I will be starting my first timeline for this site. It will be a combination of the alternate history novel, A Disturbance of Fate, and some of my own ideas, with a little bit of influence from RogueBeaver and his work on The Impossible Dream and Duty, Honor, Country. Since this is my first timeline thread, I would appreciate the help, since I have no idea to create a fictional election map. Before I start writing, I need to eliminate some of the ridiculous elements of A Disturbance of Fate, in addition to other things. If anybody else has read the book, feel free to help me out and offer suggestions on any ridiculous things in A Disturbance of Fate that should be eliminated in my new TL. After I have gotten a strong final blueprint of what I want to do and what will happen from 1968 to now, then I'll be ready to write my timeline. In the meantime, I'll post a rough idea of what the TL will be like in my next post.
A Disturbance of Fate: A Timeline
- Thread starter THE OBSERVER
- Start date
ALL RIGHT!!!
Someone is finally going to do a TL of the book! I've heard that people say various parts of it are ASB, but I don't know which ones. I didn't grow up then. But "THE GREAT STRUGGLE"/ Republican Democrat Civil War must be avoided AT ALL COSTS!! Good god, you have at least 2 or 3 Million dead because of it. And all over what seems to be something out of the 1890's Gilded Age labor strikes. Nasty business, that. And the Democrats are pro-gun rather than anti-gun. And the Feminists are all Reagan's people. And the Republican's split BAD, between the Rockefeller liberal faction, and the Nixon/Reagan faction. And there is no Microsoft, but rather Apple and Steve Jobs takes over!
Someone is finally going to do a TL of the book! I've heard that people say various parts of it are ASB, but I don't know which ones. I didn't grow up then. But "THE GREAT STRUGGLE"/ Republican Democrat Civil War must be avoided AT ALL COSTS!! Good god, you have at least 2 or 3 Million dead because of it. And all over what seems to be something out of the 1890's Gilded Age labor strikes. Nasty business, that. And the Democrats are pro-gun rather than anti-gun. And the Feminists are all Reagan's people. And the Republican's split BAD, between the Rockefeller liberal faction, and the Nixon/Reagan faction. And there is no Microsoft, but rather Apple and Steve Jobs takes over!
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Okay for the first part of my rough ideas on the timeline, here we go again with my list of presidents in my timeline:
1968: Robert F Kennedy/Ralph Yarborough (D)
1972: Robert F Kennedy/Ralph Yarborough (D)
1976: Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush (R)
1980: Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush (R)
1984: George H.W. Bush/Unknown (R)
1988: George H.W. Bush/Unknown (R)
1992: Bill Clinton/Ann Richards (D)
1996: Bill Clinton/Ann Richards (D)
2000: John McCain/Sam Brownback (R)
2004: John McCain/Sam Brownback (R)
2008: Barrack Obama/Joe Biden (D)
2012: Barrack Obama/Joe Biden (D)
Now, the differences in my A Disturbance of Fate-based timeline from OTL and the original novel, if any of you have read it, will be as follows:
Everything that happened after RFK's presidency in the book(Yarborough being president, Barry Sadler becoming governor of AZ, then president, and then starting a second civil war) is butterflied away.
Reagan doesn't run against RFK in '72, but waits until 76. Since there have been 16 years of democratic presidents, voter fatigue and RFK's non transferable popularity will bring Reagan into office. Here I choose to take a page from Roguebeaver, in addition to several other points that will be revealed later, and have Reagan be the successor to RFK. Bush will be the VP. He either wins the special election to replace Yarborough in the Senate, or runs in 1970 and is elected.
Another butterfly: The Beatles don't breakup in 1970 and John Lennon still lives today.
The popular culture of the 1970s (TV, Movies, Music, Literature) is mostly unchanged, with some exceptions whenever necessary, unlike in A Disturbance of Fate. The same thing will go for the later decades.
The Iranian Revolution probably still occurs. Have to find out more about it.
The Red Sox will win the 1975 World Series. That's the only change in sports I have planned so far.
Denver doesn't turn down the 1976 Winter Olympics and it is held there instead of Innsbruck.
Nelson Rockefeller is RFK's Treasury Secretary for the first term (Maybe even the 2nd).
More changes to come next. In the meantime, I need help with ideas for the presidential cabinets, I've got RFK and Obama down, maybe Clinton. Need help with the Republicans, especially McCain, since he would've chosen different members than Dubya.
1968: Robert F Kennedy/Ralph Yarborough (D)
1972: Robert F Kennedy/Ralph Yarborough (D)
1976: Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush (R)
1980: Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush (R)
1984: George H.W. Bush/Unknown (R)
1988: George H.W. Bush/Unknown (R)
1992: Bill Clinton/Ann Richards (D)
1996: Bill Clinton/Ann Richards (D)
2000: John McCain/Sam Brownback (R)
2004: John McCain/Sam Brownback (R)
2008: Barrack Obama/Joe Biden (D)
2012: Barrack Obama/Joe Biden (D)
Now, the differences in my A Disturbance of Fate-based timeline from OTL and the original novel, if any of you have read it, will be as follows:
Everything that happened after RFK's presidency in the book(Yarborough being president, Barry Sadler becoming governor of AZ, then president, and then starting a second civil war) is butterflied away.
