You are jolted awake by the sound of blaring sirens.
In a daze you look around the dimly lit room.
Through the curtains comes a blood red glow.
You slowly walk towards the window and pull back the curtains.
The intense light from outside is blinding.
You bring your arm up to your face to shade your eyes.
As you squint to bring the world into focus you see something looming in the distance.
A mushroom cloud the size of a mountain rises from the ground.
It has finally happened.
World War III has begun and you most likely won’t survive it.
You run across the room and grab your cell phone.
It’s dead.
The EMP blast from the nuke has wiped out all electronics and microchips in the surrounding
area.
You run to grab the survival kit you built based on one of your favorite Infographics
Show videos.
It has everything you need to survive a doomsday scenario.
You take out the crank radio and turn it.
Over the static comes a crackling voice.
The announcer confirms what you had been afraid of this whole time.
The voice on the radio fades in and out.
You can only make out pieces of the announcement, but it is clear what is happening.
The world has broken into all out war.
This is nothing like past world wars with soldiers, tanks, and planes.
No, this war is all about nukes, cyber hackers, and space.
The voice on the radio relays which cities have been hit.
It started with Washington D.C. then Hong Kong.
Retaliation from the Chinese took out Los Angeles, then nukes were launched at Moscow.
The Middle East is in plumes of fiery oil and gas.
Mainland Europe is at war with Britain.
Almost every major city around the world has been hit.
Billions of lives have been lost instantly.
But what about you and the others who were lucky enough to survive the initial blasts?
Can you survive World War III?
Probably not, but let’s see what may be in store for you.
As you prepare to leave your house and seek shelter in a more rural area, you hear the
radio announcer trying to determine how the carnage started.
It seems that no one is quite sure who launched first, or who the aggressor was.
But before World War III broke out there were some ominous conflicts brewing.
You hear a shuffling of papers as the broadcaster organizes his notes.
He, like everyone else left on earth, is trying to make sense of what is happening.
The announcer begins his run down of what sparked World War III and the end of the world
as you know it.
“This all could have been avoided if the United States and Iran maintained diplomatic
relations instead of blowing up each other's military assets,” he says.
“Or maybe it all started with North Korea threatening the United States over and over
again.
Then someone with a happy trigger finger launched the first nuke.
My best guess,” continues the broadcaster, “was that China had finally caught up to
the military strength of the United States and differences in ideology led to a conflict
that may very well end up eradicating all of humanity.”
You grab your survival kit, thank you to The Infographics Show for helping you to prepare
for a doomsday scenario, and walk out of your house.
Planes have fallen out of the sky and lay in fiery wrecks around your neighborhood.
The EMP blasts from the nukes fried their controls and caused many to fall from the
sky.
You start walking down the street, you know the radiation from the nuclear explosion is
enough to cause third degree burns, even if you're miles away.
Not to mention even small doses of radiation can cause mutations in your DNA, which can
lead to cancer and other diseases.
Just by being within eyesight of the nuclear explosions of World War III means you may
not survive.
Then suddenly something enters the atmosphere causing a sonic boom.
You look up and shield your eyes as a fireball careens towards the ground.
The object smashes into your house causing it to ignite in a fiery explosion.
You run back to see what happened.
Where your house once stood, there is now a large crater.
On one of the metal shards that is sticking out of the earth you see writing.
You kick the debris to clear off the dirt.
The acronym NASA adorns the metal plate.
The fireball that fell from the sky and destroyed your house was a satellite.
This is a new type of warfare you think.
The warfare of space.
You look up into the sky and see flashes of light beyond the atmosphere.
World War III has gone beyond the terrestrial world and now includes the cosmos.
Crewed rockets are launched to take control of the International Space Station.
It is not a military asset per se, but it offers a strategic advantage.
From the International Space Station rockets and other spacecraft can be refueled, satellites
can be manipulated, and data using onboard sensors and cameras can be relayed to the
military.
World War III has now weaponized space.
Outer space is not the only battle ground that is not on the planet’s surface.
Hackers have turned cyberspace into a warzone as well.
They have taken control of military assets on both sides of the war.
These hackers may be working for the opposition, or just for themselves.
Either way, they have hacked into satellite guidance systems and military computers.
This war is not just being led by generals of the military, but by the tech geeks who
command the world of code as well.
World War III is a physical war and a cyber war.
Since your coding skills are not up to par, you figure it’s best to get away from populated
areas and the technology that is associated with them.
You never know when a hacker will take over one of the military’s autonomous robots
or drones and send it after you.
“There is no way I am going to survive this,” you think as you head towards the city limits.
As you run towards the tree line on the outskirts of town you begin to cough.
There is smoke coming out of the forest.
“What fresh hell is this?” you think.
You head for higher ground to survey the area that used to be a protected state park.
You climb the ladder of a water tower and take out the binoculars from your survival
kit.
“Where would I be without all the survival tips from The Infographics Show?” you think.
“Probably already dead.”
From the water tower you see that the forest is ablaze.
