What would be a biological equivalent to an EMP?
I was kinda just daydreaming a storyline while cleaning a car when i had this thought. From what i remember an emp is a thing that can temporarily (or in some cases permanently) disable electronic devices without necessary harming anything else like people. Question is, does the opposite exist?
::: spoiler Story stuff if you're interested, warning it's pretty long and not at all relavent to the question I don't know how to properly convey this storyline since it comes with a lot of other story stuff mixed with some oc characters^1^ with their own stories tied to them, it's a mess of a universe that only i understand (doesn't help that i don't have any of it in writing).
But basically at this point of the story humanity had been at war with machines^2^ for a while now, and while they been on the losing side, their leaders came up with a plan to turn the tides of the war.
^2^ Spoilers, they were actually robots with trapped demons in them that they use as a energy source, including their weapons. Said demons were summoned using the corpses of living beings to possess, then trapped into a robot suit with an ai chip to controls them.
It was a huge battle, many were lost on both sides but it seemed like the rebellion would win this fight. As the fight went on one of the leaders from both sides came face to face; one a crystalline warrior^1^ who had been key in the rebellion's fights, the other a dreadnought model, the leader of the machines that had been their nightmare.
They both fought hard, and both the fight and the ensuing battle was all but certain to go to the rebellion, but then, the dreadnought opened it's chest plate to reveal... a bio-nuke to eradicate all biological life within the area, with a timer set for a mere 15 seconds. The warrior panicked, thoughts racing through his head; he likely could survive this from where he's standing, he lived though worse, but the rebellion...
He looked back at his army and made a difficult choice, he lunges forward, grabs the dreadnought by the torso, and prepared to make great leap high into the sky in hopes that maybe, just maybe the rebellion could make a retreat in time.
We then cut into a far away overhead view of the facility outside, it's quite and still for a few moments, save for a black dot that flies up before we see a huge, green explosion in the sky from where it was; Then... it cuts to black :::
tl:dr: thought of this question for a storyline while cleaning a car, if emp can disable robots without hruting people, could the opposite thing?
25 replies
Prions
A Neutron Bomb is kind of what you're thinking of.
A type of atom bomb designed to maximize radiation output while minimizing the physical explosion. The idea is like you said, maximize casualties with minimal other damage.
...or a Cobalt Bomb
Designed to leave highly radioactive fallout for years and years. The radioactive fallout is far more dangerous to life than the original nuke because of its spread, toxicity and persistence.
Huh, that's surprising close to what i was thing of!
*Sidenote - of course it would be the US to be the one to have invented it
Do you really think no one else was working on such things?
Keep in mind the US had a demonstrated monopoly on atomic weapons for 4 years. They could've easily threatened the entire world to capitulate to them, and shut down the Soviet Union's research.
What do you think would've happened if Japan had gotten it first, or Stalin? I can guarantee Japan would have used their advantage ruthlessly.
To be fair, the US did use the bomb ruthlessly and some claim unnecessarily. The US also basically menaced the non US-aligned world with their advantage.
My point being the US wasn't better than her ops at the time.
I know that others were working on it as well, it's just that i think it's typical for them to be one of the earliest to come up with different ways to blow people upsorry, just saw your editFrom my understand, no matter what it would had been made. If the us had not made it, someone else would've either way
Lake Nyos
Neutron bombs are designed to produce a powerful neutron pulse which kills biological organisms but causes relatively little kinetic or thermal damage.
Came here to say something like this, except I learned it from the (rather dark) joke "The neutron bomb was invented by an architect with no friends."
Disease?
Yes, either a novel virus. Or a modified version of something like measles that can cause immune amnesia?
A strobe light triggering an epileptic seizure, maybe? There was that one episode of the Pokemon cartoon that sent 600 people to the hospital.
It probably would only work for a few people while just giving the rest headaches though, at least for me i could withstand strobing lights for a bit, much less get knocked out by it
Also i remember that, while a few kids did have epilepsy, most of them that were sent to the hospital were experiencing mass hysteria after hearing about it and rewatching the episode
Not really. EMPs work by messing with the electromagnetic field. This essentially causes a surge of electricity in otherwise open circuits. There's nothing really that would affect human internal components without also hurting us externally.
Agent Orange.
If I remember correctly, in sci-fi at least, a neutrino bomb kills the people but leaves their stuff...
There are many medicines and chemicals that can incapacitate somebody.
Something like aerosolized chloroform, for instance, if you had enough of it could possibly cause many people to pass out, and as long as there was a prevailing wind to clear it out before it reached whatever the toxic level of chloroform is, then people affected by it would be fine after it wore off.
Chloroform takes a lot longer to knock someone out than movies would have you believe.
And knowing that is specifically why I chose the phrase "something like aerosolized chloroform" rather than saying "chloroform can do this!"
Interesting! That would have to be like a spray though wouldn't it?
An emp is something that could be deployed and have an immediate effect, I was thinking some more along that line
Yeah, and it's kind of fortunate that at least as far as we know nothing like that exists because otherwise militaries would use it as an anti-personnel weapon.
Literally any bio/chemical agent like mustard or sarin gas?
..fire?
neutron bomb