IW What Ifs...?

[DrTemp]

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

One thing I would absolutely avoid are parallels that are political rants.

That is unavoidable. Any AH history is a political rant for someone.

[flyingwombat]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

I believe the most interesting AH's are those which are not oo far away from our own world. Centrum, for example, is actually very alien, because the divergence point is too far away. Reich 5 is alien too, but it looks somewhat familiar, because everybody knows 20th century history.

So I'd propose several 20th century AH's:

-Germany defeated France in 1914 (because the Schlieffen plan worked perfectly, which it could have), Russia in 1916 and made peace with Great Britain later that year. France recovers, but becomes a fascist anti-semitic dictatorship in the process...

Nah... The Schlieffen plan had several flaws:

1. It didn't take in account Britain's and the rest of the world's reaction to the invasion of neutral Belgium. Britain declared War.
2. It underestimated Belgian resolve to stop the invasion -- German troops were delayed, sometimes hours, sometimes days -- but it bought time.
3. It over-estimated the endurance of reserve divisions. They couldn't keep up the pace as well as the regulars.
4. The only reason why it worked as well as it did in history is that the French relied on Plan XVII!

Now if Kaiser Wilhelm II was born perfectly normal -> no deformed right arm, maybe he would've been less of a putz. He might've been a more balanced individual.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

-Georg Elser was successful in assassinating Hitler in 1939. The war against Poland was postponed until the Nazis had completed their struggle for succession. As a consequence, German scientists developed the Atomic Bomb in the summer of 1945, only months after the allied invasion in the Normandy, and nuked London and Moscow using V2 rockets, triggering an immediate armystice. A Cold War followed, which ended with the collapse of Nazi Germany for internal reasons. In the pacific, Japan was not nuked since the Atomic bomb was identified as "a tool of evil regimes" by president Truman.

Very unlikely as it would require the German program to avoid a lot of dead ends it went down in OTL because of the way the Nazi system itself was set up. The Nazi system was internally for the most part a chaotic mess with a lot of rivalry between the various programs going on. That is why there were so many independent (and largely incomparable) projects going on when the war ended.

[Pomphis]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

Well, it is now believed that the Nazi nuclear weapons program was only months from completion.

By whom ? To put it politely, I would check my sources if I were you.

[sir_pudding]

What if the 1803 slave revolt in Haiti never ocurred or was easily quashed? The French troops bound for New Orleans would have made it. Napoleon would have colonized Louisianna rather than sell it to the U.S., leading to a very different 1812.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by flyingwombat

Now if Kaiser Wilhelm II was born perfectly normal -> no deformed right arm, maybe he would've been less of a putz. He might've been a more balanced individual.

Or, if the French hadn't been so rantingly vindictive after WWI, the Versailles Treaty while humbling Germany would not humiliate and cripple it, resulting in a lesser depression and no opportunity for the rise of Hitler.

Without a need to recover from a humiliating Versailles, Germany holds the line against the Soviet Union, and would go the League of Nations for support when Stalin crosses the Wista in the North.
WWII would begin ~1946 the European theatre would have the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe vs Western Europe, with Fascism on both sides, and no clear good guys.

The Asian theatre would have the Soviet Union and Japan splitting China between them. The US would still loose the first battle of Pearl Harbor in late 1947, but its watchstations would warn of the incoming attack, and the the Japanese fleet would pull away victorious, but also bloodied.
With western Europe backing Germany, no US/Canadian help is needed on the Continent, and all of their attention is added to the British Commonwealth's defence of Australia, India and China.

The war drags on until the death of Stalin in 1951 when the Germans nuke Moscow, and the US with their allied German tech nuke Tokyo.
An England not devastated by the Blitz maitains its grip in the Middle East, and becomes an even bigger player in the Far East, splitting China with the US, France retains Indochina.
Germany and France split administrative control over Eastern Europe and former Soviet states to the Urals, with their Scandinavian allies administering Northern European Soviet states from St. Petersburg to Perm.
The US would step into Cuba to prop up the remnants of the Batista dictatorship in 1959, and not leave. Cuba becomes the 51st State in 1976, called Caribbea, capital Havana. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Isles become part of the state of Caribbea.

Bringing to present day a generally pleasant and peaceful world still loosely shielded by the League of Nations, with Imperialistic and Fascist states ruling the world in a Colonialistic fashion, and coldly suppressing socialist movements.
With technology somewhat slowed by the lack of impetus provided by the Cold War.

[jkelly]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

That is unavoidable. Any AH history is a political rant for someone.

What are you saying? Any extrapolation I make from some history-changing event is just common sense, because I have no unexamined political assumptions whatsoever. It's only when other people start theorizing about changes that impact government, economics and religion that they inevitably insert some extraneous political bias into it.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Bringing to present day a generally pleasant and peaceful world still loosely shielded by the League of Nations, with Imperialistic and Fascist states ruling the world in a Colonialistic fashion, and coldly suppressing socialist movements.

That part still needs work.

because you forgeting the western socialisums that start in the 1920s with the Depreastion the result in the us in the New Deal in the 1930s

Without the cold war, the Red Scare would not set back western socialism in the US. (and proble much futher along in the Commoenwealth that it currtly is)

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

That part still needs work.

because you're forgeting the western socialisms that start in the 1920s with the Depression the result in the us in the New Deal in the 1930s

Without a harsh Versailles, the Great Depression isn't as devastating, less socialist influence.

Originally Posted by rogue

Without the cold war, the Red Scare would not set back western socialism in the US. (and probably much futher along in the Commonwealth that it currently is)

Two different paths. *grin*
One gives you Imperial/Fascists that might fall over each other in the early 21st.

The one you suggest probably leads to short term conflict as the more socialistic nations try to undermine the fascist states, short insurrections break out all over the world in the 1960's and carry through to present day. The fascist states push back, and a Cold War propels technological development until the crash of the fascist states due to unregulated capitalism which crash their economies in the 2nd Great Depression of the late 1990's.
The resulting socialist world government which emerges from the League of Nations is technologically on par with anything coming from outworld, and they're looking.

[slocum]

I did a bunch of AE for my All of the Above, the GURPS APA. Here's the link:
http://www.weirdrealm.com/gurps/altearth.html