MoF 18: I Am Become Death

This round shall finish on Sunday, 25th of July.

!THIS THREAD IS FOR POSTING OF ENTRIES ONLY!

Any discussion must take place in the discussion thread. If you post anything other than an entry to the contest here you will be disqualified from competing in this round of the contest.

Remember to vote on the previous round of MoF.

In the darkest days of the Great Patriotic War, Soviet scientists develop a new weapon called Ice-Nine. This substance is a form of ice with the melting point of 114 degrees F, and at room temperature it will covert water into ice-nine on contact. The weapon is shelved since it has little utility on the battlefield; a proposal to drop it into Berlin's water supply is dismissed as the Soviet leadership thankfully realizes that this might cause a chain reaction in which ice-nine spreads out of control and freezes all the world's water. This apocalyptic potential is not forgotten, however.

Cut to 1956. The United States of America has developed nuclear weapons, but the USSR never did. The Americans brazenly wage "wars of liberation", toppling Communist regimes in East Asia and Eastern Europe, secure in their nuclear impunity. When President MacArthur pledges to bomb the Soviet military out of existence if the Kremlin doesn't hold free elections, the USSR knows it's time to act. The Soviets open World War Three with perhaps the most baffling first strike in military history: the entire Soviet fleet in the Black Sea sails into Istanbul and wrecks itself in the Bosporous, damming the strait with a massive pile of beached ships. Soviet engineers who had disembarked in the city pour concrete in the cracks, making the entire bizarre dam watertight, while Soviet marines keep back the confused Turkish citizens and police. Then a Soviet officer walks over to the southern side of the dam, opens a small vial with a flake of white ice in it, and tosses it in the water. And then everything goes to hell.

This ice-nine is not quite as powerful as Vonnegut's, in that it doesn't freeze the groundwater. The newly-landlocked Black Sea, the Caspian, the Aral, Lake Baikal and Lake Balqash, all in Soviet territory, are not frozen, but the Mediterranean, and through it the Atalantic, Pacific, Indian, etc. all freeze. The US would retaliate with nuclear weapons, but it has no idea what the hell just happened. When the oceans freeze solid, not even the most die-hard anticommunist makes the astounding leap that the Soviets somehow did it. The American reaction is to start talking about Judgement Day, then to stop talking and freeze to death, or starve in the newly waterless environment. In the USSR, the water cycle hobbles on thanks to the internal seas, and any land out of reach of the meager rain can be irrigated by the brute force of Soviet industry: public-works irrigation projects desalinate and pipe water to farms all over the country.

By 1958 the USSR is the only nation left on Earth. Talk of surviving British states around Lake Victoria, or even the wild rumor that America built an Istabul-stlye damn at Montreal and saved the Great Lakes, is sometimes heard among the proletariat, but the Party does its best to quash such irresponsible talk. The Kremlin, knowing that it is all too possible that the remaining seas might be contaminated with ice-nine by "reactionary dissidents", begins an aggressive space program centered on Cosmograd, formerly Baikonur, with the aim of spreading humanity into space should anything happen to the remaining habitable land on Earth. In 1968 (the year of this map) the first Cosmonaut walks on the moon.

(EDIT: The more I think about it the more problems ice-nine poses. For example, some of the liquid water left is bound to fall as rain over iced-over areas, and itself turn into ice-nine, decreasing the amount of liquid water available in the world. The again, with a melting point of 114 F, it wouldn't be hard for the Soviets to artificially melt ice-nine back into harmless water. I suppose the Americans or anyone could do it, but let's assume that in the chaos and confusion of the initial disaster, so many people die that civilization simply falls. The point is, if you think of plot holes in this whole scenario, please just suspend your disbelief until I can make up an answer )

Map to follow.

And the map:

In 1945 the USA used nuclear weapons to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The casualties number over a hundred thousand. The world stands in awe and fear of America's new superweapon.

Combating the world's new superpower becomes the sole aim of Soviet military scientists, and funding is poured into several projects, few of which produce anything beyond ineffectual prototypes. One of these projects, Project Elbrus (Russian: Проект Эльбрус - Proekt Elʹbrus, named for the highest mountain in the Caucasus mountain range), produces a working electrolaser. This uses the blooming effect of a laser to produce a line of ionized plasma, along which a powerful electrical current can then be sent, in a manner similar to lightning. The prototype is inefficient, weak and unwieldy. Soviet military commanders see no real practical use of the technology, and funding is cut in order to further develop the Soviet Union's own nuclear weapon, rather than develop counter measures to it.

