History Analysis / ValkyriaChronicles4

During the real-life Manhattan Project, the US government needed to worry about the secrets of atomic bomb construction being leaked or stolen, and perhaps whether the people responsible for dropping the bomb on cities would get cold feet over the idea of killing so many enemy civilians, but at least they never had to worry about one of their people developing a CompanionCube relationship with the inanimate uranium and plutonium that served as the fuel. They also never had to worry about not being able to operate either the reactor or the bomb without the willing cooperation of the power source, because unlike Angelia a real atom bomb doesn't have a mind of its own.\\

Another problem--and one that particularly applies to alternative delivery methods--is that of arming and fuzing. In real life the options are fairly convenient: an atomic demolition munition can be placed at the target and set to explode either by remote command or on a timer, while a nuclear gravity bomb or missile warhead can be built with instruments to detect when it reaches the velocity and altitude at which it's programmed to explode. Because the nuclear explosion occurs pretty much instantaneously after the chemical explosives inside the device are triggered, it's perfectly fine for the explosion not to be triggered until the last fraction of a second of the bomb's flight, and even by contact fuze if necessary. In contrast, the process of activating a Valkyria bomb is depicted as something akin to deliberately starting a meltdown in a nuclear reactor, so there is a long delay between pulling the activation lever and getting the big explosion.\\

The glossary notes that Vinland has received some criticism for using the war as a testing ground for its new military technologies. Surely the Vinland side of the Operation Cygnus plan is looking forward to real-world data about the performance of the snow cruisers in combat. This perhaps leads to the disturbing thought that they regard using the bomb not merely as a last resort, but rather the outcome that they’re ''hoping'' to see. If Vinland had merely wanted to judge the effectiveness of the Ragnite Implosion Turbine as a means of ship propulsion, there would have been no need to give it to the UKE; they could have simply run those tests with their own ships on their own territory. Even if they had wanted the Federation to sail the Snow Cruisers around on the Crystal sea in order to test less obvious qualities like how well they could avoid detection by the Empire, the Vinland engineers could have installed the engine in a way that simply omitted the mechanism and controls by which the bomb sequence is activated. If they provide the activation lever and the keys to unlock it, then it stands to reason they want to it be used.

Even if Schwartzgrad gets blown up, causing the Imperial troops attacking the Edinburgh Army to stop recieving orders from high command and face an interruption of supplies, this will probably not lead to a severe short-term loss of combat effectiveness, let alone an immediate loss of will to fight. On the contrary, Imperial troops will view the bombing of Schwartzgrad as a cowardly act of terrorism which the desperate Federation must have committed because they knew how badly they were losing, and these Imperial troops will want to take out their rage on the Edinburgh army that's right in front of them. The fact that they were already fully engaged with the enemy means that local Imperial commanders will know what to do without needing strategic guidance from above, while the fact that they're still fighting fairly deep within Imperial territory will help cushion them against any logistical fallout caused by the Schwartzgrad attack. Meanwhile, the Edinburgh army is so degraded that it's unrealistic to think they can launch a successful attack purely off of the initial morale boost from hearing that Operation Cygnus succeeded. Hell, even if the damage to Imperial logistics proves bad enough to delay a full attack against the Edinburgh Army, it might be sufficient for the Imperial army to just keep the Edinburgh troops pinned in place so that more of them will freeze to death, die of their wounds, or succumb to hunger until they are forced to surrender to harsh captivity--if they're lucky. After the majority of the Edinburgh Army is destroyed, the continental part of the Federation will have precious little power to defend itself against a renewed Imperial invasion, although said invasion would be slightly hampered by the losses incurred during Operation Northern Cross.

