This post was inspired by a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding Community - Worldbuilding Prompt #896 - Shelters
Enjoy !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
The shortwave radio sitting on the small table crackled and hissed. Monsieur Ferache tapped it and twisted the dial slowly to try to find anything that made sense. Madame Ferache sat on the plastic chair opposite him, sobbing quietly into a white handkerchief.
Finally he found a station which was still broadcasting.
"This is KBN network with what we know. It appears war has escalated to a full nuclear exchange. Everyone who has any kind of strike capacity next is using it now before it is destroyed. We know that. fzzzzkkkkk kkkk .... Cholet, the oil terminals at Possen and Lisa-Ponte all.... brrrzzzt... fifty megaton warheads ..... uclear tsunami struck the Sheftan Islands ..... Sluga and most of Nord are a nuclear wasteland....."
Madame Ferache put her handkerchief down. "Marcel, make it stop. Wake me up, I must be having a nightmare. I want it to stop."
He looked at her with sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry my love. I regret building this shelter now, the world is going to be a mess when we emerge. But at least we're safe in the mountains near the Italvini border, Marianne."
The radio spluttered to life again.
"... getting word from The United States of Democravia that President Raymond Gunn evacuated Driton before it was destroyed. He has made an announcement from his shelter beneath Shortleg that he has a Doomsday device set to trigger if any more missiles impact the States. Premier Bolokov of Tarkus has responded with his own ultimatum that his Doomsday device is bigger and will detonate if Democravia does not stand down within six hours. God help us all...."
Marianne and Marcel silently stood and clung to each other. It was all they could do.
The shelter lurched. Awful crashing and grinding sounds could be heard, deafening in their intensity. The couple fell hard against the side wall. They were pressed there by an irresistible force. There was a loud bang, and they blacked out.
When they woke, it was silent. They felt.... strange. Dizzy. As if they were spinning.
Marcel checked the dosimeter; radiation levels in the shelter were a little elevated, but not life threatening.
He activated the remote camera and looked into the periscope eyepiece.
Then he sat back, his face ghostly pale.
"My love, the world won't be a mess when we emerge. The world is gone, They did it. The two Doomsday devices together blew the world apart."
She came to look into the eyepiece. All she could see was a slowly spinning dark sky, filled with rocks and debris, most of it clearly red hot but cooling fast in open space. One or two had blasted remnants of buildings that could be seen slowly crumbling into the void.
They must be spinning inside a rock just like all the others. They had their shelter and as much air as it contained. That was all that was left of their world.
Note: this is a piece of fiction set in what we called "The World Game". The original game was a pure wargame with each country run by an entire wargames club, all across southern England. Below is an extract from the map (which I found in the loft the other day), poorly photocopied and with a slice missing around a large crease. I've got a better version somewhere, but it's been hiding in the loft for around 45 years, so it may take some effort to find it.... welcome to wargaming, 1970's style 😁
First, the story is great and I love this scene... Second, and you likely knew I'd geek out about this:
THATS THE COOLEST FREAKING THING EVER. That map being a relic of OG group wargaming from the 70's is just the coolest damn thing.
Thank you - I knew you'd appreciate it 😁
I had to be careful with the area I covered with the photo, whoever originally made the map had the kind of sense of humour that gets warnings on old films about "outdated attitudes".
The shapes of the continents make the whole world a kind of analogue of the real world - sort of recognisable but different. Just south of Tarkus is an area with country names including Chinka and My Thy, and the United States of Democravia was an equivalent to America that was usually called by it's initials - USOD 😀
LOL That's awesome. USOD pronounced "you sod" I assume? xD
Yep ! 😁
My role as a very young player was as as a member of the Afran League, with the rank of Sheriff of Banzali, a jungle wasteland in the north of the dubiously named country of Robonga.
Very cool!
I would like to know how a game was played across wargames clubs!
Well, it was long before the days of computers !
Each club put the resources of all it's members to work building armies in 1/72nd (20mm) scale, because Airfix kits were cheap and widely available. I built so many Chieftain tanks !
There was a small team of umpires, and each country/club sent in turn-based orders in a play-by-mail fashion. As well as a set of rules that governed economic production, there was considerable leeway for narrative play; if a player wanted to try something not in the rules, the umpires would make a decision on it based on common sense and "rule of cool".
This did lead to one very interesting twist. We had a player who was ex-forces who would periodically disappear for a few weeks and come back with a sun tan and plenty of cash. In the game, he organised the invasion of the Nautilous Islands. The narrative was that a visiting rugby team would fly in, pull weapons from their kit bags and hold the airport until reinforcements landed on a nearby beach. It was a stunning success and the Islands were captured. About six month later, in the real world, Colonel Mike Hoare flew into the Seychelles with a visiting cricket team who pulled weapons and took the airport.... but the reinforcements were stopped on the beaches. We didn't see the player again.....
I only ever got to one battle in the game, but it was awesome. A school gym had been hired and covered with hessian cloth and terrain. With two complete wargames clubs, there were 300+ main battle tanks on each side, plus APC's, infantry, artillery - probably the most impressive game I've ever seen. My brigade was flattened by a 1/72nd scale B52.
Eventually the game collapsed under it's own weight, sadly, as the umpires were unable to handle the workload involved. But I copied the map and used it to run a few smaller scale games with friends.
😮😮😮😮 That true story is hectic!
And that game sounds amazing! I want to do the same but for 40k!
And a campaign.... sounds rad!
Campaign games are great, especially open-ended ones, or ones where the victory conditions are designed so you can carry on the narrative as a sequel if everyone wants to.
As for the Seychelles affair, no-one knows to this day whether it was a complete coincidence, or they got the idea from the game, or even if they used the game without the other players' knowledge as a way to play it out and see if it was feasible. I've known a few remarkably interesting people over the years - glad my life isn't quite that exciting !
Hehe, indeed.
i have been chatting to some people in the Warhammer community who also wish that Warhammer 40,000 was not so competitive in South Africa, so they can just enjoy a game in a narrative sense. I know there exists communities like that in UK/USA/Europe. I think I should make it happen here...
Go for it ! Setting up a narrative campaign (for any system) can be a huge amount of fun ! I've learned the hard way that it's best to automate as much as possible in one way or another, and to spread the workload (making sure the info generated is shared or held on a central repository) so that if one or two people drop out it doesn't crash the whole campaign.
Indeed... that is good advice... I am sure that you could probably write a good guide for that on Tabletop/DnD on that topic!