Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 6114294" data-attributes="member: 19675">Timeliness, though, is still a necessary factor to consider: the longer the time it takes to launch the attack, the more time there is to counter it.  If you have to start over or include multiple waves of asteroid bombardments to succeed past their (as yet unknown) countermeasures, that drives up costs.And if one of their countermeasures includes being better at vectoring mass than we are, they could well re-target an asteroid towards us- a cost we would have to consider.  And it is one we'd best try to calculate before launching the attack.  Finding out post attack could Delphically wind up causing the fall of the wrong empire- an unacceptably huge cost.1918, like the Black Death before it, did a damn good job of it, but failed in no small part because, well, it wasn't today.  Many of their carriers died before infecting others, causing the contagions to stumble and fail.  Influenza, for instance, has an incubation period of 3 days.  It is also fairly hardy, and can survive without a host for a few days as well.Fast forward to today, with rapid sea transit* and, more importantly, frequent and fast global air travel.  Patient Zero with a modern counterpart  to 1918 can circumnavigate the world, personally exposing hundreds if not thousands simply by sharing a plane with him.  Even with a garden variety flu, some estimate that the as many as 50% of the people in such close quarters to Patient Zero for an hourlong plane trip could be infected.  (Note: not all infected become sick, but they can still be contagious themselves.) <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/influenza-shirley-fannin/" target="_blank">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/influenza-shirley-fannin/</a>IOW, a modern version of 1918 might not need much weaponizing at all, given the way modern society operates.  So if the Martian society had similar global travel capabilities to ours, an analogously virulent pathogen would do just fine.  If, OTOH, their population were less prone to congregate or didn't travel like we do, you'd need a completely different kind of pathogen.  Something more like anthrax, which can lay dormant for decades and spread with the wind...Its essentially the reverse of a modern mission to Mars.The ease of acquiring test subject depends on how Machiavellian and secretive you want to be, as well as the nature of the targets themselves.  If the Martians have a hive mind, for instance, getting test subjects may well be impossible to do.  (That wouldn't stop a rice blast tactic from working, however if the alien biosphere has analogues to fungi.)But how many alien abductions have been reported in human history...and utterly dismissed?  How many mundane abductions are never solved every year?  If they were indeed the result of alien scientists collecting test subjects, they'd already have more than enough humans to start their bioweapons program.Side note: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tZar4wRP40&sns=em" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tZar4wRP40&sns=em</a>If you don't want to abduct them, and you want to go the Machiavellian route, simply invite them to open a diplomatic base on Earth...and ask for reciprocity.  Both embassies could be dual purposed as bioweapon development labs.I already conceded that point.  If there is no plan to land & reap the benefits of the planet, orbital bombardment is THE way to go.* ship speed has increased somewhat, but the biggest factor is that there are more fast ships in general as a subset of all ships.</blockquote>

Verification