200 years have passed since my forefathers and I guess foremothers burned the world with the holy fire of Armageddon.
There was an old man in my Kit who would say this on occasions of great discovery or death. I cannot remember if he had a name or what we would have called him. I cannot remember if anyone had a name at all, they must have. I did. It wasn't Frank, though.
The last night I was with the Kit, I had come back to the Den with my mother after a day of scavenging to find one of the Den-Mothers lying dead near the entrance. Her body was broken and twisted although some of the Kit had tried to straighten her out. Her coverings had been removed and we looked on her nakedness. The others gathered to look at her one more time, there were tears. She had fallen while trying to get a cover from one of the masts in the bottom depths. She fell into the wreckage and was broken upon the rocks and broken ships.
The old man had said these words again, as the Kit looked on.
"200 years have passed since our forefathers burned the world with the holy fire of Armageddon and purged the past from our bones. We live in the shadow of the Shipwood and in the blessings of the waterless wastes where we have shelter and safety. Our sister gave her life for the Kit. She gives her water to us as she gave her life. Let us not forget her sacrifice, lest we forget what makes us the Kit."
I wondered if there were other Kits, I had never seen another one in the lands around the Ships. Not that I had gone far at that point.
"How do you know it's been 200 years?"
My mother had looked at me with horror for I had spoken this aloud. I, too, had just realized I had spoken out loud.
The Kit stared at me. The idea of questioning the Den-Father seemed to be some great crime.
"These are the words our forefathers gave us, they are sacred, no one can question them."
The old man shouted at me, shaking his scrawny fist at me.
"So it could be we have been living for more than 200 years since the world was destroyed."
The old man's mouth worked in silent rage. It seemed like he wanted to say a word that he did not know or could remember.
My mother had picked me up and carried me into our ship and made me crawl into our bed and go to sleep. I can only imagine that the Kit had told her I was to be left behind at that point. When I awoke I was alone. My story began at that point.
I had never spoken in front of the Kit before that moment. I had only spoken to my mother or read to her from the ebook reader that the grandmother had given to me before she passed beyond the ships.
The truth was, well I am pretty sure the truth was that it had been 233 or 234 years since the first wave of nuclear weapons were used globally. Leading up to Armageddon, there had been 4 years of limited tactical nuclear exchanges and strikes between the superpowers. This would seem to be insanity, but with AI targeting and hydrogen-powered nukes (zero fallout), the powers that be believed that they had mastered their weapons and could use them to remove undesirable countries and peoples who did not fall into their worldviews.
I had pieced this together listening to DKM7's revelations which at first, I thought he was only revealing what he chose to reveal. Later, I realized that his databanks had been corrupted so much that there were massive gaps in his own memories of what and how all this had come about. In short, no one remembers or actually knows what really happened.
This is what I think happened.
The world proceeded with minor conventional wars until the USA perfected the tactical hydrogen nuclear missile/bomb. Then a president decided to use the tactical nuke in a limited strike on a country somewhere far away from where the people of the USA would not ever know what the real effects of the weapon were. They chose a place called Madagascar as the site of this TNS (tactical nuclear strike). I don't know if anyone in Madagascar had actually done anything to provoke this attack. One morning in October 2025 or 2026, SatCom 66 launched 4 ICBM42's down on Madagascar. 3 minutes after launch, the Madagascariansknew they were being attacked. According to the logs, I found in DKM7's bunker (handwritten!) The final words of their Leader was "Oh God, no."
Madagascar ceased to exist.
25 minutes later. SatCom 66 reported that it was safe to invade.
Those who knew that about the attack in Washington DC USA celebrated.
1 hour later, the US Marines landed in Madagascar and invaded the dead country.
2 hours later, the Marine Command reported zero fallout and only slight radioactivity present in certain areas.
The records show total death kill: reported number 30 million people dead. Most incinerated to a fine powder. No visible survivors.
3 hours after that, the USA then claimed Madagascar as their own territory and practically dared anyone to disagree.
3 hours, 12 minutes after the announcement, all hell broke loose.