Smoke pours out of the treetops and into the air.
When the nuke went off the residual heat ignited part of the forest.
Now the uncontrollable blaze is burning away every tree in its path.
This is happening all around the world.
It is at this point you realize you are in big trouble.
Yes you were in trouble before, but now you see what the future holds.
Winter is coming, and it is not the Game of Thrones version.
The winter that is coming for you is nuclear winter.
There is no way you are going to make it through this alive.
The weapon of choice for World War III is the nuke.
Unfortunately, for all of humanity nuclear explosions have long term effects that are
more widespread than just the initial explosion.
You leave the urban area that was once home and head for the rural lands away from any
major hub of civilization.
You figure that the safest place to be during World War III is where there is little technology
and even fewer people.
You find an abandoned coal mine that has been drilled into a mountain.
The thick rock walls provide you some protection from radiation and keeps you shielded from
the natural elements.
Your new cave home keeps you alive for a little while longer, but how much longer will you
be able to survive with nuclear winter on the horizon?
As you step out of your cave in the middle of the afternoon the first thing you notice
is that it’s dark.
The smoke, soot, and debris that has been flung up into the atmosphere by the nuclear
explosions is suspended in the air.
The superheated air around where the bombs went off force particles from the surface
to rise.
The debris in the atmosphere has blocked out the sun.
Earth’s temperature has begun to cool.
You are in the early stages of nuclear winter.
In the days that follow the beginning of World War III soot and smoke from the smoldering
remains of cities enters the atmosphere.
The nuclear blasts melt everything from plastics to metal, and release harmful chemicals into
the air.
This not only began blocking out the sun, but vast amounts of carcinogens and other
chemicals are swept across the planet by winds.
No one is safe from the nuclear fallout.
Next came the firestorms.
The cities where nuclear devices exploded are on fire, the surrounding towns are on
fire, the forests are on fire.
These fires never get a chance to burn out before winds sweep them across the planet.
In the United States the fires in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle are swept across
the Great Plains causing the entire midwest to burn.
In Russia, even with its freezing temperatures, the forests are ablaze.
Anything that could catch fire, did catch fire.
No one is safe from the flames of the nuclear holocoust.
And with those flames smoke and dust rise into the atmosphere, ensuring that sunlight
won’t shine on Earth for weeks.
After weeks of no sunlight it starts to snow.
It isn’t white snow like you played in as a child, but black snow.
What falls from the sky is all the soot and debris from the fires that are burning the
planet.
The charred black snow covers the ground.
“At least the sun is back,” you think.
Unfortunately, it is too late.
The lack of sunlight has caused the Earth’s temperature to drop.
Nuclear winter has begun
You lived through nuclear bombs exploding.
You lived through fires engulfing the planet.
You lived through black snow falling from the sky.
But now that nuclear winter has started you most certainly won’t live to see the return
of summer.
The days go by and World War III has slowed down.
Not because there is a clear victor, but because everyone is a loser.
The human species has lost.
You are one of the few remaining individuals of a now endangered species.
After the black snow begins to fall, the temperature declines by 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
Killer frosts and subfreezing temperatures wipe out much of the remaining plant and animal
life left on Earth.
You struggle to find anything to eat and unpolluted water to drink.
You subsist entirely off of old Army rations you found at an abandoned military base.
Even in the extremely cold temperature your body burns from the inside.
There is no escaping the radiation that was ejected into the air from the hundreds of
nuclear explosions.
Like you, plants and animals around the world are suffering from burns and harmful mutations
caused by the radiation.
Evolution can not keep up with the rapidly cooling planet and changing environments.
Almost all life on Earth goes extinct.
You sit in the mouth of your cave and look out at the once smoldering, now freezing,
world created by World War III.
Some humans who reached fallout shelters will survive longer than you.
It will be years before all of the soot and dust particles descend from the atmosphere.
It will be decades before the radiation from nuclear fallout decreases to livable levels.
It will be centuries before life is able to bounce back from the devastation World War
III has caused this to planet Earth.
And it will be millenia before the climate and ecosystems in heavily hit areas return
to stability.
You will not survive World War III.
If you are able to make it through a nuclear attack without being incinerated in the initial
blast, avoid being poisoned by the radioactive fallout, or getting killed by collateral damage,
then you will be one of the lucky few.
But like most life on the planet, you will not be able to survive the nuclear winter
that follows World War III.
There will be no winners in this type of war.
On a positive note life on Earth will eventually bounce back.
Humans are currently messing up the planet in many ways, and someday we might be our
own demise, but planet Earth will carry on.
Thousands of years after the end of World War III when nuclear winter has subsided,
and the climate patterns become stable under the new norms, life will evolve to thrive
in a post human, post World War III world.
Who knows what life will be capable of after World War III eliminates all humans on the
planet.
It’s too bad you won’t be around to see it.
If you’re worried about how likely World War III is in the future then check out our
video What Are The Chances of World War 3?
Or if you want to be even more prepared, watch How To Build A World War 3 BOMB SHELTER.