Tasteless Depictions of Nuclear War

[PhantomEcho]

By the way, this seems relevant:

Yes. Yes that does seem fun and relevant. Thank you for that!

It makes me curious to know what you would have it replaced with, had you a choice.

What sort of things would you prefer? Is it the glorification of death and devastation that tires you, or its mere presence? If you had the funding to create a show or game or movie of your own... what would you choose to make based upon your tiredness with violence?

These questions, to me, are much more interesting than arguing over specific uses of nuclear war.

Violence has a purpose. Violence for violence's sake does not. A little levity can go a long way. Going back to Warhammer 40000, while I love the setting, I get tired of seeing the same story repeated over and over, with no happy ending in sight. Oh look, an Imperial Guard regiment not crewed by assholes! They get eaten by Tyranids. Having an ideal to strive towards, a positive goal, or the simple hope that things will get better can help drive a plot forward and make it compelling.

Film director Don Bluth once said that children can endure absolute nightmares and terror so long as a happy ending can be given. His movies often reflect that (An American Tale has child separation, The Land before time has the apocalypse, and Titan A.E starts with a near genocide). So if you are going to run your characters through shit, put something on the end of it to make it all better.

Again, that isn't to say that a nihilistic, cynical ending where everyone dies shouldn't be allowed. It's the overabundance of nihilistic cynical endings that's the problem.

The reverse can be said about my point on Nuclear war. If you are going to include something that monumental, follow through on it. Don't just put it in for the sake of scale, but work out just what that would mean for the characters involved.

Aha! Now that's an excellent answer!

It seems that, in the last couple of decades, with the global economy in tatters and even the strongest of political factions being pillaged by the negative publicity of their abuses and scandals with no end in sight... cynicism and nihilism are the order of the day. People have stopped believing in the happy ending. They've lost their faith that, at the end of the path of shit heaped up on them, something worthwhile waits.

To use Fallout's infamous quote for it's intended purpose: War Never Changes.

Cynicism is slowly strangling us, culturally. Nihilism is devastating our creative outlets by painting it all in a grimy, gritty gray slate that criticizes any attempt at a happy ending. The only ending for these games is blackness. Hollow music playing while tiny names scroll by against a bombed-out urban sprawl.

This is the future many see coming... and until we restore the faith of our peoples, our collective global peoples, that this can change... their imaginations will continue to be filled with such images as these.

 

[Bad Jim]

But more likely than not, that second round of attacks would be conventional warfare... as the moment you launch a nuclear missile, everyone is going to know EXACTLY where you launched it from and target your launch facilities.

A lot of those launch facilities are submarines like Trident. When they have fired their first round of nukes, they can just dive and head a hundred miles or so in some random direction from which they can surface and fire more.

So the nukes will keep firing until there are no more nukes to fire.

 

[blackrave]

What a load of crap.
Just a few thoughts that came across my mind while reading original post
1)Humor is the way to deal with fear, so characters cracking up jokes about nuclear explosions more often then not is a method of coping with horror.
2)I would rather be blasted by nuclear bomb, then by napalm/white phosphor or some neurotoxin.
3)For the dead it doesn't matter what killed them.
4)FO3 pretty much depicted why nuclear bombs are useless- Fat Man is a overkill. There are only 5 viable targets for it in the whole game.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I always figured WH40K uses nukes like that to show off the scale of the whole thing, rather than to be all badass about it.

The Imperial Guard is the primary fighting force of the Imperium, so numerous in size that even the Departmento Munitorum cannot place a figure on the number of Guardsmen under arms at any one time; the daily lists of new recruits and toll of casualties can run into the millions in a single day. It would be unfeasible trying to put any exact number on the strength of the Guard; however, it is believed that there must be many billions of Imperial Guardsmen, divided into millions of regiments. This absolute numeracy provides the Guard with its main power; their ability to deploy in numbers that, eventually, result in victory. Attacking in seemingly endless influxes across battle-zones, charging forth under the cover of massive barrages and delivering massed lasgun volleys, in the Guard the individual Human soldier may appear a lost thing, almost forgotten. Yet the actions of these anonymous soldiers daily decide the fate of worlds.

