Atomic Wars
Encyclopedia
The Atomic Wars or Great Atom War is a fictional event in the Judge Dredd
universe.
In 2070, the possibly psychotic President Robert L. Booth
started World War III
by starting a nuclear war
which dragged in all the major superpowers.
This created the third key component in the setting for Judge Dredd
(the others being the Judge System
and Mega Cities). Although the Mega Cities had their own laser defence systems, the rest of the world was reduced to vast irradiated wasteland, the most famous being the Cursed Earth
, from which many threats have sprung including Shojun the Warlord
(from the radlands of Ji in Eastern Asia).
in 2031 to mass public support, with specially-trained Judges taking over the roles of police, jury and executioner. However, at the same time America was becoming increasing xenophobic and in 2060 elected a president on a xenophobic platform. In 2068 his Vice-President Robert Booth
secretly rigged the vote to gain office himself; claiming the rest of the world was living off America's back, he drove already bad international relations into the ground.
). Booth issued an ultimatum: either they backed down or America would nuke every other nation (at this point the Judges now knew Booth was insane). The American population was whipped up into a furor, with both they and Booth believing the anti-nuclear screens would shelter America from any retaliation.
Early on the morning of 12 June 2070 Judges were called to the White House to find one of Booth's staffers dead in the Catfish pond, since the man was known to be anti-war he was assumed to have committed suicide. Later in the morning the chief Judges of the Mega Cities met to discuss what to do about Booth. However Booth would never listen to them and would abolish the Judges instead, a coup was postulated but at the time the Judges simply were not able to take that step since it would have meant betraying the laws of the United States, an act which even given the coming holocaust they were not yet ready to undertake. At the end of the meeting Booth starts the war and the Judges rush back to their home cities (MC2's Chief Judge dying in a blast over the mid-west).
After the ultimatum expired at around 1300 on 12 June 2070, Booth launched a massive number of nuclear weapons and received a massive counterattack. America's defenses failed, devastating much of the continent; the Mega-Cities defensive lasers kept them safe, with a few exceptions such as Baltimore
Quadrant.
By the 13th the Atomic War had ravaged the entire planet, with only Mega-Cities surviving the brunt of it; even in them there was widespread looting and power failures. All Judges and regiments of soldiers were sent out onto Mega-City One's streets to maintain order, but often the Judges found themselves fighting the soldiers; Judge Dredd's
first experience of Judicial killing came when he was forced to execute a rape gang made up of soldiers.
(a former chief judge and long believed dead, though actually still alive in a special Justice Department facility) who urged them to remove Booth.
Using the election fraud in their cause - and the Declaration of Independence
as a legal precedent - the Judges ordered Booth to stand down. Under mass public support, Chief Judge Goodman
seized the reins of power and abolished democracy
. After brief fighting, the Judges marched on the White House but Booth fled to the Rocky Mountain military bases. It took over a year of war but the Judges finally caught Booth and put him on trial, sentencing him to 100 years in suspended animation. The civil war cost many lives on both sides. The final "Battle of Armageddon" was fought in Death Valley and cost 100,000 Judges and Mega-troopers their lives.
Booth was not sentenced to death but to cryogenic freezing, as it was decided that future generations would make the choice of his punishment with the benefit of hindsight. When thirty years later Dredd found that Booth had inadvertently been revived, he resentenced Booth to hard labour for life, working on a Cursed Earth farm cleaning up the mess he had made. Booth escaped however, and raised an army to take back the country in 2129. He failed and died an ignominious death when he was used as a human shield by the Judges and shot by his own men.
Most of the survivors of the Atomic War fled to the Mega Cities. The United States gradually changed into the three independent Mega-Cities - Mega-City One, Mega-City Two and Texas City - as did most of the rest of the planet.
eke out a meagre existence outside the city walls; many countries, such as South Africa
and the entirety of the Middle East
except for Egypt
, have been completely destroyed. There also appears to have been a drift off world, with colonies on many planets scattered across space.
