DBWI: Opinions on "The Khaganate" timeline?

You don't have to be an apologist for him.

I'm not, I'm just telling the truth as I've come to see it, and this is coming from somebody who's been more than willing to critique some of his more outlandish moves over the years: if you'd like, you can go back through the archives and see what I wrote.

Here, I'll even provide an example-

Gwendolyn verch Tallis said:
Solo,

I must admit that I'm quite perplexed by this latest development: why, exactly, would you have Germany elect such a truly insane man to be their Chancellor? I at least understand the general idea of human stupidity sometimes being quite powerful, but surely enough people would have found out about his extreme anti-Semitism to have rejected him wholesale?

To which he responded, initially:

Solo said:
Gwen, I must say that while I do honestly respect your opinion, I'm afraid it's much more than just that. A further response will be forthcoming shortly.....

And you can go from there.

Sure there's been some nightmarish TLs (remember the spin-off from Solo's about that slaveocracy ruling the world from southern Africa?)

TBH, though, even Solo himself said that was way too Grim-Dark for his taste. As was that copycat TL about Spanish Florida somehow becoming a semi-Dirigist Blood-and-Family type half-dictatorship modelling itself on ancient Rome and conquering not only most of Meshica but much of Arucania as well.

but I don't think that excuses having some guys on horses pllunder the most powerful peoples in the world but a backwater somehow escapes and then conquers most of the world.

That was a fair bit problematic in terms of believability, yes, I agree. (And also, totalitarian Kampuchea and marital rape not being illegal in most Western countries until the 1990s?)

I mean sure, part of alternate history is about stretching believability, but by the time he got to dividing up Africa between a handful of countries the size of a Chinese province it was pretty obvious he had an axe to grind. :rolleyes:

In regards to the bold, though, not really, not against Africa anyway. (I should also point out that quite a few of the African states were somewhat weakish IOTL, prior to the mid 20th century; granted, things turned rather better IOTL than ITTL, but I should note that one of the areas that got hit the hardest is an area of Africa which he is somewhat fond of IOTL)

OOC: I decided to RP as a female poster this time, just to change things up. Funny thing is, it's also been a long while since I've created ATL posts from scratch-gotta try that more often! :cool:
 
You all talk about this being a Euro-wank, but there is not enough Euro wanks IMO. This was a great TL, and very plausible. I love the detail.
 
You all talk about this being a Euro-wank, but there is not enough Euro wanks IMO. This was a great TL, and very plausible. I love the detail.

It did have some interesting twists, for sure.....although, granted, I was one of the main contributors to a lot of cultural things in particular, such as the development of tochomobile culture, particularly in the *Americas and *Japan, TTL's Meshica & Arucania and Chipan, respectively.
 
It did have some interesting twists, for sure.....although, granted, I was one of the main contributors to a lot of cultural things in particular, such as the development of tochomobile culture, particularly in the *Americas and *Japan, TTL's Meshica & Arucania and Chipan, respectively.

You know that big country in Arucania that stretches from the atlantic ocean to the pacific? Everyone think's its implausible, but I love it! I also love most of the countries turning into a Republic, rather than a monarchy.
 
Hey, I didn't say the TL was bad. Solo wrote it extremely well and it was one of the most entertaining ATLs I've ever read, but it just seems too unlikely and biased for me to really like it.

To explain: I think that The Khaganate is a perfect example of the author deciding what they wanted the outcome to be beforehand and then foregoing realism so they can achieve that, instead of picking a POD and trying to determine what the most likely outcome would be. Much like every other timeline which uses this method, its a good story but a bad alternate history.
 
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Hey, I didn't say the TL was bad. Solo wrote it extremely well and it was one of the most entertaining ATLs I've ever read, but it just seems too unlikely and biased for me to really like it.

To explain: I think that The Khaganate is a perfect example of the author deciding what they wanted the outcome to be beforehand and then foregoing realism so they can achieve that, instead of picking a POD and trying to determine what the most likely outcome would be. Much like every other timeline which uses this method, its a good story but a bad alternate history.

In this case, at least, I think that case could indeed be made. In all honesty, though, I've seen a rather large number of "pick a POD and go from there" based works that weren't all that great(case in point: Zhu Yang Dies At Great Gorge), and at least a fair few "plan out the outcome, then pick a POD" stories that were genuinely both enjoyable and plausible(some have said this about my own magnum opus, Rule Britannia Fair, though I think Alberic bar David's The Story of Africa is even better plausibility wise, as even I used a few fancy tricks here and there.)

