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Jul 1, 2013 01:37
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Haha, yesss. Africa was the craziest, because aside from all the British African colonies which totally became workers' republics and not just renamed colonies after Britain went commie, there was also American-controlled Congo and just a bunch of crazy people in charge of East Africa.
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Jul 1, 2013 01:39
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QuoProQuid posted:As you command: I'm a big fan of this gently caress Idaho policy.
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Jul 1, 2013 02:20
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Here's a gigantic, really rough one I made of an alt-hist that was actually published! This was, I think, a deliberate attempt to be crazy, but basically time-traveling Carthaginians found an alternate timeline where the Red Baron survived WWI and a few other minor changes in the 30s and started giving the Nazis late-40s developments and infiltrating agents. So they kill FDR in 1934, Garner becomes president, and then proceeds to back fascists in Mexico because they pledge to keep Pemex together. Meanwhile, the Nazis invade everywhere bordering them, saving Poland for last, and start amassing an invasion fleet in France and hammering south England with TV-guided V2s. They also kick off Barbarossa with a Carthaginian agent shooting Stalin, and force a surrender by October. So meanwhile, Howard Hughes and a consortium of American businesses figure out turbojets and build fighters that can cross the Atlantic on a drop tank, and sell a bunch of them to the UK, where they proceed to shoot down half of the Luftwaffe and open the way to bomb the invasion fleet. Charles Lindbergh's America First party wins the 1936 election, and then he declares that the USA will fight to defend any island in the Atlantic. So when the Nazis land paratroopers on the Canaries, he decides to send both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. The Panama Canal is fortuitously disabled by Carthaginians blowing up a ship full of fertilizer, and then the Pacific fleet is heavily damaged in an Argentinian surprise attack off the Falklands. The Atlantic fleet attacks and is pulverized by the Nazis. They join in Norfolk, and at the same time the Royal Navy has to evacuate the British Isles. Then the Nazis land a dozen Pykrete fortresses in the Chesapeake and the remnant Allied forces scatter. Montgomery and the British Army retreat south and escape through Galveston and the Canal, picking up most of the Marines on the way. Patton fights a delaying action at Gettysburg, and manages to get the remnants of the US and Canadian armies to LA. They all meet up in Australia, now Allied HQ, and declare themselves the "Free Zone". Skip ahead to 1960, and Australia, New Zealand, Borneo, and the Philippines are all firmly Japanese, the Free Zone has converted three battleships into being submersible battleships, and they are currently mostly based in Vietnam and Thailand. Meanwhile, time-traveling Athenians insert an agent into San Francisco, where she makes contact with Allen Ginsberg's resistance cell (all members of the Beats/SF Renaissance.) Ginsberg, in lieu of Howl, has composed two poems covering the Second World War. She ends up disappearing after showing off her sci-fi supergun, but Ginsberg has a book she provided detailing how to make a thermonuclear device. Then another time-traveler recruited by the Athenians bumbles into San Francisco and they're forced to meet Jack Kennedy in the Arizona to get extracted to Hanoi. Gary Snyder sacrifices himself to throw off the Kiwanis, now an arm of the Gestapo (The Boy Scouts are an arm of the SS/Hitler Youth). The time-traveler rescues Patton and Nguyen van Giap from an assassination attempt, and is sent to protect the Free Zone space program under Wernher von Braun, Curtis LeMay and Kelly Johnson in Singapore. A US Naval pilot named John Glenn then becomes the first American in space, and then dies ramming a Nazi space capsule. The IJN launches a suicide raid on Singapore and manages to destroy most of the program, but von Braun and LeMay escape with the time-traveler, who is sent to assist Ho Chi Minh and Marcel Bigeard with the defense of the ICBMs under assembly at the little town of Dien Bien Phu. Dr. Edward Teller uses the time-traveler's sci-fi supergun to speed up the manufacture of a dozen multi-megaton warheads, which proceed to annihilate the areas marked with radiation hazard symbols, and then Patton invades the US and goads the entire American Nazi Party into forming a militia, and then he kills all of them in the Mojave, propelling him to victory in the 1964 Presidential election over John F. Kennedy. Brazilians become associated with ecomania, and the time-traveler gets a professorship at Princeton before he's yanked off to get a time-traveling job.
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Jul 1, 2013 03:08
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QuoProQuid posted:A World of Laughter, A World of Tears This one is great. I would totally buy a book of this if it were fleshed out.
