Caves of Ice Battleship bombardment calc: Revised edition

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Caves of Ice Battleship bombardment calc: Revised edition

Postby Connor MacLeod » 2007-03-07 02:22am

First off: I'd like to thank a few of you for answering questions relating to this little article of mine: Black Admiral, White Rabbit, Necronlord, Imperial Overlord, and Lost Soal (who reminded me of something in the 3rd edition Codex I forgot about the atmospheric processing. Doh!)

As many of you know, for a long time I've noted that the "continent levelling" dialogue is the most explicit reference for firepower in 40K. I mean, its so very straightfroward. Flotilla of battleships. Level a continent. A couple barrages of Lance batteries. Planet uninhabitable for generations. Even the "sterilize the planet" bit mentioned much later (page 240.)

You'd think that. You'd be surprised.

A few weeks back, I posted what I considered the "revised" and more accurate calcs for the incident. It got posted on Spacebattles. Lo and behold, some moron decides to nitpick the calc, calling it "excessive" and "unsubstantiated" (paraphrase, ,but that's the essential gist of it, as well as accusing me of over-inflating the calcs, etc.) Thread got locked after the moron in question started hurling a buncha logical fallacies at me (and I made a buncha calcs to further emphasize the point.) Semantical nitpicking of things like "sterilizing", claiming that the lance batteries weren't indicated to be capable of levelling a continent or rendering a planet uninhabitable (ignoring Occam's Razor, obviously.) And when referencing Mike's most excellent page dealign with planet killers (or Base Delta Zero, or the Edam debate) he nitpicks by saying sterilize might mean something else, or that you don't need a billion (or more) megatons to render a planet uninhabitable over the long term.

No doubt you could tell the idiot in question was an anti-40K wanker (much in the same vein that Darkstar constantly tries to refute the calcs for Star Wars), so his motivations should be clear, even if he acts like a frigging creationist. And despite the annoynace of dealing with the little troll, I *did* uncover some useful data while looking into the whole "sterilization" bit, and I realize I probably understated the calcs. I mean, I know I said they were consevative, but I quite likely understated them more than I thought.

So this thread, of course, which was planned to be the great rebuttal to the SB moron, will now be a revision of my previous calcs, incorporating the new data. I do this simply to have the data available. I will also probably incorporate further calcs, as well as try to describe (in more detail) what would be bound to happen in this incident, with regards to "sterilization".

Of course, I shouldn't have to reiterate the "barrage" and "flotilla" bits, they remain unchanged. Since this is an "order of magnitude" calc, I shouldn't have to run out calcs to account for these two variables, the values incorporating the permutations on these values (IE 2 salvos by 2 battleships, 2 salvos by 3 battleships, etc.) should easily fall within the "order of magnitude" range of the calcs.

It should also be noted that, while this is clearly an extinction level event (or rather a bit more than that.) it most probably was not an Exterimnatus. The fact it was not called such should intuitively tell us that it isn't (or at least, we have no reason to believe it is such.) But there are other matters to consider. Historically in many novels (Eisenhorn, Draco, Nightbringer and Warriors of Ultramar) Exterminatus is the ultimate, irrevocable act of destruction available to the Imperium (Similar in many respects to a Base Delta Zero attack in Star Wars.) The complete and permanant eradication of all life on a planet by various means (bombardment, virus bombs, cyclonics, etc.) Oceans are vaporized, atmospheres are strtipped away. The attack in Caves of Ice, however, was not permanant (Cain said that it would take "generations" to recover, but that's not permanant.) Moreover, Cain is a Guard Commissar, not an Inquisitor. To my knowledge, only Inquisitors (And high ranking Space Marine naval officers) are capable of calling down Exterminatus on a planet. There is a further consideration: the planet possesses a valuable resource (Promethium) so there is a very good motivation for the Imperium to try to eradicate the Necrons, while at the same time keeping the planet in such a state that it may eventually be reoccupied for resource extraction.

In any case, there are no real "sources" on planet killing weapons or ships, of course. The closest is Mike's page. But there are, if you look, plenty of analogues (which is where Mike did look, and which formed the basis of all that wonderful analysis I drew upon.) Most particularily, ,nuclear weapons and asteroid impacts, especially the latter.) Asteroids are the most useful because at the magnitudes they operate in are the ones dealing with extinction or sterilization of a planet, and all that good stuff. Of course, other weapons in theory could achieve similar destruction (although as Mike notes, modern technology such as nukes can't even come remotely close to mimicking the destruction a multi-mile asteroid can deliver.) It is also worth noting that while nukes and asteroids are useful analogies in doing this sort of analysis, there are differencecs. As Mike notes, nukes and asteroids differ dramatically. Asteroids are more concentrated in how they deliver energy, but they also carry substantial momentum. And, since it is a physial impactor, that same impactor can contribute much of its own mass (if not all of it) to the resulting ejecta. This makes it more efficient than nukes in some ways (dust loading and atmospheric heating due to friction, for example.) A nuke, though, can have some compensating factors (as an omnidirectional blast, it can both deliver energy into the ground and the air as it releases its yield into its surroundings, more effectively creating fireballs and other destructive effects.)

A beam weapon like a lance is not like a nuke OR a phyiscal impactor. In a way, its the least effective of the three. It does not contribute any of its own mass in the form of ejecta, it is a concentrated beam rather than an omnidirectional blast, so it is somewhat less "efficient" in distributing its damage via secondary mechanisms Mike's Planet Killers page describes. Of course, the sheer yields involved DO mitigate this, but it may require more enegy input to achieve similar effects (For example, a nuke or a beam weapon impact only create ejecta frrom bombarding the surface of the planet in question. So that they must bombard said surface more extensively to produce enough ejecta to match an asteroid impact. This of course means making bigger holes.)

