History of the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand (1983: Doomsday)

The following details the history of post- Australia and New Zealand, the foundation of the and the history of the new nation up to the present day.

Doomsday
On September 26, 1983, people in Perth and the west coast of Australia were just starting their workdays, while those in south Australia and on the east coast - including the cities of Sydney and Melbourne - were settling in and heading towards midday.

A presumably normal day in Australia, in the matter of an hour, changed drastically when news came of incoming missiles from the Soviet Union towards three cities: Perth, Sydney and Melbourne.

Citizens on the fringes of those three cities had just enough time to seek some kind of shelter and get further away from the anticipated blasts. Some people in the cities were able to escape, incredibly, but for most people in the cities their fate was sealed.

Around 12:20 p.m. on the Australian east coast and 9:20 on the Australian west coast, nuclear missiles exploded over the heart of all three cities, throwing the outskirts into complete panic and the nation into chaos.

Australia, however, had something working in its favor that neither the United States nor the USSR had: the strikes had not destroyed the federal government in Canberra nor many of the military installations and bases around the nation. That would prove crucial for Australia not only surviving the crisis, but moving on to becoming a global power in the new, post-Doomsday world.

Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who had taken office six months previous, would lead the stunned nation through the crisis. As the nation had not been hit with an electromagnetic pulse attack, Australia's power grid and telecommunications capacity was intact.

His first impulse was to find out why three of his nation's cities had been targeted; he ordered troops to the U.S. and Soviet embassies. Personnel at both embassies were already in shock over news they had been told by their respective ambassadors; Moscow had launched first, Washington launched in defense. The Soviet embassy personnel were told it was an accident; American personnel told that the Soviets had launched first. Both were told their home countries likely were devastated by the subsequent exchange.

Robert Nesen, the American ambassador to Australia, spoke with Hawke by phone and told Hawke everything he knew; Hawke in turn offered his condolescences, and pledged support in any manner. Nesen's counterpart at the Soviet embassy also spoke by phone with Hawke, and protested "American aggression" before hanging up the phone. Hawke ordered two Army companies to the Soviet embassy - and one to surround the American embassy to protect it from troublemakers.

Nesen met Hawke at 6:07 p.m. Canberra time and told Hawke he had not been able to contact anyone from the mainland since early that morning. He also said the staff wanted to stay where they were as it was apparently the only vestige of America - and home - they had left. Hawke said he was ordering an evacuation of the city, and recommended the staff leave for safer grounds in Wagga Wagga - but they could stay if they wanted.

At the Soviet embassy, the situation was growing more and more tense by the hour, with all embassy personnel having been armed and told to fight "to the death for the motherland". At 9:22 p.m. Canberra time, Soviet guards took up defense positions around the embassy grounds, while Australian troops took up positions around the perimeter.

Meanwhile, after gathering basic information about the detonations from civilian and police officials on the ground, and knowing the military was already on full alert, Hawke gave the order for residents and government officials in Canberra to evacuate to "safe zones" in Wagga Wagga and Cooma. Hawke, his cabinet, and other important government officials relocating to a secured, secret location in the region.

Hawke also gave orders for civilians in Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin, and Hobart to evacuate - a redundant order, as civilians had already began fleeing those cities for the countryside when television and radio gave news of the Sydney/Perth/Melbourne strikes. He also declared martial law throughout the entire country for the duration of the crisis. At 9:07 p.m. Canberra time, Hawke spoke to his nation, informing the people of the hits on the three cities, the emergency orders and martial law, as well as scant information he had been able to gather from the U.S. embassy: the Soviets had launched first. He then informed the people of the ongoing standoff at the Soviet embassy.

Throughout the evening of September 26 and into the early hours of September 27, local officials struggled to maintain order as panicked civilians fled cities they thought would be the next to get hit. Hawke contacted many of those officials and after a series of sometimes contentious conversations, decided to keep the civilians in the safe zones for a week; his thinking was that if this was World War III, the Soviets surely would launch any remaining missiles by the end of the week - if not that day.

