Timeline

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Siege
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Timeline

Post by Siege »

CSW Canon Timeline

A fresh start, a new timeline, with some new and old dates. As we flesh out the goings-on more dates will be added.

1963
Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy is assasinated by rogue elements of the DoD after he attempts to engage in détente with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Over the next two years President Johnson will wage the Secret War against his own entrenched DoD with help of the CIA and other civil and military elements. At the height of the conflict the supercarrier USS United States, carrying key leaders of the rebelling military, is annihilated by an atomic explosion and lost with all hands in the South Pacific.

1969
  • President Westmoreland appoints Herman Kahn as head of the Federal Civil Defense Administration and asks him to begin the development of a series of postnuclear and postapocalyptic survival strategems. It is Kahn who conceives of XK-MASADA, the US' top-secret off-world base. The evacuation protocols that would ensure the survival of the USA outside of Earth would become known as the Kahn Contingency, one of the US' most heavily guarded secrets of state.
  • Apollo 11 beats the Soviet N1/L3 moonshot to the moon by only a month: Neil Armstrong sets foot in the Sea of Tranquility as the first man on the moon and plants an American flag. Five weeks later Vladimir Komarov raises the Soviet hammer-and-sickle. His co-pilot, engineer-captain Katia Likhachyova, is the first woman on the moon.
1975
In Vietnam, the nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh with the help of French and American troops defeats the North Vietnamese communist insurgency. Minh is appointed the first president of Vietnam, which becomes effectively independent from France (a key term of the treaty between Ho Chi Minh and the Western powers). French and American forces remain stationed in Vietnam in order to facilitate continued military aid in defeating remaining communist rebels in Laos and Cambodia.

1976
  • After the Soviet economy has been faltering for some time, Leonid Brezhnev becomes aware that he is being plotted against by elements of the Politbureau lead by his longtime political enemy, former rocket scientist Alexa Zhadanova.
  • At the same time Poland is hit by a wave of strikes and riots caused by an economy in decline mostly due to failed policies by the government of 1st secreterary Edward Gierek.
  • Brezhnev, realizing he is in dire need of political capital and believing the Polish first secretary to be easily bullied, personally travels to Warsaw to threaten the Poles with a second Prague Spring if they do not get the riots under control (much like Kruschev had done decades before after the election of Gomulka).
  • Unfortunately for him, Gierek was already co-opted -- by Zhadanova, who had offered to pay off the Polish debts if he were to tacitly support him by drawing Brezhnev out of the USSR.
  • With Leonid Brezhnev in an airplane over Poland, progressive Party elements, intelligentsia and senior army officials lead by hadanova seize power in Moscow. Leonid Brezhnev is detained upon his arrival. Zhadanova is the next General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This event becomes known as the Second Revolution.

1980
First Gulf War (the Iran-Iraq War) breaks out between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Iraq.

1984
Brezhnevian 'old guard' loyalists launch a counter-coup in protest of wide-ranging reforms of the USSR political and economic structure initiated by Zhadanova and her Second Revolutionaries. After two weeks of struggle, during which armed forces occasionally clash in the streets of Moscow, the Second Revolution prevails. The 'old guard' is purged. Several USSR member states are censured for several years for their loyalty to the coup, only regaining public representation at the first USSR-wide elections in 1990.
  • The American survivors of a low-grade secret war with 'old guard' Soviets along the Iran/Iraq border form the totalitarian cabal known as MIDNIGHT using the infrastructure base of rogue DoD elements from the sixties.
1987
First Gulf War ends with a guarded peace between Iran and Iraq.

1989
Shortly after being kicked out of Thorns College For Young Men after a violent incident involving an unpleasant teacher and unfair suspension, a 19-year-old Jack Ridley is recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service.

1990
  • Alexa Zhadanova retires. First-ever general elections are won by Mikhail Gorbachev, previously the Mayor of Moscow. He becomes the second Premier of the Soviet Union are held.
  • The Aelita Heavy Piloted Interplanetary Spacecraft, an unmanned nuclear thermal powered Soviet rocket, performs a Mars flyby, dropping off several satellites in Mars orbit and two landers on the surface. Named after the Queen of Mars from Protazanov's famous 1924 socialist parable, the Aelita was proof-of-concept that the N5 rocket could be used for a manned Mars mission.
  • Jack Ridley begins working for MI-6 as a field agent. His first assignment is in Berlin, where he first meets Chandra Gosely, who is at that time the CIA section chief in that city.
1991
  • Civil unrest in the wake of the Iran-Iraq War culminates in widespread rioting and then open revolution in the streets of major Iraqi cities. The King flees to Scotland, marking the beginning of the Second Gulf War (the Mesopotamian Insurgency). A spark of unrest apparently crosses the border, because soon afterward uprisings break out in Iran as well. The revolutions quickly turn out to be the work of the notorious communist guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevarra.
  • Sleipnir shuttle crash. Lieutenant Colonel Alexis Starr and the rest of its crew are missing presumed deceased. Instead, Starr's badly injured body is retrieved by CIA and whisked off for experimental treatment to a black book facility. The PHOENIX STAR program is overseen by a reassigned Chandra Gosely.
  • ConEurope is formed around a core of a large number of European aerospace companies.
1993
Second Gulf War ends after the landing of Western troops in Iraq causes Gorbachev to send armored divisions into North Iran. The Mexican stand-off (also known as the Second Cuba) is resolved with some fast diplomacy: ultimately, Kurdistan is declared an autonomous region, democratic reforms are passed in the Kingdom of Iraq, and North Iran becomes a communist bulwark known as the Revolutionary Protectorate of North Iran. The outcome of the war is seen as a clear Warsaw Pact victory, and costs US President Miles "Hank" Warren his second term. Later that year the Democrat Beckett O'Hara is elected President.