On the 12th of December, 1950 General Secretary Joseph Stalin sends America an early Christmas present: the USSR conducts its first nuclear weapons test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in the Kazakh SSR.

By 1961 the USA's nuclear stockpiles have grown immensely, whilst the Soviets still languish behind. Convinced that a nuclear war with America is imminent, First Secretary Nikita Krushchev begins looking for a method of effective defence against a nuclear strike. Isaac Bahdanovich, the Byelorussian scientist that headed Project Elbrus, suggests that a sufficiently advanced electrolaser could disable a nuclear weapon in flight. Project Motherland (Russian: Проект Pодина - Proekt Rodina) is set up to explore the plausibility of developing and deploying advanced electrolasers in this manner. Krushchev is deposed in 1964, but the project continues.

In August, 1966 a computer-controlled electrolaser with a radar targeting system is shown to be able to intercept nuclear missiles in flight. The system is still too expensive and inefficient to be deployed on any national scale, so development continues.

By 1970 Project Motherland has produced a suitably efficient production model of a radar-targeted electrolaser. This technological advance is hidden from the public until 1973, when the last of the first generation of anti-nuclear electrolasers is constructed. Senator Lee Metcalf comments that President Nixon's teeth-grinding could be heard all the way from Capitol Hill.

In order to test western zeal in face of their new defence system, Soviet troops "accidentally" cross the border with Finland whilst "on maneuvers" and, supposedly believing they are still on Soviet soil, open fire on Finnish troops that attempt to approach them. Many western politicians do not make mention of the issue, whilst others, such as President Nixon, begrudgingly claim that they hope that the situation can be solved peacefully and without further bloodshed. Believing this to be a weak response on the USA's part, the USSR makes claims that the Finnish troops opened fire on the Soviet troops first. Finland refuses to allow Soviet military observers into the country to investigate the issue. After a short and brutal war, Finland is absorbed into the USSR as the Finnish SSR in early 1974. The western world deplores this blatant warmongering, but resolves to do nothing about it.

Now believing the USSR free of the threat of nuclear war, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev pursues a policy of promoting world communism, and espouses the idea of a "Worldwide socialist union". These policies develop as time moves on, and the USSR begins integrating its allies into the Union.

By 1985 Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and East Germany have been integrated into the USSR. General Secretary Andrei Gromyko and Mongolian President Jambyn Batmönkh announce plans to integrate Mongolia into the USSR, drawing the anger of the People's Republic of China. The depth of the Sino-Soviet split shows when, on the 30th of March, 1985, the Politburo of the Communist Party of China under Hua Guofeng - Mao Zedong's designated successor - declares war on the USSR. The hope is that the other nations of the world will declare war on the Soviet Union, and that their combined might could overcome that of the USSR. The hope is forlorn on both counts.

After the swift and brutal crushing of Chinese military forces, China is reorganized with a pro-Soviet government in charge. Manchuria is annexed directly into the Soviet Union as the Manchu People's Soviet Socialist Republic.

Following pressure from Moscow, and increased US military presence in South Korea and Japan, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is incorporated into the USSR in 1988.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall comes down, and West Berlin is incorporated into the German Soviet Democratic Socialist Republic after the USSR demanded the transfer of the territory, officially to end the suffering of the isolated people of West Berlin and to end the exclave as a relic of a bygone era, unofficially as part of a move to consolidate their existing territories before expanding further.

***

***

It is now 1991. God save us all.

Rome in the early 1940's allowed the axis to win the war by using the power of the Gods. This map is from a school book after the change of language to Latin in the 1960's

In April 1924 the body of Adolf Hitler is found in his prison cell. It is unclear whether he committed suicide or died of some other means. Without Hitler's leadership the Nazi party soon descends into internal infighting and disarray, ceasing to a significant force in German politics. Instead Mussolini's PNF continues to be the most significant fascist movement in Europe and after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 Italian-inspired fascist movements seize power in Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria and right-wing governments take power elsewhere in eastern and southern Europe.

