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How long would any of a great dragons actually last vs modern day military?

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Sacredsouless

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« Reply #30 on: <03-29-13/0744:38> »
The Clutch of Dragons, Page 128 under Tools of the Opposition, "Butch" states that they can't even benefit from beneficial nanites due to it sending their immune system into overdrive. Aztech is exploiting this to develop anti-dragon weaponry. Am I the only one who has this book? Six people have drawn blanks when i mention something out of it.

I'm reading Storm Front right now, in there they state that Blue-227 is a biochemical agent that mixes with a dragons blood and act as a coagulant or anticoagulant. The part that is specifically referenced is from "posts" by both Butch and KAM that specify the type of weapon, name, and its effects. Plus there is an extra bit from Black Mamba that says it has a side effect on meta-humans. It causes them to go into a rage, though how quickly and to what degree remains unknown (at least to me).

Pages are 23 for Butch/KAM and 31 for Black Mamba.


As for that bit about DK (car bomb and nuke, preventing massive nastiness), where is that? I've always wanted some more details on his murder/suicide.
« Last Edit: <03-29-13/0746:11> by Sacredsouless »

Mirikon

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« Reply #31 on: <03-29-13/0904:54> »
Read the Dragonheart Trilogy. It also is confirmed to be a nuke in the Praxis story in Artifacts Unbound.
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rfv855

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« Reply #32 on: <03-29-13/1122:30> »
About nukes going off, see Casaba-Howitzer-- the nuke goes off in space, where magic doesn't works, so dragon abilities can't affect it.

Also, the fun part about Casaba-Howitzer is that its power is based on the power of the nuke its based on. And taking for example design used for Tzar Bomba, there is no upper scaling limit- all you need to do is add more fusion materials.

So yes, if sufficiently motivated, it is possible to scale it into gigaton range. Which results in direct energy weapon, which when detonated in space, has enough kick to drill all the way through continental shell and into magma layers underneath it. Which is very likely to be enough to vaporize the great gragon which happens to be on the way. Unless he somehow manages to evade during 0.001 seconds between detonation and hit.

Yes we have the technology for that for 50 years or so now. We just never had hard enough targets to actually require using it.

Btw here is the actual article on Tzar Bomb- it was a 50 megaton design, and the explosion was strong enough to cause damage to buildings from 900 km away. The 1 gigaton Casaba-Howitzer has a 20 times stronger energy output, concentrated on target.

And btw before somebody asks, I do like the 40k way of approaching problems :p

Realistically though, its most likely that 50 megaton Casaba-Howitzer will be more then enough. While causing less damage to environment :p

Mithlas

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« Reply #33 on: <03-29-13/1150:18> »
The Clutch of Dragons, Page 128 under Tools of the Opposition, "Butch" states that they can't even benefit from beneficial nanites due to it sending their immune system into overdrive. Aztech is exploiting this to develop anti-dragon weaponry. Am I the only one who has this book? Six people have drawn blanks when i mention something out of it.
Quite possible - I know that I looked through the book at the local game shop, but I'm rather strapped for cash this season and didn't get it.

Something that I don't think many posters have paused to mention is how likely it would have been (before Aztechnology) that one of the world powers would have wanted to make an anti-dragon weapon.

Sacredsouless

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« Reply #34 on: <03-29-13/1229:19> »
Well from my perspective, I think everyone either is or was working on some. What with Ghostwalker ruffled a few feathers with his actions in Denver, so did the dragon that messed up the middle east (I want to say it was Sirraug, but I'm not sure). And even if you are doing fine with the local dragons, I would still want to get something tossed up that my minions could use, just in case.

Mithlas

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« Reply #35 on: <03-29-13/1246:09> »
I do seem to recall one of the posters in Clutch of the Dragon mentioning something like wondering if SK was working on anti-dragon weapons, if just so they could have something Lofwyr would know wouldn't work against him if/when somebody tried to use it against him.

Mirikon

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« Reply #36 on: <03-29-13/1312:27> »
Actually, rfv, any militarization of space (including Thor shots, which we already have) requires Corporate Court command and control. You release orbital weapons without approval from the CC, and you're staring down the wrong end of an Omega Order. And therein lies the massive hole in your plan. There are at least two great dragons that can have a 'personal chat' with their mega's Court justices (Lofwyr and Celedyr), and two more with major ties to megas on the court (Ryumyo and Lung). Moreover, when you start launching at targets not in extraterritorial areas, you need to start at least considering the local national government. In a place like Denver, you're talking about five national governments now (since the Azzies are back) and none of them are likely to be too pleased with you shooting off orbital weapons on their turf.

Long story short, even assuming you could get the thing designed and built without it turning into an Excalibur due to sabotage and shadowruns, and even if you could get it into orbit, the price for using such a weapon will far outweigh the benefit of taking down one dragon. Because in addition to all the problems I just mentioned, then you'll have the rest of the dragons coming after you. And they'll make Art Dankwalther(sp?) seem like an economic buffoon in comparison.
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rfv855

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« Reply #37 on: <03-29-13/1412:33> »
Remember though that we ain't talking some new technology- we are talking about technology which is decades old already, and more then a century old by Shadowrun time. So designing it won't be a problem- main problem is getting it into orbit unnoticed.