Thankfully, there is a contingency plan: Operation Cygnus. With the help of the United States of Vinland, the Edinburgh Navy has constructed a trio of "Snow Cruisers" whose special propulsion system allows them to move as easily over land as they do through water. With this ability the three warships can cross the frozen-over Crystal Sea and reach Schwartzgrad by a method the Empire wouldn't expect. Northern Cross, which had started as Plan A, will now be converted into a mere diversion to draw attention away from the Cygnus Fleet.\\

It could be that the Imperial Government was frightened to discover how far the United States of Vinland was willing to go to prevent the Federation from losing, and that this was a major factor in them wanting a ceasefire. Even if they thought that they could keep their involvement secret, the USV took a giant risk by helping the Edinburgh Navy obtain Valkyria Bombs, since they must have known the Empire would regard it as an act of war if they found out. The fact that the USV was willing to do this anyway implies that if more covert measures had proved insufficient, their government was prepared to drop the pretense of non-involvement and officially join the war on the Federation's side. The Empire might not have been prepared to go to war with the USV so soon, and if they weren't they would have decided to back away from the brink and de-escalate the situation. Repudiating the ceasefire might have caused Vinland to jump into the war for real.\\

Even if Schwartzgrad gets blown up, causing the Imperial troops attacking the Edinburgh Army to stop recieving orders from high command and face an interruption of supplies, this will probably not lead to a severe short-term loss of combat effectiveness, let alone an immediate loss of will to fight. On the contrary, Imperial troops will view the bombing of Schwartzgrad as a cowardly act of terrorism which the desperate Federation must have committed because they knew how badly they were losing, and these Imperial troops will want to take out their rage on the Edinburgh army that's right in front of them. The fact that they were already fully engaged with the enemy means that local Imperial commanders will know what to do without needing strategic guidance from above, while the fact that they're still fighting fairly deep within Imperial territory will help cushion them against any logistical fallout caused by the Schwartzgrad attack. Meanwhile, the Edinburgh army is so degraded that it's unrealistic to think they can launch a successful attack purely off of the initial morale boost from hearing that Operation Cygnus succeeded. Hell, even if the damage to Imperial logistics proves bad enough to delay a full attack against the Edinburgh Army, it might be sufficient for the Imperial army to just keep the Edinburgh troops pinned in place so that more of them will freeze to death, die of their wounds, or succumb to hunger until they are forced to surrender to harsh captivity--if they're lucky. After the majority of the Edinburgh Army is destroyed, the continental part of the Federation will have precious little power to defend itself against a renewed Imperial invasion.

* Despite having a better understanding of combined-arms warfare, the Imperial Army focused on having an extremely centralized command structure, leading to several instances where troop actions on the ground would certainly not contribute to a better overall tactical situation. One example is the sacking of Bruhl, where Imperial soldiers wantonly destroyed militarily unimportant infrastructure, looted civilian houses, and killed civilians who were either fleeing or hiding from the violence. Had those soldiers been a little more "civilized" as we know it, and therefore concentrated on occupying better strategic positions and communicated better with their regimental command, Welkin Gunther and Isara might not have even gotten the Edelweiss out of its shed.

Presumably, the reason that Vinland did not declare war against the Empire from the beginning is that the public was against it. However, there is obviously a government in Vinland or at least a faction within it which is far more aggressive in supporting the Federation than the average citizen is. So far this is pretty similar to America before the attack on Pearl Harbor, in which the Roosevelt administration viewed war with the Axis powers as unavoidable but was restricted in its actions by the public’s isolationist feelings. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war by Japan and Germany solved Roosevelt's problem in this regard, as they provoked the American people into fully supporting a war which they had originally wanted to avoid. But instead of waiting for the Empire to give them an excuse, it seems the Vinland government is willing to fire the first shot of what could turn into a wider war.

Presumably, the reason that Vinland did not declare war against the Empire from the beginning is that the public was against it. However, there is obviously a government in Vinland or at least a faction within it which is far more aggressive in supporting the Federation than the average citizen is. So far this is pretty similar to America before the attack on Pearl Harbor, in which the Roosevelt administration viewed war with the Axis powers as unavoidable but was restricted in its actions by the public’s isolationist feelings. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war by Japan and Germany solved Roosevelt's problem in this regard, as they provoked the American people into fully supporting a war which they had originally wanted to avoid.

It would be one thing to sell or give conventional weapons to the Federation without declaring war on the Empire. Before Pearl Harbor the United States government sent a lot of weapons for the British Empire to use against the Germans, first under "cash-and-carry" rules and then under the "lend-lease" act. But for a non-belligerent country to provide what is essentially an atomic bomb for the specific purpose of blowing up the other side’s capital city is something we’ve never seen in real life during an active war. It would be almost comparable to the United States spending the 1930s developing an atomic bomb, and then giving it to Nationalist China as part of an operation to blow up Tokyo, all before Japan and the U.S. had declared war on each other.

