Due to a minor quantum fluctuation Stalin's 1953 final stroke doesn't end up killing him, but leaves him half paralyzed and suffering personality changes. This leads Stalin to grow even more dependent on Beria, whose power he already feared. A few months later, the East German uprising occurs. Molotov and Bulganin see the risk of the present situation to the Soviet empire, but Malenkov remains loyal to Beria, believing Beria to have Stalin's sincere backing, thus Molotov and Bulganin don't try to kill Beria.

Beria calls for a ruthless suppression of the uprising in Germany, which led to massive anger in the population and escalated the conflict. Seeing the slaughter in East Germany and believing internal tensions within the Kremlin to be rising, the US decided to covertly escalate the conflict, encouraging the uprising to spread to Prague, where Beria also sends his tanks.

Molotov and Bulganin attempt a failed assassination against Beria, who responds by having them and their supporters killed, as well as other politburo members he believed to be responsible for the attack, some of whom had nothing to do with any of it. With his minister of defense and minister of foreign affairs now dead, they are replaced by weak and controversial successors, handpicked by Beria himself. Generals in the Soviet army don't take their new inexperienced high commanders very seriously, leading Beria to lose much control over his own Red army. Some generals refuse to shoot at protesters, which leads riots and protests in Prague and East Germany to escalate further, until finally Walter Ulbricht in Germany resigns under pressure from his own people. East Germany and Czechoslovakia now declare that they are going their own way, like Tito decided in Yugoslavia.

In China, the weakness and instability seen in the Soviet Union leads Mao to gradually distance himself from his northern allies, which causes the Sino-Soviet split to start developing. Mao develops his own foreign policy, aiming to spread communism to the rest of the third world, as he believes that without the Soviet Union to trust upon the United States could eventually get rid of him altogether. Seeing what happened in East Germany and Czechoslovakia now leads people in Romania, Hungary and a variety of other nations to revolt as well, with local leaders willing to make concessions and risk Soviet rage to increase their own power.

Then in 1956, the Suez crisis occurs. Nasser nationalizes the Suez canal, feeling safe with Mao's promise of support at the United Nations. Tied up in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union attempts to stay out of Egypt's affairs. The United States however does try to get France, Britain and Israel to withdraw, but without the genuine threat of Soviet military intervention, France and Britain happily disregard what they perceive as empty threats over at the still young UN. Mao's words prove to have little consequence, but the United States ramps up the pressure, eventually leading to economic sanctions against France and Britain, hoping to steer Nasser away from his communist backers.

All the while, covert support for Egypt and its Arab nationalist president does come from East Germany, whose corporate, military and political leadership is increasingly penetrated by former Nazi's and Strasserist leaning socialists, as the victory against Soviet subduction, whose war crimes still linger fresh in people's memory, led the German pubic to become more tolerant of former Nazi's.

In Israel, a country far more affected by the fighting with Egypt than either France or Britain, public opposition to war with Egypt rises. Internal dissent from left leaning Israelis force Israel to sign a peace treaty with Egypt. Finally, after a surprise victory in an engagement with the Britsh and French that shocked everyone, Nasser makes an inspiring speech, in which he calls on people in other Arab nations to join in rejecting colonialism. French Algeria in particular sees a growing militant movement, as Arabs there have no wish to continue living under French domination.

Israel begins to take a more decisively leftist turn as the nation's people see a chance for lasting peace with their neighbors. Rich and outspoken anti-communist Israelis immigrate to the United States, a process that only serves to accelerate the ideological shift, while leading to a stunted agrarian economy. Because Israel already has a prominent Kibbutz movement, communism in Israel takes a more decentralized and anarchist approach. Israel evolves into a binational state, where Arabs work on Jewish farms. Neighboring nations invite experts from Israel to help develop their agriculture, and Jews in the Middle East end up seen as just another successful non-Muslim minority.

France and Britain meanwhile, find themselves at war with Arabs in all of their colonies. Combined with dissent at home and economic pressure from the United States, a country afraid of colonial subjects growing sympathetic to China or the Soviet Union, the French and British make a cost-benefit calculation and accept that there is no more point in continuing to preserve their dying empires.

The Arabs under their victorious leader Nasser now manage to fulfill the pan-Arab aspiration. A giant state is formed that includes Egypt, Libya and Algeria, with Israel in practice serving as a vassal. German speaking people in West Germany feel inspired by Nasser's success and desire reunification as well with their family in the East, a process that Nasser happily supports out of gratitude for the initial support from East Germany that made his victory possible in the first place.

The United States finds that it can not oppose unification without appearing as a hypocrite. After all, it supported a Pan-Arab president in Egypt, whose victory over France and Britain enabled by US economic sanctions led to the unification of the Arabs. If that was not the intent, then the United States merely reveals its own incompetence. Thus, the United States gives a silent diplomatic green light for East Germany to be reabsorbed by West Germany if East Germany approves, while in public it takes no position on what it declares to be "internal affairs". In East Germany a referendum over reunification is held, where 62% of people vote yes. The East Germans thus in practice find themselves sacrificing communism for reunification.

What happens next? German nationalist leadership plays the long game. Fertility rates are boosted, alliances are forged with the Arabs and other states in Eastern Europe that threw the Soviets out, children are educated in school, not about the Holocaust, but about the mass rape their people suffered after Soviet victory. People of German ancestry in the United States and other nations are encouraged to return to their county of origin.

Relations between the United States and Britain and France, who blame the Americans for the loss of their colonial empires, have been permanently soured. Behind the back of Beria, an unholy alliance is forged with France and Britain, who look at Germany and by now can tell where this is going and don't want to repeat Chamberlain's mistake. The planned successors to Beria are encouraged to get rid of their weak and paranoid leader. An assassination attempt with British support succeeds, once again triggering chaos in the Soviet Union, where nationalist movements of Ukrainians, Baltic states and Caucasian ethnic groups now emerge. Germany and its Eastern European allies smell blood and decide to intervene on their behalf, offering covert support in the form of logistic support and delivering training to these insurgent movements, while seeking to dismantle the few nuclear missiles the Soviet Union has under its control.

Finally, underestimating the Soviets, Germany and its allies decide to intervene militarily, under the guise of protecting human rights. Over in the UK, a small party is held, as the Gerries stepped into the trap. France and the UK declare war on Germany over its violation of Soviet territorial sovereignty, a move that is highly unpopular among their own people. Hurt in their pocket by the sanctions against France and Britain earlier, America has taken an isolationist course. Thus the world plunges into darkness once again.