NationStates

Mosktopia wrote:Mosktopia votes FOR, in compliance with our general policy to vote for any proposal that seeks to rid the world of horrible weapons.

Mosktopia is unfamiliar with any actual examples of planetary annihilation as a military tactic, other than in science fiction. We are also unfamiliar with any weapons capable of such astounding damage (well, I suppose just about anything could be used in a way that "as the deliberate attack on a planet... causes the majority of life forms on the planet to die." Big rocks, oxygen, tiny little rocks, anything really. But nevermind...). Still, if such weapons ever were to exist, we ought to ban them.

But that leads us to wonder: why is this Assembly confining itself merely to "planetary" annihilators. Certainly, we should also outlaw solar annihilators, galactic annihilators, local group annihilators, and universe annihilators. If annihilating a planet is bad, surely annihilating a whole universe ought to be against the law. Also, why is no one speaking out against the skin melting neon gas rays, the rocket-powered monkey super soldiers, or the sharks with fricken laser beams on their heads?! Those weapons are just as scary as planetary annihilators and thrice as real!

... Or, in the future, we might focus our legislative efforts on slightly less fantastic issues. Just a thought.

Well destroying a star system, galaxy, local cluster, and universe would have he effect of causing the death of at least half the population of a planet so...

Defwa wrote:

Mosktopia wrote:Mosktopia votes FOR, in compliance with our general policy to vote for any proposal that seeks to rid the world of horrible weapons.

Mosktopia is unfamiliar with any actual examples of planetary annihilation as a military tactic, other than in science fiction. We are also unfamiliar with any weapons capable of such astounding damage (well, I suppose just about anything could be used in a way that "as the deliberate attack on a planet... causes the majority of life forms on the planet to die." Big rocks, oxygen, tiny little rocks, anything really. But nevermind...). Still, if such weapons ever were to exist, we ought to ban them.

But that leads us to wonder: why is this Assembly confining itself merely to "planetary" annihilators. Certainly, we should also outlaw solar annihilators, galactic annihilators, local group annihilators, and universe annihilators. If annihilating a planet is bad, surely annihilating a whole universe ought to be against the law. Also, why is no one speaking out against the skin melting neon gas rays, the rocket-powered monkey super soldiers, or the sharks with fricken laser beams on their heads?! Those weapons are just as scary as planetary annihilators and thrice as real!

... Or, in the future, we might focus our legislative efforts on slightly less fantastic issues. Just a thought.

Well destroying a star system, galaxy, local cluster, and universe would have he effect of causing the death of at least half the population of a planet so...

Is an attack on a galaxy a "deliberate attack on a planet"? Maybe, but not necessarily.

Also, I made other points.

Regardless of whether or not aliens exist (but let's say for the sake of argument that their existence is possible), I seriously doubt that the construction of a planet -destroying weapon would actually be prevented by creating a law prohibiting such a device. In spite of how deadly nuclear weapons are, nobody who has them is planning on getting rid of all the ones they have, and even if they said they did...how could we know for sure? Once such a technology comes out, everyone is afraid that some corrupt country is going to get ahold of one or come up with the technology for the creation of one behind everyone else's backs, and then what? And finally, if someone possesses enough power to destroy a planet, who is going to tell them they have to put the weapon down? When the United States violated the UN Charter treaty by invading Iraq, all that the UN could do is stand idly by and make the statement then-secretary general Kofi Anan did that what the US did happened to violate their rules. Who did anything about it? Nobody. Why? Because the US has so much economic and military might, that the only countries who would have the kind of power to stand up to the US are nations that are equally as aggressive, such as China who still has control of Tibet; or Russia who invaded the Crimean region...and even then such nations are too powerful to stand up to each other, because the ramifications of such countries going to war now could implicate planetary annihilation. Just take the Crimean situation as an example. The US doesn't like the fact that Russia invaded Crimea and took it over from the Ukraine (ok...so Crimeans voted to annex themselves...but that could easily be asserted to have been done under duress). What have we done about it? Threatened to freeze Russian assets? Please. Western Europe relies so heavily on Russia that the US can't even wean them by compensating them for it to embargo Russia. Besides, America has way more assets in Russia than Russia does over here. If you think of all the powerful American businesses that have spread out overseas, we have way more to lose from a trade in economic sanctions. Therefore, the idea that a United States or Russia can be punished economically for being overagressive with its military is laughable at best, because the global economy is far too intermingled now for any G-8 nation (most of whom are nations who possess nuclear weapons) to give up its most powerful weapons because of economic sanctions. I'm not saying that I'm against it in theory. Quite the contrary...if every nation could be trusted to follow the rules that were made, I would totally be for it. But any kind of scaling back on military might by a global (or inter-planetary) regulatory organization can only be done in name only, and history affirms it.

Though New Unsociety has not yet progressed beyond colonizing Mors, the People see no harm in this resolution passing- just in case.

