John Atkinson schrieb:
> How long after we start dissecting Savasku corpses
Good question. It's rather hard to test a poison on a dead body.
If you can keep Savasku cells or organs alive in a lab, you could start
testing substance against it. But just culturing Savasku cells may be hard.
And something that works in the lab may not work on a living animal - a
common problem in testing medicines.
You can use some brute-force poison in large quantities. But for your
purpose you need something more sophisticated that kills quickly in small
doses. A Nerve Agent or similar.
Comparing present-day research progress, I would say something around a
decade or two.
> It seems to me that Mr. Organic Spaceships
Another problem. A 'spray can' against spaceships? The outer skin will be
pretty impermeable. After all, it operates in a vacuum.
Another question is how the poison will propagate in the body. Can sections be
isolated so that only a small part is killed?
> Of course for boarding usage, just round up a bunch of
Probably also a good idea against the spaceships. A shell that penetrates the
armour and sprays the poison inside.
Not so sure of it as an infantry weapon. It would have to be a very
quick-acting poison. Or a bullet with good ballistic stopping power
that also carries the poison.
> If their biology is alien enough, it might
A lot of stuff that poisons other terran organisms is quite harmless to
humans. On the other hand, there are some biocides that will kill anything.
Greetings
I played Tyranids in WH40K (which I am looking to sell, BTW) and it's easy for
me to imagine that the Tyranids and the SaVasku are inimcal to
each other. They both have a biology based tech-base but the Tyranids
use and develop that tech on an instinctive, animal level while the SV do it
volitionally.
I can easily see the Tyranids (or similar bio-tech race) developing
diseases/poisons/parasite swarms as weapons against the SV before anyone
else. Likewise the SV will do so for the Tyranids. The difference here is that
the Tyranids don't communicate with "others" (having a complete hive mind), so
those weapons are unlikely to be used by anyone BUT the Tyranids against the
SV.
The SV, on the other hand, would be only too happy to share the "How to Kill
Tyranids" secrets with other races whenever they found that it would be
advantageous to them.
As a matter of fact, such a situation (a real threat from outside the SV's
realm or control) could be the only thing that would move the SV to treat the
youngling races as something more of allies than pawns to keep at each other's
throats... at least until the external threat was removed.
--Flak
> On Fri, 2002-06-28 at 12:05, KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:
From: <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de>
> If you can keep Savasku cells or organs alive in a lab, you could
I think the problem's more likely that it's far, far too easy.
See the old Z-grade movie "The Blob"*. What happens when a SV Leech
torpedo from a few megayears ago that missed its target failed to
[quoted original message omitted]
> > > If you can keep Savasku cells or organs alive in a lab, you
--- Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
wrote:
> From: <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de>
Hogwash. We've established that a powerful enough particle beam will fry a
Savasku (if your background says that beam weapons are particle beams).
> --- Alan and Carmel Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
The NRE Diplomatic Corps replied:
> Hogwash. We've established that a powerful enough
Yes, it's *possible* to kill them. But if your shot scatters bits around, and
you don't go back and clean up each of the bits, and those
From: "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
> > > See the old Z-grade movie "The Blob"*. What happens when a SV
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> > >But just culturing Savasku cells may be hard.
Hogwash it may be, but I don't follow your logic. AFAIK in neither version of
the "Blob" did they try particle beams. Or even lasers. As regards fire,
nothing that would even penetrate a few metres of
concrete, let alone a rad-hardened space hull.