The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Night_stalker]

Yeah, I don't think we'll be able to determine it for some time

[Kie99]

If it comes to cancer (which, as previously mentioned, I doubt), here's an uglier thought:

There's nothing to stop them growing, not even the effective death of the human in question. They're not dependent on food to replicate, or apparently (given the pitch-bathers) even mass.

They could very well go on duplicating forever, forming something of a world-eating blob. A rather bizarre end for heaven, but there's nothing obviously preventing it.

Move the blob to Earth and it'll die very quickly.

[Night_stalker]

yeah, it should. If it doesn't then we might have a problem.

[EdBecerra]

Whoever said it was a good thing this didn't include screaming women and children was right; it's a nightmare. I'm guessing all the living survivors of the nuclear strike won't last the fortnight; they all got massive 3rd degree burns and hefty doses of radiation. And I was wrong; Elhmas didn't have a snowball's chance in hell to report what was happening; he got toasted *first*.

I am expecting, however, that the witness will be hospitalized by Mike's doctors once he reports to Yahweh about the total destruction of his son with his army.

As his feathers are falling out already, he's probably taken a dose of at least two grays, probably more.

Or, if you want to use the older measurements, at least 400 rads, probably 600. In short, he's a walking corpse. Give him some heroin after you debrief him and end his suffering.

Unless, of course, angelic healing deals better with radiation poisoning better than humans do.

Ed.

[Chris OFarrell]

Well that bit of the story was...chilling.

But I wonder at the single big nuke. Given the valley that was funneling the troops -and blast effects- wouldn't it have been better tactically to drop two lower yield weapons at the head and tail of the troop column, fry them and let the two blast waves crush the troops trapped between the detonations?

Of course, not that it matters.

Given how hard this was on even the Generals and people who knew exactly what they were doing, I am going to be very interested in seeing Caesar get a cold hard view of just how terribly destructive we humans are these days. I mean he's had fun playing his power games and building up his forces and so on...

I mean he was shocked by the carnage we managed in Heaven -though I can't see why, he MUST have seen what the Russians did to the main Hell Army which was many many MANY times worse- but this...

[open_sketchbook]

I doubt it would be worth it to expend two devices for that. Best use one and let the survivors tell of what the humans did with just one weapon.

[Edward Yee]

Forget letting the survivors tell -- there's just no reason to use more than one against the Incomparable Legion unless intending the complete annihilation of everyone in it as a specific goal, as opposed to "merely" rendering it "combat ineffective."

I want "the nuke scene" from some pre-nuke Second Lifer and demon POVs, stat!

[iborg]

By the way, if people do spot the bits I left out of the description of the physics package, it's probably better not to post them. We don't want to give people ideas.

Damn, and here I was trying to build one in my backyard shed !
No wonder it didn't work !

[Night_stalker]

Ahh, now I see what I've been doing wrong. Crap, now I have to get it out of my basement and quickly!

[Michael Garrity]

Iborg, Stuart et al:

Back in the 1970's, a student at Harvard wrote a senior paper titled 'How to design an Atomic Bomb'. As part of the writing process, he called Dupont and got them to tell him what kind of high explosive (major whoopsie on their part). He ended up getting an 'A' for the paper.
Two items of importance here are that his academic adviser was Dr. Freeman Dyson, and that once the Government saw what he wrote, they seized all copies and backup materials and classified them Top Secret.

Mike Garrity

[Stuart]

A fine example--in some places, you get *reverse* "burned shadows," in locations where the heat pulse scorches the background more than the flash bleaches it, leaving an area of unaffected *lighter* image in the shadow. Never been too sure if anyone knows how to predict which you'll get...

Burn shadows are usually secondary effects. Remember, nuclear initiations are Left Handed Bastards. The sequence of effects is Light - Heat -Blast. The gap between them gets greater as one moves further away from Ground Zero. Too close in and the sequence don't really matter but when one gets further out, it becomes very important.

An example. One of the simplest and most effective defenses against a nuclear initiation is to paint your windows white (on the inside of the glass) and draw the curtains. That means you can't see the fireball and if you can't see it, it can't hurt you. OK, seriously, remember the sequence. Light arrives first - it's reflected by the glass and attenuated by the curtains. Then the heat flash arrives and it's reflected by the painted windows. Heat is only a problem if it strikes something flammable and glass isn't. Then, right on the heels of the heat wave is blast. this blows the windows in (the curtains help catch the fragments) but the glass has done its job.

At Hiroshima, the weapon used was so limited in yield that its effects did not extend far enough for all of the above components to seperate. At best, the gap between them was less than three seconds. However, here, we are seeing a vastly more powerful weapon (more than sixty times more powerful) so the effects spread out in time more.

