Radiation remediation

[PsiTraveller]

In the PoD campaign there are several worlds that have been bombed and have radioactive areas. (Noricum, Drinax, Paal etc)

Is there a technological way of cleaning up a site/world. Is there some way of making an area safer for the citizens to be around?

 

[Arkathan]

A Nuclear Damper will render radioactives non-radioactive. HG lets you field them on ships. The old Striker rules had fieldable screens. They are directed at incoming missiles to render the nuclear portion inert. The same effect would render other radioactives in range inert. It's just a matter of powering something big enough, long enough to work on an area, while also neutralizing any windborne contamination that blows back in to a "clean" zone. Note that the stable final decay products of radioactive elements are not necessarily non-toxic, so additional work may need to be done depending on their concentrations.

 

[Condottiere]

I can't recall any details, but I assume the cleansing procedure is longer and more comprehensive than just a sweep to neutralize the energetic electrons in a warhead.

 

[Reynard]

Nuclear dampers are well known in many Traveller universes. That means someone nuking a planet can decide what the bombing is meant to accomplish. Not all battles and wars are about scorched Earth. This is one big reason the Imperium uses a heavy hand when it comes to nukes.

IF nukes are used, the damage was probably calculated to be removed later, Aslans in the Trojan Reach notwithstanding.

 

[cunningrat]

Don't think a Nuclear Damper would work -- they play around with "strong nuclear forces" to render a nuclear warhead ineffective. Once the warhead has gone boom a Nuclear Damper isn't going to do you much good dealing with contaminated soil, plants, animal life, etc.

My advice would be to look at real-world nuclear remediation, and then introduce a hefty dose of Clarke's Law and handwavium. Lois McMaster Bujold's novella "The Flowers of Vashnoi" centers around a biotech way to clean up radiation areas, for example. (It's not really a standalone, although I heartily recommend the entire Vorkosigan series.)

I guess the question is... how easy do you WANT it to be, in your game? What would make for a better story?

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-do-you-clean-up-after-a-nuclear-disaster/

 

[Sigtrygg]

Canon disagrees with you:

Radiation Suppression: Another use of nuclear dampers is to eliminate the
radioactive contamination created by a nuclear weapon detonation. Instead of
performing its usual missions, a damper may be assigned to eliminate the radiation
from one nuclear strike per fire phase. Both the crater and the area of induced
radiation are rendered permanently harmless.

 

[cunningrat]

Canon disagrees with you:

I stand corrected. Where's that from, just out of curiosity? It's not in High Guard.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Second the motion for asking where that quote is from. In the PoD campaign a lot of the land is radioactive, Noricum especially. A great way to make friends would be to get a damper and clean up the land. It would also make for a Haven site that didn't make you cancerous if you used it.

 

[Sigtrygg]

It is in the Striker rules for nuclear dampers.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Thank you!

 

[Condottiere]

I suspect that Striker was the genesis for eventual disintegrators.

Also, as I recall, you had damper boxers to freeze californium rounds.

 

[AKjeldsen]

So what happens to radioactive materials that are subjected to a nuclear damper? Do they instantly decay all the way down the decay chain to lead? And in that case, where do all the particles and the energy go? Or do they stay as the same element, but just stop being radioactive? Both of those options kind of seem like magic to me.

 

[cunningrat]

It is in the Striker rules for nuclear dampers.

Gotcha, thank you.
That's the problem with trying to learn a game with 45 years of history and canon.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So what happens to radioactive materials that are subjected to a nuclear damper? Do they instantly decay all the way down the decay chain to lead? And in that case, where do all the particles and the energy go?

Damper technology is one of the two major postulated scientific breakthroughs. It assumes that a deeper understanding of the strong nuclear force will allow us to manipulate it. Nuclear damper units create an interference field in the force. Point defense dampers focus a negative node on incoming nuclear warheads, lowering the potential barriers around the nucleus; the warhead will shed neutrons at very low energies and be rendered harmless after a very short exposure.

It allows radioactive elements to decay quickly and at low energy.

As Clarke said, it's sufficiently advanced...

 

[Baldo]

The warhead will shed neutrons at very low energies and be rendered harmless after a very short exposure.

Read Megatraveller Hard Times, Adventure 7 and 10, for an example of this.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Well Nuclear Dampers now offer a new income/adventure idea for players. Site remediation. (Assuming Mongoose Traveller allows this use of Dampers)

A nuclear damper equipped ship could remediate land on a per m2 or ha basis. This would offer a world a chance to reclaim land lost from Drinaxian or Sindalian excesses in years past, at least on the radioactive front. You still need a biological engineer to deal with the viruses.

 

[Arkathan]

Well Nuclear Dampers now offer a new income/adventure idea for players. Site remediation. (Assuming Mongoose Traveller allows this use of Dampers)

A nuclear damper equipped ship could remediate land on a per m2 or ha basis. This would offer a world a chance to reclaim land lost from Drinaxian or Sindalian excesses in years past, at least on the radioactive front. You still need a biological engineer to deal with the viruses.

MGT2 HG allows Nuclear Dampers on ships. It's up to the referee to allow or disallow that use of the damper. Canon has reduction of radioactive materials to their stable decay products as an intended use, if not an the most intended target zone.
Again, some of those elements, like lead, are toxic. Further chemical/mechanical remediation may be needed.

 

[Condottiere]

The californium example seems to indicate you can freeze, or slow down, radioactive decay.

I wonder if this could be an alternative to low berths?

 

[PsiTraveller]

Looking at the Pirates of Drinax book has several examples of radioactive locations, Kteiroa for example. Pg 121 of book 1 has the distinctive mark of the Sindalian empire as a smoldering radioactive crater on a dozen worlds.

Drinax is radioactive and GeDeCo offers to clean up the wastelands in 5 or 6 generations, for only 5 percent of planetary GDP. Maybe with damper technology this could be shortened.

I am looking at this from a hearts and minds kind of operation, a damper unit slogging along with nodes pointed downwards making a little piece of soil safe each pass of the machine.

Who would we ask at Mongoose if this sort of thing can be incorporated into Mongoose canon?

 

[Sigtrygg]

It's almost as if the author was unaware of previous Traveller canon...