So, bearing that in mind... we move onto the whole "sterilization" bit. Now, in the SB debate, the definition of "sterilization" got pretty heavily (and absurdly) nitpicked, but the context I used it in was fairly straightforward, pertaining strictly to an approximate range of energies (well a certain level and above, since higher yields that say, vaporise oceans or strip atmosphere will automatically fall into the "sterilize" category.) Mike's planet killer page uses it twice rather precisely (he does so as well in his creationism page in dealing with the Flood Myth), and it is attached to a rather precise figure "tens of billions" of megatons (or the 1e10-1e11 megaton range. The Flood myth debunking stated 100 billion megatons.) Some may think this is arbitray, but if you do some looking, its actually rather precise as far as planetary bombardment goes. There are many references to the "tens of billions" of megatons or more being needed to "Sterilize' a planet, whereas lesser amounts (hundreds of millions s or a billion-plus megatons) will at best partially do so.

Note that some of these artticles require PDF formats, so in addition to posting the links, I'll quote the relevant material. My specific commentary will follow after.

First Link

It has been estimated [26] that an impact of an asteroid of mass 1.3 x 1020kg (about 440km in
diameter) would completely evaporate the Earth’s oceans destroying any life. An asteroid of
1.1 x 1019kg (about 190km in diameter) would be sufficient to evaporate the photic zone (the
upper 200m of the ocean where photosynthesis would be possible). The mass of the impactors
responsible for the Orientale and Imbrium basins on the Moon are estimated to be 1.4 x 1018
and 2 x 1018kg [26]. This corresponds to asteroid diameters ~100km. On a steady decline
model it is therefore highly likely that the Earth was hit by one or more of these sterilising
impactors in the period before 3.9 Gyr [27].
This leads to the scenario of “impact frustration”
of the origin of life [28] where impacts of large objects limit the origin (or re-origin) of life to
near the end of the bombardment.

On the cataclysm hypothesis, however, the peak of the bombardment occurs at about 3.9 Gyr.
The largest impactors on the Moon at this time are the ~100km objects responsible for the
maria basins. While the larger size of the Earth, means that statistically it is likely to be hit by
somewhat larger objects at this time, it is unlikely that any of these would be the 50-100 times
more massive objects required to sterilize the planet, and quite possible that no impacts large
enough to sterilize the photic zone occurred.
On the cataclysm hypothesis then the
environment would be relatively benign [29] and life could well have survived through the
cataclysm period. As there is evidence from analysis of Hadean zircons that oceans and
continents were present on Earth as far back as 4.4 Gyr [30, 31], life could have originated at
any time back to 4.4 Gyr ago. With good evidence for life only being found at 3.5 Gyr, the
time available for the emergence of life is ~0.9 Gyr, and life’s appearance may not be as rapid
as some previous studies have assumed [24, 25]


Doing some simple research (such as these most excellent asteroid calculators here and my favorite one here we can note that the minimum velocity required for asteroid impacts to be about 11 km/s. Average velocity seems to be around 17 to 20 km/s, but we will use the lower end of the scale.

The masses for a 100 km "sterilizing" asteroids are given as between 1e18 and 2e18 kilograms. This yields a KE of around 6e25 to 1.2e26 joules, minimum (11 km/s velocity. assuming 17 km/s velocity, the yields are 1.4e26 to 3e26 joules.) This is within the "tens of billions of megatons" range Mike postulated as sterilizing asteroids. But that's not all. There are other kinds of "sterilization" at higher asteroid masses (and thus yields) The "photic sterilizing" asteroid is 1.1e19 kg in mass, whereas an "ocean vaporizing" sterilization asteroid would be in the 1.3e20 kg range (the "50-100x more massive" asteroids mentioned later. The latter yields for the "photic zone" vaporisation would be around 6e26-1e27 joules, while the "ocean vaporization' range is in the 8e27-2e28 joule range, again depending on velocity.

Bear in mind that the "ocean vaporizing" bit probably does not apply in this case, given that a.) its an ice planet, and all the oceans are frozen (it would take more energy to first melt then vaporize the oceans) and b.) "ocean vaporizing" is part of an "exterminatus" event, which this is unlikely to be. Of course, if you want to annoy a moron being dishonest, there is no reason not to present this possibility as an "upper limit" :D Realistically though, the value probably falls into the 20-100 billion megaton range or so (maybe 2-300 billion, depending on circumstances.)

second link

Artist's concept of a catastrophic asteroid impact with the early Earth. An impact with a 500-km-diameter asteroid would effectively sterilize the planet. The Earth may have experienced such gigantic impacts in its youth, but fortunately today there are no projectiles this large to threaten our planet.

The image link is on the site, so I won't reproduce it. As noted above, the 500 km asteroid is closer to the "ocean vaporizing" scale of things (1e20+ kg asteroid, e27-e28 joules yield.). It is worth noting that the statement indicates that the planet may have experienceed one or more such impacts, and that despite this, life managed to recover and flourish, albeit over a very long period of time (likely to be far longer than plausible for the Caves of Ice quote.)

Third link

Being clobbered by bolides is a fact of life for the
Solar System’s inner planets. During Earth’s Hadean
period (4.5 to ≈ 3.8 Ga) impacts were so severe that
some are calculated to have been large enough to cause
the oceans to boil, thereby sterilizing the planet of
any life except microbes existing deep underground.
Fortunately, major impact events decreased after the
Hadean period.


"ocean boiling" falls into the 4e26 joule range (~100 billion megatons) although given partial vaporization and inefficiencies it could arguably fall into the low e27 range as well (a fact noted on Mike's BDZ page, I believe.) Nonetheless this still qualifies as the "tens of billions of megatons for sterilization" range as well. Note as well that the statement indicates multiple such impacts could have occured, so clearly life was not permanantly stamped out on the planet.

Another quote states:

In addition, between Jupiter and
Neptune are dozens of so-called planetoids astronomers
term"Centaurs." These are asteroid/comet type objects
such as 148 x 208 km Chiron. Centaurs are scary because
anything that size would sterilize the planet. However,
even bolides that are only one km (about one tenth the
size of the KT asteroid) are considered significant threats
to human life. And objects 10 km or more are believed
to be full-blown extinction threats. Hence the activity
seeking to identify large objects with potential Earth
crossing orbits.


Assuming silicon composition, the asteroid would mass around 8e18 kg roughly, falling into the 4e26-1e27 joule range. Again in that "tens of billions of megatons" benchmark. Isn't consistency fun?

