Books and TV shows effect on history

What if a major work is not published? I would also like to look at works that set a precident.

Catcher in the Rye -- John Lennon not assassinated, possible cultural revolution by him or a person who looks up to him.
Star Trek: TOS -- No flip phones, scientists are not challenged to actually create the technology.
Holy Bible: NIV -- there is an even bigger youth backlash saying that religion is old and archaic, the KJV is from the 1600's the hymn "All Creatures" is from the 1100's. Many of the younger generation will leave the faith. many would be missionaries providing food and shelter will not go on there lifesaving trips, a possible national leader could have died, or have not been inspired by the missionary.
Superman: The superhero genre will not form in the same way if any. It will still be based off of historical legends.

any others?

A Random Person said:

What if a major work is not published? I would also like to look at works that set a precident.
.
.
.
Star Trek: TOS -- No flip phones, scientists are not challenged to actually create the technology.

Click to expand...

There are practical advantages to flip phones: firstly, you can leave the thing in your pocket without locking the keys (a nuisance); secondly, you can have a larger screen and still have space for the keypad.

Of course an alternative is to have a pull-down keypad like my new one.

Holy Bible: NIV -- there is an even bigger youth backlash saying that religion is old and archaic, the KJV is from the 1600's the hymn "All Creatures" is from the 1100's. Many of the younger generation will leave the faith. many would be missionaries providing food and shelter will not go on there lifesaving trips, a possible national leader could have died, or have not been inspired by the missionary.

Click to expand...

Doubt it. The NIV is one of a huge number of modern English versions: without it, there'd have been another.

And as a Christian, I'd argue that God doesn't need modern-language Bible versions (or contemporary worship music, &c.) to bring people to Himself. Although it might be better if we don't put stumbling blocks in the way of people coming into, and growing in their faith.

Also, I'd say that there are far more factors involved in the declining interest in Christianity amongst younger generations.

Superman: The superhero genre will not form in the same way if any. It will still be based off of historical legends.

Click to expand...

Batman might be possible: really he's just a masked vigilante with a twist, and a lot of cool gadgets, at the end of the day.

We might be able to argue the opposite side of cause and effect of literature.

If somebody wrote a popular story in 1999 about suicide highjackers crashing airplanes into buildings, could a different level of awareness have prevented the 9/11 attacks?

Mark E. said:

We might be able to argue the opposite side of cause and effect of literature.

If somebody wrote a popular story in 1999 about suicide highjackers crashing airplanes into buildings, could a different level of awareness have prevented the 9/11 attacks?

Click to expand...

What year was the Jack Ryan book which had a suicide attack on Congress published? Pretty certain it was before 2001.

stevep said:

What year was the Jack Ryan book which had a suicide attack on Congress published? Pretty certain it was before 2001.

Click to expand...

The attack happens at the end of Debt of Honor, though the developments are considered at length in the following book, Executive Orders. The two were published, respectively, in 1994 and 1996.

So yes, there was plenty of time for this to affect considerations about the air defense of possible terrorist targets in the US.

stevep said:

What year was the Jack Ryan book which had a suicide attack on Congress published? Pretty certain it was before 2001.

Click to expand...

Debt of honor was published in 1995.

Jose Canseco

If Jose Canseco didn't come out with his book four years ago, MLB wouldn't be cracking down on steroids as much, and Mark McGwire would be in the Hall of Fame.

Here is a weird one. This one may be a stretch, but, not entirely. If Monday Night Football wouldn't have been picked up by any of the three major networks in 1970, I heard that Howard Hughes would have picked it up and started his own major TV network. If the network was successful, and MNF worked out well on there, the effects could have and would have reached far. For one, Howard Cosell probably isn't as big of an icon as he is today. Secondly, It may have had an influence on FOX forming in the 80's. If the Hughes Network's presence would have discouraged Rupert Murdoch to form FOX, there would have been no Married With Children, 90210, Simpsons, Family Guy, Party of Five, Melrose Place, and other shows. If there was no MWC, there would have been no Roseanne. We owe a debt of gratitude to Roone Arledge, who felt that ABC needed to take the risk back in 1970 and televise MNF. If Roone didn't do that, there might never have been an Al Bundy.

DrakonFin said:

The attack happens at the end of Debt of Honor, though the developments are considered at length in the following book, Executive Orders. The two were published, respectively, in 1994 and 1996.

