Shitty Alternate History Thread - If only the Romans had AK-47's they would've survived...

[JJLiautaud]

Carrying on the reincarnation concept-the idea would be to examine human degeneration as a concept, and a meditation on the impermanency and fundamental weakness of human life. Its stupidity, selfishness, and cruelty. In an ever escalade of damnation through devolution.

With every reincarnation and post post apocalypse civilization collapsing (into a post post post post apocalypse and so on)-resources get scarcer, technology devolves, and man becomes more like an ape, a beast clinging to the drop of water in his hands and the morsel of food in his mouth.

The story would end with humanity having been reduced to a near paleolithic existence (perhaps with some neolithic settlements) slaughtering each other to the last, and the protagonist would gaze into an indifferent wind, and close his eyes and die, never to be reincarnated again.

I would call it, "We all fall down".

Hesoid is that you?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man

But in all seriousness thats a neat story idea and you should write it.

 

[Randall Fragg]

Carrying on the reincarnation concept-the idea would be to examine human degeneration as a concept, and a meditation on the impermanency and fundamental weakness of human life. Its stupidity, selfishness, and cruelty. In an ever escalade of damnation through devolution.

With every reincarnation and post post apocalypse civilization collapsing (into a post post post post apocalypse and so on)-resources get scarcer, technology devolves, and man becomes more like an ape, a beast clinging to the drop of water in his hands and the morsel of food in his mouth.

The story would end with humanity having been reduced to a near paleolithic existence (perhaps with some neolithic settlements) slaughtering each other to the last, and the protagonist would gaze into an indifferent wind, and close his eyes and die, never to be reincarnated again.

I would call it, "We all fall down".

That sounds like farthuffing nihilistic garbage to be quite honest. Just write a book about prisoners killing each other with rusty meathooks while interspersing each page with screeds about “THIS IS YOU THIS IS HUMANITY YOU ARE WORTHLESS STUPID SHIT FEEL BAD AND HATE YOURSELF!”

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Something different I saw this while browsing FAN

What if things worked out well for Mass Transit? Like say he behaved, or he did what he was told and the beat down wasn’t as brutal or he takes the beating like a man and doesn’t sue or complain, he just shakes their hands backstage how would things go? One scenario; they’d reprimand him for lying about his age, their PPV doesn’t get canceled, maybe they would black list him or send him to more training and tell him to call them in a year or something. Maybe ECW allowing him to get trained and come back as a regular roster member. Since it's Paul Heyman, Heyman could have had told the family/kid that if they didn't sue they would give him a roster spot once 18 and maybe the kid/family accepts. They probably would have rather wanted a spot over the money, some fans are so die hard especily during that era. However this was 1998, sooooo this when Vince Russo gets talent from ECW to WWE, he probably sees Mass Transit and recruits him and makes him a raunchier Jackie Gleason and have him feud with Beaver Cleavage, in a morbid battle of 50s sitcom characters. Bro.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

I actually kind of enjoyed that Green Antarctica timeline on the OP for how trashy and at the same time high quality and imaginative it was. It is a shame they went with such a 2edgy4u thing making the polar abos into such a edge fest as it could have been much better if it had gone into a more serious route.

In the subject of bad Alternate History though I think it is somewhat insane this thread hasn't touched on the absolute gem that is A Golden Island To The West. It is a ISOT story like 1632 of a modern day place sent back in time but... It is hard to quite explain how bad and how much of a absolute barrel of laughs it is because when you hear the premise you might think it is a joke and there is no way it was made to be played completely straight.

It is 2018 California sent back to 1850. This began writing in 2016, and the background is that California has just voted for "CalExit" the Union in response to the "continued disaster of the Trump administration". Yes that really is the premise.

Spoiler: Here is the very first section of the very first chapter.

"And in what appears to be a stunning upset, NBC News is calling Proposition 6, the so-called 'CalExit' initiative, as having passed." The newscaster on the bar's TV said, going on the explain the legal details of the proposition and how it would function in the days ahead.

The patrons at this bar weren't paying attention though, they were too busy cheering for what had once been a seemingly impossible prospect, California breaking away from the United States to become it's own nation. Emily in particular had a good laugh with some of her friends after Obama was reelected when groups in Texas started a secession movement that had never gotten farther than a petition on the White House website.

Now though, now after everything that's happened in the past two years? Yeah, maybe California would be better off on our own.

