Personally, I like the idea of seeing where the French Revolution (since all the events leading up to it, save perhaps an almost bankrupt France spending it's last pennies on making sure there's a successful American Revolution, seem to be more or less on track to occur roughly similarly to OTL and France has not fixed any of it's OTL problems, I believe a revolution is still on the cards at some point) goes without a charismatic and ambitious general setting himself up as the new emperor. Perhpas it becomes a pariah state, or fails entirely and thus discredits the ideals of democracy for a period.
 
I do not agree to that school of thought, but hey, your TL, your rules, Carp.

But in this case, Historymaster, Napoleon's maternal grandfather is almost certainly not even living on Corsica anymore. Even if his daughter is born and is more or less the same person as OTL, (and that is doubtful) she will likely never even meet a hypothetical Carlo di Buonoparte. This isn't something that wouldn't have been affected by the changes--the fundamental circumstances of their lives have been altered by this. Even under your standards, Napoleon should not be born in this universe--having being born would be twisting the rules to get a desired result.
 
But in this case, Historymaster, Napoleon's maternal grandfather is almost certainly not even living on Corsica anymore. Even if his daughter is born and is more or less the same person as OTL, (and that is doubtful) she will likely never even meet a hypothetical Carlo di Buonoparte. This isn't something that wouldn't have been affected by the changes--the fundamental circumstances of their lives have been altered by this. Even under your standards, Napoleon should not be born in this universe--having being born would be twisting the rules to get a desired result.
Which is something I do often:) Carlo Maria could go as part of an ambassady in Genoa and meet Letizia there, for example. But as I said this is not my timeline.
 
See now, that seems strange, not apprently just to me. That sounds like a timeline where all butterflies are mercilessly hunted down. What's even the point, in that case?
 
See now, that seems strange, not apprently just to me. That sounds like a timeline where all butterflies are mercilessly hunted down. What's even the point, in that case?

The point is to use the narrative of history as shorthand.

So you can keep the story on your subjects and just assume everything elsewhere is basically the same so you don't have to write about it. Only way your story can actually be finished sometimes. The effort to sketch out an entire world is ridiculous and being able to concentrate on a small area and not have to explain who this guy is over here cos he's Simon Bolivar doing his normal thing and everyone knows who he is. This assumption that things not focused on are the same and so don't have to be written about stops the timeline from getting flabby and unfocused.

All good stories need to remember what their subject is and what's incidental to the narrative and shouldn't have words devoted to it

Also as an intellectual exercise AH can be more appealing when you only trace direct consequences because it gives you more data points to play with. If you just assume randomness then you don't get the appeal of this event happened in the 1840s how would it go differently with an independent Corsica because instead due to just randomness that 1840s event doesn't happen. By deliberately killing butterflies you get to keep the story about history rather than having to lose the classic ah thought exercise of how would an otl event go differently in favour of just entirely made up events.
 
The point is to use the narrative of history as shorthand.
But when the POD has made it impossible bar ASB? Even if Napoleon is somehow born by twisting things , he will get a different upbringing. Without a French annexation, he's not French, he cannot join the Academy and hence the French Army as OTL. There is reducing butterflies and there is lazy parallelism.
 
Could still serve in the Corsican Royal Army, as Prime Minister exc,exc, if you want an interesting buttefly, and someone could step in his role (Moray, Massena or Murat). Or his father could get exiled in France with all the family if you want to be very conservative, but let stop the discussion about the one forbidden subject please.
 
Such as
  • King George III of Great Britain (1738)
  • William Pitt the Younger (1759)
  • Thomas Jefferson (1743)
  • King Louis XVI of France (1754)
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749)
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756)
  • Emperor Joseph II (1741)
  • Tsar Paul I of Russia (1754)
And millions of others.

There's no reason to butterfly Mozart out of existence, seriously...
 
There's no reason to butterfly Mozart out of existence, seriously...
Looking at his family background, I think you've got a point where he's concerned - Mozart's parents were already born as of the PoD and married only a few years after; seeing as they were both Salzburg people by the time the TL gets started, there's virtually no reason to think they won't still end up together, or that Leopold's career as a musician would be in any way altered, so Amadeus still being born (including the death of his mother) likely happens as OTL.

EDIT ADD: For that matter, it's still fairly likely (at least by my personal preference of standards, as noted above) that William Pitt the Younger is still born TTL - @Carp has already noted that William the Elder's rise is (at least more or less) as OTL, and there's no reason to think he didn't still marry Lady Ester since I'm guessing he still would have been friends with her family.

