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Old 09-07-2017, 10:23 AM   #431
ericthered
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
The fundamental problem with altering World War II is that the world economy from the late 19th to the mid 20th century essentially consists of three more or less equal divisions, the British Empire, the United States and everybody else put together. If you want somebody other than the Empire or the US to win a war during that period you need to keep both of those out of the fight, or at least not heavily involved in your particular theater of it.
Ehh, Russia pulled it off.

The hard part is Italy's economy. They were financial trouble BEFORE the war started due to heavy funding of the Spanish civil war.

Of course, they were in a better financial situation than basically everyone else in 1930. Mussolini came to power years before the global panic, and was able to basically resist it. This is what got the world's attention and inspired the other fascist leaders, incidentally. So starting the war earlier will help a lot.

Italy also struggled because they were the junior partner in a two-country alliance. Adding a third member may make them more powerful, especially if the other two like Italy better than they like each other. So I propose adding France to the alliance. France in the 1930's was a political mess, and the free french fighters spent more time fighting each other than the occupation. A fascist-style take over in france isn't out of the question. This makes Italy the deciding vote between a Germany and a France with a long history of disputes.

This is shaped quite differently from world war II, but in some ways it needs to be. So you have this western European block under Italian arbitration that declares war on Soviet Russia in 1936 -- the middle of the great purge. I think you could get some nice itallian outcomes here.

But we've sort of done something other than "Itally wins WWI".
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Old 09-07-2017, 12:43 PM   #432
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

I mean, we could always try something a little weirder and have Neptune, Mars, Minerva, and Jupiter himself come down from the heavens and take a direct role in the restoration of Rome (and thoroughly bewilder anyone who knows greek mythology).
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Old 09-07-2017, 02:39 PM   #433
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How about someone learns to summon the ghosts of Julius Caesar and Augustus back from the great Beyond. They start giving Mussolini advice on (respectively) how to win wars and fix economies. Depending on when this started and how it developed, Italy might well be the power to beat in Europe when the war finally starts.

The Nazis, of course, get wind of this and this sparks their own mad hunts for Relics and occult lore. Unfortunately for them whoever is feeding the Italians advice is a lot better at this stuff than the Germans and manages to trick the Nazis into one or more massive blunders just before the Italians stab up from the south.

Eventually the secrets to this sort of occult activity get out and every government has covert operatives developing their own tools. You end up with the cold war being fought not openly, but rather covertly using magic.

The general public has no idea what is actually going on in the shadows and there would be religious uprisings if they did...

[[specifics of who/ what/ how the Italians have a hidden Weird advantage vary to GM taste. On the surface at least the effects are the same.]]
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Old 09-07-2017, 02:41 PM   #434
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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I mean, we could always try something a little weirder and have Neptune, Mars, Minerva, and Jupiter himself come down from the heavens and take a direct role in the restoration of Rome (and thoroughly bewilder anyone who knows greek mythology).
The gods could be world jumpers that either left or were ejected from their more classic time lines and just figured when in Rome...

That could help answer and raise numerous questions.
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Old 09-07-2017, 06:12 PM   #435
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What about having a divergence earlier, say Italy gaining the Dalmatian coast, a larger chunk of Austria, and maybe a couple of the German colonies in Africa after WWI. That would give Italy a bigger economic base before the war, although I doubt it would be enough to make much of a difference. It would also take away a big cause for the rise of Fascism in Italy and you could conceivably get a Italy joining with the Allies from the start.

How about this: after WWI, Italy is given Dalmatia, a good sized chunk of Austria, and German Cameron (Cameroon). During the interwar period, Fascism never takes hold, instead a mild socialist government comes to power. This republican government in Italy intervenes in internal conflicts in the new formed Yugoslavia, putting the closely in the Italian sphere. Later, when the Spanish Civil war breaks out, Italy intervenes on the Republican side, defeating Franco, and forming a close Spanish-Italian Alliance.

When Germany invades Poland, the Italian-Spanish-Yugoslav alliance joins France and the UK and declares war on Germany. With the extra support from Italy, the allies accept an Italian plan to invade Germany while much of the German army is busy in Poland. The invasion is a wild success, and Allied troops are marching into Berlin in early 1941.

After the war, Germany is reconstructed, and Austria becomes close to Italy in thanks for Italian troops liberating them from the Nazis (with many Austrians forgetting that many Nazis were in fact Austrian). Since the Italian government is mildly Socialist, they are able to serve as an intermediary between the US/UK and the USSSR.

It is conceivable that this could lead to a much stronger post-war Italy, but I have a hard time seeing a dominant Italy. I also don't know if this parallel has any fewer holes than what has been suggested so far, but it does keep the alien space bats away.
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Old 09-07-2017, 07:31 PM   #436
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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Originally Posted by Jasonft View Post
How about someone learns to summon the ghosts of Julius Caesar and Augustus back from the great Beyond. They start giving Mussolini advice on (respectively) how to win wars and fix economies. Depending on when this started and how it developed, Italy might well be the power to beat in Europe when the war finally starts.