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Jul 1, 2013 04:06
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Kainser posted:It honestly makes sense if you read the timeline. The three Sicilies is the result of the Bourbon King of Naples doing extremely well during a Spanish Civil war and then people started calling it Three Sicilies and the name kinda stuck. But why the hell is it called Three Sicilies? Two makes sense, since there used to be two Kingdoms, but where the hell is a third Sicily going to come from? I mean, I could read it, but I won't. It'll just make me angry. quote:The Janissary Sultanate was the result of a recent long civil war which left one faction in control of the European part and the other of the rest and neither side had the resources to cross the Aegean. The Janissary state is obviously not very viable in the long run. Crossing the Bosporus is pretty damned easy though. It doesn't make a lot of sense as a border, since either side will really want to control both sides of the Sea of Marmara. Otherwise it's relatively useless to you. quote:Most alternate history is just terrible nationalistic stuff, but this one is actually kinda okay. You can't judge an alternate history only from a map. Well, what I hate about most alt-history isn't the common raging nationalism, it's the fact they're rarely plausible in the slightest. So many scenarios start trying to be as different as possible for the sake of being different, which makes it utterly useless as a tool to reflect on real history.
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Jul 1, 2013 05:23
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Reveilled posted:I was always quite fond of For Want of a Nail: Effectronica posted:This was, I think, a deliberate attempt to be crazy, but basically time-traveling Carthaginians That's... quite a premise you have there.
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Jul 1, 2013 06:14
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Lord Hydronium posted:During the World War II equivalent. The Confederacy annexes Kentucky and Houston, and a few other bits of land, sending the two countries into war again. I'm sad I just typed all that out.
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Jul 1, 2013 09:48
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Jake Hitlerston. Jake Hitlerston. Whenever I start thinking that maybe I should try to get into alternate history, I will think of this name.
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Jul 1, 2013 09:55
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His name is Jake Featherston. That was a hyperbole.
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Jul 1, 2013 10:14
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I'm sorry, it's actually "Featherston", I just wanted to make a joke to make myself feel better about knowing all that off the top of my head.
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Jul 1, 2013 10:14
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Thanks for ruining it. Jake Hitlerston would have made it hilariously bad, now it just sounds bad. Edit: good username material, too.
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Jul 1, 2013 10:25
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Eiba posted:... This isn't mine, was actually published, and got two sequels.
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Jul 1, 2013 13:30
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I used to get mad about 'unrealistic' alternate history, then I took a look at actual history and realized anyone from another timeline is going to think our world is nothing except stupid unrealistic Anglowank. I mean, some tiny, rainswept island nobody ever gave two shits about manages to forge the largest empire in history? One of its colonies successfully rebels (but not one that has been invaded and is filled with oppressed natives, this colony's just a bunch of British people and the natives are pretty much all gone) against this massive empire, and then that colony goes on to become even stronger and they roar across their entire continent sweeping absolutely everyone aside. Texas winning their independence? America just managing to pull off some stupidly huge amphibious landing and get to Mexico City? Sure, they mention "yellow fever" but they totally underplay its effects and act like it wouldn't cripple the US Army into uselessness. To say nothing of World War II and Britian's continually magical super navy that destroys all threats forever, except when God does it by just straight-up sinking the Spanish Armada. etc. etc. etc.
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Jul 1, 2013 15:24
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Mister Adequate posted:I used to get mad about 'unrealistic' alternate history, then I took a look at actual history and realized anyone from another timeline is going to think our world is nothing except stupid unrealistic Anglowank. I mean, some tiny, rainswept island nobody ever gave two shits about manages to forge the largest empire in history? One of its colonies successfully rebels (but not one that has been invaded and is filled with oppressed natives, this colony's just a bunch of British people and the natives are pretty much all gone) against this massive empire, and then that colony goes on to become even stronger and they roar across their entire continent sweeping absolutely everyone aside. Texas winning their independence? America just managing to pull off some stupidly huge amphibious landing and get to Mexico City? Sure, they mention "yellow fever" but they totally underplay its effects and act like it wouldn't cripple the US Army into uselessness. To say nothing of World War II and Britian's continually magical super navy that destroys all threats forever, except when God does it by just straight-up sinking the Spanish Armada. Can you believe how huge a Marty Stu Churchill is? Just as the Germans are about to win Hitler magically turns dumb and just stops attacking England. Can't let anything happen to the Author's Pet after all!
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Jul 1, 2013 15:28
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Fojar38 posted:Can you believe how huge a Marty Stu Churchill is? Just as the Germans are about to win Hitler magically turns dumb and just stops attacking England. Can't let anything happen to the Author's Pet after all! It's impossible to believe that two European military powerhouses would both make the same idiotic mistake of trying to invade Russia. Hell, the second one was actually allied with them at first, and then betrayed them just so they could lose. 
