Was World War III a full nuclear exchange or a limited conflict?

[valkyrie013]

Well, define Limited and a Full nuclear exchange??
One or 2 nukes go off, then they forswear no nukes for the remainder of the conflict? That didn't happen.
A good chunk of large cities were nuked? Very likely did happen. Probably with tactical nukes, so maybe a few per city, military bases.
Thing is, there not like Tsar Bomba, Tacticals are maybe 50 kt at there highest yeild, not even Fusion.
Would a New York, or DC have a full Thermo nuclear in the Mega Ton range droped on it? Sure. Even then, its not going to cover all of the world.
What would really happen?
There would be a First Volley of maybe a few hundred nukes on both sides. Europe, N America, Russia, Japan, China India, Pakistan, Some Arabian countries would get most of the bombs. Most of the southern hemisphere would be left alone
After the first Volley, they would more than likely look at it and go, Holly SHIT! and stop. Now they would negotiate and limit to maybe Tac Nukes, but probably just conventional because they don't want to kill the world.

 

[Oddish]

Given that the larger estimate has "only" a third of the population killed, it's pretty clear that it was limited in nature, regardless. Riker's butcher's bill of 600 million would suggest only minimal use of nukes, given that the total destruction of a large city could have over 30 million dead.

 

[Rahul]

Good thread idea.
Here is my pet theory. There's nothing really supporting it (in fact it goes against the spirit of much as it was written), but whatever, this is my head-canon to make it work:

• WW3 was not a war between nations, but more like a global civil war
• The war(s) took place over several years. - the nuclear escalation happened at the very end and is what brought everyone to cease-fire all at once to avoid total global annihilation
• There was no full scale nuclear exchange between nations - instead it was a slow escalation - limited strikes against non-nuclear powers, nuclear powers nuking their own, occupied territory and revolting cities, terrorist and revolutionaries using "dirty bombs" in cities...
• The "Eastern coalition" isn't Asia, but the East coast from New York down to Florida plus Chicago/Michigan and parts of California. Asia had their own civil war
• Many wars - including water wars, genetic augmentation wars, civil wars, were combined by history to "one" WW3, because they started parallel, reinforced reach other, and all "ended" together with one, global worldwide cease fire after nuclear escalation
• The 600 mio. is the direct casualties. "One third of the population" is the indirect ones - including from climate change, diseases, mutated viruses, starvation & long-term radiation effects, who died over a long period of time from unnatural deaths
• Many animal species died out because of genetically engineered viruses went rogue - plus from climate change. But that was asymmetrical (more insects were target from genetically modified viruses, many of the "popular" animals survived/were revived with genetic engineering. But a massive loss of bio/genetic diversity remained
• Col. Green's purge and the authorian dictatorships inspiring Q's trial took place regionally limited in the immediate aftermath of WW3, before first contact
• The world was re-unified because Cochran's technology brought the knowledge that alien life exists - and apes must work together to stand a chance - which is also kind of xenophobic and the reason why Trek's history books played that part down and instead focused on Cochrane's popularity & visions for a better future (which he was able to spread because he was immediately the most powerful & wealthiest human being if history, the only one being able to import wealth from outer space)

It coincides with my personal timeline theory:

• There is a "glitch" in recorded Trek history - the 1960s-2100s happened twice:
• Sometime in the future (around 30 years after "now" - whenever "now" is) genetically engineered super humans will take over large parts of the Earth. They will create a new calendar, that will put the year "2000" as the year where they will implant their superior genes in all of humanity
• Four years before that plan comes to fruition, humanity revolts and kicks the augments into space
• "Present day" (2023 and onwards), VOY Future's end (1996), the one with the whales (1980s) is according to the Christian calendar
• "1996: Khan exiled in space", 2024's Bell riots, PICs season 2's "2025 Europa mission", as well as "2063: First Contact" are in the Noonian Singh calendar
• The "gap" between the Christian & Noonian calendar is always as long as the most recent Trek series and "the near future"

/WallOfText

 

[Lord Garth]

I still can't believe that this is the time period Rios thought would be a great place to live in.