Also of interest to note that "smaller" asteroids (10 km or so in diameter) are simply considered "extinction" threats (distinct from the above "sterilization") The "ten km or more" value would be in around the e7-e8 megaton range, larger (20 km or so) in the e8-e9 megaton range.

fourth link
Planets are sometimes struck by asteroids so large that the energy imparted by the impact can boil oceans and sterilize worlds. Atmospheres escape into space.[/quote]
"boiling oceans" and "atmosphere escaping into space" is again in the e26-e27 joule range (at least), enough to "sterilize" a world, specifically. It does not specify whether ALL of the atmosphere goes into space (virttually any asteroid impact will involve at least some atmosphere being blown away, although within the established ranges for "sterilization" this is certainly possible. (although depending on how you deliver the energy, it could take alot more, especially if substantial ocean vaporization is involved.)

This is not really as "accurate" a sorucee as the others I have linked to, IMHO, but it is good supplementary proof.

fifth link

That’s because asteroids were bombarding it, boiling the oceans and likely sterilizing the planet’s surface before about 3.8 billion years ago.


Again, not the most authoritarian of articles by itself, but it seems to be citing another source, so that does lend it somewhat more credibility. Again, mention of "boiling the oceans and sterilizing the planet", and around the 100 billion megaton mark.

sixth link

It is generally agreed that the life have originated between 3500-3800 Myr ago (Orgel 1998). Before 3600 Myr, the oceans would probably have been repeatedly vaporized by large impacts, which could sterilize the planet eliminating small and large molecules and life itself (Maher & Stevenson 1988, Sleep et al. 1989, Zahnle & Sleep 1997, Lyons & Vasavada 1999). However, reconstruction of the last heavy bombardment indicates that large impacts up to 100-km in diameter occurred still 3600 Myr ago and generated excessive temperatures on Earth able to melt most of the planet´s mass (Lyons & Vasavada 1999). Though it is difficult to suppose that an accumulation of organic molecules could be possible before of this age, it would be feasible only during the intervals among each impactor fall (Marcano et al. 2000a), which would have surface temperatures between 85-110°C generated mainly by CO2 greenhouse effects (Kasting 1993).


Again, note the mention of a 100 km diameter asteroid bombrdment, the "vaporization" of oceans (repeatedly, suggesting parttial vaporization or large scale boiling instead of total vaporization, although of course that also an fall within the scale of "sterilization" too.) Also make note of the fact of "melting" much of its mass (presumably the crust, the mantle and core are already at/beyond melting point, as I recall.) Again, these effects quite logically fall in the "tens of billions/hundred billion" megaton range, approximately (depending on factors.), which we know from the KE of a 100 km diameter asteroid.

seventh link

Byerly, along with a fellow researcher, two students at LSU and researchers at Stanford, UCLA and the University of California-San Diego, say samples collected from rocks in South Africa and Australia show an asteroid about 12 miles wide struck the Earth about 3.5 billion years ago.
That impact, among the oldest and largest documented, sent millions of tons of dust and vaporized rock into the atmosphere, the scientists said.
"The only things that would have survived would have been bacteria that lived below the surface of the ocean," Byerly said. "If it happened today, it would probably sterilize most of the planet."

A 12 mile asteroid would sterilize "most" of the planet, although how much "most" would mean is kind of vague (probably not much, given the earlier links.) This is only indicative of "partial" sterilization, as opposed to full sterilization by the other sourhces (a 12 mile asteroid would fall in the e8-e9 megaton range.)

last link

The larger of these impacts would
have boiled off the early oceans into steam, sterilizing the planet of
any life forms that might have emerged.


Again, "boiling/evaporation" oceans is linked to "sterilization", which puts the firepower in the e26-e27 range.


Given the above, and the obvious fact that the aforementioned incident in Caves of Ice is CLEARLY a planetary bombardment/extinction level event, and that Cain (in reference to said bombardment) refers to "sterilizing" the planet, we have no reason to believe it means anything other than dumping enough energy into the planet to sterilize it, much in the same way the asteroids described above will "sterilize" an asteroid. It's all we need as far as the definition (and the event) are concerned, and further arguing (read nitpicking), in the absence of evidence to the contrary, is meaningless (and dishonest.)

There is more to the calc than just semantics wrangling, though. We are dealign with an ice planet. It's crust is covered quite extensively by kilometres thick ice, in addition to the crustal thickness itself. We know from the "uninhabitable" aspect of the quote that the bombardment produces substantial amounts of ejecta nad dust loading (and other such nasty effects.), so it also stands to reason that the bombardment reaches down into the crust (which is also consistent with the "however deeply" bit of the quote, to an extent. I mean, its unlikely that the Necron facilities are buried in the mantle, for exmaple.) But not only the crust must be penetrated, b ut the ice layers above it. Ice is of course easier to bust through, and this also means its unlikely to make very good ejecta (odds are it will melt/vaporise much more easily than silicon from friction.) Add to the fact the need to evacuate the layers of ice/rock on top of the Necron facilities belowground before they can be attacked (or reaching down deeply enough to collapse/melt the caverns they occupy, at least) we're definitely looking at least at fragmentation/vaporization of the area involved, ice and rock both.

The caves occupying the Necrons are said to be "city sized", and we know from other statements in caves of Ice that the caverns extended into the bedrock of the planet in places, so at least some crust (likely to a depth of tens or huhndreds of meters) had to be affected, in addition to the 3 or so kilometers of ice on top if it. The ice will almost certainly be blasted off in liquid or vapor form, and it doesn't matter how you do it. Even if the lance strikes don't directly vaporize it, the friction of hypervelocity ejecta (like in asteroid impacts) will almost certainly melt or vaporize it (even at a couple of km/s, nevermind the 5 km/s or so Mike notes.). This ice will also, it should be noted, heat up the atmosphere, but because it will likely melt and/or vaporize in the process, that moisture will also be kept in the atmosphere. (This will make it harder to blow off the atmosphere, at least completey, so the energy that one can input into the planet before removing the atmosphere will also be greater.)

The crust itself will probably melt and/or vaporize at least partly (both debris ejected out of and inside the crater, as well as the crater's sides.) The rest of the debris will probably be heated to some degree but also possess tremendous energy (hypervelocity ejecta, remember.)

