Alternate History
A.k.a. counterfactual history: by overwhelming popular request, a thread for discussing things that didn’t happen and how the world might have been different if they had.
Date: March 1, 2009
Categories: Ideas, The Universe
Comments RSS TrackBack 178 comments
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MARFwarrior (who has begn capitalizing)(and is a girl)(and dosen't really appriciate being called Marf)(1 b-day point)
in March 1st, 2009 @ 21:09This remides me of a game i have. called chrononauts. anyone ever played it.? its fun.
what if museblog had never been invented?
first post?
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The Bookworm & Lurline (410 piepoints and three B-Day Points and 42 KAG Points! And 0 Wung Points!)
in March 1st, 2009 @ 21:12Yeah Chrononauts! I love it!
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I-Man ((William II, Official Summary Writer's Secretary, whose job requirements include reposting the latest summary when someone is confused))
in March 1st, 2009 @ 21:54What if Edith Keeler had died? Would the Nazis really have won the war, and would starships really have avoided invention? Will they anyways?
Don’t know what the heck I’m talking about? Star Trek.
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 1st, 2009 @ 23:22…
*deep breath*
…
*screams for joy* MISSOURICOMPROMISEVIENNAAARONBURRGOLDRUSHCRIMEANWAR!!!!!
…
Anyway.
1- Well, I don’t know how it would have influenced everybody else’s lives… but it really had a great effect on my writing. I’d probably be working on completely different projects right now. It was also my “springboard” of sorts into the internet, so I wouldn’t be so comfortable with computers.
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The Bookworm & Lurline (410 piepoints and three B-Day Points and 42 KAG Points! And 0 Wung Points!)
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 07:194-How are those topics “Missouri Compromise, Vienna, Aaron burr, Gold Rush, Crimean War” related?
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 08:145- All are from the 19th Century? I don’t know.
A few off the top of my head:
What if the Vikings hadn’t been driven out of Canada by the First Nations tribes?
What if the Ming Chinese hadn’t stopped their exploration fleets and reached America before the Spanish?
What if those space specials Walt Disney did in the 50s actually became the model for the real-life program?
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Thanks For All The Fish42
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 09:39Uummmmmmmm… I think we’re supposed to play out history. At least, that’s how it was originally thought up. I think this thread will die if we just ask questions… But if everyone wants to keep it going like this, then that’s fine; I just won’t post here…
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 11:27(1, 4) I suspect the full historical impact of MuseBlog will take decades to become apparent. Those most affected by it might never know what hit them.
(7) With all the RPGs and RRRs now in progress, I’d be happy to see another discussion thread. But that’s up to you, of course.
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Luna the Lovely
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 11:30What if……Harry Potter was never written?
life as weI know it would be–horribly different
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 14:079- Possible Consequences
Immediate: There would be a lot fewer kids reading, a lot fewer people here.
Larger: Because fewer kids are reading, test scores in the US are even lower. Might effect elections and education policy.
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trust kokopelli
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 15:23What if George Washington wasn’t born. And asia never existed? The tiniest change could make a huge difference.
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the mole
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 16:02If you really want alternate history, look at watchmen. Allan Moor rewrote all of us history from the fifties on.
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Kokonilly
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 16:421 – Yes, I have, actually.
I prefer Fluxx, though.What if…
THE COLONISTS LOST THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR?
COLUMBUS DIED ON HIS WAY TO THE NEW WORLD?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS NOT SHOT?
HITLER WAS NEVER BORN?
KING HENRY VIII WAS A KIND, THOUGHTFUL, AND CARING PERSON?
FDR WAS A RAVING LUNATIC?
BUSH WAS AN AWESOME PRESIDENT?
OBAMA LOST THE RACE?
SARAH PALIN BECAME PRESIDENT?
CHRISTIANITY WAS NEVER INVENTED?…I’m good.
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Peace_Pie_ The_Beatles_Rock!
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 17:30What if John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr had never met each other? I think I’d die.
13- I think the world would be in shambles if Sarah Palin were president!
What would the world be like if the Holocaust hadn’t occurred?
WHAT IF MUSE WAS NEVER INVENTED? (that’s almost as bad as The Beatles not being a band
)
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 17:42I agree with making this a discussion thread (we have what, ten active RPGs?), but I think we ought to focus on a single topic before switching over (like the late lamented Chameleon Threads). Suggestions?
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Cat's Eye (20 wung points)
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 17:46What if the Texas rebellion in the 1800s had FAILED? There would be no Texas longhorn! Which would stop the popularity of beef! Which would kill McDonalds and most fastfood resturants! Which would severely decrease obesity in the U.S.!
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the mole
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 18:09What if the Neanderthals survived whatever wiped them out and humans died out? This needs to be thought about!!!!!!!!!! Would the Neanderthals ever became a civilization?
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 18:2916- Texas failing to achieve independence is always an intriguing one, but it’s been done several times… It’s a definite possibility for the topic.
17- That’s so far back it would be impossible to predict events afterwards with accuracy… history would be completely different, but there would be no way to figure out how.
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Cliff Eagle
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 18:33What if Hitler got into art school?
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trust kokopelli
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 18:4719- He would try to destroy the world in an artful way.
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Thanks For All The Fish42
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 19:15Lets try and talk about something that everyone can relate to, and therefore, talk about. If only one person knows what we’re talking about then it’s not much of a discussion…
What if nobody ever thought of making a religion?
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Piggy
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 19:2619- There’s an xkcd about that. Anyway, I think that he would’ve done the same things as he did, but have an extra hobby on the side.
16- Yeah… I doubt that. Only a small portion of beef comes from Texas; much of it comes from other states, as well as America’s good friend China.
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MissSwann (15 Warhol Points)
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 19:381- I would be really bored all the time.
What if J K Rowling never got on the train ride in which she thought of the idea for Harry Potter???
That would suck in monumental amounts… what if the Americans voted to speak German instead of English? We would all be speaking German right now…
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 20:18Let’s each analyze a few of each other’s “What If”s and post commentary if we disagree. Each alternate timeline given below assumes that nothing different happened until the point mentioned.
11- Washington Was Never Born: I don’t know much about military history, but I think he was the most able commander in the group. They probably could have found somebody else to lead the Continental Army, but we can’t say how well that person would have done without a specific replacement’s name.
13- The Colonists Lost the Revolutionary War:
Immediate: Their ideals were gaining popularity, so it’s possible that revolutions in other lands might still have happened, but perhaps somewhat half-heartedly, because there wasn’t a precedent.Long term: Revolutions in France, Greece, Italy and Latin America do not occur. Competition over territories and imperialistic sentiment in Europe are thus even fiercer than in the real world. WWI or the equivalent probably happens sooner. Since the European middle class never takes power and controls the workforce, Marx doesn’t gripe about it.
Hitler Was Never Born: Somebody else might have taken power and done the same things or nearly the same things. The sentiment of using Jews and socialists as scapegoats after Germany’s defeat in WWI and the country’s subsequent harsh treatment in the peace treaty was pretty widely held there. But if the treaty had been more fair… that’s something to consider…
Bush Was An Awesome President: I’m not sure what you mean here- do you mean that he was able to deal with the disasters that occurred during his presidency more effectively than in the real world or that he was the same but those disasters never happened?
Obama Lost/Palin Won: At this point, too soon to tell.
Christianity Was Never Invented:
Immediate: Europeans and Middle Easterners continue to have their native religions or the Roman one. Rome falls and chaos ensues, just like in the real world.
Long term: The lack of a shared religion leaves Europe even more disunified and unable to put up a strong front against the Arab expansion in the 600s CE. Europe becomes Islamic, Greco-Roman knowledge is regained, Renaissance comes early.
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Alice
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 20:301- The culture shock when I entered school would have been so much worse if it hadn’t been for MuseBlog.
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26
AthenianPsycho
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 20:3314- No. You wouldn’t die. You wouldn’t ever be aware what could have been.
However, this would have still had an impact. There is a HUGE amount of bands that were influenced by the Beatles, and if they didn’t exist, and bands influenced by THEM wouldn’t exist, and everything would be SO different that way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!iamexploringthepurplebeyond
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 2nd, 2009 @ 22:2624- Wow. You seem very knowledgeable about this sort of thing. I’ll have to come to you with more questions.
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Google
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 11:09What if humans had died of earlier? Who would become an intelligent race first? Rodents? Apes?
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KaiYves
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 11:5427- I don’t know about all areas of history, just a few.
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 17:1028- Impossible to say.
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Piggy
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 18:1424- As for the Christianity thing, I have some objections. To start things off, let’s just agree that, for early historical purposes, the Catholic Church was basically the whole of Christianity until the Reformation. You say that classical knowledge would’ve been regained sooner and that the Renaissance would’ve come earlier in history had Christianity never been “invented”. I disagree with that. During the Dark Ages, the Church invented the university system off which schools throughout the rest of history have been based, fostering growth in the knowledge and study of art, music, philosophy, astronomy, geology, biology, chemistry, economics, law, human rights and morality, literature, etc., etc., etc.
