The Zeitsen

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Megawatts
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The Zeitsen

Post by Megawatts »

The “Doomsday weapon.”  A ship that was suggested to Khrshchev in the late 50’s and early 60’s, but Khrushchev thought it too terrible a weapon. If memory serves me right it was never constructed. I can’t remember much about it anymore but it was going to be a ship. But I don’t think a battleship.

An interesting story and one that captivated me, since the old days of the Soviet Union are imbedded within me. The Cuban missile crises, Khrshchev slamming his shoe on a table at the U.N. and of course the bomb shelter in the basement of our grammar school. And we had to get under our desks when a siren when off! We even did it a couple of time when an ambulance went past the school.

I thought the story very well written with a smooth flow of words from sentence to sentence. At no time did I have to wonder what was happening, except at the end.

It had most of the elements needed for storytelling, and description and setting were good. I could feel the isolation that Captain Alexi Kavalev felt.

Word choice good and sentence length just right.

On the negative side, Alexi wasn’t described well enough to see. Outside a few nicks and bags under his eyes, I couldn’t get a clear picture of what he looked like.

The same with the Commissar. No indication of his mannerism much nor his appearance.  However, both characters kept developing as the story neared its end.

This story held my interest from beginning to end, but at the end a question popped into my head.

Did the ship explode? It appears so. The Commissar lied to Alexi about the test, I think. Since Alexi had already slid the Key in and the process was set in motion.

I don’t know why the commissar called Alexi and lied to him. Was it to kill time until the explosion? He didn’t want to die alone?  Or just a fulfillment of a communist’s indoctrinated mind that if communism dies, the world ends and all is well!!!


Good Story!
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Robert_Moriyama
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Re: The Zeitsev

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

I enjoyed this story, as well. I found the characters and mood convincing. . .in that I've never been to the Old Soviet Union. It was an excellent job of setting a tone and staying with it through the whole thing.

A few science problems, though.

For one thing, dirty bombs don't cause nuclear winter. It takes multiple explosions sending megatons of dust into the atmosphere for that.

Another problem is that nuclear weapons take some care and feeding. If they aren't taken apart and serviced once every five years or so, they don't go boom any more.

And the same thing goes for reactors. Though if they are designed for it they might be good for 20 years in shut-down mode. . .maybe.

Fortunately, the author didn't try to explain how. . .just told us what happened.

And that's the secret to good speculative fiction.

Thumbs Up!

Bill Wolfe
Given that the Doomsday Device was on a ship, I suspect that it was expected to vaporize some number of gigaliters of seawater (as an Extinction-Level asteroid impact at sea might do -- instant humongous cloud deck, severe winds and storms, etc.), which WOULD at least disrupt global weather in a significant way ... Then there would be the effects on ocean currents (although the location of the blast would seem to rule out any direct influence on the North Atlantic "Gulf Stream" conveyor belt effect) of displacing / vaporizing that much water.

As you say, the "dirtiness" of the nukes would be irrelevant (unless they just meant that they made it BIG and not necessarily efficient, hence there would be a lot of leftover radioactive material that would just be scattered rather than becoming involved in the (presumably) thermonuclear event).

And you DO have to wonder what poor legion of schmucks had to maintain these things (or this thing -- you couldn't have multiple devices in close proximity and have them all fire, could you?) for forty or fifty years ... and what the incidence of cancer and unfortunate genetic damage was among them.

What fun! Thank God that there Missile Shield will protect the West from -- oh. It wouldn't help at all. Lots of juicy military-industrial complex contracts, though, which is the main thing.

Robert "Reading another Michael Moore book" M.
Last edited by Robert_Moriyama on June 20, 2007, 06:10:13 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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Robert_Moriyama
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Re: The Zeitsen

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

yeah it would have been nice to witness some horrific abomination lurking in there. then again, who says it was actually a plain vanilla nuke? did the story spell that out? can't remember.

Lee
"Plain vanilla nuke"? Don't be silly. This was a doomsday device. At the very least, it must have had hot fudge sauce and chopped peanuts (making it even more lethal, what with all the peanut allergies around). ;D

Robert "The sugar and fat content were pretty dangerous, too" M.
Last edited by Robert_Moriyama on June 23, 2007, 01:55:03 AM, edited 1 time in total.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

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