Recent content by Galba Otho Vitelius

  1. What are your most bizarre ideas for a world in which Christianity fails?

    "The Years of Rice and Salt" did exactly this and the POD is after Constantine. And its hard to get crazier than "The Years of Rice and Salt". Historians estimated that about a third of the population of the Roman Empire had converted to Christianity by the time Constantine had died, in 337...
  2. How bad can the ACW get?

    A second way to do this would be to turn the American Civil War into a world war. This is hard, but find a way to get Britain and France into the war on the Confederate side, and then Russia and Prussia enter the war on the side of the USA.
  3. How bad can the ACW get?

    Its usually written that the Confederates could not wage a guerilla style campaign, since they were an elite defending slaves, and the slaves actually made up a majority of the population in two southern states. But fanatical minorities have waged long guerilla wars. An example with...
  4. My own WI idea for an Islamic Roman Empire

    I think one change would be with the institution of the Caliphate. The Quaraysh are just not that important ITTL. Some members of the clan would be with Mohammad in Syria. However, the branches that resisted IOTL stay in Mecca and don't convert. Later on, missionaries could arrive in Mecca...
  5. My own WI idea for an Islamic Roman Empire

    The Council of Chalcedon defined most of the doctrines of catholic and orthodox christianity, and precluded further prophecy. Changing that might also work better as a POD. Mohammad is accepted as a prophet by eastern Christians, including the East Roman elite. The problem here is that his...
  6. My own WI idea for an Islamic Roman Empire

    I have a simpler POD. Muhammad lives in Damascus, not Mecca. His family moves there early in his life, or he gets married there on a caravan trip. His clan is from Mecca and he visits Mecca, but identifies with Damascus. This doesn't change what is revealed to him, it just happens at...
  7. What if the evacuation of Dunkirk had failed?

    German forces in the area had been running on fumes (and meth) for a long time at that point and needed to rest and refit. I don't know what Guderian was smoking when he said otherwise. The French army was still in the field and forming a new defensive line. Even if the Germans tried more...
  8. What if the evacuation of Dunkirk had failed?

    I've read this in countless other accounts, but for brevity I will just use the relevant Wikipedia articles. War Cabinet crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940_British_war_cabinet_crisis The decision to fight on and not explore an armistice is taken mainly on May 28th, 1940. The article...
  9. Could fascism survive to the present without WW2?

    It depends on whether you consider militaristic and super-aggressive foreign policies to be essential components of fascism. Italy, Japan, and Romania had these, so it wasn't just Hitler or the Nazis. With regimes like Franco's, there is a serious debate on whether it was really fascist. If...
  10. What if Germany Won the Battle of Stalingrad?

    The OP only makes sense if it reads "WI the Germans take and hold Stalingrad after invading the Soviet Union" or something like that. By the way, they actually did take all but a few blocks of the city IOTL. The location of the city by itself allows the Germans to interdict river traffic on...
  11. What if the pilgrims weren't saved by Squanto and the Wampanoag tribe?

    If the POD is that the Pilgrims aren't off course, and land further south, this works as the start of a different timeline. However, the POD in the OP is that the Plymouth colony fails completely. That is a completely different situation. I did a brief check, and the Plymouth settlement was...
  12. Which US President Is Most to Blame for the Vietnam War?

    Amadeus has a good summary. The French attempt at reconquest and American support were mistakes by Truman and de Gaulle, but the situation was reversible, as shown in fact by the French themselves, who not only withdrew in 1954, but started dismantling their colonial empire. Eisenhower...
  13. What if the pilgrims weren't saved by Squanto and the Wampanoag tribe?

    Note that the "Thanksgiving" tradition is pretty much mythical, though they myth was heavily promoted by the New England educational establishment, which ITTL does not exist. The actual "first thanksgiving" was held in Virginia. This fact probably remains as obscure as it does in this timeline.
  14. What if the pilgrims weren't saved by Squanto and the Wampanoag tribe?

    I agree with Two Vultures. I think there will be a puritan or non-conformist area of settlement. Boston, New Haven, and Providence were settled by different non-conformist groups. However, without the success of Plymouth, the puritan settlement may well not be in what became New England...
  15. Consequences of Leningrad falling in 1941-42?

    It would have resulted in a depressing humanitarian disaster, even by World War 2 standards, and worse than the siege that happened instead. However, ITTL, the Germans kept drawing up plans to take the city and kept shelving them, as the forces designated kept being needed on more important...
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