The Valkyria bomb is based on the Ragnite ragnite research pioneered by the late Gallian inventor Albert Miller, which his daughter Riley developed upon and shared with the USV during her university studies in Vinland. Unbeknownst to Riley, this academic work was folded into the research on weaponizing Valkyria which the USV and the Federation started collaborating on after the First Europan War, and was turned into the technology for the Ragnite Implosion Turbine and the Valkyria bomb. There’s reason to think that the government of Vinland did not share the full knowledge required to produce the bomb with its Federation partners, but they nevertheless installed such reactor/bombs in three ships that were to be crewed and controlled entirely by the United Kingdom of Edinburg's armed forces, with not a single supervisor from Vinland on board.\\

What Vinland is doing is much more radical, though. They aren’t just letting the Federation host a nuclear insurance policy that will only be transferred to them in the event of war; they are giving fully functional Valkyria bombs and the keys to use them with no strings attached, no additional layer of supervision or permission.

%%[[folder:Nuclear Proliferation: The Mysterious Motives of Vinland]]
%%There is something very important in this scenario that we can only guess about: why has the United States of Vinland given its Valkyria Bombs to the Edinburgh Navy? How exactly does Vinland expect them to be used? And why take such an enormous risk of embroiling themselves in the war when they have so far avoided direct involvement?\\

%%Historically, the countries that developed nuclear weapons have tried to keep these weapons for themselves. The United States tried to hide the Manhattan project from the Soviet Union despite their status as allies during the Second World War, as Stalin was the last person they would have trusted with such a destructive weapon. But after the war the US also snubbed the British by refusing to share the very technology that British scientists had helped them to develop, at least partly because they worried about the British being compromised by Soviet spies. The UK had to develop its bomb independently, achieving its first test detonation in 1952. France also developed its own bomb without American assistance, which it successfully tested in 1960.\\

%%The Soviet Union got a leg up on its bomb thanks to secrets stolen from the Manhattan project, getting its first detonation in 1949. The Soviet Union initially assisted the People's Republic of China in developing their atom bomb during the 1950s, but Khrushchev cut off this assistance in 1959 over souring relations, as well as his concern that Mao had a dangerously relaxed attitude about the potential consequences of engaging in nuclear war. China pushed ahead anyway and achieved their first test in 1964.\\

%%By this time, there was a collective realization that there would be more chances for catastrophic miscalculation and escalation if the number of countries with nuclear weapons kept increasing. The US, USSR, UK, France, and China ultimately signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty that took effect in 1970, in which the five recognized nuclear weapons states agreed not to help additional countries build or acquire nuclear weapons. Today there are at least four other countries that possess nuclear weapons developed after the creation of the treaty, but they didn’t obtain these as a result of just being given them.\\

%%The Valkyria bomb is based on the Ragnite ragnite research pioneered by the late Gallian inventor Albert Miller, which his daughter Riley developed upon and shared with the USV during her university studies in Vinland. Unbeknownst to Riley, this academic work was folded into the research on weaponizing Valkyria which the USV and the Federation started collaborating on after the First Europan War, and was turned into the technology for the Ragnite Implosion Turbine and the Valkyria bomb. There’s reason to think that the government of Vinland did not share the full knowledge required to produce the bomb with its Federation partners, but they nevertheless installed such reactor/bombs in three ships that were to be crewed and controlled entirely by the United Kingdom of Edinburg's armed forces, with not a single supervisor from Vinland on board.\\

%%In one sense Vinland's scheme could be considered a form of "nuclear sharing" such as the United States practiced with its allies since the Cold War. For example, the U.S. did not give Canada or West Germany the means to produce atomic bombs for themselves. What those countries ''did'' do was operate aircraft and other systems which were capable of delivering US tactical nukes, and hosting United States Air Force facilities which stored such tactical weapons. The weapons and their arming codes were guarded by the U.S. in peacetime, but if Soviet nuclear bombers had started flying towards the U.S. through Canadian airspace, or Soviet tanks had started pouring into West Germany, the U.S. intended to give nuclear weapons and their codes to those host countries for use against the attackers. This was an integral part of the mutual defense pact which sought to deter the Soviets from invading the members who didn’t own nuclear weapons by putting them under the protection of those that did, while at the same time avoiding the need for all of those countries to start researching and building their own atomic bombs.
%%[[/folder]]