The Judge system
had already spread across the world before the war; similar to America, in the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust
, the Judges took control of many of surviving Mega-Cities and nations. There were usually some variants by city.
For instance:
Russia: Reduced to East-Meg One and Two. The Judges opted a quasi-communist model, based on the old Soviet Union, centred around the Diktatorat
(at the time of creation Russia was still the largest component of the USSR).
China: Reduced to Sino-Cit One & Two and Hong Tong (formerly Hong Kong
). These cities mixed ancient culture with the Communist state of the twentieth & early-21st century, with the central governing body being the People's Justice Ministry. For reasons unknown, Hong Tong was partitioned between Chinese and British judicial control.
United Kingdom & Ireland: Fallout devastated the East Midlands
, and only the Mega-Cities in England (Brit-Cit
) and Scotland (Cal-Hab) remained intact. Fell into civil war, eventually seeing the rise of a Judge System (secretly founded by criminal gangs), based out of the New Old Bailey and run by the Star Chamber
by the 2080s. The rules were more lax though: Judges could marry, were paid and could also drink alcohol. Scotland lost much of its semi-independent powers from the early 21st Century, with direct Brit-Cit control of its Judges. Ireland's Mega-City (Murphyville) came under Brit-Cit control, with a relatively liberal Judge Militia keeping order.
Australia: Badly nuked in the war, it was renamed Oz, and its Outback
became the Radback. Primary Mega-City is the Sydney-Melbourne Conurb, and while under Judge control it is a far more laid back culture than most.
Japan: Became Hondo City
, an economic powerhouse due to high technology; the Justice Department's ethos and culture is based around old Samurai culture. The city is badly sexist with very few women in high positions. The outer islands retain a 20th Century rural existence.
Africa: Multiple conflicting governments and factions exist, with only a few Mega-Cities, and the south of the continent is desert; the militarised Pan-African Judge force enforce the peace between these factions, who see the Judges as an enemy. Egypt, with its own Mega-City (Luxor) and Judge system, stands apart from the rest of the continent, and has reverted to Ancient Egyptian mythology and culture.
Other nations do not have a Judge system, either for political reasons (moon colony Puerto Luminae) or financial (Borneo). There are the existence of free states
- the Mediterranean Free State, a floating collection of various habitats; the Mongolian Exclusion Zone, a lawless region; and Canadia, which appears to have Mega-City level technology and a non-Judicial law-enforcement group.
The balance of global power has been altered - for example, the Antarctic
has a Mega-City and is a key geopolitical player, with Antarctic "delegations" popping up in several stories; and Vatican City
has its own Judge force and political foreign policy.
existed, they never had a broad popular base (a few million out of hundreds of millions of citizens) and lost most of their influence when a free election confirmed the Justice Department in power in 2113. Democracy was further discredited in 2126 when the "Total War" terrorist group nuked three sectors of the city in a demand for democratic change.
When he was rescued in 2129, the dying Fargo told Dredd that the Judges' rule should not last forever, and as such Dredd has begun careful moves for change, since while Dredd still believes in the Judges, he does intend to bring about reform, especially regarding the anti-mutant laws which he wishes to see repealed. He has found an ally in this in Cadet America Beeny, who also believes that while the Justice Department is still the only real option it does need to change (ironic since Benny's parents were known democracy supporters and in her mother's case a known terrorist).
is largely made up of his memories of the war and the time leading to it.
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...
universe.
In 2070, the possibly psychotic President Robert L. Booth
President Robert L. Booth
Robert Linus Booth is a fictional character from the British comic strip Judge Dredd in 2000 AD. He was the last President of the United States and the man who initiated the Atomic Wars.-Fictional character biography:...
started World War III
World War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
by starting a nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
which dragged in all the major superpowers.
This created the third key component in the setting for Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...
