There are plenty of ways the world might end, but few have captured the public imagination in quite the same way as a nuclear attack. Having seen the long lasting devastation a strike can cause all too well, (the two nuclear strikes on Japan that ended World War 2), there are few man made objects that can wreak such utter chaos in such a short space of time. It's easy to see why they're such terrifying things.
And while we like to think that there's no chance a nuclear strike could happen today (in actual fact, there are at least a few countries around the world in possession of nuclear weapons that we should probably be concerned about), the thoughts surrounding the "what ifs" provide a great creative stomping ground to explore one of the most terrifying thoughts of all - what if a nuclear attack actually happened? And what if it targeted us?
This is the story behind Fallout 4, a role playing game set in a similar "what if" future, where the dreams of the 50s and 60s actually happened, and the country stayed in its 60s mom-and-pop, household helper robot bliss for the next 100 years. The nuclear apocalypse that the Cold War threatened was seemingly delayed, until in 2077, the unthinkable happened, and the bombs dropped on America, changing the world forever. Running for shelter in one of the specially built Fallout bunkers, you and your family hunker down to begin the long wait for the fallout to settle, with the game eventually beginning proper some 200 years later, as you step outside to explore the arid wasteland.
The future may be bleak, but at least you've got a dog to keep you company
Thankfully, the world of Fallout 4 remains a "what if" nightmare. But at one point, we were actually teetering on the verge of a nuclear war. So much so, that the UK government made a series of informational videos, instructing families of what to do in the event of a nuclear strike. And they'd almost be funny if they weren't intended to be taken deadly seriously. Instead, this is the sort of thing that'll keep you up at night.
Terrifying, right? These videos, known as Protect and Survive, were intended to be shown in the event of a nuclear attack. A whole series were produced, which would take over the airwaves on TV and Radio if ever the worst should happen. Packed full of what the government hoped would be useful information, these were intended to offer guidance in your darkest hour - and may well have been the last thing you ever heard.
Before we delve any further, it's probably best to give you a bit of a brief history of why these videos came to be made. While World War 2 had started in an effort to prevent one dictatorship from invading and taking over Poland (in the form of Nazi Germany), it ended with Poland under the control of another - the USSR. With its major enemy crushed, the USSR looked to establish itself as a major superpower, with expansionist tendencies that saw it taking over nearby countries - and so began the Cold War, a part of history that's perhaps less well known amongst the younger generation. With the Soviet Union and the United States at constant loggerheads over who was number one, the Cold War was a period of military posturing and fingers dangling over red buttons, as both sides effectively partook in a game of chicken that could have devastating consequences. Both sides were stockpiling nuclear weapons and espionage, and tensions were such that a nuclear war could break out at any time. Due to our "special relationship" with the United States, we were stuck in the middle.
This led to the adoption of the surprisingly logically sound (if terrifying) policy known as "mutually assured destruction" (or "MAD"). The logic being that you can't negotiate with a nutter. The only thing that might stop said nutter from firing their nuclear bomb at you is if they knew you had one that would be heading straight back at them, with the end result being you'll both end up dead. As things started to heat up in the USSR, the UK started to amass a similar stock of nuclear weapons to defend themselves with. Squadrons of Avro Vulcan nuclear bombers (most famous for their role in the defence of the Falkland Islands) and Victors were on a state of permanent standby, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year at bases around the country, with the capability of taking off within two minutes of a Soviet nuclear attack, giving them just enough time to get airborne before the bombs hit. The only problem was, there wouldn't be anything for them to come back to. If you want a great idea of the insanity of the time, pilots on the Vulcans were provided with an eye patch to be worn during flight. As the sheer white light given out by a nuclear strike was so incredibly strong, the chances were they'd be blinded, at which point they were expected to switch the eye patch to the other eye, and keep flying.
Recently released government documents say that at one point, the USSR had over 389 mega tons of nuclear weapons were pointed at the UK - that's over 20,000 times the destructive might of the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima. Within seconds, a third of the population was expected to be killed, with millions more set to succumb to radiation poisoning over the next few weeks. It's the sort of thing that seems totally unimaginable when you read it like that, but at one point, it seemed like a true possibility. A nightmarish possibility - but one that, thankfully, never happened.
And if it did? Well, the Protect and Survive videos were there to help, full of practical advice for surviving the nuclear apocalypse.
If there is no solid cover, lie down in a ditch or a hole, and cover your face and your hands with your clothes.
