Alaternate History Snippets to explain the Start of the Twilight War.

[Raellus]

Last night, I watched the first two episodes of For All Mankind on Apple TV+. If you're not familiar with the show's premise, the initial Apollo moon mission ends in fiery death, prompting the NASA program managers to pursue a more cautious approach on subsequent missions. As a result, the Soviets land a manned mission on the moon first. I don't want to spoil the show for anyone interested in watching, but the afore mentioned role-reversal sets off a further chain of alternate historical events, leading to a more militarized Cold War space race... (I'm looking forward to watching what happens next).

What I've seen so far got me thinking what the ramifications of a more successful Soviet space program- how this might be a way to explain how the Soviet Union could survive, and even thrive, into the 1990s, in an alternate history timeline.

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[Targan]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Last night, I watched the first two episodes of For All Mankind on Apple TV+.

I love For All Mankind! The further along its timeline goes, the more interesting the differences from our own.

[Raellus]

Here's the opening "newsreel" montage from For All Mankind Season 2, episode 1. It mostly uses RL footage to summarize changes and similarities between 1978-'82 in our actual timeline and the alternative timeline presented in the rest of the series, and is narrated by an AI-assisted Ronald Reagan. Could make a really cool way to intro a similar T2kU overstory to your players.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGXwVWSaMA8

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[Raellus]

Just started Season 3 of For All Mankind (AppleTV+). Like Season 2 (see previous post), it starts with a "newsreel" covering the show's alternate history from 1988 to late 1992.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7p1lQMbgks

Rolling with these alternate history timelines would reconcile the NATO peace dividend with Soviet economic strength. And, this timeline gives the Ref four years to set up the war as they see fit.

Combo Newsreel

The following link combines both newsreels (the one in the previous post and the one linked above).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxRGhmMeaLI

To find out what happened between 1982-'88, you'll have to watch Season 2.

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[kato13]

Those are pretty cool.

I was thinking about a series of power point slides for presenting the history changes needed for T2k, but with AI advancement something akin to these videos could be possible in the near future.