Rules/Cliches of AH

[Sift Green]

Has this cliche been mentioned?

'If Britain invades the US during the Civil War, the US stands not only a good chance of winning the war, but ending it even sooner than OTL.'

Related: If Britain invades the US during the Civil War, it will experience absolutely no civil unrest. Despite the fact that such actions would be extremely unpopular, and would be the kind of thing that could end in revolt.

 

[SavoyTruffle]

The Panglossian Cliché:

I) "OTL is always the best of the possible worlds"


The convergence Cliché:
II) "Regardless of the POD, there is nearly irresistible tendence
for an ATL to get as similar to OTL as possible with the passing of time"
Practically all TLs written obey these two clichés.

The first cliché I always attempt to subvert; TLs are better if they're not overall better or overall worse than OTL, but merely different. The second, on the other hand, I generally follow, though there are some convergences I insert for the sake of a little wink.

Really? I've noticed that (at least with pre-Modern Era PODs) the ATL almost always has faster technological advancement, although this may be because people tend to love 'Rome survives' timelines, and that leads to a hunky-dory future (in yet another AH cliche).

Maybe someone should write a dystopic TL featuring a surviving Roman Empire in the spirit of 037771's We'll Meet Again.

While I really liked We'll Meet Again, too many dystopic TLs will ultimately lead me to make a really sunshine-and-rainbows TL as a reaction.

 

[Krall]

You know that does seem to be true and it's kind of weird since France and Britain also seem like obvious choices.

I would like to credit this post in advance for being the post that finally made me realise the potenial scenarios for an alternate Spanish-American War, or - more specifically - for being the post that inspired the idea for an alternate Spanish-American war in the monarchical American timeline I'm planning.

 

[Uriel]

If the USA break-up the weaker successor states almost allways conquer some parts of Mexico or Canada.

And

If Germany wins WWI the peace settlement will be a 1 to 1 realisation of Germanies duirng-the-war propaganda claims. (something that never happend with any nation in any OTL world war).

 

[SavoyTruffle]

The Habsburg Empire will always collapse no matter what. Bonus points for Austria (and sometimes Bohemia) joining a Hohenzollern-led Germany.

 

[hopper2cool]

I would like to credit this post in advance for being the post that finally made me realise the potenial scenarios for an alternate Spanish-American War, or - more specifically - for being the post that inspired the idea for an alternate Spanish-American war in the monarchical American timeline I'm planning.

Your welcome always glad help out even if it's only by accident.

 

[SavoyTruffle]

Another AH Cliche: We can never fully get rid of a certain Corsican, nor the wars he begins.

 

[Spitfiremk1]

One Cliche/Truism that really shits me is that North Africa always seams to end up the same. I.E, Morocco ends up in the hands of some sort of Iberian Nation, Algeria French, Libya is almost always ruled by an Italian nation of some sort and Egypt under British domination of some sort.

Now, although there are exceptions to the rule and it does make geographical sense to some extent, it still bugs me...

EDIT: Another one getting to me recently, is that Belgium always gets fucked over, the excuse of course being King Leopold II...

 

[Juanpi]

1) ISOTed societies always remained stable societies... the people always go to work, pay taxes, enlist in the army and so on. Never go crazy by this sudden breakup of all the natural laws. Never go religious fundamentalism, and I can hardly think in better fundamentalism propaganda than an ISOT event.

2) ISOTed societies always are politically correct. They have their renegades like William Walker and the professorin Dies the Fire (not really ISOT, but close and ISOT related) but they´re always defeated.

3) Spain is always doomed. Never mind that in the 1580 they ruled half the world, in the 1700s they´re a stagnant society, in the 1800s lose the american colonies and in the 1900 gets beaten by Monaco or Luxemburgo

4) Brazil is never split in 10-12 countries, like the spanish american. And vice versa, the spanish america is always split in Mexico, US of Central America, Great Columbia and Great Argentina... IIRC Drakaverse has "few" spanish american nations, 4 o 5... but never ever we see a single spanish american nation

 

[EmmettMcFly55]

In ATLs with a POD post-1850 or so, Silesia and Pomerania will always remain part of Germany. No matter if Germany is beaten by a power that hates it with a passion, Silesia and Pomerania are German to stay.