"Can I buy you a drink?" Asked a woman standing behind Emily.

"It's a free country." Emily replied, flagging down a bartender. "Captain and Coke please."

"Really? It hasn't seemed like it." Said the woman.

"Well, it is now." She replied. "I'm Emily by the way."

"Lena." The other girl said as she looked down at Emily's 'I voted' sticker. "So did you vote for this?" Lena asked, waving her hand over towards the TVs that were now showing a graphical map of the election results.

"I did. Didn't think it'd win though." Emily said.

"Isn't that what the people in Britain said after Brexit?" Lena asked rhetorically.

"Yeah yeah rub it in my face." Groaned Emily.

"You want to hit the dance floor?" Asked Lena.

"New heels." Emily winced. "Still, I should break them in some-"

Just as Emily was getting up from her bar stool, all the lights in the club went black, the music stopped and the place was deathly calm.

"Everybody stay calm!" Shouted the bartender over the stunned silence. "It's just a power outage!"

As if on cue, the emergency exit lights came on, and everybody started walking out of the club.

"Ugh, there is no way I can drive right now." Said Lena, walking out of the bar with Emily. "You wanna take a Lyft over to my place?"

Emily nodded, and Lena pulled out her phone.

"Come on...." Lena grumbled to herself, waiting for the app on her phone to work. "Ugh. Guess Lyft isn't working since it can't seem to find where I am. Let me try Uber."

"No that's not working either, I got the same problem." Said a guy next to them.

"My place is like walking distance from her, you wanna crash there?" Offered Emily.

"Sure, why not." Replied Lena.

It has all the sort of amazing shit you would throw out as a joke about such a scenario played straight: California pushing for modern progressive values in the downtime US by trying to force the slavery issue first, deciding they don't care actually and building their OWN country instead with gay sex and trannies and shit, evil racist r/the_donald posters making a r/the_jefferson to try and make the south win the civil war, uptime USA totally lost and confused and left a broken 3rd world nation without glorious California, and more.

I was unable to get past the mention of the r/the_jefferson when I first read it way back in 2016 on AH.com, it simply did not come off as in any way plausible and it was clear to me it was a desperate CaliWank. Looking now the author apparently is the type to fit that precious golden point where they are too autisticly stupid to realize how retarded their shit is but also competent enough to commit their atrocity against common sense to words instead of idle fancy.

It is simply put on the same level of retarded wehraboo fanfics about how ZE WUNDERWAFFLE would have won ww2 if Hitler had just not taken 3 extra minutes to take a piss in January 1940 send later given Rommel Panthers with snorkels to drive through the English Channel that is totally factual and based on REAL research and facts!

And of course it is all played absolutely straight and posters just swallowed it all. I suspect pretty much anyone who would point out who retarded the thing is either got banned or avoided mentioning their grievances and politely left due to fear of being banned.

TvTropes link (of course) where you can find the OG AH.com thread and the repost on SufficientVelocity that is open to non-members to gaze at it's glory.

 

[woowie queen]

The only alt-pop culture timeline I remember is the one where Chris-chan shot up his school on valentines day and got tons of true-crime groupies to get Sonichu tattoos to show their love for him

sorry for the late quote, but i did remember which one timeline is this, is player two start. pretty autistic timeline, honestly, since it had two (!) sequels too.

 

[DoongDiing4545]

just reread the chris-chan school shooter part and the number of autists coming out and crying about how hard growing up would be for them is immensely funny and not surprising

 

[Briananderson1138]

I'll just attach this here, with the caveat that I have not actually read it. Its concerns an alternate timeline wherein an unrealistically successful Communist revolution occurs in America subsequent to World War I. This inevitably results in an America that is ridiculously socially liberal, to the point where it conforms almost perfectly to the scheme of society considered desirous by the typical alternatehistory.com user. Exhibit "A", from the TV Tropes Page:
'One of the consequences of the American Cultural Revolution in the mid-thirties is the liberalization of sexual mores. However, it's not entirely clear exactly how much sex constitutes "lots of sex" in this case; an in-universe discussion commenter castigates the in-universe version of Public Enemies for depicting so many threesomes, saying he can see "that sort of thing happening in the fifties, but not the thirties." The liberalization of sexual mores is not entirely without controversy; indeed, the opposition Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in this time gains a fair amount of converts by shifting radically to the left economically but to the right on moral values. A Second Cultural Revolution spanning from the late '50s through the 1970s (not yet written, but planned for future updates) results in even further liberalization of sexual mores.'
"Exhibit "B":
'Emma Goldman, aka Red Emma, is a powerful figure in the Revolutionary government. This causes much debate in the Anarchist Movement. Anarcho-syndicalism in particular plays a large part in the organisation that enables the Red May revolution and it has been hinted that Chicago may effectively become an anarchist commune.'

