The moments before the beginning of the Twilight Age

[Marc]

The reading of the Year of the Zombie thread suggested me a field in the Twilight world that deserves some discussion.
Most of the movies or books dealing with the matter of a nuclear war play with the threat of a total, non-limited atomic exchange and its consequences. Some of them (The Wargame, Threads, The day after...) depict the citizens caught totally unaware of the ongoing end, though some clues about an unstable international background are given (Threads). In that situation we will enter to the apocalypse in a few hours, perhaps ignoring that someone has pressed the button until you see the first mushroom cloud through your window. Under a certain point of view your options will be limited. If you are not dead and you are still able to decide, you can kill yourself or you can try to survive. The world and the civilization as you knew them have disappeared in the blink of an eye. No ambiguities, little hope and a lot of desperation...

But the situation depicted in the different Twilight timelines is not like this. Following with the timeline of v2, international tensions escalate, war erupts and, in the summer of 1997 the first nuclear devices are used. Since the very first moment and before the first nuclear strike, a good part of the population in both sides will be conscious of the terrible consequences of such a conflict. Of course, it depends about the available information. But if we take as example the average European citizen of the 90's, even if the available information when at war would be filtered or adulterated, he/she had enough information in peace time to be terribly scared about the possible consequences of a Third World War. They will not be, for example, the naive citizens that enlisted enthusiastically and strongly support their respective governments at the first stages of the First World War. And the shadow of a conventional war evolving to a nuclear exchange will be present months ago the first use of any nuclear device. It seems easy to relate this fear with the retreat of some former members from NATO in 1996.

And then, in July 9th 1997, the first tactical nuclear weapons are used... The ghost is now a palpable reality. At first the targets are the armies in the front line. But nothing or little is explained about the reactions of the people at home. There's always a certain inertia in our societies that keep things working to the same direction for a time. But even before the first use of nuclear weapons against non-military targets a lot of the old things will not make sense. I think that some systems and countries would simply collapse. I know little about economy but our western system is shaking right now for some insignificant cause in comparison with the Twilight situation. Riots, absurd political measures, growing rumors that cause massive displacements of people fleeing away from the proximity of a possible nuclear target, scarce availability of fuel, martial law... My favourite chapters in Stephen King's "The Stand" are those that explain all the bizarre situations in the collapsing world.

So, once the world has ended things are clear. But what happens when you still has a little hope that the situation could improve, when you still feel some confidence about that nobody would press the button? What will happen in our countries when nukes begin to fall "sparingly at first" in the front lines?

Mmmmm...And interesting setup for very challenging campaign. Perhaps with the characters being a group of cops while everything is falling apart?