Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

Bassoe

Well-known member
This may be straying into even more murky waters now, but I'm wondering if you have something more specific in mind? I understand if it's just a sketch a few paragraphs long, but barring a back-to-back series of wars that are later lumped together into one collective bloodbath, I'm not sure what'd fit the bill without turning into a true world war.
Possible kickoff points:
  • The Bonus Army returns fire and/or the Business Plot doesn't try to recruit Smedley Butler and get betrayed. Cue second American civil war. All European imperial powers attempt to intervene to establish puppet regimes.
  • American civilian reporters discover smuggled British weaponry aboard the Lusitania before it can set sail, the resulting scandal of Britain lying and turning American civilian shipping into a legitimate military target without their knowledge breaks America's alliance with Britain and prevents their entry into WW1.
  • After decades of all European imperial powers supporting proxy revolutionaries against the colonial empires of their rivals, the various rebel groups team up and try to drive out all the colonizers.
  • Instead of the tunguska event destroying an uninhabited patch of forest, it scores a direct hit on saint petersburg, killing the entire tsarist royal family and high-ranking goverment officials, decapitating the entire regime. Cue civil war.
 

Morphic Tide

Well-known member
2.At least few Landbattleships would be made/and never used/
Actually, there's a surprising amount of plausibility that, absent World Wars to sanity-check such things, they'd advance railway artillery into actually usable landships, find the mega-artillery unusable when field tested, slightly downscale to just normal battleship weapons to piggyback off that otherwise-existent industry, and then basically create moving fortresses where the virtually singular function is to not have fixed command centers to be shelled and bombed into rubble.

Because there are a lot of military functions you could load onto multi-track rail, and getting off the rail isn't actually that big an issue in principal, the problem's more on the operational costs at that scale. But I rather doubt that major militaries would flinch at the costs of dragline mining rigs if it meant putting their entire central command on tracks and there's not been a war to sanity-check these megaprojects.
 

gral

Well-known member
Idea which has been on my head for about 10 years and I may end up doing something with before I die: two ideas were competing for what shape would the Brazilian Republic take place after the Monarchy was done with, a federal(oligarchic) republic and a positivist centralized, authoritarian State. The first one won, and that republic would go on until 1930. What if the second one had won instead?
 

stevep

Well-known member
This may be straying into even more murky waters now, but I'm wondering if you have something more specific in mind? I understand if it's just a sketch a few paragraphs long, but barring a back-to-back series of wars that are later lumped together into one collective bloodbath, I'm not sure what'd fit the bill without turning into a true world war.

Granted, we could technically still have the Great War break out, with everything proceeding more or less the same up until the US sits it out. Which would then have consequences of its own, in addition to the conflict never becoming a full-blown world war, in which all the first-rate powers of the age trade punches with one another. Again, though, I think that's too much of a cop-out due to how obvious it is, though I can certainly understand a massive pan-European conflict (or series of related, chronologically "packed-together" conflicts) materializing down the road, in any case.

Well its simply that there was a powder keg situation in that recent military history - i.e. the wars of unification - plus the view of unceasing competition that had become more accepted made some sort of conflict more likely, at least IMHO. Plus that given so long since a big and costly war warfare seems to have been widely glamorised rather than the potential horrors and losses realised.

I could see a clash in the near future because Germany was increasingly worrried by the developing economic and military strength of Russia and its leadership seems to have presuaded themselves that from 1916 onward their battle plan to knock out France quickly before switching forces eastward would no longer be viable. As such in a couple of years it would either have to accept a change in its basic plan, say to a more defensive one, especially in the west and/or look towards more allies. Given the predominant mentality at the time across much of Europe there is a distinct danger that Germany's leadership might seek a conflict before time ran out. [It could be argued because of the unlimited support offered Austria to make such harsh demands on Serbia that this is actually what happened. Of course how WWI developed suggests that Germany considerably over-estimated the near term potential of the Russian army, especially on the defensive.

