AHC: 'Darkest' 21st century that doesn't involve Nazi victory or global nuclear war
- Thread starter Vorti
- Start date
-Ottoman Empire stays neutral in WWI
-Great Depression is seen as proof that westernization is the opposite of what the country needs (Iraqi/Gulf oil has not yet been discovered)
-while the rest of the world is distracted with some equivalent to WWII the Ottomans have a revolution, Islamic Republic of the Ummah is established
-series of massacres and persecutions driven by a Salafist interpretation so radical that it makes Wahhabism look Mutazili by comparison
-Oil is found, new government uses the wealth this generates as proof that Allah wants a new golden age for Islam, and that this post-ottoman state is to lead it
-as decolonization occurs the IRU uses it's immense wealth, prestige, and military might to strong arm new post-colonial states into if not joining then at least adopting identical policies
-you can probably imagine what happens next in very diverse states like Nigeria
-with IRU funding the Nation of Islam becomes the violent face of the civil rights movement, delaying civil rights for decades, durring which time white supremacist and black christian militias form
-the fact that seemingly every new country joins either the Soviet bloc or the Ummah leads the west to cancel decolonization (now all of Europe is LARPing as OTL's Portugal)
-IRU acquires nuclear weapons at some point
-Soviet bloc collapses due to massive insurgencies in Central Asia and the Balkans
-Out of a need to maintain a foothold in the Middle East, Iran (which has become very confessional in reaction to the mass persecution of Shias abroad*) has become the cornerstone of western foreign policy
-At the dawn of the 20th century there is an anti-liberal power bloc lead by a nuclear armed state that regularly threatens to retake the stolen land in Iberia and the Balkans, opposed by an illiberal west and a Russia that never recovers from the 90s because its whole budget is spent on proxy wars in Central Asia and the Caucasus region.
*on this note, the whole west is probably profoundly Islamophobic and much more xenophobic in general, refugees fleeing the IRU and its proxies are probably not treated well if they're allowed to enter at all.
-Great Depression is seen as proof that westernization is the opposite of what the country needs (Iraqi/Gulf oil has not yet been discovered)
-while the rest of the world is distracted with some equivalent to WWII the Ottomans have a revolution, Islamic Republic of the Ummah is established
-series of massacres and persecutions driven by a Salafist interpretation so radical that it makes Wahhabism look Mutazili by comparison
-Oil is found, new government uses the wealth this generates as proof that Allah wants a new golden age for Islam, and that this post-ottoman state is to lead it
-as decolonization occurs the IRU uses it's immense wealth, prestige, and military might to strong arm new post-colonial states into if not joining then at least adopting identical policies
-you can probably imagine what happens next in very diverse states like Nigeria
-with IRU funding the Nation of Islam becomes the violent face of the civil rights movement, delaying civil rights for decades, durring which time white supremacist and black christian militias form
-the fact that seemingly every new country joins either the Soviet bloc or the Ummah leads the west to cancel decolonization (now all of Europe is LARPing as OTL's Portugal)
-IRU acquires nuclear weapons at some point
-Soviet bloc collapses due to massive insurgencies in Central Asia and the Balkans
-Out of a need to maintain a foothold in the Middle East, Iran (which has become very confessional in reaction to the mass persecution of Shias abroad*) has become the cornerstone of western foreign policy
-At the dawn of the 20th century there is an anti-liberal power bloc lead by a nuclear armed state that regularly threatens to retake the stolen land in Iberia and the Balkans, opposed by an illiberal west and a Russia that never recovers from the 90s because its whole budget is spent on proxy wars in Central Asia and the Caucasus region.
*on this note, the whole west is probably profoundly Islamophobic and much more xenophobic in general, refugees fleeing the IRU and its proxies are probably not treated well if they're allowed to enter at all.
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One of the more nasty bio-weapons the Soviets cooked up getting loose during the Aral Leak, either the beefed up Smallpox of OTL or Super-Marburg, at the same time that local/national government is in even more shambles than OTL, leading to it spreading unhindered through the soviet population and eventually becoming a global pandemic, causing over a billion deaths due to both infection and the breakdown of infrastructure/society in all the panic. By the time the pandemic ends half the world is consumed in various civil wars, and the other half is mostly under the control of ruthlessly authoritarian regimes who used the plague as a pretext to shut down all civil liberties and eliminate dissent as they took total control over society.
