AHC: 'Darkest' 21st century that doesn't involve Nazi victory or global nuclear war
- Thread starter Vorti
- Start date
You have forgot Jean-Bedel I Bokassa, Emperor of the French, and his precious Equatorial Meat that saved many Frenchmen from starvation...
Anchises
Banned
1) I would agree that there were very unhealthy ideas circulating in the Imperial German officer corps but even if they would have been able to fully implement them it would have been MUCH better than what the Nazis did.
If the CPs win without completely exhausting themselves I really doubt that a lot of these ideas would be implemented though.
Civilian politicians were not fond of these "Männerphantasien".
2) Well the rise of NatSoc was heavily dependent on some elements of the interwar German society. I think France, Russia and GB could fall to Fascism but we wouldn't necessarily see industrialized Genocide.And I really doubt that Britain after losing WW1 would have enough energy left to start mass murdering Indians. If they upset the fragile balance too much they will be swept away by uprisings. In Africa they would able to commit horrible crimes but I still doubt that the "British Fascism" would be as nasty as NatSoc. I think British/French fascism would be more about revanchism and reclaiming old Empires and less about exterminatory anti semitism and racism.
1918-20 - the mortality rate of the Influenza Pandemic is significantly higher - Black Death range (45-60% range). Rather than 50-100 million deaths worldwide, 800 million to over a billion deaths worldwide are directly a result. Europe is ground zero, due to the war, and suffers the worst.
Is that plausible? That pandemic was already the upper limit we've seen on influenza lethality, which raises the question of how much worse would be biologically possible.
RousseauX
Donor
I don't think that's possible: black death killed lots because poor nutrients among medieval peasantry and lack of modern medical knowledge like germ theory. I don't think it's possible in an era with modern science
Not seem plausible. BD mortality on Middle Ages was so high only due of poor knowledge epidemology and other medical issues. Hygiene too was on Middle Ages terrible so it was easy job for diseases spread around and kill 2/3 of European population. On 1918 most people would knew already what to do. And there was already better understabndement over such diseases.
Holding back an airborne disease like the flu is much more difficult than a vector borne one like plague. If the 1918 flu hits all age groups as badly as it seemed to select young adults (not exclusive but much more so than usual flu), and it has the mortality of smallpox (30%+ in immunologically naive) you will have catastrophic effects. OTL the only places that avoided the flu were isolated areas that literally had no contact - American Samoa (total quarantine), isolated villages in Alaska, parts of Africa etc. The case fatality rate for the flu was 2.5% or a little higher. Achieving a case fatality rate of 30% is not ASB at all, this matches smallpox and does not even begin to approach the case fatality rates of Ebola, Marburg and other viral diseases.
In 1918 the role of viruses in human disease was basically unknown. There was a huge effort to find the bacterium responsible for the 1918 flu epidemic, which was fruitless naturally. On top of this, those who contracted a superinfection of bacterial pneumonia on top of the flu had no specific treatments as antibiotics were a decade or so in the future. Supportive treatment/nursing care was the only treatment, and quarantine, avoiding contact was the only preventative.
If all that happened was the number of infected remained the same but the case fatality rate went from 2.5-3% to 30%, again not an ASB level possibility, this means the death rate is 10x or more OTL. This has massive effects, and among other things would basically bring WWI to a halt.
In 1918 the role of viruses in human disease was basically unknown. There was a huge effort to find the bacterium responsible for the 1918 flu epidemic, which was fruitless naturally. On top of this, those who contracted a superinfection of bacterial pneumonia on top of the flu had no specific treatments as antibiotics were a decade or so in the future. Supportive treatment/nursing care was the only treatment, and quarantine, avoiding contact was the only preventative.
If all that happened was the number of infected remained the same but the case fatality rate went from 2.5-3% to 30%, again not an ASB level possibility, this means the death rate is 10x or more OTL. This has massive effects, and among other things would basically bring WWI to a halt.
- March 1943: Operation FLASH succeeds (timebomb on Hitler's plane goes off). The war in Europe ends six months later.
- October 1943: With the end of the war and of Nazi Germany, the Manhattan Project shuts down (the Bomb part). Many of the key scientists are quasi-pacifists who only agreed to build the Bomb because the Nazis might get it. Now they strenuously oppose the creation of this monstrous weapon. Also there are Communists and fellow travelers, and Moscow wants all US/UK Bomb research stopped.
