Two Suns Shall Set: A 20th-Century TL Without Nazis
- Status
Really good overview of the world and some of the people in it. Looks like this is the kind of period where people will look back and wonder why no one spotted the cracks in the foundation. Least there's some relief in some places avoiding the conflict that they might have done such as Ireland. Surprised at how much leeway the left-leaning Mexico is getting at present as well.
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
There are so many cracks in this foundation that a chisel here and a door kicked in there will bring there will bring the whole international status quo to its knees. There are very few people who will be safe from such effects. Empires will fall apart at the seams, some faster than others. I've already hinted that the Italian Empire as it stands will not make it through the 1970s intact, but at least they won't be fighting a bloody civil war. And as @BigBlueBox pointed out, Ukraine is looking more and more like a neo-Romania, and that simply will not fly once the figurative fecal matter hits the figurative motorized rotational device. Their current government won't survive the coming storm. Post-1973 Japan is going to suck, but this decade is heaven in comparison to what happens next for them. That's all I'll say here.
Ireland avoided the worst excesses of the Troubles and then some with some good deals with Britain, the federalization of Ireland, and giving Ulster quite a bit of autonomy from Dublin. Much of the fighting that would have happened here is now taking place in the Balkans and the Middle East.
America's distracted too much by internal stuff right now to care a whole lot about Mexico. That, and Japan has made some under-the-table guarantees with Mexico to help with independence and their ascendance as Latin America's main regional power. This 'benign neglect' of sorts will soon change. Don't worry, nobody's getting couped south of the border and the United States won't get into a war with anyone. Just a (mostly) bloodless struggle for influence over Mexico that will carry over into the 1980s.
Thank you very much!
BigBlueBox
Banned
It looks like India and Thailand are some of the bright spots of Asia ITTL, as well as Japan for now. I think the Laotians could be assimilated to Thai culture pretty easily, but I wonder how the Cambodians feel about being partitioned between two neighbors they loath. Hopefully India and Thailand can make it into the 21st century peacefully.
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
Never specifically said Oklahoma, rather "on his way to Omaha [in Nebraska]". I never did mention a flight path, and I know how fickle internal geography can be to those not from the U.S, but I like your initiative, and as such this 'happy accident' of sorts is now canon. (Not as happy for Elvis, of course, but I'm not writing a utopia here.)
I can't possibly comment on this, but the Cambodian are... not all that happy about the status quo. Thailand's at least trying to accommodate them, and Vietnam's sort of gone off the deep end recently. How this ends, and how India and/or Thailand end up I cannot say just yet.
I'll look into Monty Python's cast and their TTL exploits where applicable and get back to you on this one.
EDIT: Monty Python's Flying Circus (hereby referred to as "Sirs-Not-Appearing-In-This-Timeline" is most regrettably butterflied away in the universe of Two Suns Shall Set. Eric Idle and Terry Jones are not born, the rest are essentially nobodies as of 1970 (though some of this may change in the future):
- Graham Chapman is a doctor working at a hospital in Liverpool, making fine money and looking for someone to spend the rest of his life with.
- John Cleese is a comedian making some money on the side at various bars and nightclubs across Southern England but working a day job driving a lorry for a local company. His scripts have yet to catch the attention of the BBC, but he's holding out that someday they will.
- Michael Palin is a performer at a local theatre performer in Sheffield, The money isn't the greatest, but for now he's making ends meet.
- Terrence Gilliam is working for Walt Disney Studios as an animator. His name appears in the credits, and his family's glad for him that he's made his own big break. The next project he has to work on is an animated Disney-fied version of Bram Stoker's Dracula, set for a 1971 public release to theaters...
As for Australia and New Zealand, I just added them to the recent update as well as some blurbs of text for various European colonial possessions (Indonesia, the Congo, Libya, and Ethiopia) under their respective masters.
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How are Iceland and Greenland? What else is going on over there other than continued Danish rule?
Also, RIP Bjork, Sigur Ros, and Of Monsters And Men all in advance. (They aren't going to be born ITTL, even if Iceland was neutral in both OTL and TTL, the butterflies would still be present.)
