The Return of a Nuclear Proposal

Day 894, 09:42 • Published in USA USA • by Lieutenant Scheisskopf

I originally proposed a nuclear weapons addition to eRepublik six months ago (cannot believe it has been that long), and after being in an IRC discussion about the topic, thought I would republish this proposal with a few updates for what we have now learned about V2. I hope you enjoy it and remember to leave real life (RL) notions of nuclear weapons at the door-- as do most people, I also strongly object to their RL use and proliferation. *Begin original article, with minor modifications...

Many people have contemplated the addition of stronger weapons to eRepublik, and although I made it clear that my original idea for nuclear weapons in eRepublik was a joke, to appease popular demand and several subscribers, here is a proposal for introducing eWeapons of Mass Destruction (eWMDs) to the game. I made a concerted effort to keep eWMDs from being a weapon only for the strong, and am glad to hear any ideas on balancing its use as fairly as possible. Please read as much as you can before making comments that show you did not read this article.


Introducing Science, Technology, and Plutonium
In real life, nuclear weapons require fissile material to undergo a nuclear reaction; these materials normally consist of an enriched isotope of uranium or plutonium. Since only plutonium is an artificial substance capable of being created in a laboratory, plutonium would be the chief fissile material used in eWMDs, so that no one country has the major advantage for having some uranium resources naturally. Production of plutonium would count as a raw materials industry, and would be a pre-requisite product which the nuclear facility (read below) would first need to produce before getting to nuclear weapon creation. In addition to plutonium, a country would also need to produce "technology" as the scientific 'know-how' of using the material to produce a bomb. This way, every country has the chance to develop an eNuclear weapons program if they so desired, although it would first cost some unspecified amount to undertake plutonium production and a related technology program.

I originally suggested 6 months ago that science should be introduced to the game as a skill area, comparable with land, construction, or manufacturing skills, which will soon be augmented in V2 with diverse, but similar, skill areas. For all intents and purposes, the addition of engineers, mechanics, and technicians satisfies my initial idea. People working in these science areas would work towards creating the technology and plutonium needed for eWMDs. If this technology idea became popular enough, maybe other products from laboratories could be used to improve a society’s existing capabilities in other areas (maybe more effective food, abilities to create more with less, or better maximum productivity levels are a few ideas). For the sake of this argument, without digressing too much on the science/technology course, anyone in the “science” skill area would produce “technology” and "plutonium" as two unique raw materials which would be later implemented in the next phase of weapons programs for countries.


Nuclear Facilities
Weapons factories and Defense systems factories would both be enabled to produce nuclear facilities for sale ONLY to the domestic government. At this facility, the government would be able to produce nuclear weapons of only one quality for one price that is constant throughout the world-- just a disclaimer, but I do not want to quantify any costs here. Technology, plutonium, and iron (and with V2, will include titanium, as well) would be the raw materials used for the creation of an eWMD, and people working in V2 as a project manager, engineer, mechanic, builder, fitter, technician, or raw materials, would all be needed to create an eWMD in the course of its production. The diverse industry bases underscore how many people working for a long period of time would be needed to build a nuclear weapon. Suffice it to say that the financial cost of creating an eWMD would be substantial, as would the cost of purchasing one-- it would be a true national undertaking that would put a Q5 hospital to shame.

To try and even the playing field for countries of all size, a producer of eWMDs would ONLY be able to sell to the domestic government, and the cost for a weapon would be fixed at proportional amount of a government’s revenue for a month based on citizenship and NOT location (I personally think 10-20% of a government’s monthly budget is reasonable, since that price reflects how rare these weapons would be). Government subsidies for a nuclear program would likely need to play a role, as production and maintenance of a nuclear facility will be a cost-intensive endeavor which would probably lose money. It would also benefit smaller states by making an eWMD financially feasible if they chose to pursue one, instead of simply charging an arbitrarily enormous amount of gold for an eWMD which only the richest countries could plausibly consider paying.


