Overlooked clichés

Overlooked cliches? Naming stuff you dont like as cliches in an effort not to look like you are simply complaining.

For an example:

1. Germanic Prussia, Pommeramia and Silesia.

2. If William loses at Hastings or vice versa, England remains purely Anglo-Saxon up untill the present day.

3. Germany forming some sort of Alliance with Britain in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, destorying France and Russia and creating some sort of Anglo-Saxon/Teutonic Utopia, compeltely ignoring the fact that Germany was seen as Britain's future rivial and/or enemy during this period.

4 Random Countries (I.E Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Italy etc) joining the Central Powers in 1914/15 for no reason what so ever.

5. The Kasiereich CANT lose a war (completely ignoring the fact that in OTL they lost).

6. Burgundy ending up becoming some sort of centralised nation state.

7. Britain always siding with Germany over France in any situation.

8. Wilhelmine Germany miracuously transforming into some sort of Swedish Style Social Democratic constitutional monarchy.

9. The French Third Republic always collapsing into some sort of Dictatorship or Autocracy completely ignoring the fact that is was the longest surviving republican constituion in France so far.

10. Serbia get screwed.

11. Super Bulgaria.

12. Germany retaining the Polish Corridor.

13. The HRE centralising.

14. Aragon survives.

How many of this is actually an overlooked cliche? More then half the stuff here doesn`t happen almost at all in timelines. Its just like the "Nazi victory TLs are popular" myth in post-1900.
 
This is post-1900, so idk if it's ok for this thread, but it bugs me a bit because I've seen it pop up in some TL's.

Ex-Deus Vietnam
: Vietnam was a very complex conflict, where there was a regional civil war going on between Northern Communists who wanted to establish a totally unified and independent Vietnam and a Southern Capitalist nation which was essentially created to be the West's thorn in the side of the North who were expecting unification. The US Americanized the conflict around 1964/1965, and subsequently involved itself in a quagmire, which was a quagmire because the Communists were fervent in their cause and lead by hardened nationalists willing to see Hanoi itself nuked and still continue fighting, and because the Vietnamese were a people who had been oppressed by various nations and had been fighting them for centuries, and the Communists viewed the Americans as just another set of oppressors. The US lost because the Communists were willing to fight till doomsday, and what was to be won in any US victory paled in comparison to the cost that had already been paid and was expected to be paid.

However, there have been timelines where a new President comes in, ups the ante in the war somehow (a shit load more troops, even greater bombing, etc) or even just keeps things the same against the anti-war public's wishes, and presto, things finally break through and US victory within a short period of time, and its often treated like we were on the brink of victory already.
 
Really cool idea for a thread. These may have already been brought up, but...

-Russian conquest of Central Asia. Russian Sakhalin.

-Chinese cession of lands north of the Amur River to Russia.

-18'th century Wars of Succession always take place (no one ever writes TL's about them or mentions them being different).

-US gets Louisiana Purchase, Texas, and OTL borders in essentially all TL's not directly involving said regions. War of 1812 always happens.

-United Germany by close of 19'th century.

-Hungary under Habsburg rule until WWI.

-British India.
 
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Really cool idea for a thread. These may have already been brought up, but...

-Russian conquest of Central Asia. Russian Sakhalin.

-Chinese cession of lands north of the Amur River to Russia.

-18'th century Wars of Succession always take place (no one ever writes TL's about them or mentions them being different).

-US gets Louisiana Purchase, Texas, and OTL borders in essentially all TL's not directly involving said regions. War of 1812 always happens.

-United Germany by close of 19'th century.

-Hungary under Habsburg rule until WWI.

-British India.

Well it all depends when the PoD is - a lot of the things you've listed as cliches are just stuff that is very likely to happen after a certain point in the OTL (except the wars of succession).
 
Europe is always the most advanced part of the world.

Africa is always the least advanced part of the world.

With Africa it is sort of understandable; there is too much jungle and not enough easily farmable land, which means the continent falls behind and this starts to become self-sustaining with the rise of slavery, imperialism etc...

As for Europe, I agree that is a bit odd. I'd argue that North America, Asia or even Australia have the potential to overtake given the right PoD.
 
As for Europe, I agree that is a bit odd. I'd argue that North America, Asia or even Australia have the potential to overtake given the right PoD.

For Australia or North America to overtake you need to have a POD very far back. As most PODs are within the last one thousand years, it's not surprising you don't often see them do so well.

As for Asia, it's more debateable, but you'd probably have to go back to the 17th century at least for them to come out ahead.
 
For Australia or North America to overtake you need to have a POD very far back. As most PODs are within the last one thousand years, it's not surprising you don't often see them do so well.