While Australian submarines patrolled for any Soviet subs in the region, Hawke also ordered Australian troops into the temporarily abandoned cities to keep order and prevent looting - if necessary by force.

Before dawn, Canberra policemen who had stayed in the city to help patrol it reported outbursts on the grounds of the East German, West German, Bulgarian and Cuban embassies. More troops were ordered into Canberra to surround all four embassies; the order would grow to include embassies of all Communist countries and those nations allied with the Soviet Union.

At 9:04 a.m. Canberra time on the 27th, the Soviet ambassador spoke via loudspeaker, through his translator. He declared the embassy grounds the "sovereign territory of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and any aggression on part of foreign aggressors will be met with force, and be seen as a further declaration of war that have already been declared upon our peoples by the United States of America and its capitalist allies." It was apparent the ambassador had gone mad, and weeping could be heard in parts of the embassy building. At 10:30 a.m., Australian intelligence monitored a phone conversation amongst the ambassadors of the Warsaw Pact nations and Cuba, with the Soviet ambassador telling his counterparts "stand your ground and prepare to fight"; the Bulgarian ambassador said "are you out of your mind, comrade? This is not the way to go", and the conversation quickly devolving into shouting and incoherent screaming. Australian intelligence then monitored a subsequent conversation amongst the Bulgarian, Yugoslavian, Romanian and Polish ambassadors, discussing some sort of conciliation with the Australian government and peaceful solution to what could turn into a disaster.

At 11:58 a.m., shots were heard from inside the East German embassy, and the Australian commander on the scene ordered his troops to rush the facility. Three troops were killed by East German guards, all of whom were themselves killed; troops found numerous mass suicides - including the East German ambassador - and several staffers, mainly women in other parts of the building, shaken and frightened. Hawke ordered more troops as backup, and consulted with military leaders: what to do about the belligerent embassies, and especially the Soviet embassy?

At 12:08 p.m., the answer from Hawke came: treat the Soviet ambassador and any belligerents as enemies of the state and subdue the threat as quickly as possible, and do the same for any other embassy - friend, foe or neutral. Once the threat was subdued, Hawke would meet with the various ambassadors.

Just 14 minutes later, despite a last-minute plea from the Polish and Bulgarian ambassadors to "turn from your madness", the Cuban and Soviet embassies declared war on Australia.

Guards at the Cuban embassy shot at TV reporters covering the siege from 100 yards out, then started shooting at the Army positions.

At the Soviet embassy, Australian troops were rocked when a hand held rocket was launched from inside the embassy at a tank, killing everyone inside and three troops surrounding it; the troops encircling the compound then came under heavy fire from all corners of the embassy; the Soviets were not going to peacefully surrender. And, apprarently, neither were the Cubans.

Moments after hearing what happened to the tank, the Australian commander at the Cuban embassy gave the order to take the embassy. The troops came under heavy fire; 14 took shots, and four were killed. The troops overpowered the guards guarding all entrances to the building and rushed in, anticipating a possible room-by-room battle to take the entire building.

At the Soviet embassy, 15 troops were killed by another hand-held rocket on the south side, as troops advanced on the building itself. At that point, the troops came under heavy fire themselves, and encountered heavy resistance from guards and other staffers, all whom were well-armed themselves. On the east side, someone was spotted on an upper floor readying another hand-held missile launcher - this time, he never got the chance to launch it; spotted on the ground, an Army helicopter found him and destroyed his position with a rocket.

The invasion of the Cuban and Soviet embassies was well underway by this time, with troops going room-by-room looking for the beilligerents and for anyone who dared lift even a finger in offense.

It took until 2:34 a.m. Wednesday morning to end the standoff at the Cuban embassy. By then, another four soldiers, and 56 embassy personnel and guards, were dead. One was the Cuban ambassador, shot by one of his own men. The remaining men and women were taken into custody.

Three hours later, the situation at the Soviet embassy still had not been settled, as the Soviet Ambassador (and his translator) had taken to his megaphone and made every kind of claim from possessing a nuclear weapon in the basement to threatening to contact the "Third Soviet Navy" to "destroy your aggressive nation with nuclear weapons if you do not end your siege on the sovereign territory of the Soviet Union". None of his claims were true, but the Army exercised caution, given what had occurred two days before.

