The Other Side

All That's Left: 2198-L

-L, the official term for anything that happened in that time period where nuclear war occurred in R-1. This war was obviously prevented by efforts made in R-2 by Ventuas and reconnection. Every dimension had a different time for events, R-2 had one year pass, R-1 had 20 years pass, plenty of other realities had time pass somewhere in between. A select few had not been disconnected from R-1 had 20 years go by only to be told no time passed when the universe was reset back to 2198. 

This will be the story of the 67th infantry immediately after the war occurred. At the time that the bombs dropped the 67th was at a base near Dalnax, originally supposed to launch an operation to retake a small part of the city. The personnel were already waiting by the trucks when air raid sirens sounded and an alert went out about ICBMs being launched. The soldiers sat in shelters for 10 hours until the radio turned on.

Radio: Alert, as of today nuclear war has occurred. It is believed all command structure has collapsed and the death toll is in the billions. It is our job to halt that increase, but only for those who wish to. Desertion is authorized but we ask that you all remain. Any military units not lost in the blasts should attempt to rescue survivors and direct evacuations. Attempt to uphold public order to a degree, do not stop looting though. Good luck, General Lemore out.

Why is Lemore a general? Months have passed after the SA attack and he continued to prove his competence by carrying out the eradication of a large WF base using a nuclear bomb, yes that entire operation was Lemore's idea.

The soldiers of the 67th got onto their trucks and raced towards the nearest city, Malask. As they drove they passed tons of fleeing civilians with emergency vehicles heading towards the twin cities with the soldiers. An hour passed and the soldiers saw the state of the capital and Malask, everything was on fire, a massive mushroom cloud rose over the ruined cities and fallout rained from the sky. A light haze was visible which was more radioactive particles that had been launched into the atmosphere by the blasts.

Captain: Jesus fucking Christ.

The road away from the city was packed with cars, most of which were already abandoned. The EMP from the nuclear bomb going off had fried most electronics, including the ones in the cars. As such civilians ran on foot from the blast site with police officers trying to maintain some semblance of order. The officers all wore a mix of riot gear and their normal patrol uniforms, likely because they scavenged what they could from their destroyed stations and wrecked vehicles. The road into the city was clear and the convoy continued on past the survivors.

Inside the city the fires were out of control. What remained of the various fire departments were barely regrouping yet, only small crews standing around trying to rescue people in their area. The convoy rolled down the road and passed a fire engine that was scorched with two firefighters using the water left in the tank to hold back multiple blocks of fire. No other rescue personnel were visible. The convoy didn't stop there though, there was supposedly other military units in that area and they would instead have to go to Sparowa, an area near the blast site.

The convoy drove through the burning streets as the wind blew flames over the trucks. The paint melted from the heat and soldiers in the back hunkered down as the tarp barely protected them.  The convoy came to a halt when gunfire erupted. Soldiers jumped out and got into cover as fire raged around them. Bullets flew over from the rubble and the soldiers looked for the source. 

The smoke and flames made it nearly impossible to see any people or muzzle flashes and the roar of the fire made locating the source of the noise hard. Soldiers fanned out and looked for their attackers while moving from cover to cover. A squad got lucky and got behind the attacking survivors and unloaded their rifles into their backs. The soldiers regrouped as their Geiger counter went wild. Above them was the massive mushroom cloud, surrounded by huge plumes of smoke that swirled up from the infernos into the ash filled sky. As this happened fallout rained down and coated vehicles in a layer of radioactive dust. 

Days passed an nothing changed for the better, in fact conditions deteriorated. The fondly upside was emergency services were somewhat operational but public order was breaking down. Fires continued to burn in the rubble and a foot of what everyone knew was a mix of fallout, ash, and snow covered the ground. The sky was dark grey despite it being late summer, which in the Antarctic means constant sunlight. The NOJOD headquarters was apparently suffering from fire which due to the tight resources destroyed the majority of the base, only stoped by soldiers demolishing barracks near the inferno and the snow covering flammable materials

The previously mentioned public order had devolved into fighting. The police departments tried to stop fights where they occurred but with desertion, officers being killed, and the general volume of incidents they couldn't get to most of them. As a result bandits seized control of parts of the city. Wars broke out between post-nuclear factions which the police tried to negotiate ceasefires for, but often ended up being shot at.

When the SA virus arrived the police and fire departments warned anyone still there to evacuate and then disbanded. This disbanding however was informal, mostly telling the personnel that from that moment forwards society was gone, and they should just make their own choices. Some choose to go off on their own, some choose to stay in the city, many choose to stick with their station or unit. In a few cases different stations of firefighters would group together and start driving around. 

The remnants of the fire departments called themselves NORD, after the New Orderian Rescue Division while the police called themselves the Lawmen. These groups kept doing their jobs when applicable and had no command structure past individual groups. The ONI and military did the same, but with varying levels of success. The ONI basically became isolationists that didn't give a damn about morals and would often snipe anyone that they didn't like. The army on the other hand did one of two things depending on the group. Some parts split off and wandered with their squad only and just focused on themselves above all else, making their unit the family. Others got as many soldiers together as possible in large groups and formed bases to defend on another, the most notable of these bases was in Colt Valley, said base would be used by the team sent from R-2 as a staging point for saving the world. 

That is only for the few, many of them didn't escape at all. Wether it be dying in the blast, collapses, fires, wars between survivor groups, the SA virus, bandits, disease in general, starvation, dehydration, small fights between survivors, natural disasters, or radiation they didn't make it. If they were unlucky is debatable. Survivors often killed themselves to escape the horrors, it made things stop which when everyone is suffering doesn't seem that bad. Death was a way out, but at the same time that ended things. Dying is it, nobody knows what comes afterwards, it could be worse than what was going on. At the same time surviving was possible and those that made it, while it wasn't a good life, were still living. 

If there is any moral of this chapter, don't start nuclear fucking wars. I like writing about them, I like games with them, I like joking about them. But people need to realize it ends the world, there is no turning back. Funny enough the Soviets had a good poster about it, look up "USSR evolution poster". I tried to add the picture here but it didn't work, the text at the bottom of the poster translates to "evolution?" The first thing I ever wrote on this site had this message at the end and it still fits: "No one wins after the bombs fall." Now I doubt anyone reading this will be some grand politician, but if you ever become one, don't be the fucking cuck that ends the world.