I rather like that whole thing, sometimes it's hard to convey the scale of these big sci-fi things, I mean, how big does the Star Wars galaxy really feel?

As someone born in 1994... Nuclear weapons are almost unimaginable. Given how we haven't been shown their brutal effects for so long, and nuclear still has those connotations, it's kind of like a boogeyman, except it's actually real. That's frightening to me in a sort of Lovecraftian way- I have no meaningful perception of just how bad it is, but I know it's fucking terrible.

 

[Thaluikhain]

A lot of those launch facilities are submarines like Trident. When they have fired their first round of nukes, they can just dive and head a hundred miles or so in some random direction from which they can surface and fire more.

So the nukes will keep firing until there are no more nukes to fire.

Actually, no, I'm led to believe that submarines will launch all of their missiles at one.

Having said that, a lot of launch facilities aren't mobile and everyone knows where they are beforehand anyway. And then you have nuclear bombers which could take off from anywhere.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

We do like big explosions. And as glorious (and terrifying) the atomic drops used in WWII were, they were nothing compared to the Castle Bravo test, which brought forward the nuclear age.

I think if you're going to advocate for accurate representation of nukes, you should also advocate for accurate representation of real war. When solders and generals observe that war is Hell the impact of that is typically not felt by civilians, or the politicians that send people to war.

War is arbitrary: it kills the just and unjust, the righteous and the unrighteous, the brave and cowards, and does so randomly.

War is brutal: Big kabooms such as nukes will kill some quickly and messily, though the fallout will poison some with radiation, and force others to starve to death. Most casualties die slowly, of disease, famine or exhaustion.

War is merciless: If you're lucky, you won't have time to think of a clever dying statement. Bullets and shrapnel usually wound, and it won't be the mortality of the wound that kills you, but the distance between you and adequate medical care. Yes, your buddies are going to have to decide that their mission is more important than your life.

War is impersonal: You will probably never see the enemy that murders you. In fact, he or she may never know that you existed.

War gets everyone: If you see action, you will probably walk away with PTSD (whether or not it gets diagnosed is another matter). Expect nightmares and flashbacks for life.

One of the disservices that content regulators have done to the gaming community is assign themselves the duty of making game violence more palatable, so that when you kneecap someone, they have the good service to die or keep shooting at you, and not cry like an infant and plead for their life.

Real soldiers cry like an infant and plead for their mothers while they die. And yes listening to a battlefield full of that that tends to fuck one up. And if we encountered that more often in war sims like Call of Duty, maybe we wouldn't be so eager to send our relatives off to get shot to Hell.

Anyway, nukes are just war writ large. And even as far as kabooms go, that's small potatoes compared to celestial impacts and such. The only reason why they aren't as scary is because there's no human beings out there, and we've been lucky enough that the ones that end up here are very rare.

It's a ray of hope for me that as of yet, nukes haven't been used in hostility, even when in the hands of radical extremists, such as middle-ranking Indian and Pakistanian officers. I think the responsibility of nukes gives us pause when we realize we're about to personally murder half a million people. No-one really wants to do that.

238U

 

[KillaBC]

Nuclear war fucking terrifies me to the core. The 5 minute attack sequence in 'Treads' was enough to make me realise that Nuclear weapons are not the 'awesome' things that appear in video games and movies. I was born (1994) after the cold war had ended and yet it's still a threat though people have developed this blind ignorance to it. It doesn't matter how many nukes you do launch or detonate any one can be world changer for better or worse.

In a military sense the 'bomb' is the most prized weapon of them all, destructive, long range and a morale killer. You don't need an army to occupy when a nuke has just obliterated the surrounding area. Whats the point? The land would be useless as it's just been burned and very likely irradiated. The local industry would have been vaporized and the workforce would be in no fit state to do your bidding. Communications would have been destroyed either by EMP or the blast if it hasn't been hardened. Local military units would be in disarray and the amount of refugees escaping whats left would be enormous.

Imagine that on a planetary scale and the environmental implications that follow suite. The Human race would survive but we would be a shadow of our former selves.

