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I must admit I really love the history on how the world came to be. I dont know if I am mis-remembering the wrong game (twilight 2K maybe), but I thought that during the early 2010's to 2020 that there was someone who detonated a nuke in France.
No, that was a nuclear plant exploding, which generally has far worse effects than a nuke (nukes burn relatively completely, while a burning power plant is a pure irradiation source). That event created a Tchernobyl-like forbidden zone between France and Germany, the SOX, which is far less pristine than the actual zone because mutants, magic and ... things that would massively spoiler the plot of Shadowrun Returns Dragonfall (the CG).
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I also thought there was a limited exchange of nukes at this time as the world was collapsing from the onslaught of VITAS and UGE.
There were, in fact, two.
Firstly, the War on Terror, in Shadowrun, happened on US soil against US minorities (mainly Native Americans but also Latinos and Blacks). It was started by an American Indian terror group named SAIM - over massive land-grabs and fracking known as the Ressource Rush (like today, but causing more of a stir-up) - basically doing
this, except not as an audit, but an actual attack. When the US government refused to negotiate, they threaten to and actually launch some missiles before US commandos wipe the SAIM commando out. The missiles go for Russia, which decides not to retaliate, and miraculously don't explode (never explained why).
Later, after the Shadowrun War on Terror ended with concentration camps and massive amounts of magic wiping out roughly a tenth of the US military, the US government stands defeated and loses the West. The War on Terror eventuelly is known as Ghost Dance war, and the US separates into confeds and North soon after, over the US' unification with the sorry remainders of Canada (half of Ontario and New England, basically) because too many liberals.
Secondly, India and Pakistan went for it over Kashmir. India survived barely and then was hit by VITTAS. Pakistan scraped by barely, even less intact than India. Neither has recovered fully as of 2070. Also, this war made much of the non-Tibet Himalayas is irradiated wasteland. Also, the war prompted Tibet to hide under an impenetrable magical cloud (or at least it did so at rougjly the same time, the late 10s). Nobody has much of an idea what has happened there since.