Brazil (1983: Doomsday)
From Alternative History
|
República Federativa do Brasil. Federal Republic of Brazil | |
| Timeline: 1983: Doomsday | |
| 1822 - | |
 Bandeira do Brasil | |
| Geographical location | |
 Territory of Brazil of 2000. | |
| Political centres: |
Brasilia |
| Official languages: | Portuguese |
| Government: | Political and economical union |
| Secretary: - 1990-1995: - 1995-2000: - 2000-2005: - 2005-: | ****(*) ****(**) ****(**) ****(**) |
| Legislature: | ****1 |
| Established: | **** |
| Currency: | ****- **** |
| Notes: 1: In Portuguese it is called República Federativa do Brasil. | |
[edit] History
- See main article: History of Brazil
[edit] Territory
[edit] Military
[edit] Government
[edit] International relations
[edit] Expansion
Brazil is a member of the League of Nations.
[edit] Refugee Harbouring
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The first refugee convoys arrived on Brazilian ports on November 1983. It was the Eugenio C cruise ship (a luxury cruiser before Doomsday, with its last tourist cruise finished on August 30th on Genova, Italy), that came all the way from Europe, with over 5,000 refugees from Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Portugal. It arrived at the Santos port on November 6th, 1983, 9:35pm (local time), being the very first of many refugee convoys to reach Brazilian soil.
Emergency medical care was given to the refugees on the ship, many of them suffering from radiation sickness, others suffering from starvation and drought.
It wasn't a long time before news about Brazil's survival spread to other refugee ships. This led to an increase on the flow of refugees to Brazil, which made Brazilian government establish rules to receive refugees on its territory, in order to avoid unrest..jpeg)
- Refugee ships had to dock ONLY on the Santos port ;
- All the passengers and crew would go through a complete medical examination to check for infectious diseases before being allowed into Brazilian land ;
- Refugees with relatives or friends living in Brazil had priority on disembarking - these relatives or friends were contacted by Brazilian government and had to pick up the refugees at the port ;
- Doctors and engineers among the refugees were allocated to work on the triage, healthcare and construction of the refugee camps;
- Refugee children born on Brazilian soil (after the parents were registered) were to be given full Brazilian citizenship when reaching the age of 18.
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Upon arrival on the refugee camps, refugees received support from the Brazilian government, in the form of construction material (so they could build their new homes) and periodic food replenishment. They had received standartized projects for housebuilding, which were transformed on "refugee neighborhoods" which were nicknamed after the origin of the refugees ("Nova Europa" for mixed-European refugees, "Nova Berlim" for German refugee camps, "Nova America" for US refugees, etc.) .
Brazil registerred a total of 787,244 refugees (not counting unborn children, illegal immigration and people who died before registering) from all parts of the world, between November 6th, 1983 and December 12nd, 1988, when the last refugee ship docked.
[edit] Refugee Incidents
Two incidents with refugee mobs happened during the period after Doomsday. On October 21st, 1984, 1,500 American East Coast refugees aboard the tanker ship Exxon Valdez refused to wait onboard for medical examination and jumped onto the sea, starting to swim in direction to Santos port. Despite orders to return to the ship or being fired upon, they continued to swim and were shot down by Brazilian army soldiers. 784 people were killed, including women and children. The others returned to the ship, which was ordered to leave Brazilian waters and look for another place to go, being "escorted" by Brazilian Navy to international waters.
On January 5th, 1985, the cruise ship Bohème, with over 4,000 refugees aboard, was part of another incident. Facing famine and illness aboard, the Bohème commander ignored orders to wait on the Santos port and sailed in direction to Vitória port (which was not prepared to receive refugees), being followed by Brazilian Navy patrol ships, which ordered the Bohème to return to port or be fired upon. Refusing to take orders from Brazilian Navy, the Bohème kept on route to Vitória, and was sank by Brazilian patrol ships near Rio de Janeiro on January 6th, leaving only 585 survivors out of more than 4,000 men, women and children aboard.
[edit] Humanitarian aid and reconaissance
Despite the two grim refugee incidents, Brazil still had a reputation for humanitarian assistance. Brazilian ships were sent to US East Coast with food and medical supplies, some of them being ransacked by starved and enraged mobs near the former city of the New York. Aid convoys were also sent to the Azores islands to help the Portuguese population there, as well as to Europe.