Without Christianity, all these things would have either happened much more slowly, or even not happened at all. If these things did not come about as soon, the entire course of history would be vastly different. The American Revolution may not have happened, seeing as Locke’s and other philosophers’ ideas were based on Catholic teaching. Science would be disorganised and, potentially, nonexistent. All in all, Christianity, with the Catholic Church in particular, was perhaps the largest driver of human progress in recorded history. There’s a great book about it. It’s called How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.I say we focus more on answering questions and discussing them than on asking questions.
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Peace_Pie_ The_Beatles_Rock!
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 18:22Yeah you’re right, I wouldn’t have been able to die. But I’d still be pretty sad!
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the mole
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 18:33What ifJFK had not been as asinated? Would this have effected the course of the cold war? What if the twin towers were not hit? Would the wars in iraq and afganiatan never occored? My spelling is not that good becquse ia mnm on a computer without spell check.
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Thanks For All The Fish42
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 19:35(Hehehehehehehehe)
What if people were smart!!??
(I”M SO AGGRIVATED WITH PEOPLE!!!)
Don’t take it personally…
*goes to complaint thread*
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Alice
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 20:07What if the movable type printing press had never been invented?
My global studies teacher went on a long and rather poorly enunciated rant about how movable type printing led to the American revolution. Because he was speaking so fast I failed to comprehend a great deal of what he was saying, but it seemed a rather large jump, in my mind.
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The Man For Aeiou
in March 3rd, 2009 @ 21:1024- I disagree about the last one. christianity, whatever you think about it, did help the start of islam. so, we would still be feudalist.
What if the Republic of china won the china civil war?
What if we took over canada in 1812?
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public like a frog (39 wung points)
in March 4th, 2009 @ 09:1036-war with britain on a larger scale would be likely, and a rebellion in canada against the us would be likely-canada didn’t seem too enthusiastic about democracy at the time.
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KaiYves
in March 4th, 2009 @ 12:1531, 36- I was sort of spitballing there, the Middle Ages isn’t my strong point.
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Cromwell
in March 4th, 2009 @ 18:51i think we should focus on just a few questions now.
Let’s not choose ones like “What if Germany won WWII”.
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Vendaval
in March 5th, 2009 @ 05:5431- Although TMFA is correct in post 36, post 24 is still very accurate. Looking only to the monasteries in Europe is understandable, because mos of the learning happening in Europe was occurring in these monasteries. Europe was in a ‘Dark Age’ at the time though, so why look only at Europe? The Catholic church’s biggest accomplishment was preventing total anarchy. Happening at the same time on the other side of the Mediterranean was the Islamic Golden Age.
…art, music, philosophy, astronomy, geology, biology, chemistry, economics, law, human rights and morality, literature, etc., etc., etc.
Even more so in the Islamic empire, but 200 years before. The Renaissance could never have been achieved without the diffusion of knowledge that came from the East, Europe didn’t preserve the writings of the Greeks, it was the Muslims.
What if the Battle of Tours had gone the other way?
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in March 5th, 2009 @ 07:12Something else to think about: If Christianity had not existed, might some other institution have served the same function as the Church? Presumably the Roman Empire would have had another official religion. Maybe priests of Apollo or Mithras or Cybele would have built monasteries, copied manuscripts, and kept local rulers in line.
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 5th, 2009 @ 17:19You know what would really change history? If the Lusitania was never built. Because then the Titanic wouldn’t have been built by the competition as a response and wouldn’t have sunk, and a few years later, the Lusitania herself wouldn’t have sunk, so the US might not have entered WWI…
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Vendaval
in March 5th, 2009 @ 18:49Yes, I agree that another religion would have filled the religion gap if Christianity had not existed. It would need to be adaptable of course, I’m surprised Judaism wasn’t more popular, being changed so much after the destruction of the temple to be very grassroots. Although a strict chain of command was what kept Europe in a state of relative stability for so long, a government able to supersede governmental limitations.
42- That’s worthy of a book. It will be added to the list of very interesting historical subjects I could write novels about later in life when I’ve got time (but am preferably not unemployed), possibly in a historical fiction way but still true to the time and informative but engaging.
It’s a short list.
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Cromwell
in March 5th, 2009 @ 18:5342_I think that was just an excuse.
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♫ Agrrrfishi {Aggie}♫
in March 5th, 2009 @ 19:4941- Well, technically, it was inevitable that Christianity would exist because God sent Jesus to center it, and no earthly force has the power to change God’s decision.
*sigh* I would go off on another one of my Jesus-freak ceremonials, but that would be pointless and get people mad at me. So I’m going to avoid it.42- Wow. That’s an awesome connection.
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Cliff Eagle
in March 5th, 2009 @ 20:2545- Under a Christian mindset, which would have not had existed if Christianity was never established.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in March 5th, 2009 @ 20:31(42) It is interesting to think about. Apparently a lot of Americans admired the Kaiser and were not at all eager to enter World War 1. And if Germany and its allies had won that war… no Hitler.
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☼Zinc the sorceress☼
in March 5th, 2009 @ 21:54Attention, all discussions about Germany and WWI:
I might or might not happen to know *ahem* that it was Austria who first entered it, when maybe someone attacked them. Germany and Austria were allies, so Germany had to enter.
As you all know, my school library has a rather large connection of old Muses. One of my favorite articles is “Crackpot Theories About the Earth.” It tells us about a “donut Earth” and how some people thought that Hitler hadn’t really died and flew down and entered through one end of the Earth, developing advanced technology in the inside county of Agartha (Agatha? I don’t know). What if that was true?
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bookgirl_me
in March 6th, 2009 @ 01:4642) Something would have happened anyway: Austria-Hungary was to big: the Kaiser couldn’t keep everyone under control, and several well-armed minorities with different languages were very pissed at being under the jurisdiction of the Hungarians. A-H would just have blown apart in the middle of the war, and Austria would have joined Germany earlier.
48) *ahem* Austria was annexed by Germany. It technically didn’t exist for WWII. And Hitler was kicked out of Austria for being a nazi. Austria was as small as now, previously a very big empire. They were also beggared by WWI. They couldn’t have started the war if they wanted to. Austria was annexed since Hitler turned the thumbscrews on Dolfuß, the current head-honcho, then marched in. Sadly, there was no or very little resistance.
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 6th, 2009 @ 16:5941- Perhaps the worshipers of the Muses…
49- I didn’t say nothing would have happened, just that the US might not have become involved.I love playing this game.
Until just before his High School graduation, George Lucas wanted to be a race car driver. What made him change his mind and go to film school was a horrible accident he had days before graduation. What if Lucas hadn’t had the accident?
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 6th, 2009 @ 17:3650- “I am your father” wouldn’t be a cliche.
Science fiction film as we know it would be very different, if not nonexistent.
Billions of pop culture references would never be conceived.
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 6th, 2009 @ 19:0251- Think of where special effects might be without ILM’s innovations! Actually, I don’t want to think about that…
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 7th, 2009 @ 19:26This was my first serious attempt at an alternate history. It’s probably laughably inaccurate, but I had fun with it and thought some of you might get a kick out of it too.
The Mongol invasion of Europe progressed swiftly after the sacking of Vienna. Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, had just finished fighting a war on the Italian peninsula when he first heard news of the fierce Asian conquerors on his borders. Austria and Carniola fell, and the invaders made inroads deep into Bavaria. Venice was also conquered. Frederick’s armies nearly brought the Mongols to a halt at Salzburg, but the tide turned at last, and the European forces were destroyed, as was the central government of the Holy Roman Empire. Most of its component states and electorates separated, and Batu Khan crushed them one by one. The conquest then turned southward. The Church was spared, but the Kingdom of Sicily was shown little mercy.
In April, a lull came in the west as the Mongols turned their attention southward, to the frontiers of the Eastern Roman Empire’s successor states. Serbia, Bulgaria and the Sultanate of Rum had fallen by June. In July and August, Nicaea, Trebizond and Epirus were taken.
The Mongol Conquest came to a halt as Ogedei Khan died. Batu Khan and his general, Subutai, returned to Mongolia in order to determine the successor. However, Batu was reluctant to withdraw from such a great series of conquests, especially as he’d come so near his goal, so a large portion of his forces were left behind under commanders selected by Subutai himself to hold the European territory gained in the invasion. France, Spain and England were left staring eastward across a shattered Europe, and wondering whether they would be next.
At the kuriltai in Karakorum, Guyuk was selected as the supreme Khan. Batu Khan refused to recognize him, and Guyuk, traveling to confront him a few years later, died en route. Mongke Khan was the next one chosen.
Mongke focused more on the war in China than that in Europe, conquering the tenacious Southern Song despite a narrow brush with death at the battle of Fishing Town. His brother, Hulagu, led a campaign that stretched the Mongol Empire into Syria and Egypt, even to the Mediterranean coast. By 1260, the heartlands of Christendom and Islam had been conquered. The only independent Russian state left was Novgorod, which had expanded into Eastern Scandinavia at the expense of Sweden, and kept a measure of independence through tribute to the Kipchak Khanate. In 1261, the era known as the Pax Mongolica began, lasting until 1273.