Sperging:
Emma Goldman: making you wonder whether some "Anti-Semitism" and "xenophobia" in your immigration policy might actually be justified.
Emma Goldman: it's a shame some Cossack didn't shank her.

And as for wondering whether this would actually happen in a Communist America; no, it almost certainly wouldn't. Please note that most Communist countries have been very conservative with regard to sex after the original revolutionaries get themselves killed off like the degenerates they are. Also note that Communist governments rightfully hate anarchist degenerate savages to what is frequently an even greater extent than Kiwis, such that it is extremely doubtful whether that Jewess slut would survive for two months after the Communists took charge (Read some George Orwell and see what commies do to anarchist scum once the Revolution comes, and also take a peek at Joe Stalin's social policy).

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

The above is because Lenin was very socially liberal, as were many communists at the time. Lenin gave high positions to many women and legalized homosexuality for instance. It was Stalin who curbed the radical feminism and gayness.

Emma Goldman was a prominent critic of the USSR since the earliest days and is someone who would wind up dead/exiled in a communist revolution. But modern commies/anarkiddies love her so she gets a pass.

 

[JJLiautaud]

All i can say is that if the freikorps did only 1 thing right it was the murder of Rosa Luxemburg.

 

[Hugbox Kommissar]

I'll just attach this here, with the caveat that I have not actually read it. Its concerns an alternate timeline wherein an unrealistically successful Communist revolution occurs in America subsequent to World War I. This inevitably results in an America that is ridiculously socially liberal, to the point where it conforms almost perfectly to the scheme of society considered desirous by the typical alternatehistory.com user. Exhibit "A", from the TV Tropes Page:



'One of the consequences of the American Cultural Revolution in the mid-thirties is the liberalization of sexual mores. However, it's not entirely clear exactly how much sex constitutes "lots of sex" in this case; an in-universe discussion commenter castigates the in-universe version of Public Enemies for depicting so many threesomes, saying he can see "that sort of thing happening in the fifties, but not the thirties." The liberalization of sexual mores is not entirely without controversy; indeed, the opposition Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in this time gains a fair amount of converts by shifting radically to the left economically but to the right on moral values. A Second Cultural Revolution spanning from the late '50s through the 1970s (not yet written, but planned for future updates) results in even further liberalization of sexual mores.'



"Exhibit "B":



'Emma Goldman, aka Red Emma, is a powerful figure in the Revolutionary government. This causes much debate in the Anarchist Movement. Anarcho-syndicalism in particular plays a large part in the organisation that enables the Red May revolution and it has been hinted that Chicago may effectively become an anarchist commune.'







Sperging:



Emma Goldman: making you wonder whether some "Anti-Semitism" and "xenophobia" in your immigration policy might actually be justified.



Emma Goldman: it's a shame some Cossack didn't shank her.







And as for wondering whether this would actually happen in a Communist America; no, it almost certainly wouldn't. Please note that most Communist countries have been very conservative with regard to sex after the original revolutionaries get themselves killed off like the degenerates they are. Also note that Communist governments rightfully hate anarchist degenerate savages to what is frequently an even greater extent than Kiwis, such that it is extremely doubtful whether that Jewess slut would survive for two months after the Communists took charge (Read some George Orwell and see what commies do to anarchist scum once the Revolution comes, and also take a peek a

Internet law no.5922: 90% of alternate history timelines are masturbatory fantasy.

t Joe Stalin's social policy).

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Yeah it really comes across as a case of "the Author's barely disguised fetish" coming off by shoving a random revolutionary woman without much understanding of social issues or how such things would happen.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Yeah it really comes across as a case of "the Author's barely disguised fetish" coming off by shoving a random revolutionary woman without much understanding of social issues or how such things would happen.

We only became "sexually liberated" because we could effectively decouple sex from reproduction in a trustless way see the birth control pill.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

I remember reading something years ago, what if Alaska went to Japan?

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/japan-buys-alaska.295917/

Would there still be a Pacific War? How bad would the Yellow Peril scare be? Or even in the 1980s?