As for Asia, it's more debateable, but you'd probably have to go back to the 17th century at least for them to come out ahead.

With North America, perhaps a PoD in the last thousand years could be the Black Death being even more virulent than in OTL? This means civilization collapses in Eurasia completely and North America has time to catch up? If you want to go further back, I'd reckon the megafauna surviving is the best way to give North America a boost (so there are animals that can be domesticated...)
 
Whenever a CP Victory, either Austria-Hungary survives or is split up with the Czech lands always going to Germany.

Independent Bretagne (Breizh) whenever France loses WWI (or analogue.)
 
Oh, Netherlands! That reminds me:

The Southern Netherlands apparently have no national identity and will never develop one, and thus are destined to become either French, Dutch, British(!), German, or pretty much anyone else besides themselves.

In the case of a TL where Belgium already exists, it will be used as a battleground for Franco-German wars, and it will be a placeholder Power in Africa, filling in those last blank spots that the AH cartographer doesn't know what to do with.

Come to think of it... Belgium is a space-filling empire IRL. They even owned a suspiciously large patch of land in Africa, for space-filling purposes. and, you know, genocide.
 
For Australia or North America to overtake you need to have a POD very far back. As most PODs are within the last one thousand years, it's not surprising you don't often see them do so well.

As for Asia, it's more debateable, but you'd probably have to go back to the 17th century at least for them to come out ahead.

If you ask me, Australia got a worse deal than AFrica. Least, Africa had some cool civilisations, were Australia got stone age nomadism.
 
Decades of Darkness did it, but did any other?

One that annoys me more is Japan suddenly deciding to expand into Indonesia and everyone else being OK with it.

DoD also did 13. Which is a bit strange, because the H.R.E. died off in 1806 IOTL yet the first P.O.D. wasn't until 1809........in America, with Jefferson's death.
 
Argentina always becomes a "banana" republic, never mind the fact that the 1930 coup was hilariously small (a few hundred cadets brought down the democratic government :mad:). Or, in TLs that avoid the Great Depression (or reduce its severity), Argentina is never mentioned as the wealthy regional power it actually was.
 
This is post-1900, so idk if it's ok for this thread, but it bugs me a bit because I've seen it pop up in some TL's.

Ex-Deus Vietnam
: [excellent summary snipped…could have done by observing there were genuine non-DRVN aligned nationalists in the NFL, and that the NFL and PRG were greatly supported by a genuine if disorganised rural proletarian communist movement outside the VWP which was of course viciously and skilfully abused by aristocratic capitalist and nomeklatura VWP activists…]

However, there have been timelines where a new President comes in, ups the ante in the war somehow (a shit load more troops, even greater bombing, etc) or even just keeps things the same against the anti-war public's wishes, and presto, things finally break through and US victory within a short period of time, and its often treated like we were on the brink of victory already.

There are a number of ways in which the United States can "win" in Vietnam to the extent of permanently stopping a DRVN aligned or communist revolutionary movement while ensuring a US aligned proxy state in the South. They largely involve deliberate and systematic genocide in a manner that makes German actions in the East look disorganised and humane; a general mobilisation and a willingness to kill large numbers of first black, and then by 1972-3 white proletarians in regular summer uprisings; and, a willingness to cancel both the Space programme and the Great Society.

To this extent US veterans who discussed loading the entire civilian population onto ships, nuking South Vietnam, and then sinking the ships were on target.

To briefly add to the cliches, all NFL-PRG-DRVN forces are communists, they are only armed forces, who are either "Viet Cong" or "NVA." That the chief logistic achievement of the NFL-PRG-DRVN was the "Ho Chi Minh trail."

yours,
Sam R.
 
Communism always emerges as an ideology which destroys all pre-existing values. It never takes religion, nationalism, or anything similar for its own means.

China is always massively screwed or massively wanked.

Even the worst US-Screw never has the southern states becoming influenced by Latin American powers.

"Israel" or any Jewish state is always surrounded by countries which hate it, is always backed by the West, and they always use crafty tactics to outwit enemies.

Russia always descends into a bloody civil war including communists, fascists, monarchists, other communists, separatists, and anarchists.

The European powers always carve out territories in the Americas corresponding (or close to it) to their OTL situation.

The European powers will always annex territory in the Americas and Africa and will never do what the British did in India, and allow pre-existing Princely States to exist.

Tibet is always peaceful, never having any imperialist ambitions at any point in history.

Only China or Japan ever perform a Meiji Restoration in reaction to European colonization.

Germany can never be wanked except by aggressive militarism and through a "tough guy" leader who often rescues the Fatherland from humiliation.
 
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