 

[Thaluikhain]

In a military sense the 'bomb' is the most prized weapon of them all, destructive, long range and a morale killer. You don't need an army to occupy when a nuke has just obliterated the surrounding area. Whats the point? The land would be useless as it's just been burned and very likely irradiated. The local industry would have been vaporized and the workforce would be in no fit state to do your bidding. Communications would have been destroyed either by EMP or the blast if it hasn't been hardened. Local military units would be in disarray and the amount of refugees escaping whats left would be enormous.

That's not true of a device used singly. During the Cold War, troops were trained to fight under the threat of nuclear attack, or to attack a target just after it's been hit.

You'll note Allied troops occupied Japan after the war.

 

[spookydom]

Just about to do the double of Threads and The Day After, after reading this thread. Why the hell am I doing that to myself? Book me a seat in the no sleep tonight room please

 

[Johanthemonster666]

Also it should be noted that many horrible weapons fall into this category, though people in the West might not care or have thought about it much. True, nuclear weapons are the most powerful, but if you've seen the civilian victims of US/NATO weapons (and talked to survivors) we spread this level of terror everyday. Fallujah is a grim example of absolute slaughter and mayhem whose effects are still being felt in malformed, or stillborn babies, and sick residents due to the depleted uranium-tipped rounds fired by US attack aircraft that have irradiate the water supply.

There are conventional bombs that literally suck the air out of victim's lungs upon detonation, before the air itself is ignited like a match to propane fumes with the entire area (a mile or so wide) is reduced to ashes.

I feel compelled to respond to the claims about DU. The radiological hazards of DU are actually very, very small. DU gives off alpha particles, which don't even penetrate more than a few inches of air and are blocked by clothing. The birth defects and still born issues aren't because of irradiated water, but because of the chemical toxicological hazard. The toxicological hazard of DU is most pronounced invitro. I am not arguing that what's happened in Fallujah isn't bad, but that the problem is far more likely to be linked to invitro chemical poisoning than to irradiated water.

It is also important to remember that wide-scale destruction of any kind produces elevated levels of all sorts of harmful materials. There needs to be more study of DU's effects on the environment, but the idea that DU is the cause of health issues in a broad spectrum of people in effected areas is not yet supported by scientific study. In fact, studies that have directly looked at DU's health effects have not found causal links to cancer or any other morbidity.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/features/du/faq_depleted_uranium.shtml

Unfortunately I'm not an expert (pending more research and discussing it with people who specialize in that).
You may very well be correct, it seems a lot of factors are at play in higher cancer rates and deformed infants.


I refer you to these articles- http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126394859797.html

"Whilst caution must be exercised about ruling out other possibilities, because none of the elements found in excess are reported to cause congenital diseases and cancer except Uranium, these findings suggest the enriched Uranium exposure is either a primary cause or related to the cause of the congenital anomaly and cancer increases. Questions are thus raised about the characteristics and composition of weapons now being deployed in modern battlefields."

"As doctors, we know Mercury, Uranium and Bismuth can contribute to the development of congenital abnormalities, and we think it could be related to the use of prohibited weapons by the Americans during these battles," Alani said.
"Findings suggest the enriched Uranium exposure is either a primary cause or related to the cause of the congenital anomaly and cancer increases," says a recent scientific report on the incidence of birth defects in Fallujah [Dr Samira Alani]

"I made this link to a coroner's inquest in the West Midlands into the death of a Gulf War One veteran... and a coroner's jury accepted my evidence," he told Al Jazeera.

"It's been found by a coroner's court that cancer was caused by an exposure to depleted uranium," Busby added, "In the last 10 years, research has emerged that has made it quite clear that uranium is one of the most dangerous substances known to man, certainly in the form that it takes when used in these wars."

In July 2010, Busby released a study that showed a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in Fallujah since the 2004 attacks. The report also showed the sex ratio had declined from normal to 86 boys to 100 girls, together with a spread of diseases indicative of genetic damage similar to but of far greater incidence than Hiroshima.