Also, RIP Bjork, Sigur Ros, and Of Monsters And Men all in advance. (They aren't going to be born ITTL, even if Iceland was neutral in both OTL and TTL, the butterflies would still be present.)
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
...Woops
Don't worry about it, man. It's all good.
Honestly? Not a whole lot. Iceland is locally governed by a sensible social democratic government.
Yeah, between pop culture shifts and world events influencing people to do things at different times (or not at all), none of the people or groups mentioned were going to happen anyway.
One-Year Anniversary Commemoration
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
At 10:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time on October 26, 2018, a thread was born.
Sixteen minutes later, the prelude for a story called Two Suns Shall Set: A 20th-Century TL Without Nazis would be published on alternatehistory.com. One year, fifteen chapters, twenty-eight threadmarks, two-hundred and fifty-three postings, and over thirty-seven thousand six-hundred views later, here I am. And here we all are.
There is no way I could have accomplished so much on this journey without all of you, my friends and fellow readers. Your advice, analysis, additional knowledge, general support, and overall helpfulness has been much appreciated, is still very much appreciated, and will continue to be throughout the time it takes to finish this and beyond. Thank you all very much, you're the best! That goes for the lurkers and those who have not registered for an account on this site, too, so take it all in.
I'd say we're about three-fifths of the way through the story. Following the next chapter on the Space Race between the three power blocs of the Shadow War, this world will experience a massive departure from the postwar status quo. A massive turning point where empires fall apart, preventative measures are taken to prevent history from repeating itself, and some essence or another of freedom comes to those who desperately need it. There are those who will persevere through hard times, those who will rise to the challenges of the day and provide solutions. And there are those who won't live to see the daybreak of a new millennium, consumed by tides of darkness they had little power to try and stop.
In some ways, it's all downhill from here. In others, a better future lies ahead, where the scars of the pact will not be allowed to define the path taken into the future.
Here's to the eventual completion of Two Suns Shall Set by the end of 2019.
Wishing you the very best,
Aero
Sixteen minutes later, the prelude for a story called Two Suns Shall Set: A 20th-Century TL Without Nazis would be published on alternatehistory.com. One year, fifteen chapters, twenty-eight threadmarks, two-hundred and fifty-three postings, and over thirty-seven thousand six-hundred views later, here I am. And here we all are.
There is no way I could have accomplished so much on this journey without all of you, my friends and fellow readers. Your advice, analysis, additional knowledge, general support, and overall helpfulness has been much appreciated, is still very much appreciated, and will continue to be throughout the time it takes to finish this and beyond. Thank you all very much, you're the best! That goes for the lurkers and those who have not registered for an account on this site, too, so take it all in.
I'd say we're about three-fifths of the way through the story. Following the next chapter on the Space Race between the three power blocs of the Shadow War, this world will experience a massive departure from the postwar status quo. A massive turning point where empires fall apart, preventative measures are taken to prevent history from repeating itself, and some essence or another of freedom comes to those who desperately need it. There are those who will persevere through hard times, those who will rise to the challenges of the day and provide solutions. And there are those who won't live to see the daybreak of a new millennium, consumed by tides of darkness they had little power to try and stop.
In some ways, it's all downhill from here. In others, a better future lies ahead, where the scars of the pact will not be allowed to define the path taken into the future.
Here's to the eventual completion of Two Suns Shall Set by the end of 2019.
Wishing you the very best,
Aero
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Chapter 16 - "I'll race you to space!"
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
A smaller update than usual today. Humanity reaches for the stars in cooperation and sort of friendly competition in:
CHAPTER 16: "I'll race you to space!"
"The German Government has just released a public statement following the launch of their first satellite into space, the fourth nation in the world to do so. Not far behind Britain, France, and Japan, Germany is now a major player in the development of technologies and machines for use in outer space, and plans to launch a larger object into orbit are scheduled to come into fruition within the next year."
- A 1969 evening news radio broadcast from Canada, narrated by the 28-year old Alex Trebek
"You are now seeing live footage of a Japanese rocket lifting off from its launch pad just outside of the northern city of Kushiro. Truly, this is a historic day for mankind in its quest to break the confines of our planet's atmosphere..."
