152 réponses à ce sujet

[Giantevilhead]

The real problem with using nukes in space is that without an atmosphere, the intensity of the radiation from the nuke will remain lethal for several hundred miles. That means the ship that fired the nuke will be hit with a wave of lethal radiation.



As for using it in the atmosphere, the Reapers only harvest the galaxy every 50,000 years, most of the damage from a nuclear war would be gone by then. People overestimate the effectiveness of nuclear weapons. As long as the Reapers don't use salt weapons, the planet can recover pretty quickly. In fact, if the Reapers wanted to preserve the planet, they could use neutron bombs.

[Inverness Moon]

bastz wrote...

The reapers want the cycle of life to continue, so they can harvest the next civilizations in 50k years. Nuking the hell out of planets wouldn't make their goal possible because the nuclear fallout would prevent life from forming for millions of years

Fallout does not take millions of years to dissipate. One nuke per major city on Earth would not harm the environment for that long.

Edit: Also, why is everyone assuming that the reapers are concerned with preserving the planets they reap? There are countless planets in the galaxy. And its not like they want to use each planet every cycle. Nuclear fallout would dissipate well before sentient life evolved on Earth again. There is a lot of flawed logic around here.

Hell, even if it took millions of years (which it doesn't), that wouldn't matter since life could just evolve on another planet the reapers nuked millions of years ago where the fallout finally dissipated.

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 12 décembre 2010 - 10:44 .

[Darth_Ultima]

moneycashgeorge wrote...

 I actually know that nukes were mentioned in the ME1 WMD Codex entry, so they are part of the universe, but it appears that they are going to quietly ignore them for Mass Effect 3. Cuz come on, giant machine devils, as cool as they are, don't really compete with a good multiple warhead nuclear bomb. 

P.S. While typing this I remembered Virmire. I apologize for this momentary lapse in ME nerdiness.

So what do people think of the Reapers decision to forego nuclear (or orbital mass accelerators, or Anti-Matter) weapons in favor of the more outdated "stomp around and shoot lasers like a War of Worlds tripod" method?

When they were testing Nuclear Weapons after world war 2 the US took battleships that Japan and Germany surrendered to the US as well as retired US battleships and carriers and nuked them twice.  Out of the 250 ships very few of them actually sank.  However they were completely unusable after that because getting nuked twice made them radioactive.  If a WWII battleship can survive a nuclear attack then I think the Reapers could too.

[Inverness Moon]

Darth_Ultima wrote...

When they were testing Nuclear Weapons after world war 2 the US took battleships that Japan and Germany surrendered to the US as well as retired US battleships and carriers and nuked them twice.  Out of the 250 ships very few of them actually sank.  However they were completely unusable after that because getting nuked twice made them radioactive.  If a WWII battleship can survive a nuclear attack then I think the Reapers could too.

There is quite a difference between being  near a nuclear explosion and being struck by a missile with a nuclear warhead. This is no ship on this Earth that could survive a direct hit from a nuclear warhead.

Nuclear bombs are more effective in atmosphere than in space in most cases. I find it hard to believe a reaper would survive being struck by a 100 MT nuclear missile.

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 12 décembre 2010 - 11:08 .

[TornadoADV]

1. We have a myrid of CURRENT DAY nuclear warheads many times more powerful then even the strongest dreadnought spinal mount mass accelerator.
2. Nuclear weapons are still used in the day of Mass Effect, they are simply outlawed on Garden Worlds. (Earth, etc.)
3. 90% of lethal radiation from a nuclear explosion is gone in 21 days and that's even with no effort taken what-so-ever to remove said fallout, irradiated earth or neutron-flux effected metals. (For the love of god, just google earth Hiroshima or Nagasaki, they are perfectly bustling cities.)

Modifié par TornadoADV, 12 décembre 2010 - 11:16 .

[Wolverfrog]

Nukes have little effect in space, and I assume that the Reapers have strong enough shielding to withstand the explosion. The radiation wouldn't affect them either.

[TornadoADV]

Wolverfrog wrote...

