The attack on Alexandria

We know that a multitude of orbital strikes where made to obliterate Alexandria and that these attacks basically destroyed parts of the continent.

Due to the energies involved I wonder if Safehold experienced earthquakes and/or volcanic eruptions because of this?

Well, the total area of destruction was roughly circular, about 1800 kilometers across. I.e. the total devastated area was aound 2544689.5 square kilometers. Assoming than, perhaps, half of the area was water&deserts&mountains, we would have about 1272344.8 square kilometers desrtoyed.

I.e. basically area with the size of British Isles.

To devastate such area, around... 1429 of 100-megaton nuclear bombs must be used.

I.e. the energy unleashed was seven times as big as total megatonnage of all US nuclear arsenal on the peak of deployment. Probably 2-3 times bigger than total peak megatonnage of USA&USSR combined.

There should be FREAKINGLY DEVASTATING POST-EFFECTS. Basically, the whole planet must be plunged into the nuclear winter!

Dilandu wrote:Well, the total area of destruction was roughly circular, about 1800 kilometers across. I.e. the total devastated area was aound 2544689.5 square kilometers. Assoming than, perhaps, half of the area was water&deserts&mountains, we would have about 1272344.8 square kilometers desrtoyed.

I.e. basically area with the size of British Isles.

To devastate such area, around... 1429 of 100-megaton nuclear bombs must be used.

I.e. the energy unleashed was seven times as big as total megatonnage of all US nuclear arsenal on the peak of deployment. Probably 2-3 times bigger than total peak megatonnage of USA&USSR combined.

There should be FREAKINGLY DEVASTATING POST-EFFECTS. Basically, the whole planet must be plunged into the nuclear winter!

Well, that depends a bit on how they went about it. If they used "small" strikes and walked the strikes back and forth there wouldn't necessary be enough dust kicked up into the atmosphere to precipitate a nuclear winter. But that also means there had to be an awful lot of strikes which sounds a tad unpractical and timeconsuming.

Joat42 wrote:Well, that depends a bit on how they went about it. If they used "small" strikes and walked the strikes back and forth there wouldn't necessary be enough dust kicked up into the atmosphere to precipitate a nuclear winter. But that also means there had to be an awful lot of strikes which sounds a tad unpractical and timeconsuming.

Well, the possible scenario is that strikes were not actually disperced across the whole continent but were aimed specifically against populated areas. After all, at this times the majority of Safeholdians still lived pretty close to initial enclaves.

But the book clearly stated that "three separate waves of artifical meteors hammering across continent". And the whole area described as "shattered". I.e. it indicates exactly the area attacks with really tremendous ammount of weaponry. The ecological impact must be... really terrifying. A huge ammount of dust and soot threwn into the stratosphere. Even more tremendous ammount of soil and organic threwn into the ocean. The seismic activity, the clouds of deadly gases... All this probably would be pretty enough to make Safehold NOT very suited place for mankind.

Dilandu wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Well, that depends a bit on how they went about it. If they used "small" strikes and walked the strikes back and forth there wouldn't necessary be enough dust kicked up into the atmosphere to precipitate a nuclear winter. But that also means there had to be an awful lot of strikes which sounds a tad unpractical and timeconsuming.

Well, the possible scenario is that strikes were not actually disperced across the whole continent but were aimed specifically against populated areas. After all, at this times the majority of Safeholdians still lived pretty close to initial enclaves.

But the book clearly stated that "three separate waves of artifical meteors hammering across continent". And the whole area described as "shattered". I.e. it indicates exactly the area attacks with really tremendous ammount of weaponry. The ecological impact must be... really terrifying. A huge ammount of dust and soot threwn into the stratosphere. Even more tremendous ammount of soil and organic threwn into the ocean. The seismic activity, the clouds of deadly gases... All this probably would be pretty enough to make Safehold NOT very suited place for mankind.

Which may well explain RFC's comment on how Nimue will react when she finds out the real death toll of the strike.

Joat42 wrote:Which may well explain RFC's comment on how Nimue will react when she finds out the real death toll of the strike.

And again - who, actually, ordered the strike? The whole sequence seems... just overwhelming. Basically such strike killed an awfull lot of peoples, endangered the rest of population - basically endangered the whole Ark progect - and for what?

In previous book, Merlin stated, that with all Langhorne megalomania, he tended to see violence as last possible solution, definitedly not the first. The strike against Alexandria just seems... out of character.

