Re: New Reality Seeds
 

I know that. I used him as the harbinger of doom.

Try this idea. Many people in the 1795-1807 period thought that Napoleon would destroy Europe like Justinian's attempts to reconquer Italy destroyed the Classical period. Picture a post-apocalyptic 1840 with the British Isles and maybe Portugal as the sole remnants of civilization in Europe. Things to Come moved back thirteen decades or so.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Wow. People in the early long 19th century were really silly. Like, if the Thirty Years War didn't finish Europe off, then I can't imagine how Napoleon would.

You probably need to seriously up the firepower of Napoleonic era armies if you want to have an apocalypse like that happen. Maybe have Lavoisier escape the national razor (perhaps he doesn't get involved in tax farming at all?) and him develop chemical weapons that Napoleon uses to great effect, which in turn are imitated by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Or maybe you could have his work in gunpowder unexpectedly lead to Fuel Air Explosives somehow, if you want to smash up the things of Continental Europe too.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Humans have been capable of apocalyptic genocide of other humans for a while. All that is required is either really heavy use of scorched earth tactics or an intentional drive for genocide.

Neither of which fit 18th century warfare at all. But Napoleon was the beginning of massively mobilized European armies, and I can see why people would find that potentially apocalyptic.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

I only claimed it was something that was discussed in period. Every time period has its own crazy scenarios. Look at 1970s Sci Fi. We in 2024 are supposed to be living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with vast floods of people everywhere, and the air far to polluted to breathe without a mask, and a dozen other horror scenarios besides.

Post-apocalyptic Swashbuckling seems like something new.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

I mean, fair enough, but I'd expect if somebody pulled that off in early 19th century Europe, the group that did that would still be alive. Unless the point is that the British did it, which seems to miss the point.

I mean, I was more reflecting on "Justinian's efforts in Italy destroyed the classical period" as really silly. Like, "Forget the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Gothic invasions, the Huns, changing cultural norms, and the Bubonic plague. It's all Justinian's Fault." That historiography is just dumb and probably has more to do with anti-Byzantinism than actually thinking things through.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Could try combining General Trotsky sweeping into Europe with an extended Spanish Flu for the full apocalyptic effect. Western Europe & Scandinavia would try to hold out, some sort proto-Maginot line from Benelux through to the Alps, but would have to deal with socialists among their own populations, and general war/illness-weary population. Britain & America quitting The Continent could lead to a collapse.

And Spanish Civil War could start early, overthrow of the monarchy leading to not to a Republic but infighting (think Homage To Catalonia infighting). Portugal, Italy, Greece could also suffer - perhaps even the redoubt of Switzerland.


Bonaparte-1 has the Napoleonic Empire collapsing in the 1850s. Whatever came afterwards wouldn't be The Shape of Things To Come, but certainly weak - though Russia was strong on this timeline, likely dominating The Continent.

To take the Napoleonic Wars to apocalyptic destruction, how about throw in its own Spanish Flu a century earlier? Its spread could explain why the likes of Britain & Russia stayed out of the continental wars.


I'm reading Greybeard, and it's set in the post-apocalyptic year of 2029 (with chapters detailing some earlier decades), after a nuclear detonation in space renders humanity infertile.

It was written in 1964 (the forward denounces Children of Men and even the movie) - even has mention of the ruins of an ancient civilization found in Mars (it also has sixties sexism & racism, as much a part of the background as the radiation).

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

I recall a character in Poul Anderson "There Will Be Time" saying that it would have been better if Napoleon's conquest of Europe had stuck, because it could then reform from within without more wars.

I am told that alternate history written in French has lots of alternate Napoleon stuff in the same way that alternate history written in English has lots of US Civil War stuff.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

Well Napoleon is one of the most overwhelming facts in European history. It's also the last period before photography. There are no photographs of Napoleon, Byron, Keats, Shelley, and so many other key figures. Meanwhile Wordsworth, Quincy Addams, and Andrew Jackson, we can see in clear romance shattering detail. And like the ACW, the Napoleonic wars seem to be full of missed possibilities that could radically transform everything.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

When using a pandemic to alter history most people hit on the Spanish Flu. This isn't surprising, erasing WWII, the Nazis, the Soviets and so much of what shaped the 20th century in one fell swoop is dramatic but there was a flu pandemic in 1957-58. The Asian Flu as it was caused killed millions, but mainly in Asia.

Picture the Asian Flu killing more than two orders of magnitude more people. Eight hundred million out of a population of two billion. Let's assume that Asia is hit hardest with Africa getting mauled too.

Japan, China, the Koreas, would all have taken decades to recover. Russia being Eurasian would have been severely disrupted. The Vietnam wars started well before the 1950s ( The Quiet American by Graham Greene was actually a pro French Colonial novel that argued America needed to stay out of Vietnam because they wouldn't have outlawed Buddhism) but American involvement would probably be short circuited. The whole late 1960s derailment of Breton Woods would have been less likely too.

Although Japan wasn't quite as technologically innovative as some people say, Japan brought a great number of technological innovations to market and integrated technology into daily life at impressive speed. So the tech level could be identical but with far less actual use of technology in daily life.

It would be a profoundly altered world even if many changes are subtle.

Re: New Reality Seeds
 

This is a world where quarantines are going to be a very big deal. International travel will be much more difficult and less common. Trade not quite as much, but also greatly less than OTL. I'd expected there will be a sort of closed city adjacent to major ports of entry where people have to stay for a designated period, or until they are cleared.