Suggestion: Invading Atomic age primitives

[The Founder]

Interesting, but again, imagine a world in which there were, say, a hundred different civilizations with more than 100 nuclear weapons each. On Earth people have signed numerous treaties to keep nuclear proliferation from getting out of hand. In a world where that wasn't possible, it wouldn't be crazy if every industrialized nation had a large nuclear arsenal. Imagine if you gave every nation on Earth 100 nuclear weapons right now. Tracking them all down would be nearly impossible. It would not be crazy in such a world if someone found out there were actual aliens trying to take over the planet that a lot of those weapons would blow. Some of them might even be rigged to go off under certain circumstances.

Even with just two Nuclear Powers aiming at each other, we had 15 close calls to Nuclear Holocaust:
http://www.planetdolan.com/15-times-world-war-3-nearly-started/
If a civilisation does not manage to keep the number of heavily armed countries pointing at each other as low as we did, they will wipe themself out by pure chance, computer flukes and the odd alliance snowballing like WW1.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Even with just two Nuclear Powers aiming at each other, we had 15 close calls to Nuclear Holocaust:
http://www.planetdolan.com/15-times-world-war-3-nearly-started/
If a civilisation does not manage to keep the number of heavily armed countries pointing at each other as low as we did, they will wipe themself out by pure chance, computer flukes and the odd alliance snowballing like WW1.

...you mean like they do, regularly, in the game right now? The defining trait of Atomic Age worlds is that they sometimes obliterate themselves.

 

[Cagliostro]

You can scan a planet's composition within a week and have deep space sensors that can detect the movement of objects that are lightyears away. You also have tracking systems capable of hitting objects that are moving at sub-lightspeed.

Yet, missiles in fact work. I mean, they aren't great, but some missiles absolutely get to their targets. And there is no evidence of an ability to counter missiles raining down on your own civilization's planets.

You can scan a planet for desired mineral deposits. I assume that you can scan for quantities of plutonium and/or uranium and cross-reference that with known military installations on the planet to come up with estimations as to where the primitives store their nuclear weapons.

You used the word 'estimations'. Remember we are dealing with *aliens*. They don't necessarily understand the niceties of your particular world, or even care. It's not like the amount of effort invested in the one world is substantial. It is almost totally trivial, equivalent to a little portion of the production of one planet. Do you think the best minds of your empire are being used for this effort? Do you think this is going to be done supercarefully, treating the natives as a serious threat, or do you think that it is more likely that they will have contempt and total disinterest in the abilities and politics of the primitives, as has been done EVERY SINGLE TIME an advanced civilization has confronted a primitive one in our own history?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana

Also, it's not an issue of "Can the invaders destroy every nuclear weapon?" The OP asks for the possibility of Atomic Age or Early Space Age civilizations to counter the invasion with such ferocity that their own planet becomes a Tomb World.

Firstly I will re-raise the point that in this universe primitives may have encountered aliens before. There are precursor civilizations in *every* game, and there are also generally 20 or more FTL species active in the galaxy at game start. They could easily have alien technology on their planet.

Secondly, if in fact your government does treat them with the utter contempt for their abilities that you are showing right here, there are lots of ways to make a planet unlivable or at the very least require a great deal of work. Suppose biological and chemical weapons had never been curtailed - no Geneva Convention, but greater and greater weapons, capable of making the air poisonous. Suppose as in my example there are, say, 1200 nukes they do not get their hands on, which the primitives (or a handful of diehards) simply detonate rather than being slaves to alien overlords. There is absolutely no guarantee that an alien society hasn't developed something terrifying and awful just because they haven't developed warp technology.

 

[mocoman2001]

There should be a small chance that a fighter ace, a physicist, and a president from the native world manage to secure their independence and destroy your invading force with a brave plan. And much patriotism.

Off topic, but I would like to point out despite its name, independence day was very much anti nationalist. The aliens destroyed the nations, removed our symbols of nationalistic pride, and once we were beaten hard enough, and came to terms we have to be as one to over come, then and only then did we over come the seemly impossible threat.

Over all Independence day was a genius movie for its time, and challenged a lot of the troops and stereo types of its time, while keeping it simple enough for every one to enjoy.

