What are the weirdest AHs you've wrote?

[Curtain Jerker]

I'm 150 or so pages into a novel that has a successful July 20 plot that leads to Rommel taking over Germany, a week long ceasefire that lessens the gains of Bagration which allows a re-formed OKW/OKH the ability to fight better and not get their asses kicked on both fronts, a British Army liaison talking Goethe with (I think) von Kluge (or maybe von Bock? I don't have my notes here at work), a half-Dutch/half-German Corleone family analogue in Berlin, a soon-to-be PTSD affected Germany army squad leader who (eventually) becomes the mob family's best hitman, and a German staff officer/aide who eventually pulls an Edith Wilson on Rommel when he has a stroke and de facto runs the country.

That's book 1 of a planned 3. Book 1 ends with a general peace in Europe, which through handwavium lets the Germans keep that part of Poland west of the Oder and east of the Neisse (but has the rest of OTL Germany's post WW2 borders). Book 2 deals with Japan (trying to find a way that FDR/Truman doesn't drop The Bomb, but I keep running into a wall - so any advice there would be cool!) and a Paris Peace Conference 2.0 taking place in Switzerland and the eventual separation of Europe into three camps (USA/UK, Germany (maybe with Austria? Haven't decided yet) and the USSR. Book 2 will take us to like 1950-51, and Book 3 deals with a German-Soviet War that sparks over Germany funding anti-communist partisans in Poland and Hungary.

The history is very implausible, but I'm having so much fun writing the viewpoint characters (all original after a short prologue from Rommel and von Stauffenberg's POV detailing Rommel's trip to Berlin and CvS's successful july 20 bombing) that I don't really care at this point. The characters and their struggles and successes are what drive the story for me, not the fact that this timeline is more or less ASB.

Maybe I'll post it here, maybe not. I've been working on and off on it since mid 2012. Sometimes I write pages at a time, othertimes I won't touch it for months on end, but I'm always thinking about it.

 

[SwordLord]

Is there a place I can read more about this? I want to read this

The main setting I write hinges on Arminius winning the Battle of Idistaviso. In the next few centuries there's rapid Germanic state formation and eventually the Germanic peoples adopt an organised neo-Platonic faith. Oh, and also they get usurped by East Germanic-speaking people, who eventually overrun all of OTL Germany and play such a huge influence on Austria and other fringes of the Germanic world they end up speaking East Germanic too, at least officially. Arminius is essentially a god at this point (OTL some say he's the inspiration for Siegfried/Sigurd, although this is controversial, but TTL it's regarded as fact). A spear which he supposedly had (Germanic peoples traditionally threw spears to mark a battle, and this is the origin of Odin's spear Gungnir), the Spear of Arminius, ends up a giant point of contention between two rival rulers in the 19th century to the point where one rival ruler makes a silent film (since they don't have talkies at that point) involving breaking and reforging said spear as a propaganda film (with nicely written title cards). This helps start my TL's version of World War I.

I'd have to post over 2,000 years of history here if I wanted to post my AH setting, and it ends with a rapidly developing space age (thanks to the Tunguska Impact), construction of an orbital ring around Earth and hundreds of O'Neill cylinders, and humans spreading throughout the Solar System despite/because of major conflicts (i.e. World War III and worse). TTL's World War II (called the Great War, from 1916 to 1922 TTL) has 1950-1970s tech, a major satellite war (and conflict on the Moon, Antarctica, and the North Pole!), and defines the course of the world afterwards (spoilers: the Germans win). There's also some nice parallelism in this timeline, so you can still find a struggle between fascists and communists, a lot of drama over nationalism, and less dramatically, you can listen to all sorts of ATL rock music, rap music, metal music, whatever (I've developed African Romance languages and East Germanic languages for this setting, and translated some songs into those languages), despite the POD being 2,000 years ago. Oddly, they don't develop the modern internet or commercial computers for well after they have computing tech.

My main problem in posting any of this is that there's simply too much to write about. The best TL I could do (since what Arminius and his successors do is a bit less exciting) would be my TL's connection to the Julio-Claudian dynasty and their end. The Pisonian Conspiracy kills Nero and appoints Calpurnius Piso as emperor, who rules in a just manner. Incidentally this helps Seneca the Younger and Lucan become key writers in the Western canon (Western literature TTL is also helped by a few scrolls from the Epic Cycle surviving). The descendents of the Pisonian dynasty mostly do pretty well for themselves (they're descended from Crassus and Pompey after all!).

I can only present select elements, like a hypothetical Roman conquest of Mauretania south of Volubilis, or detach some elements, like a Christian sect being formed in North Africa using its Berber influences (thanks to a brilliant leader, a true "great man of history") to conquer the region and basically being like OTL Muhammad and Islam. Ironically he fights an ATL Caliphate and his efforts help turn Islam into an ethnic religion instead of a universal one.

