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

[Brahma]

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

I've never read anything to that effect on China, wasn't it a pretty common Kyrgyz ailment for thousands of years before it was introduced to Europe or something? I'd have thought the Chinese would have had some resilience to it. I know the ME was hit hard, but afaik the first reported cases in Alexandria and then Baghdad were after it had already hit the ground running in Europe.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

I believe it is more of a case that China was so big, and they had a big network of somewhat centralized government and trade, that despite getting fucked they pulled through.

The plague would move slowly, and by the time one city was fucked the last one had recovered enough. The Emperor and the Dynasty would send for aid, and the local governors would deal with it, and so on. Despite these local collapses they would have these sort of "handles" to grab themselves and pick back up.

Meanwhile in Europe shit was far more decentralized, feudalism meant this decentralization was far less robust than the Chinese Confucianist/Imperial system, and they had been dealing with a economic slump caused by oversupply of peasant labor and stagnant nobility. So when the plague hit it triggered a domino effect and they had no way to hold themselves up with those "handles" and instead they just collapsed.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

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.

My comparison was meant in the sense that they were essentially autonomous, bottom-up settlements that founded themselves instead of being planted by the metropole. That's true to an extent of European colonies in general (Spanish conquistadors were like the empire-building version of franchising) but for the English especially they were for all purposes separate countries that only owed a nominal fealty to the British until the crackdowns started that lead to the Revolution.

If you know decent reading materials on the kongxi/Chinese diaspora, though, or the East Indies more generally, I'd be interested in that.

Let’s wank the Habsburg. I think it’s interesting how through personal Union the whole vast Spanish, Portuguese, Austrian, and Holy Roman Empires were all once effectively one big interlocking government. What if the Habsburg got wanked harder so Spanish Armada succeeds, Dutch get wrecked, and basically Catholic universalist monarchy dominates the world.

 

[Ishtar]

A successful Hapsburg Empire is one that crushes Protestantism drives back the Turks and unites most of Europe under itself.

The way this would be done would be...hmm probably preventing or crushing Protestantism early or breaking it sometime during the German wars of religion. Preventing Britain from going Protestant(or re converting it to Catholicism) would be essential, also preventing or neutering the Franco-Ottoman alliance. Assuming the Swedes, English and Dutch are neutralized, as well as uppity German princes-the resources of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns can be devoted to fighting the Ottomans in the Balkans-with a good chance of pushing them back to Greece-if not Constantinople. The Spanish might have a better chance of taking Morocco and Algeria without the Dutch bleeding manpower and money for eighty years.

The Bourbon kings of France are a major obstacle and have to be neutralized either through inheritance and strategic marriages, or subordination to the Hapsburgs. Assuming...that then resources can be devoted towards destroying the Ottomans. Or at least driving them out of Europe-even in an uber wanked Hapsburg 16th century-I don't see the Ottomans losing Constantinople, Thrace,or Greece until maybe later in the 17th century. Spanish and Italian efforts could be made to seize North Africa and Christianizing the population could begin(though islamic populations were historically quite resistant to Christianization). Egypt and the Levant are only possible targets for colonization/conquest if you really screw the Ottomans in the 17th and 18th centuries while wanking the Hapsburgs to the moon, much less Anatolia. It probably could be done-but it would be very taxing-the crusader spirit no longer existed and the region was thoroughly Islamicized by then, but that's assuming a broken/destroyed Ottoman empire so things would look very different. More efforts might be made at conquering Africa and Asia-with no war in the low countries or a hostile France, I could see a lot of ventures, private as well as government backed to conquer China, southeast Asia, as well as the African coasts.

I also doubt even a Catholic England or France not aligned to the Ottomans would just meekly let the Spanish control the New World and the Portuguese control access to the Indies. That said-an uberwanked Hapsburg Empire would have no real challenger in Europe-able to absorb or conquer Poland-Lithuania, and also break Russia(if not Catholicize it), then again maybe not. Muscovy would never bow to Papists and I can't imagine a wanked out Hapsburg empire with interests as far away as China and as close and troublesome as the Balkans would be able to devote resources towards actually Catholicizing Russia(something that would lead to very fierce resistance). Then again if there is no major war in Europe-and the Ottomans have been driven back, then maybe we might see snow drenched Spanish tercios on the Russian steppe.

