Will there ever be a Good Civil War TL?
- Thread starter Onyx
- Start date
Not in "public". Your condition #2 is the only one that matters - the people on this board who know a great deal about the American Civil War, and there are a number of them, have had to sift through a couple hundred of them by now, most badly written, 10 or 20 of them from each of a dozen or so good PoDs. They're going to contribute nonconstructive criticism or nothing at all because they're heartily sick of talking the same points again and again with the relatively uninformed.
If you're really interested in an ACW ATL, post a PoD and a bit of speculation and ask people to reply to you privately would be my suggestion. You might get some good conversation going. But to get a positive response in the general forum, it'd have to be something quite special.
If you're really interested in an ACW ATL, post a PoD and a bit of speculation and ask people to reply to you privately would be my suggestion. You might get some good conversation going. But to get a positive response in the general forum, it'd have to be something quite special.
Most of the people who write TLs here have an agenda. They have an idea as to what they want to see occur in the history of their pet country or culture and then pick a POD that might get them such an outcome. I find tohis to be especially true for the ACW. And while I'll admit to having a lot of my own preconceived notions regarding the ACW and my own personal favorites (I'm looking at you John Fulton Reynolds), I think that the resident neo-confederate crowd is a bit worse.
So unless the ATL fits rather closely to your own views on said topic you will feel a bit sour towards any TL relating to it. The "goodness" of any particular ACW ATL is in the eye of the beholder so to speak. This is why i generally don't comment too much about them. Sure it's easy to find the really bad one's, which are laughably researched and completely biased but an ACW ATL that is universally praised is a rare bird indeed. I tend to measure them first by how well they are researched and then by my own perception of their plausibility. But still what i may consider to be good is almost certainly not what some of the others on this board would consider good.
Benjamin
So unless the ATL fits rather closely to your own views on said topic you will feel a bit sour towards any TL relating to it. The "goodness" of any particular ACW ATL is in the eye of the beholder so to speak. This is why i generally don't comment too much about them. Sure it's easy to find the really bad one's, which are laughably researched and completely biased but an ACW ATL that is universally praised is a rare bird indeed. I tend to measure them first by how well they are researched and then by my own perception of their plausibility. But still what i may consider to be good is almost certainly not what some of the others on this board would consider good.
Benjamin
I haven't seen to many ACW TLs to begin with but I haven't been around that long. I would like to 2nd benjamin on the neo-confed thing, its annoying to say the least. This a very polarizing time for this country and still polarizing appartently in AH circles. If you want to read a person centered ATL about the ACW I suggest Go South Young Man, an entertaining speculation.
usertron2020
Donor
Shawn Endresen
Benjamin
Both your posts show a brilliant analysis of the problem with ACW TLs. Personal bias will flood the thread with minutely detailed studies that will claim that the slightest error of fact is proof to the complete lack of validity to said TL. Yes, there is a distinct lack of talent in many of these threads. Many are very well written. I have posted on other threads that there is a considerable imbalance of talent in the ACW TLs. The "Confed" wanks seem to be written by VMI historians compared to the dreck that is your average UnionistWank. I have seen ACW TLs with posters demanding to know when Lee would take New York! And most of the posters on such threads-if not going quite so ridiculously far-will at least entertain "Marches to Lake Erie", The Fall of Philadelphia, and so on. But I recall a recent thread where a poster suggested merely that McDowell's Army of the Potomac could win the First Battle of Bull Run, and what could happen next. What happened was a cannonade of replies stating the initial premis was impossible! Well, yes. They DID lose, IOTL after all. The whole point was to try to show how he might have done better. Sure enough, the erudition and voluminous statistics started flowing out from the professors-or their students. Still, its nice to know we have VMI's attention!
Now where's West Point's?PS. For the UnionistWanks out there, stick to ASB or prepare to be curbstomped!
David S Poepoe
Banned
My advice, which should be taken along with what Shawn mentioned, would be not to post a POD just post your ATL complete. If you start asking for peer review you are seldom going to get it and the whole thing will drift off into discussion and argument.
Cromwell delenda est...
...Hung in his shroud by Charles II.
Lots of ACW, but maybe it's a really good English/Scottish Civil War TL that's needed. 'Rupertus Rex', perhaps ? Charles Stewart was virtually incompetent - he just had a damned fine wife and some good Generals.
...Hung in his shroud by Charles II.
Lots of ACW, but maybe it's a really good English/Scottish Civil War TL that's needed. 'Rupertus Rex', perhaps ? Charles Stewart was virtually incompetent - he just had a damned fine wife and some good Generals.
Well, you will all excuse me if I show any disdain for American history, which I really don't have, and I respect the subject material and people who are interested in it.