The main actor was a young black man who did hip hop, compared to all the middle aged white men who dominated action films prior to that, the redneck was not a racist, but had a Hispanic wife, and mix family, the nerd was not only smart, but brave and capable to go right into the thick of things, and to top it all off, it hid a movie that on the surface looked like it was going to be a patriotic usa usa movie, then told the audience that globalism is the way to go, and to be truly great we had to shed our nationalistic mentality, and embrace the human race as a whole to progress forward, and overcome our problems. All of this wrapped up in a easily digested summer block buster that the masses could enjoy.

 

[The Founder]

...you mean like they do, regularly, in the game right now? The defining trait of Atomic Age worlds is that they sometimes obliterate themselves.

We got two nations on our planet armed with 15.000 Nuclear Warheads. That is enough to cause a fully blown nuclear winter.
But it would also mean that a alien attacker would only need to disable both sides nuclear ability (maybe just killing the guy with the launchcodes with a sinlg orbital strike?) and they neutralise 90%+ of the worlds nuclear arsenal.
Just realised, so much easier then going for all those weapons is the few guys able to order lauching them. Not realy an issue with Nuclear Nations (where you notice them preparing way beforehand).
8 Command Structures, and no Nuclear Strikes can happen for days to weeks.

Splitting them up (what you proposed as a solution to them being defeated easily) would only lead to a nuclear exchange becomming more likely. So if they are not tomb worlds already, they propably did not do that.

You either get extremely focussed (and thus relatively easy to take out) or widespread (and thus just sliding off into suicide with near guarantee).

You used the word 'estimations'. Remember we are dealing with *aliens*. They don't necessarily understand the niceties of your particular world, or even care. It's not like the amount of effort invested in the one world is substantial.

Unless these Aliens somehow figured out how to build nuclear weapons with Uranium and Plutonium, scanning for either in thier Military Bases will propably show find you thier nukes.

Do you think the best minds of your empire are being used for this effort? Do you think this is going to be done supercarefully, treating the natives as a serious threat, or do you think that it is more likely that they will have contempt and total disinterest in the abilities and politics of the primitives, as has been done EVERY SINGLE TIME an advanced civilization has confronted a primitive one in our own history?

You are trying to make them a danger. Something you should care about.
Yet asume that the general that is on the ground, leading the armies in person is somehow not conercened about it? Or the Emperor investing considerable Groundforces and (maybe) Spaceforces to the invasion=
That woul be a negative trait, "suicidally dumb". And if you do not fire a general with that, it is your own stupidity.

 

[solidprice]

Do people go outside irl?
If a fraction of xeno are as stubborn and over emotional as people i see on a day to day basis, then self nuking should be possible.

Should happen rarely, but if you half ass a invasion you should get a half ass results....

Either from:
*Militarist who are too proud to bend knee.

*Xenophobe who knew about your misdeeds in spite of being pre ftl,and would rather die.
(you bastards!)

*spiritual may think its the end times.

*....or you landing troops is mistaken as another faction DOW another and you caused nukes on accident (D'oh!)

 

[Xoatl]

Or are people arguing against it just because they don't want it to happen to them...

People are arguing because they have trouble imaging devs including anything except their very rigid and specific suggestions.

 

[Rubidium]

Do people go outside irl?
If a fraction of xeno are as stubborn and over emotional as people i see on a day to day basis, then self nuking should be possible.

Should happen rarely, but if you half ass a invasion you should get a half ass results....

Either from:
*Militarist who are too proud to bend knee.

*Xenophobe who knew about your misdeeds in spite of being pre ftl,and would rather die.
(you bastards!)

*spiritual may think its the end times.

*....or you landing troops is mistaken as another faction DOW another and you caused nukes on accident (D'oh!)

People are arguing because, even if the primitive xenos wanted to nuke themselves into oblivion rather than die, we assume that the space invaders' first action during any invasion would be to target the nuclear weapons of the planet. Regardless of whether or not the primitives are suicidal, any marginally sane invading commander is going to want to make sure that the primitives can't use the weapons against the invaders. When drawing up the list of the initial targets for invasion/orbital bombardment, nuclear arsenals would be target 1 for any general. As a side effect, that would also make sure they can't use the weapons against themselves.

