Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

ATP

Well-known member
Getting turkey would have been really hard. Not only would it be fierce resistance and tough terrain,

Though the red army could probably manage it. It would just overextend the Soviets further and leave them exposed to attack from Syria and Iraq, as well as Greece.
In Greece there was civil war with communist, Iraq belonged to England, and Syria to France.Both countries would do not dare to do anything.
 
D

Deleted member 88

Guest
Stalin was very cautious and paranoid. Even if the US suffered a million casualties in japan, it still had something like twelve million men in arms. And could raise more. Even the absolute worst Downfall estimates are only a small percentage of the American population, at worst the US is looking at 1.5 or so million casualties for WW2. Possibly around 800,000 to one million. With Downfall being the overwhelming majority of deaths. Outstripping all other theatres combined.

I suspect that the war ending in 1947 or so would result in the American public not being in the mood to become enemies of the commies for a while. Though the Cold War would likely still heat up by the end of the forties. It just might be delayed a little bit.

A Soviet Korea and Hokkaido pushes the boundaries of communism to the edge of northeast Asia, and could have some other effects. Will the US be willing to fight Asian wars in the decades ahead?

Anyway I expect the situation in Southeast Asia to go somewhat the same-except maybe the Japanese either hold out against attempts to disarm them, or they become either enforcers or opponents of western colonial rule. Before SE Asia becomes independent anyway.

What interests me about Downfall is not so much the invasion itself(though it’s pretty metal honesty) but the after effects of how such a destructive and traumatic finale to the American participation of WA2 would effect the post war world.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Isolationist USA,and in that case,Stalin would attack Europe before his death/he planned war,but after preparing everything - probably before 1956/
If Europe would fall...Africa would follow.And rest of Asia.BUT - soviets fell becouse of economy,so they would fell anyway.
And never conqer Americas,becouse their navy always sucked.
More people would be genocided,but till 2020 soviet union would fall just like in OTL.With western Europe countries ruled by post-commies whose grandpas genocided their own nations for Stalin.
 

CarlManvers2019

Writers Blocked Douchebag
Say, anybody ever seen an AU wherein the Aztecs/Maya/Inca/Olmec conquered or spread towards even to North America and took control?

Not sure if a Bronze Age empire can even do that though
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Say, anybody ever seen an AU wherein the Aztecs/Maya/Inca/Olmec conquered or spread towards even to North America and took control?

Not sure if a Bronze Age empire can even do that though

They'd need to domesticate donkeys and horses to expand North into Northern Mexico and the American Southwest area.

Those areas are extremely desolate and what isn't desert tends to be marginal when it comes to farming as in droughts being a high possibility. High population density just doesn't suit the area and thus there isn't much incentive to spend resources in conquering or rather occupying the area.

And the Mesoamerican powers were extremely limited by their lack of pack animals. Those are absolutely needed for any sort of real expansion.
 

Morphic Tide

Well-known member
One line of thoughts I've had, lately, have centered on technology being "out of sync" compared to OTL, with the main line being rendering various abortive naval concepts accidentally viable. One of them being having the IJN hounding Aviation Battlecruisers from getting torpedo bombers in working order during the Russo-Japanese War, thereby knowing that capital ship fights are very likely to be decided by aircraft in the future and thus giant primary batteries are not the way to go.

The main priorities I'd see would be minimizing necessary carrier equipment tonnage so as to maximize tonnage spared for self-defense in their "all"-purpose flagships, alongside putting a lot of work into dual-purpose mount development so as to have good anti-air weapons that double as conventional secondaries for dealing with Destroyers and Cruisers.

This is assuming their naval development is still gearing for a quality maximization for war against the United States to try and win while ludicrously outnumbered via superior doctrine, in this case having tonnage normally allocated to volume of fire and not-strictly-necessary primaries in a typical Battlecruiser re-tasked to carrier operations so they need drastically fewer true fleet carriers and heavy/armored cruisers.

Not sure whether I'd want it to work out that way, maybe have some decided moments of stupidity with gun placement leading to most of the air power being stuck in hanger because firing the OTL-secondary armaments wrecks the entirety of the carrier operations for several minutes, or the tonnage allocation leading to too much emphasis on equipment they can't get working properly like flying wing planes, retractable pontoons, ramped flight decks, or various other factors that minimize carrier space needs.
 
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ATP

Well-known member
I think they would sooner be lynched and their bloodlines rendered extinct before they are allowed to continue ruling.
We could only hope so.After all,our polish traitors deserved that,but nobody lynched them.Or traitors from any other soviet puppet states.
P.S there were soviet joke about communist party - that nobody who belonged could be both honest and smart.
 

Tzeentchean Perspective

Well-known member
So I was thinking of Operation Downfall and it’s consequences.


Reading this TL and watching a few videos on the subject.

