Red Scare

This map is essentially 'Cold War-punk'. With '50s giant mutants, paranoia about communists, aliens and robots. 

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The World:2000

The Third World War eventually ground down into a brutal stalemate, roughly along the pre-war Iron Curtain. Following the rather worrying results of unrestrained atomic combat during the 1962 attempted Soviet drive on Hamburg, no nuclear weapons have since been deployed in the main European theatre of war (even if one still occasionally goes off in the rest of the planet). The front is a broken mass of poisoned and irradiated (Atomic powered-tanks make one hell of a mess when they get destroyed) dirt, utterly contaminated. Troops do not permanently dwell in the battle zone, unlike in the First World War, but instead only move in either during an offensive or in response to an enemy offensive. Those troops, both of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, wear heavy suits to protect them from the poison lingering in the air and the worst of the radioactivity. Hulking tanks, not much changed from their counterparts when the war began (Britain still uses Conqueror heavy tanks almost exclusively in Europe) provide fire support for the troops and jet fighters identical to those from the 50’s duel over the blasted battlefields. However although there are nearly constant skirmishes and small offensives along the front, the vast majority of troops remain in pre-assault positions far behind the lines. There they will be ready to exploit any chink in the armour of the other side, or react to any collapse of their own forward units. In their respective bunkers in Warsaw and Brussels, Marshall Putin of the STAVKA and SACEUR Thatcher constantly run drills for an uncontrolled nuclear exchange, hoping that they will never need to test them for real.

The world is divided into two blocks, those of Democracy (Rather authoritarian, paranoid and occasionally a bit military-dictatorship-ey; but still mostly democracy) and those of Communism. But within these two alliances there are three distinct powers that stand above the rest; and two that stand above even their fellow great powers. The leader of the Allied Powers is the United States of America, which now stretches from the Yucatan to Japan and is possibly the most technologically advanced nation on earth. Not that this changes the fact that most US troops are issued with M14’s, the L.A.S.E.R weapons only being given to the most elite soldiers in the Army. That army resembles that which fought in the Korean Campaign which started this entire damn mess, aside from the usual necessity of wearing a full NBC bodysuit to fight in the average battlefield of WWIII. It is also huge, devoted to fighting both the land wars in Europe and Asia, but also waging the eternal island-hopping campaign in the Pacific and fighting various internal menaces in America itself. Battleships, although supplanted somewhat by Aircraft carriers, remain a key part of the USN and RN. Although of course they bristle with surface-to-air missiles and fire low-yield Atomic shells these days, and are primarily used to support amphibious attacks. Aircraft range from the conventional (B-52s and MIGs) to the odd (Valkyries and Harriers) to the utterly mad (Soviet ATOMIC POWERED bombers). There are also manned (and stocked with atomic weapons) spacecraft in orbit.

American society (Like the rest of the worlds) is pretty much a carbon copy of the 40’s and 50’s, if with some changes to cope with the seemingly endless struggle with the Red Menace (Capitalised as per the “Existential dread of Communism” bill of 1972). Society remains unquestioningly religious, concerned with keeping up appearances and incredibly paranoid (But when hordes of murderous Communists really are trying to take over the world, is this really that unreasonable?). That is not to say that society has not evolved over the century, just in forms rather different to OTL. The sexual revolution never happened, but given the demands of perpetual war a female emancipation still did. Women-only units of the Army have been employed since the 70’s (The Air Force is particularly keen on female fighter pilots, because they think they have “faster reflexes”. Yay for 50’s pseudoscience!) and women have been increasingly making inroads into the corridors of political power as well. Similarly only a very few American states persist with segregation (North Carolina we are looking at you); since the whole “occasional alien invasion” thing makes racism seem a bit silly (Pretoria would disagree, but screw them). This is not to say that the US is utopian, indeed it is a very paranoid state with multiple competing intelligence agencies (The FBI for organised crime and communists, the CIA for sniffing out reds abroad, the Un-American Affairs Bureau for any communist-related problem not covered by the first two and Majestic-12 for Alien invaders) all trying to ensure American security in the face of multiple nebulous threats. There is also the problem of said threats, and their rampaging across multiple areas of the Empire of Liberty. That Empire also includes Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as protectorates and annexed Mexico in the late 60’s (Too many aliens and communists). It also includes the Spacecraft of the United States Space Agency and Lunar colonies of Moon Command (Which incidentally house Atomic Rockets designed to bombard the Soviet Union). Given the ever-present risk of the atomic escalation of WWIII, as well as the myriad threats of mutants and aliens, the USA has invested heavily in underground cities (So have the Soviets and Chinese, but the British just encourage people to move to Australia). These self-sufficient all-American communities/armaments factories are designed to keep the United States functioning in the event of an uncontrolled Atomic exchange with the Reds, allowing the survivors to prepare for the inevitable resumption of the war the moment the radiation dies down a bit (no mineshaft gap here).