Encouraged by League of Nations' impotency over German remilitarisation of the Rhineland and the ascension of fascism, in 1935 Mussolini took the first steps towards the creation of the New Roman Empire with the invasion of Ethiopia. The campaign was a success, however the drawn out nature of the Italian campaign in Ethiopia led many to joke that the Italians had been held back by spear-waving savages and as such shouldn't be taken as a serious military threat.

These dismissals of Italian military capability proved to be premature however as proved by the 1938 invasion and annexation of Albania, the first Italian gain in Europe. Many in Britain and France still regarded the Italian army as obsolete and ineffectual however and they seemed to be proved right when, in 1940 Mussolini, buoyed by his previous successes ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia. The Italians soon became bogged down in the tough mountainous terain, having only secured small gains by the winter of 1940.

The following spring would prove a turning point however, as reports started coming of Yugoslavia of fresh Italian gains with Yugoslav soldiers coming back from the fighting with their ears bleeding and their brains in turmoil, unable to follow orders or concentrate on any task except fleeing. Within weeks the Italians had captured Belgrade and forced Yugoslavia to surrender. The majority of the country was annexed by Italy with small areas in the east going to Hungary and Bulgaria, who had assisted Italy in the invasion.

The unprecedented effectiveness of this new Italian 'superweapon' and uncertainty over its exact nature caused deep concern in Britain and particularly France who now started to feel particularly vulnerable next to both Italy and their German allies. The French were right to feel concerned as keen to preserve their momentum the Italians launched an invasion of France almost a soon as Yugoslavia had surrendered. Once again the Italians stormed through the countryside sending defenders fleeing before them. With the help of the Germans they had reached Paris by August 1941 and France was defeated. The south - the watersheds of the Rhône and Garonne rivers - was incorporated into the Italian Empire while the Germans reclaimed Alsace-Lorraine with the remainder of France coming under the control of an Italian puppet regime.

Now only Britain stood in the way of Mussolini achieving his goal of establishing Italian hegemony over the Mediterranean. The United Kingdom had declared war on Italy when France had been attacked and the Italians had been quick to take advantage of this by using their radio-guns, or 'ray guns' as their new weapon became known, to seize the British bases at Cyprus and Malta. Over the autumn and winter of 1941-2 the south and east of England had been subject to a relentless bombing campaign by the Italians and the Germans, who had also moved along with the Hungarians against Czechoslovakia. Many of the bombers had been fitted with specially adapted ray gun technology, deafening many people who were exposed to the noises emitted.

By the summer of 1942 the British government, now isolated with the continent under fascist domination and the Americans only proving a trickle of unofficial and unreliable support, was forced to come to an agreement with the Italians. Cyprus, Malta, Palestine, Transjordan, the Suez Canal Zone, British Somaliland and parts of British East Africa along the border with Italian East Africa would be ceded and Britain would relinquish all influence over Egypt, which would now be an Italian puppet state.

With his dream now realised, Mussolini proclaimed the creation of the New Roman Empire and reorganised the Empire into provinces based on those of antiquity.

The map shows the situation in the 1960s. With the Second Great European War now over the New Roman Empire and its allies - fellow fascist states and others under more traditional authoritarian conservative regimes such as Spain, Portugal, Romania, Poland and the Baltic states - enjoy near dominance over Europe and Africa. The threat of communism looms large on the eastern horizon however with the recent Soviet-sponsored coup in Iran that overthrew the Shah and established the Socialist Republic of Iran, making it just the latest Asian country to fall to communism. This fear and opposition to communism is one of the things that binds the far-right regimes together and also ensures American support. Relationships with the US are strained however over the issue of independence, with the US advocating the creation of new liberal democracies as the best way to combat the threat of communism while the European countries (including Britain) maintain that only their continued 'guardianship' will prevent the spread of socialism.

Only 'independent' countries are labelled. All the abbreviations should be obvious with the exception of TS which are the Trucial States. 'Other States' includes conservative dictatorships, traditional monarchies and other non-democratic but neither fascist nor socialist regimes. Cameroon and Togo were returned to Germany.

