Subject: Methinks it was not...
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Posted on: 2015-03-25 03:09:00 UTC

Botulism toxin has an estimated LD-50 of one nanogram per kilogram. Knifehead weighed 2,500 tons, which means you'd need 2.5 milligrams of botulism toxin to hit LD-50 (assuming metric tons. We benighted imperial-measurement people would need slightly less).

Of course, botulism is a hugely specific toxin - it's nothing short of a protein, with an immense atomic mass and a very specific neurotoxic pathway. So let's pick something simpler...

And by "something simpler", I mean "agent orange"! Dioxins are very simple chemicals - they're relatively stable bearers of chlorine. Chlorine is oxygen's bigger, badder brother - it's hellishly reactive, and conveniently enough, will happily kill anything that was designed to live in an oxygen-rich environment.

At a mere 20 µg/kg for ld50, we'd need to dose Knifehead with half a kilogram of agent orange to hit LD-50. That's a relatively achievable amount - although the EPA would probably not be hugely happy with you for it.

In short: If you can find a reasonably effective neurotoxin, kauju are totally poisonable. You have to make major-environmental-disaster quantities of toxin, sure, but that's really only a couple pounds of the stuff, tops.

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