Atomic bomb

An atomic bomb is a superweapon which operates according to Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, saying a small amount of mass can be converted into a large amount of energy. In an atomic bomb, an atom's nucleus is divided, and the mass of its subatomic particles is converted into enough destructive energy to destroy a city. In OTL, it was first developed by the United States, but other World War II powers (Germany and Japan) had atomic research programs.

Atomic Bomb in Curious Notions
The atomic bomb was first developed by the German Empire in the 1950s. Germany used the bomb shortly after during its war with the United States.

Atomic Bomb in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
The atomic bomb was first developed by the Greater German Reich. During the Third World War with the United States, Germany's use of atomic bombs proved decisive to victory. Philadelphia and Washington, DC were both destroyed with nuclear weapons.

Japan also had atomic bombs. Although Germany and Japan were allies, both realized that any war between them would destroy them both.

Atomic Bomb in "Joe Steele"
The atomic bomb was an idea that many scientists had theorized on in the years prior to World War II. Albert Einstein had even considered alerting American President Joe Steele about the potential value of the bomb during World War II, but decided against it, fearing the tyrannical Steele would use it. Upon learning of this, Steele ordered the deaths of several scientists in 1946, until Edward Teller offered to build the bomb. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union began building their own bomb.

The first atomic bomb was used by the United States during the Japanese War, when it destroyed Sapporo, North Japan in 1949. In response, the Soviet Union destroyed Nagano, South Japan three days later.

Atomic Bomb in "Ready for the Fatherland"
Every major power in the world possessed a sunbomb by 1979, although only two had ever been detonated. The first was used by the Soviet Union to destroy American-occupied Tokyo, Japan in the 1950s. In response, the United States detonated a sunbomb on Soviet-occupied Hokkadio. If not for the death of Joseph Stalin and the intervention of Nazi Germany, the incident would have escalated into a world war.

Atomic Bomb in Southern Victory
The superbomb, utilizing the nuclear fission of uranium or plutonium, was first theorized by European physicists. Impressed by the idea of its destructive power--and afraid of what would happen if their enemies developed it before they do--a number of nations sponsored programs to research and build these weapons, despite the high costs in terms of money, resources, and personnel these projects entail, and the inability of physicists to guarantee that such weapons could indeed and would indeed be built. These nations included the United States, the Confederate States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and Austria-Hungary. With the exception of Germany and Austria-Hungary, these nations were not interested in reducing the high costs of their programs by pooling their resources with allies, though all of them were allied with other nations with an interest in uranium bombs.

Germany won the race, completing a superbomb in late 1943 and using it to destroy the Russian city of Petrograd the following year. Six additional bombings and counter-bombings took place throughout Europe until the war ended. In North America, the superbomb was used three times.

Towards the end of the Second Great War, the theoretical possibility of an even more powerful sunbomb based on the nuclear fusion of hydrogen became apparent to U.S. and Confederate physicists alike. Actual work started in the U.S. in 1944.

List of superbombs used
(year and user nation in parentheses)
 * Petrograd (1944; Germany)
 * Phildelphia (1944; Confederate States)
 * Paris (1944; Germany)
 * Newport News (1944; United States)
 * Charleston (1944; United States)
 * Hamburg (1944; Britain)
 * London (1944; Germany)
 * Norwich (1944; Germany)
 * Brighton (1944; Germany)
 * Belgium (1944; Britain; bomber carrying the bomb was shot down and the bomb detonated, strongly suggesting that it was a gun-type uranium design as other types are highly unlikely to detonate in an accident)

Atomic Bomb in The Disunited States of America
Most of the world possessed the atomic bomb by the end of the 21st century, including the various North American countries. The bomb had been used in the past, but that alternate had avoided full-scale nuclear war.

Atomic Bomb in Worldwar
Atomic bombs were the weapons which held the key to war begun when the Race invaded Earth. At the outset of the conflict, only the Race possessed them, and first detonated several high in the Earth's atmosphere in an effort to disrupt Tosevites' radio signals. Atvar also used them to destroy the cities of Berlin and Washington, DC early in the war.