The other alternative, if no war in the next few years and Russia doesn't have a period of internal chaos, is that it is increasingly seen as by some way the most powerful state in Europe and hence the one that threatens everybody else. This is likely, provided personalities don't intervene, to see better relations between Britain and Germany and possibly even some formal or informal defensive agreement.

That, or a period of Russian chaos could well delay matters another generation or so by which time things might have changed drastically. Also difficult to know what will happen with the US and Japan in a no WWI scenario. Given growing American interests in the Pacific this could see a clash there although under what circumstances and whether other powers and interests might be drawn in.

However prior to nuclear weapons being developed by multiple powers AND probably having been used to show their destructive power I would expect a major war sooner or later in the 1st half of the 20thC. If we're lucky and no maniacs like the Nazis are thrown up then it probably wouldn't be followed by another one as in OTL as its likely the reaction against such devastating war would deter anyone from such behaviour for a couple of generations at least.

The other question might be what happens to the Hapsburg empire and later on colonial ones in general as there is increasing pressure for independence. However hopefully other than in special cases, such as France with Algeria - since it was treated as an integral part of metropolitan France - changing social values would mean that decolonization wouldn't be vastly costlier than OTL.

Basically as you say things get murky but the social mentality among a considerable element of the populations of the developed world - as well as in Russia and Japan say - made for the potential for a big conflict.

Steve
 

stevep

Well-known member
Possible kickoff points:
  • The Bonus Army returns fire and/or the Business Plot doesn't try to recruit Smedley Butler and get betrayed. Cue second American civil war. All European imperial powers attempt to intervene to establish puppet regimes.
  • American civilian reporters discover smuggled British weaponry aboard the Lusitania before it can set sail, the resulting scandal of Britain lying and turning American civilian shipping into a legitimate military target without their knowledge breaks America's alliance with Britain and prevents their entry into WW1.
  • After decades of all European imperial powers supporting proxy revolutionaries against the colonial empires of their rivals, the various rebel groups team up and try to drive out all the colonizers.
  • Instead of the tunguska event destroying an uninhabited patch of forest, it scores a direct hit on saint petersburg, killing the entire tsarist royal family and high-ranking goverment officials, decapitating the entire regime. Cue civil war.

a) I can see a possibility for a civil war in the US in the depression period but other than Britain seeking to minimise the disorder especially to neighbouring areas and world trade it wouldn't be of great interest to any other European state. With the possible exception of the USSR which might seek to promote some communist or at least more semi-socialist group in the fighting. Although I can't see that getting much traction. Basically I can't see anyone being that interest in the fighting in the US other than to try and avoid the chaos spreading as it too damned far away and their interest is on their own problems.

b) You are aware that the Lusitania was a British ship aren't you and that there was never an alliance between the US and anyone else in WWI before or after 1917?

c) Very unlikely as there was no great hostility between Britain and France, who were the biggest colonial powers. About the only places I could see this being likely would be if Japan went bat-shit insane as OTL and invaded China in which case a number of powers [Britain, US, Russia and possibly France] are likely to send aid to China as OTL or if Japan stayed liberal I can see it directly or indirectly seeking to undermine US colonial rule in the Philippines.

d) Possibly not civil war but a lot of disorder and possibly some other groups cough Germany cough might try something while Russia is further weakened.
 

Buba

A total creep
  • Instead of the tunguska event destroying an uninhabited patch of forest, it scores a direct hit on saint petersburg, killing the entire tsarist royal family and high-ranking goverment officials, decapitating the entire regime. Cue civil war.
It is a big family. Look up Paul I and the list of his descendants. In spite of only one of his sons - Nicholas - producing legitimate sons of his own - in 1912 there is at least half a dozen male Romanovs, and tens of distaff Romanovs running around.
And I have no idea why would there be a Civil War. The person with the best claim takes the throne, administration is rebuilt by using officials recalled from the provinces.
 