OOC: The Story of Africa is a reference and tribute to Male Rising.
 
Yeah, he just had them conquered by two regimes that are literally worse than the Mongols. How do you even manage that?
Oh and don't forget the third partitioning power (the first time he took Poland off the map), a Duchy of Austria that goes insane and focuses on eastern and southern expansion rather than reforming the HRE into something like OTL's Pan-German Empire.
 
Oh and don't forget the third partitioning power (the first time he took Poland off the map), a Duchy of Austria that goes insane and focuses on eastern and southern expansion rather than reforming the HRE into something like OTL's Pan-German Empire.

Ughhh... The guy teased German unification so many times. It became a bit of a dead horse, honestly. You got used to the inevitable Germany split.

Also, while we're discussing ASBs and lazy writing in The Khaganate, how about the random colouring after ”WWI”, and during the ”Scramble for Africa”? What about how Chinese dynasties (and republics) seemed to be able to collapse in the blink of a moment, and despite being fucking massive, reunite in a few years?
 
Ughhh... The guy teased German unification so many times. It became a bit of a dead horse, honestly. You got used to the inevitable Germany split.

Also, while we're discussing ASBs and lazy writing in The Khaganate, how about the random colouring after ”WWI”, and during the ”Scramble for Africa”? What about how Chinese dynasties (and republics) seemed to be able to collapse in the blink of a moment, and despite being fucking massive, reunite in a few years?
tbf line drawing in Africa seems to be the go to in any scenario where the Benin Empire doesn't have OTL's conquest spree.

On the topic of China, I think it's weird that labour agitators were able to take over a country that was (in that timeline) almost completely agrarian, and I think it goes without saying that he had the Qing hold the idiot ball way too long to be believable.
 
Ughhh... The guy teased German unification so many times. It became a bit of a dead horse, honestly. You got used to the inevitable Germany split.

Also, while we're discussing ASBs and lazy writing in The Khaganate, how about the random coloring after ”WWI”, and during the ”Scramble for Africa”? What about how Chinese dynasties (and republics) seemed to be able to collapse in the blink of a moment, and despite being fucking massive, reunite in a few years?
The Germans were unified. I don't know if it was in his Epilogue or a fan follow-up he approved, but they were unified. There was a false start in 1848 where the Prussian King turned it down because he was insulted by "being given a crown from the gutter", the German states later united and kicked France's ass. Then they were defeated in the "Great War"/"World War I" where they grew resentful and turned into the cartoonishly evil "Nazis" before being divided between the democratic West and the authoritarian socialist East. I don't know what is more implausible, the Mongol's lightning offensive across all of Asia or the Nazis methodically murdering millions. The guy seems to love hyperbole.
 
The Germans were unified. I don't know if it was in his Epilogue or a fan follow-up he approved, but they were unified. There was a false start in 1848 where the Prussian King turned it down because he was insulted by "being given a crown from the gutter", the German states later united and kicked France's ass. Then they were defeated in the "Great War"/"World War I" where they grew resentful and turned into the cartoonishly evil "Nazis" before being divided between the democratic West and the authoritarian socialist East. I don't know what is more implausible, the Mongol's lightning offensive across all of Asia or the Nazis methodically murdering millions. The guy seems to love hyperbole.

I understand, but again, just so you know, the guy did grow up in a war zone. One in which the Serbs and their Bulgar nationalist allies were committing a shitload of horrific war crimes, at that: Solo isn't active on this board anymore(for a variety of reasons, including at least one abusive impostor who tried to ruin his reputation), but I'm not the only one who knows him(albeit, I'm one of those who knows him best, at least on here).
 
I understand, but again, just so you know, the guy did grow up in a war zone. One in which the Serbs and their Bulgar nationalist allies were committing a shitload of horrific war crimes, at that: Solo isn't active on this board anymore(for a variety of reasons, including at least one abusive impostor who tried to ruin his reputation), but I'm not the only one who knows him(albeit, I'm one of those who knows him best, at least on here).
I understand that, but the max dead toll calculated for that was a few hundred thousand, not the millions that he claims that the "Nazis" killed. He claimed that these "Nazis" virtually erased the vibrant Eastern European Jewish community from the face of the Earth. To claim that anyone would be capable of mass murder on a practically industrial scale like the Nazis seems fairly insulting towards the Germans. I'm certain he's a nice guy, and most of his comments seem to indicate that, but his issues seemed to get in the way of his ability to write a plausible timeline. I hope he got some therapy for what he witnessed, as some of the things he wrote practically gave me nightmares. Don't get me wrong, I loved The Khaganate while it was being written, but in hindsight, it was poorly put together.

