Environmental Collapse in T2k

[Raellus]

Back in the early 1980s, Carl Sagan and other preeminent scientists popularized the nuclear winter theory. Thankfully, it wasn't tested. During the 1990s-early 2000s, the idea fell out of fashion as some among the new generation of scientists poked holes in it. Recently, it seems to have come back to the fore. In Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024), nuclear winter is once again (and rather convincingly, I might add) presented as the most likely long-term climatological effect of a nuclear war.

I recently read a history of the Vikings. Just prior to the dawn of the "Viking Age", during the middle of the 6th century A.D., there was a "nuclear winter" event believed to have been caused by 2-3 massive volcanic eruptions occurring within a few years of one another. This might have inspired the mythical Fimbulwinter- the "Mighty Winter" preceding the Armageddon-like Ragnarok of Norse mythology.

To make a long story short, IRL there was a pretty significant die-off in Scandanavia (50% of the total population, perhaps more) mostly due to crop failures caused by several years of reduced sunlight and lower average temperatures caused by huge quantities of volcanic particulates lingering in the upper atmosphere (an estimated 87 cubic kilometers!). This die-off, greater than that caused by the Black Death and the 30 Years War combined (!), led to the collapse of most social institutions in Scandanavia, resulting in, or greatly exacerbating, a period of warlordism, in which strongmen preyed on the weak and/or fought amongst each other for scarce resources.

This event, and similar massive volcanic eruptions, have generated short-term (several months to several years) of nuclear winter-like environmental conditions (sans radioactivity of course). These natural phenomenon lend credence to the nuclear winter theory posited by Sagan et al.

Then there's Howling Wilderness' treatment of environmental conditions brought on, or exacerbated, by the effects of multiple ground-burst nuclear detonations. HW takes the opposite tack, positing a mega-draught that, nevertheless, leads to large scale environmental collapse across much of the USA.

In a similar vein, the Mad Max post-apocalyptic world (caused, in large part, by nuclear warfare) presents a particularly dry world- at least, Down Under.

In either the Cold or the Dry post-apocalypses, the net effect is the same: Fewer natural resources, and much competition for same among the dwindling numbers of survivors.

Back to T2k, nearly two decades ago, I briefly played in a 1e PBeM, set in Poland, in which it was almost always raining- IIRC, the Ref explained that this climatological effect was caused by a mini-nuclear winter. The near constant rain- steady, but not particularly heavy- killed crops, caused localized flooding, and generally made life very difficult and uncomfortable for survivors. It was the grimmest T2k I've ever experienced.

Have any of you included or experienced aspects of nuclear winter- or other types of environmental collapse- in your T2k campaigns? How did you handle it? In what ways did environmental collapse affect the game world?

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