Why are nukes a thing of the past?

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

I've noticed that nukes, both as the strategic WMD, and as a terrorist device in the face of miniaturisation and easier production processes affordable at TL10, are not a thing that gets any sort of attention. I've seen a couple of phrases along the lines that 'nuclear apocalypse did not arrive', but I'm more interested, what is the cause of that? I'm particularly interested why nukes are no longer a factor as a terror weapon used by organisations and régimes that are not above ignoring the principles of common sapient international decency? Maybe I'm missing some some entry here or there that would explain it.

Thanks in advance!

[Astromancer]

I suppose the main reason for getting rid of nukes is simply that the focus of the setting would shift to much. Either people would be forced to live behind brutal layers of security, which would make adventuring a very limited and controled thing (main a version of millitary SciFi), or society would collapse, which would eliminate most or all of the cool tech.

[Phil Masters]

I've always vaguely assumed the "brutal security" answer. However, pervasive microtech enables brutal security to be amazingly polite most of the time. Any identifiable political radical who starts, say, reading biographies of Robert Oppenheimer may well get a couple of SWAT combat shells arriving through his front door, though.

Privacy? Yeah, largely shot by 2014 standards. But even with AI support, processing all that data on everybody is a bit like hard work. So security organisations have learned to focus on the important things. Like the ones that involve uranium.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Privacy? Yeah, largely shot by 2014 standards. But even with AI support, processing all that data on everybody is a bit like hard work. So security organisations have learned to focus on the important things. Like the ones that involve uranium.

Also possibly of note is that major power (besides being space-based) nukes are probably triggered by antimatter in TS. Such weapons don't need even enriched uranium much less plutonium.

So this gets rid of one sort of hard to find component and replaces it with a harder to find one.

TS doesn't might not even use as much Tritium as we do. De yes but that's not much good by itself to the nuke builder.

[sir_pudding]

There are scarier subtler terror weapons in 2100, too. The possibility exists, or is very close to existing, of strategic victory that leaves enemy infrastructure and population intact, even of unaware that they lost, or even that there was a war. That's a lot better than nukes.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

I've always vaguely assumed the "brutal security" answer. However, pervasive microtech enables brutal security to be amazingly polite most of the time. Any identifiable political radical who starts, say, reading biographies of Robert Oppenheimer may well get a couple of SWAT combat shells arriving through his front door, though.

Privacy? Yeah, largely shot by 2014 standards. But even with AI support, processing all that data on everybody is a bit like hard work. So security organisations have learned to focus on the important things. Like the ones that involve uranium.

Solid points Mr. Masters. Although, given the power of the tech, why be obvious. A little well targeted poison and the target calls an ambulance. No matter the prognosis, the perscription is a nice long rest in an attractive "Rest Home" (maybe it could be by the sea in Wales and have Italian architecture ;-). Some of his visting friends would get sick too. Sublety makes for better adventures and easier bagging of terro-wannabees.

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Solid points Mr. Masters. Although, given the power of the tech, why be obvious. A little well targeted poison and the target calls an ambulance. No matter the prognosis, the prescription is a nice long rest in an attractive "Rest Home" (maybe it could be by the sea in Wales and have Italian architecture ;-). Some of his visiting friends would get sick too. Sublety makes for better adventures and easier bagging of terro-wannabees.

There's something disturbing about either of those proposed senarios.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Solid points Mr. Masters. Although, given the power of the tech, why be obvious. A little well targeted poison and the target calls an ambulance. No matter the prognosis, the perscription is a nice long rest in an attractive "Rest Home" (maybe it could be by the sea in Wales and have Italian architecture ;-). Some of his visting friends would get sick too. Sublety makes for better adventures and easier bagging of terro-wannabees.

I get the reference, but with TS era Technology, is a long rest (more than a month or two) ever required for anything?

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

I get the reference, but with TS era Technology, is a long rest (more than a month or two) ever required for anything?

Who says it's the patient that requires the rest?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm particularly interested why nukes are no longer a factor as a terror weapon used by organisations and régimes that are not above ignoring the principles of common sapient international decency?

No longer? They never really have been.

Luckily for us the fact is nuclear explosions are *hard* to set off. Presumably there are still optimistic terror groups who attempt this. But since they are almost certain to fail even if nobody was trying to stop them, and plenty of people with very good surveillance technologies are trying to stop them, it just isn't considered a very serious threat compared to stuff people actually can manage to do without the backing of a national budget, an engineering college faculty and a bunch of materials being watched by 10 different intelligence services.

Most large nations in 2100 could presumably build a nuclear weapon if they really wanted. But nukes aren't a weapon you can conceal the use of, and despite what goes into everybody's propaganda, very few regimes are actually insane. A nuclear arsenal may discourage somebody else from pushing you into a situation where you have nothing left to lose - which may help explain why almost no borders have moved in 150 years - but isn't much use otherwise. If there are 90 members of the nuclear club instead of 9 but still nobody crazy enough to use them offensively, well, not much has actually changed.