The Footprint of Mussolini - TL

[Kaiko]

This thread was a wild ride and I'm glad I was able to follow along, great work!

I love the Alternate History trope of European empires becoming a trap for the home countries, like Portugal having to declare independence from the Portuguese Empire or Vietnam taking over the Francophonie.

 

[Ogrebear]

@Sorairo Sorry, a question- what's Madagascar's history in this timeline please?

Also, anyone been to Mars yet?

 

[naraht]

A few questions that I missed...
1) Which halves of "Angola" and "Mozambique" are white and which are black?
2) How did New Guinea unify?
3) Is Brunei as OTL?
4) How is Cyprus?
5) Is Argentina still complaining about the Falklands?

 

[wabbitking]

And its finally over what a crazy ride.
Thank you.

 

[AK47Productions]

@Sorairo Two questions. What's the situation with Austria like it said that Austria-Hungary has returned though Pat's map has them seperate also please tell me I got the South Africa homelands right.

 

[AK47Productions]

To add onto the possible pop-culture butterflies:

• Without the downfall of Italy from being on the wrong side of WWII, Bruno Sammartino and his family likely remain in Italy where he either remains a nobody or a becomes a celebrity for his yearly appearances in the Italian strongman competitions at the cost of the American wrestling scene never getting the shot in the arm like it did IOTL and likely remaining stuck in the territory days or outright fold when MMA takes over in the 70s-80s. Bruno might even be TTL's Schwarzenegger (who might still be in Austria here) if he goes into a movie career and politics.
• I've envisioned a film called "A Week at Joey's", a cross between OTL's Weekend at Bernie's and The Death of Stalin depicting the Troika as using Stalin's decaying body as a puppet. Probably a box office bomb that becomes a cult classic.
• If Japanese media is more nationalistic and militaristic, then maybe Nintendo goes in the other direction with their games which don't make them as popular in Japan as they do in the West, although this is probably my optimism talking. If so, then at least their war games of OTL (i.e Famicon/Advanced Wars series which has been largely dormant anyways) get butterflied.
• How common is the Military Academy trope used as a setting in Japanese media? Probably a lot more ITTL.
• In TTL's military shooters, the Battle of Trieste is about as frequently portrayed as the Normandy landings are IOTL.

 

[joelee77]

Quite a few more monarchies than OTL! By my count, not counting the old SSRs, almost twice as many monarchies in Europe as republics.

Do all the monarchies in the left column still have some decision-making power, and to what degree? (I know you mentioned the king in Croatia-Bosnia had the most)

Monarchies with some power	Monarchies, ceremonial head of state	Republics
Germany	UK	Iceland
Hungary	Netherlands	Ireland
Romania	Belgium	France
Bulgaria	Luxembourg	Finland
Spain	Austria	Portugal
Italy	Denmark	Czechoslovakia
Croatia-Bosnia	Norway	Serbia
Greece	Sweden	Poland
Vatican City	Liechtenstein	Switzerland
	Monaco	Andorra
		San Marino

Thanks for all your hard work in crafting this for us, Sorairo, and your dedication in answering all these (hopefully not annoying) questions! I have looked forwards to seeing your update every weekend, and wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

 

[Zagan]

Quite a few more monarchies than OTL! By my count, not counting the old SSRs, almost twice as many monarchies in Europe as republics.

Do all the monarchies in the left column still have some decision-making power, and to what degree? (I know you mentioned the king in Croatia-Bosnia had the most)

Monarchies with some power	Monarchies, ceremonial head of state	Republics
Germany	UK	Iceland
Hungary	Netherlands	Ireland
Romania	Belgium	France
Bulgaria	Luxembourg	Finland
Spain	Austria	Portugal
Italy	Denmark	Czechoslovakia
Croatia-Bosnia	Norway	Serbia
Greece	Sweden	Poland
Vatican City	Liechtenstein	Switzerland
	Monaco	Andorra
		San Marino

Thanks for all your hard work in crafting this for us, Sorairo, and your dedication in answering all these (hopefully not annoying) questions! I have looked forwards to seeing your update every weekend, and wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

The Prince of Liechtenstein has real power even now in OTL. It shouldn't be any different in TTL.

