On 17/4/22 02:09, Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com (via tml
list) wrote:
> <snip>
>
> This time it's the Terrans doing most of the contacting, and they're
> running all over the rimward portions of Vilani territory, and some
> undoubtedly not following time-tested protocols for keeping bugs from
> spreading on every spaceship. Not only would the Terran barbarians be
> spreading their own nasties, but they'd be spreading previously
> localised ones from inside Vilani territories, because they aren't going
> to have some Vilani stuffed shirt tell them how to run their spaceship.
>
> --
> Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> "Long in the past" wouldn't mean much to the vilani of the time, IMO.
>
> They'd still have all the protocols, & enforcing them, all the way
> back to the 1st 'disaster'.
>
> Still, I can see the 'barbarian invasion' aspect too.
>
> However, I do believe that the 'wipes out the vilani but leaves
> terrans untouched' narrative is a little too much for me to accept.
>
> It's why I usually try to avoid the whole 'plagues & illnesses' thing.
>
> It almost always seems to devolve into a 'deus ex machina'  intended
> to produce a certain result.
> In this case; the elimination of the vilani pop so that a sol pop can
> replace them.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phil,

Thanks for the indirect reminder about Sverdlovsk - the engineered
pathogens won't necessarily leave exposed Terrans unaffected.

The original _intent_ of Peaceful Hands was for the TC to strike back
_effectively_ at the ZS in retaliation for Erasharshi setting up Terra
the bomb in 2147/2148.

By then, a nontrivial chunk of the TCN's hulls, especially the heavier
ones, plus quite a few senior and flag officers, had been converted into
assorted debris fields, making kinetic attacks rather difficult.

Public demands to "do something" also had something to do with it.

Smuggled nuclear weapons are more within ZS cultural and procedural
memory, thus they would be more likely to be rumbled and/or their
effects contained.

The 2-order-of-magnitude relative _cost_ advantage (IIRC 3rd ed GURPS
Biotech) of bioweapons over nuclear and chemical weapons, let alone
conventional ones, would also be a factor.  So would the comparative
feasibility.

As the intended bioweapon releases are well behind the border/front
line, Terran populations won't be flooding in to replace the former
Vilani populations anytime in the next few decades.

Alex