I think this qualifies as "weird", but I've been writing it for almost a decade at this point, so I'm too attached to it to make much else. The worst of it has been buried years ago. So much of it has been influenced by what I've learned in that period (the origin was Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion, a theatrical version of Late Antiquity). There's also organised kingdoms on the West Coast of North America (by some California Indians and especially PNW Indians) plus most of Australia, developed Maori (who along with the Malagasy replicate OTL's Meiji Japan more or less, albeit not as well), and all other sort of crazy elements. If your definition of ASB is "Sealion" and not actual alien space bats, then I've crammed in as much ASB as I can into 2,000 years of history.

 

[Skallagrim]

I've occasionally suggested some pretty weird stuff in threads on this forum, but usually not with the intent to actually expand on any of it.

The weirdest thing I've actually done a lot of work on, but have never published in any way yet, is my huge project "A Thousand Sunlit Years", which is literally based on Alexander the Great living two decades longer and leaving his empire two an adult heir. The empire then proceeds to exist for (as the title indicates) about a thousand years, facing various crises along the way, but becoming one of those empires that always "fall back together again".

The project qualifies as weird because the premise is unlikely (probability just has it that Alexander would die young, given his dangerous life, and even if not that, the chances of his Empire fracturing within a few hundred years are far greater than it lasting for ten centuries). Also, because a thousand years of ATL development can just lead to things that are... different.

I work on this project in bursts, but it just take a lot of time, and since I prefer an immersive approach (using in-universe terminology and references), most if not all world-building has to be done before the actual TL can be written (beyond a bare-bones outline). On the other hand, the big advantage is that I already know everything important. Which is why the only thing I've really posted of this world is a map that shows the world near the end of the TL. It's not a spoiler in any way, because this whole TL is a 'foregone conclusion' type of deal.

 

[Expat]

Poet William Blake creates a pacifist, Christian-ish cult in OTL Indiana, which becomes sort of like their Utah.

 

[Miguel Lanius]

Dom Pedro II dies shortly before the abolition of slavery (he almost did). Brazilian Empire survives.

This eventually leads to a surviving Brazilian Empire, Brazilian Civil War, unification of (most of) Hispanic America, The Great South-American War between the Brazilian Empire and the Patria Grande, Getulio Vargas becoming a General of the Brazilian Army and later becoming Cabinet President (Prime Minister, pretty much). Also, Brazilian Zeppelins and Gaucho Rail-Guns.

I also think this changed WWI too, and WWII was quite different

 

[Carp]

"I am Sartachus:" Hungary is thoroughly crushed by the Mongols and Bela IV is captured and executed. Pannonia becomes a territory of the Golden Horde, but a civil war between Sartaq and his uncle Berke results in a partition in which Sartaq and his followers establish themselves in the Pannonian plain. Sartaq, already a Christian, converts to the Latin Rite and becomes involved in central European politics, forging an alliance with the Poles and other princes against Berke, destroying Frederick of Austria (and capturing Vienna), and eventually intervening in Italy in favor of the Pope. As it happens, this corresponds with the Great Interregnum in which the HRE had no emperor for decades, and Sartaq - being an ambitious Mongol prince - decides that the only title suitable for him is that of the universal dominion of Christendom. With his horde on the Pope's doorstep, he suggests that if the Pope cares about his security he would be wise to yield the crown ("Did you hear what just happened to the Caliph in Baghdad? It's just not safe to be a religious head these days..."). A terrified pontiff crowns Sartachus Chanis (Sartaq Khan) as imperator augustus Romanorum, founder of the imperial house of Chanis and ruler of a vaguely Austro-Hungarian looking Holy Roman Empire ruled by a Latinized Mongol elite.

 

[Evan]

As I posted last New Year's on the Misc ASB Ideas thread:

The Tunguska meteor strikes Vienna, destroying (most of?) the city but narrowly avoiding killing a young Adolf Hitler. Hitler is convinced it was an alien attack, and his developing anti-Semitic xenophobia retargets itself. For the rest of his life, he preaches that all humanity needs to unite against the alien menace! Develop spaceships! Travel to other planets and bring the war home to the alien hordes!

And he's successful. He's just as charismatic as iOTL, and meets with just as significant success. Spaceflight kicks into high gear, with permanent armed bases on the Moon and Mars before the turn of the twenty-first century. Though, the detail work is done as much in spite of his staunch protests as because of him - he's still just as monomaniacal as iOTL.