As far as I can learn and decipher. The world lost its mind. Wars were declared as a worldwide panic ensued. There was a riot in the USA's Congress with a quick vote to impeach the president and men were sent to the President's House to arrest him for high treason. These men were met by Marines who refused to turn the President over and a standoff followed.
A few days later, Russia and China declared war on the USA and the world fell into various camps as each country tried to sort out or justify what had just happened.
What had happened?
To this day, no one really knows. What I do know is that after meeting DKM7 and seeing the remains of the last President of the USA's skeletal remains as well as those of his faithful lying dead in various places around the bunker, I am filled with a dread that someone actually knew what they were doing when they sent to commands to the Weapon platforms orbiting the planet. That SatCom 66 was chosen on purpose and that the whole thing was a carefully orchestrated plan that almost worked or perhaps it did- I don't know.
What I do know, is that for 4 years the USA went from a Democracy to a Republic and the world went to hell as those with no nuclear weapons started allying themselves with anyone who did, the culmination of one such alliance was the sudden rebirth and rise of the New Soviet Republics of Russia - a rebirth of the old USSR, The European Union consolidated and new borders defenses went up between the two power blocs as China pulled in almost all of its neighbors as war was declared with the NSRR. South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan formed the South Asian Alliance,
The Middle East pulled together into a loose alliance calling themselves the Muslim States of Arabia. Israel said no. A nuclear exchange occurred and old dirty nukes were used.
Lebanon ceased to exist, as did the Gaza Strip, a fair amount of the outlying parts of Israel became the world's first wasteland. Sections of Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia were effectively erased as the Israelis had the new Hydrogen nukes to use. I say sections as during the exchange those countries who did survive were only partially successful in shooting down the incoming attacks with missile defense grids and such. Most of the news was muddled.
After this happened, the world held it's breath. The dust settled and the middle east started to come to grips with that there was now a fairly large area of their collected landmass that was now uninhabitable. The death toll was never counted. Just when the idea of declaring winners and losers and losses started to come up the USA erupted into open civil war with states seceding from the Union. Apparently, the President claimed he had no idea what had happened in Madagascar and refused to surrender or resign. At this point, a fast conventional war broke out with exchanges between state militias and the national guard as individual states tried to quit the Union. Texas was the first, but others followed.
I am not sure anyone figured out who was with who against who before the DefCon computers went into high alert as Russia launched their missiles at the USA who despite being a chaotic mess launched theirs in retaliation.
I wonder why the Russians didn't just sit back and wait for the USA to shatter first.
The last moments for many of 300 million Americans were probably spent looking in shock at the missile silos opening in places no one had thought to look for them and silently watching the ICBM42's launch. This is actually not accurate. Many were unaware until right before the end. A fair number were already in bunkers or on their way to the fallout shelters, the survivalists were already digging in. The masses were on their way to and from work as the militias and the national guards were either actively attacking and defending their barricades and walls.
Then the world burned as the survivors described it.
The world burned.
I only know this because DKM7 told me, but logic dictates that humans don't like to be left out.
Not the entire world, of course, but the bulk of the land mass outside of Australia and its Neighbors, Parts of South America and Africa (not northern Africa though) and the isolated islands and reaches of places like Siberia, Alaska and Canada escaped the Nuclear firestorm that pretty much destroyed the surface world.
The World burned for about 24 hours. The lucky died instantly. Of those that survived the initial firestorm, many would die from the collateral damage to the cities. Some would discover what radioactive fallout was in the resulting days and years.
Out of the Ashes, The American Republic would step with the freshly elected President Drumpf at its head. Iron Russia would also rise from the ruins of its cities as would an Imperial China, the African Combine, the Collective in South America, and Australia. The Iron Union would stagger in later and for a brief moment- there would be peace.
Then the survivors started to fight over the leftovers. Ironically, the powers that were- chose conventional warfare- also the ICBM42's were used up...well that was what everyone believed.
The problem with conventional warfare is that it depends on industry to support it and a population to run the industry. The conventional wars ran out of fuel and ammo and weapons. In some cases, the combatants were reduced to melee weapons and rocks. Then the nuclear winters came. The first started out as a Radioactive sandstorm that ravaged the middle east.
The world was poisoned and froze as the sun was blotted out and the atmosphere burned thin.
