Which Edition's Timeline Is Most Plausible?

[Raellus]

None of them are perfect, and it's all relative, but which edition's timeline do you consider to be the most plausible? There is no "other" option in this poll- that is deliberate. There could be an infinite number of homebrew timelines out there, so the poll only focuses on published, canonical ones.

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[.45cultist]

For the pivotal moment in history 2ED was it, but now T2013 has the crown.

[kato13]

1st edition with the caveat that this is alternate history from WAY before 1995 or even when most of the "history" was written in 1983.

I have the alternate history change from the late 60s (Russians finding gold and Oil on the Chinese borders). To get around the currently discussed difficulties with having the German's "start" the European war, I would have something happen during the Vietnam war that demonstrated to the Germans that Europe did NOT have the US's full attention and they demanded more autonomy in their actions. It starts small but over the next 2 decades incremental changes get them to the point where they would have the authority to do what is listed in the V1 history.


If you did allow home brew in the polls it would have been chico's.

[pmulcahy11b]

Given the choices above I'd have to go with v1 (with v2.2 equipment), but I really think the timeline should be advanced to 2030-2035.

[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Given the choices above I'd have to go with v1 (with v2.2 equipment), but I really think the timeline should be advanced to 2030-2035.

It's tough to say - V2 and T2013's start with real events before branching into speculation. V1 was speculative from the beginning of their timeline.

I've been doing a T2025 timeline starting in 2018 and there is so much that is unbelievable if you were to predict but actually occurred. Trying to guess what happens next is difficult.

What will China do in the Pacific? Invade Taiwan? Conflict with Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan re: Spratleys?

Belarus and Russia - potential interaction with Ukraine and the Baltics. What will Poland do re: further aggression to their regional neighbors if Belarusian dissidents in Ukraine do something and the subsequent promise by Russia to support Belarus?

Azerbaijan/Armenia.

Syria/Turkey/Iraq/Iran.

Iran sending ships to Venezuela.

Potential conflict resulting from COVID origin investigations.

France informing the US that China is hiding radioactive leaks from Chinese-run France/China-owned nuke plants.

Even predicting what will happen next month is hard, let alone all the way out to 2030...

I think a 2-3 year lead to the speculative future history of at most 5 years is probably the sweet spot.

[Rainbow Six]

I went for V1. It’s the classic timeline that I have known for over thirty years and other than the instances where I’ve played in games with a home brew near future time line V1 is the timeline that I’ve always used. To be honest it’s only in the last couple of weeks that I’ve heard anyone raise question marks about its plausibility - I’m not discounting what our German members have said, but for me V1 is probably the least implausible (with the caveat that I’ve only briefly read V4 at this stage).

[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

I went for V1. It’s the classic timeline that I have known for over thirty years and other than the instances where I’ve played in games with a home brew near future time line V1 is the timeline that I’ve always used. To be honest it’s only in the last couple of weeks that I’ve heard anyone raise question marks about its plausibility - I’m not discounting what our German members have said, but for me V1 is probably the least implausible (with the caveat that I’ve only briefly read V4 at this stage).

I think all of them can be challenged in regards to plausibility - multiple plot points sound far-fetched at times. But, in looking at actual past events, it becomes very clear that most nations really don't want conflict bigger than a skirmish. Russian-brokered peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Saudi-brokered ceasefire in Yemen. India and China fighting at their border. Multiple coups throughout Africa, but ceasefires and peaceful endings as well.

Lots of smoldering going on, but no real desires for open fighting involving declarations of war and invasions of territory. It may very well be that the COVID pandemic has tempered governments (or that they've been forced to be more isolationist).

Some what-ifs that could turn current events hot in a "Twilight:2025" future timeline include China conflicts in the South China Sea, Iran/Turkey/Syria conflicts over Kurdish militias and Syrian rebels resulting in invasions of Iraq or Iranian involvement in Venezuela, possibly Belarus/Russia movements involving Crimea/Ukraine and the Baltics.

The most unknowable is the middle east - Saudi, Turk, Iranian, Russian involvement in trying to bring peace to Syria - all while Saudi is meeting with Iran while also warming a bit to Israel but Turkey is slightly hostile to UAE over their warming of relations with Israel. While Israel skirmishes with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.