The United States main Great Power allies are the exhaustively named British Empire and Commonwealth and the European Coal and Steel Community. Britain, in world where America was desperate for as much of the world to remain anti-red as possible; and as such did not object when Britain kicked Nasser in the teeth (And also didn’t ask for vast amounts of Gold during an economic depression) is doing much better. As a result the British Empire had time to recover, and is now alive, well and fairly (though politely) ferocious. Britain and her Dominions remain closely associated (All the Dominions flags are variations on the red, white or blue ensigns) and Canada and Australia host large British military bases (Lots of Blue Streaks hosted in northern Canada and Western Australia). British and Commonwealth forces have two crucial roles in the NATO alliance, beyond the mandatory commitment to the European front (which is lower however, than that borne by the Europeans and Americans) Firstly they help supplement the US navy with their own formidable naval forces and secondly they are NATO’s prime enforcer in Africa, the Middle East and Southern Asia. Britain’s African colonies and dominions produce a vast amount of manpower, supplanting now-independent India as Britain’s main source of vast mercenary armies. The RAF also contributes to generally making the life of Soviet transport troops hell, sending in V-bombers to regularly smash Pactist roads and railways with precision carpet bombing and (of course) precision low-yield ATOMIC WEAPONS. Britain also runs a Space Programme, by far the largest of any non-Superpower effort (The British occupying an awkward halfway house between a mere Great Power and a true Superpower), in collaboration with the Dominions. British and Commonwealth society is fairly similar to its American counterpart, except with the addition of fervent Monarchism, near-religious worship of tea and cricket and a propensity to get violent when things are spelt incorrectly.

The European Coal and Steel Community is the product of three things. Utopianism, laziness and ex-fascists. Utopianism set it up, laziness resulted in the name remaining the same even when it became a US of Europe and ex-fascists ended up staffing much of its military in the early days. Of course, most of the Fascists are dead by now but their legacy remains in the cut of European army uniforms and their general attitude towards the Reds (WHY AREN’T WE NUKING THEM YET). Dominated by the French (combined the W. Germans and Italians can overrule them however) they retain a few bits of colonial territory around the globe (not as much as the British though, being the main vanguard against communism is a bit distracting); however the real authority in the ECSC is the High Authority. Centred in Luxembourg City, how the members of the unelected Authority are selected is a closely guarded secret (they are actually a boringly pedantic group of technocrats, but this sounds cooler). Europe is dedicated towards one single goal, smashing the forces of the Warsaw Pact and occupying Eastern Europe. Virtually the entire European military is stationed in the East, although it is considerably less mechanised than its Soviet opponent. While the Americans use L.A.S.E.R rifles (some of them anyway) and the British are skipping around with bullpups the average soldier of Europe is equipped with boringly conventional technology. However Europe does posses a few super-weapons, most notably its absolutely huge (and virtually unusable) Cobalt Jacketed Bombs. Tested only once, in what was once French West Africa, the effects of this humungous Hydrogen Bomb were horrific. A plume of radioactive dust annihilated all life for hundreds of miles downwind of the explosion, which was itself the largest in the history. Of course the fact that the bomb was the size of a large building, and the fact that any use of it in Europe to break the stalemate would end up devastating most of the continent, does limit its military effectiveness somewhat. But the Europeans keep a one or two dissembled, ready to be put back together anywhere Luxembourg City wants. Just in case.

