A bunch of clever people in the United States of AAAAAAAAAAHHH NO PLEASE STOP SHOOTING PEOPLE, have taken it upon themselves to move us 30-son-of-a-mother-why-seconds closer to oblivion. Even if we're talking about the game, that's a step back. That's Fallout 3 era shit dude. I at least wanna build a base and have a chance at a sweet, sweet Nuka Cola collection. All the colours of the rainbow and all that.
In this edition of the soapbox, I'm gonna ramble like a crazy person on the street corner, about one of the Crazy Person Association's required subjects for all members (my certification application is still pending, so I'm trying to make a good show of it): THE END OF THE WORLD
Ahem.
WHY THE HELL DID THEY MOVE THE BLOODY CLOCK?
OR: Why Did They Have to Make the Bloody Thing in the First Place?
"What 'Bloody Clock' are you talking about?" you ask.
Excellent question, my friend. I'm glad we can have a conversation. The (otherwise known as Scientists Trying to Tell the World-at-Large to CALM THE FUCK DOWN! or STTWLCTFD for the Tennials and AI among us) is not a clock — It is a symbol.
A very clever symbol.
Unfortunately, it's also a bit boring.
So, to spice it up a bit, let's pretend we're currently living at 00:05 on ol' Doomy McDoomface (as it's known in the year 2042)...
We are here: [the post-nuclear wasteland, naturally]
Imagine a campfire, just out of frame, with a pot of roach stew bubbling happily, the smell mingling with the smoke from the crematorium nearby
In the Days before Midnight, before ol'Doomy was even thought of, the Old Bossmen had a thing about Decoded Term World Wars Specifically WWI (1914–1918) and WWII (1939–1945). The story's "Bang Fights" refer to industrial-scale warfare between great powers — the kind that kills tens of millions and reshapes borders. The "Bang Fight Bosses made it a family business" is a nod to how colonial powers cycled through cycles of conflict and managed their weapons industries. → Wikipedia: World war . It was one of those complicated things, where they all thought a Bang Fight was a good idea... Until they had one... And so realized that Bang Fights take a lot of lifestuff and make a lot of deathstuff — which their mumsies had always said was a bad idea but their papsies said was needly. Aye-em-el, it seemed like a bad deal, but they didn't want to lose so they carried on until they forgot why the Bang Fight happened, and then stayed in it for the sportsmanship and deathpaper, until they got tired of it and then stopped for a bit.... Uuuuuntil — they got bored and then found excuses to have another bang fight. Some of your mumsies still call it the Time of the Swinging Willies (everyone in 2042 defines a willy as: a hard manbit that goes BANG! and rips your guts out.)
They made Bang Fights a family business, you see... Until they had two Decoded Term World War I & World War II The two "Big Bang Fights" are WWI (1914–1918) and WWII (1939–1945). WWI killed ~20 million people; WWII killed ~70–85 million — roughly 3% of the entire world population. The "family business" line refers to how the same colonial and industrial powers that built WWI's war machine went on to build WWII's, often profiting from both. The second Big Bang Fight ended with the Ultrabang — the atomic bomb. → Wikipedia: World War I → Wikipedia: World War II .
The second one ended with the first Decoded Term The Atomic Bomb The "Ultrabanger" is the nuclear weapon — specifically the bombs dropped on Hiroshima ("Little Boy") and Nagasaki ("Fat Man") in August 1945. The Trinity Test on July 16, 1945 was the first detonation. The story notes there were two: "just in case the first one missed" — a bleak nod to the decision to drop a second bomb days after the first. → Wikipedia: Nuclear weapon → Wikipedia: Hiroshima & Nagasaki ... and then another one just in case the first one missed.
This was because the Decoded Term Harry S. Truman 33rd President of the United States. Authorized the use of atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, believing it would end WWII faster and avoid a land invasion. He later launched the Manhattan Project's successor programs, overseeing the first hydrogen bomb test in 1952. His logic: show force so overwhelming that no one would dare start another war. → Wikipedia: Harry S. Truman was in charge and he figured the Ultrabang was so ULTRA that no one would pick a Bang Fight ever again. But Decoded Term Joseph Stalin General Secretary of the Soviet Union. "Little Mustache" (deaded before the Ultrabang) = Adolf Hitler. Stalin oversaw the USSR's own nuclear program, testing their first bomb (RDS-1) in August 1949 — far sooner than Western intelligence had expected. This launched the nuclear arms race in earnest: both superpowers now had the bomb. → Wikipedia: Joseph Stalin → Wikipedia: Soviet bomb project figured the same ( Decoded Term Adolf Hitler Chancellor and Führer of Nazi Germany. Led Germany into WWII in 1939. Died by suicide in Berlin on April 30, 1945 — before the first atomic bomb was tested at Trinity (July 16, 1945) or dropped on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945). Hence "deaded before the Ultrabang came." The Nazi regime's defeat was one major reason the Manhattan Project scientists later questioned whether the bombs had been necessary. → Wikipedia: Adolf Hitler → Wikipedia: Manhattan Project was deaded before the Ultrabang came). Bang Fights continued, and they made so many Ultrabangs that the clever ones who understood the Ultrabang went "Woah, Nessy! You could blow the whole place up, if you're not careful!"
