dystopic challenge

the idea of this Challenge is to make your home country as dystopic as you can using any POD from the dawn of man, to yesterday. be original,
 
Lessee...United States...

Instead of the Puritans arriving in the period before the rise of Cromwell, they're expelled as a mass cleansing ala the Jews in the aftermath of the Restoration. These new Puritans move in and establish a Draka-type society based on a small group of Elect ruling a mass number of serfs.

Eventually the American Revolution comes along, and the break is over slavery more than taxation. The new Puritan despotism wages internecine warfare against the relatively milder race-based slave system of the South (Southern racism is much the same as OTL). This causes the US to split into two rival factions, the Draka-esque Christian Republic of America, and the rump United States of the South. The two gradually diverge, and from there the butterflies hit.

I presume you weren't asking for a truly realistic scenario, here.
 
Lessee...United States...

Instead of the Puritans arriving in the period before the rise of Cromwell, they're expelled as a mass cleansing ala the Jews in the aftermath of the Restoration. These new Puritans move in and establish a Draka-type society based on a small group of Elect ruling a mass number of serfs.

Eventually the American Revolution comes along, and the break is over slavery more than taxation. The new Puritan despotism wages internecine warfare against the relatively milder race-based slave system of the South (Southern racism is much the same as OTL). This causes the US to split into two rival factions, the Draka-esque Christian Republic of America, and the rump United States of the South. The two gradually diverge, and from there the butterflies hit.

I presume you weren't asking for a truly realistic scenario, here.
Have you read Puritan World?
 
Sweden was conquered by the USSR in WWII and depopulated; one third of our population was killed, another deported to Siberia. Agriculture was collectivised, and those unfortunate enough to survive the Purges lived on in perpetual fear and abject poverty, ruled over by distant Russian overlords and ultranasty local collaborators. All freedoms were abolished; churches were burned down and Christian priests crucified, and anyone who retained the old religion was herded into concentration camps and mental hospitals.

My family fled to Britain, which is why I'm alive and able to write this.

Present-day Sweden is a post-Communist nightmare with the Apparatchiks still in charge, enforced political correctivism, AIDS, abject poverty and a Russian minority making up 49.9 % of the population.
 
For Britain: the Cato Street Conspiracy succeeds. Ish. The Cabinet as of 1820 is murdered, with the exception of Lord Liverpool. Instead, Liverpool has a splinter in his brain, driving him slightly insane. His OTL paranoia is heightened, and Britain is driven into an oppressive and autocratic state, dominated by Liverpool's desire for public order. Elections are halted by order of the Prime Minister, and George IV is too sick to intervene at this time.

In 1827, the public openly rebels, leading to a bloody conflict, at the height of which both George IV and OTL William IV are killed. The heir to the throne is Ernst August of Hanover. Ernst and Liverpool become locked in a power-struggle, and the English Civil War becomes a Free-For-All. The war ends in 1834, with Liverpool dead and Ernst deposed, leading to Augustus Frederick assuming the throne and finally recalling elections. The Parliament elected has far fewer powers than before, and has returned somewhat to its old role of "advisory body".

Internal struggles in Britain have led to the decline of her Empire - the BNA territories were the victim of an invasion by the United States in 1831, with the annexation of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into the Union. In India, the Sikh Empire has emerged as the dominant power in India, exploiting the HEIC weakness to Pull A Meiji (Tee Emm). Britain is seen as largely irrelevant to European affairs, and the country is blighted by the horrors of war.

Howzat?
 
the idea of this Challenge is to make your home country as dystopic as you can using any POD from the dawn of man, to yesterday. be original,

If you look at elements of "The Sport of Kings" timeline maybe you can find this in there

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
For Iceland a much worse 1783 eruption could do it. OTL eruption was devastating in itself, but if it was worse, imagine the damage it would cause.

3/4 of the Icelandic population die and the island would be uninhabitable for several years, whilst re-colonisation is rejected for years as Europe is forced to deal with the worse volcanic winter and fears another eruption.

Eventually resettlement begins, but it is both slow and lacklustre. To this day Iceland is a harsh place, where the few inhabitants are dependant on imports from the mother country, Denmark.
 
Sweden was conquered by the USSR in WWII and depopulated; one third of our population was killed, another deported to Siberia. Agriculture was collectivised, and those unfortunate enough to survive the Purges lived on in perpetual fear and abject poverty, ruled over by distant Russian overlords and ultranasty local collaborators. All freedoms were abolished; churches were burned down and Christian priests crucified, and anyone who retained the old religion was herded into concentration camps and mental hospitals.

My family fled to Britain, which is why I'm alive and able to write this.

Present-day Sweden is a post-Communist nightmare with the Apparatchiks still in charge, enforced political correctivism, AIDS, abject poverty and a Russian minority making up 49.9 % of the population.


wow :eek: best one so far.
 
