I've started developing a new idea for the next book I hope to write after I finish my current project. It could be described as sci-fi, I suppose...sort of. I would just like some feedback on originality of the idea. Ok so, background information...It's set years in the future (100s or 1000s, not really sure yet). Earth's scientific and technological development has increased tremendously through the years and led to many great discoveries. One of these was a method for nuclear weapon shielding that was cheap to make like the weapons themselves. The political and military power balance of the world has gone awry with nothing to hinder nuclear powers from declaring war on each other, and most of the human population has fled to colonize other planets through the new technologies we have. The ones who stayed are mainly made up of science activists. Cultures split in the colonization, and the new planets have adopted the beliefs and lifestyle ways of times in history (whatever that group thought to be most successful in the past) and most left history behind them, unaware of other humans and that they aren't on earth. The book will take place years after these events. With the colonization, earth has sent representatives to keep tabs on their species, creating a kind of "council" (overused, but it will be different). Two planets (who brought history with them) have gone into their own war that no one knows the reason behind. Transports and searches for resources, refugees fleeing the war, and explosions in the sky are puting the other civilizations at risk of discovering each other. The "council" worries this will cause mass chaos and panic. They have to figure out what to do, basically. I will stop there, because I just realized I am writing a novel in this post alone. :redface: I'm not familiar with much sci-fi, so any replies will be appreciated.
How does the ability to shield against nuclear bombs cause nuclear war? You'd think the decreased effectiveness would make nuclear weapons obsolete.
The reason we haven't had nuclear war already is because of fear of retalliation. It is a "If we launch a nuke someone else will launch one at us" type thing. Having shields would reduce the fear of retalliation, so someone wouldn't be afraid to launch. If the shields weren't 100% effective then the nukes still wouldn't be obsolete. They also wouldn't be obsolete if one side had the shields and the other didnt'.
Basically just said it. They will be near 100% effective. Even if they weren't 100%, if they were effective enough, it could lower a nuke's effectiveness to a level of conventional weapons. As for not everyone having it...that has to be worked out, but I'm thinking that politics evolves just as science and people do. It's possible we may not have multiple countries in the future, and it's also possible that there was a joint agreement that it would only be beneficial if the entire world was protected, but then it backfired. (I'll add, it's not only fear of nuclear retaliation, but the entire world from retaliating. If say, the US dropped a nuclear bomb in the pacific ocean, killing the least amount of people you can, because Korea made us angry...the entire world would be on both the US and Korea to make sure another didn't drop.) Ok...any thoughts on the idea?
I get what you're saying, luminous. I think it sounds pretty neat. The most similar thing I can think of is Firefly, and that's really not very similar; it just starts from the same sort of human-colonization-and-what-it-does-to-culture premise. So you have planets that are like the Wild West and ruled by robber barons, planets that are centers of learning and culture, etc. The biggest cultures at the time of the colonization were Chinese and American so English speech is littered with Chinese curse words. Also, Earth has been destroyed in FF, and there's no nuclear issue going on. So, yes: original, to answer your question. At least to me, I'm not much of a sci-fi person. Insofar as shields being partially effective against nuclear warfare, perhaps instead of the objective of nuclear weaponry being blowing things up, it could be destroying the environment. Even if you can protect a city, you can't protect the land around it, and it would become contaminated with waste and all the flora and fauna would die. You'd run a risk of sounding political, though. As for the new societies, well, there are all kinds of societies: individualist, collectivist, militaristic, religious, artistic, democratic, totalitarian, capitalist, socialist, communist. In our world today, Mediterranean Europe is an artistic and aesthetic democratic socialist society; certain areas of Asia and Africa are religious, militaristic, capitalist, totalitarian societies; Latin America is mostly artistic and socialist or communist society; America is a religious, somewhat militaristic, capitalist and democratic society. I don't know if you're asking about this, but the world is your oyster, really.
The idea sounds pretty cool. Also, you have a lot of different cultures to create, if you like that, which I do.
The thing is, if technology has advanced that much, then something else might make this story obsolete, unless this is the turning point in the story. The Nuke was made in order to have a weapon so powerful that wars would become obsolete, as just fire it once and both are dead. It started with siege weapons, then into guns, then into nukes. Therefore, someone should have made something more powerful than a nuke? The Death Star is a famous example. War became almost obsolete, as the weapon was too powerful, most weapons, however, are just tools, not space stations =D Still, it sounds pretty original.
You can't make assumptions with science. It's possible nothing can be created that is more powerful than a nuclear weapon. It's possible we developed a guard against it before attempting to make anything more powerful. It's possible we simply found no reason to make something more powerful, because it's strong enough that human form has no real defense against it And nukes weren't a weapon against wars. They were a weaapon to win wars. Immidiately.
What's the guy who made the nuke? I remember he said that he only helped create a nuke to end all wars. Does anyone know the quote? It is very famous as far as I remember. And, actually, humans do have some defense against a nuke. A person survived the Hiroshima bomb less than 33 feet away from the explosion's center. And I think if you were to make a guard against nukes, it would have to be able to destroy atoms in their very core. Even then we come to: "What would happen if an unstoppable force hit an immovable object?" I'm not saying it is a bad idea, I'm say it sounds pretty unlikely though.
One more thing: His name was J. Robert Oppenheimer and he had a few famous quotes. The one I though of was: "The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable." He also knew what it did, what it made him: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. " Actually, he was kinda scarred after it was made, as he made the greatest and most terrifying weapon in history Most likely the guy who invented the gun thought the same thing.
The inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, was so appalled at how his invention was used for warfare, that he established the Nobel Peace Prize.
Fun fact of the day...that's actually very interesting. Thanks for the responses though. It's helpful. Edit: Just adding, yes, unlikely it is. When it comes to sci-fi and fantasy, it's not about complete accuracy (at least in my opinion), but how believable it is. If I want to make some amazing scientific discovery, I'll be doing that (which who knows...I'm obsessed with physics), but this is a book. If you are saying the normal reader will not find it believable, then thank you for the advice and I will either alter or scrap the idea.
