Atomic Hate

War has changed...^note ...but in the end, war never changes.

"We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."

— J. Robert Oppenheimer, looking back on the first nuclear bomb test

Advertisement:

Things that make cities go boom.

The use of atomic bombs in fiction started as soon as the possibilities of splitting the atom became known — H.G. Wells first used the term in fiction in 1914, three decades before their invention.^note Wells also predicted the submarine-launched ballistic missile and its strategic implications in 1933's The Shape of Things to Come.

When the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed just what effect they had, they became an integral part of culture.

Credit should be given to nukes for being the only weapons that, after their initial use, were so frightening that humanity has done everything it could not to use them again. That still doesn't change the fact that nukes are awesome. Until one, hopefully not, goes off above your head, or just in close proximity to it. And even then it's pretty awesome … for somebody else witnessing from outside the fireball and blast radius. You, on the other hand, will be vaporized faster than any neural signals could travel to the brain, let alone be processed into actual perception, and will cease to exist without ever knowing that anything happened at all. And that's not even mentioning radioactive fallout, which can spread for many, many miles following the explosion, and can kill many more people through radiation poisoning.

Advertisement:

Just remember the First Rule of Nuclear Weapons: "What is the one and only way you can avoid being killed by a nuclear explosion? Don't be there when it goes off."

This is about them in both fact and in fiction.

• Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Nuclear Glossary
• Types of Nuclear Weapons
• The Moscow Criterion
• Nuclear Weapons

Specific subtropes:

• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics
• Deus ex Nukina
• Emergency Broadcast
• Empty Quiver
• Fantastic Nuke
• I Love Nuclear Power
• Mutually Assured Destruction
• Neutron Bomb
• A Nuclear Error
• Nuclear Nasty
• Nuclear Nullifier
• Nuclear Option
• Nuclear Weapons Taboo
• Nuke 'em
• Sickly Green Glow
• You Nuke 'Em

Nukes by country

What is counted in the nuclear weapons listings:

• All deployed systems designed solely for nuclear use
• All aircraft, missiles etc. with nuclear capability, or a nuclear capable variant.

Advertisement:
• Any planned nuclear-capable platform that did not enter service or entered service in a non-nuclear form only if it was obviously intended for a nuclear capability. Therefore the Seawolf-class attack sub is included in Superior Firepower as it was a Cold War design intended for nuclear-use. The Virginia design occurred afterwards, so isn't. The same applies with Russian carriers- Admiral Kuznetsov is included, the new planned carriers are not. If a ship was laid down, it's included.
• Confirmed future nuclear weapons projects.
• All ASROC-capable warships developed before 1989.

Platforms that did not enter service in a nuclear role are listed in [Square brackets].

• China: The Dragon's Teeth
• USA: Peace Through Superior Firepower
• USSR/Russia: From Russia with Nukes
• UK: Ultimate Defence of the Realm
• France: The Ultimate Resistance
• The Rest of the Nuclear Club
  • India: The Third Eye of Bharat
  • Pakistan: Pak Attack
  • Israel: The Samson Option
  • North Korea: The Hooves of Chollima

---