[Webstral]

In accord with Legbreaker's observations regarding Twilight: 2000, we'd see atrocities rise with the casualty rate and feelings of desperation. The actions of the KGB and MVD in the Soviet rear areas of Manchuria once the Chinese initiated guerilla warfare aren't hard to imagine. The actions of Soviet troops who have been attacked by guerillas and plagued by booby traps aren't hard to imagine, either. In East Germany, Pact troops are likely to view the East Germans as traitors. Deliberate and ad hoc reprisals against civilians would be commonplace. Poland might fare a bit better initially, but the Soviets would be ruthless in their efforts to acquire labor, food, fuel, and whatever else they needed to prep the country for a defense in depth during the first part of 1997. The Soviet leadership might decry criminal actions by the troops and put on a few show trials, but the pressing need to keep as many rifles in the field as possible would override any high-mided idealism regarding justice and the treatment of Polish citizens.

Once NATO starts to take heavy losses, we can expect the stress to come out in brutal acts towards the citizens. Then, of course, there’s the nuclear exchange. The v1 chronology clearly states that NATO practices scorched earth as Western troops fall back towards Poland. The line between policy and war crimes becomes thin and blurry here. Troops who have been exposed to nuclear warfare are likely to lose a lot of their bearing, to say the least. Theft, rape, beatings, torture, and murder would accompany the withdrawal from Poland. Reprisals against Polish nationals suspected of supporting communist guerillas would mushroom and blend with ordinary thuggery. The advancing Soviets, also in shock from the nuclear exchange, would add reprisals against Poles suspected of cooperating with NATO troops. By 2000, you could probably count the number of unraped women in Poland on both hands. The same situation would exist in Korea, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the Balkans, and China. As nukes fell on the US, UK, Canada, Japan, the USSR, etc ad nauseum, the same picture would develop in all of these countries as the remaining soldiery was subjected to the incredible stresses of trying to maintain order or even just survive in the wake of a strategic, albeit limited, nuclear war.

The PCs who start the game in Poland are badly scarred individuals. Even the ones who have committed no crimes personally will have witnessed them in abundance. Many will have been forced to choose support for their comrades over justice. Many who consider themselves decent people will have done horrible things to survive. The troops who have served long enough to have participated in the 1997 withdrawal from Poland will be crispy critters, psychologically speaking. The newcomers won’t be that much better off, given what they will have had to endure to make it as far as the year 2000 still alive.

Let’s face it, gents: we’re obsessed with an ugly, ugly science fiction world. I know most of us focus on the positive aspects of rebuilding and reorganizing. Nonetheless, our positive focus exists in the midst of suffering and tragedy on a scale never before seen in human history.