The Mongol rulers were surprisingly tolerant of their subjects’ religions, allowing the Christian and Muslim churches freedom of practice within their empire (although no secular authority.) People of both faiths were allowed free passage in the Holy Land. Despite this improvement, however, the Church lost much of its power even in the West, after the Pope relocated to Avignon. This was partly due to the Mongol invasion. The conquest of the Papal States dealt a blow to the Papacy’s aura of earthly omnipotence. The Mongol Empire, which stretched from the Rhine to the Yangtze, was an excellent medium for overland trade. Ideas were exchanged between China, Europe and the Middle East freely and profusely. The transportation system was vastly improved during this period, and it is believed that the first primitive steam engine was developed by an Islamic scholar in Egypt. The cannon was invented in 1270, and block printing and paper-making became common in Europe after 1265. This helped to bring about the end of the feudal system, as castles quickly became obsolete, and the improved transportation and communication connected isolated villages. Navigation was another area affected by the interchange during the Pax Mongolica. With the compass brought from China and the innovative sail designs from Arabia, European ships left the calm waters of the Mediterranean and began exploring into the Atlantic, hoping to find a trade route with the West African kingdoms that would bypass the still-independent and hostile Marinid Dynasty in North Africa. From 1267, the coast of Africa was mapped to great extent.
During the Pax Mongolica, Europe was taken up by a number of powerful states. Castile ruled much of the Iberian Peninsula, although Portugal had most of the west coast, Aragon much of the northeast, and a portion of the Masrid Dynasty remained to the south, centered around the great city of Seville. France, once ruling most of Western Europe, was caught between English-ruled duchies on the west and the Mongol frontier, which had swallowed up many small states during the Year of Conquest, to the east. England held Aquitaine, part of Wales, and all of Eire except for Aileach. Scotland remained independent. The Marinid Dynastry ruled North Africa. Denmark was reduced to Jutland proper. Sweden and Norway were little affected by the Mongol incursion, but Sweden lost much of its eastern territory to the Mongol tributary state of Novgorod.
The Pax came to a sudden end with the death of Mongke Khan in 1273. The only remaining claimant to the Khanate was Kublai, who was selected in Karakorum in 1274. However, Hulagu’s son, Aqaba, refused to recognize him and left the Empire, establishing the Ilkhan Khanate. Aqaba’s attitude was extremely anti-Muslim; he refused to allow residents in the Marinid Dynasty to visit the Holy Land and attempted to forcibly convert residents in the Ilkhanate to Nestorian Christianity or Buddhism. The resulting war is sometimes inaccurately called the Marinid Crusade; however, as the word “crusade” is derived from “crux,” or “cross,” this term implies a Christian effort. Beset by Islamic armies on his western frontier, the forces of his uncle conquering in the east, and uprisings throughout the Ilkhanate, Aqaba sent a delegation to Avignon. They proposed to the Pope that if France, England and the Iberian states were to join the Ilkhanate in fighting off its invaders, Aqaba Khan would grant them the land formerly occupied by the Crusader kingdoms- in essence, give the Holy Land to Christendom. This brought about the Seventh or Tatar Crusade.
The war was fought on three main fronts. Castile, Aragon and Portugal united to drive the Masrids out of southern Iberia, and were quite successful in that respect. Castile even managed to establish a holdout on the tip of North Africa. The second, though it is usually accounted part of the Mongol Civil War, was on the border between Ilkhanate and Mongol Empire. Kublai Khan’s forces drove Aqaba’s back to mid-Persia, south of the Caspian Sea. The most important was in the Holy Land itself. The Crusaders managed to recapture Jerusalem and surrounding areas from the Marinids, and Aqaba Khan had no choice but to uphold his promise. The Principality of Antioch was re-established, as well as the Kingdom of Outremer, which took up the rest of the area. The Seventh Crusade proper ended in 1279, but the hostilities between Ilkhanate and Mongols continued.
In 1298, Kublai Khan died, bringing the remnant of the Pax Mongolica to a close. As his successors disputed the office of Chinese Emperor, the long-standing Mongol Empire shattered. Novgorod took advantage of the confusion to throw off its ties to the Mongols and expand into much of northern Russia. The rest of Russia was under the Kipchak Khanate. The Ilkhanate expanded to the range of its former dominions. Another khanate, usually referred to as the Golden Horde or YÅ«rop Khanate, formed in Mongol-dominated Eastern Europe. Much of central Asia was occupied by the Chagatai Khanate. In China, the Yuan Dynasty remained.
The Golden Horde nearly collapsed in its early years, and its borders fragmented. Many of the small states freed from its dominion, such as Luxemburg, Friesland and Holland, remained independent; others were absorbed into France. Sicily became independent again, and the Ilkhanate took up the Anatolian Peninsula. The Golden Horde was saved from utter crumbling by the accession of a brilliant and cunning leader named Ariq-Boke Khan. In Europe, his name is usually rendered as Eric the Tartar.
Ariq-Boke consolidated the power of the Golden Horde in Vienna, improved the government system, introduced paper money, and opened the coastal cities up to trade with Western Europe and with the North African Islamic kingdoms. He also married a Bavarian noblewoman and adopted many European customs. Venice and Genoa thrived during the new era of commerce. Some of the improved ships began to explore down the coast of Africa.
Unfortunately, this era of prosperity did not last long. In 1320, famine swept Europe, followed in ten years by the deadly horror of the Black Pestilence.
The Pestilence began in Venice and ravaged the YÅ«rop Khanate before passing into France. The population of Europe was decimated, and so was that of Arabia and China, although to a lesser degree. The awful destruction, despite the Church’s efforts, lost Avignon what little respect it still had. After the Pestilence came many religious reformers. One of the most popular new denominations was Lefevranism, which emphasized predestination. Much of Scandinavia and northern Europe converted to it, as well as a few French cities. The rest remained Catholic for the most part.
Eric II fell to the Pestilence, and the Golden Horde fell apart into small, warring kingdoms. Some were led by European dukes and princes, others by Mongol claimants to the throne.
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Cat's Eye
in March 8th, 2009 @ 15:3153: Wow… I could never have the patience to write something that long.
Let’s start all focusing on a few questions instead of continuing to go “whatif”, shall we? The “World War I affects Hitler” thing seems popular right now. Why is it always Hitler? I read a whole short story about a time travel forum where basically all anyone does is go back in time and kill Hitler, but since WWII led to time travel in the story, people keep having to go back and stopping them from killing him. Aargh.
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 8th, 2009 @ 16:5754- I think I read that one. Was it supposed to be like posts on a message board for time travelers? Because that’s the one I read.
I wrote the following Alternate History, based on the Marvel Comics event House of M and focusing on space exploration, as background for a series of stories I did for a fan-fiction collaborative project. It’s written somewhat in the form of a publicity packet for the AAC:
The attack had come so suddenly that they barely had time to put away their tools. And with the war against Lord Mangus- then still known as Magneto- and his armies going as it was, a nearly-completed spaceship in a nondescript factory in California was the last thing on anyone’s mind. So there she lay, for five years, alone in the abandoned facility, while the world around her changed beyond measure.
After their conquest of the world in 1979, the Magnus Regime began rearranging the disparate remnants of various government agencies belonging to the surrendered nations into unified organizations.
One of these was the relatively underfunded Aerospace Advisory Council (AAC), created in 1981 and inheriting technology, personnel and projects from similar agencies in Europe, the United States, Japan and Russia. The AAC quickly distinguished itself by the determination and efficiency of its employees, both human and mutant.
While their work in aviation safety and robotic exploration was admired, the aspect of the AAC that most citizens- and the Mangus leaders themselves- considered of chief importance was their work with weather and communications satellites. Satellites became old and damaged, however, which was why a project concerning a reusable spaceplane that could recover and repair satellites that AAC’s ancestors in the United States had undertaken was of great interest.
Most of the documentation and personnel from this “Space Transportation System” (STS) program had been absorbed by the new agency, although a few very important pieces were missing. After much effort, the atmospheric test vehicle “Enterprise” was recovered, and in early November 1984, AAC investigators rediscovered Orbiter 102, the first operational STS vehicle or “shuttle”, in the California factory where it had lain since the Takeover.
102 had been given the designation “Columbia” after a famous sailing ship of the past, but the AAC rechristened it “Superior 1” before completing it at last. (After Homo Sapiens Superior, the Latin name for the mutant race.) The previous name did, however, survive in a sense, as this first generation of orbiters are sometimes alternatively described as “Columbia”-class.
The humans who had been trained to fly these orbiters were kept, but supplemented with additional mutant trainees as construction progressed.
On April 12, 1986, twenty-five years to the day that Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space, Superior 1 lifted off from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral, Florida. This flight, carrying only two astronauts, was the beginning of a new era of exploration for both AAC and the world.
A structural test model was outfitted and became Orbiter 099- “Superior 2”. They were soon joined by Superiors 3-5. This fleet, supplemented by the Russian Soyuz capsules also in use, lost no time in embarking on a variety of missions. General flights took off from Florida or Kourou in French Guyana, near the equator, and polar orbit missions left from Russia’s Baykonur and California’s Vandenburg spaceports.
As these first few missions progressed, some visionaries in the AAC were thinking ahead to the next step- Space Station Magnus. While previous agencies had constructed space stations such as Salyut and Skylab, these had been single structures, not intended for further expansion.
Magnus, however, is different. The idea of a modular station, built from separate parts that could be launched independently and connected in space, had appeared in plans for a Russian project tentatively called Mir or “Peace”, at about the time of the Takeover.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, tests occurred, both on Earth and in space,and, on July 15, 1997, the first part of Magnus was carried up by Superior 3. Living space grew at a reasonable pace until the infamous Superior 5 Incident.