The first oscillators, or crudely “earthquake machines” were devised by the Romanian scientist Nikola Tesla in the late 19th century on the basis of mechanical resonation. The concept consists basically of a simple handheld vibrating assembly, no bigger than an alarmclock, that worked on the principle of matching a frequency so that any object can be shook to pieces. The technology, acquired and suppressed for several decades by the United States government, were taken out of mothballs during the Second World War. With the full funding of the US government and the help of hordes of engineers, the project known as Poseidon developed ever stronger and more precise reactions until finally it achieved its greatest success in the stimulation of an artificial earthquake at a Richter scale of 8.6 that lasted for a good 15 minutes in an evacuated region of northern Baja California, Mexico.*

It had been discovered that while it was possible to simulate earthquakes of smaller magnitudes in many locations, stimulation of earthquakes in excess of 8.5 could only be accomplished along the edges of the earth’s tectonic plates. This made the device, however, a readily useable weapon against Japan. For four horrifying days in August, earthquakes constantly wracked the cities and countryside of Japan, damaging industry and killing hundreds of thousands across the country. The tactic was to maintain low level earthquakes across wide areas while concentrating bursts of sudden activity in excess of 8.5 on the richter scale in key industrial areas. The campaign of terror led to a rapid surrender for the Japanese.

The Soviets, though they were soon aware of the limitations of the weapon through their spy network, were unable to replicate the effects until 1952 (though some have claimed that the Soviets had tested a weapon as early as 1949, but this is disputed). For a number of years, the US was comfortable with it’s sole control over the technology. So much so, that the problem began that natural occurences of earth tremors almost always led to political repercussions. In 1950, a devastating earthquake in the Assam/Tibet region was interpreted by the Chinese as a US challenge to their claims over Tibet. Cowed, they entered into negotiations with the United Kingdom and India to establish a “sphere of influence” over the country, but soon realised that they had misinterpreted the situation. Spite and anger helped to push the Chinese into supporting the North in the Choson war (then known as the Korean war).

Other states one by one adapted the technology for themselves: the United Kingdom, France and China being the first. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union had the upper hand in many situations as the United States was far more vulnerable to oscillator attacks then the Soviet Union. This led to a number of strategic methods of reducing Soviet advantage, such as the basing of most of the US Pacific naval strength on the eastern coast of Australia and Pacific islands far from the edges of the tectonic plate. It was soon acknowledged, however, that a total war using oscillation weapons would likely have dire effects on the planetary mantle. A strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction emerged, as the threat of a global war cracking the earth’s mantle and destroying all life on earth forced the superpowers to restrain themselves. Most post apocalyptic films of the period involved a devastating global war flooding with world with magma, turning the oceans to steam and accelerating continental drift to ridiculous levels.

The problem with MAD, of course, was that of natural earthquakes, particularly large ones. There was no way of distinguising a naturally occurring event from one manmade. Thus, events such as the Prince William Sound earthquake led to a huge political crisis that pushed the world to the brink of WW3, while the catastrophic destruction of the Aswan Dam was blamed by the West on natural forces despite the fact that it likely saved the state of Israel from destruction at the hands of the People’s Republic of Egypt. Even smaller events, such as the 7.5 Richter earthquake in the Tangshan region of China, had political implications (the Gang of Four were able to quash internal opposition by exploiting a popular belief that foreign forces were responsible for the quake.)

Today, the ability to detect oscillations and technology that can distinguish natural events from artificial ones by means of measuring more subtle vibrations from global positions has begun to reduce international tensions. Increasing economic interdependence between the Soviet Union and the United States and the need to deal with a disintegrating China has also played a large role. However, there remain thousands of oscillators in existance, and a number of ex-Chinese devices have gone missing. Meanwhile, geologists have noted that the rate of continental drift seems to have increased and to be increasing exponentially, though many political commentators have dismissed these claims as bogus science.

All oscillation or natural earthquake events marked on this map are those in excess of 8.5

*In this timeline, the atomic bomb was never invented, and though the concept exists it is largely scoffed at. Along with cheap and clean “nuclear power” it is considered pseudoscience. Books with titles like “Einstein’s Bomb” can be found in bookstores next to works of parapsychology and UFO studies.

