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nick012000 comments on Luminosity (Twilight fanfic) discussion thread - Less Wrong
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I suspect that Bella's problems trying to figure out how to control vampires would probably solve themselves once she removes the Volturi from power; if the vampires get out of hand, the human governments would notice, and they'd wind up bringing ever-escalating amounts of hardware to defeat them.
If she uses her father to make the appropriate connections with the US law enforcement agencies, she could probably make the transition from vampiric vigilantism to human law enforcement as smooth and painless as possible. He's a police chief; odds are that he knows how to contact the FBI, and they won't play around, especially once she demonstrates her vampiric superpowers.
I haven't stated this explicitly in the story, so that's fair enough, but I think an FBI that became aware of vampires would probably try to make them extinct, not tolerate the ones that are trying real hard now to quit the murder habit.
I sort of doubt that, actually; they're restricted by the rules and laws they're required to follow. They can't arrest someone without evidence; in order to arrest a vampire for eating people, they'd need to be able to connect a particular vampire with particular incidents of people being eaten. At most, they'd be able to kill the vampires that go on open rampages, or which killed law enforcement officers and fled over state lines.
You can't arrest a vampire unless, for some reason, that vampire is willing to be arrested. There is nothing you can do that will keep a live vampire in one place that isn't a) blasting it to smithereens so it takes a while to reassemble or b) getting another vampire to physically hang onto it for you (or if your helpful vampire is Alec, getting him to stare at it magically). Or at least credibly threatening to do one of those things or kill it. The normal rule of law just isn't something you can slap on a vampire and expect it to stick.
Ultimately all of the law is simply the threatened use of force; "Come with us, or suffer the consequences." In this case, they simply don't bother with nonlethal force (barring vampire police officers, which is entirely possible if Bella's working with the government), and go straight to "If you resist arrest, we'll kill you."
I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was entirely possible to construct a prison capable of holding a vampire, either; it'd just take a lot more resources than any individual vampire is likely to possess. Their strength is finite, after all; sufficiently thick steel will be capable of resisting their blows, so a sufficiently durable metal cube with a trough underneath a pipe in the roof (to hold animal blood for them to eat) should be more than capable of holding one more or less indefinitely.
If you pause to make that threat to a vampire, it can probably kill you or escape. They move too quickly for humans to handle. If it can't actually escape, it can probably get a hostage or three so if you set it on fire or attack it with sufficient blunt trauma, an innocent human dies. If the only people around are the folks holding the burny weapons, and those weapons have enough range that the vampire can't get away from where they'll shoot within the human's reaction time (i.e. if you have a circle with a radius of a football field or more ready to go up in flames the instant the vamp moves), well, then you have a credible threat, but how do you transport the vampire to your steel cube without relaxing those conditions?
The steel, btw, doesn't have to break when the vampire hits it. The vampire could just claw at it and tunnel through.
Which is why you make the walls out of caesium with a layer of tungsten carbide on the outside. Sure, they might be able to claw all the way through the metal... and reach the layer of water that the cage is submerged in.
This is just another example of why vampires are not nearly as scary as engineering is. They are a lot more sexy, but the reason even they don't control each other using modern science is because it isn't as sexy. Sure, Alec can anaethatise folks and they can all tear things to shreds in their immediate vicinity. Edward can incapacitate all girls and gay guys in the immediate vicinity with sultry looks and incidentally read minds and run fast. All terribly sexy and dangerous. All pale in comparison to what you can do with an ICBM or a surgical strike with napalm bombers.
Bella was playing for keeps (and not being a protagonist in an engaging fictional piece) she could have wiped the Volturi from the face of the earth in less time than it took to turn a bunch of native Americans into big sexy-but-only-moderately-dangerous canines. She could use the skills of the Cullens to infiltrate a suitable military base and use military resources to level the Volturi headquarters.
There would be difficulties to overcome and research to be done. They would need to find a way to stop Edward being shot down by fighter aircraft while doing his bombing run or a way to navigate all the security protocols protecting nuclear missile launches. These may be real challenges. But they are all challenges relating to overcoming those with the real relevant power: human military organisations.
The hard part, of course, is finding a way to replace the Volturi, sans the evil. It would take human-equivalent decades of time to develop technology for suitable non-lethal force against vampires. Then more time to arrange for suitable prisons. And the socio-political difficulties in both creating a government and in dealing with a bunch of xenophobic humans seem to be very nearly insurmountable. (So the Volturi are doing a more important public service than any other government.)