Why CP victory would make things darker? They weren't proto-nazis. With CP victory there would be weaker fascism or at least not Holocaust and probably there wouldn't be WW2 when Germany would be too strong to be challenged.
Redbeard
Banned
Kick
Well as I see it we're right in the middle of the PoD. In short - if the immigration to Europe that has been going on for the last handful of decades goes on - there will be a Muslim majority in Europe by end of 21st century. If you next include how things are in most countries with a Muslim majority that IMHO is just about as dark as it can get.
Where the hell did this come from?
You're damned near a Plank-holder here, if anyone should know that this sort of outright bigotry toward a group is unacceptable it is you.
I can't believe I'm typing this -
Kicked for a week.
Theweleit (1977) Mannerphantasien makes some persuasive arguments against your claim, at least in the context of Imperial Germany's officer corps, using in part evidence from the period of Central Powers control of former Imperial Russia, and other such white groups of officers.
Surely not. Italy, an Entente power, fell to fascism. As did Hungary. The theory of fascism I am following is the national outrage, threat of revolutionary socialism or communism, a failed old politics incapable of constraining the prior threat, and a new politics of a collective ontological nation. France, the United Kingdom and Russia seem open to such as situation in a central powers continental victory situation. And British Fascism, particularly with its capacity to play itself out on India and much of Africa would be a darkness of unique scale and hubris.
yours,
Sam R.
RousseauX
Donor
For all time is pretty cose
PoD: Henry Wallace becomes president after FDR dies right after pearl harbor
D-Day 1943 fails, nukes on Berlin used to end the war, much larger Soviet zone
Communist Italy, bigger GDR, Belgium eventually goes "Euro-Communism"
no taboo against nuclear weapons: nukes are deployed frequently in conflicts: USA use them in the Philippines, soviets nukes yugoslavia in atl 1956, portugal and spain nukes each other, France uses them to commit genocide in Algeria and making it French majority
AIDS spread to Soviet Bloc in the 1960s
full scale Nuclear war btwn USSR/China in the 1970s
USSR nukes the middle-east in a 1970s era war
USSR collapses in nuclear civil war under general secretary andrei chikatilo, warsaw pact/ussr and areas around them has aids infection rate of 35% by 1990s
Western Europe descents into brutal ethnic conflicts akin more to otl Latin America, with Welsh vs English in the UK, Britanny vs Metropolitan France etc, Walloons vs Flemish in Belgium, France balkanizes
far-right figures takes over reunified Germany, founds what amounts to far right-wing EU
Horrendous racial violence (over and above otl) in the US: Detroit 1967 in almost every major US city every couple of years
equivalent of vietnam war in argentina
Joseph Kennedy (dead otl) becomes a kind of Bill Clinton/Eisenhower president in the 1950s, gets shot by charles whitman
president(s) Barry Goldwater (1964-1968), George McGovern (1972-1976)
Election of 1980 between Charles Manson (R-CA) and Jim Jones (D-PA) won by Jim Jones
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samcster94
Banned
A late CP victory that leads to pseudo-fascism in Russia would be very dark(more b/c of Russia).
That's why I've nicknamed it "Edgelord: The Timeline". It's basically an "everything bad that could happen in the 20th century, with everyone completely losing their minds, happens". I often wonder whether the original author wrote the TL for the catharsis factor. Writing about grim and horrific stuff, then sighing with relief and going "Whatever flaw with OTL, it never got this bad and insane during the Cold War.". There are plenty of unrealistic elements present. An all-out nuke war between he soviets and Chinese would not leave the rest of the world indifferent. The humanitarian and environmental repercussions alone would be a wake-up call for everyone, even in a world of careless tyrants. Pretending otherwise is on the level of Stirling writing every nation on Earth as a fool who underestimates and ignores his Baddie Sue Draka, until they come in, and conquer and enslave everything (how exactly, we are never told, because Stirling is Stirling).