- A recorded BBC television broadcast first aired in 1972. This footage would later be wiped from the BBC's main archives in England as a cost-saving measure yet would be recovered from a broadcasting affiliate in New York City for a documentary on the history of Japan
Before the crash of 1973, the period of time in contemporary history books with an increased effort of launching objects (and humans) into space in the name of technological advancement (and more often for the express purpose of bragging rights, not to mention finding a suitable use for some budget surpluses) would be know as the First Space Race. While the second one would not begin for another forty years and the flag of Soviet Russia would not be planted on the surface of the moon until late 2017[1], numerous advances in satellite and spacefaring technology were made in a brief period of time between 1966 and 1974. What fueled this brief boom in an interest in spacefaring was a combination of works in the field of science fiction during the late 1960s entering the mainstream, as well as increased exposure to other audiences who normally wouldn't read such books watching The Distant Windsong or an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Interception[2].
The United Kingdom, France, and Germany were all collaborating as "friendly rivals" in this field, seeing who could accomplish what first. Britain "started" the Space Race by launching the world's first satellite into orbit in the summer of 1966 and inspiring the plot of one of the last great Japanese classic films fifteen years later.[3] Japan herself would follow with here own satellite launch in early 1968, followed by France in March of 1969 and Germany seven months later, just in time for Oktoberfest. What would overshadow this particular achievement, however, would be Britain's launch of an unmanned rocket into orbit and its controlled crash into the Indian Ocean over the course of the hours of November 2, 1969. The knowledge of rocket-building would be shared with Germany and France in the hopes of working on collaborative projects in the future, ultimately culminating in the establishment of the European Commission for the Exploration of Space (ECES) in 1970.
The second-to-last country anyone expected participation from in the ECES was Italy. Proving their worth by beating both the United States and Russia to launching a mostly-functional satellite into orbit on New Year's Eve of 1970[4], they applied to join the Commission, creating a significant thaw in European-Mediterranean relations and the beginning of the end of a continent divided between the values of political liberalism and centralization of power[5].
The United States of America was not entirely pleased with this turn of events, seeing as it was falling behind the rest of the world and even behind Japan, a country that's supposed to be a second-rate one in Asia. Still, Congress was not going to pass anything that was considered to be a "waste of taxpayer money", and this attitude would not endear them to the public in the times to come. Eventually a budget would be set aside for a new state-funded department for the purpose of exploring space and bragging about how awesome it is, yet right now that remains a pipe dream for most idealists.
1972 shocked the world with the first man in orbit not being British, French, German, or even Italian. Japan launched 30-year old Toyohiro Akiyama into Earth's orbit, the first human in space. This trip around Earth that lasted nearly two hours and ultimately ended with a parachute landing into the deserts of Arabia, which had recently undergone a republican revolution the previous year and is currently combating numerous rebels. The "Arabian Hostage Crisis"[6] would last five days, but would result in a search-and-rescue mission that saw Toyohiro Akiyama rescued, the secret police forces of the new Arabian regime humiliated (and subsequently purged), and an icy relationship between the two countries that would result in the infamous 1973 blockade of oil shipping to Japan from the region, the problems persisting even after the fall of the so-called "Revolutionary Republic" the year prior.
The situation inadvertently led to yet another one of the many great crises of the twentieth century: The collapse of Tokyo's stock market and the Second Great Depression. The collapse of most of the world's economies would lead to the end of the First Space Race, but the end is generally considered to be the joint Franco-British-German spacewalk mission, producing one of the most monumental photographs of the decade and showing the world that any and all enmity between Germany and France was dead and buried.
TIMELINE OF THE FIRST SPACE RACE:
August 5, 1966: The United Kingdom launches the first satellite into outer space, kicking off seven years of fast-paced advancement in spacefaring advances.
February 15, 1968: Japan launches their first satellite into space.
March 21, 1969: France launches their first satellite into orbit from a launchpad in Corsica.
October 1, 1969: Germany's first satellite begins to orbit Planet Earth.
November 2, 1969: Britain launches the first rocket capable of propelling a spacecraft into orbit. Hours later, it falls from orbit into the Indian Ocean, off of Australia's western coast.
