That Wacky Redhead

[Brainbin]

Thank you all for your terrific responses to my latest update! This one was a little tricky for me, because it's not nearly as easy to write about the dawn of a new medium as it is to write about the heyday of one. (Though it does make good practice, for the next Big Timeline I plan to write, however long down the line that may be, when I'll have to cover the genesis of the wireless and moving pictures). We'll be hearing a lot more about Syzygy in the coming years, so I hope that you all look forward to that.

But first, of course, for my comments on your many wonderful replies...

You know, that list plus the honorable mention is pretty much the perfect collection of Star Trek episodes.

I had a feeling that you would like it, since "Arena" made it on there (and without your voting for it!). I agree, it's an incredibly solid list.

Congratz on the anniversary!

Thank you very much, vultan!

Let me offer very well-deserved congratulations, then.

Much obliged

I can't believe it's actually been a year. It felt like maybe 6mo. Proof that good fiction causes time travel. (Or something.)

I appreciate the precision of your estimate. Now I know that reading my timeline makes time pass at approximately a 200% rate

So, you've got a goal of 600,000 views & 5000 replies by next anniversary.

The first goal I want to set for this timeline is a projected end date, and then I'll worry about benchmark milestones!

Would that be a misprint for mine? (1963.)

It would not, actually! You are where you should be. Both of my readers born in 1964 are (or were) regulars, as well.

Looking at them, it makes me think just how good the writing was on the best episodes. (I can't speak to the directing; I'm not sensitive enough to how much difference it makes.) Yet you also see a strong "monster movie" vibe: "Arena" & "Devil in the Dark", & a comedy stream, too, with "Tribbles" & "Piece of the Action". It makes me wonder if [Star Trek] didn't influence styles of shows more than we realize.

Considering that it's universally regarded as one of the most influential shows ever made, I'm not sure how that's possible - perhaps you merely underestimate it

If we include "Journey to Babel", the following writers are responsible:

• Gene Coon wrote four out of the eleven (three as the sole writer, if you don't count his having "adapted" one of them, which he actually didn't). And you wonder why just about the first thing I did for Star Trek ITTL was to keep him on board...
• D.C. Fontana was credited only for one episode, "Journey to Babel", but she also wrote the final revised draft of "The City on the Edge of Forever" (uncredited);
• David Gerrold, of course, wrote that one episode which remains his most famous work, despite an acclaimed career;
• Three episodes were written by established titans of science-fiction (Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad, and Theodore Sturgeon).
• And two episodes were written by dependable freelancers: Paul Schneider (who wrote only two episodes: "Balance of Terror" and "The Squire of Gothos") and Jerome Bixby ("Mirror, Mirror" was the best of his solid handful of scripts).

As for directors? Again counting "Journey to Babel" (which was directed by Joseph Pevney):

• Vincent McEveety and James Komack (whose name you should recognize - twice over) directed one episode each.
• Marc Daniels directed three episodes;
• and Joseph Pevney directed the other six.

Would you like to know how many episodes Daniels and Pevney, the show's two most frequent directors, helmed in the Turd Season IOTL? One. (Granted, that one was "Spock's Brain", but hey, Marc Daniels directed for I Love Lucy. Everyone is allowed one off week.) Again, you can see why I arranged for them to stay put ITTL.

(Two of the episodes on our list were brought to us by the Coon-Pevney team: "Arena" and "The Devil in the Dark".)

You did quite well at matching the tastes of the overall populace: 8 of your 10 matched the 10+1, with another ("Space Seed") getting an honourable mention. ("Balance of Terror" and, unsurprisingly, "Arena", were left off). My score is tied with yours, but the two I missed are "Space Seed" (which I like) and "Arena" (...no comment).

BTW, I've deleted the "tie", since IMO, if there's a tie, there's room for another...which actually puts "Journey to Babel" on the Top 10. (I've never understood the reasoning of omitting the next number: if they're tied, they're equal...)

