OT or Not OT: Twilight 2030

[Targan]

Originally Posted by RN7

I don't know if that's possible, but how would that work. Asians are the fastest growing segment of the US population, and what about American with Native-American (Asian) DNA. An awful lot of White and Hispanic Americans have this DNA. Also from what I've read (and I've a degree in archaeology) a lot of Central Europeans and Russians also carry Asian DNA due to the historic invasions of Europe from Asia by numerous groups such as Huns, tartars and Mongols etc. Even Scandinavians may have Asian DNA as the original inhabitants of Scandinavia may have been Lapps who are of Asian origin. Also many Chinese may also carry European DNA, as it is suspected that Europeans once inhabited large parts of western and northern China until relatively recent times and interbred with Asians.

Agreed, which is why I said:

Originally Posted by Targan

Another option would be a pathogen spread by some organism only (or mostly) found in North America (the red squirrel for instance).

Yet another option would be a pathogen with a high mortality rate but a very short active period due to, for instance, an inbuilt fast rate of mutation that quickly renders it no more harmful than the common cold. All that is needed is to simultaneously release it most of North America's larger cities.

Genetic engineering has come a long, LONG way since the Cold War. Weaponised anthrax is long outdated. The time is a-coming (in fact probably already here) when a well-resourced bio-lab could create some highly specific, well-tweaked, nasty pathogens the likes of which the world has never seen before.

Putting it another way, is it realistic that a world war in 2030 wouldn't involve the use of such weaponised diseases? Maybe not deployed by the Chinese or the US or the Russians, but by one of the more extremist bit players. North Korea for instance. I reckon they might be crazy enough to try it.