The Sloppiest Alternate Histories Out There...

[Kaiphranos]

I have vague recollections of a story called "Trafalgar Square" from an old issue of Analog, set during a Tiananmen Square-style pro-democracy protest in a Communist Europe... with the POD being a Mongol conquest of Europe instead of China in the 13th century.

 

[Dean501]

I'd like to submit my first ever timeline from 4 years ago. The intro is a cringe inducing disaster, and of course the religious Belgian civil war is a great exercise in Alien Space Bats.
In my defense, I was 12

 

[Superman]

Anything by alternatehistorypt. Socialist wanks almost EVERY video, proof that he runs a handwavium mine, blatant lack of research, and lack of familiarity with the English language.

It makes me cringe.

Not just socialist, communist. And somehow, even if the POD is during the Revolutionary War, communism exists. Though I have to admit I'm guilty of ignoring the butterflies as well.

 

[Ariosto]

One of our own.

It starts off well enough, but then proceeds to jump the shark around the '68 election. I won't mention what is done with Reagan, I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that.
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[DStecks]

I can't find it any more, but a couple months back somebody posted a TL where Microsoft and Apple team up with Sega and Nintendo respectively to make consoles, and it was obvious that the guy didn't just not do any research, he clearly had no clue what the fuck he was talking about.

To give you an idea, the guy posited a console, to be released in '93, with 8GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive; which for those of you unfamiliar with computer hardware, in 1993, that would be the equivalent of building a sportscar that can do Mach 1. I actually crunched the numbers, and in '93, putting that much memory and that big a hard-drive into one box would cost upwards of 30 grand. He also thought that a video editing suite would sell consoles, over a decade before YouTube.

 

[Zoidberg12]

I finally watched that, I didnt bother tog et past the second commercial.

I remember watching bits and prices of that on Spike.com auround the time it came out. I found that some parts were kinda interesting and they had some okay points, but most of it was pretty pathetic from what I saw. It's just one if those things were I could easily tell nobody did any sort of real research and went by over generalizations and cliches. Though I have to say, some parts were kinda funny because of how ridiculous they were, like Hitler playing baseball.

Yeah, I can see why this never got more episodes. Shame, because it would have been interesting to see a serious AH themed show. If they do, they should get more professional people like history professors and stuff, so we can see all the ins and outs of stuff in a plausible manner. I mean no history professor would ever claim that her Nazis could invade the US. Seriously they couldn't even invade Britain. We know all about that right?

(I think this one had professionals and ally but you know what I mean.)

I actually may watch this now in its entirety out of curiosity.

 

[Jasen777]

I mean no history professor would ever claim that her Nazis could invade the US. Seriously they couldn't even invade Britain. We know all about that right?

There's a some WI books with stories from historians, sadly they aren't any more plausible than SF writers, though they are less entertaining.

 

[Zoidberg12]

One of our own.

It starts off well enough, but then proceeds to jump the shark around the '68 election. I won't mention what is done with Reagan, I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that.
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I actually enjoyed this timeline to be honest. Not a great timeline by any means, but decent and an okay read. I really should finish it, I am up to the Kemp presidency though.

About the Reagan thing, I thought it was pretty weird but went along with it. But yeah, it is pretty ridiculous. No world leader would do such a crazy as hell thing in his own right mind unless he wanted to end up out of office or in the international criminal court. Someone in the main thread mentioned a later Nixon presidency would have been more plausible, and I agree, or at least a Reagan presidency without the madness I hinted at above. People have called TTL a democratic wank and they do have a point. Plus the guy who wrote it has received warnings about anti republican comments if I'm not mistaken, and I didn't notice this until after the fact btw.

In terms of other flaws, it suffers from being a little too convergent, but I'm okay with this as with a POD in the 60's, I dont see history being radically different. Most of the changes were plausible, but there were a few flaws. Only to at the top of my head. Again the Reagan thing, but also (spoilers) Nixons assassination which was little more than a lame plot device. Was he even for Israel during the Six Days War IOTL? Way to much of a coincidence that this happens to him instead of RFK.

