How Effective Can Biological Weapons Become?

Are mass human extinction biological weapons a possibility? Also, would they have success if a vaccine was created alongside the weaponized pathogen?

 

I think it's safe to say that they can be at least as deadly as existing diseases. The question is can it be made as easy to spread as the common could but as fatal as Ebola.

 

There are very few limitations to the abilities of motivated men for death.

 

No disease would kill everyone some would be in areas too remote and some humans would survive and build up immunity and others might have some natural immunities in their blood enough to save them and pass this on to children.

 

The short answer is yes. However, developing a reliable vaccine is more problematical since virus, bacteria and fungus can evolve quickly.

 

Yes! These bacteria may be now living on Europa, Ganymede, Titan.

 

That would be interesting.

 

True. Though hypothetically, if the survivors were not militarily prepared, they could be put down fairly easily. The weapons of even most survivalists would be ineffective against precision airstrikes conducted without concern for unarmed enemies such as survivalist's various family members.

 

You're right, that is something that would need to be considered. There is always the risk of complete extinction as opposed to simply the removal of enemies.

 

Good description psikeyhackr, a weapon such as that, with an effective vaccine for select individuals, would be ideal.

 

The problem with such weapons is lack of control once its out it could mutate or the cure created to fight it on the user side could not be as effective as tested in actual use, and terrorists could use it without a cure and take their chances in which case it could get out of control fast not leaving an enemy to bomb you.

Now the Soviets had a doctrine of using nuclear weapons and biologics and chemical weapons to make war against them so horrific no one would rationally do so they would likely unleash multiple weapons and have multiple vaccines for their people just in case.

But a non-state actor doing so if found out would be likely on the receiving end of multiple nations wrath, say NK used a biological weapon I'm sure we and our regional allies and very likely China and other powers would be outraged and I wouldn't want to be them.

 

There may be bacterial life on many oceans on distant planets of the Solar System.

 

Both of those situations are definately the main risks. As for the risk of being discovered by nations, I always thought if the pathogen was dispersed in a descrete manner in different parts of the world, by a small group of individuals with no affiliation to any previously known terrorist organizations, it might be difficult to retaliate, since it would be unclear who used the biological weapon and why. And that is only if they know for certain that the disease is engineered instead of natural.

Now as for the vaccine becoming ineffective, that is another problem entirely. I don't know much about biology, so I couldn't really say what the solution might be.

 

Possibly. That is interesting to think about though.