(the others being the Judge System
Judge (2000 AD)
Judge is a title held by several significant characters in the Judge Dredd series, which appears in the British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine...
and Mega Cities). Although the Mega Cities had their own laser defence systems, the rest of the world was reduced to vast irradiated wasteland, the most famous being the Cursed Earth
Cursed Earth
The Cursed Earth is a part of the fictional universe from the Judge Dredd series that appears in the UK comic book 2000 AD.-Background:...
, from which many threats have sprung including Shojun the Warlord
Shojun the Warlord
Shojun, Warlord of Ji was a fictional villain in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD in 1986. He had powerful psionic abilities and attempted to take over the world....
(from the radlands of Ji in Eastern Asia).
The road to war
During the mid-21st century, America suffered a horrific crime problem. Powerful gangs rampaged through the urban sprawls that would become Mega-Cities, able to intimidate juries and virtually immune to prosecution, at one point even storming the White House itself. This led to the formation of the instant justice systemJudge (2000 AD)
Judge is a title held by several significant characters in the Judge Dredd series, which appears in the British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine...
in 2031 to mass public support, with specially-trained Judges taking over the roles of police, jury and executioner. However, at the same time America was becoming increasing xenophobic and in 2060 elected a president on a xenophobic platform. In 2068 his Vice-President Robert Booth
President Robert L. Booth
Robert Linus Booth is a fictional character from the British comic strip Judge Dredd in 2000 AD. He was the last President of the United States and the man who initiated the Atomic Wars.-Fictional character biography:...
secretly rigged the vote to gain office himself; claiming the rest of the world was living off America's back, he drove already bad international relations into the ground.
The War
In 2070 Booth ordered the US Army to occupy various key industrial points around the world. Following this mass protests were received from the Mega Cities, nations and alliances worldwide (with the exception of Brit-CitBrit-Cit
Brit-Cit is a huge fictional city in the fictional universe of British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd. It is also the home of Sam Slade in some of 2000AD's Robo-Hunter stories. The city covers the south of England and bordering on the Black Atlantic...
). Booth issued an ultimatum: either they backed down or America would nuke every other nation (at this point the Judges now knew Booth was insane). The American population was whipped up into a furor, with both they and Booth believing the anti-nuclear screens would shelter America from any retaliation.
Early on the morning of 12 June 2070 Judges were called to the White House to find one of Booth's staffers dead in the Catfish pond, since the man was known to be anti-war he was assumed to have committed suicide. Later in the morning the chief Judges of the Mega Cities met to discuss what to do about Booth. However Booth would never listen to them and would abolish the Judges instead, a coup was postulated but at the time the Judges simply were not able to take that step since it would have meant betraying the laws of the United States, an act which even given the coming holocaust they were not yet ready to undertake. At the end of the meeting Booth starts the war and the Judges rush back to their home cities (MC2's Chief Judge dying in a blast over the mid-west).
After the ultimatum expired at around 1300 on 12 June 2070, Booth launched a massive number of nuclear weapons and received a massive counterattack. America's defenses failed, devastating much of the continent; the Mega-Cities defensive lasers kept them safe, with a few exceptions such as Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
Quadrant.
By the 13th the Atomic War had ravaged the entire planet, with only Mega-Cities surviving the brunt of it; even in them there was widespread looting and power failures. All Judges and regiments of soldiers were sent out onto Mega-City One's streets to maintain order, but often the Judges found themselves fighting the soldiers; Judge Dredd's
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...
first experience of Judicial killing came when he was forced to execute a rape gang made up of soldiers.
Aftermath (America)
Sporadic civil disturbance and looting went on for the next few days with the Judges desperately trying to hold things together while trying to find a solution to the problem of Booth. A few days later a White House staffer came to the Judges and confessed that Booth had rigged the 2068 elections and that the staffer found dead on the 12th had A: probably been murdered, and B: had the proof in a hidden location. Through this the Justice Department discovered the proof that Booth had rigged the election. The Judges now consulted Judge FargoChief Judge Fargo
Chief Judge Eustace Fargo is an important fictional character from the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD. He is Judge Dredd's clone father....
(a former chief judge and long believed dead, though actually still alive in a special Justice Department facility) who urged them to remove Booth.
