Radiation Accrual

[BackworldTraveller]

Mongoose Traveller notes that characters will accumulate radiation exposure over their lifetime.

BUT it doesn't give rates for background exposure.

I'd sort of assume that each type of homeworld is going to total exposure at differing rates (Asteroids and "100" worlds potentially being the worst examples - especially with a class III star!) Does anyone have any idea of annual exposure rates...
By World/Star
By Career/Branch
For travellers in space/jump-space

 

[Krikkitone]

Actually…living on an asteroid may be less than living on Earth, because on an asteroid you will always have artificial shielding…people walk around Earth with nothing more than the natural magnetosphere/atmosphere.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

Actually…living on an asteroid may be less than living on Earth, because on an asteroid you will always have artificial shielding…people walk around Earth with nothing more than the natural magnetosphere/atmosphere.

One thing I can guarantee is that Human Engineering never manages Always!

Even UPS (Un-interruptible Power Supplies) go down.

 

[Condottiere]

Radiation damage might be reversed, but would have been incurred.

I would have supposed that nuclear dampers could have been tuned to deal with background radiation.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

I'm not sure the stated mode of operation of nuclear dampers could deal with alpha, gamma or beta radiation. They are stated as increasing strong force so decay is delayed, not of stopping decay products once present.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I'm not sure the stated mode of operation of nuclear dampers could deal with alpha, gamma or beta radiation. They are stated as increasing strong force so decay is delayed, not of stopping decay products once present.

There are references to use of nuclear dampeners as volumetric cleanup after the fact where radiation is present, whether the source be weaponry or just natural radioactive decay from ores along with irradiated byproducts (such as soil, flora, fallout, etc.).

The way I've always interpreted "how they work" is that nuclear dampeners can be used to ... tune ... strong force interactions, so as to strengthen or weaken the strong force off baseline. Fission and fusion warheads (for example) require extremely precise timing of their implosions to supercritical in order to function properly. The nuclear dampener "mucks up the timing" of the radioactive decay in warheads to throw off that precise timing ... turning what ought to be runaway nuclear detonations into something more akin to a "high explosive dirty bomb" instead. The chemical explosive works just fine, but the (thermo)nuclear explosion fails to trigger, radically reducing the yield of the warhead in a weapon defense context.

In "radiation cleanup" mode, the nuclear dampeners can be trained on an area/volume to hasten radioactive decay into stable isotopes so as to "safe" an area/volume. Wash, rinse, repeat as necessary to clean up the radiation in an area larger than the nuclear dampeners can address "in one shot" (so to speak). For example, a cargo hold that has been carrying radioactive isotopes can be "swept" with a nuclear dampener after unloading to "safe" the compartment for any residual radioactive dust contamination.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

Interesting side effect to that though when applied to background radiation...the decay powers the geological cycles of many planets!

And you can't really turn a sun off just to stop it irradiating space

Or a planets magnetosphere

Once a high-speed neutron starts moving through space, hitting it with a nuclear damper is going to slow it?

High speed electrons ditto? I know magnets work here but they tend to dump the electrons at the poles.

Plasma from CME's? Magnets maybe, but Dampers?

Sweeping an area to force decay at lower energies seems plausible (in the game's context) but background is trickier!

 

[kilemall]

In most versions of HG to my knowledge nuclear dampers do not shield or interfere from plasma/fusion, PA or Meson Guns. MgT has it affecting fusion guns and perhaps the Meson Screen is a specialized ND tech.

I find it more interesting to contemplate the effects of ND tech on materials engineering and industrial process. I expect it’s a precursor tech to superdense for instance.

 

[mike wightman]

There is a difference between the nuclear force and the strong force - although they both have something to do with quarks and gluons.

Plasma guns don't involve nuclear reactions, and the canonical description of how fusion guns work indicates the fusion reaction almost taking place within the weapon before the fusing plasma is fired. So focusing a nuclear damper on the fusion gun mechanism would effect the plasma to fusion stage, but it would still fire as a plasma gun.

If meson guns have anything to do with real mesons then the meson screen is likely to interfere with the weak force.

 

[aramis]

The damper tech has always been (since its introduction in HG) able to neutralize nuclear warheads at a distance... that implies that they...

• prematurely detonate the nukes inbound at a safe range
• dud the warheads close in until they pass to safe range
• prevent electronics by some juggery pokery
• a combination of the above

Striker makes explicit damper boxes, which hold nuclear warheads safely inside crew compartments.
The combination strongly implies to me being able to manipulate the strong force to either direction.

