Tungsten steel Rod from low orbit vs. Dr. Vilde's Island

[Sir_Nytehawk357]

Tungsten steel Rod from low orbit vs. Dr. Vilde's Island is my groups response to the hole Armageddon Unlimited scenario. I give them mad props for coming up with the idea. It seem's so anti-climactic so i'm trying to come up with valid reason this option won't succeed and I have a few idea's floating around Just wanting other's thoughts on this.

[say652]

Hired a super work Magnetism and Sonic Flight

[Glistam]

This doesn't sound like the response of a "good" group of characters. I would think the logistics of getting into space and then aiming and "launching" a tungsten rod would be quite difficult, too. I imagine it pretty easy for them to miss their shot, thus alerting Vilde to the threat.

[Stone Gargoyle]

The targeting on such a strike would be next to impossible. You would need someone to build a launcher for said rod, and make said rod impossible large. I don't think it would work.

[say652]

This is a supers game though.

Magnetism, Gravity manipulation make moving the rod and launching possible, still do not have a targeting system though.

[SittingBull]

This is a supers game though.

Magnetism, Gravity manipulation make moving the rod and launching possible, still do not have a targeting system though.

Unless this hero is extremely high level, and even then might not be strong enough, I dont think the hero would be able to lift the size rod I am imagining from this topic thread.

[say652]

15 tons at level one.

That's without my normal mega level of Swiss.

[SittingBull]

15 tons at level one.

That's without my normal mega level of Swiss.

I don't see how you get 15 tons.

[say652]

3000 magnetism, plus a times 10 multiplier from Gravity manipulation equals 30,000lbs or 15tons.

It is in the hu2 book in the section combining powers.

[SittingBull]

3000 magnetism, plus a times 10 multiplier from Gravity manipulation equals 30,000lbs or 15tons.

It is in the hu2 book in the section combining powers.

The only thing under Gravity manipulation that is x10 is increasing gravity. Also note that under decreasing gravity the object to be affected must fit within a 20 ft radius.

[say652]

If you read the section it is explained. I gave a reference for a Canon effect of coming two powers.

Not going to explain why. I am not an editor or employee of the Palladium

[SittingBull]

I think the sentence 'lift 10 times' means physically lift it not mentally. I say this because under gravity manipulation it all talks about lifting some many times more than your normal amount (physical). No where under reduce gravity does it flatly say the targets weight is reduced by a factor of X.

Weight manipulation can decrease weight by up to 5 tons but it must be decrease (or increased) 100 pounds at a time.

[say652]

I have the book right in front of me and that most definitely is not what it says.

[SittingBull]

I have the book also in front of me. If you interrupt it differently, fine, that's your call for your game. Regardless of the weight you decide on. The rod would have to fit into the 40' wide area of effect for Magnetism.

[say652]

Using Gravity manipulation a 15 ton hunk of Metal(a forklift maybe?) Is reduced in weight to 3000lbs, using magnetism I float up slowly toward my target.

Hopefully prepared and used the potty before hand several hours later I reach the desired height.

Now, out of atmosphere in Zero Gravity the weight becomes negligible.

Able to stabilize myself with my Gravity powers.
Hopefully I have a space suit, I have to pee.

Hey Dr Jerkfaces island, ok mr gm called shot to the Drs Bathroom.

At this range and speed your -9000 to strike.

Fire!!

Hopefully you roll really well, again targeting is the hard part. As I said earlier.

[SittingBull]

If you do it that way.

Simplier way would be to take a chunk of space rock (if we really want to obliterate this island) and drive it into the atmosphere. You only need to get even somewhere close (tsunami) but the collateral damage to others would be a serious impact on the players alignment.

[say652]

I am not a fan or supporter of orbital bombardment.

[SittingBull]

That is kinda what this thread is about, at its basic concept.

[say652]

An Experiment.
Side effect Breathe without air.

Powers.
Gravity Manipulation.
Invulnerablility.
Magnetism.