Granted, I'm of the personal opinion that even the "non-insane" Cold War of OTL was still a thoroughly depressing affair, and damaged the futures of many countries for a long time to come. Not just already developed countries, but also still developing countries, then often labelled as the Third World. All the proxy wars spread and encouraged by the two superpowers brought countless misery and suffering to whole nations, and even caused lasting divisions and tensions in quite a few.
1920's prohibition movement successfully translated from the USA to Ireland.
Irish Free State bans the production, sale &/or consumption of alcohol.
Ireland drowned in it's own tears.
Irish Free State bans the production, sale &/or consumption of alcohol.
Ireland drowned in it's own tears.
Why is that always percieved to be as bad as a genocide or severe crimes against humanity?
Considering the drastic reduction in the number of Down's Syndrome children being born into the population on the "negative" and considering some of the more designer-baby fertility clinics (look at the ova donation ads on campuses) on the "positive", I'd say it's fairly alive and well.
De-industrializing a heavily populated nation like that and estimated famine tolls would have rivaled the holodomor.
Depends on what "Dark" means, after all. What I would find rather dark -
A TL in bullet points:
A TL in bullet points:
- CP victory in World War I
- France goes red, the UK goes syndicalist together with Canada, monarchy flees to Australia. Thus Australia, South Africa and probably New Zealand get white supremacist apartheid regimes.
- The US is scared shitless of communists.
- Russia goes rather far right, maybe even outright Nazist. The leaders of this are not known as they were probably killed in World War I or during the purges of the CPSU in OTL.
- But no real World War II happens, instead, in the 1920s and 1930s there are smaller and more limited wars:
- Polish War
- Lithuanian Liberation War/Baltic Liberation War
- Armenian War of Independence
- etc.
- By the time of the 1930s, the German Empire is as reactionary as it had been in 1900. Russia is fascist. The US is rather authoritarian against communists (McCarthy level). "Free" France in Algeria - governing West Africa - is authoritarian. the UK-in-exile, governing Australia, NZ, South Africa and parts of West Africa, is white supremacist.
- No World War II happens. Russia does attack Poland and German puppets, but Germany can beat Russia back.
- This turns Russia even more fascist.
- A communist revolution starts in the USA after a great depression. Canada intervenes, but the US can crush the Anglo-Canadian invasion. "Fifty Four Forty or fight!" is realised approx. 100 years after the slogan came up, and the UK can be restored. With a quasi-Fascist, Schuschnigg-like government.
- Thus, by 1950, only France is red. It has turned totalitarian.
- Worse than a totalitarian red France, though, is that there are constant smaller skirmishes and wars, without nukes but imagine constant Middle East-like situations all over the world.
- One of the most notable wars is the Second Italian Civil War (1958-1966), in which communist rebels are crushed and Italy turns into a fascist Russian ally.
- The Balkans have been puppetised by the Russian Union.
- China remains divided and under warlords with shady to nonexistent human rights records.
- The colonial empires remain, and the "alliance" of the US, restored UK, German Empire, Estado Novo, and Francoist Spain crushes resistance. If a country can be liberated, it is turned into a black supremacist fascist Russian ally. The latter happened to Ghana, for example, where whites are now persecuted and have been ethnically cleansed into French West Africa. Also, Ghana by now has a substantial Russian Orthodox minority.
- Even in Europe, not to mention in less developed countries, war can still easily break out - e.g. over a new Polish crisis or a rebellion anywhere east of the Oder-Neiße line (despite Germany having pre-1918 borders!)
- No taboo on nuclear bombs exist as Germany, Russia, the UK (in-exile and the Restored one), the US, and "Free" France sometimes use one in a war.
- Similarly, no taboo on chemical weapons - the superpowers use them as freely as they are used in OTL Syria.
- Red France, although a dictatorship, might be called the beacon of human rights as those are - at least in most cases - respected. However, it is an outsider, it uses the French Republican Calendar, and by An CCXXVI, most businesses (and politicians) in non-red Europe are fed up with dealing with Red France. There are skirmishes over Alsace-Lorraine...
I might be wrong, but didn't it mainly involve de-industrialisation of the Rhine-Ruhr international zone? Or also of North and South Germany?
The North and South Germany partition was cut from it by the time of the second Quebec Conference. Without that, letting those parts of Germany retain their industry seems to go against the spirit of the enterprise.