Non-People/Country Things in AH that are wanked

Islamic occupation of England? :confused: I could understand if you said France or Spain, but England? I can only name two timelines offhand that have that. In fact I can't even name them, I just remember there were two.

Well, Flocculencio's Al-Anglia was one TL that featured an Islamic England, but I can't remember the other TL with this...

..
But to mention some underused things: just about anything in Central Asia exept for the Mongols tends to be underused, and the same goes for just about anything in the Caucasus and the steppes of southern Russia...(which reminds me: is there something like a Sarmatianwank or at least a TL or scenario with the focus on the Sarmatians on this site?)
 

Alcuin

Banned
Oh, and as for airships, if you have no opposing air-force, they could work very well as bombers. Colonial policing, maybe? They have a better range and load for flattening African villages than an airplane does.

That's how Rudyard Kipling used them in "Easy as ABC" and Michael Moorcock in Warlord of the Air (Colonial policing I mean, although Shao Ho Ti used them for terrorism in Moorcock's book).
 
Unfortunately, he is probably right ultimately. Rigid airships were hit with an awful lot of early bad luck which never allowed them to become much more than "one-of" experiments. However, you have to come up with a pretty unlikely PoD to have airships survive much past the 1940's no matter what. I would also argue about the safety record. Out of all the rigid airships built or used in the post WWI period at least half crashed in a few years or were severely damaged in crashes so badly that they were never repaired (R-34, R-38, R-101, ZR-1, ZRS4, ZRS5, Dixmude). Many others flew so infrequently that it is hard to say what would have happened to them over the long haul. Arguably, of all the zeppelins ever built after WW1, only Graf Zeppelin and Los Angeles could really be considered unqualified successes.

My suggested over-used cliche is one word: GERMANY. As in nazi supeweapons, wiemar survival, wilhelmine victory, and....zeppelins:)

All of those were expirimental ships and STILL had better safety records than aircraft. The difference is that an aircraft is a small investment and is hardly noticed; an airship is expensive and usually a national symbol and tends to get noticed.

I agree that airships would not have been able to compete with aircraft after the 1940s, but probably could have continued on as luxury transports - after all, Transatlantic liners survived until the 1970s. If the technology had had continuity, it's hard to say how they would have developed.
 

Thande

Donor
I like airships, of course, but I agree they're overused.

Has anyone tried an earlier similarly themed wank, though? Maybe about Montgolfier style balloons being a bigger success earlier on (particularly on the battlefield?) and this leading to other forms of lighter than air transport?
 

Thande

Donor
But to mention some underused things: just about anything in Central Asia exept for the Mongols tends to be underused, and the same goes for just about anything in the Caucasus and the steppes of southern Russia...(which reminds me: is there something like a Sarmatianwank or at least a TL or scenario with the focus on the Sarmatians on this site?)
That's because the Mongols are the only ones people have heard of (including me ;) ).

Offhand the only unusual use of Central Asia I can think of is in The Peshawar Lancers, which is hardly the most realistic portrayal.

What WIs would you recommend, then? How about an earlier unified Kazakh state?
 
Actually, I remember seeing a Khazar-wank somewhere on this board. All I remember is it lasts 1500 years, and at one point, the jewish Khazars invade Spain in response to the Spanish Inquisition.
 
well doesnt it come down to the amount of information avalible on a topic, which is why certain things are overused?

my pet pevees:

1) Giant Cornwall

2) Australia that is constantly colonised by just one power

3) The Sahara never gets touched until colonialism. I guess Songhai, Morocco the Almohads (or maybe it was the other ones :p )were just non-entities huh?
 

Thande

Donor
1) Giant Cornwall

FRIEND!!! :D

Re your other points. Not sure about Australia. It does seem like whichever power gets the New South Wales area would end up being recognised as master of the whole continent, at least if the circumstances were similar to OTL (big war in Europe distracting everyone). If it was partitioned in peacetime (I remember a TL where Indonesian missionaries spread to Australia in the 800s and made the Aborigines Muslim, and Australia was partitioned by the Europeans in the late 1800s as 'more Africa') maybe there'd be more than one colonial power.

Sahara - agree.
 
FRIEND!!! :D

Re your other points. Not sure about Australia. It does seem like whichever power gets the New South Wales area would end up being recognised as master of the whole continent, at least if the circumstances were similar to OTL (big war in Europe distracting everyone). If it was partitioned in peacetime (I remember a TL where Indonesian missionaries spread to Australia in the 800s and made the Aborigines Muslim, and Australia was partitioned by the Europeans in the late 1800s as 'more Africa') maybe there'd be more than one colonial power.

Sahara - agree.

