I could see America ITTL basically being like “Japanese war crimes? What war crimes?”
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What is a common thing or trope that always seem to happen?
- Thread starter Viking25
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I HATE dystopias too. I can deal with some wanks when they don’t screw the main antagonists.
Don't forget the part of Americans accusing the Chinese of projecting onto the Japanese the crimes they themselves commit.
Or focusing solely on Chinese war crimes against let’s say the Vietnamese, bonus points if the Americans back Ho Chi Minh or some expy of him, while drastically downplaying Tokyo’s own war crimes against Koreans or Chinese civilians in territories occupied by Japan itself or having American forces turn a blind eye to those Japanese atrocities in case of joint occupation(s).
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Anything where the UK happens at all - and I'm British.
The deck was always a little bit loaded on the side of England given they got themselves organised and operating a reasonably high level relatively early compared to their neighbouring states. Athlestan was claiming overlordship basically of the whole island of Great Britain in about 934, but its possible we could have stayed a collection of countries not unlike Scandinavia, somewhat divided by language with similar but not identical political cultures focused primarily on our corner of Europe. It should lead us to question what England is and where it ends, what Scotland is and where it ends and what Wales is and where it ends, whether there are more states that emerge, some version of Rory Stewart's Middleland concept explored in his BBC's documentary "Border Country" and how those different states interact with each other and the world.
The idea that an independent Scotland or Ireland always ends up with some sort of colonial empire.
About the Wars of the Roses timelines - is the relative reassessment of the reputation of Richard III and the regime he belonged to post-discovery under the car park in Leicester helping to power the Yorkist slant or is it just the fact that to be fair Henry VII didn't have much of a claim by blood and his claim is through conquest and marriage? A bit of both?
I agree by the way, I don't think the Confederacy would have been able to execute their geopolitical goals for a good long while, maybe ever if they did win. Holding on to their Western territories, stabilising their borders, figuring out how to actually run a confederal system as different states all want to do different things and have different domestic priorities and deciding how to manage their economy given its nature (I don't know how to say things more politely than that) would be enough.
I have always assumed that British and French acquiesance at least was a prerequiste for Confederate success given the industrial and economic disadvantages they were working around. I can't imagine that going down well given the average Briton was broadly anti-slavery and how far cotton county Lancashire was prepared to take their opposition, but this is pre-mass democracy - although that opens up all sorts of questions about whether recognition would power mass mobilisation and party splits on the subject, so we might end up with some version of the Labour party, strengthening of Irish separatist groups and Celtic Home Rule more generally sooner in the long-term, say in the 1880s rather than the 1900s due to the impact on domestic politics of such a decisions. Given we are already a messy amalgam of five nations (counting Cornwall), that's not going to be positive for social cohesion as the Late Victorian Age beckons....
The deck was always a little bit loaded on the side of England given they got themselves organised and operating a reasonably high level relatively early compared to their neighbouring states. Athlestan was claiming overlordship basically of the whole island of Great Britain in about 934, but its possible we could have stayed a collection of countries not unlike Scandinavia, somewhat divided by language with similar but not identical political cultures focused primarily on our corner of Europe. It should lead us to question what England is and where it ends, what Scotland is and where it ends and what Wales is and where it ends, whether there are more states that emerge, some version of Rory Stewart's Middleland concept explored in his BBC's documentary "Border Country" and how those different states interact with each other and the world.
The idea that an independent Scotland or Ireland always ends up with some sort of colonial empire.
About the Wars of the Roses timelines - is the relative reassessment of the reputation of Richard III and the regime he belonged to post-discovery under the car park in Leicester helping to power the Yorkist slant or is it just the fact that to be fair Henry VII didn't have much of a claim by blood and his claim is through conquest and marriage? A bit of both?
I agree by the way, I don't think the Confederacy would have been able to execute their geopolitical goals for a good long while, maybe ever if they did win. Holding on to their Western territories, stabilising their borders, figuring out how to actually run a confederal system as different states all want to do different things and have different domestic priorities and deciding how to manage their economy given its nature (I don't know how to say things more politely than that) would be enough.
I have always assumed that British and French acquiesance at least was a prerequiste for Confederate success given the industrial and economic disadvantages they were working around. I can't imagine that going down well given the average Briton was broadly anti-slavery and how far cotton county Lancashire was prepared to take their opposition, but this is pre-mass democracy - although that opens up all sorts of questions about whether recognition would power mass mobilisation and party splits on the subject, so we might end up with some version of the Labour party, strengthening of Irish separatist groups and Celtic Home Rule more generally sooner in the long-term, say in the 1880s rather than the 1900s due to the impact on domestic politics of such a decisions. Given we are already a messy amalgam of five nations (counting Cornwall), that's not going to be positive for social cohesion as the Late Victorian Age beckons....