But I suppose that's kind of justified, considering how harsh the Germans were treated IOTL.

 

[SavoyTruffle]

In ATLs with a POD post-1850 or so, Silesia and Pomerania will always remain part of Germany. No matter if Germany is beaten by a power that hates it with a passion, Silesia and Pomerania are German to stay.

But I suppose that's kind of justified, considering how harsh the Germans were treated IOTL.

Considering that the last time Poland held either was centuries ago, that's actually pretty plausible.

 

[scholar]

Because I'm eager for criticism and advice I'll just ask a question here related to the timeline I'm working on. I've been working on it since November and am unsure of how original it truly is.

This is the thread from the beginning
A Roman Time-Line diverging in 476 A.D.

And this is the latest update
Cracks in Armor
1073 A.D. - 1080 A.D.

In addition this is the map:

I'm eager to know what Cliche's I may have committed in the timeline and any future cliches that it seems likely I'll make so that I can avoid them. Note: This is not a form of shameless self promotion, but rather me looking for help. This was my first and only serious attempt at making a timeline. I had a really rocky beginning where I was unsure if what I was doing was realistic and if I had to push back the POD to something much earlier for it to be good, however I ultimately decided to work past that to do what I could and change it all later when I have the ability and the time to do so.

Important Events that may be Cliche:

• The Western Roman Empire, with financial and military support from the Eastern Roman Empire, survives in Carthage and kicks out most of the Visigoth Forces. Carthage makes no claim to being Emperor and instead adopts the title of Tyrannous, or Tyrant.
• Rome then, from Dalmatia, marches into Italy and Sicily in support of a native Kingdom and to restore their power to Italy. They do not, however, attempt to be nearly as extensive as OTL's wars and end with very little actually gained.
• Rome goes to war with Sassanian Persia but the wars are not nearly as bad as OTL and in fact end rather quickly without a real loss of life.
• The Rise of Hamaas as a religion, which is basically Islam, but it does not go into a conquering superpower, it wages wars against Rome and Persia but since there was significantly less loss of life in the previous wars which made both Persia and Rome weak it ends with the Caliphate controlling little more than Arabia.
• Rome gets involved with Italy yet again and gains an ally in Sicily.
• Sicily is merged with Carthage due to the Queen of the island surrendering control to it.
• Italy degrades into seven or so factions.
• Rome and the Caliphate go to war after it gains control of parts of Africa and the Nile.
• Carthage declares war on some of Italy's minor factions, the Italian warlords unite under the nominal rule of the Papacy to combat them. It is not federalized or a union as the principalities and duchies return to their original status after the war. Carthage is embarrassed.
• Rome and the Caliphate go to war again, Mesopotamia rebels against Persia, Rome gets the province. The Caliphate is broken in two, the Funj Caliphate and the Arabian Caliphate.
• Sassasnian Persia retreats from Middle Eastern Affairs and focuses on India and China.
• A puppet war ensues between Chinese and Persian aligned steppe hordes.
• Persia takes over a small Kingdom in India.
• Carthage takes over the feuding Visigoth warlords in Iberia a few decades.
• Rome goes to war with the Funj Caliphate and changes its leadership due to prevent future conflicts.
• Rome goes to war with Carthage, this was a long time coming, over the Italian Question and flagrant acts of aggression towards one another. A twelve years war breaks out and it ends when Carthage is, relatively, burned to the ground. One of the Tyrannous's children reunites Iberia in a few decades and repairs some of Carthage's prestige. It is renamed the Tyrannous of Granada.
• After the Funj Caliph dies the ruling council merges the state with the Arabian Caliphate in the fear of a renewed Roman superpower.
• The Papal Question becomes more prominent.
• Rome and the Caliphate go to war again, the Caliphate is reduced to a rump state in southern Arabia.
• The Caliphate's population begins to flee Rome and into the small area of the Caliphate. Overpopulated the Caliphate promotes immigration to the eastern horn of Africa where it has established a presence.
• West Francia, over the course of the timeline, took over southern Britain, and much of OTL Germany. The Germanic peoples are forced east where dozens of small Kingdoms forms. Over the decades this forms into the Kingdom of Germany, a Roman Supported counterbalance to West Francia, which becomes the Holy Kingdom of the Franks. The Papacy hoping to make West Francia a power strong enough to make it Rome's equal grants them the title of Emperor. It now becomes the French Empire which begans expanding and taking over almost all neighboring kingdoms as well as north Italy which terrifies the Papacy and enough of the Italian states to merge together under the Pope.
• France and Rome do not go to war, at least not yet.
• Germany, Rome, and the Qajar Khanate (Think Crimea/Kiptack) go to war with the Principality of Nevers a weak and lightly populated state which was originally going to be a Russia analog but I felt that it was far too weak for that and was reduced to a third of its former size by Rome, Germany, and the Qajars. This made the relatively small Germany into a rather large Kingdom that was still mostly a country of refugees (or near refugees) from the west of Europe. Germany and Rome remain allies in spite of French espionage.
• The Kingdom of York is an English analog, it is made up of Irish, Welsh, Angles, Saxons, French, Scots, and dozens of other peoples. It was formed primarily in reaction to the French who were taking over much of the island. York managed to take over most of the island who were willing do do anything against France. Recently they took over Ireland through diplomacy, marriage, and... well, invasion. Norway controls Scotland.
• Rome splits into three factions after a two decade long civil war, each faction claiming to be Rome after Manuel, being a moron or perhaps misguided father, gave each of his four sons a province to rule to find out which one was the more talented. He loved all of his sons except for his first which lead to the move in the first place. After he dies before a successor is made a council is formed to decide who should be the Emperor. Through Bribery, Blackmail, Diplomacy, and Fear Claudius The Emperor's Great Nephew is picked instead of the four sons. This sparks a conflict which ultimately results with the Eldest (Deimos) controlling most of Rome proper, the third child (Constantine) remaining neutral for most of the conflict but becoming Emperor nearing the end in Carthage (subsequently rebuilt) and Claudius who defeated the Rump Caliphate and set up his court in Babylon.
• France invades near the end of the civil war and makes a lot of progress. The Germans invade France in return but make much less headway.

