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(Jon sez:) 
On to the obligatory science lesson! Fratricide is a real concept from
nuclear weapons targeting. It is especially important when you are using
weapons that either are unreliable (they tend not to go off) or have a large
circular error probable (they are inaccurate and unlikely to land near
enough to the target to destroy it) because in those cases you will probably
be firing multiple missiles at any given target. If your target is likely
to survive if one missile is thrown at it - because that one missile may be
a dud, or because that one missile's warhead may explode uselessly many
miles away - then targeting doctrine suggests you fire more than one
missile. The first nuke which goes off near a targeted site will send out a
blast of debris and radiation which can destroy or throw off target the
missiles which are following the first one. This will remove those other
missiles as a threat to your enemy, and there's not much you can do about
it.
On a happier note but still speaking of things that go boom, light off the fireworks because this is the 100th episode of A Miracle of Science! I extend my thanks to my partner in crime, Mark, for his collaboration and for long hours spent drawing and coloring late into the night, and my special thanks to you in the audience for reading! P.S. I was remiss last week and forgot to thank my lovely wife for helping iron out the dialogue between Benjamin and Caprice in the first panel of last Thursday's page. It might not look like it, but those two short sentences were a bear to write. |
(Mark sez:) 
This is MoS's 100th page. And they all thought we were mad -- mad! -- to use three digits in the page numbers!
Fratricide of nuclear weapons isn't really that big a problem in one's everyday life, unless you're David Weber of course. That being said, it seems slightly irresponsible of our mad scientist to be winging those things around near a populated world. If you plug the search phrase "1500 megatons" into Google you get back all kinds of scary results like "four mile wide crater." I guess he is, you know, mad, but still, though. But anyway, hooray for us! And in the spirit of mutual backslapping I'll extend my thanks to unindicted co-conspirator Jon for his amazing handle on those little details like characterization and plot that add so much to a webcomic, like everything, and most of all to the hardy band of readers who follow these thrilling exploits. Aw, you guys are the greatest. (sniff) |
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