A Weapon To Control The Population

Question

It is 2039 and after a long and bitter struggle, the people of Molvania, under my guidance, have thrown off the shackles of the previous dictator's oppression, and have embraced the new and shiny life of struggling under my oppression instead.

My particular personal gifts have made my ascension easier, but I am no fool.

I need a sure-fire way to control my s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶s̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶j̶e̶c̶t̶s̶ loving citizens. I have tasked you, My I̶g̶o̶r̶ Lead Scientist to deliver such a weapon. I am inclined towards one that would deliver a delightful death by having many little daemons placed inside people waiting for my command to run amok, but the pentagrams are a hassle to draw, so I remain open to better, more practical suggestions.

I need a weapon that can:

Insta-kill pesky rebels from within the country, including those untrustworthy generals, upon my command.
Cannot be taken over by said generals or (heav-aaargh forbid) the Americans.
Can be safely administered/attached/implanted/carved-into/chained-to my loyal subjects without (immediately) lethal side-effects. I still need them to pay taxes and um, give their blood for the nation.
Cannot be disabled, except perhaps with great difficulty in some sort of advanced lab abroad. Luckily (for me), going past the barbed wire border fence triggers it, and there are no such labs in my country besides the one I (plan to) run.
Can be triggered from a place with relatively weak radio reception such as my C̶r̶y̶p̶t̶ personal bunker.

I really enjoyed reading this questions. Thank you for the tongue in cheek rendition....er, I mean totally serious description of a death machine! — Green, Aug 04 '15 at 01:19
set up an underground cloning lab and place all the clones of everyone including tourists in cryogenically frozen coma, sabotage the nuclear reactor and wipe out every human being there, thereafter thaw all the clones except the one you dislike (note: you can always change your mind) — user6760, Aug 04 '15 at 03:12

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 04 '15 at 16:59

Help your subjects have strong hearts!

Without providing too many details about the actual device, I would recommend using something I am developing at my day job. An injectable pacemaker.

The pacemaker above (called a leadless pacemaker) is inserted through the femoral vein and hooked on the inner wall of the heart.

Using this pacemaker has several advantages:

Say you're ~~tasting~~ measuring the heart rate of your subjects and you'd like the heart to beat a little faster because they're enthralled for some weird reason, just turn the dial on your control! A rapid pace makes the blood flood faster.
The pacemaker can be used as a proximity warning for people approaching somewhere they should be going, like the borders of your land, it's dangerous out there! You don't want a binary kill/don't kill device, you want to let them know with a pounding heart that continuing on a course of action might cause a deadly fibrillation. For their protection! Leaving your lands would keep the devices from getting the personalized healing messages they need to keep your each of you subjects healthy.
You can monitor the ~~fear~~ health of your subjects. If they're just walking around with an abnormally high heart rate they might be emotionally stressed due to some ~~scheme~~ serious health issue. They should be called in for immediate ~~questioning~~ check-ups.
The device is inside the heart! No pesky accidental back-alley removals. The symbolism alone is worth it. Your subjects always carry a piece of your empire in their hearts, physically and metaphorically of course!

Just remind everyone to stay calm and loyal, they don't want their heart racing for no reason!

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 04 '15 at 00:10

2

Here's a little picture I made of my idea in Paint:

Hopefully, the labels make it pretty clear what all the parts are and what they do. However, I'll explain the steps in detail.

You decide you need to kill a minion.
You access your controller and use several biometric devices to confirm your identity (e.g. fingerprint, iris scan and DNA test).
You type in the name of the minion that you need to kick the bucket. If the minion is high-ranking enough, you type in a serial number to confirm that it's the right person.
The controller sends a signal that is picked up by a radio transmitter.
The transmitter sends the signal to the microchip.
The microchip releases a spring which subsequently drives a dart through the minion's jugular vein (either of the two).

Ah, you say, but I mentioned weak radio reception. There's a solution: A dead man's switch. All you do it not transmit a signal at a pre-approved time and the dart is fired.

You can substitute in different things for the dart. Poison is the obvious choice, but it's boring to depict in Paint, and an antidote could be found. Darts are harder.