Poeple in the thread also said things got implausible/went downhill in the 2000s but I can't say since I never read that far.

 

[Meerkat92]

Probably mine, whenever I get around to writing it...

 

[Zoidberg12]

There's a some WI books with stories from historians, sadly they aren't any more plausible than SF writers, though they are less entertaining.

Some examples? I actually curious now that you mention it.

But yeah, so many people seem to think this. Maybe it's the whole "it could have happened to us so that's why we fought in the first place" mentality. At a Memorial Day class in my school two years ago a teacher mentioned how, and these are his words, how Nazi Germany and Japan were planning on dividing the US through the Mississippi River. A very good class, but I'm afraid this just couldn't happen. I didn't call him out on it obviously. Back them I never heard of any such plans. I didn't think it could happen but for a second I thought he might have been right. Looked it up on Wikipedia some time later and turned out it there were no such plans, and even hitler himself acknowledged span invasion like this was impossible. Kind off ironic know that I think about it.

 

[Ariosto]

Most of the changes were plausible, but there were a few flaws. Only to at the top of my head. Again the Reagan thing, but also............

Remember the part where Humphrey has American G.I.'s marching into Hanoi in five days? After somehow finding out about Tet ahead of time?

Actually, there is no mention that he even increases their presence beyond that of the JFK levels, and actually refuses to consider putting more boots on the ground. How did he go from that to mounting a full-scale invasion of Northern Vietnam, meeting with quick success with minimal resources?

Nelson Rockefeller running on the same ticket with John Ashbrook; that's a disaster waiting to happen, nor can I imagine either man accepting.

I also didn't know Humphrey was such a fan of the Space Program (in all honesty I can't remember his actual feelings towards it).

In many ways it was actually a decent timeline, if as you said a little convergent, with Humphrey for example going to China the same time Nixon did. However, its flaws managed to outshine those parts that were good, at least from the 60's to the end of the 70's.

From the 80's through the 90's though if I remember correctly it is relatively decent, but it does jump again following the turn of the millennium.


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[Ariosto]

Some examples? I actually curious now that you mention it.

If he is talking about the, literally, "What If?" books then I have to say those were entertaining, but it was really hit and miss as to whether you could entertain their plausibility or not.

Of course, he could be talking about the Greenhill's Alternate Decisions series, but I've only read two of them, and generally they are also hit and miss.
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[Thon Taddeo]

There are quite a few sloppy timelines on the board that I've read.

This is perhaps the worst alternate history out there. I saw there terrible reviews it received, and thought perhaps I might read it (maybe it'd turn out to be AH's Eye of Argon-something so bad it's good). Anyway, after reading, I concluded that it was the worst book I ever read. The writing was dreadful and the alternate history nonsensical. Avoid like the plague.

 

[Jasen777]

Some examples? I actually curious now that you mention it.

This and this. To be fair, I read them a long time ago, perhaps they're a bit better than I recall.

 

[Evil Opus]

To ring in the 2010 New Year, Newsweek did an article on what would have happened if Gore had won.

I'm not sure if its supposed to be satire or just a godawful alternate history. It ends with a 2008 election that features a GOP ticket of George W. Bush and Jeb Bush against a Democratic ticket of Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. Judge for yourself.

They also have one on the impeachment of Al Gore.

 

[John Walton]

Cripes how rank. No wonder Newsweek went bust.

Another self-published stinker was A Damned Fine War by Bill Yenne. Apparently Bill Yenne is a key member at the Patton Historical Society, but that didn't stop his novel about Patton fighting WW3 from stinking up the joint.

Where to begin? I'll start with how Yenne had no idea how to differentiate his characters except through their names. It's damning for the entire Patton Historical Society when a novel they backed up to the hilt was written by a guy who apparently wasn't even slightly familiar with the mannerisms and style of the most bombastic American leader of the war. Ditto for Stalin. "Wooden" doesn't describe it; try cardboard.

