Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

[WolfBear]

Also, FWIW, China nowadays isn't exactly lacking in culture:

Mad about museums | The Economist

archived 6 Dec 2022 23:29:42 UTC

archive.ph

China says it will be a “museum power” by 2035 | The Economist

archived 6 Dec 2022 23:31:59 UTC

archive.ph

 

[WolfBear]

Let's explore another bit of AU: What would a world with a real life Wakanda, an African collection of tribes getting their hands on Vibranium, look like?

Given that they sat on their hands for hundreds of years while Africa got fucked over by Europe, they'd be hated by the entire continent.

Would Wakandans really car about what Sub-Saharan Africans think of them when Sub-Saharan Africans can't build and maintain advanced civilizations like Wakandans can?

 

[Zyobot]

Also, FWIW, China nowadays isn't exactly lacking in culture:

Mad about museums | The Economist

archived 6 Dec 2022 23:29:42 UTC

archive.ph

China says it will be a “museum power” by 2035 | The Economist

archived 6 Dec 2022 23:31:59 UTC

archive.ph

Looks interesting, though I don't think it's appropriate to shoehorn current events into this space.

—

Anyway: 'Mercantile Rome, Militant Carthage'.

That is, Rome is founded as a merchant republic mainly concerned with profitable trade and commerce, while Carthage is highly militaristic and conquest-driven when it comes to dealing with foreign powers — thereby swapping the OTL "niches" of the two great rivals of the Med.

 

[WolfBear]

Looks interesting, though I don't think it's appropriate to shoehorn current events into this space.

—

Anyway: 'Mercantile Rome, Militant Carthage'.

That is, Rome is founded as a merchant republic mainly concerned with profitable trade and commerce, while Carthage is more militaristic and conquest-driven when it comes to dealing with foreign powers — thereby swapping the OTL "niches" of the two great rivals of the Med.

Just have Italians go wimpy a couple of millenniums earlier LOL! Italians in the World Wars, especially in WWII, have shown themselves to be rather wimpy, after all. There's even a joke about it in the anime Hetalia:

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome (ローマ帝国, Rōma Teikoku), also known as Grandpa Rome, Roma Antiqua, and Roman Empire, is a character in the series Hetalia: Axis Powers. He is the grandfather to both North Italy and South Italy. In his first appearance in the Chibitalia strips in the webcomic (later reprinted in...

hetalia.fandom.com

 

[Zyobot]

Just have Italians go wimpy a couple of millenniums earlier LOL! Italians in the World Wars, especially in WWII, have shown themselves to be rather wimpy, after all. There's even a joke about it in the anime Hetalia:

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome (ローマ帝国, Rōma Teikoku), also known as Grandpa Rome, Roma Antiqua, and Roman Empire, is a character in the series Hetalia: Axis Powers. He is the grandfather to both North Italy and South Italy. In his first appearance in the Chibitalia strips in the webcomic (later reprinted in...

hetalia.fandom.com

Probably not appropriate to shoehorn non-AH jokes here, either.

Just saying.

 

[WolfBear]

Probably not appropriate to shoehorn non-AH jokes here, either.

Just saying.

Fair enough. Anyway:

'AHC: A Russian Anatolia'

 

[WolfBear]

Fair enough. Anyway:

'AHC: A Russian Anatolia'

From a Russian perspective, was it possible to ever get a better Sykes-Picot deal where the territory in the Anatolian interior that's marked in gray/very dark blue/black here would also be assigned to Russia?

https://www.deviantart.com/mattiafromesperia/art/Map-of-the-Sykes-Picot-Agreement-880922399

 

[Atarlost]

Dunno if Japanese rule would be too much better, exactly. Sure, they never drafted a Final Solution equivalent for the entire Asia-Pacific, but being less genocidally ambitious than the Nazis is a pretty easy bar to clear and doesn't offer much promise for period of sane, enlightened rule under Japanese occupation.

Yeah, but the alternative isn't sane, enlightened rule. It's Mao. Even the putative "Japanese Hitler" might have trouble out-doing Mao simply because he wouldn't be able to mobilize the Chinese against themselves and Japan's manpower is much more limited.

My expectation would be that by the late 20th century Japanese militarism would recede. If I had to throw a number at the wall I'd say about as long as it took the USSR to collapse. Occupying China is going to take enough manpower to cause war fatigue even if they aren't shooting and being shot at. Eventually they're going to start using Chinese police and administrators and their government of China is going to wind up about as Japanese as the late Yuan dynasty was Mongolian.

 

[Zyobot]

Yeah, but the alternative isn't sane, enlightened rule. It's Mao. Even the putative "Japanese Hitler" might have trouble out-doing Mao simply because he wouldn't be able to mobilize the Chinese against themselves and Japan's manpower is much more limited.

My expectation would be that by the late 20th century Japanese militarism would recede. If I had to throw a number at the wall I'd say about as long as it took the USSR to collapse. Occupying China is going to take enough manpower to cause war fatigue even if they aren't shooting and being shot at. Eventually they're going to start using Chinese police and administrators and their government of China is going to wind up about as Japanese as the late Yuan dynasty was Mongolian.

I already alluded to Mao and the CCP potentially being worse for China than Imperial Japan, yes.

Quoting myself again:

On the other hand... the fact we're comparing CCP rule to Imperial Japan is still a damning indictment of the former's track record. For one, if you have a regime that kills more of its own people and inflicts more long-term structural damage on its own nation than freakin' Imperial Japan did, it's safe to say your regime is pretty goddamned shit.

 

[WolfBear]

Yeah, but the alternative isn't sane, enlightened rule. It's Mao. Even the putative "Japanese Hitler" might have trouble out-doing Mao simply because he wouldn't be able to mobilize the Chinese against themselves and Japan's manpower is much more limited.