If you really crush Protestantism and screw the Ottomans I could see a Hapsburg dynasty enduring for a long time-eventually the periphery would grow restless and other European states far from Austria and Madrid would chafe under their rule(direct or indirect). Though if there is no Protestantism, then the formation of national identities may be very different.

Its an interesting scenario though.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

AltHistHub's new video

An Islamic Russia

 

[JJLiautaud]

Let’s wank the Habsburg. I think it’s interesting how through personal Union the whole vast Spanish, Portuguese, Austrian, and Holy Roman Empires were all once effectively one big interlocking government. What if the Habsburg got wanked harder so Spanish Armada succeeds, Dutch get wrecked, and basically Catholic universalist monarchy dominates the world.

My favorite setting Aeolus gurps is first a french wank than a Hapsburg wank, then it goes to shit.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Ok fellas enough about shitty alternate history how about a certified banger? Came across this one from a twitter post.

Preview of the War We Do Not Want

Published on Collier's Weekly on the last issue of October 1951 it details a scenario of a possible WW3 between the USA and UN allies and the USSR and it's satellite states. The issue was a special project started at the beginning of 1951 by associate editor Cornelius Ryan. He gave the project a code-name - Operation Eggnog - and commissioned prominent writers (listed on the cover) to chronicle the war.

Here is the shot that starts the war, once again some foolish thing in the Balkans. Stalin decides he is done with Tito refusing to submit to Moscow and orders him to get the ice pick treatment. It fails, and war is declared between Yugoslavia and the USSR which quickly spirals out of control and turns into WW3.

Both Washington D.C. and Moscow are nuked in the conflict. You might think the destruction looks pretty light but these were early days of nukes, no real H-Bombs yet and even then most people even those who understand military matters would be have access to the facts about them.

One of the interesting tidbits of worldbuilding they did. As the war drags on and the USSR gets hammered the Gulags start getting short on supplies. The prisioners realize they have a chance to break out. Black Ops 1 Vorkuta happens.

This one is quite striking, it shows a "suicide task force" who jumps into the Urals on what pretty much everyone understands is a one way trip. Their mission? Neutralize the USSR atomic arsenal.

You can find the full issue for download as a PDF here. The artwork is done in that gorgeous 1950's Americana Realist style or whatever it is called. There are a lot of ads between the pages though so be warned, but everything is so charming it is a blast to read through.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

Let’s wank the Habsburg. I think it’s interesting how through personal Union the whole vast Spanish, Portuguese, Austrian, and Holy Roman Empires were all once effectively one big interlocking government. What if the Habsburg got wanked harder so Spanish Armada succeeds, Dutch get wrecked, and basically Catholic universalist monarchy dominates the world.

Territorial-wise, whatever else, let them hold onto lands they held for centuries but ultimately lost by the time they collapsed completely in 1918: Silesia, northern/Kingdom of Italy, and Belgium. Those all would provide rich commerce and/or resources, but it'd be more ethnic groups (well, okay, and a needed influx of Germans for the Austrians) in the stew that was the Habsburg Monarchy.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