Then there were the awful technical errors. The American infantry were armed with the M-14, a rifle that wasn't issued until 1959; the BAR is a 20mm autocannon; etc. His depiction of the Caucasus was laughable, his plotting wretchedly awful.

I wouldn't wipe my ass with this book, for fear of contamination.

To ring in the 2010 New Year, Newsweek did an article on what would have happened if Gore had won.

I'm not sure if its supposed to be satire or just a godawful alternate history. It ends with a 2008 election that features a GOP ticket of George W. Bush and Jeb Bush against a Democratic ticket of Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton. Judge for yourself.

They also have one on the impeachment of Al Gore.

 

[Aelita]

Just about every published "The CSA wins the American Civil War" book ever made. Especially Bring the Jubilee, where the CSA, thanks to winning the Battle of Gettysburg, wins its independence, abolishes slavery in short order thanks to good ol' President Robert E. Lee, and then becomes the military, scientific, economic and political hegemon of the world, and a Space Filling Empire controlling the entirety of the New World except for Canada, the rump US, and a few Caribbean Islands.

 

[trekchu]

Just about every published "The CSA wins the American Civil War" book ever made. Especially Bring the Jubilee, where the CSA, thanks to winning the Battle of Gettysburg, wins its independence, abolishes slavery in short order thanks to good ol' President Robert E. Lee, and then becomes the military, scientific, economic and political hegemon of the world, and a Space Filling Empire controlling the entirety of the New World except for Canada, the rump US, and a few Caribbean Islands.

Those can be fun for the lulz-factor alone.

 

[John Walton]

I wouldn't go so far as to condemn all AH works where the CSA wins its independence. Southern victory was most unlikely, but not outright impossible. The truth is that the South could afford very few mistakes, and it made too many too early in the war to recover from. Ergo, the realism of the South winning independence depends on where the POD is...

But I would agree that a lot of these books and stories are just exercises in neo-Confederate mutual masturbation. Just for starters, any scenario that envisions the South winning the war and then abolishing slavery within at least two generations of the war is a fantasy trying to confirm the lie that the war wasn't fought over slavery.

The notion that the people who fought, suffered, and died in such huge numbers to secure the Southern slave culture would simply give it away of their own volition at some future date incinerates any willful suspension of disbelief, nevermind basic historic plausibility. That makes Harry Turtledove's "Southern Victory" series pure hogwash too, by the way, and it is pure hogwash. "Master of Alternate History" my ass...

Just about every published "The CSA wins the American Civil War" book ever made. Especially Bring the Jubilee, where the CSA, thanks to winning the Battle of Gettysburg, wins its independence, abolishes slavery in short order thanks to good ol' President Robert E. Lee, and then becomes the military, scientific, economic and political hegemon of the world, and a Space Filling Empire controlling the entirety of the New World except for Canada, the rump US, and a few Caribbean Islands.

 

[autonomousoblast]

I remember watching bits and prices of that on Spike.com auround the time it came out. I found that some parts were kinda interesting and they had some okay points, but most of it was pretty pathetic from what I saw. It's just one if those things were I could easily tell nobody did any sort of real research and went by over generalizations and cliches. Though I have to say, some parts were kinda funny because of how ridiculous they were, like Hitler playing baseball.

Yeah, I can see why this never got more episodes. Shame, because it would have been interesting to see a serious AH themed show. If they do, they should get more professional people like history professors and stuff, so we can see all the ins and outs of stuff in a plausible manner. I mean no history professor would ever claim that her Nazis could invade the US. Seriously they couldn't even invade Britain. We know all about that right?

(I think this one had professionals and ally but you know what I mean.)

I actually may watch this now in its entirety out of curiosity.

The fact that they entirely forget the Soviet Union and the rest of the Allies just goes to show how inept the producers were at history.