- 1944: Stalin launches a full-scale Soviet Bomb project.
- 1947: the Soviets have the Bomb, and no one else does. No one else knows the Soviets have it.
- 1950: Stalin reveals the Bomb, and demands that all atomic R&D that could produce a Bomb be controlled by an international Anti-Bomb Commission (ABC) to prevent any Bombs being built. That's the public stance. Privately - it is strongly hinted that USSR has an arsenal of ~200 Bombs and long-range bombers (derived from the B-29) which can reach North America. So the USSR gets a de facto exemption from ABC controls, while the rest of the world is kept disarmed. (The US tries to break out with a secret project. This ends when the lab gets nuked - which is explained as an accident.)
- 1950-1975: The USSR leverages its nuclear weapons monopoly into global hegemony, with numerous Communst satellite countries.
- 1975-2000: Communist regimes are installed in all remaining countries, ending in the establishment of the World Soviet in 2000.
- The 21st century is an increasingly corrupt and brutal dystopia. Freedom of thought becomes extinct. History is censored, with all "unapproved" books destroyed. Employment and promotion become almost entirely by nepotism in the Party - even in STEM fields. By 2050, the industrial and technical infrastructure of civilization is breaking down. There are frequent serious pollution disasters, and systemic problems that are ignored or covered up. By 2080, the breakdowns are causing frequent regional shortages of fuel and food. Various local authorities try to remedy these shortages by illegally seizing supplies. These seizures escalate into armed clashes and minor wars; the World Soviet does nothing. By 2100, the world is a mare's nest of gangsterdoms headed by quasi-warlords. Knowledge is being lost, the environment is horribly defiled.
- October 1943: With the end of the war and of Nazi Germany, the Manhattan Project shuts down (the Bomb part). Many of the key scientists are quasi-pacifists who only agreed to build the Bomb because the Nazis might get it. Now they strenuously oppose the creation of this monstrous weapon. Also there are Communists and fellow travelers, and Moscow wants all US/UK Bomb research stopped.
- 1944: Stalin launches a full-scale Soviet Bomb project.
- 1947: the Soviets have the Bomb, and no one else does. No one else knows the Soviets have it.
- 1950: Stalin reveals the Bomb, and demands that all atomic R&D that could produce a Bomb be controlled by an international Anti-Bomb Commission (ABC) to prevent any Bombs being built. That's the public stance. Privately - it is strongly hinted that USSR has an arsenal of ~200 Bombs and long-range bombers (derived from the B-29) which can reach North America. So the USSR gets a de facto exemption from ABC controls, while the rest of the world is kept disarmed. (The US tries to break out with a secret project. This ends when the lab gets nuked - which is explained as an accident.)
- 1950-1975: The USSR leverages its nuclear weapons monopoly into global hegemony, with numerous Communst satellite countries.
- 1975-2000: Communist regimes are installed in all remaining countries, ending in the establishment of the World Soviet in 2000.
- The 21st century is an increasingly corrupt and brutal dystopia. Freedom of thought becomes extinct. History is censored, with all "unapproved" books destroyed. Employment and promotion become almost entirely by nepotism in the Party - even in STEM fields. By 2050, the industrial and technical infrastructure of civilization is breaking down. There are frequent serious pollution disasters, and systemic problems that are ignored or covered up. By 2080, the breakdowns are causing frequent regional shortages of fuel and food. Various local authorities try to remedy these shortages by illegally seizing supplies. These seizures escalate into armed clashes and minor wars; the World Soviet does nothing. By 2100, the world is a mare's nest of gangsterdoms headed by quasi-warlords. Knowledge is being lost, the environment is horribly defiled.
David Stephenson manages to get away with his crimes in thre 20s
Klan domiantes the USA
13th and 15th amendmendments repealed
Klan domiantes the USA
13th and 15th amendmendments repealed
That's not eugenics, that's genetic engineering. Two distinctive fields, one's based on racialist garbage pseudoscience and the other is a very real and scientifically sound genetic science.