Their primary enemy is of course the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the dark heart of international communism. The Soviet Union is a highly mechanised tyranny, in which the activities of every single citizen are planned and monitored by the state. This technocratic turn has helped the Soviet economy continue to cope with demands of perpetual war (the fact that producing vast amounts of armaments is the only thing the Soviet economy is actually good at is a happy circumstance) even if the Chinese do mutter about “deviationism”. The cult of Stalin remains firmly intact, Premiers Molotov, Kaganovich, Cherdenko and Davidova not really seeing much need to change what remains a key motivator for the Soviet people (Stalin comes and gives presents to all good little socially-useful Soviet children every non-religious, arbitrarily-chosen mandatory winter celebration date). And of course the KGB is always watching. Although computers remain bulky, it is still easy enough to install a few cameras in the many communal areas in which Soviet citizens are required to frequent (Canteens, dormitories etc). The USSR leads the world in experiments of a sanity-defying nature, frequently necessitating the creation of Zones of Alienation. The most infamous of these is the Zone surrounding the Aral Sea, and the soviet facility on Rebirth Island. NATO orbital reconnaissance have noted a large concrete pyramid at the centre of the complex, surrounded by inward-facing fortifications. Whatever the hell is imprisoned in it, the Soviets refuse to say. However given that they have stationed around 50,000 troops from the KGB, equipped with heavy armour and nuclear artillery, around it; it probably isn’t anything good.

The second most important member of the Warsaw Pact is the Peoples Republic of China, which dominates the far East. If the USSR is communism as stultifying industrial tyranny, then the PRC is communism as a largely agrarian “permanent revolution”. However Various Great Leaps Forward (capitalization is very important) have given China enough of a war industry to supply its vast conscript armies, at the cost of about a hundred million lives. The Peoples Liberation Army is by far the largest army in the world, outstripping even the Soviets and Americans. However it is also one of the least technologically advanced of the great-power armies, with most Red Guard militiamen equipped with little more than a primitive submachine gun or bolt-action rifle. The actual PLA itself is a bit better equipped, with AK-style weaponry nearly identical to that carried by much of the Red Army. China one real technical advantage lies in its Special Forces, which are probably the best in the world (The SAS and the North Korean Special Forces dispute this). Vast numbers of soldiers undergo brutal training programmes in the Gobi desert every year, the survivors of which are inducted to the Special Forces. Chinese Commandos are infiltrators par excellence, capable of slipping behind enemy lines and wreaking havoc. Within that vast force of commandos are the elite of the elite, the Crimson Dragoons. Equipped with stealth armour (It bends light, somehow) they are capable of turning virtually invisible for short periods; enabling them to launch devastating ambushes, seemingly from nowhere. China also operations a large experimental facility in Manchuria, in which they test their brain-washing and indoctrination techniques. In addition to helping their Socialist comrades with unruly populations (Having found things much more effective than fluoride to put in the water) they also programme POW’s into a whole range of options. From assassins to spies, they will be totally unaware of their programming, until it comes into force upon hearing a pre-programmed password.

The Warsaw Pact’s third large member is not really a communist state at all, but a nationalist state forged in the fires of the confrontation. However they are bitter enemies of the British and Americans, and as such has aligned themselves with the USSR and China in order to get a good supply of weapons. Despite the name Maiphilindo is an Indonesian empire, run from Jakarta, by Jakarta, for Jakarta. Miaphilindo wages perpetual war at its island peripheries, mostly against the British (who wish to avenge the humiliation of the second fall of Singapore). The slums of Indonesia are regularly scoured for new recruits, who are then given a crudely manufactured assault rifle and sent off to die in the sweltering jungle. As the main area of the jungle under the control of the Warsaw Pact, Indonesia is full of Soviet and Chinese biological warfare facilities. Occasionally, of course, the resultant creations escape and go on a blood-curdling rampage. Or infect a few isolated villages, depending on what kind of gene-forged mutant escapes. Whatever the resultant horror, Indonesia is not a particularly nice place to live.

Of course progress has its costs, in this case the worryingly large numbers of mutant monstrosities and other products of mad science rampaging across the globe. The most widespread of these are the Triffids, the USSR’s effort at using SCIENCE! to create a single cash crop capable of meeting all the USSR’s food oil needs. As a result they grow quickly in most climates, produce extremely large amounts of airborne seeds, and are ambulatory, intelligent, venomous and carnivorous. The failure of the Soviets to contain the dandelion-like seeds (It turns out that just reclassifying the area above the farms as a No-fly Zone was not enough to stop the seeds spreading) has unfortunately resulted in these plants infesting large areas of the Soviet bloc, with Africa also suffering from increasing growths of these malevolent plants. When various Soviet allies and neutrals suffering from Triffid infestations complain to the Soviet Ministry of Experimental Sciences about this, they huffily respond “Well we can all have the benefit of hindsight!”