However, the fact is that the general American public is so poorly educated about world history that probably the only wars they know of are their own. Now, we've got plenty of WW2,WW1 TLs in the 20th century thread, many of them good, however in the pre-20th century thread, American history is characterised by two things: ARW & ACW. Maybe it's because the founding fathers and Lincoln have been all but deified by the American psyche, maybe it's the romantic melancholy of an enonomically stagnant south feeling bitterness towards a (relatively) vibrant north. However, the fact is that so long as American history is taught either so poorly as that people don't know anything about it other than the aforementioned areas, or that Americans know something about world history, rather than thinking that the British Empire collapsed in 1776 and that the French Revolution was based on the principles of the American Revolution, the fact is that America will always be stuck in some sort of historical lobotomy. Many have said that America is fascinated by its history because it is so short: I beg to difer, I say that many people are inately interested in history (good on them) but the fact is that they are often only taught about one or two areas: I know, I get it too. In Britain, all children learn about up intul about 13 is the battle of Hastings, the Blitz and maybe the Magna Carta; even some Dickens if you're lucky.
Now, I don't mean to be disparaging, however it's all to do with education which has bred a society that channels its inate curiousity into trivialities rather than some amazing and interesting topics. Now, I'm not just bitching because my rather eclectic TLs get fewer views or comments than more 'mainstream' ones, it's just that I believe that the point of alternate history is to expand people's horizons, to challenge pre-conceived notions and to ultimately pose intellectually stimulating questions, none of which will happen if we, the public, do nothing but retread the same old worn out ground. The dogs called ACW and ARW are tired, old and mangy. Someone put a slug in their heads before they start pissing on the rug.
However, the fact is that the general American public is so poorly educated about world history that probably the only wars they know of are their own. Now, we've got plenty of WW2,WW1 TLs in the 20th century thread, many of them good, however in the pre-20th century thread, American history is characterised by two things: ARW & ACW. Maybe it's because the founding fathers and Lincoln have been all but deified by the American psyche, maybe it's the romantic melancholy of an enonomically stagnant south feeling bitterness towards a (relatively) vibrant north. However, the fact is that so long as American history is taught either so poorly as that people don't know anything about it other than the aforementioned areas, or that Americans know something about world history, rather than thinking that the British Empire collapsed in 1776 and that the French Revolution was based on the principles of the American Revolution, the fact is that America will always be stuck in some sort of historical lobotomy. Many have said that America is fascinated by its history because it is so short: I beg to difer, I say that many people are inately interested in history (good on them) but the fact is that they are often only taught about one or two areas: I know, I get it too. In Britain, all children learn about up intul about 13 is the battle of Hastings, the Blitz and maybe the Magna Carta; even some Dickens if you're lucky.
Now, I don't mean to be disparaging, however it's all to do with education which has bred a society that channels its inate curiousity into trivialities rather than some amazing and interesting topics. Now, I'm not just bitching because my rather eclectic TLs get fewer views or comments than more 'mainstream' ones, it's just that I believe that the point of alternate history is to expand people's horizons, to challenge pre-conceived notions and to ultimately pose intellectually stimulating questions, none of which will happen if we, the public, do nothing but retread the same old worn out ground. The dogs called ACW and ARW are tired, old and mangy. Someone put a slug in their heads before they start pissing on the rug.
Well you were kind enough to insult just about everyone on AH.com. Bravo
Righto. Anyway, back to the initial post.....
90% of ACW TLs are pure military history TLs (the exceptions including 67ths Trent Affair and other political TLs), and there are many endemic problems to pure military TLs.
First, all the meat in the TL will be military meat, which not everyone likes and fewer still are ready to comment on. If the TL is going to be a *good* TL then it must be in-depth military meat, which also requires that the author have a good deal of background knowledge. Third, military discussions are particularly prone to polarized opinions.
That aside....most TLs are Confederate-Winning for a simple reason. There are three possible ATLs for the Civil War: the South wins, the North wins earlier than OTL, or the North wins later than OTL. It is certainly possible to create an interesting TL falling into one of the latter two categories. However, psychologically, it does not seem to be as "great" a TL as those in the first category, because the overall alteration from OTL is not as great, no matter how in-depth and well laid out the TL is. This leaves aside current-day NeoConfederate political issues.
The end result is a huge number of Southern Victory TLs. We first sift through those that are horribly written, those which are not well-researched, and those which are at least competent in these two requirements but are Uber-Wanks. Perhaps 50% of what is left, at least, has a BP with S.O.191, some others with Perryville, many with Gettysburg, a few with Vicksburg. For a person who is a good author and is willing to do research, but is not at the top-tier of knowledge about the Civil War, these BPs are the obvious BPs. That they are obvious does not mean that they are bad - simply that they are overdone. But as more and more of them are written, the challenge of keeping them original becomes ever-more insurmountable.