So, what happens is that the light flash bleaches things leaving the shadows on whatever. When the heat flash arrived, the dark areas absorbed more heat than the lighter areas so they charred more, intensifying the effect (this is why at the Hiroshima Zoo, the dark-coated animals caught fire slightly before the light-coated animals). At Hiroshima, charring effects overwhelmed bleaching because of the short distances. Here the reverse is true.

[Ellindsey]

As horrifying as the effects of the nuclear device initiation was, I don't think the conventional alternative would have been better. A quarter of a million angles and humans killed through conventional bombs, bullets and bayonet, would have been no less horrible. The nuke may have actually been the more merciful option, at least it was over quickly for most of the dead.

[Simon_Jester]

Burn shadows are usually secondary effects. Remember, nuclear initiations are Left Handed Bastards. The sequence of effects is Light - Heat -Blast. The gap between them gets greater as one moves further away from Ground Zero. Too close in and the sequence don't really matter but when one gets further out, it becomes very important.

How, mechanically, do you get the heat pulse? It can't be direct infrared radiation because then it would arrive simultaneously with the light pulse...
[wanders away, confused and mumbling to self]

[Baughn]

Nuclear reactions don't emit (much, relatively speaking) infrared radiation, either; their peak is.. where is their peak? I assume it follows a rough black-body curve except for the direct gamma emission, but how hot is this thing exactly?

Anyway, most of the infrared you see will be from the blast heating surrounding air, which then re-emits as infrared. There's going to be significant time lag in that process, as you probably need several chains - air molecule absorbs x-ray photon, stays excited for a bit, emits several UV photons, absorbs UV photon, stays excited for a bit, emits a couple infrared photons... that sort of thing. So the higher frequencies get there first.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Burn shadows are usually secondary effects. Remember, nuclear initiations are Left Handed Bastards. The sequence of effects is Light - Heat -Blast. The gap between them gets greater as one moves further away from Ground Zero. Too close in and the sequence don't really matter but when one gets further out, it becomes very important.

How, mechanically, do you get the heat pulse? It can't be direct infrared radiation because then it would arrive simultaneously with the light pulse...
[wanders away, confused and mumbling to self]

Not quite. The heat pulse does come after the initial pulse of bright light. When a nuclear device initiates, it produces a hail of gamma rays, which shred the surrounding atmospheric gasses into a rapidly expanding ball of plasma. The photons become trapped in this plasma, bouncing around from atom to atom, making the whole thing expand until the surface temperature drops enough that the initial wave of photons escape, having lost enough energy to be 'merely' hard UV and x-rays. These have to undergo a few more interactions with the surrounding medium before they become the visible light flash. All this vigorous interaction produces the shockwave which expands faster than the mini-sun at the center does. The heat pulse comes when that ball of plasma continues to expand into the vacuum left behind by the shockwave and cools enough to start radiating as a black-body that's 'merely' as hot as the surface of a star, rather than the core of one.

The larger the initiation, the longer the period of time that elapses between the point when the first photons manage to lose enough energy to escape the surface of the fireball, and the point where the fireball can expand and cool to the point that it starts to radiate copious amounts of thermal energy. Of course, if you're sufficiently close, the radiative intensity of the initial flash will be sufficiently high that the vigorous interaction that those photons will be making with your molecules will make you radiate strongly in infrared and raise your temperature to the point where you undergo combustion. However, if you're further away the visible flash is merely blinding, and will be quite distinct (if only by a few seconds) from the heat pulse generated due to the sustained blackbody radiation of the expanding, cooling, fireball. Which, of course, will be quite distinct from the blast front lagging well behind.

This is my understanding of it, anyway.

[Baughn]

It's probably worth noting that the reason sufficiently hot photons "fail to escape the fireball".. is because when they do, they just expand the fireball instead.

[Simon_Jester]

Not quite. The heat pulse does come after the initial pulse of bright light. When a nuclear device initiates, it produces a hail of gamma rays, which shred the surrounding atmospheric gasses into a rapidly expanding ball of plasma. The photons become trapped in this plasma... making the whole thing expand until the surface temperature drops enough that the initial wave of photons escape, having lost enough energy to be 'merely' hard UV and x-rays...

These have to undergo a few more interactions with the surrounding medium before they become the visible light flash. All this vigorous interaction produces the shockwave which expands faster than the mini-sun at the center does. The heat pulse comes when that ball of plasma continues to expand into the vacuum left behind by the shockwave and cools enough to start radiating as a black-body...

The larger the initiation, the longer the period of time that elapses between the point when the first photons manage to lose enough energy to escape the surface of the fireball, and the point where the fireball can expand and cool to the point that it starts to radiate copious amounts of thermal energy.

