For All That Remains: Yet another copycat

Yes, I admit, this was inspired by For All Time, David Bar Elias's For All Eternity, and For All Butterflies. The PoD is that Winston Churchill dies in December of 1941, and Clement Attlee takes his place. It's somewhat dystopic, but not as much as For All Time.

Now for the Where Are They Nows:

William Jefferson Blythe III was elected president (as a Democrat, of course) in 2000, after first serving as governor and senator from Arkansas. He led the invasion of the Islamic Republic of Iran following the terrorist attack on New York City that left the city in ruins. Unlike OTL's George W. Bush, he is not as hated by the people as he prepares to leave office.

George W. Bush is the longtime owner of the Houston Astros. In that capacity, he has led them to the World Series five times, winning in 1994, and 2005 and losing in 2001. However, he is also hated by many fans, mainly for trading Jeff Bagwell and Roger Clemens the two best players on the Houston team.

He and his father, former Texas governor and senator George H.W. Bush, are supporting his brother, current Louisiana governor James "Jimmy" Bush in the latter's run for president. Bush is a hero to many for his handling of Hurricane Katrina's 2005 landfall in Louisiana (1). Bush is running against Blythe's vice-president William Richardson.

John Sidney McCain III was killed, along with his family and several staffers, in a plane crash in 1986 while campaigning for the governorship of Arizona. He had served in the Siamese War, bombing suspected Baath Party sites.

Albert Gore, Jr. never entered politics, and now teaches political science at the University of Vanderbilt, while supporting local environmental movements.

H. Ross Perot made billions in the oil business and with Electronic Data Systems, and then went on to buy the Dallas Cowboys in 1983 from Clint Murchison, Jr. Under his leadership, the Cowboys went on to win five straight Super Bowls and won again in 2008, upsetting the favored Baltimore Colts.

Alexander Lebed is the president of Russia, leading an alliance not made up of Communists or extremists. Russia is still recovering from the 1983 nuclear war between it and China.

Saddam Hussein was killed after a failed coup in 1958.

Lin Biao took over following the death of Mao Tse-Tung in 1973. He then invaded the People's Republic of Vietnam in 1983 following a border dispute, which led to a nuclear war between it and the Soviet Union. China was left in ruins and the Soviet Union was severely damaged. Even now, that part of the world is still recovering from the damage caused by the war.

There will be more people coming tomorrow.

(1) OOC: This TL's Katrina makes landfall just west of New Orleans as a Category 5 after flattening Jamaica and turning north after going through the Yucatan Channel.

(2) OOC: Eisenhower is still elected in this TL, and has a fatal heart attack in 1957.
 
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Here are some twists and turns that might be of interest to you:

* Chan Kong Sang (OTL's Jackie Chan) was offered a position with the Kuomintang's (KMT) Secret Service starting in 1973, especially after he discovered that his parents had worked with the Kuomingtang in 1936-1950. Imagine if he had taken the offer.

* José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (a.k.a. Daniel Ortega)- Ortega, the Nicaraguan Communist leader, was actually offered a chance to play major league baseball, like his idol Fidel Castro in 1963. Imagine the diffference if he played baseball instead.

* George Lucas- In 1960, Lucas was interested in becoming a possible NASCAR race driver, until a few days before his high school graduation, he was in a near-fatal car accident wherein his Autobianchi Bianchina car were involved in an accident outside of Modesto, CA. What if he decides to continue as a race car driver, or dies in Modesto?...

* Martin Scorsese- In OTL, in 1966, being a film director was the farthest idea from Scorsese's mind. Scorsese was actually training to be a Roman Catholic priest as early as 1966. He was almost drafted into the U.S. Army in 1969, but was rejected because of childhood asthma. In the ATL, what if he was forced to take the alternative career paths?....
 
It's not a complete utopia, but it's not a complete dystopia, either.
May I ask you a question: How is this not a complete dystopia?

The largest nation on Earth and the most populous nation on Earth got involved in the deadliest type of war on Earth, annihilating each other and incurring all the environmental ills that it carries along on the rest of the world. You would need a lot of good news in the rest of the world to make this TL not fall into the dystopia group.

This does show plenty of promise and I hope you continue with it. I just want to clarify for myself what the positive aspects of the TL are.

Another thing I think would be really interesting is the fate of Eastern Europe. Were they caught in the atomic fire as well, or were they spared nuclear annihilation and broke free from the Soviets?
 
Eastern Europe broke free from the Soviets after the nuclear war and are now free (they were spared). The Soviet Union was badly damaged (similar to FaT) but not destroyed. Communist China (and to a lesser extent Vietnam) were left in ruins.

I edited the intro. More will be coming up shortly.
 
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Spiro Agnew was nominated for vice-president in 1968, with Harold Stassen as president. Stassen was then gunned down during a visit to Austin in 1971 by Charles Whitman, a veteran of the Siamese War. Agnew was elected president in his own right, but was impeached for obstruction of justice and removed in 1975.

John Birch survived the turmoil in post-war China and settled in Taiwan after the Communists took over mainland China. Birch built numerous settlements in Taiwan and Hainan (in this TL, Hainan remained in the RoC's possession) and then went back to mainland China to help following the nuclear war that devastated much of China. It was there that he caught the cancer that killed him in 1991. Birch's funeral was one of the largest in Taiwanese history. When Taipei was chosen for the 2008 Olympics, the Olympic Stadium was named Birch in his memory.

