Central Facehuggeria wrote: See, that's pretty much the whole problem right there. At the moment this is a limited war for the ESUS.
Not quite what I was getting at - you specifically target and kill millions of Kanuckistani civilians, and three things happen. First, it becomes a war for survival(ie, defeat may means that everyone on the loosing side is killed). Secondly, it becomes very, very personal for the national mentality, who will demand revenge(ie, punishing the enemy nation/population, which does not, necessarily, mean just killing them). And finally, in terms of the larger, international picture, I'll try and make an example out of the offender, to discourage others from slaughtering my people in the future.
"Only" turning their capital and major population centers into object lessons would be the least I'd really go for(with completely wiping them out possible), and it wouldn't really have anything to do with the course of the larger war.
I was assuming that RKV = Relativistic Kill Vehicle, which are more-or-less infinitely scalable weapons.Balrogga wrote:One problem with attacking any Earth holdings is he will be using RKVs meaning the planet will be destroyed, something that will not happen to Earth.
He also mentioned nukes, so I assumed it was more of a glassing than a fraging.
Balrogga wrote: You might have to offer up another target that is not really defended much (as per his request).
Thing is, Earth is about as undefended a planet as I have - the only other possible candidate would be Kyoto, which sits behind a lightweek's worth of FTLi, with planetary shields, a thick defence grid, Superfortress, and heavy paramilitary presence.
Every other world is in the Home Cluster.