[[folder:Worse Bomb Technology, Worse Delivery System]]
The Valkyria bombs developed by the USV and the Federation would be much more threatening to the Empire if they could have be delivered by either bomber airplanes or missiles instead of inside the hulls of snow cruisers. Compared to the snow cruisers, bombers or missiles would reach distant targets faster; give the enemy less warning and reaction time; risk the lives of fewer operators; be cheaper and easier to manufacture; and in the case of ballistic missiles be almost impossible to shoot down using the Empire's current technology. Unfortunately, because of the SchizoTech setting where heavier-than-air flight is all but nonexistent, the Federation does not have working versions of these technologies. Even if these delivery methods were available, neither could be used unless the bomb were sufficiently miniaturized. The reactor inside the ''Centurion'' is far too large and heavy to be carried by either method. While we might wonder whether a lot of that massive machinery could be eliminated if there was no need to generate and harness power to propel the ship--nuclear bombs are always much smaller than nuclear reactors in real life--it's just as possible that the bomb would still be too big to fly even after the parts related to powering the ship were removed.\\

Another problem--and one that particularly applies to alternative delivery methods--is that of arming and fuzing. In real life the options are fairly convenient: an atomic demolition munition can be placed at the target and set to explode either by remote command or on a timer, while a nuclear gravity bomb or missile warhead can be built with instruments to detect when it reaches the velocity and altitude at which it's programmed to explode. Because the nuclear explosion occurs pretty much instantaneously after the chemical explosives inside the device are triggered, it's perfectly fine for the explosion not to be triggered until the last fraction of a second of the bomb's flight, and even by contact fuze if necessary. In contrast, the process of activating a Valkyria bomb is depicted as something akin to deliberately starting a meltdown in a nuclear reactor, so there is a long delay between pulling the activation lever and getting the big explosion.\\

This excessive "lock time"--and what's worse, the fact that the exact length of time between triggering and detonation doesn't seem to be predictable in advance--means it would be very difficult to know when to start the cook-off of the bomb before dropping it out of an airplane, let alone trying to nail the timing on a missile payload flying at supersonic speed. The final nail in the coffin is the need to keep the Valkyria girl inside the payload alive until the moment she goes critical; since a high-speed flight/fall that ended in a sudden stop would presumably kill her and turn the bomb into a dud, the mechanism would need to be able to guarantee the correct timing for an airburst or else it would be useless. Given these constraints, maybe the ships were the only practical option from the start.\\

Interestingly, the Valkyria bombs and their delivery method resemble the hypothetical atom bombs described in the 1939 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Szilard_letter Einstein-Szilard letter]] to President Roosevelt: "A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air." At this time Szilard and others assumed the amount of fissile material needed for a fission chain reaction might be several tons; it would not be until the Frisch–Peierls memorandum seven months later that this estimate would be reduced to less than 10 kilograms, which meant that an air-dropped weapon could be feasibly developed. In an alternate universe where the laws of physics were different and tons of fissile material actually were required, a self-destructing boat may have been the only way to deliver it.\\
\\
As far as manned delivery systems go, a bomber aircraft has the obvious advantage of dropping the bomb from a great height and while moving at a decent speed, so that by the time the bomb falls to the designated altitude and explodes the plane will have handily escaped the blast zone. Meanwhile, the snow cruisers basically turn themselves into time bombs and force their crews to flee for their lives. The final mission of Cygnus as directed by Claude Wallace involves ramming the ''Centurion'' into the center of Schwartzgrad, disembarking the ground troops, fighting in the streets to secure an escape corridor, and then setting the bomb to explode while all personnel except Angie make their escape. This mission somewhat resembles [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nazaire_Raid Operation Chariot]] in which British sailors and commandos rammed an explosive-laden destroyer into the gates of the Normandie Dry Dock at St. Nazaire, disembarked to demolish additional targets, and were supposed to escape in motor launches after blowing up the docks.\\
\\

