lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 13, 2018 14:16:14 GMT
So to attack a enemy who might have in the front lines cures to some, is to make sure to hit them with viruses they do not have a antidote for. It would be a brutal intelligence war. Spies will be murdered. Operations sabotaged. Counter-intelligence and counter-counter-intelligence as well. It would be crazy. Did that not happen already when there where nukes. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 13, 2018 14:47:56 GMT
In the event of such a high level bacteriological [or more technically virus] war I think there would be a distinct probability that somewhere an accident would occur, possibly more than once. Especially given that more powers might seek to develop and deploy such weapons. Even nastier you might have someone 'testing' weapons by deploying some secretly and seeking to blame the victim for an accident in their own programme. Or for a terrorist group to get their hands on such a weapon.  |
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jasonsnow
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Post by jasonsnow on Jun 13, 2018 16:23:03 GMT
It would be a brutal intelligence war. Spies will be murdered. Operations sabotaged. Counter-intelligence and counter-counter-intelligence as well. It would be crazy. Did that not happen already when there where nukes. Yeah, but this time, there is a way to neutralize the enemy's weapons, meaning nations will be more desperate to see what the other's doing. |
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raunchel
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Post by raunchel on Jun 13, 2018 16:24:59 GMT
As someone who has done her PhD in biochemistry and happens to know a few things about building viruses (I even made a few, it's much more boring than it sounds), I never really agree with the optimistic (or is it pessimistic) views of biological weapons you frequently see in the media. First of all, they aren't actually good weapons, not even for a MAD situation. Biological weapons just are too uncontrollable. The nice thing about nukes is that they can be controlled. You drop them somewhere, and aside from the fallout, you know exactly what happens. Biological weapons don't have that nice advantage. This alone makes it very unlikely to use such superbioweapons except as a suicide strategy, which large nation-states are unlikely to develop for obvious reasons. If it was different, the superpowers would have done it in the cold war.
Added to that, it is a lot harder to do than people often think. Engineering something to be more lethal and all that is difficult, and a lot of it depends on a massive scientific knowledge base that just wasn't there. And however you go about it, you can't just force it to come into existence any faster than it actually did. If only because it's impossible to know what to invest in in advance. Aside from that, for a very long time, it all will seem to be just a pipe dream, there just isn't a clear development path to take.
Of course, you could take a less scientific approach, and just grow everything in bulk, mass-testing on cell cultures and all that to find a better version. But this can't start until you have good human cell-culturing. And even then, it doesn't tell you anything about anything else. You don't get any information of how well a given virus works in terms of spreading. Their lack of proofreading and the like will also lead to very quick mutations, so you will only end up with a virus optimised to kill cell cultures. So, you get something useless. Or you could go another route, and actually select strains from humans, infect others, and keep going like that. Perhaps the Nazis could have gotten away with that, but for instance the post-Stalin USSR could never do such a thing. The same goes for the western democracies of course.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 14, 2018 10:18:21 GMT
As someone who has done her PhD in biochemistry and happens to know a few things about building viruses (I even made a few, it's much more boring than it sounds), I never really agree with the optimistic (or is it pessimistic) views of biological weapons you frequently see in the media. First of all, they aren't actually good weapons, not even for a MAD situation. Biological weapons just are too uncontrollable. The nice thing about nukes is that they can be controlled. You drop them somewhere, and aside from the fallout, you know exactly what happens. Biological weapons don't have that nice advantage. This alone makes it very unlikely to use such superbioweapons except as a suicide strategy, which large nation-states are unlikely to develop for obvious reasons. If it was different, the superpowers would have done it in the cold war. Added to that, it is a lot harder to do than people often think. Engineering something to be more lethal and all that is difficult, and a lot of it depends on a massive scientific knowledge base that just wasn't there. And however you go about it, you can't just force it to come into existence any faster than it actually did. If only because it's impossible to know what to invest in in advance. Aside from that, for a very long time, it all will seem to be just a pipe dream, there just isn't a clear development path to take. Of course, you could take a less scientific approach, and just grow everything in bulk, mass-testing on cell cultures and all that to find a better version. But this can't start until you have good human cell-culturing. And even then, it doesn't tell you anything about anything else. You don't get any information of how well a given virus works in terms of spreading. Their lack of proofreading and the like will also lead to very quick mutations, so you will only end up with a virus optimised to kill cell cultures. So, you get something useless. Or you could go another route, and actually select strains from humans, infect others, and keep going like that. Perhaps the Nazis could have gotten away with that, but for instance the post-Stalin USSR could never do such a thing. The same goes for the western democracies of course.
Well that's nicely reassuring, especially from someone with a good degree of technological knowledge in the field. 
