1983: Doomsday - What are your opinions on this fictional world after a nuclear exchange in 1983?
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uhm,got some proper citations for that? As far as I know,the "nuclear winter" thing was disproven as being way exagarrated,and not to conservative.
We don't need to know what is the aftermath of a global thermonuclear war. One thing for sure it's gonna be VERY BAD for a long, long time.
Have we forgotten Uruguay randomly joining Argentina for no reason just a year after Doomsday? Also, Argentina was in the critical transition from the dictatorship: here all goes smoothly as if nothing happened. I like my Argentina wanks as much as anyone (and it also makes sense it would become an important country post-nuclear war) but come on.
But the worst thing about it is the flag:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY EYES HURT
There are also some weird things, like Greek refugees outright colonizing Libya and Egypt, and British refugees doing the same with South Africa. Unfortunate implications all around. And the random little monarchies that emerge in survivor states everywhere, particulary in the USA that has no history of monarchies at all. Some African nations collapse out of nothing. The USA just... dissolves itself. And so on.
I'm also very doubtful that the world (as in climate and ecology) would recover so easily. The nuclear winter has been questioned, but I'm convinced at least some years without summer will happen.
Don't get me wrong, I liked reading 1983 Doomsday a lot. But it's not realistic by any means.
But the worst thing about it is the flag:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY EYES HURT
There are also some weird things, like Greek refugees outright colonizing Libya and Egypt, and British refugees doing the same with South Africa. Unfortunate implications all around. And the random little monarchies that emerge in survivor states everywhere, particulary in the USA that has no history of monarchies at all. Some African nations collapse out of nothing. The USA just... dissolves itself. And so on.
I'm also very doubtful that the world (as in climate and ecology) would recover so easily. The nuclear winter has been questioned, but I'm convinced at least some years without summer will happen.
Don't get me wrong, I liked reading 1983 Doomsday a lot. But it's not realistic by any means.
Speaking of Argentina, I do recall the Falklands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands falling under UAR sovereignty after Doomsday. Considering this was 1-2 years after the Falkland Islands war, I don't see that happening as well. However, since the UK also collapsed, those islanders have no where to get support from since the Celtic Alliance and New Britain is too far.
Yeah. The war was so close that a peaceful, non-controversial union is impossible. The islands would probably seek the help of South Africa, Australia or even Chile before resorting to Argentina (and I doubt Argentina would try it again with the memories of the war so fresh).
But then again, South Africa becomes New Britain in this TL, so...
1983: Doomsday is just an excuse to shuffle up maps and play nation games. I don't think civilization would've survived in the Northern Hemisphere at all.
Even worse the Argentines don't know if the UK still has nuclear weapons remaining. It's a risky gamble. There could be RN submarines nearby ready to nuke Buenos Aires if they try to do the same move again. That's what happened in the similar TL of Protect & Survive where the Argentines re-invade the Falklands so the British nuke their capital.
There will be survivors in the Northern Hemisphere. There are places that survived intact.
Well - the only people that might survive would be those who prepared in depth ahead of time prior to the missiles flying. But the prep would have to be really deep (which means expensive) on the order of the sort of thing only extremely wealthy individuals, corporations, and nation-states all with a paranoid bent could afford. And, given the fact that worst case nuclear winter scenarios were not generally accepted in the 80s as likely (the original 1dim model that emerged in the 80s predicted severe impacts but nothing on the scale predicted by modern modeling) those that might be inclined to spend to prepare might not spend enough to ride out years without the sun.
It hasn't been "disproven" but it is true that much of what is assumed as inputs to the theory to achieve the apocalyptic endpoint has been called into scientific question. The issue is this: in an an all out nuclear war between the Russian Federation (or the old Soviet Union) and the United States involving a mix of counterforce targets(strikes at military installations eg missile silos) and countervalue targets (industrial and other targets) will a substantial number of struck targets burn with the kind of energy (firestorm conditions) to inject a substantial volume of soot into the stratosphere to form a long lasting shroud? Or, put more directly, will a modern urban area - after being subjected to the energy from one or more detonated nuclear weapons - burn like Hamburg or Dresden did during the Second World War?
The answer to that question is not at all clear.
