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And thus 1991 closes, with an intact Soviet Union, a (mostly) intact Warsaw Pact, the Iron Curtain relocated to the German-Polish border — and a more belligerent Soviet leadership than anyone's seen since Stalin.

I like a lot of this, but I do not see a casus belli anywhere on the horizon here. The ideas FL present in their alpha edition is charming, because one can see already at the end of 1991, where exactly it all will be going to hell. A new Iron Curtain means another Cold War, thus 'bipolar stability' (in every sense of the term).

Conflict arises with instability and unclear situations, however. And in order to create that, one needs uncertain spheres of interest. And this is where I cannot follow the argument about Stalin. He is not particularly belligerent actually, if referring to wars against other nations and in comparison to contemporary dictators. Between 1924 and 1939 Stalin's USSR only attacks countries formerly part of the Russian Empire or when a treaty with a third party grants the USSR land-rights (Bessarabia). With such a policy, I see no chance for a Twilight War in your setting. For, if the Polish rebel again, why should NATO intervene? They did not in 1952, 1956 or 1968. Not even in the 80s and early 90s, when the periphery of the USSR was in turmoil.

For a war, there need to be "unsettled issues" such as the Visegrád Countries applying for NATO membership and the US sending 'Partnership for Peace' trip-wire forces that get killed, when the neo-USSR 'suppresses counter-revolutionary insurgents'. This would make the Central and Eastern Europe of the 90s something like a reverse Indochina and the onset of the Twilight War would be similar to the Tet Offensive (plus trip-wire forces).

That was just Chapter 1, ending 1991 — where the game's timeline currently begins!

Keep reading Chapter 2 too, and we should get to the instability, unclarity, and a casus belli by 1997...

The Army being occupied with keeping Poland in check (reinforced by units redeployed from other states for the purpose), enable the confused events in Hungary that by extension lead to the Berlin Wall falling to still take place. With things showing signs of beginning to come apart there, the Army was already about to move on Hungary, so that breach is quickly sealed (with consequences for those responsible at the border), but the events spreading so quickly to Berlin and DDR is completely unexpected, and the Soviet Army, taken by surprise, is unable to react quickly enough to stop them.
KPD forces Honecker to resign, and Germany is reunified as before — "illegally", as certain voices in the USSR claim.

Again, many things I like and can see, but the German reunification was not set in motion by events in Hungary, though some things happening there played a roll, yes. If Honecker had gotten any signs from the Kremlin that a show of force would be the way to go, he would had used weapons against his own people. That is pretty much what the SED party's life line and credo was: "Do as Moscow says."

I cannot truly figure out what or who the "KPD" is supposed to be, however. Historically the KPD ("Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands", the German communist party) forced the Social Democratic Party in the Soviet zone of occupation to merge with them in 1946, forming the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED, Socialist Unity Party of Germany). The party ruled Eastern Germany from 1946 to 1990.

Its rule came to an end by means of pressure from the people on the streets and lacking support from Moscow. And German re-unification was not haphazard, the "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" signed in 1990 was perhaps the most watertight treaty in European history since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, being signed by the four victors and both German states.

I do not see how this could happen in the timeline, too, and then be questioned by Neo-Soviets. Nor could I see reunification happen without exactly that treaty. This would be an eerie throw-back to T2K first edition ruling that German officers started the Twilight War by forcefully reunifying the country. This is to far stretched for post-war Germany.

To clarify, then: "KPD" simply refers to the SED; I misnamed it. My mistake!

To fill in a bit more detail:

With several major army units redeployed (on the Army hardliners' initiative, N.B.; not the Kremlin's) from the DDR to "keep the peace" in Poland, the ball starting with the "Pan-European Picnic", fully supported by Gorbachev (and his "there will be no new 1956"; previous developments in Hungary leading up to it being the reason why the Army was already preparing to "reinforce Socialism" there, as well), it snowballs to the DDR as it did historically. Honecker can not get unambiguous directives from Moscow, as the Kremlin is still officially promoting the Perestroika and Glasnost policies. With Honecker lacking formal support from Moscow, and under massive pressure from the population, the SED forces Honecker to resign, as it did historically.

