OOC: Jesus H. Christ was last page a whole bunch of posters going OOC
IC: Yeah, a hardline coup might just cut it. Someone other than Gorby at the helm might have wrecked things, too - Gorby was noted for his ability to handle ethnic strife within the old USSR. I find it hard to believe that a Russian nationalist like Yeltsin, for example, would have been able to lead the Sovereign Union without turning it into a bunch of warring states. Then again, had a hardliner like Grishin come to power after Chernenko instead of Gorby we might still have a Soviet Union instead of a Sovereign Union.