And as for rest of the dragons coming after you- this is exactly why you don't build one. You build 20+ of them, get them into orbit, then wait till you have exact location of every great dragon. Then wipe out the entire great dragon population in same time.

Something which I'm sure Aztechnology, Aztlan, Humanis, Black Lodge and some other organizations will highly approve of, and will be willing to combine resources for a common cause.

And once it done, Aztechnology can find plenty of reasons to protect the decision in Corporate Court- for example to protect metahuman kind, considering past actions of some great dragons. Also, having a few weapons remaining being targeted at other corporation's most valuable assets will probably help convincing Corporate Court that it was a necessary decision, after all. 

Mirikon

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« Reply #38 on: <03-29-13/1428:49> »
I'm sorry but no. First off, while nukes might be real, and the idea of tossing nukes in space are real, actually implementing a new weapons system (since two matrix crashes and multiple waves of global craziness probably means those plans aren't there any more) requires extensive time and testing, something you can't do with a weapon like this. This isn't like getting the local machine shop to make you a Colt 1991. We're talking orders of magnitude difference here.

Second, there would be no debate in the Court if someone unleashed 20+ orbital weapons all around the globe. That is instant Omega Order, period. Everyone will dogpile the offender and rip them to bloody shreds without mercy, because they know damn well that if the message isn't sent, then you might be on the receiving end at some point. That is the whole reason that orbital weapons require approval of the Court! Plus, you're either ignoring or forgetting that at least four members of the Court have very close ties to some of the Greats, including two that are literally in official positions of power. The Corporate Court will BURN YOU TO THE GROUND.

Third, go back to the point where I mentioned several posts back that Dragons have Edge, and can spend (or burn) it in all the same ways a normal character can. Guess what? That also includes the 'escape from death' thing.

Fourth, how in the hell are you going to get actual, real-time positions on all the greats simultaneously? Especially considering that they can take metahuman forms, know magic that can easily hide them from orbital scans, and so on. Hell, when Dunkelzhan died, all the dragons gathered to do the death dance for him, and not a single camera in the entire city managed to capture a moment of it.
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Wakshaani

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« Reply #39 on: <03-29-13/1524:26> »
You also have dragons that are, you know, smart. Sirrurg, when he took his followers into Puerto Rico, waited until a massive hurricane was heading in, used spiritual assistance to hide them, then proceeded to wreck face while air forces were grounded by the storm and spirits could be summoned that were agitated enough that they'd just break stuff without even being controlled. Humans were suffering the effects while bound spirits protected the dragons themselves from the worst of it, and it was just UGLY. When the storm left, so did the dragons, leaving destruction in their wake and not a lot that could have been done about it... planes weren't flying into that, missiles aren't so handy sans radar lock-ons, and so forth.

That said, military vs dragons in a smash-mouth fight? Dragons lose. They know it, and now humanity knows it. The questions is "where does this lead"?

DamienHollow

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« Reply #40 on: <03-29-13/2312:16> »
Not good, that's were it leads, and for one very good reason. In the clutch of dragons it mentions one very bad fact... that all of the oceans are ruled by a single dragon, and she is collecting dragon eggs for an army. Right now we know that in a bid between her and us we'd have the dragons on our side because she'd be stepping on clawed toes. It would at least be a much bloodier war without them. I think something we also have to remember is that anti-dragon tech is decades behind what it would have been if not for DK helping to steady things.

Xzylvador

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« Reply #41 on: <03-30-13/1045:33> »
@Mirikon: Wait, when did Aztlan get back in Denver?!

As for war, imo, odds are that some of the greats have access to more nuclear launch codes than the presidents of CAS and UCAS combined. For orbital bombardment, they'll find out you're building orbital weapons long before you can even get your first rocket in the air and will crush you long before achieving a position in which you can threaten them.
A great dragon isn't 'just a big flying dinosaur'. They're organizations run by the most intelligent being on the planet, with loyal (or highly paid, or  both) followers all aroung the globe, an unimagineable knowledge of magic and spend lots of effort and vast amounts of resources to get eyes and ears in everything which could potentially be of interest to them, whether that be next week or next century.

Wakshaani

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« Reply #42 on: <03-30-13/1201:13> »
In the wake of Harle and Ghostwalker's dance, Aztlan rolled into the PCC-sector of Denver with some military oomph.

Lordy, but the Azzie-PCC-CAS border is getting ugly!

Mirikon

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« Reply #43 on: <03-30-13/1415:25> »
It is fairly evident that the Azzies sold the PCC their slice of Texas in return for the PCC not causing a fuss when Aztlan came back to Denver and took over the old Ute section.
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I_V_Saur

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« Reply #44 on: <03-31-13/0031:33> »
Come 5th Ed, this is going to be an absurdly hot topic. We have all these setups - Stormfront, Dunkelzahn's suicide to prevent the Horrors, and everything else stated just in this topic alone. Each one has the capacity to erupt by 5th. If two or more do, (mathematically likely) at the same time, it'll be huge. All of them? (Mathematically unlikely, dramatically destined)

Now that's gonna be the new issue of War!