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Ideas about locations of and types of survivors on Earth?

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Tue, 2010-08-03 11:35
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Ideas about locations of and types of survivors on Earth?
Arenamontanus wrote:
Someone dumping a big antimatter bomb on Chicago, no problem. But producing a *two hundred kilometre radius* crater? No way.
Easiest solution would be it's actually a cluster bomb (or carpet bombing). That makes more sense tactically and strategically as well.
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Wed, 2010-08-04 15:44
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Ideas about locations of and types of survivors on Earth?
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Arenamontanus wrote:
Someone dumping a big antimatter bomb on Chicago, no problem. But producing a *two hundred kilometre radius* crater? No way.
Easiest solution would be it's actually a cluster bomb (or carpet bombing). That makes more sense tactically and strategically as well.
Ah, it *does* make sense. An antimatter MIRV carpeting an area with ambiplasma fireballs ought to wipe out almost anything. Hmm, if we drop a 20 megaton nuke a la Castle Bravo (my "favourite" nuclear test, the most energetic mistake in human history so far) we get a 7 km fireball. This would require about half a kilogram of antimatter. So carpeting all of the Big Shiny would take about 2000 such charges, a ton of antimatter. Still pretty absurd, but not completely absurd. And if one were content to actually *have some space between the fireballs* I would imagine this is entirely doable - a few tens or hundreds of kilograms of antimatter. Dropping a thousand nukes is actually doable with current arsenals, although the yield is much smaller (modern missiles go for precision rather than megatons, which is good news nuclear winter-wise).
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Extropian
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Mon, 2010-08-09 15:03
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
Re: Ideas about locations of and types of survivors on Earth?
Decivre wrote:
Perhaps, but that depends on whether and to what degree their minds are being influenced by the exsurgent virus. A strain more similar to the Watts-Macleod virus might allow an infected TITAN war machine to grow a conscience.
I would think that if a war machine was sentient, and that there was a lot of them, they would individuate over time. A particular post-AGI sentience might not be affected to the same extent by Exsurgent, or even the same way as one produced a few digits up or down the list of serial numbers in its type/lineage. One might not have been strongly changed at all; maybe it fought off the infection while most of the rest of its kind did not for whatever reason.
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Tue, 2010-08-10 02:59
King Shere King Shere's picture
Re: Ideas about locations of and types of survivors on Earth?
The Doctor wrote:
Decivre wrote:
Perhaps, but that depends on whether and to what degree their minds are being influenced by the exsurgent virus. A strain more similar to the Watts-Macleod virus might allow an infected TITAN war machine to grow a conscience.
I would think that if a war machine was sentient, and that there was a lot of them, they would individuate over time. A particular post-AGI sentience might not be affected to the same extent by Exsurgent, or even the same way as one produced a few digits up or down the list of serial numbers in its type/lineage. One might not have been strongly changed at all; maybe it fought off the infection while most of the rest of its kind did not for whatever reason.
Or the machine has a familiar ego that once had a relation with the PC or attempts to build a new one. Once-humans are mentioned and I imagine Titan war-machines constructed utilizing the intellect of sentience. Zerg of Starcraft & Queen of Blades, and some others for a degree of inspiration. Should be quite unnerving to meet former friends that still act "somewhat" friendly and are the hostile war machines. "Look at me Mom, I am strong now" I liked the GlaDOS chirpy upbeat hostile sentry-bots behaviours, "Are you still there","There you are", "I don't blame you.". So I wouldn't discount the possibility that similarly merry antagonist war-machines become adopted by the players.
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Tue, 2010-08-10 06:43
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Ideas about locations of and types of survivors on Earth?
King Shere wrote:
Or the machine has a familiar ego that once had a relation with the PC or attempts to build a new one. Once-humans are mentioned and I imagine Titan war-machines constructed utilizing the intellect of sentience. Zerg of Starcraft & Queen of Blades, and some others for a degree of inspiration. ... Should be quite unnerving to meet former friends that still act "somewhat" friendly and are the hostile war machines. "Look at me Mom, I am strong now"
"*There* you are, baby! I forgive you that you ran away ten years back. Things were a bit confusing then... But now we can be together forever! We can sit an peel our skin and paint with brains like we used to. We can even get that apartment in Moscow we always dreamed of - I hear that the mortgages are really low... We can build a little garden, or maybe eat babies in the snow. What do you say?" Nothing makes team dynamic more relaxed and friendly than the presence of psychotic relatives that maybe just are TITAN-created delta forks, maybe actually are the person.
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Extropian
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Tue, 2010-08-10 09:39
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Ideas about locations of and types of survivors on Earth?
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Arenamontanus wrote:
Someone dumping a big antimatter bomb on Chicago, no problem. But producing a *two hundred kilometre radius* crater? No way.
Easiest solution would be it's actually a cluster bomb (or carpet bombing). That makes more sense tactically and strategically as well.
Ah, I was looking for this post! Reading the actual section of the book now, I'm thinking it's actually more likely an aerial detonation (possibly multiple). The idea wasn't penetration, so much as wide-spread wave of extremely high radiation and super-heated air. The result is a very wide scope of destruction, but it doesn't go especially deep.
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