February 19th, 1999 was an unusually cold day for Florida as Superior 5 left on a routine mission to fix a weather satellite. Unknown to all involved, the cold had damaged a seal in one of the booster rockets, causing an explosion shortly after liftoff. Commander John Jameson and Mission Specialist Reed and Sue Richards were killed. Pilot Ben Grimm survived, but only in a hideously mutated form and with his intellect almost entirely lost. (Few will ever forget Lord Magnus’ moving speech at the memorial service for those lost with Superior 5, including his quoting of John Magee’s famous poem High Flight.)
All orbiters were grounded for two years as AAC fixed the problem. Superior 2 returned to flight on May 3, 2001, flying from Kourou to deliver a laboratory module to Magnus. Overcoming the disaster, the Station was officially completed on December 18, 2008.
While the Superior/”Columbia”-class orbiters will continue to operate until 2015 as AA Director Alain Tournesol has stated, they will slowly be phased out in favor of their successors, the second-generation or Tyler-class. (Named for Lord Magnus’ grandson.) These new vehicles, designed by Teresa von Braun, granddaughter of the engineer behind the Saturn V moon rockets, resemble superficially those in current use.
However, the Tyler-class are larger and have many improvements. The new liquid-fuel boosters are safer, the tank eliminates the worrisome foam-shedding problem, and, most importantly, these orbiters will be able to fly much higher- to 200,300-mile geostationary orbit.
The first of these new spacecraft, the Tyler, is set to fly from Florida sometime in July 2009. Don’t miss it!
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 8th, 2009 @ 19:1455- Whoa. Very… detailed.
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Errata
in March 9th, 2009 @ 11:22This looks interesting. On a related side note, I’m just starting a story about what could happen if Congress removed the age restriction on being president, and a thirteen year old got elected. And then she put all her friends in high positions… Actually, the people in it are based on real people.
Anyway, I’m asking questions about the 17th century, knowing the most about that time period.
What if the War of 1812 had never been fought? Would Britain try to re-capture the U.S. again? Or would they have decided that the U.S. wasn’t worth it?
What if the U.S. hadn’t annexed Texas? Would Texas become a part of Britain, as they were threatening to do when they were annexed? Would they have remained a republic? If so, would they support the south in the Civil War, or stay out of it? Just a few more questions that we shall never know the answer to.
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Falmiriel
in March 9th, 2009 @ 12:2616- I don’t think it would have made much difference. Shortly after Texas won independence, the United States got into a territorial war with Mexico (the Mexican War) and Mexico ended up ceding a bunch of other territory (Colorado, New Mexico, California). Admittedly, what sparked the war off was Mexico’s refusal to recognize Texas as anything but a Mexican possession even after the U.S. had annexed it. But the U.S. was bent on expanding westward, and probably would have gotten the region eventually anyway. Being from Texas, though, I wouldn’t mess with that piece of history
53- Love it! One comment: I think the Black Plague (Great Pestilence) would have come to Europe earlier – it originated in Asia, not Venice, and in your scenario, there is much more communication, and hence more ways for diseases to spread, between Europe and Asia than there was in the real world.
On what would have happened if there was no Christianity:
In 475, the great Roman Empire fell, and the temples they had built across northern Europe fell into disuse now that people were no longer required to worship and make offerings in them. The waves of destruction and chaos that racked Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire destroyed much of the progress and civilization that the Romans had made. Europe belonged to the Celtic and Germanic tribes once more.
These peoples were celebrated warriors. The various factions fought with each other, fragmenting Europe into separate kingdoms. Castles were built for better defense, temples for worship of the pagan gods, and scientific progress crept along at a snail’s pace. But even a snail gets somewhere eventually. Gradually, over hundreds of years, a part of the knowledge of the Romans was regained, and progress was made in various fields, although the structure of society remained the same.
A thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire, another empire had risen to power in a land that most Europeans had only vague knowledge of. The Aztecs had created the an empire to rival the world’s largest, China. Other inhabitants of the continent, in resisting the Aztecs’ conquest, banded together and formed nations, unifying the separate nomadic tribes. Some of the nations became powerful. They adopted agriculture, settled down, and became civilized. Population in the Americas exploded with the advent of this level of civilization, and the American empires flourished.
Then two ships made the perilous crossing from Europe to America, and landed in what wasn’t Georgia. They met a civilization which was not quite as advanced as their own, but which bore enough resemblance that the two cultures recognized each other as worthy of respect. Commerce began between the American and European civilizations, fueled by the European demand for various American goods and vice versa. This commerce led to greater technological progress on both sides of the ocean, and eventually to the (re)discovery that the world was round.
Meanwhile, the Chinese had the world’s highest level of technology, but they were isolationist and did not allow trade with other nations. Various efforts to get such coveted goods as silk, china, paper, and firecrackers resulted, which eventually contributed to the first world war. This might have led to the use of gunpowder in weapons, had it not been for a superstitious fear of the substance on the part of the Europeans and Americans.
Hmm… seems maybe a tad unlikely, but I don’t know how else to figure it.
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 9th, 2009 @ 15:1158- Hey, thanks for the feedback, and for the patience to read Golden Horde all the way through!
I didn’t consider that improved communication might also spread the Black PlaguePestilence faster. I’ll add that in.
So… in your scenario, tribes resisting the Aztecs banded together and moved into more organized governmental systems? The only unrealistic thing I can see is the fact that it seems arbitrary. The Aztec conquest happened in our timeline, too, but no major powers arose from resisting them. What caused the difference?
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 9th, 2009 @ 15:13Oh, wait, my mistake, your divergence was lack of Christianity, so European advancement was slowed, giving the more gradually advancing Americans time to catch up? Never mind.
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 9th, 2009 @ 15:32Wait, I suppose I must have factored it in anyway… the Pestilence arrived almost 30 years earlier than it did in the real world. Been a long time since I wrote this. You think it ought to have come earlier?
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Silver Lining
in March 9th, 2009 @ 19:39What if we lived in a completely silent world? Like, where there were no sounds what so ever? This really isn’t alternate history, more like a what if, but the concept is still kind of scary.
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 9th, 2009 @ 21:0962- Well, physics would have to be very different.
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Raynpho
in March 9th, 2009 @ 22:11I read in some history book that King George III (of American Revolutionary War fame) was actually… second in line for the throne? Not first, anyway. Well, his older brother, a devoted botanist, died after standing out in the rain with some exotic plants of his. Apparently, he was also not as restricting and king-ly as George III was.
Is this even true? Hmm, a quick google search is not quite affirming my story. Rather disheartening.
Well anyway, assuming my story is true, what if he hadn’t died? Would the Americans have revolted? Would he have been more willing to negotiate? Would we remember the founding fathers as heroes?
6- Gosh, I’d been thinking about that Ming Chinese one. Basically, our whole world would probably be different. Everything would have “Eastern” origins, rather than “Western,” and evolved from there, which means… yes, basically everything would be different. *twitch*
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Cat's Eye
in March 9th, 2009 @ 22:3762/63: VERY different. Sound=vibration. No sound, no vibration. I mean, we might have simply no hearing apparati, but still…
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 10th, 2009 @ 17:4264- Yes, ever since I first heard of the Ming expeditions, I’ve been wondering about that one.
I never heard of George III having an older brother, but what if France had won the French and Indian war and not taxed the colonies?
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redredred
in March 12th, 2009 @ 18:08whatif
thisworldnevercameweweregreenantarticaruledtheuniverseandmusewasnotinventedthelastpartishorrible
HORRIBLE
*screamsinterror*
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redredred
in March 12th, 2009 @ 18:10gasp must survive
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AthenianPsycho
in March 13th, 2009 @ 19:36This thread confuses me.
I mean, I understand the subject of it, I just feel so…not knowledgeable on it. You guys are able to discuss this, and I can;t, because I am meek and not very historically educated. Thye only thing that I am very GOOD at is spelling. But that doesn’t seem that important on this thread.
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Silver Lining
in March 13th, 2009 @ 19:46What would it be like if humans weren’t at the top of the food chain? Who would be at the top of the food chain if we weren’t?
69– Don’t feel bad. I’m good at spelling, too, so spelling is important to me.
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 13th, 2009 @ 19:5969- It’s really okay. There’s a lot of good resources online.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in March 13th, 2009 @ 23:25(70) What’s so special about being at the top of the food chain? Plenty of other creatures are happy to eat us when they get the chance.
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 14th, 2009 @ 12:39What if the Nationalists, not the Communists, had won the Chinese Civil War?
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The Man For Aeiou
in March 15th, 2009 @ 17:47the ROC would be on mainland china, and have the UN seat, and Taiwan would be under the PRC. Tibet may be free.
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public like a frog (37 wung points)
in March 16th, 2009 @ 08:2374-Taiwan wouldn’t necessarily be prc. The communists might have been so badly crushed they couldn’t take taiwan.
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Shadowkat
in March 16th, 2009 @ 17:22What if…Israel had never been created?
Hey, ya’ll! I think I’ll actually manage to become semi-regular here, again, so let’s discuss this…if it hasnj’t been discussed already…eh?
