TL-191: After the End
- Thread starter David bar Elias
- Start date
By 2024, Dokdo is controlled by the Republic of Korea.
The analogue in TTL to Matthias Erzberger, was born on a slightly different date in comparison to our world. Erzberger, as in our world, eventually worked as a journalist for a publication of the Centre Party in Stuttgart. Unlike in our world, Erzberger was never elected to the Reichstag. Erzberger and his family lived a quiet life in Styttgart, where he continued to work as a journalist and freelance writer.
During the Second Great War, Erzberger and his family moved further east to escape Entente air attacks. After the end of the Second Great War, Erzberger and his family returned to Stuttgart. He retired in 1951, and passed away in 1960.
This is actually a nicer fate for Erzberger than in our world; I had in mind him becoming Chancellor of Germany in the 1920s after Friedrich Ebert resigns, but it is difficult trying to imagine what policies he'd pursue in that post.
Speaking of Ebert, what happened to him in your version of events?
The analogue to Friedrich Ebert in TTL, of the same name, was born on a slightly different date compared to our world. As in our world, Ebert trained as a saddle-maker and travelled to different cities as part of his trade. Unlike in our world, he never became involved in politics. Ebert eventually settled in Remscheid, where he remained for the rest of his life. Ebert worked in Remscheid as a saddle-maker, but also supported his family with any number of odd jobs. He died in 1935.
Has anyone in here posted the most up-to-date world map of this timeline as of the 2020s?
We have just about all the maps from the early period to 2162 except the post 2162 map. One of the few missing details shown from a post 2162 map would be Texas and the Japanese states annexed into the United States of America. Also the detailed settlements on the moon with which settlement is part of which nation. If you can find someone to make it, it would be much appreciated. I’d do it if I could figure out how to make maps.
But I wanted to see a 21st century/modern-day world map though, not the sci-fi one.
Okay been a long while since I've read the TL but in hindsight did anyone else think that the ending was a bit too Fukuyama esque End of History? Liberal capitalism has triumphed forever. There are no alternatives.
At the very least could have done something more interesting than just "lol North Korea" with Syndicalist Japan (and later Ecological Japan i guess).
Also too soft on European colonialism and neo-colonialism maybe?
At the very least could have done something more interesting than just "lol North Korea" with Syndicalist Japan (and later Ecological Japan i guess).
Also too soft on European colonialism and neo-colonialism maybe?
Speciality for USA everything seemed going too finely despire that it just ate Canada and CSA and their population just in couple decades became completely happy with that instead speciality the South being like Northern Ireland in steroids.
And some other things were too bit too much utopist and going nicely like Russia just suddenly after years lasted civil war transferring from semi-absolute monarchy to modern western democracy.
And treatment of Japan was really horrible and it couldn't get any happy ending and yet Japanese people just happily accepted being part of USA. Unification of the world would be really easy if everybody just that happily would join to the Union.
While I agree it was easy too easy (especially the South), on the other hand how would they have gotten away with it? They lost majority of their population, industry, and were outnumbered three to one with no outside support. No one knows if Russia still has authoritative tendencies or not, also we don’t know if could be considered a “western democracy” they probably wouldn’t even call it that. Also the author said that the Japanese did not support a union with the U.S., they just had no alternatives and the annexation actually had no support both within the U.S. and out of it.
@the Imperium of Canada The author said both iterations of post-war Japan were not North Korea, and more like the Terry Gilliam Brazil movie (incompetent bureaucracy). I do agree with you on how it was too soft on colonialism, how the African countries transitioned from feudal colonial societies to multilingual prosperous liberal democracies. Especially the Congo where it suffered genocide twice, and it’s never explained how it became the most powerful country in Africa not part of Germany.
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Syndicalist Japan turning back the clock regarding its isolationism I can get. They're entirely surrounded by nations that can easily overwhelm them from all sides in the event they decide to actively export their revolution, stagnation was pretty much their only option. That said, I do think Japan as a whole is a wasted opportunity ITTL, the Japanese Empire could've been a good adversary for the US and the Ottomans in the third world, especially if they did start pumping out nukes. The Japanese Ecos going nuts is a unique twist but no way should it have lasted 200+ years.
