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That's not a still from the latest young adult dystopian romantic thriller— that's a Hooverville in Seattle, circa 1937. This gave me an idea for a novel/novella. I'm positively sure it's been done before because I remember reading such a short story (maybe 8 years ago?)— a dystopia set in the 1940s where World War I never ended and the Great Depression was thrice as brutal as it was in our timeline and lasted twice as long, and the Czar was never successfully overthrown (though there have been attempts), because the Nazis have been done to death anyway.

Idea— Roosevelt (Teddy) was re-elected in 1912 and immediately declares war on Germany and Austria in '14, and the US winds up getting bogged down in the trenches and frontlines, and WWI begins resembling WWII more and more as time goes on. By 1918, there's no clear winner, but the US's early entry has helped keep the Eastern Front somewhat stable so Czar Nicholas can attend to domestic matters. When an armistice is attempted, Austrian terrorists assassinate Poincare and the talks collapse into a new wave of fighting as France mobilizes a full fledged offensive against Germany. Yuan Shikai's death in 1916 temporarily gave way to a wave of warlords vying for control, but Germany manages to install one of their own leaders in 1918, and China joins their side, resulting in a Chinese invasion of mainland Europe and total decimation of French forces in Indochina and British forces in Hong Kong. Russia and India invade China, and the Ottoman Empire uses this moment to stage one last desperate— and successful— offensive against British Egypt. Italy is the first major European state to collapse, giving in to the Fascist Black Shirts who soon enter the war on Germany's side. With the US's attention diverted, there is no Mexican Expedition, and Marxists rise to power, making Mexico the world's first Communist state. The US attempts to oust the government and establish a pro-capitalist government, but this fails and turns into an international scandal that the two sides try to defuse (but, behind each others' backs, secretly plots attacks). Mexico then launches a surprise total "anti-imperialist" war against the United States and its Latin American territories, separate from the war in Europe. This results in invasions of Cuba and Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and more states. Mexican forces push all the way into the mid west before being halted and pushed back.
Realizing this may be an opportune moment to crush one of their enemies, Germany offers military aid to Mexico; this despite Germany facing food shortages and labor uprisings.

Soon, the only continent free from warfare of any kind is Antarctica, and even then there are skirmishes between naval vessels and U-boats.

And then the 1920s begin. See those tanks? Those early mechanized beasts? We need to keep making those, even if it means the people begin to starve. As long as more people on the other side starves. We need to keep our side fueled. Open up 10x more factories, pump some of that good grit into their air— the more polluted your skies, the richer your country. The number of polluting factories becomes a symbol of pride. It means your side is still in the game. And there can be no more of those pesky unions— this is war. You work for your country, goddammit, and you will like it. If your foreman doesn't pay you for a week, despite you working 7 day 15 hour shifts, too bad— you're doing your country proud. And if you try to raise dissent, you're willingly to aid the enemy, who'll kill you, rape your wife, and pollute the minds of your children with degenerate culture.

Oh, and the Super Depression hits at around, oh... ~1923, 1924 or so. Especially after the Spanish Flu wipes out about 300 million people, perfectly good members of the working class whose labor could have been used.

Leaders try and try to end the war, but it's no use, no one can come to any compromise they're happy with. The 1920s become the 1930s. Eugenics is kept up as an idea because the warring nations are desperate to find any good hand they can get. Who wouldn't want an army of ubermenschen? But we can't just throw away the poor subhumans— we need their labor, but they need to be too stupid to grasp the terroristic ideals of Marxism, so let's promote malgenics as well— if you're not part of the "super human" category all these nations are creating, you need to just procreate blindly and wildly, and when your child is born, inflict brain damage (or the State will do it for you, free of charge!) and raise them with the ideals of working hard, hard, and hard.

No more schooling for anyone but the super humans, because that's a waste of resources. Let's reinstate slavery (under a new name to appeal to those progressive-types), and import some good subhuman negroids from Africa and India, put some fuel into our labor forces. US, Britain, France, China, Germany, Austria, Ottoman, all rushing to mine some "negro gold" while also aiming to create super soldiers. And super tanks, because those old school tanks aren't enough anymore. All resources go to war. All of it. Nothing to the civilian population. Even the wealthy must pay a little, to keep this war going, because that's your god-given duty. Do you want to go to Hell? Then oppose this war. Whine about giving up a few pennies now— you'll be begging for even a light mist for all eternity.

All music, all movies, all books need to be reprinted to promote the war effort. Nothing outside the war. Nothing against the war. The 1930s become the 1940s. Hear all this talk of climate change today, but feel like nothing's really changing? The people in 1940 sure feel it— with all this carbon in the atmosphere, there seems to be only one mode to the weather anywhere—extreme.

We've discovered jet propulsion, but it's still only just now getting started in terms of development. What's even more exciting? This idea of 'nuclear weaponry.' Predicted by a long-since purged no-name Jew probably killed in one of the pogroms of the late '20s, scientists built off of it and discovered how amazing its potential. Already, nations have gotten desperate enough to turn back to mustard gas, including Germany's attempt to build the "höllenbombe", a mustard gas superbomb capable of spreading enough of the stuff to contaminate an entire small city. The idea of a bomb capable of actually destroying the city itself is one the war wizards of the world surely won't pass up...

What happened to our enlightened age?

Why are you entertaining unpatriotic thoughts, citizen?
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Are you a German spy?​
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An old idea of mine: what if WWI spiraled catastrophically, apocalyptically out of control— far moreso than it actually did— and wound up lasting far longer? And I mean a completely pre-1984 esque scenario. I'm unsure as to the realism of my catastrophe, but I'm interested in hearing flaws or ways to screw the world even worse or flesh out the mayhem and madness. The Apocalypse Rides On!
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