Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

[Skallagrim]

Please, do go on. I've always been more focused on 19th and 20th Century history, but 16th occasionally grabs my attention for all its possibilities.

I've always been very interested by this particular generation that tends to be vilified and over-shadowed by their sons and grand-sons and whatnot. We always focus on Henry VIII and Charles V and the Protestant Reformation getting kicked off, and sure, that's all fascinating. But let's go back a bit, and we have Richard III -- possibly the most 'modern' monarch of his day -- and we have Pope Alexander VII -- vilified by his opponents, but actually a capable reformer, whose proposals could have helped prevent the Reformation -- and we have Maximilian I -- who was both the "last knight" of old Europe and the first Emperor to being truly modern reforms. In addition, the age of exploration is about to kick off, but the deck hasn't been shuffled yet.

It's a given that if Richard III wins and survives, he's going to act against France (which harboured his enemies and will continue to be a threat). Battle-hardened and experienced, he has an excellent shot at coming out the winner in that pursuit. Maximilian I has every reason to support Richard, and their victory will result in him getting to marry Anne of Brittany (whereas in OTL, Charles VIII forced that to be annulled so he could marry Anne himself). These factors alone will produce major ramifications, but we're hardly done. Richard himself was set to be married to Joanna of Portugal, which would strengthen ties between Portugal and England. This offers fascinating perspectives for an Anglo-Portuguese alliance to rival Spain in the New World, at a time when France has been recently humbled in war.

The maps are going to look very different, I tell you.

 

[Doomsought]

If you want a huge divergence in Russia, drop volcanic region in central Russia with lots of hotsprings. This would provide an oasis to the frost that covers most of the nation and a nucleation point for cities to form around.

 

[Skallagrim]

If you want a huge divergence in Russia, drop volcanic region in central Russia with lots of hotsprings. This would provide an oasis to the frost that covers most of the nation and a nucleation point for cities to form around.

All the Permian life-forms that died out in the most severe extinction event in the geologic record would like you to know that your suggestion is not appreciated.

 

[History Learner]

I've always been very interested by this particular generation that tends to be vilified and over-shadowed by their sons and grand-sons and whatnot. We always focus on Henry VIII and Charles V and the Protestant Reformation getting kicked off, and sure, that's all fascinating. But let's go back a bit, and we have Richard III -- possibly the most 'modern' monarch of his day -- and we have Pope Alexander VII -- vilified by his opponents, but actually a capable reformer, whose proposals could have helped prevent the Reformation -- and we have Maximilian I -- who was both the "last knight" of old Europe and the first Emperor to being truly modern reforms. In addition, the age of exploration is about to kick off, but the deck hasn't been shuffled yet.

It's a given that if Richard III wins and survives, he's going to act against France (which harboured his enemies and will continue to be a threat). Battle-hardened and experienced, he has an excellent shot at coming out the winner in that pursuit. Maximilian I has every reason to support Richard, and their victory will result in him getting to marry Anne of Brittany (whereas in OTL, Charles VIII forced that to be annulled so he could marry Anne himself). These factors alone will produce major ramifications, but we're hardly done. Richard himself was set to be married to Joanna of Portugal, which would strengthen ties between Portugal and England. This offers fascinating perspectives for an Anglo-Portuguese alliance to rival Spain in the New World, at a time when France has been recently humbled in war.

The maps are going to look very different, I tell you.

Please, continue. This is fascinating in its own respect; my fascination with playing around with Henry VIII's fate has to do with keeping the world much closer to recognizable, but it seems like here you're going for something fundamentally much different.

 

[WolfBear]

Of course, the sure-fire way to avoid Henry VIII and his bullshit is to get rid of the Tudors altogether. Which is best achieved by way of my all-time favourite English monarch. Yes, that's right, Richard III. Have the Battle of Bosworth Field end the other way, and we're all set.

Was Richard III really as bad as he was portrayed by history, other than of course murdering his nephew?