>alternatehistory dot com
Well, what to say. I've been more or less active on that site since around 2007, the first years without account. There was and still is some good content to be found there, but the overall quality of the writers posting their autismo-timelines isn't what it was 5 or even 10 years ago. It's a mix of people going inactive, getting banned for not submitting to the leftoid-hivemind or some users actually dying. I personally only use the ASB-section and lurk in fandom (ignoring the ASOIAF-shit, tho, because posting anything slightly provocative WILL get you banhammered). Posting anything in Chat is an excersize at futility, merely questioning the "support the current thing"-shit that is going on there gets you kicked, if not banned.
>Ian
Mindbroken since 2016. He's one of the reasons why posting in Chat is suicidal, especially if you don't subscribe to the latest trend of modern nu-leftoid issue bullshit, like troons or supporting Ukraine, supporting the big government/big pharma coalition to use Covid as a vehicle of totalitarian oppression. I don't necessarily care what he thinks about Israel, the funny thing is that his opinion about the matter would get you prison time where I live.
>CalBear
lol, lmao even. I've lost several threads to this idiot, because he either banned users that were giving useful advice or some that posted in a story I hadn't been updating for a while. And this closet commie also had then the gall to refuse to reopen the thread after I had requested so. I don't know if this is him power playing because he's a closet commie and enjoys being high on a power trip or if he's just an asshole mod that refuses to do his job properly. Then you have his AANW-timeline, which is good and bad at the same time. It jumped the shark with the Germans not developing nukes, using piston engined aircraft well into the 1950s, not sufficently developing their industrial base for the lurkwarm war phase with the Allies and merging the Heer into the SS without the former outright revolting against the latter. None of that shit makes sense, largely due to a lack of proper explanation. The later stuff like nuking a German city from orbit, because the locals demonstrating peacefully for reunification of the salted and anthrax'd country is a "oh no, you don't" in CalBear's unhinged mind. The end result of this timeline is a Anglo-American bizarro clownworld enforced by orbital kinetic energy weapons, something that would be utterly opposed and hated by the rest of the world if CalBear paid any attention to realism.
>spergs
Worffan is one of those, I don't know if he still updates his Trump-SI timeline in Chat. Reading it gives you a fair idea how unhinged that guy is. As far as I know, since I avoid Chat to the best of my abilities, he has still his circle of sycophants sniffing his farts, spreading their cum all over the website. This is what you get for banning people over perceived wrongthink and cornering the discourse on a website...
>Harry Turtledorve
Enjoyed the World War-series, the first books of the 191TL, only for me to later discover that Harry is a raving commie lunatic on twitter. Trump has not only mindbroken Ian, but Harry, too. Good god, has that guy lolcow potential...
>S. M. Stirling
The Domination series is batshit insane, but that is the appeal here. He crafted one my favorite nightmare worlds full of genocide, super weapons, rape and lesbian sex scenes. Overall this is not for the timid or weak. You either love it, like I do, or find it utterly implausible and hilarious. I stand by Stirling's statement that the Draka represent everything that could have gone utterly wrong in the past 250 years. Peshawar Lancers pales in comparison, while it is much more grounded and less insane. I enjoy it regardless. Him getting banned on AHdotcome was retarded, but I guess Ian had to do it since Tom Kratman had been shafted for something similiar around the time or earlier. Can't remember which incidences occured first.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Ian and the Mods on AH.com are such fucking delicate pussies it is amazing. They demand that pretty much every conversation be completely conducted according to some "civility" shit that is honestly insane. I have seen them dish out kicks for people simply saying the word "retarded", one time saw CalBear be a complete autist and not realize a dude was just having fun so he kicked them despite no rules being broke and when pressed he pulled the "oh it was reported so I did it automatically" which is a admission of incompetence that is amazing.

I was lurking on the ASB forums and saw some dude get banned for simply mentioning the term "Eurabia" while talking about arabs over running Europe. Except in the context the guy was talking about said Eurabia being formed because the arabs are fleeing into Europe out of literal desperation after a complete nuclear war between Israel and the entire arab world turned everything between the Euphrates and the Nile to glass. Of course CalBear didn't care he saw a no-no word and had to ban it.

 

[draggs]

