Worst Written Alternate Timelines In Media

What are some of the worst written Alternate Timelines in Media you’ve seen?
(No ISTO Or ASB)
 
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What are some of the worst written Alternate Timelines in Media you’ve seen?
(No ISTO Or ASB)
Empire Earth 2 had the American campaign that had the URSS and the US actually fighting in over the Bering Strait. In that timeline, the Cold War ended when Americans successfully defended a community centre in Alaska while also embarassing the Soviets by stealing a single stealth plane to the point they (the Soviets) disgregated.
 
Masters of Horror did I believe a two part episode where George Washington was a cannibal and a modern day cult followed in his footsteps.

That was certainly something.
 
December 7th, 1941: A Different Path by David L. Alley.

The POD is Japan saying "Hey, you know how we've been planning to go south to ensure the empire for decades and we just got a really bloody nose dealing with the Soviet Union? Let's attack the Soviet Union!"

This magically results in a TL with the following:
-The Soviet Union completely collapsing.
-Japan invading, holding, and genociding Australia.
-Churchill randomly giving up and surrendering.
-Germany gets the bomb first, nukes New York, and America immediately surrenders.
-America stands as one to oppose the export of the Final Solution to the US
-Albert Speer saves the day by finding out the Holocaust is happening.

Yeah.
 
I think there were a number of episodes of the old TV series "Sliders" which would be competitive for this "honor" if they don't count as ASB (sadly, as the actors involved put on generally good performances, which were undermined by the horrible writing).
 
The video game Homefront and its sequel Homefront: The Revolution.

In Homefront, North Korea (or rather, a Korea peacefully reunited by the North) becomes a superpower and invades and occupies the United States. You can imagine the liberties taken with plausibility.

Its "sequel" is actually more of a reboot. In the "sequel"/reboot, North Korea throws off Communism in the 1970s and becomes a capitalist superpower because the Digital Revolution takes place there instead of in California's Silicon Valley. Thus, North Korea becomes the most economically powerful country in the world. Eventually it invades and occupies an impoverished pariah United States that defaulted on its debt to North Korea, and the U.S. military is easily neutralized because its equipment uses technology from the megacorporation that dominates North Korea, and the North Koreans use a backdoor to shut down the U.S. hardware.

I suppose you could throw the horrible remake of Red Dawn in this pile as well, since it also depicted a North Korean invasion of the United States. Sure, the original movie wasn't exactly plausible given the inherent difficulties of invading the U.S., but at least the Soviet Union made credible sense as an invader. But North Korea? A small, poor, isolationist state lacking resources and allies? Give me a break. At least the Homefront games made North Korea into a prosperous superpower in their backstories, even if the plausibility was pretty bad and lots of disbelief had to be suspended.
 
The video game Homefront and its sequel Homefront: The Revolution.

In Homefront, North Korea (or rather, a Korea peacefully reunited by the North) becomes a superpower and invades and occupies the United States. You can imagine the liberties taken with plausibility.

Its "sequel" is actually more of a reboot. In the "sequel"/reboot, North Korea throws off Communism in the 1970s and becomes a capitalist superpower because the Digital Revolution takes place there instead of in California's Silicon Valley. Thus, North Korea becomes the most economically powerful country in the world. Eventually it invades and occupies an impoverished pariah United States that defaulted on its debt to North Korea, and the U.S. military is easily neutralized because its equipment uses technology from the megacorporation that dominates North Korea, and the North Koreans use a backdoor to shut down the U.S. hardware.

I suppose you could throw the horrible remake of Red Dawn in this pile as well, since it also depicted a North Korean invasion of the United States. Sure, the original movie wasn't exactly plausible given the inherent difficulties of invading the U.S., but at least the Soviet Union made credible sense as an invader. But North Korea? A small, poor, isolationist state lacking resources and allies? Give me a break. At least the Homefront games made North Korea into a prosperous superpower in their backstories, even if the plausibility was pretty bad and lots of disbelief had to be suspended.
Yeah, Homefront is not very good in general.
I don’t understand why people think North Korea is a credible threat.
 