BlondieBC
Banned
Probably a bit of a cheat because it is close to nuclear war. Imperial Germany was the leader in chemicals and had great health scientist. Delay WW1 enough so either nerve gas or biological weapons are where they can be weaponized within months at the start of Great War. Germany, looking defeat in the face goes all on nerve gas. While obviously, it would not be like OTL and the battles would be in different locations and probably a different alliance structure, it is easier to talk about OTL WW1. Imagine that about the Battle of Ypres, nerve gas is available. It is used in large quantities and wins the war. We never get the NBC taboo, and these weapons are just what you open wars with.
Or you could just have the Nazi use their nerve gas. It is far from clear that it is war winner to me, but pick some critical juncture, and have Hitler give the go order. Say some British attack is mistaken for a chemical attack on a city, Hitler bombs London the next week with nerve gas. Operation Vegetable is order by Churchill. Or probably more realistically, Hitler just puts nerve gas into the attack on Russia. First used decisively in the siege of Leningrad, then used massively in Moscow. Churchill again responds with biowarfare.
Or you could just have the Nazi use their nerve gas. It is far from clear that it is war winner to me, but pick some critical juncture, and have Hitler give the go order. Say some British attack is mistaken for a chemical attack on a city, Hitler bombs London the next week with nerve gas. Operation Vegetable is order by Churchill. Or probably more realistically, Hitler just puts nerve gas into the attack on Russia. First used decisively in the siege of Leningrad, then used massively in Moscow. Churchill again responds with biowarfare.
SwampTiger
Banned
At the fall of the Berlin wall, a cabal of die hard Soviet Communists with access to the Russian bioweapons programs sends hundreds of unsuspecting infected students and operatives to the West and China. Many have missions to seed reservoirs, mass transit centers and food distribution centers. Once the world learns of the source, China and the West struggle between nuking the Soviet Union, with the resulting nuclear exchange or sending their own chemical and biological attacks on Soviet cities and agriculture.
Pockets of humans trying to survive in backwaters throughout the industrialized world.
On the other hand, India and the southern hemisphere may survive to attempt to repopulate the Earth over the next several centuries.
Pockets of humans trying to survive in backwaters throughout the industrialized world.
On the other hand, India and the southern hemisphere may survive to attempt to repopulate the Earth over the next several centuries.
Nixon wins in 1960 and takes Dixiecrat resistance to civil rights as a personal insult. Supports strong civil rights legislation, making the GOP the civil rights party (or at least making it more bipartisan).
The Watts riots still break out as in OTL. The pill was already invented and Griswold was a lopsided enough decision that butterflies won't change the outcome. So the sexual revolution occurs on schedule. Nixon either gets us into the same Vietnam quagmire as LBJ, or doesn't intervene aggressively and gets blamed for losing South Vietnam to the Communists.
Wallace runs against the breakdown of social order and morality and demands a much more aggressive stand against communism. With Nixon as the civil rights president, there are fewer black Democrats, so Wallace has a stronger showing in the primaries. He can even avoid race baiting with all the other bogeymen he can use.
Dissatisfaction over the economic, social, and foreign policy mess carries him to victory.
1) The US enters WWI later. Plus they take much lonher to put the AEF together. It is not as prepared as it should be. American units get used as replacements in French and BEF units. The first US units committed to combat suffer 95 to 100% casualties with the vast majority being KIA. Wilson withdrawls all American units from combat. WWI Lasts into late 1919.
2) French and British governments take economic revenge on the US starting a run on the dollar. The eonomic problems of the late teens early 20s etend until 1925. As economies in the west begin to recover the Soviets continue to stumble through collectivization. Famines hit Ukraine, Belorussia, the Cacuases, and the southern islamic SSRs. sparing the Russian SSR. This ieads to a civil war that makes the earlier one look like picnic.
3) The Great Depression hits in the early 30's. Social unrest leads to harsh left or right wing goverments in many countries. The French and British Empires collapse. Relistance groups in totalatarian countries fight ongoing "wars of liberation".
4) Trade breaks down. What little trade there is sees a rise in piracy.
5) Eventually one of the European powers unites under a dictator after quashing the ongoing civil strife. This nation begins to see itself as the savior of civilization. It launches wars to aid similiarly aligned governments fighting armed oppostion groups and undertakes to aid those groups with similiar views in other countries fighting their own wars. Left or Right doesn't matter.
