Alternate timeline after Omega for T2000

[Olefin]

I saw and loved Chico's thread, and saw how it was responded to. However what he had to say is and was very valid and this forum should be able to present such ideas when they are so clearly and intelligently presented.

As such I will be putting up my own alternate timeline, much of which came after long discussions with our GM about the US modules that were presented that in the end disillusioned us from continuing the campaign that at that time had gone thru literally 200 sessions over several years.

Basically it will pick up where the end of the last offensive drove the decision to make Omega and what happened from there.

But with modifications made so that the drought in Howling Wildnerness and the subsequent breakup of multiple enclaves and units didnt occur as depicted. Now before the predictable canon versus non-canon arguments begin (I have been on other forums before including ShatteredWorld) the fact is that:

a) Twilight 2000 is no longer being supported as a living game except by those of us who still play it and love it
b) The fact that much of the canon had gaping holes you could drive and M1 tank thru - including how the USN gets down to one operational SSN when the Ohio's are basically untouchable once they sortied
c) The fact that knowledge of weather and environmental effects is now to the point that we know that the widespread drought of Howling Wilderness and Kidnapped could not have occurred. Sure local ones - but not basically one that leads to the destruction of the US as a nation for at least a hundred years if not longer based on just the loss of military units let alone the enclaves abandoned or overrun.
d) that Howling Wildnerness and Kidnapped made no sense in light of previous modules - what difference will three nukes from the Boomer make if the US is already destroyed for good?

Who would be left to send anyone back to Europe?

Why is the RDF still fighting if MilGov and CivGov are down to a couple of enclaves and the US is destroyed? Who cares about oil when the US is losing 75 percent of its population due to starvation?

Who cares about the satellite if there isnt anyone left to get the data to because there is basically no way to ever get it to CivGov or MilGov? (Sure with no food I am going to lug a bunch of tapes from Baja to Colorado) And even if they get it Howling Wildnerness makes it sound like this drought may last for up to a decade - there wont be anyone left alive or not many left alive after that long.

e) the fact that the Traveler 2300 AD Timeline and Howling Wilderness cannot exist together - the US would never have come back as described by 2300 AD with that kind of loss of population and resources. Under that kind of super Armageddon the US would be lucky to be back at 1850 tech levels by 2300 AD, not flitting among the stars.

So I will give it a go - and if people dont agree like they did with Chico then we can talk about it.

But when canon makes no sense - then its time for canon to be changed.

[Targan]

The strike lists in Howling Wilderness and other modules and sourcebooks don't tell the whole nuke target story, as they only list strikes of 1mt and over. That leaves GMs with heaps of room to move in terms of targets they deem to have been worthy of nuking (by ruling that they were hit with nukes smaller than 1mt) without departing radically from canon.

I do agree that MilGov would've tried to hold onto more personnel back in the States post-Omega. In my last campaign they did just that, but in the following year lost a lot of personnel to desertions and defections to MilGov and New America. Even then, it would still leave MilGov with a huge injection of personnel within the CONUS.

[Webstral]

Olefin, welcome. We’re delighted that new people are joining the dialogue.

I think most of us here agree that Howling Wilderness went off in a direction we didn’t like. The creators themselves have said that the purpose of the drought was to create a gaming environment in which turmoil was the rule of day. They felt that Twilight: 2000 was losing its edge because things were starting to stabilize. The drought, then, is a deus ex machina with a modest basis in science.

Originally Posted by Olefin

…And that you dont waste tens of thousands of trained men who have proven themselves to be not only great soldiers but also pretty darn good at keeping things running on a boat ride to nowhere.

Most of us feel the same way. I agree that having 40,000-50,000 veterans mustered out is foolish. On their other hand, I can’t support the idea presented by the DC Group that whole brigades are reorganized on paper en route to Virginia and sent into the field virtually upon arrival in Virginia. If US formations fell apart on the road to Bremerhaven during Operation Omega, they sure aren’t going to be able to form combat effective units a week after arriving in CONUS. The best way to get these guys into the field is to divide them into reinforcement groups and disperse them among the surviving Milgov formations in CONUS. Maybe some can be retained in Virginia for reconstitution, but functioning brigades aren’t going to be available until Spring 2001 at the earliest.

Originally Posted by Olefin

b) The fact that much of the canon had gaping holes you could drive and M1 tank thru –

No arguments there. To get started with Twilight: 2000 requires some suspension of disbelief.

Originally Posted by Olefin

d) that Howling Wildnerness and Kidnapped made no sense in light of previous modules - what difference will three nukes from the Boomer make if the US is already destroyed for good?

Point of order: this is a literary issue, not a credibility issue.

Originally Posted by Olefin

Why is the RDF still fighting if MilGov and CivGov are down to a couple of enclaves and the US is destroyed? Who cares about oil when the US is losing 75 percent of its population due to starvation?

The RDF guys probably care, and so does Milgov. The RDF folks can’t make it rain in CONUS, nor do we know for a fact that they can be transferred back to CONUS. If they can’t be brought back anytime soon, use them to secure resources for the future.

Originally Posted by Olefin

1) We had no problems with the timeline at all until Howling Wilderness and Kidnapped made it go from a WWIII game to Mad Max - so basically up till Dec 2000 makes sense with only minor changes - and minor being adding a few vehicles that were missing like Sheridans and M88's and M8 AGS and the like

Most of us feel the same way.

Originally Posted by Olefin

6) And finally that the US has a lot of old equipment, depots, etc.. around that are chock full of stuff that is still useful.

