I heard the idea of a Doomsday Bomb in my childhood. Poul Anderson's Xoan, interrogated by a Monwaingi, explains it:
"Hordelin-Barjat: 'A set of disruption bombs. Buried deep in the planetary crust...and beneath the ocean beds...strategic locations - You are familiar with the technology. They - the bombs belonging to a given alliance - they would go off automatically. If more than three nuclear explosions above a certain magnitude occurred within the borders of any single member country...all those bombs would explode. At once.'" (p. 93)
By that account, the doomsday response would be avoided if an enemy caused either only three nuclear explosions above a certain magnitude or any number of explosions below that magnitude. But that is not the point. The question is: would a doomsday device be an effective deterrent? No. People are capable of committing suicide. Therefore, someone able to launch a nuclear attack might decide to take everyone else with him. In any case, accidents and all kinds of unforeseen events remain possible. A doomsday device: what a MAD way to try to ensure peace!
The two extra-terrestrials continue their discussion. When Hordelin-Barjat has said, "At once," Kaungtha responds:
22 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I take a certain grim relish in how skillfully Anderson was at hypothesizing the destruction of all life on Earth. But readers would soon read of how Donnan and Sigrid discovered flaws in the reasoning behind that doomsday scenario.
Ad astra! Sean
Note that even at the peak of the Cold War in the 1970's and early 1980's, a nuclear war would not have destroyed the human race. Civilization, possibly, but not humans. People tend to overestimate the destructiveness of nuclear weapons -- for example, 90% of the fallout from a ground-burst fusion bomb is gone after two weeks. 90% of the remainder is gone after a year.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Maybe it depends on technological changes? The nuclear exchange between the US and Maoist China frame working your Antonine books seem to be far more powerful than the bombs you described.
Ad astra! Sean
An H-bomb for every city of over a million people would pretty thoroughly demolish technological civilization, while leaving quite a lot of humans alive.
Kaor, Jim!
Then, going by the comments of both you and Stirling, I agree a large percentage of the human race would survive. And, because books and libraries would be so numerous, there would not necessarily be much loss of knowledge. Albeit some libraries would be burned as fuel by starving neo-savages in the chaos of the immediate aftermath of such a clash by China and the US.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: they'd survive the -war-. A large percentage would die in the economic collapse afterwards, though. No fuel for farm equipment, no hybrid seeds...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, untold millions more would soon die because of economic and political collapse. You reminded me of that paragraph at the beginning of "A Tragedy of Errors" describing how that could happen on an interstellar scale after the fall of the Terran Empire.
Ad astra! Sean
Aside from economic collapse causing more deaths, there is nuclear winter (or at least nuclear autumn) making agriculture much more difficult.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/scientists-say-these-two-island-nations-are-your-best-bet-for-surviving-a-nuclear-war/
Kaor, Jim!
That makes sense, because of all that dust kicked into the sky and blocking heat from the Sun reaching Earth's surface. Stirling used a similar idea for THE PESHAWAR LANCERS, when meteors or comets striking Earth in the 1870's caused similar effects.
Ad astra! Sean
Later studies determined that a nuclear war would lower temperatures a bit, but not much. Dust falls and you wouldn't get much very high up.
So no nuclear winter?
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And would these later studies have affected how you wrote THE PESHAWAR LANCERS?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: oh, that's different. Asteroidal or cometary impacts -could- produce prolonged cold.
The asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs (and 75% of species on earth) did, for example. Catastrophic climate change for at least a decade and possibly longer. Ferns and so forth were the predominant vegetation for a long long time afterwards.
Even if full nuclear winter is off the table, frosts in July would kill off people who otherwise would survive.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Jim!
Mr. Stirling: Good, I'm glad! I enjoyed THE PESHAWAR LANCERS so much I've read it three times.
In his SUPER VOLCANO books Harry Turtledove hypothesized that truly massive volcanic eruptions, like the Yellowstone hot spot blowing up, could kick so much dust/debris into the atmosphere that we would get a prolonged cold spell bad enough to be a Little Ice Age. Turtledove is very careful about his research I found that idea alarming.
The chance of another dino killer asteroid smacking Earth is yet another reason for mankind getting off this rock!
Jim: That too is something I find plausible.
Ad astra! Sean
We need a laser defence system for Earth and people living in self-sustaining orbital habitats which could become interstellar craft. We also need to save the Terrestrial environment.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree with your first two points. As for the third point, only nuclear power, replacing fossil fuels, will work.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Nuclear power, fine. There is much disagreement about this but it is not an issue that I am pushing either way here.
Paul.
Yup.
Note that economically exploiting space will lessen pressure on Earth's resources. Orbital solar power platforms beaming energy to the surface, for example, or asteroid mining.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I like all these ideas--but I don't expect them to become practical for decades. Which still makes nuclear power the only feasible alternative to fossil fuels in the immediately foreseeable future. And there's still plenty of ignorant opposition to both nuclear energy and space technology.
More power to SpaceX!
Ad astra! Sean
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