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Morphic Tide

Well-known member
Here's a fairly straight forward, but simple AH idea:
The Founding Fathers included a clause in the Constitution that every law must sunset after a lifespan of at most 20 years, barring a 75% vote of both chambers of Congress to renew it.
I think it'd be more sensible to have it be two-thirds like most of the other non-simple-majority mechanisms.

Heck, even with simple majority it'd be a game-changer since the usual ossification of law doesn't happen, as all the weird outdated stuff that "never gets enforced" drops off the books altogether.

And, of course, "emergency measures" are unlikely to become permanent on a regular basis, since they only pass as such.

...This also makes it so that federal agencies fight not just for budget, but for their life. And has the serious possibility of turning the Constitution into a living document, causing state legislatures to have the feds by the balls for all sorts of things.
 

Morphic Tide

Well-known member
Khyber Pass ISOT. What time period would be most dramatic to drop these tribal gunsmiths able to hand-craft things up to current man-operated artillery? The lack of it being a real industrial process is an important note, because they don't actually need to really tech up, they just need a replacement source of steel that they probably know how to set up and ammunition ingredients and they're good from there.

They already make all their shit with hand-operated tools from rather dramatically varying material they know how to quality-check. They don't really need modern logistics, from what I understand of the region, because their claim to fame is modern weaponry without modern industry.

Probably the most obvious is dropping them into the days of Mohammad, turning the Islamic expansion into a ROFLstomp of truly grotesque magnitude because their elites are toting AKs when everyone else is using very firmly medieval work to say nothing of any vehicular work, and then the giant intellectual explosion following Islam's unification of the Middle East has some small examples of modern technology to work over alongside a logic-pump of many of their own conclusions.
 

Bassoe

Well-known member
In 1920, Thomas Edison announced work on a machine via which the spirits of the dead could communicate with the living. He succeeded. Nineteen years later, the technology had advanced sufficiently for the New York World's Fair to exhibit the world's first proper Séance Engine, an automaton designed to channel a ghost as its control mechanism, serving as a prosthetic device by means of which the ghost could interact with the physical world.

Normally, there is no afterlife*. The dead are dormant, not experiencing consciousness since their original death. Unless something in the mortal world wakes them up, in which case they can use the Séance Engine summoning them as a body**.

Now this leaves all kinds of interesting ideas to play with. Everyone who ever died or who knows they're eventually going to die and wants to be prepared is going to want a prosthetic body. Who makes them? How long until sweatshop owners come up with the idea of renting them? How does society work when nobody permanently dies, the closest you could come being for all the living to forget someone's existence therefore preventing anyone from wanting to summon them, or summoning them yourself and keeping their new mechanical body permanently imprisoned so they can't be summoned into a different one outside of your control, etc.

* Several religions claim Séance Engines remove all memories of the afterlife when they drag someone's soul back into the mortal world or that the things summoned up by Séance Engines aren't what they claim to be, etc.
** The initial prototype was basically just a telegraph. The ghost could send and receive rudimentary signals. Later, more sophisticated versions were more along the lines of mechanical bodies.
 

stevep

Well-known member
In 1920, Thomas Edison announced work on a machine via which the spirits of the dead could communicate with the living. He succeeded. Nineteen years later, the technology had advanced sufficiently for the New York World's Fair to exhibit the world's first proper Séance Engine, an automaton designed to channel a ghost as its control mechanism, serving as a prosthetic device by means of which the ghost could interact with the physical world.

Normally, there is no afterlife*. The dead are dormant, not experiencing consciousness since their original death. Unless something in the mortal world wakes them up, in which case they can use the Séance Engine summoning them as a body**.