 

[General Emílio Médici]

We only became "sexually liberated" because we could effectively decouple sex from reproduction in a trustless way see the birth control pill.

Exactly what I mean. I would go even further and speculate it might be a case of the author being such a hardcore commie understanding that may be incompatible with his marxist dialectic understanding of history. Commie really believe in "progress" as some straight arrow path that always leads to socialism. If he understands that birth control is essential for a "sexually liberal society" it may conflict with his own utopian view of "real socialism" because it implies that such liberation is a pure choice of the society and not a clear and ordained by materialist reality natural end point of The March of Progress.

Or he is just horny and wants to be a degenerate without judgement. Could be that as well.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

With regards to American-Asian relations,

1) At one point, due to railroad construction, Montana was majority Chinese. Chinese could have easily, if they hadn't been sent back, been at least as big a presence in the West as Mexicans (or Blacks to the South) if not outright majorities. I mourn the loss of our alternate Shanghai Noon Chinese cowboy history.

2) China actually did have some Anglo-style colonies in Borneo, the Lanfang Republic and other kongxi republics, which as I understand were basically autonomous mining communities perhaps analogous to the sort of informal statelets British frontiersmen established along Appalachia. I think Chinese colonial empire scenarios are kind of silly, but Chinese and other Asians having voluntary movements that set up their own Confucian republics are based AF (this is basically what Divergences for Victoria II has).

3) What if the Americans had conquered Japan, with Commodore Peary playing the role of American conquistador? No, there's no reason at all this would have happened, I just think it's cool. (This is totally possible, too. Robert Clive was basically a British equivalent of a conquistador, striding into the advanced Mughal Empire and gutting it. Tokugawa Japan may not have been unstable, but it was a lot more backwards than the Mughals were.) Direct samurai/Western fusion.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

3) What if the Americans had conquered Japan, with Commodore Peary playing the role of American conquistador? No, there's no reason at all this would have happened, I just think it's cool. (This is totally possible, too. Robert Clive was basically a British equivalent of a conquistador, striding into the advanced Mughal Empire and gutting it. Tokugawa Japan may not have been unstable, but it was a lot more backwards than the Mughals were.) Direct samurai/Western fusion.

Does that mean the US conquers Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria in the process? Or war with both China and Russia over that territory?

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Does that mean the US conquers Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria in the process? Or war with both China and Russia over that territory?

I haven’t thought it out that far, I imagine Confederate samurai and then cummed so hard I blacked out.

 

[Brahma]

Not a shitty alt history but thought I'd throw it in here since people were talking about turtledove etc.

I loved the shit out of Years of Rice & Salt, premise being the black death wipes out Europe and how the rest of the world developed. Kim Stanley Robinson usually writes near futurism/hard sci-fi so it's pretty reasonable, no wakanda etc. Bit of spiritual mumbo jumbo, reincarnation is a theme but it spans 600 odd years in a series of linked narratives. Hard to start of with because he mimics epic poetry for the first chapter but don't let that put you off

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Not a shitty alt history but thought I'd throw it in here since people were talking about turtledove etc.

I loved the shit out of Years of Rice & Salt, premise being the black death wipes out Europe and how the rest of the world developed. Kim Stanley Robinson usually writes near futurism/hard sci-fi so it's pretty reasonable, no wakanda etc. Bit of spiritual mumbo jumbo, reincarnation is a theme but it spans 600 odd years in a series of linked narratives. Hard to start of with because he mimics epic poetry for the first chapter but don't let that put you off

Don’t know about it’s literary quality but the premise doesn’t make sense to me because Black Death wrecked the Middle East and China even harder than europe. Some parts of China were 90% fatality

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

2) China actually did have some Anglo-style colonies in Borneo, the Lanfang Republic and other kongxi republics, which as I understand were basically autonomous mining communities perhaps analogous to the sort of informal statelets British frontiersmen established along Appalachia. I think Chinese colonial empire scenarios are kind of silly, but Chinese and other Asians having voluntary movements that set up their own Confucian republics are based AF (this is basically what Divergences for Victoria II has).

Those weren't Anglo-style colonies, they were merchant associations which banded together to administrate the Chinese population (who arrived as miners and merchants as permitted by local sultans) and their economic interests in a given area, which since Chinese made up a huge portion of the population in Borneo, was a sizable fraction of the island. Basically a convergent evolution to the concept of a democratic republic.