No, there aren't any aliens iTTL. The Vienna Event really was a meteor; Hitler lived to see virtually all scientists agree on it (over his staunch protests, to the point of accusing many of them of being alien sympathizers. It is fortunate that iTTL he has no state apparatus to kill them). Though, Tyr Base and Mani Base are still well-armed... just in case.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

One of my ideas when I first made an account was for an entirely self-serious look at the reaction to and fallout from Mussolini being abducted by aliens in the middle of a speech. I'm talking flying saucer, complete with a big bright tractor beam that slowly lifts him up from the balcony he's standing on while his aids struggle to pull him back down and Italo Balbo screams into a telephone for the Regia Aeronautica to scramble everything it has.

 

[Arcavia]

In one scenario I thought of for something out there but not entirely ASB, Zionism becomes an explicitly socialist movement and is promoted by the early CCCP. Trotsky ends up in charge of a Jewish ASSR in Crimea, and Stalin is never appointed Commissar of Nationalities, butterflying his rise to power. WW2 goes roughly as OTL, but now the Soviets especially end up endorsing a Jewish state in the holy land. Trotsky ends up as the first President of a greater Israel using !Socialism to soothe ethnic tensions much like in Tito's Yugoslavia.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Is there a place I can read more about this? I want to read this

Sadly not much (to my shame). I'm periodically distracted by detailing the countries/history of the world and periodically distracted in detailing the characters of the main period of the setting I write about--late 20th century, WWIII era mostly (the first Earth-Space war, pretty much WWIII without nukes, etc.). I've written some chapters (mostly incomplete), including over 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo once in a story based on an OTL's of Operation Vijay, except here we have the Republic of Auraria (basically Western Australia), a post-colonial state of the Mauretanian colonial empire (I posted the flag of Mauretania in the flag thread a while back, but it's a later flag after the authoritarian king and his favourite authoritarian political party have their power strictly limited by popular revolution) seeking to take back the north of their country (basically Kimberley and the Northern Territory) from Mauretania (who governs it under the stupidly corrupt "Mauretania East Indies". TTL's Australia has a bit of a Lands of Red and Gold thing in terms of more developed Australian Aboriginals (in this case the Noongar and also an ATL group of Aboriginals who are Plains Indian-type nomads riding camels, not to mention the more developed Aboriginals in Eastern Australia). Oh, and the Aurarians mostly use equipment from Yugoslavia, but their pride and glory is the aircraft carrier ARA Wëtinowi de Marzu--"29th of March" in the Mauretanian language and the date of Aurarian independence--acquired from Argentina--TTL colonised by Saxony and speaking that East Germanic language I mentioned above--by a corrupt admiral-turned dictator who wanted to glorify his country's navy after TTL's WWII, and they have a love-hate relation with Communist Indonesia which wants to recruit them into the Comintern. Their leader (and the viewpoint character for most of this) is inspired by Thomas Sankara, the OTL president/dictator of Burkina Faso and his ideals and personality. TTL, this guy makes a popular third-worldist ideology, like OTL's Sankarism, followed by a lot of African revolutionaries (the other half of Australia, the Portuguese colonised, even more LORAG-looking Australia--more or less follows it too at some points). Tons of references to people smoking pituri and drinking weird alcohols distilled from Australian plants, and some protest/folk songs translated into Mauretanian, a Southern Romance conlang which I hadn't developed nearly as well when I wrote this. Kind of fun to see "La Marseillaise" or "The Internationale" in Mauretanian, or when it's being sung by characters in the story when they aren't discussing Australian football. One subplot has the Sankara-expy President (who pilots a giant robot as he did before he took power in a coup) writing a new national anthem for the country (since like OTL Sankara, he's a guitarist enjoys jazz and other popular music, and the pre-existing anthem just isn't good enough) and ends up writing something like Burkina Faso's "Une Seule Nuit" (which IMO is one of the best African national anthems). Re-reading it, it's honestly kind of amusing even if I'm not totally comfortable in sharing it and I think I've done better since then.

Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to mention that the biggest ASB (again, Sealion-tier and not physically impossible) is the introduction of mecha (called "mechanised armour") into my TL's version of World War I. It's steampunk-looking monstrosities at first, which a few decades later I imagine looking a bit "cleaner" (and militarily, faster and simpler better), a bit like the 80s anime Fang of the Sun Dougram had or Armored Troopers VOTOMS (4-6 meter mecha basically). TTL's tanks are considered a cheap counter to mechanised armour or at best a cheap replacement. As the 20th century goes on, they advance to more like Code Geass's Knightmare Frames, which IMO are like miniature Gundam-sort of mobile suits (and are 4-6 meters tall). I try to portray them as part of a combined arms approach, and they aren't so invincible to small arms. The underwater versions of these mecha have a huge impact on naval tactics, but it's part of the same revolution which carriers cause.

 

[Alpha_North]

My only, very dead, timeline is where Emperor Norton, that homeless guy in San Francisco, became Emperor of California, having California, Oregon, Nevada, & Washington in his control. I was going to work on a cult around him, as his death was associated with an eclipse, but this timeline is practically dead.