Biological Weapon for Wars

[Kylonicus]

I was thinking of a way to invade enemy countries, that would allow rapid conquering, and assimilation of enemy populations. I was thinking of combining a sleeping nerve agent, with a nerve agent that's addictive, so that people would be knocked out by it, then once they woke up, they would be complete slaves to whomever could provide the drugs. I was also thinking of combining with a compound that would slightly lower the body temperature.

 

This way when you invaded, you could easily tell whose had the effect of the agent and who hasn't. Those who haven't have a slightly higher body temperature, which means they were probably part of the military, and should be shot. If they just so happen to have a gas mask, then they should either A) be shot, or B) be given the addictive compound to control them.

 

The addictive compound is only a short term solution for control, but it allows rapid assimilation.

 

 

 

 

I was also thinking of what if we created a virus, for which only we had the treatment/cure, and if we could make it as fast spreading as ebola, but as silent as AIDS, if we could make it spread from one person to another, but make it where it only appeared like 10-15 years after exposure, that way there would be maximum opportunity for the carrier to infect others, then we could use this to takeover foreign countries.

 

I believe if the virus were to simply make 99% of the population mentally doctile, and if it spread to the rest of the world, and we could keep it out, and it wasn't apparent who was causing it(we would need a plausible excuse why we weren't being "as" effected by the disease, such as we have better access to expensive medical procedures or this that or the other).

 

If they don't accept our rule, they either become mentally doctile, or die. After they realize what's happened, given enough time, and once the disease becomes apparent in the majority of the population(if not the whole population) then the foreign nation would be forced to develop a cure, or to join us. If we had problems with them, we could either use addictive compounds and conditioning to control them, computer chips and dependency(they die if the chip is removed), or transcranial magnetic stimulation(which can be just as addictive if not more so) and conditioning.

 

This work is theoretical, and for theoretical purposes only. I find this amusing to the think about.

I just want to know what the problems would be with this, excluding ethical ones, due to the fact that I am also interested in many other areas of pursuit, neural regeneration, curing cancer, HIV treatment, why not be interested in biological weapons as well.

[AzurePhoenix]

One problem with the virus. MUTATION!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kylonicus]

Yah, your right about that.

 

What about prions/mad cow disease though, if we could make a treatment for that, and if the western world(Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan included) countries poisoned enough foreign countries fast enough, without them detecting it, then perhaps we could takeover.

 

I don't know how effective these means would be for acquiring skilled labor, but I do believe they would be excellent for acquiring natural resources.

[donkey]

First off this thread is pretty sick, i hope you're just thinking of ideas for some dystopia story

 

If you're interested in committing genocide and killing 1/2 the world's population for their natural resources, why not just use more traditional chemical / biological warfare? I can't see prions being an effective weapon. I guess with traditional WMDs there may be a problem with contaminating the country.

[Kylonicus]

For

 

1, they containment the countries,

 

2, the shorter period of time it takes for a weapon to work, the easier it is to trace it back to it's source. Which is essentially what we do NOT want to do. If you poisoned China, or Saudi Arabia or some other place, and they found out, they'd hit you with everything they've got, and rightfully so.

 

The solution then is to not get caught, or by the time you do get caught it's too late for them to do anything.

 

Prions work well because the symptoms are vague, they produce a slow deterioration in ability(which means that the pilots and what not wouldn't be able to fly given enough time), and they are very hard to find the source of.

 

This would be an effective way of annhiliating enemies in the third world, for their resources.

 

This is especially great, because due to 9/11, we can blaim it all on terrorist. We've got a scapegoat. The reason we aren't as effected is due to better medical care and detection, and better terrorist enforcement. The source is the terrorist. This will simultaneously kill off countries which are our enemies, and hieghten the response to the terrorist.

 

Every country, fearing biological attack, would be more willing to step up and fight terrorism.

 

But don't worry, it's not like I'd ever do anything like this, I would never get consent from the U.S government.

