Chapter 177 - The Missunderstanding That Sparked The War

"I would say that you are a liar," Kira laughed off at the mere suggestion that the official version of the events wasn't exactly true. "Did you hit your head or something?" she added, giggling her heart out. 

Just the fact that she was able to act like that despite being Tom's slave proved how ridiculous she found this notion. 

And there was absolutely nothing strange with her reaction. 

'For a conflict that dwarfed the casualty rate of the two previous world wars, even when counting the civilians...' Tom thought only to release a deep sigh. 'It's no wonder she doesn't want to allow the idea that it all started because of a misunderstanding to her head,' he realized, shaking his head. 'It will be better if I drop the topic, then,' Tom decided, turning silent instead of rebuking the girl. 

For a few more moments, Kira laughed her heart out, ignoring the strange looks that Rufus threw at her. Once she was done laughing, she turned silent, only letting out a small giggle now and then. 

Their group had to enter the next floor before Kira finally calmed down and thought about the topic for long enough to change her approach. 

"Okay, I give up," she said, nudging Tom's back. "Can you tell me more?" she requested, her face turning serious. 

"Are you really sure you want to know this?" Tom asked. Even if he didn't really like this girl, this was the topic that he hardly had anyone to talk about with. 

Everyone in his family was aware of the truth, as Tom's parent was one of the people that saw the beginning of it all. Not actively participated in it, but powerlessly watched how the dominos started to fall, turning a small misunderstanding into an incident, an incident into an accident, and the accident into a viable casus beli that brought the entire world to the brink of destruction. 

"Yes, tell me," Kira's voice was composed; her face was calm. Only her eyes showed the signs of excitement as if a deeply-ingrained passion for truth ignited in her soul. 

"Tell me, then, what is the official version of the story," Tom smiled gently, even if there was a hint of sadness in his smile. 

He knew the official propaganda by heart. But in order to dismantle its influence over the girl's mind, he had to start from the very beginning. 

"Back when the world was going through the turbulent time of superpowers shifting their positions, the Russian Federation and China decided to ally each other. While it was a rocky alliance, it was aimed at helping those two nations safely fare through the period of transition, during which the States would lose the position of the absolute power." 

Kira recited the verses that every kid in the school had to be able to recite, even if woken in the middle of the night. Her tone was monotone, proving that those weren't her words but an excerpt from the textbook.

"Good," Tom nodded his head before releasing another sigh. "Tell me then, what was the greatest development aim of that period and what was the greatest danger to it," Tom requested. 

"The second space race," Kira replied to Tom's first inquiry without even a second of thought but stopped before answering the other. She raised her hand and rubbed her chin, thinking deeply about the correct reply. 

"In terms of the danger... Was it the economic collapse of the international market? I mean, it drove the incentives of the space race down, ramping up its relative costs and..."

"That's not it," Tom shook his head. "Think about something more... physical, decisive," he suggested. "Something that could put a definitive end to everyone's space ambitions," he hinted. 

"I think I know what you mean..." Kira muttered, lowering her eyes as she started to think hard. "What was it called... Cascade something?" she asked, raising her eyes at Tom.

"It's Kessler Syndrome, also known as Kessler effect, collisional cascading, or ablation cascade," Tom helped the girl out. "In short words, with the growth of the debris in the low and medium orbits, there was an increasing risk that the space would become unusable. After all, all it would take was a single major event, be it an unplanned crash or intentional destruction of a satellite, for the positive feedback loop to come into play. Once that would happen, humanity would be locked on earth for hundreds if not thousands of years necessary for the orbit of the space trash to decay, burning it away in the atmosphere," Tom explained the phenomena just in case. 

"Which is exactly what happened during the war anyway," Kira shook her arms. Ever since the second year of the conflict, humanity had to put an end to its space ambitions. With the entire low-earth orbit filling with trash after several satellite eliminations, it was nigh impossible to eject anything beyond earth's orbit without making it crash into said trash. 

And in space, even a tiny bolt or screw, when traveling at a sufficiently high relative speed, was as great as a tactical rocket. 

"Now, just two more questions," Tom informed. "What was the company that brought forward the cleaning satellites?" he asked. 

Back when the problem of the ablation cascade was still in its relative infancy, some people decided to take action. With the increasing traffic in and out of earth's orbit, it was only a matter of time before something would go wrong. That's why, instead of hoping for the best, several ideas for dealing with the problem were put forward. 

But it wasn't before the discovery of the Atarian reaction that the problem became solvable. 

"Wasn't it KudTech Incorporated?" Kira replied after taking a long time to recall the name. After all, this part didn't belong to common knowledge. Only those who showed a certain degree of interest in pre-war history could learn about it. 

"And what else was said company manufacturing?" Tom asked, only to shake his head. "Well, if we take the timing into consideration, it would be inventing rather than producing," he corrected his mistake. 

"Wait, are you for real?" Kira's eyes turned wide when she noticed the connection. 

KudTech was the company that brought forth the first Atarian reaction to existence. They were the ones who brought up a solution for most of the problems that humanity faced. 

In a sense, just like nuclear energy became the greatest energetical breakthrough of the twenty-first century, then the Atarian reactor became the greatest invention of the twenty-fourth. 

It was a reaction that could use the catalyst to bring forth more energy than creating the catalyst required. 

Tom never reached the degree of physics to understand how the reaction worked, but he was more than aware of how insane that was. 

After all, it was the first Perpetuum mobile that humanity got its hands on. 

"With the unique properties of space around the ongoing reaction, KudTech designed a satellite aimed to clear the debris from the space. The problem of relative speeds of the debris suddenly disappeared just like that," Tom closed his eyes, imagining the moment when the satellite was about to be launched. 

A hall filled with scientists, already nobilified by their age-breaking discovery. Everyone's happy faces as they put forth their invention to allow humanity to finally expand beyond the scope of the earth without blocking their descendants from doing the same. 

The moment of launch...

And then everything goes downhill. 

Alarms setting off, entire compound entering a lockdown, military rushing in a few moments later and announcing a retaliatory strike at the site...

"When the first satellite was launched, a detached, autonomous site within the European border took it as an attack. A programming error caused by how recent the invention was. Some dumb fuck coded the Atarian reaction properties to have the same danger level as fucking nuke!" Tom gritted his teeth and slammed his hand against the wall. 

He wasn't there to see it. But his father, one of the military protecting the compound, saw it all with his own eyes. 

In a sense, he witnessed the history in the making. It was a pity that instead of the greatest moment of humanity, it turned into its darkest blot.

"Back then, it could still be avoided," Tom picked up his story after releasing a deep sigh and calming himself down. He never saw it, but he saw the emotions on his father's face when he talked about those events. 

"The company got in touch with the site in time to take the nuke down. It was brought down safely without sparking its load," Tom added. 

"What happened then?" Kira inquired after a few moments of silence from Tom. 

"An incident turned into an accident," Tom whispered, closing his eyes once again. "The outdated nuke exploded right as it was brought down to the launch site. A failure of fuse they later said. This time, anyone who could contact others to clear the misunderstanding, was nothing more but radioactive ash," Tom explained, resting his back against the wall. 

An incident turned into an accident. And then, the uncleared misunderstanding sparked the greatest conflict in human history that left the world in tatters. 

"And once a nuke went off, everyone started blasting," Kira finished the story for Tom. She was smart enough to figure out its ending. 

This time, it wasn't a launch but a fully-fledged attack. An attack at the European Military Launch site at that. 

With a nuclear explosion occurring, all the possible red buttons were pressed in a matter of minutes if not seconds. 

Before the day was over, seventy percent of the world turned into a radioactive desert.