I do think post-SGW Afirca is a bit of a product of its time back when it was written but honestly, even now I don't necessarily have an issue with it. There's no USSR to fund communist guerillas, the IM only financed a handful of groups across Africa IIRC, no modern day Russia exporting mercs to help install military juntas, Ottoman funded development initiatives kinda dried up by the 1990s. Most of Africa ending up in the German Economic Association was pretty much the only option left to them, although at least it lead to them being able to form an AU analogue in the African Economic and Defense Association during the 2010s.
It's like I said I think AtE is more of a product of its time in some areas with a combination of David wanting to do something different from the usual post-TL191 fare which I respect. But looking back at it now instead of looking at the TL as a brand new member like I did almost a decade ago (holy shit), I think that desire to stand out from the pack is a detriment, at least in the way AtE goes about its story.
I do think post-SGW Afirca is a bit of a product of its time back when it was written but honestly, even now I don't necessarily have an issue with it. There's no USSR to fund communist guerillas, the IM only financed a handful of groups across Africa IIRC, no modern day Russia exporting mercs to help install military juntas, Ottoman funded development initiatives kinda dried up by the 1990s. Most of Africa ending up in the German Economic Association was pretty much the only option left to them, although at least it lead to them being able to form an AU analogue in the African Economic and Defense Association during the 2010s.
It's like I said I think AtE is more of a product of its time in some areas with a combination of David wanting to do something different from the usual post-TL191 fare which I respect. But looking back at it now instead of looking at the TL as a brand new member like I did almost a decade ago (holy shit), I think that desire to stand out from the pack is a detriment, at least in the way AtE goes about its story.
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Honestly I think Japan outright becoming the third superpower would have been much more interesting. Probably taking the Soviets and PRC's place in funding anti-colonialist guerillas in Africa and parts of Asia not in it's sphere (TNO does something like this off the top of my head).
While this timeline is one of my favorites and was the entire reason I joined this website, there are some things that could have been written differently to improve it overall. Even with the Congo Affair and the South African War, German colonialism should probably have been depicted as more of a struggle for Berlin, perhaps with Japan funding independence groups and revolutionaries throughout Mittelafrika. I think if Turtledove had written a follow up to "In at the Death", it would have revolved around a Cold War between Japan, America, and Germany, though I do like how AtE subverts that notion.
While I understand how this ATL could be viewed as "end-of-history", keep in mind this ATL was written in the late 2000s and early 2010s when pretty much everyone thought that the USA, despite its occasional military blunders, was still the strongest power in the world and always would be. So I think the prevalence of liberal capitalism in this world was more a reflection of the time this ATL was written. I do agree that the USA of TTL might have been depicted as a bit too component with pretty much every war turning out well for them, though they had already gone through so much turmoil throughout the early 20th century that it may have been repetitive.
I will attempt to address some of the criticism of this timeline and to clarify why things developed with this TL as they did.
The writing of this timeline was shaped by different processes. Initially, the timeline was not very extensively planned out. This is reflected in the first part of the timeline, which covers the entire first postwar generation, but is sparse in terms of content compared to later sections. Unfortunately this may have given the impression that US efforts to fully annex the former CSA, as well as Canada, went far more smoothly than it actually did.
The 1960s were updated in a fragmented fashion. The timeline was not really planned out in any kind of systemic way until I started writing by decade instead of by year.
Even more recently, there were still aspects of this timeline that weren’t explained in any significant detail until I started to receive larger numbers of questions on different subjects from TTL.
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I was not trying to write an “end of history” or utopian timeline. The TL-191 series is pretty removed from any kind of utopia. However, the 2000s was the first part of this timeline since the section on the first post-SGW generation that didn’t have a major war, while also mirroring a little too closely the economic environment from the early 21st Century from our world.
Some of the discussions about this timeline have focused on aspects of TTL from past the 2009 ending point of the timeline, and what I imagined happening is not utopian at all, such as the Ottoman Dissolution, the Pakistan Dissolution, the Japanese Spring and the rise of the Ecological Union in the 2010s, a more widespread analogue to the Great Recession from OTL in the 2020s, a bad political crisis in the United States during the 2020s, and a pandemic that begins in the early 2050s.
I didn’t imagine the TL-191 series as a complete dystopia, compared to the settings of some of Harry Turtledove’s other works, but I didn’t imagine the series as a utopia either. As work progressed on the timeline, I think that I was trying to portray a world that wasn’t better compared to our world, but was different in terms of its international diplomacy, as well as its political and cultural developments.