[Olefin]

V1 is the most plausible to me given the China War and the losses that the WP nations take, combined with what was really going on in Europe at the time with people starting to have had it with Soviet rule in Eastern Europe all combining and leading to the East and West Germans trying for reunification.

The V2.2 timeline has issues with the war start in Europe - but in Asia totally believable

[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by Olefin

V1 is the most plausible to me given the China War and the losses that the WP nations take, combined with what was really going on in Europe at the time with people starting to have had it with Soviet rule in Eastern Europe all combining and leading to the East and West Germans trying for reunification.

The V2.2 timeline has issues with the war start in Europe - but in Asia totally believable

So how would you adapt a v1 timeline to the current world situation? I get that v4 is playing in 2000 so you can drop in the campaign stuff from v1/v2 with v4 rules, but it seems like they missed an opportunity for it to be Twilight:2025 by introducing two or three potential timelines... That is - a classic 2000, maybe a 2010 one where 9/11 ultimately led to WW3, and a 2025 or 2030 one where maybe China is a problem leading to WW3...

All that having been said, taking the Fallout/Wasteland approach to timeline and backstory might have been better...

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by 3catcircus

So how would you adapt a v1 timeline to the current world situation? I get that v4 is playing in 2000 so you can drop in the campaign stuff from v1/v2 with v4 rules, but it seems like they missed an opportunity for it to be Twilight:2025 by introducing two or three potential timelines... That is - a classic 2000, maybe a 2010 one where 9/11 ultimately led to WW3, and a 2025 or 2030 one where maybe China is a problem leading to WW3...

All that having been said, taking the Fallout/Wasteland approach to timeline and backstory might have been better...

I actually wish the V4 had just used either the V1 or V2.2 timeline and just went with updated rules, weapons, etc.. - would have been the best of both worlds

The V1 timeline really doesnt work with today's world situation - for one China has changed tremendously - when the timeline was written in the 1980's China was literally a joke military compared to today's China - remember the only mention they had in Red Dawn was a throw away line how 600 million screaming Chinamen were our only allies except the British - i.e basically totally disdaining their military capabilities

Remember the timeline basically is that the Soviets are shocked that the Chinese actually can stand up to them - that they and everyone else expected them to not be able to do much against the Soviets except die in large numbers

Now any Soviet/Russian invasion of China would be vastly different - in fact I dont see any such invasion even being possible given the Chinese Army as it stands today - not unless Russia somehow hit them with an all out nuke strike first and took out their missiles on the ground

Also NATO is not the NATO of the 1980's - the German Army is a pale shadow of its Cold War self, the Dutch are just as bad and the UK came within an inch of getting rid of its tanks - and the Poles and Czechs would 100% fight the Russians until hell froze over and then fight on the ice - i.e. they wouldnt join in any way against NATO like the V1 timeline or the V2.2

that is one place where the V4 is right in how it handles the Poles - I dont see the V1 or V2.2 timelines really appreciating just how much the Poles and Czechs hated the Soviets

[Mahatatain]

For me the only way a T2K setting is plausible is if the Soviet Union really was the SuperPower that it was portrayed as for many years, with the mighty military forces and nuclear missile capability that we/NATO believed it to have during the majority of Cold War. I therefore think that points at the version 1 timeline as the most "plausible", even though it's based on the fiction of the time regarding the military strength of the Soviet Union.

My own homebrew timeline is therefore based on a truly powerful Soviet Union that never collapsed with various events that trigger WWIII.

[cpip]

The v1 timeline doesn't really work for me, which is a shame, because I love the Poland sandbox. The v2.2 timeline works a little better, and I've never read the T2013 one.

With only a few changes (the conceit of the new designers regarding Sweden, for instance), the v4 timeline works for me for plausibility. It's not perfect, but I like it considerably better than its predecessors.

[ChalkLine]

None of them make sense.

The first was understandably based on Cold War ideas of the internal workings of the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc. Of course now we know that most of our assumptions were flawed in their very basis.

The second was based on what little we knew from examining the former Warsaw Pact but still didn't scrutinise our own place in it.

After this we get into serious retcon territory and try and make events slew towards those early assumptions for the sake thematics, they make even less sense.

A rational Hot War is the Soviets launch during Operation Able Archer 83, but it's not likely to be survivable as the nuclear launch escalates.

Of course the first not only not made sense on what we didn't know but on what we did know. That France would stab NATO in the back was laughable while also being offensive. Spain, the largest western army in Europe, had joined NATO but goes off elsewhere for . . . reasons. The Italian-Greek thing not only made not sense, it made you wonder what planet it came from.