Should be able to Guide heavy objects into an Island from orbit and theoretically survive the Collison.

[SittingBull]

Except the note under the power. If we are talking a large enough object to drop on or near the island, there will be an explosion greater than a nuclear explosion.

[say652]

So when riding the flaming hunk of Metal from orbit, aiming at the evil Drs island I would have to eject at the perfect moment.
Aiming far enough away so I am not killed in the explosion.

Though with my Invulnerablility I should be able to deliver the package in person unhurt.....

[SittingBull]

Doubt you would clear hundreds of miles away.

[say652]

If this is correct i could design a five or six ton Super Alien that with the right powers could Destroy planets?

[SittingBull]

And not survive doing it. >.>

[say652]

The point of destroying a planet is to survive doing it.

That should be cool.

[Tinker Dragoon]

Tungsten steel Rod from low orbit vs. Dr. Vilde's Island is my groups response to the hole Armageddon Unlimited scenario. I give them mad props for coming up with the idea. It seem's so anti-climactic so i'm trying to come up with valid reason this option won't succeed and I have a few idea's floating around Just wanting other's thoughts on this.

Because you're the GM and you say so.

Aside from the moral and mechanical issues cited previously, there's the potential of the rod disintegrating during re-entry, or (if large and massive enough) causing collateral damage on impact. There are any number of reasons why this scenario might not work, depending on exactly how the party intends to accomplish the feat. Are they securing a flight on a rocket? Are they teleporting the rod directly into orbit?

[The Beast]

Isn't that island invisible from space?

[SittingBull]

The point of destroying a planet is to survive doing it.

That should be cool.

...If you survive destroying a planet, you still die from the planet exploding.

[eliakon]

Just for kicks and giggles (and because I have had players use it in games) the Phase World books have mass drivers which are pretty close to what your looking at...
2d4x100,000 dice of damage to everything with in a five mile radius of the point of impact. There is a bunch more damage out to a total of 20 miles away...
The life imprisonment for War Crimes (it being a criminally prosecutable offense to use a weapon of mass destruction) would be a separate issue

[Jefffar]

The Rods from God are not necessarily a doomsday device, but they are on par with a nuclear weapon.

IIRC, deVilde's base is a volcanic island in the Pacific.

A strike from one of the rods may trigger a catastrophic eruption, which, in addition to wiping out the island, has the potential to trigger a tsunami capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people.

That'd pull it out of the playbook of any good aligned character and more than a few selfish and evil characters.

[say652]

The point of destroying a planet is to survive doing it.

That should be cool.

...If you survive destroying a planet, you still die from the planet exploding.

Intangible.
Energy absorption.

[filo_clarke]

Aren't most tungsten steel alloys paramagnetic anyway? Negligible attraction to magnets? How would the "Magnetism" superpower lift one at all, much less into orbit?

[say652]

Aren't most tungsten steel alloys paramagnetic anyway? Negligible attraction to magnets? How would the "Magnetism" superpower lift one at all, much less into orbit?

My example used a fork lift.

[filo_clarke]

Aren't most tungsten steel alloys paramagnetic anyway? Negligible attraction to magnets? How would the "Magnetism" superpower lift one at all, much less into orbit?

My example used a fork lift.

But a forklift wouldn't survive re-entry. It has a lot of drag, and is made of flimsy materials. It would just burn up and disintegrate. A tungsten rod is streamlined, dense and extremely durable, thus the high-speed impact after an orbital drop. Nope, I think your forklift idea didn't crash-n-burn, so much as it simply burned.

[say652]

Aren't most tungsten steel alloys paramagnetic anyway? Negligible attraction to magnets? How would the "Magnetism" superpower lift one at all, much less into orbit?

My example used a fork lift.

But a forklift wouldn't survive re-entry. It has a lot of drag, and is made of flimsy materials. It would just burn up and disintegrate. A tungsten rod is streamlined, dense and extremely durable, thus the high-speed impact after an orbital drop. Nope, I think your forklift idea didn't crash-n-burn, so much as it simply burned.