Well, if you put "Journey to Babel" on the Top 10 despite the tie, just how many episodes are on the list? I'll give you a hint: it's not ten!

Happy Birthday!

Thank you!

Time flies and all that. Here's to the continuing adventures of That Wacky Redhead.

Hear, hear! And she may be getting on in years, but she's got a lot of fighting spirit in her

Interesting statistical analysis Brainbin. I think it would look better on a histogram myself, but as I annoyingly found out the other day, Excel apparently doesn't do those...

Thank you, Thande, and I agree with you on both counts.

I'll echo the congratulations of the other posters, both on the TL and the statistical analysis.

Thank you, Steve

Another good one. (That really does go without saying with you, y'know.)

Thank you, though I beg to differ as to whether or not it goes without saying. And even if it did, I still love hearing it!

Computer Space was also a lot harder to learn to play. It was nothing like as intuitive as Pong. (BTW, the concept of Pong goes back to 1958...)

Which I mentioned fleetingly in the update. Prior to the 1970s, there seem to have been about five solid ideas for video games: one along the lines of Spacewar!/Computer Space; another which focused on table tennis (culminating in Pong); chess simulators; tactical combat simulators; and super-simple games like tic-tac-toe. Technology finally caught up with creativity in the Me Decade, resulting in the Golden Age of Arcade Video Games (and the boon of games for the Atari VCS).

Does the arcade version help finance this? And does Syzygy still have the OTL trouble in translating arcade success into home success? (BTW, I can't help wishing they'd called it Dreadstar Gaming. Or Sable Games. {Yes, Sable Games is pretty inside.})

Hold that thought; you'll note that I didn't mention the launch library of the Syzygy VCS. There's a very important reason for that...

Can I hope for a home version of Zaxxon? (It's the only game I ever played much, & liked it a lot.)

I'll be sure to keep that in mind.

Good update.

And thank you again, Thande!

I haven't heard of Computer Space before, but if it's based on Spacewar!, I believe that would make it a rather more complex game than Pong; will that being the first public impression of videogames have an affect on the cultural role of them in society, I wonder.

Funny you should say that. As you imply, the present reputation for envelope-pushing in the video game industry is much younger than many people realize; KISS was the order of the day (usually due to processing or graphical limitations, of course) until well into the 1990s. I'll actually be touching on your question fairly soon.

Also, extra points if the successor to the VCS (maybe a better-judged analogue to OTL's Atari 5400 with less problems) gets called the "Syzygy Zyzzyva"

Tell you what - if you can get him to come out of seclusion and post to my thread, I'll be sure to do that

In this terms of "unlicensed games" does that mean the video game crash of 1983 will still occur?

Now that would be telling!

The video game crash came from a perfect storm of all of these issues hitting their peak in 81-82. If say, ET never comes out, or Atari works out it's issues with Activision, they may be able to minimize an over-saturation of games for their console. If personnel computing is sped up in anyway, consoles will have to manage competition earlier. Ultimately, I don't see how the crash could have been much worse than it ended up being, and if there's a mini crash caused by any butterflies, American gaming may survive.

I really can't say much about the Video Game Crash speculation as of yet, obviously, but this is an important point to bear in mind.

I think it goes without saying that this is a great update, and thanks for the shout-out, Brainbin!

And thank you for the help, Andrew! Along with the compliment

I love the idea of Atari being able to do an IPO instead of look for a corporate partner in the '70s. This is going to have massive effects on the stock market in the very near term; from 1981-1982, Atari was the fastest-growing company in the history of the world.

That, in turn, is going to reinvest an awful lot of investors' cash with Syzygy, which means they'll be able to do a lot of things in the late 70s and early 80s with none of OTL's oversight....

I'm letting the inmates run the asylum, all right!

No Bruce Lee story would be complete without mentioning the fact that a stupid challenger to Bruce thought it would be a good idea to break into Bruce's house and scare his young children, Brandon and Shannon.

