I think we need to have some closure in what exactly happened at Mapimi... Was it an explosion, or a meltdown. Judging by the results, you might not thing there is much difference, but the distinction is important. Atsali stated a meltdown was in progress and a conglomeration of uranium density large enough to achieve critical mass would do just that... melt down. A critical mass explosion is somewhat different and totally differently arrive at. There are two types of triggers for nuclear explosions... a gun type trigger that fires one sub critical mass into another sub critical mass to almost instantaneously achieve critical mass in such a short time that massive amounts of energy are released (The Little Boy Bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a Uranium 238 gun type device.). The second type is the implosion device. sub critical masses are arranged in a sphere with a sphere of shaped charge explosives around it. The detonation of the shaped charges compresses the sub critical masses into a critical mass almost instantaneously. (The second WWII device, Fat Man, was an implosion device using Plutonium for it's sub critical masses.).Sidhekin wrote:The crystals are, as you note, empty. Atsali had released the Etheitians. So the data would have been lost not in the scattering of crystals, but (with Atsali) as the intruders were killed.zachariah wrote:If these crystals are so tough then how could the explosion have destroyed them when Malaposi blew up. Doesn't that mean there are now millions of empty crystals scattered around the area just waiting to be found? This makes it seem like the self destruct was only there to destroy the controls and kill intruders without loosing the data.
I also note that while a supernova is said to maybe being capable of "ending" the "torture", there is also conjecture that "someone" could break the crystal, thereby "multiplying" said "torture".
The Mapimi explosion may have scattered billions of (empty) shards around the area.
The criticality also depends on the purity of the fissionable materials. According to Wiki, 20% U-235 would require 400 kilograms to achieve spontansous criticality, while 15% U235 would require over 600kg. (1kg = 2.2 pounds).
That being said, the release of the Ethetians initiated the reaction... Meltdown is the most likely candidate here as an explosion would have been instantaneous, leaving no time to react whatsoever. In a meltdown, the fuel slowly reaches a critical state, heats up and begins to melt everything around it (hence the term). The more fuel added to the critical mass, the hotter it gets and the more dangerous it becomes. Unless it was lead crystal, the chances that Kath and Atsali received lethal doses of radiation are pretty high.