AH Challenge: Dystopia R Us

the Challenge is this, with any post-1900 POD make your country (as in the one you're from) as Dystopic as you can, go! :)
 
Oh, that one's easy. During the depression, make FDR either die or not get elected, have another hoover-esque president get elected and do nothing about the economic situation. The depression gets so bad and so horrendous that communism starts to take hold in a large portion of the populace. Have the Nazi's establish bunds in the US as per OTL. Have a strong nazi movement show up in the US in response to the communist movement. Have communist demonstrations spawn nazi counter demonstrations. Soon fighting breaks out amongst the different factions. The federal government responds by sending in troops to quell the uprisings, but the fighting gets out of hand. Sympathisers to both sides have infiltrated the military and so soon there are American troops shooting at each other. The government loses control of the situation and a three way civil war breaks out. The Fascists and the Soviets start sending equipment and "volunteers" to aid each side as per the SCW. The Fascists win out in the end and the US becomes a Nazi puppet state. Intellectuals, suspected communists, and all "inferior" peoples are rounded up and placed in concentration camps. The USA is under the rule of a racist fascist government by the late 40's.

Hows that work for you?
 
I can't imagine anything more dystopic than 1984 as far as recent PoDs go. Now that was a spooky book.
 
Britain's quite easy (avoiding 1984). During the General Strike of 1926, the government does go the full nine yards with them, treats them as revolutionaries and what not. The situation deteriorates, communists gather strength and violence skyrockets. By the end of it, the communists are in power, and a USSR situation occurs.
 
US fails to invade during Korean War, whole peninsula under Communist control, the Eternal Leader and the Dear Leader residing in Seoul
 

Goldstein

Banned
the Challenge is this, with any post-1900 POD make your country (as in the one you're from) as Dystopic as you can, go! :)

In 1936, Emilio Mola avoids his plane accident, and by august 1939 he becomes the head of a military junta that rules the Spanish Republic.

His rule was marked by a total international isolation, a massive and inefficient autarchic industrialization program, and a constant climate of state terrorism, with more than 500.000 executed, tortured and disappeared by 1960, including the backstabbed Navarran carlists, the maoist insurgency, the Basque and Catalan nationalists, and lots of imaginary enemies that seemed to multiply as Mola grew old and his paranoia slowly reached demential levels... By 1964, when Mola died, Spain was a sort of totalitarian hermit kingdom ravaged by famine and severely depopulated, that had lost control of entire agrarian zones in Andalusia, Murcia, La Mancha and Extremadura, as well as facing a strong insurgency in the Basque Country and Navarra. After a tidal wave of inmigration to France and Portugal, both countries almost quarantined Spain.

Mola died and the Junta started to crumble. A Second Spanish civil war emerged of the chaos that followed. It was a war between the nationalist north (and the US army) and the maoist south, with Catalonia, the Basque Country and Navarra going their own way. War crimes were very common in both sides, and the aggresive agrarianist social experiment in the maoist zone literally decimated the population in less than five years. The maoist army surredered in 1971, when the US decided to nuke Seville (with a population of 54 after the urban exodus anyway). In the Burgos Accords, the nationalist side compromised to left Catalonia, Navarra and the Basque country as semi-autonomous communities, as a guarantee of greater stability. Still, the country was deeply wounded, and after the strong global crisis of 1976, the Spanish mismanaged industry was left useless. In 1979, a great accident in a chemical plant of Tarragona, ignited three weeks of strong civil disorder, and the nationalist government called for free elections (with the exception of the communist parties.)

Now we are in the year 2009, and Spain is the perpetual sick man of europe, as dirty and corrupt as it can be, with a standard of living comparable to that of Albania. The north down to Madrid is a hellhole of industrial decay with the greatest crime levels of the western hemisphere, with the coastal areas from Vigo to Santander being little less than narcoterror areas, and the Castillian plains being almost depopulated. Catalonia and the cities around the Ebro river are still suffering the efects of the 1979 toxic disaster, and malformations and breathing problems are very common.
Southern Spain has an agrarian economy of subsistence, with near to zero infrastructures (tap water is uncommon and roads are unpaved), with analphabetism reaching 90% and mortality rates being the highest of europe. In the Sierra Morena mountains hides a maoist remnant that makes the FARC look like a tea pary. Communist and nationalist terrorist groups counts for dozens, but the greatest body count goes for the Carlist Traditionalist Army, specially sice their 2007 dirty bomb attacks in Valladolid and Valencia...


Ahem... is this dystopic enough for you? ;)
 
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US: The Yellowstone super volcano erupts January 1st 1900. This also has the effect of making Canada and Mexico the most dystopic as well. The rest of the western hemisphere follows. Eurasia and Africa probably will too.
 
