AHC: Dystopia in a CP victory world

I'm given to understand that the environmental hazards of nuclear weapons weren't well-understood right away. It might take quite a few nuked colonies before people get the message, and even then, they might go for it anyways out of spite/to satisfy a totalitarian ideology.

I wasen't talking about environmental hazards: I was talking about damage to buildings, rail/roads/ports, mines, ect. caused by the fireball-explosion. Not to mention, chemical weapons would be cheaper to produce using industrial bi-products, allowing them to get more repression for their buck. While IRL there were humanitarian concerns and the concept of "ethical" weapons, that woulden't be a concern in the event of a highly racist, eugenic totalitarian scenario.
 

samcster94

Banned
It depends on what exactly 'dystopia' is meant to mean. Same as OTL, the way to achieve the worst possible world is still a global nuclear war, maybe with some nasty biological elements to spice it up. This, same as OTL, could be achieved even if in the lead up to it, say 1918-1980, was markedly better than OTL's 1918-1980.

If you mean the establishment of a variety of really nasty regimes either in Europe or across the whole world (which is almost certainly still better than a nuclear/biological war), then there are broadly two main ways to go about, one that OTL dodged and one that it did not.

The first is that the (remaining) colonial powers decide for one reason or another that instead of largely allowing the empires to disintegrate without extreme repression, they rather decide that they are definitely going to keep them. Avoiding a second world war is sufficient to prevent these states (included truncated France/Italy) from being too weak/poor to go Full Imperialist, so all that really needs to occur is that domestic politics evolves in such a way that they are willing to use the necessary brutality to hold their colonies probably indefinitely. Without the US/USSR being the only two Great Powers left who also happened to be anti-colonial, Europe could hold its empires essentially indefinitely if it is filled with regimes on the level of, say, fascist Italy.

The other way, which I suspect is the one the OP is getting at, is for Europe to be taken over by a regime/hegemon that is on par with the Nazis in terms of its brutality. Germany is highly unlikely to be a candidate for this, given that it won the war, France and Italy are too weak, Britain is also too weak and highly likely to be essentially intact post-war. The only candidate, which still is unlikely, is Russia.

If the scenario for a German victory is that Russia exits the war before the massive German advances into Ukraine/Belarus/Baltics and effectively only loses Poland and some minor territories, with the Western front ending up being a late German victory (let's say the PoD is either no unrestricted submarine warfare/something that leads to that), what Europe will look like is a heavily weakened France and Italy, a beaten but unconquered Britain, and a Russia that is defeated but essentially intact territorially. This leaves Germany with an incomplete hegemony that will appear strong initially but will be very much challengeable a generation later.

Russia as OTL is perfectly susceptible to becoming a nightmarish totalitarian regime. This could easily happen ITTL, be it a Soviet expy or some right wing Nazi expy. It does not matter which. Perhaps it is matched by some equivalents in France and Italy. The British are very unlikely to go down that route, but a victorious Germany will remain a major naval threat to Britain, especially as it would now control ports on the channel coast. It's not impossible that such a Britain would end up siding with Germany against some really horrible regimes in France, Italy, and Russia, but it is also very possible that it would decide that Germany were still the greater threat. All that needs to happen now is a WW1 rematch but this time with Russian industrialisation/totalitarian regimes. Russia and Co win, or even better, Germany wins in the west (including beating Britain) before Russia in turn wins in the east and establishes a really awful regime across the whole continent. So long as it's not Nazi level economically incompetent, this could be maintain for decades if not longer. Maybe the Russians decide to go full Nazi are start reducing the populations of certain ethnic groups; the nastiest can be as bad as the author can imagine. Essentially, the same as an OTL Nazi victory scenario.
A rightwing Russia with someone as evil as Stalin, but not Communist is exactly what I am looking for(and have it win). A late German victory is a good idea to make it unstable, for more ugliness. More Belgian Congo type scenarios helps too. The U.S. keeping Jim Crow to this day in this world would make a lot of sense too for some extra dystopian elements.
 
Woulden't the later create a MAD scenario that would REDUCE the likelihood of international war? A continued focus on building up stockpiles of chemical weapons (or maybe biological) that can be deployed against rebellious native populations without destroying resources/infrastructure would be better.
Sure. Maybe both? Part of the reason why MAD 'worked' was that both sides had leaders that rose through merit and/or showed capacity to exercise good judgement. If the Central Powers win, hereditary monarchies and aristocracies potentially remain more powerful.
 
Sure. Maybe both? Part of the reason why MAD 'worked' was that both sides had leaders that rose through merit and/or showed capacity to exercise good judgement. If the Central Powers win, hereditary monarchies and aristocracies potentially remain more powerful.


Hereditary monarchies and aristocracies also ran Europe between 1871 and 1914 - one of the longest periods of peace (bar the odd spat in the Balkans) in modern history.

And rising through (alleged) merit didn't save the US from a really bloody civil war.
 
Hereditary monarchies and aristocracies also ran Europe between 1871 and 1914 - one of the longest periods of peace (bar the odd spat in the Balkans) in modern history.

And rising through (alleged) merit didn't save the US from a really bloody civil war.
True, but given that nuclear nonproliferation is a real-world goal, virtually every state of any influence at all having atomic weapons would be concerning particularly aristocratic states.
 
True, but given that nuclear nonproliferation is a real-world goal, virtually every state of any influence at all having atomic weapons would be concerning particularly aristocratic states.

Hitler and Stalin weren't particularly blue-blooded, yet I'd be far more worried about them getting hold of nukes than about Willy or Nicky, for all the latter's faults.
 
What exactly would "worse than Stalin and Hitler" look like?
The casual antisemitism and pogroms of the tsarist regime evolving into a genocidal campaign in the Empire that never really ends, with the rise in France of a Stalin-like figure with a Napoleon complex, and racial eugenics programs in virtually every country. The Herero genocide repeated throughout German Africa, and the Armenian/Assyrian genocides carried to completion in the Ottoman Empire.
 
Top