Project Long Winter

Project Long Winter was the codename for an in-development geopolitical roleplay called The Long Winter set in 2002, with the main developers being Cheggimus and Koe when they were exceptionally bored. The roleplay existed in a timeline where the USSR did not collapse, and instead flourished due to Gorbachev's reforms, causing the Cold War to continue. The USSR's economy is catching up the US and fast, with the gap between the two in terms of economic heft at its smallest since the start of the Cold War. The USSR itself is now a democracy, along with most of the Eastern Bloc. The game itself diverges from reality from 1986 onwards. Due to amount of lore, as well as how different this spinoff is too the original GS franchise, this game has its own wiki here.

Divergences

 * The USSR did not collapse in 1991, and instead grew very prosperous. The military is also catching up to that of the US, although it still lags behind in some aspects. The USSR's economy relies strongly on manufacturing, especially high tech manufacturing spurned on by the growth in demand for computers and other related technologies. The USSR itself is now a democratic socialist nation with some market policies.
 * The rest of the Warsaw Pact has chosen a variety of different ways to reform. Some nations like Czechoslovakia and Poland have chosen borderline social democratic policies, causing some minor friction between them and the smaller nations of the Eastern Bloc, although the USSR itself has chosen to be largely indifferent towards the nature of how the nations of Eastern Bloc conduct itself. Other nations like East Germany and Romania have adopted less radical reforms. Overall, the USSR's lack of effort in controlling the rest of the Eastern Bloc is in general causing a lot of friction.
 * While the Eastern Bloc is finding itself somewhat fractured, the West is also finding itself far more divided due to the breaking down of barriers between the West and East, allowing socialist ideals to gain an influence unseen in almost a century in countries such as France. Euroscepticism and anti-NATO beliefs are becoming increasingly prevalent among left-wingers and the youth.
 * Italy's communist party is still a major player in 2002, with a pledge to leave NATO and the EU. It has considerable influence in some parts of Italy such as the central regions. Italy is now only one election away from tipping the balance of Europe.
 * The Yugoslav Wars still occurred with similar results, however, Yugoslavia was essentially divided in two into a Soviet-aligned bloc of nations and a Western-aligned bloc of nations.
 * Gorbachev has been leader for over a decade now, and while many in the cities and urban areas love him for bringing vast wealth, his policies have lower popularity in parts of Russia that relied much more on the processing of raw materials, an industry that is finding itself in a difficult situation. His international policies are also quite isolationist, which has resulted in a loss of hard Soviet influence. Gorbachev no longer intends to run, and his successor, [insert name of successor]'s main competitor is Yegor Ligachyov, who argues that further economic liberalisation will continue to hurt Soviet citizens in rural and less wealthy areas, while also arguing for a revitalisation of Soviet foreign policy. Many are comparing certain parts of the USSR such as Turkmenistan to the rust belt in the United States.
 * Chechnya is not undergoing the same instability that it did in real life, but there are still major issues in the region with extremism.
 * 9/11 still happened with the exception being that the US Capitol was also hit by a plane, although with next to no casualties due to it already being evacuated. This still had a major symbolic affect on the US. This resulted in the US deciding to invade Afghanistan just like in real life.
 * The USSR was hit by a similar terror attack shortly afterwards by Al-Qaeda supported terrorists (although the links are somewhat dubious). This attack took place during a sports game in a stadium in Moscow, when a truck full of explosives bypassed security and was parked by the stadium before detonating. The explosion killed approximately 4,000 people. There was considerable political pressure to invade Afghanistan, forcing Gorbachev to attack northern Afghanistan, sparking what many have called a Race to Kabul, between the United States and it's allies, and the Eastern Bloc.
 * The Kargil War between Pakistan and India happened in 2000 instead of 1999, but it was far more prolonged and has resulted in far more death and destruction. This caused China to take advantage of the situation to attack India as well, both to support Pakistan and also to try and take Ladakh and other disputed territories in the Kashmir area. For now, the war is under a ceasefire, but frequent violations by both sides are causing many to question whether this uneasy peace will last.
 * The North Korean Famine during the 1990s still took place, although the effect on North Korea was far less damaging due to considerable Soviet support. However, it's economy still suffered greatly.
 * Cuba's economy is much stronger, although some suspect that it is beginning to drift somewhat away from the USSR.
 * Due to the increasingly high quality of life in the Eastern Bloc, migration to Israel from the Eastern Bloc is far less significant in the RP than in real life. As a result, Israel has considerably smaller population and GDP in the RP than it did in real life.
 * The USSR and Saudi Arabia have found themselves in an oil price war, caused by Saudi Arabia in an attempt to hit back at the USSR for taking a large number of customers away from them. The middle east in general, especially the Gulf states, are finding themselves in a weaker position in the RP compared to real life due to the USSR eating into the global oil market with their vast reserves and strong infrastructure, as well as proximity to major markets such as China and Europe.
 * South America is being ravaged by a horrendous drug crisis, especially Brazil. This is resulting in a great deal of destruction in many poorer parts of South America, with some cities in South America such as Riberalta in Bolivia and Santarem in Brazil having the highest homicide rates in the world. Many parts of South America are now considered to be more dangerous than places such as Afghanistan. There is also a great deal of population drain from these countries, especially Japanese Brazilians, who are being incentivised by the Japanese government to abandon Brazil and help lessen Japan's economic issues and demographic concerns.
 * China is in an uneasy alliance with the United States due to their common dislike of the Soviet Union. For this reason, China operates a large variety of American weaponry, although most of it is downgraded or mildly outdated hardware from the United States.
 * The Troubles are still a major issue to the UK and Ireland, following the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement only one year after it was signed. Unionist Paramilitaries opposed the control handed to Republican Factions, and in February 1998 they detonated three bombs in the Republic of Ireland, and another bomb during Catholic Mass in Derry. These only killed around 30 people, but the attacks provoked the IRA. After a series of assassinations, sniper attacks and bombings, the British Army's presence in Ireland was ramped up in November 1998. Since then, no compromise has been found and the factions are trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of violence. The IRA receives support from individuals in the US, as well as Qaddafi's Libya, as they did in reality, but in this RP they receive limited political and funding support from the USSR. The British Government under Blair does not fund Unionist Paramilitaries, but their foothold in the RUC, sympathies in the British right-wing make their operations much less risky.

Game
The game started off somewhat rocky, as development was somewhat rushed in order to open up the game before enthusiasm declined too much. All relevant stats such as GDP data and military information for relevant nations were complete but some mechanics were kind of winged.

The game went moderately well, although activity was somewhat concerning. Activity was actually fairly high within the private channels, but for whatever reason nobody wanted to do anything in public even if it was super mundane. This had the side-effect of causing many less active players or non-players in general to proclaim that the game was dead on arrival. Chegg was unable to do much due to personal reasons, so Koe did much of the event processing and moderating. Events were actually being pumped out relatively quickly, but the lack of a backlog was concerning in itself. The game also launched during exam season for most of the northern hemisphere.

The game's demise began on one cold winter afternoon on the 21st of May, when Koe abruptly announced that he was taking a break from discord and would be leaving the server. He did this kind of in full knowledge that the server would probably die if he did that, but he felt that it was inevitable anyway due to the issues listed above. The game was paused by Chegg, and with a lack of available admins to manage the game, it died on the 6th of June.