Nuclear Radiation on Earth

I'm thinking your right and could end up as part of some humanitarian aid provided by the alliance. Once tug learns of the devastation, it might be easier to convince the takaran nobility to send unused terraformers and such than military support. Hopefully he will use it as a way to get the ball rolling and stop the nobles from stalling, maybe use public opinion to help.

If there's anything left alive. Don't forget, humanity was already at the very brink of destruction before they got pounded again - first by the Jung armada, a month later by the Jung battle platform. Europe has been nuked into oblivion, and it seems that neither Asia, Africa nor Australia fared any better. And even both Americas are said to have gotten their share of nukes eventually.

You also need to consider the amount of radiation. My guesstimate is that there are no survivors anywhere outside the Americas, at least not for long. All cities are obliterated, the same goes for infrastructure. If some people survived, they'd have to deal with the fallout - which not only causes cancer and mutations in the long run, but also radiation sickness in very short time. From a certain dose upward - and I'm reasonably sure this dose is reached all over Europe, at least - it will cause radiation sickness, which usually results in death unless treated. (Only there are no hospitals to treat the sick...)

Even if there are people who survived that, they'd have to deal with food, water and the very air they breathe being contaminated with radiation. Which means an even higher dose of radiation accumulating in their bodies - leading to radiation sickness and death.

Another thing to consider is the original explosion of each nuke. A big portion of the nukes used were detonated way above the Earth's surface. This means that the original burst of radiation reaches further than when the nuke is detonated on impact. (I read something about that ages ago - maybe ten, fifteen years?) It also means that the heat that, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, managed to vaporize whole people, has a higher area of influence. And don't forget about fires. Right, fires. Forest fires, grass fires, oil fires and the like. Simply everywhere around a nuke explosion. (And there must have been hundreds - if not thousands of nukes involved.)

My understanding is air bursts are "better" as far a decontamination goes. Ground strikes allow the radioactive elements to stay localized and in bigger consentrations.

Here is a bit on the testing in 1946.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads

Seems the ships were much worse off after the water blast as far a contamination.

If you scroll down you can read specifics about able and baker. Interesting stuff. All bad.

@Melanie, I doubt that earth has been devastated. I think it was pushed enough to loose much of its industrial capacity, but not to the brink of apocalyptic hell hole. This way Earth won't be in a position to become a superpower, allowing Aurora to maintain its status of the underdog and firstlast line of defense on the frontiers for another few episode arc 😉

My understanding is air bursts are “better” as far a decontamination goes. Ground strikes allow the radioactive elements to stay localized and in bigger consentrations.

Here is a bit on the testing in 1946.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads

Seems the ships were much worse off after the water blast as far a contamination.

If you scroll down you can read specifics about able and baker. Interesting stuff. All bad.

I wasn't talking about ships and/or buildings, but people. And, regarding the Able test (where the bomb was detonated far above the water), there's that critical line in your quoted article:

There was an intense transitory burst of fireball radiation lasting a few seconds. Many of the closer ships received doses of neutron and gamma radiation that could have been lethal to anyone on the ship, but the ships themselves did not become radioactive.

Also:

In theory, every unprotected location on the ship received 10,000 rems (100 Sv) of initial nuclear radiation from the fireball.[70] Therefore, people deep enough inside the ship to experience a 90% radiation reduction would still have received a lethal dose of 1,000 rems.

An air strike might have smaller amounts of contamination in the area, but the radiation has to go somewhere - in this case, the atmosphere. Of course, the atmosphere won't change drastically from one bomb. But, again, the Jung bombardment must have consisted of hundreds, maybe thousands of nuclear bombs. That sure must have a more than just measurable effect on the atmosphere. And since air travels quite fast, this radioactive contamination spreads all over the world in a matter of weeks or months. (I'm no expert on that, I'm afraid.)

To illustrate the amount of bombing taking place in "Born from the Ashes":

Nathan rose to his feet with a start. "Jesus!"§ he exclaimed as he looked at the image of Earth below. There were yellow-orange balls of fire rising up from the surface all over the European continent below them. Additional flashes lit up the vast clouds of smoke that hung over the continent in large, ugly patches of black and gray. He could see numerous plasma trails from falling ordnance as it fell away from the Jung frigate directly ahead of them and plunged into the Earth's atmosphere.

And that was before the battle platform even started "blasting the hell out of Earth".

One could assume depopulation was the goal with the nukes and industry the conventional.

Interesting read on "clean" nukes.

http://glasstone.blogspot.com/2006/03/clean-nuclear-weapon-tests-navajo-and.html?m=1

All this is new ground for me. Learning thing I never wanted to really know.

Been there, done that. 🙁

Well, if the Jung merely wanted to depopulate Earth, they'd leave most of the industry intact for take-over. However, it's said that they destroyed industrial targets as well as big cities (I think?). Considering that the Jungs' aim is to glass the planet, they have absolutely no reason to use "clean" nukes - which are much harder to make (as far as I understood this).

Sorry, double post. 🙁 Can someone delete this?

I had the incorrect basis for this post. Please delete.