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Jul 1, 2013 15:31
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prefect posted:It's impossible to believe that two European military powerhouses would both make the same idiotic mistake of trying to invade Russia. Hell, the second one was actually allied with them at first, and then betrayed them just so they could lose. And then to top it off the Americans just happen to win a war across two oceans thanks to their stupid plot-device superweapon that came out of nowhere and then proceed to come out of it more powerful than ever? For gently caress's sake, who's writing this poo poo?
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Jul 1, 2013 15:40
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That really was the dumbest deus ex machina. I stopped reading after the 'atom bomb' twist.
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Jul 1, 2013 15:44
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Phlegmish posted:That really was the dumbest deus ex machina. I stopped reading after the 'atom bomb' twist. I think that title goes to the "Miracle at Dunkirk", what a load of garbage that was. Animated map of the expansion and decolonization of the British Empire 
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Jul 1, 2013 15:48
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prefect posted:It's impossible to believe that two European military powerhouses would both make the same idiotic mistake of trying to invade Russia. Hell, the second one was actually allied with them at first, and then betrayed them just so they could lose. Correction. They were BOTH allied with Russia first!
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Jul 1, 2013 15:53
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prefect posted:It's impossible to believe that two European military powerhouses would both make the same idiotic mistake of trying to invade Russia. Hell, the second one was actually allied with them at first, and then betrayed them just so they could lose. Three, Sweden also invaded in 1709 which just so happened to be the coldest winter in 500 years.
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Jul 1, 2013 15:57
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Lord Hydronium posted:Did someone say alternate history? THe problem I always had witht he southern victory seriesis how really screwed the CSA would have been in reality after the civl war. The European powers were already transitioning to other cotton markets, . When sending cotton to the north they'd run up against the tariffs, and the war would definitely not have helped the already outstanding issues between the poor whites and the aristocracy. Not to mention that I don't doubt the north would much care about blacks escaping north any more. (As long as they kept to the "proper" places).
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Jul 1, 2013 17:59
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Phlegmish posted:That really was the dumbest deus ex machina. I stopped reading after the 'atom bomb' twist. Yeah, that was the shark jumping point- the bomb becomes the center of the rest of the story, with countries all building their own stockpiles and new designs. The whole thing is hurtling towards some sort of apocalypse and then there's a anti-climax so stupid I can't even describe it!
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Jul 1, 2013 18:12
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Oh god I can't even tell who's being sarcastic anymore.
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Jul 1, 2013 18:14
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Amarkov posted:Oh god I can't even tell who's being sarcastic anymore. I did post that map from my favorite AltHist denizen that is a ATL look at Our Time Line. I may post another map of his that is a parody of AltHist Cliches though (with permission). I Like Alternative History mainly for good storytelling and fun settings for RPG/Story Plots. Plausibility is always hard to judge at outside of pure Butterfly effect ignoring (ie That loving Kazakhstan Border) . It's all just a mix of convoluted brain exercises that result in pretty borders. PrinceRandom fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jul 1, 2013 |
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Jul 1, 2013 19:10
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Peruser posted:I think that title goes to the "Miracle at Dunkirk", what a load of garbage that was. This is fabulous. I didn't realize that England still had holdings across Africa so recently. Thanks again, American Public School Education.
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Jul 1, 2013 20:11
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Crowsbeak posted:THe problem I always had witht he southern victory seriesis how really screwed the CSA would have been in reality after the civl war. The European powers were already transitioning to other cotton markets, . When sending cotton to the north they'd run up against the tariffs, and the war would definitely not have helped the already outstanding issues between the poor whites and the aristocracy. Not to mention that I don't doubt the north would much care about blacks escaping north any more. (As long as they kept to the "proper" places). I'm not sure about that. The southern aristocracy was generally willing to improve the situation of poor whites to prevent them from revolting, and to protect the institutions of racial inequality. What's more, a lot of the issues underlying Populism and the white farmer reform / agrarian socialist movement were financial policies imposed by the northern states which drove down the price of cotton, and which also harmed the aristocratic class, so those would certainly have been abolished in an independent CSA. I don't see things being all that different from the real world if the CSA had won, except that it wouldn't have been destroyed by the war. That is to say, the white aristocracy would start to promote industry on its own, at a later date than the north, with cheap black labor and slightly less cheap white labor in the absence of strong unions. The poor whites would be allowed to form a middle class and advance economically somewhat, and the trappings of a social democracy would be provided for them. Eventually I think they would have 'freed' the slaves on paper, in order to mollify liberal sentiment in Europe and the USA to get them to keep buying their goods. Essentially I think it's very likely it would have turned into something like Brazil run by Dixiecrats. As for economic pressure from the North or Europe, I don't see that either. They wouldn't pass a tariff on cotton, tariffs were intended to protect domestic industry and generally applied only to manufactured goods. As long as the South dressed up slavery in slightly less horrifying trappings Europe and the USA wouldn't have given a poo poo. It would have just sortof lagged behind the first world industrially and been a banana republic based around selling raw materials to the USA and Europe produced by quasi-slave labor. Like Brazil. However, it's also possible that an independent North would have been a shitload more left wing, with a rump Democratic party consisting only of urban machines and proletarian immigrants turning into a full on socialist party. I can definitely see the North being more on track with Britain and Germany politically. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jul 1, 2013 |
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Jul 1, 2013 22:56
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icantfindaname posted:However, it's also possible that an independent North would have been a shitload more left wing, with a rump Democratic party consisting only of urban machines and proletarian immigrants turning into a full on socialist party. I can definitely see the North being more on track with Britain and Germany politically.
