Whatever did happen to Nelson Mandela ITTL? From the looks of it, it seems he died a tragic death early on here with him never being mentioned in the general writeups.
TL-191: After the End
- Thread starter David bar Elias
- Start date
It was cremated by order of the US military. The ashes were scattered outside of US territorial waters.
Yes, but none of the popular sitcoms from our world exist in TTL.
The analogue to Ray Kroc in TTL was Albert Kroc, born on a different date in comparison to our world. Albert Kroc worked for a time as a travelling salesman in the 1920s, before working full time as a professional musician for various bands in Chicago. After the end of the Second Great War, Kroc became the manager for various bands in the Midwest, and founded a Chicago-centered talent agency for professional musicians in 1955. He retired in 1976.
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What happened to Joe McCarthy ITTL? I don't think he is ever mentioned in the books.
For President La Follete's sake, let's hope McCarthy never takes power (reference to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._La_Follette_Jr.#Personal_life_and_death (Harry did confirm that Charles was based on the otl son of Robert M. La Follette: Robert Jr. )).
After reading that Wikipedia link ... yeah, McCarthy sucks for that. I'd be happy if his existence was butterflied ITTL.
This is what I previously wrote about popular music around the world in TTL, slightly edited.
The international music scene is more fragmented in comparison to our world. There were some styles and genres of music that developed global followings in the late 20th Century, such as Stomp and Mento-Punk from the USA, Fabrika-Punk from Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Bossa nova from Brazil. However, no style or genre of music in TTL developed the enduring global following or influence that Rock n’ Roll did in our world. In many parts of the world, the most popular kinds of music by 2023 have a strong local feel, although a lot of popular music around the world in TTL would also have more of a jazz (Tinpan in TTL ) sound in comparison to our world.
During the late 20th Century and early 21st Century, many national governments attempted to provide support for what were viewed as the most “authentic” local kinds of music over foreign influences. These kinds of initiatives are in place by 2023 in countries as far apart as Argentina, China, the Indonesian Confederation, the Congolese Federation, the Italian Empire, Mexico, Bharat, and Russia, among others.
In many countries, there are a lot of local music scenes that take influence from traditional or folk musics. There is also what might be called a “left-wing” musical tradition in a number of countries that borrows heavily from the ballads of unions and workers.
Another source of popular music around the world by 2023 are military songs and marches, remade and reimagined for “civilian” use. Imagine a song like Vaughn Monroe’s “Sound Off” from 1951 in our world, but performed with electronic instruments and heavier percussion, and as something to dance to.
One genre of music that has become popular in many countries by 2023 is One Two, which is descended from military marching and rallying songs that gained in popularity, beginning in the 1980s, in what became the independent nations of Kamerun (OTL Cameroon), Senegambia (OTL Senegal and Gambia), Goldene Küste (OTL Ghana), Dahomey (OTL Benin), and the Congolese Federation (OTL DRC and Republic of Congo), as well as in Togoland (OTL Togo), Elfenbeinkuste (OTL Côte d'Ivoire) and Sierra Leone, which voted to join the German Empire. What became One Two music was developed by numerous musicians and bands in the German Empire’s former African colonies in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as in the German Empire itself, before gaining worldwide popularity in the 2010s. A song like “Zangalewa” by Golden Sounds (Zangalewa) from 1986 in our world is analogous to the most popular One Two songs of the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s in TTL.
While One Two music grew out of military marches and rallying songs from different African countries, many of these songs also dealt with the hardships of ordinary soldiers and civilians in the face of military officers or, prior to independence, the German colonial authorities. Many of these songs were also brutal satires of German military discipline.
One musical genre that exploded in popularity around the world in the 2010s came to be known as Ios Sound. Ios Sound originated in the party music that was popular in the locales of the Mediterranean party circuit in the 1990s and 2000s, such as the Greek island of Ios, the Spanish islands of Ibiza and Majorca, and ports such as Barcelona, Marseille, Nice, Trieste, Taranto, Alexandria and Tunis. Ios Sound became the soundtrack to a subculture that came to be known as Ios Sound, after the Greek island of the same name. Adherents of Ios culture were dedicated to endless global traveling, partying, and, as one famous adherent would put it in 2011, the “endless pursuit of happiness.” For an idea of what the music of Ios Sound would sound like, imagine the music from our world by groups like Vengaboys or S Club Seven, but performed at a faster pace, with an angrier and more martial tone, and as a rave. The Ios culture, and its accompanying Ios Sound, became a central feature of port cities and resorts in what came to be known by the mid-2010s as the Fire Circuit: In various ports, resorts and islands around the Mediterranean Sea; Kingston, Nassau, Port of Spain, Havana, Miami, New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, Mobile, Pascagoula, Honolulu, San Francisco, San Diego, Tijuana, and Cabo San Lucas in the USA; Veracruz and Cancun in Mexico; Caracas in Venezuela; Cartagena in Colombia; Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil; Berlin, Antwerp, Hamburg, Freetown, and Abidjan in the German Empire; Amsterdam in the Netherlands; Dakar in Senegambia; London in the United Kingdom; Paris and Marseille in France; Sevastopol in Ukraine; Lisbon and Luanda in the Portuguese Federation; Kinshasa-Ncuna in the Congolese Federation; Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika; Mumbai and Goa in Bharat; Bangkok and Phuket in Thailand; Saigon in Vietnam; Manila in the Philippines; Shanghai, Hong Kong, Haikou, and Guangzhou in China; Sydney and Melbourne in Australia. The music of Ios Sound was intended to encourage listeners to dance and party for as long as possible.