 

[Skallagrim]

Please, continue. This is fascinating in its own respect; my fascination with playing around with Henry VIII's fate has to do with keeping the world much closer to recognizable, but it seems like here you're going for something fundamentally much different.

Well, where to take this depends a lot on what you want. The whole idea is that there is this whole highly influential generation/period that's often overlooked, and changing things there would leave the field wide open.

In the context of my "Better Worlds?" idea (which I jost now mentioned to @Zyobot), I'd go a bit further back still, and have a slow-burn POD in Georgios Gemisthos Plethon dying early. This leaves Scholarios (an ardent Aristotelian) as the main Byzantine representative at the Council of Florence. I then project this leading to a neo-Thomist movement within the Church, utterly negating the OTL Platonist influences that would also shape a lot of the Reformation.

Since the Thomists favoured reforms, this can realistically lead to an earlier movement to get the Church in order. Counter-intuitively, I see Rodrigo Borgia as a potential Pope who could take up that mission. For all his personal faults, he was an ardent reformer who really tried to clean house.

Richard III was a patron of the Church and of universities, so slowly-building changes in the Church over several decades could easily affect his circle of associates. This can plausibly be used as an excuse for butterflies that give him a few more allies, culminating in his victory. And then we can take it from there, as outlined above.

Ideally, I'd go with the set-up that was used in a TL on AH.com, A Richard For All Seasons. This was sadly abandoned when one of the authors was suddenly banned for disagreeing with a mod (my, how familiar!), but the idea was that Richard ends up killing Charles VIII in battle, and forging alliances with the HRE, Burgundy, Brittany and Portugal, while France descends into civil war between two rival claimants to the throne.

Anyway, this would produce about a million things I like, including:

-- Less Platonism, more Aristotelianism
-- No Reformation, Church actually reforms itself and does it early
-- Burgundy-wank
-- Borgias thriving
-- Richard III ushering in an English golden age / age of exploration

Was Richard III really as bad as he was portrayed by history, other than of course murdering his nephew?

If you mean the Princes in the Tower, I'm not convinced he even did that. It's not that he didn't have motive, it's that the timing for it is really weird. From where I'm standing, it's just as plausible that they were quietly offed at Tudor's behest, to remove that potential obstacle / rival claim. And then Richard, who was dead, got the blame.

I'm not saying that's how it happened, just that it's also a perfectly sensible explanation.

In any event, Richard III was by all accounts a capable administrator, a defender of commerce and academia, a talented monarch, a valiant warrior, and an honourable man (who, when we get down to it, was actually more inclined to forgive his enemies than many of his contemporaries were).

 

[TheRejectionist]

https://www.the-sietch.com/index.ph...title-more-to-come-when-i-am-not-sleepy.7158/

my first ah here !

 

[Zyobot]

https://www.the-sietch.com/index.ph...title-more-to-come-when-i-am-not-sleepy.7158/

my first ah here !

Congratulations.

'No Age Of Western Dominance'.

 

[Skallagrim]

'No Age Of Western Dominance'.

Without going too far back, I think you need to avoid Scholasticism and instead have Europe go in the opposite direction. In a recent thread, I wrote a bit about how the Christian world-view changed after the millennium turned out not to be literal, and Christ didn't return after a thousand years. The Crusades, I believe, were at least partially a result of this:

My working theory for this is that the Crusades were the consequence of the millennium not turning out to be literal.

Okay, I admit that sounds weird. Let me explain. For the first thousand years of its existence, Christianity was rather strongly influenced by Platonism. One consequence of this is a great emphasis on the "higher", non-physial world (in Christian terms, "the world to come"), over the mortal, physical reality, whose importance is down-played. And one way this manifested was in the near-universal belief that the millennium was literally going to be thousand years. Whereafter the Kingdom of God would come about.

You may recall the world not ending around the year 1000. This came as a surprise to many people in Christendom. That sounds like a joke line from Monty Python, but I'm serious. People were expecting the end to come, and to come relatively soon. And it didn't come. This whole sequence of events -- anticipation and let-down alike -- resulted in considerable agitation, mania, extremism, and all such things.

