It occurred to me in the past few days that while the personality of Daniel MacArthur is very similar to that of his brother from another mother Douglas MacArthur his life story is going to be quite different even in a variant where his father does not die ahead of schedule (If nothing else he’s definitely not born on a US army base in Arkansas); I’m going to give this some thought and there may even be an article in the subject.
TL-191: Filling the Gaps
- Thread starter Craigo
- Start date
Here's a question - if West Point were to challenge the Confederate States to a college (gridiron) football match, would the Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute draw straws for the honour of facing their northern counterparts or would there have to be a play-off? (Who knows, perhaps the sheer ferocity of the competition for that privilege would persuade the Authorities to stick with an Annapolis Vs Mobile match - there being only two official naval academies in the Twin Republics - assuming this were intended to be a friendly).
...
Now I have the rather sad mental image of this match being played very shortly before these two sets of young men are tasked to kill each other, because Timeline 191 can't let us have Nice Things. So help me, I'm tempted to start writing Fan Fiction for Sir Winston Churchill's IF LEE HAD NOT WON THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG simply so that I can have a timeline where everyone in the English Speaking World doesn't try to murder everyone else every twenty years or so!
...
Now I have the rather sad mental image of this match being played very shortly before these two sets of young men are tasked to kill each other, because Timeline 191 can't let us have Nice Things. So help me, I'm tempted to start writing Fan Fiction for Sir Winston Churchill's IF LEE HAD NOT WON THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG simply so that I can have a timeline where everyone in the English Speaking World doesn't try to murder everyone else every twenty years or so!
Last edited:
The same, i think such prestigious event might merit a playoff game between Citadel AND VMI
It is strange from trying to find it on the Turtledove wiki is that the sinking still happened in all of his works. Or that maybe the Titanic was never made. I see this as a big miss opportunity for Turtledove to make something out from the Titanic.
As DOCTOR WHO makes painfully clear, meddling with Fixed Points in history is a really bad idea - especially for a Time Lord!
Well if anyone has ideas for how this game/series of games might play out, please feel free to share them - I'm not very well acquainted with gridiron football and would be reluctant to try cooking something up, though I do like the idea that the game was fiercely-contested but, on the whole, a solid example of Good Sportsmanship, to contrast with an article in one of the other T-191 (I think it was THROUGH THE ENDLESS GREY?) where the Northern & Confederate football colleagues collided in the lead-up to the Second Great War and (with an honourable exception) failed to distinguish themselves by good, clean sportsmanship ...
If I had to guess, not enough PODs have happened yet to butterfly the building of the Titanic or its fateful trip. Even though Anglo-American relations are bad ATL, they were lukewarm at best in OTL in 1912, not to mention New York is still a very important city. Though if for some reason they send the Titanic to Charleston instead of New York, perhaps it becomes the HMHS Titanic when the war begins?
If the Titanic did sink like otl, you’d very likely have some historians waxing lyrical about how the tragedy could have had the potential to bring the Anglosphere together in mourning only to lose it all just 2 years later. Not to mention the endless conspiracy theories about the accident actually being the result of American/German sabotage
Yeah. I gave this one some thought and the Titanic sinking even in this timeline might still be likely. Its original destination was for New York and it did carry some wealthy Americans aboard as well. My guess is that, at best, the destination would change and some of the passengers would change. Perhaps going to one of the cities on the St. Lawrence River in Canada or one of the Confederacy's coastal cities, like Charleston, Norfolk, Miami, Mobile, or Havana. This time it would be carrying wealthy Confederates aboard instead of US citizens.
Hard to say for me really. Really a 50/50 chance the Titanic gets sunk on its maiden voyage for me.
However, if it doesn't get sunk on its maiden voyage in this timeline, I believe it would definitely get sunk during the Great War, suffering the same fate as its sister ship the Britannic.