Things TLs 7-9 would be interesting to see WITHOUT

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Energy = Weaponry. I cant think of any situation where that is not the case.

Mechanical - Melee
Chemical - Bullet
Atomic/Nuclear - Nuke
Optic - Laser
Thermal - Steamships
Electrical - Taser


Solar could be and exception. I cant think of a single weapon in history that has been solar powered.....

That could be endemic to the human tendency to provide their own competition.

Nymdok

But people didn't start off with lasers, steamships or tasers. They used the technology for other things first, and then said "Hey! I bet we can use this as a weapon!"

Our first real nuclear technology was a weapon, and only later did we apply it to peaceful ends. Isn't it possible to do it the other way around, to create a nuclear technology for power, and only later go "Heeeyyy, I bet we can use this as a weapon."

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Our first real nuclear technology was a weapon, and only later did we apply it to peaceful ends. Isn't it possible to do it the other way around, to create a nuclear technology for power, and only later go "Heeeyyy, I bet we can use this as a weapon."

The world's first working nuclear reactor was built by Enrico Fermi fairly early in the Manhattan Project, well before the Trinity test (the world's first working nuclear bomb). The world's first practical nuclear reactor was the Hanford B reactor, which produced plutonium. Again, this was up and running before Trinity (it had to be, that's where the Trinity bomb got its plutonium).

If we were not so deadly focused on building a nuke to Win The War and Save Us All, it is quite conceivable that nuclear power reactors would have come before nuclear explosives. Axis countries that put some thought into nuclear weaponry tended to end up with designs closer to reactors than to bombs.

Luke