Using the election fraud in their cause - and the Declaration of Independence
Declaration of independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...
as a legal precedent - the Judges ordered Booth to stand down. Under mass public support, Chief Judge Goodman
Judge Goodman
Chief Judge Clarence Goodman is a fictional character in the Judge Dredd stories published in the British comic 2000 AD. He appeared in the first episode of Judge Dredd in March 1977 , and was the first regularly recurring supporting character.-Biography:Goodman was joint deputy chief judge at the...
seized the reins of power and abolished democracy
Democracy (Judge Dredd storyline)
Democracy in the fictional future city of Mega-City One has been a significant recurring theme in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD. In particular, a number of stories published since 1986 have addressed the issue of the Judges' dictatorial system of government, and efforts by the citizens to...
. After brief fighting, the Judges marched on the White House but Booth fled to the Rocky Mountain military bases. It took over a year of war but the Judges finally caught Booth and put him on trial, sentencing him to 100 years in suspended animation. The civil war cost many lives on both sides. The final "Battle of Armageddon" was fought in Death Valley and cost 100,000 Judges and Mega-troopers their lives.
Booth was not sentenced to death but to cryogenic freezing, as it was decided that future generations would make the choice of his punishment with the benefit of hindsight. When thirty years later Dredd found that Booth had inadvertently been revived, he resentenced Booth to hard labour for life, working on a Cursed Earth farm cleaning up the mess he had made. Booth escaped however, and raised an army to take back the country in 2129. He failed and died an ignominious death when he was used as a human shield by the Judges and shot by his own men.
Most of the survivors of the Atomic War fled to the Mega Cities. The United States gradually changed into the three independent Mega-Cities - Mega-City One, Mega-City Two and Texas City - as did most of the rest of the planet.
Aftermath (Global)
Most of the world is reduced to only Mega-Cities, with vast radioactive wastes around them; tribes of mutantsMutants (Judge Dredd)
Mutants are a recurring theme in the Judge Dredd science-fiction stories published in British comics 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine...
eke out a meagre existence outside the city walls; many countries, such as South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and the entirety of the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
except for Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, have been completely destroyed. There also appears to have been a drift off world, with colonies on many planets scattered across space.
The Judge system
Judge (2000 AD)
Judge is a title held by several significant characters in the Judge Dredd series, which appears in the British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine...
had already spread across the world before the war; similar to America, in the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust refers to the possibility of the near complete annihilation of human civilization by nuclear warfare. Under such a scenario, all or most of the Earth is made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons in future world wars....
, the Judges took control of many of surviving Mega-Cities and nations. There were usually some variants by city.
For instance:
Russia: Reduced to East-Meg One and Two. The Judges opted a quasi-communist model, based on the old Soviet Union, centred around the Diktatorat
Diktatorat
The Diktatorat were the ruling council of East Meg One, a Sov-Blok city in the Judge Dredd universe.Ruling over the city, they were a triumvirate with the Supreme Judge and two other judges....
(at the time of creation Russia was still the largest component of the USSR).
China: Reduced to Sino-Cit One & Two and Hong Tong (formerly Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
). These cities mixed ancient culture with the Communist state of the twentieth & early-21st century, with the central governing body being the People's Justice Ministry. For reasons unknown, Hong Tong was partitioned between Chinese and British judicial control.
United Kingdom & Ireland: Fallout devastated the East Midlands
East Midlands
The East Midlands is one of the regions of England, consisting of most of the eastern half of the traditional region of the Midlands. It encompasses the combined area of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and most of Lincolnshire...
, and only the Mega-Cities in England (Brit-Cit
Brit-Cit
Brit-Cit is a huge fictional city in the fictional universe of British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd. It is also the home of Sam Slade in some of 2000AD's Robo-Hunter stories. The city covers the south of England and bordering on the Black Atlantic...