Is it possible that some caches of nukes might be missed? Sure, but not enough to allow for a world-ending kaboom; contrary to what you might think, that actually takes a fairly large nuclear exchange (hence why all the nuclear testing during the Cold War didn't kill us all).

If fanatic xenophobes with FTL can't immolate their own planets in response to an invasion, primitive species with vastly less technology and warning certainly shouldn't be able to.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Is it possible that some caches of nukes might be missed? Sure, but not enough to allow for a world-ending kaboom; contrary to what you might think, that actually takes a fairly large nuclear exchange (hence why all the nuclear testing during the Cold War didn't kill us all).

>Assuming the primitive civilization hasn't buried their nuclear rockets under a mile and a half of hard rock.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Zz8rAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

An all-out nuclear exchange changing the world ecosystem dramatically is more than likely a lie for a variety of reasons. The biggest cause of biosphere change would be said invaders dropping a big dinosaur killer on the planet out of spite.

 

[Rubidium]

>Assuming the primitive civilization hasn't buried their nuclear rockets under a mile and a half of hard rock.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Zz8rAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

An all-out nuclear exchange changing the world ecosystem dramatically is more than likely a lie for a variety of reasons. The biggest cause of biosphere change would be said invaders dropping a big dinosaur killer on the planet out of spite.

<Reads link> Wait, someone in the Reagan administration suggested building a giant underground complex with nukes so that after the nuclear exchange they could then spend months to dig their way out through a mile of rock, haul the nukes out and set them up so they could say "surprise, we still have nukes?" That's nuts even for the Cold War.

Fine, if the primitives do that, I'll camp a few of my space marines at the point where their tunnel will eventually emerge and wait to shoot them when they come out.

 

[Kat Tsun]

<Reads link> Wait, someone in the Reagan administration suggested building a giant underground complex with nukes so that after the nuclear exchange they could then spend months to dig their way out through a mile of rock, haul the nukes out and set them up so they could say "surprise, we still have nukes?" That's nuts even for the Cold War.

More or less, though it wouldn't be "giant". Think of rail tunnels or something, but deeper. They even built a tunnel bore to test the concept of digging through nuclear rubble that would cover the crater zones precluding deployment of the MX missile launchers, which would be composed of an aggregate of rubble, steel, glass, and atomic ashes:

Spoiler

I think the tunnel bore might have been donated though. This is talked about in Volume 2 of the document IIRC.

The idea of "Deep Basing" is at least as old as Kennedy administration though. The USAF floated similar ideas for Minuteman III, AICBM, and MX, spanning a time period of ~20 years.

More to the point, it's only one method of the so-called "super-hard" basing. Another was to store individual silos at such extreme depths, c.f. Boeing "Sand Silo" and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory "Pencil Pusher" basing methods which are also discussed in that book.

This isn't even getting into the US Navy's undersea submarine pen-cum-missile silos China Lake was looking at building in the various American Pacific colonies in the '60s (based on deep vein mining technology): http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0803366

Fine, if the primitives do that, I'll camp a few of my space marines at the point where their tunnel will eventually emerge and wait to shoot them when they come out.

The point is that there are far more imaginative, nefarious, and deceptive nuclear basing methods that could be employed in reality, let alone fiction, to mask the locations, capabilities, and even number of nuclear weapons. The Israeli nuclear arsenal is the obvious example since it's extant, even if their entire nuclear deterrent is some truck trailers in garages and a bunker at an airbase with gravity bombs.

This is a silly argument though. The thread should be discussing how to actually implement this in the game in lieu of not being able check per-tick combats of ground units. The only condition you could actually use is whether or not one side owns a planet. Sort of precludes having your invasion force nuked if the game can't even know what's happening when you're invading a planet. I'm not even sure if you can trigger something to happen if you fail to invade a planet. The Mutant Horror event didn't exactly tell me how my brave space warrior-peasants fought off The Blob with fire extinguishers and liquid nitrogen before the Space Cavalry could arrive with their Space Tanks and Space Cryogenic Container Trucks.

 

[CharlieFox]

Modify the odds based on where their ethics fall on the militarist, xenophobe and possibly egalitarian axis. Make invading xenophobic, militaristic, egalitarians an almost guaranteed tomb world.

I like it.