Now there's a lot that I left out and some that I may have put out of order, but given that list and what you see in the picture, what were the cliches I've committed and how best should I work to avoid likely future cliches?

(I know that the last response in this topic was in January, but this is the first time I really felt like asking. Who knows, it may revive the topic! )

 

[Petike]

Another AH Cliche: We can never fully get rid of a certain Corsican, nor the wars he begins.

I will in the longer TL I'm writing (there is no direct equivalent of the Napoleonic wars there). But it's still far away, since I have writer's block and I'm still stuck in the 17th century.

 

[Lemont Elwood]

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=199611

Post your cliches here! But name them!

 

[Ofaloaf]

Another cliche: Tropes. The author (or a devoted fan) explaining in an aside everything that just happened in a simple phrase, à la TVtropes. This was kind of cool early on when everyone had just discovered the site, but since then the entire idea of the trope has been muddled; no longer referring to broad archetypes and general ideas, enthusiastic people seeking to participate have created so many 'tropes' of narrower and narrower definition that apparently anything that has appeared in more than one work is now a trope. This entirely misses the point.

Another meta-cliche is passive-aggressive board members who don't like to directly address an issue with another poster, but merely post very pointed remarks following something they find daft.

 

[Beedok]

Another AH Cliche: We can never fully get rid of a certain Corsican, nor the wars he begins.

I managed to get him to start some very different wars.

 

[King of the Uzbeks]

The CSA wins just 1 battle and poof they win the war whithin a month.

 

[democracy101]

The CSA wins just 1 battle and poof they win the war whithin a month.

I'm assuming that you're new here based on your join date, but try to look at the date from now on before posting. It generally becomes necromancy around 6 months to a year after the last post, although there is no concrete definition, and there are several exceptions, such as the OP posting again. In this case, the gap is close to two years.

Members have been kicked and/or banned for necromancy, so try to be careful next time.