[[Tycho?]]

With that drug thing you then have an entire population addicted to what must be an extremely potent drug, probably with some side effects as well. If you want that society to actually function, there could be problems. Plus the population must be constantly supplied with the drug. If the supply ever dwindles, then large scale riots would quickly follow.

[Kylonicus]

True, it would be difficult to find a drug that was that addictive and yet that potent.

 

Perhaps if people were only slightly addicted, but their cognitive functions were temporarily impaired(it's easy to make compounds which make individuals cognitive impaired, that can rapidly disseminate into a population), then people were to get to the supply depots where the addictive compound was supplied, then that might solve the problem of needing a high potency addictive compound.

[Xavier]

Years ago, before the fall of apartheid there were persistent claims and rumours that South Africa was promoting research aimed at engineering a bioweapon that would only affect black people.

In theory, this is not impossible to do but the South African paymasters were operating on presumptions based on political ideology, not science. There is no 'black' gene in the sense of their definition of black people so they didn't get anywhere (notwithstanding some conspiracy theories about AIDS and then Ebola, both of which appeared in Africa during the reign of apartheid.)

 

They didn't really define who their enemies were and the poster of this fantasy has the same problem. Even assuming the long list of requirements for these bioweapons could be met (possible), that no-one would suspect anything until it was too late (improbable) and that the U.S.A remained free of infection (impossible)* - who, exactly, are you planning to attack/subdue? Who gets to decide the list of targets? What about the French - they're pretty troublesome - or Mexico? And what about all those illegal immigrants already in the U.S., we could target them, and the gangmembers, the environmental activists...and how about the scientists? Those smart-alecs are always making difficulties and they mostly vote democrat anyway...

 

Draw a line between US and them and you'll never get any sort of agreement about precisely belongs with us. Even the line drawn around the human race which is pretty well defined generates some debate - should the fact that we can perceive a definable difference between humans and chimpanzees or dolphins make it ridiculous to allow that these socially and culturally active beings should have a right to life beyond our whims whilst everyone does who happens to share my body-shape, give or take half a metre and 100 kilograms (or a completely different set of genitalia, or no legs at all, or a mechanical device in place of a heart or..etc.)

 

Don't wish on your enemies anything you wouldn't want to see headed back at yourself!

 

*I am going to take the opportunity to recount a favourite story even though it dates back to the 1970s:-

A survey of American schoolchildren (aged 12-14) asked, amongst other things, the children to point out the U.S.A. on a map of the world. Two thirds of them pointed towards Australia. The surveyors suggested that during that era U.S.A. was so isolationist that the children were taught little of the outside world so they would look for the largest island on the map and guess that it must be there.

 

I will grant you that as British citizens, pining for the days of Empire, we know our political geography especially well (after all, we used to own it) but the insularity of Americans in their belief that they could get on just as well without the rest of the world was what made me more frightened of Americans having nuclear bombs than the soviets.

[5614]

Neutron bombs are also the more physics but have similar effects to biological weapons in that they hurt/kill people without damaging buildings and leaving the place dangerous for life for years after.

 

The neutron bomb releases a lot of neutron radiation which kills of everything within a certain distance and there's a relatively small explosion. So if you'd release one then when the army invades the landscape would be totaly normal, but everyone would be dead, you could take all their weapons and vechiles and progress.

 

They've never been used in war before. More on the neutron bomb:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb

[jdurg]

The problem with any virus, or easily transmittable 'thing', is that the world populace moves around so often now that you would not be able to contain it. The world isn't the same as it was 70-80 years ago where it was quite the trip to move from one continent to another. Nowadays, you can just hop on a jet and you're across the world within one day. As a result, there is no way to just contain a biological 'item' and have it remain in a target country.

 

For the drug idea, I believe it was once attempted before. I think it was the Germans who tried to come up with a hallucinogenic compound that they could spray on the enemy and cause mass confusion. What they came up with was Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, a.k.a. LSD.