Social domocracy gone mad with the Myrdals comming to power. Gunnar and Alvas social engeneering and eugenics gets replaced by Jans Khmer Rouge and Mao worshiping dictatorship. :D

Or a more realistic version, Gustav Vasa living longer and found some royal guard while he becomes crazier and more paranoid. The royal guard stay in existence....
 
For Britain: the Cato Street Conspiracy succeeds. Ish. The Cabinet as of 1820 is murdered, with the exception of Lord Liverpool. Instead, Liverpool has a splinter in his brain, driving him slightly insane. His OTL paranoia is heightened, and Britain is driven into an oppressive and autocratic state, dominated by Liverpool's desire for public order. Elections are halted by order of the Prime Minister, and George IV is too sick to intervene at this time.

In 1827, the public openly rebels, leading to a bloody conflict, at the height of which both George IV and OTL William IV are killed. The heir to the throne is Ernst August of Hanover. Ernst and Liverpool become locked in a power-struggle, and the English Civil War becomes a Free-For-All. The war ends in 1834, with Liverpool dead and Ernst deposed, leading to Augustus Frederick assuming the throne and finally recalling elections. The Parliament elected has far fewer powers than before, and has returned somewhat to its old role of "advisory body".

Internal struggles in Britain have led to the decline of her Empire - the BNA territories were the victim of an invasion by the United States in 1831, with the annexation of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into the Union. In India, the Sikh Empire has emerged as the dominant power in India, exploiting the HEIC weakness to Pull A Meiji (Tee Emm). Britain is seen as largely irrelevant to European affairs, and the country is blighted by the horrors of war.

Howzat?
Pretty disturbing... but having studied Peterloo and surrounding issues in some detail (background for my MA), I have to say that
a) Liverpool wasn't as reactionary as often painted - the infamous 'Six Acts' for instance, were to some degree a tidying-up of existing laws
b) such laws - like the suspension of habaeas corpus various times during the period - were only ever temporary (which was the intention), similar to Emergency Powers acts today.

Heh, it feels wrong for me to be excusing the actions of a Tory. :D

Anyway, on Cato Street specifically - you'd need to eliminate any infiltration of the group by government informants/spies (specifically 'Oliver the spy', aka W. J. Richards/William Oliver), which I suppose is not a huge POD given the number of vague plots going on at the time.
 
OK. Taking some recently disclassifed fiels from the Spanish Army as base:

The bomb that was intended for Carrero Blanco blows the car where his bodyguards travel instead in 1973. He is unharmed and furious and unleashes a wave of repression against any kind of possible dissent in Spain during the next months, with thousands of arrests and some executions that causes a wave of international condemn. Not to mention any reform suggested by Arias Navarro, Suárez et al. quickly vanishes and what is back is the old days of the Falange.

The next year the Carnation Revolution breaks out in Portugal and Carrero sees astonished what is (to his eyes) an obvious communist takeover while the West does nothing. He discusses the necessity to put it down with the USA, gets some vagueness from Ford, and thinks he has his OK. He's wrong.

Spain invades Portugal thinking it's an easy prey but gets bogged down in quite some fronts by Spinola's men. Reports of attrocities heat even more the Hispanophobia in several countries and the result is a NATO intervention on Portugal's aid. It's a NATO member, after all, while Spain is not.

Then hell unleashes. Several air attacks wipe out the tiny Spanish fleet and reduces the main cities to rubble, and the offensive is only increased when news of retaliation attacks on the American bases and Gibraltar came out. Morocco joins opportunistically NATO's side and receives Western Sahara, Ceuta and Melilla. The Canaries and Balearics are invaded and declared NATO protectorates waiting for an UN resolution and in a pair of years they become "independent" republics. The fate of the mainland is quite worse. A triple invasion is launched from Portugal, France and Africa and when everything is toast an occupation force is stablished and the top Francoist heads are arrested and executed by garrote.

Excluding a "safe zone" from Cadiz to Marbella that is awarded to the British, a third republic is placed to rule the territory but few of he old antifascist emigrees are willing to return. On the other hand, thousands of inhabitants (attempt to) make a life in other countries and are dumped in concentration camps. After 5 years, occupation troops flee without securing a stable government and the one left is bogged down fighting fascist, separatist and communist guerrillas (the last ones sponsored by the Soviet Union).

In the late 80s a madman rises to power under he excuse of hunting them and begins to hit the shit in "disloyal" regions. Galicia, Catalonia and the Basque Country proclaim unilateral independence. They are quickly recognized by France and Portugal and this spirals into another NATO intervention leading to a break up and another occupation which lasts for 15 years. By the time troops leave again, the rump "Spain" is an international pariah with one of the worst standards of living and development rates in Europe, death penalty still in effect and no hope of joining the European Union in a very long time. Even the Iberoamerican nations refuse to give it a seat in their summits, and most villains in post-Soviet US films have stereotypical Castilian accents.
 
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