From:	Justin Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject:	Re: More Problems?
Date:	Mon, 24 Mar 1997 15:01:44 -0800

Paul J. Adam wrote:
>In message <199703240705.XAA13621@****.ugcs.caltech.edu>, Justin Fang
><justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU> writes

>>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?

>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.

That sounds plausible, not that I was really objecting in the first place.

>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.

Well, Jaimie Nicholson had that cult under Gibraltar with that utterly
looney scheme to make a virus lethal to everything on the planet not
specially engineered to be immune. They obviously didn't (and couldn't)
succeed, so I don't know if you want to count that.

>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.

Offhand I'd guess a late 20th cen spacesuit would as well, but I can see why
they didn't get around to trying one: difficult to use in 1G, for starters.

--
Justin Fang (justinf@****.caltech.edu)
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