However the Soviets do not have a monopoly on crazed biological experimentation. Operation Lazarus began innocently enough; well as innocently as any US army run project to regenerate maimed soldiers limbs by means of experimenting on alligators can be. The aim of the project was to utilise the incredible regenerative abilities of many reptiles to re-grow soldier’s limbs, enabling them to be sent back to the front. It was going brilliantly, apart from the somewhat greenish look of the new limbs. Or the subjects ravenous hunger for raw meat. Or the other crocodilian features spreading across their bodies. Or the fact that the condition seemed to be spread by biting. Or the fact that several of the resultant monstrosities escaped into nearby waterways and have spread across the Deep South like a plague. The resultant “Gatormen” look humanish at first, but as they take on injuries their regenerative abilities go out of control. Some of the earliest of these mutants are now hulking and heaving masses of reptilian tissue, with multiple limbs and heads, those heads covered with clusters of slitted yellow eyes and multiple slavering jaws. Florida is not a popular place to retire in this United States.

The baleful influence of radioactivity is also responsible for the creation of numerous accidental mutant monstrosities, the most stable two breeds of which are Them(!) and the Mushroom Monsters. They(!) are a breed of mutated ants, whose respiratory systems have become considerably more sophisticated than their microscopic brethren. This allows them to grow much, much larger than their non-mutant counterparts. The average one of Them(!) is around 3 meters in height, with jaws capable of crushing bone and mouthparts which spray blinding clouds of concentrated formic acid. This breed began their life in western Arizona, altered by fallout drifting east from the US’s testing grounds in Nevada. They(!) now infest the majority of the state, and have begun to spread into California and New Mexico. The US military is trying to burn Them(!) out, but Arizona is probably lost with most of the population concentrated in a few, heavily defended cities (although the danger of the bugs tunnelling in is ever present). Some military planners are thinking about detonating atomic weapons underground, in a bid to cause tunnel-collapsing earthquakes. Others have suggested that trying to solve something caused by atomic radiation with more atom bombs is a rather bad idea.

Meanwhile, spreading relentlessly across the Pacific, carried by spores on birds or ships, are the Mushroom Monsters. They are a parasitic species, originating following a rather large hydrogen bomb test in Micronesia (although some have suggested that they evolved naturally on a very remote island). They are possibly the most invasive species in the history of the planet, taking over every single element of an ecosystem by either hyper-aggressive growth or by ‘assimilation’. The fungus incorporates other organisms at the cellular level, altering the victims DNA and incorporating its physiology into its own. Although the immune system is usually capable of defeating the occasional stray spore; prolonged contact with fungal spores (or eating one of the Mushroom Monsters fruiting bodies) is normally enough to assimilate most forms of animal and vegetable life. Most forms of life become bizarre hybrids, their physiology a cross between the native and the alien. Trees for example retain their structure and ability to photosynthesise and some human victims become humanoid mushrooms, shambling horrors spreading the infection wherever they go. Others just mutate into bloated Mushrooms, fruited bodies emitting vast quantities of spores. It is spreading from island to island, carried by Birds (Bird lands on infected island. Bird eats some fungal growths. Bird flies to new island. Bird turns into large mutant fruiting body. New island is infected. Etc.) Recently the Mushroom Monsters have reached the Philippines and New Guinea, to the considerable panic of both power blocs.

Then there are the horrors of ages past and the remote regions of the world, awoken by atomic explosions, digging too deep or by the voracious demands of the Superpowers for more weapons. The most common of these are the various prehistoric monstrosities, released from their icy/subterranean imprisonment by reckless nuclear testing. One region of the Greenland ice sheet has been abandoned by Anglo-American forces, after attempts to create airbases powered by ATOMIC POWER ended up releasing a specimen of giant (supposedly) extinct mantis. This mantis proved surprisingly cold-resistant and quite good at swimming, and ended up rampaging across large areas of New England before being put down. Following this, all troops were pulled out of the region. They were sent back when submarine-landed KGB troops began deliberately melting the ice. Skirmishes abound across the region, made more interesting by the occasional gigantic insect. Also bit of a problem was the gigantic rampage across Japan by a dinosaur, preserved on a remote island (imagine Skull island, but less Wetas) mutated horribly by a nuclear test. This proved the catalyst for Japan becoming a protectorate of the US. Considerably more unpleasant was the result of the Mushroom Monsters infecting one of these beasts. That took hydrogen bombing to get rid of.