April 20, 1970: The European Commission for the Exploration of Space (ECES) is founded by Britain, France, and Germany. Italy joins the ECES later this year, to the noted surprise of many respected political scientists of the day.
December 31, 1970: An Italian satellite is launched into orbit. A failure of part of the heat shield compromises part of the satellite's electronics, but otherwise performs most of its functions until it is de-orbited ten years later.
July 11, 1972: Japan shocks the world by announcing that it has conducted the first manned space mission: a two-hour long orbit around Planet Earth, followed by a diplomatic crisis between Japan and the short-lived "Republican" regime in Arabia. Europe is caught off-guard by this achievement, and the "big three" ramp up their investments into the ECES. A British man will be launched into orbit by the end of the year on a mission less geopolitically volatile than Japan's.
June 8, 1973: The stock exchange in Tokyo faces its second worst day ever, with numerous SELL orders and billions of yen pulled from investments. Millions of Japanese citizens attempt to withdraw their money from banks, only to find that the money no longer exists. The Second Great Depression begins on what will soon become known as "Black Friday", with Italian, Thai, Chinese, and Mexican markets hit on the 11th, and the ripple effects obliterating (or at least severely damaging) the economies of the rest of the world by the end of June 15th.
September 26, 1973: The first spacewalk in human history is conducted. A joint British-French-German mission where the French scientist and the German engineer exits the spacecraft for the first time, showing the world that both countries have put their differences aside forever.
The rest of 1973: Funds are pulled from the ECES and redirected to the ailing economies of its former investors, with Italy maintaining operations regardless. Further space projects, including those already planned into 1974 have been suspended indefinitely. The First Space Race is over, with Japan turning inward to deal with her own problems, the Italian political situation reaching a climax, and the rest of Europe dealing with her own issues.
Spring 1974: Following the resignation of Duce Ciano, Italian authorities cancel all further missions indefinitely due to increased political turbulence back at home. In the following months, the Italian government will release a statement announcing the termination of all of its operations within the ECES, but stopping short of a unilateral withdrawal from the organization.
[1] This is, of course, beyond the scope of the timeline and my first hint to the world after the year 2000.
[2] An earlier rough equivalent to the book Randezvous with Rama.
[3] A TTL parallel to October Sky, known here as The Invisible Star.
[4] If anyone ever creates an AH.com thread titled something like "AHC: Italy beats the US and USSR to launching the first satellite in space", feel free to cite this story as an elaborate method for such a way to accomplish this feat.
[5] Hungary and the Balkans (sans Illyria, not part of the Pact for obvious reasons) would resist this move closer to the London-Paris-Berlin axis known as the "European Entente" until the collapse of the Italian Empire and the reformation of Italian politics towards liberal democracy in the mid-to-late-70s. More on this in Chapter 18.
[6] Nothing like the Iran Hostage Crisis of OTL, though the new "Revolutionary Arab Republic" is taking a lot from the playbook of France during her own Revolution... and is repeating a lot of the same mistakes from the era.
The title is a poorly-veiled reference to Bill Wurtz's famous "history of the entire world, i guess" video. (It was also the title of one of my board games for a high school statistics project, something I completely and utterly disown even though the concept was kind of cool. But I digress.)
CHAPTER 16: "I'll race you to space!"
"The German Government has just released a public statement following the launch of their first satellite into space, the fourth nation in the world to do so. Not far behind Britain, France, and Japan, Germany is now a major player in the development of technologies and machines for use in outer space, and plans to launch a larger object into orbit are scheduled to come into fruition within the next year."
- A 1969 evening news radio broadcast from Canada, narrated by the 28-year old Alex Trebek
"You are now seeing live footage of a Japanese rocket lifting off from its launch pad just outside of the northern city of Kushiro. Truly, this is a historic day for mankind in its quest to break the confines of our planet's atmosphere..."
