Sticks and Stones

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
          —Albert Einstein

Welcome to Sticks and Stones (SAS), a community timeline exploring a world in which the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident resulted in full-scale nuclear war erupting between the Soviet Union and the United States, resulting in the destruction of civilization as we knew it.

Story

This is the account of the inquiries of the Many-faced Saint, so that no deeds of man of old may be forgotten by the lapse of time, nor the great and marvelous works of times passed, produced by the Americans and all other nations. We should not forget, like so many of our time do, the causes of the conflicts between us and for what these wars were wages, lest we dare to repeat the errors of the forerunners ourselves...

Those of the Californians who have knowledge of history declare that the Otherside first began the quarrel. Their weapons were tracked in those times, arching long across the Big Western Sea. It is said that if one cross the Stickyard and into the Hayik Warmat Air, there is the place they called the Shrine of Boron. And, if one climbs the sloped dome and enters the tabernacle, there is etched permanently on the dark-glass portal the proof of the fire being traced across the sky and onto the country below. This is the proof, says the faithful ones who cling to the the outer rim of the Hayik, that their god has not condemned California to a state of desolation because of wrath but of pride. These friends you might encounter walking the Long Walk down the length-ways roads, toward the palace they call Zion. The Fifteenth Route marks the most often-ran pilgrimage route of the Long Walk from those parts. There is little food to be found in the Bleaklands of the west...hardly a soul walks the path further to the Boron Shrine, less south over the mountains.

There are many paths that cut through the mountains, because in the south many large giants lurk and cut labyrinths and trenches to trick those passing. To transverse the mountains, one must purchase two guides from any drinking outpost or pilgrimage gift shop along the Fifteen. This is because one guide runs out and looks down one path to distract any spirits, then the other leads the way down the corridor. I have looked over the crest of those mountains and I have seen the smoking other place, and I know that I have truly seen Hell. He who walks into the Valley enters a lost world, where stone ruins jut in every direction. They say it is safer to go around the abyss than to cross it if one seeks the Western Sea. At night there is smoke rising from every direction, and no traveler finds a moment of peace in those lands...

—Excerpt from Histories of Doomsday, Chapter One, Verses 1—55,
according to The Many-faced Saint