The enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives.
Hirohito
As mentioned in the “What is Happening in the Rest of Avaya?” section of Notes and References, there’s an underlying sense of dread behind the Rosen Commonwealth.
This idea is illustrated in several forms throughout this project, but it is delivered primarily through the existence and aftermath of the Nuclear Crisis. It is most apparent in “Men Pray Once More,” where the horror and aftermath of worldwide nuclear conflict is viewed from the perspective of a Sayan grassland. But the point that was meant to get across in that rather hard-to-read short story was that nothing would change after nuclear war.
For the sake of worldbuilding, and ensuring the Commonwealth would continue to exist past the year 1989, there were additional elements added to the world to change (but not necessarily pacify (although most of the changes were intended to minimize the effects of)) a nuclear war:
- It should first be noted that not all nuclear weapons were expended. For example, the First Rosen Commonwealth didn’t even bother with SLBMs: its nuclear arsenal was deployed almost entirely by aircraft. This negated its effects, as airburst-explosion nuclear weapons produce significantly less fallout than those detonated at ground level.
- In addition, ballistic missile defense systems (BMD), also called anti-ballistic missile defense systems (ABM) work significantly better in this universe relative to ours. In real life, most ABM systems have low success rates and exist only in small quantities, making them not feasible for defending against a large-scale nuclear attack. However, on Avaya, things were very different: their technological timeline is different; stretched and squashed in some places; meaning ABM systems were sufficiently advanced and developed (especially in the Rosen Republic), and existed in sufficient amounts to enable them to function as actual national defense. This spared the Commonwealth from outright collapse, because most ABM systems had been put in place around major population centers shortly after ICOSGEA came to fruition.
- Diplomacy also played a major role in the lead-up to the Crisis. There were several preexisting agreements involving the nuclear powers that limited nuclear weapon quantity, and design. Strategic Neutron Bombs, also called SNBs, (which maximize invisible neutron radiation, have smaller yields, and produce less fallout) were emphasized by a 1968 treaty brokered by the International Union, which also limited nuclear arsenals in size; the Commonwealth and the Sayan Union both had their arsenals reduced to roughly 1200 warheads, and only half of those warheads were permitted to be deployed at once. The Kuligite administration in the late Rosen Republic and the détente that came with it very likely saved the world, as it didn’t give Saya and the newly-formed Commonwealth time to produce more functioning nuclear warheads.
- In addition to the agreements on weapons deployment, there were regulations placed on yield and targeting. The largest bomb used, the Hades-IX/HY, deployed by the Sayan Union, had a yield of “only” 10.4 Mt, and only two existed, one of which was used. As well as quantity and yield, targets were also tacitly agreed upon by Saya and the Commonwealth - while they didn’t outright tell each other what cities and facilities they’d target - there existed informal agreements between the two countries that military targets, such as launch silos and command centers, would be emphasized above population centers.
It is these four major reasons that prevented Avaya from experiencing the extinction of intelligent life. While the conflict killed over a billion people collectively, the people of Avaya can rest easy knowing that they could live in the world we live in - where things would be much, much worse.