"These last eight years have seen the American Economy expand to new heights. Since the end of the Second World War, we have shown the strength of the free world to the faltering communist one. It is our duty with our bounty to ensure the American Century continues to be bright and prosperous " January 17, 1969, President Richard Nixon's farewell address.
By the late 1960s the Communist Bloc was in tatters, the wasteland of RDS-1 had made shell shock a common occurance in the Soviet Army, as the 6 division containment force. With the rediscovery and disclosure of Tesla's works, the science of the weird became a bit more understandable. From beyond the grave Nikola Tesla must have been smiling as Yugoslavia abandoned Communism and embraced the future. The Yugoslav Federation's joining of NATO began the fracturing of the Warsaw Pact, and continued the remarkable technological progression.
White Sands, and Japan had been contained as best they could but what was new industries. In Texas, another Silicon Valley emerged this one focused around El Paso and the University of Texas Materials Research Division. With Teslatech, and the mining of superconductors, personal electronics and lasers reached the 2010s tech level. In the United States, Electricity was so cheap that many utilities merely charged a flat rate, and TeslaTech allowed radiocommunication compression to make wifi nationwide. President Nixon like his predecessor oversaw the largest economic expansion in American history. The world superpowers were truly the United States and NATO.
In Japan, unlike the Americans they focused on biotech, in fact they first discovered the Megalodon. They reached an accord on shipping rights and gaining the "lore of the depths" and the Emperor and Megalodon meeting was a site to behold. Whatever the Japanese learned, they didn't say, but unlike our world, where Electronics in Japan were boomers, in this world it was the weird biotech. Japanese aquaculture technologies, environmental technologies, and genetic conditioning made them the biotech leaders of the world reaching 2030s tech levels
Europe, was a bit more conservative, while staunchly in NATO's block, beyond Yugoslav Federation and their colonial adventures, they were safe from the "weird" owing to no nuclear detonations. France and the UK could probably build a bomb, but neither saw the point. Ironically the "weirdness" from the nuclear bombs extended the life of their empires. Ghana was... technically independent of the UK, but had to contribute funds to common defense and security. The same continued for most of the Colonies, and decolonization merely led to more anger and revolts as the new "nations" were just colonies under another name. These nations really had no way of militarily winning conflicts not when the colonial powers had Tripod Death Laser Tanks, or Helicarriers, or Walking Battle Drones. For lack of a better term... the Deck that was the world, was stacked in the favor of the Western Powers.
In the Soviet Union, coups were common and the fracturing of the Warsaw Pact was a very real concern. A Soviet destroyer was destroyed by flying shark (very embarassing, although it caused the Pentagon to re-evaluate how to deal with Megalodon.)
In China, Mao's glorious revolution was turning sour.
In Israel, with out nuclear weapons, the Israeli state was under constant threat from its neighbors, who still were rich from Oil although not as rich as our timeline.
Now these nations were desperate for something, anything to balance the table... they were willing to roll the nuclear dice again
I present you with Four nuclear detonations, that need description about what happens. I will leave the ideas to you guys beyond these dates and minor requirements.
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March 13, 1971. Soviet Detonation
May 22, 1972. People's Republic of China Detonation. MUST birth Cat Godzilla and fight the United Korean Republic
September 22, 1973. Vela Detonation in the Southern Indian Ocean
May 18, 1974. India,Pakistan or Iran detonation.
