[chico20854]

I have to agree with Kato, these timeline arguments are pretty useless, unnecessarily divisive and at this point unlikely to result in anything positive.

The v1 timeline had a bunch of stuff that was fantastical at the time - Belgium, Italy and Greece leaving NATO, the drought, a West German, independent invasion of the DDR, a moderate and pro-western Iran, the destruction of the combined NATO navies, etc. We've had almost 25 years to grow comfortable with those ideas, and have decided to toss a handful of them out as just too unrealistic, and kept some because they make the story work better. Many of us grew up during the 80s, with Reagan on the TV talking about the evil empire, Soldier of Fortune magazine covering the Contras and Mujaheddin fighting the commies, Red Dawn and the rest (check the birth-year thread), so we're Cold Warriors at heart and at the time the v1 timeline came out we didn't have any real military experience, so we accept more or less the v1 canon.

The 2013 timeline, which I have not yet read beyond the teasers that have appeared over the last few years, has a number of fantasy elements in it. Over the years, we as a group have had a number of discussions like this thread started out as, of what could cause a breakdown of civilization of a scale equal to the one described in v1. We've discussed terrorism gone wild, rouge nations, environmental meltdown, economic collapse - the gamut of suvivalist paranoid wet dreams. The 2013 guys have put a lot of work into developing one that they have been able to agree on, put their own money into publishing and have committed to support further expansions of. It's different from what I would have written if I was given that job, but that's fine and I'm glad that they did - anything that brings new people into the Twilight community is good IMHO. That timeline may be harder for us to accept, partly because we in many ways are old Cold Warriors, have more experience and knowledge under our belts, or just disagree.

At this point, I think arguing with what 93 Games has published is pretty futile - they have too much time and money invested and at this point it is a "done deal". If you want to use their timeline, go for it. If you want to use the 2013 rules to play the v1 timeline, great. If you don't want to send them any money and keep playing the same game that's been around since 1984, fine! I hope that we can continue to have a civilized discussion of how to flesh out the various timelines or alternative, home-grown timelines (like the Twilight:1964 or various 2020 and so on that different folks in the community have come up over the years).

As you are well aware, I've got a lot of time and effort invested in the expanded v1 timeline we've been working on for the past couple of years. We've got a lot more to write, and I'm planning to keep that effort going. I hope that folks here enjoy what we come up with, but that they also at least give a friendly welcome and usual level of respect to all the members, old and new, no matter which timeline they use.