Quote:The other eyebrow went up at the mention that they only had three warheads (though I'm pretty sure they went through their share of test warheads).They only had three left at the end of Operation Great Justice. Others had been expended earlier (one test-fire at Anticipation / Worldcon Flying Island, one use in battle just before the start of SOS-Con, unknown others), but there were never very many warheads.
Quote:BTW: Nice stroke of genius in having the Bubbleheads fire those shots - most Fen would figure that the Navy would naturally bring nukes to the table anyways.They've got properly-calibrated targeting systems, unlike the 'waved make-do on the Epsilon Blade. They've got properly-trained gunners, unlike Noah on the 'Blade. It's possibly the most important shot ever to be made with kaboomite ordinance. Noah's paranoid, not stupid...
Quote:Based on some of the other things said about Kaboomite the 'easily accessable' fissionables were all looted from various man made probes.That's the major source, yes. There's also the process of running expended depleted-uranium ammunition (at least the DU ammo that the Blue Blazers didn't get to first) through a 'waved centrifuge, in order to extract the remaining useful uranium. (Heck of a centrifuge, yes, but if the wave can make a FTL drive and a Catgirling Machine, the wave can handle something that spins at 0.005c...)
Quote:There are certainly deposits of uranium ore, thorium and other transuranic elements in usable amounts elsewhere in the solar system, but you'd have to prospect for them, mine them, and refine them, unlike the NPUs in the various probes. That being said, it shouldn't be impossible for Fen with the right handwaved equipment to do all that.True, but that takes time - enough time that an oversight body can be put in place before it becomes an issue. And by 2014, Fenspace has two such bodies: Great Justice and the Space Patrol.
Not that Noah's going to stop making kaboomite, but only on an "as needed" basis. By the time Helen is born, Noah will have scrounged enough uranium to make two more warheads - one for Stellvia, one for the 'Blade.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012