I’ll offer a qualified agreement. Let’s remember that the war ran for two years before going nuclear. Just like Operation Desert Storm was a good occasion in which to use up the stuff that had been lying around since Vietnam, the Sino-Soviet War is a good occasion to get rid of older gear. The Chinese buy up everything is sight for reasons I’ve tried to lay out elsewhere. Lots of other folks are going to get anxious and want to buy stuff, too—also for reasons I’ve tried to lay out. The US will try to sell at least some of the old stockpiles to make way for new equipment that ought to be coming off the assembly lines now that war business is booming again.

Depots are not ubiquitous. The National Guard armories are going to get emptied as the Guard units deploy. Ditto the Reserve armories. Major depots will be few and far between. Once the transportation system disintegrates, the depots will be islands of hardware plenty in an ocean of need.

Originally Posted by Olefin

And that the Russian nukes didnt hit much of the US production infrastructure for the military - places like Anniston AL Depot and the York PA FMC plant are intact. And the modules like Alleghany Uprising and Ozarks completely missed those points - i.e. how can you have a module that starts in the shadow of Three Mile Island and not point out that it would be fully operational still and thus York and Harrisburg and Lancaster have power and electricity.

The Soviets didn’t have to destroy every facility to limit or shut down production. They wrecked the infrastructure that supports the factories. The destruction of a large portion of refineries, coupled with some old fashioned EMP, effectively ruins the American ability to generate power and move things. GDW did address the issue of nuclear power when they addressed EMP effects on the grid. Nuclear power is offline pretty much everywhere. Now, if one wanted to address a special case, like Three Mile Island, then that would make for some interesting reading. In order to run the factories, though, you need manpower and materials in addition to electricity.

Originally Posted by Olefin

So will this challenge canon - heck yes it will. As it should have been challenged back then by the people at GDW who had to approve the modules. An alternate reality is only as good as the story it tells.

Most of us feel the same way.

Originally Posted by Olefin

And if people dont like that then they are free to play the canon and be Mad Max. But thats not what Twilight 2000 was when the original Polish modules came out and it should not have ever become that.

Most of us feel the same way, although a few of us (Legbreaker leaps to mind) prefer more Mad Max in our Twilight: 2000.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Webstral

Most of us feel the same way, although a few of us (Legbreaker leaps to mind) prefer more Mad Max in our Twilight: 2000.

And yet again Web you're wrong about me. As I've said time and time again, I simply prefer to work with what we have been presented by GDW, using that as a base to expand upon. The canon materials give us all a common foundation to work from so that all may share equally in what we've developed.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

And yet again Web you're wrong about me. As I've said time and time again, I simply prefer to work with what we have been presented by GDW, using that as a base to expand upon. The canon materials give us all a common foundation to work from so that all may share equally in what we've developed.

Where the canon materials don't cover a region or topic, Leg, you have consistently argued in favor on the Mad Max side of the house. You argued against airships, not because you don't think the idea is halfway decent but because in the absence of evidence you choose to believe that Colorado can't do the job. There are other examples of this preference. Don't get me wrong, Leg--I'm not judging you. You need to go with what you like. However, over the past few years you have clearly stated a preference for a more run-down, less capable America than many of the rest of us in the absence of clear definition from the published materials.

[Targan]

I don't think you have to get rid of the drought to bring the US up to speed as per the T2300 timeline. The drought could end within a year or two of what's described in Howling Wilderness.

I also get the impression that the close relationship between the US and Australia as described in T2300 just continued on from the RL situation between the two countries. I've always assumed that once the US got back to some level of international shipping they would have traded extensively across the Pacific to Oz for food in particular, and also other raw materials that are easier to access and in greater abundance than in the US. Eventually the post Twilight War world the US market would've taken the RL place of China in Australia's commodity export market.

I'm happy to admit that when I find something in canon to be odd or difficult to explain, I'll try to develop an explanation for it rather than just throwing it out and re-writing it. Others on this forum have been a great help in that regard. There's been years of excellent brain-storming involved in trying to explain some of the stranger elements of canon. But hey, once again that's just my preference.

[Raellus]

Disclaimer: This post doesn't refer to any particular poster in this thread or forum member. I myself have been guilty of the sort of thinking and posting that I am about to decry. I like to think that I've learned my lesson. I hope you all think about this before shooting off a reply. All of this is said with respect. Here goes.


I wish folks would stop putting forth their version of the T2KU as the best, most realistic, most accurate, most real-world, most historical, most whatever, etc. Everyone who's played with the T2K setting probably thinks that their version is the best. Saying so just starts drama.

It would be nice if we could all come to a consensus on this, but that's just not going to happen. Whether it be T2K "history", gear, settings, modules, whatever, there's going to be variance and disagreement. You say G11, I say HK41. Why argue about it? Unless we're playing together in the same campaign, it's not going to matter one bit. Although I enjoy these intellectual debates, too often, they turn into shouting matches and pissing contests. We lost a few members and our site admin the last time we opened this Pandora's Box. Maybe I'm a little gunshy, but I can see this "discussion" drifting into treacherous waters again...

We need to go Hindu here. Any version of the T2KU is welcome on this site. If you want to put forth your own version of T2K, that's cool. Just try to stay away from value words and judgements. That just ends up starting crap. By the same token, if you don't like someone else's T2KU, don't use it. There's no need to tell people why you think it sucks. Live and let live.

T2K is for everybody. Take what you like, add what you want, and leave out what you don't.