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If I was writing this timeline from the beginning, there would be a number of things that I would do differently.
The first generation after the end of the Second Great War was not written in significant detail.
A properly written first two sections, for 1944-1949 and 1950-1959, would provide a better summary of developments and subjects such as the transformation of the US government and military under the Dewey and Truman administrations, the anti-US insurgency in the former CSA, the political process that ultimately ended the conflict in Occupied Canada, the establishment of a US-German anti-proliferation alliance, great power competition between the United States and the Japanese Empire, and between the Austro-Hungarian/German led European Community and the Russian Empire, the foundation of the Independence Movement, the independence and immediate postwar developments in Bharat, and postwar political, social, economic and cultural developments in as many nations as possible.
The independence of Bharat after the end of the Second Great War was not well thought out. For instance, Hyderabad should not have remained an independent nation for as long as it did in TTL.
A properly written first generation post-SGW section would also help to set up later developments in the timeline such as the Second Russian Civil War, the collapse of the postwar US-German anti-proliferation alliance, the conflict between the USA and the Japanese Empire in the late 1960s, and the eventual fragmentation of the Independence Movement.
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The trajectory of the Japanese Empire in TTL, which ultimately ended in the Fourth Pacific War, would probably be different in a rewritten version of the timeline. This timeline was written with the assumption that the United States somehow succeeded in preventing the Japanese Empire from successfully testing a superbomb and building an atomic arsenal, along with decisions made by the Japanese Empire not to pursue a military nuclear program after the devastating end of the Second Great War, but I now think that this was a mistaken assumption on my part.
However, any version of the Fourth Pacific War in the late 1960s, involving both sides possessing superbombs, and the Japanese Empire still being led by Ishii Yamada, would be more horrific compared to the version of this war that was featured in the timeline.
A version of the timeline in which the Japanese Empire remains a rival to the United States without a major war breaking out between the two nations would lead to significant differences compared to what was included in TTL. Both nations would probably remain enemies during the 20th and 21st Centuries, though without the ideological differences that defined the Cold War between the USA and USSR in our world. The Japanese Empire would ultimately face internal challenges from different nationalist movements, to say nothing of trying to maintain a continuing war in China. The Japanese Empire would also probably remain enemies with Russia, as well as Bharat.
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The post-Fourth Pacific War trajectory of Japan is inarguably dystopian, and it’s likely not the most plausible of choices. The syndicalist regime was inspired from the timeline Fight and Be Right, which featured a version of the British Empire that fell to a syndicalist revolution, along with the oppressive and corrupt bureaucratic society from the film Brazil. The Ecological Union was inspired by the future anti-science and anti-intellectual dystopia from the film Interstellar.
I accept that there were probably far more plausible outcomes for Japan in TTL than was actually featured. However, the genre of alternate history, including the stories of Harry Turtledove, do feature alternate outcomes for different nations that can be dystopian to the point of horror, as evidenced by the fate of the United States in stories such as Guns of the South, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Curious Notions, The Valley-Westside War, The Disunited States of America, and Joe Steele. I think that if the fate of Japan in this timeline is really analogous to anything, it’s to the dystopian fates of other nations that exist in other alternate history settings, instead of any existing nation or society from our world.
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The diplomatic relationship between the Russian Republic and the United States after the end of the Fourth Pacific War was not necessarily that realistic. I now think that it’s more plausible that there would have been a diplomatic split between the two nations after the nationalist right takes power in Russia from the Socialists. The post-Fourth Pacific War rivalry between Russia and China would also play a role in a US-Russia diplomatic split, as well as Russian efforts to forge closer military and diplomatic ties with Bharat. Russia, in TTL, could ultimately become an unfriendly diplomatic and military rival to both the German Empire and the United States, while establishing its own alliance system.
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Texas probably should have rejoined the Union sooner than it did in the timeline. I believe that Turtledove said that Texas would not remain independent permanently.
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The timeline did not pay enough attention to certain regions of the world, including Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia, especially on the emergence and development of different anti-colonial movements, the competition for influence and resources by the great powers, or the different ways that the colonial empires attempted to exercise power after the end of the Second Great War.
