The effects of The Flash

The Flash was not a deliberate war of extermination, but a haphazard jumble of nuclear strikes that started when several cities were overrun by the forces of the Otherworld and dissipated in a cloud of fire (whether as a last stand of the remains of the government, by foreign power attempting to prevent malevolent beings from accessing large swaths of humans and advanced weaponry, or an Otherworld entity utilizing captured nuclear weapons is unknown). Whatever the case, the remains of the various world governments reacted in a blind panic, and launched preemptive strikes on various nuclear facilities. This represented the last acts of the Pre-Panic governments, as they fled to bunkers or remote locations, perished in the nuclear holocaust, or were turned on by angry mobs or mutinous subordinantes. Whatever the case, the aftereffects proved to be devastating and far reaching.
Nukes are big. Really, really big. So big that the sheer scale of them is somewhat incomprehensible to the human mind without some form of context. For example, at its peak energy output, a 1-Megaton nuclear explosion produces temperatures of around 100 million degrees celsius. That sounds high, but you don’t truly understand how high it is until the context comes in, which is that the center of the sun is about 4 times cooler than that temperature. A 1-Megaton bomb over Baltimore would produce a fireball visible from Washington DC. The glare in the sky would be visible from Detroit.

OVERPRESSURE: Nuclear explosions send out ‘shockwaves’, which caused the collapse of most unfortified structures in the surrounding areas. Modern apartment buildings had most of their upper walls ripped off, leaving them skeletal, burned husks of concrete. Residential houses collapsed into rubble and tinder, which fueled the superfires which raged through the cities.

SUPERFIRES: In the dense, crowded cities of LA, Oakland, and San Diego, the nuclear strikes initiated a firestorm. Hurricane force, superheated winds tore through houses, vehicles, and people alike. Blazing infernos swept through the outer suburbs, reducing them to charred rubble. Those who survived did so by hiding underground, in the basements, sewers, and drains of the cities, until the blazes died outor were quenched by the black rain that soon followed.


NUCLEAR WINTER: The worldwide nuclear winter that occured after the Panic was not as bad as many expected. Of course, “ not as bad” means “didn’t kill everything on the planet”. The dust from the nuclear explosions and the thick smoke from the burning cities, combined with the black soot of burning plastics, thinned the sunlight received by earth for over a year, causing temperatures to decrease worldwide and creating further hardship for the survivors. Agriculture was stunted in many regions, and wildlife was hunted to near extinction by the starving masses, surviving on the unspoiled lands claimed by Druids and The Fey. The seas receded, and the climate became much drier. Man began to feed on man, all-too-often literally.

ULTRAVIOLET SPRING: Those who survived the chill of the winter and the constant famine would encounter a new hardship as the black snow melted and the climate warmed: The Ultraviolet Spring. The smoke lifted into the atmosphere by the nukes, and the oxides of nitrogen produced by the nukes, began the process of ozone depletion. With a reduced ozone layer, UV-B light levels increased across the world. Fair-skinned beings risked sunburn within minutes of exposure. Skin cancer, eye damage, and immune system suppression skyrocketed. These effects petered off about 5 years after The Panic, the end of the Years of Death.

FALLOUT: Fallout is produced by ground-burst weapons, such as those targeting military installations or silos. Since those are what a majority of the nuclear weapons launched were targeting, fallout has become a constant concern in the wastelands. While there is a relatively small amount of global fallout which has affected most people, concentrated fallout is usually found downwind of nuclear targets, such as in the Salton Wastes and the Great Nothing.

GENETICS: Mutations are common among the populations of the Wasteland, due to radiation and magic exposure. Radiation tends to produce malignant, or at the very least benign mutations, while magic tends to produce a mixture of beneficial, benign, and malignant mutations. Half-Lifes, as mutants with malign mutations or radiation victims are called, are often treated with a mixture of hostility, disgust, and pity. More isolated, superstitious communities have more hostile reactions to mutants, seeing them as threats to their gene pools. Larger communities, or places with high rates of radiation exposure, are usually more tolerant. Of course, this tolerance rarely extends to allowing breeding between half-lifes and full-lifes. Many radiation-stricken communities practice eugenics, keeping their fertile full-lifes sheltered from sources of radiation, and allowing breeding to take place only between those with minimal levels of radiation exposure, or those with beneficial mutations.

Citations:
Postol, Theodore, The Medical Implications of Nuclear War. National Academy of Sciences. 1986. Page 15.