What if our 20th century is a For All Time?

For All Time basically went out of its way to make a history that was as dystopian as possible in many details. What if OTL is similarly a darker version of a less bad time?

Consider:

* Thomas Midgley not being responsible for the things that he is. Unfortunately, that nullifies the POD occurring during WWII, as in FaT.

* The Day the Music Died not happening.

* The '40s not being a perfect storm of ideologue dictators taking over the world. Actually, this seems to be something beyond the scope of the kind of changes that FaT have. However, the '80s not being a perfect storm of neoliberal conservatives taking power in the Anglo-American democracies might be akin to how in FaT the politics America gets hijacked by loonies by the '80s. Far less crazy, of course. It's just in the same way, both scenarios involve people who are similarly ideological (though with different ideologies) getting into power at the same time.

And not just that, remember that FaT had a lot of changes for dramatic irony's sake, like Johnny Cash becoming their timeline's equivalent to Mick Jagger. So perhaps our history's Katy Perry becoming the pop idol she is now is one of those details. In the "baseline" timeline she remained a gospel singer.
 
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There's a world out there, somewhere, where Tony Benn is the most successful Social Democratic Prime Minister of all time.
 
And where Charles Manson went into music after he was released from prison in 1967, Ted Kaczynski stayed a Berkeley professor, and Brian Hugh Warner really was on The Wonder Years.

Man, if our timeline received a de-FaT treatment it would be so mundane.
 
When I read the end of The Union Forever, my thought was that compared to their 20th century, ours was pretty dystopic.
 
The Day the Music Died:
Very overstated POD, given that other pioneers of rock-and-roll had their careers interrupted at a peak: Elvis went into the army and Chuck Berry went to prison. When they got out, Elvis continued, but away from the cutting edge of music. Berry's career took a stand-still, even though Soul Music and MoTown were making it big.

Thomas Midgley:
A very profound contributor. You are delaying cheap gasoline, home refrigerators and air conditioning, until other scientists and engineers "catch up." That impacts suburban development and growth in the South, as cooling is confined longer to the delivery range of ammonia-based ice plants.
 
The Day the Music Died just seems like something that would appear in For All Time, though. It's an almost over-the-top event that kills off a bunch of unrelated musicians at the same time.
 
A TL where the Cold War is less intense?

Stalin note is accepted (let's assume sincerity here), Germany is not divided and a neutral state. Stalin dies before he gives Kim-Il Sung the greenlight to invade south of the 38th. De-stalinisation is done very subtly, and there is no Sino-Soviet Split. As a result Mao is less radical and paranoid, and refrains from his OTL excesses. Cuba becomes a non-aligned turkish-style regime without going over to the soviets. Korea and Vietnam are both decided by referenda and UN treaties. No soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and gradual reform of the whole communist bloc (not just China) along "Dengist" lines, with soviets seeing it as a re-introduction of the NEP.
 
I think Boris Johnson's and Arnold Schwarzeneggers's careers are some of those silly ironies/in-jokes by the author of OTL. Also, the Doctor Who revival is obvious wank "My favorite childhood show came back and got really really popular again, even in America!" It even fits in on AH.com, where a ton of post-50s TLs address the vital issue of changes to Who.

And Elvis getting fat and dying on a toilet? Someone obvious;y had an axe to grind there.

EDIT: These posts are making me want to see a nice version of FaT. For Good Times.
 
Maybe Stalin dies in 1944, and his successor decides to accept the US' proposal for nuclear arms control in 1946?
 
A TL where the Cold War is less intense?

Stalin note is accepted (let's assume sincerity here), Germany is not divided and a neutral state. Stalin dies before he gives Kim-Il Sung the greenlight to invade south of the 38th. De-stalinisation is done very subtly, and there is no Sino-Soviet Split. As a result Mao is less radical and paranoid, and refrains from his OTL excesses. Cuba becomes a non-aligned turkish-style regime without going over to the soviets. Korea and Vietnam are both decided by referenda and UN treaties.

Almost certainly decided in favour of Socialism, but the result is a multi-tendency socialism. Czechoslovakia prior to 1948.

No soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and gradual reform of the whole communist bloc (not just China) along "Dengist" lines, with soviets seeing it as a re-introduction of the NEP.

With a subtle destalinisation, I'm assuming we're talking about Nagy and Gomułka being appointed in 1953; with neither being ousted by an internal Stalinist faction; why would Hungary and Czechoslovakia require intervention? On the other hand, why would this result in anything approaching the NEP given Nagy's actual 1953 programme?

OTOH, given the rules of anti-FAT there'd be the triumph of socialism elsewhere, a similarly soft and open socialism. Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, France, Chile, Malaya, Indonesia and states within India come to mind. Imagine Indonesia without all those deaths.

yours,
Sam R.
 
Also, the Doctor Who revival is obvious wank "My favorite childhood show came back and got really really popular again, even in America!" It even fits in on AH.com, where a ton of post-50s TLs address the vital issue of changes to Who.

I see it as a knock against Gene Roddenberry. If only Assignment: Earth was made into a show...

EDIT: These posts are making me want to see a nice version of FaT. For Good Times.

It's been tried before, I think.
 
Thomas Midgley:
A very profound contributor. You are delaying cheap gasoline, home refrigerators and air conditioning, until other scientists and engineers "catch up." That impacts suburban development and growth in the South, as cooling is confined longer to the delivery range of ammonia-based ice plants.

Not just refrigerators: no freon means no PTFE ("Teflon") which would make uranium enrichment and/or plutonium separation much more difficult, maybe enough so that the Manhattan Project fails.

And not just cheap gasoline: no tetraethyl lead means no 100-octane avgas, and no high-performance fighter planes. This, along with no atomic bombs, would make for a radically different WWII.
 
I accept this contention that our timeline might constitute a dystopia, but would have a difficult time finding the right POD to not make it such.
 
Perhaps Warren G. Harding went on to be the greatest President the USA ever had in this utopian universe. His death in OTL has always seemed a bit random, like someone decided to handwave him out of the picture a la FDR's sudden death in FaT...
 
Ralph Nader's political career is almost kind of tragic, like one of those hapless bit characters in FaT who don't get killed off but nevertheless suffer ironically ignominious fates.
 
If OTL were an ATL made here on the site, I'd think that the author had a bit of a thing for dystopias. I mean, come on. Giving corporations the same rights as people in the United States? And all this BS happening right after 8 years of hell being caused by the very party we voted back into the House two years later?
 
If OTL were an ATL made here on the site, I'd think that the author had a bit of a thing for dystopias. I mean, come on. Giving corporations the same rights as people in the United States? And all this BS happening right after 8 years of hell being caused by the very party we voted back into the House two years later?

If corporations had the same rights as individuals, then the former could vote;) Don't overstate the significance of legal personhood for businesses in our timeline.
 
If OTL were an ATL made here on the site, I'd think that the author had a bit of a thing for dystopias. I mean, come on. Giving corporations the same rights as people in the United States? And all this BS happening right after 8 years of hell being caused by the very party we voted back into the House two years later?

It's completely ASB that the man who freed the slaves and the guy who tried to move America onto a liberal path both got shot in the head and yet the first black president is alive and well as of the most recent updates. Completely inconsistent.
 
Someone like Silvio Berlusconi as Italy's PM certainly sounds For All Time -like to me.

I bet in the ATL Berlusconi is Italy's version of Hugh Hefner. Or Larry Flynt:D
 
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