Reagan doesn't run against RFK in '72, but waits until 76. Since there have been 16 years of democratic presidents, voter fatigue and RFK's non transferable popularity will bring Reagan into office. Here I choose to take a page from Roguebeaver, in addition to several other points that will be revealed later, and have Reagan be the successor to RFK. Bush will be the VP. He either wins the special election to replace Yarborough in the Senate, or runs in 1970 and is elected.
Another butterfly: The Beatles don't breakup in 1970 and John Lennon still lives today.
The popular culture of the 1970s (TV, Movies, Music, Literature) is mostly unchanged, with some exceptions whenever necessary, unlike in A Disturbance of Fate. The same thing will go for the later decades.
The Iranian Revolution probably still occurs. Have to find out more about it.
The Red Sox will win the 1975 World Series. That's the only change in sports I have planned so far.
Denver doesn't turn down the 1976 Winter Olympics and it is held there instead of Innsbruck.
Nelson Rockefeller is RFK's Treasury Secretary for the first term (Maybe even the 2nd).
More changes to come next. In the meantime, I need help with ideas for the presidential cabinets, I've got RFK and Obama down, maybe Clinton. Need help with the Republicans, especially McCain, since he would've chosen different members than Dubya.
I totally agree that "THE GREAT STRUGGLE" must be stopped. And Microsoft will still be around!! The same goes for Disney too!! I will need a little help though.
If you use ideas from TDF for RFK's presidency, I will call ASB on that. But I know you won't use ASB ideas.
You can use the OTL Cabinets, but feel free to PM me if you need anything.
You can use the OTL Cabinets, but feel free to PM me if you need anything.
Like President Kennedy's decision to pull all American soldiers out of Europe somehow causing the USSR to collapse in 1974? Or how about the glorious revolution/Second American Civil War that was brought about because America elects a Republican President in the eighties? Granted, I haven't read A Disturbance of Fate in years, so I might be being a bit unfair to the timeline. But even when I read the book the entire thing struck me as very much a wish fulfillment story.
I'm not entirely convinced that Kennedy would be able to be quiet as conservative as you argue, with the period consensus being fairly liberal by current standards. No doubt Kennedy's Presidency would have been shaped by the period as all Presidencies are. Sorry if that sounds a bit glib. Point is, I don't see Kennedy's Presidency leading to an outright Socialist America in any event.
I'm sure I've forgotten elements from the book that bother you even more than the magical end of the cold war when the USSR was swimming in oil revenue, and the revolution in the 1980's.
I'm sorry, I was referring to the book, not the timeline you intend which I'm sure will avoid the more strange moments from the book.
It will avoid the strange moments as much as possible. I can only recall The Great Struggle and the events after RFK's presidency being pretty strange. Anything else in the book u think that's strange?
This little thing from the NY Times proves my point.
It's an idea of what could've happened if JFK Lived, but if this shows that Prague Spring can be permitted in 1968 and the USSR can collapse in 1991, then similar stuff can happen in my TL.
It's an idea of what could've happened if JFK Lived, but if this shows that Prague Spring can be permitted in 1968 and the USSR can collapse in 1991, then similar stuff can happen in my TL.
It will avoid the strange moments as much as possible. I can only recall The Great Struggle and the events after RFK's presidency being pretty strange. Anything else in the book u think that's strange?
Like I said, President Kennedy decision to bring troops out of Europe causes the Soviet Union to collapse in 1974. Also Vietnam was handled similarly strangely. I'll admit that I don't know what President Kennedy's Vietnam policy would have been. Roguebeaver will have a lot more complaints than I do, since this is his subject field. According to what he's said about Kennedy's Vietnam policy I think a Kennedy Presidency would be problematic because it would entail the preservation of the draft, but that's another matter. Anyway, President Julian Bond is a bit out there as well.
RFK was in favour of abolishing the draft and replacing it with a lottery system that exempted no one, probably as a transitional stage to a fully professional military. On the economy he, like all other senior politicians of the day, had no words on it (in TSNW or in anywhere else, and trust me, I've looked), and nothing on the burgeoning deficit either. Be creative, just no supply-side.
