New Scenarios apart from the obvious?

[kato13]

ChalkLine 08-16-2004, 11:11 PM Anyone come up with a new, relevant scenario for T2K that isn't the two obvious ones:

1) Resurgent Warsaw Pact

2) Middle East Alliance


I don't like doing (1) as it's kinda cliche, and (2) because I feel unhappy gaming in an environment where people are actually dying in real life.


You'll note all the way through this that I'm trying to avoid politics, if we stay politically-neutral in our hypothetical modelling we can avoid a bun-fight and concentrate on campaign building!


Thinking on it, it has to be able to realistically batter the USA to a certain extent (they are the global premier military power, for the game to work the C must be so damaged that the PCs are not reliant on direction from above and must use thier initative), but not even the PRC is realistically capable of doing so. Still, the PRC is the only place that has the nukes which will be needed for the scenario to work but you'd need a far greater threat projection capability, they do have the manpower though.


I rebel against the 'sneak attack' concept as it's a cop-out, let's assume that all the powers were motivated by realpolitik and that it was a case of mutual agression over interests perceived as vital to all the parties.


What makes it difficult to do is that most of the major powers left these days that would make a decent enemy are not global in scope, this means you automatically don't get a world war, which is what we want. The only other useful model is a coalition of hostile states. Generally in a coalition you have one or two driving powers and a bunch of other states that join through self interest (the need to keep 'great and powerful friends') coupled with a marginal interest in the main coalition agenda. If we elect the PRC as a driving force motivated by trade concerns (Taiwan can be a side interest, but I still think trade penetration is more important to them) we might say a trade war escalation has evolved, perhaps the PRC and the USA start to develop a web of hostile Free Trade Agreements that starts to push them into a hostile stance regarding each other.


Now, in recent history it's plain that the UK is a staunch friend of the USA that can be relied apon to support the USA in a fight, so we're on firm ground there. Australia (hi mum!) is reliant on the USA in several treaties regarding Asia, ANZUS is still in force, and would probably have similiar interests with their old friend so there's another.


Looking at the PRC we see that they have a few friends, North Korea is there with bells on (it's hard to think of a more belligerent country) and India may well be there as they're historically hostile to Pakistan, a friend of the USA. I see India as a lukewarm foe though, while producing excellent soldiers the country doesn't seem overly hostile (Gurkha soldiers may well have a crisis of alliegence here). This isn't sufficiently global though, we need South American and African foes.


I've run out of thoughts, any ideas?

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Chuck Mandus 08-17-2004, 04:46 PM I was listening to George Noory (he took over for Art Bell although Art still does the weekends) one night and the show was about a man, John Titor, who claimed to be a time traveller from 2036 who went back to 1975 and 2000-2004 time period. Bascially his story was where he was born in 1998 and due to the war on terror, the government clamps down on too many freedoms (maybe this should be in the conspiracy thread) over the War on Terror where bascially we end up in a civil war with basically the rural vs. the urban. Titor himself said that he joined the "shotgun infantry" of the rebels in 2011 when he was 13. Well basically the Russians and Red Chinese "help" the rebels by nuking U.S. cities and we nuke them in return and then things rebuild from there. You can read the story on www.johntitor.com which is the main website.


Myself, I plan to, hope to, get my Morrow Project game going in the fall and I think with a few tweaks and fine tuning, I might have found a good way to bring about "The Oops" in my game and go from there. Would make a good way to bring about the devistation needed for a good Twilight: 2000 (2011? 2020?) or Morrow Project game.


It's the best way I can think up to where we could end up in such a scenario without a resurgent USSR, Red China goes wild, or the Middle East radicals getting hold of many powerful nukes.


I don't automatically believe the time traveller part automatically, but it does make one "go hmmmm." Still yes or no in your mind, the scenario on the site would make good fodder to use.


Chuck

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ReHerakhte 08-18-2004, 04:42 AM Here's some more food for thought, although I have mentioned this once before years ago.


I was on an email group for former & serving South African military personnel and although most of the talk was the typical military, civilian work and leisure stuff, every now and then a gem would surface.

It's probably reasonably well known that South Africa had several nuclear warheads, they developed them with the assistance of Israel with apparently, some covert help from the USA. Before the installation of the ANC government, various parties in the South African Defence Force rendered the nukes inoperable and they seem to have vanished after that.