%%There is something very important in this scenario that we know practically nothing about: why has the United States of Vinland given its Valkyria Bombs to the Edinburgh Navy? How exactly does Vinland expect them to be used? And why take such an enormous risk of embroiling themselves in the war when they have so far avoided direct involvement?\\

%%The Valkyria bomb is based on the Ragnite ragnite research pioneered by the late Gallian inventor Albert Miller, which his daughter Riley developed upon and shared with the USV during her university studies in Vinland. Unbeknownst to Riley, this academic work was folded into the research on weaponizing Valkyria which the USV and the Federation started collaborating on after the First Europan War, and was turned into the technology for the Ragnite Implosion Turbine and the Valkyria bomb. There’s reason to think that the government of Vinland did not share the full knowledge required to produce the bomb with its Federation partners, but they nevertheless installed it in three ships that were to be controlled and crewed entirely by the armed forces of Edinburg, with not a single supervisor from Vinland on board.

%%The Valkyria bomb is based on the Ragnite ragnite research pioneered by the late Gallian inventor Albert Miller, which his daughter Riley developed upon and shared with the USV during her university studies in Vinland. Unbeknownst to Riley, this academic work was folded into the research on weaponizing Valkyria which the USV and the Federation started collaborating on after the First Europan War, and was turned into the technology for the Ragnite Implosion Turbine and the Valkyria bomb. There’s reason to think that the government of Vinland did not share the full knowledge required to produce the bomb with its Federation partners, but they nevertheless installed it in three ships that were to be controlled and created entirely by the armed forces of Edinburg, with not a single supervisor from Vinland on board.

%%The Valkyria bomb is based on the Ragnite implosion principle pioneered by the late Gallian inventor Albert Miller, which his daughter Riley developed upon and shared with the USV during her studies in Vinland. Unbeknownst to Riley, this academic work was folded into the research on weaponizing Valkyria which the USV and the Federation started collaborating on after the First Europan War, and was turned into the technology for the Ragnite Implosion Turbine and the Valkyria bomb.

%%[[folder:The Mysterious Motives of Vinland]]

%%Historically, the countries that developed nuclear weapons have tried to keep these weapons for themselves. The United States tried to hide the Manhattan project from the Soviet Union despite their status as allies during the Second World War, as Stalin was the last person they would have trusted with such a destructive weapon. But after the war the US also snubbed the British by refusing to share the very technology that British scientists had helped them to develop, at least partly because they worried about the British being compromised by Soviet spies. The UK had to develop its own bomb, which it tested in 1952. France also developed its own bomb, tested in 1960.\\

%%The Soviet Union got a leg up on its bomb thanks to secrets stolen from the Manhattan project, detonating its first in 1949. The Soviet Union initially assisted the People's Republic of China in developing their atom bomb during the 1950s, but Khrushchev cut off this assistance in 1959 over souring relations, and in particular his belief that Mao had a dangerously relaxed attitude about the potential consequences of nuclear war. China pushed ahead and achieved their first test in 1964.\\

At the same time, the Imperial government would have been rocked with scandal when the public found out that it failed to prevent most of the population of the capital city from getting blown up, especially because the evactuation order for Schwartzgrad didn't reveal what the government knew about the Valkyria bomb. While the public's anger against the Federation would have increased overall war enthusiasm, many of the individual leaders of Imperial government departments would have had to be sacked or even executed as scapegoats to deflect blame from the Imperial household, possibly giving those people a strong incentive to bring about a ceasefire to stop the bomb.\\

It could be that the Imperial Government was frightened to discover how far the United States of Vinland was willing to go to prevent the Federation from losing, and that this was a major factor in them wanting a ceasefire. Even if they thought that they could keep their involvement secret, the USV took a giant risk by helping the Edinburgh Navy obtain Valkyria Bombs, since they must have known the Empire would regard it as an act of war if they found out. The fact that the USV was willing to do this anyway implies that if more covert measures had proved insufficient, their government was prepared to drop the pretense of non-involvement and officially join the war on the Federation's side. The Empire might not have been prepared to go to war with the USV so soon, and if they weren't they would have decided to back away from the brink and de-escalate the situation.\\