Implantation might not be simply, but it probably wouldn't be lethal. The dart doesn't have to hit directly, just enough to cause a hole that will quickly bleed.

Better still, implant multiple darts in other crucial places, such as the carotid artery. That makes recovery hard, if not impossible.

answered Aug 04 '15 at 00:10

HDE 226868

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"Controller, kill Steve". "Which Steve, master?" "Steve Wuczl... Wyece... Wuncezl..., uh, heck with these Molvanian names, kill all Steves!" – Serban Tanasa Aug 04 '15 at 00:16
@SerbanTanasa That's why we like serial numbers. :-) – HDE 226868 Aug 04 '15 at 00:17
How do you keep people from digging out the device? – Green Aug 04 '15 at 01:17
2

@Green Oh, so you cut yourself open to expose the device, and rip it out. Unfortunately, it was permanently bonded to the wall of the jugular vein, and you just ripped a significant piece of the vein wall off with it. – AJMansfield Aug 04 '15 at 03:09
There is another problem though: Ok, you punched a small hole in the side of the vein, Now what? There is still a layer of intact meat surrounding the killchip that will contain most of the bleeding, life goes on. – AJMansfield Aug 04 '15 at 03:13
You really should put that next to an artery. It will have a significantly higher chance of killing and be riskier to remove. – Samuel Aug 04 '15 at 16:34
@Samuel Yep. I decided to also install one by the carotid artery. – HDE 226868 Aug 04 '15 at 16:35
@HDE226868 Oh, so you did, sorry. I read the image text and not the last sentence. – Samuel Aug 04 '15 at 17:00
Just remove the spring from the back of the device. Problem solved. – Oldcat Aug 04 '15 at 17:14
@Oldcat How could you do that and be sure to not trigger it accidentally? An accidental poke could send the dart flying. – HDE 226868 Aug 04 '15 at 17:15
Alternatively, you could drill a small hole and fill the spring container with a sealant that bonds the spring. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out, there are a zillion of these things rattling about when normal citizens die naturally for you to experiment on to get the right technique. – Oldcat Aug 04 '15 at 17:18
@Oldcat I'm not sure that people would volunteer for experimentation. If you simply follow what Serban orders, life will be a lot simpler. – HDE 226868 Aug 04 '15 at 17:19
You have to figure this would have to be made to only go off when the master intended. The terror effect would be lost if it went off when you took a shower, got tackled in a football game, or when a radio station played a certain song. – Oldcat Aug 04 '15 at 17:20
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People don't have to. Take the devices out of corpses and experiment on a bench. When you have the technique down, then the resistance disables their own, and figures out how to send the signals to your henchmen instead. – Oldcat Aug 04 '15 at 17:21
@Oldcat I hadn't considered that. Good idea. – HDE 226868 Aug 04 '15 at 17:25
Arterial damage is so 18th century, have it strike the spinal cord at the neck...you know to leave you a treat, or just hit the pituitary gland and watch the body self destruct...could also be a deterrent. – James Aug 04 '15 at 19:43
Upvoted because you pointed out it might be better by an artery and the deadman's switch is a good call. – zfrisch Aug 04 '15 at 22:59
May I also suggest that the signal be password protected, perhaps with a rotating encryption only available to the Dictato... I mean, benevolent Leader. https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rnzyo/eli5_if_wifi_is_just_a_radio_signal_then_how_can/ – zfrisch Aug 04 '15 at 23:02
@zfrisch Alongwith the biometrics? – HDE 226868 Aug 04 '15 at 23:03
@HDE226868 Yeah, you absolutely could! The signal itself may be weak, but theoretically you could put as many safeguards on what's sending out the signal as you want. It wouldn't amount to anything more than safety on that particular machine though. The encryption's the real security for outsiders trying to use the system. – zfrisch Aug 04 '15 at 23:10
@Oldcat, that is most disturbing to us. Fortunately, the device is set to trigger and self-destruct the circuitry upon a minon's death. It was the obvious thing to do. – Serban Tanasa Aug 13 '15 at 22:48

Green · Answer 3 · 2015-08-04T01:16:17.327

Giant Death Ray from the Sky!

