Timeline for What would a glassed planet really look like?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
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| Mar 4 at 16:14 | comment | added | Gillgamesh | Point taken on issue of glassing the surface being a psy op. However what I struggle with is the investment to return aspect. As @Jay McEh provides in his answer a great perspective on the energy expenditure needed to glass the whole surface of the planet. Seems to me yo get the same results just by glassing cities and structures. there are easier ways to "salt the earth" too. In any case that wasn't the question from the OP. Just my own curiosity. | |
| Mar 2 at 18:51 | comment | added | Profane tmesis | The psychological effects of glassing a species' home planet would be substantial. If you're the rule-by-terror sort of empire, it's probably even better than blowing it up with some sort of laser-weapon. | |
| Mar 2 at 14:50 | comment | added | Matthieu M. | The Carthagians would have appreciated if the Romans thought along your way. The Romans, instead, preferred ensuring Carthage would never again be a thread, and salted its fields. You could see glassifying as a way to create a DMZ: make the planet / system unable to sustain life at scale in order to ensure no threat can use it as an advanced base against you in the future. | |
| Mar 2 at 2:35 | comment | added | Robert Rapplean | The glass wasn't smooth at Trinity, either, and that's a low-erosion desert environment. It was more like fulgurite than window panes. For a global event, a lot of the minerals would be precipitating out of whatever's left of the atmosphere. | |
| Mar 2 at 2:03 | comment | added | JBH | Each glassing event would create a shatter zone against nearby events. Seismic events would also shatter the glass. If water still existed, its weight would shatter the glass in the ocean bottoms, lakes, and (through erosion) rivers. The glass would rarely be smooth. Some plants would eventually break through, continuing the shattering. Sand would be clear or white, black obsidian, brown from loam... From space it might not look to different other than shine of sunlight - diffused by clouds. In the end, glass is just dirt not yet erroded, so time is a factor. | |
| Mar 2 at 0:04 | comment | added | jdunlop | @RobertRapplean - I believe in Starcraft the Protoss glass multiple planets to deal with the Zerg, which fits the bill. | |
| Mar 1 at 21:23 | comment | added | Robert Rapplean | Glassing the surface might be a good idea if someone released grey goo onto it, or a similarly virulent biological agent. | |
| Mar 1 at 14:30 | comment | added | Demigan | While I would like more information it’s a good answer so far, thank you. The purpose of glassing the whole surface is a statement. Just like the Death Star destroys the entire planet rather than just render it’s surface uninhabitable. It shows how much power you have and how much time to make sure as much as possible of a planet is wiped out. | |
| Mar 1 at 13:56 | history | answered | Gillgamesh | CC BY-SA 4.0 |