The Maw: When The Lights of the World Went Out

Star Eater

1.

It is perhaps the most studied and scrutinised act of criminality in history. It intimately informs our culture today and it triggered a chain of events which would plunge all the world into the depths of madness once more.

The date was April 20th, 2016. It was a Wednesday. Local time was 12:02:14. In the capital of Belgium, Brussels, life was doing its best to return to normal. The city’s main airport was still partially closed after a pair of bombs ripped through its departure area two weeks earlier, the work of a jihadist death-cult which called itself the Islamic State. Closer than many Europeans dared to ponder, this group, this association of sadists, madmen, and butchers controlled a vast swathe of Iraq and Syria, having taken advantage of the chaos wrought by civil wars. The Islamic State was a malignant tumour, the ultimate result of the anarchy which now defined the world. Like any other cancer, it spread. Europe was closest, and the black tentacles of the cult were beginning to snare it. On April 20th, the birthday of the last man who tore the continent to shreds, it wrought its killer blow.

12:02:14. Grainy footage from surveillance cameras outside the Brussels-North railway station in the city’s Northern Quarter saw a white, grimy van carelessly pull up onto the curb. Its engine stayed on. People and traffic passed by obliviously. The cameras caught the briefest flash of brightest, magnesium white from the van before the picture vanished into static. One worker in an office building more than a kilometre away described how she saw the flash from the corner of her eye, followed by the glass wall inexplicably shred into grains which flew right towards her. In the railway tunnels beneath the flash, an avalanche of rock and concrete buried platforms, trains, people. Every skyscraper in the Northern Quarter vanished, turned to dust, which combined and began thundering west as a gigantic tsunami of rubble. The windows of the European Parliament and European Commission shattered. Flags were torn from their masts. Many thousands of feet above, a Canadian aircrew were blinded. Their 767 would come down near Dunkirk, killing all 185 aboard. On the ground, historic buildings were swept away by the hurricane. As, like a maw, a great crater opened where a city’s core had once been, a black mushroom cloud billowed upwards. The fat, murderous apparition rose more than two miles into the air. It was visible from all directions, for so many miles. It was surrounded by the hot glow of a city ablaze. The nightmare of Dresden was visited upon Brussels. No-one truly knows how many died. But within hours many were calling the number 40,000 “optimistic.”

In a distant land, the men behind the great culling of the innocent chortled. They watched the first news reports flooding in. They saw the panic, the chaos, the fear. But with equal glee they watched the anger, the hate, the fury. They watched as mosques began to burn, as their supposed religious brethren were beaten on the streets. They had achieved their great victory.

Across Europe, the lights were going out again. The world would follow.
 
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Star Eater

For the sake of reference; a ten kiloton bomb.

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Russiantankcommand

Russiantankcommand

I awakt with interest. Counter-Muslim protests would be quite violent and widespread in this timeline, and Article V is definitely getting invoked. Probably the only worse thing would have been a nuclear attack on Russia, which may have seen nuclear reprisal.
 

An Oklahoman

Banned
Well cities would be immediately empty out across the whole world.:( We could see a return to the pre-industrial era in terms of Western society.:mad:
 

Star Eater

2.

It was called Operation Bleak. It was an apt name.

A lone Rafale M jet fighter took off from the deck of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, off the Cypriot coast. Across the great ship was “a mood of great gloom.” None of the ship’s officers had said a word to confirm it, but all knew what was happening. In the chatter amongst the crew, many believed it justified. All had seen the footage from Belgium by this point. A sense of kinship with the people of that country had descended on the Frenchmen the likes of which they hadn’t experienced before. Yet that didn’t mean they enjoyed dipping their hands in blood themselves.

Basking in the glories of war least of all was Lieutenant Astrid Guérette, behind the controls of the Rafale rapidly approaching the strangely empty airspace of Syria. After just twenty minutes of flight she brought her aircraft, codenamed Black One, on the final approach to her target. Cockpit recordings showed the moment that she softly muttered, “here we go.” From below the wing of Black One, a single ASMP cruise missile screamed into the blue, cloudless sky, reaching Mach 3 within moments. Guérette quickly broke off, pulling down her flight helmet’s black cover to shield her eyes, before beginning a lazy orbit of the target from eighty kilometres away. She fumbled for a camera and began filming. A cold analysis of her act would follow over the coming days, using the footage she shot.

Eighty kilometres to the northwest was Raqqah. The city had stood for more than two thousand years, a constituent of the Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines, Abbasidians, Ottomans, and Syrians. Now it was the decaying heart of the Islamic State, the capital of their medieval barbarism. In an instant, that would end.

