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Old 09-15-2020, 09:49 PM
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Raellus Raellus is online now
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Default In Defense of the v1 Timeline

We don't know what the v4 timeline is going to look like, so it's too early to add it to the poll. I would, however, like to share some thoughts re critiques of the v1 timeline and some critics' assertion that it needs to be replaced by something (quote), more plausible (end quote).

The one argument against the v1 timeline that I keep seeing is that it strains credulity. It goes something like this:

New gamers can't get into v1 because it ignores real world history between its release c. 1984 and the collapse of the USSR in 1991. They are unable to accept the premise that the Cold War never ends because it is too implausible given what we know now.

Fair play. But I don't see how any other timeline that starts WWIII c.1996 eliminates this issue. They too, by their very nature, ignore real world events from 1991 to the commencement of WW3. It's a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Timelines that include the end of the Warsaw Pact and a hard-line military coup in the Russian Soviet rump-state do the same thing- depart from real-world events. IRL the coup didn't succeed. IRL, it took Russia 30+ years to even come close to regaining its Cold War power (it's still not there yet). So how is that route more realistic than a Cold-War-never-ended scenario?

Successful coup scenarios tend to ignore that a Neo-USSR ruled by a hard-line military government would be an international pariah state on par with the Soviet Union of 1918; that its economy would be even more decrepit than that of the RL Soviet Union of the late 1980s because its European satellites had all left its orbit a couple of years prior to the historical departure point (the coup). With a wrecked economy, how does the junta keep the Soviet military afloat, let alone as powerful as it was prior to 1989? How does the Soviet economy recover enough to support a two-front peer-rival war in under half-a-decade? And how does a Soviet Union without most of its Warsaw Pact allies compete in a conventional military confrontation with China and/or NATO? (especially when some of those former allies were well on their way to becoming NATO members!)

I just don't see the v2 timeline or any others that include a successful coup resulting in a more realistic back-story/setting. If anything, I think it results in a much less realistic and/or believable back-story and setting.

For the v1 alternate history to work, one only has to figure out a way for the Soviet economy to remain afloat from 1989 until 1996. This seems much more doable than figuring out a how a collapsed post-coup Soviet economy somehow miraculously recovers in four or five years, leaving the neo-Soviet Union no worse off than it was prior to the coup (or IRL, after 1991).

I watched a Youtube critique of v1 recently. The Youtuber didn't like that it ignored real world events that occurred between 1984-1991. For him, it was "too unrealistic" and therefore, impossible for anyone younger than 35 to accept. This Youtuber preferred a revised timeline that included the fall of the Iron Curtain, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a coup replacing Yeltsin's government with a hard-line military junta (i.e. something more along the lines of v2). His explanation for the miraculous recovery of the neo-Soviet economy was the discovery of fusion power* in the mid-1980s (kept secret until after the coup, then used as leverage to win back the loyalty of the restive WTO states).

*Something that still hasn't happened, IRL.

A macguffin that erases history from 1991-2000 is presented as more realistic than a Soviet Union that manages not to collapse 1989-1991.



Poppycock, I say. If one is going to adopt a fusion power macguffin in 1991, post-coup, why not just insert it pre-1989? It's totally arbitrary and therefore, no more realistic than v1. Instead of fusion power, how about the discovery and exploitation of massive energy reserves in Soviet territory in the late 1980s? That's not too far off how modern-day Russia rakes in a good chunk of western currency, IRL. With revenues from oil and natural gas, the Soviet economy could stay solvent until the advent of WWIII. With a minor tweak of reality, the v1 timeline works quite well. If it ain't broke...

I realize that this is all academic or, at least, moot, and that GM's can tailor their respective T2kUs however they like. That's the way it should be. But, for officially released starting points, I think the v1 timeline is just as plausible/realistic, if not more so, than v2 or what's been leaked of the v4 timeline. Either way, T2k is built around an alternate history. For me, the simplest route is the best.

That said, the timeline is the foundation of the setting of any iteration of Twilight 2000. A bad timeline will likely hamstring the game. One could argue that Twilight 2013 was doomed by its timeline. I really hope that v4 presents a plausible timeline. Different is fine, but better- or, at least, not worse than v1-2.2- is crucial, IMHO.

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Author of Twilight 2000 adventure modules, Rook's Gambit and The Poisoned Chalice, the campaign sourcebook, Korean Peninsula, and co-author of Tara Romaneasca, a campaign sourcebook for Romania, all available for purchase on DriveThruRPG:

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Last edited by Raellus; 09-15-2020 at 10:12 PM.
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