Recent content by pternagy

  1. WI: Bathing goes out of fashion early in Europe.

    I can't say this with any certainty or with any hard facts to back me up, but my instincts say that if the Romans turned away from bathing their cities may have shrunk even faster. That would open a lot of butterflies, at best.
  2. WI: US adopts Semi-Presidential system after Civil War

    I assume by March, you meant a few weeks earlier. Would that have made much of a difference? Though I could accept that a President Johnson governing while Lee was still in the field could worry Congress. As for the rest, I find them to be too specific for an Amendment and way too specific...
  3. Which of these historical nations has the best claim to being the successor of the Roman Empire?

    Because the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire
  4. Which of these historical nations has the best claim to being the successor of the Roman Empire?

    The Ottomans. I would give a second vote to the HRE as the argument could be made that Charlemagne was crowned because a woman occupied the throne in Constantinople and the West (or at least the Pope) saw a sede vacante. But the Ottiomans conquered the last outpost of the Empire and the Sultan...
  5. WI: A coup instead of the American Civil War?

    It wasn't just Lincoln they were "afraid" of. It was the entire Republican Party and its growing control. The Southern Hotheads simply didn't want to play ball anymore once they felt that they could no longer write all the rules and pick all of the referees. A coup wouldn't solve the problem...
  6. Marrying Hier Presumptive

    The Earl of Warwick was not Richard III's heir. John de la Pole, the Earl of Lincoln was Richard's designated successor and his nephew (sister's son). The Earl of Warwick as the son of an attained traitor had no succession rights. The son of the king's sister did. Not that any of that...
  7. Marrying Hier Presumptive

    The line of succession in 1689 would have been the infant James Stuart, the Princess of Orange, Anne Stuart, the Prince of Orange. William's army certainly helped "elevate" his cause. Future legislation recognized his 'ordinary' position though: any children he had with a wife other than Mary II...
  8. WI: Washington dies before the Constitution is ratified

    Depends on what point he dies. Is there already a wave towards 9 states and implementation? Or do Anti-Federalists convince five or more states to reject or at least slow down ratification because of the uncertainty over who would be president?
  9. Autonomous Region of China

    Ignoring butterflies, why would the U.S. give away land on the North American that it has controlled for a century and a half to China? The U.S. is not the U.K. of 1997. This is not a city. There would be thousands if not millions of American citizens living there, not a city full of...
  10. Plausibility Check: A modern state being renamed the Roman Empire?

    I would say the easiest would be the Greeks capturing Constantinople in 1920. Rename the country and move the capital. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the Greeks consider calling themselves the Roman Empire after the 1820 Revolution?
  11. Three-Tiered Monetary Systems

    How does one use a currency for a country that has no territory?
  12. AHC: Swap the Houses of Parliament

    An unreformed House of Commons could, in theory, evolve into a consultative body like the OTL Lords if reforms never really took place. The problem is that Commons gained at least theoretical supremacy long before the Great Reform and the Lords would still all inherit their seats or be appointed...
  13. Weirdes plausible military tactics & strategies

    Instead of burning "witches," I could see a lord holding them in strategic reserve and using them (once) to scare an enemy city or army into surrendering/running away.
  14. Weirdest plausible forms of government

    Tudor England? Byzantium? Alabama? Isn't that pretty much what the Roman Senate did for the Consuls? I will admit that I might find things interesting (though not necessarily good) for an actual government to work with lobbyist-politicians lobbying a nonpartisan and apolitical "jury" to...
  15. Weirdest plausible forms of government

    Except when the Finance Ministry breaks down into a fist fight between the Supply Side Economists and the Non-Supply Side Economists. And when the Justice Department breaks down over disagreements between Strict and Loose Constructionists. Technocracy might work if their is a democratic way...
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