With their hands full in Poland and Hungary, the hardliners are taken by surprise and are unable to act fast enough to counteract it — a major reason why they going forward feel the prestige loss very keenly.

In this timeline, the reunification treaty would obviously not be signed by all four victors; "only" by the UK, France, America, and the German states. Gorbachev would publicly support signing it, but would not be able to get enough of the Government to agree.
The USSR ultimately not recognising it is a major "plot point" for the continuing development!

Actually, come to think of it ... it's really not a "neo-Soviet" state. It's more like an unbroken continuity of the same Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...

Oh, I see now, where you are going with this. I would not want to be Gorbachev in your timeline variant. I still do not see Germany becoming reunified without the signature of the USSR, though. I think the Western Allies would have tried to convince the USSR with all the money and promises they could muster, but if the USSR said no, that would have been it.

Federal chancellor Helmut Kohl would probably have lost the election of 1990 - historically he won it on a wave of euphoria, but his contender from the Social Democratic Party was not at all like his predecessor Helmut Schmidt. Oskar Lafontaine - who historically turned on his party later and joined the post-communist rebranded SED (now named "Die Linke", lit. The Left) - would have been a dove and open for most forms of businesses with the USSR. Including more confrontation with NATO.

But of course, having two German states would have been a touchy thing, right? A post-Honecker GDR that would have been denied reunification would be highly unstable, to the brink of open insurrections and "crimes against USSR service personnel". And in 1994 the dove-ish German chancellor might loose against a more hawkish contender from Kohl's party, if the stars are right and the money is good (and oh boy, was it good: Kohl was eventually disgraced in a black money affair). Maybe, with Eastern Germany and Poland in disarray and Western Germany in an economical downward spiral due to its failing coal and steel industry, rumours come up that certain NATO partners unduly supported the newly elected - very hawkish - chancellor? And maybe, he capitalizes on the economy being broken, refugees from the GDR coming in the thousands demanding jobs (that was a big discussion historically) and Poland and the CSSR being in such disarray that the borders are not safe any longer?

And maybe then does the climate change for a more robust foreign policy. Not an annexation of course. Not even UN peace troops, unless there is goodwill on the Soviet side. But maybe the Bundeswehr is allowed to take over former Soviet bases as their occupation troops leave late in 1994. And maybe Western Germany just goes with the flow, installing a liason with the East German NVA and the new - very weak - SED government that is basically a puppet for NVA and Stasi? And from there, it just seems natural to support conservative and patriotic movements in the GDR. As long as Stasi and NVA remain untouched, who really cares for the name of the party in charge? So now in East and West the same parties rule, just one is the Eastern version of the other. And Bundeswehr and NVA plus Stasi forces go and hunt these pesky Polish and Czechoslovakian illegal immigrants and bootleggers.

Until, well, it was almost bound to happen, some of these criminals are infect Soviet soldiers and some from the CSSR. Yes, they were technically caught running guns - heavy stuff, actually, between the GDR-Poland-CSSR triangle, but the guns were meant for a hardcore SED-remnant and the Soviets were not even in Germany proper, but still on the other side of the Neiße river. At least, that's what the KGB put in its AAR. The Germans deny this, of course. Even the Stasi does. But not all Stasi reports. Some of them are still closer to Moscow than Bonn.

Uh, this could escalate quickly. Sure, Eastern Germany is an independent nation and not a member of NATO. But was it wise of Moscow to direct the CSSR to attack a border patrol in Bavaria for retaliation? It sure got ugly after that, with the Soviet ambassador demanding a peacekeeping force for Eastern Germany and the Bundeswehr moving into the GDR in force...