Nukes have little effect in space, and I assume that the Reapers have strong enough shielding to withstand the explosion. The radiation wouldn't affect them either.

A 25 Megaton nuclear weapon has an explosion footprint bigger then Manhatten Island and that's just the hotter then the sun sphere. That's excluding the all spectrum based thermal radiation and hard gamma rays. So the Reaper get's melted, burned and shorted out all in the window of 15 miliseconds.

[Wolverfrog]

TornadoADV wrote...

Wolverfrog wrote...

Nukes have little effect in space, and I assume that the Reapers have strong enough shielding to withstand the explosion. The radiation wouldn't affect them either.

A 25 Megaton nuclear weapon has an explosion footprint bigger then Manhatten Island and that's just the hotter then the sun sphere. That's excluding the all spectrum based thermal radiation and hard gamma rays. So the Reaper get's melted, burned and shorted out all in the window of 15 miliseconds.

We don't know the extent of how strong a Reaper's shielding is. Sovereign was holding up well against the entire Alliance fleet for a long time until Shepard somehow disabled them by destroying its Saren avatar (I never really understood that part.)

[TornadoADV]

Reapers don't fly through stars even with all their defensive technology. Mass Effect tries it's best to stay grounded in hard science, so there is no reason to expect a Reaper to survive a direct hit by a B41, much less a B41 outfitted like a Javelin Mk.2 that would let it pierce a Reaper's shielding before exploding.

[Nuke the site from Orbit]

Reapers may think themselves to be nigh-godlike, but they still use conventional kinetic barriers like the rest of the galaxy, this was confirmed by EDI in the IFF mission. Kinetic barriers only protect against projectiles according to the codex, last time I checked nuclear weapons do not use kinetic energy as their primary means of destruction (neither is radiation, just to be clear).



To put it bluntly, a Reaper's kinetic barrier would provide all the protection against a direct hit from a nuke as t-shirt would.

[Wut555]

the EMP and destructiveness of the atom bombs still likely means nothing as the reapers have been reaping an entire galaxy for many years now, I doubt they would have been so successful if they could get taken out by 21st century technology....



Also bear in mind that whatever weapon was used to make the derelict reaper, its "glancing blow" was enough to create a valley on the planet it glanced and even though the reaper was "killed" most of its body remains and technology still works. Maybe the weapon couldnt be aimed as well and the reaper itself got only a glancing blow but still, remarkable that something that can remodel an entire hemisphere of a planet cant do enough damage to a reaper to make it unrecognizable.

[Inquisitor Recon]

An EMP generated by a nuclear blast probably won't have any effect unless a ship's shields are down. Even then a good portion of the hardware is probably designed to sustain such a thing in 22nd century.



Not to say nukes aren't useful but they aren't going to be any more effective than the main guns of a cruiser.

[Darth_Ultima]

Inverness Moon wrote...

Darth_Ultima wrote...

When they were testing Nuclear Weapons after world war 2 the US took battleships that Japan and Germany surrendered to the US as well as retired US battleships and carriers and nuked them twice.  Out of the 250 ships very few of them actually sank.  However they were completely unusable after that because getting nuked twice made them radioactive.  If a WWII battleship can survive a nuclear attack then I think the Reapers could too.

There is quite a difference between being  near a nuclear explosion and being struck by a missile with a nuclear warhead. This is no ship on this Earth that could survive a direct hit from a nuclear warhead.

Nuclear bombs are more effective in atmosphere than in space in most cases. I find it hard to believe a reaper would survive being struck by a 100 MT nuclear missile.

I'm sure in the millions of years that the Reapers have been reaping, it never occured to anyone to try to nuke the Reapers.  Come on dude.  They droped a 23 kiloton nuke on a fleet of 250 WW2 ships and only five of the ships sank from the direct explosion and a few more sank a couple hours latter.  I would imagine a super advanced sentient starship would fair alot better.  Besides are you actually saying that they should nuke every major city on the planet to take out the Reapers that are landing in them?  Yeah that sound like a brilliant plan.

Modifié par Darth_Ultima, 13 décembre 2010 - 12:04 .

