What is a common thing or trope that always seem to happen?

Spain is doomed no matter what. It does not matter if any of the Colonialist reform plans of Jose Galvez, Unionists of Floridablanca, Autonomists of Aranda or Godoy are in process, none will be applied and Spain will be invaded.
On top of that, for reasons no one understands, everyone in the universe (even the Spaniards themselves in the most egregious examples) agrees that Spain "deserved it", so "this is karmic retribution" (in a time when karma was unknown in Europe) and "the world is much better now" (even if the British Empire, USA and Germany have gotten drunk on their bullshit "white protestant superior race" rhetoric and are exterminating anyone who is not Protestant or "white enough")
 
The main problem with such scenarios is they usually rest on Antony and Cleopatra winning Actium and…they just can’t. At all.
True, it's pretty annoying how unoriginal they are at that
Im trying to deviate from it with my TL having a much earlier POD
And they knew it, which is why they made a run for it and left Antony’s army to surrender.
To be fair didnt Egypt have a pretty massive navy? I've heard they potentially could overwhelm Octavian's if Cleopatra didnt run off, the main issue being that Agripa made their navy a perfect counter to Egypt's with his much more mobile and hard to hit ships, so bare minimum you'd have to get rid of him
Spain is doomed no matter what. It does not matter if any of the Colonialist reform plans of Jose Galvez, Unionists of Floridablanca, Autonomists of Aranda or Godoy are in process, none will be applied and Spain will be invaded.
On top of that, for reasons no one understands, everyone in the universe (even the Spaniards themselves in the most egregious examples) agrees that Spain "deserved it", so "this is karmic retribution" (in a time when karma was unknown in Europe) and "the world is much better now" (even if the British Empire, USA and Germany have gotten drunk on their bullshit "white protestant superior race" rhetoric and are exterminating anyone who is not Protestant or "white enough")
It's weird also that Spain is always turned into THE Evil Empire in most post-1500s TLs
"Oh but empire always bad" sure, but the Spanish Empire was built clandestinely(Cortez, Pizarro, all outlaws who avoided justice by saying "but I conquered this tho") and the Crown itself had no desire for a conquest of America, only for converted vassals in the New World
But no, Spain is doomed to be the super oppressive european empire
Meanwhile if the colonization is conducted by say Al-Andalus then its all good & nice with Islamic Iberia only doing trading and having converted vassals(which is what christian Spain wanted!) and if the evil empire is british instead then they surely can reform into a benevolent Commonwealth/Imperial Federation, no questions asked
 
Also dont get me wrong, I have nothing against these TLs, some of them are among my favorites
But it is something that happens occasionally and seem to be only applied to the brits
Though admitelly lately there was some influex of my fellow lusophones here so that might change with more TLs focusing on the Portuguese Empire instead
 
Can they?
Given the fact the consensus here it's that the Imperial Federation was just a handful of short-sighted politicians away from happening and being a continuing success story for decades, yes. They CAN and they DO.

Hell, I've seen people seriously argue that the East African Federation SHOULD happen because "if they federated their GDP would be multiplied by five and would be equivalent to that of a First World country. They MUST federate. To do otherwise is going against the most basic economic logic."
 
Hell, I've seen people seriously argue that the East African Federation SHOULD happen because "if they federated their GDP would be multiplied by five and would be equivalent to that of a First World country. They MUST federate. To do otherwise is going against the most basic economic logic."
Now I want a TL where that does happen, but the african colonies federate in opposition to the British Empire and everyone's like
surprised pikachu - Album on Imgur
 
"Oh but empire always bad" sure, but the Spanish Empire was built clandestinely(Cortez, Pizarro, all outlaws who avoided justice by saying "but I conquered this tho") and the Crown itself had no desire for a conquest of America, only for converted vassals in the New World
I'd say its cos A, they more or less could be said the nation that got the ball rolling and generally inspired the age of Colonialism in its modern form, B despite the king saying he didn't want them to go conquering he sure as hell didn't have any issue helping those conquests persists or profiting from them after the fact, and C, wanting converted vassal is conquest and empire building just with a different name.
Meanwhile if the colonization is conducted by say Al-Andalus then its all good & nice with Islamic Iberia only doing trading and having converted vassals(which is what christian Spain wanted!) and if the evil empire is british instead then they surely can reform into a benevolent Commonwealth/Imperial Federation, no questions asked
I don't think I've ever seen it portrayed as all good and nice, but for the sake of argument, during this era the Islamic World was broadly speaking more tolerant than the Christian one. IE, when the Europeans took over Spain they demanded everyone convert get out or die, while the Islamic rulers were never that bloody or demanding, so they come off as comparatively chill. Exactly how nicely the Islamic world would play with the Americas is tricky to say though, as a lot depends on people, politics, place and time and their relative tolerance for others faiths didn't often extend to people not of "the book" but yeah, that's likely why. No clue why England's portrayed respectfully though, cos um, YIKES.
 