I must admit that, hopefully because I'm being an elderly cynic, I'm less confident on your last couple of sentences. Given their attitude to political opponents especially, if virus weapons seemed to be the way ahead I could see them and a lot of other nations/regimes trying such things. Wouldn't totally rule out the western powers either if you think of things like the STD experiments on blacks on the US which IIRC went on into the early 1960s.
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raunchel
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Post by raunchel on Jun 14, 2018 13:17:50 GMT
As someone who has done her PhD in biochemistry and happens to know a few things about building viruses (I even made a few, it's much more boring than it sounds), I never really agree with the optimistic (or is it pessimistic) views of biological weapons you frequently see in the media. First of all, they aren't actually good weapons, not even for a MAD situation. Biological weapons just are too uncontrollable. The nice thing about nukes is that they can be controlled. You drop them somewhere, and aside from the fallout, you know exactly what happens. Biological weapons don't have that nice advantage. This alone makes it very unlikely to use such superbioweapons except as a suicide strategy, which large nation-states are unlikely to develop for obvious reasons. If it was different, the superpowers would have done it in the cold war. Added to that, it is a lot harder to do than people often think. Engineering something to be more lethal and all that is difficult, and a lot of it depends on a massive scientific knowledge base that just wasn't there. And however you go about it, you can't just force it to come into existence any faster than it actually did. If only because it's impossible to know what to invest in in advance. Aside from that, for a very long time, it all will seem to be just a pipe dream, there just isn't a clear development path to take. Of course, you could take a less scientific approach, and just grow everything in bulk, mass-testing on cell cultures and all that to find a better version. But this can't start until you have good human cell-culturing. And even then, it doesn't tell you anything about anything else. You don't get any information of how well a given virus works in terms of spreading. Their lack of proofreading and the like will also lead to very quick mutations, so you will only end up with a virus optimised to kill cell cultures. So, you get something useless. Or you could go another route, and actually select strains from humans, infect others, and keep going like that. Perhaps the Nazis could have gotten away with that, but for instance the post-Stalin USSR could never do such a thing. The same goes for the western democracies of course.
Well that's nicely reassuring, especially from someone with a good degree of technological knowledge in the field.
I must admit that, hopefully because I'm being an elderly cynic, I'm less confident on your last couple of sentences. Given their attitude to political opponents especially, if virus weapons seemed to be the way ahead I could see them and a lot of other nations/regimes trying such things. Wouldn't totally rule out the western powers either if you think of things like the STD experiments on blacks on the US which IIRC went on into the early 1960s.
Those experiments used only a few hundred people. The Tuskegee one for instance had something like six hundred, and that is by far the most infamous one. To really do selection experiments you need tens of thousands, if you're very lucky. And that's not even very much and relies on a lot of luck. I think that for many regimes, that will be much harder to prepare. You also won't just be making them ill with something that won't kill them, you will effectively be killing them rather quickly. That kind of thing is much harder to cover up. Added to that, you will only be getting very minor improvements, at a very high cost. Another issue is that you can't let your subjects come into contact with other people, you don't want to cause an accidental epidemic. Of course, you could quite easily get different antibiotics resistances and the like in there, but that isn't nearly enough to make a very dangerous bioweapon. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 14, 2018 13:47:22 GMT
Well that's nicely reassuring, especially from someone with a good degree of technological knowledge in the field. I must admit that, hopefully because I'm being an elderly cynic, I'm less confident on your last couple of sentences. Given their attitude to political opponents especially, if virus weapons seemed to be the way ahead I could see them and a lot of other nations/regimes trying such things. Wouldn't totally rule out the western powers either if you think of things like the STD experiments on blacks on the US which IIRC went on into the early 1960s.