Various monstrosities have also arisen from the depths of swamp and cave. In California vibrations from distant atomic tests have awoken the Gornaxis, prehistoric molluscs buried in caverns below the San Andreas Fault. These monstrous snails (of Doom.) have been overrunning much of the state, and with the US army busy dealing with THEM! There is only the National Guard to deal with them (they aren’t doing very well). There are also the amphibious gill-men, who have emerged from the brackish swamps of the Amazon in response to increased drilling. It is unknown what happens to those whom they drag away to their aquatic lairs (although the general scientific opinion is that it probably isn’t anything good), but with the Brazilian civil war absorbing most people’s attention, they continue to spread without hindrance. 

A more embarrassing horror, which is spreading rapidly across the western US, is that of the Borgia plague. There are many horrible metamorphic ailments in this world of SCIENCE! The Gatormen, the Mushroom Monsters, the crystallising effects of the Monolith Monsters (because alliteration is great), the sheer UGHAGHAGOHDEARGODNO of the Thing and of course the baleful influence of radioactivity. All warp the human form into something disgusting, alien and utterly monstrous. Apart from the Borgia plague, which turns people into dogs. Yes. According to research, it was utilised as a weapon by the Borgia family, hence the name. Whatever its origins it is causing considerable trouble to the United States as it spreads across the Midwest. Indeed the US army has had to begun quarantining entire states and enacting shoot-to-kill orders in order to try and stifle its spread. The Governor of Wyoming claimed in a press conference that it was completely under control, although commentators did argue that her slowly turning into a German shepherd during her speech undermined her credibility somewhat.   

The final, and most existentially terrifying threat, are aliens from beyond the earth. These are surprisingly common in the world of THE YEAR 2000, and pose a significant risk to the continued human occupation of the earth. The most obvious of these alien threats  are the Saucer Men, whose disc-shaped craft occasionally descend in great fleets to ravage human cities (and blow up all of our historic landmarks). Exactly why they do this is unknown, but when combined with their technological supremacy and extremely annoying habit of playing jokes (with death rays) it has made them utterly hated by mankind. The other clearly sentient aliens are the ones whom have colonised the deepest abysses of the sea. From what contacts humanity have been able to make with them (which were conducted by the British, who where delighted to find the aliens enthused by monarchy and competitive sports with rules so arcane that it requires decades of study to understand them) they appear to be relatively benevolent. Regardless plans exist to detonate hydrogen bombs in the ocean depths, but for now mankind has more pressing concerns.

First among these are the monolith monsters, gigantic crystallising monstrosities (as their name suggests) which are spreading worldwide. These stone-like aliens leech nutrients from the surrounding area (or from surrounding people) and spread extremely quickly. They came from meteorites (like the Blob, which has become quite an annoying pest, living in sewers worldwide. They occasionally come back up the U-bend which is fairly unpleasant. Most countries sewer maintenance staff carry flamethrowers) which landed in three locations. California, Northern Siberia and Central Africa. Of these the Californian is the most limited, thanks to intense management and occasionally bombardment with low-yield nuclear weapons (radiation causes the monoliths to ‘mutate’ and screws them up, they are much less efficient and develop strange cancerous growths. Some even disintegrate completely into inert dust); of course this does limit the number of troops available for the other myriad horrors romping over the south-west. The Pod People are also a problem. They keep infiltrating towns worldwide, acting out their victims lives exactly and...well that seems to be it. Indeed if it wasn’t for all the kidnapping, no-one could really notice. Best to just shoot ‘em, just in case. Then of course there is the Thing. As to what it is, no-one can has any idea. Indeed ‘A Thing’ is the closest anyone can get. It seems to be a shape-shifting, extremely aggressive, extremely infectious, capable of mimicking anything and generally seems to be (in the words of the British representative to the UN) “not a terribly nice chap”. It is one of the few points of agreement between the Warsaw Pact and NATO that, if the Thing ever shows any sign of escaping Antarctica, both blocs will put aside their differences (put not their nukes. Their precious, precious nukes) to try KILL IT WITH ATOMIC FIRE!

Till then, the Third World War rages on.