What if humans developed bioweapons before the atomic bomb?

[Rossum]

Okay, after reading the Creation of Synthetic Life post in the Science, Logic, and Morality forum here, I remembered a thought that was running though my head a few weeks back.

What if, humanity developed genetic engineering before developing nuclear power? Or rather, the bombing of Hiroshima was the mass deployment of a bioweapon instead of an atomic bomb. Then, the nations of the world focused their research on genetics and genetic modification instead of the development of nuclear power. The Cold War would instead probably be the research and development of bio-weapons and the appropriate countermeasures and vaccines to protect against them (if anybody asks why people would just abandon nuclear physics... lets say a time traveler altered history Command & Conquer style and humanity will probably take new interest in nuclear power some time after the end of the bioweapon Cold War... however it turns out).


This of course is only the military aspect of it all, there would be funding for developing beneficial uses for genetic engineering. Growing better crops, advanced medical techniques, energy production geared more towards producing ethanol or other biofuels and becoming less dependent on fossil fuels (maybe), and of course with it being easier to smuggle bioweapons into a country there could be more proactive systems put into place to keep the population healthy and determine the cause and cures for infectious diseases (maybe universal health care would be lumped in with the military budget... when engineered diseases are the weapon of the times then the government wants to make sure they can cure everyone and/or stop the spread of any virus that might crop up).

[Jeremy]

Japan was working on a bomb that would disperse plague ridden flees, and had experimented on a Chinese city, IIRC.

There is the old story about the Mongols and Tartars flinging plague ridden corpses into besieged cities.

And there was this.


Genetically tailored bacteria, fungii, and virii though; I am not really sure if a society that can make such a thing would be incapable of making a nuclear "device". I would think they would likely switch over as soon as possible too.

[weemadando]

Unit 731, the Japanese bio-warfare research group killed far more people than the atomic attacks did. More than double in fact, just on their dispersal method tests conducted on Chinese cities. That's not counting all their other experimentation.

[Ghost Rider]

We developed Bioweapons as far back as the time we understood how transmittable some diesases were. The problem was and always will be is that explosives can be focused while those rampant viruses don't care.

[NecronLord]

Moving thread, real science and atrocity is the topic.

[Surlethe]

HEY, MOTHERFUCKERS, IF YOU'RE GOING TO POST, MAKE IT MORE THAN ONE GODDAMNED LINE. IF YOU MAKE A CLAIM, ELABORATE AND BACK IT UP.

I am talking to the people I quote below to immortalize their intellectual laziness:

Bioweapons and chemical weapons already existed before the Atomic bomb.

The Japanese had them in fact.

They did. Death cows were used as weapons for centuries.

End of story.

Don't forget human corpses.

And smallpox blankets!

Or the classical examples of bodies (human or animal) down wells in addition to salting fields and all that.

Fucking disappointing. I've split these posts to the Hall of Shame. If anyone would like to continue a real discussion, feel free.

[Gil Hamilton]

Biological warfare is an interesting subject. Alot of the biowarfare that has existed in history largely consists of making a bad situation worse; the previous mention of hurling corpses into a seiged castle. making unsanitary conditions worse, is an old one, as is sending diseased livestock to infect the other guys livestock. Deliberately deploying plagues on otherwise healthy populations on a large scale is new, but the concept is old. What changed there is the industrial process to do it in mass.

Previously, human intelligence in the plague process was limited. You can make a deadly plague with selective breeding and suitably unethical testing procedures, particularly if you don't mind hauling together a bunch of undesireables from your/other countries and locking them up with some sick fucks who happen to be biologists. However, at the end of the day, we'd probably be dead already if anyone could cook up a superplague by those methods. After all, the big kink in selectively breeding a plague for desired effects is keeping it from killing your research staff, otherwise I can't see it being more than allowing mutations that exhibit the right qualities to propagate while destroying mutations that are weak.

