What are you doing right now?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.

[Contradiction]

I know I already kind of replied to this on Tumblr, but I just remembered that I got GO for xmas two years ago.

so much and so little has changed

[EndOfTheEarth]

Considering attacking some schmoe for calling me "infactual and unhelpful" for suggesting that:

1) there is no way in hell that North Korea, even if they conquered South Korea, would ever want to attack China,

2) if North Korea DID attack China, they'd lose horribly.
3) that no one is stupid enough to attack Russia, even if they successfully conquered China. In Naploeon and Hitler couldn't do it starting from Europe, there's no way a North Korean force could do it starting from Vladivostok.

4) That if the capitol of Russia was "accidentally destroyed in a "nuclear assault" then Russia would launch their entire nuclear arsenal, wiping the whole orient from the face of the globe.

5) That the North Koreans are not Fascists in the slightist. They are communists. There's a difference.

6) That if this souped up North Korean empire totally nuked the UK, then the US would respond by nuking everything east of the prime meridian. Especially if nukes have been used already.

7) That the US would NOT wait until they were the only country left before using all their nukes.

8) That if the US did decide to nuke the whole planet and take it seriously. NO ONE would be left alive.

http://www.max-dan-wiz.com/profiles/blogs/the-fifth-world-war-book-one

If any of the rest of you feel like getting into a factual debate.

He's already tried deleting my comment, and I need to walk away from my computer for half an hour to prevent myself from writing anything too opinionated...

[nathan_p]

1 -- dude, you can see yourself in five seconds that they don't even have electricity throughout most of the country. They're very malnourished in general, too. So even if God himself swooped down and gave them the keys to South Korea, they simply would not have the ability to take on the country that, if you kill 10 million men, laughs that shit off and throws 20 million more at you. Huge population was a reason not to fuck with Russia, and it's one not to fuck with China.

2 is also obviously true. See below, but even though China was never in the Cold War situation with us, they do still have nukes and could flatten the capitol of North Korea in, ooh, two seconds.

3 makes me laugh especially hard because Vladivostok is wayyyy out in the boonies of Russia. Even if you go as the crow flies from there to Moscow, that's nearly 10 thousand kilometers to send an army, which is 10 thousand kilometers of opportunity for either Russia or China to give you the smackdown, because you're invading Russia by going through China's airspace or over their territory.

And if you take the Google Maps "go by a goddamn road" method, well, you stay in Russia the whole way, but it's 5 and a half days straight of driving through a godforsaken wasteland (OK, OK, so Siberia can be really pretty, but there is nothing there). That's with no pit stops. Just. Why.

4 also makes me giggle because if North Korea even started on an offensive from Vladivostok after nuking Moscow, Russia would probably be willing to just go "the hell with it" and wipe Vladivostok and the entirety of North Korea off the map. Because Fuck You, that's why. 

Also, if North Korea got lucky and managed to wipe out the entire Russian government by nuking shit, the Dead Hand system would... There are no clever metaphors for how hard it would wreck their shit. And even if Russia is telling the truth and it's been deactivated since 1991, it takes exactly one grunt to turn it back on before dying of radiation poisoning. The rest is entirely computer-controlled. And there are allegations that the Dead Hand was never turned off in the first place. So if a bigass meteor flattened Moscow right this second and mimicked nuclear-attack conditions in some way, Dead Hand would go "beep boop FIRE MISSILES" and kill the shit out of  things.

5, my god, Duh Asshole. Wiki-fucking-pedia will tell you this shit.

6, yyyeeppp. WWII happened. Appeasement? How about go fuck yourself, have some nukes, ps if you keep trying this global domination shit we'll nuke you flat.

7, duh again. We may be all "nuclear disarmament", but man are you kidding? We don't want other countries to have more than a snowball's chance in hell up against us. We want to be able to, if we have to, nuke their entire territory flat, not just the capitol. Someone sets off a nuke against any country, we're there in ten being all "Think again, dick".

8 duhhhhh. Even if you believe that our military is all sunshine and bunnies and we have very few nuclear missiles left, that's still enough to wreck the hell out of shit if anyone looks at us funny. And if you don't believe the sunshine-bunnies, then we have enough to nuke most of Earth flat. And then some.

Let me remind you: at one time, the guy with the codes to our nukes had this view of nuclear war against the Soviets:

Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win!

He literally said this. And while he's the reason why we have actual codes instead of "General Power, please push the button", I don't doubt that if shit hit the fan, a lot of people would go to his point of view: they nuked the UK flat, OK, we'll nuke everything flat. 

So essentially this guy could smash his face against a history textbook or his dick into a John Ringo novel and by osmosis pick up more than he knows about history or war. Because what this asshole knows about either of those things you could shove up a gnat's asshole and have rattle around like a pea in a tin can.

[nathan_p]

Oh yeah. And incidentally, if the hand of the Lord came down from on high and personally assisted North Korea in defeating China, Russia, and South Korea, and then personally helped them nuke the UK, the UK also has a fail-deadly system similar to Dead Hand. It's called "they have four nuclear submarines carrying nuclear missiles which, in the event of the prime minister's death, have a 50/50 chance of being given the option to nuke the living shit out of whoever caused that event". 

So even if they magically eliminated Russia, China, and South Korea with no resistance, the tiny island nation best known for stiff upper lips and tea would still be able to nuke them into oblivion.

