I have an idea for a short story, but need help coming up with a legitimate reason that the US Government would use harmful biological weapons against its own citizens. I know we've released bioweapons in the 60s and 70s to test, but I need it to be deadlier than those. Thoughts?
Depends on what you mean by a "legitimate reason." Legitimate in the court of public opinion or in a twisted, ideological partisan government logic? Short of a zombie outbreak the former is probably impossible and the latter would be tenuous at best. The obvious way to avoid this would be to have the government blame the bio-attack on terrorists. Or communists if you adjust the timeline. The public would be a lot more gullible in a pre-Internet age. You could always take a racial/Civil Rights approach. Conflate it with the firehouses in the South, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, etc. It's a bit of a stretch but you could make it work. Might draw in some themes you weren't looking for though, and it would be less credible in a modern setting than it would have been fifty years ago.
More of the partisan government logic. I don't want to go the zombie route this time, but I like your idea of setting it pre-internet, possibly during the Red Scare. I can use that for the coverup, and it'll help develop my antagonist more. Thanks!
how about an accidental release ... like the ebola scare in britain the 70s , or a covert biological attack on a warsaw pact state that goes wrong
I feel like a broken record because I said this on another thread, but I think it's a legitimate option, especially in a short story. How short are we talking here? You might not need to even mention a reason. If I'm reading an engaging story about people, I probably wouldn't care why the weapon was released, just that it was and what these characters do about it, in spite of it, because of it, etc.
Look what is happening in Syria, don't need a good reason to kill off your citizens with toxic warfare. Just go for it. :-(
Euthanasia and survival. Yellowstone erupts. The U.S. is ruined. The World food supplies collapse because of a year-long Winter. Large gangs of desperate people create anarchy and pose an obstacle to maintaining unification. The population must be reduced, or we all will die. Send the chosen few into underground shelters, and sterilize the rest. I'm not saying I would legitimize this act, but when things get desperate, who knows?
Perhaps it's a ploy to open up new markets for the pharmaceutical industry. Perhaps the POTUS' brother is the CEO of a drug company and has been granted exclusive rights to provide the vaccine for the soon-to-be-released bioweapon epidemic.
I am not sure there is a legit reason. One thing about a biological weapon is that it's not necessarily easy to control...unless it's one that does not spread from person to person. Could in theory be spread by plane over cities or populated areas, like giant crop dusters, and only affect those folks in the immediate area, on a one time basis. For example, those 'desirable' people would be provided a vaccine. Those 'undesirable' would not, and then they would be susceptible to the disease...and it would not even have to be deadly. Think sterilization or something like that. Which, of course, playing with any wide-spread use of biological weapons can lead to unanticipated consequences. Anyway, that's a thought off the top of my head.
======== It's your story. Whatever the motive is for them to do it is the reason you need. Idiots and worse do run governments so they don't have to be logical nor sane. Why do it to the citizens? Maybe they are a shadow government of sleeper cell spies that got elected and are doing it for some other country to destroy their imputed one.