 

[Condottiere]

Abstract
Health impacts of low-dose ionizing radiation are significant in important fields such as X-ray imaging, radiation therapy, nuclear power, and others. However, all existing and potential applications are currently challenged by public concerns and regulatory restrictions. We aimed to assess the validity of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model of radiation damage, which is the basis of current regulation, and to assess the justification for this regulation. We have conducted an extensive search in PubMed. Special attention has been given to papers cited in comprehensive reviews of the United States (2006) and French (2005) Academies of Sciences and in the United Nations Scientific Committee on Atomic Radiation 2016 report. Epidemiological data provide essentially no evidence for detrimental health effects below 100 mSv, and several studies suggest beneficial (hormetic) effects. Equally significant, many studies with in vitro and in animal models demonstrate that several mechanisms initiated by low-dose radiation have beneficial effects. Overall, although probably not yet proven to be untrue, LNT has certainly not been proven to be true. At this point, taking into account the high price tag (in both economic and human terms) borne by the LNT-inspired regulation, there is little doubt that the present regulatory burden should be reduced.

Health Impacts of Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation: Current Scientific Debates and Regulatory Issues

Health impacts of low-dose ionizing radiation are significant in important fields such as X-ray imaging, radiation therapy, nuclear power, and others. However, all existing and potential applications are currently challenged by public concerns and regulatory restrictions. ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[HanleyTucks]

The way I've always interpreted "how they work" is that nuclear dampeners can be used to ... tune ... strong force interactions, so as to strengthen or weaken the strong force off baseline.

I've a vague memory of a scifi novel working with a concept like this. A scientist discovers a way to play with it to amplify fission - so when he switches his machine on, all the subcritical masses in all the warheads in the world will detonate. He sends an ultimatum to all the world's nuclear powers to dismantle all their warheads by a certain date, or else. I don't recall what was supposed to happen with all the nuclear reactors, in particular the highly-enriched uranium naval nuclear reactors.

The novel ends with some special forces bursting into his house and shooting him. And so now the government has a technology which can be used to make nuclear weapons much, much smaller.

Logically if it could amplify the effect, it could dampen it, too. But again I don't recall the details and whether the novel handwaved them. Incidentally, something like that might be very useful for a NERVA drive.

 

[mike wightman]

And why wouldn't this magic machine also cause all the fissile elements in the Earth go also go critical? Or is that the point. total destruction of the Earth?

 

[kilemall]

Is the goal to come up with rules that are easy and work for game drama effect, or sim?

 

[McPerth]

Albeit being mostly for MT, not MgT, I guess the article about Nuclear Radiation (medial Digest) appeared in TD issue 15 could be of help here (if available).

It treats both the effects of radiation and their treatment, and I guess it's easily exportable to MgT...

 

[BackworldTraveller]

The rules for effects once irradiated are in MgT. I was originally trying to work out how much radiation characters get during character generation/month-to-month living during play.

The nastiest ND effect is that it can stop fusion. That includes powerplants. So all those ships are horribly vulnerable to just losing power if hit by an ND - or melting down.

 

[kilemall]

The rules for effects once irradiated are in MgT. I was originally trying to work out how much radiation characters get during character generation/month-to-month living during play.

The nastiest ND effect is that it can stop fusion. That includes powerplants. So all those ships are horribly vulnerable to just losing power if hit by an ND - or melting down.

I haven’t seen the MgT2 rules, but I have the MgT1 ones. Very simplistic Rads system and way off for some radiation- some types are far more potent, others do their damage if ingested, etc.

Just as a off the cuff make up a system, how about 1d6 per term, result is permanent Rads. If the career term is a spacer one, x10 the result. That is assuming more Rad exposure but precautions like hardened suits, ship armor and anti rad drugs have reduced the effects.

That should leave enough room for incidental exposure, and a definite expiration limit for the spacers where they have to manage future risks to keep travelling.

As for ND as weapon, IMO that would need to be very close to work, and perhaps the target ship’s ND could counter- or either changing function would risk being open to nuclear weapons.

 

[McPerth]

The rules for effects once irradiated are in MgT. I was originally trying to work out how much radiation characters get during character generation/month-to-month living during play.

Well, if the same treatments exist in MgT as the told article talks about, then the radiation damage may even be healed at high TLs,and so the radiation effects are not cummulative algong your whole lifespan as in lower ones.

If so, the accrued radiation while CharGen may be assumed to be healed, as it may the wounds aformer military might have suffered, just to give you an example (at least at high TLs, that use to be the ones at which Spacers and most Traveller Characters are assumed to be while CharGen, at least in the most used careers).