Atomic bomb

An atomic bomb is a superweapon which operates according to Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, saying a small amount of mass can be converted into a large amount of energy. In an atomic bomb, an atom's nucleus is divided, and the mass of its subatomic particles is converted into enough destructive energy to destroy a city.

Atomic Bomb in Worldwar
Atomic bombs were the weapons which held the key to war begun when the Race invaded Earth. At the outset of the conflict, only the Race possessed them, and first detonated several high in the Earth's atmosphere in an effort to disrupt Tosevites' radio signals. Atvar also used them to destroy the cities of Berlin and Washington, DC early in the war.

Unbeknownst to the Conquest Fleet when it arrived, humans had already discovered the divisibility of the atom and the tremendous energy yield it could produce. Most of the major combatants in the interrupted World War II had begun programs to build such weapons.

The Soviet Union struck first when they built a bomb using uranium captured in the destruction of one of the Race's starships. They buried this bomb under a stretch of line they controlled, then withdrew. When the Race took possession of this area, they detonated the bomb via radio. Since the Race enjoyed air supremacy, this became the humans' preferred tactic for delivering the bomb. It was used by both the United States and Germany when each of those countries developed bombs entirely of their own manufacture.

By the end of the war, the US, the USSR, and Germany had all learned to build atomic bombs on their own. Though reluctant to risk rendering the planet uninhabitable, Atvar retaliated to each human bomb by destroying a city in any nation that used such a weapon, each time it did so. He also destroyed Tokyo, thus precluding the Japanese from building a bomb before the end of the war (though they did succeed in building one many years later, after the arrival of the Colonization Fleet.) The Race also destroyed, unprovoked, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia with atomic weapons to secure their conquests there.

These tactics did not deter the atomic-capable human governments, which were engaged in a war for survival. Eventually Atvar was forced to negotiate with these governments, creating the uneasy truce which would exist on Earth for decades to come.

After the peace conference, German SS commando Otto Skorzeny smuggled an atomic bomb into the now Race-controlled Polish city of Lodz. His intent was to detonate the bomb and disrupt the newfound, fragile peace. He was prevented from doing so by Russian pilot Ludmila Gorbunova; Jewish militia leader Mordechai Anielewicz; and Panzer colonel Heinrich Jager, an old comrade of Skorzeny's from many a mission against the Race.

Anielewicz's militia took possession of the bomb and continued to control it, with the tacit approval of the Race, for twenty years, despite serious doubts about the continued serviceability of the bomb in the absence of technical maintenence. Eventually the bomb came into the possession of renegade Jewish fundamentalists who smuggled it into Germany with the intent of detonating it as punishment for Germany's genocide of the Jews. Anielewicz commanded a joint task force of Germans and Lizards and appeared to convince the renegades to yield; but it was later to reveal that they'd been able to do so only because the renegades had tried to detonate the bomb and found that it was not in working condition.

In the next twenty years, human atomic weapons improved. Most importantly, they were coupled with rocket technology to create nuclear missiles, allowing the human powers to use these weapons against the Race's orbital starships. These weapons were used many times both on land and in space in the 1960s: by the United States in Earl Warren's attack on the Colonization Fleet; by the Race in its retaliatory attack on Indianapolis; and by both sides in the Race's 1960s war with Germany. They were even carried aboard the Admiral Peary when it journeyed to the Tau Ceti system.

List of atomic weapons used
(year and user nation in parentheses)

Before the Peace of Cairo

 * Several in the atmosphere around Earth (1942; the Race)
 * Berlin (1942; the Race)
 * Washington, DC (1942; the Race)
 * Near Kaluga (1943; USSR) --planted by the Soviets in the path of the large Race army closing on Moscow, destroying it
 * Tokyo (1943; the Race)
 * Chicago (1943; USA)
 * Seattle (1943; the Race)
 * Outside Breslau (1943; Germany)
 * Munich (1943; the Race)
 * Miami (1943; USA)
 * Pearl Harbor (1943; the Race)
 * Rome (1943; Germany)
 * Hamburg (1943; the Race)
 * Outside Denver (1944; USA)
 * Orlando/Apopka, Florida (1944; the Race)
 * Saratov (1944; USSR)
 * Magnitogorsk (1944; the Race)
 * Alexandria (1944; Germany)
 * Copenhagen (1944; the Race)
 * Sydney and Melbourne (1944; the Race)

After the Peace of Cairo

 * Twelve starships in the Colonization Fleet (twelve bombs, the United States; 1962)
 * Nuremburg, Marseilles, Lyon and several other cities in the Greater German Reich (1965-66; the Race)
 * Istanbul, Bucharest, every significant Polish town, and several Race colonies (1965-66; Germany)
 * Indianapolis (1965; the Race)
 * Various test sites within the territory of various human not-empires.

Atomic Bomb in Southern Victory
The Atomic Bomb is a weapon which could exist according to the theories of several prominent European physicists. Impressed by the idea of its destructive power--and afraid of what will happen if their enemies develop it before they do--a number of nations are currently sponsoring programs to research and build these weapons, despite the high costs in terms of money, resources, and personnel these projects entail, and the inability of physicists to guarantee that such weapons can indeed and will indeed be built. These nations include the United States, the Confederate States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and Austria-Hungary. With the exception of Germany and Austria-Hungary, these nations do not seem interested in reducing the high costs of their programs by pooling their resources with allies, though all of them are allied with other nations with an interest in atomic bombs.

As of September 1943, no nation had successfully detonated an atomic bomb, though Germany was believed to be close.