Bruce then sent the guy to the hospital. With. One. Kick.

That sad, pitiful man really should have known better. Bruce Lee was the Real Deal. Thanks for sharing that great story, Unknown!

Good update on the technological advances of this world, Brainbin.

Keep up the good work and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thank you for the kind words, though I celebrated Thanksgiving over a month ago. Still, I would like to take this opportunity to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all those Americans who celebrate it on the Fourth Thursday in November, rather than its rightful date on the Second Monday in October

Love the update, but can't really contribute anything - just outside my age range. I have some ideas if you do a follow-up on 8-bit home computers, though - PM me if you're interested.

Thank you for the compliment, TB-EI! I'll be sure to keep your offer in mind

Did Computer Space show up in Jaws or Soylent Green like OTL?

Excellent question! We'll let the butterflies take hold here and remove Computer Space from those films ITTL, if only for the sake of variety.

I found the original Syzygy logo:

Also, if you do a google image search for "syzygy logo" and scroll down to the middle of page 3, you'll find a link to this thread, even though it's less than 24 hours old! That's a pretty big endorsement of That Wacky Redhead, I think.

Thanks for sharing the original logo! And yes, Google has been very good to this timeline, for which I am grateful

 

[Shevek23]

...
The 6502 is all over the 1970s and 80s because it was so much cheaper than the competition -- Steve Wozniak once quipped that the 6502 was "one-fourth the price" of the Motorola 6800, but in some cases the 6502 was one-tenth (or less) the price of its competitors!

Here's a great case study: the Tandy-Radio Shack Color Computer ("CoCo"), introduced way back in 1980. That's two years before the Commodore 64, so its direct competitors were the Apple II+ and the Atari 800, both of which ran the 8-bit 6502. The CoCo, on the other hand, used the 16-bit Motorola 6809, which, on a chip-for-chip basis, is a significantly better microprocessor.

The problem is that the MC6809 was ten times the cost of the MOS6502...

Internally, the CoCo's CPU was light-years ahead of what Atari and Apple were doing. But to the consumer, the CoCo's text (40-column, no lowercase letters) and graphics (128x96, 4 colors) -- handled entirely by the 6502 -- were significantly worse than what you saw on your Atari or Apple screen -- and largely inadequate for porting arcade games. So even though there was more going on "under the hood," so to speak, it didn't seem that way to the consumer.

So that was your tradeoff with the 6502: you got a crappier processor, but you got the CPU taken care of cheaply which freed up your engineers to design all sorts of custom processors to handle the stuff the CPU couldn't do. In the late 70s/early 80s, that proved to be the winning course.

Another way to look at it: by supporting a rather dim-bulb central processor with lots of specialized service processors, Atari and Apple were achieving a kind of parallel processing!

 

[phx1138]

the next Big Timeline I plan to write, however long down the line that may be

Whenever it is, you can count me subscribed now. If it's even half as good as this one, I'll like it.

I appreciate the precision of your estimate. Now I know that reading my timeline makes time pass at approximately a 200% rate

At this rate, I should be getting younger.

projected end date

Even if you know, I'd rather not. The withdrawal is going to be bad enough without anticipating it for weeks or months.

It would not, actually! You are where you should be. Both of my readers born in 1964 are (or were) regulars, as well.

Just checking.

Considering that it's universally regarded as one of the most influential shows ever made, I'm not sure how that's possible - perhaps you merely underestimate it

Probably I just don't notice it, 'cause I take it for granted.

If we include "Journey to Babel", the following writers are responsible:

• Gene Coon wrote four out of the eleven (three as the sole writer, if you don't count his having "adapted" one of them, which he actually didn't). And you wonder why just about the first thing I did for Star Trek IOTL was to keep him on board...
• D.C. Fontana was credited only for one episode, "Journey to Babel", but she also wrote the final revised draft of "The City on the Edge of Forever" (uncredited);
• David Gerrold, of course, wrote that one episode which remains his most famous work, despite an acclaimed career;
• Three episodes were written by established titans of science-fiction (Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad, and Theodore Sturgeon).
• And two episodes were written by dependable freelancers: Paul Schneider (who wrote only two episodes: "Balance of Terror" and "The Squire of Gothos") and Jerome Bixby ("Mirror, Mirror" was the best of his solid handful of scripts).