More broadly, this timeline ignored or glossed over subjects in different parts of the world such as political elections and economic developments. Not enough thought was given to just how different the post-SGW would ultimately be by the 21st Century compared to our world. For example, I think that the world would have been much more economically protectionist compared to OTL, with the great powers trying to secure their own industries and resources at the expense of foreign rivals.
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To echo with what Lochnessmoonster and AK47Productions wrote above, this timeline did reflect the wider time in which it was written. A version of TTL written from the beginning in the 2020s of our world would probably have emphasized different themes and outcomes compared to how this timeline was originally written.
The writing of this timeline was shaped by different processes. Initially, the timeline was not very extensively planned out. This is reflected in the first part of the timeline, which covers the entire first postwar generation, but is sparse in terms of content compared to later sections. Unfortunately this may have given the impression that US efforts to fully annex the former CSA, as well as Canada, went far more smoothly than it actually did.
The 1960s were updated in a fragmented fashion. The timeline was not really planned out in any kind of systemic way until I started writing by decade instead of by year.
Even more recently, there were still aspects of this timeline that weren’t explained in any significant detail until I started to receive larger numbers of questions on different subjects from TTL.
-
I was not trying to write an “end of history” or utopian timeline. The TL-191 series is pretty removed from any kind of utopia. However, the 2000s was the first part of this timeline since the section on the first post-SGW generation that didn’t have a major war, while also mirroring a little too closely the economic environment from the early 21st Century from our world.
Some of the discussions about this timeline have focused on aspects of TTL from past the 2009 ending point of the timeline, and what I imagined happening is not utopian at all, such as the Ottoman Dissolution, the Pakistan Dissolution, the Japanese Spring and the rise of the Ecological Union in the 2010s, a more widespread analogue to the Great Recession from OTL in the 2020s, a bad political crisis in the United States during the 2020s, and a pandemic that begins in the early 2050s.
I didn’t imagine the TL-191 series as a complete dystopia, compared to the settings of some of Harry Turtledove’s other works, but I didn’t imagine the series as a utopia either. As work progressed on the timeline, I think that I was trying to portray a world that wasn’t better compared to our world, but was different in terms of its international diplomacy, as well as its political and cultural developments.
-
If I was writing this timeline from the beginning, there would be a number of things that I would do differently.
The first generation after the end of the Second Great War was not written in significant detail.
A properly written first two sections, for 1944-1949 and 1950-1959, would provide a better summary of developments and subjects such as the transformation of the US government and military under the Dewey and Truman administrations, the anti-US insurgency in the former CSA, the political process that ultimately ended the conflict in Occupied Canada, the establishment of a US-German anti-proliferation alliance, great power competition between the United States and the Japanese Empire, and between the Austro-Hungarian/German led European Community and the Russian Empire, the foundation of the Independence Movement, the independence and immediate postwar developments in Bharat, and postwar political, social, economic and cultural developments in as many nations as possible.
The independence of Bharat after the end of the Second Great War was not well thought out. For instance, Hyderabad should not have remained an independent nation for as long as it did in TTL.
A properly written first generation post-SGW section would also help to set up later developments in the timeline such as the Second Russian Civil War, the collapse of the postwar US-German anti-proliferation alliance, the conflict between the USA and the Japanese Empire in the late 1960s, and the eventual fragmentation of the Independence Movement.
-
The trajectory of the Japanese Empire in TTL, which ultimately ended in the Fourth Pacific War, would probably be different in a rewritten version of the timeline. This timeline was written with the assumption that the United States somehow succeeded in preventing the Japanese Empire from successfully testing a superbomb and building an atomic arsenal, along with decisions made by the Japanese Empire not to pursue a military nuclear program after the devastating end of the Second Great War, but I now think that this was a mistaken assumption on my part.
However, any version of the Fourth Pacific War in the late 1960s, involving both sides possessing superbombs, and the Japanese Empire still being led by Ishii Yamada, would be more horrific compared to the version of this war that was featured in the timeline.
A version of the timeline in which the Japanese Empire remains a rival to the United States without a major war breaking out between the two nations would lead to significant differences compared to what was included in TTL. Both nations would probably remain enemies during the 20th and 21st Centuries, though without the ideological differences that defined the Cold War between the USA and USSR in our world. The Japanese Empire would ultimately face internal challenges from different nationalist movements, to say nothing of trying to maintain a continuing war in China. The Japanese Empire would also probably remain enemies with Russia, as well as Bharat.