And again, the "demon" which Kohdy contacted, claimed that the Alexandria attack were launched by Chichiro, not Langhorne...

Dilandu wrote:[
But the book clearly stated that "three separate waves of artifical meteors hammering across continent". And the whole area described as "shattered". I.e. it indicates exactly the area attacks with really tremendous ammount of weaponry. The ecological impact must be... really terrifying. A huge ammount of dust and soot threwn into the stratosphere. Even more tremendous ammount of soil and organic threwn into the ocean. The seismic activity, the clouds of deadly gases... All this probably would be pretty enough to make Safehold NOT very suited place for mankind.

The book doesn't say the size of the individual meteors.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't produce a nuclear winter. If *each* individual strike was only in the fairly low kiloton range, or even single megaton range, and carefully timed, you might not have had quite the "dusting" effect. Part of the reason nuclear blasts create such effects is because of the temperature and because hot air rises, carrying the dust with it. While a kinetic strike is also going to produce heat, a smaller sized one isn't going to produce the same stellar temperature as you find at the core of a fusion explosion. Also, lower range individual yields should produce larger ejecta rather than as much dust; which would settle faster.

There might have actually been more negative effects if any strikes *missed* the continent/island and landed in the ocean, since that would have create tsunamis and *most* of the enclaves seem to have been established on or near the coasts.

Also, what became Armageddon Reef seems to have been fairly distant from the main land masses. *If* the attack occurred during one of the seasons during which there was a lot of stormy weather, much of any resulting dust may actually have been washed back onto the land or into the ocean before it could gain enough altitude to travel far.

Going back to analogies on Earth, the dinosaur killer asteroid of 60 million years ago was probably somewhere around a mile in diameter, plus or minus. The one that hit in Arizona and made the meteor crater - which was probably about the size used on Alexandria - was probably 100 feet or less. The Arizona blast, while no doubt decimating a good part of norther Arizona, didn't cause a nuclear winter; even though it threw large boulders for several miles in all directions.

Another thing to consider is that while we rate all types of explosions similarly (in terms of tons of TNT) the *characteristics* of them are very different. Nuclear blasts are usually surface or aerial (aerial since the warhead won't survive actually hitting the ground unless it's designed to be ground penetrating). The underground nuclear tests didn't produce much dust. Meteors are *subsurface* as well, since by the time the blast effects form, the core of the meteor is already underground; and the already heated air due to air friction (which isn't really present in the case of a nuke) prior to the blast itself is probably going to fuse most of the loose dust that might be initially kicked up.

Dilandu wrote:

Joat42 wrote:Which may well explain RFC's comment on how Nimue will react when she finds out the real death toll of the strike.

And again - who, actually, ordered the strike? The whole sequence seems... just overwhelming. Basically such strike killed an awfull lot of peoples, endangered the rest of population - basically endangered the whole Ark progect - and for what?

In previous book, Merlin stated, that with all Langhorne megalomania, he tended to see violence as last possible solution, definitedly not the first. The strike against Alexandria just seems... out of character.

And again, the "demon" which Kohdy contacted, claimed that the Alexandria attack were launched by Chichiro, not Langhorne...

Most of the textev assumes that Langhorne did order the strike. The only thing we have calling that into question is that scene from the Seijin Khody material where at least some of the fallen believe that it was Chihiro instead. Whether or not these individuals had definite info or were just trying to protect Langhorne's reputation, we can't prove one way or the other. So go figure.

Don

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Some other aspects perhaps - pending on how the AUTHOR was thinking.

Armageddon / Alexandria appears to be somewhat of an analog to our Antarctica, high southerly latitude and unconnected to another continent. If the climatological conditions match, then much of the dust and debris would remain in those latitudes due to the prevailing winds. Scientist often remark on how much of Antarctica weather remains in its 'place' rather than effecting the tip of South America.

Another thought is that if the Archangels still had access to terraforming equipment, then use of that would solve the problem. After all, it is just 'fixing' a debris cloud and what is that in comparison to terraforming an entire planet.

Charybdis wrote:..snip..
Another thought is that if the Archangels still had access to terraforming equipment, then use of that would solve the problem. After all, it is just 'fixing' a debris cloud and what is that in comparison to terraforming an entire planet.

I doubt any terraforming equipment existed at that time. Remember that all the terraforming took place before any colonists where unloaded, and at that time they had chucked all ships and terraforming equipment into the sun sans the Hamilcar.