I think there's an interesting point here. I'm as much of a timeline geek as the next guy still reading T2k message boards.
That said, much of that history and reconciliation will be largely irrelevant to PCs in their given situations. They will be highly focused on their local situation and anything happening more than 50km away for most of them will be perceived only through rumor and speculation.
They need to know who generally who the friends and foes are and some of the back story, but not the full timeline. Definitely not the full timeline after the nukes start flying and they're deployed, at which point any information is going to be suspect for all but the most connected.
Much of the back story for a campaign or adventure setting can be accomplished with some hand waving. A lot of the extra design is better applied to extra realism in the next village down the road.
Again, I love the timeline development and all the work done here to expand on the canon and to compensate for some holes (naval idiocy being a big one), just differentiating between timeline activities and play activities.
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