No wondering why Gene L. was kept on here. He's shown his versatility, but it looks like he found his voice with "ST". I've seen at least one film he wrote (don't recall the name offhand) & it wasn't as good as his "ST". That, OTOH, maybe a less than stellar director... AFAIK, he never worked with somebody of the caliber of Orson Welles or Spielberg (tho if I had my way...).

As for directors? Again counting "Journey to Babel" (which was directed by Joseph Pevney):

• Vincent McEveety and James Komack (whose name you should recognize - twice over) directed one episode each.
• Marc Daniels directed three episodes;
• and Joseph Pevney directed the other six.

Would you like to know how many episodes Daniels and Pevney, the show's two most frequent directors, helmed in the Turd Season IOTL? One. (Granted, that one was "Spock's Brain", but hey, Marc Daniels directed for I Love Lucy. Everyone is allowed one off week.) Again, you can see why I arranged for them to stay put ITTL.

No wondering there, either. (More people you want to hire if you need to be sure you're going to get good product.) And worked consistently on other shows, too, I've noticed. I half wonder why none of the people who did so many episodes of, frex, "Ironside", ever turned up on "ST" OTL; I do vaguely recall seeing Pevney & McEveety on the credits there. (It's been a fair while, tho.)

Two of the episodes on our list were brought to us by the Coon-Pevney team: "Arena" and "The Devil in the Dark".

What, were they both on their worst week with "Arena", or what? (Yes, I know, some people like it. I don't understand it. I don't understand people liking baseball, either.)

You did quite well at matching the tastes of the overall populace: 8 of your 10 matched the 10+1, with another ("Space Seed") getting an honourable mention.

That frankly surprises me a lot, seeing how rarely they coincide IRL. (Unless you're speaking to "you" more broadly, in which case I'm not suprised at all.)

Well, if you put "Journey to Babel" on the Top 10 despite the tie, just how many episodes are on the list? I'll give you a hint: it's not ten!

I'd disagree, as said: "Amok Time" and "Space Seed" tie, so there is one episode at #7, not two with different scores. There are ten spaces, & a tie means these two fill one space. (I know, a lot of list-makers today don't follow that reasoning. IDK why not.) So...it's perfectly reasonable to have a Top 10 with 11 actual episodes on it. (If you can understand how a cat can be both alive & dead, or how Shatner's ego can fit in a standard movie studio, you shouldn't have trouble with this concept.)

I beg to differ as to whether or not it goes without saying.

You are your own toughest critic. I'd invite you to show me your bad work, but I'm afraid you might & get so discouraged, you'd quit doing this.

And even if it did, I still love hearing it!

So I'll keep saying it. Small bribe...

Hold that thought; you'll note that I didn't mention the launch library of the Syzygy VCS. There's a very important reason for that...

Noted. No doubt it'll be intriguing.

I'll be sure to keep that in mind.

Why do I suspect it never caught public attention much in part because I did like it...?

Funny you should say that. As you imply, the present reputation for envelope-pushing in the video game industry is much younger than many people realize; KISS was the order of the day (usually due to processing or graphical limitations, of course) until well into the 1990s. I'll actually be touching on your question fairly soon.

From what little I've read, this is because the arcade games were designed & intended for casual users. They needed to be games people could walk up to, plug a quarter into, & play (even if they were half-wasted, seeing no small number of machines were in clubs or bars) with some reasonable expectation of success. Pong did that. Computer Space, evidently, didn't.

I'm letting the inmates run the asylum, all right!

