What if the Chernobyl Disaster Was Far Worse?

Intro in 1986 the world witnessed a horror Unleashed by corruption and negligence a cascading disaster that spewed out invisible particles contaminating everything they touched the Chernobyl disaster released more radiation than a 100 hirosima causing genetic mutations in thousands of people a few dozen died from acute radiation thousands from various forms of cancer meanwhile an already dying Soviet Union was forced to hide its Scar and throw billions worth in materials to hide it the cleanup took years and over a million people and as Bleak as that is what if it was way worse what if the gaping pit of death was just never Patreon Discord closed hey Jimmy do you like my videos do you want to support the channel while also getting more out of it well then you're in luck once a month a YouTube Community poll gets posted and the audience votes between four scenarios ranging from vibrant to dystopian the one with the most votes becomes a regular video in the next month and the one with the least gets canned the remaining two battle it out on patreon only one of them gets a shot and that gets decided by a system only slightly less complicated than the US election there are four patreon tiers each tier acts like an elector vote all the patrons in that tier get to vote for their favorite choice and the winner becomes a patreon exclusive video for them to watch alongside voting rights patrons also receive a bunch of other perks like q&as and a custom stick figure but wait there's more so I've always found alternate history intriguing Imagining the one ifs the rise of fall of States throughout time while some video games touch on this I always felt the multiplayer aspect could have been more involved that is why I transformed my Discord server into a new role playing game in which every player can pick a city on the map and grow their very own Nation from it you can hop on pick your city and culture and join activities to gain in-game currency such as essay writing debate brackets meme contests quizzes and more the points you gain from those activities can be spent on expanding your state spawning resources creating factions or role playing characters the game has been running for over a month now the foundations that the mod team have laid down have led to many amazing moments I know I love following these events uh especially the live debates if a sandbox world where your historical knowledge fuel State Building sounds interesting to you then come join our free community or become a patron for some extra game benefits also anyone that joins by tomorrow uh of this date can participate in a live Q&A podcast in the Discord server ask me questions about uh the channel and Disaster Day stuff the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was a symbol of Soviet autonomy a marvelous Wonder of science supported by its nearby town pripiat the ninth town of the atom the Soviet Union was in severe decline but the space and nuclear programs were a source of immense national pride in 1985 a new Soviet leader rose up to this Challenge and initiated radical reforms aimed to democratize and decentralized the Soviet economy aimed for greater transparency began pulling troops from Afghanistan and met with Reagan to limit nuclear weapons but a year later everything changed for m gorbachov just after midnight on April 26 1986 an inexperienced night shift crew continued a safety test that had been running all day after stalling the reactor and making a series of mistakes made worse by Design flaws a surgeon energy output caused water to instantly vaporize What followed was an explosion with the strength of 225 tons of TNT which opened the reactor reactor 4 contained 190 tons of enriched uranium dioxide and between 5 to 30% of it was now thrown into the open as a massive fire began to burn all over the building in time a delayed Soviet response would deal with the aftermath by putting out the fire clearing the three and creating a containment building around the site but what if we were to alter this a little bit unlike the ludicrous theory proposed by the HBO show in which a thermonuclear blast blows up all four reactors we're going to stick to something much more grounded a scenario that we actually narrowly avoided but would still have apocalyptic consequences the only change I'm making here is in the amount of radioactive material that was blown up up what if instead of 5 to 30% it was somewhere around 50 to 60% in our timeline very few people died of acute radiation sickness most of them firefighters it was the initial impact in fire that did the most amount of damage and made Chernobyl a death trap with the added radioactivity the effects on the firefighters wearing no protective gear would be immediately apparent 1:23 a.m. A5 is pressed and a minute later a giant Fireball blasts the roof off the reactor fire begins to spread and the local firemen are called 5 minutes later 14 of them present at the station arrive at the scene they localize the fires on the roofs of reactor 3 and 4 40 minutes later while reinforcements were brought in from the local towns it took another 2 hours before 250 firefighters were combating the fires at 4:00 a.m. it took them an hour to quench most of them prevent venting The Inferno from spreading to reactor 3 which was operational the entire time but consider this with increased radiation the firemen on the scene would receive lethal doses only after minutes of exposure severe headaches and diarrhea would occur and the reinforcing firemen would be met with not only a glowing fire but a horrific scene of Fallen comrades convulsing puking and in shock none of them knew what they were dealing with with nuclear reactors were under the supervision of Soviet Authority regardless where they were stationed but the blame and the responsibility would immediately fall on the Republic they were located in in this case the Soviet Republic of Ukraine the firefighters would regroup and reassess the situation doing little to stop the Raging fires on the roof and turbine Hall additional smaller explosions