Rewriting Alternate Histories

TheEmperorYT

TheEmperorYT

"It's easy to criticize something, but harder to create it yourself."
- Matt Mitrovich, the Alternate Historian

How would you change works of alternate history fiction (whether you like or dislike them) to make them better? This can range from changing aspects of the timeline to be more "realistic" or changing aspects of the narrative to make the story or characters better. (In your own opinion, of course)
 

Stretch

Donor
TheEmperorYT said:
"It's easy to criticize something, but harder to create it yourself."
- Matt Mitrovich, the Alternate Historian

How would you change works of alternate history fiction (whether you like or dislike them) to make them better? This can range from changing aspects of the timeline to be more "realistic" or changing aspects of the narrative to make the story or characters better. (In your own opinion, of course)
Click to expand...
Someone made a re-write of Turtledove's Atlantis series with a much less convergent timeline on the ASB subforum last month, I can't quite remember the title, but nearly every update had an attached map showing the chances which was rather helpful.
 

PobreCesar

Have the Second Great War in Europe be a bit more complicated in TL191; have Clarence Potter cooperate with the conspirators against Featherston a bit more in the same.
 

Lalli

PobreCesar said:
Have the Second Great War in Europe be a bit more complicated in TL191; have Clarence Potter cooperate with the conspirators against Featherston a bit more in the same.
Click to expand...

I would had even written bit different First Great War and if I would had still wanted to make Second one, I wouldn't had just copied alliances of the first one and just changed names and dates. And made some other details differently. Futhermore I would had written more about Europe.
 

athgtq16129

Since TL-191 was the alternate history story that really got me into the genre and subculture (I think that Command & Conquer: Red Alert was my first experience with alt-hist fiction, but TL-191 was the first that I read and got into its world in detail), in early 2020 during the beginning of COVID quarantine, I wrote a list of the things that I would personally change in TL-191.

I am not sure if I want to publish all of it here (I probably will anyways) since I intended to publish it in a distant-ish future for a TL-191 project I had in mind, but if I do, I will have to edit it a lot, since the formatting and grammar of the text is an utter mess (it was written on notepad in an old laptop, it was my only computer when I was in a tiny apartment when the pandemic/quarantine hit its peak lol).
 
Last edited:
mr morbius

mr morbius

GeorgeUK said:
Have the Entente in TL-191 run on pragmatic villainy instead of being a copy-paste of the axis.
Click to expand...
Maybe have the Brits as split between ye olde Democracy and the ,,new Guard" that wants Totalitarianism, like having characters actually split on their loyalities, and then leave the French as the full-on evil Teammate that runs on pragmatic despotism.

And, if you want extra tension, then you could have French Africa decide to tear out the teeth of the cell Walls, and while they're busy ripping down the chains and breaking the batons this could run as a nice paraell to the Ye Olde Southern Black Revolt - except it could possibly succeed, creating an unstable Socialist State in French Africa as the walls are crumbling, crumbling, crumbling, and burying the Old World.
 

GeorgeUK

An idea I had was Featherston mass-enlisting the CSA's black population and setting up a puppet regime in Haiti by bribing the right people (and likewise, Britain drawing manpower from its imperial subjects and puppeting Ireland).

They're still authoritarian, but not full-on evil.
 
mr morbius

mr morbius

GeorgeUK said:
An idea I had was Featherston mass-enlisting the CSA's black population and setting up a puppet regime in Haiti by bribing the right people (and likewise, Britain drawing manpower from its imperial subjects and puppeting Ireland).

They're still authoritarian, but not full-on evil.
Click to expand...
this reminds me of an one-off scenario on the alt hist maps subreddit where the South got a lot more done at the ConstCon, and so it was the Abolitionist North that tried to secede and the USA is overall more Conservative and they shipped off all their Black people to the Dominican Republic.
 

GenericUsernameNo1

Switching around the alliances for the Second Great War in TL-191.

Socialist Party dominance in the USA during the Interwar period results in an alliance with the RSDLP-led Russia, which is forced to compromise and form a coalition government during the Second Congress of Soviets, forming the RSFSR (USSR minus Ukraine and the Baltic States, which are under German occupation, plus the Alaskan Autonomous SSR). Martov and Lenin compromise by having a power-sharing agreement between Chairwoman Alexandra Kollontai (representing the Mensheviks) and Premier Lev Kamenev (representing the Bolsheviks) in exchange for diplomatic recognition and weapons supplies from the US.

Although the US successfully pressures the Kollontai-Kamenev government to moderate and allow most Romanov and White Russian leaders to escape into exile, this new alliance upsets the Central Powers so much that Germany dissolves its military ties with the US. Germany reconciles with Britain and allows Japan to purchase its Pacific colonies, then forms the Anti-Communist Pact with Britain, Japan, Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans, and the Confederate States. France, still bitter after getting pulverised twice by the Germans, undergoes a socialist-revanchist takeover and allies with Russia and USA. The Kuomintang adds democratic socialism to its party constitution during the Interwar as well and formally joins the New Entente.

The Second Great War will now be fought between the socialist New Quadruple Entente (USA, RSFSR, Republic of China, Third French Republic) and the monarchist Quintuple Alliance (Germany, UK, A-H, Turkey, Japan and CSA). Although the Entente successfully destabilize the Ottoman Empire and CSA by supporting left-wing rebellions during the SGW, the war is much less conclusive after Germany develops the superbomb first and detonates it somewhere over the US-occupied Carribean to force peace negotiations. This leads to the TL-191 version of the Cold War...
 
Last edited:

PaxxAmericanus

mr morbius said:
Oh that was me!
Click to expand...
Thank you SO MUCH for posting this link and writing the timeline! I scanned it and confirmed at long last an Atlantis timeline that goes through the 20th Century. Every one I have ever seen here or elsewhere always seem to die in the mid 19th Century assuming they even get that far. Can't wait to sink my teeth into this one.
 

rob2001

What about a TL191 story where Porter either arrives to late to save Featherston or is able to kill him at the 1936 Olympic Games in Richmond?
 

PaxxAmericanus

rob2001 said:
What about a TL191 story where Porter either arrives to late to save Featherston or is able to kill him at the 1936 Olympic Games in Richmond?
Click to expand...
There would have been no lack of odious Freedomites to take the CSA in a similar if saner direction than Featherston did. Ultimately could be a far worse universe.
 
mr morbius

mr morbius

PaxxAmericanus said:
There would have been no lack of odious Freedomites to take the CSA in a similar if saner direction than Featherston did. Ultimately could be a far worse universe.
Click to expand...
I think what we lack in many Alt-Hist scenarios is more alternate Himmlers

Like we have the Pragmatic Dictators, the Authoritarian Democrats who at least try to pretend they're Democratic, and the Hitler wannabees, but what we lack is some completly batshit insane schizo tinpot conspiracy theorists.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top