Anne Frank survived the Holocaust. She and her father moved to Israel after the end of the Second World War, and she became Prime Minister of Israel in 1979. After the Soviet-Chinese nuclear war, she was a leading force in persuading many surviving Soviet Jews to move to Israel. She retired in 1988 and passed away in 2001.

Rupert Murdoch died in a car accident in 1952 in Perth.

Mark Clark was the commanding general during the Normandy invasion in June of 1943. However, in this TL, the Normandy invasion is a disaster and this leads to Dwight Eisenhower taking over and leading the invasion of West Flanders in the spring of 1945. Eisenhower became president in the 1952 election, beating Harry Truman. He died of a heart attack in 1957.

Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. became president in 1960, beating Richard Nixon. His support for civil rights led to his assassination in 1963 by Bobby Ray Cherry. His vice-president, Stuart Symington, managed to get the Civil and Voting Rights Act passed.

After the Communists took over China, Mao Tse-Tung supported the rise of Communist governments in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Malayasia. However, this led to the Siamese War from 1965-1972, where hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, Laotians, Vietnamese, and Thais and over 60,000 Americans died. The U.S. managed to win and caused the collapse of the Communist Malayasian government. This led, indirectly, to the Soviet-Chinese nuclear war 11 years after the end of the Siamese War.

Robert Marley is the Prime Minister of Jamaica, helping the nation to recover after disastrous Hurricane Katrina toppled his predecessor. He plays the guitar in his spare time.

Alan Greenspan became governor of New York in 1970, after being elected to Congress in 1960 and then lieutenant governor in 1966, when his predecessor Nelson Rockefeller died in a plane crash while campaigning for Senator of New York. He was nominated as vice-president in 1980, with Barry Goldwater as president. He was elected to his own term in 1988, but lost in 1992 to John Glenn.

Elvis Presley died in 1989 of a heart attack, after a successful and long musical career. He is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

(1) Yes, this is inspired by the Belgium invasion idea in For All Time.
 
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Bill Ayers, Bernadette Dohrn and the rest of the Weathermenwere killed when their explosives blew up in their Greenwich Village apartment house.


Is this supposed to be a good thing? You know that no one was killed by any Weatherman bombs after the townhouse bombing. After they left the underground, Ayers and Dohrn did a lot of good for the community.
 
Is this supposed to be a good thing? You know that no one was killed by any Weatherman bombs after the townhouse bombing. After they left the underground, Ayers and Dohrn did a lot of good for the community.

This world isn't suppose to be utopian, indeed I think it's supposed be more dystopian than OTL.
 

CalBear

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Good luck with this. However, you are falling into a classic trap, namely having a dramatic event that has radical effect on the TL but most everything still follows as IOTL. This simply won't happen.

Churchill dies in December of 1941. The en ire construct of WW II changes, and with it, the future.


1. Major change in the Allied conduct of the war. Almost certainly no invasion of Italy, very possibly no invasion of Sicily. Despite this you still have the Invasion of France happen in exactly the same place, at virtually the same time. Stunning low probability event. Without Churchill making the case for caution the Allies probably take a shot at France in mid-43 and get curb stomped for their troubles. Even IF the Allies want to go in May of '44, the weather won't allow it. Marshall was a professional, as were the leaders of the Commonwealth forces. They will not attack in completely unacceptable weather conditions

2. Marshall in field command only to be replaced in field command by Ike. No chance. ZERO. Ike was put in charge because he was a coalition builder, not because he was a great tactical officer. Marshall was anything BUT a coalition builder. He had very little use for the British (not as bad as King, but close), and would have shattered any chance for close cooperation. Field command would have devolved to either Patton or Bradley, perhaps even Clark if he hasn't had the chance to step on his crank in Italy.

3. Random chance virtually assures that many of the WW II veterans DIE. George H. W. Bush survived a mission that killed both of his crew. He literally missed getting killed by a foot. Decent chance in a do over he's dead. Hell, his carrier might get sunk. Agnew was in the ETO, got a Bronze Star. In a "worse" Normandy world, that could easily be posthumous. Anne Frank died in march of 1945. A WORSE Normandy makes it far less likely that she survives the war.

4. Random chance ensures that most, if not all, political leaders starting around 1965 are different from OTL. William Blythe Jr. was in the ETO in WW II. In a "worse" ETO, he could just as easily get killed in a car accident in France, or even just get stuck in the Occupation force for an extra six months, as be home in time to impregnate Virginia Cassidy, For that matter, maybe Ginny has a headache that night and the specific genetic package that IOTL becomes Bill Clinton never exists at all.

5. Why would there even BE a Weathermen Movement. It was almost a ASB event for the U.S. of 1966 to exist at all. To this day, the reason that a very orderly, by the book society, almost totally fell off the rails into anarchy in less than eight years is baffling. The movement against the Vietnam War was a unique event in American history, a different war, with even the slightest change in the way the war was fought or portrayed, would have led to an incredibly different social situation.

6. For that matter, why would the Radical Movement be such a failure ITTL? If the eddies of time allow it to exist, why wouldn't it be far more effective? Why wouldn't the Black Panthers be able to foment REAL unrest, the Weather Underground be even mildly competent in their role as bombers? Why wouldn't their success result in a reaction that resembled the laws that Wilson got passed in 1917?

As I say, I wish you luck with the effort. To do it well will be a HUGE amount of work.
 
I agree with you there, CalBear on getting this right being a huge effort. I put Mark Clark in charge of the Normandy invasion because Torch goes off in this TL more or less successfully.

Note I never said when William Blythe III was born.
 
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