Dr Alani visited Japan recently, where she met with Japanese doctors who study birth defect rates they believe related to radiation from the US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

She was told birth defect incidence rates there are between 1-2 per cent. Alani's log of cases of birth defects amounts to a rate of 14.7 per cent of all babies born in Fallujah, more than 14 times the rate in the affected areas of Japan."

This isn't just one news source, countless international and Iraqi investigations are unearthing thousands of cases in and around Fallujah.The problem with relying on the IAA and the US military is that they are compelled not to be straightforward about long-term hazards from military operations using their country's weapons (just look at the leading nations that comprise the IAA). They said the same thing about Monsanto's Agent Orange and various other chemical defoliates the US air force used in SE Asia, it took many years for veterans and Vietnamese peasant's 'scientifically unsubstantiated claims' to be internationally recognized.

As far as personal experience goes, a close friend of my father (who was in the airforce)foolishly (without permission) took a round from an A-10 ground attack aircraft and placed it on the mantel in his living room. This was one of the large, armor-piercing rounds from the aircraft's main 'tanker buster' canon. He was a flight line mechanic and within a week he began to suffer from radiation poisoning (later confirmed by doctors). Sure enough he was hospitalized and they prevented any further damage. This was widely published on the military bases' USAF newspaper so I'm not basing this on hearsay.

 

[KillaBC]

That's not true of a device used singly. During the Cold War, troops were trained to fight under the threat of nuclear attack, or to attack a target just after it's been hit.

You'll note Allied troops occupied Japan after the war.

True, though how effective in practice would a standard rifleman squad in NBC suits cope in a nuclear battlefield? Your bases in the rear would have likely been hit by TNW's and any supplies coming from the mainland has just been destroyed by ICBM's. General Sir John Hackett made a point that any nuclear weapon use would be counter productive in his Third world war books because standard conventional practices such as logistics would be unable to function. You can't just use one Nuke in a war if the other side has them. You have to annihilate his chance at hitting back with his own nukes though that's just impracticable because of Ballistic submarines, train based nuclear launching platforms and hardened Silos.

 

[Thaluikhain]

That's not true of a device used singly. During the Cold War, troops were trained to fight under the threat of nuclear attack, or to attack a target just after it's been hit.

You'll note Allied troops occupied Japan after the war.

True, though how effective in practice would a standard rifleman squad in NBC suits cope in a nuclear battlefield? Your bases in the rear would have likely been hit by TNW's and any supplies coming from the mainland has just been destroyed by ICBM's. General Sir John Hackett made a point that any nuclear weapon use would be counter productive in his Third world war books because standard conventional practices such as logistics would be unable to function. You can't just use one Nuke in a war if the other side has them. You have to annihilate his chance at hitting back with his own nukes though that's just impracticable because of Ballistic submarines, train based nuclear launching platforms and hardened Silos.

Oh certainly, you just have to hope that the area you personally are in isn't that badly hit, otherwise it doesn't work. In a full scale war, that's not that likely, but maybe your nation is being heavy handed with a non-nuclear nation. Or is fighting a nation with a small nuclear arsenal. Neither of those seem likely, though.

 

[Vareoth]

Surely it would be easy to assume that most of us would be able to understand the horrors of any type of warfare even though it gets glorified in a lot of different media. War sucks even if it's fought for the "right" reasons. Can't really see why anyone would have trouble with that.

 

[J Tyran]

I can't actually think of too many works of fiction using nukes. MW, Fallout, Mass Effect 1... That's about it.

In Metro 2033 The protagonist fires some small pre war tactical warheads at a target.

Nukes are terrible things but there are some that are as bad, incendiary weapons are an obvious one and chemical weapons another. Having people slowly suffocate over 15 mins after being paralyzed is fucking awful.

 

[senordesol]

I thought the Nuke in CoD was actually quite compelling; actually it struck me as a pretty important moment in VG narrative (until it was ruined in MW2 & MW3). The entire game until that point was played as a USMC Wank-fest. There was no problem our group of intrepid marines couldn't solve so long as there were enough bullets and acronyms to throw at it...yet their primary objective always seemed to elude them.