) and Scotland (Cal-Hab) remained intact. Fell into civil war, eventually seeing the rise of a Judge System (secretly founded by criminal gangs), based out of the New Old Bailey and run by the Star Chamber
Star Chamber
The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters...
by the 2080s. The rules were more lax though: Judges could marry, were paid and could also drink alcohol. Scotland lost much of its semi-independent powers from the early 21st Century, with direct Brit-Cit control of its Judges. Ireland's Mega-City (Murphyville) came under Brit-Cit control, with a relatively liberal Judge Militia keeping order.
Australia: Badly nuked in the war, it was renamed Oz, and its Outback
Outback
The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia, term colloquially can refer to any lands outside the main urban areas. The term "the outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named "the bush".-Overview:The outback is home to a...
became the Radback. Primary Mega-City is the Sydney-Melbourne Conurb, and while under Judge control it is a far more laid back culture than most.
Japan: Became Hondo City
Hondo City
Hondo City is a huge fictional city covering most of Japan in the Judge Dredd comic book series. Most of its development comes from the Judge Dredd Megazine strip Shimura by Robbie Morrison.-Description:...
, an economic powerhouse due to high technology; the Justice Department's ethos and culture is based around old Samurai culture. The city is badly sexist with very few women in high positions. The outer islands retain a 20th Century rural existence.
Africa: Multiple conflicting governments and factions exist, with only a few Mega-Cities, and the south of the continent is desert; the militarised Pan-African Judge force enforce the peace between these factions, who see the Judges as an enemy. Egypt, with its own Mega-City (Luxor) and Judge system, stands apart from the rest of the continent, and has reverted to Ancient Egyptian mythology and culture.
Other nations do not have a Judge system, either for political reasons (moon colony Puerto Luminae) or financial (Borneo). There are the existence of free states
Free state (government)
Free state is a term occasionally used in the official titles of some states.In principle the title asserts and emphasises the freedom of the state in question, but what this actually means varies greatly in different contexts:...
- the Mediterranean Free State, a floating collection of various habitats; the Mongolian Exclusion Zone, a lawless region; and Canadia, which appears to have Mega-City level technology and a non-Judicial law-enforcement group.
The balance of global power has been altered - for example, the Antarctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
has a Mega-City and is a key geopolitical player, with Antarctic "delegations" popping up in several stories; and Vatican City
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
has its own Judge force and political foreign policy.
End of Democracy
Another casualty of war was democracy which due to Booth's actions was now discredited, the Judges became dictators in most countries. In Mega-City One only very limited democratic government occurred until the reforms of Judge Volt in 2117. Though democracy campaign movementsDemocracy (Judge Dredd storyline)
Democracy in the fictional future city of Mega-City One has been a significant recurring theme in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD. In particular, a number of stories published since 1986 have addressed the issue of the Judges' dictatorial system of government, and efforts by the citizens to...
existed, they never had a broad popular base (a few million out of hundreds of millions of citizens) and lost most of their influence when a free election confirmed the Justice Department in power in 2113. Democracy was further discredited in 2126 when the "Total War" terrorist group nuked three sectors of the city in a demand for democratic change.
When he was rescued in 2129, the dying Fargo told Dredd that the Judges' rule should not last forever, and as such Dredd has begun careful moves for change, since while Dredd still believes in the Judges, he does intend to bring about reform, especially regarding the anti-mutant laws which he wishes to see repealed. He has found an ally in this in Cadet America Beeny, who also believes that while the Justice Department is still the only real option it does need to change (ironic since Benny's parents were known democracy supporters and in her mother's case a known terrorist).
Role of Joe Dredd
During the war, then Cadet Dredd briefly served as a full judge during the worst of the nuclear holocaust, maintaining law and order on the streets. The epic "Origins"Origins (Judge Dredd story)
Origins is one of the longest Judge Dredd storylines to run in the pages of British comic 2000 AD. Making extensive use of flashbacks, it tells the story of how the Judges of Mega-City One rose to power. It was written by John Wagner and illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra, who between them created...
is largely made up of his memories of the war and the time leading to it.