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

[Lazy Printer]

Looks like an asset store shovelware (i probably using this term wrong) but who knows.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Technically a double post but I just came across this and holy shit they made a game about "le funny ISOT modern army curb stomps ancient army"

If this ends up being just 20% as cool as the trailer makes it look it will be a goddamn masterpiece.

If it has other time periods will be cool too. But just what they showed already looks great.

In practice I suspect it will play like a mindless zombie horde shooter, just with, you know, swordfighting animations.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

The one piece of credit I'll give Ian and the AH Jannies is that they're at least somewhat consistent in banning people who call for violence.

Also, I'm going to add my own gripe here. Why is the ASB subforum so fucking clogged with garbage? It's literally a subforum where basically anything goes, and 99% of it is ISOT or SI garbage. I'm genuinely surprised at how few people are writing something along the lines of Turtledove's Crosstime Traffic or Race series considering how influential the guy is on AH. Instead it's just ISOT and SI as far as the eye can see, with the sprinkling of a few sub-standard stories in between. Reach for the Skies is the best story on the subforum, and is peak disappointment in my eyes. A brilliant idea that's let down by the author adding in the same "strong woman" archetype that really drags down the story IMO.

I actually finally read parts of Reach for the Skies, and it was so shitty I looked it up to see if it was discussed before in this thread and to my surprise found it was mentioned in a reply to my post. You were REALLY underselling just how bad it is, so I feel like writing a review for it.

Spoiler: Shitty review of a shitty fic

It starts off with such a damn promising concept, like you'd think "a meteor obliterates a New Hampshire town in the 1870s and everyone gets suddenly very worried about disasters from space and invents rockets" would produce some very interesting stuff. It almost immediately goes downhill when the OP introduces his Mary Sue protagonist who is a teenage girl who regularly BTFOs adult scientists at math and has the mores and attitude of a 21st century leftist woman. It's just tacky and pretentious, and I had to double check if she was literally supposed to be a time traveler or some other isekai bullshit. Nope, she isn't--it's pure anachronistic stronk wahman fantasies of a woman who acts zilch like actual female scientists of the era.

The best though is how half the TL seems to focus on gratuitous violence against Southerners at the end of Reconstruction. Barely any science there, or really many ties to the story beside linking with the Mary Sue's modern 2010s leftist views. You get lots and lots of stories of the "New Hampshire Rangers", a diverse unit led by female officers and including blacks (the author even has him talk like how the blacks in Harry Turtledove novels do and apologizes for it like the cuck he is), native Americans, and Indians, killing loads and loads of white people in the South and winning skirmish after skirmish at incredible odds. The best of course are the stronk wahmen officers. Everyone thinks this is just a normal state of affairs and treats them the way any white American leftist would treat minorities in Current Year.

I think there's some January 6/Trump analogues in there too but by that point my eyes were glazing over since I couldn't stand the smarmy leftist triumphalism any longer. It's so obviously the writer's fantasies about American politics with a bit of science worked in that it makes Atlas Shrugged look subtle.

While I know this is pretty par for the course on AH.com, the fact this one actually starts pretty interesting and isn't even about the Civil War or Reconstruction makes it absolutely atrocious. I wonder if the writer just wanted his generic "killing southerners turns America into a 2010s leftist paradise" fantasy to stand out from all the other schlock in that subgenre. I'd ask him that, since I've talked to him before on AH.com, but I'd rather not get banned for telling him how shit his TL is. I think the worst part is the author claims his work has a lot of "realism" to it and is only in the ASB forum because it starts with a meteor blowing up a town in New Hampshire. It would be laughable were the potential not so utterly wasted.

Is there anything out there like this that doesn't have stupid Mary Sue characters and has actually moved forward because the author didn't spend 4 years of writing jerking off over his fantasies of stronk wahmen and blacks rounding up Southern whites for mass trials and executions?

 

[General Emílio Médici]

The same author also has another TL where he does the exact same "stronk womyn BTFOs patriarchy and conservatives" except it's a literal time traveler and takes place on 1919. Mountain something it's called.

It's just a excuse to jerk off to the SUPERIOR FYUUUUTCHUR. The ideological ouroboros these people have worked themselves into has made it so that doing so is pretty much a requirement or else you get a death by a thousand cuts of being pestered and accused of wrongthink until a valid excuse presents itself to get you banned by one of the jannies.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I've considered picking up alternate history stories/books. The only one I'm that interested in right now is de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall. Is there any other one to keep in mind?