 

[Imaus]

A thirty year long 'World War' would be utterly catastrophic, but most fanon and canon at time veers to just general confusion by the 2200s-2300s because of scrambled records in the 21st century, which was a way for them to A) not hammer it down to our timeline to a T, which is a good move, and B) good in the context of the universe, because a nuclear war in a digital era would screw up a lot of records, even non digital.

I think the 2026 timeframe, up to Ares-IV, which was what, 2032, was more akin to a hot Cold War across the globe(and this 'second American Civil War' bs if you want to shove that in), then 2035-2045ish a lull, but probably a sort of global collapse, and then a flare up of these tired, broken nations by 2045-2052 being the ACTUAL nuke-chucking part of the war. The 2040s has the Big One happening, which would definitely knock the USA out for a few years as a global power and could be a sort of Great Depression era globally, then flaring up to a war between the Eastern Coalition and the West (presumably NATO or 'New United Nations' or w/e).

Then it's another decade of Post-War buildup until Cochrane sticks warp nacelles (apparently the sum of a long program at least ten years old with Toroidal Space-Time Distortion stuff, eg warp rings, like the alcubierre drive, but then mashed into nacelles) on a rocket and launches, then another generation or two of the Post-Atomic Horror.

2053 to around 2113 for United Earth to form, cap Warlords, build a new economy, new industrial base, fix environmental damage and so on is actually sort of realistic, it took Earth around 10,20, 30 years to heal from the first two world wars; even with Vulcan oversight/help or whatever they did, and we know humanity was in a position to have very good space vessels they could chuck warp nacelles onto by the 2060-2070 era in a dash of exploration and colonization (probably the US and other big survivors just rushing around to find new worlds, resources, whatever), then they slow down (Kzinti wars maybe, drawing them back home?) and focus on Earth and the Solar System for another forty, sixty years (UE Starfleet forming in the damn 2130s)

 

[Tenacity]

Most of the southern hemisphere would be left alone.

Unless the war was primarily between Argentina and South-Africa.

 

[Oddish]

I believe that the countries with nukes are the following:

USA
Russia
UK
France
China
India
Pakistan
Israel*
North Korea

*They won't admit that they have them... but everyone knows they do.

All are in the Northern Hemisphere. So the Southern part might get less hit. But in a full blown nuclear war, the environmental destruction would probably kill most of the planet regardless.

 

[Tim Walker]

For reconstruction to be possible, a nuclear exchange would have to be quite limited. Perhaps, at most, a handful of "tactical" nukes, comparable to the pair of bombs that were dropped on Japan.

Hitting many cities with hydrogen bombs would likely lead to extinction of the human race.

BTW, it is possible to level a city with old fashioned chemical explosives. So, many cities could be destroyed while allowing rebuilding.

 

[Citiprime]

I guess one unknown variable for all of this is a spoiler for Picard season 2.

Spoiler

Part of the plot for season 2 hinges on the Europa mission finding a form of life that is implied to solve Earth's climate change issues (i.e., an alien organic element that presumably was released into Earth's biosphere to geoengineer the planet's temperature/weather).

How exactly that might play into the effects of radioactive fallout, nuclear winter, and fixing Earth's biosphere after World War III would be pure speculation.

 

[Guy Gardener]

For reconstruction to be possible, a nuclear exchange would have to be quite limited. Perhaps, at most, a handful of "tactical" nukes, comparable to the pair of bombs that were dropped on Japan.

Hitting many cities with hydrogen bombs would likely lead to extinction of the human race.

BTW, it is possible to level a city with old fashioned chemical explosives. So, many cities could be destroyed while allowing rebuilding.

The Fire bombing of Dresden comes to mind.

Phosphorous explodes violently on contact with air or water, so the fire fighters trying to hose down a few tons of phosphorus were very confused.