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Jul 1, 2013 23:25
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To get away from Alternative History, Race! German Map from the 19th Century.
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Jul 2, 2013 04:50
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 Crappy phone pics of old maps ahead.So last fall, I noticed a used book shelf at my university where old books were $1. As I was waiting on someone, I decided to have a look at what there was, Tom Clancy's Hunt for the Red October caught my eye, as well as an old(ish) looking atlas. Threw $2 in the box, grabbed the books, and over the next two days I sped through the Hunt for the Red October. When I opened the atlas though, I noticed there there were loads of countries not around anymore, Africa and South Asia being the most prominently changed regions. This got me interested in when the book was published, which for whatever reason has no publication date. So I spent a solid five hours researching the countries that didn't exist anymore, trying to pinpoint their final year of existence to the year the book was published. I got a range down to within a three or four year period, then googled it and found someone selling a book that looks exactly the same with a a publishing year (as well as seeing that my $1 book was being sold for $25  ). Looking back, I should've created a GBS thread and enlisted goon help in a sort of puzzle game (which it's still possible if people are interested). Regardless, I was fascinated by the difference in how the world looked politically many years ago. My grandmother ends up finding out about my fascination with the old atlas, and offers me some old schoolbooks she has. I didn't know until I visited her, but she meant late 19th/early 20th century old. I'll let the pictures do the talking. tl;dr I found out I like old atlases, got one from post-WW2 from my university, and way older ones from my grandmother.  Africa, from the $1 atlas. Sometime post-WW2  From 1898  Europe, 1898  Asia, 1898  *insert colonialism joke here*  The colonies of the world, and telegraph lines, 1898  From 1904  These atlases have a broad array of information within, 1904  Africa, 1904 (Unfortunately this one doesn't have a colored in map of Africa, it seems to be missing two pages  ) The oldest, at 1881  Oklahoma still hasn't joined the party that is the United States.  Europe, 1881  Africa, 1881. From the looks of it, it doesn't appear that the interior of Africa has been colonized yet aside from coastal areas. The imgur gallery is here: http://imgur.com/a/fONbn#fuGVFcl If anyone wants me to take pictures of other regions, or other parts of the books, as well as try getting better pictures, just let me know. I'd just scan them but I'm worried of doing more damage to them 
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Jul 2, 2013 06:56
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Ofaloaf posted:In the Southern Victory series, it's remnants of the Republicans who become socialists (something about the party imploding and an elderly and defeated Abe Lincoln reading Marx), while the Democrats maintain a more conservative role-- that story's Theodore Roosevelt is a Democrat, if memory serves, while Al Smith is a Socialist Party member and the socialists control the urban machines. Radical Republicans transitioning to socialism isn't terribly surprising. A party that was all about giving an oppressed agrarian class land and enfranchising them at the expense of an entrenched aristocracy sounds positively Maoist. The Republicans, even the radical Republicans, had more modest "domestic" concerns in the north, but given discussions at the time about "wage slavery" it isn't much of a stretch to have them go pretty far left. There is a lot to poo poo on with the Turtledove series. Turtledove in general. I mean, sex scenes, copy-and-paste history, essentialism, the CSA as not only a coherent and lasting political union but one that was sufficiently centralized where its national government played a major role as early as twenty years after the Civil War . . . The list goes on. But having Republicans stay the left-wing party and gravitate further left as time goes on. Well, that makes a certain amount of sense. Doubly-so since their having lost the war basically placed them in perpetual opposition.