Melting the ice to a depth of three kilometers (assuming a 1500 km radius continent) and 3 km depth requires at least. 8e24 joules of energy. Vaporisation would require somewhere in the 5e25 joule range. Melting the crust to a 1500 km radius and a depth of 300 meters (consevative) requires 9e24 joules. Total vaporisation would require 6e25 joules. Thus, the firepower requirement falls in the e25-e26 joule range, ignoring the conservative variables input and inefficiencies involved.

If its cratering, (which is probably more likely, although the above will probably play a not-insignificant role in the event) therea re one of two ways to estimate it. The first is for individual lance blasts to blanket the entire continent. Assuming a 1500 km radius continent, and 2 battleships with 50 individual lances apiece, requires roughly 5e25 joules of energy to crater.

Alternately, the battleships may concentrate their fire in a single, massive strike on a specific point (mimicking the effects of a single, large-scale impactor) Well, that would likely be equivlaent to "blasting" the entire continent at once. As we know frorm the "Planet Killers" page, that would require around 5e25 joules as well (conservative) Small wonder that the "searing continents" bit is so excessive - seriously fucking up the continent (and anything on it) requires ALOT of energy, no matter how you go about it.) destroying a continent requires ALOT of energy. (merely blasting stuff on the continent requires much less, doign things like blasting mountains and whatnot, way more. Look at the eclipse entry to see why, which incidentally is also well into the sterilization scale.

As we can see, the "sterilization" benchmark coincides greatly with the probable destructive effects from blasting the ice and crust on a continental scale.

(If you're curious, the "Planet Killers" page DOES note that "continental" level direct destruction can be achieved with much less firepower (1e7-1e8 megatons), and some MIGHT argue that "levelling" a continent is more consistent with this. However, we know that the planet is rendered uninhabitable for generations (which is impossible with that magnitude of firepower), that it is "sterilized" (which I have already dealt with) and that the bombardment was believed to be able to affect the Necrons to a substantial depth (which again, it won't do - Cain doesn' tknow how extensive the Necron facilities are, after all, and thus must err on the side of caution.) Most importantly, "levelling" can simply mean "destruction" or "demolishing" - interpreting the statement to "knock down" the continent or "make it flat/even" is absurd unless you melt the entire crust (which I already dealt with) - cratering will make it uneven unless you overalp the craters quite a bit (which will again increase the yield.)

Lastly, there's terraforming. After asking around among some of the more knowledgable 40Kers on the site, it does seem quite likely that even if the planet were "permanantly" sterilized (however you define that), the Imperium could repair the damage at least to some extent (unofrtunatley, I was too dumb to save all the references.) In any case, as long as there is atmosphere, the planet should be easy to make habitable - transplanting plant and animal life (and huumans) back to the world would be fairly easy and well within the established abilities. (Besides, atmosphere removal is more in line with Exterminatus) Given that the various links I posted above tend to rather obviously indicate that "sterilization" is not neccesarily permanant, the transplanting idea becomes even more probable an explanation. And as I was reminded, Hive Worlds (as mentioned in the 3rd edition rulebook) does make extensive use of atmosphere processing (because they're so bloody overcrowded, presumably) and related industries, so the fact alone they can maintain Hive Worlds as habitable should argue for them being able to clean up after the sort of attack Cain mentions, or at the very least artificially restore habitability (its a frigging ice ball, after all, and they only inhabit it for the facility. Only the really nasty effects like global firestorms and ejecta are likely to pose a problem.)

Even though the moron in question kept acting as if my sole purpose with the analysis was to inflate numbers, the aforementioned numbers ARE limited by other factors (Although in context you could also say it only "supports" the idea of petaton-range broadsides, but "consistency" isn't very strong among the idiot I dealt with.) Prime among them (as it usually is) is Abbadon's Planet Killer. We know its effects (I've calculated them) and I won't belabor the obvious. I will point out though, that my calcs DID allow for a fairly wide latitude in the Planetkiller calcs, even disallowing the planet-wide destruction. Taking into account all the variables, and the overall level of consistency (blowing a continent sized hole deep intot he planet, boiling off the oceans and atmosphere, etc.) within an hour of direct bombardment, it is quite safe to say that the planetkiller's brute force component probably delivers around e28-e30 joules to a planet, which can work out to the e25-e27 range, the upper end of which matches with the battleship firepower I'm arguing for (Abbadon's PK being 10x more powerful than a battleship would make sense - I mean its unlikely the Imperium could concentrate THAT many in one locale very easily.) This IS edging up on the upper end of the scale of the specific calcs I did, but its not really stretching things any (particularily given that the individual "effects" such as ocean vaporising, blasting a hole in the crust, and atmosphere removal are NOT distinct or individual factors, they are inter-related.)

Antoher limiting factor is, of course, Exterminatus. as I said, this likely isn't one, and it isn't a permamant destruction of a planet. And it probably doesn't vaporize the oceans (which an Exterminatus can do.) This fits comfortably with the e25-e26 joule (or e10-e11 megaton) range I am arguing for, of course, with still enough wiggle room should further revision become neccessary. I will deal with Exterminatus later on, but I will say the effects seem surprisingly consistent.

All in all, it seems quite reasonable to argue for the single or double digit petaton per salvo calcs. If anything, double digit seems even more plausible than I thought before (although triple digit, while possible, is really stretching the whole "consistency" thing, and I don't argue in favor of those.)

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Re: Caves of Ice Battleship bombardment calc: Revised editi

Postby PainRack » 2007-03-07 05:43am

Connor MacLeod wrote:It should also be noted that, while this is clearly an extinction level event (or rather a bit more than that.) it most probably was not an Exterimnatus. The fact it was not called such should intuitively tell us that it isn't (or at least, we have no reason to believe it is such.) But there are other matters to consider. Historically in many novels (Eisenhorn, Draco, Nightbringer and Warriors of Ultramar) Exterminatus is the ultimate, irrevocable act of destruction available to the Imperium (Similar in many respects to a Base Delta Zero attack in Star Wars.)