Let’s assume Downfall happens and the higher end American casualties results(far more than in the TL above)-500,000 to nearly a million.

The US occupies southern Japan with the British commonwealth getting its own zone, and the soviets get Hokkaido and maybe northern strips of Honshu.

The war itself continues into 1947.


What are the broader consequences for the Cold War?

A few things to start off with

-Soviet Korea and Manchuria
-The US soldiers returning are greatly traumatized with higher rates of PTSD than OTL, which causes more social problems and the like.
-I’m somewhat hesitant on the effects of this on American society. It’s not anything like Soviet Union casualties but it’s more losses in the invasion than the rest of the war combined. Does it make the US more interventionist? More isolationist?
-Soviet Korea and Manchuria probably means Communist victory in China. Such as it is, I don’t see the US intervening to prevent the nationalist’s downfall. Stalin was fine with China divided IIRC but mao will still the momentum.
-Japan becomes a front in the Cold War.
I feel like there's a chance all of Japan could go red if the Soviets back the Japanese communist protesters strongly enough in the 60's. If not, the escalating tensions might lead to something similar to the Korean border war of the time, possibly turning into full-scale war if Japan is America's only foothold in Asia here.
Japanese Red Army will be more active too and probably be another source of flashpoints.
And thank you for reminding me of that AH thread, I never did finish reading it.
 
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Atarlost

Well-known member
They were late neolithic, which includes cold worked copper and gold.

I can't see it happening without horses or some similar critter getting domesticated.
The term is "chalcolithic."

Actually, that leads to a good timeline divergence. The Pre-Columbian Tarascan State had bronze tools before the Spanish arrived. (Other peoples were using "bronzes" for decorative purposes, but the ratios of metals were not useful.) They were using bronze for tools including hoes and spades that could have evolved into polearms and axes that would be almost directly weaponizable. Had they applied bronze to warfare and especially if they'd invented the helmet they'd have completely overturned the local balance of power. Obsidian is just not very tough

This is the best source I can find. It cites a 1996 Spanish language paper.

So, what if that happens. I can't find a date for when they started using proper bronze, but let's say at the turn of the 15th century (about 120 years before the Spanish conquest) they start fielding a bronze age military. Presumably they'd have a somewhat harder time than the Spanish with a smaller technological disparity, but the Aztecs would already be hated by everyone and the technological advantage would still be quite dramatic. When Cortez does show up he meets a slightly less backwards nation with a lot fewer enemies.
 

Doomsought

Well-known member
The term is "chalcolithic."
To compare it to Eurasian civilization, they were about on the level of Mesopotamia and its peers just before the Akkadian empire.

Consider how China and Japan were technological peers to Europeans at the dawn of imperialism, but fell behind do to isolationist and foreign policies and internal political strife, thus ended up getting colonized instead. Also consider how long and what turned that around.

The best bet for peer american indians is for a rebelious colony to make a deal with one of Indian nations to trade material support for technological uplift. Maybe a poorly planned prison colony, or a sudden sectarian break during the reformation. Some sort of revolution in the homeland while a Royal was visiting the colony could also do it.
 

Atarlost

Well-known member
To compare it to Eurasian civilization, they were about on the level of Mesopotamia and its peers just before the Akkadian empire.

Consider how China and Japan were technological peers to Europeans at the dawn of imperialism, but fell behind do to isolationist and foreign policies and internal political strife, thus ended up getting colonized instead. Also consider how long and what turned that around.

The best bet for peer american indians is for a rebelious colony to make a deal with one of Indian nations to trade material support for technological uplift. Maybe a poorly planned prison colony, or a sudden sectarian break during the reformation. Some sort of revolution in the homeland while a Royal was visiting the colony could also do it.
The thing is that we're talking New Spain not New England. Spain had an actual policy for treatment of the natives and a very enlightened one for the period. The Conquistadors completely ignored it and got away with doing so as long as they sent back gold. If Cortez fails the actual practical treatment of the natives might more closely resemble the official policy and that could change so many things. Just for example if they pursue a slower resource extraction strategy based on missionaries and trade they get less inflation and may last decades longer as a great power with all the knock on effects thereof.
 

ATP

Well-known member
The term is "chalcolithic."

Actually, that leads to a good timeline divergence. The Pre-Columbian Tarascan State had bronze tools before the Spanish arrived. (Other peoples were using "bronzes" for decorative purposes, but the ratios of metals were not useful.) They were using bronze for tools including hoes and spades that could have evolved into polearms and axes that would be almost directly weaponizable. Had they applied bronze to warfare and especially if they'd invented the helmet they'd have completely overturned the local balance of power. Obsidian is just not very tough

This is the best source I can find. It cites a 1996 Spanish language paper.