In Homefront, North Korea (or rather, a Korea peacefully reunited by the North) becomes a superpower and invades and occupies the United States. You can imagine the liberties taken with plausibility.
To be fair, there was a lot of backstory written with the help of policy experts to degrade the US and beef up North Korea to make it plausible. And the creators even admitted it ALL happening was a hard sell.
 
The video game Homefront and its sequel Homefront: The Revolution.

In Homefront, North Korea (or rather, a Korea peacefully reunited by the North) becomes a superpower and invades and occupies the United States. You can imagine the liberties taken with plausibility.

Its "sequel" is actually more of a reboot. In the "sequel"/reboot, North Korea throws off Communism in the 1970s and becomes a capitalist superpower because the Digital Revolution takes place there instead of in California's Silicon Valley. Thus, North Korea becomes the most economically powerful country in the world. Eventually it invades and occupies an impoverished pariah United States that defaulted on its debt to North Korea, and the U.S. military is easily neutralized because its equipment uses technology from the megacorporation that dominates North Korea, and the North Koreans use a backdoor to shut down the U.S. hardware.

I suppose you could throw the horrible remake of Red Dawn in this pile as well, since it also depicted a North Korean invasion of the United States. Sure, the original movie wasn't exactly plausible given the inherent difficulties of invading the U.S., but at least the Soviet Union made credible sense as an invader. But North Korea? A small, poor, isolationist state lacking resources and allies? Give me a break. At least the Homefront games made North Korea into a prosperous superpower in their backstories, even if the plausibility was pretty bad and lots of disbelief had to be suspended.
Homefront makes more sense when you know that NK was originally supposed to be China, but was changed to sell in the Chinese market.
 

N7Buck

Banned
Mercenaries Playground of Destruction was a well written North Korean alternate history, Comanche helicopters are awesome.


I would say Kaiserreich isn't well written, the whole world order feels off. Such as German holdings in Indochina, and Mittleafrica. It also makes no sense for the Syndicalists to declare war on Germany, and the Combined Syndicates of America have support in American states that are antithetical to Syndicalism. Though I do like playing as Canada and liberating Britain, It lacks the ability to have a Canadian led Imperial Federation or Canadian-British state, which would make much more sense gameplay wise and political wise, since Britain is wrecked by civil war and the former British political class is in Canada.
 
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OP says worst written and I see a lot of criticism of PODs and scenarios to follow. If you want to talk worst written, I might go with White Man’s Burden. Just unwatchable. If that’s too ASB, definitely something by Harrison, personally. I realize there’s a whole subterranean strata of writers more marginal than Harrison that I’ve never even given a chance, and while I’m sure there are some gems, there must also be some real stinkers down there.
 
Billy Benson's By Force of Arms is a poor man's How Few Remain, with Stonewall Jackson surviving Chancellorsville unscathed leading to a smashing Confederate victory at Gettysburg and a Union collapse. Jump ahead to 1869 where William T. Sherman has been elected President of the United States with Benjamin Butler as his VP - never mind Sherman's famously virulent hatred of politics and politicians. The Union goes to war over the CSA buying land from Mexico and loses almost every battle, even with the help of Ulysses S. Grant, who has been brought out of an alcoholic stupor to lead the Union Army. Grant acts like a meme version of himself who can't conceive of anything other than frontal attacks against repeaters and Gatling Guns, and the book ends with John Wilkes Booth kidnapping President Sherman and VP Butler and the Union conceding the Confederate land purchase, as well as Missouri, won in large part thanks to the efforts of the James Gang.
 
In Dean Koontz's Lightning time-travelling German officer convinces Churchill, that Stalin is bad guy and thanks to this "secret" being revealed Western Allies decided to invade USSR just after Third Reich is defeated-obviously, they're victorious, and as result future Russia is wealthy, democratic and US ally, like Germany and Japan.
 
Don’t know if it counts as badly written as it’s more satire, but the mockumentary “CSA” is not good alternate history. Especially since it’s agreed the south never wanted to invade the north to make it confederate territory. Plus a regressive tax on those who don’t own slaves? That’s just dumb. Plus while there were rebels who wanted a tropical southern empire, I doubt any army could rule a land mass stretching from Barrow to Buenos Aires full of people who hate your guts especially with a more powerful Canada.

But as satire I find it good.

Also those crappy Spike TV what if shows were godawful.
 
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