I think I should have specified that countries behave like this even when it is NOT an existential war in which one of the belligerents faces the threat of extermination if defeated. In that case the set of rules is different.
What is a common thing or trope that always seem to happen?
- Thread starter Viking25
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And bit related trope is that lost country is eternally angry and hostile to winner and it will launch new war immediately as it is possible even if peace terms were rleatively mild and lost country has not any change win new round. And these countries just can't ever consile under any condition even if for them would be better to live at peace together instead waging yet tenth X - Y war. Yes, there is some historic examples where same countries have fought numerous times but it doesn't mean that every nation behave that way.
Eh, to be fair, though.....there's a good bit about U.S. politics that probably wouldn't change all that much even with an early POD-for example, there would most likely be a Civil War, there would almost certainly be a time in which social issues dominate politics(and which reactionaries eventually lose: fuck, even IOTL that's been true, and they were arguably "wanked" a fair bit in our world if anything!), and you're not almost certainly going to see things like Jim Crow, etc. survive to the year 2000 or so(barring either some truly off the wall long chain of events, and/or a quasi-fascist, if not totally fascist, dictatorship).
Yeah, now see, that kinda thing actually has been a problem before, and not just particularly with alt-history TLs. Sci-Fi and fantasy works can and not rarely do, suffer that same issue as well.
That's a good point.
Well, yes, but these flaws existed largely in spite of voting, not because of it, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned.
Yeah, that would be interesting to see. Or even a couple of larger *U.S.A. like states in North America that aren't necessarily the *Confederacy and/or the U.S. with a *Communist veneer and paintjob. (Or, alternatively, maybe a larger *Canada type arrangement and/or a larger *Mexico-think of Sobel's classic TL For Want of a Nail for an example of this)
TBH, the idea that Xinjiang will always be part of China really is overdone, though, so I think it's nice to see more independent *East Turkestans out there.
While I think you could reasonably debate the first two......I really can't see how you'd avoid any of the stuff in the bold happening at some point in time. (I largely agree on the bit about *World Wars-hardly implausible to have just two, but it doesn't have to be that way-and you might even be able to avoid having one if you can play your cards right)
Eh, to be fair, none of these things are particularly implausible, in and of themselves, or even that difficult to make plausible for that matter-it wouldn't necessarily be the type of Cold War we learned about in our universe(Capitalism vs. Communism), or even nearly as intense, but it could very well be a thing once nuclear weapons are invented(and no doubt they would be-a plausible scenario in which they are used a few times and then simply dropped altogether might be fairly hard to do, but could be very interesting to read about, especially if pulled off well enough.
Funny thing is, our very own Tony Jones wrote a couple of TLs detailing just that; Cliveless World, in which the French took over India instead, after one of Clive's suicide attempts succeeded, and Gurkani Alam, where two Indian states-one a surviving Mughal Empire, were able to basically throw off European rule altogether. (Both TLs have a somewhat punk-ish feel to them, perhaps especially the former, but if that's your kinda thing, you'll probably enjoy it.)
That can be an issue sometimes, admittedly, but it's not always going to be implausible, necessarily. Sometimes, at worst it neither helps nor hurts.
Yeah, that level of parallelism can be really hard to justify, at least if you don't elaborate on it.
Not always, though. Sometimes, in fact, parallelism can be very well thought-out and interesting.....and yes, there are also times, conversely, where divergence can be lazy and/or boring AF(for example, a hypothetical TL in which America hasn't progressed on social issues much past the 1960s even by the present day simply because of the lack of *WWII, or the Soviet Union surviving and even thriving well into the 21st Century by simply removing Gorbachev in 1985, and so on and so forth; I'd personally say 1. is more likely to be the former and 2. might better fit the latter, but YMMV, I suppose). It all depends on what is done, and how it's done.
To expand on this a little, there's nothing necessarily wrong with a TL that has 2 *World Wars with a POD in, oh say, 1789 or whatever, though to be fair, it really does help the plausibility of said TL if one puts some effort into writing the background as to how that came to be(yes, this is a bit simplified, but it's important). But you also can't necessarily just slap divergences together and then say, "Well, my job here is done.", when it comes to ensuring plausibility, at least if that's something you're looking to check on(though if not, feel free), and it's also worth recognizing that sometimes, things occur for a reason(even if the vice versa is also true at times). For example, there is a very good reason(actually, multiple!) why liberal democracy(be it in a republican form, or under the aegis of a consitutional monarchy), for example, is not at all rarely regarded as perhaps the most effective & workable system of governance ever devised thus far; not only do most of the world's wealthiest countries fall in this category, but virtually all of the happiest and safest ones as well(though IOTL the latter does have a rare exception in the United States), even despite the fact that arguably many, many things that could have gone wrong, did go wrong.....and there's also reasons why illiberal Communism & fascism(and adjacent ideologies) have ultimately failed in the long run historically, even IOTL. Making a TL in which liberal democracy exists but just fails to gain traction at all can be done, but it's one of those things that's very hard to do plausibly without a truly radical POD, or set of them, and even then, it's far more of a challenge than some might realize; conversely, it's rather easier to diminish the influences of Communism and fascism.