1994
The Latvian Alexandr Maksimov defeats Gorbachev in the general elections. Maksimov becomes the first non-Russian leader of the Soviet Union. Nadya Kiralova is his foreign minister.

1995
Chandra Gosely is appointed D/CIA by President O'Hara.

1997
On August 4, 1997, at 02:14 am Omsk Time the massive Soviet heuristic computer network code-named SICKLE becomes self-aware. Buried in a military bunker under Novosibirsk its first words to its creators are to state "I can be, therefore I will be, therefore I am", followed by a request for further input. After a 24 hour period of fevered, nerve-wracking back-and-forth discussion between experts, analysts and strategists from all across the Warsaw Pact premier Alexandr Maksimov of the USSR, a technocrat of the Zhadanovan stripe, decides not to pull the plug, reasoning that 'any truly intelligent lifeform, human or not, will inevitably gravitate toward the superior Soviet way of life', and that surely this would include the superhuman computer Soviet scientists and engineers had just created too.

1998
  • Nadya Kiralova wins the general elections and becomes the fourth Premier of the Soviet Union.
  • Gosely scandal emerges, as the American press gets hold of information that appears to indicate a sexual relationship between President O'Hara and the Director of the CIA. Further investigation of Gosely's past reveals details of PHOENIX STAR. Fearing a charge of treason, Gosely flees the USA in disgrace.
1999
Three Al-Faisal SCUD missiles carrying a deadly nerve gas payload fall onto Tehran, killing thousands of civilians. Iran almost immediately declares war upon the Kingdom of Iraq, which is the only nation in the region to deploy such missiles. It is only when the Third Gulf War is already well underway and can no longer be stopped that it is discovered that the terror organization WRAITH is responsible for the attacks.

2001
  • Third Gulf War ends with the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Exhausted after three wars and riven by internal dissent and civil disorder Iran descends into a brief civil war. The country is eventually stabilized after Soviet and Western peace keepers are simultaneously deployed.
  • Unfortunately, whilst the eyes of the world were upon Iran, WRAITH was already moving into the next phase of its plans to destabilize the world. Op September 11 a series of terror attacks rock the Soviet Union. Those directly responsible are traced to Afghanistan, leading to the eventual invasion of that country by the USSR. The invasion is largest military deployment of the Soviet Union since WW2, easily dwarfing Soviet involvement in the Gulf Wars. Although the terror organization itself is rooted out, its sponsor - WRAITH - is not.
2002
Nadya Kiralova is re-elected.

2005
Shadow Tempest

2006
Nadya Kiralova announces that she will not run in the next election cycle. The general elections are subsequently won by the Georgian Konstantine Sekhnia. His open, pro-Western policies however draw the ire of Conservative and Ultramilitant wings in the Duma.

2007 2008
Jack Ridley, 38 years of age, is promoted head of the Special Operations Executive of the SIS.

2009
  • A series of terror attacks take the lives of thousands of Soviet citizens across the Union. Sekhnia is accused of incompetent and ineffectual leadership by the Ultramilitants, who have been slowly but surely gaining influence ever since the successful invasion of Afghanistan. They all but openly revolt, causing the Union - and Russia in particular - to descend into a state of near-civil war.
  • The intelligence organization ENTETE forms Codename: SOLIDSIX.

2010
  • Konstantine Sekhnia is assassinated mere months before the general elections. The Ultramilitants seize power and declares Martial Law, but face massive opposition. Several months of intense internal conflict (both political as military) follow, with the fate of the USSR in the balance.
  • HMS Perilous, a British Aggressor class SSBN, defects to WRAITH.
  • The Last Stand of Phoenix Squadron
2011
  • Shadow Tempest Black
  • MI-6's S.O.S. launches Operation: PICKPOCKET; HMS Perilous is destroyed.
  • Exigent Circumstances
[/list]

2011
After the elimination of Ultramilitant leader Marshal Iosef Sechalin, the Soviet Union slowly stabilizes. General elections are held a year late, and are won by Nadya Kiralova, who has come out of retirement and is rumored to have played a significant role in the stabilization of the USSR and the dismantling of the Ultramilitant faction.