Your ethics should matter as well. If you are a xenophile empire you would most likely begin the invasion by sending broadcasts informing that you want to incorporate them as citizens/subjects to your empire and encouraging them not to resist and you would try to minimize civilian casualties during the invasion. Under this circumstances, unless they are xenophobic, they should much less likely to turn their planet into a tomb world.
Likewise if you are a fanatic purifier or hive mind they should be more likely to make they planet a tomb world since they are dead anyway.

On a related note, it could be interesting if xenophobes empires could have scorched earth policy that resulted on destroyed buildings, killed pops and a small chance of a planet becoming a tomb world when a planet they owned was conquered by aliens.

 

[Secret Master]

Wait, someone in the Reagan administration suggested building a giant underground complex with nukes so that after the nuclear exchange they could then spend months to dig their way out through a mile of rock, haul the nukes out and set them up so they could say "surprise, we still have nukes?" That's nuts even for the Cold War.

We must not allow a mine shaft gap!

 

[Mrakvampire]

I like the idea of giving primitive civilizations a fighting chance against invaders.

 

[Sarius1997]

I do not overestimate them. We are in the early space age. The UNS is 200 Years ahead of that.
Those missiles are small, space capable and able to track targets at space combat speeds. And can be mass produced.
Nothing like those sluggish ICBM's we use nowadays.

And the UNS weapons aren´t again that good. They are massproduced, and small but everything else on them is bad. FFS, they can´t even destroy something the size of one a edium sized naval ship with one shot.

Our ICBM´s are way more sluggish, but would deal way way more damage. So the nuclear shelters should withstand early game orbital bombardment

 

[Cagliostro]

You are trying to make them a danger. Something you should care about.
Yet asume that the general that is on the ground, leading the armies in person is somehow not conercened about it? Or the Emperor investing considerable Groundforces and (maybe) Spaceforces to the invasion=
That woul be a negative trait, "suicidally dumb". And if you do not fire a general with that, it is your own stupidity.

At one point in Stellaris my science ship blew up in my home system because the scientist 'accidentally hit the self destruct button'. This is vanilla, no mods. So yes, they are stupid.

 

[Darsara]

Even just the possibility of events that could add some tile-blockers and kill some invaders/local pops could be interesting, and represent the chance of some minor faction or resistance group doing something, even if they can't muster enough to be apocalyptic. Could be a desperate move to try and kill aliens, could be some wing-nuts deciding they'd rather die in atomic fire than live under what they perceive as an alien yoke.

 

[hadaev]

Steal this idea for my mod.

 

[Marinaliteyears]

People are arguing because, even if the primitive xenos wanted to nuke themselves into oblivion rather than die, we assume that the space invaders' first action during any invasion would be to target the nuclear weapons of the planet. Regardless of whether or not the primitives are suicidal, any marginally sane invading commander is going to want to make sure that the primitives can't use the weapons against the invaders. When drawing up the list of the initial targets for invasion/orbital bombardment, nuclear arsenals would be target 1 for any general. As a side effect, that would also make sure they can't use the weapons against themselves.

Is it possible that some caches of nukes might be missed? Sure, but not enough to allow for a world-ending kaboom; contrary to what you might think, that actually takes a fairly large nuclear exchange (hence why all the nuclear testing during the Cold War didn't kill us all).

If fanatic xenophobes with FTL can't immolate their own planets in response to an invasion, primitive species with vastly less technology and warning certainly shouldn't be able to.

Of course, I would like to again point out that even the most dedicated Assault on a primitive planet still takes at least a -little- bit of time, especially the ones advanced enough to have nuclear capabilities, so such a high-priority target may well be the most defended target. I mean, Once people realize they are being invaded, you don't think their strategic heads just say "lets fight them in a random spot after they ransack our nukes!"

I mean, sure. if you conquer the whole planet in a day or so, its highly unlikely the whole world will be totally demolished by a coordinated nuclear attack, but such a fast moving invasion might also panic the nations in question into doing destructive and dumb things. in a slower moving more minimum effort invasion though, I highhhhly doubt an advanced civilization would even have the ability to end the fight soon enough to secure those locations all at once.

 

[Elfwind]

We definitely need a way to intervene with unique outcomes in the case of a nuclear war.