The Insignificant POD

Tynnin

We here often deal with the big questions. What if Rome had survived? What if Alexander had lived? What if Alexander had gone west? What if the steam engine had been developed earlier? And so forth. In so tackling these major events we neglect the minor happenings and chances of fate. To that end I propose to you changes in history that have had no impact on the world at large.

Drum roll please

1) Ben Franklin successfully lobbies to have the national animal for the States be the Wild Turkey.
2) Teddy Roosevelt successfully lobbies to have the national animal for the States be the American Brown Bear.
3) Portuguese explorers return with several live specimens of a strange flightless bird. This act of curiosity generates a breed in captivity stock of Dodos that out lives the extinction of their native habitat on Mauritius.
4) Scientists are currently trying to decipher an archaic language that developed along the Italian peninsula before being replaced by Greek (made popular by the Roman conquests).


Feel free to add your own.
 
NHBL

NHBL

The nature of POD's

Whenever I think of the POD, I usually think of several. The first one is what we usually think of as the POD--for example, "Germans win a major naval victory early in the Great War--what happens after that."
Then there is another POD somewhere before that--one that only a serious study of the era would differentiate as the POD. For example, in this ezample, "Admiral Ingenhol takes a bad fall, and is in the hospital when his fleet has a chance to defeat a portion of the RN in detail.
Sometimes, there is a POD significantly further back, very minor-an obscure lawyer falls ill, and dies young--and Lincon never leads the nation.

Sorting out these POD's gives me a solid ground bor any new timelines, and is also a good reminder how much butterflys can change things. I can't figure the consequences of these events, but I have no doubt that they would be significant down the road.
 

BurningWickerman

'Insignificant' PODs would change the world majorly but just in some butterflied random way not anything that could be predictable.

E.g Waterloo doesn't become a household name, London Underground station isn't named after it, a lot of people are saved from a lot of very bad toilet jokes.

Someone in 1937 could fall of a toilet seat, and we'd be in the middle of nuclear war against Papua New Guneia right now.
 

Tynnin

I think you guys maybe taking this thread a little too seriously. Of course every event affects the events that come after – a single drop of water can overflow a cup – that sort of thing. I was just sitting around my lab with nothing really to do (for a change) and for some reason thought about a recent biography I read on Franklin. I thought it was funny that he wanted to name the wild turkey as the States national animal but really couldn’t think of any thing off the top of my head that such a change would affect.

Lincoln not coming to office, that’s rather major. Lincoln deciding that he didn’t like the look of the stovetop hat and going with something else instead is an Insignificant POD.

Napoleon winning at waterloo only to be defeated at his next engagement…I think that works with this thread – he was defeated OTL does it really alter the present to have it take one more fight.
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
Portuguese explorers return with several live specimens of a strange flightless bird. This act of curiosity generates a breed in captivity stock of Dodos that out lives the extinction of their native habitat on Mauritius. Its discovered that these are particularly tasty when cooked and provides more meat than the typical chicken. These birds are introduced to North America by English and Spanish settlers in the 1500s. Many species are crossbred with Wild Turkey.

In the 1700s Benjamin frankly successfully lobbies Congress to have the Wild Dodo made the national animal of the United States. The Dodo appears on the seal of the United States. Roast turkey or dodo becomes the meat of choice on such National Holidays as Thanksgiving and is regularly served at Christmas also.
 

DuQuense

truely meaningless

i open this Thread and start reading

>>> feeling hungry I get up and go to the kitchen and fix a bowl of lucky Charms.

>>> feeling hungry I get up and go to the kitchen and fix a bowl of Apple Jacks.

I return to the Computer and enter this post.
 

Norman

There are definitely two schools of thought on this. I hold with you that there are PODs that can be 'subsumed' into the larger, stronger events that occur after.

Thus, what does it matter that a citizen of Pompei had for Breakfast, when the ash falls on them they're dead.

Conversely, some small actions can grow larger, a sort of AH "Perfect Storm" along the lines of 'for want of a nail, etc.'
 

FederationX

DuQuense said:
i open this Thread and start reading

>>> feeling hungry I get up and go to the kitchen and fix a bowl of lucky Charms.

