| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <paul@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: More Problems? |
| Date: | Mon, 24 Mar 1997 19:49:15 +0000 |
<justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU> writes
>Paul J. Adam wrote:
>>"We developed Randall Flagg. It is lethal in minutes, and astoundingly
>>persistent. The material establishes itself in the soil, in sand, in
>>any silicate material - concrete, for instance - and remains active and
>>deadly. For centuries, according to our tests. Anywhere contaminated by
>>RF becomes unapproachable for generations. The agent does not spread or
>>seep, it simply stays put, a malevolent and eternal stain of death."
>
>I know, I know, it's a McGuffin weapon, I shouldn't think about it too much,
>but: if it just stays put and doesn't spread or seep, then how does it get
>to things that enter the contaminated area years later? If, say, it seeps
>through any protective material until it reaches skin, then why doesn't it
>also seep outwards through the ground or water? Alternatively, if it kills
>using ultramicroscopic particles which work their way through filters, then
>why doesn't the wind pick up these particles and spread them around?
It reacts with, and bonds to, silicate material (like concrete or rock),
spreading through it. Exposure to moisture, such as dust being inhaled
or being rained on, changes the agent to a mobile and active form:
unfortunately or luckily, also a very reactive and short-lived one.
That's what kills you.
Hence the long exposure time for the contaminated area: most exterior
surfaces are fairly clean, the agent is kept back from the surface by
reaction with rain. However, anything not regularly wetted down is
lethal. The agent spreads through the material it infects, but the dust
drifting off it isn't able to do anything except kill or die.
How it beats the filters we didn't get round to working out, it just
does because we say so :) Might be corrosive, might be insidious, we
didn't decide.
It is something of a McGuffin, but it's an idea that came up in a
different game a few years back, when we wanted a really really lethal
weapon that wasn't useful enough for everyone who heard about it to try
to duplicate it: plenty of other weapons work just as well, this would
be horribly complicated, and it's easier just to dump a few hundred
spent nuclear fuel rods on the target than to try to develop it.
I also wanted an alternative to Big Bombs or nukes: the last time anyone
tried large-scale biowarfare was, if I remember rightly, Dante and his
gamma-anthrax.
And, actually, an X-E chemsuit will stop this, but nobody's tried so
nobody knows: the Crash and Bass's shutdown put an end to the testing on
Rongelo, and weapons like Seven-7 and their countermeasures postdate the
Crash by a decade or more.
--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