Ah. All is explained. Thank you.

Thinking it over, I've heard of the phenomenon in a different context; the cosmic microwave background started out as the heat pulse of the Big Bang, currently estimated as originating 380 thousand years after the event.

[Eevin]

The glass plain with the lake... It was one of the mos horrifying, beautiful nightmare-inducing images I've learn. I think I lost my words.

Can anyone recommend something serious to read about the after effects of a nuclear explosion? From the glass planes and the burn shadows to the radiation damage to living beings. Something with scientific explanations if possible. I know a lot has been explained, but I can help but be terrified and curious.

[iborg]

An example. One of the simplest and most effective defenses against a nuclear initiation is to paint your windows white (on the inside of the glass) and draw the curtains. That means you can't see the fireball and if you can't see it, it can't hurt you. OK, seriously, remember the sequence. Light arrives first - it's reflected by the glass and attenuated by the curtains. Then the heat flash arrives and it's reflected by the painted windows. Heat is only a problem if it strikes something flammable and glass isn't. Then, right on the heels of the heat wave is blast. this blows the windows in (the curtains help catch the fragments) but the glass has done its job.

Woot ! Now I know what to do to survive if a nuke explodes near my place !

Okay, and does hiding in the fridge work too ? (Indiana Jones reference, obviously).

[Saint_007]

Before everyone can scream for your blood, iBorg, let me say: No. Just No.

The fridge worked against radiation because it was lead-lined, but I'm thinking that if you're ground zero on a ground blast, the radiation's going to be enough to be lethal, lead shielding or not. Secondly, it's a major "wallbanger", to quote TV Tropes, because Indy was effectively at ground zero of the blast - the fridge would get crushed like an empty soda can, turning one idiot adventurer into pulp, which would then be cooked to a crisp by the intense heat and radiation. Today's fridges don't contain lead - it would make them too heavy and lead is a health hazard, which you don't want around food.

Last of all, hiding in a fridge is a bad idea IN GENERAL. Fridges of the 1950's weren't safe to hide in. IIRC, even today, with all our safety-conscious appliances, people still die of hunger and suffocation when trapped in a fridge. !950's fridges were effectively heavy deathtraps, so once Indy got in, they'd need a jaws of life and a rotary saw to get him out. Lucas was - forgive me for saying this, everyone - pulling it out of his ass.

EDIT: Just check the Indy Jones "Just Bugs Me" page and do a search (Ctrl+F) for "fridge". It's in spoilers, but it explains why the gimmick worked - because it's a goddamn movie. Do that IRL and you're a Darwin Award winner...

[Baughn]

Thinking it over, I've heard of the phenomenon in a different context; the cosmic microwave background started out as the heat pulse of the Big Bang, currently estimated as originating 380 thousand years after the event.

Different mechanism entirely. The cosmic microwave background has not been absorbed and re-emitted; the 380-kiloyear horizon for it is specifically because before then, it was.

Its current low wavelength is purely due to red-shifting from an expanding universe.

[Ruadhan2300]

yah...you never hear about flying debris from a nuclear blast...I mean, at those ranges in the blast, you get temperatures hot enough to flash-boil lead. that fridge wouldn't have lasted more than half a second. as for riding the blast wave....not a chance, that thing's moving at hundreds of miles an hour, you might be able to if you started the fridge moving beforehand....

[Bayonet]

Can anyone recommend something serious to read about the after effects of a nuclear explosion?

You might try The Effects of Nuclear Weapons by Glasstone and Dolan.

http://knowledgepublications.com/homela ... detail.htm

I bet Amazon has it, too.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

An example. One of the simplest and most effective defenses against a nuclear initiation is to paint your windows white (on the inside of the glass) and draw the curtains. That means you can't see the fireball and if you can't see it, it can't hurt you. OK, seriously, remember the sequence. Light arrives first - it's reflected by the glass and attenuated by the curtains. Then the heat flash arrives and it's reflected by the painted windows. Heat is only a problem if it strikes something flammable and glass isn't. Then, right on the heels of the heat wave is blast. this blows the windows in (the curtains help catch the fragments) but the glass has done its job.

Woot ! Now I know what to do to survive if a nuke explodes near my place !
:D
Okay, and does hiding in the fridge work too ? (Indiana Jones reference, obviously).

The best way to survive a nuclear initiation is to be somewhere else. Failing that, assuming you're far enough away that the blast effects might be survivable . . . the best place to be is in an interior bathroom. In the tub. Assuming the position. And hoping you're far enough away that all that'll happen is that the windows blow out.

[Night_stalker]

If you are at ground zero of a incoming nuke, all you can do is kiss your ass goodbye.