Despite many scientist voicing concerns, in 2020 the US military constructed an Anitineuton Scatebrous Biotermination Device on the Pacific island of Guam. The ‘benefit’ of such a device is that in theory it would vaporise human beings and animals but leave unscathed building and land. The concerns were that due to the resonancing variotronic nature of the dispersal field it would be impossible to limit the weapon’s effects to a specific area.

The minute amount of antimatter/antineutron was kept in check by a globe of extremely powerful electromagnets. The builders were certain removal of the globe would not result in activation but rather in the passive destruction of the antineutron. The globe was essential, they claimed, to retain the antineutron at the heart of the device intact until it could be ‘activated’ by the detonation of a comparatively small mount of conventional explosive.

On July 4, 2021, while most of the military were celebrating Independence Day, a rodent chewed through part of the electricity supply … the electromagnets failed … and the device activated. Instantly, antineutron resonances began to circle the globe, Guam to Antarctica, Antarctica to the Arctic, the Arctic to Guam. In 9 giant swathes all animal and human life vanished from the surface of the Earth within those bands.

But, as can be seen from the map, not all the earth was affected – western Europe, the north western part of Africa plus a sliver along its equatorial/south eastern coast, Greenland, north eastern Canada and the USA, many Caribbean Islands and the whole of South America were left as before.

Unfortunately, the scientists were not only wrong about how the device could be activated but also about its after effects. Although the device was no more, within each affected band there remained a terrible effect for humans – entering a band would cause instant annihilation. The weakest bands, it was predicted, would retain this strange quality for about 100 years while within the strong band it would not abate for approximately 500 years.

The survivors faced a monumental task … but that is another story.

Dr. Mashirito’s teleportation device proved somewhat useless as a means of transportation, since objects sent point-to-point within the earth’s atmosphere tended to suffer massive internal damage as a result of some of their molecules occupying the same space as air molecules, dust particles, etc., after the object – living or otherwise – finished rotating through the tau dimension.

However, it soon proved a very efficient weapon, which Japan rather desperately needed in the spring of 1945. Although it strained available electrical capabilities, it proved possible to rotate a 10-ton chunk of iron...which when appearing in solid rock made a quite satisfying bang. Some weeks later, a couple dozen of its cities pockmarked with 200-foot craters, the US sued for terms.

Although some of the more fanatical members of the army and government wanted a US and Soviet unconditional surrender, cooler heads prevailed: war-battered Japan was in no shape to carry out an occupation of such huge and well-armed countries, and indeed it was uncertain how long Japan could hold out if the enemies dispersed their populations and just kept fighting: after all, it was almost impossible to target ships at sea with airplane spotters and patchy radio, and hitting a submarine or a moving plane was at the time absurd.

In the end, the US was forced to withdraw east of Hawaii, carrying out an evacuation on a massive scale (few Japanese Hawaiians were willing to stay, to the surprise of more pallid folk), while the British were forced to withdrawn west of India, where a Japanese-backed government led by Subhas Chandra Bhose soon came to power (Gandhi ended up dying in a rather suspicious car accident). The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was forced to withdraw west of Lake Baikal.

An atom bomb was detonated on a small Japanese offshore island in August, demonstrating that the Americans had their own super-weapon. Although the Japanese could have inflicted far more damage than the US, with its tiny bomb-production capacity at the time, the Japanese leadership did not know that, and it put an end to plans for further impositions and demands on the US, especially after a second bomb proved the first explosion was not a one-off.

The US atom bomb also led to compromise in Europe: although under Japanese pressure US and Soviet forces withdrew from the territory of Japan’s German and Italian allies, pressures to restore the German empire of early ’41 were ignored: not that this could have been accomplished in any event without the active cooperation of the now armed and belligerent French. (Indeed, it was only with difficulty that the Germans were able to prevent a communist takeover in Italy).

The US and Soviet union were essentially allied against Japan from 1945-1960, by which time rapid growth in the Soviet atomic arsenal and increasingly noisy competition for influence in the decolonizing third world, plus basically irresolvable ideological differences led to a split-up as painful as that between China and the USSR OTL.

In the meantime, after a decade of trial and error, and the aid of German rocket scientists, Japan in 1956 successfully put the sunburst flag on the Moon, having had to worry only about the last 500 miles of the trip on the way out.