And this part would do what, exactly?
Rubidium and Cesium in water
Very serious explodey
Dismemberment.
I'm pretty sure the threat would be implicit to the act of asserting governing power over those vampires; it's pretty much implicit in the act of asserting governance over any people, so why would vampires be any different? The only real difference is the difference in the amount of force needed to cow them, which prevents non-lethal captures without their cooperation.
As for burrowing, there are likely solutions for that as well; a sufficiently hard surface treatment would be able to resist scratching by the vampire, while still possessing the lion's share of the ductility of the under-layer. Said surface layer could well also have the property of corrosion resistance, if that's needed to resist vampire venom, as well.
How hard a surface is necessary? If vampires can cut diamonds then there's nothing on earth capable of holding one.
It's not specified in canon. I'm going to rule that a newborn vampire can bite through a diamond. (Teeth are special-sharp, plus venom.)
It just has to slow them down enough that a system (automated or not) could detect the escape attempt and initiate explodey explodeyness.
So even comparatively cheap strong materials may be good enough for a prison so long as it slows them down sufficiently.
Oh, all this thinking about stuff that hurts vamps... Why is vamp venom the only stuff that leaves scars? Shouldn't it, at most, do nothing of note to them? (especially if pretty much all their bodily fluids are replaced with it?)
That doesn't strictly follow. It does mean that you wouldn't be able to hold them without restricting their movement.
Right, of course. But that'll take some astonishingly strong shackles.
Not sure; I'm not that familiar with the Twilight canon. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of said canon can say what their best feats in this regard are?
A vampire doesn't need to risk as much collateral damage to fight/contain/kill another vampire. If you've got a vamp running around in Times Square thumbing its nose at the cops, and you are a human who wants to threaten it, you have to be willing to level a few city blocks if it doesn't do what you say. Not so if you are a vampire.
This is true, which is why I'd expect that the government would probably want some of its trusted employees turned, so that they'd be capable of dealing with vampires without needing enough firepower to level the block said vampire happens to be living in.
Volunteers, of course; the process of turning is probably too painful to force someone to do it legally.
You haven't slept for a long time now. Have you made a decision? This can't go on. You have to decide.
It's easier to just have a death sentence for escaping. This way you can use almost regular prisons.
I sort of doubt that any legal rights would be extended to vampires as a matter of course were they found out, so I'd side with Alicorn on this one. Turning and indoctrinating your own larger vamp police force on the sly would probably be more productive, but obviously also risky. Use fierce human rights activists? ;]
One could arrange to out vampires if they don't behave (including if the one threatening this is killed) and therefore call the collective wrath of the human military industrial complex upon them (see The Salvation War ;). Of course, this would require that most vamps would see the threat as credible and dangerous, and would co-operate in policing the unavoidable defectors efficiently enough for the blackmailer to be satisfied. This may be a tall order, and could lead to open war on follow-through.
That will slow them down, but I don't think it will affect their attitude.
I was trying to decide if that was feasible, but then I remembered that Carlisle was fighting vampires as a human centuries before.
And weapons technology has just been getting better and better since then. SWAT team members with antitank weapons are probably capable of wounding vampires, if they hit, and an airstrike from something like an A-10 is likely to be unsurvivable, if the vampire hasn't vacated the area before it arrives.
Well, he was trying, anyway.
...interesting!
What? I summarized Carlisle's turning in chapter 19. His dad had it in for witches, werewolves, and vampires, and got Carlisle to help kill members of that reference class. Now, werewolves and vampires are damn hard to take down, and I never said Carlisle killed any of those, but there are some vulnerable witches in the world. Carlisle did corner a vampire, who turned Carlisle, killed two others, kidnapped a fourth guy, and then got away.
I was under the impression that Carlisle's dad's organization was capable of taking on vampires - it makes much more sense to say that they had ambitions, but that they couldn't without a great deal of luck.
Carlisle's dad was painted as a fanatic who wasn't careful about sorting real vampires (witches, werewolves) from fake vampires (witches, werewolves). He probably offed somebody with porphyria at least once, and some mentally ill folks, and some real witches. Carlisle was more careful and found an actual vampire but couldn't kill it.