And once again, that is why you FOLLOW UP WITH FAB.

But why follow up with anything? Instead of weaponizing HMHVVIII, deploying it, waiting a week at least for the ghouls to get infected and then do their uncertain damage, hoping that the ghouls only attack assets belonging to your enemy, then following up with FAB, then ground troops for the final mop up, hoping that acceptably few of them get infected, why not just take White Star, an existing chemical weapon, drop it on your enemies, wait six hours to make sure the White Star is inactive, and then send in the ground troops?

HMHVVIII as a bioweapon just isn't practical.

We are all capable of reading you point in the regular color and font, we just happen to disagree. Making it huge and red doesn't add any weight to your argument.

Seriously, man, your argument defies reason. Its like saying you're going to create a magic raygun that makes people attract bullets, shoot your target with that and then go back so you can shoot them again with more accurate bullets. Why not just shoot them and be done?

hi hi

While I would think the economic and social upheaval from a massive HMHVV outbreak would be devastating enough, there is a sort of poetic, supervillain~ish quality to the HMHVV III then FAB III combination. (horrible things come in threes it seems)

The thing about HMHVV III and FAB III that makes them suitable as weapons is that they are self propagating. They feed, they grow, they multiply. So does Ebola Plus though.

Sure, if you just want a sinister plot for shear story value, then by all means HMHVV your ass off - in your game. But then I would agree with Khadim that to make HMHVV a better biowarfare agent you would want to make it a little less virulent - maybe an attenuated strain that was supposedly designed to only cause essence drain, and then... WHAMO! Zombie Apocalypse! Not all that original tho.

i don't think you paid very close attention to chicago. releasing FAB III there sure didn't do what it was hoped.

first thing, all those new ghouls are going to have magic 1. which means, they aren't a target. instead, you're going to have those FAB all going after the wards and such in the area. also, because you've just created a massive background count due to the chaos, destruction, pain, and so forth, you've just given the FAB something *else* to feed on first. assuming the FAB does eventually get around to going after all these freshly created magic 1 ghouls (in at the earliest 6 hours, probably more since the more people turn into ghouls, the more the background count keeps replenishing itself) i'm sure the other megas will love you for destroying all their high-force wards (which they paid for) their magical research projects (which, being higher than rating 1 most likely, will be targeted before the new ghouls).

in the meanwhile, the territory you were presumably wanting to conquer (otherwise you would've just nuked 'em from orbit, since it's the only way to be sure) is getting torn apart by feral ghouls. any people you might have hoped to rule over are dead, along with any of the knowledge you might have hoped to gain. by the time this whole mess is done with, you've got an absurdly large area infested with FAB III which will then go off to the rest of the areas nearby (who, i'm sure, will also love this just as much as the megas loved all their magical assets getting eaten alive). so, by the time the first 6 hours are up, you've been thor-shotted 50 times or so, every form of biometric test known to man has been performed on your smoking corpse, and you're (posthumously, since nobody is going to bother waiting) the subject of an omega order. also, everyone who was ever in any way related to you or did something kind for you no longer dares show their face in public for fear angry mobs will draw and quarter them on the spot.

basically, this is such a spectacularly stupid move, i can't see any sane person doing it. and if someone did do it, it wouldn't be much more than a few minutes before every single nation, corporation, and most of the individuals on the planet to declare war on you, and wipe you off the face of the earth, then desecrate your corpse, turn your name into an insult, and go on metaplanar quests to find and desecrate anything that could possibly be perceived as your spirit or being in any way related to your spirit. at least, assuming the spirits in whatever metaplane you wind up in don't do that to you first.

This was mindless speculation on my part. I wasn't sure it was feasible either... although it does have more shock value.

I was thinking of coming up with a genetically modified variant with slow onset and also genetically alter the profile to ensure the ghouls produced are of 'feral' intelligence. That said, for the reasons others postulated I'm not sure that it was practical. I just wanted to put it out there and see if it was.

I think it was more my "evil GM" colors showing looking for "shock-and-awe" rather than any practical measure.

- J.

I was under the impression that FAB was dual natured. If that is the case, why can't the ghouls just attack it and kill it in astral combat?

That being said-as a terrorist weapon (without the FABIII) is would be feasible. Of course then you get into dispersal and how far the infection goes. Let's suppose you do it in a hub for mass transit-the victims won't notice for a while until the nausea sets in. Even then-they will be thinking flu-not ghoul. At least until other tell tale signs show up. By that point they would be contagious and infect their cara takers. This would take alot of effort and resources to clean up. There would also be a significant amount of carnage as the new Ghouls begin to attack others.

And if the infidels don't like it-who cares, you are on a missin from the great pumpkin. You will be rwarded in the afterlife with a never ending supply of candy corn.

Ew, candycorn. You know they haven't made any new candy corn since like 1970, right?

Method my post wasn't meant as an agrument, it was my reaction to the fact that for some reason people seem to insist on pointing out that the newly infected ghouls can eat your own troops as being the biggest problem with the plan when it isn't, I think Jaid has spelled out the best counteragrument against openly using any biological or chemical warfare in the Sixth World's populated areas.

well, step 1: they have to sidentify it. threshold 3 assensing test. good luck, by the way; you can't default, and 99% or more won't have the skill.

step 2: they have to hit it. using astral combat. which you also can't default on. and of the 1% who can even spot the danged things, odds are good relatively few (maybe as much as 50%) have any astral combat skill at all.

that said, it is dual-natured. if they know it's there, they could probably kill it with various chemicals in the meatworld (lysol: clean yes, FABIII no!)

about the only hope of defending successfully, imo, is if the GM rules that charged wards beat up FABIII that tries to suck it dry (which makes sense, but strictly speaking it only beats up stuff that attacks it in astral combat, not stuff that tries to energy drain it). in such a case, 1 magician could probably save a lot of people. of course, if he doesn't make the ward stronger than his own magic rating, he's going to get eaten first, but hey, at least he'll take down some of the FAB with him.