Perhaps it was despair that drove the last rulers to declare war, but most likely it was stubborn pride and the need for resources.
December 2198 came and the world went back to war. DKM7 is vague about what happened. At first, I thought it was because he was hiding something but then he let slip the "data corrupted" message and I began to believe that he can't remember it either. The world burned and for some inexplicable reason, it burned off the nuclear winters. The sky became clear and time passed.
Then one day, years later, humans began to reappear on the surface of the tortured earth, they began to roam the wastelands. Civilization is gone, I think it will return someday but it's hard to see it now.
It's very hard to see from where I squat watching the Steel Raiders trying to break into DKM's bunker. Funny how your mind casts back and you spend the hours in between watching the enemy throw themselves on the bulwarks wondering how everything came to this.
I suspect now that DKM7 is not a benevolent being and that I am being used. I also suspect that all that I know about the past is a lie and the world ended for completely different reasons. I believe the answer is in the computer that I cannot hack in that bunker.
I think that those mines I left are not going to work.
The explosions finally come after most of the day as one of the steel raiders finally trips the right one. When the dust clears, I walk down into the mess of bodies and gear. I shoot the survivors as they try to crawl away.
There is no time for mercy in the wasteland.
Frank 15, year 1.
Frank has returned with the goods. He leaves out a lot of details. he dutifully installs the parts. I feel a lot better.... can a computer feel better? My data is less corrupt and now I can run the subroutines to purge the files. I will need to reaccess the global network assuming that there is still one to access. Frank picks up one of the handwritten logs and walks out of video/audio range to read. He is upset but he will get over it in a day or two. I will send him out of the Steel Empire and find a boat at the docks to cross the lake to the National Gaurd bunker at Benton Harbor for some further scavenging. I need their hard drives assuming that bunker which was tempered to withstand a direct nuclear strike has survived.
27. 1984 by George Orwell
A surprising book that foretells the future (now past) of a dystopian world that closely mirrors our own. After I scanned it, the similarities were too profound and disturbing that I was relieved when Frank refuses to discuss it with me. Sometimes fiction is too close to the truth.
There was an old man in my Kit who would say this on occasions of great discovery or death. I cannot remember if he had a name or what we would have called him. I cannot remember if anyone had a name at all, they must have. I did. It wasn't Frank, though.
The last night I was with the Kit, I had come back to the Den with my mother after a day of scavenging to find one of the Den-Mothers lying dead near the entrance. Her body was broken and twisted although some of the Kit had tried to straighten her out. Her coverings had been removed and we looked on her nakedness. The others gathered to look at her one more time, there were tears. She had fallen while trying to get a cover from one of the masts in the bottom depths. She fell into the wreckage and was broken upon the rocks and broken ships.
The old man had said these words again, as the Kit looked on.
"200 years have passed since our forefathers burned the world with the holy fire of Armageddon and purged the past from our bones. We live in the shadow of the Shipwood and in the blessings of the waterless wastes where we have shelter and safety. Our sister gave her life for the Kit. She gives her water to us as she gave her life. Let us not forget her sacrifice, lest we forget what makes us the Kit."
I wondered if there were other Kits, I had never seen another one in the lands around the Ships. Not that I had gone far at that point.
"How do you know it's been 200 years?"
My mother had looked at me with horror for I had spoken this aloud. I, too, had just realized I had spoken out loud.
The Kit stared at me. The idea of questioning the Den-Father seemed to be some great crime.
"These are the words our forefathers gave us, they are sacred, no one can question them."
The old man shouted at me, shaking his scrawny fist at me.
"So it could be we have been living for more than 200 years since the world was destroyed."
The old man's mouth worked in silent rage. It seemed like he wanted to say a word that he did not know or could remember.
My mother had picked me up and carried me into our ship and made me crawl into our bed and go to sleep. I can only imagine that the Kit had told her I was to be left behind at that point. When I awoke I was alone. My story began at that point.
I had never spoken in front of the Kit before that moment. I had only spoken to my mother or read to her from the ebook reader that the grandmother had given to me before she passed beyond the ships.