It's nowhere as bad as the spiritual successor made by Gem, who was clearly a somewhat unhinged fan of Solo. The idea that Cambodia could kill millions of "intellectuals" was somehow more insulting than the idea that the Germans would want to kill millions of Jews. Not to mention the so-called "Islamic State" destroying priceless pieces of history and making Islam look bad.
 
I understand that, but the max dead toll calculated for that was a few hundred thousand, not the millions that he claims that the "Nazis" killed. He claimed that these "Nazis" virtually erased the vibrant Eastern European Jewish community from the face of the Earth.

472,000 dead in total, according to the highly reputable Peacemakers International organization, many of them Romani, with quite a few Greeks, Vallachians, and Moldovans, and others, also amongst the dead, 210,000 of them known to have been killed via the mass shootings, etc.(others died of starvation, lack of medical care, etc. under the "Quarantine Zones".)

To claim that anyone would be capable of mass murder on a practically industrial scale like the Nazis seems fairly insulting towards the Germans. I'm certain he's a nice guy, and most of his comments seem to indicate that, but his issues seemed to get in the way of his ability to write a plausible timeline. I hope he got some therapy for what he witnessed, as some of the things he wrote practically gave me nightmares. Don't get me wrong, I loved The Khaganate while it was being written, but in hindsight, it was poorly put together.

I did think it excessive at the time, yes. (And yes, Solo has been seeing someone. New Avalon, I assure you, has some of the best medical care in the world.)

It's nowhere as bad as the spiritual successor made by Gem, who was clearly a somewhat unhinged fan of Solo. The idea that Cambodia could kill millions of "intellectuals" was somehow more insulting than the idea that the Germans would want to kill millions of Jews. Not to mention the so-called "Islamic State" destroying priceless pieces of history and making Islam look bad.

Yes, I didn't find the "Islamic State" all that believable, either. There have been some rather nasty Islamist organizations in our world, don't get me wrong, but even the most radical of the real-world Islamists didn't go around destroying icons from their own religion, nor did they ever have the chance to form their own state; not even the Yefimovite sect of the Russian Doukhubors of the 19th Century went that far.

OOC: New Avalon, btw, is basically the West Coast of North America minus Alaska, the Yukon, and most of B.C.
 
472,000 dead in total, according to the highly reputable Peacemakers International organization, many of them Romani, with quite a few Greeks, Vallachians, and Moldovans, and others, also amongst the dead, 210,000 of them known to have been killed via the mass shootings, etc.(others died of starvation, lack of medical care, etc. under the "Quarantine Zones".)

But they weren't killed with the cold methodical precision that the "Nazis" killed the Jews. The unflinching detail that Solo put into those "death camps" almost made me sick to my stomach.They systematically stripped them of their belongings and then marched them into gas chambers on the pretense of giving them "showers". The less you say about his "Mengele" character, the better. Or "Amon Goth".
I did think it excessive at the time, yes. (And yes, Solo has been seeing someone. New Avalon, I assure you, has some of the best medical care in the world.)

Good to know. He seemed like a nice, if somewhat damaged, person. It's also good that Gem got psychological help before they went on a shooting spree or something.

Yes, I didn't find the "Islamic State" all that believable, either. There have been some rather nasty Islamist organizations in our world, don't get me wrong, but even the most radical of the real-world Islamists didn't go around destroying icons from their own religion, nor did they ever have the chance to form their own state; not even the Yefimovite sect of the Russian Doukhubors of the 19th Century went that far.

OOC: New Avalon, btw, is basically the West Coast of North America minus Alaska, the Yukon, and most of B.C.

The so-called Islamic State seemed to have a disproportionate effect on the area despite only being a "state" for such a brief time. If you can call a group of violent thugs who make their genocidal "Jihad" their sole focus a "state".