A radiological sweep of the premises indicated no nuclear weapon anywhere in the vicinity, and Royal Australian Navy patrols reported no signs of Soviet activity anywhere close to Australia or New Zealand. WIth more troops having been sent in as backup (some of which had helped quell a minor uprising in Wagga Wagga), Hawke gave the order to bring the conflict to a close. Troops rushed the building, and found themselves in a final, brief, but desperate firefight with the remaining staffers and guards.

As dawn rose in Canberra, medics were tending to the 24 troops injured in the final siege. Troops were guarding the premises and investigating every inch of the former USSR Embassy. Others were carrying bodies to nearby, make-shift morgues to separate the 47 Australian troops from the 37 staffers killed that morning. And, ten staffers - seven women and three men - who survived in the basement underneath the corpses of others killed in the last two days were being taken elsewhere in Canberra for questioning.

Post-Doomsday
Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra and Darwin were reopened to the public on October 3, the same day that Hawke set up relief centres in three cities near the destroyed centres of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth:
 * Bunbury, for the survivors of the Perth blast
 * Newcastle, for those from Sydney
 * Geelong, for survivors from the Melbourne region

All three cities were also named provisional capitals for their respective states (and formalized as such in 1986).

As Canberra remained untouched from nuclear attacks, the Australian government survived and was able to maintain a basic degree of order over the entire nation, preventing the chaos and anarchy that happened in numerous other nations. Hawke oversaw temporary, but necessary, emergency powers and acts designed to give the federal government the power it needed to keep order and help oversee the rebuilding of the nation.

In October, Hawke met New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon and proposed changes that would align and combine key branches of both governments, first and foremost the military. Hawke also proposed measures aimed at preventing a collapse of the economy, and other changes that would have wide-ranging ramifications for both nations, from civil defence to agriculture to transportation. The changes would have to be defined, and developed, jointly by both countries, but the end result would be a unified government.

Hawke told Australian and New Zealand media that the relationship between the two countries "was enormously precious at this difficult and challenging time" and that it would help pave the way for their "joint future".

The summer saw continuing work on resettling refugees near the destroyed cities into new homes in or near the three designated relief centers. The federal government also took on increased, but temporary, powers that helped it with food distribution and maintaining order nationwide. And, quietly, Australian and New Zealand militaries began combining resources and taking steps to work as a unified force by April 1984.

Hawke met with Indonesian President Suharto in February, asking for access to Indonesian oil while pledging Australian aid for the beleaguered nation regardless of Suharto's response. Suharto accepted the aid and agreed to open up his country's oil to all markets. He believed that Indonesia needed to move forward on the assumption that the Australia, New Zealand and Singapore markets would eventually bounce back to near pre-Doomsday levels; that would help secure Indonesia's long-term economic future, and the needs of the Australian and Singaporean militaries would give Indonesia's economy a short-term boost.

Indonesian oil allowed Australia the luxury of visiting various nations in the south Pacific. With both Great Britain and the United States assumed totally destroyed on Doomsday, the American and British protectorates and territories looked to Canberra.

In February, an unexpected radio message from North America came: the American President, Ronald Reagan, was alive, as was Vice President George Bush and several other staffers and cabinet members, and they were trying to find out who else was alive in this post-Doomsday world.

After learning of the message from America, Hawke ordered that he be in on any further messages sent from the states, and that Ambassador Nesen be allowed in.

The next day, another message came through from Mount Weather, and 20 minutes later, Hawke was speaking with President Ronald Reagan. Nesen came in moments later, and he and Hawke were told that Reagan and Bush had gotten to shelter, but that the known situation throughout the United States was grim. The Virginia and West Virginia state governments had collapsed, with even the surrounding towns falling into anarchy, and locals beginning to resort to cannibalism; supplies were dwindling, and food in the region was either unconsumable or had already been accounted for by local survivors. No one had been able to establish contact with anyone outside the Mount Weather or Greenbrier regions, and certainly not from Canada, Japan nor Western Europe.