Not necessarily a bad thing. As TheMann has been demonstrating, passionate & dedicated people putting out good products can make money. (I happen to agree with his philosophy. Or with Brock Yates', which amounts to the same thing.)

That sad, pitiful man really should have known better. Bruce Lee was the Real Deal. Thanks for sharing that great story, Unknown!

Yeah, that's an easy insanity defense. (I don't think "stupidity defense" would persuade anyone...)

 

[KeeCoyote]

About the C-64 and commadore. I have a incredible hate for the guys who embezzled and destroyed commodre computers. as many lovers of the amiga and other commadore computers do.

 

[Glen]

I am back - gotta catch up...

 

[Glen]

Finney sounds like it'd be one of the most badass movies of the decade, especially if the production values are half-decent. Especially since it's starring Samuel L. Jackson. (Especially if he's quoting Bible verses as he's killing the bad guys.)

Man, it'd probably be Quentin Tarantino's favorite movie ITTL.

Speaking of good production values, is Dolemite a better quality film in this story? As it stands IOTL, it's a schlocky guilty pleasure at best.

And good on Nichelle Nichol for getting an Oscar nod!

Agreed on all this.

And y'all do know my last name....

 

[Brainbin]

The next update is coming along very nicely - I hope to have it ready in the next few days. And maybe even sooner!

Another way to look at it: by supporting a rather dim-bulb central processor with lots of specialized service processors, Atari and Apple were achieving a kind of parallel processing!

Welcome aboard, Shevek! Nice to see you over here.

Whenever it is, you can count me subscribed now. If it's even half as good as this one, I'll like it.

I'm hoping for some commonality of themes and perspectives with TWR, but the setting is going to be very different, with (what I hope will be) a truly epic scope.

But it's in the very early preliminary planning stages. As in, I've really only decided that I'm going to do it next instead of one of my several other plot bunnies.

Even if you know, I'd rather not. The withdrawal is going to be bad enough without anticipating it for weeks or months.

Then you'll be happy to know that my preliminary projected end date keeps getting pushed further and further back; that's why I haven't reported it yet.

No wondering why Gene L. was kept on here. He's shown his versatility, but it looks like he found his voice with "ST". I've seen at least one film he wrote (don't recall the name offhand) & it wasn't as good as his "ST". That, OTOH, maybe a less than stellar director... AFAIK, he never worked with somebody of the caliber of Orson Welles or Spielberg (tho if I had my way...).

Ah yes, falling into the classic "movies as pinnacle of entertainment" fallacy, which continues to plague society to this day. (It was endemic in the era which I'm covering, sadly, which is why even I have to yield to it on occasion.) Suffice it to say, writing for television was his first, best destiny. Anything else would be a waste of material

What, were they both on their worst week with "Arena", or what? (Yes, I know, some people like it. I don't understand it. I don't understand people liking baseball, either.)

Well, vultan would be pleased - the two Coon-Pevney episodes on that list are his two favourite episodes. To each his own!

I'd disagree, as said: "Amok Time" and "Space Seed" tie, so there is one episode at #7, not two with different scores. There are ten spaces, & a tie means these two fill one space. (I know, a lot of list-makers today don't follow that reasoning. IDK why not.) So...it's perfectly reasonable to have a Top 10 with 11 actual episodes on it. (If you can understand how a cat can be both alive & dead, or how Shatner's ego can fit in a standard movie studio, you shouldn't have trouble with this concept.)

It's a matter of semantics. If two of anything tie for first place, how can something come in second? It can't. Even if it has the second-highest number of "points", it still ranks the third-highest, because two rank higher than it does. This becomes increasingly apparent as ties for any position grow ever-larger.

You are your own toughest critic. I'd invite you to show me your bad work, but I'm afraid you might & get so discouraged, you'd quit doing this.

Oh, I know well enough to keep my juvenilia very far away from prying eyes

About the C-64 and commadore. I have a incredible hate for the guys who embezzled and destroyed commodre computers. as many lovers of the amiga and other commadore computers do.