Ios Sound, and Ios culture as a whole, quickly generated a backlash in many countries because of the destruction that came with numerous Ios-inspired parties. Ios Sound and the wider Ios culture of endless traveling and partying faded away after 2019, with the Great Housing Crash, which also led to a contraction of international travel and tourism.
By 2023, the Italian Empire is influential in several cultural fields, such as cinema, music, and high fashion, especially in the wider European Community.
On that note, does the EC have an equivalent of the Schengen Agreement?
By 2023, there are different analogues to the Schengen Agreement within the European Community.
The Frankfurt Agreement, which ensured the free movement of people between the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By 2023, the Frankfurt Agreement also includes the Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Ukraine, the Kingdom of Lithuania, the Grand Duchy of Latvia, the Grand Duchy of Estonia, the Kingdom of Belarus, the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the Kingdom of Greece, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Norway, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Kingdom of Finland.
The Calais Agreement, which ensured the free movement of people between the United Kingdom and France.
By 2023, there have been years of informal negotiations between the Italian Empire, the Portuguese Federation, and the Spanish Confederation on the possibility of establishing a separate area within the European Community for the free movement of people between their respective countries. The German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are both opposed to this potential Italian-Portuguese-Spanish free movement area, because of a fear that it could lead to the establishment of a larger rival Western bloc of countries within the EC, potentially also involving Great Britain and France.
Hey @David bar Elias I have two weird questions to ask:
- What is fashion like in this world? I get the impression that it’s more conservative than our world, and even heard you say that hats didn’t go out of style until the early 1970s. If so, what are the closest equivalents of TTL’s fashion in OTL?
- What is slang like in this world? With African-Americans (with the exception of Afro-Caribbeans) killed off by the Confedracy, virtually none of OTL’s slang would develop. I would guess that TTL’s slang originates from Italians, Serbs, Croats, Russians, Ukrainians, Mexicans, Brazilians, and Afro-Caribbeans. I would also guess that rather than rich white people (or their equivalents in TL-191) idolizing Black American gangs or the hood, they would idolize the mafia (be it the Italian, Irish, or Russian variety) or anything similar to the mafia from our world.
David has stated that fashion is generally more formal and utilitarian compared to our world, with some popular fashion trends taking cues from military designs.
I'm not sure what slang would develop. Maybe German words would become popular slang within the US. David has also stated before that the mob is not glamorized to the extent of our world, and is actually portrayed as brutal on television.
@David bar Elias
So in essence, you can amuse yourself on a steady auditive diet composed of Tinpan, One Two and Ios Sound. I guess that this makes that world quite liveable.
About analogues to Schengen: If free travel areas are somehow balkanized in Frankfurt and Calais agreements, with a third agreement for the Med on the rise (and fears of Calais swallowing it and rivaling Frankfurt), is there a prospect to have the agreements merged into one European "Schengen" system by the time of the Hubei-52 pandemic?
So in essence, you can amuse yourself on a steady auditive diet composed of Tinpan, One Two and Ios Sound. I guess that this makes that world quite liveable.
About analogues to Schengen: If free travel areas are somehow balkanized in Frankfurt and Calais agreements, with a third agreement for the Med on the rise (and fears of Calais swallowing it and rivaling Frankfurt), is there a prospect to have the agreements merged into one European "Schengen" system by the time of the Hubei-52 pandemic?
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By 2023, fashion in the United States tends to be more conservative than in our world. Some kinds of civilian clothing are inspired by military uniforms. Hats are not as popular as they were prior to the 1970s, but they’re more popular than in the USA in our world.
Fashion in the USA is also more sharply defined by class than in our world. By 2023, there’s an engrained sense throughout the country that if you’re wealthy, you should maintain a certain kind of standard when in public. Businesses also tend to be more zealous in enforcing dress codes in comparison to our world.
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Slang in the USA is different from our world by 2023. There are more loan words from German ok comparison to our world. US slang is also influenced by terminology originating in military service.
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By 2023, organized crime is not idealized at the popular level in the USA. Unlike in our world, where there arguably was a degree of glamorization in numerous works of popular fiction concerning the mafia, the portrayal of groups such as the Dixie Mafia in US popular fiction is unremittingly negative.