Nuclear Weapons

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Nuclear weapons are a problematic issue for the cycle. They certainly would be useful in blasting Sa'arm-occupied worlds and ending the threat, but that would close off the storyline. On the other hand several stories mention the use of nuclear weapons, so their availability is Canon to some degree. Balancing the usefulness and an imposed scarcity is an important part of keeping the storyline alive.

Weapons Use

Some nuclear warheads were obtained from obsolete NATO Stocks and deployed on Tulak.

Nuclear weapons have been procured outside of Confederacy control by the Japanese Empire with the Type 93

Other stories may have mentioned using them.

Availability Restrictions

Earth governments do not want to release their current inventories to third parties, and Central Command wishes to dedicate all nuclear weapons available to them for the defense of Earth. Thus it is not likely that any colony or military organization outside of CC will be able to obtain these.

Manufacturing Issues

The availability of Uranium on other worlds may be problematic. It would be a poor idea to have a new colony have a complete abundance of easily-available raw materials for any need they have. Uranium is not a widely-available resource on Earth, and it is likely it may not be widely available on any other planet or asteroid.

On Earth, all plutonium and other nuclear materials heavier than uranium are created in "breeder reactors" using uranium as a source material.

Alternative Nuclear Weapons Sources

"Hydrogen Bombs" use deuterium to augment a fission reaction derived from Uranium or Plutonium, so it is unlikely Deuterium could be fashioned into a weapon by itself.

Usefulness In Space

Nuclear weapons in the void of space are far less useful than on earth, and without the atmospheric blast effects weapons would have to be orders of magnitude larger in order to have much effect on a "nearby" spacecraft. Weapons effects in space would almost entirely be restricted to gamma-ray irradiation, and the inverse-square law would dramatically reduce effects at distance. Ship shielding and armor would likely provide protection to the crew, necessitating a very near detonation or a contact detonation with the ship in order to be effective. One possible tactic to deal with this issue is a Sun Wall.

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