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Shadowkat
in March 16th, 2009 @ 17:23*hasn’t
And “created” might not have been the best word choice. Let’s use…”established”, maybe?
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in March 16th, 2009 @ 19:44Hmmm… the history of Israel isn’t my strong suit, but I know how it started, roughly. What point of divergence from our timeline are we talking here? No Zionism? Something different during WWII?
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Shadowkat
in March 17th, 2009 @ 20:02Yeah, we’re talking if the Allied forces hadn’t decided that it was necessary to carve out a chunk of Palestine in order to give Jews a place of their own. Frankly, I think that since they’d been spread all over the world already, it wasn’t necessary for them to suddenly become concentrated, and cause all this war between Israel and Palestine, tension between countries supporting either side, etc.
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Cat's Eye (20 wung points)
in March 20th, 2009 @ 21:52Well, that’s something that’d be different. Less war over there. However, the conflict over Jerusalem might be increased. Pity it’s holy to three different religions at once, which didn’t like each other in the first place.
Ooh! What if there was no Jerusalem? That’d take out the Crusades… probably. I”m of the opinion that the Christian nobility and military just wanted an excuse for war with the Muslims.
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POSOC & Smoleeon
in March 21st, 2009 @ 12:2080- Well, the point of divergence would be way, way, way back. Jerusalem’s been around for thousands of years.
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Shadowkat
in March 24th, 2009 @ 17:01Huh. Interesting take. That would really make things a little less…um…exciting, lol. But, yeah, take out Jerusalem, and you’ve got nothin’. Or do you think they would’ve found something else to fight about? Well, duh…but, what?
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Enceladus
in April 4th, 2009 @ 13:43I had an idea (no, I don’t mean
) We should have a role playing thread for alternate histories! Such as, Napolean didn’t lose at Waterloo, the Nazis won the war *shudders*, or something totally different! who else likes my idea?
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in April 4th, 2009 @ 14:0283- Oooh, I just thought of a brilliant set-up for that!
We all work for a futuristic agency dedicated to exploration and mapping of all possible universes. The agency sends teams into various alternate timelines to study them and examine how they differ from the prime reality. Could be a standard RPG, or an RPW with our written reports to the agency.
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Enceladus
in April 5th, 2009 @ 08:1884- Yeah! awesome idea! let’s ask the GAPAs for an alternate history RPW (there don’t seem to be many of them) but RPGs are fun too! Everyone who wants that put the lol smiley in their post
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Rainbowstar (3 piepoints)
in April 7th, 2009 @ 11:06What if religion was never invented?
– Less war in the world
– 9/11 doesn’t happen
– Holocaust doesn’t happen
– No religious discrimination
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Enceladus (Faglan) (10 wung points)
in May 1st, 2009 @ 14:15Gee, that sound nice
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Enceladus (Faglan) (10 wung points)
in May 1st, 2009 @ 14:15SFTDP
That wasn’t sarcastic
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Gwyn
in October 17th, 2010 @ 00:58Actually, I don’t believe religion could never have been invented. Religion provided the answers that early humans sought, like where the rain came from etc, because they didn’t have science to answer it for them. Believing that some being(s) controlled the elements was a comfort to them, and because they worshiped them, it allowed them to feel as if they had some control over their lives. If something bad happened, it was because the gods were angry at them. During bad times, people generally become more religious, as evidenced in the increased control of the Catholic church during the Bubonic Plague in Europe between 1200-1400. If your airplane is heading into a nose dive, you’ll probably be praying to every god imaginable that something might save you. Believing in miracles is a comfort, something that would have been irreplacable. Religion provides the answers to “big questions”, and without asking those questions, humans, in my opinion, lose their humanity. *NOTE: I am not saying that if you are atheist, you are not human! Atheists simply answer those same big questions with different answers.* Every civilization developed their own religious believes, some entirely separate from others, and it’s just generally impractible to believe that religion would not have sprung up in all of these places. If this is indeed possible, then the societies and societal norms that are present today, including nations, would definately not be the same.
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Enceladus
in October 17th, 2010 @ 07:08Actually, during the Bubonic Plague, the control of the Catholic Church decreased- they had been fervent believers, but when God failed to save their friends and family, they began to lost faith. It’s part of what caused the Reformation.
We would not lose the “big questions” if there was no religion- what if early societies looked for answers not having to do with invisible beings, but actually observed the world around them? For example, Aristotle (sp?) at one point claimed that women had fewer teeth than men. He never actually thought of actually counting their teeth. What if humans had been inclined scientifically, and not quick to hold onto their old, disproved beliefs?
And also, what I think Rainbowstar is talking about is more like what if extreme religion had never been invented. Or extremism in general.
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Piggy
in October 17th, 2010 @ 09:08You are either new or under a different alias from usual, yes? If it’s the first case, welcome!
If it’s the second case, what was your previous name?
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Kokopelli52
in May 10th, 2009 @ 05:36Yeh- and, there wouldn’t be an America as we know it, because British people wouldn’t have fled the religious discrimination of their nation and found Plymouth Rock… but eventually someone would have discovered it.
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in May 10th, 2009 @ 08:23On another site, we were talking about the possiblity of changing history through time travel, and I kept arguing that it’s not enough to target specifics, you have to target root causes if you want to prevent something for good.
For instance, suppose you somehow delayed the Titanic’s departure from London so that they ended up sailing to New York after the icebergs had passed. Yes, you’ve saved the people on the Titanic, but now there’s not going to be safety regulations and for all you know, ANOTHER ship with MORE people on it might meet the same fate later, because the regulations weren’t passed.
So, instead, you could become a passenger on the Californian and demand they turn the radio on in the middle of the night. Then, they would hear the SOS from the Titanic, come to the rescue, and everybody would be saved, but people would realize what could have happened and still pass the laws.
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Kokopelli52
in May 11th, 2009 @ 01:09But by the time the Californian got there a lot of people would have already died of hypothermia or drowning. What you need is to change things in a way that gives the passengers and crew enough time to realize that they need better safety regulations, but not enough time for anyone to die. So perhaps you could steer the ice berg out of their path (by use of a large motorboat), and put a smaller one in. This would cause the ship to take less time sinking and give more time for rescue, so that they would still know about the safety stuff.
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KaiYves (Delta V)
in May 11th, 2009 @ 16:42That is a better idea.
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Kokopelli52
in May 14th, 2009 @ 21:51Perhaps a tad on the fancy side though. How would one attach an iceberg to a motorboat?
I was thinking- since religion can provide a comforting and peaceful environment and support the idea of afterlife and thereby help people recover from tragedies, what if everybody had the same religion? Most people would be happy, fewer wars would happen (because everyone would feel like they were together), and people would be generally kinder to one another because they would be hoping for a pleasant afterlife. But then, if religion was a given, people might not recognize it that clearly as something that made everyone the same- the way everybody being human doesn’t stop people from fighting. And if the government tried to force it on everybody someone might revolt and then we’d have a war anyway.
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Cat's Eye (20 wung points)
in June 8th, 2009 @ 19:17Yes, but if everyone had the same religion, everyone would believe it. So they would have no objections to making it part of the government. In which case the government would become a theocracy, which in most cases leads from “the government includes god/s” to “the government represents god/s” to “the government IS god/s” to “the Leader is god/s” to “obey the leader or go to hell/tartarus/middle school/etc.” What if no one had a religion? But then, as you said, it can provide a comforting and peaceful environment. Hm. Quandaries, quandaries.
Besides, even single religions often split. Look at the Christian Church. It’s gone from split to split to split since Martin Luther nailed his theses.
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Enceladus and Nimly (*.*)
in June 9th, 2009 @ 14:58What do people think would’ve happened if Napoleon had won the battle at Waterloo? My theories:
Good Result
As Napoleon is not defeated, he continues to conquer Europe. Most of Euprope falls under French rule, and they contiue to expand out into most of Europe. It occupies lots of the territory that would have been occupied by the USSR. They do not allow for much freedom of religion, as the French were very Catholic then. This leads to another French revolution, this time stronger, and manages to take over without making a dictator. This happens around 1930’s. The new French Republic makes signifigant advances in technology, leading to a new Rennisance. They continue to take over lots of Asia and Africa. Because they have so much land and power, they split up into seperate governing bodies, still united under one ruler. This is around 1990’s. As the French Republic controlled Germany, Israel, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, there aren’t conflicts there caused by seperated countries. The French Republic is looking into re-taking Canada, and then the US, Mexico, and South America.Bad Result coming soon!
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POSOC
in December 30th, 2009 @ 16:22Here’s one that’s been bugging me for a while. What if Napoleon had never been born, or died in infancy? He was incredibly influential, both politically and culturally.
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Enceladus
in December 30th, 2009 @ 17:47France would be a republic after their revolution, leading to less conquering of other nations. We probably wouldn’t have made the Louisiana Purchase, so there would be a war with France and the US trying to gain that land. For either side it would be a Pyrrhic victory, probably meeting in the middle, with Britain trying to claim a chunk. The US would be smaller, and Japan might have opened trade with it.
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POSOC
in December 30th, 2009 @ 18:03I don’t know… given how weak the government was at the time of Napoleon’s coup d’etat, the French Republic might have just imploded on itself, leading to an early Bourbon Restoration.
