– Did you really think that all this fuss is just to control the powerful, the smart guys who want to invent something, and their customers who want to control society with it. Analyze charts on monitors, spy on transactions, accounts, uncover hidden channels of funding and control of citizens' activities. Yes, it's very important. But there is something without which all of this loses its meaning. This is an even more important problem. The fate of the world depends on whether we can solve it or not!

– Peace?

– Yeah, you heard right. It may not surprise you anymore, but it's true. It's a doomsday issue. The whole world could die. One of the most monstrous inventions of the Cold War could completely destroy life on Earth.

Ruthra was genuinely surprised that Vasilyevich had called him here to tell him such a story. He was astonished. He decided to resort to his favorite tactic of keeping silent and letting his interlocutor open his mind. So he did – he made a surprised face and at the same time an expression of interest. Vasilievich continued:

– The authors of this name were science fiction writers. The idea itself goes back centuries, when the losers of battles preferred surrender to collective suicide. Preferably together with their enemies.

As long as the number of warheads was in the hundreds and the means of their delivery were pre-flood, both the US and the USSR believed that it was possible to win a nuclear war. You just had to strike first in time. Or you could repel the enemy's strike by shooting down airplanes and missiles and strike back. But at the same time, the risk of being a victim of the first strike and losing with a bang was so great that the idea of a terrible retaliation was born.

– Wouldn't the missiles fired in response be such retaliation?

– No, it wouldn't. First, a surprise enemy strike would disable half of the nuclear arsenal. Second, it would partially repel a retaliatory strike.

The Soviet Union was the first to do so, testing a hydrogen bomb of monstrous power, over 50 megatons, known in the West as the "Kuzkin Mother". It was pointless as a weapon of war – too powerful, too heavy to be delivered by airplane to American territory. But it was perfect as the very powder cellar that would be blown up by the last surviving defenders of the Land of the Soviets. In fiction novels there are other options, for example, super-powered hydrogen bombs were located on special space platforms. They were supposed to automatically, a few months after the defeat of the United States, drop their cargo at the poles. The monstrous explosions would not only melt the ice caps, causing a new global flood, but would also shift the Earth's axis. Predictions of sci-fi writers, as we know, sometimes come true. And sometimes interesting ideas are borrowed from them. By the way, our F department is doing the same thing. Who could have believed 50 or 60 years ago that Russia would be at war with Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and that a black man would become president of America?

By the early 1980s, the size of nuclear arsenals had reached such a scale that their use, even with the deduction of those destroyed, would lead to global radioactive contamination of the planet. In the mid-1980s, the Soviet Perimeter nuclear strike control system emerged, which was something like Skynet from Cameron's famous movie. The main part of the defensive system was the command center. It is known to the public as Kosvinsky Kamen. Deep in the Ural Mountains hides a huge bunker with a special nuclear button. In fact, it is one of the clusters of the system, and it, like all other clusters of the system, can function autonomously. The button can be pressed by only one person, a certain officer, if he receives confirmation from the "Perimeter" system that the nuclear war has begun, Moscow has been destroyed, and the government bunkers have been destroyed. And then the question of retaliation would be entirely in his hands.

Vasilievich looked carefully at Rutra.

– You have to admit, it is not an easy task to be alone when your whole country has been destroyed and in one move send the rest of the world into tatters. I am deeply convinced that the concept of the doomsday machine has done a lot of good. The threat of mutual annihilation has cooled down the hotheads a bit. It's largely responsible for World War III never starting. For now.

Ruthra nodded. He wanted to ask what Yuri Vasilyevich wanted to tell him about what he had brought him here. What the subject was, he realized, but what the story was about, he couldn't decide yet. In any case, he decided not to ask any counter-questions, so as not to prolong the story.

Vasilievich took out more cigarettes, offered them to Rutra, and continued:

– What is it? – Ruthra dared to ask.

– It's a general concept of the problem of humanity," Zhidkov replied calmly, looking at the opposite wall. – It's not just a fantasy. A thermonuclear dirty bomb could fill the atmosphere with radioactive substances, destroying all life on the planet. Sometimes a doomsday machine is also referred to as a system that is supposed to launch an automatic nuclear salvo if a nuclear attack is detected, like the Perimeter system.

– I understand. But, uh.

– So listen up. A key feature of the doomsday machine is its publicity, designed to prevent a preemptive strike that would result in the automatic destruction of all warring parties. In the movie Dr. Strangelove, the Soviets fail to announce the machine's existence in time, thus destroying all of its positive effects. Have you seen it?

– Watched it," Rutra replied a bit stretched out. – There, American General Jack Ripper, obsessed with anti-communist paranoia, initiates a nuclear attack on the USSR, which is carried out by means of strategic bombers. It is only then that Soviet ambassador Alexei Sadetsky reports the existence of a doomsday machine. Despite the joint efforts of the U.S. and USSR, and thanks to the courage and determination of the bomber crew, one plane, whose radio communications have been damaged by the Soviet air defense system, drops a bomb on the Soviet military base in Kotlas.

Vasilievich nodded in understanding and added:

– The doomsday machine works. But the movie "The One" shows a different scenario.

Ruthra looked at his superior, smiled slightly, and began to quote:

– If we have ten million megatons for each other, what difference does it make where they come from? Everyone will die! Why spend billions on missiles and control computers? As soon as we detect the first Soviet missile fired at us, we'll blow up New York, Texas and Florida. You're doomed!

Vasilievich liked the fact that Rutra was entering into a dialog. He began to talk more animatedly:

– In Chapter 11, Richard discovers the "major American secret": it turns out that American missiles have no control systems, not even engines. Only the warheads on these missiles are real, and the rest is "cardboard and paint". Their simultaneous detonation will cause a doomsday machine effect, no matter whether they explode on their own territory or on someone else's.

In the movie War Games, the term "doomsday machine" is not directly used, but a fully automatic nuclear strike response system is described. An experiment conducted showed that many missileers were not prepared to launch missiles in response to a nuclear strike. Believing that they have selected "quite reliable people" and that "the problem is not in them, but in what we require of them," the U.S. Army leadership decides to replace the people on the launchers with automatic devices. The attack is to be ordered by the president. Did you watch it?

– No," Ruthra answered honestly.

He had already realized that the chief would cite all cases that described variants of the apocalypse, and pre-programmed ones at that.