possibilities of avoiding “obvious” dystopia, second harder dystopia, escape and windswept feeling o

For example, the great depression is merely a brief panic and not a downward spiral. There is neither the rise of the Nazi party nor World War II. But later there is a slow-motion crisis of automation, with depression-level unemployment, which we are seemingly less able to deal with it than had it come decades later due to economic growth being broken up.

And at end of the story, or movie, a few characters pull off an escape of sorts in a creative way. And there’s a windswept feeling of freedom and open possibilities.

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And I’d love to hear other possibilities of this general theme. :)
 
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The 9/11 gang is broken up before they can carry out their attack. Their plans are widely publicized, which adds to the existing anti-Muslim sentiment in the US and elsewhere, but there is no Patriot Act, Afghanistan invasion, or Iraq War, and Bush possibly loses in '04. On the so-called Muslim side, fewer copycats are inspired to carry out small-cell or lone-wolf attacks.

But I'm not sure if you can get from this to the windswept feelings your jonesing here. More likely, things just putter on as they were pre-9/11, with behind-the-scenes attempts at getting Osama bin Laden killed or in jail, but no widespread panic about terrorism. The cultural butterflies would be pretty significant. Think of all the 9/11-tinged movies and TV shows we'd be without.
 
The 9/11 gang is broken up before they can carry out their attack. Their plans are widely publicized, which adds to the existing anti-Muslim sentiment in the US and elsewhere, but there is no Patriot Act, Afghanistan invasion...
If they've been caught in the US whilst preparing, the plot is widely known about including the kind of damage it would cause, and they're linked to the string of previous attacks—the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000—that members of or al-Qaeda itself were responsible for then I honestly can't see the invasion of Afghanistan not happening.
 
If they've been caught in the US whilst preparing, the plot is widely known about including the kind of damage it would cause, and they're linked to the string of previous attacks—the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000—that members of or al-Qaeda itself were responsible for then I honestly can't see the invasion of Afghanistan not happening.

Eh, you could be right. I still think the psychological impact on the public would be considerably muted without casualties.
 
Half-assed Watergate.

The break-in and the cover-up go down pretty much the same as OTL, but Nixon dies either shortly before or after the '72 election, so does not have to deal with the full brunt of the revelations. A few of his underlings are tried and sent to prison, but without a living president to focus shock and outrage on, and no evidence of vice-presidential involvement(plus no pardon), the general attitude is just sort of "Oh well, old Dickie always did have a few tricks up his sleeve." Any hearings held are far less enthralling, and the whole thing is remembered sort of the way Iran-Contra was a decade later: something that people vaguely know involved presidential wrongdoing, but don't attach any extreme significance to.
 
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If they've been caught in the US whilst preparing, the plot is widely known about including the kind of damage it would cause, and they're linked to the string of previous attacks—the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000—that members of or al-Qaeda itself were responsible for then I honestly can't see the invasion of Afghanistan not happening.
Maybe we try to do the war and especially the occupation even more n the cheap.

And with 911 only a plan and no actual casualties, a lot more domestic opposition within the U.S. perhaps approaching Vietnam levels
 
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