[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Bullet Magnet

90%? That seems a bit much. Does T2013 have an all out nuke-fest?

Not really. We postulated a relatively limited exchange - but a near-total social and industrial collapse. Somewhere around here, I have the breakdown of causes of death we provided. We were a lot more cynical than the GDW team about the modern population's ability to survive "on your own."

Aha. I think this is an early draft, but I've posted it before. Not sure if it was here or elsewhere:

Here are our estimates, assuming a global population of 7 billion at the beginning of 2012. GMs should feel free to adjust these numbers based on their own views of Armageddon.

Public health failure: 2.8 billion (40% of prewar population). The widespread destruction of public utilities by both conventional warfare and EMP effects led to a global breakdown in public health and sanitation systems. Personal hygiene and disease prevention were low priorities for populations concerned with food and shelter - until the plagues began. Cholera, typhoid, bubonic plague, and other diseases ran rampant in both surviving communities and refugee settlements.

Starvation, dehydration, and exposure: 1.7 billion (24%). The single greatest killer during the Last Year was not bullet, blade, fire, or atom, but the breakdown of most nations' ability to provide sustenance and shelter for their inhabitants.

Civil disorder: 310 million (4.4%). Panicked desperation resulted in temporary but intense civil unrest in most heavily-populated areas. Across the globe, citizens cast off the mantle of civilization in favor of whatever actions they felt they needed to take to preserve their own lives. Repressed population groups also seized the opportunity to settle old scores, and violent crime flourished to levels unseen in centuries.

Secondary nuclear strike effects: 250 million (3.8%). Secondary casualties from the nuclear exchanges broke down into two groups. The first includes victims of radiation poisoning or related complications such as compromised immune systems. The second is comprised of individuals who received physical injuries that were immediately survivable but ultimately (after weeks or months) fatal. This total does not include the vastly-increased cancer rate that current survivors will experience over the coming decades.

Self-inflicted: 240 million (3.4%). An astonishing number of people died by their own hands, either to avoid a worse fate or because they weren't psychologically capable of accepting continued existence after the Last Year. Precise causes of death were split evenly among action (deliberate suicide or requests for euthanasia) and inaction (simply lying down and waiting to die). Self-inflicted deaths with religious motivations comprise a significant minority of these totals.

Existing medical conditions: 230 million (3.3%). Modern medicine extended the life spans of millions of people around the globe. In the absence of functioning hospitals and pharmaceutical production, conditions that were otherwise minor annoyances with regular maintenance became terminal in a matter of months. Specific ailments responsible for these deaths ranged from AIDS and kidney failure to diabetes and asthma. This total also includes age-related deaths at both ends of the spectrum (infant and elderly).

Misadventure and accidents: 210 million (3%). Failures of overstressed technology, errors in judgement, and simple human stupidity contributed to a significant number of fatalities. Many of these would have been survivable had a prewar level of trauma care been available. An even greater number were the direct result of individuals lacking the basic crisis management skills to get themselves and others through life-threatening situations.

Influenza: 180 million (2.8%). The H5N1 ("bird flu") pandemic that caused such concern in the early 2000s never materialized on a global scale, though it was responsible for an undetermined number of deaths in Southeast Asia. Instead, the influenza strain that swept the globe over the winter of 2012-13 was a mutation of H3N2 ("swine flu"), a relative of the virus that caused the 20th century's Spanish Flu pandemic. Had international transportation not already curtailed by that time, outbreaks likely would have been much more widespread and severe.

Conventional warfare: 170 million (2.4%). The Twilight War erupted with such speed that the world's militaries had little opportunity to build their forces up to Cold War levels. At the beginning of 2012, 0.4% of the world's population - some 28 million people - was engaged in some form of military service, including millions of irregular insurgents. As always, the vast majority of war-related casualties were civilians rather than soldiers.

Nuclear strikes: 75 million (1.1%). This figure includes primary casualties: people who were critically injured or instantly killed by the direct blast, thermal, or radiation effects of nuclear detonations. A small amount of this total includes victims who were not exposed to blast effects but were killed by the EMP-induced failure of technology; most such casualties died in mass transportation accidents or were reliant on medical life support equipment.

Natural disasters: 2 million (0.3%). Earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis didn't stop for the Last Year. However, even without relief efforts that mitigated the death tolls of previous natural disasters, the tolls exacted by these events paled in comparison to the damage humanity did to itself.

... of course, I immediately turned around and dropped the casualty numbers to something like 63% in the Czech Republic setting material. So YMMV.

- C.