***************************************************

In the year 1976, the Japanese Empire is considered, in combination with its allies, the world’s greatest power, although still outperformed by the US economically. Although the USSR and the US both have massive, planet-killing nuclear arsenals, Japan still has the fundamental advantage, besides its untouchable space-based second strike capacity, in that it can attack _instantly_ anywhere on the planet, and both the US and USSR have therefore invested far more in mobile missile carriers, atomic bombers constantly in the air, and missile subs at sea. Earth orbit is full of spying Japanese space bases and satellites (and smaller but still respectable numbers of US and USSR ones) and paranoia is a constant in the three-way cold war that currently exists.

Japan rules East Asia either through civilian "colonial" rule, through puppet regimes (Pu Yi was “promoted” from puppet ruler of Manchuria to that of China proper in 1949), or in case of the Chinese east coast, closely integrated into the Japanese economy, through a mix of military fiefdoms and civilian rule. Rebellion is common, and put down with extreme ruthlessness: the destruction of entire cities is not unknown, since there is far less atomic radiation produced that in nuclear explosions of comparable effect. There are rather more Japanese than OTL, large families being a matter of patriotic duty (and failure to be patriotic brings the attention of the Kempeitai).

Japan also rules outer space, having sent men to all the planets and moons, and has sent automated probes to the stars (only receiving messages back from the nearer ones so far, since although the passage is instant from the “viewpoint” of the rotated object, it is still limited by light-speed from the viewpoint of the outside universe).

Siberia, Australia and New Zealand have been slowly cleansed of round-eyes and resettled with Japanese: on the positive side, immigrants have strengthened the British Commonwealth relative to OTL: on the down side, they have also extended white rule in Kenya and South Africa, which is becoming increasingly an embarrassment to the US and its allies (some South Africans are talking alliance with Japan if the US and UK keep poking them on the Kaffir thing, but so far such talk is nixed by voters who came from Australia and New Zealand).

The US and a reduced Western Europe form a closer union than OTL, a true “Atlantic community”: US manufacturers complain about competition from French automobile-builders rather than Japanese ones. Albania, Yugoslavia, and Finland are all tightly within the Soviet grip, while rump Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have been assimilated outright: the US turned a blind eye to Soviet activity in Eastern Europe while they were allies vs. the Japanese Menace, although they did nix the Communization of Greece.

The USSR, the weakest of the Big Three, is currently being wooed by both the Japanese and the US to join/rejoin their alliance: the cunning SOB who presently holds the Secretary-General seat plays both off against each other in hopes of getting the best deal for his nation: oil prices are lower than OTL 1976, and the Soviet economy is beginning to get a bit sluggish, although the situation is not as yet desperate.

The Germans are currently run by an alliance between the army and the National Rebirth party, a coalition of right-wing groups including a lot of relabeled Nazis: Hitler failed to live to see the Japanese victory, and most Germans were uninterested in fully restoring the vision of the man who had led them to disaster. Some, indeed, are beginning to (quietly) suggest that they do what the Italians did and dump their alliance with the Japanese: Germans are annoyed at the Japanese failure to share their teleportation technology (Germany is stuck with a mere nuclear arsenal), and if they are doomed to be junior partners with someone, it might as well be the (mostly white) Americans.

Meanwhile, in a lab somewhere in New Mexico, a steel ball bearing has just disappeared from one evacuated chamber and appeared in another some twenty feet away...

Bruce

The beginning of the 20th century saw significant developments in science and technology, though it would take some decades for them to reach fruition. Some of these would have unforeseen, and occasionally disastrous consequences.

As the world once again feared the start of another war, perhaps greater than the Great War itself, scientists from the various great powers began investing in new technologies to help them fight it.

Finally, the war came in 1939, when Adolf Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland.

The so-called Blitzkrieg was aptly named, for the Wehrmacht’s armour divisions weren’t only equipped with gunpowder weapons- the so-called Sturmpanzers were equipped with powerful electrical weapons, capable of killing several soldiers in a single volley, or melting the armour of most tanks.

And so, the Western Allies brought their own new technologies to bear. Eventually, most of Europe and the Mediterranean saw battles between armies armed with heat rays, concentrated magnetic beams and Teslanic lightning generators, borne by tanks and humanoid robots alike. Some of the aerial battles resembled naval ones, as Allied and Axis floating aircraft carriers and aerial gunships clashed against each other.