The Supreme Assembly of the People of New Unsociety

I the Count wrote:Regardless of whether or not aliens exist (but let's say for the sake of argument that their existence is possible), I seriously doubt that the construction of a planet -destroying weapon would actually be prevented by creating a law prohibiting such a device. In spite of how deadly nuclear weapons are, nobody who has them is planning on getting rid of all the ones they have, and even if they said they did...how could we know for sure? Once such a technology comes out, everyone is afraid that some corrupt country is going to get ahold of one or come up with the technology for the creation of one behind everyone else's backs, and then what? And finally, if someone possesses enough power to destroy a planet, who is going to tell them they have to put the weapon down? When the United States violated the UN Charter treaty by invading Iraq, all that the UN could do is stand idly by and make the statement then-secretary general Kofi Anan did that what the US did happened to violate their rules. Who did anything about it? Nobody. Why? Because the US has so much economic and military might, that the only countries who would have the kind of power to stand up to the US are nations that are equally as aggressive, such as China who still has control of Tibet; or Russia who invaded the Crimean region...and even then such nations are too powerful to stand up to each other, because the ramifications of such countries going to war now could implicate planetary annihilation.

(Expected) unenforceability is not a reason for rejection. Better have it there than not anyway.

Separatist Peoples wrote:

The Flood wrote:As if the Dark Side of the Force would even care

"I have a feeling the Dark Side of the Force wouldn't join an international organization determined to make sweeping decisions for members based on a simple major-oh wait..."

"PERMITS: The usage of said weapons as a last resort in the event of a provoking non-WA nation attempting to destroy the nation's planet with similar weapons of planetary annihilation to protect WA nations from nations who would not have to adhere to this resolution."

The Dark Force can still get nuked.

I would just like to point out the utter impossibility that is enforcement of this proposal. First off, this would mean that we are effectively banning meaningfull space travel. Anything that could get from system A to system B in a meaningful time could easily ruin a planet, after all. Not to mention, that this means that we are effectively banning all comets, asteriods, small stellar bodies etc. These could all be used to level a planet at the very least, so they have to go. Not to mention that the powerplanets on interstellar ships, having to generate enough power to get from system A to system B in a reasonable amount of time, could easily ruin a planet.

Just about anyone with a ship of sufficient mass, such as a decent merchant vessel, could take out a planet in one hit. And, due to relativistic effects from the speed required for said travel, would be nearly impossible to stop.

Pardon my language, but wtf is this proposal even doing here?

This resolution is as equally matched with one that would state that the annihilation of an entire continent shall be forbidden. That is to say this proposal is absolutely unnecessary and a complete waste of this assembly's time. If any government or entity were responsible for the death of an entire planet or star system it would of course be a grave abuse of power and immediately be condemned as such. But as one of many states that exist on one single planet this legislation is absolutely ridiculous.

Koderland votes against this, and we wish that the same energy that had been exerted in writing this proposal be instead focused on more realistic and urgent issues in the future.

Our apologies for our inactivity on the thread. Yes, this is a serious and realistic and devastating problem that has persisted amongst the space travelling community. We have a resolution in the books that says we need to read the resolutions before voting on them so I wouldn't take anything of the science fiction variety to be stupid. Now, we realize our resolution may have several flaws. For instance the usage of the term "between 2 WA nations" should've been changed to "between two or more WA nations". This was brought up after submission and is a glaring blunder on the part of Writing Staff.

New Unsociety wrote:

Separatist Peoples wrote:
"I have a feeling the Dark Side of the Force wouldn't join an international organization determined to make sweeping decisions for members based on a simple major-oh wait..."

"PERMITS: The usage of said weapons as a last resort in the event of a provoking non-WA nation attempting to destroy the nation's planet with similar weapons of planetary annihilation to protect WA nations from nations who would not have to adhere to this resolution."

The Dark Force can still get nuked.

Non WA nations do not have to adhere to WA laws. Think of it like how we allow WA nations to own nuclear weapons in NAPA.

The Dark Star Republic wrote:"While we are voting against based on the title, we are generally supportive of the overall measure."

~ Ambassador to the WA Inky Fungschlammer

Umm... are you admitting to noncompliance with Read The Resolution Act?

"Also, unfortunately we noticed after submission that we had a bit of a formatting issue with the first line. It appears our writing staff was a bit hampered by inexperience in writing WA proposals. No matter let us continue the discussion of the resolution in its current form. We will take all comments and criticisms into account if we go as planned, if this fails, by starting a redraft. We kindly ask your patience and understanding of the matter at hand."

WA Ambassador
~Sia Hedishi

Next time just change the Topic of the Vote, as it can be confusing to some thinking they are voting 'for' or 'againts' the destruction of our planet.. where do you think the vote will fall?

Hakio wrote:

The Dark Star Republic wrote:"While we are voting against based on the title, we are generally supportive of the overall measure."

~ Ambassador to the WA Inky Fungschlammer

Umm... are you admitting to noncompliance with Read The Resolution Act? :palm:

"We've read the resolution. But we vote against all resolutions entitled "On...", regardless of the content."

