>I made the off-hand decision last week that PC Starship operators cannot
>normally get access to nuclear missiles. (I mean, *really* now...)
>Does anyone allow this? I can see some black-market access for Pirates and
>such, but not normal merchants.
Yes. Nuclear weapons are available in the Eight Worlds. They are
technically illegal, but there is no effective law enforcement beyond
the Frontier. No one who takes even the simplest precautions to hide
the identify of his ship need fear prosecution.
And nuclear weapons have been used:
>Comments?
The availability of nukes raises the musical question: Is such
attire appropriate for a gentleman?
True, nukes are handy devices for clearing landing fields in otherwise
unsuitable terrain: They remove ground cover, produce a smooth hardened
crust capable of supporting the weight of a small starship, and eliminate
hostile natives all in one simple fast operation. But they are also:
1) Expensive. There are almost always cheaper ways to do the job.
2) Inappropriate. Most military opperations in the Eight Worlds
are mounted to grab loot. Which loot is generally less valuable if it
takes the form of a cloud of ions.
3) Marginally illegal. Yes, there is no law enforcement outside
the Pale, but many worlds capable of producing weapons of mass destruction
also make some attempt to regulate their ownership. One must locate a
suitably unscrupulous dealer, procure the weapon in secret, and smuggle
it off the planet. These are not impossible tasks, but they are tasks.
4) Ineffective aginst a sophisticated opponent. While the physical
laws of the Eight Worlds universe evidently do not allow for atomic
damper fields, they do allow for small fast inexpensive missiles which
home in on radiation sources.
Individually these considerations are trivial. Collectively they
have served to deter casual exercise of the nuclear option except in
one EXTREMELY exceptional case.
Paul R. Gazis
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