PS: I could see this work. But I am still not convinced it is a better story that FL's alpha version is in its core, i. e. 1991 and all that. I struggle with FL's premise for the UK, but I find the narrative for continental Europe believable enough not to change it at its core.

Oh, I see now, where you are going with this. I would not want to be Gorbachev in your timeline variant. I still do not see Germany becoming reunified without the signature of the USSR, though. I think the Western Allies would have tried to convince the USSR with all the money and promises they could muster, but if the USSR said no, that would have been it.

Hmm ... perhaps... Not entirely sure I agree, though: at this point the SED will have lost its control of the country, and the USSR's grip on the SED would be slipping. With mounting suspicion in the West towards the USSR due to them moving army divisions back and forth in Eastern Europe to sit on people asking for basic democratic liberties, I am not entirely convinced the Western victors, nor the BRD, would have felt the USSR's signature on the paper all that imperative for going through with Die Wende — and the DDR population would only have been too eager to agree. The remnants of the SED might have had objections on principle, but I'm not sure all that many would have been interested in listening to them at that point.
And anyway, at this point, the Brezhnev Doctrine was defunct, kind of making the point moot anyway. It's only in response to these events that it's revived.

But let's see ... how about this then — this might actually fill in a couple of blanks I had ... you'll not pity Gorbachev any less though, I fear:

"Gorbachev manages to beg, borrow, and steal the mandate required to get the USSR's signature on the treaty, but the backlash from the hardliners is forceful. The signature is immediately denounced by leading Party representatives as an overt act of treason. It now once for all being proven that Gorbachev will not stop at undermining, even corrupting the Revolution to further his misguided agendas, the hardliners set in motion agendas of their own that force Gorbachev to find himself more and more sidelined and marginalised. The names that helped Gorbachev get the treaty signed are one by one put on trial and imprisoned on a variety of trumped-up charges, until August 1991, when Gorbachev himself is put on trial and sentenced to five years in house arrest. In a comfortable dacha by the Black Sea, but forevermore out of the political scene. The USSR never formally ratifies the treaty, and once Gorbachev is out of office, the new leadership instead denounces it as an illegal act of annexation that the West managed to force through only by subverting corrupt individuals in the Soviet State."

Mmmhh ... I dunno. I may prefer my original one, actually. Anywhoo...

PS: I could see this work. But I am still not convinced it is a better story that FL's alpha version is in its core, i. e. 1991 and all that. I struggle with FL's premise for the UK, but I find the narrative for continental Europe believable enough not to change it at its core.

My main problem with Ligan's Alpha version — apart from that its first point of deviation from the historical timeline is the August Coup [details], and that its narrative has more revolutions in it than I'm really comfortable with — is the "All-Powerful Bear" scenario: you have a bankrupt, teetering Soviet Union that has lost the whole Warsaw Pact, and is economically on its knees ... but nonetheless in six years manages to rebuild a war machine that not only by far surpasses its old self, but also surpasses the entire former Warsaw Pact ... to a point that enables it to invade much of the Continent — annihilating all NATO forces in Poland — and all of Sweden, and the UK ... while still having forces to spare to present a credible threat in other theatres.
(As a point of reference — they build all of this in six years, whereas the average military hardware programme takes eight years from definition to implementation.)
Oh, they also manage to do all of this with oil income ... during a decade of low and declining oils prices ... somehow unhampered by any international embargoes or boycotts...
Plus the CVBG in the Baltic (let's not even go into the CVN anchored in Stockholm...!). And the roles navies and airforces play (or don't play) in the scenario. And various other bits and bobs ... I've expounded upon this quite extensively in various threads, I suspect. In summation, the current version just doesn't cut any mustard in my book.
So, that's the reason why I'm jotting down these ideas... I feel it should be possible to create something that can give a more plausible starting point to a war on the scale that the game's setting requires.
But I'm not quite done yet...