- A recorded BBC television broadcast first aired in 1972. This footage would later be wiped from the BBC's main archives in England as a cost-saving measure yet would be recovered from a broadcasting affiliate in New York City for a documentary on the history of Japan
Before the crash of 1973, the period of time in contemporary history books with an increased effort of launching objects (and humans) into space in the name of technological advancement (and more often for the express purpose of bragging rights, not to mention finding a suitable use for some budget surpluses) would be know as the First Space Race. While the second one would not begin for another forty years and the flag of Soviet Russia would not be planted on the surface of the moon until late 2017[1], numerous advances in satellite and spacefaring technology were made in a brief period of time between 1966 and 1974. What fueled this brief boom in an interest in spacefaring was a combination of works in the field of science fiction during the late 1960s entering the mainstream, as well as increased exposure to other audiences who normally wouldn't read such books watching The Distant Windsong or an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Interception[2].
The United Kingdom, France, and Germany were all collaborating as "friendly rivals" in this field, seeing who could accomplish what first. Britain "started" the Space Race by launching the world's first satellite into orbit in the summer of 1966 and inspiring the plot of one of the last great Japanese classic films fifteen years later.[3] Japan herself would follow with here own satellite launch in early 1968, followed by France in March of 1969 and Germany seven months later, just in time for Oktoberfest. What would overshadow this particular achievement, however, would be Britain's launch of an unmanned rocket into orbit and its controlled crash into the Indian Ocean over the course of the hours of November 2, 1969. The knowledge of rocket-building would be shared with Germany and France in the hopes of working on collaborative projects in the future, ultimately culminating in the establishment of the European Commission for the Exploration of Space (ECES) in 1970.
The second-to-last country anyone expected participation from in the ECES was Italy. Proving their worth by beating both the United States and Russia to launching a mostly-functional satellite into orbit on New Year's Eve of 1970[4], they applied to join the Commission, creating a significant thaw in European-Mediterranean relations and the beginning of the end of a continent divided between the values of political liberalism and centralization of power[5].
The United States of America was not entirely pleased with this turn of events, seeing as it was falling behind the rest of the world and even behind Japan, a country that's supposed to be a second-rate one in Asia. Still, Congress was not going to pass anything that was considered to be a "waste of taxpayer money", and this attitude would not endear them to the public in the times to come. Eventually a budget would be set aside for a new state-funded department for the purpose of exploring space and bragging about how awesome it is, yet right now that remains a pipe dream for most idealists.
1972 shocked the world with the first man in orbit not being British, French, German, or even Italian. Japan launched 30-year old Toyohiro Akiyama into Earth's orbit, the first human in space. This trip around Earth that lasted nearly two hours and ultimately ended with a parachute landing into the deserts of Arabia, which had recently undergone a republican revolution the previous year and is currently combating numerous rebels. The "Arabian Hostage Crisis"[6] would last five days, but would result in a search-and-rescue mission that saw Toyohiro Akiyama rescued, the secret police forces of the new Arabian regime humiliated (and subsequently purged), and an icy relationship between the two countries that would result in the infamous 1973 blockade of oil shipping to Japan from the region, the problems persisting even after the fall of the so-called "Revolutionary Republic" the year prior.
The situation inadvertently led to yet another one of the many great crises of the twentieth century: The collapse of Tokyo's stock market and the Second Great Depression. The collapse of most of the world's economies would lead to the end of the First Space Race, but the end is generally considered to be the joint Franco-British-German spacewalk mission, producing one of the most monumental photographs of the decade and showing the world that any and all enmity between Germany and France was dead and buried.
TIMELINE OF THE FIRST SPACE RACE:
August 5, 1966: The United Kingdom launches the first satellite into outer space, kicking off seven years of fast-paced advancement in spacefaring advances.
February 15, 1968: Japan launches their first satellite into space.
March 21, 1969: France launches their first satellite into orbit from a launchpad in Corsica.
October 1, 1969: Germany's first satellite begins to orbit Planet Earth.
November 2, 1969: Britain launches the first rocket capable of propelling a spacecraft into orbit. Hours later, it falls from orbit into the Indian Ocean, off of Australia's western coast.
April 20, 1970: The European Commission for the Exploration of Space (ECES) is founded by Britain, France, and Germany. Italy joins the ECES later this year, to the noted surprise of many respected political scientists of the day.
December 31, 1970: An Italian satellite is launched into orbit. A failure of part of the heat shield compromises part of the satellite's electronics, but otherwise performs most of its functions until it is de-orbited ten years later.
