Y2K Apocalypse



On December 31, 1999, over billions of the earth's citizens had finished their final Christmas celebrations of the Millennia and were preparing for the New Year, hopefully filled with promise and hope. Cable News Network had set up around Times Square to see the Millennial Ball drop down towards the eager crowds, awaiting the dawn of a new age. NORAD stood vigilant as they prepped the national nuclear defence plans for a possible glitch, yet their precautions where neither thorough nor adequate. Those familiarized with the Georgian Calendar, a small third of the world, forecasted a meaningful yet uneventful year ahead.

At around 11:50:00 p.m., New York Time, few cared at that moment about the latent warnings around a possible malfunction to every single object that possesses a microchip, they had heard on many news stations and Christianity websites. Many disregarded the idea as mere paranoia. At 11:55:12 p.m., in Los Angeles, California, a man broke into the CBS 2 News Station and managed to appear on-screen in front of the local anchormen and shout explicit messages of doom and horror regarding the Y2K Bug. He was forcibly escorted out of the building and taken to the nearest police station. He would not survive the night. By one minute to midnight, all of America was griped in suspense as the clock slowly ticked towards the approaching hour. In reality, more than half the world had already celebrated their arrival in the year 2000. The crystal ball studded with 504 triangles began to fall. New York watched with wonder and awe, as did others on the east coast. Finally, Midnight.

At 12:00:00 a.m. EST, January 1, 2000, the computers had failed in over a third of the country. Then, by some unlikely situation, the problem magnified. 13 seconds later, over 6,439 nuclear warheads had been unstoppably launched, and where heading for their various locations. Britain, France, Germany, Australia, the former Soviet Union. Naturally, Russia’s defence system reacted double-fold. The Warheads reached Washington D.C. and New York at 12:24:56 and 12:12:09, respectively. By dawn, over five billion people's lives had been lost, and thousands of cities and towns in ruins. To the few survivors, this was only the beginning of the end.

The Warnings (Pre-Y2K)
When the microprocessor had been invented in February 1971, innovations in time-keeping followed. The data processing method relied heavily on just simple Arithmetic counting, making only more susceptible to the upcoming year 2000 problem. Unlike our OTL, this world decided to make two fatal mistakes; building computers and devices with a simple time format; and spending little than $15 billion dollars towards the Y2K problem in the three years before that fateful day. The main reason behind the lack of funding towards the forecoming error was the escalation of the Gulf War, which caused Bill Clinton and his staff to divert much-needed funds towards the stabilization of the Persian territory. Other than these certianly possible events, there is little difference between this timeline with ours.

Many computer programs stored years with only two digits, for example, 1980 would be stored as 80. Some such programs could not distinguish between the year 2000 and the year 1900. Other programs would try to represent the year 2000 as 19100. This could cause a complete failure and cause date comparisons to produce incorrect results. Some embedded systems, making use of similar date logic. Politicians, Military, and Computer companies alike were warned of the possibly of a simple misplaced digit could cause disasters consequences. However, the seemly alarmist attitudes did little to change the course of time.

Around the world, numerous computer problems aroused. On August 14, 1998, a computer technician from Las Vegas noticed a possible error in one of the military defence network of Nevada. The problem was quickly fixed, yet others like it soon came up in the following months. Since military defence networks had been majorly been built on C programming language, the possible of weaponry reacting to the sudden error of dates was not out of the question.

Problems Thoughout the Year
On May 18, 1999, Kurt Leasure, from the University of Pennsylvania, was doing a regular system check on deferent models of computers, testing to see how well they could change their date format, discovered a new computer virus of unknown origin that threatened the stably of the worlds computers.

The new virus, dubbed 3Xer ('X' because it was unlike anything seen before and unknown, and ‘3’ because it triplicate itself in decimal time.), was unusual, in the sense of where it seemed independently work to find points of weakness in systems that had standard date processing. It seemly corrupted systems that had trouble changing date formats, especially computers that only processed two digits for a year on their clock. Leasure was intrigued by this new found virus since early similar versions had been found in September 1998 and March 1999, when follow universities had done their Y2K Bug systems check.