In OTL, Andorra is a Principality, not a Republic. It shouldn't be any different in TTL.

 

[MusuMankata]

To add onto the possible pop-culture butterflies:

• In TTL's military shooters, the Battle of Trieste is about as frequently portrayed as the Normandy landings are IOTL.

I suppose it could appear pretty often indeed, but I'm guessing that the "obligatory famous battle" here, at least for american developers, is going to be either Berlin or some other one in Germany we didn't get to know because it was out of focus. But if Italy ever gets a robust videogame industry, I can see the latter parts of the Battle of Trieste becoming staple of military shooters.

On the topic of videogames ITTL, for some reasons I find amusing how the stereotype of military shooters as "gritty shooters where you, playing as a protagonist full of jingoism, murder tons of foreiners speaking a strange language in the desert" of the past decade would converge nicely with TTL's... only, this time, it'd be Italian jingoism and still would be in the perview of historicalness. Also, imagine the kind of RTS you could come up with.

Also, on the topic of board games, I'm now picturing !"Twilight Struggle" as a three-player boardgame... granted a very unbalanced one.

 

[joelee77]

The Prince of Liechtenstein has real power even now in OTL. It shouldn't be any different in TTL.

In OTL, Andorra is a Principality, not a Republic. It shouldn't be any different in TTL.

I had thought that the Prince of Liechtenstein’s veto power had been stripped a few years ago but on review I mixed it up with Luxembourg. Thanks for the info.

 

[EternalDawn]

but I'm guessing that the "obligatory famous battle" here, at least for american developers, is going to be either Berlin or some other one in Germany we didn't get to know because it was out of focus.

Nah, it's going to be the Battle of Trieste still, but with USA "volunteers" helping the Italian NPCs, or something like that.
Same for the eventual movies about Trieste, even in those there's going to be Americans everywhere.

People from the US are generally like that, they like to overstate their participation/importance in anything, or if they weren't there, cock up a way for it to be realistic that they were and make it their new reality.

 

[Pedersen]

Enjoyable and well written timeline indeed. A couple of minor points:
- a more prosperous Latin America would likely mean more, not less immigration to Estados Unitos.
- higher military spending in Italy combined with continuing wars would likely mean a less prosperous Italy - even if the ww2 fighting in Italy proper is avoided.

 

[Mooze17]

Nah, it's going to be the Battle of Trieste still, but with USA "volunteers" helping the Italian NPCs, or something like that.
Same for the eventual movies about Trieste, even in those there's going to be Americans everywhere.

People from the US are generally like that, they like to overstate their participation/importance in anything, or if they weren't there, cock up a way for it to be realistic that they were and make it their new reality.

As an American I can confirm that this is absolutely, 100% true. Although it isn’t true of every individual american, it is definitely very accurate in terms of the way we generally portray things as a culture.

 

[AK47Productions]

As an American I can confirm that this is absolutely, 100% true. Although it isn’t true of every individual american, it is definitely very accurate in terms of the way we generally portray things as a culture.

Then again they could just as easily split the difference in a dual campaign mode like in World at War for instance. American campaign that opens up with Normandy (hell the opening mission is called "Out of the Frying Pan...") and eventually France and Germany. The Fascist/Italian campaign with Trieste, Ljubljana, Austria, etc and ends the game chronologically ends with the American flag flying over Berlin (complete with the higher ranking supporting character saying that the sacrifices of Americans in this city will alwa ys be honored in a dark foreshadowing to Wallace giving the city up to the Soviets).

 

[HesitatedEye]

Congratulations @Sorairo I enjoyed this immensely from start to finish it was a wild ride and one I'm sad is over but glad I was along for it.

 

[Bookmark1995]

Nah, it's going to be the Battle of Trieste still, but with USA "volunteers" helping the Italian NPCs, or something like that.
Same for the eventual movies about Trieste, even in those there's going to be Americans everywhere.

People from the US are generally like that, they like to overstate their participation/importance in anything, or if they weren't there, cock up a way for it to be realistic that they were and make it their new reality.