6) The US continues yo stagnate eonomically. Regionalism worsens. The Westetrn states actively work to eject migrants after a typhus epedemic ravages a major Western city. The typhus outbreak blamed on migrants. The states call up national gaurd units to protect the citizens. Migrants are topped at state lines. Those attempting to enter over back country roads begin to run into ambushes. Militias form. The national government does nothing to stop it.
7) The south seeing what is happening in the West acts to form an "unoficial" Confederacy. Jim Crow gets worse. With continuing economic problems the industrial north makes it plain they want no black immigration.
8) The Chaco War in South America spreads to include Chile, Peru, Argentina and Brazil.
9) The actions of the European power acting agressively (it could be France or Germany) causes a new major war to break out. The general lack of economic development over the last 20 years leads to a replay of WWI with trech warfare dominating. Gss is used heavily. Britian lacking its empire for support stays out. Its economy booms as it becomes the arsenal of the side it favors.
10) Britian begins to rebuild the Empire. The former Rown Jewel, India torn by strife between Muslims and Hindus is gradually pacified.
11) In Asia Imperial Japan takes advantage of the situation to sieze the Philippines, Malay, Indochina and the Dutch East Indies. After consolidating its conquests they further sieze the Russian Far East.
12) China breaks down into a multi way civil war betwern factions and regions. In ten years 25% of the population dies.
14) Australia and New Zealand pursue White Only policies. Australia opts for concentration camps for the Aboriginal peoples. New Zealand institutes an aparthied policy
15) Sub-Saharan Africa, its colonial masters vanished degenerates into tribal warfare. In North Africa a resurgent Islam sweeps from Arabia to the Atlantic Coast in a new Calaphate.
16) The European War grinds into a stalemate with both sides exhausted. The governments fall as chaos reins. Petty warlords begin to control areas. Societies begin to collapse into a form of neo-fuedalism.
17) The US breaks up into a number of mostly antagonistic nations. Border conficts breakout when regions attempt to sieze trains bound for other regions. In the 1940s The Great Lakes Republic invades the Great Plains Peoples State because of food shotages due to the GPPS trying to bankrupt its neighbors with wheat prices. The GLR degeats the GPPS at the Battle of Omaha. The resulting peace sees the former South and North Dakota ceded to the GLR.
18) South America exhausted by the larger Chaco War largely destabilizes. In Peru the people formerly known as the Inca form a communist state in the Andes. A right leaning dictatorship consolidates the region around the Rio de Plata. Southern Brazil breaks off from the rest of the counrty. Bolivia and Paraquay are wastelands. The Bolivian Altiplano is incorporated into the neo Inca state.
19) Things go down hill from here
2) French and British governments take economic revenge on the US starting a run on the dollar. The eonomic problems of the late teens early 20s etend until 1925. As economies in the west begin to recover the Soviets continue to stumble through collectivization. Famines hit Ukraine, Belorussia, the Cacuases, and the southern islamic SSRs. sparing the Russian SSR. This ieads to a civil war that makes the earlier one look like picnic.
3) The Great Depression hits in the early 30's. Social unrest leads to harsh left or right wing goverments in many countries. The French and British Empires collapse. Relistance groups in totalatarian countries fight ongoing "wars of liberation".
4) Trade breaks down. What little trade there is sees a rise in piracy.
5) Eventually one of the European powers unites under a dictator after quashing the ongoing civil strife. This nation begins to see itself as the savior of civilization. It launches wars to aid similiarly aligned governments fighting armed oppostion groups and undertakes to aid those groups with similiar views in other countries fighting their own wars. Left or Right doesn't matter.
6) The US continues yo stagnate eonomically. Regionalism worsens. The Westetrn states actively work to eject migrants after a typhus epedemic ravages a major Western city. The typhus outbreak blamed on migrants. The states call up national gaurd units to protect the citizens. Migrants are topped at state lines. Those attempting to enter over back country roads begin to run into ambushes. Militias form. The national government does nothing to stop it.
7) The south seeing what is happening in the West acts to form an "unoficial" Confederacy. Jim Crow gets worse. With continuing economic problems the industrial north makes it plain they want no black immigration.
8) The Chaco War in South America spreads to include Chile, Peru, Argentina and Brazil.
9) The actions of the European power acting agressively (it could be France or Germany) causes a new major war to break out. The general lack of economic development over the last 20 years leads to a replay of WWI with trech warfare dominating. Gss is used heavily. Britian lacking its empire for support stays out. Its economy booms as it becomes the arsenal of the side it favors.
