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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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
- Unforeseen Consequences
- RAID launches operation: MINDCRIME
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
- Shadow Tempest Black
- MI-6's S.O.S. launches Operation: PICKPOCKET; HMS Perilous is destroyed.
- Exigent Circumstances
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