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Enceladus
in December 30th, 2009 @ 16:46*echoes*
Hmm… one that’s been annoying me has been:
What if the Aztecs sailed over to Europe? Christopher Columbus didn’t get funding/ didn’t exist. Very few other people were interested in going west.
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bubblebabe225
in December 30th, 2009 @ 16:58If the Aztecs had sailed over to Europe…hmm. They’d probably be tried to run out ( confusing sentence ) a battle would ensue, the Europeans would win, and they’d go over to South America and .. yeah.
My alternate history fantasy is that Al Gore became president in 2000, solved global warming, and we all now live in peace with butterflies and gophers frolicking everywhere. Like in Our Reclusive Gardens.
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LittleBasementKitten and Kityera (^>^) (Sheimei, Halena, Cailin, and Cadeo)
in December 30th, 2009 @ 17:03What would have happened if Attilda the Hun had not died when he drowned in his own blood from a nosebleed?
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Enceladus
in December 30th, 2009 @ 17:38There would be a Hungarian Empire. It would probably take the place of the Frankish Empire, though less controlled by the church. Which would mean that they would not become the Holy Roman Empire. So, Germany would evolve from something else and the Holocaust and Hitler would have been different/ never happened. Also, Japan would not join with Germany as it was probably less industrialized, (real famous for their scientists, those Huns!) and would partner with the US, even though it is imposing. Which would mean that US-Japan relations would be better, leading to increased trade.
Austria, and other nations that Hitler took over would not exist. The Hungarian Empire would be a major power, since it would have: Current Hungary, most of the area that in our universe had been conquered by the Franks, and probably more towards the west.*has read/ studied about this period in history*
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POSOC
in December 30th, 2009 @ 22:06That’s assuming the USA even came to exist.
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Enceladus
in December 31st, 2009 @ 06:16Why wouldn’t it? The US wasn’t influenced by Germany, was it?
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POSOC
in January 4th, 2010 @ 20:29Well, everything’s interconnected. With a different Hungary, Western Europe’s geopolitical situation would have changed, which would have affected England, which might have led to a completely different colonial policy hundreds of years later and produced a United States we could hardly recognize, if any.
And that’s not taking the butterfly effect into account. The death of a single soldier, who might have lived if Atilla had died, would deprive history of all his descendants, many of whom might have been historically “important” people or influence the views of historically “important” people.
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speller73
in December 30th, 2009 @ 23:55I don’t know a lot of history (*blames teachers*), but ever since we discussed expansion in history, I have pondered one question.
The United States originally rejected Texas as a state. What if they hadn’t later decided to accept it and Texas had remained an independent country.
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Enceladus
in January 11th, 2010 @ 16:33Less beef, for one.
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cromwell
in January 4th, 2010 @ 20:39How about this one-what if Alexander had chosen a successor?
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Errata
in January 11th, 2010 @ 08:57By the way, I’m poking my head into this to explain that number 60, Falmiriel, was my sister, who I told about this thread, she came on and posted, and never came back. Just in case anybody’s been lying awake wondering at night. You can sleep in peace now.
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Ducky
in January 11th, 2010 @ 11:3658, actually.
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Artemis the Huntress
in January 11th, 2010 @ 16:24What if the asteroid hadn’t crashed into the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago? Would their descendants have grown into a civilization like ours?
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Enceladus
in January 11th, 2010 @ 16:32Who knows? I personally think that it would be unlikely, since there brain sizes were like walnuts.
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in January 11th, 2010 @ 16:47Our ancestors were pretty weedy-looking back in those days, too.
As for dinosaurs, some of their descendants are alive nowadays. They haven’t built cities and video games, but they’re smarter than a lot of mammals. Met any parrots or ravens lately?
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Enceladus
in January 11th, 2010 @ 16:53True, true. But their brain-body ratio was much bigger on the body side than our ancestors.
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Enceladus
in July 9th, 2010 @ 19:31I DID IT!!!!!!!
I created *drumroll please* *drumroll* *more drumroll* *even more drumroll*
Crowd: GET ON WITH IT!!!!!!!!
*end drumroll*
My first successful alternate history map! *bows*
The setting: What if the Soviet Union had better technology than the United States in the 60’s and 70’s, and reached the moon first?
Result:
We’ll do this continent by continent.
Asia-
The Soviet Union expands into many of it’s puppet states, as well as creating more puppet countries that are essentially controlled by it, such as Germany, Vietnam area, China, Saudi Arabia, and Alaska (I’ll tell you about that later). However, Afghanistan does succeed in rebelling. It joins with Iran and Pakistan, and later much of the Middle East, North and East Africa, and Indonesia to create a new Islamic Empire, the Islamic Emirates. India, however, is not part of this deal, as it is mostly Hindu. A military coup occurs, and the multitudes of poverty stricken, homeless people become drafted. It takes Nepal from China, as well as Burma and Thailand. It does not, however, conquer Bangladesh, as it is a stronghold of the Islamic Emirates.
There is much tension between the Soviet Union and the Islamic Emirates, since the one of the Soviet Union’s puppet states is Mecca, the holy city of Islam. It has not erupted into outright war- yet. Both sides are very hesitant. The Soviet Union is afraid it will lose because it’s much smaller than the Islamic Emirates, and the Islamic Emirates are pretty sure they’ll lose because the Soviet Union is much more technologically advanced than them.Oceania/ The Pacific-
Australia, and much of the island nations west of New Guinea come into one nation by diplomatic means, since all of them feel threatened by the Islamic Emirates. It includes Hawai’i as well.The Americas-
The United States, demoralized and weakened, decided to gobble up Mexico and Canada, who did not offer much resistance. It then continued, hoping to regain some former glory, to include most of North America. Due to these, it did not fight the Vietnam war at all. It set up puppet governments in Northern South America, and the rest of it they blocked any shipping from any place in order to control by American propaganda. However, the United States still wasn’t as powerful, and hit very hard by not having gotten to the moon. Alaska, not liking the way things were going, by majority vote, seceded in the hopes of becoming a separate, democratic, honest nation. It was promptly gobbled up by the Soviet Union and made a puppet state, ending those dreams.Europe-
Due to the presence of Germany, reunited, but a puppet of the Soviet Union, all the countries felt uneasy. Secretly, avoiding the Soviet Union, their leaders planned a meeting in Madrid, because it is fairly far from Germany. There, they created the Pact Of Madrid, which essentially united all of Europe, with some individual powers. The Soviet Union did not notice until the pact was finished, and it’s opportunities for expansion into more of Europe were essentially ended. Switzerland, of course, remained obstinately neutral and remains to that day.There. Like it? Anything I missed? (I can send the GAPAs a map, if you so wish.)
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KaiYves- Hail, Atlantis!
in July 9th, 2010 @ 20:43Very well done!
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Enceladus
in July 10th, 2010 @ 05:25Thanks! I just realized I forgot Africa in that description. (But I did make a history)
Before the Islamic Emirates arose, the movement of Pan-Africanism nearly succeeded. It was a dream that all of Africa was to become one glorious nation, called Panafrica. However, a few years in, it was falling apart, and filled with corruption. By then, the Islamic Emirates had begun, so as a country, they joined. However, southern Africa was not mostly Muslim, so they did not become part of the Islamic Emirates, and remained a remnant of a Panafrican dream.
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Enceladus
in October 3rd, 2010 @ 20:15Hmm, here’s an idea for another AH:
Under the Ming Dynasty in China, Industrialization occurs, though it remains isolationist. It reaches technology around equivalent to Europe in the 1900s, with machine guns and the beginnings of electricity, and remains at that level until the Manchu Dynasty, where progress pretty much stops. When the Opium trade in England is forced upon them, there is still submission. As in our universe, there is little resistance until the Boxer Rebellion, however, here, the name is different, King’s Rebellion, a Anglicized corruption of “Qing”. In the alternate history, the UK, the US, and Japan are the only ones willing to risk a fight. Increasing propaganda in all these places leads to millions of troops signing up, which are all sent to fight in the King’s Rebellion. These are quickly massacred at the bloody battle of Beijing, and reinforcements are drafted and sent in. The King’s Rebellion ends in 1903, with a pathetic defeat on the sides of the UK and US, and the military conquest of Japan by China.
More to come, I sadly have to complete a period of nocturnal dormancy.
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Enceladus
in October 16th, 2010 @ 10:02PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS I PUT A LOT OF WORK INTO IT:
(Continued from 102)Due to the fact that Japan and Germany were at least partly allied, Germany thus declares war on China for the conquest of Japan. However, they are rather far apart, and aviation had not become common in either Europe or Asia, no actual battles are fought. However, a proportion of German income decreases significantly, as has Britain, due to the fact that it has lost it’s opium trade. This is around 1914, and extremist parties begin to rise in both areas. One party, the Aryan Supremacist Party, very similar to the Nazi party, seizes power through elections (Though winning with a small majority, due to the fact there were many extreme parties) The Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assinated in Sarajevo, and Britain, instead an alliance with France and Russia, is part of the Central Powers. China’s new Qing dynasty is crumbling, and they fall to an imperialist, expansionist group, the Wuchang. Citizens, remembering the Opium trade and how bad it was, pressure the government to ally itself with Russia and France to fight Britain. India is forced to fight with Britian, but the kindlings of a revolt are sparking, due to the fact that the ruling party in Britian is racist. China sweeps the British out, and India welcomes it’s “rescuers” with a surprising fervor.