However, not all of these advances were entirely based on science…

With the war running year after year with no end in sight, in 1942 the Americans and Germans independently developed a bizarre fusion of science and the occult, creating a powerful, unnaturally violent combustion.

As the Russians pushed the Germans back into Poland, Warsaw, Lodz and even Posen were razed with this “super-caloric” fire, which buckled metal and cracked masonry over dozens of square miles, consuming all it its wake.

With the war in the east being won by the overwhelming might of Britain and the US, the Americans sought a quick way to end the war. After several years perfecting the “super-caloric” fire, they dropped huge quantities over Berlin and Dresden.

Too much…

The quantity was so great that both explosions reached a critical mass, blazing out of control for over a week, turning hundreds of square miles into ash and dust.

Unfortunately, there was an unintended side affect.

Suspecting the Allies of trying something, Himmler and co broke open the magic books and tried to summon a demon army to help them. However, it was too late – the energy from the fire destabilised the summoning, causing the eldritch creatures to turn on their “masters”.

Desperate, the German forces in the west offered surrender- allowing the Western Allies to surge through Europe in time to hold the demon invasion. Meanwhile, Stalin ordered his troops to double time it into Germany itself to do the same.

Now the year in 1971, and the Fomorians have been contained within eastern Germany, stuck behind the Exclusion Zone.

At least, for now…

And the map:

During World War 2, Ernest Scribbler heads a secret department at Bletchley Park. He is discovered at his desk, quite dead, with a single note written in front of him in German. This death is naturally suspicious, and he is immediately suspected of being a spy. The note is read by translators at the facility, fluent in German just like scribbler, who immediately begin laughing uncontrollably. Hearing or reading this Joke results in the deaths of almost a tenth of native German speakers, half that number if they are fluent in German as a second language, and half that again of those who have some level of conversational German. Even those with barely functional German, or those who speak it and survives are incapacitated once they get it, sometimes for hours or days, in fits of laughter. Once the Joke has been heard, the survivors are constantly sensitive to it. Anything that reminds them of it, even the sound of laughter, reduces them to hysterics once again. It is estimated to be around 60,000 times funnier than the greatest pre-war joke.

The War was almost over. It was now only a matter of time, as the Allies advance on Germany from the east, the Soviets, and the west, the British and the Americans. Britain had in her hands a weapon that is devastatingly effective, and yet only effective against a single enemy, German speakers, that they will likely never fight again. So the decision to deploy the joke is highly political, an attempt to show they are still powerful on the world stage.

It is deployed in late 1944, spreading quickly across Germany, reaching the Soviet lines to the east in only four weeks. It is even more effective than during trials, millions still die as they suffer cardiac arrests, suffocate or starve due to the incapacity of infrastructure or inability to feed themselves, due to incessant laughter. Allied forces are able to quickly move into the affected areas, and occupy Germany effectively.

In the years following, it is obvious this attack has left a scar in the German language itself. Despite attempts to keep it under control, sporadical outbreaks of laughter still occur, apparently affecting even those German speakers who have not heard the joke. More than a dozen major fits of laughter have affected the German speakers since, and even spread to some related languages. Those who have heard it are left on the edge of a jocular reaction, having to maintain strict control so as not to laugh. It has also left a scar on the British collective psyche, being responsible for the deaths of millions of German speakers in one month, followed by almost a million deaths in the years that follow, and the disability of tens of millions.

This is a map from late 1950, almost sixty years ago, and shows the front line as of deployment of the Joke, the progress of the Joke in week-long intervals, the proposed linguistic zones, current state of the Jokes effects, and major outbursts since the initial deployment. Currently, the German language is considered to be a dead language, as most parents refused to allow their children to learn the now contaminated tongue. Since that day, further attempts to create jokes as powerful as the Joke have failed. Other Germanic speakers can 'get' variants, a tool that is used in riot control or hostage situations in some parts of the English speaking world, but none create the kind of self-sustaining action as the original. Germany and German culture as it was before is utterly eliminated. 'Bizonia', or more correctly the German Federal Republic, is an English speaking nation; Allemagne, Rhenanie, Austria and Switzerland are primarily French speaking nations, with significant Italian speaking communities, tightly aligned politically and economically with France herself, the Netherlands has expanded to include portions of former Germany, Dutch speaking, and vulnerable to outbreaks of laughter, and the eastern portions of Germany have been absorbed into Poland proper, speaking Polish and Russian.