So, what if that happens. I can't find a date for when they started using proper bronze, but let's say at the turn of the 15th century (about 120 years before the Spanish conquest) they start fielding a bronze age military. Presumably they'd have a somewhat harder time than the Spanish with a smaller technological disparity, but the Aztecs would already be hated by everyone and the technological advantage would still be quite dramatic. When Cortez does show up he meets a slightly less backwards nation with a lot fewer enemies.

That true.
I read,that one of nomad indian tribes had longbows with obsidian arrowpoints capable of piercing spanish breastplate.
As nomads they could do little with that,but if Tarascan learned how to made them,they could wipe out Aztecs armies before spaniards come.
Aztec would fall as empire/althought probable survive as city-state/,and spaniards instead of getting all Mexico after conqering one nations, would need to conqer one city-state after another.
By the time they get to Tarascan,they would start making steel/need to catch one blacksmith/
As a result, Tarascan would survive 16th century with their own state.What next ? 17th and 18th century they would survive/Mapuche did it/,but 19th century - if they do not made their own technological progress, somebody would conqer them.
Maybe take that technology from some colony,like @Doomsought said ?
 

ATP

Well-known member
Maryland was only state when people had freedom of religion,becouse catholics ruled there.That changed after protestant coup in 1688,when everybody must be protestant again,but if they asked Tarascan state for help in exchange for technology....
 

Atarlost

Well-known member
Maryland was only state when people had freedom of religion,becouse catholics ruled there.That changed after protestant coup in 1688,when everybody must be protestant again,but if they asked Tarascan state for help in exchange for technology....
That'd be over a century after contact with Spain. If by some miracle they're still nominally independent Spain would still claim a trade monopoly.
 

ATP

Well-known member
That'd be over a century after contact with Spain. If by some miracle they're still nominally independent Spain would still claim a trade monopoly.
Spain had no great armies in Mexico - so they could not conqer Tarascan with bronze weapons and longbows with obsidian arrowheads.
Maybe their king would agree to treat spanish as his emperor,but it would be fictional.They would become catholics and take monks, but in OTL those monks brought technology with them and shared it with indians.Now, they would do the same.
I read,that cisterian monks in England had arleady factories - after 1538 they could be asked by Tarascan king to come.
England exiled them,and Spain as catholic country would not have reason to block that.

So,probably Tarascans could save Maryland acting as Spain vassal,but working in reality for themselves.If they take catholic refugees from Japan earlier, they would get steel from another source, and good calvary,too.
 

Atarlost

Well-known member
Spain had no great armies in Mexico - so they could not conqer Tarascan with bronze weapons and longbows with obsidian arrowheads.
Maybe their king would agree to treat spanish as his emperor,but it would be fictional.They would become catholics and take monks, but in OTL those monks brought technology with them and shared it with indians.Now, they would do the same.
I read,that cisterian monks in England had arleady factories - after 1538 they could be asked by Tarascan king to come.
England exiled them,and Spain as catholic country would not have reason to block that.

So,probably Tarascans could save Maryland acting as Spain vassal,but working in reality for themselves.If they take catholic refugees from Japan earlier, they would get steel from another source, and good calvary,too.
There'd be no direct contact. The exiles who would become Maryland could ask the Spanish for refuge, but they could have done so OTL and didn't. They couldn't ask the Tarascan state except by asking the Spanish to pass on a message because the Tarascan state did not have a navy or merchant marine and would not have developed either as a Spanish client state. And if they did it wouldn't be allowed in English ports.
 

ATP

Well-known member
There'd be no direct contact. The exiles who would become Maryland could ask the Spanish for refuge, but they could have done so OTL and didn't. They couldn't ask the Tarascan state except by asking the Spanish to pass on a message because the Tarascan state did not have a navy or merchant marine and would not have developed either as a Spanish client state. And if they did it wouldn't be allowed in English ports.

Tarascan state from OTL 1517 - yes.But Tarascan state which defeated Aztec and fend off spaniards would be much bigger,and could sent help regardless of Spain intentions.
If they take japaneese exiles, they would have calvary need to do so.
Considering that England in 1688 practically had no army there,1000 calvary would be more then enough to protect Maryland.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
This one's not as conflict-centric, but because I find it interesting: '1948 Presidential Election: Franklin Roosevelt Vs. Dwight Eisenhower'. It may not be the most likely match-up due to Roosevelt's ailing health and how he'd probably resign instead of running for a fifth term, but in the off-chance that it were to go down...yeah, I think Ike wins handily. Not just because of his personal popularity and how he can redeem the GOP's image with his support for the New Deal, but also because of voter fatigue and increasingly obvious health problems working against FDR.

As far as the election map goes, I project that Eisenhower gets at least 300 electoral votes. Whether he'd crush Roosevelt in a 442+ electoral landslide like he did against Adlai Stevenson in real-life 1952, I'm unsure of.
 

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