[[folder:Worse Bomb Technology, Worse Delivery System]]
The Valkyria bombs developed by the USV and the Federation would be much more threatening to the Empire if they could have be delivered by either bomber airplanes or missiles instead of inside the hulls of snow cruisers. Compared to the snow cruisers, bombers or missiles would reach distant targets faster; give the enemy less warning and reaction time; risk the lives of fewer operators; be cheaper and easier to manufacture; and in the case of ballistic missiles be almost impossible to shoot down using the Empire's current technology. Unfortunately, because of the SchizoTech setting where heavier-than-air flight is all but nonexistent, the Federation does not have working versions of these technologies. Even if these delivery methods were available, neither could be used unless the bomb were sufficiently miniaturized. The reactor inside the ''Centurion'' is far too large and heavy to be carried by either method. While we might wonder whether a lot of that massive machinery could be eliminated if there was no need to generate and harness power to propel the ship--nuclear bombs are always much smaller than nuclear reactors in real life--it's just as possible that the bomb would still be too big to fly even after the parts related to powering the ship were removed.\\

Another problem--and one that particularly applies to alternative delivery methods--is that of arming and fuzing. In real life the options are fairly convenient: an atomic demolition munition can be placed at the target and set to explode either by remote command or on a timer, while a nuclear gravity bomb or missile warhead can be built with instruments to detect when it reaches the velocity and altitude at which it's programmed to explode. Because the nuclear explosion occurs pretty much instantaneously after the chemical explosives inside the device are triggered, it's perfectly fine for the explosion not to be triggered until the last fraction of a second of the bomb's flight, and even by contact fuze if necessary. In contrast, the process of activating a Valkyria bomb is depicted as something akin to deliberately starting a meltdown in a nuclear reactor, so there is a long delay between pulling the activation lever and getting the big explosion.\\

This excessive "lock time"--and what's worse, the fact that the exact length of time between triggering and detonation doesn't seem to be predictable in advance--means it would be very difficult to know when to start the cook-off of the bomb before dropping it out of an airplane, let alone trying to nail the timing on a missile payload flying at supersonic speed. The final nail in the coffin is the need to keep the Valkyria girl inside the payload alive until the moment she goes critical; since a high-speed flight/fall that ended in a sudden stop would presumably kill her and turn the bomb into a dud, the mechanism would need to be able to guarantee the correct timing for an airburst or else it would be useless. Given these constraints, maybe the ships were the only practical option from the start.\\

Interestingly, the Valkyria bombs and their delivery method resemble the hypothetical atom bombs described in the 1939 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Szilard_letter Einstein-Szilard letter]] to President Roosevelt: "A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air." At this time Szilard and others assumed the amount of fissile material needed for a fission chain reaction might be several tons; it would not be until the Frisch–Peierls memorandum seven months later that this estimate would be reduced to less than 10 kilograms, which meant that an air-dropped weapon could be feasibly developed. In an alternate universe where the laws of physics were different and tons of fissile material actually were required, a self-destructing boat may have been the only way to deliver it.\\

As far as manned delivery systems go, a bomber aircraft has the obvious advantage of dropping the bomb from a great height and while moving at a decent speed, so that by the time the bomb falls to the designated altitude and explodes the plane will have handily escaped the blast zone. Meanwhile, the snow cruisers basically turn themselves into time bombs and force their crews to flee for their lives. The final mission of Cygnus as directed by Claude Wallace involves ramming the ''Centurion'' into the center of Schwartzgrad, disembarking the ground troops, fighting in the streets to secure an escape corridor, and then setting the bomb to explode while all personnel except Angie make their escape. This mission somewhat resembles [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nazaire_Raid Operation Chariot]] in which British sailors and commandos rammed an explosive-laden destroyer into the gates of the Normandie Dry Dock at St. Nazaire, disembarked to demolish additional targets, and were supposed to escape in motor launches after blowing up the docks.\\