The aircraft carrier Minas Gerais was sent to North American East Coast for reconaissance and damage assessment on November, 1989, only to find the largest cities of Canada and United States utterly destroyed and survivors scattered through the territory, literally "bombed back to the stone age", without any assistance at all. Some food supplies were dropped from Brazilian Navy helicopters, which in fact led to more fighting between the survivors. The same carrier was sent to Europe on January, 1990 to performe damage assessment and taking humanitarian aid.
[edit] Industry
[edit] Before Doomsday
Before Doomsday, Brazilian economy was based primarily on agriculture and manufacturing. Brazilian Market was in a protectionist stage, with imports largely restricted, but no restrictions to exports, which led to some technological delays in the internal market.
[edit] Status of Brazilian industry on September 26th, 1983
Although imports were restricted, Brazil was a large exporter of agricultural goods (specially soy grains and meat) and had an uprising participation in automobile exports, specially to Third World countries (South American, African and Middle Eastern), but there were also exports to some European countries, most noted being Italy which imported FIAT cars made in Brazil. There was also a live internal market of home electronic and household appliances. The internal market for personal computers (mostly 8-bit Z80 processor based Sinclair and MSX clones, but also some Apple IIe clones and IBM PC Clones) was also thriving. Aerospatial industries was represented by EMBRAER, which was a large scale supplier of military training aircraft (mostly Tucanos and Super Tucanos) and was beginning to design airliner jets at DD. At DD, Brazil was also a large exporter of conventional weapons, most noted being the Urutu light armored vehicle and the Engesa EE-4 and EE-6 light general purpose vehicles, jeeps based on General Motors drivetrain.
[edit] Automotive Industry on September 26th, 1983
Most of the automotive industry in Brazil was comprised of branches of multinational corporations based on US and Europe. The “Big Four” in Brazil were:
- Ford Automóveis do Brasil S.A. (a branch of Ford Motor Company from US), with its headquarters on São Bernardo do Campo, in the São Paulo metropolitan region, and additional factories, being most noted the Taubaté engine plants.
- Volkswagen do Brasil S.A. (a branch of Volkswagen AG from Germany), stationed also on São Bernardo do Campo.
- General Motors do Brasil S.A. (a branch of General Motors from United States), stationed on São Caetano do Sul, also near São Paulo.
- Fiat Automóveis do Brasil S.A. (a branch of Italian FIAT Auto Spa, stationed on Betim, near the city of Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais)
With the exception of Fiat (which produced only small cars at the time), all the others were in all branches of automotive industry, manufacturing not only automobiles, but small and large trucks and coach buses.
Other companies on Brazilian automotive industry were:
- Gurgel Automóveis do Brasil LTDA : a Brazilian company, specialized on making jeeps and dune buggies based on Volkswagen Beetle drivetrains
- Mercedes-Benz do Brasil LTDA: A branch of Daimler-Benz AG from Germany, stationed on São Bernardo do Campo, producing only cargo vehicles such as trucks and passenger transport vehicles (large buses)
- Scania-Vabis do Brasil: a branch of Swedish SAAB-Scania group, producing only cargo vehicles and drivetrains for coach buses.
- Volvo do Brasil: a branch of Swedish Volvo Cars, producing only cargo vehicles and drivetrains for coach buses.
- Honda do Brasil SA: a branch of japanese Honda Motor Co., stationed on Manaus (Amazon region), dominated nearly 75% of the Brazilian motorcycle market at Doomsday.
- Yamaha Motores do Brasil SA: A branch of Japanese Yamaha Motor Co., also stationed on Manaus, producing motorcycles.
- Agrale do Brasil S.A.: Motorcycle manufacturer which produced motorcycles licensed from French Cagiva.
- Amazonas Veículos Especiais LTDA. A small scale motorcycle manufacturer which produced the Amazonas, which was the world largest motorcycle at that date, with Volkswagen 1600 drivetrain.
- Marcopolo S.A.: a Brazilian bus manufacturer, which produced bodies for all kinds of coach buses, stationed on Caxias do Sul, state of Rio Grande do Sul. Was a large exporter of bus bodies at the time.
- Several other smaller manufacturers, specialized on small production sports cars, replicas and dune buggys, most of them based on Volkswagen drivetrains.