Due to the fact there are many enlisted Indians (Hmm, I seem to keep coming back to this…) the Central Powers are essentially crushed, with China leading the war. There is no Treaty of Versailles in this history, a Treaty does take place in Beijing in 1918, where many forgeiners are surprised at the elegance and technology of China. In this, Germany and Britian are split up into separate states, with Russia and France controlling them, respectively. Britain suffers under French rule. Although all over the world, the French Revolution is seen as essentially a failiure, France attempts to instill one in Britian, where the royalty still exists, though holds little power. The Aryan Supremacist Party fades from view, as it becomes less and less extreme. However, Russia, whose monarchy had continued to regn, although becoming a very limited monarchy by the Menshevik group, controlled Germany with essentially and iron fist, assasinating supporters of the Aryan Supremacist Party. Consequently, there is no WWII, as this is from 1918 until 1923, when Marxists such as Lenin and Stalin take power in Russia, causing it to become Germany. However, the Mensheviks put Germany under its own rule in order to spare them from the Soviet Union. Germany’s citizens, realizing that both Fascism and Communism were not succesfully, in 1925 formed a democratic state, with an elected congress but no single leader.
Meanwhile, America never actually ended up fighting in The Great War (Still called that because there was no WWII) because the Lusitania was never bombed because Germany and Britian were being overpowerd by the Allies. During all this time, African countries have been rebelling from their European counterparts due to the wars and uprisings that have been going on. China continues to expand through India and into Southeast Asia, where only minor resistance is met. With the Wuchang group losing power to the more liberal (but not actually Marxist) Socialist Party Of China in a low-violence civil war (leaders fight and are killed) in 1943, much of Southeast Asia finds time to rebel, which is not dealt with, as the Socialists are anti-imperialist. India, however, remains loyal to China due to the fact that quality of life drastically improved when the Chinese removed the British from power. Gandhi, although aged, supports the Socialist party in China. However, the USA, caught by the anti-communism fervor due to the Soviet Union, breaks ties with China and India (now separate but allied states) and especially Russia in 1967. The USA also installs diplomats in most of Western Europe, while much of Eastern Europe has become part of the Soviet Union. These diplomats weild quite a bit of power over the rulers of the country, though are out of the public eye. During all of this time, Britain has escaped from French rule after losing it’s monarchs and much of its wealth. It forms a weak and simple democracy, which has essentially no control over daily lives, just a small tax here and there.
During all of this, the Ottoman Empire, which from the beginning was exposed to China’s technology level due to occasional trade, has remained together. It has become a very isolationist state, the only other countries it will talk to are countries that are Muslim theocracies. They band together into a Muslim Union, which is isolationist, and plays little part in world events to come. All of Africa has become free from colonial rule by 1943, and a Pan-African movement begins, which splits into a Northern Africa and Southern Africa, very similar to the USA and Canada, with one being larger than the other, but the other country being somewhat more powerful. Southern Africa is more powerful, and takes part in trade with many nations. South America, in all this time, has also freed itself from colonial rule, by 1945 (French Guiana took an especially long time). This history had no Simón BolÃvar, because France had controlled Spain briefly along with Britain, and had killed it’s aristocracy and roylaty. They follow roughly the outlines they do today, however Guyana and Suriname are united, and Venezuala, Columbia, and Ecuador are as well.
More coming, fencing calls.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in October 16th, 2010 @ 10:33Enceladus, I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of breaking your text into paragraphs, since huge blocks of text can be intimidating and difficult to read (or at least they are for me; my eyes keep losing their way).
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Enceladus
in October 16th, 2010 @ 13:46Thank you, I don’t mind at all.
You put them pretty much where I would have put them, were I not constantly fact checking Wikipedia.
Anyway, it pretty much ends there, because boundaries don’t really change from 1967 to 2010- The only real big change is the breakup of the Soviet Union, which is really a few states separating in 1992. The Cold War continues to this day, with the USA still staunchly anti-communist and in the embrace of McCarthyism.
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Potatospudman
in March 27th, 2011 @ 20:56You are so very smart. That is very interesting.
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Enceladus
in March 29th, 2011 @ 05:28Thank you!
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Choklit Orange
in March 29th, 2011 @ 04:27*blinkblinkblinkblinkblink* Wow. I don’t think anyone has ever followed through this thoroughly on this thread.
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Enceladus
in March 29th, 2011 @ 05:28Thank you, too!
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KaiYves- Go, STS-133!
in October 16th, 2010 @ 13:53I read that as “nocturnal diplomacy”…
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Enceladus
in October 16th, 2010 @ 14:06Diplomacy with the subconcious, perhaps…
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speller73
in December 10th, 2010 @ 20:42So we have an alternate history project for my history class, and my group is doing if Antony had beat Octavian. Anyone have any ideas on what would have happened?
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Potatospudman
in March 27th, 2011 @ 20:14What if my mom had worn her seat belt the day she got in a car crash while she was pregnant with me and I then died instantly? How would the world be affected? I bet it would be a better place.
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KaiYves
in March 27th, 2011 @ 20:28Potatospudman, that is horribly depressing. The world would be a far worse place without ANY MuseBlogger, yourself included.
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Potatospudman
in March 27th, 2011 @ 20:48Then why does everyone treat me like I’m a piece of crap and a huge burden that doesn’t matter? (see “rants and plaints,” a little towards the bottom)
On another note, like how I’m getting people to post here again. (sorry, I have a slight case of ADHD)
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Piggy
in March 27th, 2011 @ 21:03You’re the only person treating yourself like that.
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Potatospudman
in March 27th, 2011 @ 21:19I know. I should shut up, no one cares
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Radiant_Darkness
in March 27th, 2011 @ 21:56I don’t think you’re getting the message here. You are treating yourself “like [you’re] a piece of [cake]and a huge burden that doesn’t matter”. We do care. Piggy’s just giving you a little tough love.
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small but fierce
in March 27th, 2011 @ 22:10I wholly agree with RD and Piggy. If you treat yourself like you’re a “huge burden that doesn’t matter”, you’re inviting others to do the same.
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Piggy
in March 27th, 2011 @ 22:25It’s basically the only kind of love I’m good at.
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small but fierce
in March 27th, 2011 @ 23:16Aww…if we’re getting married, then I’m in for a rocky relationship.
(“But I just wanted to give you a hug!” “You give terrible hugs. It’s for your own good.”)
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Piggy
in March 27th, 2011 @ 23:40If you gave terrible hugs, I think the proper Tough Love response would be to sternly teach you how to hug properly. Or cut off your arms–I’m not sure which.
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bookgirl_me
in March 28th, 2011 @ 08:59Though luck/love- you two are getting married so that the kids stop pestering us to get married.
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fireandhemlock1996
in March 28th, 2011 @ 10:00NO DAD YOU CAN’T MARRY SBF YOU HAVE TO GET MARRIED TO MOM/BOOKGIRL. D:
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Piggy
in March 28th, 2011 @ 14:22This is an open-minded family, I can marry both.
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POSOC
in March 31st, 2011 @ 00:59But… you’re going to be a priest.
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small but fierce
in March 27th, 2011 @ 21:26Agreed. (We care.)
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Potatospudman
in March 27th, 2011 @ 21:42Wait, are you agreeing to Piggy about me being the only person treating myself like that or with me that I should shut up cuz no one cares? If its the 2nd option then are you saying you’re no one cuz you guys care and “no one cares.”
If someone does care I need help in life.
Now.
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POSOC
in March 27th, 2011 @ 22:14Then get help. Find someone (preferably an adult) you trust and tell them this. If what you’re feeling is clinical depression (which is how it sounds to me, but I’m not a doctor — see above, regarding “get help,” because I don’t think anyone here is qualified to diagnose it) rather than just a blue funk, it isn’t something you can just snap out of.
That parenthesis might make this post unreadable, but I think the gist is pretty clear.
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Potatospudman
in March 27th, 2011 @ 22:55Thanx
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Potatospudman
in March 27th, 2011 @ 23:22I’m going to try to stop being depressed(I know its depression, I’ve had on and off phases of it since sixth grade) and enjoi life.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in March 28th, 2011 @ 00:18If it’s clinical depression, you can’t just stop it on a dime, so don’t set yourself up for failure. But you CAN direct your attention elsewhere and train yourself to counter those self-sabotaging thoughts with rational ones. Be assured that no one on MuseBlog is a “piece of [cake].” Your fellow bloggers have given you some good advice — and believe me, plenty of people here have struggled with depression, including this GAPA, so we’re not just throwing words around.
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Choklit Orange
in March 28th, 2011 @ 04:29enjoy is spelled with a ‘y’Not gonna happen, trust me. Not to be discouraging or anything, it’s just how it works. You can’t snap out of it. People don’t just stop being depressed. Have you told anyone? (in the real world)
Such an important post I’m using a singular pronoun. Gah. I am, yes, a total and complete hypocrite, but who knows, maybe you’ll be braver than I am.
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Rebecca Lasley (Administrator)
in March 28th, 2011 @ 10:24Choklit Orange, there’s nothing hypocritical about caring for someone else and saying what needs to be said. Furthermore, you’re not pretending the advice has no relevance to you. We’re all works in progress, you know.