Further, earlier iterations of the nuclear winter theory suffered from what could be described as software and hardware limitations that rendered predictions too simplistic. And, it has been conjectured that the proponents of the theory had a political axe to grind to force the principal nuclear armed states into a position of regarding thermonuclear war as so generally apocalyptic that the only route to survival was total nuclear disarmament. To that end, it is conjectured, they offered up a theory they knew was fatally flawed in order to stampede public opinion.
If that's true then the proponents engaged in scientific fraud of the worst kind.
The aftermath of the sort of bloodletting that one might imagine for a 1983 "gone hot" would be terrible enough (in the Northern Hemisphere especially) without factoring "nuclear winter" into the picture. So terrible in fact, that most of the TLs for the aftermath written for the Alternate History website with cheery little ministates with colorful flags and a penchant for fighting other ministates in anthill wars could probably be regarded as fantasy - even some 30plus years after the big war was fought.
I offered up the nuclear winter idea with an "if" - a very big "if" - because its simply not clear that the inputs assumed for even the "modern" versions of the nuclear winter model are valid.
History Learner
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Modern city construction, according to DHS, pretty much prevents firestorms from occurring. This matches what was seen at Nagasaki, in that it did not firestorm and the one at Hiroshima stopped as soon as it hit areas not affected by the blast. But, for the sake of the argument, let's say massive firestorms do break out in cities that take a hit. This is what Dr. Richard D. Small had to say when interviewed by the New York Times in the early 1990s:
Smalls states it would take the entire Soviet arsenal of 1990 to cause that maximum figure and all warheads would have to be successfully hit their target, which is not possible at all.
But, as I said earlier, let's keep going for the sake of the debate. 1475 Tg is equal to 1,475,000,000 tonnes according to a conversion calculator. Now that sure sounds like a lot, to be sure, but it's really not. Why? The Tambora Eruption in 1815 produced around 10 Billion tonnes of ejecta. So even a full scale strategic nuclear exchange in ~1990 would only have about 10-15% the power of the Tambora eruption. Said eruption may have been helped, further reducing the Nuclear Winter argument.
To be fair, there would be a lot of weird things after a Black Swan event that big.........
The Associated Press teletype reports will always be the single most chilling AH work to me
https://althistory.fandom.com/wiki/Associated_Press_teletype_reports_(1983:_Doomsday)
The best part of the entire timeline is definitely how it captures the sheer utter horror of a sudden, no-warning, accidental all-out nuclear exchange. Everything that comes after is pretty much a cartoon tho as previously mentioned.
The Associated Press teletype reports will always be the single most chilling AH work to me
https://althistory.fandom.com/wiki/Associated_Press_teletype_reports_(1983:_Doomsday)
The best part of the entire timeline is definitely how it captures the sheer utter horror of a sudden, no-warning, accidental all-out nuclear exchange. Everything that comes after is pretty much a cartoon tho as previously mentioned.
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To be fair, there would be a lot of weird things after a Black Swan event that big.........
The Associated Press teletype reports will always be the single most chilling AH work to me
https://althistory.fandom.com/wiki/Associated_Press_teletype_reports_(1983:_Doomsday)
The best part of the entire timeline is definitely how it captures the sheer utter horror of a sudden, no-warning, accidental all-out nuclear exchange. Everything that comes after is pretty much a cartoon tho as previously mentioned.
Try reading the AP Teletype Reports with Lux Aeterena as the background music. Chillingly fits the mood of how shocking the news is of the USSR launching ICBMs towards the U.S. and Europe then frantically everyone is panicking...
One part I found unrealistic was the U.S. Federal government relocating to Australia. It's a long and dangerous journey. The nearest settlement they could have was the Virgin Islands, which took the name United States Atlantic Remnant. It's a big surprise why surviving states in the former areas belong to the United States are hostile to the APA and the restored USA on the West Coast.
Ian_W
Banned
Quick pro tip here.
If some of the targets you want to shoot at is "out of the range of most of your ICBMs", then shoot at the that stuff with the ICBMS that aren't out of range, and use the ICBMs that are out of range on other targets.
DO you think you will exist in the 1983: Doomsday world? Or exist as someone else or be completely butterflied away?
Even if I parents meet as OTL, a 13 year difference from the POD has tons of butterflies. I may exist as someone else.
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