Local time was 10:35. Throughout the city, compulsory celebrations of the destruction of Brussels were taking place. Huge rallies, reminiscent of the Nazis, filled the streets as crowds waved the black flag which had gained the same worldwide infamy as the swastika. Jams of cars beeped in support and appreciation, while armoured vehicles span donuts on the streets. For once, the skies were clear. The night had been quiet. It was difficult to recall the last time this had happened. Clearly the West was trembling in fear at what the Islamic State could do. Some feared reprisal, but even the group’s leaders were confident that the Europeans could never amass the will to wipe out Raqqah. It was a city filled with hostages, many of them completely unaware that they were so. At 10:35 a dazzling light came. A great ball resembling a second sun grew above the city. And just like that, Raqqah was gone.

The epicentre of the explosion was above a roundabout, just two hundred metres from the Municipal Stadium. 22,000 people had been packed inside to witness a great celebration of the previous day’s events. None would live. The fireball consumed them all while the city was in the blink of an eye swept up by ash and fire. For miles in all directions, the farmland along the Euphrates burned. So too did the people. The ocean of sand was swept up by winds Syria had never seen before and driven in all directions as a great, radioactive tidal wave. At the point where the Euphrates passed by Raqqah, it was vaporised and the river itself blocked. A lake would form where Raqqah had once been as the river eventually relinked itself.

More than a hundred miles away, a Kurdish fighter was awoken as a shockwave threw him from his bed. He sprinted outside and watched, with emotions he scarcely recognised, as a massive, unrepentant mushroom cloud grew where Raqqah had once been, the result of three hundred kilotons of energy. It reached to the heavens, eventually looming ten miles high, while its head spread more than two miles outward in all directions. The base of the cloud alone encompassed almost the entirety of the city. It was visible from two hundred kilometres away. A blizzard of debris poured down, including into Lake Assad, while bodies scorched to charcoal floated down the Euphrates. Many had been alive when they leapt into the river. In the city itself was a vision of hell. No-one survived unscathed. One person recalled a group of blinded children wandering through burning rubble, their skin less solid and more metal. Thick black vapour, more gas than smoke, choked many survivors. A British journalist embedded with Kurdish fighters had been recording when the bomb exploded. All the world was soon watching as the cloud rose, followed by the shockwave which nearly knocked the men off their feet.

Whether the destruction of Raqqah was justified is a question that will never be settled. All we can be certain on is that 180,000 people, many of them innocent, were seared from the Earth on April 21st, 2016. Many at the time were insistent that it was an act of self-defence. Many still are. At a symposium at Oxford University in 2054, Lieutenant Astrid Guérette herself gave her side; “it was revenge. We were frightened, upset, but above all we were angry. Vengeful. When they took Brussels, they took a part of us. We didn’t just lose people, we lost our heritage. And if a million Arabs had to burn for us to feel better, so be it.”
 
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Russiantankcommand

Russiantankcommand

Your descriptions of nuclear effects are really on point. So with a nuke for a nuke, the question remains, where does the world go now? ISIS still likely has tens of thousands of fighters. Article 5 is going to be invoked. And Russia may not like that much, though they won't mess with the caucus belli provided by Brussels.
 

The Wooksta!

Pretty scary stuff and very believable too. Even more so as the likely backers of ISIS, the Saudis, have apparently recently acquired about ten atomic devices from Pakistan.
 
WillieB

WillieB

Very intrigued by this.
Living only 40 clicks from Brussels even more so...

You do know that the Belgian Air Force is nuclear capable?
 

Star Eater

3.

Let us now go back to the period between the destructions of Brussels and Raqqah.

In the age of instant news and social media, what happened in Brussels naturally spread fast. The response was bewilderment, followed by terror. The roads surrounding cities such as London, Paris, Berlin, and Rome began to jam with cars as a spontaneous mass exodus began. No-one knew how many more bombs might go off. In Britain, television screens faded to black as the breaking news swept away normal programming. At the time, President Obama was visiting but was not seen; only his helicopter, Marine One, was spotted as it fled to RAF Brize Norton where Air Force One had been moved. A presidential statement would not come until he arrived at the airbase.

For Belgium, the situation was far worse. The Prime Minister, Charles Michel, was dead. His residence fell within the explosion’s air blast, and it collapsed on top of him. It would be hours until his body was eventually recovered. Also among the dead were several members of the Cabinet. The highest ranking, Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders, would succeed him. Evacuated to Chièvres Air Base, operated by the U.S., he knew he now presided over a country rapidly falling into chaos. A sombre address to the nation followed. “Not since the war have we been in a situation so desperate,” he warned. Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty was quickly invoked, as Reynders effectively begged for help from the rest of the world. Emergency powers were invoked, but actual enforcement of them was not yet coming. Every spare pair of hands were needed in Brussels.