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Choklit Orange
in March 29th, 2011 @ 08:35That’s the best advice I’ve heard this month. Thank you.
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small but fierce
in March 27th, 2011 @ 21:27Oo, I have one! What if Irrational Crush realized I existed and didn’t think I was shy and awkward? Oh wait, I know the answer. I would be exceedingly happy.
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POSOC
in March 27th, 2011 @ 22:14…Isn’t Irrational Crush gay? Him knowing you existed doesn’t seem like it would help much.
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small but fierce
in March 27th, 2011 @ 23:15But it would make me happy that he was my friend.
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/gradster(1)/
in March 28th, 2011 @ 00:26… Dude. What if nobody ever slept?
-A
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Choklit Orange
in March 28th, 2011 @ 04:33What if we did?
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FantasyFan?!?!
in March 28th, 2011 @ 07:45We’d all go crazy and start hallucinating form sleep deprivation. Unless you’re talking about not ever needing to sleep, in which case we are all robots.
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Bibliophile
in March 28th, 2011 @ 12:05As for the last parrt, not really. No-one really knows why we sleep. I doubt history would be very different, though. Either way, I just hope that, if there’s an afterlife, sleep isn’t mandatory there.
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Potatospudman
in March 28th, 2011 @ 14:57What if the idea of communism never was created? And tnd Aryan party never existed and Hitler was just a homeless bum until he died.
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Choklit Orange
in March 29th, 2011 @ 04:25The first one- well, China might be a capitalist nation, which would be… interesting… international relations would be a lot friendlier. The Cold War probably wouldn’t have happened, and a few countries would probably have monarchies.
The second one- I think everyone will agree that the world would be a monumentally more wonderful place. Just think of all the lives that wouldn’t have ended… Sniffle. We’re reading Night in English. I’ve read it before, but it’s never affected me like this- and we’re not even past the preface.
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FantasyFan?!?!
in March 29th, 2011 @ 09:09It is my nature to search for specificalities in alternate universes, so my answers are going to be a bit long. I’ve assumed that the two questions are separate universes and not one, and thus dealt with the questions separately.
1. How exactly is communism never created? This nonevent could take a lot of forms. For example, is a communist government never created and the idea fades after a while or does Karl Marx never write his book? Historical events have their roots in other events, and you can’t untangle the cause form the effect. For the first one, Russia would probably still be a monarchy…if some other ideology didn’t pop up in communism’;s absence to make them be overthrown. And if Karl Marx had never written A Communist Manifesto, and socialism–communism’s ancestor–had never become popular, would worker’s rights have progressed as far as they have? No unions, no OSHA, no ACLU, perhaps, because the founders of the ACLU were first protesters of Eugene V DEbs’ arrest when he violated the Espionage Act of 1917. (Debs was the leader of the Socialist party of America. I wrote a paper on him once, which is how I know about socialism’s historical ties in general to ACLU)
2. All right. Start with the reasons Hitler came to power in the first place. The Weimar Republic was weak and did a terrible job ruling, which is why poeple were willing to listen to the first charismatic leader that came along and play along with his scapegoats. It needn’t be Hitler–but it was, in this universe. Also, anti-Semitism was fairly widespread even before the Holocaust–I don’t think it ended until people realized, “Oh s___ we just let 6 million people die.” Had the Holocaust not happened, would it have continued? Would some other disaster have taken its place? We can’t tell.
Also, Hitler being a homeless bum would have only taken care of half of the horrors of WWII, since by all accounts Japan was set on dominating the whole pacific even before they allied with Germany. So, no Holocaust, but the Rape of Nanking still happened. Also, Hitler was not the only Fascist dictator in Europe. Does Mussolini do anything big and horrifying in this universe?
I actually wonder if Muslim-Jew relations would be better off without Israel existing though. Oh! And colonialism. WWII broke the backs of the last great colonial powers. If they hadn’t fought, would much of Africa still be under British or French or whatever dominion instead of free?
So, after raining on the happy party here…The world would certainly be different had Hitler been a homeless bum. Monumentally more wonderful? Seems to be a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, part of the problem is that WWII set the stage for the world nowadays. There’s a reason there’s a trope called Hitler’s Time Travel Exemption Act. That trope gives a better explanation of some of my ideas–particlarly that bit about “without Nazism to vilify it, racism as an official and pursued policy of government would have persisted into the present day”
…aaand I’m going to go away now and avoid wasting time on TVtropes.
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Koko's Apprentice
in March 29th, 2011 @ 16:25What if Japan had discovered nuclear technology already when we dropped bombs on them in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
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Choklit Orange
in March 30th, 2011 @ 03:44Someone else would be toast?
Well, let’s see. There is evidence that the Nazis were trying to build a
nucularnuclear bomb at one point. They mined heavy water and uranium. But that was toward the end of the war and it seems they set it aside.I think having nuclear weapons would have made Japan far less likely to surrender. We could have had nuclear armaggeddon on our hands. They also might’ve distributed nuclear bombs to the other Axis parties. Who knows, Singapore might be a smoking nuclear wreckage. I’m glad they didn’t have nuclear technology. I will never, ever say that it’s a good thing we dropped those bombs, but for all of humanity it would have been worse if they’d fought back.
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Thanks For All The Fish42
in March 30th, 2011 @ 14:41I think the most interesting thing to do about alternate history would be to single down the most important/influential person and/or event in history and see what would happen if it (and nothing like it) hadn’t occurred. I’ve been going through my mental rolodex, and no one jumps out at me as the most important. What do you think?
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Bibliophile
in March 30th, 2011 @ 17:36The Big Bang?
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POSOC
in July 27th, 2011 @ 14:56I saw a thought-provoking timeline on another website in which Genghis Khan was never born.
The interesting thing about it was that since GK was so unbelievably successful, our timeline would seem implausible to people from that one. “A leader rises up in Central Mongolia, somehow unites the tribes and turns them into a fighting force, teaches himself battle tactics and invents a written language from the ground up, adapts the best of every culture he comes across, and not only conquers most of Asia but rules over it afterward, creating an empire larger than Rome? Psh.”
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KaiYves
in July 27th, 2011 @ 14:37Erin and I were talking on the phone yesterday, and I mentioned that in our timeline, there were plans to build an East Coast version of Disneyland in New York of which nothing ever came.
Divergence:
In the early-1960s, Walt Disney caves to pressure from corporate advisors and agrees to shelve his plans for a Community of Tomorrow for the time being and focus on the creation of a less-complex and more immediately profitable “Disneyland East”.
Taking advantage of the attractions the Disney company is already designing for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, an arrangement is made that the company will maintain and operate whatever fair attractions prove most popular after the fair is over. These attractions, including the iconic Unisphere, will form the nucleus of the East Coast park, with copies of Disneyland rides supplementing them.
While Disney himself is present for Opening Day and Corona Park’s rededication as Disneyland East, he dies in 1967 before the first phase of additions is complete. While it is an unqualified success, company management quickly deems their founder’s idea of designing a planned community unfeasible and sweeps it under the rug- after all, there is no space to build such a thing in Queens.
Consequences:
I think that ultimately, this would end up coming around to bite Disney in the butt, as just two parks are fine durring the 70s lull, but any new US parks in the 80s or beyond would have to be built at a third location, and now that they’ve shown the theme park brand works on both coasts, they won’t be able to find land as cheaply.
Assuming they still build parks in Paris and Tokyo, though, that means every operating park, at least at first, is based on the original Disneyland, so there’s less room for innovative attractions. All other things going as they do in our timeline, the company survives, but with greater stagnation.
The question is, ten years later, when Universal and SeaWorld look to expand to the East Coast, do THEY choose Central Florida based on the highways/cheap land/Apollo-program-driven local development (And, at this point, job loss after the end of Apollo making high-tech workers easy to find)? Or do they build somewhere else, and if so, where?
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Robert Coontz (Administrator)
in July 27th, 2011 @ 14:45A small volcanic island off the coast of Iceland?
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Bibliophile
in July 27th, 2011 @ 16:02And of course Universal’s expansion will include a second Wizarding World.
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Bibliophile
in July 29th, 2011 @ 18:24*a first Wizarding World.
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KaiYves
in July 29th, 2011 @ 20:18In the 1970s?
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Bibliophile
in July 29th, 2011 @ 22:25Well, not immediately, but…
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KaiYves
in July 29th, 2011 @ 12:52I don’t think that would be a very ideal theme park spot- unless it’s Pleistocene Park.
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POSOC
in May 21st, 2013 @ 03:00Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859. Gregor Mendel’s work on inheritance was initially published in the 1860s, but it languished in obscurity until the 1900s. What if someone in the scientific community had realized its import when it came out? With the groundwork for the Modern Synthesis laid almost 50 years earlier, how would the progress of the biological sciences change? How would that change the world?
(Some thoughts after learning a few interesting factoids in Anthropology)
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FantasyFan?!?!
in May 21st, 2013 @ 13:19I can only think of Scott Westerfield’s Leviathan series when you mention this. It’s got steampunk bioengineering in WWI, and it is basically set in a world based on your premise. (Also it is an awesome series and you should read it if you haven’t already)
So I can’t come up with any coherent descriptions for what the world would be like if that had happened, because the books described it so well.
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