The Nazis, of course, get wind of this and this sparks their own mad hunts for Relics and occult lore. Unfortunately for them whoever is feeding the Italians advice is a lot better at this stuff than the Germans .]]
Get the Italians Machiavelli rather than the Romans. Give the Germans pretty much anyone in their history besides Bismarck.
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Old 09-07-2017, 08:38 PM   #437
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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Originally Posted by a humble lich View Post
What about having a divergence earlier, say Italy gaining the Dalmatian coast, a larger chunk of Austria, and maybe a couple of the German colonies in Africa after WWI. That would give Italy a bigger economic base before the war, although I doubt it would be enough to make much of a difference. It would also take away a big cause for the rise of Fascism in Italy and you could conceivably get a Italy joining with the Allies from the start.

How about this: after WWI, Italy is given Dalmatia, a good sized chunk of Austria, and German Cameron (Cameroon). During the interwar period, Fascism never takes hold, instead a mild socialist government comes to power. This republican government in Italy intervenes in internal conflicts in the new formed Yugoslavia, putting the closely in the Italian sphere. Later, when the Spanish Civil war breaks out, Italy intervenes on the Republican side, defeating Franco, and forming a close Spanish-Italian Alliance.

When Germany invades Poland, the Italian-Spanish-Yugoslav alliance joins France and the UK and declares war on Germany. With the extra support from Italy, the allies accept an Italian plan to invade Germany while much of the German army is busy in Poland. The invasion is a wild success, and Allied troops are marching into Berlin in early 1941.

After the war, Germany is reconstructed, and Austria becomes close to Italy in thanks for Italian troops liberating them from the Nazis (with many Austrians forgetting that many Nazis were in fact Austrian). Since the Italian government is mildly Socialist, they are able to serve as an intermediary between the US/UK and the USSSR.

It is conceivable that this could lead to a much stronger post-war Italy, but I have a hard time seeing a dominant Italy. I also don't know if this parallel has any fewer holes than what has been suggested so far, but it does keep the alien space bats away.
If France has Spain, and Italy's backing in 1938, France might go to war over the Sudetenland Crisis. Without Czechoslovakia's tanks, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Italy should be able to defeat Germany. At this point have France and Czechoslovakia split up southern Germany, Italy take Austria, and Poland get East Prussia.

Italy will likely be able to politically dominate this Alliance, Poland is still a bit behind technologically and glaring at the Russians, the Czechs and Slovaks are still disagreeable, Spain is still recovering from a nasty civil war, and France still has the awful inter-World War type governments.
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Old 09-07-2017, 09:13 PM   #438
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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Get the Italians Machiavelli rather than the Romans. Give the Germans pretty much anyone in their history besides Bismarck.
The real Machiavelli was very anti-dictator though. He wrote satire, I believe, not how-to books.
But maybe this chronoclast did write how-tos.
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Old 09-07-2017, 11:54 PM   #439
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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The real Machiavelli was very anti-dictator though. He wrote satire, I believe, not how-to books.
But maybe this chronoclast did write how-tos.
The Prince is an entertaining read. I wouldn't quite call it satire... it pretends to be a how-to guide but in the end tries to subvert the most common mistakes of tyrants -- namely, being so tyrannical that his vassals and people rebel.
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Old 09-08-2017, 12:02 AM   #440
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Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

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What about having a divergence earlier, say Italy gaining the Dalmatian coast, a larger chunk of Austria, and maybe a couple of the German colonies in Africa after WWI.... I also don't know if this parallel has any fewer holes than what has been suggested so far, but it does keep the alien space bats away.
A very intriguing approach. The biggest hole I see is that the NAZIs were inspired by Italian fascists... Maybe they did arise and wrote some books, but never got to power. Since the war is so very short, maybe Europe as a whole never funnels investment through the USA, so the US remains isolationist and inward-focused.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jasonft View Post
How about someone learns to summon the ghosts of Julius Caesar and Augustus back from the great Beyond. They start giving Mussolini advice on (respectively) how to win wars and fix economies. Depending on when this started and how it developed, Italy might well be the power to beat in Europe when the war finally starts.

The Nazis, of course, get wind of this and this sparks their own mad hunts for Relics and occult lore. Unfortunately for them whoever is feeding the Italians advice is a lot better at this stuff than the Germans and manages to trick the Nazis into one or more massive blunders just before the Italians stab up from the south.

Eventually the secrets to this sort of occult activity get out and every government has covert operatives developing their own tools. You end up with the cold war being fought not openly, but rather covertly using magic.

The general public has no idea what is actually going on in the shadows and there would be religious uprisings if they did...

[[specifics of who/ what/ how the Italians have a hidden Weird advantage vary to GM taste. On the surface at least the effects are the same.]]
I'd say have the anchient figures be public. Use them to rally the populous to the might of the Roman Empire and terrify Homeline into thinking they might have access to the Secret in some form or another.
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