I want to see a timeline where when Cortes returns to Spain, he is arrested and imprisoned for his actions (or even executed). Probably not enough of a thing to be the sole thing of a timeline, but if talking conquistadors and alternate history...

Here's a thing that seems to come up a fair amount: If not conquered, France seems treated as likely to centralize as it did OTL - it may suffer from various external foes, if them doing better at its expense is explored, but a Western equivalent to how say, Poland developed would be an interesting twist on "the king still controls the peers of the realm".

I am not nearly familiar enough with West Francian history to write it, but you'd think someone would have given it a shot.
 
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despite the king saying he didn't want them to go conquering he sure as hell didn't have any issue helping those conquests persists or profiting from them after the fact
To be fair it was the Queen who opposed the conquests, the King thought it was based and wanted it to continue so long it keep financing his atempts at conquering Italy
C, wanting converted vassal is conquest and empire building just with a different name.
Sure, my point is that that is seem as very positive and nice if it was Islamic Spain doing it even though Catholic Spain planned to do the same thing before their overwhelming success at destroying the native civilisations made them change their minds
 
I want to see a timeline where when Cortes returns to Spain, he is arrested and imprisoned for his actions (or even executed). Probably not enough of a thing to be the sole thing of a timeline, but if talking conquistadors and alternate history...
Would make for a beautiful oneshot
 
To be fair it was the Queen who opposed the conquests, the King thought it was based and wanted it to continue so long it keep financing his atempts at conquering Italy
Huh, I was not aware of that. Almost want a timeline where he dies and she gets more authority over how things proceed.
Sure, my point is that that is seem as very positive and nice if it was Islamic Spain doing it even though Catholic Spain planned to do the same thing before their overwhelming success at destroying the native civilisations made them change their minds
Sure but the thing is, that's ultimately 'not' what Catholic Spain did, so the outlined thing looks 'nicer' by comparison, even if there is no moral may to do colonization, forced conversion or conquest, the version that's less prone to genocide is comparatively tolerable to many.
 
Huh, I was not aware of that. Almost want a timeline where he dies and she gets more authority over how things proceed.
I wanna make it!
Unfortunately I have too many TL ideas >.>
But yeah, her last words were "Please treat the natives well" and well...it didnt age well
Sure but the thing is, that's ultimately 'not' what Catholic Spain did, so the outlined thing looks 'nicer' by comparison, even if there is no moral may to do colonization, forced conversion or conquest, the version that's less prone to genocide is comparatively tolerable to many.
Oh I absolutely agree
My point is just that its ironic that in a AH site Spain doing that is seem as sort of a inevitability and Al-Andalus gets to do what was their initial plan even though for all we know a Islamic Iberia could've done the same shit as OTL Spain if they were as successful in their conquests, but in no way I think that justifies with OTL Spain did
 
I wanna make it!
Unfortunately I have too many TL ideas >.>
But yeah, her last words were "Please treat the natives well" and well...it didnt age well
Mhm!
Mood and I'm not even writing mine XD
Oof, that's heavy.
Oh I absolutely agree
My point is just that its ironic that in a AH site Spain doing that is seem as sort of a inevitability and Al-Andalus gets to do what was their initial plan even though for all we know a Islamic Iberia could've done the same shit as OTL Spain if they were as successful in their conquests, but in no way I think that justifies with OTL Spain did
Ah I see, that makes more sense and I pretty much agree yeah.
 
To be fair didnt Egypt have a pretty massive navy? I've heard they potentially could overwhelm Octavian's if Cleopatra didnt run off, the main issue being that Agripa made their navy a perfect counter to Egypt's with his much more mobile and hard to hit ships, so bare minimum you'd have to get rid of him
Nope. They only could deploy 250 ships against Octavian’s 400. And his ships had them penned in so they couldn’t maneuver.
 
Nope. They only could deploy 250 ships against Octavian’s 400. And his ships had them penned in so they couldn’t maneuver.
I see, so it was more or less 2x1
I know that Cleo's ships were larger than the roman ones, but they being penned nullify that advantage as well, so ya dont think they could win with Agripa there
 
Nope. They only could deploy 250 ships against Octavian’s 400. And his ships had them penned in so they couldn’t maneuver.
What about artillery wise? Surely that could play a role.
Alternately, for this ATL, you could write it as an earlier iteration of the Spanish Armada vs. Elizabeth I...
 
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