Smashing my specific idea us related to the original post how??

This seems antagonistic to a specific poster to me....

[SittingBull]

Note Gravity Manipulation Reduce Gravity CANNOT be placed on an object, only you or another person. The last block of writing before '2. increase gravity'. So you cannot mentally decrease the weight of something with gravity manipulation and then use magnetism.

[say652]

Mods this is justice

[Jefffar]

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[The Artist Formerly]

Give them the win.

Then ask them what they're going to do to clean up the mess. That kind of impact is like a nuclear weapon locally, but it's likely to be a good sized tsunami at the regional scale, and could be potentially wide spread. Heroes having to spread out to deal with the problems they caused, which could leave them vulnerable to attack. I'm not really familiar with the situation, but there should be a number of ways to screw over the PCs and do it in game without having to result to a Deus ex to sort out the PCs own Deus ex.

[SittingBull]

Give them the win.

Then ask them what they're going to do to clean up the mess. That kind of impact is like a nuclear weapon locally, but it's likely to be a good sized tsunami at the regional scale, and could be potentially wide spread. Heroes having to spread out to deal with the problems they caused, which could leave them vulnerable to attack. I'm not really familiar with the situation, but there should be a number of ways to screw over the PCs and do it in game without having to result to a Deus ex to sort out the PCs own Deus ex.

Yeah I mentioned this too but meh.

[Jefram_denkar]

I've actually had something similar in a Phase World campaign. You can always try a fakeout with the group and have them target the wrong island. (Illusions, magic, and Psionics are great for this) Because of their need to target a object far away if their using computer assistance o their attack to give it any accuracy, hack the computer (theirs got to be at least one decent hacker available to the not so good doctor). Since they would be doing this attack form a low orbit getting their approach vector should not be to hard with someone with astrophysics and advanced math and having advanced combat aircraft or even other supers to intercept them.

Also unless the group is government sanctioned leaking their plans to orbital strike the planet would get countless government agencies after them to stop them no matter the reasoning why. (Think about how nuts a group like S.H.O.C.K. or the Sector would go finding out about this thing, hell maybe the Devils leak this information to screw with the group.) Even if their government sanctioned someone in the government would leak this and attract the wrong kinds of attention to it. and hell that dose not count the countless heroes who would go out of their way to stop this attack even if it is for a good cause. Their is just to much of a chance that this would kill to many innocent people (and give you a reason to pig pile a massive group of heroes onto the characters.)

And what about other groups like the Brotherhood of Armageddon, the Dark Tribunal, countless terrorists, and doomsday cults who would love to nug that Orbital Strike one way or the other. That dose not even count the Devils taking advantage of the situation. Hell maybe the Devils set up a fake island to draw out heroes who maybe a threat to them. Or even using the impact to start the generators and Armageddon (perhaps using a large group of innocents as a sacrifice at the point of impact and using that P.P.E. for their own purposes.)

Just a couple ideas hope this helps.

[Jefffar]

If they manage to pull it off, the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of deaths from the resultant seismic events, combined with the peculiar properties of Vilde's device might jus cause a dimensional instability to develop . So not a complete win, but fuel for subsequent adventures as the players trave about the world to deal with the small inter-dimensional incursions their heavy-handed approach has caused.

[Razorwing]

I have to agree with Jeffar here... if they do manage to succeed with this sort of plan, the resulting destruction (potentially equivalent to the impact that finished off the Dinosaurs) could very well trigger the very cataclysmic event they are attacking the island to prevent.

Just a few of the possible complications that succeeding with such a plan could cause... no doubt there are far more that could be triggered.