[Darth_Ultima]

TornadoADV wrote...

Wolverfrog wrote...

Nukes have little effect in space, and I assume that the Reapers have strong enough shielding to withstand the explosion. The radiation wouldn't affect them either.

A 25 Megaton nuclear weapon has an explosion footprint bigger then Manhatten Island and that's just the hotter then the sun sphere. That's excluding the all spectrum based thermal radiation and hard gamma rays. So the Reaper get's melted, burned and shorted out all in the window of 15 miliseconds.

Most of the destruction from a nuclear detonation comes from the shockwave it produces.  In a vacuum there is no air to transfer the force of the detonation so no shockwave.

[Giantevilhead]

Darth_Ultima wrote...

Inverness Moon wrote...

Darth_Ultima wrote...

When they were testing Nuclear Weapons after world war 2 the US took battleships that Japan and Germany surrendered to the US as well as retired US battleships and carriers and nuked them twice.  Out of the 250 ships very few of them actually sank.  However they were completely unusable after that because getting nuked twice made them radioactive.  If a WWII battleship can survive a nuclear attack then I think the Reapers could too.

There is quite a difference between being  near a nuclear explosion and being struck by a missile with a nuclear warhead. This is no ship on this Earth that could survive a direct hit from a nuclear warhead.

Nuclear bombs are more effective in atmosphere than in space in most cases. I find it hard to believe a reaper would survive being struck by a 100 MT nuclear missile.

I'm sure in the millions of years that the Reapers have been reaping, it never occured to anyone to try to nuke the Reapers.  Come on dude.  They droped a 23 kiloton nuke on a fleet of 250 WW2 ships and only five of the ships sank from the direct explosion and a few more sank a couple hours latter.  I would imagine a super advanced sentient starship would fair alot better.  Besides are you actually saying that they should nuke every major city on the planet to take out the Reapers that are landing in them?  Yeah that sound like a brilliant plan.

23 kiloton is nothing. The most powerful nuclear weapon built had a yield of 50 megatons. In fact, the bomb was actually designed to be a 100 megaton bomb but the Soviets chickened out and made it a 50 megaton bomb.

Darth_Ultima wrote...

TornadoADV wrote...

Wolverfrog wrote...

Nukes
have little effect in space, and I assume that the Reapers have strong
enough shielding to withstand the explosion. The radiation wouldn't
affect them either.

A 25 Megaton nuclear weapon has an
explosion footprint bigger then Manhatten Island and that's just the
hotter then the sun sphere. That's excluding the all spectrum based
thermal radiation and hard gamma rays. So the Reaper get's melted,
burned and shorted out all in the window of 15 miliseconds.

Most
of the destruction from a nuclear detonation comes from the shockwave
it produces.  In a vacuum there is no air to transfer the force of the
detonation so no shockwave.

But the radiation that creates the shockwave is still there. In fact, the radiation will be much stronger since the only thing that degrades it in space is distance.

Modifié par Giantevilhead, 13 décembre 2010 - 12:07 .

[Darth_Ultima]

Nuke the site from Orbit wrote...

Reapers may think themselves to be nigh-godlike, but they still use conventional kinetic barriers like the rest of the galaxy, this was confirmed by EDI in the IFF mission. Kinetic barriers only protect against projectiles according to the codex, last time I checked nuclear weapons do not use kinetic energy as their primary means of destruction (neither is radiation, just to be clear).

To put it bluntly, a Reaper's kinetic barrier would provide all the protection against a direct hit from a nuke as t-shirt would.

Last time I checked an explosion is a from of kinetic energy.

Modifié par Darth_Ultima, 13 décembre 2010 - 12:09 .

[Darth_Ultima]

Giantevilhead wrote...

23 kiloton is nothing. The most powerful nuclear weapon built had a yield of 50 megatons. In fact, the bomb was actually designed to be a 100 megaton bomb but the Soviets chickened out and made it a 50 megaton bomb.

Really?  23 Kilotons is nothing?  How about we detonate one above your house.