I beg to differ. Considering that Exterminatus has also been conducted via a combination of viral bombs and firebombing before, its a tad different. Furthermore, in the 2nd Edt, Exterminatus was explictly stated to allow a fresh restart, wiping clean all life so as to cleanse them from the taint of chaos and allowing a fresh colony to be re-established.

IOW, while Exterminatus can involve total planetary annihialiation, its designation doesn't neccesarily mean that, similar to how BDZ on barren planetoids would be different from a BDZ on an inhabitated world.

The ability to re-establish a new colony( after the world has been certified cleansed of Chaos presumably) suggest that firepower levels may vary.

Just a minor nitpick, because this does not mean that WH40k do not possess the firepower in your calcs.
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Postby NecronLord » 2007-03-07 06:53am

If I recall rightly, he was saying that Amberly would whistle up the battleships, and she certainly could order an exterminatus.
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Re: Caves of Ice Battleship bombardment calc: Revised editi

Postby Plushie » 2007-03-07 07:29am

PainRack wrote:I beg to differ. Considering that Exterminatus has also been conducted via a combination of viral bombs and firebombing before, its a tad different. Furthermore, in the 2nd Edt, Exterminatus was explictly stated to allow a fresh restart, wiping clean all life so as to cleanse them from the taint of chaos and allowing a fresh colony to be re-established.

IOW, while Exterminatus can involve total planetary annihialiation, its designation doesn't neccesarily mean that, similar to how BDZ on barren planetoids would be different from a BDZ on an inhabitated world.

The ability to re-establish a new colony( after the world has been certified cleansed of Chaos presumably) suggest that firepower levels may vary.

Just a minor nitpick, because this does not mean that WH40k do not possess the firepower in your calcs.


I actually just had this discussion with him and, apparently, these things can vary. Exterminatus is apparently the direct order to kill anything and everything on the surface. The way this can vary depending upon the zeal and resources of the Exterminators.

Here:

Conner wrote:Conner: Stalinvast would long have been a scorched husk, its jungles rotted utterly by the life-eater, than cremated by firegas, only the plasteel skeletons of its empty cities hovering above the barren desolation, dead reefs above a dried-out sea. Many cities would most likely have collapsed into tangled, fused ruins when the firegas exploded planet-wide. There would not be an atom of oxygen left in the now poisonous atmosphere; that too would have burned.

Conner: Uriel nodded, determined that Chordelis would not suffer the horrible fate of Barbarus Prime. By now there was nothing left of that world but a dead hunk of rock, its people, wildlife, and very ecosystem devoured by these monstrous aliens

Conner: Even at maximum magnification, the planet before them barely filled the viewing bay, reflected light from the distant sun rippling across its heaving, fiery surface. Firestorms were raging across the dead planet as flammable gasses released from oceans of decaying organic matter enveloped it, scouring the surface to bare, lifeless rock.
The tyranids themselves could do no more thoruough a job


The first example makes it rather obvious that the planet is uninhabitable and will remain so without extensive and purposeful terraforming.

The second example is ambiguous but completely fails to mention un-inhabitability, meaning it's not unreasonable to include the possibility that it didn't cause such.

The third example describes something similar to, perhaps even worse than the first. We already know that the Tyranids are quite capable of removing a significant chunk of a planet's mass and, if the statement is literal or even nearly so, this implies a rather huge bombing campaign.

These are three examples of virus bombings, presumably accompanying an Exterminatus order.

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Postby Falkenhayn » 2007-03-07 10:43pm

NecronLord wrote:If I recall rightly, he was saying that Amberly would whistle up the battleships, and she certainly could order an exterminatus.


This certainly seems to be the case, though Eisenhorn and Ravenor imply that there is oversight and inquiry of Inquisitorial action (by other I men) on this level, though I can't remember if Eisenhorn was doing so to cover his own ass or as a matter of procedure.

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Postby kinnison » 2007-03-08 09:36am

Tut, tut, so inelegant.

I'll share an incident in a SF RPG (paper and dice kind) that I was involved in. For reasons that will become obvious, the campaign finished shortly thereafter.

The method of ecocide chosen was a decent-sized asteroid (to disrupt social structures and prevent effective measures against the rest) followed by a couple of tons of replicating nanoassemblers with a command to create, as well as copies, large amounts of CFCs. For any that might not know, CFCs are the most potent greenhouse gas known - far more than CO2 or methane.

The nanites had a maximum operating temperature of around 250 deg C. End result; planet turns from a functioning, living world to a hothouse worse than Venus.

Effective, subtle and cheap. :twisted:

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Postby Brother-Captain Gaius » 2007-03-08 10:08am

kinnison wrote:The method of ecocide chosen was a decent-sized asteroid

[...]

Effective, subtle and cheap. :twisted:


Oh, you walked into this one, bringing that into a 40k thread no less:

Rocks are NOT “free”, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within reach of the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the tech priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthyness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrappers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the tech priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact on the planet (assuming the Emperor’s warship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:
Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials.
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 0.9 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI
Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasting with the following:
5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI
Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same amount with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His office of Imperial outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administatum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,
Bursarius Tenathis,
Purser Level XI,
Imperial Office of Outlays.
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Postby Bill Door » 2007-03-08 02:02pm

kinnison wrote:[...]The method of ecocide chosen was a decent-sized asteroid (to disrupt social structures and prevent effective measures against the rest) followed by a couple of tons of replicating nanoassemblers with a command to create, as well as copies, large amounts of CFCs. For any that might not know, CFCs are the most potent greenhouse gas known - far more than CO2 or methane.

The nanites had a maximum operating temperature of around 250 deg C. End result; planet turns from a functioning, living world to a hothouse worse than Venus.

Effective, subtle and cheap. :twisted:
Effective? No.

The target is a buried structure, filled with enemy that are not dependant on having a biosphere to survive, being what amounts to androids (as far as I am aware, at least). Also, they have demonstrated the ability to evacuate (or indeed re-enforce, as demonstrated in the novel) their 'personnel' through a gate that your strike would leave completely unaffected, being buried under kilometers of ice and rock.