I am considering doing a timeline where Cornwall consists of just those two little islands of the west coast of it:D


As someone who lives in West Australia, I humbly disagree with your statement about the importance of New South Wales:D :p

The French, Dutch and Portuguese have been up and down the West Australian coastline: half the coastal features have French names: Georgraphe Bay, D'entrelux, I think there is even a Napoleon Bonaparte up north somewhere, yes the Bonaparte Archipelego, and a Joseph Bonaparte Gulf!

The problem is that WA (until the 20th Century) didnt have anything of use. yes, the South West can be settled, I should know I live here, but there is no real cash draw here, until the mining boom starts up north, although Jarrah wood has been used in railway tracks across the Empire:D
 

Thande

Donor
As someone who lives in West Australia, I humbly disagree with your statement about the importance of New South Wales:D :p
I thought you would, ;) but I am talking about the very early stages of colonisation, as you say.

I remember the French guy who showed up in Botany Bay not very long after the first conv - er, settlers - and didn't he just give up and go home rather than trying to settle a different part of Australia?
 

maverick

Banned
1.Ideologuies, whether they are right wing or left wing.

The characters opposing the author politically (a republican if the author is a democrat) are either stupid, incompetent, evil...or bad things just happen to them, like a reccession if the character in the AH is president or something.

That would be Liberal-Wank. There's also Conservative-wank.

2. Armies. Sometimes they are just invinsible.
3. German technology.(Tanks, Rockets, etc)
4. Space programs.
 
That's because the Mongols are the only ones people have heard of (including me ;) ).

Offhand the only unusual use of Central Asia I can think of is in The Peshawar Lancers, which is hardly the most realistic portrayal.

What WIs would you recommend, then? How about an earlier unified Kazakh state?

Well, about Central Asia, well there are some interesting possebilities, like WIs involving cities/peoples like Chorezm, Bukhara,
the Sogdians, the Bactrians, the Khitans, the Uyghurs and especially the Tocharians...

And any WI involving a more prominent role for the Sarmatians would some change of the invasion of the Huns, resulting in either the Sarmatians sticking around as a strong people in some part of Europe (the Panonnian planes are a likely location, but there are other possebilities as well), or alternatively resulting in the Huns being fought off in Eastern Europe or not invading in the first place, which would mean that the steppes of southern Russia remain dominated by Iranian nomads instead of becoming dominated by Turkic nomads and Russian settlers.

...and by the way; any scenario in which the Huns fail to enter Eastern Europe, will as a side-effect also have that the Goths remain in the area of Ukraine-Romania-southern Russia, which would propably have significant effects on the development of Europe as well...

PS: there's also an interesting possebility for having the Sassanid Empire being overrun by Turkish nomads in the 7th century.
 
That's because the Mongols are the only ones people have heard of (including me ;) ).

Offhand the only unusual use of Central Asia I can think of is in The Peshawar Lancers, which is hardly the most realistic portrayal.

What WIs would you recommend, then? How about an earlier unified Kazakh state?

Or something related to Khwarezm?
 
Ah! Found the Khazar-wank. It's called the Khanate of Khazaria, by Ben Liff. It's listed in the directory on the AH.com main page, but the link appears to be dead, unfortunatly. It was quite a trip.
 
It's rarely so simple when it comes to nomads that they are "Iranian" vs "Turkic" vs "Mongol", etc. They are usually confederations that contain diverse populations. The Mongols were led by a Mongol dynasty, but most of the troops were Turkic, etc.

Well, about Central Asia, well there are some interesting possebilities, like WIs involving cities/peoples like Chorezm, Bukhara,
the Sogdians, the Bactrians, the Khitans, the Uyghurs and especially the Tocharians...

And any WI involving a more prominent role for the Sarmatians would some change of the invasion of the Huns, resulting in either the Sarmatians sticking around as a strong people in some part of Europe (the Panonnian planes are a likely location, but there are other possebilities as well), or alternatively resulting in the Huns being fought off in Eastern Europe or not invading in the first place, which would mean that the steppes of southern Russia remain dominated by Iranian nomads instead of becoming dominated by Turkic nomads and Russian settlers.

...and by the way; any scenario in which the Huns fail to enter Eastern Europe, will as a side-effect also have that the Goths remain in the area of Ukraine-Romania-southern Russia, which would propably have significant effects on the development of Europe as well...

PS: there's also an interesting possebility for having the Sassanid Empire being overrun by Turkish nomads in the 7th century.
 

Redbeard

Banned
Overused: Technological PoDs, like equipping this or that (loosing) army with some new gadgetry but letting everything else remain the same.

Underused: Organisational and/or economical PoDs, like new doctrines (but same technology) or letting say a strong labour movement evolve in a place and time we usually don't see such things.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
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