One thing to consider: Genesis might look like a terrifying weapon to us, here on earth, and an amazing accomplishment.
And it is. But when it comes to weapons research in the 23rd century, it might not be as exciting.
There are probably many ways to destroy a planet. Genesis isn't neccessarily a better way to do it than existing methods. What did it cost to make, and couldn't you built an antimatter bomb large enough to ruin a planet with the same cost but less engineering finesse required?
A century later, we see two ways to blow up stars (Soran's trilithium weapon and the Dominion/Changling Bashir weapon) in less than a decade. Quite likely that in the 23rd century, they had already discovered planet-cracking weaponry.
Sure, Genesis has the advantage that afterwards, you still have a habitable planet (in theory). But.. how often are conflicts really about actual ... "Lebensraum" and not more about what the people on those planets represent or can do for you? If you use Genesis on Earth, maybe you can still use its resources (depending on what the Genesis device really does to that), but you won't have the people and their ideas or working ability anymore. And if you really just want to have a planet to live on - find a lifeless rock, it works on that, too, and you don't have to break through enemy defense lines for it!
The Dominion didn't attack because they wanted to own those planets. They did it because they wanted to control the people there so they could never be a threat to the Founders. But they didn't seem to consider actually murdering these people the best way to accomplish that, even though they seemed to have tech for that (because basically every major power has that, sometimes it needs just one ship to do it.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
You don't even need the fancy tech Soran or the Dominion used in those weapons for starbusting - flinging a large enough iron sphere into the core of a star will do it.
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
What makes Genesis uniquely disturbing as a planetary-destruction method isn't the "destruction" part - it's that afterward, you're left with a lovely habitable planet, complete with working biosphere, just waiting for you to move in. That makes some folks much less reluctant to use the "ultimate weapon", because all it does is kill "bad" guys...
I mean, at the end of DSC S1 the Federation was debating imploding Qo'noS to end the war, still concerned about the ethics of destroying an entire planet. If they'd been handed a Genesis torpedo, would they have even stopped to debate?
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,595Community Moderator
They probably would because even in war there are innocents. And the homeworld of a species is going to have non combatants. While the Federation was willing to look the other way out of desperation, Discovery's crew was right that any victory at any cost is too much. If you become the enemy to defeat the enemy, what were you fighting for to begin with? And once that door is opened, can you close it again?
I can think of only one instance in sci-fi right now where a faction had to resort to destroying the enemy homeworld. In Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, the victory route sees the player character, Col. Christopher Blair (Played by that "guy from Star Wars"), leading a strike on Kilrah with the Temblor Bomb, a weapon specially designed to destroy a planet. The only way it could work is because of Kilrah's gelogical nature. The Terran Confederation was SO desperate because they were literally on the brink of defeat against the Kilrathi Empire, that Confed turned to WMD solutions. The first was TCS Behemoth, basically a superlaser dreadnought. Behemoth had to launch incomplete, and was destroyed due to leaked information by a traitor. The second, and actually successful, was the Temblor Bomb. And get this... the bomb was small enough to be carried by a fighter, specifically the F-103 Excalibur.
Blair dropped the Bomb on a specific faultline on Kilrah, blew up the planet, and the majority of the Kilrathi fleet massing in orbit for a final assault on Earth itself.
Ultimately it comes down to a moral question. And those stories do tend to be interesting ones because there isn't always a black/white picture. Its shades of gray. Star Trek Insurrection was another moral question, one driven by ideals of the Federation vs potential scientific breakthrough. Granted it was fueled by basically a family feud between the Son'a and Bak'u, but the Federation was largely unaware of most of the details. Just that there was potential for advancement.
What makes Genesis uniquely disturbing as a planetary-destruction method isn't the "destruction" part - it's that afterward, you're left with a lovely habitable planet, complete with working biosphere, just waiting for you to move in. That makes some folks much less reluctant to use the "ultimate weapon", because all it does is kill "bad" guys...
I mean, at the end of DSC S1 the Federation was debating imploding Qo'noS to end the war, still concerned about the ethics of destroying an entire planet. If they'd been handed a Genesis torpedo, would they have even stopped to debate?
I don't feel the discussion in DSC 1 was about whether you could do that to a planet, but whether you could to that to a people. It's mass murder of sapient life-forms. Genesis doesn't change that.
