News & Events Nuclear Armageddon

[Miqar_Baqfhied]

Nuclear war and armageddon fascinate me for some reason. Anyone watched the movie Threads?Basically its about the build up to a nuclear war in Sheffield England through the eyes of two typical british families. Radio and TV reports in the background of a war brewing in the middle east, slowing building up to a nuclear conflict, dealing with dead bodies and survival. Then it goes into actual nuclear armageddon and you see certain characters going through it. Quite frankly it scared the total shit out of me when I was young watching it at school and gave me nightmares! Watched it again the other day on youtube - still sent shivers down my spine.

Another thing it addresses is life after a nuclear war - civilization having to start again going back to using primative tools, learning new languages, new countries being formed. Populations going back to medievel times. Fascinating. Always wondered what would happen to Australia - surely no one gives a crap about us?

Still spins me out how close the world got to ending in the 60's, and what one bomb can do.

 

[Mr_Bojangles]

The Day After is another good one but I'll check the English one out. Watching The Day After as a kid scared the shit out of me.

 

[raven echo]

I'm not concerned. I know how to Duck and Cover.

 

[Andre]

Always wondered what would happen to Australia - surely no one gives a crap about us?

It'd depend on who the war is between. If it's a middle east only (Israel vs. Iran down the track for instance) the fallout (no pun intended) would be the radiation and war there. The effect on Australia would be mainly economic - a deep recession and maybe depression from loss of agricultural markets and the cost of oil skyrocketing. India vs. Pakistan even less of an effect - yeah a recession undoubtedly, but relatively untouched.

If it was the US vs. China, then China has enough nukes to take out many US cities, but not all, so targets here would be down to maybe Pine Gap and other joint US/AUS installations. We're too small to bother nuking in general. Even those aren't going to be their highest priority, so it'd be whether they could before every city in China glows in the dark from the US's still huge number of nukes.

Of course with the US and China stuffed and that many nukes gone off cancer rates and problems with crops will be everywhere. I don't think we'd go pre-industrial, but our economy would be shit (along with worlds) for decades before we could adjust. The risk would be more along the lines of with the US pre-occupied with rebuilding whether Indonesia tries to take advantage of it. In such a situation I'd expect any Australian government to quickly try to make us a nuclear power - probably with help from the US in return for cheap uranium for the US.

If it was the US versus Russia then I'd see Australia as fairly stuffed. The Russians have enough nukes to take out all US cities plus their allies. And if the US and Russia are at nuclear war, I could easily see the US military thinking that they'll nuke China at the same time since 10000 nukes coming at the US is not really much better then 10200, but a nuked US with an untouched Chinese military would leave them (China) as sole superpower.

Of course if it starts as Israel vs. Iran or India vs. Pakistan and the likes of the US, China and Russia get drawn into, then it'd be hard to find anywhere untouched.

 

[Miqar_Baqfhied]

There seems to be a lot of theories of how the world will end. In my opinion there is no other way it will happen than other by nuclear war. The probability of nuclear war must significantly outweigh the probabiliy of a meteor strike/disease epidemic etc many many times I reckon.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

Threads is good.

Bit confused by the scene at the end, where the youth of tomorrow have regressed to mumbling and grunting at each other, wearing odds and ends of clothing, stealing property, and climbing on top of each other to hump wildly in semi-consensual bouts of sex- presumably this is intended to show that the chav population of birmingham was entirely unaffected by the nuclear holocaust?

 

[Yellow Feathers]

Apparently China have a lot more nukes than previously thought...

And what role would other Nuclear countries play? India, Pakistan, England and France?

 

[Old Skool]

If it's the same film I am thinking about then it is a black and white shockumentary from the 60's that I was shown in high school.

It frightened shit out of me at the time.

I now know that Nuclear Armageddon will never occur as the rich control the world and are now all in bed together calling the shots. There's too much real estate to be lost.

 

[Miqar_Baqfhied]

Threads is good.

Bit confused by the scene at the end, where the youth of tomorrow have regressed to mumbling and grunting at each other, wearing odds and ends of clothing, stealing property, and climbing on top of each other to hump wildly in semi-consensual bouts of sex- presumably this is intended to show that the chav population of birmingham was entirely unaffected by the nuclear holocaust?

Bahahaha

 

[Miqar_Baqfhied]

If it's the same film I am thinking about then it is a black and white shockumentary from the 60's that I was shown in high school.

It frightened shit out of me at the time.

I now know that Nuclear Armageddon will never occur as the rich control the world and are now all in bed together calling the shots. There's too much real estate to be lost.

Nah Threads is a colour film shot in the 80's. Check it out on youtube. Scary stuff.

 

[Smoooothy]

one thing i've been facinated with is how TV stations would broadcast such a thing

youtubing the emergency broadcast system (which is largely american) brings up some pretty good mock ups

 

[Miqar_Baqfhied]

The concept of being vaporized in less than a 1000th of a second spins me out. One minute your there. Next minute no more.

 

[Andre]

The concept of being vaporized in less than a 1000th of a second spins me out. One minute your there. Next minute no more.

Better that then taking seconds, minutes, hours or days to die in agony from a chemical or biological attack IMO. If I'm fated to die in WWIII I'd rather go quickly and painlessly.