So yes, there was plenty of time for this to affect considerations about the air defense of possible terrorist targets in the US.

Click to expand...

DrakonFin, Matt

Gods. That long ago. I'm starting to feel really ancient.

Steve

Well, Sinclair's The Jungle helped regulate the Food Industry, so...

WI lucas started star wars at number one?

UnitedStatesofMars13 said:

Well, Sinclair's The Jungle helped regulate the Food Industry, so...

Click to expand...

Which made me think about Jamie Oliver and recent moves by the British Government to make school dinners more healthy- did his programme really have that much of an effect?

(EDIT: For the Ignorant Foreigners(TM), Jamie Oliver is a popular TV chef here in Britain, and has been doing a lot of campaigning to improve food and eating habits, as of recently...)

Not a TV show, but a whole network: a few months ago, I started a thread asking what would've happened had NBC gone bankrupt in the early '80s. To wit: in 1980, the network was dead last in the ratings, it had been hammered by a number of expensive flops (most notoriously Supertrain, which was then the most expensive TV series in history), and to top it all off, they had pinned their hopes on their broadcast of the 1980 Moscow Olympics - only for the US to withdraw in protest over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, leaving viewers with no American athletes to root for. (Oops.) The general consensus in that thread seemed to be that, if NBC went bankrupt, Rupert Murdoch would've scooped it up at firesale prices and turned it into an ATL version of Fox. Your thoughts?

Some other questions that I'm wondering about:

• What if Firefly was a hit? (Surprised that one hasn't come up yet.)
• Similarly, what if there had been no Buffy?
• What if American Idol aired on another network - NBC, ABC, CBS, or even the WB or UPN?
• What if the Fox network was a failure?
• What if there was no Star Trek?
• What if Titanic was the box office disaster that everybody was predicting?
• What if Alan Moore never wrote Watchmen?
• What if Scream was never made?

If Scream was never made then every other bad teen horror movie of the 90's/00's would never have been made, or else would be more in the mould of the Halloween films. That or Blair Witch would've become even more influential in the genre.

If Firefly was bigger, yhen what became Serenity would have been season 2-3 of Firefly, with the comics also being televised. Which would've been AWESOME.

If there was no Star Trek then film and TV sci-fi could've taken an even more action-packed route than it already did. Star Trek provided a more cerebral experience on the screen, similar to that found in various novels (Wells etc). Star Wars is designed for the screen and while some of the novels work fairly well, it is action sci-fi at the end of the day.

Also I would be happier had Jamie Oliver not intervened. I'm sure he meant well but I have the British mentality of wanting to constantly shove two fingers up at authority. The day I found out they removed the Coke machines at our old school because of "healthy eating" initiatives made me want to go yell at Mr. Oliver. Those coke machines were fantastic during study periods.

If there were no Lord of the Rings then the entire fantasy genre would've taken a different turn entirely, perhaps with the Blizzard Orc model (honourable shamanistic warriors to those who don't know what I mean) becoming more dominant. Who knows what other directions it would've taken, the genre has been heavily influenced by Mr Tolkien.

Here's one scenario I recently found out about:

When Jeri Ryan was selected to play Seven-of-Nine in Star Trek: Voyager, her husband, a small time Republican lawyer and politician, refused to leave Illinois for California. They had a huge argument over this, and ultimately got a divorce with considerable bad blood.

Fast foward a decade, and that small time politican is now aiming for the US Senate. The Dems only real candidate is a rookie in politics, so it seems like an easy win for the GOP. Then the sordid details of the Ryans' divorce come out, and he's forced to withdraw, leaving some non-enntity to face the Democrats in 2004. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obaam, wins in a landslide, which allows him to be the keynote speaker at the 2006 DNC, which leads to him clinching the 2008 nomination, which ... well, we all know what happened .

The point is, without Star Trek, the 2008 presidential campaign would have turned out very differently.

Without Uncle Tom's Cabin, there might not have been as much anti-slavery sentiment in the North, and the Civil War might very well have been delayed for quite a bit.

Here's one scenario I recently found out about:

When Jeri Ryan was selected to play Seven-of-Nine in Star Trek: Voyager, her husband, a small time Republican lawyer and politician, refused to leave Illinois for California. They had a huge argument over this, and ultimately got a divorce with considerable bad blood.