[C3H5(NO3)3]

I just don't see why we somehow get the enemy to SOMEHOW (rig it maybe) to make Fr fall into water....get a load of francium and drop it in some water near the enemy or...SOMETHING like that, it's pretty simple and it'd be damn well effective...

[5614]

Except that the longest lasting sample of Fr ever made had a half life of about 22minutes IIRC.... so it wouldn't really be that practical

[AlexT]

i read about a poison called botulinum that ingested 1 gram is enough to kill 2o million people you could dump that into a water supply, mix it up and soon all users of that supply will be dead

[chatlack]

Or with a genetic drug...Some nations' DNA have different structure. So if you find any difference. Only your nation can stay alive...

 

BUT ITS ALL HECK!!!

[donkey]

i read about a poison called botulinum that ingested 1 gram is enough to kill 2o million people you could dump that into a water supply, mix it up and soon all users of that supply will be dead

yes it's very potent but it's not very stable, by the time it gets from the reservoir into the pipes it'll have broken down.

[Skye]

i read about a poison called botulinum that ingested 1 gram is enough to kill 2o million people you could dump that into a water supply, mix it up and soon all users of that supply will be dead

You could just inject it into their faces, and charge them money for it.

 

Botox

[donkey]

You could just inject it into their faces' date=' and charge them money for it.

 

Botox

that'll bring a country to it's knees!

[hyebeh]

holy hell... this is not even close to within the scope of modern science, our manipulation of virii is poor at best. the manipulation of viral DNA that we do today is the equivalent of closing your eyes and pointing and hoping it works. trying to combine AIDS and ebola and various other viruses would be next to impossible (and quite expensive)

 

also... this entire thing has deep seated ethical problems (mind control, enslaving??? this is like the bloody nazi regime)

[[Tycho?]]

Or with a genetic drug...Some nations' DNA have different structure. So if you find any difference. Only your nation can stay alive...

 

BUT ITS ALL HECK!!!

 

No. DNA doesn't match conviently over borders like that. Any genes unique to a region would be pretty widespread in that region.

 

And in todays world it wouldn't work at all, there are only a handful of tiny tribes that havn't had genetic influence from other areas. A virus that affects people in one country would probably affect people in all countries, as people are so much more spread out now.

[hyebeh]

yeah, with today's mixing pot of cultures and ethnicities, you would be hard pressed to find any virus that wouldn't affect someone in the united states. the united states has practically every ethnicity in the world represented.

[greentea]

you don't need bioweapons for mind control. there is a science called sociology invented for that

[Psion]

Tetrodotoxin ga suki desu.

 

 

It's 1200 more deadly than Cyanide.

Easily obtained.

Could put many people at risk of zombie like state from its neurotoxin abilities.

 

Alright now that we got that covered:

1. people will die at full strength.

2. Pufferfish + bacteria = fish farm

3. People will suffer a zombie like state but will need antidote or will die within a few days. Which enables a crazy dude to keep spreading it while people are busy rushing other to the hospital. It buys you time.

 

Whether or not this is a bio-weapon, I don't know.

 

I like the neutron bomb idea better, but you can't be around unlike TTX.

But everything will be poisoned which is why a lot of people go with the neutronbomb.

[Helix]

One word: hybrids. If one would combine Marburg or Ebola with the flu....that would be devastating. It would realistically kill almost all people, not just the "enemy."

 

But if you would want to do that, hybrids are the way to go. Combine all the "best" traits to create a monster.

[insane_alien]

for the virus, read "the stand" by stephen king. or at least the part before it gets to the good v. evil.

[zyncod]

The Soviets, before their country collapsed, were trying to engineer flu virus with conotoxin (the deadliest toxin in the world). This would be a very stupid idea. This would make 1918 look like a walk in the park. But, hey, the US had multi-megaton weapons pointed at radio towers in the USSR, so we're not exempt from this type of stupidity either.