While the first video explained what a nuclear bomb is (you know, so if you die, at least you'll know what's killed you), the others give you somewhat more useful instructions for what to do in the event of an attack. Weirdly enough, as these were only meant to be shown in the event of a nuclear attack, the warning about what you need to listen out for may well have come too late. The first thing you need to do is to listen out for an air raid siren, which would sound to signal the attack - the "three minute warning" of lore. Once the attack's been and gone, if you're still alive, you'll hear three bangs, which was the official warning that nuclear fallout was on the way - fallout being the radioactive dust thrown up in the explosion, which then covers everything it touches in a deadly radiation. Once the three bangs have passed, the waiting game begins, as you sit hunkered down waiting for a solid siren to sound, which signals the "immediate danger has passed" - although in reality, it wouldn't pass for decades.
If you weren't sure what to do when the air raid sirens started blaring, though, the video provides some handy hints. If you're at home, you need to send your children to the fallout room (another video, which we'll get to later, explains how to build one), turn off your gas and electric, shut your windows and draw your curtains (which will surely save you from the gigantic explosion to come).
But what do you do if you're nowhere near home, we hear you ask? Well, don't worry, the video has a solution to that, too. If you're near a building, head inside. If not, any cover will be better than none - like being under a bridge (although again, your chances of survival would be between slim and none). And if there's no cover around? Don't worry - just lie down, and cover your head. Hey, what's the worst that could happen? And if the fallout siren should sound when you're stuck outside, the video's thought of that too - all you need to do is head to the nearest cover - but before you go inside, be sure to brush all the fallout dust off yourself.
Other videos try to take a more uplifting tone, in an effort to keep morale high, and all that. Here's a great one about the best place to go in the event of a strike, which contains the uplifting passage:
Fallout can kill. Since it can be carried for great distances by the winds, it can eventually settle anywhere. So no place in the United Kingdom is safer than any other. The risk is as great in the countryside as in the towns. No one can tell where the safest place will be.
The video ends with a warning that if you leave your house, the local authority will use it to house homeless people, and where you get where you're going, no-one will give you food or shelter. So, stay where you are, then.
So, with the videos having established that staying at home is the best solution, you'll want to make sure you have somewhere safe to hide. That's where making your own fallout room - and your own inner refuge - comes in, and the Protect and Survive videos go into great detail about how best to create one. This is actually perhaps the most informative part of the whole thing, as the video explains you'll want to pick a room that's as far away from any windows and external walls as possible, to help avoid radiation, while creating an inner refuge inside that fallout room will give you the "best chance of survival". The inner refuge is essentially a makeshift bomb shelter inside an internal room, created in the video by leaning doors against a wall, then covering the outside with bags of sand and earth to resist radiation - or turning the room under the stairs into a veritable bunker in its own right. Quite how successful any of these rooms would actually be in the event of a nuclear attack is anyone's guess - but at least people would have felt like they were doing all they could.
Of course, it's not all glamour inside a makeshift nuclear bunker, and later videos go on to explain how some of the more grizzly bits will work - from what you're supposed to do for a toilet if the water's cut off and you can't leave your shelter, to how to handle casualties, if someone you're sharing your fallout shelter with dies. In a typically factual tone, the video tells you to move the body to a separate room, label it, wrap it up, and then label it again, until it's safe to go outside. If you've had the body in the house for more than five days, and it's safe to go outside, you should bury them, temporarily, in your garden. The sad truth is, this would perhaps be the most important video out the lot of them, as so many people would die.
While there's a whole range of videos in the series (the whole thing lasts for just under an hour), it's hard to overstate quite how eerie the whole thing seems now. In reality, no matter how many videos you watched, it probably wouldn't affect your chances of survival. In the event of a nuclear strike, there was really very little you could do - you were either lucky (away from the blast zone), or unlucky, and no amount of preparation would help.
Luckily, nowadays a nuclear strike doesn't seem quite as imminent as it was in the 60s and 70s (knock on wood), but as with all things, it remains a slim possibility. While the Protect and Survive videos were never shown on TV, you can only imagine that someone, somewhere within the government has been working on a similar set of videos, instructing people of what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Obviously, things would work a little bit differently now, as for starters, Britain's system of air raid warning sirens has been dismantled, so you won't hear their distinctive shriek any time soon (unless you live in Plymouth, where, funnily enough, theirs still works, and wails out once a week to check it still works, in the event of a nuclear accident at the nearby submarine base). But imagine if one day, you turned on YouTube, to find every video was playing a protect and survive message? Imagine if the TV program you were watching went off, to be replaced by emergency guidance. These must be contingency plans like this in existence still. But the only time we'd ever see them is in a true state of emergency.
If you fancy a slightly less terrifying take on a nuclear apocalypse, and life after it, Fallout 4 is out next week - and now you've seen the real public information broadcasts, you'll look on the game's own tongue in cheek informational reels in a totally different light. We don't know about you, but we're off to start gathering equipment to make our fallout room ready...