The resultant ecosystem damage that is supposed to occur is a result of the secondary effects of the bombardment. After all, the planet is a fairly important source of vehicle fuel, which would be stupid to render useless without just cause. If the Imperium of Man wanted massive ecological damage they'd use their virus bombs, which are capable and indeed have turned planets into lifeless wastes.
For example, suppose I wrote a book that within 30 years of the moon landing millions of people could be duped by bad science and endless hectoring into believing that it didn't happen... nah, can't do that, too unbelievable for a fantasy novel, right?--Terry Pratchett, The new Discworld Companion

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Postby Azazal » 2007-03-08 02:58pm

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:
kinnison wrote:The method of ecocide chosen was a decent-sized asteroid

[...]

Effective, subtle and cheap. :twisted:


Oh, you walked into this one, bringing that into a 40k thread no less:

Rocks are NOT “free”, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within reach of the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the tech priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthyness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrappers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the tech priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact on the planet (assuming the Emperor’s warship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:
Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials.
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 0.9 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI
Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasting with the following:
5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI
Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same amount with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His office of Imperial outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administatum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,
Bursarius Tenathis,
Purser Level XI,
Imperial Office of Outlays.




You know I was thinking the same thing when I read his post. Good show (golf clap)
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Postby NecronLord » 2007-03-08 04:38pm

Bill Door wrote:The target is a buried structure, filled with enemy that are not dependant on having a biosphere to survive, being what amounts to androids (as far as I am aware, at least). Also, they have demonstrated the ability to evacuate (or indeed re-enforce, as demonstrated in the novel) their 'personnel' through a gate that your strike would leave completely unaffected, being buried under kilometers of ice and rock.
Let's not forget, their ships are significantly - possibly up to an order of magnitude given some background stuff - more powerful than the Imperium's and faster to react. They could easily intercept an asteroid and blast it and its escorts apart, given how much extra warning that would provide.
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Postby Ender » 2007-03-08 08:43pm

I'm curious as to how this jives with the rok destruction scenes in Shadowpoint. A converted asteroid 8 km long and about 4 km wide would normally have taken dozens of torpedos to destroy, but a handful of special penetrating torpedos can do it instead. The special torpedos were not hindered by the shields, so neither should normal as given what made them special was their burrowing siesmic charge warheads, nothing else.

I don't know enough about 40k, so this may be a stupid point. But that is a pretty big incongruity to me. Are torpedos weaker then lances, plasma eamers, or laser cannons? Is there a major tech change between the fleets availablein the gothic sector and the fleets in other sectors? Is there some other explanation I'm missing?
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Postby Imperial Overlord » 2007-03-08 09:43pm

Torpedoes are generally not as destructive as massed lance or weapon battery fire. The advantage they possess of being able to penetrate void shields is their principle strength as a weapon system.
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Postby NecronLord » 2007-03-09 02:38am

Given the number of plates of metal of improbable dimensions that orks appear to be able to scrounge up at any given time, It'd not surprise me if Roks were much more formidable than conventional asteroids.
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Postby kinnison » 2007-03-09 05:08am

Actually, the berserker nanites would probably do the job on their own - and the amount of energy and resources involved is trivial. It all depends on how fast you want the job done and why - and once the entire ocean system is boiled off, this is essentially irreversible short of macro-engineering such as a planet-sized sunshade (which would take surprisingly small amounts of material).

The surface temperature in this case would be about 900 deg C, according to some estimates I've seen - hotter than Venus because of more greenhouse gases, as Venus has essentially no water.

The pressure would be about 300 atmospheres. I doubt that any machinery of any sort not designed for those conditions would survive.

As for the asteroid bit - well, who needs fuel? A big mirror would do, using some of the asteroid's own mass for reaction mass.

However, this may all take too much time and be too subtle. In my admittedly limited experience, 40K ain't subtle.

By the way, if time wasn't too much of an object, and not actually adding too much time to the job (exponential growth ftw!) a few hundred nanites, much easier to sneak in, would get the job done.

So you end up with a planet with a surface that's half molten, forever unless you decide to reverse it, for trivial cost. Sounds good to me.

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Postby Imperial Overlord » 2007-03-09 06:21am

One does not use nanotechnology against Necrons. You won't even inconvenience them.
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Postby Imperial Overlord » 2007-03-09 06:23am

And you really need to read the mainsites dismantling of nanowank. They can't do anything large scale in anything approaching a reasonable amount of time.
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Postby NecronLord » 2007-03-09 06:29am

kinnison wrote:Actually, the berserker nanites would probably do the job on their own - and the amount of energy and resources involved is trivial.
And then the Necrons would laugh at it. For a start, they seem to actually have nanotechnology in the sci-fi sense, the Imperium doesn't. Even then, their technology is literally godlike in comparison.
The surface temperature in this case would be about 900 deg C, according to some estimates I've seen - hotter than Venus because of more greenhouse gases, as Venus has essentially no water.
And? Dip a necron in gold, and it'd be completely unaffected by that enviroment.
So you end up with a planet with a surface that's half molten, forever unless you decide to reverse it, for trivial cost. Sounds good to me.


Or until the Necrons, dyson-shell building technocrats who can cross the galaxy in a step and walk through multi-gigawatt lasers, decide to reverse it. Or just leave.
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Re: Caves of Ice Battleship bombardment calc: Revised editi

Postby Connor MacLeod » 2007-03-10 03:18am

For brevity I combined Necronlord and Painrack's responses

PainRack wrote:I beg to differ. Considering that Exterminatus has also been conducted via a combination of viral bombs and firebombing before, its a tad different. Furthermore, in the 2nd Edt, Exterminatus was explictly stated to allow a fresh restart, wiping clean all life so as to cleanse them from the taint of chaos and allowing a fresh colony to be re-established.


Um, unless you're talking about the 56-Izar incident (the bombardment before virus bombing was meant to take out the Saruthi structures, which makes sense.), I don't get your point. "firebombing" is tied to virus bomb attacks - its the massive organic decomposition via life-eater virus that creates the chemical gas that leads to the firestorms.

Moreover, the only bit I can think of that possibly applies to the "re-settlement" is the specific statements in the Wargear/battle manual stuff from early first and second edition 40K game materials. That was not, however, explicitly stated to be Exterminatus-related, but simply from virus bombing. From those same sources, it is quite evident that they considered it possible to virus-bomb a planet on much smaller/localized scales - Virus bombs were not, IOW, "exterminatus-only" weapons (at least then.) Hell you could have man protable grenades and missiles equipped with virus bombs. (Cities even had such ordnance, at least according to 13th Legion.)

