9/11 Goes Nuclear: A Collaborative Timeline

So the Y2K people were right when they said the end of the world would be at the start of the new millennium. They just forgot it started in 2001 and not 2000.
 

Lusitania

Donor
If we're going to retaliate with blind rage, we need the POD to be a much worse 9/11. Maybe a few more planes, including one that hits Three Mile Island. Plus several Beslans around the country. That's a lot more plausible than a Bush brain tumor.
Plus if a nuclear attack was initiated against Kabul which there was no evidence Bin Ladin was in the city would of resulted in multiple attacks by muslims in the US and against every embassy company abroad.
 
Russian and post-Soviet PoDs

May 25, 2002:
Terrorist attacks in Samara and Rostov-na-Donu. Chechen rebels led by Shamil Basayev took responsibility for themselves.

July 15, 2002: Terrorist attack in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The result was the beginning of mass riots in the capital of Uzbekistan, which threatens to grow into a civil war.
 
Russian and post-Soviet PoDs

May 25, 2002:
Terrorist attacks in Samara and Rostov-na-Donu. Chechen rebels led by Shamil Basayev took responsibility for themselves.

July 15, 2002: Terrorist attack in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The result was the beginning of mass riots in the capital of Uzbekistan, which threatens to grow into a civil war.
Stop. This thread needs a permanent slumber.
 
I can make this non-ASB (at least initially) with a couple of components:

1.
A. The Anthrax attacks are conclusively linked to Al-Queda
B. One of the hijacked planes hits the CDC and causes a release of smallpox to infect Atlanta. Even if it's not released, that's designed to be an offensive biological weapons attack. OTL, smallpox was being worked on during 9/11, including with the scientists having to flee the lab with very hot pox that had just successfully infected a monkey. There was some evidence one or more of the hijackers had scoped the area.
C. Another option would be slamming into 3 Mile Island
D. Poisoning the NYC water supply. OR
E. A backpack nuke somehow ends up in NYC - let's say it's in the basement of the WTC and is set off by a terrorist as the first responders start arriving. Alternately, a completely different individual sets it off in downtown LA or Chicago.

Any of these would trigger the WMD rule - germ=chemical=nuke.

2. Kabul wouldn't be targeted, but Tora Bora sure could/would be.

As it is, it's totally ASB bordering on Bush-bash.
 
I can make this non-ASB (at least initially) with a couple of components:

1.
A. The Anthrax attacks are conclusively linked to Al-Queda
B. One of the hijacked planes hits the CDC and causes a release of smallpox to infect Atlanta. Even if it's not released, that's designed to be an offensive biological weapons attack. OTL, smallpox was being worked on during 9/11, including with the scientists having to flee the lab with very hot pox that had just successfully infected a monkey. There was some evidence one or more of the hijackers had scoped the area.
C. Another option would be slamming into 3 Mile Island
D. Poisoning the NYC water supply. OR
E. A backpack nuke somehow ends up in NYC - let's say it's in the basement of the WTC and is set off by a terrorist as the first responders start arriving. Alternately, a completely different individual sets it off in downtown LA or Chicago.

Any of these would trigger the WMD rule - germ=chemical=nuke.

2. Kabul wouldn't be targeted, but Tora Bora sure could/would be.

As it is, it's totally ASB bordering on Bush-bash.

I am pro AH-creativity, but am just going to be a jerk and contend he still wouldn't. Bush was anti nuclear proliferation, and wouldn't normalize the usage. Additionally, the US has long publicly held a stance of limiting civilian casualties. Now, we can debate how well that's done in practice, but someone, especially as religious as Bush, isn't going to vaporize a ton of random civilians, even if all that happens----- and even if he did, SECDEF (even Rummy!) isn't going to verify rerouting Minutemen on Kabul, if not just for the implications of Russsia and China having their early warning systems light up.
 
That's why I mentioned Kabul wouldn't be targeted but the military hideout of Tora Bora might be in these circumstances. For Kabul, it'd have to be an eye-for-an-eye such as a nuclear explosion in the Potomac that mega-tsunami's D.C.
 
That's why I mentioned Kabul wouldn't be targeted but the military hideout of Tora Bora might be in these circumstances. For Kabul, it'd have to be an eye-for-an-eye such as a nuclear explosion in the Potomac that mega-tsunami's D.C.

Fair enough! So would it be a B-2 taking off from Missouri or an SLBM?
 
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