On September 1st, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. On September 3rd, 1939, France and the United Kingdom declared war.

By October 6th, 1939, Poland was defeated and the Nazis and Soviets divided and annexed Poland.

On January 4th, 1940, the Ultimate Weapon, the Bomba Vulcanica, was tested for the first time. Italian bombers dropped 3 bombs into the ocean a few thousand kilometers off of the coast of Portugal. Exactly 3 hours later, 703 volcanic eruptions and a magnitude 10.23 (on the Richter Scale) earthquake occurred in the region, causing a painful death to nearby sea life, ships and their crew. Cities in Portugal and the Azores were far away enough to only receive moderate damage. These eruptions and earthquakes lasted until January 21st, 1940, however small eruptions continue to this day. By then, an entirely new archipelago had risen out of the Atlantic, named the Arcipelago Infernale.

It is assumed that the simply-named Bomba Vulcanica was in development for several years beforehand.

Newspapers worldwide said it was a natural event. Many people across the world suspected it was the action of some government, some weapon.

In mid-February, Italy shared the secrets of a very toned-down Bomba Vulcanica with Germany and Japan. It was a replacement for ordinary explosives. By December, Germany and Japan had developed grenades, bombs, and artillery shells that, along with an explosion, created a rapidly expanding chasm that reached down to the upper mantle and was half a meter wide on average. Due to pressure lava shot out. The grenades saw little use due to the danger they posed to troops. The bombs and artillery shells allowed Germany and Japan to utterly wreck enemy cities and bases with their volcanic and seismic power.
When large amounts of the toned-down Bomba Vulcanicas were dropped, they could cause significant volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, however, singly, they caused earthquakes that were barely felt, their main effects being the chasms. Using large amounts of bombs seemed to be more effective than creating a bigger bomb, and the amount of bombs exponentially increased the effect. (hey, it's ASB anyway). However, the earthquakes always covered a small area.

On March 5th, 1940, Germany first used the toned-down Bomba Vulcanica (outside of a test anyway) when they declared war on Denmark and Norway. 20 bombs were dropped on Copenhagen and 20 on Oslo. The two nations soon surrendered as their capitals were partly plunged into the earth, partly destroyed by earthquakes, and partly melted away by lava.

On March 7th, Italy plunged (full power) Bomba Vulcanicas, 2 each on Zagreb, Athens, Thessaloniki, Sofia, Tirana Istanbul, and Ankara. Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey surrendered.

The much more powerful Italian Bomba Vulcanica raised eyebrows in Germany. Mussolini and the rest of the Italian government gave no answers. When German spies were caught trying to steal the Italian Bomba Vulcanica, the issue seemed to fade away.

On March 24th, Allied spies attempted to steal an Bomba Vulcanica from Germany with no success.

The Allies launched a massive assault into Germany and Italy starting April 1st, seeing as it was their only real chance.
They had some success until April 4th, 1940, when Italy unleashed the most powerful version of the Bomba Vulcanica at that time on Orleans (Orleans was chosen rather than Paris, because if Paris was bombed, German cities would be damaged.) 40% of France was ruined by volcanic and seismic activity. It is unknown how many people died.

The United Kingdom surrendered as soon as Orleans was bombed.

Soon, all of Afro-Eurasia fell to the Axis. Persia was smart enough to join the Axis.

In 1943, Germany and Japan developed a version of the Bomba Vulcanica that was as strong as the Italian version. The United States either acquired or independently developed the Bomba Vulcanica in 1950, to this day it is not known.

The population of the Arcipelago Infernale today is roughly 500,000. 10% of the world's Jews and Slavs, roughly 2,000 people, live on the smallest island, highly guarded. The other 90% have escaped to the United States and Canada.

Now in 2010, Italy, Germany, and Japan control 70% of the Earth's land area.

The following map was made in 1953, showing Italy and its 'loyal allies' (puppets), as well as Germany and Persia.