Unbeknownst to the Conquest Fleet when it arrived, humans had already discovered the divisibility of the atom and the tremendous energy yield it could produce. Most of the major combatants in the interrupted World War II had begun programs to build such weapons.

The Soviet Union struck first when they built a bomb using uranium captured in the destruction of one of the Race's starships. They buried this bomb under a stretch of line they controlled, then withdrew. When the Race took possession of this area, they detonated the bomb via radio. Since the Race enjoyed air supremacy, this became the humans' preferred tactic for delivering the bomb. It was used by both the United States and Germany when each of those countries developed bombs entirely of their own manufacture.

By the end of the war, the US, the USSR, and Germany had all learned to build atomic bombs on their own. Though reluctant to risk rendering the planet uninhabitable, Atvar retaliated to each human bomb by destroying a city in any nation that used such a weapon, each time it did so. He also destroyed Tokyo, thus precluding the Japanese from building a bomb before the end of the war (though they did succeed in building one many years later, after the arrival of the Colonization Fleet.) The Race also destroyed, unprovoked, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia with atomic weapons to secure their conquests there.

These tactics did not deter the atomic-capable human governments, which were engaged in a war for survival. Eventually Atvar was forced to negotiate with these governments, creating the uneasy truce which would exist on Earth for decades to come.

After the peace conference, German SS commando Otto Skorzeny smuggled an atomic bomb into the now Race-controlled Polish city of Łódź. His intent was to detonate the bomb and disrupt the newfound, fragile peace. He was prevented from doing so by Russian pilot Ludmila Gorbunova; Jewish militia leader Mordechai Anielewicz; and Panzer colonel Heinrich Jager, an old comrade of Skorzeny's from many a mission against the Race.

Anielewicz's militia took possession of the bomb and continued to control it, with the tacit approval of the Race, for twenty years, despite serious doubts about the continued serviceability of the bomb in the absence of technical maintenence. Eventually the bomb came into the possession of renegade Jewish fundamentalists who smuggled it into Germany with the intent of detonating it as punishment for Germany's genocide of the Jews. Anielewicz commanded a joint task force of Germans and Lizards and appeared to convince the renegades to yield, but in fact the renegades had tried to detonate the bomb and found that it was not in working condition.

In the next twenty years, human atomic weapons improved. Most importantly, they were coupled with rocket technology to create nuclear missiles, allowing the human powers to use these weapons against the Race's orbital starships. These weapons were used many times both on land and in space in the 1960s: by the United States in Earl Warren's attack on the Colonization Fleet; by the Race in its retaliatory attack on Indianapolis; and by both sides in the Race's 1960s war with Germany. They were even carried aboard the Admiral Peary when it journeyed to the Tau Ceti system.

List of atomic weapons used
(year and user nation in parentheses)

Before the Peace of Cairo

 * Several in the atmosphere around Earth (1942; the Race)
 * Berlin (1942; the Race)
 * Washington, DC (1942; the Race)
 * Near Kaluga (1943; USSR)
 * Tokyo (1943; the Race)
 * Outside Breslau, in Oels (1943; Germany)
 * Munich (1943; the Race)
 * Chicago (1943; USA)
 * Seattle (1943; the Race)
 * Miami (1943; USA)
 * Pearl Harbor (1943; the Race)
 * Rome (1943; Germany)
 * Hamburg (1943; the Race)
 * Outside Denver (1944; USA)
 * Orlando/Apopka, Florida (1944; the Race)
 * Sydney (1944; the Race)
 * Melbourne (1944; the Race)
 * Alexandria (1944; Germany)
 * Copenhagen (1944; the Race)
 * Saratov (1944; USSR)
 * Magnitogorsk (1944; the Race)

After the Peace of Cairo

 * Twelve starships of the Colonization Fleet (1962; twelve bombs, the United States)
 * The Hermann Goering, asteroid belt (1965; the Race)
 * Nuremberg (1965; the Race)
 * Marseilles (1965; the Race)
 * Lyon (1965; the Race)
 * Istanbul (1965; Germany)
 * Warsaw (1965; Germany)
 * Lodz (1965; Germany)
 * Bucharest (1965; Germany)
 * Indianapolis (1966; the Race)
 * Various test sites within the territory of various human not-empires.