Now this leaves all kinds of interesting ideas to play with. Everyone who ever died or who knows they're eventually going to die and wants to be prepared is going to want a prosthetic body. Who makes them? How long until sweatshop owners come up with the idea of renting them? How does society work when nobody permanently dies, the closest you could come being for all the living to forget someone's existence therefore preventing anyone from wanting to summon them, or summoning them yourself and keeping their new mechanical body permanently imprisoned so they can't be summoned into a different one outside of your control, etc.

* Several religions claim Séance Engines remove all memories of the afterlife when they drag someone's soul back into the mortal world or that the things summoned up by Séance Engines aren't what they claim to be, etc.
** The initial prototype was basically just a telegraph. The ghost could send and receive rudimentary signals. Later, more sophisticated versions were more along the lines of mechanical bodies.

Well that's a good source for widespread chaos. Not only the religious issues you mention but a lot of groups are going to have field days talking to people they hold as heroes and leading examples. Which will only escalate when different ghosts come up with different versions of events. [Because of course no one said they couldn't lie, even ignoring when people actually believe different versions of different events].

Also its going to have potential for solving most murders, if you can successfully select who is summoned. Find out for instance what happened to Edward II, or Harold Godwinson or for the US in the Lizzie Borden case. ;) Again assuming that people tell the truth although its more likely here.

Another factor is do you want Shakespeare's latest new play, or to find out what some of the ancient Greek plays and stories actually were in detail? Not sure if you could give such machines sufficient dexterity that you could get a new Michelangelo or De Vinci say. Let alone trying to summon and discuss with assorted religious prophets and leaders or seeing what George Washington thinks of ~1939 USA.

Steve
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
'What PoDs Would Create An Unrecognizable World?'. I gave this premise its own thread on a separate forum, and was tempted to also do so here, though I'm not sure whether it'd be viewed as redundant by the Mods.

Anyway, while I'm not opposed to creative and plausible post-1900s PoDs that put an extremely bizarre spin on things, I'd imagine that the time it takes for the ripple effects to compound in the way I'm asking for means that the bulk of these PoDs would happen long before 1900. No Industrial Revolution, a surviving Roman Republic, or other human species surviving alongside Homo Sapiens well into the present would certainly fit the bill here, though they're far from the only ones that'd do it.
 

Buba

A total creep
Which will only escalate when different ghosts come up with different versions of events.
There is a movie by Kurosawa, about a murder investigation, with a biased ghost being one of the witnesses ...
 
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Bear Ribs

Well-known member
'What PoDs Would Create An Unrecognizable World?'. I gave this premise its own thread on a separate forum, and was tempted to also do so here, though I'm not sure whether it'd be viewed as redundant by the Mods.

Anyway, while I'm not opposed to creative and plausible post-1900s PoDs that put an extremely bizarre spin on things, I'd imagine that the time it takes for the ripple effects to compound in the way I'm asking for means that the bulk of these PoDs would happen long before 1900. No Industrial Revolution, a surviving Roman Republic, or other human species surviving alongside Homo Sapiens well into the present would certainly fit the bill here, though they're far from the only ones that'd do it.
Simplest I can think of: "The ancestors of the Native Americans brought cattle (and horses or other livestock if you want bonus points) with them to the new world."

Having an animal that can be used as a beast of burden would dramatically improve agriculture and industry and allow a "tech up" that simply wasn't possible for them because they couldn't make the jump from all-hand-labor to machines without the animal labor intermediary step, at least not in an available timeframe. When machinery became available the Indians teched themselves up remarkably fast under the circumstances.

Exposure to cowpox from cattle would give them a modest resistance to smallpox, enough not to lose 90% or more of their population the first time a European coughs in their general direction though it would still kill a lot of people.

The result would be unrecognizable to us today. It's possible the Americas would actually be a peer power by the time Europe got there, but more likely it would look a bit like Africa, not as technologically advanced as Europe but with enough population that it retains native culture and still has a noticeable supermajority Native American population into the modern day rather than them becoming a minority confined to reservations in their former lands.
 

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