Now, molecular biology and biochemistry are becoming excellent, to the point where some assholes with a government grant and a penchant for apocalypse could potentially make a plague that could murder who nations. However, whether we could do it before the atomic bomb is questionable in my mind, because you don't just need theory but a whole host of analytical tools and instruments that make dealing with life on the molecular level possible. That's not to say there weren't significant technical hurdles that heavies in physics like Oppenheimer and all those guys had to work out, but the tools they had to invent to make the atomic bomb aren't nearly as expansive as the tools that had to be invented for modern molecular biology and biochemistry. Lasers and computers that were better than mechanical adding machines would have to be invented along with a host of other technologies, since at the end of the day, you CAN'T do biochemistry on a chalkboard and with adding machines like you can atomic physics of the day.

However, let's grant those technologies to the time, such that custom bioengineering is possible such that we can custom make doom plagues? Now that's an ugly question. Atomic bombs are nasty, but at the end of the day, they kill in a footprint. They can't self-propagate. A bioweapon might. While a good bioweapon should be designed to die out after a certain number of generations, there is no guarantee all asshats will make weapons that don't endlessly propagate. Even in the 40s, the world was sufficiently connected that plagues deployed could spread over large areas (certainly in Europe and even in Japan). Japan might be able to be quarantined, but I can't see how they could be deployed in Europe without getting your side as well. Meanwhile, the Axis powers need just push a boat carrying plagued prisoners into New York or San Diego and it's a bad scene for the entire planet.

[Omeganian]

There's a book called "Foundation's Friends"; basically a collection of official fanfics about Asimov's books. One of the stories is an alternate history (featuring Asimov himself), where in addition to Einstein's letter about the development of nuclear bomb, Alexis Carrell sent a letter about the danger of bioweapons. As a result:

FDR didn’t really know the difference between a fissioning atomic nucleus and a disease organism, except that he could see that it was cheaper to culture germs in Petri dishes than to build billion-dollar factories to make this funny-sounding, what-do-you-call-it, nuclear explosive stuff, plutonium. And FDR was a little sensitive about starting any new big-spending projects for a while. So Einstein was out, and Carrel was in...

Everybody knows that it was our typhus bomb that made the Japanese surrender, of course. But it was the peacetime uses that I think are really important... If it hadn’t been for the Pasadena Project some of us wouldn’t be here now--do you have any idea how much medicine advanced as a result of what we learned? Antibiotics in 1944, antivirals in 1948, the cancer cure in 1950, the cholesterol antagonist in 1953?”

A California woman got in: “Are you sure the President made the right decision? There are some people who still think that atomic power is a real possibility.”

“Ah, you’re talking about old Eddy Teller.” Isaac grinned. “He’s all right. It’s just that he’s hipped on this one subject. It’s really too bad. He could have done important work, I think, if he’d gone in for real science in 1940, instead of fooling around with all that nuclear stuff.”

Asimov's science fiction is largely absent, however.

[Eviscerator]

What if, humanity developed genetic engineering before developing nuclear power? Or rather, the bombing of Hiroshima was the mass deployment of a bioweapon instead of an atomic bomb. Then, the nations of the world focused their research on genetics and genetic modification instead of the development of nuclear power. The Cold War would instead probably be the research and development of bio-weapons and the appropriate countermeasures and vaccines to protect against them (if anybody asks why people would just abandon nuclear physics... lets say a time traveler altered history Command & Conquer style and humanity will probably take new interest in nuclear power some time after the end of the bioweapon Cold War... however it turns out).
).

Bioweapon in a classical sense refers to like disease pathogens or similar man-made stuff. Since antiquity there have been attempts to use disease as a weapon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioweapon#1937-1945 (there's a section on Medieval Biological Warfare)
There exists ample documented evidence that all the major powers in WW2 carried on their bioweapon programs but never actually did deploy any in combat. Sarin is only the most wellknown result of German chemical weapons research.

Neither the Soviets nor the US spared any less effort on their chemical weapons program...... as this shows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugway_sheep_incident

Perhaps you were thinking of something else....? Like maybe G-Virus?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Although people have been using chemical/biological weapons for a very long time, there is an order of magnitude difference between smallpox plankets/corpses and what the OP is talking about.

Then, the nations of the world focused their research on genetics and genetic modification instead of the development of nuclear power.

