I can only hope that it shouldn't happen in my lifetime, but if it were to occur, what do you imagine the outcome will be? whenever I think about the subject I normally come to the conclusion that the Fallout series of games are practically the best case scenario, that is, we are still alive and more importantly have made some form of society, I doubt we'd be that successful, because I recently read Lord of the Flies and had to learn about all the allegory, and I reckon it has some good points.
Well, I imagine I would die slowly and painfully of radiation, due to the fact I checked using the internet and im in the modrate radiation zone if London was bombed.
Imnotparanoid or anything I just like to make sure >.>
[sub][sub][sub]c what I did there?[/sub][/sub][/sub]
OT: It depends on what countries are involved and whatnot. I always kind of wondered what happened to the rest of the world in Fallout, since I doubt most of it was involved in the great war. Also, Fallout=best case scenario? I think the death claws would like to have a word with you.
I'm thankfully living away from any major cities (well, i assume nobody's going to nuke Lancaster), so unless a radiation clouds drifts over me i'll just have to try and survive in a post-nuclear wasteland...hunting sheep for food with my bow most likely.
Nuclear war on a global scale is tremendously unlikely. It would harm/destroy both sides involved, and everyone knows. Even untrustworthy nuclear countries like North Korea wouldn't be so stupid. To quote Einstein,
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones".
Single strikes, while catastrophic, wont be as bad as feared, especially in terms of realized long term effects. Nuclear winter requires the near-simultaneous detonation of at least the entire global weapon stockpile.
The spectre of global thermonuclear war is mostly abated, thus the emphasis on anti-proliferation. Its bad enough that as many people have them as they do, but since no one gives them up willingly, you gotta keep them out of folks hands.
But, its hard to fight proliferation-- this is 1944 technology we're talking about. Its easy-peasy.
You have to remember that a nuclear war will not blanket the entire earth eaqually in nukes, only the offending countries, and even then they would most likely be tactically aimed at major military installations, so most of the worlds society would continue as normal, and the areas that were hit would just be vacated and abandoned until the radiation died down, (ironically creating a paradise where many animals and plants will flourish, as long as the radiation isn't too high. Look at how Chernobyl is: it's a haven for wildlife, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been completely resettled:
But if there is a significantly larger amount of radiation in those areas than was deposited at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then we can look to the precedent of the Bikini Atoll islands (Pacific Island used for American nuclear tests, and thus the setting for Spongebob Squarepants: You didn't think that talking sponge was a natural occurence, did you?)
Bikini Atoll had 15 nuclear bombs detonated on it, and while it remains uninhabitable by human beings, recent water tests showed it's underwater ecosystems had returned to their health state from before the tests, so a nuclear attack probably won't be the holocaust Hollywood and Reagan foresaw in the 70's.
The rest of the world would probably see a spike in various cancer related diagnoses, and very few people would probably not know someone who was indirectly affected by cancer through the radiation from the attacks, but most of society would continue as normal.
An all out nuclear war will have enough power to seriously effect all life on Earth. If there are enough war heads (About 50x more powerful than the Fat Boy) detonated there will be a Nuclear Winter, where the huge amount of smoke and radio active particles will block out a quantity of sun light forcing the planet into an artificial ice age, crops will fail , the ocean temperature will drop by 7-8 degrees (Doesn't sound much but the Effects of this will be catastrophic) . The radioactive junk in the atmosphere will decimate the ozone layer causing a massive increase in UV radiation causing even more destruction. The amount of weaponry required to pull this off is a tiny fraction of the world nuclear stockpile, Even a relativity small stockpile like the UK's is more than enough to trigger a nuclear winter.
U.S.A./N.A.T.O. VS. U.S.S.R./Warsaw Pact Nation States = Mutually assured Destruction, Most of the world is uninhabitable, Australia,South America, Africa receive the least amount of damage from radiation, however tenable land is scarce and ecological impact have negative effects around the world. If the human race can survive for more than 150 years it may be able to repopulate.
estimated casualties* = 5 billion
China Vs. U.S.A. = the Pacific Rim and all nations and wildlife therein are fucked immediately. Fallout and effects are felt globally for the next 100-300 years. Human survival possible but global population will be severely reduced.
Estimated Casualties* = 2.5 Billion
Pakistan vs. India = Global condemnation each country receives strict sanctions and both countries reduced to third world status. slight ecological disruption spread mostly by Indian ocean currents.
estimated casualties* = 1.5 billion
Iran vs Israel = Iran condemned and invaded. Middle eastern rivalries inflame chaos and breakdown in order. anarchy reigns for at least 50 years national boundries undone and redrawn possible end to Islamic religion, loss of countless relics of history and religion. Ecological impact restricted to Mediterranean Sea.
estimated casualties* = 250 million
*estimates based on off hand guesses by me considering size of countries, population and nuclear stockpiles. only includes immediate casualties from bombs. Does not include future deaths caused by radiation or other effects. all figures based on if bombs dropped tomorrow.
I'm actually either best or worst position over here
Best: We (the Balkans) are of so much strategic importance to everybody the nukes will just fly over our head heading to a bigger, jucier targets.
Worst: Murphy's first law states "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." In that same tone, Polarni's first law states "Every war that brakes out in Europe will, eventualy, have something to do with the Balkans."
I'd be toast. I live too close to a fair number of silos that would be targeted with the first strike. Even if the blasts aren't close enough to get me, the radiation/fallout or the poisoning of the local aquifers would. Major bummer!
I know they are incredibly small, which is why I included the Bikini Atoll tests, which had 15 seperate nukes detonated on a small stretch of land. (including the Bravo test, the second largest mushroom cloud on that graph!) Athough extremely large nuclear weapons like Bravo can be created that possess unimaginable destructive range and effects, there is a tendency to keep our nukes small and bunch them together, like a cluster bomb, as that is more efficient at destroying a target and creates less collateral damage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicles as used in the Trident II missiles.
Here's a table of relative nuke yield: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield The Mike nuclear blast you can see in your graph was between 10-12 megatons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike, so it would be 1000 kt (1 megaton) larger than the B-53 bomb on the wiki chart, which was listed as the "Most powerful US bomb until 2010" To show what I mean about nukes getting smaller, Those B-53 bombs have been replaced by the B-61 nuclear bombs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb, which are incredibly small in comparison: (anything from 0.3 to 340 kilotons: 0.3 megatons max) So modern nukes, although they can be designed to be like the Tzar Bomb, will be much closer in size to the one used in Nagasaki.
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