A couple of months ago, a user on the Juhlin Twilight: 2000 forum posted the question of whether T2k would make a good television series. The following is a mirrored post of my thoughts on implementation, lightly edited with afterthoughts.

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I saw this topic this morning and have been contemplating it all day, in the occasional spaces between tasks. When I think of post-apocalyptic military television shows that have been successful, the first one that comes to mind is Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica. The catch is that BSG did not particularly bill itself as post-apoc or military – it was arguably science fiction drama.

If we look to that for inspiration, where that leaves us with a hypothetical T2k television series is something that focuses on the characters and the team’s interactions and chemistry first and foremost. Drawing again from BSG, one of the overarching themes (at least for the first season or three) would be isolation and loss and how the protagonists react to that. We’d also steal the constant pressure of overwhelming forces in pursuit of our protagonists, the absence of any safe haven… the lack of any allies beyond each other or any home beyond their vehicles.

(At least one of the vehicles is also an enduring character in its own right. No one who follows my posts will be surprised to learn that I would lobby for a LAV-25 in this role.)

Plotting story beats in my head, I’d steal a page from Straczynski’s original plan for Babylon 5 and propose it as a five-season grand arc, structured roughly around four of the classic modules.

Season One: Escape from Kalisz

Start with a two-hour pilot episode that picks up around July 14, 2000. An opening montage establishes the broad strokes of the Twilight War to that point (I’m sure there’s a more intelligent and elegant way to do that, but I’m at a loss at the moment). Each of the protagonists gets a separate introduction scene – some of them may already be serving together, but they aren’t a formed squad. The next hour follows 5th Infantry Division through its last 72 hours. The final half-hour shows the cast thrown together during the breakout from the Kalisz pocket. We close with the team hunkered down in a Polish forest with their tech trying to fix a radio. It comes alive just in time for them to hear, “All call signs, Red Devil Actual. Division HQ is being overrun by Polish armor. We’ll hold their attention as long as we can. Good luck. You’re on your own, now.”

Crash to black; roll credits.

The rest of Season One builds out the world and sets up for the next four seasons. The group gradually solidifies into a solid team while working their way south, away from Kalisz and the 4th Guards Tank Army. The season ends with the protagonists getting a lead on a possible safe haven for NATO troops in Silesia.

Season Two: The Black Madonna

Season Two opens a week or so after Season One. The cast is on the losing side of a fight with marauders from the 9th Tank Division. They’re saved by the intervention of the first Americans they’ve seen since the pilot episode: Bravo Troop, 1-116 ACR. Initially, it looks like Dobrodzien might be the safe haven they’ve been seeking, but Captain Warren’s mental health problems and heavy-handed assumption of command generates a situation in which they have to either flee or risk an unwanted gunfight with fellow Americans. This may be an opportunity to add one or two former Bravo Troop personnel, who choose to flee Captain Warren’s increasing instability, to the regular cast.

From Dobrodzien, the protagonists head south. Friendly contact with a patrol of Silesian Lancers gives them a clearer picture of the political situation on the Polish-Czechoslovakian border, as well as awareness that if they want to find safety in Silesia, they’ll need to buy their way in. They decide to follow a previously-ignored rumor about hidden wealth in Czestochowa. On their way there, they encounter Father Wojiech Niekarz – their first awareness of a pro-NATO (or at least anti-communist) Polish faction. The season closes with a two-part delve into Czestochowa’s ruins and the labyrinth beneath the monastery, ending with their discovery of the Black Madonna.

Season Three: The Free City of Krakow

Season Three opens a couple of weeks later. In the off-screen time, the protagonists handed over the Black Madonna and Florian Filipowicz to Father Wojiech. The former will be used when the time is right to reunify the Polish people. The latter will be handed over to his brother, hopefully buying the Polish Home Army some support from the warlord.

Following Father Wojiech’s advice, the protagonists are headed to Krakow, and the first episode ends with their arrival at the city.

The remainder of this season has the protagonists embroiled in the multi-sided covert war between the various factions in the city. They manage to develop a solid lead on the mysterious Reset research materials and recover them, but with multiple factions gunning for them, they can’t buy their way out. Their only safe route is to leave the city before anyone catches up with them. The season ends with them cutting a deal for passage aboard an tugboat whose driven captain intends to reopen the Vistula River…

Season Four: Pirates of the Vistula

We open as the Wisla Krolowa casts off from Krakow’s docks, hours after the meeting that ended the last season. The first half of the season focuses on the journey down the Vistula, the struggle to open the river, the occasional aid and interactions with less-hostile riverside communities, and the tensions between the protagonists and the tug’s crew (particularly the ambitious, mutinous, and possibly GRU-connected first mate, whose actions will renew the team’s flight from the factions seeking the Reset materials).

Once the tug arrives in Warsaw, midway through the season, the cast finds themselves embroiled in the battle to free Poland’s capital from the warlord Baron Czarny. Previous altruism finally pays off with the arrival of Father Wojiech and his Home Army fighters, along with a number of other Poles rallied around the Black Madonna. The combined forces defeat the Black Baron, setting the stage for a gradual reestablishment of an independent Polish government.

This season’s final episode closes with the protagonists overseeing the dismantling of Czarny’s headquarters. Among his papers, they find a copy of what appears to be a MilGov communique: all American troops still in Europe are being recalled. But the port of embarkation is in Germany and the clock is ticking.

Season Five: Going Home

We open the morning after the previous season’s end. The cast is preparing for a hasty departure, trying to beg, borrow, or steal every scrap of food, every liter of fuel, every round of ammunition they can possibly get. They’re going to be setting out into the teeth of winter, traveling once again into unfamiliar territory. On the cusp of their departure, Father Wojiech brings them a handful of American POWs his troops found in Czarny’s camp. Among them is a combat engineer who has a line on a resource that could change their journey from impossible to improbable – if it’s still where he left it.

The cast travels to the remains of a nearby railyard, where they link up with their new ally’s Polish friends. They slog through the ruins to a massive machine shop. One of the locals throws open the doors, revealing a steam locomotive…

This season’s arc follows the protagonists’ desperate race across Poland and Germany. All the while, their steps are dogged by the minions of GRU agents who are still trying to seize the Reset materials. They also must contend with devastated infrastructure, marauders becoming increasingly desperate as winter sets in and the prospect of starvation becomes more obvious, and the bureaucratic and martial predations of German authorities who are allies in name only.

The penultimate episode resolves the GRU situation in a climactic battle which finally destroys the cast’s signature vehicle – apparently, with the Reset materials aboard it. The surviving GRU nemesis has the protagonists at his mercy but lets them go – perhaps out of a hard-earned grim respect, perhaps because it was never about them and killing them now would only waste ammo at this point. Regardless, the cast is free to make the last mile’s journey.

The closing episode is the final push to Bremerhaven, framing the cast’s conversations about what they intend to do once they’re stateside – or, for the non-American characters, what they’ll do and where they’ll go now. The episode’s last scene is the train arriving at the Bremerhaven perimeter, the characters disembarking and being welcomed back into the proverbial warm – and a final drone shot, rising over the railyard and encampment to reveal the mouth of the Weser and the waiting homebound fleet riding at anchor.