New Reality Seeds

[PTTG]

The Bigsby series of worldlines are fully acknowledged and as open as any similar worldline might be. It's just how Homeline got their coordinates which is top secret. If asked, the joke is that the coordinates were dropped off by a friendly leprechaun.

What they have in common is the standard WWII alternate scenario, but all of them are very unlike homeline's history.

Bigsby-1 is the most explicable worldline. This was technically an Axis victory. However, the ascendant power in this case was Italy, which has the other two axis powers (among others) as economic appendages. In the present year of 1964, The Soviet Union and Nationalist China are embroiled in a war of mutual annihilation, but fortunately neither side has access to atomic weapons and their collective industrial capacity is _dropping_ every year. The USA never fixed its torpedo problems and generally performed very poorly in the pacific war. The combination of momentum, technology, strategy, and pure luck which drove Italy's forces to take out France early in the war and then dominate the African front while German forces were bogged down in interminable fighting in the east have all faded. Everyone sees the cracks and the flaws, but they look to the starving, eternally-embargoed Britain or the flatly mad death cult that Germany became, and think themselves in the best possible world.

Bigsby-2 at first seemed more reasonable. French diplomacy with Belgium went through a catastrophe in the decades before the war. The alliance fell through, and France extended the Maginot line all the way to the sea. While they were at it, there was substantial improvement to its technology and the organization of defensive troops. The fascists in Germany still believed in French weakness; in this worldline it was fatal overconfidence. Not only was the initial attack repulsed, the sheer affront galvanized the French population to put an end to Germany's warmongering. This would in any other worldline have been absurd, but here, French élan prevailed alone, and the legions stopped only when they reached the Soviet border in Poland. Western Poland was restored, and the iron curtain fell 400 miles due east. Old Germany was split into a grid of regions 150km on an edge and the population forcibly migrated to break up social networks. Nazis were purged; as in OTL, they responded to their impeding defeat with pointless atrocities, and an already furious France faced no outcry.

The shattered Germany had no identity left; the German remnant states were more-or-less openly forced into being economic and political subunits of a wider France, along with German colonial holdings. Following an economic slump in the UK over the following decades, this left France with the majority of the industrialized world in its direct control. Political reform within and without has resulted in a modern 1975 where French is, once again, the Lingua Franca, and Paris is the effective center of a global hegemon. It is only the tense and bitterly cold war against the USSR which makes a question of French domination of the world.

Bigsby-3: By now you know what sort of nonsense you're getting into. Bigsby-3 saw the safe receipt of the Zimmerman telegram. In any sane world, Mexico would have declined the invitation to suicide. However, Bigsby-3 saw a somewhat different (and itself very strange) itebellium period in Mexico, leading to an ambitious and united military staff in Mexico, rather than the midst of a civil war. Though the political leadership declined, a quiet coup in the following days lead to a response telegram accepting the terms and, further, coordinating with Japan.

Mexico's new military government realized its hold was tenuous. They built a careful casus belli, helped by some useful allies in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. This allowed Mexico to build forces on the border while claiming they were to protect against American attack. Skillful handling of the inevitable conflict allowed Mexico to launch a full-scale invasion of the USA not long after Japan began their attack.

The two coordinated, with Mexico proceeding eastward along the gulf while Japan claimed the west coast. Due to (this part of the historical record is damaged) signed the surrender of the USA to Mexico, with the world's longest and most heavily armed border now being drawn along the Sierra Nevada mountains. In Europe, the iron curtain fell along the french border. This left Japan standing to fight the USSR into the ground in China.

A technical win for Mexico, who exited the war dramatically expanded and with a continental fortress. At the present date of 1970, California through to Washington are restless occupied states, while Mexico administers what else is left of the USA. Most of the rest of the planet (except, of course, for South America) is still fighting the insane and chaotic war that somehow lead to Carranza accepting FDR's surrender.

*Disregard 3. I was not in my right mind when I wrote it.

Bigsby-4 Poland won. Classed cosmic top secret. It is hinted that however this happened, it's got something to do with what Van Zandt told the UN.

Bigsby-5 Somehow, the Ottoman Empire exited WWI stronger than they entered it. It is believed the PoD might have even gone back to the late 1700s. Regardless, the Empire moved from strength to strength (known for a time as "the strongman of Europe,") and while the Great War was seen as a loss, it resulted in further revitalization of the Ottoman military and an excuse to clean house of certain radical internal movements.

The war of the '40s was not really like WWII in many respects, but nonetheless had many of the same figures. By the time the dust settled, the Empire bordered the English channel.