The game derives out that 1980s genre of Tom Clancy's "jam a war in everywhere and they'll buy it" (I did)

Nearly everyone I know uses a different setting.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

None of them make sense.

The first was understandably based on Cold War ideas of the internal workings of the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc. Of course now we know that most of our assumptions were flawed in their very basis.

The second was based on what little we knew from examining the former Warsaw Pact but still didn't scrutinise our own place in it.

After this we get into serious retcon territory and try and make events slew towards those early assumptions for the sake thematics, they make even less sense.

A rational Hot War is the Soviets launch during Operation Able Archer 83, but it's not likely to be survivable as the nuclear launch escalates.

Of course the first not only not made sense on what we didn't know but on what we did know. That France would stab NATO in the back was laughable while also being offensive. Spain, the largest western army in Europe, had joined NATO but goes off elsewhere for . . . reasons. The Italian-Greek thing not only made not sense, it made you wonder what planet it came from.

The game derives out that 1980s genre of Tom Clancy's "jam a war in everywhere and they'll buy it" (I did)

Nearly everyone I know uses a different setting.

I agree with you on the Spanish Army - both the V1 and the V2.2 basically ignored Spain - and there is no way they sit out the war - at the very least they would have sent a couple of divisions to fight against the Soviets or possibly even the Italians without overbalancing the NATO forces against the Soviets

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by Olefin

I agree with you on the Spanish Army - both the V1 and the V2.2 basically ignored Spain - and there is no way they sit out the war - at the very least they would have sent a couple of divisions to fight against the Soviets or possibly even the Italians without overbalancing the NATO forces against the Soviets

I have NATO thrust back against the French border after a disastrous invasion of Poland when they thought the units there were worn out from fighting in the east but walked into a classic case of maskirovka mixed with underestimation. NATO are in desperate talks to stop Force de Frappe launch France's strategic arsenal as Soviet forces close on the border when the Spanish lunge into the Soviet's path with their outdated gear but immense courage. The Warsaw Pact, knowing they have almost no time, hammer the Spanish and French unmercifully before the rest of NATO reorganises and puts pressure on the vast flanks of the salient. The salient starts to get pinched off and the Soviets are chased all the way back to the Vistula.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Olefin

I agree with you on the Spanish Army - both the V1 and the V2.2 basically ignored Spain - and there is no way they sit out the war - at the very least they would have sent a couple of divisions to fight against the Soviets or possibly even the Italians without overbalancing the NATO forces against the Soviets

Spain essentially sat out WW2 (aside from the Blue Division and secretly hosting German U-Boats). I don't see a particularly compelling reason why they couldn't/wouldn't sit out WW3 as well. Spain's geographic position on the Iberian Peninsula is such that the Spanish can viably do so, as there are few direct threats to their homeland (central Europe and France being buffers). Joining a war against the Soviet Union makes Spain a target, potentially for nuclear destruction, so, in many ways, Spain would have more to lose from going to war on team NATO than it would to gain.

I think this is especially true if one sticks to canon's treatment of NATO's other Mediterranean members, France, Italy, and Greece.

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[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Spain essentially sat out WW2 (aside from the Blue Division and secretly hosting German U-Boats). I don't see a particularly compelling reason why they couldn't/wouldn't sit out WW3 as well. Spain's geographic position on the Iberian Peninsula is such that the Spanish can viably do so, as there are few direct threats to their homeland (central Europe and France being buffers). Joining a war against the Soviet Union makes Spain a target, potentially for nuclear destruction, so, in many ways, Spain would have more to lose from going to war on team NATO than it would to gain.

I think this is especially true if one sticks to canon's treatment of NATO's other Mediterranean members, France, Italy, and Greece.

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from what the Med Cruise says they didnt sit out and enjoy the ride - they got hit as well on their refineries - and what they did to Gib most likely spread a lot of rads over southern Spain

also keep in mind they sat out WW2 because their economy was in tatters after the Spanish Civil War - that is 100 percent not the case in 1996 - at the very least they would have sent NATO some brigades from the rapid action force after the Italians went on their little jaunt into Austria and southern Germany

[Raellus]

In that case, I wonder why Spain wasn't included in the NATO Vehicle Guide.

Mr. Frey?

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