Created by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane on Aug 16, 2016 @ 4:13pm

THE DESTRUCTION OF PARIS

On Stardate 2.160705, Richard Edgerton destroyed the city of Paris with a thaleron device. Twenty-eight million people died in the worst single holocaust in Human history.

Ground Zero was the Place de la Concorde, where the Federation government buildings stood. Several thousand square kilometres around that area were eradicated of all life, plant and animal, as the thaleron reduced everything it touched to ashes. The flash-heat of the radiation burned millions of shadows onto the streets and walls of the city, leaving stark images of what millions were doing in their final moments.

The thaleron extensively damaged the ancient stone, concrete and iron buildings of Paris. Although modern tritanium buildings were unaffected, the molecular bonds of the city's historical buildings were badly eroded, leaving them structurally unsound.

The thaleron blast has permanently altered the topography of the Earth's surface, leaving a Great Black Spot that can be seen from orbit. No-one can enter the Zone without proper radiation protection. The half-life of thaleron is several millennia, and unless drastic action is undertaken to contain the pollution, this new Thaleron Zone could remain in place for over five thousand years. In early 2432, the newly-reconstituted Federation government announced the funding of an enormous clean-up effort that would be supported by worlds all across the Federation. That operation began in the summer of 2432, and remains ongoing today. The immediate area around the Arc de Triomphe has been cleaned, with the goal of moving up the Champs d'Elysses to the Place de la Concorde itself. Across the rest of the city, similar efforts are underway. and there is hope that it will be completed by the end of the 25th century.