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Jul 2, 2013 09:24
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Ofaloaf posted:In the Southern Victory series, it's remnants of the Republicans who become socialists (something about the party imploding and an elderly and defeated Abe Lincoln reading Marx), while the Democrats maintain a more conservative role-- that story's Theodore Roosevelt is a Democrat, if memory serves, while Al Smith is a Socialist Party member and the socialists control the urban machines. Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 10:18
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Yeah, of the many ridiculous things in series, the CSA remaining politically and economically stable has to take the cake. Even if they had won independence, the South would have been a complete shitshow and would have an increditable time paying off its debts (they were way too large to wave away). Also, the South had a declining ability to export cotton as it would be undercut by Egypt and trade with the North would be disrupted. The South really didn't have much hard currency to speak of and cotton alone against going to be enough to keep the country together especially since each confederate state would be bickering over even modest increases to the confederate budget. If anything if the South won, it would have probably been reabsorbed 10-20 years down the line in exchange for the North taking on their debts and re-opening the North as a market for confederate raw goods.
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Jul 2, 2013 10:49
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Ardennes posted:Yeah, of the many ridiculous things in series, the CSA remaining politically and economically stable has to take the cake. Even if they had won independence, the South would have been a complete shitshow and would have an increditable time paying off its debts (they were way too large to wave away). Also, the South had a declining ability to export cotton as it would be undercut by Egypt and trade with the North would be disrupted. The South really didn't have much hard currency to speak of and cotton alone against going to be enough to keep the country together especially since each confederate state would be bickering over even modest increases to the confederate budget. Indeed. Even if the CSA won the war, their currency was already hosed up big time due to inflation and ceased to exist as something of value in 1864 before the war's end.
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Jul 2, 2013 11:16
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:Indeed. Even if the CSA won the war, their currency was already hosed up big time due to inflation and ceased to exist as something of value in 1864 before the war's end. Yeah, and the confederate army would have almost certainly fallen apart at the seams because the states would have pulled back funding in favor of their ad-hoc state militia, the confederate army itself would just be whatever Richmond could patch together with limited resources and its limited taxation ability (solely based on tariffs and export taxes). Also, it is pretty doubtful significant industrialization would happen since the the South was capital poor and there wasn't any reason for the North or Europeans to invest in it.
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Jul 2, 2013 11:53
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Ardennes posted:Yeah, and the confederate army would have almost certainly fallen apart at the seams because the states would have pulled back funding in favor of their ad-hoc state militia, the confederate army itself would just be whatever Richmond could patch together with limited resources and its limited taxation ability (solely based on tariffs and export taxes). Also, it is pretty doubtful significant industrialization would happen since the the South was capital poor and there wasn't any reason for the North or Europeans to invest in it. In fact, the Confederacy owed many European countries a lot of money. After the Civil War, the USA repudiated all Confederate debt. Its worth noting that before the end of the war the Confederacy was already in default.
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Jul 2, 2013 12:05
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Shbobdb posted:Radical Republicans transitioning to socialism isn't terribly surprising. A party that was all about giving an oppressed agrarian class land and enfranchising them at the expense of an entrenched aristocracy sounds positively Maoist. The Republicans, even the radical Republicans, had more modest "domestic" concerns in the north, but given discussions at the time about "wage slavery" it isn't much of a stretch to have them go pretty far left. I don't know about that. If I remember correctly, the Republican Party in the nineteenth century was mostly for 'native' Anglo-Americans, geared towards traders and small farmers, particularly in New England. They have no reason to start sympathizing with the Democrat-voting industrial urban workforce, which consisted mostly of recent immigrants. I can see them become a liberal party in the traditional sense, i.e. socially progressive and economically liberal. In fact, you could say that this is the current role of the Republicans in suburban America outside of the South and Midwest.
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Jul 2, 2013 14:18
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:In fact, the Confederacy owed many European countries a lot of money. After the Civil War, the USA repudiated all Confederate debt. Its worth noting that before the end of the war the Confederacy was already in default. Yeah, basically the Confederate would be spending what little tax revenue it got onto interest payments and whatever minimal army it could hold together. In fact it is quite possible it would have it own internal divisions as plantation owners tried to minimize any export taxes or taxes as possible. The only two things the South had going was vastly better military leadership and cotton, and neither advantage would save it from itself for long.
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Jul 2, 2013 15:43
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shiffty posted:If anyone wants me to take pictures of other regions, or other parts of the books, as well as try getting better pictures, just let me know. I'd just scan them but I'm worried of doing more damage to them I'd be interested in seeing central, south, and southeast Asia if you feel like taking pictures!
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Jul 2, 2013 15:46
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Koramei posted:I'd be interested in seeing central, south, and southeast Asia if you feel like taking pictures! And east! And the Middle East!
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Jul 2, 2013 16:14
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