Glad you're still reading, KeeCoyote! Believe it or not, I am not the first to cover information technology in the context of a popular culture timeline...

• Cronus Invictus, which was one of several past timelines to inspire this one, is a great example, though it focuses more on consoles, from the 1990s onward, and is sadly on indefinite hiatus (though there have been rumblings of a reboot, which I have none-too-subtly been encouraging).
• Earthquake Weather, which does touch more on an alternate home microcomputer revolution in the 1980s, including those companies you mention; sadly, it has been officially cancelled, with the author (ironically) having computer troubles of his own, which perpetually delays the planned replacement timeline.
• Dirty Laundry, which has the most in-depth coverage of the material you mention, and it's still extant, to boot!

All three of those timelines are highly recommended reading. (You will note that all three of the authors are consultants to this timeline! That is no accident.)

I am back - gotta catch up...

Welcome back, Glen! We missed you. I look forward to your insightful commentary on all those updates that were posted in your absence

And y'all do know my last name....

I'm afraid not Is it actually Finn or Finney? Or is it Jackson? You can PM me if you want to keep it an open secret.

 

[phx1138]

I'm hoping for some commonality of themes and perspectives with TWR, but the setting is going to be very different, with (what I hope will be) a truly epic scope.

Epic scope is good. Even if your focus is entirely different, I think it'll be pretty interesting stuff. You've got an intriguing () POV, & one that seems always to get me thinking. I like that.

But it's in the very early preliminary planning stages. As in, I've really only decided that I'm going to do it next instead of one of my several other plot bunnies.

I'm not going anywhere.

Then you'll be happy to know that my preliminary projected end date keeps getting pushed further and further back; that's why I haven't reported it yet.

Ah yes, falling into the classic "movies as pinnacle of entertainment" fallacy, which continues to plague society to this day. (It was endemic in the era which I'm covering, sadly, which is why even I have to yield to it on occasion.) Suffice it to say, writing for television was his first, best destiny. Anything else would be a waste of material

No, really not. I was trying to think of somebody I knew did top-drawer work without the time & budget constraints of TV, which can make good material into a mediocre product.

If I was creating a TV production company any time after about 1960, Gene L., David Gerrold, Bob Justman, & Harlan would be on staff from Day One, no questions, no exceptions, give 'em whatever they want. Then stay out of their way as much as I can. While I try to drum up the money to make the cool stuff.

Well, vultan would be pleased - the two Coon-Pevney episodes on that list are his two favourite episodes. To each his own!

It's a matter of semantics. If two of anything tie for first place, how can something come in second? It can't. Even if it has the second-highest number of "points", it still ranks the third-highest, because two rank higher than it does. This becomes increasingly apparent as ties for any position grow ever-larger.

Except, if it ties, it ranks equal, & there is one higher, not two. That's what a tie is: dead heat. Perfect congruence. Six of one, half dozen of another (so to speak). Tomato, or tomato. (Let's call the whole thing off?)

Oh, I know well enough to keep my juvenilia very far away from prying eyes

 

[Glen]

@ Brainbin - it is Finney. It isn't a secret, in fact it used to be part of my user name but I had Ian remove it because it attracted too many google spiders when people search online for me.

 

[ryu238]

Loved the video game update (wonder how Sonic and Mario would do or even be like here... a third season of SatAm and a better Mario movie?)
Also I was surprised to hear that it's been over a year since you started this timeline. Congrats! (Sorry that I missed the celebration nor do I have a gift for the occasion)
With the altered politics of the time I must ask... will 9/11 be avoided?

 

[Lord Insane]

Loved the video game update (wonder how Sonic and Mario would do or even be like here... a third season of SatAm and a better Mario movie?)