Many computer designers around America reacted, and for a brief while, started putting millions into the solution to this bug. But since 3Xer had only appeared minorly throughout the nation, e.g. twice, many did not worry about the supposed consequences of the rogue virus. Still, an anti-virus protection system was developed and tested fully. However, the protection system would be ignored and fail to be integrated into any computer system, with the exception of five University computer centres, including the University of Pennsylvania.

Last Days
Throughout the following months, very few computers and computer systems, including the Internet, where fully processed to protect it from the Y2K Bug. They were still plenty of systems that were checked on a 24/7 basis, which included the systems of the financial and business sector. As for personal computers, the plan was to send a anti-date system on a floppy disc, that would protect the files of the hard drive if the date reset to 1900 or changed to 19100. The anti-dating system, named MillenniaWatch by Microsoft, did not have immunity against the 3Xer virus.

Christmas came and went, without a whim or a care. Decorations where hung up and taken down, eggnog was poured and carols were sung, Presents had been sent or given to loved ones or close friends. Advent calendars were being opened regularly. Boxing Day came, with practically everybody who celebrated January 1 as the day of a new year in high excitement.

December 31st, 1999
December 31, 1999 itself was a mildly eventful day; Boris Yeltsin had just resigned as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as acting President; The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal to Panama. There was a hostage situation on an Indian Airlines plane, as five hijackers held 155 hostages demanding two Islamic clerics that they later freed.

To those living on the eastern seaboard the, streets where fraught with snow, Christmas decorations where begin taken down, and numerous people turned on their radios and televisions to listen and watch the shows like Good Morning America as they would talk about the approaching millennium which was just several hours away. Little did people know that this would be the last day of civilization as they had become to know it. No more going to work, no shopping at local malls, no school or university, or waking up to a newer and better day.

After lunch, millions in the country of America flocked to cities and town’s ‘centres of activity’, most likely having some sort of commemoration for the upcoming event of the century. Churches and Stores alike where adorned in messages like “Happy Millennium” or “New Years 2000’’. Just the same, seemingly homeless people with picket signs and carry-on billboards roamed the sidewalks and alleys with messages like “Y2K: Where Will You Be” and “The End is near”. Most people were not bothered by the predictions with their cataclysmic innuendo. Throughout time, humans had been taught that the future is not certain, and that numerous prophets that have tried to foresee it have failed. Doomsday alarmists have been a many respect persons, yet still they cannot predict the upcoming. So, who could take a man with a billboard strapped to his chest seriously at all?

By night time, all the stores had closed and the families and friends of the world gathered together, wherever they may have been at the moment, and counted the hours to the big event, totally oblivious to the tragedy and electronic maelstrom up ahead. Some waited patiently; they decided to have one more drink, or they decided to read the last edition of Time Magazine released that very day, with a picture of Albert Einstein whose work lead to the invention of the Atomic Bomb, the same device that would undo the empire human created in just a short while.

The Apocalypse




In essence, it wasn’t really the inability for computers to make the date change, but the 3Xer virus. Once a few computer centres in the country had failed in make the change, the virus spread to almost every other computer in the world within its reach and corrupted its internal system. It took only a few microseconds for it to do so, and by 12:00:06 a.m., half the computers in the world had been irreparably damaged. The United States defence system had its main clock fail, which allowed the 3Xer virus and other minor sister viruses to enter the main defence grid and cause massive errors, which by 12:00:13 a.m., cause it to activate the nuclear warheads and set it to DEFCON 1. This caused full-out retaliation to a non-existent nuclear attacker.

Midnight


When the clock turned midnight, the world population, according to estimated figures by Government censuses, stood at 6,041,626,705 people. However, by noon later that day, the population would suddenly drop down to barely 900 million. In all, over 14,569 nuclear warheads had been launched from both of the opposing countries of United States and Russia. Few cities and large towns managed to avoid destruction by nuclear bombs that failed to reach their destination. These cities included the Austrian city of Vienna, the Canadian cities and towns of Montreal, Greater Sudbury, these cities spared by nuclear fire.