1) The island is volcanic to begin with... as such, the impact is probably going to either trigger an eruption or send up so much ash and debris that it might as well have been an eruption.
2) The impact is likely to cause a massive tsunami that could wipe-out many coastal cities in the region... adding to the amount of death that this event causes.
3) The amount of debris this plan would cause is likely to rain down over a very large area... potentially endangering many bystanders.
4) The island is on a ley line network (with a Nexus point) that could potentially open a number of rifts to some very bad locations...

In the end... yes, they prevent Dr. Vilde's plan for controlling a cataclysmic event... by triggering a cataclysmic event that could be just as bad. Even if it doesn't trigger Armageddon, it will seriously affect weather patterns for months (if not years)... and the amount of people who die from the secondary effects will be nearly incalculable... not to mention the drop in alignment to at least Miscreant (if not Diabolic). Killing hundreds... if not thousands or more just to stop one madman (okay... demon) is hardly a Good or even Selfish act.

[Jefffar]

I don't think this will be a true Chaos Earth level cataclysm. I anticipate a worst case immediate death toll of less than a million if the destruction spawns a tsunami. Probably less than a hundred thousand..

But that much PPE, plus the residual effects of Vilde's devices, should trigger some extra dimensional incursions. Again nothing on the scale Vilde intended, but enough to keep our 'heroes' busy for quite some time.

[eliakon]

I don't think this will be a true Chaos Earth level cataclysm. I anticipate a worst case immediate death toll of less than a million if the destruction spawns a tsunami. Probably less than a hundred thousand..

But that much PPE, plus the residual effects of Vilde's devices, should trigger some extra dimensional incursions. Again nothing on the scale Vilde intended, but enough to keep our 'heroes' busy for quite some time.

Depending on where exactly the island is located and how fast the coasts and their cities can be evacuated you might kill tens or even hundreds of millions of people with that Tsunami.....
Though the trillions of dollars of property damage and secondary damage (I am thinking of the Fukushima reactor here) are going to make this cataclysmic in ways that are going to get these 'heroes' on the hate list of pretty much every body on the planet.

[Razorwing]

True, the resulting fallout from such an event is unlikely to cause a Rifts of Armageddon level cataclysmic event... but there will still be a lot of damage from it.

Besides the very real possibility of Tsunami that could kill millions, there will likely be a fair amount of ash released into the atmosphere... possibly even enough to cause a mini-ice age for a year or two (some volcanic eruptions, even in recorded history have done so). Since the island is located on a nexus point that is likely connected to a sizable network, the effects could be passed to other areas, triggering earthquakes and even other eruptions. The death toll may not reach the levels needed for Armageddon, but there is likely to be a fair amount world wide... possibly even shifting Earth closer to other dimensions (in a manner similar to what happened on Dark Day for NB Earth).

How this plays out will likely change how the world views Supers for generations to come... and a truly evil GM (is there really any other kind) could milk such a reckless and ill conceived plan for months or years.

[tuvermage]

You don't have to be in low orbit to cause destruction. While dropping the item from low orbit would be bad for the whole planet and should have impacts for years after the event. You can drop the same size object from just 2000' and it would be very destructive and 2000' isn't even half a mile. I'd recommend doing the math so you drop it high enough to do the damage you want and not create more problems. You also wouldn't need large and expensive tungsten rod to survive re-entry. a large chuck of iron ore would be easier to find (aka free) and could do massive damage if dropped from the right height.

[eliakon]

You don't have to be in low orbit to cause destruction. While dropping the item from low orbit would be bad for the whole planet and should have impacts for years after the event. You can drop the same size object from just 2000' and it would be very destructive and 2000' isn't even half a mile. I'd recommend doing the math so you drop it high enough to do the damage you want and not create more problems. You also wouldn't need large and expensive tungsten rod to survive re-entry. a large chuck of iron ore would be easier to find (aka free) and could do massive damage if dropped from the right height.

Your not going to smash a building though with something dropped from that height
Your certainly not going to take out a fortress.

[SittingBull]

If done properly this would be overkill, send a HUGE wrong message to the rest of the world, and make the people behind the plan into possible evil characters (alignment drop).