Miscellaneous >1900 (Alternate) History Thread
- Thread starter RMcD94
- Start date
You might know how psychedelic drugs affected the 60s and 70s culture. I wonder would have happened if the U.S. government did not ban psychedelics drugs in the 70s, but instead allowed for people to use them. I know in modern times with the legalization of marijuana, people are now pushing for psychedelics to be legalized. Would it turn into a Psychedelic Renaissance or would people get tired of psychedelics and move away from it?
I personally attribute this to being part of the idea that I have seen so often assumed to be true: that both republican and monarchist rulers are so fanatical about their own system of government that they will try to impose at gunpoint that the country they defeat at the war takes its form of government.
And that they will do it even if it leads to situations as ridiculous as having to impose as King of Poland a guy whose only connection to that country is that he was the former ambassador of the attacking country to Poland.
In addition to being so convinced that it is a good idea that they will insist on going ahead regardless of how much it costs them (in money and troops) to impose this change of government.
Or being indifferent to the fact that this will undoubtedly lead to the population hating the regime, which would be rightly perceived as a puppet of the attacker, and trying to overthrow it as soon as the occupying forces leave.
It was certainly true in the Cold War with how much money and lives were spent enforcing capitalism and communism in various nations, or the 21st century neoconservative view of spreading liberal democracy to places like Iraq and Afghanistan which still is influential on foreign policy. The antecedent would of course be the French Revolutionary wars, or perhaps colonialist justifications which often included spreading the ideologies of "civilized people."
In the case of WWI, I think it's almost inevitable because for the CP it's a way of cementing ties between Germany and the puppet nation in question.
Grey Wolf
Donor
Something goes disastrously wrong with the US project, wiping people out, but the intel has reached the USSR and Stalin as per OTL isn't all that bothered if everyone in his team is at risk, as long as he can push them to create it
Grey Wolf
Donor
Things blowing up when they should not and wiping out a big chunk of scientists are certainly known events - the Brazilian space programme, for one, and I think one of the early V2s did this at Peenemunde and killed lots of people working on their design.
I don't know enough about nuclear bombs, but then the people working on them only knew about them to a limited extent until they were ready to explode one.
As I see this, based on the most common takes I've seen of economical PODs, there are three possible (and maybe a bit sarcastic) ways this could go in order to become a TL:
1) Lazy take.
In this TL, everything is the same as OTL except for the fact that Hallyu (Korean Wave) is not a thing. Especially recommended for those who do not want to write a treatise on macroeconomics or for those who only want to speculate about the evolution of cultural media.
2) Take “being economically incompetent makes you militarily stupid” or “Korea acts according on Pentagon assumptions for 'bad economy' countries.”
This TL assumes the rulers of South Korea begin to defecate in their pants fearing that this will cause the fall of the government and that they themselves will end up in jail for the economic problems the country is having.
So they decide that, to distract the public from wondering what their leaders are doing to fix their economy, they are going to try to provoke a war with North Korea just so that the population will be swept away in a tidal wave. of nationalist fervor.
The press and media start spewing all sorts of vitriolic rhetoric about how wonderful it would be to reunify the Peninsula and how imperative it is to do this, as well as how anyone who is against this hates Korea and wants "traitors and chinilpas win”. (Remember, it's tabloid propaganda, it doesn't have to make sense). As well as an increase in border incidents, which may or may not have been false flag attacks organized by South Korea.
The assumption here is that the United States will happily jump to the aid of South Korea and throw all its weight into it should the conflict escalate to open war, for one or more of these reasons:
A) They are the stereotypical America that will join any conflict that gives them a chance to “kill reds”,
B) Mumble mumble laced with macroeconomic jargon about how letting South Korea fall, for some unspecified reason, would wreck the American economy. So it is imperative to sustain them, even if they wage aggressive war against North Korea,
C) They sincerely believe that North Korea is the one who is acting badly here and they do not consider a de-escalation at all because "we must show our strength, the strength of our determination."
3) Take "save yourself who can."
The last TL. Let's say that in the middle of trying to implement Take 2 or before anyone else does anything, the most pessimistic predictions possible occur and South Korean society collapses so fast it looks like something out of a movie.
People start quitting their jobs and looting supermarkets, while extremists of all stripes decide that the time for a “reckoning” has come and begin openly murdering people on the streets of Seoul.
In turn, the police and the army cannot, nor do they want to, do anything to prevent it. This is because, in both forces, a third of the personnel have deserted en masse (the rumor was spread that there was going to be arrears in the payroll that month).
Another third are attempting a coup to overthrow the government by force, in the name of healing the wounded economy. According to the author's sympathies, these guys want to implement a far-right totalitarian dictatorship to “purify Korea” or an average military junta in the style of previous dictatorships.
The remaining third have decided that, since they are not going to get paid anyway, they could get an extra bonus by selling off all the police and military material that is not nailed to the walls of the base.
This rapid collapse of law and order in South Korea causes a mass flight of Korean refugees to the United States and Japan. Which incidentally allows the author to insert a bunch of rants about how the Japanese are the most racist society in existence even if the focus of the story is supposed to be the Korean crisis. This could be the end of South Korea if not for Kim himself.
Kim, the leader of North Korea, watches with amazement as his rival from the South is collapsing in on himself without his having to do anything. It is very likely that he will decide that "the time has come to reunify the peninsula" and declare that he is moving south to "help our Korean brothers"...
This, of course, causes the South Koreans to almost immediately forget that they were trying to kill each other for packets of rice, to instead band together to deal with the invader. The United States most aggressively demands that North Korea fall back to its side of the line and sends B2 bombers to fly over North Korean troops to make clear to them what will happen.
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Hmm is there anything where WWI is pretty much the same parties but then the WW2 equivalent has France and Britain on opposite sides?
I would disagree specifically in the case of France. When it came to the Eastern European puppet states yes Germany had ambitions of turning them into puppet kingdoms and they did end up going through with it after the treaty of Brest Litovsk. However in the case of France no one in Germany wanted to fully conquer France or turn it into some kind of puppet monarchy. The German high command was pragmatic enough that they knew that it was unrealistic that they could capture all of France and most of there territorial goals after the war focused on taking Belgium, Luxembourg and a few small border territories.
The French crush Comoros and the new President is appointed by France for "restoring order".
What If the 1931 Dogger Bank Earthquake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Dogger_Bank_earthquake was much much stronger or lasted longer? Say in 7 to 8 on the Richter scale?
The OTL quake was slightly damaging, but what would a bigger quake and aftershocks too?
As an alternative, Britain does get a lot of quakes, what if the 1931 one was on land?
The OTL quake was slightly damaging, but what would a bigger quake and aftershocks too?
As an alternative, Britain does get a lot of quakes, what if the 1931 one was on land?
Grey Wolf
Donor
Transport capacity and market saturisation would be limiting factors.
Local populations would prefer to get from nearer sources if cost of tankers is high, for example
So whilst someone might control a notional X% of the world's oil supply, in practice it would be around half that or less that is able to get into the market