Try to do better than present day 2017

any PoD you like.
basically almost every alternate timeline 2017 ive read is worse than our own funnily enough. so the challenge here is to try and do better. '
what could have caused violence and crime to be lower than it is now?
what could have advanced science and discovery faster than in our world?
 
My first thought was no Iraq invasion and the money wasted on that mess, but on the other hand, I'm not sure that having president Hillary instead of Obama in 2008 would be a net positive for progress. (I'm assuming that no Iraq war means that Hillary doesn't gets painted as a warmonger, and manages to win the primary.)

My second thought is president Al Gore. On the other hand, that might make the Democrats loose the rust belt faster.

As for violence and crime, I'm having a hard time imagine how to solve that. NRA losing influence? Things are way better than the bad old days in the 70s.

Maybe Yeltsin being less of a drunkard?

I would at least not touch anything before the 90s.
 

missouribob

Banned
Tt's more of a post-1900 POD but have the end of the Cold War lead to Russia entering the sphere of the west (EU and NATO) and have China rise like OTL but not be an adversary.

Basically have the world's major powers united together and moving towards creating true international institutions that can deal with international problems effectively like climate change, bioterror/outbreak, rogue states etc.

Probably ASB to get humanity to mature that much though.
 
any PoD you like.
what could have advanced science and discovery faster than in our world?

This is really far back, but if you prevent the Bronze Age Collapse in c.1200 BC; we could possibly be 300 or 400 years ahead technologically by the present. Civilization in the eastern Mediterranean basically had to reboot itself after a 4 century dark age: The Hittites collapsed; Egypt collapsed; Greece entered a dark age and even forgot how to write. Unfortunately to prevent this means preventing climate change, which is ASB.
 
as far as the early United States, the English colonists are more fishers than farmers. Slavery is rejected on explicitly religious grounds after an early flirtation. There's a norm of quarantine, which although not perfect, gives time for the Native Americans to first catch the more mild form of smallpox.

The result is a more densely populated and far richer America. 300 million+ persons primarily of English descent are on the eastern seaboard and doing quite nicely thank you very much. The Spanish in Florida, the French in the Mississippi River valley, and in a flight of fancy, Chinese descendants control much of the California coast. Many native groups still have intact territory. There continues to be a far more vibrant exchange of technology and culture than OTL.

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I am prepared to argue that a large population is better than a small population! :) (per an idea I got from Derek Parfit)
 
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Any POD(s) that prevent or cause the Bolshevik revolution to fail. A quick Entent victory or a quick CP victory for example. Absent the Communist threat, its likely that the Nazis fail to get traction and Hitler dies a syphlitic nobody. Millions of innocent lives are not cut short and the 20th century is far less bloody. Technological development might suffer relative to OTL, but that would seem to be a reasonible price to pay.
 
Toba eruption strangle human kind to its cradle. So at least humans not be destroying our planet.

But try that with humans.

Scenario 1:

Alexander II's oldest son survives and this butterflies AII's assassination away. Alexander II creates some kind of proto-duma for Russia and then dies on 1890's. Then alternate Nicholas II develope stronger constitution and modernise Russia. So no Bolschevik revolution.

Scenario 2:

Could-be Nicholas II is killed in Japan on 1891. Eventually his younger brother Michael becomes tsar on end of 1890's after his father and older brother George. Altough Michael II is conservative he is too smarter than Nicholas II so he push more reforms. So revolution is avoided.

Scenario 3:

Entente wins WW1 but on 1916 so then French not give so humiliating peace for Germany and Germany keeps its monarchy. So no rising of Hitler and perhaps even not WW2.

Scenario 4:

WW1 ends same way as OTL but they act much smarter than in OTL. Germans might still suffer and be pissed but Nazis not rise to power. Perhaps Entente powers make smarter decisions with Middle East.

Scenario 5:

France and United Kingdom allow united Hashemite Kingdom to Middle East and so it stops rising of Sauds.

Scenario 6:

No Operation Ajax so Mossadegh can do more reforms and Iran is not going to Islamist and ME is more peaceful.

Scenario 7:

Try avoid rise of Neo-Cons. in USA.

Scenario 8:

More succesful Gorbachev.

Scenario 9:

Al Gore wins election '00.
 
Post Civil War Reconstruction succeeds. This alone would make the 20th and 21st Century US a far more racially tolerant place.
 
Post Civil War Reconstruction succeeds. This alone would make the 20th and 21st Century US a far more racially tolerant place.
It did succeed in its primary aim: reintegrating the South as willing members of the Union. As for civil rights, I think that it would be unlikely for Reconstruction to be significantly improved over OTL.
 
Post Civil War Reconstruction succeeds. This alone would make the 20th and 21st Century US a far more racially tolerant place.
Reconstruction did succeed. The problem is that the federal government did not crush the terrorists who rolled it back.
 
The results of the Mongol Empire are multifaceted enough that this requires some justification.

Okay in the negative column, the Mongols ended the Song renaissance, the Islamic Golden Age, put hundreds of millions under the Mongol Yoke, and spread the Black Death.

In the positive column, carbon footprint was significantly reduced due to global de-population.
 
Prevent the Indian Partition. I'm no expert so I don't no exactly what this would take to create a unified India where Hindus dont dominate Muslim.

Belgium, the US and the UN support Patrice Lumumba against Katangan succesionists, so he is never overthrown and Mobutu never comes to power in Congo.
 
Germans take Paris in October 1914 and Allies fall apart by November 1914. Troops aren't quite home by Christmas and European invincibility is not as challenged as it was OTL. Sparing a few million lives and avoiding the debt serves to change the UK into a durable financial and military powerhouse. US avoids Prohibition altogether and still ascends but more slowly while the Depression is avoided entirely. World War II might be avoided entirely and half a dozen languages command 90% of world trade. Technology may be stalled or more advanced depending on circumstances.
 
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Any POD(s) that prevent or cause the Bolshevik revolution to fail. A quick Entent victory or a quick CP victory for example. Absent the Communist threat, its likely that the Nazis fail to get traction and Hitler dies a syphlitic nobody. Millions of innocent lives are not cut short and the 20th century is far less bloody. Technological development might suffer relative to OTL, but that would seem to be a reasonible price to pay.

I'd argue that, without the USSR, communist revolts would be more of a thing as there hadn't yet been the Red Scare.

With enemies within being more common (and not universally bankrolled by Eastern European autocrats) you might see a much stronger push for fascism in places that generally avoided it like Britain and the United States.

Young Temujin falls off his horse, breaks his neck.

That's actually the main thrust for a timeline idea I want to make into a graphic novel.

Long story short, no Black Death causes overpopulation in relation to food supply in Europe, causing the Great Famines and Peasants' Revolts that tear apart the fabric of European nobility (with the clergy's power remaining intact).

End result is no liberalism (or free trade), weaker industrial revolution, and a 1950s (when the graphic novel would be set) that look more like the 1880s.
 
I'd argue that, without the USSR, communist revolts would be more of a thing as there hadn't yet been the Red Scare.

With enemies within being more common (and not universally bankrolled by Eastern European autocrats) you might see a much stronger push for fascism in places that generally avoided it like Britain and the United States.



That's actually the main thrust for a timeline idea I want to make into a graphic novel.

Long story short, no Black Death causes overpopulation in relation to food supply in Europe, causing the Great Famines and Peasants' Revolts that tear apart the fabric of European nobility (with the clergy's power remaining intact).

End result is no liberalism (or free trade), weaker industrial revolution, and a 1950s (when the graphic novel would be set) that look more like the 1880s.
I'd read it
 
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