Fast foward a decade, and that small time politican is now aiming for the US Senate. The Dems only real candidate is a rookie in politics, so it seems like an easy win for the GOP. Then the sordid details of the Ryans' divorce come out, and he's forced to withdraw, leaving some non-enntity to face the Democrats in 2004. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obaam, wins in a landslide, which allows him to be the keynote speaker at the 2006 DNC, which leads to him clinching the 2008 nomination, which ... well, we all know what happened .

Click to expand...

What can I say the man was a idiot and there are enough of them in the Senate.

Here is a older one: Hamlet...

he has spoken negatively about women, and some people believed that the play delayed the woman's rights movement by portraying women in a bad light. Without Hamlet or with a different version many scholars postulated that a peaceful woman's uprising would have taken place not long after the Jamesian era. But than again the catholic church had a stranglehold on culture and at that time was very corrupt. 1 Cor. laid out limitations for women and the church followed the letter of the law rather than the meaning of the law...

What do you think?

jmberry said:

Here's one scenario I recently found out about:

When Jeri Ryan was selected to play Seven-of-Nine in Star Trek: Voyager, her husband, a small time Republican lawyer and politician, refused to leave Illinois for California. They had a huge argument over this, and ultimately got a divorce with considerable bad blood.

Fast foward a decade, and that small time politican is now aiming for the US Senate. The Dems only real candidate is a rookie in politics, so it seems like an easy win for the GOP. Then the sordid details of the Ryans' divorce come out, and he's forced to withdraw, leaving some non-enntity to face the Democrats in 2004. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obaam, wins in a landslide, which allows him to be the keynote speaker at the 2006 DNC, which leads to him clinching the 2008 nomination, which ... well, we all know what happened .

The point is, without Star Trek, the 2008 presidential campaign would have turned out very differently.

Click to expand...

As I recall the issues in 2004, incumbent republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald declined to seek a second term because his overly conservative stand was not in tune with the Chicago majority. Recall he was elected only because the democratic incumbent, Carol Mosley-Braun lost credibility in 1998.

So, in early 2004, Obama won the senatorial primary by a wide margin. He was no rookie to politics, as he was an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004. His opponent, Jack Ryan, on the other hand was just "another" republican against an electorate hungry to return the senate seat to the democrats.

What if Jeri and Jack Ryan did not split? The factors that created the scandal that forced Ryan off the ticket would not have been butterflied away. Jack had a knack for going to "sex clubs." Divorce or not, that issue could have surfaced as the political reporters dug for dirt.

Obama, as a first term senate candidate made his keynote address to the democratic convention in 2004, not 2006. He caught the media's attention, as many commentators muttered "first black president??" With that reception and level of support, he could have defeated Ryan in a head to head battle in November, 2004.

So, I would question the impact of Star Trek on Obama's ascent to national politics.

I posted on the pre-1900 thread an idea about if John Newton (Sr.) had not drowned and convinced his son, the more famous John Newton, to join him in Canada. To take one example of John Newton's different career path, imagine a world without the hymn "Amazing Grace"...

-There are numerous cover versions of "Amazing Grace", many of which (Mahalia Jackson, Judy Collins) reached high chart positions. The Royal Scots Greys recording not only helped popularize bagpipe music in the UK (It was a #1 hit), but also was the first time bagpipes were recorded playing alongside a military band, which was a novelty at the time. Further, the words from said song have been referenced by numerous musicians.
-The words themselves (I'm unsure if the tune was "New Britain") were sung in a paraphrase form by the Cherokee along the Trail of Tears. As such, it has become an unofficial Cherokee anthem.
-This hymn was sung widely in the South amung both Blacks and Whites. It spread Northward in later years. In part thanks to the folk revival, it has spread to almost all denominations.
-The hymn has been referenced in umerous films from "Alice's Restaurant" to "Maverick".

And this only takes the temporal (and mostly secular) impact into account.

(Of course, if Newton does go to Canada, it not only means his hymns don't get written, but that he's not there to console William Cowper, which could result in Cowper's suicide. I'm wondering if someone could posit the impact of a world without Cowper's non-religious works (i.e. his translations of "The Illiad" and "The Odyssey".))

I wonder what no Homocide: Life on the Street would have ment.

And I suspect Yeltzin read to much Tom Clancey, I think he said both Japan and Germany was nuclear powers. Thus, no spook gets named replacement after jolly old Boris...