Giantevilhead wrote...
But the radiation that creates the shockwave is still there. In fact, the radiation will be much stronger since the only thing that degrades it in space is distance.

Radiaton?  They are machines.  Last time I checked radiaton only hurts living things.

[TornadoADV]

Darth_Ultima wrote...

TornadoADV wrote...

Wolverfrog wrote...

Nukes have little effect in space, and I assume that the Reapers have strong enough shielding to withstand the explosion. The radiation wouldn't affect them either.

A 25 Megaton nuclear weapon has an explosion footprint bigger then Manhatten Island and that's just the hotter then the sun sphere. That's excluding the all spectrum based thermal radiation and hard gamma rays. So the Reaper get's melted, burned and shorted out all in the window of 15 miliseconds.

Most of the destruction from a nuclear detonation comes from the shockwave it produces.  In a vacuum there is no air to transfer the force of the detonation so no shockwave.

You sir, know nothing about nuclear weapons. If you want to get down to brass tacks, nuclear weapons cause the most damage after the fact of their explosion, their effects on the terrain and biological prevent all but the most prepared emergency response from being able to do anything but contain the spreading fires.

But perhaps you didn't hear me the first time, a 25 megaton bomb has a explosion foot print larger then manhatten island that New York City sits on. Given the measurements of a Reaper, that is more then well capable enough of completely enveloping said Reaper and atomizing it.

23 kiloton is nothing. The most powerful nuclear weapon built had a yield of 50 megatons. In fact, the bomb was actually designed to be a 100 megaton bomb but the Soviets chickened out and made it a 50 megaton bomb.

They didn't "chicken out" the amount of fissiable material needed for the full 100 MT payload was 2 orders of magnitude larger then the 50 MT proof of concept test.

Last time I checked an explosion is a from of kinetic energy.

Last time I checked, an explosion is thermal, kinetic and sometimes radiological.

Modifié par TornadoADV, 13 décembre 2010 - 12:24 .

[Nuke the site from Orbit]

Sovereign thought those puny organics couldn't hurt him with their infirior tech, and he lasted all of 3 seconds without his kinetic barrier, sure he had what was left of a fleet shoot'in at him, but the vast majority of that fleet were frigates and cruisers, doing far less damage than the 38 kt per shot that dreadnoughts do, as said before. A single nuke in the megaton spectrum is possibly more destructive than the combined firepower of a fleet, dreadnoughts or no, and as I stated above a nuclear weapon would completly ignore a Reapers kinetic barrier, at the very least doing some damage, even in space.

[TornadoADV]

Radiaton? They are machines. Last time I checked radiaton only hurts living things.

Radiation degrades everything that isn't a rock or a lump of lead. Try taking your Home PC onto the Space Shuttle with you and see how long it lasts before being completely destroyed circuitry wise. When a nuclear weapon goes off in space, it's akin to getting illuminated by a Quasar.

[Giantevilhead]

Darth_Ultima wrote...

Giantevilhead wrote...

23 kiloton is nothing. The most powerful nuclear weapon built had a yield of 50 megatons. In fact, the bomb was actually designed to be a 100 megaton bomb but the Soviets chickened out and made it a 50 megaton bomb.

Really?  23 Kilotons is nothing?  How about we detonate one above your house.

It's nothing compared to what we can make today or what they can make in the ME universe.

Giantevilhead wrote...
But the radiation that creates the shockwave is still there. In fact, the radiation will be much stronger since the only thing that degrades it in space is distance.

Radiaton?  They are machines.  Last time I checked radiaton only hurts living things.

How do you think nuclear weapons cause those massive blasts? It's because the radiation heats up all the stuff around the bomb and vaporizes it. The vaporized material then expands and it's the massive pressure that creates the blast. The Reapers may be made of metal but that metal will also be heated up by the radiation released by the nukes and melt or vaporize. Also, it was revealed at the end of ME2 that the Reapers have organic matter inside them.

Modifié par Giantevilhead, 13 décembre 2010 - 12:27 .

[The Big Nothing]

SimonTheFrog wrote...