>alternatehistory dot com
Well, what to say. I've been more or less active on that site since around 2007, the first years without account. There was and still is some good content to be found there, but the overall quality of the writers posting their autismo-timelines isn't what it was 5 or even 10 years ago. It's a mix of people going inactive, getting banned for not submitting to the leftoid-hivemind or some users actually dying. I personally only use the ASB-section and lurk in fandom (ignoring the ASOIAF-shit, tho, because posting anything slightly provocative WILL get you banhammered). Posting anything in Chat is an excersize at futility, merely questioning the "support the current thing"-shit that is going on there gets you kicked, if not banned.
>Ian
Mindbroken since 2016. He's one of the reasons why posting in Chat is suicidal, especially if you don't subscribe to the latest trend of modern nu-leftoid issue bullshit, like troons or supporting Ukraine, supporting the big government/big pharma coalition to use Covid as a vehicle of totalitarian oppression. I don't necessarily care what he thinks about Israel, the funny thing is that his opinion about the matter would get you prison time where I live.
>CalBear
lol, lmao even. I've lost several threads to this idiot, because he either banned users that were giving useful advice or some that posted in a story I hadn't been updating for a while. And this closet commie also had then the gall to refuse to reopen the thread after I had requested so. I don't know if this is him power playing because he's a closet commie and enjoys being high on a power trip or if he's just an asshole mod that refuses to do his job properly. Then you have his AANW-timeline, which is good and bad at the same time. It jumped the shark with the Germans not developing nukes, using piston engined aircraft well into the 1950s, not sufficently developing their industrial base for the lurkwarm war phase with the Allies and merging the Heer into the SS without the former outright revolting against the latter. None of that shit makes sense, largely due to a lack of proper explanation. The later stuff like nuking a German city from orbit, because the locals demonstrating peacefully for reunification of the salted and anthrax'd country is a "oh no, you don't" in CalBear's unhinged mind. The end result of this timeline is a Anglo-American bizarro clownworld enforced by orbital kinetic energy weapons, something that would be utterly opposed and hated by the rest of the world if CalBear paid any attention to realism.
>spergs
Worffan is one of those, I don't know if he still updates his Trump-SI timeline in Chat. Reading it gives you a fair idea how unhinged that guy is. As far as I know, since I avoid Chat to the best of my abilities, he has still his circle of sycophants sniffing his farts, spreading their cum all over the website. This is what you get for banning people over perceived wrongthink and cornering the discourse on a website...
>Harry Turtledorve
Enjoyed the World War-series, the first books of the 191TL, only for me to later discover that Harry is a raving commie lunatic on twitter. Trump has not only mindbroken Ian, but Harry, too. Good god, has that guy lolcow potential...
>S. M. Stirling
The Domination series is batshit insane, but that is the appeal here. He crafted one my favorite nightmare worlds full of genocide, super weapons, rape and lesbian sex scenes. Overall this is not for the timid or weak. You either love it, like I do, or find it utterly implausible and hilarious. I stand by Stirling's statement that the Draka represent everything that could have gone utterly wrong in the past 250 years. Peshawar Lancers pales in comparison, while it is much more grounded and less insane. I enjoy it regardless. Him getting banned on AHdotcome was retarded, but I guess Ian had to do it since Tom Kratman had been shafted for something similiar around the time or earlier. Can't remember which incidences occured first.

Kinda funny that Turtledove's best stuff (for me anyway) is his not-AH fantasy shit and his Hellenic Traders historical fiction series. Although I think his very best work is his Shakespeare alternate history novel.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

Ian and the Mods on AH.com are such fucking delicate pussies it is amazing. They demand that pretty much every conversation be completely conducted according to some "civility" shit that is honestly insane.

That in itself is not necessarily the problem. The core of this civility-concept is that it doesn't matter what you say, but how you say it. However, in the case of AHdotcom it's a trap and WILL get you manhandled, coventried and banhammered. If the mods were reasonable, the mentioned Eurabia-stuff could have developed into an interesting discussion about the repercussions. My guess is CalBear (and Ian, of course) did what he did because "Kratman bad", so we can't have nice things.

I mean, it's not even possible (anymore) to post US Civil War 2 Electric Boogaloo timelines in which the GOP-dominated rural areas win against the shitlib technocratic dystopia of the 2040s without the author getting dogpiled by shitlib trannies and then getting the banhammer, because "Orange Man bad" or something. Hilarious. Fuck Chat and all of their shitlib commie retards.

