What if the 1983 Doomsday nuclear war was delayed until 1990?

What if Stanislav Petrov prevented the nuclear war, but the computer glitch happened again on August 22, 1990, the Russians ordered to nuke the world on 10:34 a.m. at the pacific?
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Let's see it was estimated that the nuclear war in 1983 pushed back technological advances so far that it took us until 1995 to have a public internet. Even today in 2011 our internet asks questions about what it could have been like because we have had a bit of time to develop our networks. If it happened in 1990 the Internet would not have re-surged until 2002, and that being 9 years ago would have lead to a smaller network, or no network at all depending on the ratio of bombs that failed/didn't fail is. If it's slightly more failures we could see a network up and running in the year 2000, but more explosions means that we might not even be discussing it in that alternate world as late as 2015.

I know you probably want non-internet answers but I'm drinking and thought it might be a good comparison to start off with, seeing as the internet, you know, works in OTL.

Another thing to think of is no nuclear war; sure some hostilities, but if the Internet really takes off in a world with only Japan getting nuked in 1945 then perhaps it spans millions of pages, people use it everyday and it's probably more user friendly. In this world there are probably sites that have advanced code for playing movies and sound, something that's only talked about in our world.

I know sound and movies are coming soon, but I wonder how long-no-nuke world had them. I wonder if they have porn?
 

The Vulture

Banned
The Russians are not complete morons, and they would have to be in this scenario to not correct a potentially world-ending computer glitch. So I'm calling this a no-go from the start.
 

Bearcat

Banned
It was not a computer glitch anyway IIRC. It was a misinterpretation of specular reflections of sunlight off lakes in the upper American midwest. It required a particular set of weather pattern and geometries of sun angles and satellite position that was only possible right around the equinox, I do believe. Sudden bright flares of sun reflection overloaded the sensors on the early warning satellite and were misread as IR plumes from missile launches. As the satellite moved and the earth rotates, the flares occurred several times off nearby lakes.

No way this happens at a different time of year. Its got to be within a week or two of either the autumnal or vernal equinoxes.
 
It was not a computer glitch anyway IIRC. It was a misinterpretation of specular reflections of sunlight off lakes in the upper American midwest. It required a particular set of weather pattern and geometries of sun angles and satellite position that was only possible right around the equinox, I do believe. Sudden bright flares of sun reflection overloaded the sensors on the early warning satellite and were misread as IR plumes from missile launches. As the satellite moved and the earth rotates, the flares occurred several times off nearby lakes.

No way this happens at a different time of year. Its got to be within a week or two of either the autumnal or vernal equinoxes.

So I'd call sometime in either Sept. or Oct. for the most likely scenario........{of course, it could possibly occur at other times of the year as well.}
 
Top