Alas Babylon beyond

The 1959 novel spans a year after The Day. I'm curious to hear what would happen to Fort Repose and the characters 5-10-15+ years after.
 
I know it's more of a global thing than the character focused question you asked, but we do know from the book that China, Japan and India are the new Super powers. I'm guessing it would become a bit of a race to see what post war nations each can invest in to get them into their power block.
 

Geon

Donor
For all intentions Ft. Repose is a small independent nation in the middle of a contaminated zone. Depending on what can be done to decontaminate the surrounding areas it is likely Ft. Repose and many other areas like it will have to rely on themselves for several years to come. At the end of the novel Pat Frank states that Randy turns away "to face the thousand year night." The implication there is that Ft. Repose will be on its own for some time.

As to the rest of the world, as was pointed out the U.S, is now a second class power. She will need aid from Japan, India, and China to recover from this. Given time I think the U.S. will resume her place among the major powers. But I foresee several decades before this happens. The U.S, suffered major damage to most of her major population centers. Economically it will be a long time before those centers are functioning again. But Frank was optimistic believing a thermonuclear war at that time was not the end of civilization as we know it.
 
Well I think it's worth considered that all in all, the exchange is relatively localized to just NATO and the WARSAW Pact. Plus, I'm pretty sure it's done with older and lower yield Nukes, akin to Fat Man and Little Boy. But I could be wrong on that. That could explain why the damage is comparatively light.
 
The book came out in 1959, so less numbers and yield at that point.
1959 Nuclear weapon count

USA
15,468
USSR
1,060
UK
25
multimeg-4.gif

multimeg-3.gif


USA was making around 3-5000 new warheads a year from 1957 to 1965, when production slowed and older designs withdrawn.
At the same time, the USSR was a couple hundred a year from 1957 to 1960, then around 1K till 1970, up to 2K where they kept running at till Gorby was in power.
They had passed US warhead count in 1977. In 1985 it was 23,510 to 39,197, with US accuracy advantage allowing smaller warheads to do the same 'work' as the old City Busters

The early fiction assumed that Khrushchev's bluster on making them like sausages was true.

No, that was all bluff, while the USA turned production to '11' for a decade.

WWIII would have been very one sided until 1966 or so
 

Jack Brisco

Banned
1959 Nuclear weapon count

USA
15,468
USSR
1,060
UK
25
multimeg-4.gif

multimeg-3.gif


USA was making around 3-5000 new warheads a year from 1957 to 1965, when production slowed and older designs withdrawn.
At the same time, the USSR was a couple hundred a year from 1957 to 1960, then around 1K till 1970, up to 2K where they kept running at till Gorby was in power.
They had passed US warhead count in 1977. In 1985 it was 23,510 to 39,197, with US accuracy advantage allowing smaller warheads to do the same 'work' as the old City Busters

The early fiction assumed that Khrushchev's bluster on making them like sausages was true.

No, that was all bluff, while the USA turned production to '11' for a decade.

WWIII would have been very one sided until 1966 or so


Yeah, when the Air Force colonel visited Randy Bragg's house in Fort Repose, Randy asked who won the war. The colonel said, "We really clobbered them! Not that it matters."

Denver was the new US capital, and the AF colonel and his crew were staging out of a base in Georgia, as I remember. The Fort Repose doctor had lost his glasses and had had his medical gear stolen. Randy asked the colonel if he could get the doctor new glasses and some medical gear, and the colonel said he thought he could requisition the glasses, if he had the prescription, and the medical stuff. Randy's sister-in-law went and got the prescription.

Believe recovery would have picked up fairly quickly, at least in the USA, since it wouldn't have been hit as hard as the USSR/Warsaw Pact.

Great book. If you haven't read it, you really should. Easily available.
 
Yeah, when the Air Force colonel visited Randy Bragg's house in Fort Repose, Randy asked who won the war. The colonel said, "We really clobbered them! Not that it matters."

Denver was the new US capital, and the AF colonel and his crew were staging out of a base in Georgia, as I remember. The Fort Repose doctor had lost his glasses and had had his medical gear stolen. Randy asked the colonel if he could get the doctor new glasses and some medical gear, and the colonel said he thought he could requisition the glasses, if he had the prescription, and the medical stuff. Randy's sister-in-law went and got the prescription.

Believe recovery would have picked up fairly quickly, at least in the USA, since it wouldn't have been hit as hard as the USSR/Warsaw Pact.

Great book. If you haven't read it, you really should. Easily available.

First read it the mid 60's, did not help me sleep at night since I was in a first strike target. Well worth reading though.
 
The USSR may have had 1,060 warheads at the time, but only a relatively small number would be capable of being delivered to a US target. However we should perhaps assume that the novel took place a few years further down the line, say the mid-60s.

I think that it is likely that Fort Repose would become the new major centre of population in that part of Florida. 10-15 years down the line it could be a medium sized city, rather than a small town.
 

Geon

Donor
I would speculate the aftermath for Alas Babylon's world would be similar to the aftermath portrayed in Amerigo Vespucci's The Cuban Missile War. By the way if you visit my TL Voices of Doomsday you may note I patterned LBJ's speech to the nation after the speech made by the Secretary of Education/President in the novel.
 
Well I think it's worth considered that all in all, the exchange is relatively localized to just NATO and the WARSAW Pact. Plus, I'm pretty sure it's done with older and lower yield Nukes, akin to Fat Man and Little Boy. But I could be wrong on that. That could explain why the damage is comparatively light.

I just checked my copy of the book. It says that Soviet nukes hit Homestead Air Force Base, Miami International Airport, MacDill Air Force Base, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, McCoy Air Force Base, and Orlando Municipal Airport. Those were the explosions visible from Fort Repose. The book also says that each nuke was in the megaton range. That would be consistent with the typical warheads on Soviet ICBMs at the time the book was written. The land-based R-7 carried a 3 megaton nuke; the sub-launched R-13 had a 1-2 megaton nuke. With those yields, the damage would be massive. The book states that Miami, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, and Orlando were completely destroyed and are heavily irradiated.
 
I just checked my copy of the book. It says that Soviet nukes hit Homestead Air Force Base, Miami International Airport, MacDill Air Force Base, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, McCoy Air Force Base, and Orlando Municipal Airport. Those were the explosions visible from Fort Repose. The book also says that each nuke was in the megaton range. That would be consistent with the typical warheads on Soviet ICBMs at the time the book was written. The land-based R-7 carried a 3 megaton nuke; the sub-launched R-13 had a 1-2 megaton nuke. With those yields, the damage would be massive. The book states that Miami, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Jacksonville, and Orlando were completely destroyed and are heavily irradiated.
Fair point, I retract the Fat Man/ Little boy thing (don't know where I got that from.) But as has been pointed out by others, the yeild is smaller than we're used to. And as shown in the book, there ARE survivors and areas that are more or less unaffected. So there's that.

I'm just curious would there remain a unified United States? I could see it either being galvanized by a unifying struggle to remain a union, or alternatively, some pieces breaking off to become independent or join other nations.
 
Here is a map I found that roughly indicates the contaminated areas of the country by acting president Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown:

alas%20babylon%20001.jpg


I remember in the book that Randy, upon hearing of Florida and Omaha being designated contaminated zones, sort of drowned out the report, so there are probably many areas not shown on this map.
 
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