would follow the situation gets significantly worse once the fires reach reach the supplies of diesel and chemicals Declassified KGB documents reveal that the government knew as early as 1983 that reactors 3 and 4 were the most dangerous ones in the Soviet Union these papers revealed in 2021 showcased that the room housing the steam separators frequently overheated causing the concrete to shift in its position by 6:00 a.m. the fire consumes the entire building and causes a meltdown of reactor 3 more and more fuel is added to the fire as graphite begins to act as coal and the intense temperatures begin to melt anything in its path causing structural failure the steam Rising High into the air is spread Westward by the winds forming death clouds ready to unleash havoc in the form of radioactive rain and so with heavy debris thrown out in the vicinity Cloud spreading radiation Northwest a superheated core melting into the ground and a fire that engulfed the entire building of reactors 3 and four how would the Soviet Union Weeks After respond the Soviet Union dealt with this crisis as with every other in its existence by throwing people at it the brave Liquidators along with colossal amounts of material managed to get things under control in our timeline even if it was slow inefficient and with a great cost to human life but in these altered conditions that is just not an option sure dozens of helicopters can throw sand and Boron at the reactor but modern studies conclude that even in our timeline with 5,000 tons of material thrown at the reactor almost none of it made it into the core that being said they did act as thermal insulators preventing further fires something which in this scenario would never happen if anything the initial strategy which was to have the helicopter hover directly over the smoke while they dumped their loads would inev ably cause a crash inside the reactor building just imagine helicopters falling on top of the already raging reactor fire on April 27th 1986 pripiat and other neighboring towns were evacuated but these 100,000 people would be far more aware of the dangers of Chernobyl the diesel fuel explosions would be heard throughout the day many firemen would never return home to their families and rumors would quickly begin to spill out these citizens would be loaded onto buses with a 1-hour notice and kept under close supervision by the state which would naturally want to keep information from leaking out people were ordered to bring their documents and as much food as they could carry since they would return in 3 days a timer which when expired would escalate the Panic even further Soviet invincibility was to remain unquestioned and the head of the Ukrainian Republic vmir shabisky firmly believed in nuclear energy as with much in This Disaster the man was the worst possible candidate to lead Ukraine at this critical juncture a conservative who hated gorbachov's radical policies a Neo stalinist who did everything he could to rufy Ukraine he went ahead with the planned Mayday Parade even taking his grandchild to the Celebration while being fully aware of the danger May 1st was like the 4th of July for the Soviet Union so this was just a recipe for disaster on that day the fire which had been burned rning for quite some time would create particles that easily traveled the 60 mi from Chernobyl to Kiev those particles would deposit themselves in the lungs skin clothes and bright red banners of the unsuspecting 2.5 million people by this point those same particles would be detected by the Swedish as well as NASA spy satellites the gaping pit at Chernobyl would spread its poison from far beyond the Iron Curtain raising many questions questions that the head of state were unwilling to Months After answer as seen in the HBO show there was a real fear of the reactor fuel melting into the water bubbler beneath which contained a lot of water and thus would lead to a thermal explosion when the hot material vaporized it however this is one instance of Hollywood drama in reality this had already happened and it didn't cause a substantial explosion even if it did it would be about 200 times less powerful than the initial blast however considering the dramatically worse circumstances in the area the miners are never sent to build a concrete pad underneath the reactor what that means is that a significant amount of radioactive material does make it into the groundwater Chernobyl is only a few miles away from the pripiat river which flows into the dener the fourth largest river in Europe flowing Downstream to dense population centers like Kiev and son fishing livestock and agriculture would be severely affected and when you add on top of that the rain that would affect the nearby area we're talking about a severe famine at the time the Soviet Union was struggling to meet demands for food supply and was forced to import a vast amount of grain from outside places including the us as demonstrated by the 1973 wheat deal Ukraine was its Bread Basket one which the state was known to exploit severely in in the past this was mostly due to how well irrigated the region was by said River and because of the abundance of black soil or Chism this soil was an agricultural gold mine and now anything grown on it would very likely be contaminated thousands of cattle would have to be put down the fishing industry would turn Belly Up and agricultural products would be tossed aside the Soviet people would have to choose whether to starve or to eat poison the first Horsemen of the the apocalypse would by this point be very apparent as tens of thousands of people begin to show signs of radiation sickness but the second Horsemen famine would really shake things up in our timeline rumors and myths around pregnant women and people who decontaminated the site led to abortion rate skyrocketing an avoidance of everyone who was near Chernobyl neither of these were scientifically accurate and yet it persisted in the National and even International conscious for decades radiation doesn't spread like an infection but with how bad things are in this scenario that's exactly how people