The Bang Fight Bosses said — "That's the point. Now we have to be careful when we Bang Fight."
Fat Man and Little Boy. The bang so nice, we did it twice. — Hairy Trueish Man (Murican No Mustache the Second)
It didn't really work, but nobody knew how to make it stop not-working, so they just passed the Decoded Term Mutually Assured Destruction MAD is the doctrine that any nuclear first strike would trigger a devastating retaliatory second strike — guaranteeing both sides' destruction. The "button passed to the next guy" captures how MAD was inherited rather than resolved: each US and Soviet leader kept the arsenal, kept the doctrine, and hoped the other side would blink first. No one ever figured out how to make it stop, so they called the standoff "stability" and moved on. → Wikipedia: MAD → Wikipedia: Nuclear deterrence on to the next guy, and kept telling everyone that it was working.
They kept doing that until all the Bossmen from Everywhere, couldn't remember what an Ultrabang was actually for.
The clever ones saw this coming, so they made a way to tell the Restovus when the Bossmen were being Ultrasilly.
They called him .
He was a clock that didn't tell the time. Instead, ol'Doomy had one job: He would shout 'OH-OH-SHITPIPE-OH-OH' just before All-of-Everything exploded. The clever ones said the Shout, would be called Midnight.
They then gave a bunch of other clever ones the job of telling us how close we were to ol'Doomy's Big Day, and so every year they moved Doomy McDoomface's Timestache closer or further to his forehead, depending on how angry they thought Doomy would be when he heard about what the Old Bossmen had done the year before.
When they were still making Decoded Term The Nuclear Arms Race At its peak, the US and USSR together held over 60,000 nuclear warheads. The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was the strategy: if either side launched, the other would retaliate, destroying both. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink — the Clock was set to 7 minutes to midnight that year. → Wikipedia: Nuclear arms race → Wikipedia: MAD a thing, Doomy said it was Historical Clock Setting 1953: 2 minutes to Midnight The closest the Clock had ever been set until 2018. Reason: the US tested its first thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb in 1952 — a weapon hundreds of times more powerful than Hiroshima. The USSR followed nine months later. The Bulletin moved the Clock to 11:58 — two minutes to Midnight — the most dangerous setting since 1947. → Bulletin: Clock Timeline , and when the Decoded Event The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 For 13 days in October 1962, Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba pointed at American cities while US nuclear weapons pointed back. The world came closest to nuclear war in recorded history. Soviet submarine B-59, surrounded by US forces and unable to communicate with Moscow, came within one officer's objection of launching a nuclear torpedo. That officer was Vasili Arkhipov. → Wikipedia: Cuban Missile Crisis → Wikipedia: Vasili Arkhipov they made Doomy say "We're thirty damned stinking seconds away Calm the Hellmaking Heck Down!."
But the the Old Bossmen found a trick. They distracted ol'Doomy, the Restovus and even the clever ones with deathpaper, pictureboxes and goodygoodstuff... So much of it that even ol'Doomy couldn't keep track for realsies anymore.
And so it went that when Midnight came, all we heard was a soft whimper from ol'Doomy, who croaked, "oh-oh-shitpipe-oh-oh" before All-of-Everything went COMPLETELY BATSHIT INSANE.
Don't you just love the smell of radiation in the morning?
Yes, dear audience, gathered on the street in my mind... That is our possible future if we keep letting Power think it will win with a BANG! That is what we're in for if we don't keep the Bossmen in check. That is what will sneak up on us if we let the Stupid Rise.
It's two minutes to Midnight again — are we all still okay with that?
THE END
it's nigh biches.
This was written while listening to @crimsonclad doing her thang on FULL FORCE THURSDAY. It's on MSPWaves radio and it's always epic and brutal, like all good metal should be.
As always... Peace, Love and a Little Madness — Nomad