And once again, it took FAR longer than I expected to return to this, between work and getting sidetracked with other sites. But, I finally have a name for the Bukharin-expy (as well as two important side-characters that aren’t proper leaders, but can still play roles in the events to follow). Therefore, I will re-list all of the leaders, each divided into three sections. These three sections, rather than being divided between Centrum Dark/Neutral/Light, will be divided on the three major events in FR!Soviet Union's leadership selection, with each individual leader's motivations and policies being things I'll explain in more detail at a later date (although they’ll still mostly follow the broad strokes of the events in Fuhrerreich, which are summarized well enough in
the Dev Diary on the reworked Soviet Union):
A short prologue can be that The Forum (the highest governing body of Centrum) is holding
a high-level Congress to vote on the future policies of Centrum, organized by the Leader of the Forum (with said Leader being the stand-in for Lenin, whether or not they share his exact history, personality or even policies - I don't have a name created for him/her, meaning I'll refer to them as either Leader for this post, so GMs can plug in whatever name they think of, or possibly had beforehand).
However, either during or shortly after the Congress (GMs can either decide beforehand, or determine in-game if they let the PCs play during the prologue by monitoring the Congress), the Forum's Leader either announces their resignation, or dies midway through - officially from "health problems", but a rumored assassination attempt runs wild among The Forum, and the race to elect a new Forum Leader/Chairman/Chairwoman/Whatever Title The GM Wishes faces a pitch of not just heated political debate, but a desperate paranoia of further violence...
Whether the PCs are a group of Centrum-based Interworld Service Agents tasked with Congress security, or an above-top-secret Infinity Patrol team sent to exploit the power struggle due to an overt military invasion of Centrum being impossible for Homeline, there are several paths to take.
1) The Troika/The Triumvirate: The death/retirement of the leader of The Forum, has resulted in a power struggle. A trio of Centrum's most influential Grade 7 Coordinators (Petronel Stryker, Gregor Zimmerman, and Jianguo Yin) have united to block David Bronstein, the right-hand man of The Forum's previous Leader, from power. However, this so-called "Triumvirate" is about to split apart, with Zimmerman joining Bronstein's opposition, and Petronel and Yin splitting into their own camps. This will serve as the main conflict (and the most obvious path for players to take), with each Triumvirate leader each serving as a path. They are:
1A) Petronel “The Pounder” Stryker (Expy of
Molotov)
1B) David Bronstein (Expy of
Trotsky)
1C) Jianguo Yin (Expy of
Bukharin)
2) Military Service Coup: One of the reasons that the Congress is desperate to select a new Forum Leader is because the Military Service, already increasing its clout from the Interworld Service discovering more opportunities and threats to mobilize Centrum’s armed forces against, is heavily rumored to be organizing a military coup d’etat against the Congress. The ringleader, Grade 7 Coordinator of the Military Service Cornelius Quarashi, has been having meetings with two of the most prominent commanders of the Military Service, Grade 6 Sef Almawt, and Grade 6 Clement Chatham, along with many Centrum bureaucrats (including Grade 6 Michael Fretz, a popular figurehead whose lack of personal ambition makes him the ideal puppet Forum Leader to rule in Quarashi’s place) and trade unions (I can’t tell if trade unions are technically legal from what I’ve looked up on Infinite Worlds, but if they aren’t, it can be handwaved by saying Quarashi is meeting with laborers trying to organize in secret, and promising to help legalize trade unions upon securing his power, among his other promises).
For most PCs, the threat of a military coup is a ticking clock they have to outrace, as an armed takeover of The Forum would generate outrage across Centrum, and the globally-spanning government will splinter into various states rebelling against Quarashi’s military junta. Assuming the PCs WANT Quarashi’s coup to succeed (i.e. if the Centrum PCs view Quarashi as a better leader than any member of the Triumvirate, or if Homeline PCs want to sabotage Centrum with an Enemy Civil War), this will result in a secondary power struggle, as Fretz, the temporary Forum Leader that Quarashi appoints, will die very soon after he’s given the position, forcing Quarashi to decide which of his inner circle will be appointed Forum Leader.
2A) Cornelius Quraishi (Expy of
Tukhachevsky)
2B) Sef Almawt (Expy of
Yezhov)
2C) Clement Chatham (Expy of
Voroshilov)
3) The Forum Leader's Will: Based on the Lenin’s Letter paths, this option will have the PCs dig up a final recording made by the former Forum Leader (although rather than being held by the wife/husband/romantic partner of the former Forum Leader, it may have been stolen by one of the candidates to ensure their rise to power, causing the PCs to investigate this trail). Although the meritocratic system of Centrum prevents the Forum Leader from flat-out naming their successor, the Forum Leader’s message will give heavy praises to Volante Kostroski, considered the Leader’s personal protege, whilst urging the Congress to think of Centrum ahead of their own ambitions, which will heavily bias the Congress to voting in Kostroski as the new Forum Leader. However, this appointment results in demands for new elections, penned by Grade 6 Alexis Schlappi of the Interworld Service, that denounces Kostroki’s continued policies of the former Forum Leader as letting “nepotistim” take precedence in The Fourm, and fostering suppression against dissenting opinions of lower-grade Citizens.
The follow-up elections will result in Kostroski trying to forge compromises with many of the leaders within The Forum and outside of it to maintain her current position, while Schlappi will go on a global tour of Centrum to rally crowds of low- to middle-Grade Citizens, whilst pushing increasing pressure on higher-Grade Citizens. Both candidates will likely court the PCs for support (since them going out of their way to find the recording of the Forum Leader’s Will has allowed both of them the opportunity to make their bids for power), and it’s up to the PCs to decide which one they prefer - for Interworld Service PCs, it will likely depend on which candidate they believe will personally help Centrum the most, while for Infinity Patrol PCs, it will depend on which candidate is more willing to negotiate with Homeline in coordination against other Alternate threats, such as Reich-5.
3A) Volante Kostroski (Expy of
Kirov)
3B) Alexis Schlappi (Expy of
Shilapnikov)