From what I remember I think they were free-fall bombs but bearing in mind that the Israelis had nuclear weapons ability in the 1970s, the South African weapons would probably be sufficiently advanced for other launch methods. Give them a bit more time and they probably would have produced a few more and made nuclear capable missiles for submarine/ship launch plus battlefield missiles.


So, what if the nukes hadn't been destroyed and the tribal/factional fighting that is ever-present in Africa started to get out of hand in South Africa? Some lax security or another recently promoted general (of which there seemed to be dozens after the ANC took power) is not adverse to selling a few weapons for personal gain etc. Basically I propose the following (although it hasn't been really planned out), South Africa, one way or another launches a few nukes, everybody else gets a bit paranoid as they are not really sure what's going on, international tensions rise with the traditional power blocs forming up for mutual support and everybody starts shooting at anybody who isn't "one of them"


Or something like that... As I say, I haven't really thought much about how to achieve it, but I kinda like the idea of an unconsidered quarter starting it all and everybody else getting too tense, someone gets spooked and lets the weapons loose...


Cheers,

Kevin

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ChalkLine 08-18-2004, 05:03 AM This could be usefull in a no-blame scenario where each side is sure the other started the horror, but my cynical* side thinks it'll start because the two sides thought they could pull off a limited war and it gets out of hand.

The problem is we want a Twilight War for our scenario, and we need a powerful force that can stand up to the USA on the battlefield and it's highly debateable if any small coalition could do this and present a threat after the nuke exchange.

Any takers for hostile states?


(*Heard a good description of cynicism today:

'A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing')

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Snake Eyes 09-05-2004, 11:25 PM I kinda liked the scenario laid out in Red Storm Entertainment's marginally playable 3D RTS game "Force 21" - when in 2015 the Chinese, feeling bold and restless after decades of economic growth, invade Kazakhstan looking to secure additional territory & resources.


The United States and Russia move in to help the Kazakhs, and general ass-kicking ensues. Maybe not too plausible, but certainly ripe with opportunity.

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ChalkLine 09-05-2004, 11:29 PM This I like!


What sort of allies would you provide the PRC with to make it global?


For a real global war you need a competant African, South American, Asian and European opponents.

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Snake Eyes 09-05-2004, 11:45 PM Not sure about what to do with S. America, but I seem to recall reading not too long ago about the Chinese doing some kind of high-level negotiating with Nigeria over something that could have been interpreted as rather sinister. I don't remember exactly what, but it did catch my eye.


Open warfare in western Africa was one of the cornerstones of GDW's proposed Armor XXI sourcebook. Not in the context of a global "Twilight" war, but it could still be tied in. What starts as a power-grab for economic influence in the region yet again becomes the tripwire for setting the world on fire?

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recon35 09-12-2004, 05:34 PM And, too, bear in mind that there is still plenty of resentment in Central/South America against the US for our treatment of them during our imperialist stage, as well as for our general prosperity. This could provide the Chinese allies in S/C america.

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Twilight2000V3 09-13-2004, 01:48 PM Dont forget ... argentina is still an allie of the US. US SF guys go down there and train them/with.

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Snake Eyes 09-13-2004, 03:02 PM I guess we could always fall back on the Brazilians getting uppity. IIRC, there were 3 wars fought there in the 2300AD background (Rio Plata Wars I-III). And similarly (again IIRC) in the original intended background for Armor XXI, the western powers were to have invaded Brazil I guess in order to prevent their gov't from raping the Amazon basin of natural resources. It's a stretch, but we do need a South-of-the-Border bad guy.

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graebarde 09-13-2004, 08:50 PM The PRC has influence in central America, namely Panama. They have swarmed to there after the canal was turned over to Panama thanks to the peanut farmer.

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Jason Weiser 09-13-2004, 10:17 PM I think whatever you do it's going to have to be so far into the future as to be sci-fi, or make it alternative history and have things go to hell in the 80s

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TiggerCCW UK 09-14-2004, 02:25 AM I always work on an alternate history basis.

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ChalkLine 09-14-2004, 06:14 AM Yup, we all pretty much do, but I was interested in a way to come up with a future war. When the game came out in the late eighties we didn't have to make these massive changes in hostory, and I was interested in exploring that situation again.


I think the PRC war is good though, we didn't need a Warsaw Pact ally in too many other regions to have a believable Twilight War in version 1.0.

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