would treat it any person food or water source that even had the possibility of being in range of the accident would be avoided at all costs those children celebrating the MayDay Parade would fall ill their quick metabolism absorbing radioactive iodine which would cause pounding headaches and thyroid cancel un precedented rates sending their parents into a frenzy remember the apocalyptic feeling of those first few months of covid and then dial that up to 11 there is a pretty good chance people start drinking bleach as a way of fighting radiation and to that an untrustworthy and severely shaken government and you have a recipe for disaster firstly the country's most affected by the Fallout would blame the centralized government for its incompetence and demand answers there is a possibility that Ukraine's 50 million and Bell rusus 10 would be the first to try to break off in a violent manner with some of the conservatives using this as an opportunity to turn against gorbachov and his radical policies policies which hadn't even kicked in yet those ordered to deal with the crisis both in putting out the fire and Rebellion might just disobey or directly oppose the bureaucracy by the end of May the last of the fires would have burnt out which meant that they would burn for about 5 extra weeks longer than in our timeline with much greater intensity there was a way for these particles to be dealt with however as both NATO and the Soviets would mobilize pilots and artillery armed with silver iodine Munitions this would turn the radioactive clouds into rain preventing it from reaching dense urban areas in our timeline this actually occurred and the Soviets sacrificed half of valus to save Moscow but in this scenario the effects would be so much worse not all clouds would be intercepted and the prolonged fire would spread particles east and south as well as Northwest upon meeting the mountains Heavy Rain would pour all over the Alps caucuses and Balkans contaminating even more people turning this local disaster into a regional Year After one supply lines and infrastructure would break down and each Republic would be left to fend for itself the Afghanistan withdrawal would become totally disorganized and the mujahadin would regain Power by the end of 1986 these troops would be needed for what would happen next in our world the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 largely due to gorbachov's policies but even in 1986 the cracks were showing the baltics and caucuses were on the brink and due to their location the severe consequence es they would endure as a result of Soviet mismanagement would stoke the flame and start a revolution Poland usbekistan and mova would quickly be added to the list while puppet States within the realm of Soviet influence like Romania and Bulgaria would completely withdraw from the Warsaw Pact all of this would happen in the backdrop of the 1986 war in Ukraine and bellarus the key republics that were the first to oppose gorbachov rather than being a two-sided conflict this was would be an amalgamation of loyalists versus conservatives versus nationalist movements versus gorilla fighters versus people who just wanted to avoid the effects of radiation with some level of NATO meddling on top of all of that who and while all of this was happening there was nothing being done against the effect of radiation which was far too deep behind the curtain for international Aid the Soviet government would be in freef fall and it could be more than likely that the Young and radical gorbachov would be assassinated by a rival party or some random protester unlike in our timeline the Soviet collapse would be violent with automous republics breaking out and forming their own governments in Asia hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from the crisis along with vast amounts of Cold War weapons being used in factional Wars the West would be victorious but this apocalypse would not leave it untouched Mass hysteria and a refugee crisis of Unthinkable proportions would cause the rean and Thatcher governments to make hard choices while the global price of grain and other Goods would Skyrocket if you look at the regions closest to Chernobyl and categorize them in tears based on how badly they would suffer from The Fallout we're talking about a 100 million people in the immediate surrounding area half of them Russians and the other half ukrainians and Bell Russians and then we have another 60 million Russians 20 million in the caucuses and baltics 20 million Germans 20 million Romanians and almost 40 million poles then we finally have Austria Bulgaria Hungary Czechoslovakia turkey and the people in Scandinavia all of which make up nearly 100 million people in total the regions who would be devastated by the effects of radiation famine and War would Encompass a population of roughly 367.8 million Decade After people the amount of people who would perish due to the effects of radiation itself would be far smaller than even a single percent but the way humans work the psychological effects and geopolitical shifts would entirely redraw the map and cause the worst crisis in Europe since the black death for those who remain fertility rates would severely drop while child deformities and cancer rates would be catastrophic an area the size of Texas would be left almost completely depopulated reclaimed by Nature with a sprawling and slightly mutated Wildlife it maybe people those who choose to remain that is a strict immigration policy would be put in place and an international Mission would be launched years after the disaster there would be a lot of efforts by the scientific Community to stop the bleeding of this radioactive wound today about 10% of the world's energy is nuclear which is twice of that produced by wind and solar combined but in this world nuclear energy would become a taboo a horror story for science fiction authors refugees would resettle in different regions and mix with local populations the economy would slowly recover the only Russian and Ukrainian people left would be either abroad or living in dystopian bunker societies