The truth was, well I am pretty sure the truth was that it had been 233 or 234 years since the first wave of nuclear weapons were used globally. Leading up to Armageddon, there had been 4 years of limited tactical nuclear exchanges and strikes between the superpowers. This would seem to be insanity, but with AI targeting and hydrogen-powered nukes (zero fallout), the powers that be believed that they had mastered their weapons and could use them to remove undesirable countries and peoples who did not fall into their worldviews.
I had pieced this together listening to DKM7's revelations which at first, I thought he was only revealing what he chose to reveal. Later, I realized that his databanks had been corrupted so much that there were massive gaps in his own memories of what and how all this had come about. In short, no one remembers or actually knows what really happened.
This is what I think happened.
The world proceeded with minor conventional wars until the USA perfected the tactical hydrogen nuclear missile/bomb. Then a president decided to use the tactical nuke in a limited strike on a country somewhere far away from where the people of the USA would not ever know what the real effects of the weapon were. They chose a place called Madagascar as the site of this TNS (tactical nuclear strike). I don't know if anyone in Madagascar had actually done anything to provoke this attack. One morning in October 2025 or 2026, SatCom 66 launched 4 ICBM42's down on Madagascar. 3 minutes after launch, the Madagascariansknew they were being attacked. According to the logs, I found in DKM7's bunker (handwritten!) The final words of their Leader was "Oh God, no."
Madagascar ceased to exist.
25 minutes later. SatCom 66 reported that it was safe to invade.
Those who knew that about the attack in Washington DC USA celebrated.
1 hour later, the US Marines landed in Madagascar and invaded the dead country.
2 hours later, the Marine Command reported zero fallout and only slight radioactivity present in certain areas.
The records show total death kill: reported number 30 million people dead. Most incinerated to a fine powder. No visible survivors.
3 hours after that, the USA then claimed Madagascar as their own territory and practically dared anyone to disagree.
3 hours, 12 minutes after the announcement, all hell broke loose.
As far as I can learn and decipher. The world lost its mind. Wars were declared as a worldwide panic ensued. There was a riot in the USA's Congress with a quick vote to impeach the president and men were sent to the President's House to arrest him for high treason. These men were met by Marines who refused to turn the President over and a standoff followed.
A few days later, Russia and China declared war on the USA and the world fell into various camps as each country tried to sort out or justify what had just happened.
What had happened?
To this day, no one really knows. What I do know is that after meeting DKM7 and seeing the remains of the last President of the USA's skeletal remains as well as those of his faithful lying dead in various places around the bunker, I am filled with a dread that someone actually knew what they were doing when they sent to commands to the Weapon platforms orbiting the planet. That SatCom 66 was chosen on purpose and that the whole thing was a carefully orchestrated plan that almost worked or perhaps it did- I don't know.
What I do know, is that for 4 years the USA went from a Democracy to a Republic and the world went to hell as those with no nuclear weapons started allying themselves with anyone who did, the culmination of one such alliance was the sudden rebirth and rise of the New Soviet Republics of Russia - a rebirth of the old USSR, The European Union consolidated and new borders defenses went up between the two power blocs as China pulled in almost all of its neighbors as war was declared with the NSRR. South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan formed the South Asian Alliance,
The Middle East pulled together into a loose alliance calling themselves the Muslim States of Arabia. Israel said no. A nuclear exchange occurred and old dirty nukes were used.
Lebanon ceased to exist, as did the Gaza Strip, a fair amount of the outlying parts of Israel became the world's first wasteland. Sections of Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia were effectively erased as the Israelis had the new Hydrogen nukes to use. I say sections as during the exchange those countries who did survive were only partially successful in shooting down the incoming attacks with missile defense grids and such. Most of the news was muddled.
After this happened, the world held it's breath. The dust settled and the middle east started to come to grips with that there was now a fairly large area of their collected landmass that was now uninhabitable. The death toll was never counted. Just when the idea of declaring winners and losers and losses started to come up the USA erupted into open civil war with states seceding from the Union. Apparently, the President claimed he had no idea what had happened in Madagascar and refused to surrender or resign. At this point, a fast conventional war broke out with exchanges between state militias and the national guard as individual states tried to quit the Union. Texas was the first, but others followed.