So this leaves us with a tiny handful of TLs, still usually Southern Victory, which are well-written, well-researched, not inherently a Wank, and do not have one of the above as their BP.
Once these TLs are published, if they are not ignored, then they are almost always referred to as "near-ASB". Clearly some on this board do not believe me, so I shall give an example.
August 1863: Bragg is wounded. Army politics and ability limit Davis' choice of replacement - very half-heartedly he sends Lee west to command the AoT. Chickamauga is an amazing Confederate victory with 20,000 US casualties and 15,000 prisoners including Sheridan. Lee follows up, besieges Chattanooga, sends a relieving force to Knoxville 3x OTL size, crushes Burnside, comes back in time to take another 15,000 US prisoners including Sherman, then cuts Grant's supply line, forces him all the way back to Nashville and almost captures his whole army. In Spring 1864 Lee faces Thomas in Virginia in a campaign of maneuver ending up with Thomas in front of Richmond and Petersburg but no luckier than OTL about breaking in, and with Lee's army larger, healthier, with Ewell long gone, Early, Gordon, and Mahone promoted, and Hood an active division commander. In the west Grant faces Johnston from Nashville - Johnston in turn has gotten rid of Polk, and has Hardee, Stewart, and Cheatham as corps commanders (so much better than OTL) - and after 6 months is finally forced back to, but not out of, Chattanooga in a campaign of maneuver. Lincoln loses the election to (insert Democrat here), and by Inauguration day the Confederates still hold Richmond, Atlanta, and everything in between - and so they make a negotiated peace.
You see? That sounds very much like ASB territory to me, with the Confederates having that string of luck. If, on the other hand, I went to ten pages explaining all of the details of this TL, it would show how the Confederates, while lucky, were certainly not ASB - how every individual event in there is extremely plausible and follows naturally from those before.
On the other hand, how often is minutiae debated in a thread? Minutiae is precisely what would have to be debated to declare this TL ASB or not-ASB. However almost all board-wide criticism is about the bigger picture, which looks very much like ASB, even if it's not.
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Wow, that was long. So anyway, Leper of Outremer, I am very sorry that I have no good answer. Look in the archives for those TLs that read well and are plausible but are not commented on much, and revive them. Or post your own for every single tiny BP that you can think of. I mean that seriously.
90% of ACW TLs are pure military history TLs (the exceptions including 67ths Trent Affair and other political TLs), and there are many endemic problems to pure military TLs.
First, all the meat in the TL will be military meat, which not everyone likes and fewer still are ready to comment on. If the TL is going to be a *good* TL then it must be in-depth military meat, which also requires that the author have a good deal of background knowledge. Third, military discussions are particularly prone to polarized opinions.
That aside....most TLs are Confederate-Winning for a simple reason. There are three possible ATLs for the Civil War: the South wins, the North wins earlier than OTL, or the North wins later than OTL. It is certainly possible to create an interesting TL falling into one of the latter two categories. However, psychologically, it does not seem to be as "great" a TL as those in the first category, because the overall alteration from OTL is not as great, no matter how in-depth and well laid out the TL is. This leaves aside current-day NeoConfederate political issues.
The end result is a huge number of Southern Victory TLs. We first sift through those that are horribly written, those which are not well-researched, and those which are at least competent in these two requirements but are Uber-Wanks. Perhaps 50% of what is left, at least, has a BP with S.O.191, some others with Perryville, many with Gettysburg, a few with Vicksburg. For a person who is a good author and is willing to do research, but is not at the top-tier of knowledge about the Civil War, these BPs are the obvious BPs. That they are obvious does not mean that they are bad - simply that they are overdone. But as more and more of them are written, the challenge of keeping them original becomes ever-more insurmountable.
So this leaves us with a tiny handful of TLs, still usually Southern Victory, which are well-written, well-researched, not inherently a Wank, and do not have one of the above as their BP.
Once these TLs are published, if they are not ignored, then they are almost always referred to as "near-ASB". Clearly some on this board do not believe me, so I shall give an example.