10) Britian begins to rebuild the Empire. The former Rown Jewel, India torn by strife between Muslims and Hindus is gradually pacified.
11) In Asia Imperial Japan takes advantage of the situation to sieze the Philippines, Malay, Indochina and the Dutch East Indies. After consolidating its conquests they further sieze the Russian Far East.
12) China breaks down into a multi way civil war betwern factions and regions. In ten years 25% of the population dies.
14) Australia and New Zealand pursue White Only policies. Australia opts for concentration camps for the Aboriginal peoples. New Zealand institutes an aparthied policy
15) Sub-Saharan Africa, its colonial masters vanished degenerates into tribal warfare. In North Africa a resurgent Islam sweeps from Arabia to the Atlantic Coast in a new Calaphate.
16) The European War grinds into a stalemate with both sides exhausted. The governments fall as chaos reins. Petty warlords begin to control areas. Societies begin to collapse into a form of neo-fuedalism.
17) The US breaks up into a number of mostly antagonistic nations. Border conficts breakout when regions attempt to sieze trains bound for other regions. In the 1940s The Great Lakes Republic invades the Great Plains Peoples State because of food shotages due to the GPPS trying to bankrupt its neighbors with wheat prices. The GLR degeats the GPPS at the Battle of Omaha. The resulting peace sees the former South and North Dakota ceded to the GLR.
18) South America exhausted by the larger Chaco War largely destabilizes. In Peru the people formerly known as the Inca form a communist state in the Andes. A right leaning dictatorship consolidates the region around the Rio de Plata. Southern Brazil breaks off from the rest of the counrty. Bolivia and Paraquay are wastelands. The Bolivian Altiplano is incorporated into the neo Inca state.
19) Things go down hill from here
Anchises
Banned
Destalinization never happens. Stalins successor continues to actively pursue a policy of hardline Stalinism.
The Eastern Bloc turns into a bunch of instable states in the 60s. Insurgencies and Civil Unrest plagues the Warsaw Pact. Naturally this is denounced as "Western agitation" leading to increasingly aggressive moves in the third world.
Technologically and economically the Eastern Bloc is even worse off and the West is more authoritarian due to a continued Red Scare.
The Sino-Soviet Split never happens and Indochina turns into a giant battlefield between the blocks.
In the 70s and 80s the West actually manages to prevent the KGB from stealing military high-tech and the Soviets are falling behind.
In the late 80s/early 90s the Warsaw Pact increasingly looks like a bunch of North Koreas + unrest. Central and Western Europe is constantly threatened with Nuclear attacks while the NATO constantly withholds much needed food shipments.
NATO is frantically researching missile defense systems able to stop the archaic Soviet warheads while the Politbureau becomes increasingly nervous.
Bonus points:
1) The Cultural Revolution completely spirals out of control.
2) A Soviet Bio Weapon escapes from a badly maintained Soviet lab and the abyssmal Soviet health sector completely fails to contain it.
The Eastern Bloc turns into a bunch of instable states in the 60s. Insurgencies and Civil Unrest plagues the Warsaw Pact. Naturally this is denounced as "Western agitation" leading to increasingly aggressive moves in the third world.
Technologically and economically the Eastern Bloc is even worse off and the West is more authoritarian due to a continued Red Scare.
The Sino-Soviet Split never happens and Indochina turns into a giant battlefield between the blocks.
In the 70s and 80s the West actually manages to prevent the KGB from stealing military high-tech and the Soviets are falling behind.
In the late 80s/early 90s the Warsaw Pact increasingly looks like a bunch of North Koreas + unrest. Central and Western Europe is constantly threatened with Nuclear attacks while the NATO constantly withholds much needed food shipments.
NATO is frantically researching missile defense systems able to stop the archaic Soviet warheads while the Politbureau becomes increasingly nervous.
Bonus points:
1) The Cultural Revolution completely spirals out of control.
2) A Soviet Bio Weapon escapes from a badly maintained Soviet lab and the abyssmal Soviet health sector completely fails to contain it.