The one contact other than Australia the U.S. had been able to establish was with Mexican military south of Mexico City; they learned that Mexico had survived Doomsday and was not only functioning but was apparently taking American survivors from the southwest border states. It gave Reagan, and Bush, and everyone around them hope, to carry on and seek safe haven.

Reagan's advisors informed him the situation around Mount Weather and Bush's headquarters at the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia was likely the same throughout the country and were advising him to abandon the mainland for the closest known surviving U.S. ally. With Australia now known to have survived, Reagan told Hawke that "I have been convinced by my advisors that Australia, not Mexico, gives our government the best chance at survival, and therefore, we are asking you for temporary refuge, for the duration of the crisis."

Hawke immediately agreed to accept Reagan and Bush, along with other remaining cabinet members, staffers, military personnel and family members. Hawke advised that Reagan make arrangements with Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid, if possible, to accept any and all American refugees who had fled into that country (which Reagan had already planned for).

Reagan's plane never made it. After leaving Hawaii, Air Force One began having mechanical problems and went under duress; the last recorded message, from the pilot, reported extreme mechanical duress over the Pacific Ocean. The RAAF pilot in communication with Air Force One lost contact with the plane.

No signs of Air Force One, nor anyone on board, has ever been found.

Bush arrived in Canberra on Air Force Two on May 6 from Auckland, greeted personally by Hawke only to be told that the RAAF lost contact with Air Force One. Bush and his party, shaken by the news, were escorted to the U.S. embassy while Hawke ordered (as a courtesy to Bush) two RAAF planes to fly over the general area Air Force One was believed to have crashed in.

On May 8, after no traces of Reagan's plane nor party were discovered, Bush was sworn in as U.S. President by Sir Harry Gibbs, the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia at the U.S. Embassy.

On the same day of his inauguration, Bush announced the creation of the American Provisional Administration (APA), located out of the American embassy in Canberra. The goals of the organization were twofold: first, to gather intelligence on the situation, both in the USA and across the world; and secondly, to provide cohesion for the community of American survivors. One of his first acts as president was to order American troops and supplies to Hawaii to prevent the deterioting condition there.

In June, the famous "Gathering Order" was issued.

U.S. equipment and ships made the combined US/Australian/New Zealand Navy the most powerful of all of the surviving nations, far away more efficient and well-equiped than any other. The USS Nimitz, which incredibly survived Doomsday, was the capital ship of the fleet.

Hawke's drive to unite Australia and New Zealand saw its fruition in 1995; as the United States of America was formally ending its existence, a new nation uniting the two nations - known as the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand - formally declared its existence; in that same year, and  both voted to become associate states of the Commonwealth.

The USS Nimitz was rechristened as the ANZS "Commonwealth" (ANZ-01) and the new Flagship of the combined ANZC Navy, along with American submarines and other ships already operating under Australian command.

This step caused intense political debates among the population of Australia and New Zealand concerning the reusage of nuclear fission in any way, especially for military purposes. Although a majority agreed to the government plans in a popular vote in both countries, the anti-nuclear movement spearheaded by the Green Party grew more and more influential in the CANZ parliament, inspiring similar movements in other nations.

Still, the American ships allowed the CANZ Navy to operate on a global scale and provide humanitarian support in other nations.



One of the main tasks of the Commonwealth was defined to secure the survival of as many citizens of the two countries - and to a certain degree all survivors - in the rest of the world as possible.

Some regions in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and East Timor operated as de facto protectorates/possessions since the founding of the CANZ, and would eventually formally join the Commonwealth.

Based on the intense and solid cooperation of the two nations which both weathered Doomsday comparably well, the CANZ has become one of the key players in the post-Doomsday world.

The CANZ was a founding member and the initiator of the League of Nations and hosted the foundation ceremony on September 26, 2008 in Canberra. It enjoys good relations with all nations and has no "enemies", although the South American Confederation acts as more of an economic and political rival than an enemy