In another thread, I mentioned how succinctly Red Dawn build the alternate history (future at the time) to do the heavy lifting of world building. I erroneously thought it was 7, but it was 9 and they are below.
- The Soviet Union's worst wheat harvest in 55 years
- Labor and food riots in Poland
- Soviet troops invade
- Cuba and Nicaragua reach troop strength goals of 500,000
- El Salvador and Honduras fall
- Greens Party gains control of West German Parliament
Demands withdrawal of nuclear weapons from European soil
- Mexico plunged into revolution
- NATO dissolves
- United States stands alone
While dealing with my general insomnia last night, I wondered if one could come up with a similar simple, elegant list to get the world where it needs to be. It probably would have to be longer but fitting it onto a page would be interesting. Year or year ranges might be helpful to add.
Here are some non canon ones I have come up with please share any ideas you might have.
- 1970 - While building new defensive structures, the Soviet Union's discovers massive Gold, Rare Earths, and Oil reserves near their disputed Chinese Border.
- 1972-1975 Khabarovsk - Vladivostok Pipeline completed hugging the Chinese border and supplying more oil to East and South East Asia then the US and Middle East Combined due to restricted middle east production.
- 1974-1984 Soviets Recruit the Walker - Hansen - Ames - Pelton - Bailey - Cervantes - Keller - Mcgrath - Palmer - Acosta - Johnston Spy rings who are effective throughout the Cold War into the Hot War (I randomized most of these names if you have interesting substitutions let me know)
- 1976 As Gold and Palladium (as well as new soviet tech chips using both metals) reach the USSR (and to a lesser extent the Warsaw pact) a small Renaissance occurs behind the iron Curtain
- 1986 - Leading computer chip developer Dr Miles Bennett Dyson killed and all his work destroyed by unidentified female terrorist.
- 1990 - While Crafting the "High Performance Computing Act" Senator Al Gore is killed in an Automobile Accident.