Dawn (4:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.)
When the first light from the sun onto this new world came, only then could the true significance and amount of destruction could be fully seen. In most cities in the United States, clouds of radioactive dust particles hung in the air surrounding the city. Thousands of those fortunate to survive the initial blast now had to battle with radiation sickness, and inevitably cancer. Nearly all electronic devices, in and near cities, had been destroyed and fried by the EMP pulse generated by the nuclear bombs ignited close to space, before the targeted bombs meant for levelling cities came.

Day 7
Even through all that had happened in the first week, worst had yet to come to the rural areas around the world. In America alone, there were over 104 nuclear reactors in power plants, universities, and naval bases ; all need constant supervision. If no one looked after them, computers would cut in. Since, however, that nearly 99.5% of computers in the country had been wiped out by the Y2K Bug and the 3Xer Virus, only 1 nuclear reactor was protected from having a nuclear meltdown. The rest would go Chernobyl in the next few days.

The nuclear scientists that had survived the initial nuclear warheads and technological destruction of January 1st, had foreseen the disastrous effects of the nation's nuclear reactors overheating and exploding. Whereas the explosions would not be as massive as the nuclear explosions that landed on the cities and towns on that fateful day, they would have tons of radioactive material would be shot into the atmosphere and fall around the surrounding areas, killing all lifeforms; including plants, animals and some microbes. Numerous scientists, mostly affiliated with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, contacted as many people as they had known to have survive the nuclear attack and informed them of the impending excess nuclear fallout from the unstable nuclear reactors. They moved quickly as humanly possible, yet they only managed to save 34 nuclear reactors by the end of the week. On Friday, January 7, all 69 unstable nuclear reactors erupted, spewing thousands of tons of nuclear material over the nation's land.

In Baker City, Oregon, a storm of black rain, which is precipitation mixed with nuclear fallout, fell on the small city. Within two months, over ninety-five percent of the original residents would be dead from the poisonous rain, after it got into the surviving water system. Only two people from that place survived to see the next year.

Coming out into a new world (January 7, 2000 - March 2000)
Cities have now become a living hell zone; buildings are charred from the nuclear heat and radiation and crumble into the earth, Liquefied natural gas tanks explode and set the streets on fire like something out of a John Martin painting, Chlorine tanks have overheated and have sent tons of extremely poisonous gas into the local atmosphere and choking anyone who breathes.

Confusion among many


Since it was technology that is believed to have brought about the end of the world, many feel repealed by it and refuse to use it. Some start from cults and groups with the intent of preventing humanity from regaining their former foothold on the world by the ways of technology. One group, called the Roots of Earth, was formed in March 2000 in the remains of the city of Olympia, Washington by no less than fifty members. Largely left-wing, with Luddite political status, the Roots of Earth found their ways into other nearby towns and villages quickly. By August 12, 2000, their membership included twenty-five thousand people, and their influence continued to spread amongst the shocked masses, lost in a new era of chaos. Members usually wear a piece of Chernobylite on a small chain around there necks as a testament to the burden of technology and its consequences. This ends up giving lung and heart cancer.

Nuclear Winter
When September had come, the temperature was already falling below 20 degrees Celsius. It some areas, however, next to the equator like Miami, the thermometers told a different tale and often reached 40 degrees.

Survival Game (2001-2003)
By the year of 2001, over half a billion people had died from the resulting radiation, famine, floods, riots and loss of technology. The remaining 400 million continued to fall in numbers, as once bustling metropolises became death zones. Cities became inhabitable, large towns fell apart from decay, since all of the people assigned to keep them maintained and functional had all vanished.

Decline (2007-Present)
On January 1, 2007, tens of thousands of religious enthusiast went outdoors and prayed expectation Jesus to appear and take them to the heaven the world so wanted. The reason behind this is that many believed that Y2K had been the apocalypse, and that seven years of tribulation had reigned. By Midnight, numerous people were dismayed at the absence of their beloved saviour, instead they simply went back into their homes, turned on their radios or televisions, and remembered with families and friends that night seven years ago, when chaos reigned.