August 1863: Bragg is wounded. Army politics and ability limit Davis' choice of replacement - very half-heartedly he sends Lee west to command the AoT. Chickamauga is an amazing Confederate victory with 20,000 US casualties and 15,000 prisoners including Sheridan. Lee follows up, besieges Chattanooga, sends a relieving force to Knoxville 3x OTL size, crushes Burnside, comes back in time to take another 15,000 US prisoners including Sherman, then cuts Grant's supply line, forces him all the way back to Nashville and almost captures his whole army. In Spring 1864 Lee faces Thomas in Virginia in a campaign of maneuver ending up with Thomas in front of Richmond and Petersburg but no luckier than OTL about breaking in, and with Lee's army larger, healthier, with Ewell long gone, Early, Gordon, and Mahone promoted, and Hood an active division commander. In the west Grant faces Johnston from Nashville - Johnston in turn has gotten rid of Polk, and has Hardee, Stewart, and Cheatham as corps commanders (so much better than OTL) - and after 6 months is finally forced back to, but not out of, Chattanooga in a campaign of maneuver. Lincoln loses the election to (insert Democrat here), and by Inauguration day the Confederates still hold Richmond, Atlanta, and everything in between - and so they make a negotiated peace.
You see? That sounds very much like ASB territory to me, with the Confederates having that string of luck. If, on the other hand, I went to ten pages explaining all of the details of this TL, it would show how the Confederates, while lucky, were certainly not ASB - how every individual event in there is extremely plausible and follows naturally from those before.
On the other hand, how often is minutiae debated in a thread? Minutiae is precisely what would have to be debated to declare this TL ASB or not-ASB. However almost all board-wide criticism is about the bigger picture, which looks very much like ASB, even if it's not.
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Wow, that was long. So anyway, Leper of Outremer, I am very sorry that I have no good answer. Look in the archives for those TLs that read well and are plausible but are not commented on much, and revive them. Or post your own for every single tiny BP that you can think of. I mean that seriously.
I think there's some kind of award for doing that. If not, there should be one.
You mean Lincoln wasn't the Devil and now universally hated for his big government, and "Song of the South" wasn't an accurate portrayal of race relations?
Enough of your damn Yankee lies!
I'm a yank and pretty well-read on the war and the military, but I also liked Young Man, Go South. Not only is it well-written, but it's also as plausible as alternate reality gets. I'd long been convinced that you need a change in at least one President for the result to change, and TTL featured an effective swap - Instead of the mediocre Davis, the South has the really good Lincoln, and the North has the mediocre Seward, whom had the mo going into the GOP convention in '60.
This is kind of a silly question. There are good ACW timelines on this board and elsewhere. Heck, I've written some of them myself.
People right now are still reacting to the "Jake Vektor Experience," which has soured many people to the whole idea of a timeline based on an ACW POD. But Vektor's gone now. It's safe to go back into the water now.
Onyx
Banned
This is kind of a silly question. There are good ACW timelines on this board and elsewhere. Heck, I've written some of them myself.
People right now are still reacting to the "Jake Vektor Experience," which has soured many people to the whole idea of a timeline based on an ACW POD. But Vektor's gone now. It's safe to go back into the water now.
Whatever happened to Jake Vektor?
usertron2020
Donor
If there is a single well written and plausible Early Union Victorious TL, I've yet to see it. Though I've only been on the Forum a few months.
PS. I'm glad to see it wasn't just me who had a problem with Jake Vector.
PS. I'm glad to see it wasn't just me who had a problem with Jake Vector.
I'll be honest...I just get sick of the same tired ACW arguments, many from the same posters repeating the same opinions, repeated ad nauseum every time an ACW WI or TL pops up. Whatever the POD, original or not, it quickly devolves into the same tired meta-duels.
Frex, I'm incredibly sick of every other good WI degenerating into a debate over which ACW generals were good or not, always citing the same statistics from the same historians, always coming down in the end to "I like General X better, so I'm pimping his accomplishments and downplaying his limitations".
It makes me, someone honestly interested in the ACW as a historical event rather than a neopolitical one, hesitant to click on any ACW threads. It makes me doubly hesitant to post one of my own.
As a resident of Fredericksburg, VA, and one actually professionally taught ACW history by one of the big names in ACW history, I've been dying to do an alt-Fredericksburg scenario, but I'm really afraid it'll be completely consumed by tired arguments, trolling comments, and opinion-based nitpicks that utterly miss the greater picture.
Frex, I'm incredibly sick of every other good WI degenerating into a debate over which ACW generals were good or not, always citing the same statistics from the same historians, always coming down in the end to "I like General X better, so I'm pimping his accomplishments and downplaying his limitations".
It makes me, someone honestly interested in the ACW as a historical event rather than a neopolitical one, hesitant to click on any ACW threads. It makes me doubly hesitant to post one of my own.
As a resident of Fredericksburg, VA, and one actually professionally taught ACW history by one of the big names in ACW history, I've been dying to do an alt-Fredericksburg scenario, but I'm really afraid it'll be completely consumed by tired arguments, trolling comments, and opinion-based nitpicks that utterly miss the greater picture.