For that matter, it's highly likely that the parents of Louis XVI and Paul I still marry TTL (even Sophie's historic marriage in Russia). I can't even really think of a reason Goethe wouldn't be born in Frankfurt as OTL.
 
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Looking at his family background, I think you've got a point where he's concerned - Mozart's parents were already born as of the PoD and married only a few years after; seeing as they were both Salzburg people by the time the TL gets started, there's virtually no reason to think they won't still end up together, or that Leopold's career as a musician would be in any way altered, so Amadeus still being born (including the death of his mother) likely happens as OTL.

EDIT ADD: For that matter, it's still fairly likely (at least by my personal preference of standards, as noted above) that William Pitt the Younger is still born TTL - @Carp has already noted that William the Elder's rise is (at least more or less) as OTL, and there's no reason to think he didn't still marry Lady Ester since I'm guessing he still would have been friends with her family.

For that matter, it's highly likely that the parents of Louis XVI and Paul I still marry TTL (even Sophie's historic marriage in Russia). I can't even really think of a reason Goethe wouldn't be born in Frankfurt as OTL.

I thought we all said we were dropping this stupid butterfly argument because it is clearly clogging up the thread from more relevant discussion.

(It may be an Amadeus but it wouldn't be OTL's Amadeus)
 
Looking at his family background, I think you've got a point where he's concerned - Mozart's parents were already born as of the PoD and married only a few years after; seeing as they were both Salzburg people by the time the TL gets started, there's virtually no reason to think they won't still end up together, or that Leopold's career as a musician would be in any way altered, so Amadeus still being born (including the death of his mother) likely happens as OTL.

EDIT ADD: For that matter, it's still fairly likely (at least by my personal preference of standards, as noted above) that William Pitt the Younger is still born TTL - @Carp has already noted that William the Elder's rise is (at least more or less) as OTL, and there's no reason to think he didn't still marry Lady Ester since I'm guessing he still would have been friends with her family.

For that matter, it's highly likely that the parents of Louis XVI and Paul I still marry TTL (even Sophie's historic marriage in Russia). I can't even really think of a reason Goethe wouldn't be born in Frankfurt as OTL.

Well with such POD I think pretty unlikely who Louis XVI’s parents will marry (his father will surely marry first a Spanish Infanta as OTL, either his OTL wife or her younger sister. If he married the first she can live or being replaced by her younger sister instead of Louis XVI’s mother) while the parents of Paul will almost surely still marry as the reasons of Empress Elizabeth for that match will not change
 
On an unrelated topic, occasionally I find an interesting tidbit while researching:

"In 1755 the total revenue of the Republic [of Genoa] amounted to just over 5,000,000 francs [...] In the same year the total interest paid annually on the public debt amounted to about 3,240,000 francs: more than three-fifths of the total revenues were therefore absorbed by the interest on the debt."

Yes, you read that correctly, that's nearly 65% of Genoa's entire revenue devoted just to servicing the public debt. And this is in 1755, seven years after the end of the WAS and at the very beginning of Paoli's republic. Those senatorial budget committee meetings must have been pretty grim.
 
Yes, you read that correctly, that's nearly 65% of Genoa's entire revenue devoted just to servicing the public debt. And this is in 1755, seven years after the end of the WAS and at the very beginning of Paoli's republic. Those senatorial budget committee meetings must have been pretty grim.

The late Genoese Republic was one of those nations that less existed, and more persisted.
 
The late Genoese Republic was one of those nations that less existed, and more persisted.

The same can be said about Venice; the shift of European trade focus from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic turned once proud merchant republics into the pale shadows of themselves. Had the Ottomans not conquered Egypt however, the Venetian plan to build the Suez canal in the 15th century would've been undertaken - a crazy plan born out of desperation, but Venice's propensity to throw sanity out of the window in the name of profit was second only to Scrooge McDuck's.
 
The San Marco channel was a genual idea, who would have given Venezia huge commercial advantages.

An ambitious idea, but it could've backfired very easily, like a 15th century Darien scheme; one thing's for sure, if the canal gets built Venice will have to defend it against... pretty much the whole of Europe, really. And there's not much else that can help them in that case except for Marco Polo's ghost, a very generous amount of grappa, and more than a few greased palms.
 
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