 

[DJ Grelle]

Tbh why don't we just demand politely request an AH subforum from nool? Some place where we can write our own timelines in our own little spergy ways without needing to walk on eggshells? I mean, it's just some text and sometimes a map, not like we will be uploading the many gigabytes of a seven hour destiny debate stream in full HD? Yeah, KF isnt meant for this shit but we have A(rticles)H(appenings) as well.
We farmers are pretty good at bullying out the absolute tard spergs who write their wish fulfillment mass genocide re-education timelines so I don't think it would be too much of an issue.
And its not like alternate history requires much in the way of moderatorship, its not like a thread is suddenly going to explode and get 100 new pages in an hour.

 

[Saturnalia-1918]

Another aggravating aspect of Calbear is his constant role-playing (don't know a better term for his "to Coventry with you" line when banning someone and other similar lines) when acting as a mod.

As for his story, AANW, as mentioned above by @Reinhardo-sama, the idea that the Nazis would never develop nuclear weapons is idiotic and purely so that they could be realistically defeated for the neoliberal global dictatorship to be enacted. The Nazis already had a nuclear program, and when information about nuclear weapons inevitably leaks our (either through practical demonstration of nuclear weapons or just information is leaked) then the Nazis would for sure try and get similar weapons to be in parity with the US.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

As for his story, AANW, as mentioned above by @Reinhardo-sama, the idea that the Nazis would never develop nuclear weapons is idiotic and purely so that they could be realistically defeated for the neoliberal global dictatorship to be enacted. The Nazis already had a nuclear program, and when information about nuclear weapons inevitably leaks our (either through practical demonstration of nuclear weapons or just information is leaked) then the Nazis would for sure try and get similar weapons to be in parity with the US.

Exactly. Speer funded the Uranverein from his ministry, but he agreed with Hitler that an atomic bomb - while the two thought that such a weapon was possible - would not decide the war in Germany's favor. And added to that decision, which was the correct call to make, was the simple fact that Germany was pressed to produce enough conventional weapons to fight the Soviet zerg rush. However, let's assume Germany defeats the USSR by 1943, somehow, (which in itself provokes an entire series of books pondering the how), then Hitler would give Speer all the resources he needs for the Uranverein to construct nuclear reactors capable enough of producing sufficient quantities of weapons grade fissile materials, ontop of the scientific institutes where the egg heads do the math.

Yeah, the Germans would join the nuclear club around the time the Soviets did OTL, and they would spend much more resources on churning out nukes than the US did. The latter part of CalBear's timeline rests solely on the retarded decision that Germany doesn't invest in nuclear weapons and instead sinks considerable resources on Vaporwaffen even Göring would have shot down. Hitler would never leave an advantage on the table if he had the resources to materialize it, especially not if he can develop that advantage over time into something that grants him an unssailable position. Not his style. A nuclear armed Hitler is nightmare fuel and much harder to take down than what the Allies had to deal with. But, you can't have a semi-insane nuclear armed mega-Deutschland when you plan for a KEW-enforced shitlib dystopia.

 

[Raoul_Duke]

Tbh why don't we just demand politely request an AH subforum from nool? Some place where we can write our own timelines in our own little spergy ways without needing to walk on eggshells? I mean, it's just some text and sometimes a map, not like we will be uploading the many gigabytes of a seven hour destiny debate stream in full HD? Yeah, KF isnt meant for this shit but we have A(rticles)H(appenings) as well.
We farmers are pretty good at bullying out the absolute tard spergs who write their wish fulfillment mass genocide re-education timelines so I don't think it would be too much of an issue.
And its not like alternate history requires much in the way of moderatorship, its not like a thread is suddenly going to explode and get 100 new pages in an hour.

You know, that might be a lot of fun. Probably allow a nice big exodus of people from AH to here. Then again, it'd allow a big exodus of people from AH to here. Pick yer poison, I suppose.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

You know, that might be a lot of fun. Probably allow a nice big exodus of people from AH to here. Then again, it'd allow a big exodus of people from AH to here. Pick yer poison, I suppose.

First, I entirely agree with what you, @Reinhardo-sama, and @Saturnalia-1918 say on AH.com in general, even if I admitted earlier in the thread I still quite enjoy certain timelines like Look to the West (both genuinely but also sunk-cost investment by now) and Misia. It's amazing how the site really succumbed to the woke bullshit to where it even seeps into the non-Chat stuff... and really, history and thus Alt-History HAS to be a subject where you look at the ugly side of it and people. Otherwise, what's the point?

