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Old 01-06-2021, 02:38 PM   #1
Tom Mazanec
 
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Default Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

Twice during the Cold War (1962 and 1983) a midlevel Soviet officer (Vasily Alexandrovich Arkhipov in 1962 and Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov in 1983) averted World War Three. If you make a timeline of those two close calls, how many levels would the world TL have dropped if the mushroom clouds had gone up?
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Old 01-06-2021, 02:42 PM   #2
TGLS
 
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

None at all. The unbombed areas of the world would be just fine.
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Old 01-06-2021, 02:46 PM   #3
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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None at all. The unbombed areas of the world would be just fine.
For a given level of "just fine." They would still have to deal with fallout and nuclear winter.
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Old 01-06-2021, 03:06 PM   #4
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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For a given level of "just fine." They would still have to deal with fallout and nuclear winter.
Also a serious economic disaster, even before the nuclear winter sets in.
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Old 01-06-2021, 03:11 PM   #5
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

Since only a handful of places in 1983 would be considered TL8, the over all TL of the world would be unchanged, remaining at TL7 in advanced nations in both scenarios. The apparent TL of a lot of places would drop, but that would be because those areas were low TL areas importing high TL goods.

The quality of human life would drop significantly everywhere, since world trade would come to a halt. The loss of accumulated wealth from cities being pounded flat would hammer the economy, but again, that's average wealth going down a few levels, not loss of technology. TL7 is quite a robust stage of development, with many examples of the tech being overbuilt since material analysis and statistics having not quite figured out how to break your stuff minutes after the warranty expires yet.

So while you would need to get used to dying of cancer at 40, you could still fill up you muscle car and drive down the freeway, even if a tank of gas cost a weeks wages.
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Old 01-06-2021, 03:14 PM   #6
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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For a given level of "just fine." They would still have to deal with fallout and nuclear winter.
Neither of those things would cause technological regression. Nuclear "winter" probably wouldn't amount to all that much It wouldn't be 586. Probably no worse than Krakatoa. Fallout would elevate cancer risk...but so did smoking.
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Old 01-06-2021, 05:01 PM   #7
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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None at all. The unbombed areas of the world would be just fine.
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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Neither of those things would cause technological regression. Nuclear "winter" probably wouldn't amount to all that much It wouldn't be 586. Probably no worse than Krakatoa. Fallout would elevate cancer risk...but so did smoking.
Sorry that is completely wrong for several reasons. First there where a lot of bombs to that times, and it´s likely that a most of them where used. That would lead to a mayor contamination with radioactivity worldwide. Just a hint how bad it would be, Gorbatschow said in several meetings that tchernobyl and the aftermath alone had killed over 100K people. They concluded this from rising cancer numbers and a far higher mortality rate the years after in all areas that where exposed to radiation.
The UV shield a such massive deployment of nuclear weapons is likely to damage the ozone shield. The result is that while animals and human can hide from this and go nocturnal, a lot of plants cope not well with a rising UV level including several important food plants. Anyway other plants are harmed to the result may be a disruption of food chaines in the ocean for example.
The radiation and the fallout will polute over time through the weather patterns the whole planet, just remember DDT is still found in the south polar region.
As for food production the top soil is saturated with fallout, that means, that the food is also radioactive, you could poison you with it. In earlier times the remove of the top soil was advised. I want bother you with the results, but without top soil you can throw your seeds away.
Then there is the EMP any non hardened electronic equipment, besides the most primitve will say good bye. Satellites are most surely also damaged.
Some early bomb tests showed that the radius of an EMP even if the bomb explodes on ground level be rather large, not to speak if anyone, and the effect is to well known to be missed, uses some bombs to explode in high altitudes. In this case several books, including some popular fiction say 3 - 8 are enough for mainland USA.
There is a reason why the UdSSR never tried to use bombs to conquer the west, they once bombed an area and had a military exercise in Division strengh, the result was enough to keep the Reds from even trying. The West had similar sudier, thankfully with less human guinea pigs, there is a french studie according to a german historian, still mostly classified. Which deals with the aftermath what happens if the UdSSR bombs europe to pieces. The result is like this " Oh, the killed us, but we died fast and in 3 weeks they are dead too, but in a very messy way." Because the sowjets are downwind.
I can go further but don´t want to bore you. So I leave the nuclear winter theme.
There is a saying of Einstein: " Ich weiß nicht mit welchen Waffen die Menschen im dritten Weltkrieg kämpfen werden, aber ich weiß mit welchen Waffen sie im vierten kämpfen werden, und es werden Feuer und Steine sein! " in short " I don´t know which weapons humanity uses in WWIII, but I know which ones they use in WWIV, and it will be fire and stones! "
Bombed back to stone age is very likely this means TL 1 max. .
If you want a nuclear exchange with a limited but handable aftermath, you need to clash some of the minor nuclear powers like israel and iran who longs for them. Then the global TL will drop to WWII standards but the majority of people survives.
Consider that directly after the bombs drop, part of the tech still works, but later on, with a reduced population basis and broken transport ways, we can´t built new ones.
There is also a GURPS supplement which deals with nuclear disasters, just try this one.

Last edited by Willy; 01-06-2021 at 05:16 PM. Reason: spelling error
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Old 01-06-2021, 05:14 PM   #8
Not
 
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

I don't think the TLs handle degeneracy well. You'd best discard the idea in post-apocalypse. Just give characters with access to lost technology Unusual Background.
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Old 01-06-2021, 05:24 PM   #9
Willy
 
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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I don't think the TLs handle degeneracy well. You'd best discard the idea in post-apocalypse. Just give characters with access to lost technology Unusual Background.
Like soldiers send out of NORAD to scout the country years after the bombs fell ? Great idea !
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Old 01-06-2021, 05:24 PM   #10
Michael Thayne
 
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

Hugely unpredictable. Depends on everything from how high the smoke from burning cities rises in the atmosphere (impacting the severity of the nuclear winter) to the psychology of how people react to the catastrophe. You could probably argue anything from a rapid bounce-back to the scenario presupposed in After the End.
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