Make Your Own World!

It was a normal day like any other. Birds cried in the air. Children laughed and played. The sun shone over the Kerativaskien capital city of Nouvelle Ermune, although the sun never shown in the vast mountain complex at the heart of Caldaria, the center of the Central Arevian Federation. Calm, peace, tranquility, as the world spun gently around the sun.

It had been years since the first join Kerativaskien-Arevien nuclear test, which had been a 50 kiloton blast, hidden in the Antarctic. There, only the birds and the seals, and watchful waiting scientists, could see it directly, even if doubtless foreign detection equipment had picked it up. Since then, thermonuclear weapons, the famed Bombe H, had joined the devices, reaching a 10 megaton blast that was impossible to hide from prying eyes internationally. Lesser nations might have backed down, but kerativaskia and the CAF pressed onwards, building up nuclear weapons at a frantic pace, for some objective seemingly known only to themselves. Aircraft joined to deliver the bombs, fast high speed supersonic bombers, and then ballistic missiles, even artillery. Across land and sea, the two nations built up formiddable nuclear arsenals, and the world lay content in the knowledge that they would never be used.

This certainty ended one fine summer day. It was a rare disease, the parasite embedded in the undercooked meat, the steak tartare which the Kerativaskiens were so proud of, accompanied with fresh CAF basil. A strange new parasite, which infected the minds of the Kerativaskien and Arevien presidents attending, eating early in their terms at a joint banquet. Like a worm it wriggled deeper into their minds, always inching closer, but never enough to fully reveal to the world the growing insanity present within...

That was of course, until they both pressed the buttons for their respective nuclear arsenals. On both sides, the button could not simply be pressed, the button which triggered war plan XVI, the emergency, doomsday scenario calling for the nuclear annihlation of the entire world. It required somebody else to press the button, but they had both carefully prepared that, and well, the defense ministers who objected both found themselves dead with a deceptively small hole drilled in the back of their head after a crack of gunpowder and flame.

The signal rushed out at the speed of light, bringing aircraft, ships, missile installations, artillery to alert, with a brief message from both leaders indicating that Kerativaskia and the CAF had both been informed that an international conspiracy was brewing against the two nations, so closely linked together. Close allies, like the Kingdom of Bulsoins, stood prepared to betray them both, and to destroy the liberties, rights, sovereignties, and civilization that they prized so dear. There was no explanation why this international conspiracy existed, but the presidents both assured all military units that it was their patriotic duty - their duty to the nation - their duty to their people - to fire everything they had. Only in the flames of destruction would Kerativaskia and the CAF be safe.

And so they did.

With a rush of flame supersonic bombers took off in both countries, their engines screaming into the air, loaded with gravity nuclear bombs. Before they had arrived at their target though, the first wave of tactical nuclear missiles were striking home, savaging the surrounding nations. A few refused to fire on Bulsoins, on the ally of Kerativaskia, but most did : the nation was in danger, and they would do what had to be done. The short range missiles only had a range of a few hundred kilometers and warheads of 30 kilotons, but it was enough, enough to decimate the border regions and fill it with flame, destroying air defense, over which the bombers flew to deliver their strike payloads into cities where air raid silens were just beginning to call their useless, mournful call before the bombs strike home, ending them in nuclear flame.

The real devastation though, came when the ICBMs and SLBMs fired. Each one was equipped with MIRVs, up to 7 of them in the case of the newest Kerativaskien warheads, even 10 in the case of CAF weapons, and they were targeted around the globe. A few malfunctioned : most did not. As megaton range warheads slammed into cities and targets around the globe, the flashes of light made it seem like the second coming of a distant god, as armageddon encircled the globe in flame. SLMB units, on tours around the world, fired off at shorter ranges, sometimes too soon for there to be any response, dumping their huge loads of ballistic missiles into any target they had assigned.

In some cases, confusion at the receiving end was so paramount, so decisive, and so much destruction happened, that politicians and generals were unable to respond. But in most, there was just enough warning to press the button and for the response to occur, as more aircraft screamed into the sky, covers rolled back on ICBM bases, submarines surfaced to fire their deadly brood, cruise missiles hugged the earth as they flew towards their target, as if already eager to rejoin the ground.... There were thousands that malfunctioned, that didn't work, where warheads failed to explode. These were the exception.

Within hours, over 50,000 nuclear warheads had been fired across the globe, scores of thousands of megatons of atomic fire encircling the earth. A few regions in the arctic were spared, but no nation received exemption from the wrath of nuclear flame. The sword of damacles had fallen across the world, and before it no life was spared. Human civilization had ended.

And night fell on the charred ruins of Nouvelle Ermune, and the world joined Caldaria in endless slumber.

Steak tartare had never tasted better, especially when well seasoned with basil and a pleasant topping of nuclear radiation.