1983: Doomsday

INTRODUCTION
1983: Doomsday postulates the alternative outcome of the Sept. 26, 1983 event, when Colonel Stanislav Petrov was alerted, in error, to a possible US missile strike against the Soviet Union. This ATL is intended to be a "current" or "Parallel" - ATL where everything happens within the same time frame like OTL.

In OTL, Colonel Petrov believed the information to be false and did not alert the Kremlin to the data he was receiving. Given Cold War tensions at the time, such information would likely have convinced the Soviets that the US had launched a first strike attempting to "cut off the head" and launched their forces, in the belief it was a "counter-strike", not a first-strike.

The resulting nuclear exchange would have been close to the forecasts of almost complete destruction and "nuclear winter" predicted by many scientists of the day, resulting in as much as two billion people killed initially, possibly another two billion in the subsequent environmental disaster.

The 800 million survivors still desperately try to keep together what is left of human society and therewith face seemingly impossible challenges.

For the next 25 years, now southern-hemisphere-lead mankind is struggling to maintain a certain level of civilization. The forthcoming culmination - the foundation of the New United Nations (NUN)-headed by Australia, Argentina and Brazil in 2008 awakens a small glance of a possibly more peacefully future for mankind.

PRINCIPAL CONTENT
''the general timeline of this ATL, delivering the background and the timeline from 1983 up to the present day"
 * Timeline

''to the profiles of the surviving nations, territories and other self - governing Bodies, sorted by contintent.
 * World Country Profiles


 * NUN - New United Nations


 * NGO's

Geopolitical background, Alliances, Cooperations, Rivalries
 * Geopolitics


 * Socials

ADDITIONAL CONTENT / FURTHER MATERIAL
several maps displaying the situation from 1983-2008
 * Maps