs a neutron. Uranium-239 has a half-life of about 23 minutes and decays into neptunium-239 through beta decay. Neptunium-239 has a half-life of about 2.4 days and decays into plutonium-239, also through beta decay." P-239 is then used in some nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons... probably not the best matieral to put in your head, since it can blow up. But P-238 would be an excellent power source... it's currently used in ultra long range space probes that need a power source that isn't reliant on the sun. It has a half life of 87 years, which is plenty for most cybernetics purposes.

JaronK

as a side note isn't fissionable materials heavily regulated? i mean that there was an entire novel about digging up a sunken sub to get nuclear warheads

i do realise that there is a BIG difference between a little bit of bone lacing (15kilos) and a nuclear warhead. however depleted uranium is still radio active, ergo it can still be used for a dirty bomb, not necessarily a good one but still...
i think that it would be next to impossible to actually get depleted uranium in shadowrun

EDIT ah well just about everybody thinks its a bad idea any way. interesting but impractical

Save possibly in bullet form. And even then, relatively hard to find.

It's not all that heavily regulated, even with the brand new American SS in place. If you gave me a month and little care for my long term health, I could build you a very unreliable and messy nuclear weapon.

And, yes, you could use DU for a dirty bomb, but as you note, it wouldn't be very good at all. As for DU lacing, I wouldn't say it's even that interesting. Just remarkably stupid, really.

and what is so wrong with an incedibly stupid thing being interesting?

ie

the darwin awards....

Literally.

Well, fuck me. Can't imagine why I expected even the slightest bit of sensible maturity from this forum.

Groovy. Both of you get started. We'll check back in one month.

The only remotely difficult part is acquiring and refining the radioactive uranium, and without proper equipment and facilities, it's basically impossible to do without killing yourself in a month with cancer. But if that doesn't matter, you can really make a bomb out of stuff stolen from a school reactor/accelerator and some common household/lab chemicals. From there, it's just technical refinement, as Cain points out.

As made evident by all the nuclear weapons being rampantly created across the globe. It's obviously sooooo easy to do. Maybe Cain can use his unstoppable kung fu powers to help him put it all together, and you can use your mastery of firearms to swindle some uranium from your neat-o contacts. Especially since, and I quote verbatim, "it's not all that heavily regulated."

You're both down to 29 days, 23 hours, and 50 minutes by the way. Tick tock. Tick tock.

I thought the point of your post was that you could get those materials in a month? That's what I find ridiculous.

"It's not all that heavily regulated, even with the brand new American SS in place. If you gave me a month..."

I'm sorry, Lime, I forgot: grow up. You barely act like you're 10, and I don't have time for children.

Zazen: acquisition of educational institution grade uranium ore is really not all that impossible. If it really came down to it, I wouldn't nail down a month as a realistically reliable time, but I wouldn't discount it either. It really isn't paid attention to as much as it should be, and stealing some is certainly possible. That's not to say it's truly easy, and one certainly can't walk into a school and find it lying on a table, or something, but it can be done. Done practically is another matter entirely. Done without killing yourself? Not really.

I'm not the idiot going around saying I can score nuclear material in a month, let alone build a bomb out of it.

29 days, 23:45

You'd need a lot, certainly, but not 300kg. It's already been refined from its natural state, even it not to the point of being weapons grade. The refinement process itself takes time, yes, but it's doable in a month, and pretty much all the materials you'd need can either be purchased from a lab supply store or stolen from a local high school. But do be prepared to die from this, as the proper materials needed for staying alive and not getting cancer are not exactly available.

Good lord. I stop checking the thread for a day and it goes from one pointless string of bickering to another. Can we let it all drop, people? PLEASE?

Good idea. Why, I think I advocated this myself a couple times, and yet a couple obnoxious children keep picking fights.

Aww... see? THAT'S certainly not helping!

Or maybe this thread is destined to bring down the Sadowrun Forum from within. Maybe it's cursed and we're all powerless to let it JUST DIE.

Or maybe nobody can swallow their pride and just let it go.

Yes, because you can't live up to your idiotic claims, I'm the uneducated one. Good job. You still have 29 days and change to prove me wrong, though. So get cracking. <clap clap> Otherwise, shut up.

*sigh*

Read the link I posted, willya? If you can't follow it, I'll find you an easier one.

But tell me, can you hit one rock with another one?

...

I wash my hands of this thread. Beware, for it shall CONSUME YOU ALL!

Zazen, to be honest, the kind of bomb that one can potentially assemble from stolen and exceedingly crudely processed fissionable material is not going to equal Hiroshima. At least, I rather doubt it could. Is it going to be nasty? I'd be willing to say so. Again, the month figure is not one I'd reliably stand by, as the time it takes to potentially score that kind of material is going to vary wildly depending on whom you know and how much you're willing to spend and risk. With the right connections, I wouldn't call a month impossible. Realistically, for most people with a death wish and not enough brains, they'll be caught by the FBI before they ever get close enough. But that's not to say it can't be done. And you don't need 8 tons. That's going just a little far.

[edit]

Well, straw men seem to be hugely popular with the kids these days. Me, I'm following my own advice and Smiley's example.