But second, I not only would say we should pass up on an AH subforum here both because of getting the troons from there stinking up the Farms would be bad, but also I suspect there's simply not enough AH fans in general to sustain one. It seems like we have a good recurring thread here and people actually respond to all sorts of ideas, for now, that's good enough.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

The Domination series is batshit insane, but that is the appeal here. He crafted one my favorite nightmare worlds full of genocide, super weapons, rape and lesbian sex scenes. Overall this is not for the timid or weak. You either love it, like I do, or find it utterly implausible and hilarious. I stand by Stirling's statement that the Draka represent everything that could have gone utterly wrong in the past 250 years. Peshawar Lancers pales in comparison, while it is much more grounded and less insane. I enjoy it regardless. Him getting banned on AHdotcome was retarded, but I guess Ian had to do it since Tom Kratman had been shafted for something similiar around the time or earlier. Can't remember which incidences occured first.

Tom Kratman said way more extreme things than SM Stirling ever did. All Stirling ever said was "if I had a button that could kill every Muslim, I'd press it" which of course is autoban from AH.com. Although to be fair, Moviebob-tier "if I had a button that could kill every Trump voter, I'd press it" fantasies also get bans (only 7 days though).

You know, that might be a lot of fun. Probably allow a nice big exodus of people from AH to here. Then again, it'd allow a big exodus of people from AH to here. Pick yer poison, I suppose.

Most of the people banned from AH.com nowadays are either leftists who failed the purity spiral or tankies accidently revealing their power level. Like reading the last 3-4 pages of the kicks/bans, it's a bunch of sperging over that Harry Potter game and one guy getting kicked for pointing out that Ukraine has a Nazi problem.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

First, I entirely agree with what you, @Reinhardo-sama, and @Saturnalia-1918 say on AH.com in general, even if I admitted earlier in the thread I still quite enjoy certain timelines like Look to the West (both genuinely but also sunk-cost investment by now) and Misia. It's amazing how the site really succumbed to the woke bullshit to where it even seeps into the non-Chat stuff... and really, history and thus Alt-History HAS to be a subject where you look at the ugly side of it and people. Otherwise, what's the point?

Thanks. I remain on AHdotcom largely because I am still engaged in posting my writings there and I have built a quite supportive community there that enjoys what I write. Since I largely stay out of the troon/nu-leftoid retard-infested bottom half of the site, I haven't had any serious trouble with Ian or CalBear or any of the other axewielding lunatics running the place. Their behaviour as mods is just such that can't be ignored, even by semi-lurking, semi-contributing, part-time history nerds, full-time autismo writers like myself. However, the crap that's coming from the bottom to places like ASB has become quite obnoxious, and in the timelines I am working on I've been asked several times "and, are troons a thing here or what" to which I usually have to reply "uuhhhm, eventually, maybe?". Walking on those eggshells and not being able to tell these people to get fucked to bring that up when it definitely has no place here is annoying. I even had to do a Q&A about immigration policy of a nation in a timeline I'm writing via PMs, because doing it in public certainly would have get the person asking the question kicked and me likely banned for clarifying that open borders is lolbertarian hogwash and that traditionally social-democrats opposed it.

Tom Kratman said way more extreme things than SM Stirling ever did. All Stirling ever said was "if I had a button that could kill every Muslim, I'd press it" which of course is autoban from AH.com. Although to be fair, Moviebob-tier "if I had a button that could kill every Trump voter, I'd press it" fantasies also get bans (only 7 days though).

Stirling also made it clear this was a thought experiment and his argument was pretty solid, especially in regards to innocent bystanders, iirc. And yeah, "let me tell you about a man named Tom Kratman", kek... His stuff is really beyond insane.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

Yepp, troons and political sperging is currently ruining AHdotcom even further, as Ian swings the banhammer to 'protect' the oppressed troons from 'bigotry' or whatever. It's all so tiresome.