A fleet of giant fusion powered blimps flying circuits around the country with coverage such that they are able to see into every nook and cranny of the country. Mount a giant gigawatt IR laser to each blimp. As they are nuclear powered, they can stay aloft for months at a time...kind of like submarines, only in the air :)

Sell your minions the propaganda that the blimps are keepers of the Glorious Revolution! Show them movies about how they have crushed the Great Satan Americans in glorious battle after glorious battle!

Issue state controlled cell-phones to all inhabitants above age four. Make the phones incredibly useful so that people will not want to be without them but also make a law that people are not to be without their phones. Issue new phones regularly. The phones double as ID. No ID == "disappearing" and blood donations ;) In each phone is a GPS that is transmits its location to your secret command bunker. The microphone and the camera in the phone can be turned on at will without the owner knowing about it.

With the GPS locations of all your victims, er, minions, er, citizens, should some of them turn pesky, you can direct a billion watts of invisible insta-death direct to their location. With that much power available, you'll likely generate steam explosions from the water in the rocks heating up so fast. Even if you can't kill the pesky, deeply-buried minion immediately, you can certainly seal the exits and let them chock on their own rebellion ridden breath.

But Boss! How do we keep the generals out?

Easy. Build the firing system so that it only fires with a proper cryptographically signed order. The crypto chip that holds the private key for signing fire orders is embedded in a medallion that hangs around the Dear Leaders neck. It can only be unlocked by providing a four digit PIN, and handprint scan. The handprint scanner looks for heat, sweat and a pulse before it will authenticate.

The firing controls on the blimps are hard interlocked so that they can only be fired by a signed fire order from the secret bunker by the Dear Leader's authenticated key. The blimps only receive coordinates to fire at. They don't know what they are shooting at. During strikes, some other people might die. Too bad for them. Don't be near traitors!

The crews of the blimps are your most trusted minions who have made previous "blood donations" and are thus assured their loyalty.

Hopefully the minion isn't upstairs from you in the Presidential Palace when you send the kill signal.... — Oldcat, Aug 04 '15 at 17:16

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 04 '15 at 04:04

Use the premise of "Protection"

"Protect" your citizens using armed police drones. Now that you're in charge, you're free to install satellite(s) that keeps track of any and all citizens and drones at the same time. To kill someone, simply issue a command to the satellite, and let the satellite(s) send drones to assassinate him.

Since the police drones are commonly seen, no one's going to bother hiding from them since you tell them "it's for your protection". You can even assign specific drones to your generals to allow for faster dispatch. While this doesn't exactly fulfill the "instakill" requirement, if you have enough drones, you'll essentially have "insta-kill" (or as close to instakill as any other method - bleeding out or poison also takes time, a well placed gunshot might be even faster, but would probably amount to the same amount of total time if we factor in the traveling time for the drone(s)).

Drones are ONLY controlled by a heavily encrypted code from satellite(s) to drone. Ideally one that changes every hour or so, such that no one will ever be able to directly hack a drone (and even if they do they can't control it for long). Satellite(s) can be very secure and nigh unhackable if you include bio metrics in your communications to the satellite(s). In order to make it even more secure, make sure you carry a digital encoder with you. This encoder contains the same code generator as the satellites, and will change at the same time as the satellites such that you'll be able to communicate securely and safely.

This is fairly "safe" to administer. It doesn't exactly touch your subjects, so there's less invasion of privacy. Furthermore, since you don't need to do an operation on every person, the drones may be faster to deploy overall.

The drones may be killed, but if you kill one, more will come. If you send up multiple satellites, they can all communicate with each other in order to execute your commands. If one gets shot down, no problem - you'll have 5 or 6 more in its place. If you give each of your satellites anti-missile weaponry, then the system will definitely fulfill your "Cannot be disabled, except perhaps with great difficulty" requirement.

This system can be triggered from anywhere since you're using satellites. Even if you don't have normal reception, you can build your bunker(s) to include external antennas. (I'm pretty sure you can get satellite reception through bunker walls though)

A Weapon To Control The Population

4 Answers4

Use the premise of "Protection"