WELLLLL.... this brings up the big question: what the heck is their plan anyways?

The cycle of extinction, the salvation ("our and yours") through destruction has not yet been fully explained (if it will ever be).

So, the cycle has been disrupted in ME1 (i hope this is not considered a spoiler, really). But it still it's a big deal for them i suppose. So, whatever they do might be in accordance with their original plan. How stomping around london is in accordance with whatever plan they had is still a mystery to me... is it really just the killing?

http://social.biowar...35997/2#5444454

[TornadoADV]

I'm sure in the millions of years that the Reapers have been reaping, it never occured to anyone to try to nuke the Reapers.  Come on dude.  They droped a 23 kiloton nuke on a fleet of 250 WW2 ships and only five of the ships sank from the direct explosion and a few more sank a couple hours latter.  I would imagine a super advanced sentient starship would fair alot better.  Besides are you actually saying that they should nuke every major city on the planet to take out the Reapers that are landing in them?  Yeah that sound like a brilliant plan.

All the times before, the Reapers beheaded and isolated their prey before they could form a response, being picked apart piecemeal.

We aren't talking about airbursting a warhead by a Reaper, we are talking about direct impact with a warhead many magnitudes more powerful. You also completely left out the fact that nearly none of the ships in the test could be recovered because of that nasty effect called neutron-flux and aerolized radiated water seeping into the very structure and material of the ships and making them a death trap for anything living.

Also, the Reapers are there to kill everyone, better to take some of them out in the process then sitting there on your hands as you're slaughtered because you don't want to nick your historical buildings that will waste to nothing faster then the protheans.

Also bear in mind that whatever weapon was used to make the derelict reaper, its "glancing blow" was enough to create a valley on the planet it glanced and even though the reaper was "killed" most of its body remains and technology still works. Maybe the weapon couldnt be aimed as well and the reaper itself got only a glancing blow but still, remarkable that something that can remodel an entire hemisphere of a planet cant do enough damage to a reaper to make it unrecognizable.

It's called "blow through". It's a problem that has been dogging armor piercing weapons since they've been around. Hardened material meant to ignore armor will not deform or spall until it hits something it can't pierce, so it leaves a channel in the target roughly the circumfrence of the round. So in that manner, the massive weapon worked perfectly, it for all purposes, destroyed the target Reaper from being a threat.

Modifié par TornadoADV, 13 décembre 2010 - 12:42 .

[Giantevilhead]

TornadoADV wrote...

23 kiloton is nothing. The most powerful nuclear weapon built had a yield of 50 megatons. In fact, the bomb was actually designed to be a 100 megaton bomb but the Soviets chickened out and made it a 50 megaton bomb.

They didn't "chicken out" the amount of fissiable material needed for the full 100 MT payload was 2 orders of magnitude larger then the 50 MT proof of concept test.

I'm pretty sure that they altered the design because the original design would create too much fallout. In fact, the bomb created very little fallout relative to its yield.

[Darth_Ultima]

TornadoADV wrote...

You sir, know nothing about nuclear weapons. If you want to get down to brass tacks, nuclear weapons cause the most damage after the fact of their explosion, their effects on the terrain and biological prevent all but the most prepared emergency response from being able to do anything but contain the spreading fires.

But perhaps you didn't hear me the first time, a 25 megaton bomb has a explosion foot print larger then manhatten island that New York City sits on. Given the measurements of a Reaper, that is more then well capable enough of completely enveloping said Reaper and atomizing it.

Last time I checked, an explosion is thermal, kinetic and sometimes radiological.

Do you have a PhD in Nuclear studies?  I highly doubt it.  If you did then maybe I would except that you know more then me.  And yes I know that an explosion has thermal and in the case of nukes radiological effects as well.  The bomb dropped on Hiroshima had the explosive potential of 10,000,000 tons of TNT.  Your argument is stupid.  If a real world WWII battleship can survive a direct nuclear impact then so could a fictional futuristic 2 kilometer long sentient starship.  Look up videos of the Operation Crossroads test at Bikini Atoll on youtube and see for yourself.  Moron.