I don't see why Japan has to even be committing war crimes in the first place tbh.
Because people tends to believe that is something intrinsec in Japanese culture or something like this...
It's the same with Germany. You still have people calling the German Empire proto Nazis.
It depends on wheter the militarists run the show
If they do, well, they saw the foreign civilians as less than animals and were rather eager to experiment on them or take pieces of their bodies as tokens(if not outright go the cannibal route)
However they doing so would make any collaboration with America unlikely as they very much were NOT into sharing their gains with the "gaijin"
So if they are not in control, even if still a important(though likely declawed) faction, and the Japan is still pursuing a partnership with the United States in the whole ruling Asia shenanigans then they should be less like an asian Nazi Germany and more like your average european colonizer when it comes to commiting war crimes to keep their Empire
If they do, well, they saw the foreign civilians as less than animals and were rather eager to experiment on them or take pieces of their bodies as tokens(if not outright go the cannibal route)
However they doing so would make any collaboration with America unlikely as they very much were NOT into sharing their gains with the "gaijin"
So if they are not in control, even if still a important(though likely declawed) faction, and the Japan is still pursuing a partnership with the United States in the whole ruling Asia shenanigans then they should be less like an asian Nazi Germany and more like your average european colonizer when it comes to commiting war crimes to keep their Empire
Tbf a lot of Japanese propaganda against other Asians and the US was based on literal centuries of xenophobia and violent rejection of the outside world
Hmm, that reminds me of @Augenis TL, centred on Lithuania, The Silver Knight, it certainly was closer to a Japan screw than a 'Japan always ends up being a superpower regardless of the POD', scenario.
IRCC, In the TL Japan was taken over by
We usually keep talking about supposedly common tropes at abstract ways and rarely see examples. This week one showed up, one of the most annoying to me: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/what-really-is-the-future-of-the-csa.551971/
The all-powerful CSA.
The all-powerful CSA.
I tried to read the thread but it seemed to me that it was more of a discussion than a TL as such. Not to mention that, in addition to reflecting the all-powerful CSA, the OP is also a good example of the trope I've mentioned more than once: the idea that "look how much money we can make if we trade" would be more than enough reason for USA and CSA shake hands as allies and decide that everything is forgiven and forgotten between them
Also the majority of the posters are in the side "No matter what they attempt, CSA is fated to doom from the start."
I think its because showing examples of what we are talking about by posting the TLs and such is kinda distasteful since you'd only be exposing authors works to negative attention
This is why (for the most part) the examples we have seen were from already well estabilished TLs that have become part of the community's culture for a while now
Its always either one or the other really
Its very annoying
To be fair, most people seem to have gravitated toward the CSA being somewhere between Latin America and Italy in terms of power in that thread, bar a few people on opposite ends of the spectrum (the OP with their superpower industrialized Golden Circle and two people arguing collapse in few decades).
I tried to read the thread but it seemed to me that it was more of a discussion than a TL as such. Not to mention that, in addition to reflecting the all-powerful CSA, the OP is also a good example of the trope I've mentioned more than once: the idea that "look how much money we can make if we trade" would be more than enough reason for USA and CSA shake hands as allies and decide that everything is forgiven and forgotten between them
Also the majority of the posters are in the side "No matter what they attempt, CSA is fated to doom from the start."
Indeed. I work on finances so I'm very exposed to this nonsense "economy is everything" (and economy is often understood as the stock exchange index) and the whole society and politicians should only worry about that. Or even that all decisions involving "markets" (another word for "God") are necessarily rational.
Another thing that bothers me on this CSA discussions is the idea many Americans have that the whole world is interested on it, just like they're on the Nazi Germany, for example. In reality, even foreign historian nerds don't care about it. It's an US domestic thing.
And of course, the classic notion that the rump US will conquer Canada (and the British Empire), the CSA will conquer Latin America and for some reason both become superpowers in an Alt Cold War.
Because God must compensate them for their territorial loss after all
Because the USSR is so old news, gotta have US vs US ya know?
Its like, if Brazil was a superpower, that half of the Alternate History discussions were about the Ragmuffin Rebellion and the other half about our participation in WW2
I mean thats a pretty broad brush your putting. I am the son of Indian Immigrants and find that whole period of American History fascinating though I suppose it might not have the same popular appeal as Nazi Germany.....and TBH I’d argue the whole fixation on that is mostly a Western European/Anglo-Latin America thing. In South Asia people know and care so little about mustache man they use him as a fucking restaurant mascot to sell fried Chicken and Ice Cream lol
And the love lives of the Kings of the House of Braganza....Not that I can talk lol.
If you want a USSR analog for the Americans to fight I have no idea why you wouldn’t go with the Imperial Federation.