As for Vietnam: withdrawal yes, defeat no. Vietnamization (though it wasn't called that because the war wasn't Americanized) was his brother's policy and would likely be his as well. Arms to RVN would be his idea, and he would be very tough on Thieu- the 2 hated each other. Think Obama-Karzai to use a modern parallel. A coalition government was considered as well, but not at the expense of toppling the whole deck of cards. What you have to remember is that this is a man of immense intellectual curiosity who seemed to lose his certainties as he aged, and was very open to new ideas- that's how he evolved to be the DLC pioneer who inspired Clinton, as Clinton admits in his own memoir. There are boundaries: healthcare will be more public than private. I've outlined a plan which you should credit StevenAttewell (who helped me with it) with if you use it, otherwise use Nixon's CHIP which is available with a 2-minute Google search. He will not be a supply-sider. Other than that the rest should be fairly straightforward. Oh, and don't place him with his brother's IRA shilling please.
As for Vietnam: withdrawal yes, defeat no. Vietnamization (though it wasn't called that because the war wasn't Americanized) was his brother's policy and would likely be his as well. Arms to RVN would be his idea, and he would be very tough on Thieu- the 2 hated each other. Think Obama-Karzai to use a modern parallel. A coalition government was considered as well, but not at the expense of toppling the whole deck of cards. What you have to remember is that this is a man of immense intellectual curiosity who seemed to lose his certainties as he aged, and was very open to new ideas- that's how he evolved to be the DLC pioneer who inspired Clinton, as Clinton admits in his own memoir. There are boundaries: healthcare will be more public than private. I've outlined a plan which you should credit StevenAttewell (who helped me with it) with if you use it, otherwise use Nixon's CHIP which is available with a 2-minute Google search. He will not be a supply-sider. Other than that the rest should be fairly straightforward. Oh, and don't place him with his brother's IRA shilling please.
In A Disturbance of Fate, the healthcare plan presented is an expansion of Medicare. I'll describe it in detail later. RFK doesn't end the draft in A Disturbance of Fate. I have some more ideas for my timeline involving some people. Try to guess who this one is. I'll give you a hint. One is a distinguished, respectable politician, from the state of California, now retired to private life. In the fall of 1974, he has a recurrence of an illness he had a year prior, only this time it proves to be fatal, and he dies that year.
Robert F. Kennedy Cabinet I (1969-1973)
Vice President: Ralph Yarborough (1969-1977)
Secretary of the Treasury: Nelson Rockefeller (1969-1973)
Secretary of State: Chester Bowles (1969-1977)
Attorney General: Ramsey Clark (1969-1977)
Secretary of Defense: Paul Warnke (1969-1977)
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Sargent Shriver (1969-1973)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1969-1977)
Secretary of Agriculture: Robert Bergland (1969-1977)
Secretary of Labor: Walter Reuther (1969-1977)
Secretary of the Interior: Stewart Udall (1969-1977)
Secretary of Commerce: Vincent Learson (1969-1977)
Chief of Staff: Kenny O'Donnell (1969-1977)
Press Secretary: Jack Newfield (1969-1973)
National Security Advisor: Daniel Ellsberg (1969-1973)
U.N. Ambassador: Andrew Young (1969-1973)
I could use a little help with creating a McCain cabinet.
Vice President: Ralph Yarborough (1969-1977)
Secretary of the Treasury: Nelson Rockefeller (1969-1973)
Secretary of State: Chester Bowles (1969-1977)
Attorney General: Ramsey Clark (1969-1977)
Secretary of Defense: Paul Warnke (1969-1977)
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Sargent Shriver (1969-1973)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1969-1977)
Secretary of Agriculture: Robert Bergland (1969-1977)
Secretary of Labor: Walter Reuther (1969-1977)
Secretary of the Interior: Stewart Udall (1969-1977)
Secretary of Commerce: Vincent Learson (1969-1977)
Chief of Staff: Kenny O'Donnell (1969-1977)
Press Secretary: Jack Newfield (1969-1973)
National Security Advisor: Daniel Ellsberg (1969-1973)
U.N. Ambassador: Andrew Young (1969-1973)
I could use a little help with creating a McCain cabinet.
RFK and O'Donnell never got along in the JFK administration, because he didn't like the intrusion of the Irish Mafia in certain areas. His OTL Senate chief of staff, Fred Dutton, would be COS. Nor would he appoint a family member to Cabinet, since that had been made illegal in 1967.
Andrew Young had no diplomatic experience, it seems most likely that a career diplomat would be chosen.
Andrew Young had no diplomatic experience, it seems most likely that a career diplomat would be chosen.
I tend to differ on your opinion. O'Donnell and RFK were roommates at Harvard, played together on the football team there, and he served as RFK's campaign manager for his presidential campaign. I am uncertain about the "no appointing a family member to the Cabinet" rule, since Sargent Shriver is his brother-in-law, and I don't believe that's covered. Other than that, the selections made in A Disturbance of Fate and the modifications I made (Note that the author of A Disturbance of Fate, Mitchell J Freedman, mistakenly placed Housing and Urban Development under HEW, rather than having it as a separate department), seem to be very plausible.