Chemical/Biological Warfare - Writers Forum

playstation60 · 01-24-2005, 01:47 PM

I was wondering if any of you guys out there knew of any kind of chemical or biological substance that would be able to incapictate (sp) a large group of people. The substance does not need to kill the group, just severely limit their ability to respond for a long period of time, say 8 hours or so. The substance has to be able to be airborn delivered.

Ben P.

stereomuse · 01-24-2005, 03:20 PM

Right of the top of my mind: Chlorine gas, mustard gas, nerve gas, tear gas... might have spelled a few wrong.

mammamaia · 01-25-2005, 09:10 AM

fyi, all those in that list other than tear gas will either kill or leave victims adversely affected for the rest of their lives, so may not fit the asker's prerequisites...

stereomuse · 01-25-2005, 02:51 PM

well he wasnt specific that he didnt want ones that kill people, he just said that they didnt have to.

Tunga · 01-26-2005, 09:50 AM

There's new chemicals being developed all the time so you can always make one up if you can't find one that does what you'd like it to.

stereomuse · 01-26-2005, 05:44 PM

Howstuffworks.com is a great resource for things like this

http://science.howstuffworks.com/biochem-war.htm

river-wind · 01-26-2005, 06:38 PM

you could go historical, and try low levels of LSD inserted into the water supply....much worry and fear about this during the early cold war.

It's been shown that the chlorine added to most urban water supplies will destroy the LSD chemical, but you could have the 'evil doers' eliminate the chroline as part of their plan.

playstation60 · 01-27-2005, 02:10 PM

So from the sounds of it an attack on the water supply for a given area is more probable than an airborn attack? Even though the potential for greater damage is with an airborn attack.

Rico · 01-27-2005, 03:27 PM

The way i see it, the possibilities for chemical/biological warfare are as follows:

1. attack through water supply. this has been discussed a lot alreday so i won't go into it furhter
2.airborne attack. this would be as doable as a water supply attack. if say, you had a hundred or a thousand dedicated people willing to risk their lives for a cause, they could be infected with (say) smallpox and wander around a big city. cases increase exponentially, and once its out of hand, it just gets worse and worse and worse.
3. attack throuhg food supply. i know that the american govt was worried about this for a while after 9/11. this would be difficult to do and i dont think it would be as practical as the two above this.
4. well this is less subtle, but bombs can carry biological/chemical agents. isnt that one of the things US worried about finding in Iraq? from there on, i think that transmission would be airborne, waterborne. that would hurt a lot of people, but it wouldbe hard to implement.
5. this ones seems amusing to me, as i found it on the net, but you could theoretically do this through contaminated clothing. that would be hideously impractical though so i wouldnt recommedn it.

~Rico

DavidK · 01-27-2005, 04:19 PM

CS gas, can have the effect.

It's what the military uses to train their soldiers.

High doses, can affect someone dearly, but not kill them.

Ruiner999 · 01-27-2005, 06:19 PM

Sarin gas, like the chemical used in Japan about decade ago is highly dizzying with just a whiff of the stuff. Prolonged exposure leads to death naturally, CS gas would likely be your best bet though.

playstation60 · 01-28-2005, 01:28 PM

Here's a question. How devastating is a terrorist attack that was foiled, but came very close to being completed? How distracting is it?

Ben

Queasy Dillo · 01-28-2005, 01:32 PM

You could always invent a new type of inapacitating less-than-lethal gas. So long as you could explain how it's made, how it works, etc, you could probably get away with it.

Rico · 01-28-2005, 01:34 PM

well, that really depends on how close, exactly, the terrorist attack came to succeeding. if, say, it started to happen but was stopped before it got out of hand, then it would have a minimum of devasatation (depending on the timing, duration, and placement of the act).

to the nation that underwent the terrorist act, it would be very distracting. Once again, though, this would depend on the same factors i listed above. a well-placed terrorist attack that wasnt completed but came very close could still send a nation into panic.

that's one side of the issue. then, you should look at the other side. and that would be the effect on the terrorists themselves. now, depending on the factors i listed above, such an act could make or break a terrorist organization. if it was a new group, then one failed attack could destroy it. if it was a longstanding group, then to have, say, an attack on, say, the U.S. would bring enormous prestige, even if it did not go all the way to completion.

i hope this helps. it would be more helpful, though, if the specifics (time, place, duration) were given.

playstation60 · 01-28-2005, 01:36 PM

The exact location is still unknown, even to me. The purpose of the foiled attack is distraction. Doesn't have to buy a ton of time, but be distracting enough that certain other terrorist type events can take place, such as a chemical attack on a major city's water supply.