I suspect that by 1993, things will be way too much off-course for something close enough to the show in OTL called Sonic SatAm that the statement 'a third season SatAm' would be a relevant one is unlikely at best. Remember, we're still in the late 70s - by 1991, we would have more than a decade of additional divergences within the video game industry piling up. A better question would be whether Sonic (or even Mario, though 1981 being closer he has a better chance) would even come about.

 

[Shevek23]

Loved the video game update (wonder how Sonic and Mario would do or even be like here... a third season of SatAm and a better Mario movie?)
Also I was surprised to hear that it's been over a year since you started this timeline. Congrats! (Sorry that I missed the celebration nor do I have a gift for the occasion)
With the altered politics of the time I must ask... will 9/11 be avoided?

Heck, we have yet to see whether the Shah of Iran will be overthrown or not.

My personal vote is, of course he will. My impression is he had way too many enemies in Iran for the monarchy to survive.

By that same token, it isn't a slam-dunk Khomenei takes over; what overthrew the Shah was a very diverse set of interests, some diametrically opposed to each other, who all agreed the Shah had to go as step one of their divergent agendas. I do think Khomenei's Islamic Republic movement has odds in its favor, largely because the most viable alternatives would be left-wing and had been suppressed pretty hard by the Shah's secret police (and his American backers).

More relevant to the 9/11 question is what will the Soviets be doing about Afghanistan? I'm afraid I don't understand enough about the ins and outs of Afghan politics to say how likely or inevitable the left-wing coup was there that drew the Politiburo's interest in the first place; I'm strongly of the opinion it was a home-grown coup and not engineered by the Kremlin, for what that is worth. I suppose the chances are, if such a coup does take place, first of all many in the West (probably not the most informed intelligence operatives, but some of them will be pleased enough to let others draw incorrect conclusions) will assume it was Soviet-backed and therefore feel justified in taking measures to destabilize it. And second it will be unstable and have a weak grip on power anyway, and will be reeling soon.

The questions are then--how likely is such a coup to happen in the first place? And if it does and then predictably starts to totter, how much force will the Kremlin feel it has to supply to prop it up? Or rather, since it certainly will look bad for them if it does collapse, and a pro-Western regime will return to the status quo ante where Afghanistan was a resource in closely spying on the Soviet Union and possibly a channel for subversive covert action there, and a radical Islamic Afghanistan would probably be a headache, to what extent will they think aid to the leftist regime in Kabul will expose Moscow to risks and liabilities? The Politburo was perfectly capable of writing off left-wing regimes with lots of verbal eulogies and not much concrete help; would they do that on their very border?

It's my understanding that OTL the decision to invade was a toss-up and not considered a vital matter of life or death when it was made; I think they might simply decide to provide only very limited help they know probably would not save their nominal allies.

Iran's fate is wound up in this since it was the first Islamic Republic of OTL. Khomenei's rise completely shook up the landscape of Western (well, American, anyway) perceptions of the political landscape; before 1980 we tended to view the world as polarized along Cold War lines mainly; radical Islamic movements gave us a whole new dimension to worry about.

Will the Soviets see a prospect for a dangerously radical Islamic Afghanistan in the cards thanks to Iran going in that direction, and therefore be more determined to hold on to control in Kabul?

Even if they are quite restrained compared to OTL, the Western media, especially the US, will still villify the Kremlin for any support they give the Afghan leftists whatsoever.

Meanwhile I see nothing to butterfly the Solidarity movement in Poland, and related dissidence elsewhere in the Warsaw Pact nations, so the Soviets will quite probably be held responsible for all sorts of ugly crackdowns east of the Iron Curtain. Even as, interestingly, they back away from simply sending in the Red Army to shut down out of hand movements in Eastern Europe; OTL in Poland they entrusted that mission to the Polish Army, not their own.

If the Soviets don't invade Afghanistan, then the Islamic Fundamentalist identity might be slower to crystallize. I do think that movement was in the cards though, and I am talking merely about slowing it down, not stopping it. It might develop farther without being noticed as such in American media, in fact I daresay it had been developing in Arab nationalism without our media or policymakers taking much notice through the 60s and 70s; in those days we tended to equate Arab Nationalism with more or less leftist movements and feared them mainly as more or less Soviet aligned, though nationalists in the Islamic world certainly included Islam as major elements of their identity.

