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  1. Emperor Norton I

    AHC: RISK as a Timeline

    The board game RISK is a subtle and understated alternate reality: a world engulfed in a Napoleonic era World War across every continent, fought by up to 6 factions that are either nation states or possibly generals that would be warlords. It may be the first offender of "space filling empires"...
  2. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Charles Manson was Famous, But Still Did Everything Else?

    In brief, Charles Manson was an ex-con who was older than the Hippie generation but got involved with it, tried to make it big in music but only had minor success as a songwriter, and ended up / was at the same time this manipulative cult leader of these young people and became the dark shadow...
  3. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Universal Made a Lugosi Dracula Franchise

    In the classic era of horror films, the notable exception to the franchises was Bella Lugosi as Dracula. Neither the Mummy nor Frankenstein were ever permanently dead, no matter how the film ended. Nor when they rose from the grave were their actors replaced, except if they chose not to reprise...
  4. Emperor Norton I

    What's the Earliest Practical Firearms Could Be Introduced?

    Gunpowder already existed in China for a long time before being introduced to the rest of Eurasia. However, the (ever warring) Europeans made major innovations in practical gunpowder weapons and engineered the modern firearm. The earliest firearms were in the late Medieval period and were...
  5. Emperor Norton I

    What Would the TL of "Risk" Be?

    So Risk is a wonderful board game but the world setting is a vaguely defined ahistorical. It's a Napoleonic Era World War of massive space filling empires vying for global conquest. This is clearly overthinking it, but what would the timeline of this world be?
  6. Emperor Norton I

    AHC: 20th Century as Peaceful as Possible

    War is inevitable in human history, but the 20th Century was an especially nasty century in regards to war, death and human misery. The key points do not necessarily require repeating but nonetheless, there were two World Wars, a Depression, the rise of Fascism, the Holocaust, colonial wars...
  7. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Post-War Period without a Soviet Superpower

    Following the Second World World, there was a brief period where there was no a Cold War. This was fleeting, and even during this brief period, it became evident the Soviets were planning to keep the nations they occupied as satellite states with puppet Marxist governments allied to Moscow. And...
  8. Emperor Norton I

    AHC: The United States Fails

    By failure, I do not mean that it suddenly stops existing, or becomes a British colony again, or chooses a monarch, or even necessarily exists as a loose confederation of really independent States under the Articles of Confederation. The United States is a very rare example where a democracy...
  9. Emperor Norton I

    TL 191: Where Did It Go Wrong?

    Turtledove's seminal series is often the entryway into alternate history, although it is also a source of criticism in the genre. The idea is decent enough: the Confederacy wins the war, and it goes from there. But it may be the later entries to the series that suffer the worst criticism. To ask...
  10. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Johnny Carson Worked Up to the End

    Carson retired in 1992, amid a growing Shakespearean intrigue behind the scenes at NBC. Said matter lead to the Late Night Wars with Letterman leaving for CBS, and Leno taking over the Tonight Show amid bad will which, while it diminished over decades, lingered in the background and erupted in...
  11. Emperor Norton I

    WI: 1980s Culture if Carter Won

    The 1980s probably had a lot of cultural trends that were going to come regardless of outside influence, but it was interwoven and influenced by a very Reagantastic culture as well. Greed was good, big money and white collars were back, and it was all about style and conspicuous consumption...
  12. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Smoking Culture Persisted

    In the first half of the 20th century, nearly half of all Americans smoked. It was ubiquitous in life and media. In ensuing decades, health revelations, several lawsuits, restrictions on advertising, public campaigns against the practice, and a general taboo have curtailed the entire culture of...
  13. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Robert Kennedy in 1968

    The ideas which are often regarded as well explored territory are much of the time rather undercovered in comparison to their prestige. This scenario is among them. Robert Kennedy ran for the Democratic nomination in 1968. While it is subject to debate whether he would have achieved the...
  14. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Hearst Gets Orson Welles Arrested

    William Randolph Hearst orchestrated to get Orson Welles arrested by setting up a scene with an underage girl with reporters at the ready when he went back to his hotel room in Buffalo. Welles was tipped off by a policeman, stayed up that night, and took the flight home in the morning. What if...
  15. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Viking Australia

    So this is a fun idea. It may take some doing, but the Norse were very well and far traveled traders, so it is not outside the realm of imagination. What if the Norse discovered Australia and made efforts to settle?
  16. Emperor Norton I

    AHC: Successful Japanese Invasion of Australia

    In WW2, the possibility of the Japanese invading Australia was comparable to the British fear of the Germans invading: a Sword of Damocles which was technically not feasible. With a POD after the Meiji Restoration, the challenge is to have a Japan which can successfully accomplish an invasion...
  17. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Fifties and Sixties with a Conservative Supreme Court

    Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren expecting him to be a Conservative, which the Chief Justice turned out to be anything but. A great deal of the floodgates of the social revolutions, changes, and Liberalism of the 1950s and 1960s was the result of the Warren Court and what it legally approved and...
  18. Emperor Norton I

    WI: Kennedy or Johnson Dealt with North Korean Crisis

    In the 1960s, the Korean War was still in the relatively recent past. In the 1960s, there was crisis involving North Korea over the course of 1966 to 1969. The DMZ Conflict was relatively low key, and American focus was elsewhere. As it stood, the 1960s were a time of many major crises: Berlin...
  19. Emperor Norton I

    WI: British Colonial Japan

    Japan never fell to colonial imperialism. We all know the story. It isolated itself, the Meiji Restoration and modernization in the European model, and all that. What if Japan had the fate of India, parts of China, and other territory in Asia, and had been occupied as part of the British Empire?
  20. Emperor Norton I

    WI: President Dean Rusk, After Dallas '63

    I dealt with this in the thread "Post-Kennedy Assassination PODs", and I find it rather interesting. I find the other topics of that thread also interesting, wholly uncovered, and very good as a timeline or story. But I will focus on this one. I will also quote my entry in regards to this topic...
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