One possible notion here was that the Kingdom had not arrived unto the world because man was unworthy. Well. For one thing, many powerful Europeans held this to be at least plausible. For another, such sentiments can quickly turn into fanatical masses agitating against the "corrupt nobles" (Christianity having a pretty radical streak from the get-go, after all).

Which meant that taking the matter seriously was wise, both on religious and on socio-political grounds. The Crusades became the anwer to this conundrum. What better way to cleanse the world of sin than liberating the Holy Land? What better way to cleanse oneself of sin than participating in that mission? And what better way to externalise all that millenarian frustration, agitation and mania that was alive within Christendom... than to deliberately turn it outward, against the heathen foe?

It worked. And one Crusade was actually enough to get the job done. The rest were really just after-births.

We may note that after the Crusades had well and truly launched, Christianity almost at once ceased its mainstream belief in literal millenialism, and began to treat "the thousand years" as a metaphorical concept. Platonism became less important, and Aristotle made a big come-back. The singular attention for the "world to come" was somewhat lessened, and it became accepted that we may know God by coming to know His creation. So attention for the physical world became more important.

This culminated in the advent of scholasticism.

It should be noted that even Thomas Aquinas was persecuted by his enemies. Had they won, the future of Europe and all Christendom would have been decidely bleak. We must consider that in the Islamic world, things did go the other way. The philosophers who (adopting classical philosophy) held the world to be rational -- and regulated by constant laws and certainties -- were ultimately persecuted, and the Ash'arite got their way. That is: it became a fundamental tenet of Islamic thought that Allah cannot be understood, and the will of Allah can at any time alter anything at all about the universe. That is: if Allah decides today that rocks will fall upward, this will happen. Conversely, Western Christianity holds -- per the Scholastics -- that God cannot go against His nature, which means that it is impossible for God to do absurd things, because that would be in contradiction of His nature.

You can presumbly see the difference here. In the West, understanding the world became a way to come closer to understanding God. Immutable laws were understood to exist, and could be discovered. Creation was held to be fundamentally welcoming to inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge, and logic was held to be a (literally) God-given instrument to achieve this.

In Islam (particularly Sunni Islam, but since this was overwhelmingly dominant at the time, the doctrines spread out), undersanding either Allah or Creation became held to be both impossible and undesirable (because this was vanity, and an attempt to usurp Allah's position). There were no immutable laws, only the will of Allah, which humans cannot ever grasp. Creation was therefor held to be fundamentally hostile to inquiry, and the pursuit of submission (to the will of Allah) was preferred. Faith, not logic, should dominate the mind and the culture of mankind.

Note that Muslims express their world-view with the phrase "inshallah" which means "if God wills it". Do not mistake that to be metaphorical. It is a literal and very succinct expression of Islamic metaphysics. Now observe that during the Crusades (before the Neo-Aristotelian revolution in Europe), Christianity widely embraced similar conceptions. As expressed in the cognate phrase... "Deus Vult".

I don't think that by the time of Thomas Aquinas, the anti-logos faction (insofar as it could be called a coherent faction) still had a chance to defeat the advent of scholasticism. But as I mentioned, the Crusades played a key role in allowing millenerian anxieties to be vented externally to Christian civilisation itself.

If we may speculate upon a world where the Crusades are prevented somehow, I could see all that anxiety -- and violence -- turning inward, producing enormous fanaticism and fervour, ultimately leading to an ATL Christendom that ends up on the course that Islam turned to in OTL. An anti-logos course. This would produce a Europe utterly incapable of producing the most dynamic and advanced civilisation in all recorded history. Just as the Islamic world was still capable of conquest, Christendom would still have this potential. But like Islam, Chistianity would have become an intellectual dead end. Norway could end up intellectually similar to Afghanistan, for instance.

Another way to perceive such a course of events is to simply look at a complete lunatic monster like Savonarola and his "bonfires". Now imagine all Europe being like that... from the 11th century onward... and forever after.

I would choose Hell over such a fate.