** While you might think that these would be the primary source of pressure on the government to end the war, that is probably not the case; the fact that the empire started the war to begin with implies that these people were not numerous or influential enough to prevent it, and they are unlikely to have grown their ranks through persuasion in the meantime because of wartime censorship and legal punishment of dissent. As long as the third group remains in alliance with the second group, they probably can’t do much.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 shows that two years later in 1937 EC, the Federation and Empire are already fighting over territory once again. However, based on the map of Europa the conflict appears to be restricted to the border territories. Even if the ceasefire did not succeed in stopping hostilities once and for all, we might consider it a partial success: there is no news in Gallia about the Empire and Federation using Valkyria bombs against each other, and neither state seems to be in existential danger from whatever setbacks they've experienced on the borders. We might infer that the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability%E2%80%93instability_paradox stability-instability paradox]] is in effect now: since the Valkyria bomb prevents the Empire from pursuing a total war of conquest against the Federation, and the Federation is prevented from launching a renewed invasion of the Empire either because of its conventional military inferiority or the Empire now possessing comparable WMD, each knows that the other one will not escalate to that point. However, this makes their strongest capabilities TooAwesomeToUse against any threat that does not exceed the GodzillaThreshold, meaning that ironically there is little to prevent them from engaging in conventional and limited military conflict over non-existential objectives such as the border regions. A historical example of this might be the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict Sino-Soviet Border Conflict]], in which two nuclear-armed powers fought a limited conventional war without escalation to total war.

It's possible that by the time of the A2 bomb crisis in Schwartzgrad, there was already a pragmatic war party in the Imperial government which had been souring on the war due to the unexpectedly high number of defeats, such as the disaster in Gallia and the loss of Imperial territory to Northern Cross before the winter counterattack. There were probably a lot of people who had thought that the war was going to be a cakewalk, and were rudely awakened by the realization that the Federation had the capacity to not just beat them back, but turn the tables and rampage through the Imperial heartland. Even if Northern Cross was on track to be a strategic disaster for the Federation, and Operation Cygnus was unlikely to knock out the Empire in one fell swoop, the Empire probably would have needed to commit to at least another year of intense warfare in order to conquer the Federation. It might actually take two or three years considering the manpower and equipment losses of the war's first year as well as the damage that would result from Schwartzgrad being destroyed. In light of this, somebody might have convinced the Emperor or whoever held the final say that it would be better to freeze the war at this point, and then start rebuilding the Empire with the intention of re-starting the war in the future when they're better prepared.\\

The fact that the bomb is driven along the ground into the midst of its target city presents a psychological problem when it comes to using it. Thomas Feribee, the bombardier on the ''Enola Gay'', looked down at Hiroshima from a plane flying at 31,000 ft and picked the Aioi bridge as his aiming target; pretty soon it became possible for an operator in an underwater submarine or an underground launch control center thousands of miles away to kill millions of people without seeing their city, let alone the whites of their eyes. That kind of psychological distance is beneficial if you want the order for a nuclear attack to be obeyed. The fact that Claude was able to look down from the bridge of the ''Centurion'' and see a little boy in the street crying for his mother helped to make the moral decision real for him, which from a heartless military perspective is a glaring design flaw in the delivery system. Then again, it may be a reminder that people need to be selected for their psychological profiles: Claude was unlikely to go through with the explosion because of his humanistic ideals, while the grimly determined Brian Haddock or the vengeful Minerva Victor would done it without hesitation if it had been up to them.\\

The fact that the bombs aboard the Snow Cruisers are PoweredByAForsakenChild has various negative impacts on its viability as a weapon, especially when compared to nuclear weapons in real life. Firstly, the immorality of kidnapping innocent children and causing their deaths through both the development and use of the bomb creates a risk that someone involved will disobey an order or even mutiny against the military: in other words, a psychological and human reliability problem. This is illustrated by the fact that the real Kai Schulen (later known as Forseti) betrays the Federation in a quest to liberate Valkyria girls, and that Claude struggles with guilt over the idea of sacrificing Angelica to destroy Schwartzgrad (though admittedly, Claude was an improvised replacement for Captain Morgen, the person who was ''actually'' supposed to activate the bomb).\\

During the real-life Manhattan Project, the US government needed to worry about the secrets of atomic bomb construction being leaked or stolen, and perhaps whether the people responsible for dropping the bomb on cities would get cold feet over the idea of killing so many enemy civilians, but at least they never had to worry about one of their people developing a CompanionCube relationship with the inanimate uranium and plutonium that served as the fuel. They also never had to worry about the fissile material having a mind of its own the way a child like Angelica does, and therefore not being able to operate either the reactor or the bomb without the willing cooperation of the power source.\\

