BBS Toolkit/BBS Toolkit.iso/doors_1/geobaker.zip/HISTORY

Text File | 1980-01-01 | 3KB | 40 lines

                  World War III for the Layperson
  by Dr. Nhoj Ihcis, New Yale University, Psychohistory Department

    In order to understand why the world was engulfed in thermonuclear flames
on that fateful day of June 5, 2013, we must delve back into the last decade
of the last millenium, when the two superpowers of the day, the United States
of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had finally broken
through the ideological barrier that had separated them since the short
lived "Grand Alliance" of the Second World War.  In 1997, the two nations
linked the strategic defense systems they had been developing under the
MAD (Mutual Assured Defense) Act, and by the year 2000 had reached the
START II levels of nuclear warheads--500 each.  In this atmosphere of
cooperation, the superpowers forged ahead with their plan to bring the planet
together under the flag of United Earth.  Most of the third and fourth world
countries of the day gladly joined them in order to get the needed economic
aid to rebuild their nations after decades of Cold War bickering.  The oil
rich Middle Eastern states, however, unwilling to yield their energy
supplies to a centralized government, formed the Independent Resistance, and
announced the possession of a nuclear arsenal captured from Israel after it
crumbled in 1992 due to a cutoff of U.S. support.
    The world again polarized, with many nations being forced to the IR side by
depleted United Earth energy supplies.  Then, in 2010, UE scientists
completed the first efficient fusion reactor.  The IR found that its main
economic weapon had become impotent, and in a burst of frustration launched
all of its nuclear missiles at the largest population centers of the UE.
The space-based defense system performed admirably, but enough missiles
reached their targets that the damage was irreversible.  Both the UE and the
IR collapsed to internecine squabbles over the shortage of agricultural
resources brought on by high radiation levels and a mild nuclear winter.
    The resulting civil wars were nearly as devastating as the nuclear
attack had been.  Vast portions of the world lived for years under terrible
conditions of starvation, cold, and petty despots.  Needless to say, global
transportation and communication had broken down, so that the centralized
government was unable to do anything to help, and soon broke down under its
own beauracratic weight.  By the early thirties, in fact, the prewar population
of 6 billion had dwindled to less than half a million.  These years, known
now simply as the Hungry Time, represent the lowest point in postwar history.
From then on, industrial and technological production was able to revive to
approximately the level of the early 1990's.  Now, in 2048, the 20 nations of
the world are ready to make a new start.