 

[Mage]

Well.....

With current talks between Belarus and Russia being done and an agreement on the placement of tactical nukes, one could argue that tactical nukes will be a big part of WWIII, meaning it will indeed be a nuclear event destroying many cities and lives, without causing the mass fall-out that strategic ones would have. Small fall-out ofcourse, rendering large areas uninhabitable for a while. But the planet as a whole is able to maintain a form of civilization.

Let's say that 20 major cities around the world were hit with a 5 kiloton tactical nuke deadcenter. This would destroy a large part of that city and leave enough fall-out to basically make that city a write off. But on a global scale, the impact would be on society, on economy. Political relationships, escalation.
Compare that to 20 major cities around the being hit with 1000 kiloton strategic nukes, all within an hour of the first one....

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well.....

With current talks between Belarus and Russia being done and an agreement on the placement of tactical nukes, one could argue that tactical nukes will be a big part of WWIII, meaning it will indeed be a nuclear event destroying many cities and lives, without causing the mass fall-out that strategic ones would have. Small fall-out ofcourse, rendering large areas uninhabitable for a while. But the planet as a whole is able to maintain a form of civilization.

Let's say that 20 major cities around the world were hit with a 5 kiloton tactical nuke deadcenter. This would destroy a large part of that city and leave enough fall-out to basically make that city a write off. But on a global scale, the impact would be on society, on economy. Political relationships, escalation.
Compare that to 20 major cities around the being hit with 1000 kiloton strategic nukes, all within an hour of the first one....

Greg Cox had a new weapon in his Eugenic Wars Novels.

A device that was designed to close up the hole or holes in the ozone layer... with a small amount of tinkering could open up new (temporary) holes in the ozone layer, and inflict Super cancer on millions of people in minutes, depending on the size of the new hole they were standing under.

 

[Tim Walker]

I thinking about biological weapons. Kills a lot of people, while sparing infrastructure.

A bug might attack people directly, like Covid or the Black Death. Bugs might attack crops or livestock. In the case of Irish potato famine, a plant disease led to famine.

 

[Oddish]

I thinking about biological weapons. Kills a lot of people, while sparing infrastructure.

They're cheap, too. All you need is a live culture and a generous supply of agar or a similar growth medium, and you can create an essentially endless supply. I'm frankly amazed there hasn't been a major bio-attack during this century. Or, more likely, several of them.

 

[Tim Walker]

A novel, The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 by Jake Saunders and Howard Waldrop.

Word War III saw a few nukes used, but more important was the use of biological weapons. Against people directly, as well as against crops. Total collapse was staved off, with talk of rebuilding. Much surviving infrastructure. Bugs still affecting crops, but so many people died that the surviving agriculture seems sufficient.

 

[Tim Walker]

To summarize the effects of a "full nuclear exchange":

1. The human race would almost certainly become extinct.

2. Leaving behind a radioactive waste land.

 

[Shawnster]

Air bursts can leave much of the infrastructure while inflicting massive casualties

 

[Tuskin38]

And it has the added benefit of not decanonizing "Space Seed" or TWOK. So it's win-win!

It wouldn't decanonize either of them if they changed the dates. It would retcon them.

Like 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' wasn't decanonized because of the 'James R. Kirk' headstone. It was retconned.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Either there were Eugenics Wars from 1992 to 1996 or there were not. If TOS and TWOK said there are, and current continuity says they're not...they can't both be right.

But like I said, there is NOTHING precluding the existence of multiple sets of Eugenics Wars. One in the 20th century, one in the 21st. (At least; there could very well be others.) So in a very real sense, they CAN both be right! And we don't need to disregard anything. Like I said...win-win!

 

[Tuskin38]

^ Yes, it would.

No it wouldn't. That's not how that works.

Retcons still require explanations.

No they don't.
We never got an explanation for 'James R. Kirk'. Or why Data said he graduated Starfleet half century before he was discovered.