Planetary Bombardment

[Captain Otto]

I'm not quiet sure if this question has been raised before...
but as I came up with new Adventure for my Group which revolves about a first contact Situation with a Species that encountered Aliens other than the Federation before.
A group of Cardassians tried to extract tribute from this species.
When the Natives did not comply the Cardies got angry and destroyed three Cities.
I thought having the Cardassians using Photon Torpedoes would be the best choice.
But how big should the crater be?
Or would they use multiple torpedoes to bombard the cities.
One question remaining is how would the sites look like.
I always thought that a antimatter explosion would simply destroy everthing - leaving a clean crater of molten rock.
Or does it leave actual Ruins to explore.
The Bombardments are just intendend to give the natives a good reason to trust strangers.
And having the natives showing the PC's the craters and some Ruins nearby should work fine to let the Players worry about the Cardassians who seem to have no qualms about killing several million people just to demonstrate how powerful they are.


Do you think this plot would work?

[Captain Otto]

Oops
I mean distrust strangers -sorry

[Owen E Oulton]

For game purposes, treat a low-yield photorp as a very high-yield nuke. You'll have a large, glassy crater, several kilometres in diameter. Beyond that, you'll have decreasing levels of destruction. You'll also have radiation - lots of hard gamma radiation, released by the M/AM reaction. There will be ruins, ranging from complete rubble nearest the crater to collapsed and burned-out buildings quite a way out.

Realistically, the skies aren't going to be very interesting - a lot of heavy cloud cover, with a high soot content, basically smog. A very likely result is a sort of nuclear winter - lowering the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface

This, however, is SF, so you may want to postulate some sort of atmospheric contamination. That way you can have the impossible Damnation Alley skies

[Dan Gurden]

Well, firstly, the overall effect Ruins/size of Crater... all of that is entirely down to you. and the feel of your game. There are no real set guidlines, and after all the effect you want to convey plays a greater part than actual Treknology...

A Crater would convey the horror of the attack, with the ground almost melted around the target zone, and a few unliky victims caught outside the impact to suffer from secondary explosions, burns and debris fragments...

While ruins would give the impression of desolation, with a few rescuers hiding from your crew in the ruins, and a few remains and bodies still hidden to be found as time passed...

As to the state of these ruins/craters and bodies it all depends on how long after the attack your players show up.

OK, but you did ask about the Treknology, and so here-goes.

Yes, you are right, a Photon, Quantum and Singularity Torpedo would destroy and anniahlate. the Treknology of Anti-Matter is that it has a violent reaction when in contact with matter causing an energy release many, many times bigger than out Nukes. With little to no fallout. This would indeed leave a large crater, and few remains.

However the alternate tech of the Plasma Torpedo is another fish, the concept of Plasma based weapons is that of superheated plasma, the effect on a ground Assault would probably be more in line with the after effects of Hiroshima, with the city in rubble, with a few stronger buildings in ruins, and many many burns...

However, the Cardassians are only known for using Photon torpedo's, and few of them at that... So they might not even want to spare those on a planetary bombardment. They are known for developing another type of Weapon of Mass Dstruction though...

Biogenics.

Rather than set tens to hundreds of torpedo's on a target to level it, they could simply launch 3-4 devices (or even transport them down) and let the Bio-Plague melt organic material... And leave a fully functioing city behind (Better for an occupation, but does run the risk of spreading further accross the planet... But can be targetted to avoid Cardassian genetics)...

Now your players are faced with a 28 Days Later scenario, an empty, creepy city, with very few survivors, and small puddles of bio-matter that used to be people, and now the occupants of your planet might well distrust the crew, but the Starfleeters may well have the cure they need... And may even run the risk of infection themselves?

How do you like them apples huh?

[BouncyCaitian]

at last check, a M/AM detonation of one kilo and one anti-kilo, assuming total conversion, will yield a explosion in the 53 megatonne range. Just so you have a rough idea what yer playing with when you start tossing those at planets. and the Deterium/Anti-deterium slugs in the average PT are what...I think about 16/16 K/AK's. Pull a Sheridan anyone?

[Tobian]

Just how much the rubble to crater ratio is depends entirelly on the civilisation you are bombing. A primative society would largelly be utterly devastated, with bilions of tonnes of rock and earth both anihalated and flung into the air and the surrounding area.

In a more advanced Startrek era technology the damage would be of a lesser impact; there may be whole or partial shielding around the planet, difusing or reducing the total damage caused by a warhead, possibly creating airbursts, which would be much less devastating, but at that level creating huge hypersonic booms, leveling more feeble buildings. Indivudual buildings and complexes may be made with either SIF powered or highy advanced materials (such as Neutronium like substances - or even down to Starfleet level Tetraburnium or Duranium alloys) which can withstand that level of damage (I.e. like starship hulls) - then you have everything in between

Don't forget for every technobabble weapon, there is a technobable deffence

[qerlin]

Just have your special effects guys come up with something appropriately "horror-inducing".

[Liz Not Beth]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[Captain Otto]

Thanks for the replys.
it's mostly what I had already in mind.
Here is the adventure i planed:
The Scenario is intended to have the crew show up 30 years after the Cardassians attacked.
I intended the Cardassians to be renegades who left the Union long before the Federation made contact with the Cardassians.
The Planet to be explored is somwehre far away from the cardassian border so the Cardassians are not going to be the suspects right away.
Without the Union to suport them an their nearby colony they tried to extort raw materials and agricultural produce from the natives.
I intend to keep the crew in the dark. So there wont be any evidence that the cardassians are involved until later in the story.
The Natives pulled themselves together after the the attack and -while giving the cardassians what they wanted - they built a fleet of small armed impulse ships. These ships waited in an mineral rich asteroid belt to ambush the Cardassians.
The Cardassian fleet comprised only of one Warship and three Freighters. The natives threw everything they had at the Cardassians, with incredible losses. After destroying two freighters and crippeling the Warship the Cardassians retreated. They left the system alone for now.
Probably they do trie a biogentic attack. But I think such a thing was not available at the time of the first attack.
To complicate matters I do not let the Crew stumble upon the angry aliens but a small Federation surveyor sent to explore the system. The system was visited some 50 years before the Cardassians attacked- and as a prewarp civilisation left alone.
Starfleet has asigned this surveyor to find out how far the natives developed so far.
But the surveyor gets ambushed before getting past the planet.
And the Crew of the surveyor is either killed or taken prisoner by aliens who are on the verge to become a warp civilization.
The whole adventure revolves then about the crew trieing to rescue the prisoners through negotiation. While the Starship will be beyond the Asteroid belt an not be able to help, the Crew send over to conduct the negotiations will be thrown back to their own resources. Since the Aliens demand them to come without Weapons and other gizmos. They will be given a tour to the memorial sites between the talks. Eventually they earn the trust of the aliens and then free the prisoners.
This leaves room for the Cardassians to show up at a later point trying to exterminate the natives with bioweapons.

After writing this i consider to make develope more than one episode this story has the potential for a whole series.

[Yuber Okami]

Otto, you have a very interesting idea... why don't you put it in the "adventures Seeds" thread?

[Captain Otto]

I do.. as soon as i'am satisfied with the concept