IT can be further ntoed that that "virus bomb" reference does not seem to be the same as the "firegas-creating, self-consuming/destroying" type virus bombs, so they may very well be a separate kind of weapon entirely.


IOW, while Exterminatus can involve total planetary annihialiation, its designation doesn't neccesarily mean that, similar to how BDZ on barren planetoids would be different from a BDZ on an inhabitated world.


Would you have an exact source for this, perchance? Its possible that some exterminatus (low level) aren't total extinction, but the only sourcec I can really recall offhand is Tactica Imperialis (and that still doesn't apply here, because those attacks render planets uninhabitable for MILLENIA, not generations.)

The ability to re-establish a new colony( after the world has been certified cleansed of Chaos presumably) suggest that firepower levels may vary.


Perhaps. Again, a quote would be nice.


<<<>>>

NecronLord wrote:If I recall rightly, he was saying that Amberly would whistle up the battleships, and she certainly could order an exterminatus.


Going directly from what the book said on page 166-167 (the source of the quote) they only talked about sending the message to the Navy directly via astropath, without any contact with Amberley. Her mention (or that of the Inquisition) came later when Cain talks about "suppressing dissent' over his actions in order to stamp out the Necrons.

On the other hand, that doesn't neccesarily rule out her involvement (possibly making it an Exterminatus.) Cain may have pre set "code words" for such actions (although that would represent an unusually high level of trust between the two - but not implausible either.) or she have been contacted and Cain didn't mention it.

In the absence of any evidence for it, though, I'm simply concluding it probably isn't one. Of course, if it were, that could just mean these calcs could be MUCH higher (for that matter, the Exterminatus calcs would be higher, because the timeframe could be argued to be much shorter than I typically ascribe to it.)

NecronLord wrote:Let's not forget, their ships are significantly - possibly up to an order of magnitude given some background stuff - more powerful than the Imperium's and faster to react. They could easily intercept an asteroid and blast it and its escorts apart, given how much extra warning that would provide.


In some terms (toughness, acceleration maybe, etc.) but in others they may not be significantly greater (I could be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that offensively their brute force power isn't massively greater than the Imperium - but the fact they can bypass many of the sharship defenses is what makes them dangerous) whereas in other ways they might be massively superior (FTL speed.)

I do agree that they probably could intercept and destroy an asteroid long before it hit a planet, though (unless the asteroid was escorted or protected somehow,a nd that would be rtaher time consuming

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Re: Caves of Ice Battleship bombardment calc: Revised editi

Postby NecronLord » 2007-03-10 03:28am

Connor MacLeod wrote:In some terms (toughness, acceleration maybe, etc.) but in others they may not be significantly greater (I could be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that offensively their brute force power isn't massively greater than the Imperium - but the fact they can bypass many of the sharship defenses is what makes them dangerous) whereas in other ways they might be massively superior (FTL speed.)
Yes. In game, they're not that superior (there's some systems that aren't reprsented at all in BFG any more, for example) but fluff-wise their power outputs cause Imperium of Man sensor operators to go 'argh, it's off the scale.' - see the sidebar in the necron fleet list about the 'Research Vessel God's Eye.' If they're no more powerful than comparable sized IoM vessels, they really shouldn't be 'off the scale.'
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Postby Connor MacLeod » 2007-03-10 03:31am

Ender wrote:I'm curious as to how this jives with the rok destruction scenes in Shadowpoint. A converted asteroid 8 km long and about 4 km wide would normally have taken dozens of torpedos to destroy, but a handful of special penetrating torpedos can do it instead. The special torpedos were not hindered by the shields, so neither should normal as given what made them special was their burrowing siesmic charge warheads, nothing else.

I don't know enough about 40k, so this may be a stupid point. But that is a pretty big incongruity to me. Are torpedos weaker then lances, plasma eamers, or laser cannons? Is there a major tech change between the fleets availablein the gothic sector and the fleets in other sectors? Is there some other explanation I'm missing?


Actually a good point, and I admit the Rok scene has bugged me for some time (I think I mentioned it in my tech analysis of Shadow point as well.). Necronlord has a good idea (the Roks have to be fitted with engines and weapons and shit... that arguably would require some structural reinforcement, either by metals, forcefield technologies, or a combination thereof.) so the idea that the Rok would be "tougher" has merit.

There is also another possible factor, of course. The ever-mentioned "WAAGGH" effect that invokes such subtle effects like "Red ones go faster". Maybe the torpedoes "effectiveness" is partly in making the Orks think they are (didn't something like that get proposed for autoguns in the Caves of Ice thread? Autoguns are effective against orks because they think big bangs are more effective?)

Imperial OVerlord: While your idea is valid (torps generally do ignore shields, ,and thus ened to be less brute force) the raw firepower involved is at best maybe low GT range (at BEST.. MT range is more liekly) for the torps there.. PIDDLY compared to the firepower implied elsewhere (directly or indirectly.. some including for torpedoes.)

Its also possible shield penetration may not always be "perfect" - or that the Orks odd/inconsistent approach to technology frustrates Imperium's efforts in this regard sometimes.

I should point out that even independent of my Caves of Ice analysis, the "Rok forts" represent a firepower discrepancy in comparison with other sourcees ( massive bombardment cannonsand nova cannon projectiles that move at substantial fractions of lightspeed, battleships wasting continents or mountain ranges or moons, multi-gigaton wareheads on torpedoes, etc.) Hell, even going by my oldest and most conservative exterminatus calcs (1e9 megatons over 24 hours) the calcs aren't going to mesh very well.

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Re: Caves of Ice Battleship bombardment calc: Revised editi

Postby Connor MacLeod » 2007-03-10 03:34am

NecronLord wrote:Yes. In game, they're not that superior (there's some systems that aren't reprsented at all in BFG any more, for example) but fluff-wise their power outputs cause Imperium of Man sensor operators to go 'argh, it's off the scale.' - see the sidebar in the necron fleet list about the 'Research Vessel God's Eye.' If they're no more powerful than comparable sized IoM vessels, they really shouldn't be 'off the scale.'