They fight hard, and kick ass; but at the end of they day, what was it all for? NOTHING! Your training, your battles, your death; it all meant NOTHING! The entire character of Sergeant Paul Jackson (that's the USMC PC in CoD4, ICYF LOL!) is actually ultimately pointless in his contributions toward the resolution of the plot. Ultimately he's just a statistic, a forgotten name among a long list of names -a list that is the only artifact the US government will have to show for the entire engagement.

All the tanks, aircraft, lives and billions of dollars of military equipment on display were rendered impotent and pointless. A complete and utter waste. I think that was far more poignant that gunning down a hundred civilians in the airport for...reasons.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Snip

I'm curious. Do you count Fallout as a proper depiction of the effects of nuclear war?

Fallout isn't about Nuclear War itself, or the destructive power that it holds. Fallout is, to me, a story of how humanity can move on after such an event. It isn't the focus of the story, but the setting's catalyst. And yet, I still say that Ron Perlman's cynical narration of humanity in Fallout 2 is restrained and respectful of the subject matter.

And I never used the nuke launcher in New Vegas anyways. Not for any ethical standpoint on the weapons, but more because I never used the explosives skill.

I will say this though: nuking Megaton is right up there with COD4 for pissing away consequences. An entire settlement is leveled, and the only major effect is that one character is now a ghoul. There is no emotional weight behind it, and Moira just laughs it off anyways. Nevermind that a whle town of friends have been turned to dust, you get to study the effects of radioactive skin cells!

Compare that to the Divide. Actually, don't, because that would be giving Fallout 3 too much credit in the writing department. Look at the consequences of atomic warfare in Lonesome Road. Ulysses becomes a vengeful judge of humanity because of how much the destruction cost him. You see first hand the results of your actions. A handful of missiles can end everything that had happened since humanity had recovered. It had a weight behind it.

Yeah... and compare Ulysses to say...

Anders in DA2...


Well... that's kind of a magic nuke, or at least, we're supposed to think of it in that way. (and a ham-handed, misplaced allegory of 9/11)

Even listening to his stupid speech before he blows it up...

makes no damn sense for getting what he wants.

He's just sabotaged any chance of a non-violent solution, and condemned the entire world into genociding itself in a potentially endless war.

This right here is proof of just how much better writing Obsidian (and any alumni from Black Isle, really) has over Bioware.

The biggest tragedy of The Divide is that it was destroyed by accident. The Courier had no idea what they were carrying, and that carelessness doomed a whole town.

Anders blowing up the Chantry... I can't help but see it as him being a massive idiot.

EDIT:


Oh yeah. Watchmen (both the comic and movie) depicted the threat of nuclear war very well.

Against a nuclear war... what real difference can a bunch of idiots in costumes make?

 

[TheDoctor455]

Surely it would be easy to assume that most of us would be able to understand the horrors of any type of warfare even though it gets glorified in a lot of different media. War sucks even if it's fought for the "right" reasons. Can't really see why anyone would have trouble with that.

Lot of idiots leading nations around the world seem to think nukes are awesome and we should use them.

There's that idiot in North Korea obviously...


but there's also John McCain.


Damn good thing he was never voted into office.

 

[Gorrath]

This isn't just one news source, countless international and Iraqi investigations are unearthing thousands of cases in and around Fallujah.The problem with relying on the IAA and the US military is that they are compelled not to be straightforward about long-term hazards from military operations using their country's weapons (just look at the leading nations that comprise the IAA). They said the same thing about Monsanto's Agent Orange and various other chemical defoliates the US air force used in SE Asia, it took many years for veterans and Vietnamese peasant's 'scientifically unsubstantiated claims' to be internationally recognized.

As far as personal experience goes, a close friend of my father (who was in the airforce)foolishly (without permission) took a round from an A-10 ground attack aircraft and placed it on the mantel in his living room. This was one of the large, armor-piercing rounds from the aircraft's main 'tanker buster' canon. He was a flight line mechanic and within a week he began to suffer from radiation poisoning (later confirmed by doctors). Sure enough he was hospitalized and they prevented any further damage. This was widely published on the military bases' USAF newspaper so I'm not basing this on hearsay.