July 11, 1972: Japan shocks the world by announcing that it has conducted the first manned space mission: a two-hour long orbit around Planet Earth, followed by a diplomatic crisis between Japan and the short-lived "Republican" regime in Arabia. Europe is caught off-guard by this achievement, and the "big three" ramp up their investments into the ECES. A British man will be launched into orbit by the end of the year on a mission less geopolitically volatile than Japan's.
June 8, 1973: The stock exchange in Tokyo faces its second worst day ever, with numerous SELL orders and billions of yen pulled from investments. Millions of Japanese citizens attempt to withdraw their money from banks, only to find that the money no longer exists. The Second Great Depression begins on what will soon become known as "Black Friday", with Italian, Thai, Chinese, and Mexican markets hit on the 11th, and the ripple effects obliterating (or at least severely damaging) the economies of the rest of the world by the end of June 15th.
September 26, 1973: The first spacewalk in human history is conducted. A joint British-French-German mission where the French scientist and the German engineer exits the spacecraft for the first time, showing the world that both countries have put their differences aside forever.
The rest of 1973: Funds are pulled from the ECES and redirected to the ailing economies of its former investors, with Italy maintaining operations regardless. Further space projects, including those already planned into 1974 have been suspended indefinitely. The First Space Race is over, with Japan turning inward to deal with her own problems, the Italian political situation reaching a climax, and the rest of Europe dealing with her own issues.
Spring 1974: Following the resignation of Duce Ciano, Italian authorities cancel all further missions indefinitely due to increased political turbulence back at home. In the following months, the Italian government will release a statement announcing the termination of all of its operations within the ECES, but stopping short of a unilateral withdrawal from the organization.
[1] This is, of course, beyond the scope of the timeline and my first hint to the world after the year 2000.
[2] An earlier rough equivalent to the book Randezvous with Rama.
[3] A TTL parallel to October Sky, known here as The Invisible Star.
[4] If anyone ever creates an AH.com thread titled something like "AHC: Italy beats the US and USSR to launching the first satellite in space", feel free to cite this story as an elaborate method for such a way to accomplish this feat.
[5] Hungary and the Balkans (sans Illyria, not part of the Pact for obvious reasons) would resist this move closer to the London-Paris-Berlin axis known as the "European Entente" until the collapse of the Italian Empire and the reformation of Italian politics towards liberal democracy in the mid-to-late-70s. More on this in Chapter 18.
[6] Nothing like the Iran Hostage Crisis of OTL, though the new "Revolutionary Arab Republic" is taking a lot from the playbook of France during her own Revolution... and is repeating a lot of the same mistakes from the era.
The title is a poorly-veiled reference to Bill Wurtz's famous "history of the entire world, i guess" video. (It was also the title of one of my board games for a high school statistics project, something I completely and utterly disown even though the concept was kind of cool. But I digress.)
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I'm surprised no country tried to use the space race as an smoke and mirror to distract everyone from the stock market crash.
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
This video made my day. I really need to play this game someday, seeing as the earlier parts of TTL seem to have quite a bit of overlap with the backstory of C&C: Red Alert.
Back on topic, they most certainly did try. And it did work for a few months. Italy is the primary case of this, showing off the strength of the empire even though their own situation is suddenly quite drastic, for reasons you all will learn shortly. But the general cutback on space exploration was a short-sighted cost-cutting measure more than anything else, at least from my own misguided point of view.
What happened to the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges ITTL?
Also, what is the fate of North Sentinel Island, the Amazonians, and other uncontacted tribes ITTL? Are they influenced by the abscene of Hitler and the Third Reich? Or are they pretty much the same as in OTL?
Also, what is the fate of North Sentinel Island, the Amazonians, and other uncontacted tribes ITTL? Are they influenced by the abscene of Hitler and the Third Reich? Or are they pretty much the same as in OTL?
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
The Marx Brothers do mostly OTL stuff during their active careers, maybe performing at different venues at different times. Everything of theirs after the 1940s is different from OTL, but they're the same vaudeville act that folks have come to know and love. Their deaths are around OTL's dates, with a margin of error of roughly five years or so.
