Earth - Fire - Wind - Water - Heart

By your powers combined, I am captain Biowarfare

Sep 29, 2023

Note this is my musings on the use of pathogenic microorganisms and biowarfare, weapon designs, and the strategic considerations for release and spread of possible future biological agents.

Weapons of mass destruction

Weapons of demise

The worst of the worst

The pinnacle of diabolical plots

Oh man and his nature to dominate

Who would dream up such heinous things

And then give them a life of their own

CBRN or NBC

Nuclear weapons are very powerful but they scorch and flatten the earth, crippling life, trees, animals and man without consideration. Destroying towns and their infrastructure. Destroying everything. And who wants to conquer an arid wasteland?

Chemical weapons are powerful too but they spread only as far as they spread by whatever means delivers them, and they contaminate and pollute whatever they touch making the newly conquered land difficult for any invading army to exploit. Leaving it toxic often for generations.

Biological weapons, those can be used in a variety of ways. To kill man. To destroy his crops. To make men sick and weak and thus easy to control, to demoralize, to frighten them into submission.

And they can do this without destroying infrastructure. Without damaging wildlife. Flora, fauna and they can be very selective indeed. But biological weapons they spread, they can spread far and wide. They can spread across borders, across oceans, across mountains and they can spread right back into the hands that let them go. They can destroy both ally and foe.

Types of microorganism and their ability to spread

Earth - Solids, by touch and close contact.

Like scabies, or warts, or herpes of sorts. Worms and parasites that spread through intimate contact. Do not make the best biological weapons because people see the infected, won't touch them and they cannot spread to the next. End of story.

Scabies ^

Fire - Living creatures, vectors, spread by insects and injection.

A number of the most lethal biological diseases known to man are spread by insect or animal bites. Rabies is near universally fatal. Malaria, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Yellow fever, Lyme disease from the tick, and Plague from the flea.

And though these are some of the most gnarly and deadly infections we know, not all climates are suitable, nor environments perfect for their release. The vectors, the insect or animals that spread the diseases are easily controlled and to shield from, making them powerful but unlikely to succeed in their objective.

Dengue hemorrhagic fever ^

Wind - Air by droplets and breath

Coughs and colds, flu, achoo. Wheezing and sneezing. Respiratory viruses spread fast, they spread far and they often incubate for some time before manifesting as symptoms. Allowing them to travel and spread even further. Without a doubt respiratory infections are the trickiest and most capable of evading man's controls. Fortunately they are often mild and of no significant threat to life. Typically they exist with very low instances of mortality.

Water - Liquid, by blood, urine and saliva

The type of infection that spreads by liquid means, body secretions, blood, stool, urine and mucous. These vary widely, but can be quite significant in lethality.
Ebola, cholera, typhoid, smallpox.
Not quite as deadly as the insect borne infections, but many of these are almost as severe. They can contaminate food, water, they can contaminate clothes and bedding.
They can spread through villages, towns and cities. But they often do not travel as far as respiratory viruses, limiting their range and effectiveness against an enemy force.

Heart - Mind, by trickery and deception

What if one was to employ trickery and guile.
Welcome to fifth generation warfare.
To the art of misdirection.
If one was to masquerade as one type, but actually be delivered by another.
How would one do that?
Let us ponder.

On man playing God

Imagine splicing up microorganisms, trying to make something spread like a respiratory virus but being as lethal as rabies. And just how dangerous that germ would be.
It would spread far and wide, in the wind with a sneeze and then cripple the whole world bringing it to its knees. Something like this could wipe out humanity.
Fortunately that is why it is unlikely to be created. It is so dangerous that it could spread and leave nobody, not terrorist or tyrant alike, alive to rule over anything.
But, man has most likely tried.
Or at least tried to create something similar, making more potent and virulent strains of Smallpox, Marburg and Hemorrhagic fevers in clandestine labs, which often masquerade as vaccine and pharmaceutical research centers. Especially well known are those of the former Soviet union because of numerous whistleblowers telling us so.
And so man has attempted to splice nature and release them into rabbit populations and sheep, to study their effects and something has been noticed again and again.
They work – for a while. But they devolve.

Man made organisms are just not supposed to be, they are unstable, they disable and kill but then fall apart and won’t stay in existence as if God, the universe, or some other natural process we so far do not understand prefers them to not exist. It is not yet their time in this world.

But, what if…
We don’t need the weapon to kill, only to scare, to create an outbreak, to manifest fear.
And then we take that same toxin, that same dangerous element and put it in the cure. The medicine. The solution to the crisis.
Then we inject the population with this weapon.
This would indeed allow us to get the best of both worlds.
This would allow us to keep the weapon from devolving. And to limit its spread into friendly forces. This would be a masterpiece of deception and a damning way to dish out our destruction. Muahahahaha!

To cripple or kill

It is often better to cripple an enemy force than to kill them.
The dead are left and buried. The wounded are cared for and carried, slowing the enemies advance or retreat. Tiring them, fatiguing them, making them vulnerable to exploitation.
A crippled enemy is easy to control. A crippled force will always move along the path of least resistance. They won’t abandon dying loved ones. They will not have the strength to fight. A crippled force will destroy themselves day and night.
And so it is always better to cripple an enemy force than to kill.