We are talking about more than just releasing the plague. We are talking about the ability to analyze and modify the genetic code. Of course, realistically, this is impossible in 1940; it takes modern computing power to even begin to undertake such tasks. However, if we are assuming a magical change of the timeline as opposed to a realistic Alt. History scenario, it would certainly have a radical effect on the world. This is a level of genetic science that we barely understand now, after all.

[Shroom Man 777]

I don't think it can work, this situation. What can a bioweapon do against a bomber in flight? What can a bioweapon do against a soldier who's in NBC gear? Or an airtight tank? Or a bunch of military shmucks in a bunker? Or an aircraft carrier? How can you biowar a U-boat captain in a U-boat? The only ones vulnerable to bioweapons would be civilian populaces, and while that is a very big and vulnerable target and striking them can inflict huge damages, bioweapons are still very unpredictable, very indiscriminate and their method of killing people is also very slow. Also their delivery systems are going to be shit. The progress of a disease can be halted by all sorts of interventions, from preventive measures such as sanitation and isolation techniques and protective gear, to medical interventions such as vaccines and anti-biotics and anti-virals and drugs and other forms of therapies. They can be abated, slowed down, and stopped entirely if you put yourself in an airtight bubble. Militarily speaking, it's a pretty lousy way to defeat an adversary.

Nuclear technology will still be pursued. They are far more destructive in a conventional sense in that they make big explosions that wreck lots of things and kill lots of people in an instant, like a very very huge bomb. This is something that bioweapons can't replicate, and this is something so useful that developing bioweapons exclusively while ignoring this big niche is pretty much impossible.

Hell, if the assholes in this randome altarnate realty hippotheticel senareo are going to pursue bioweapons, then maybe OTHER guys are going to develop nuclear weapons to counter that stuff? Throw smallpox at my countries? Haha, I'm safe in my underwater nuclear submarine your stupid viroids can't touch me, and now I'm going to throw nuclear missiles at your face and vaporize thousands/millions of your people and your cities, still think bioweapons is so hot now?! Got an antibiotic cream ointment for my multi-megaton warheads? No?! Where's your seasonal flu vaccine shots now?! Whoopsie turns out germ warfare is shit and now you're gonna get nuked until you glow in the dark, and then we'll shoot you in the dark and steal all your oil! Hah-haaa-haaa!

[phongn]

There exists ample documented evidence that all the major powers in WW2 carried on their bioweapon programs but never actually did deploy any in combat.

The USSR deployed Glanders against Germany in WW2 and was apparently quite successful in killing German horses. The Japanese also deployed biological weapons against China on various occasions.

[spaceviking]

Didn’t the German’s during WWII hold off using chemical weapons against the Soviets out of fear the British and American would respond in kind?

[Sea Skimmer]

Didn’t the German’s during WWII hold off using chemical weapons against the Soviets out of fear the British and American would respond in kind?

Yup. German civilian firms had patented Tabun nerve gas in the US and Britain as an insecticide before it was recognized as a chemical warfare agent and while the allies did not notice the patents, the Germans had to assume they did. The Germans also simply didn't have that much nerve gas to use, and the allies were far superior in capacity to produce and deploy mustard gas and other weaker chemical agents in battle. Air superiority also means chemical warfare superiority. Some studies of WW1 also suggested that chemical agents like mustard were less effective ton per ton then high explosives. The main reason so much gas was used in WW1 was because of a shortage of high explosive chemicals, toxic chemical weapons could draw on different parts of the chemical industry. To round off the situation, Germany simply never invested as heavily in civil defense measures as the British did, that was a price of the fast paced Nazi mobilization prewar. So for every one of the superior number of allied tons of gas dropped, Germans civilians would have suffered more heavily.

The USSR deployed Glanders against Germany in WW2 and was apparently quite successful in killing German horses. The Japanese also deployed biological weapons against China on various occasions.

The Soviet biowarfare bit is rather lacking in proof; and plenty of other reasons can be found for why the Germans suffered heavy horse losses invading Russia with breeds from western Europe in an army which had already seen its quality of horses decline by 1941.