The Three Stooges have different routines starting in the early 1940s, and pretty much everything after 1952 is original to this particular universe. Curly's debilitating stroke is butterflied, and he continues with the acts well into the 1950s. Joseph Wardell, known in another world as "Curly Joe DeRita", is a nobody in ATL, as is Joe Besser. Shemp Howard did not rejoin the Three Stooges in 1946, and suffered a heart attack in 1953, two years earlier than OTL.
As a bonus, even though you didn't ask, I will add that Charlie Chaplin is doing well ITTL, and we even manage to get an analogue of The Great Dictator (known here as The Grand Conductors[1]) in a 1943 film satirizing the fascist regimes of Italy and Romania yet not ending with an impassioned speech for freedom and democracy. It's much lesser known, failed to make ends meet at the box office, and as of the year 2000 is mostly forgotten to history except to true movie buffs and a very small cult fanbase.
North Sentinel Island is under protection from the Indian government as of an Act passed in 1969, and even with their own (mostly) undisturbed isolation different unwelcome visitors pop up here and there and the ripple effect combined with different weather patterns will ultimately change the finer details but leave the people and their culture entirely intact. The Amazonians and their isolation is generally respected by the government of Brazil, even if there are unwanted "adventurers" to the deeper parts of the Amazon Rainforest now and again. The other uncontacted tribes are, for the moment, being left alone in peace. Depending on what goes down in the next twenty to twenty-five years, most of them might just make it out of this century left the hell alone.
More as a note to myself than anything else, If (or when) I ever do a Redux of Two Suns Shall Set I'll be sure to incorporate everything you and the others have been asking about into the various storylines and popular culture sections.
[1] Sort of meta, sort of not. "Conductor" is a natural corruption of "Conducator", the title Corneliu Codreanu stylized himself with. And, of course, the joke that under fascism, the trains will run on time. Thus a natural title for a satirical film is created.
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AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
I was going to write a Halloween teaser but I got caught up watching a film last night and playing some computer games. That and I would have been tempted to spoil a major plot point that's coming up that I doubt anyone of you could guess.
Instead, here's a small sampler of unique-ish flags within the Europe of Two Suns Shall Set:
The Iberian Confederation
(1951-Present) [1]
The Tsardom of Bulgaria
(1878-Present) [2]
The Empire of Japan
(1870-1986) [3]
[1] A fusion of both Spain and Portugal's flags with all old monarchist symbols removed. Also a modified variant of this image stripped of the hammer and sickle edited by yours truly.
[2] OTL flag, if I recall correctly. Either way, it was used in Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg.
[3] Flag is obviously OTL.
Instead, here's a small sampler of unique-ish flags within the Europe of Two Suns Shall Set:
The Iberian Confederation
(1951-Present) [1]
The Tsardom of Bulgaria
(1878-Present) [2]
The Empire of Japan
(1870-1986) [3]
[1] A fusion of both Spain and Portugal's flags with all old monarchist symbols removed. Also a modified variant of this image stripped of the hammer and sickle edited by yours truly.
[2] OTL flag, if I recall correctly. Either way, it was used in Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg.
[3] Flag is obviously OTL.
Bookmark1995
Banned
I just want to say....
I've never seen a TL where the Nazis come to power, yet still leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.
I don't mean that as an insult to you as a writer. I think your TL is really, really good.
But...the TL shows you don't have to be a Nazi to be a shitty person. It reminds me that even if that crazy painter hadn't come to power, the world would still be a place where human beings can hurt each other for the stupidest reasons, whether it is in the name of "civilization", the "greatest of the Yamato race", or "defending the workers and peasants."
Being horrible is within the ability of any person.
I've never seen a TL where the Nazis come to power, yet still leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.
I don't mean that as an insult to you as a writer. I think your TL is really, really good.
But...the TL shows you don't have to be a Nazi to be a shitty person. It reminds me that even if that crazy painter hadn't come to power, the world would still be a place where human beings can hurt each other for the stupidest reasons, whether it is in the name of "civilization", the "greatest of the Yamato race", or "defending the workers and peasants."
Being horrible is within the ability of any person.
- Status