On a lighter note, I find it hilarious that Gem's timeline expanding Khaganate (What was it called again?) had this "United States" make not just one but two of the most ludicrous land deals I've ever seen in a timeline. Both their purchase of Alaska and their Louisiana purchase had them paying cents on the acre for massive chunks of land. It's hilariously ASB!

(OOC: I remember someone giving a Chinese name to North America. Wouldn't it be plausible that there'd be Chinese state on the West Coast?)
 
In Solo's defence, he did have realistic consequences of the 'Holocaust' in that the Nazis dedicating a bunch of their industry to killing people impacted their war effort. Plus, he had been building up to that for a long time with all the other horrible shit that had been happening in 'World War 1' and Africa prior to that point.

Plus, I seem to remember him mentioning somewhere that they had originally intended to just deport them all, but I can't find that when I Ctrl+F.
 
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But they weren't killed with the cold methodical precision that the "Nazis" killed the Jews. The unflinching detail that Solo put into those "death camps" almost made me sick to my stomach.They systematically stripped them of their belongings and then marched them into gas chambers on the pretense of giving them "showers". The less you say about his "Mengele" character, the better. Or "Amon Goth".

I understand, and believe me, this hard for me to handle, too. Truth is, though, these "death camps" were very much based on the "Quarantine Zones", even if taken to an extreme extent.

Good to know. He seemed like a nice, if somewhat damaged, person. It's also good that Gem got psychological help before they went on a shooting spree or something.

Gem was never a particularly violence-oriented person, though; just rather eccentric.

The so-called Islamic State seemed to have a disproportionate effect on the area despite only being a "state" for such a brief time. If you can call a group of violent thugs who make their genocidal "Jihad" their sole focus a "state".

On a lighter note, I find it hilarious that Gem's timeline expanding Khaganate (What was it called again?) had this "United States" make not just one but two of the most ludicrous land deals I've ever seen in a timeline. Both their purchase of Alaska and their Louisiana purchase had them paying cents on the acre for massive chunks of land. It's hilariously ASB!

Actually, I'm surprised you don't remember this, but that was all in Solo's original timeline(granted, this isn't surprising as there used to be this running joke going some years ago where everything deemed to on the level of "Alien Space Bats" was attributed to Gem, regardless of who actually wrote said material, though I still can't quite figure out why Solo's TL was such a popular target, under the circumstances). Gem only contributed a few small things(most notably that bit about the conflicts with the Indigenous people in *California, OTL's Sonoma and Pacifica, the original draft of which was rejected), while I myself was one of the primary contributors, and it's nowhere near as implausible as you may think. IIRC, I believe it was on page 271(and 272) where I explained to some skeptics why this was actually plausible. Especially because the *Louisiana deal was very much

In fact, if you'd like to check through all 10,000 or so posts of the original TL thread, only 112 are by Gem-and only about 15 posts are directly relating to the story-while about 1,100 can be attributed to me, and 2,900 from Solo himself.

(OOC: I remember someone giving a Chinese name to North America. Wouldn't it be plausible that there'd be Chinese state on the West Coast?)

OOC: Yes, someone tried, but somebody beat them to it beforehand(Charles RB), and nobody's objected thus far to my own contribution, least of all the thread creator. That said, though, if you're that interested in seeing the name reused, I think something can be worked out.....but in the meantime I'd rather move on after this post, otherwise there may be a risk of derailing everything.

IC: Oh, you mean that old Chinese colony on the Pacific, in between the Sierra Cristinas and the Cascades? It was founded in 1592, so definitely one of the first, but it never really amounted to all that much, and it's been part of New Avalon since our country was founded in 1825, anyway(but I do think it's one of the most interesting pieces of global history, if you ask me-no wonder why so many TLs have been made about it!).

In Solo's defence, he did have realistic consequences of the 'Holocaust' in that the Nazis deicating a bunch of their industry to killing people impacted their war effort. Plus, he had been building up to that for a long time with all the other horrible shit that had been happening in 'World War 1' and Africa prior to that point.

Plus, I seem to remember him mentioning somewhere that they had originally intended to just deport them all, but I can't find that when I Ctrl+F.

Yes, this is all true, btw. Also, I do, in fact, remember that last bit myself, but as I recall, there were quite a few people who called it out as implausible(not entirely unjustified, though, as it involved sending people to Madagascar, of all places) so he eventually deleted that, although I believe you can find archives elsewhere on the 'Net.
 
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