[edit] Electronic and Household appliances industry on September 26th, 1983
Home electronics and household appliances industry was concentrated on the Amazon region of the city of Manaus. In the home electronics business the largest companies were Gradiente (which used mainly Sony and JVC technology) and CCE, but there were also some other smaller companies.
In the household appliances business, the largest companies were Brastemp and Consul, leading manufacturers of refrigerators and similar appliances, along with Continental, leading manufacturer of stoves and ovens.
[edit] Computer industry on September 26th, 1983
Due to the Computer Restriction Law, imports of computer components was largely restricted. This led to an interesting phenomena on Brazilian computer market: the manufacturing of clones. On the 8-bit market the lead was from Microdigital, which produced Sinclair clones (TK82C) and Apple IIe clones (TK3000), and on the 16-bit market the lead was from Sid, Scopus and Novadata, which produced IBM PC clones on their plants. Gradiente and CCE (from home electronic business) also produced their own personal computers, MSX clones.
It is important to mention that the Computer Restriction Law imposed restrictions on usage of electronics on other areas, which explains why in 1983 there were, for example, no EFI cars in Brazilian domestic market (although some were built for exports).
[edit] Miltary and Aerospatial industry on September 26th, 1983
Brazil was a large exporter of light conventional weaponry, specially light armored vehicles and general purpose vehicles (jeeps) produced by Engesa. Iraq was one of the biggest clients, along with other Middle Eastern and African countries.
In the aerospatial industry, EMBRAER was known by its high-quality training aircraft, such as the Tucano and the Super Tucano. There were also projects for airliner jets on the drawing boards when DD occurred. EMBRAER was also responsible for the maintenance of the Brazilian Air Force Mirage F-1 and F-5E Tiger fighter jets.
Light weapons (revolvers and pisols) were manufactured by several companies, the most known being Taurus.
Brazil had no missile technology, so rocket-propelled weapons were limited to rocket launchers produced by IMBEL.
[edit] Energy
Brazilian energy matrix was composed primarily of hydroelectrical power plants.
Fossil fuel was used primarily on industry and long range transport (diesel-powered trucks and coach buses). Personal vehicle fleet, although primarily powered by fossil fuels (gasoline) until 1979, was being replaced by ethanol-powered cars, which comprised nearly 50% of the Brazilian automobile fleet as of 1983. So, oil imports weren´t much of a concern to Brazilian economy at the time.
[edit] Foreign Trade on September 26th, 1983
When Doomsday occurred, Brazilian foreign trade was composed of:
- limited imports of oil
- large exports of meat (red and white), soy grains, wheat grains, corn grains, oranges and other fruits
- growing exports of home electronic and household appliances (limited to South America)
- thriving exports from the automotive industry (mostly to Latin America, Africa and Middle East, but with some clients on United States and Europe)
- respectable exports of military vehicles and training aircraft, specially to African and Middle Eastern countries (Iraq being one of the largest buyers of Brazilian armored vehicles)
[edit] Brazilian Industry and Economy after Doomsday
It is reasonable to say that Brazilian protecionist policies somehow shielded Brazilian economy from the worldwide collapse that happened in the world after DD, making it possible to Brazil to become, among other achievements, the largest manufacturer of motor vehicles on the post-Doomsday world, and one of the largest suppliers of food.
Immediately after Doomsday, all exports were halted for reevaluation of priorities. Food exports were halted in order to prioritize the feeding of Brazil´s own population.
Multinational companies (specially on the automotive industry) were statized, having their control transferred to Brazilian government, although keeping 49% of the companies to Brazilian stockholders. This measure was necessary to prevent the dismantling of Brazilian industry and consequent unemployment and supply shortage.
Home electronic and computer companies went through a shortage of components (mostly imported from Asia and US), which led to the development of Brazilian technology on those fields, first by reverse engineering of the existing components (which was considered a top priority by Brazilian government since electronics were fundamental on the industrial processes that needed to be kept operational) , later by the development of its own technology on microchip manufacturing.
Due to the shortage of food on world market, ethanol-powered cars were limited to 50% of the production mix, in order to keep a minimum of the sugarcane crops directed for food production. Oil for producing gasoline fuel was to be imported at extremely low prices from Venezuela anyway (which had no other clients).
Manufacturing of large trucks and coach buses went up, since transportation of goods and people through the surviving countries was essential for reconstruction and humanitarian aid.
[edit] See also
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