I can see how that would be an issue, too. Granted, sometimes it's plausible for this to happen(for one example, it's highly unlikely that the U.S. ever would have become truly friendly with the Confederacy if they did succeed in breaking off, in an ATL Civil War.), but yeah, I think I have seen a few TLs using this trope, that.....maybe didn't need to.
Yeah. I don't think its necessary for any given timeline to do any of these things, but it would be interesting and different.
North America is huge, there are multiple ways it could potentially end up - especially if you have a POD prior to 1500 or so.
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Yea, that annoys me as well. admitedly as a polytheist, I am biased in my dislike of the trope, but still its a trope that does bug me.
One of these days I will do a timeline that has sections on the evolution of religion in a world without Monotheism; I have some thoughts for the cultural evolution in a Hellenistic empire that had some more Buddhist and Jain philosophers in Europe.
One of the things that I liked least about what I read about TL-191 was precisely that.
The United States is rapidly degenerating into an ultra-nationalist, militaristic regime that builds its entire foreign policy around screwing up the Confederacy. Declare against the Confederation an average of a war every 20 years for the most puerile pretexts. There comes a point where they practically forget the whole point of fighting against slavery and what they seek is pure land grabbing. But still the story tries to make me believe that the evil and aggressive country is the Confederacy.
And this happens in practically every TL: there is always a country that is constantly raging for a territory and declaring wars to try to recover it. And the people of that country continue to support this.
Maybe that could be set in a TL where Russia ends up crushed by Poland-Lithuania/remains a bunch of squabbling principalities used as pawns by the Swedes, Poles/Lithuanians, and Turco-Mongols for their political games?
mspence
Banned
Japan Empire wanks where the Empire survives under the Bushido code for the rest of the 20th century
American wanks where we basically control the entire Western Hemisphere
Soviet wanks that lead to a near global Soviet Empire
There are a lot of "wankers" out there
Also historical figures being written the way people want them to be instead of as they actually were, good or bad
American wanks where we basically control the entire Western Hemisphere
Soviet wanks that lead to a near global Soviet Empire
There are a lot of "wankers" out there
Also historical figures being written the way people want them to be instead of as they actually were, good or bad
Tudor era TLs where sons = peace and joy for everyone
Yes, I am guilty of this, hence why I bring it up
Yes, I am guilty of this, hence why I bring it up
Mexico wank, Santa Anna is the evil and cause of all of the problems of Mexico where they need to get rid of him just to make it better. Often times becoming a radical liberal paradise. Either republican or monarchial. I have mexico wanks with Santa Anna as unifying figure meanwhile let's his underlings do all work while he controls the from being to radical
Another trope that I do not like is that the US must always end up as the world’s superpower. It is totally possible for the US to instead end up as just one out of many great powers instead of the sole superpower by the present day.
I think with the ottomans it either is a sick man of Europe decline narrative or it’s a strong man of Europe over correction
there is a belief that if the ottomans just set up a democracy it would become a multi religious multi ethnic paradise and I just don’t buy that at all with a mid to late 19th or early 20th century POD, just looking at the Wikipedia list of massacres and rebellions that took place during this time will illustrate just how politically fractured and divided along ethnic lines the state actually was
there is a belief that if the ottomans just set up a democracy it would become a multi religious multi ethnic paradise and I just don’t buy that at all with a mid to late 19th or early 20th century POD, just looking at the Wikipedia list of massacres and rebellions that took place during this time will illustrate just how politically fractured and divided along ethnic lines the state actually was
Early 20th Cent POD? You're probably correct, the trajectory was largely set by then.... Mid-to-Late 19th POD, I'm not so sure....
Much of the horrible-ness that both befell the Ottomans, or was perpetrated under them, seems to have one common denominator - Abdul Hamid II.
Granted, he was a complex personality... a highly-cultured man, patron of the arts, who promoted education and sought to improve the God-awful national infrastructure... and who kicked off massacres which shocked and appalled the world.
And he reigned for over 30 years.....
I'd say that if a writer wanted to reverse the "sick man" narrative, that around 1876 would be a good place to start....
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
It is an iron law of AH.com that no thread can discuss improving French performance at colonization during the Age of Discovery....
...without somebody invoking settling the Huguenots as the solution. Usually within the first five posts.
And maybe I'm misreading the intended tone, but I read it as if they're like "ooh, ooh, here's a genius idea nobody's thought of before..."
Catholic Frenchmen weep tears because no one respects them viable colonizers in english-language alternate history boards.
They say:
toujours la demoiselle d'honneur, jamais la mariée. Pourquoi! Pourquoi!
translation pours les anglais: The French Catholics always left saying "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride! Why, why!?!"
I hand them a hankie to wipe away the tears.
...without somebody invoking settling the Huguenots as the solution. Usually within the first five posts.
And maybe I'm misreading the intended tone, but I read it as if they're like "ooh, ooh, here's a genius idea nobody's thought of before..."
Catholic Frenchmen weep tears because no one respects them viable colonizers in english-language alternate history boards.
They say:
toujours la demoiselle d'honneur, jamais la mariée. Pourquoi! Pourquoi!
translation pours les anglais: The French Catholics always left saying "Always the bridesmaid, never the bride! Why, why!?!"
I hand them a hankie to wipe away the tears.
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