>>> feeling hungry I get up and go to the kitchen and fix a bowl of Apple Jacks.

I return to the Computer and enter this post.
Click to expand...

Get the Lucky Charms! Apple Jacks, are well... :mad: .
 

Tynnin

Honestly, some of you guys are really the snootiest of pricks in the world (though granted I don’t know everyone in the world so there might be a person who’s worse but I doubt it). Here I posted a thread just to have a little fun, something that was outside the normal scope of what is usually covered on this board and you guys just can’t help but to pump your chests out and posture around the room – “No I’m the biggest jerk,” “No, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong, because I am,”. If you don’t like a thread then don’t comment on it – if you want to hear yourself talk than I suggest you do so in private so the rest of us don’t have to suffer.

As for your AMAZING bouts of insight into the greater wheel that is time (and the masterful way you continue to state the obvious) I say this: GO SOAK YOUR COLLECTIVE HEADS! I know, We all know (or at least the vast majority of us do) that one event sparks the next and so on down the line – small waves make big waves. If you are so totally consumed by your own self importance that you can’t step back from the Oh so serious work we do hear and have a little fun then you really need to reevaluate your priorities. You small minded idiots completely missed the boat on this thread and in so doing have just shown to anyone reading that you really are like some 12yr old with his hand permanently raised for teacher to call on – “Oh teacher pick me, pick me…I’m soooo good and ohhhh sooooo smart.” I pity you.

End Communication.
 

Othniel

DuQuense said:
i open this Thread and start reading

>>> feeling hungry I get up and go to the kitchen and fix a bowl of lucky Charms.

>>> feeling hungry I get up and go to the kitchen and fix a bowl of Apple Jacks.

I return to the Computer and enter this post.
Click to expand...
You skip the ceral and make a sandwiche. Thus avioding cavities in favor of coldcut meats. The money saved from not having to go to the denist is spent on more sandwich meat, in the end Oscar Meyer gets even richer and is able to hire more wokers. More sandwiche meat (and bread) are made and world hunger is ceased.
 

Ivan Druzhkov

Well, if you're looking for a POD that would be meaningless to the world in general, why not something like Josef Stalin keeping his beard? From the old photos I've seen he did have one during his revolutionary days.
 

IronYuppie

WI Bill Clinton enjoyed the company of emaciated blondes instead of voluptuous brunettes?
WI Vince Foster was actually Chelsea's father?
WI Aspartame never passed the FDA?
WI GUI (graphic user interface) never caught on?
WI I had actually married my college sweetheart and moved to France?
WI Lara Bush had been killed in the 'infamous' car accident and GW remained a confirmed bachelor?
WI Blue jeans were beige jeans?
WI The mountain lion was the American national animal?
WI Cocoa had never been made into chocolate?
WI Adult-sized tricycles were all the rage?
WI Flappers were also radical Vegans?
WI Grey Wolf was into griffins instead of unicorns?
WI There were no Tupperware?
WI The lay-Z-boy recliner had never been invented?
WI The Shaker movement was still going strong?
WI President Taft hadn't been so fat?
WI Doctor What was a foot taller?
WI President Carter never had a brother?
WI There wasn't any room for Jell-o?
WI Only witches and Heretics kept pet cats?
 
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IronYuppie

Othniel said:
How can you spout such a vile line? You must feel like you just ate mud.
Click to expand...

Hey! it's just WI. Now my Lay-Z-Boy vibrates, WI if was heated as well? A heated vibrating Lay-Z-Boy massage chair, jeepers! This must be manufactured if it isn't already!!

Actually I feel like a 34 year-old white chick who just ate three chocolate cookies, thank you very much.
 

IronYuppie

Othniel said:
It's dyst...did you say cookie?
Click to expand...
A cookie is a cookie but a chocolate cookie is king.

I mentioned this somewhere else (One Hit Wonders, I think), WI Tracy Allman (Ullman, however you spell it) had become a pop sensation instead of hosting that variety show on FOX. NO SIMPSONS!!! The horror! :eek:
 

Bulgaroktonos

WI I decided not to Skip Russian Foreign policy today and instead post on AH.com while waiting for my Decline and Fall Class to start?
 
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