Forseti says the USV conducted numerous "Valkyria Hunts" to find girls with Valkyria powers all over Europa. There was apparently also recruitment of girls in Vinland, one of whom was Angie. The glossary reveals that the Federation started a secret collaboration with the USV on Valkyria research in the aftermath of EWI, suggesting that these abductions and experiments have been going on for a long time already. By 1935 EC, "Over 100 girls were taken in the hunts. Because awakening a Valkyria requires a near-death experience, very few survived the horrific process. Those who did were so physically and mentally traumatized that most of them took their own lives." This horrific casualty rate might actually be no worse than the Empire's results, since Dr. Belgar mentions having worked on hundreds of Valkyria himself.\\

Perhaps just as important as capturing the capital are the accomplishments which must necessarily precede it. Considering the technology and resources of the setting, raising a ground army of six million people and successfully advancing it 1,500 km into the heart of another country would count as a logistical triumph by the Federation even if it literally met no opposition. But in reality, the Empire can be expected to allocate every available division to protect the motherland and use every defensible feature of their territory, meaning a Federation spearhead which reaches Schwartzgrad intact enough to conquer it is almost ''by definition'' a force that defeated everything the Empire could possibly throw at it.\\

It's possible that by the time of the A2 bomb crisis in Schwartzgrad, there was already a pragmatic war party in the Imperial government which had been souring on the war due to the unexpectedly high number of defeats, such as the disaster in Gallia and the loss of Imperial territory to Northern Cross before the winter counterattack. There were probably a lot of people who had thought that the war was going to be a cakewalk, and were rudely awakened by the realization that the Federation had the capacity to not just beat them back, but turn the tables and rampage through the Imperial heartland. Even if Northern Cross was on track to be a strategic disaster for the Federation, and Operation Cygnus was unlikely to knock out the Empire in one fell swoop, the Empire probably would have needed to commit to at least another year of intense warfare in order to conquer the Federation. It might actually take two or three years considering the manpower and equipment losses of the war's first year as well as the damage that would result from Schwartzgrad being destroyed. In light of this, somebody might have convinced the Emperor or whoever held the final say that it would be better to freeze the war at this point, and then start rebuilding the Empire with the intention of re-starting the war in the future when they're better prepared.\\

While it certainly wasn't the only factor, the Imperial government's realization that the explosion on the Crystal Sea was caused by the detonation of the ''Cavalier'' seems to have panicked them into initiating diplomacy with the Atlantic Federation. Clearly, whoever held the most sway decided that the Empire's maximalist war goals needed to be sacrificed in order to prevent Schwartzgrad and whatever leadership remained in the city from being blown up.\\

On one hand, the East Europan Imperial Alliance wasn't as beaten and battered as the German Empire in the autumn of 1918 or the Japanese Empire in August of 1945. While those real-life entities had reached a point where they were too weak to keep fighting even if they'd wanted to, the EEIA had a real option to dig in and double down against the Federation if the political will could be found. Even after a hypothetical destruction of Schwartzgrad, the EEIA was probably better able than the Federation to sustain a war of attrition as long as a post-decapitation succession crisis or civil war could be averted. Continuing war against the Federation with having to negotiate a ceasefire with Gallia at the same time would be problematic, as Gallia is still by treaty the Federation's cobelligerent.\\

On the other hand, by the time that the Cygnus Fleet reached Schwartzgrad the Federation was much more willing to agree to a ceasefire on terms that would leave the Empire fundamentally intact. At the outset of the war, the Federation surely intended to abolish the Imperial monarchy; disband its armed forces; and break the Empire up into numerous smaller states, perhaps even hoping to absorb the Westernmost ones into the Federation. But after the disaster of Operation Northern Cross--and facing the possibility that the Cygnus attack might either fail to blow up the capital or provoke the Empire into revenge mode if it succeeded--the Federation diplomats were willing to take whatever they could get. The fact that the Empire would not be forced to abolish the monarchy, disband its military, give up territories it controlled before the war, or submit to a foreign occupation made this ceasefire a much easier pill to swallow compared to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles Treaty of Versailles]] imposed on Germany or the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Declaration Potsdam Declaration]] directed at Imperial Japan. Naturally, these concessions cause dissatisfaction amongst the Federation public who wanted revenge against the Empire and had called for nothing less than its dissolution.\\