From a strategic point of view, a neutron bomb might seem an easier sell than a regular nuclear bomb, since their might be stuff still standing and operational or usable afterwards - but the fundamental mora and ethical concern is - does the military objective warrant killing all these people?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
What makes Genesis uniquely disturbing as a planetary-destruction method isn't the "destruction" part - it's that afterward, you're left with a lovely habitable planet, complete with working biosphere, just waiting for you to move in. That makes some folks much less reluctant to use the "ultimate weapon", because all it does is kill "bad" guys...
I mean, at the end of DSC S1 the Federation was debating imploding Qo'noS to end the war, still concerned about the ethics of destroying an entire planet. If they'd been handed a Genesis torpedo, would they have even stopped to debate?
I don't feel the discussion in DSC 1 was about whether you could do that to a planet, but whether you could to that to a people. It's mass murder of sapient life-forms. Genesis doesn't change that.
From a strategic point of view, a neutron bomb might seem an easier sell than a regular nuclear bomb, since their might be stuff still standing and operational or usable afterwards - but the fundamental mora and ethical concern is - does the military objective warrant killing all these people?
My point is that if you have a nice habitable world left afterward, you can change the narrative - the Enemy aren't really "people", after all, are they, and we're just reallocating their old world, and it's not like all the Klingons that exist are all on Qo'noS...
It's a horrible calculus that has been performed in every war since we invented bombs. The "nicer" the bombs are, the easier it is to persuade military planners to engage in the calculus.
Comments
And it is. But when it comes to weapons research in the 23rd century, it might not be as exciting.
There are probably many ways to destroy a planet. Genesis isn't neccessarily a better way to do it than existing methods. What did it cost to make, and couldn't you built an antimatter bomb large enough to ruin a planet with the same cost but less engineering finesse required?
A century later, we see two ways to blow up stars (Soran's trilithium weapon and the Dominion/Changling Bashir weapon) in less than a decade. Quite likely that in the 23rd century, they had already discovered planet-cracking weaponry.
Sure, Genesis has the advantage that afterwards, you still have a habitable planet (in theory). But.. how often are conflicts really about actual ... "Lebensraum" and not more about what the people on those planets represent or can do for you? If you use Genesis on Earth, maybe you can still use its resources (depending on what the Genesis device really does to that), but you won't have the people and their ideas or working ability anymore. And if you really just want to have a planet to live on - find a lifeless rock, it works on that, too, and you don't have to break through enemy defense lines for it!
The Dominion didn't attack because they wanted to own those planets. They did it because they wanted to control the people there so they could never be a threat to the Founders. But they didn't seem to consider actually murdering these people the best way to accomplish that, even though they seemed to have tech for that (because basically every major power has that, sometimes it needs just one ship to do it.)
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I mean, at the end of DSC S1 the Federation was debating imploding Qo'noS to end the war, still concerned about the ethics of destroying an entire planet. If they'd been handed a Genesis torpedo, would they have even stopped to debate?
I can think of only one instance in sci-fi right now where a faction had to resort to destroying the enemy homeworld. In Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, the victory route sees the player character, Col. Christopher Blair (Played by that "guy from Star Wars"), leading a strike on Kilrah with the Temblor Bomb, a weapon specially designed to destroy a planet. The only way it could work is because of Kilrah's gelogical nature. The Terran Confederation was SO desperate because they were literally on the brink of defeat against the Kilrathi Empire, that Confed turned to WMD solutions. The first was TCS Behemoth, basically a superlaser dreadnought. Behemoth had to launch incomplete, and was destroyed due to leaked information by a traitor. The second, and actually successful, was the Temblor Bomb. And get this... the bomb was small enough to be carried by a fighter, specifically the F-103 Excalibur.
Blair dropped the Bomb on a specific faultline on Kilrah, blew up the planet, and the majority of the Kilrathi fleet massing in orbit for a final assault on Earth itself.
Ultimately it comes down to a moral question. And those stories do tend to be interesting ones because there isn't always a black/white picture. Its shades of gray. Star Trek Insurrection was another moral question, one driven by ideals of the Federation vs potential scientific breakthrough. Granted it was fueled by basically a family feud between the Son'a and Bak'u, but the Federation was largely unaware of most of the details. Just that there was potential for advancement.
I don't feel the discussion in DSC 1 was about whether you could do that to a planet, but whether you could to that to a people. It's mass murder of sapient life-forms. Genesis doesn't change that.
From a strategic point of view, a neutron bomb might seem an easier sell than a regular nuclear bomb, since their might be stuff still standing and operational or usable afterwards - but the fundamental mora and ethical concern is - does the military objective warrant killing all these people?
It's a horrible calculus that has been performed in every war since we invented bombs. The "nicer" the bombs are, the easier it is to persuade military planners to engage in the calculus.