My expectation would be that by the late 20th century Japanese militarism would recede. If I had to throw a number at the wall I'd say about as long as it took the USSR to collapse. Occupying China is going to take enough manpower to cause war fatigue even if they aren't shooting and being shot at. Eventually they're going to start using Chinese police and administrators and their government of China is going to wind up about as Japanese as the late Yuan dynasty was Mongolian.

If anything, China/Chinese might even use its/their numerical advantage to dominate the entire Japanese Empire in the long(er)-run in this TL, not just China itself! That would be a real China-wank TL lol!

 

[WolfBear]

If anything, China/Chinese might even use its/their numerical advantage to dominate the entire Japanese Empire in the long(er)-run in this TL, not just China itself! That would be a real China-wank TL lol!

So, basically, the Japanese Empire would eventually become just a Greater China lol, similar to how the Eurasian Union was meant to be a Greater Russia. (And indeed how the Soviet Union actually was a Greater Russia in real life.)

'WI: No Bolshevik-Menshevik split'

@TheRomanSlayer

 

[Zyobot]

Based on this AH.com thread: '1980s People React To YouTube'.

That is, YouTube becomes available on downtimers' TV sets, which they can then navigate using the joystick-like controls and QWERTY keyboards the ROB's plugged in for them.

 

[TheRomanSlayer]

The RSDLP remains a large, but internally divided party.

I'm not sure how the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks ended up splitting, considering that they both had similar aims of bringing a socialist like government in Russia in the first place.

 

[WolfBear]

Based on this AH.com thread: '1980s People React To YouTube'.

That is, YouTube becomes available on downtimers' TV sets, which they can then navigate using the joystick-like controls and QWERTY keyboards the ROB's plugged in for them.

They'd probably find the same-sex marriage and kissing scenes repulsive, unfortunately. Or at least a lot of them.

The RSDLP remains a large, but internally divided party.

I'm not sure how the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks ended up splitting, considering that they both had similar aims of bringing a socialist like government in Russia in the first place.

Maybe the Bolsheviks were much more totalitarian?

 

[Zyobot]

They'd probably find the same-sex marriage and kissing scenes repulsive, unfortunately. Or at least a lot of them.

*Eyes all the Pride Month ads suspiciously.*

Honestly, you're probably not wrong, though something tells me they'd take transgender stuff or drag-queen story hour even less well and put a preemptive stop to them. Reagan would make a point about snuffing them out, I think, whether on the campaign trail (if it happens in 1980) or as president (1981 onwards).

Granted, I'm equally sure Carter and other socially conservative Democrats would hate those, too, and have the DNC clamp down on the more "libertine" wing that went to Woodstock and backed McGovern '72 real fast.

 

[WolfBear]

*Eyes all the Pride Month ads suspiciously.*

Honestly, you're probably not wrong, though something tells me they'd take transgender stuff or drag-queen story hour even less well and put a preemptive stop to them. Reagan would make a point about snuffing them out, I think, whether on the campaign trail (if it happens in 1980) or as president (1981 onwards).

Granted, I'm equally sure Carter and other socially conservative Democrats would hate those, too, and have the DNC clamp down on the more "libertine" wing that went to Woodstock and backed McGovern '72 real fast.

Agreed. Though I wonder how'd they react to trans lesbians since they could already get around same-sex marriage ban prohibitions back then by refusing to change their legal sex and thus having their marriages be formally be between a man and a woman if they married a cisgender woman.

 

[Zyobot]

Agreed. Though I wonder how'd they react to trans lesbians since they could already get around same-sex marriage ban prohibitions back then by refusing to change their legal sex and thus having their marriages be formally be between a man and a woman if they married a cisgender woman.

Lawmakers would find time in their busy schedules to close those loopholes — just a hunch.

But anyway, any more thoughts besides uproar over gender and sexual issues? Because honestly, out of all the ramifications YouTube in the Eighties would have... surely, Pride Parades and transgenderism aren't the be-all, end-all or worth solely fixating on here.

 

[WolfBear]

Lawmakers would find time in their busy schedules to close those loopholes — just a hunch.

But anyway, any more thoughts besides uproar over gender and sexual issues? Because honestly, out of all the ramifications YouTube in the Eighties would have... surely, Pride Parades and transgenderism aren't the be-all, end-all or worth solely fixating on here.

The Jackass could presumably become much popular earlier?

 

[ATP]

Dunno if Japanese rule would be too much better, exactly. Sure, they never drafted a Final Solution equivalent for the entire Asia-Pacific, but being less genocidally ambitious than the Nazis is a pretty easy bar to clear and doesn't offer much promise for period of sane, enlightened rule under Japanese occupation.

On the other hand... the fact we're comparing CCP rule to Imperial Japan is still a damning indictment of the former's track record. For one, if you have a regime that kills more of its own people and inflicts more long-term structural damage on its own nation than freakin' Imperial Japan did, it's safe to say your regime is pretty goddamned shit.

It would be better,becouse japaneese never tried to destroy chineese society.Mao kill it when he first destroyed their culture/Japan could stole part of it,but not destroy all/ and later made sons kill their own fathers in the name of revolution.
Sometimes even eat them later.
China was made on cult of ancestors - killing your own father is something which made you not-chineese.
Japan could kill the same number,but not turn survivors into mosnters.

 

[Zyobot]

The Jackass could presumably become much popular earlier?

I was thinking reactions to how big computers became, the breakup of the USSR, and that we had a black and orange president back to back. You know, things that’d be hard for a general audience to miss within an hour or two of browsing.