alternatehistory.com

Let say you take an atl nation from an alternative universe, PoD 1000+, something like this https://alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/furor-celticus-a-gallic-timeline.450352/
Or a Byzantine, of a Viking United Scandinavia or whatever?
But you update to the 21st century. In addition, it goes through many of the events like the conquest of the new world, and industrial revolution, etc, how simular can it be?

1) Lets assume the alt Universe's technology is roughly but not exactly equal to our universe. They are ahead in certain areas behind in others and certain things just developed differently.

For example, could you have a society industrialize entirely by wind and hydro and only use fossil fuels for niches like transportation?

What areas could develop very differently?

2) Lets assume they had similar challenges in exploration, industrialization, philosophical evolution but they didn't always come up with the same solutions. What ideologies will be convergent because similar societies go through simular challenges verses unique to us/them.

For example, hypothetically eugenics doesn't bother an atl society the way it does us because they never had a movement to discredit it to the extent the Nazi's did and their own ideology avoided a lot of the attached racism/social darwanism.
On the other had, because a rising middle class arose in both societies representitive government exists very simularly to our system.

What would be required to be similar due to convergent social evolution and what could be different?

Basically, how alien can a society be and be simular?
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