Nuclear War: Two Scenarios
New book Nuclear War: A Scenario and new series Fallout give two surprisingly complimentary takes on the end of the world
One of my favourite things about popular culture is that you find little connections. All. The. Time.
Sometimes it’s a-lister Ryan Reynolds popping up in an old rerun of The X Files. It might be Bruce Willis filming a cameo on Friends when two of the characters have previously professed a love of Die Hard. Or it’s Community doing an homage to Sergio Leone with paintballs. Intertextlity. Love it.
Other times it’s a big connection. Like listening to an audiobook about the very real outcome of a nuclear war while starting a new show about the very real (?!) outcome of a nuclear war.
And doing that in the same week, like I just did, meaning you’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the end of the world.
The book was Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario, a terrifying non-fiction book that starts a second or two after an ICBM launch and finishes some 24,000 years in the future. I read my fair share of horror - monsters, demons, psychopathic killers - and this topped all of them.
The show is Fallout, the brand new series on Amazon Prime from the producers of Westworld and based on the hit video game series, set in the wasteland of North America some 200 years after nuclear annihilation. It’s not really scary at all, radroaches and gulpers and Walton Goggins’ nose void aside.
(Spoilers for both book and show follow.)
Individually, both the book and the show are entertaining and engrossing in their own way - the book because of the eye-opening content itself, the show because of the setting and cast.
But taken together, they create a whiplash effect, a picture of the immediate sequence of events following a nuclear impact on the mainland United States, and a picture of what might happen to American society after the dust has settled and humanity has tried to adjust.
So what do we have in store?
Jacobsen’s book has a short prologue, then picks up a few seconds after North Korea unexpectedly launches an ICBM - an intercontinental ballistic missile loaded with a nuclear warhead - that appears to be headed toward the mainland United States, whose early warning system blares into life. Within a minute, teams at the Pentagon are working on potential scenarios; within five the US has confirmed that the missile is headed their way, alerted the President, and presented him with a menu of response choices (led by ‘Alpha’, the “fire everything at everyone” of responses).
From there, a second surprise missile hits a nuclear plant in southern California; we follow the President as he decides on a response (fire a few dozen missiles at North Korea) then evacuates Washington DC, the confirmed target of the first missile. The US capital is wiped off the map, the President is lost after his helicopter Marine One fails to get away in time, and chaos ensues across the country.
And then Russia steps in.
Remember how America launched all those missiles? Well, Russia’s early warning system wrongly reported there were over a hundred missiles, and the majority were aimed at Russia, so their President fires everything they have at America and it’s allies in NATO, which causes the stand-in President to fire everything at Russia. All of this is possible thanks to both country’s Launch On Warning policies - a policy which several recent US Presidents have called dangerous while doing nothing about it, and which Putin recently clarified extended to the US’ allies in NATO.
By the way, if the idea of Russia’s system failing so spectacularly sounds unrealistic, it shouldn’t: it turns out that Russia’s early warning systems fails in this way all the damn time.
For Jacobsen, that - as they say - is that. The book fast forwards a few years to the midst of nuclear winter, then a bit further to when the end of nuclear winter causes famine and disease, then even further to when America no longer exists as a recognisable landmass, let alone country. It’s worth adding that the only places Jacobsen considers safe in her scenario are New Zealand and parts of Australia and Argentina. Gulp.
Then what happens? Well, if you believe Fallout - and why wouldn’t you - the world is a wasteland in which survivors battle mutant humans, mutant animals, giant cockroaches and giant blowflies, trade bottle caps as a commodity, and do whatever they can to eke out a living mining the remaining trash of human civilisation. Also there are helper robots; in Fallout, the world was a nuclear-powered utopia right before everything went to shit.
So, y’know, a fairly standard post-apocalyptic lifestyle.
I sound flippant, but I’m really not being so - the TV series is super entertaining, primarily thanks to its three main stars Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten and Walton Goggins, who all strike the right timbre in bringing their characters to the screen and interacting with the world elements brought over from the video games.
If you’re a fan of the games, there is also plenty to love here - its a new story but it hews close to the spirit of the game, and features all the little details you’ll be after - Nuka Cola, Pip-Boy, et al - especially if you’ve played the third and fourth iterations of the game.
Of course, there are also the fallout shelters produced by Vault-Tec that provide the initial locations of the video games. Fallout’s retro-futuristic setting doesn’t make a lot of sense in the real world, but these might be the most realistic part of the games and the series - especially combined with Jacobsen’s assertion of the relative safety of New Zealand.
“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.”
- Steve McCroskey, Airplane!
Here’s the problem:
I had just gotten past my nuclear apocalypse obsession.
As a fan of science fiction in all its forms, I’ve come across the apocalypse time and again - zombie, fungus, kaiju, nukes, aliens, you name it. But the idea of a nuclear apocalypse is one that has stuck in my craw the last few years, partly because it is the most likely scenario to occur.
Where did my obsession come from? No idea. But it kicked into high gear around the time Russia invaded Ukraine. Back at the start of 2023, a friend asked me for one prediction for the year ahead, and I told them my prediction was that someone would use a nuclear bomb. They didn’t ask, but I would’ve made the same prediction for 2024 as well. Maybe its more likely this year.
And its not, like, an obsession or something. It just is. It’s like a fact of life at this point, just one more thing I’m going to have to deal with in my lifetime - like finding a new home when our rent gets too high, food and water shortages, climate change. Now this too. Ugh, adulting sucks.
Maybe I should just try and find one of these rich bunker builders.
Five Songs Worth Checking Out!
End of the World edition!
> Muse - “Apocalypse Please”
Maybe the most nihilistic song from the British group.
> Britney Spears - “Till The World Ends”
If only the bombs didn’t bang as hard as this track.
> Nena - “99 Luftballons”
Arguably the most famous song about the Cold War released before the end of the Cold War. Get your luftballons from source, not from Goldfinger.
> Iron Maiden - “2 Minutes To Midnight”
A reference to the infamous Doomsday Clock, this Iron Maiden highliht was released in 1984. Forty years later and its now 1.5 Minutes to Midnight.
> R.E.M. - “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”
I mean, how could I not include this classic.
Thanks for reading everyone - see you later in the week.
Mā te wā, Chris