 

[WolfBear]

@Skallagrim Just how knowledgeable are you about Renaissance-era French history? Because I've got an AH question for you about this:

https://www.the-sietch.com/index.php?threads/charles-iii-duke-of-bourbon-becomes-king-of-france-in-1525.7076/

 

[Zyobot]

'ATL Catastrophic Flashpoints'.

Which is to say, potential confrontations or incidents that could've triggered massive (or even apocalyptic) wars, but ultimately didn't. Nuclear catalysts like the Cuban Missile Crisis or 1983 Soviet false-alarm incident are some immediate candidates, but beyond that, what else?

 

[WolfBear]

'ATL Catastrophic Flashpoints'.

Which is to say, potential confrontations or incidents that could've triggered massive (or even apocalyptic) wars, but ultimately didn't. Nuclear catalysts like the Cuban Missile Crisis or 1983 Soviet false-alarm incident are some immediate candidates, but beyond that, what else?

If a US intervention in Syria under a President Hillary Clinton subsequently escalates and goes nuclear? Or maybe if NATO uses military force to defend Ukraine from Russia this year and Russia subsequently responds by nuking NATO countries and/or NATO troops?

 

[Bassoe]

'ATL Catastrophic Flashpoints'.

Which is to say, potential confrontations or incidents that could've triggered massive (or even apocalyptic) wars, but ultimately didn't. Nuclear catalysts like the Cuban Missile Crisis or 1983 Soviet false-alarm incident are some immediate candidates, but beyond that, what else?

The Business Plot in the thirties doesn't try to recruit Smedley Butler and get revealed, so it goes off as planned. Cue Second American Civil War.

 

[Zyobot]

If a US intervention in Syria under a President Hillary Clinton subsequently escalates and goes nuclear? Or maybe if NATO uses military force to defend Ukraine from Russia this year and Russia subsequently responds by nuking NATO countries and/or NATO troops?

I think the latter is a premise for either The War College or Politics and Current Affairs.

The former is interesting, but I'm also interested in more firmly historical events that could've become flashpoints to a massive war much earlier.

 

[WolfBear]

I think the latter is a premise for either The War College or Politics and Current Affairs.

The former is interesting, but I'm also interested in more firmly historical events that could've become flashpoints to a massive war much earlier.

Have the US be taken over by rabid war hawks in the 1945-1955 time period who decide that nuclear war is inevitable and that it's thus best to get it over with while the US still has overwhelming nuclear superiority over the USSR. In other words, similar to Germany's 1914 thinking that war now is better than war later, especially if war might be inevitable in any case.

 

[WolfBear]

If you want a huge divergence in Russia, drop volcanic region in central Russia with lots of hotsprings. This would provide an oasis to the frost that covers most of the nation and a nucleation point for cities to form around.

Are these hot springs going to be good enough for one to go inside of them while only wearing a bikini?

@Zyobot 'AHC: Have France actually win the Franco-Prussian War by successfully conquering Berlin in this war'

 

[WolfBear]

Does anyone here think that Russia's planned territorial gains in the Sykes-Picot(-Sazonov) agreement were too measly and that Russia should have also asked for both a land bridge to Constantinople and sovereignty over the entire Straits and territories surrounding the Sea of Marmara? :

 

[Doomsought]

I look at that map and can only think, "If you are going that far, why aren't you going all the way and taking over all of Europe?"

 

[WolfBear]

I look at that map and can only think, "If you are going that far, why aren't you going all the way and taking over all of Europe?"

'Coz conquering Muslims is more palatable for white Christian Europeans than conquering other white Christians is?

 

[WolfBear]

@Zyobot Are you aware of this plan? :

Greek Plan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Greek Plan of Catherine the Great: in red, the "Neobyzantine Empire" for her grandson Konstantin, in blue the "Kingdom of Dacia" for Grigory Potemkin, in yellow the compensations for the Habsburg Empire and in blue-green those of Venice."

I wonder if the successful implementation of this plan would have caused France to attack and conquer North Africa earlier if it wasn't distracted by revolution, purges, and constant warfare in Europe.