[Xuut]

Oh I love playing "What If Politics!" 

1.) Um, okay, if even the United States of Fucking America knows not to fuck with China, no one fucking fucks with fucking China. Also, China is debatebly, going to become the next superpower. Them and India. Who are right beside each other. Korea doesn't have a fucking chance. 

2.) They'd be obliterated. China > most other countries, especially shit holes like NK. Also, everyone agrees (okay, so most historians and all those Sciencey folk) World War III would last about twenty minutes, would consist of everyone loading up the nukes they've all been harboring, and then a push of a button, then everyone dies. Every, single, fucking one of us. Because there's going to be enough cloudy shit to block out the sun for years. 

3.) "Accident" bro, accident. How in the hell is beyond me, but sure? Also... not everyone lives in what was the capitol again? St. Petersburg? And trust me, even if they all were there, guaranteed that some one else is going to rise up and take control. That's how the world works. 

4.) Um, yeah. I'm pretty sure these countries would just say "fuckit" and blow everyone up because they can. There isn't a "war" with nuclear weapons, you press a fucking button and the world  explodes.

5.) If one part of the world was exterminated, everyone would be exterminated. You think someone is going to give a fuck about what part of the world you're striking? Nukes can go over water buddy. In fact, I was kind of under the assumption that western Canada was closer to NK than like say, Europe. If all of Europe is gone, the States won't give a flying fuck (and I'm pretty sure Canada won't either, I bet we have nukes some where, we're certainly capable of making them, we've got a fucking uranium farm after all) and just send out all their nukes. If someone is trying to kill everyone else with nukes, the gloves come off. Everyone is going to die because of the nukes. 

6.) So where are the other developed nations at this point? Last time I checked, Australia and New Zealand were competent, developed nations. Where the eff would they be? Also, does anyone else think it's a miracle that anyone is still alive at this point? A World War with nukes is not going to last this long.

7.) They would have done this the first time the Koreans tried to set foot on Alaska (actually, they probably would have done that the second North Korea took out South Korea or at the very least, China). You don't fuck with America and its little states. They're vengeful.

8.)  I repeat, if everyone had a giant nuclear war, everyone would be dead. There's enough dust, smoke, n'shit to block out the sun's fucking rays. No sun, no life. At all. 

9.) Where the eff did the fourth WW go? 

Edit: I now need to rewrite this so that I sound less offensive and use "fuck" less. 

[nathan_p]

9 -- the third was NK nuking China, the fourth is NK causing shit with the rest of the world (?), and the fifth is the actual story.

Yes. All this dumb bullshit is someone's blue-skying for backstory. 

[Xuut]

But if it's just NK nuking China, how is that a world war? Pardon me, but I thought a world war general involved you know, the world? Sounds just like a normal nuclear war to me...

x.x If you're going to make it the end of the world, nuclear story thing, make it plausible. It took me a total of thirty minutes on research for a debate topic to learn that a third world war would basically lead to death of humanity as we know it for hundreds of years. Not hard. 

[nathan_p]

I have no idea. Jackoff doesn't say, he just says "and btw this is considered the third nuclear war".

I'm leaving him a very, very kind comment along the lines of "You don't need to do this, if you feel you need to you can strip it down to 'there was a nuclear war it sucked now we are on the brink of another war with Commie Alien Nazis' and that's more than enough backstory" with a gentle hint that he can ask me for more if he really wants the angry-history-major lines.

[Xuut]

>.> Damn him. Damn him to hell. Please learn the definition of "total war" and "World War" please and then "war" while we're at it. Hmm, how to phrase this so it sounds rude but polite at the same time? With less fucks.

I think that would be the best. Just.. so many holes and general, "because I want to" argument being used. I lold when I saw his comment to End. 

[nathan_p]

It did give me an opportunity to nerd the hell out about one of my favorite topics (yes, like every other history major ever, I really really love the Cold War), so hey.

It makes me smile because I also have a post-nuclear-war USA-at-war-again story in the pipeline, and... I don't even know who we fired nukes against. Because it literally does not matter in the context of the story. Maybe it's China, maybe it's Iraq. What matters is that someone hit the red button, shit got fucked up, and the US took extreme political measures.

So all his blue-skying is just an excuse to wank about nuclear war, rather than just say "OK, so there was a war, but what exactly happened has no pertinence". 

[Xuut]

Cold War is pretty cool though. In terms of history. I mean, I don't really like WW I or WW II, it just... creeps the fuck out of me to know about that. But I find the politics in it all  fascinating. Cold War was all politics (with a few others, but from what I can tell, mostly relations from USSR and U.S), which is awesome. 

It really doesn't. Once one person does it, everyone is going to follow in suit and well, I always found this quote to be pretty much the description Albert Einstein quoted as saying : "I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Or something like that, the point is, no one will have the ability to do anything really 'cause you're all dead. 

[nathan_p]

Best part about studying the Cold War is how many of the major players are still alive. If I wanted to write a thesis on, say, the evolution of diplomatic relations between the US and USSR, I could literally interview Henry Kissinger about it. 

There's a saying I heard somewhere that in a speculative fiction or sci-fi story, you get one (1) total bullshit thing in your story. You can have aliens, anti-gravity, fuckin' magic if you want. 

But you only get one, and everything else must make sense. This guy spent like, five, in just his backstory.