I'm not relying on U.S. military claims about the stuff, just going by what studies have been done and what they have shown. As the begining of the article you posted says, one should be cautious about asserting a causal link until it has been proven. It may turn out that DU ends up like Agent Orange and is proven to be carcinogenic. It is also possible that the issues in Fallujah turn out to be caused by toxicological uranium poisoning instead of irradiation. I'm not asserting a position except to say that I would avoid positive claims until research concludes a causal link.

As for personal experience, I served with the 101st Airborne Division in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and me and my unit were exposed many times to DU weapons, destroyed/damaged DU armor and areas where DU weapons were used en mass, and neither myself nor any of the people I've stayed in contact with had ever shown signs of radiation poisoning or anything like 'Gulf War Syndrome'. But that is all merely anecdotal evidence and I don't expect anyone to come to any conclusion about DU based on my handling of and exposure to the stuff and subsequent lack of health issues.

I'm simply advising caution when it comes to unproven positive claims, no matter the circumstantial evidence.

 

[Johanthemonster666]

This isn't just one news source, countless international and Iraqi investigations are unearthing thousands of cases in and around Fallujah.The problem with relying on the IAA and the US military is that they are compelled not to be straightforward about long-term hazards from military operations using their country's weapons (just look at the leading nations that comprise the IAA). They said the same thing about Monsanto's Agent Orange and various other chemical defoliates the US air force used in SE Asia, it took many years for veterans and Vietnamese peasant's 'scientifically unsubstantiated claims' to be internationally recognized.

As far as personal experience goes, a close friend of my father (who was in the airforce)foolishly (without permission) took a round from an A-10 ground attack aircraft and placed it on the mantel in his living room. This was one of the large, armor-piercing rounds from the aircraft's main 'tanker buster' canon. He was a flight line mechanic and within a week he began to suffer from radiation poisoning (later confirmed by doctors). Sure enough he was hospitalized and they prevented any further damage. This was widely published on the military bases' USAF newspaper so I'm not basing this on hearsay.

I'm not relying on U.S. military claims about the stuff, just going by what studies have been done and what they have shown. As the begining of the article you posted says, one should be cautious about asserting a causal link until it has been proven. It may turn out that DU ends up like Agent Orange and is proven to be carcinogenic. It is also possible that the issues in Fallujah turn out to be caused by toxicological uranium poisoning instead of irradiation. I'm not asserting a position except to say that I would avoid positive claims until research concludes a causal link.

As for personal experience, I served with the 101st Airborne Division in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and me and my unit were exposed many times to DU weapons, destroyed/damaged DU armor and areas where DU weapons were used en mass, and neither myself nor any of the people I've stayed in contact with had ever shown signs of radiation poisoning or anything like 'Gulf War Syndrome'. But that is all merely anecdotal evidence and I don't expect anyone to come to any conclusion about DU based on my handling of and exposure to the stuff and subsequent lack of health issues.

I'm simply advising caution when it comes to unproven positive claims, no matter the circumstantial evidence.

I agree with you and indeed the article I linked did urge caution in jumping to conclusions about one source being the cause (I left that bit in there purposely). Though I may sound like I'm trying to gain an upper hand in the argument I'm just explaining myself a little more thoroughly

I think you make valid points and you've enlightened me a bit more about this topic.

Why can't all my conversations on here with people be like this?

 

[Gorrath]

I agree with you and indeed the article I linked did urge caution in jumping to conclusions about one source being the cause (I left that bit in there purposely). Though I may sound like I'm trying to gain an upper hand in the argument I'm just explaining myself a little more thoroughly

I think you make valid points and you've enlightened me a bit more about this topic.

Why can't all my conversations on here with people be like this?

I didn't presume we were arguing so much as sharing information and exchanging our outlooks on the subject and so I didn't feel you were trying to gain an upper hand or anything. I appreciate your insight and willingness to provide examples backing up your ideas and accept mine in return. I too wish all conversations could be conducted with mutual respect and presumption of good will for both parties. Cheers!