I'm a bit leery of that, because "off the cuff" statements like that (especially in a time of panic) can be hard to interpret. There's no doubting that their power generation (and firepower) ARE much greater than the Imperiums, but again I'm not sure if its a massive increase in firepower.

Although on the other hand, the Necron Codex tends to argue that (Titan or starship grade weapons fire to punch cleanly through a Land Raider's hull and all that.. but I tend to take that statement with a grain of salt as well.)

It may also just be possible that they have a hard time reading Necron weapons.. we know they don't really have a good grasp of many aspects of their technologies, and that green shit they throw is pretty damn exotic

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Postby Connor MacLeod » 2007-03-10 03:41am

kinnison wrote:Actually, the berserker nanites would probably do the job on their own - and the amount of energy and resources involved is trivial. It all depends on how fast you want the job done and why - and once the entire ocean system is boiled off, this is essentially irreversible short of macro-engineering such as a planet-sized sunshade (which would take surprisingly small amounts of material).


If the amount of energy and resources is "trivial" then how the hell do they generate the sorts of temperatures and pressures you claim? nanowank bending the laws of science out of proportion? You seem to have some very skewed notions of "cost effectiveness" considering some of the grandiose claims you make.

Edit: As for the oceans, you can actually boil off (IE vaporize") the oceans in sterilization and still have the planet return to habitability eventually. I suggest you go back and read some of those links I posted. Its only once the atmosphere/oceans are actually REMOVED from the planet that habitability becomes a more permanant problem.

The surface temperature in this case would be about 900 deg C, according to some estimates I've seen - hotter than Venus because of more greenhouse gases, as Venus has essentially no water.


Some proof would be nice. I'm not particularily interested in wild-ass claims, particularily when they're based on nanowank.

The pressure would be about 300 atmospheres. I doubt that any machinery of any sort not designed for those conditions would survive.


Um yeah, how much do you know about Necrons actually? They're giant undead self-regenerating smart-metal monsters. They shrug off gigawatt laser weapons, ,and even can come back from GW range multi-melta fire. They can ignore casual hellgun fire (double digit MJ per shot, easily). Bolter rounds (whcih are at least as powerful as a grgenade or RPG, depending on model) do precisely fuck all to them under most cases as well. I'd also be willing to bet things like krak grenades don't do much to them. If they can't resist it, they regenerate from it.

Then again, we just have your word that this will all just "work", os maybe you coudl do a better job of backing your crap up?

As for the asteroid bit - well, who needs fuel? A big mirror would do, using some of the asteroid's own mass for reaction mass.


Whereupon it gets blasted by the Necrons before striking.

However, this may all take too much time and be too subtle. In my admittedly limited experience, 40K ain't subtle.


Or, it doesn't work at all. Frankly I am not inclined to buy your "elegant solution" simply on the basis of a bunch of unsubstantiated claims you make.

By the way, if time wasn't too much of an object, and not actually adding too much time to the job (exponential growth ftw!) a few hundred nanites, much easier to sneak in, would get the job done.

So you end up with a planet with a surface that's half molten, forever unless you decide to reverse it, for trivial cost. Sounds good to me.


As IO suggested, it might be nice if you actually read the website. Nanowank tends to be rather frowned upon here at best, mocked at worst.
Especially when its unsubstantiated nanowank.

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Postby Connor MacLeod » 2007-03-10 03:46am

Imperial Overlord wrote:One does not use nanotechnology against Necrons. You won't even inconvenience them.


Given the properties of Necrodermis/living metal nanotech (or even nanowank) is probably rather primitive/ineffectual by comparison. (living metal seems far more fluid, far more pervasive, far more sentient/subtle, and vastly harder to eradicate.)

AT the very least, necrodermis is going to be the equal of any of the nanowank, and probably vastly superior to it. The Necrodermis/living metal is one of the main reasons I think outright sterilization is so neccessary in fact. I bet that shit can be as damn near hard to stamp out as a Tyranid/Ork infestation.

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Postby kinnison » 2007-03-10 08:45am

Actually, the temperatures and pressures involved are not generated, in this scenario, by any intelligent agency at all, but simply by gravity and sunlight.

If you have managed to generate enough of a greenhouse effect to boil the oceans, then those oceans become part of the atmosphere - as does the CO2 locked up in carbonate rocks, which are unstable at that sort of temperature.

It is thought that Venus has roughly the same amount of carbon as does Earth - the difference being that here it is locked up in various sorts of solid matter whereas on Venus it is all in the air. Venus has very little water, because solar ultraviolet splits it into oxygen and hydrogen, and an Earth-sized planet can't hold onto hydrogen for very long. Where the oxgen went is a good question with (AFAIK) an unknown answer.

As for proof of those figures, well, I can't provide them without doing it - but a Google search for "runaway greenhouse" ought to go somewhere.

On the subject of nanotech; well, I think that there is little doubt that replicating nanoassemblers are possible. A real-world example might be the flu virus. Another rather more complex example; look in the mirror.

We are talking here about nanites with two very simple programs - replicate, and make this simple molecule. Not about the sort of nanites that make a biological being into something that is immortal and regenerates.

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Re: Caves of Ice Battleship bombardment calc: Revised editi

Postby NecronLord » 2007-03-10 01:56pm

Connor MacLeod wrote:I'm a bit leery of that, because "off the cuff" statements like that (especially in a time of panic) can be hard to interpret. There's no doubting that their power generation (and firepower) ARE much greater than the Imperiums, but again I'm not sure if its a massive increase in firepower.

Although on the other hand, the Necron Codex tends to argue that (Titan or starship grade weapons fire to punch cleanly through a Land Raider's hull and all that.. but I tend to take that statement with a grain of salt as well.)

It may also just be possible that they have a hard time reading Necron weapons.. we know they don't really have a good grasp of many aspects of their technologies, and that green shit they throw is pretty damn exotic


Yeah. I mostly say that to get over the magnitude of the difference, it's certainly not binding. All we know for sure is that one necron ship is generally equal to two of most other races in the same class.
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