Nukes and You

[Seperallis]

I'll copy what I wrote on the discord.

Let's remove the ban and see what happens.
There's nothing a "well that was a mistake" retcon can't fix. :person_shrugging:
And it's a hell of a lot easier than trying to contrive some absurd workaround why we somehow never split the atom. If it becomes a problem that everyone is going nuclear, then require the written RP of a nuclear weapons development program, the way we did for spacefaring.

It was also stated in the chat, and I agree with it, that the original ban was a reaction to so many people discarding any rational thought and waving them around in threat at the slightest...slight. But the past is really incidental, and the ultimate question we should be asking about them is "How will the inclusion of nuclear weapons improve RP?"

If nuclear weapons are included as a backdrop to better plots and setting and stories, then I am all for their inclusion. If we look back at the last 80 years of nuclear development, some of the most thrilling events of the last century occurred either directly because of or with the undercurrent of nuclear threat. From espionage, to diplomatic incidents, to misunderstandings that nearly lead to warfare, to accidents on both domestic and foreign soils, the threat and danger of nuclear weapons holds tons of potential for new plots and conflicts for people to write about...if it wasn't obvious by the absolute plethora of Cold War/nuclear fiction already available. Nuclear weapons are as much a liability as they are an asset.

Of course, if the reason to have nuclear weapons is so a few people can pretend to be "superpowers" with perfect nations on never ending map-painting quests, then those people are simply on the wrong forum. I like to think most of us are half a decade wiser than to try that again...or to cry about unfair nuclear weapons because we're stupid enough to think that poking the nuclear bear would not make the bear bite back.

But that's my two cents.
And don't misinterpret me as saying they should be included but never used...by all means, blow yourselves up, but at least try to remember why they've only been dropped twice in anger.