There were some releases of Soviet bioweapons OTL, which were fortunately of such a nature that they did not spread. Assume that they create a "hybrid" of an Ebola type of hemorrhagic virus that is mixed with Influenza. The result is a disease with an extremely high case fatality rate of >75% without intensive medical care, and ~50% with that care, plus the ease of transmission of influenza via airborne and surface routes instead of via contact directly with infected fluids. Throw in the work is not complete and they have not yet gotten immunization perfected yet. This gets out, begins to spread and given the Soviet propensity for secrecy, by the time the world realizes what has happened it has escaped the USSR - think an infected person travels from the area before quarantined, spreads it on the way back to Moscow, once there spreads further and some international travelers get it. Make this in the 1980s and with jet travel it is almost everywhere within a few days. By the time the Soviets confess, and maybe share data to try and get immunization developed things are out of control. In places without a very robust medical system, the case fatality rate is 75%. Case fatality can drop to 50% where you have good medical systems, however since this spreads like the flu the numbers soon overwhelm the medical system. Early on, you see a significant number of medical folks from first responders to doctors getting sick before the mechanism is understood.
Attempts at strict quarantine vary from place to place, and soon result in uninfected areas shooting refugees who try to enter, even from one town to another. Attempts to create a "cordon sanitaire" along international borders create massive kill zones. As large numbers of folks get sick/die, the threads that hold a modern civilization together fray and break. All cities depend on a steady stream of food to keep fed - when food distribution breaks down due to quarantines, reduced numbers of truck drivers etc this falls apart, and of course nobody wants to go out on the street to go to shops. what happens when workers in power plants are sick/dead, or unwilling to come to work - or those operating the water system. On a somewhat longer term basis will crops be planted/tended/harvested enough to feed survivors.
Over and above the deaths from plague, you'll see increasing numbers of death from violence or starvation. As the various systems begin to fail, you'll see emergence of other diseases due to lack of clean water, sewage/sanitation, deaths from lack of medicines and/or medical personnel that would not happen before. Of course, folks dependent on things like insulin, anti-HIV drugs, etc will all go. When the dust settles you will have a huge death toll, by 3-5 years after the first case somewhere like 50-75% of the world population gone. Depending on the "non-disease" chaos it could be worse if some folks sling a few nukes. Nations break up, and you have a return to warlordism. Some area develop doomsday cults which become extremely antiscience and slip back further (see "A Canticle for Liebowitz"), other areas perhaps not.
Unless the disease finds an animal host, like Ebola which hangs out in other primates, it will eventually burnout. If it does find intermediates, it will return in waves, although likely less severe as humanity and the disease come to an accommodation.
This requires no "chain of events", just one POD and not even that much of a big one as the USSR was working on making superdiseases, and their isolation techniques were often slipshod.
Attempts at strict quarantine vary from place to place, and soon result in uninfected areas shooting refugees who try to enter, even from one town to another. Attempts to create a "cordon sanitaire" along international borders create massive kill zones. As large numbers of folks get sick/die, the threads that hold a modern civilization together fray and break. All cities depend on a steady stream of food to keep fed - when food distribution breaks down due to quarantines, reduced numbers of truck drivers etc this falls apart, and of course nobody wants to go out on the street to go to shops. what happens when workers in power plants are sick/dead, or unwilling to come to work - or those operating the water system. On a somewhat longer term basis will crops be planted/tended/harvested enough to feed survivors.
Over and above the deaths from plague, you'll see increasing numbers of death from violence or starvation. As the various systems begin to fail, you'll see emergence of other diseases due to lack of clean water, sewage/sanitation, deaths from lack of medicines and/or medical personnel that would not happen before. Of course, folks dependent on things like insulin, anti-HIV drugs, etc will all go. When the dust settles you will have a huge death toll, by 3-5 years after the first case somewhere like 50-75% of the world population gone. Depending on the "non-disease" chaos it could be worse if some folks sling a few nukes. Nations break up, and you have a return to warlordism. Some area develop doomsday cults which become extremely antiscience and slip back further (see "A Canticle for Liebowitz"), other areas perhaps not.
Unless the disease finds an animal host, like Ebola which hangs out in other primates, it will eventually burnout. If it does find intermediates, it will return in waves, although likely less severe as humanity and the disease come to an accommodation.
This requires no "chain of events", just one POD and not even that much of a big one as the USSR was working on making superdiseases, and their isolation techniques were often slipshod.
