The man in the high castle timeline

On February 15, 1933 Roosevelt was giving an impromptu speech from the back of an open car in the Bayfront Park area of Miami Florida where Guiseppe "Joe" Zangara was living, working the occasional odd job, and living off his savings. Zangara joined the crowd, armed with a .32-caliber pistol he had bought at a local pawn shop. However, being only five feet tall he was unable to see over other people, and had to stand on a wobbly folding metal chair peering over the hat of Lillian Cross to get a clear aim at his target. After the first shot Cross and others grabbed his arm and he fired four more shots wildly.
He missed the mayor Anton Chermak but five other people were hit including FDR. Two days later FDR died from his wounds.

Vice president John Garner, while dooing anything he could, was unable to lead the USA out of the great depression. In 1940 John Bricker was elected and it seemed that he could get the job done. Unfortunately he was even worse then Garner.

Bouth Garner and Bricker were fanatical isolationists and did everything in their power to keep the US out of the European war.

Without US help Russia and Britain were crushed, Japan conquered the whole Pacific against a weak US fleet and together Japan and Germany conquered the US by 1947.
 
US invasion is more ASB than Sea Lion. At best a trade blockade severely weakening the US but even still we have a lot of resources to fall back on. Oil didn't even peak until around the '70s here so we can fall back on that and coal reserves for a lot of what we need, plus we have Canada, Mexico and some other countries in our vicinity to trade with. Really the whole setting of Man In The High Castle was never intended to be that realistic, it's obviously meant to be very metaphorical and more of a thought experiment than anything else.
 
Yeah, I agree with Stalin (haha i love saying that); Man In The High Castle isn't meant to be a plausible work of alternate history, it's meant to be a false reality. The characters even frequently reference The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, an in-universe book that postulates what would happen if Roosevelt hadn't been shot: He has a two term presidency, followed by Rexford Tugwell, the British and the Soviets beat the Nazis, and the racist British Empire defeats the US (which abolishes Jim Crow) and becomes the world's sole power.
 
Stalin, what's unrealistic about Germany going to all the trouble of draining the entire Mediterranean Sea and then giving the result to Italy?:D
 
Yeah, I agree with Stalin (haha i love saying that); Man In The High Castle isn't meant to be a plausible work of alternate history, it's meant to be a false reality. The characters even frequently reference The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, an in-universe book that postulates what would happen if Roosevelt hadn't been shot: He has a two term presidency, followed by Rexford Tugwell, the British and the Soviets beat the Nazis, and the racist British Empire defeats the US (which abolishes Jim Crow) and becomes the world's sole power.

Sicarius

A long time since I read the book but I think it was more the Germans bet the Russians and the British linked up with the rump Russian forces, to defeat the Germans at Stalingrad. Then, with no details given Britain ends up ruling everything east to the Urals.

Also while it talks of a cold-war type conflict with the US and Britain being more successful I'm not sure if it refers to a final victory.

As said there is a lot in the book that verges on the ASB at least, not least Britain establishing such a state and America being conquered in the outer book.

Steve
 
The story within the story is more interesting than the actual events of Man in the High Castle, I would love to see someone do a good UK vs USA Cold War TL. But yes, like everyone else has already pointed out, none of it was supposed to be plausible. The novel was supposed to foster the notion of illusionary realities and the uncertainty of what is known.

Always wondered why Dick chose Rexford Tugwell as the great president in the Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Whether it was telling of his own political notions or not, he still piqued my interest in Tugwell.
 
When we imagine say a Nazi-US cold war ATL, we often analogize it to the cold war we knew, between the USSR & US in OTL.

In reality, the ATL would be vastly, and unpredictably different from ours.

Now if you lived in the High Castle timeline, you'd analogize an imaginary US/UK coldwar to the Nazi/Japanese coldwar you knew.

So you'd imagine the US & UK would basically enslave their spheres of influence, rather than garner true allies, and you might imagine that one would be racist like the Nazis, and the other would be much-less racist like the reformed japanese empire.

P.S.
Border-game tomorrow the World.
Not exactly the same scenario - but a detailed timeline of a similar scenario - http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@490.8yr0c0btoYA.0@.ee6f076/349!enclosure=.1dd3b2aa
 
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