Structural Rules on eWMDs
Some physical rules on the management of nuclear weapons that I would propose consist of the following:
- Nuclear weapons can only reside in a region that has been securely held by the host country for the last 60 days, discouraging the odds of nukes being won in conquest for a territory.
- Nuclear weapons are only good for 45 days and would be physically stored in the same region as the weapons factory that built it (therefore making that region a prime target to getting nuked by an enemy). This would prevent a state from steadily stockpiling nukes and then unleashing a nuclear holocaust all at once.
- A state could only use two nuclear weapons per 30 days.
- Whenever a country builds/purchases a nuclear weapon, it would come up in an international announcement on the eRepublik homepage. The same goes for if/when a country used a nuclear weapon.
- To fit into the new war module, a nuke would be able to take up to 1/2 of the battlefield for the attacker, and incapacitate everyone in the affected area for 24 hours. During this time, the affected fighters would be able to heal, but not able to fight again; the idea here is that a country about to launch a nuclear weapon would try to keep its citizens and allies off the battlefield, which would be difficult to accomplish-- especially in a pivotal battle-- so that nukes are not relied upon to win all tough fights. New fighters would not be able to enter the nuked portion of the region, although the fight would continue in the other half as normal.
- A country that was nuked would be able to create mutual protection pacts (MPPs) for free for a period of 2 days, although the life of the free MPP would only last for 30 days before requiring the standard amount of gold to renew them.
- If the country who launched the nuke won the battle (quite likely), they would gain control of it on the map, but would not be able to occupy it for one week because of radiation. This would prevent a country from indiscriminately nuking its enemies in order to advance towards a destined region, since they would not be able to immediately launch an attack from the nuked territory. It would also discourage nuking enemy economic centers purely for short-term financial gain.
- Nuclear weapons could only be launched against an enemy region within two steps on the map from the aggressor country’s controlled territories. For example, if the eUSA had a nuclear weapon in Florida, it could be used against regions like Ontario, eCanada; South-west-of-England, eUK; and Kyushu, eJapan because these regions are all within two steps of the eUSA but not necessarily Florida. Similarly, a nuclear weapon from the eUSA would NOT be effective against Southeast-of-Mexico, eMexico; Western Siberia, eRussia; or any eHungarian region, because these are all more than 2 steps away from the eUSA’s borders.
- Any region which originally belongs to a country cannot be nuked by that same country if it is occupied by another. So in this case, the eUSA could not nuke Alaska when it was under eRussian control. Nor can eChina nuke Liaoning.


Characteristics of Nuclear Weapons
Why would this enormous weapon be worth having? Some of the following are the destructive characteristics and other game-changers that could justify their construction.
- Preemptive strike against a region, preventing the need to start a battle that may not be won.
- Depending on the cost, in a twisted sense, it could be cost effective. Recent battles have seen thousands of gold being flung at the wall to turn the fight's final outcome; add this to other costs arming civilians, as well as additional citizen costs, and maybe a nuclear weapon set at a percentage of its monthly revenue could have saved money.
- A nuclear bomb would destroy all defense systems, hospitals, and also incapacitate all local businesses for a period of time. This INCLUDES nuclear factories, and would increase value in preemptive strikes, having a secure retaliatory option, and in keeping the location of these facilities a state secret. Overall, this could be a cool twist on the game.
- By its very nature, the creation of a nuclear weapon would be a national project and would require the involvement of a considerable portion of the population across many industries and ways of eLife.
- International politics would change significantly. Diplomacy would totally change, as would the attitude that larger states would be able to hold towards smaller regions armed with eWMDs.
- If large superalliances are going by the wayside, this would greatly increase the value of any battle as a nuclear weapon-toting country was approaching its intended target. Countries which stand in between two nuclear enemies would become much more valuable in the international diplomatic system. We may even see some kind of citizen-driven IAEA emerge to curb the use of nuclear weapons.


Some sort of massive weapon may be the next logical progression for the war mechanism. I understand that Beta giants once fought one-on-one; the current war system is similar to World War I, where people on both sides basically exchange fire indiscriminately basically like trench warfare; so then the next phase is to long-distance attacks and very powerful weapons. V2 is bringing back the one-on-one module, and with that, should come an enhancement of capability as well, something the nuclear weapon would provide.

Example of a nuclear warhead

Compromises
I will concede that this idea is far from perfect and that many people will violently oppose it for RL reasons alone, if nothing else. Some may have even written how dumb the idea is, or how dumb I am, before reading this far. It is not an idea that I fully endorse, but if it were to materialize from my previous article’s suggestion, then I would at least want to lay the first proposal for its implementation and get some credit.

Many of the ideas and proposals on the weapon’s uses and limitations were intentionally arbitrary so that the eRepublik community and the admins could decide on some critical issues. These questions, such as “how much does a nuke cost;” “how many people/resources should go into a nuke;” “how much damage would an eWMD cause” should not be answered by one person, and I am far from the best person to answer them alone.

My personal goal in this nuclear draft was to keep the nuclear weapon from being a weapon reserved just for the superpowers, but it would also be a mistake to let PTO-driven states be able to gain access to an eWMD on the cheap and entrench themselves in power. Similarly, it would also be a fault to make nuclear weapons too cheap for small states, so that small states became too strong and were able to bully their neighbors who could not afford eWMDs themselves. Some sort of balance would be needed here, but I am again not the person to set that limit myself.

[img]http://justsickshit.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/castle-bravo-atomic-nuclear-bomb-test.JPG[/img]
Conclusions
To some extent, the war feature of eRepublik deserves some spicing up, since many other aspects of the game have changed since I joined in June. Maybe nuclear weapons are a little too drastic, but I believe my “science/technology” idea could be used, and maybe a “missile” with some of the effects of a nuclear weapon, could be used. In this scenario, a missile would be about as strong as 10 tanks and could reach a longer distance. Maybe there would also be a “reloading” period of 12 hours or a day to prevent a country from bombing their opponent into the Stone Age.

Thanks for reading this trip down memory lane, as I wanted to bring back to life one of the articles which first made my paper famous to a large crowd 🙂

God Bless America,

Lt. Scheisskopf

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