Let me guess : it is from the perspective of a nation of the Southern Emisphere (I presume LATAM?) .
How would a post-nuclear world look like?
- Thread starter General Kenobi
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FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
I deduce fromt his post you are younger than me as I have no idea what that means... (i was born in the 80s)
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
Yes - which has somewhat recovered 60 years after WWIII and is operating early to mid C20th level tech, as it is less complex to b uild and maintain than 60s era stuff.
80s kid
Nice perspective from someone who act experience the Cold war, the experience and I also thank you for it
Also if you don't know about it here is mate
Urban Dictionary: based
A word used when you agree with something; or when you want to recognize someone for being themselves, i.e. courageous and unique or not caring what others think. Especially common in online political slang. The opposite of cringe, some times the opposite of biased. The latter usage is the...
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Basically it just I'll agree with you on what you said
The common answer to the question "Where would you want to be if the bomb ever dropped" was "Right underneath it with all my family". The not unreasonable assumption was that after a nuclear war the living would envy the dead.
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
If one happened today I would rather be incinerated immediatley with my loved ones because if you were right by it, you wouldnt even have time to feel pain before you were dead from the cobined effect of heat, shockwaves and radiation.
Isn't that basically the world of Threads in many parts of the world that are nuked? Though I would like to think much of it would be akin to OTL's third world countries with less electricity and modern convivences (if not none).
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
Ive not seen all of threads - id hate to, its too awful - but yes. Much of the world would be like a slum district - people in divided up old apartments, street markets with second hand goods, pollution, farm animals and beasts of burden roaming the streets, mopeds, bicycles, old trucks and tracktors ont he roads where they have fuel, most lighting from candles, oil lamps or very limited electricity as long as the bulbs can be remade when they burst, gunshots in the night, police officers on trucks with rifles, queues outside rationing points and understaffed hospitals...
marathag
Banned
Wasn't US bombs falling on Western Europe and Japan, and anywhere else around the Globe where the USSR was planning to fling nukes.
Thru the 1960s, much of the Western Worlds consumer goods came from the USA, then increasing from Japan and then Taiwan after that
WWIII, no more of that stuff.
As I've said, it's just as depressing as everyone says it is, even as someone who believes nuclear war is "winnable"; besides, it seems no one has brought up Twilight 2000 as one take on the soldiers in a post-nuclear environment, even though the nuclear exchange in that scenario might as well be a full-scale one.
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
I was thinking of doing some snapshot shorts from the expedition papers I jotted earlier as a thread. The expedition moves along the eastern us, canada, Greenland, Iceland, faroe, shetland, Skye, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the channel islands, the south coast uk, then along the french coast to Portugal and spain, then Madeira, canaries, west Africa, st helena, Brazil. It comprises 3 armed steam/diesel ships, 3 colliers, a support ship with two sea planes and multiple unmanned balloons, and a company of marines. Tech is a mix of mid 20th and 19th century, and they document survivor communities 60 years after a nuclear war and the following famines, plagues and wars.
This is more a modern problem than one for the 1960s and 1970s. There are still plenty of rural farmers who can get on without electricity and many of the survivors will likely have had *some* exposure to agriculture, or at the least went through the lean times of the Great Depression.
You want a real nightmare scenario - put something like this in the present day...
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
Oh indeed, but the issue would be that tech free subsistence farming would be the new norm, not a vanishing relic of the past.
How did this expedition started? Did some remnant government of the US and the other countries contact the Brazilians? I'd imagine so given the obvious reason I mentioned earlier in one of my posts on this thread about recoveries.
FairlyUninformedGraduate
Gone Fishin'
I was thinking that there is a period of instability in Latam, with realignment and refugees etc, and that at the end of it, they attempt to create a new UN based in Rio. The remnants of the us navy mainly went to the Caribbean, and I'm pondering having Hawaii damaged but not as totally as much of the rest of the us, with a government in exile that lacks much reach. They build new ships but to save vitally needed steel etc they use Amazon timber to build wooden hulled ships; theres no real chance of meeting an armoured ship so wood with metal plating is sufficient. The ships are steam powered for propulsion with diesel generators. I'm picturing three armed ships, three colliers, and a supply ship that also carries a pair of biplanes with both land and water landing gear and a set of helium balloons to carry instrumentation and camera gear on a tether over dangerous areas, and they carry a company of marines armed with bolt a ton rifles, mortars, and a couple of ww2 era machine guns. The government of Hawaii still claims authority over the us, but has no means of enforcing it so is grumpy about the expeditions and demands to have ambassadors aboard them. Australia is host to large numbers of British survivors as well as more American ones including originally diplomats and politicians, and that American group claims IT is the government in exile, so the un doesn't let either go. The British retain st helena, the Falklands, a few other islands, and maybe even Bermuda, as well as uk survivors being part of the Caribbean communities. The french have guadeloupe and a couple of others too. The dutch are basically all in the Caribbean. Things in latam aren't great, theres even more slums, more violence, more poverty, more disease and crime, but it still resembles civilisation at least. The new un wants to show its reach and pro activity, so funds several expeditions. Over the course of these they map the devastation, survivors, and true course of events. Think post apocalyptic semi steam/dieselpunk meets captain cook. Of course the tragedy is that humanity is still fighting, still plotting, still putting narrow interest over global good.
Sounds like it's best put in another thread, perhaps a TL that can rival the likes of Protect & Survive in terms of, well, subject matter.
First there would be death. Lots and lots of death. Survivors would likely be malnourished, vulnerable, and will probably start to organize before the CoG plans come into effect. While the old governments will rise per plans, that doesn't mean everyone accepts them. Civil wars will arise and more likely at least a few of the old governments will fall. By the time requested in the OP the world has settles into a new equilibrium but with a few twists.
Most people use bicycles and mass transit with less electricity and more overall conservation. Waste is seen as a social stigma and there are no McMansions, mostly apartment buildings and condominiums in 'clean' areas. Governments still squabble over resources but competition is more on space exploration and proxy wars then direct war. Nuclear weapons are banned but every major nation has a few dozen under strict lock and key. While more efficient and safer, the world looks like one part 1920s, one lart 1950s, one part 1960s, and one part 1980s. Consumer technology looks like the McCarthy era while military tech looks more like the Vietnam War with isolated areas more advanced.
Drakonfin - in his majestic Land of Sad Songs (a Finnish take on Protect and Survive) posits that Finland would be targeted by US missiles on the basis that it would be occupied by USSR. It may also have received soviet strikes too
China may have received a dose from both countries too