US: The Yellowstone super volcano erupts January 1st 1900. This also has the effect of making Canada and Mexico the most dystopic as well. The rest of the western hemisphere follows. Eurasia and Africa probably will too.

I think we need to change this to "goes Dystopian without a major natural disaster or large-scale use of WMDs", because "total thermonuclear war" or "giant meteor strike" leads to "everyone in my country dead", which is pretty much as dystopian as you get (I don't believe in "1984" -type perfect eternal dictatorships - at least with current technology!)

Bruce
 
Able-Archer goes hot, accidental nuclear war begins, the Northern hemisphere is pretty much gone and Australia takes more than a few hits. Mad Max-ilarity ensues. If I'm even born in this TL, it's likely my best friend is an AK-47.
 

Onyx

Banned
Oil Peak at its worst.

The government will just become more of a dictatorship to preserve oil, and when that fails, all hell breaks loose.........
 
In 1942, Maurice Duplessis resigns as Unionist leader and wins a by-election for Trois-Rivieres riding as a federal Conservative. On Nov. 15, 1948, Mackenzie King resigns and Lester Pearson succeeds him as Prime Minister. On Apr. 25, 1949 Duplessis wins a majority government and becomes Prime Minister of Canada. He wins re-election twice before dying of a stroke in 1960. In this period, wartime censorship is extended as a result of Korea, and UI is drastically cut from King's 1945 levels.
 
Too bad wolfpaw couldn't integrate this into his TL. President McCarthy, Prime Minister Duplessis, and maybe UK PM Enoch Powell. :eek::eek::eek:
 
Britain's quite easy (avoiding 1984). During the General Strike of 1926, the government does go the full nine yards with them, treats them as revolutionaries and what not. The situation deteriorates, communists gather strength and violence skyrockets. By the end of it, the communists are in power, and a USSR situation occurs.

Or even worse by the end of it the government are in power and a Nazi Germany situation occurs.
 
In France, the 1958 Algiers Putsch, which in OTL led to De Gaulle being called to form an emergency cabinet, turns wrong. Operation Resurrection, a mock aeroported operation from Algeria to Corsica in order to impress the French government and to make them believe that the Generals are ready for a coup, becomes a terrible incident: shots are fired, some policemen and civilians are killed. De Gaulle seems to have lost the control of the putschists and loses the trust from the Paris government, thinking that it's only a scheme to gain power. Instead, President René Coty asks General Salan to form a Commitee of Public Salvation, overcoming the legislative and executive powers. A military dictatorship begins in France, supported by former Vichyist elements and hardliner militarists worried by another Dien Bien Phu in Algeria.

By 2009, the Algeria War is still ongoing, the French military having maintained troops in the area since 1954, infuriating the worldwide Arab Community against France. The Commitee of Public Salvation still rules over a puppet President and a mock National Assembly, and persecutes all its wannabe opponents: Algerians, communists, socialists, and other peoples suspected of secession: Corsicans, Brittons... The USA, viewing France as a masterpiece of the Cold War and later of the War on Terror, still supports the French regime, and the idea of an almighty military dictatorshipn has spread throughout Europe, such as in Spain, Portugal and Italy...

This idea was a project of alternate history novel of mine.
 
In France, the 1958 Algiers Putsch, which in OTL led to De Gaulle being called to form an emergency cabinet, turns wrong. Operation Resurrection, a mock aeroported operation from Algeria to Corsica in order to impress the French government and to make them believe that the Generals are ready for a coup, becomes a terrible incident: shots are fired, some policemen and civilians are killed. De Gaulle seems to have lost the control of the putschists and loses the trust from the Paris government, thinking that it's only a scheme to gain power. Instead, President René Coty asks General Salan to form a Commitee of Public Salvation, overcoming the legislative and executive powers. A military dictatorship begins in France, supported by former Vichyist elements and hardliner militarists worried by another Dien Bien Phu in Algeria.

By 2009, the Algeria War is still ongoing, the French military having maintained troops in the area since 1954, infuriating the worldwide Arab Community against France. The Commitee of Public Salvation still rules over a puppet President and a mock National Assembly, and persecutes all its wannabe opponents: Algerians, communists, socialists, and other peoples suspected of secession: Corsicans, Brittons... The USA, viewing France as a masterpiece of the Cold War and later of the War on Terror, still supports the French regime, and the idea of an almighty military dictatorshipn has spread throughout Europe, such as in Spain, Portugal and Italy...

This idea was a project of alternate history novel of mine.

Wow that one is scary, but good. Does the Soviet Union survive in that tl? How does Margaret Thatcher treat the french regime? Or does she take a page from their book?
 
The Spanish one sounds really dysfunctional.

Bonus points if the butterflies from that one lead to the French situation occurring in the same timeline as well.
 
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