Since this is a timeline about popular culture, I'm here to tell anyone who wasn't around in the USA in these years, that a new fear of Islamic extremism was a signature of the early Eighties, and long predated 9/11.

Divergent events in the Mideast might delay that quite a bit or cause it to evolve more gradually.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Persia/Iran: This depends on how long Khomenei is going to live. If he dies before the Shah abdicates then the Islamic clerics will not get their revenge for the Shah taking away their privileges.

Afghanistan: The invasion of Alghanistan by the Soviets cannot be avoided if the Afghan communists declare the People's republic of Afghanistan in 1978. If Afghanistan stays a monarchy or a democratic republic and does not become a satellite state of the USSR then there will be no Afghan-Soviet-War, no Taliban and no 9/11.

 

[phx1138]

will 9/11 be avoided?

Considering how close FBI & CIA came to stopping it, very small butterflies could do that easily.

Most of the responses seem predicated on changing the conditions giving rise to the plot itself. The plot could go ahead as OTL IMO, but just a small amount of increased info-sharing, & no "bang". Given W. isn't PotUS, that also means no Iraq or Afghanistan invasions...& no trillions in war costs.

 

[stevep]

Persia/Iran: This depends on how long Khomenei is going to live. If he dies before the Shah abdicates then the Islamic clerics will not get their revenge for the Shah taking away their privileges.

Why do you think Khomenei is likely to die markedly earlier than OTL? Are you thinking of something nasty happening to him?

Afghanistan: The invasion of Alghanistan by the Soviets cannot be avoided if the Afghan communists declare the People's republic of Afghanistan in 1978. If Afghanistan stays a monarchy or a democratic republic and does not become a satellite state of the USSR then there will be no Afghan-Soviet-War, no Taliban and no 9/11.

Given the situation there I suspect that some degree of more direct Russian involvement is likely to occur sooner or later. They have a fair amount invested in Afghanistan and won't want to lose it. However things could be drastically different in any such intervention and also in the world's reaction to it.

Steve

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Why do you think Khomenei is likely to die markedly earlier than OTL? Are you thinking of something nasty happening to him?

No, but he is an old man. And he is the only reason for the Islamic republic. Without him Iran would be different.

 

[Andrew T]

Considering how close FBI & CIA came to stopping it, very small butterflies could do that easily.

The FBI & CIA??? Heck, one-fourth of Al Qaeda's vaunted operation was stopped by one dude in the airplane restroom. I would think, across the spectrum of alternate universes, that the ones in which something on the scale of 9/11 succeeds are in the vast minority.

 

[ryu238]

... Huh didn't expect to get such a response... and I also realized that we may never find out in this timeline as it is a pop culture timeline.

 

[e of pi]

... Huh didn't expect to get such a response... and I also realized that we may never find out in this timeline as it is a pop culture timeline.

Well, above and beyond the butterflies, there's the fact that the Brainbin's been pretty clear on the fact that he's ending the TL with September 20, 1986--essentially, the entire TL is framed with the interview in the first post. (Or so I understand, at least. I may be reading more into it than there is, but I like the notion.) So anything that might happen on September 11, 2001 is well outside the window the Brainbin intends to cover. Were it to go that far and were some kind of major terroist attack to happen, I'm sure we'd hear about it--it'd have tremendous effects on the zeitgeist, and thus on popular culture, so it's more that the TL isn't going to run that long than anything about the focus.

 

[stevep]

No, but he is an old man. And he is the only reason for the Islamic republic. Without him Iran would be different.

Well he lasted another decade OTL, and that's with the stress of ruling Iran, during difficult times to while it might make for a better world I wouldn't reply on it happening in the next few months.

Steve