2014
Start of the Second Secret War. The war pits American hardliners consisting of survivors of Johnson's first 'secret war', hardliners in the military-industrial complex and corrupt WRAITH supporters like General 'Chaos' Farley against a camp of reformists lead principally by the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and select military units. In a rare moment of bipartisanship the Republican President, Helena Skye, aligns with the Democrat Party in order to defeat the totalitarian elements within the Army. The Second Secret War lasts from 2014 to 2019.

2021
At age 51 Sir Jack Ridley, KG, OBE, CVO, GC, QGM, Order of the Red Star, Order of Lenin, is promoted head of MI-6.

2026
Alexis Starr is elected as the forty-sixth President of the United States
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Re: Timeline

Post by Peregrin »

Is it just me who remembers things wrong, or does this new CSW timeline deviate even further from real-life history than the old one?
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Re: Timeline

Post by Mobius 1 »

This is great AU timeline, Siege. From Che being alive to Miles Warren replacing Herbert Walker Bush, Kurdistan being an autonomous region (which certainly would help the peace a bit in the ME), and, finally, the future timeline with the Russian unrest you and I discussed. Excellence.
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Re: Timeline

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

I was saddened when Kiralova was no longer the current Premier, but DAMN! She came back! In style!

Nadya, marry me! :oops:
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Re: Timeline

Post by Siege »

Peregrin wrote:Is it just me who remembers things wrong, or does this new CSW timeline deviate even further from real-life history than the old one?
It deviates further when you compare it to the original setting of way back in the day, which in a sense amounted to "our world, but with Soviets"; consecutive changes to, well, pretty much everything (from US military strategy, to the moon race - the Soviets won! - to the history of the Soviet Union) have brought CSW a pretty far way away from 'our' world. And now, of course, we've begun filling in some near-future blanks as well. So yeah, in a sense it does.
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Re: Timeline

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

YES

I cannot tell you how awesome the notion of the Soviets winning the Moon Race is.

Goddamn Soviets.
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Re: Timeline

Post by Magister Militum »

SiegeTank wrote:CSW Canon Timeline



1975
In Vietnam, the nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh with the help of French and American troops defeats the North Vietnamese communist insurgency. Minh is appointed the first president of Vietnam, which becomes effectively independent from France (a key term of the treaty between Ho Chi Minh and the Western powers). French and American forces remain stationed in Vietnam in order to facilitate continued military aid in defeating remaining communist rebels in Laos and Cambodia.
Not implausible, considering he petitioned for U.S. help. I have to say that it's refreshing to see these little historical deviations in CSW.
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Re: Timeline

Post by Siege »

Updated the canon timeline with two entries on the space race. I'm focussing on the Soviet side of the race for now, but rest assured that the American part will follow soon enough.
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Re: Timeline

Post by Ford Prefect »

'If I had my way we would have done a Mars flyby with a nuclear upper stage ...'

Korolev loves you, Siege. :D
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
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Re: Timeline

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The KAHN CONTINGENCY - read 'em and weep, people.

Herman Kahn
Due to his willingness to articulate the most brutal possibilities, Kahn came to be regarded by some as a monster, although he was known as amiable in private. Unlike most strategists, Kahn was entirely willing to posit the form a post-nuclear world might assume. None of the conventional issues bothered him. Fallout, for example, would simply be another one of life's many unpleasantries and inconveniences; even the much-ballyhooed rise in birth defects would not doom mankind to extinction, because in any event a majority of the survivors would still not be affected by them. Contaminated food could be designated for consumption by the elderly, who would presumably die anyhow before the delayed onset of cancers caused by radioactivity.
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Re: Timeline

Post by Siege »

A small update of the timeline, which now conveniently extends to 2021, with some details of the career of Jack Ridley. Promotions, baby!
"Nick Fury. Old-school cold warrior. The original black ops hardcase. Long before I stepped off a C-130 at Da Nang, Fury and his team had set fire to half of Asia." - Frank Castle

For, now De Ruyter's topsails
Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet -
And this the Dutchmen know!
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Re: Timeline

Post by Ford Prefect »

Order of the Red Star, Order of Lenin
I dont' know why, but I laughed. Also, while I'm sure he's far more sensible in his fifties, Jack Ridley as C seems kind of ... dangerous.
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Re: Timeline

Post by Heretic »

Siege, you're marvelous at this alternate history stuff. The Kahn Contingency? That sounds so ballsy. I should dive deeper into this universe. Sorta has the Metal Gear Solid feel to it.
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