Then again they could just as easily split the difference in a dual campaign mode like in World at War for instance. American campaign that opens up with Normandy (hell the opening mission is called "Out of the Frying Pan...") and eventually France and Germany. The Fascist/Italian campaign with Trieste, Ljubljana, Austria, etc and ends the game chronologically ends with the American flag flying over Berlin (complete with the higher ranking supporting character saying that the sacrifices of Americans in this city will alwa ys be honored in a dark foreshadowing to Wallace giving the city up to the Soviets).

Well, the focus on America (both OTL and TTL) is because the nation that arguably, well, the USSR.

And not many people out of Russia like to acknowledge that Mr. S was a World War II hero.

 

[Mooze17]

Then again they could just as easily split the difference in a dual campaign mode like in World at War for instance. American campaign that opens up with Normandy (hell the opening mission is called "Out of the Frying Pan...") and eventually France and Germany. The Fascist/Italian campaign with Trieste, Ljubljana, Austria, etc and ends the game chronologically ends with the American flag flying over Berlin (complete with the higher ranking supporting character saying that the sacrifices of Americans in this city will alwa ys be honored in a dark foreshadowing to Wallace giving the city up to the Soviets).

I wonder what the Soviet campaign, if it still existed, would be like then. It’s likely that they would just show the soviets purely as villains happening to collaborate against the Nazis, but I think it could be far more interesting if you still had a heroic Soviet character while still having the Soviet campaign heavily foreshadow the Soviet Holocaust and show the atrocities that occurred. That could be what causes a lot of the conflict of the mid to late game: the way that the Soviet Character becomes increasingly aware of these things and struggles over how they conflict with their morality. You could even have some of the same Soviet characters from OTL World At War, since the latter betrayal subplot in Black Ops would work even better in the context of such a story.

 

[AK47Productions]

I wonder what the Soviet campaign, if it still existed, would be like then. It’s likely that they would just show the soviets purely as villains happening to collaborate against the Nazis, but I think it could be far more intresting if you still had a heroic soviet charecter while still having the soviet campaign heavily foreshadow the soviet holocaust and show the soviet atrocities that occurred, and have that cause a lot of the conflict of that part of the game as these things clash with the soviet player characters morality. You could even have some of the same soviet charecters from world at war, since the latter betrayal subplot in black ops would work even better in the context of this timeline.

While playing as a Jewish Red Army soldier would be tragic given TTL's history, a Soviet campaign would be as likely as an Axis campaign would be IOTL: not happening.

 

[Kalga]

While playing as a Jewish Red Army soldier would be tragic given TTL's history, a Soviet campaign would be as likely as an Axis campaign would be IOTL: not happening.

Or you could have something akin to Company of Heroes 2, where it's the Soviet Campaign but pretty much all the Soviet characters are evil, incompetent, and stupid.

(note, this is what I remember being some youtuber complaining about the game's campaign back when it was first released, not sure how valid those are, since I never played the game and all)

 

[MusuMankata]

While playing as a Jewish Red Army soldier would be tragic given TTL's history, a Soviet campaign would be as likely as an Axis campaign would be IOTL: not happening.

Well, not in a First or Third Person-shooter, at any rate, given the fact that it would risk to be as perciveable to be in bad taste as doing as much for the Axis would be OTL (granted that ITTL having a German or Japanese campaign would still be a tall order, and a Slovenian one would rely on most people knowing what a Slovenian is/was), but in Strategy games, even Tactics-based ones that'd force you into it? You bet your ass they will have a Soviet campaign, with the Red Star replacing every instance of the Hammer and Sickle like how the swastika is routinely swapped out for the Iron Cross; and with your commanding officers sneering at the idea of "not using horde tactics" (I doubt few people would feel like correcting the "Soviet Eastern Hordes" myth ITTL).

Unrelated, but I do have to wonder, what will replace the Unmentionable Sea Mammal as "WW2 PoD that everyone knows, but few outside the interest realize the impossibility of success"? Will we have an Unmentionable Barbarian Person or Unmentionable Seasonal Weather?