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As we all know, the Manhattan Project was a project by a collaboration of UK and US governments to create a bomb using nuclear fusion to use on their enemies such as Japan or Germany during the Second World War in the 1940s. Now why was this possible to create? Well, the idea of nuclear technology had been popular since December 1938, when physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch made a startling discovery that would immediately revolutionize nuclear physics and lead to the atomic bomb, therefore the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and leading several times to the end of the world during the Cold War, most notably the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the 1983 nuclear false alarm (which there are also alternate scenarios based on those two, check out Great Nuclear War and 1983: Doomsday).
Now we have to ask ourselves the question - what if the nuke wasn't invented? What if nuclear fission was never discovered, therefore no knowledge of how effective nuclear energy is and the Manhattan Project is never even thought of? How different would our world be? This is the world of What nuke?
Point of divergence[]
It is an alternate December 1938 - it seems like a small, simple point of divergence, but it's one that changes the entire course of World War II and the Cold War. forever. Meitner and Frisch never discover nuclear fission. Simple. But of course, with any alternate timeline, any simple POD has an instant effect.
Operation Downfall plans
Japan and the End of World War II[]
Because nuclear energy is never discovered, obviously the Manhattan Project wouldn't be a thing. What does this mean for the Empire of Japan? Does it mean it's safe from the dangers of foreign attacks, and that it can keep its empire together?
Well, to put it lightly, no.
But why, I hear you ask? Well, because in our own timeline, the United States had an alternate plan - Operation Downfall. This was a plan to invade the Japanese islands and eventually invade mainland Japan, although it was a last resort, since the U.S. government knew that the war would risk many hundreds of thousands of lives due to how heavier the Japanese soldiers were fighting as they came closer to the main island, and so the plan was only to be used in the worst-case scenario. Because nuclear fission isn't around in this alternate timeline, Harry S. Truman and the U.S. Congress have to put this plan into action.
Soviet troops in Korea
On 1 October 1945, the Allies begin their invasion of Japan, as the Soviet Union continues their invasion into Korea. Eventually, the Soviet Union manages to defeat the Japanese Navy on the north of Japan, and they finally launch an attack on Japan in February 1946, when the Allies are already on the southern part of Japan. Soon, Tokyo capitulates, and Emperor Hirohito is forced to surrender. For three years, Japan is divided between Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union - eventually, the British-US-French occupation zones are unified into the State of Japan (a.k.a. South Japan), while the USSR keeps their northern part of Japan, creating the Japanese Democratic Republic (a.k.a. North Japan).
What happens next?[]
This world is completely a different place - without nukes, major great powers would be constantly at war with each other, fighting for control over spheres of influence.
The world would not be at peace. That is the sad truth. In fact, as of 2022 in What nuke?, the world is currently having its fourth world war, between the United States and a yet-again authoritarian Russia lead by Vladimir Putin, who wants to restore Russia's former glory.