Those experiments used only a few hundred people. The Tuskegee one for instance had something like six hundred, and that is by far the most infamous one. To really do selection experiments you need tens of thousands, if you're very lucky. And that's not even very much and relies on a lot of luck. I think that for many regimes, that will be much harder to prepare. You also won't just be making them ill with something that won't kill them, you will effectively be killing them rather quickly. That kind of thing is much harder to cover up. Added to that, you will only be getting very minor improvements, at a very high cost. Another issue is that you can't let your subjects come into contact with other people, you don't want to cause an accidental epidemic. Of course, you could quite easily get different antibiotics resistances and the like in there, but that isn't nearly enough to make a very dangerous bioweapon. Now i see a image of Stalin ordering his scientist to experiment on the people in the Gulags in Siberia. |
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raunchel
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Post by raunchel on Jun 14, 2018 14:29:34 GMT
Those experiments used only a few hundred people. The Tuskegee one for instance had something like six hundred, and that is by far the most infamous one. To really do selection experiments you need tens of thousands, if you're very lucky. And that's not even very much and relies on a lot of luck. I think that for many regimes, that will be much harder to prepare. You also won't just be making them ill with something that won't kill them, you will effectively be killing them rather quickly. That kind of thing is much harder to cover up. Added to that, you will only be getting very minor improvements, at a very high cost. Another issue is that you can't let your subjects come into contact with other people, you don't want to cause an accidental epidemic. Of course, you could quite easily get different antibiotics resistances and the like in there, but that isn't nearly enough to make a very dangerous bioweapon. Now i see a image of Stalin ordering his scientist to experiment on the people in the Gulags in Siberia. Stalin might have tried it if he saw any kind of advantage. But the thing is, bioweapons don't really have any of the advantages that nukes have, they actually are pretty worthless as weapons. Stalin was many things, but he wasn't excessively wasteful. And besides, he never did that OTL, even when nukes weren't there yet. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 14, 2018 14:34:38 GMT
And besides, he never did that OTL, even when nukes weren't there yet. So no mass testing, even if it is by one of the worst dictators ever. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 14, 2018 15:45:49 GMT
Well that's nicely reassuring, especially from someone with a good degree of technological knowledge in the field.
I must admit that, hopefully because I'm being an elderly cynic, I'm less confident on your last couple of sentences. Given their attitude to political opponents especially, if virus weapons seemed to be the way ahead I could see them and a lot of other nations/regimes trying such things. Wouldn't totally rule out the western powers either if you think of things like the STD experiments on blacks on the US which IIRC went on into the early 1960s.
Those experiments used only a few hundred people. The Tuskegee one for instance had something like six hundred, and that is by far the most infamous one. To really do selection experiments you need tens of thousands, if you're very lucky. And that's not even very much and relies on a lot of luck. I think that for many regimes, that will be much harder to prepare. You also won't just be making them ill with something that won't kill them, you will effectively be killing them rather quickly. That kind of thing is much harder to cover up. Added to that, you will only be getting very minor improvements, at a very high cost. Another issue is that you can't let your subjects come into contact with other people, you don't want to cause an accidental epidemic. Of course, you could quite easily get different antibiotics resistances and the like in there, but that isn't nearly enough to make a very dangerous bioweapon.
OK thanks for explaining. Agree that its unlikely in the west but in an ATL where nukes are impossible I wonder if Stalin, with a lot of space and plenty of undesirables, not to mention several million German POEs might have tried it. Especially if some scientist suggested it as an idea that could be practical. If not him I could see Mao trying. The Kim's might also try but it doesn't sound as if they wouldn't have the time or population to spare.
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raunchel
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Post by raunchel on Jun 15, 2018 7:29:18 GMT
Those experiments used only a few hundred people. The Tuskegee one for instance had something like six hundred, and that is by far the most infamous one. To really do selection experiments you need tens of thousands, if you're very lucky. And that's not even very much and relies on a lot of luck. I think that for many regimes, that will be much harder to prepare. You also won't just be making them ill with something that won't kill them, you will effectively be killing them rather quickly. That kind of thing is much harder to cover up. Added to that, you will only be getting very minor improvements, at a very high cost. Another issue is that you can't let your subjects come into contact with other people, you don't want to cause an accidental epidemic. Of course, you could quite easily get different antibiotics resistances and the like in there, but that isn't nearly enough to make a very dangerous bioweapon.
OK thanks for explaining. Agree that its unlikely in the west but in an ATL where nukes are impossible I wonder if Stalin, with a lot of space and plenty of undesirables, not to mention several million German POEs might have tried it. Especially if some scientist suggested it as an idea that could be practical. If not him I could see Mao trying. The Kim's might also try but it doesn't sound as if they wouldn't have the time or population to spare.
Stalin would be dead too early for something like that to really work. I don't really see the ideas developing that quickly. Mao might be crazy enough, but because of the lack of good medical technology and general scientific know-how he will find it very hard. And of course, when China modernises, he's one of the people who least benefits from new superweapons on the world stage. Especially because more backwards nations will also be the most vulnerable to any kind of plague. And an engineered one won't be that much deadlier anyways. Not with the knowledge and technology of the time. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 16, 2018 9:18:31 GMT
I wonder if scientists are going to study the reasons why it is not possible to create nuclear weapons.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 16, 2018 9:44:54 GMT
I wonder if scientists are going to study the reasons why it is not possible to create nuclear weapons.
Well it would depend on the exact circumstances. Presumably some degree of fission still occurs, else a hell of a lot of physics especially will have to change, but for whatever reason its simply impractical to harness it into a chain reaction that can produce that amount of energy. Which probably means reactors aren't practical either, or at least fission ones. However if they can see fission occurring in nature then there will be people thinking about whether they can develop an energy source from it.
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