The Belgian capital was broken. A blanket of fire had settled upon its centre while further out a layer of radioactive dust had covered everything in scenes Americans could recognise from fifteen years prior. It was immediately obvious that the entire collective resource of the Belgian medical, emergency, and armed services couldn’t hope to bring control to the disaster. Reynders urgently begged for outside help, and it came quickly. Among the first were Americans; as the new Prime Minister had arrived at Chièvres he had watched U.S. servicemen loading into vehicles and heading to the disaster zone themselves. Within hours, trucks loaded with troops from France, the Netherlands, and Germany were also crossing the border. One French comedian remarked on the irony that the attack had brought Europe so close together “that now Belgians are saying thank God the Germans are coming.” At this point it seemed as though Belgium was coming under military occupation. The civil service was in disarray, having lost a sizeable portion of its manpower. Virtually every major city – Ghent, Amsterdam, Charleroi, Liège – were emptying out. As the roads clogged to a standstill, huge crowds of people began spilling onto the fields and setting up camp in the countryside. Many began crossing the borders into neighbouring countries and, to their credit, the residents of these countries welcomed them with open arms. Naturally, many cynical comparisons with the treatment of Middle Eastern refugees followed.

No city emptied faster than Brussels. Fearing radiation, an estimated 800,000 people began to leave in all directions. Dramatic footage circled the world of gargantuan crowds of people flowing over fields to get away from the capital. The security services, having no idea what to do with them, simply let them pass as bewildered soldiers could only watch. Many of the refugees carried all they could carry, and it seemed as though an entire civilised nation had been brought down.

They left behind a smouldering capital which rescuers heroically dove into, ignoring warnings about the dangers of radiation. For two weeks, people in uniforms of all types would enter and re-enter Brussels to look for survivors. One area in which they received great criticism was failing to send significant security to a municipality called Molenbeek. This area had become infamous as a breeding ground and shelter for jihadists, and it should have seemed obvious what would happen to it once the attack came. But much of the police left, on rescue operations, and less than an hour of the detonation of the bomb came the first crowds. People began to march into Molenbeek, and the rioting began. Any Muslim on the street was attacked as the rage felt at the destruction of the city was vented out. Hundreds of buildings were smashed or set alight, including every mosque in sight. Many of the Muslim residents began to flee, themselves heading into the countryside only to find themselves attacked by non-Muslim refugees. One recalled how a soldier pointed her in the direction of Brussels, enveloped in black smoke, and told her, “go back there, you people made it, you should enjoy it!” On more than one occasion, Muslim refugees were beaten to death. It was a sight repeated elsewhere. In Britain, anti-Muslim riots erupted in the cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Luton, and Blackburn. The same was true of three dozen cities up and down Europe. It was what The Guardian termed “the new pogroms.” At least a thousand Muslims are believed to have been murdered, half of them in Molenbeek.

Chaos also erupted on the economic scene. Stock markets in New York, London, Berlin, and Paris shut down for three days. When they reopened, huge losses were the norm. A major European financial centre had been gutted. There was no optimism for the future. Even at this early stage it was thought likely that the world could fall into recession. One of the interesting actions by Western governments in the days after the attack, little remembered now, was the significant loosening of economic sanctions against Russia which had been in place for two years. Governments were desperate simply to open up new avenues of investment to prevent a calamity. Belgium was of course in the worst state; nearly twenty percent of her economy had been destroyed. Three weeks after the attack, a huge aid package including the International Monetary Fund put together $430 billion to rescue Belgium, which almost equalled the size of the country’s entire economy. The extraordinary size of the package, shouldered by Western taxpayers, was largely uncontroversial; sympathy for the people of Belgium couldn’t have been higher, as a sense of kinship developed across Europe. It reminded many of the history-conscious of the attitude among the British towards Belgium following her invasion in 1914. Rebuilding Brussels would take time; the epicentre of the explosion was highly radioactive as a result of the bomb going off on the surface, and an enormous amount of rubble, including what had once been skyscrapers, had to be cleared away while bodies were recovered. The new Belgian government would relocate, permanently it would turn out, to Antwerp.

When, twenty two and a half hours after the bombing, Raqqah was destroyed a sinking feeling swept over much of the world. The Islamic State seemed to have been decapitated, but was that it? Nuclear weapons had long ago been designed to end a war. Would that be the case this time, or would they start one? Despite the mass devastation and slaughter which destroying Raqqah entailed, governments around the world stayed quiet. They knew they were dealing with a Europe which had become very unpredictable. People did not stay quiet, however. For the crime of destroying an ancient Muslim city, the U.S. Embassy in Jordan was surrounded by rioters and occupied despite the liberal use of tear gas. It had not yet become clear that the French, not the Americans, had destroyed Raqqah. One fascinating cultural effect of the action was that France had forever shed the stereotype of “cheese eating surrender monkeys” in place since the last war. A new ruthlessness was injected into the country’s popular image. Language would also see changes; twelve years later, the Oxford English Dictionary would add raqqah to its tomes, recognising its increased popularity as a verb meaning to reluctantly commit an act of revenge.

Comments?
 
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Russiantankcommand

Russiantankcommand

Another solid installment, one that adds a lot of worry that the worst is yet to come.

The title also makes me think. A maw, where everything is sucked in, nothing escapes. Perhals the lights have merely began to flicker.
 
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