-
The post-Fourth Pacific War trajectory of Japan is inarguably dystopian, and it’s likely not the most plausible of choices. The syndicalist regime was inspired from the timeline Fight and Be Right, which featured a version of the British Empire that fell to a syndicalist revolution, along with the oppressive and corrupt bureaucratic society from the film Brazil. The Ecological Union was inspired by the future anti-science and anti-intellectual dystopia from the film Interstellar.
I accept that there were probably far more plausible outcomes for Japan in TTL than was actually featured. However, the genre of alternate history, including the stories of Harry Turtledove, do feature alternate outcomes for different nations that can be dystopian to the point of horror, as evidenced by the fate of the United States in stories such as Guns of the South, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Curious Notions, The Valley-Westside War, The Disunited States of America, and Joe Steele. I think that if the fate of Japan in this timeline is really analogous to anything, it’s to the dystopian fates of other nations that exist in other alternate history settings, instead of any existing nation or society from our world.
-
The diplomatic relationship between the Russian Republic and the United States after the end of the Fourth Pacific War was not necessarily that realistic. I now think that it’s more plausible that there would have been a diplomatic split between the two nations after the nationalist right takes power in Russia from the Socialists. The post-Fourth Pacific War rivalry between Russia and China would also play a role in a US-Russia diplomatic split, as well as Russian efforts to forge closer military and diplomatic ties with Bharat. Russia, in TTL, could ultimately become an unfriendly diplomatic and military rival to both the German Empire and the United States, while establishing its own alliance system.
-
Texas probably should have rejoined the Union sooner than it did in the timeline. I believe that Turtledove said that Texas would not remain independent permanently.
-
The timeline did not pay enough attention to certain regions of the world, including Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia, especially on the emergence and development of different anti-colonial movements, the competition for influence and resources by the great powers, or the different ways that the colonial empires attempted to exercise power after the end of the Second Great War.
More broadly, this timeline ignored or glossed over subjects in different parts of the world such as political elections and economic developments. Not enough thought was given to just how different the post-SGW would ultimately be by the 21st Century compared to our world. For example, I think that the world would have been much more economically protectionist compared to OTL, with the great powers trying to secure their own industries and resources at the expense of foreign rivals.
-
To echo with what Lochnessmoonster and AK47Productions wrote above, this timeline did reflect the wider time in which it was written. A version of TTL written from the beginning in the 2020s of our world would probably have emphasized different themes and outcomes compared to how this timeline was originally written.
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One thing that could have been explored further is the insanity of Ishii Japan and how it was doomed to defeat in a nuclear war with America. I enjoyed these entries and the entire timeline, all else given.
@David bar Elias Can you explain how the Congo became a strong regional power if not the most powerful non-European controlled country in Africa despite suffering two genocides each worse then the other within the span of two centuries. It would make more sense if it was explained how they achieved this renaissance, even though there’s no indication they rank anymore highly than in our time in education, healthcare, and economic growth.
How did the Russian military performs in the fourth Pacific war (did they learn about mistake in the two great wars) and how their participation in the war affect Russia, like military losses and cultural changes in the Russian populous?
There is indeed no reason why Texas should not rejoin the Union, unless, of course, you exclude the will of TL 191's counterpart of the Supreme Chicken.
Does this interest you, as an idea for an alternate Japan?
Japan (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)
Japan (Japanese: ﾜｺｸ (和國) Wakoku), officially known as the Republic of Japan (Japanese: ﾀﾞｲﾜﾐﾝｺｸ (大和民國) Daiwa Minkoku), is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, the Soviet Union, Manchuria, Korea, and China, stretching from Karafuto...
althistory.fandom.com
Are there any TLs which feature a better relationship between the United States and the USSR? I am also hoping that the likes of Vladimir Putin, if he exists in TL 1919, never came to power.
Also, I know this sounds silly, but did the sheep have a hand [or, rather, a hoof] in the naming of Baaa ~ harat?
Finally, what was the fate of Trentham Hall in Staffordshire in your AU? If you've never heard of it, the Shah of Persia, Naser al ~ Din, visited the Hall in 1873 and was heard saying to the future King Edward VII afterwards that it was, quote, "too grand for a subject; you'll have his head off when you come to the throne." Its demolition in OTL is currently regarded by many historians as a cultural tragedy.