I am not sure anyone figured out who was with who against who before the DefCon computers went into high alert as Russia launched their missiles at the USA who despite being a chaotic mess launched theirs in retaliation.
I wonder why the Russians didn't just sit back and wait for the USA to shatter first.
The last moments for many of 300 million Americans were probably spent looking in shock at the missile silos opening in places no one had thought to look for them and silently watching the ICBM42's launch. This is actually not accurate. Many were unaware until right before the end. A fair number were already in bunkers or on their way to the fallout shelters, the survivalists were already digging in. The masses were on their way to and from work as the militias and the national guards were either actively attacking and defending their barricades and walls.
Then the world burned as the survivors described it.
The world burned.
I only know this because DKM7 told me, but logic dictates that humans don't like to be left out.
Not the entire world, of course, but the bulk of the land mass outside of Australia and its Neighbors, Parts of South America and Africa (not northern Africa though) and the isolated islands and reaches of places like Siberia, Alaska and Canada escaped the Nuclear firestorm that pretty much destroyed the surface world.
The World burned for about 24 hours. The lucky died instantly. Of those that survived the initial firestorm, many would die from the collateral damage to the cities. Some would discover what radioactive fallout was in the resulting days and years.
Out of the Ashes, The American Republic would step with the freshly elected President Drumpf at its head. Iron Russia would also rise from the ruins of its cities as would an Imperial China, the African Combine, the Collective in South America, and Australia. The Iron Union would stagger in later and for a brief moment- there would be peace.
Then the survivors started to fight over the leftovers. Ironically, the powers that were- chose conventional warfare- also the ICBM42's were used up...well that was what everyone believed.
The problem with conventional warfare is that it depends on industry to support it and a population to run the industry. The conventional wars ran out of fuel and ammo and weapons. In some cases, the combatants were reduced to melee weapons and rocks. Then the nuclear winters came. The first started out as a Radioactive sandstorm that ravaged the middle east.
The world was poisoned and froze as the sun was blotted out and the atmosphere burned thin.
Perhaps it was despair that drove the last rulers to declare war, but most likely it was stubborn pride and the need for resources.
December 2198 came and the world went back to war. DKM7 is vague about what happened. At first, I thought it was because he was hiding something but then he let slip the "data corrupted" message and I began to believe that he can't remember it either. The world burned and for some inexplicable reason, it burned off the nuclear winters. The sky became clear and time passed.
Then one day, years later, humans began to reappear on the surface of the tortured earth, they began to roam the wastelands. Civilization is gone, I think it will return someday but it's hard to see it now.
It's very hard to see from where I squat watching the Steel Raiders trying to break into DKM's bunker. Funny how your mind casts back and you spend the hours in between watching the enemy throw themselves on the bulwarks wondering how everything came to this.
I suspect now that DKM7 is not a benevolent being and that I am being used. I also suspect that all that I know about the past is a lie and the world ended for completely different reasons. I believe the answer is in the computer that I cannot hack in that bunker.
I think that those mines I left are not going to work.
The explosions finally come after most of the day as one of the steel raiders finally trips the right one. When the dust clears, I walk down into the mess of bodies and gear. I shoot the survivors as they try to crawl away.
There is no time for mercy in the wasteland.
Frank 15, year 1.
Frank has returned with the goods. He leaves out a lot of details. he dutifully installs the parts. I feel a lot better.... can a computer feel better? My data is less corrupt and now I can run the subroutines to purge the files. I will need to reaccess the global network assuming that there is still one to access. Frank picks up one of the handwritten logs and walks out of video/audio range to read. He is upset but he will get over it in a day or two. I will send him out of the Steel Empire and find a boat at the docks to cross the lake to the National Gaurd bunker at Benton Harbor for some further scavenging. I need their hard drives assuming that bunker which was tempered to withstand a direct nuclear strike has survived.
27. 1984 by George Orwell
A surprising book that foretells the future (now past) of a dystopian world that closely mirrors our own. After I scanned it, the similarities were too profound and disturbing that I was relieved when Frank refuses to discuss it with me. Sometimes fiction is too close to the truth.
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