~ Ambassador to the WA Inky Fungschlammer

A disgruntled physicist in geosynchronus orbit asks-
"Does this mean that our government will have to suspend all work on mass accelerators capable of generating over 0.5 yottajoules of kinetic energy? Because without an accelerator of that yield, we won't be able to set up any exit wormholes anywhere even remotely useful anytime this millennia."

Assorted sucrose-based lifeforms wrote:A disgruntled physicist in geosynchronus orbit asks-
"Does this mean that our government will have to suspend all work on mass accelerators capable of generating over one exajoule of kinetic energy? Because without an accelerator of that yield, we won't be able to set up any exit wormholes anywhere even remotely useful anytime this millennia."

"...I don't think so. Hey could you get our physicist on the phone? ... Yeah I need a translation. Dammit man, get him on the phone I'm a politician not an astrophysicist!"

Confused WA Ambassador
~Sia Hedishi

"It is a shame that this proposal has very little support. I thought that most people would vote for due to the lack of influence on this earth itself.

Anyways, this proposal has my support. I wish you luck, ambassador."

The Isles of Random wrote:"It is a shame that this proposal has very little support. I thought that most people would vote for due to the lack of influence on this earth itself.

Anyways, this proposal has my support. I wish you luck, ambassador."

The fact is, all some delegations see is "Global Disarmament/Significant" and it's enough to send them into conniptions.

Wrapper wrote:

The Isles of Random wrote:"It is a shame that this proposal has very little support. I thought that most people would vote for due to the lack of influence on this earth itself.

Anyways, this proposal has my support. I wish you luck, ambassador."

The fact is, all some delegations see is "Global Disarmament/Significant" and it's enough to send them into conniptions.

Do not assume that all of them do ambassador, it is a very dangerous assumption to make.

This proposal prohibits the use of deadly weapons against potentially dangerous planets. What if a bunch of martians come to earth and try to invade? What will we do then, if they enslave the entire human race? We have to be permitted to use these weapons of mass destructions in case of potentially dangerous situations, or else we are much too vulnerable. In fact, I see a UFO already landing outside my house. Ahhhh! Got to evacuate immediately!

Laeriland wrote:

Wrapper wrote:The fact is, all some delegations see is "Global Disarmament/Significant" and it's enough to send them into conniptions.

Do not assume that all of them do ambassador, it is a very dangerous assumption to make.

No, of course not... ah, sorry, poor word placement on our part. Try this:

...all that some delegations see is "Global Disarmament/Significant" and it's enough to send them into conniptions.

Cognigotoapagawayiagan wrote:This proposal prohibits the use of deadly weapons against potentially dangerous planets. What if a bunch of martians come to earth and try to invade? What will we do then, if they enslave the entire human race? We have to be permitted to use these weapons of mass destructions in case of potentially dangerous situations, or else we are much too vulnerable. In fact, I see a UFO already landing outside my house. Ahhhh! Got to evacuate immediately!

/Not an astrophysicist, but wouldn't destroying Mars cause significant collateral damage to Earth in the form of debris hitting Earth?

Cognigotoapagawayiagan wrote:This proposal prohibits the use of deadly weapons against potentially dangerous planets. What if a bunch of martians come to earth and try to invade? What will we do then, if they enslave the entire human race? We have to be permitted to use these weapons of mass destructions in case of potentially dangerous situations, or else we are much too vulnerable. In fact, I see a UFO already landing outside my house. Ahhhh! Got to evacuate immediately!

You are permitted see Clause 3 under Permits

Goddess Relief Office wrote:

Cognigotoapagawayiagan wrote:This proposal prohibits the use of deadly weapons against potentially dangerous planets. What if a bunch of martians come to earth and try to invade? What will we do then, if they enslave the entire human race? We have to be permitted to use these weapons of mass destructions in case of potentially dangerous situations, or else we are much too vulnerable. In fact, I see a UFO already landing outside my house. Ahhhh! Got to evacuate immediately!

/Not an astrophysicist, but wouldn't destroying Mars cause significant collateral damage to Earth in the form of debris hitting Earth?

"Depends. Do you have access to the Romulan mining vessel Narada?"

Hakio wrote:"...I don't think so. Hey could you get our physicist on the phone? ... Yeah I need a translation. Dammit man, get him on the phone I'm a politician not an astrophysicist!"

Confused WA Ambassador
~Sia Hedishi

Now, if we don't have faster than light travel, then the next fastest way to travel is by accelerating the equipment or vessels to a fraction of the speed of light with, effectively, a large rail gun (or mass accelerator).
Now if you have something big and heavy like a ship travelling at a fraction of the speed of light, it's going to have quite a bit of kinetic energy.
This means that the primary mode of transporting anything about the galaxy (until wormhole travel is achieved) could easily be used to obliterate a planet.

Due to the capability of these mass accelerators to be used as weapons, would they still fall under the jurisdiction of the planetary annihilation law, even if their primary purpose is purely transport?