 

[General Emílio Médici]

I've considered picking up alternate history stories/books. The only one I'm that interested in right now is de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall. Is there any other one to keep in mind?

That's a real classic and pretty nice.

Turtledove's Worldwar series is pretty fun too. Warday was a pretty fun one too, it's about a guy going through the USA a decade after a nuclear war in the late 80's and showing how things have changed.

 

[Skeletonized Cow]

I actually finally read parts of Reach for the Skies, and it was so shitty I looked it up to see if it was discussed before in this thread and to my surprise found it was mentioned in a reply to my post. You were REALLY underselling just how bad it is, so I feel like writing a review for it.

Judging by your review, you made it a decent amount farther in than I did. I got tired of the strong girlboss teenager real quick, never even got around to the Rangers. As always, a good premise is ruined by the author being a retarded gibbon.

Turtledove's Worldwar series is pretty fun too.

I second Worldwar. Probably my favorite of Turtledove's works.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

The same author also has another TL where he does the exact same "stronk womyn BTFOs patriarchy and conservatives" except it's a literal time traveler and takes place on 1919. Mountain something it's called.

It's just a excuse to jerk off to the SUPERIOR FYUUUUTCHUR. The ideological ouroboros these people have worked themselves into has made it so that doing so is pretty much a requirement or else you get a death by a thousand cuts of being pestered and accused of wrongthink until a valid excuse presents itself to get you banned by one of the jannies.

It's called "Tomorrow's Mountain" and just the first post is loaded with cringe.


Something about this feels very creepy, probably because of the male feminist/troon vibes I get. I doubt it gets any better, and I'm not as into killing brain cells as other people on this forum are to go much further.

Judging by your review, you made it a decent amount farther in than I did. I got tired of the strong girlboss teenager real quick, never even got around to the Rangers. As always, a good premise is ruined by the author being a retarded gibbon.

The girlboss Mary Sue MC made me lose interest fast so I just started skimming the entries hoping for some interesting science, because I love that sort of schizo tech thing. Some of the discussions of science and tech in that thread were pretty interesting and I didn't notice any obvious mistakes there. Hell, there was an interesting post on how the forests and streams in that part of New Hampshire would evolve in the decades after the asteroid impact. You don't see that much every day. You picked a good place to stop though since the grrlboss shit gets even more laughably stupid later on.

The author should've just set the thing in some steampunk world with fictional nations and politics, then it wouldn't have been as eyerolling because I wouldn't have the expectation it's supposed to have realistic 19th century social norms. But we know why the author didn't, because then he couldn't have his fapfic setting of grrlbosses and diversity BTFOing the wasteland ghouls of the Confederacy (thus stopping the rise of BLONALD BLUMPF) and making 21st century America into the Moviebobian dream.

 

[Ravier Xavenblood]

Popped up in my YT recommended today. Nice to see the Draka getting some exposure outside of obscure internet forums.

 

[Lt. H. DuBois]

This isn't a bad alternate history so pardon that bit I think this is the only alt history topic on the site; Has anyone ever listened to Talkernate History on YouTube? These 2 friends do a podcast covering Alt History, sometimes films and just history in general.
I would highly recommend, the guys are pretty knowledgeable and witty, and the videos have a sideshow to go with so it's not just audio. These guys are how I got into Turtledove, SM Sterling, and learned about those time traveling South Africans who gave Lee all those AK-47s

 

[Hugbox Kommissar]

I've considered picking up alternate history stories/books. The only one I'm that interested in right now is de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall. Is there any other one to keep in mind?

The Peshawar Lancers by SM Sterling is a steampunk adventure set in an alternate universe where a comet strike in the late 1800s kicked off an ice age that decimated western civilization. The backstory is mainly an excuse to have Flashman/Man Who Would Be King style adventures but with airships, computational engines, cannibal cults, and psychics.

The Guns of the South by Turtledove is entertaining as long as you skim through the political chapters and just focus on the soldiers getting jumped about 10 levels up the tech tree from black powder muzzleloaders to select fire assault rifles.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

This isn't a bad alternate history so pardon that bit I think this is the only alt history topic on the site; Has anyone ever listened to Talkernate History on YouTube? These 2 friends do a podcast covering Alt History, sometimes films and just history in general.
I would highly recommend, the guys are pretty knowledgeable and witty, and the videos have a sideshow to go with so it's not just audio. These guys are how I got into Turtledove, SM Sterling, and learned about those time traveling South Africans who gave Lee all those AK-47s

Yeah, I do listen to them. They're quite great at going on a lot of interesting tangents. Also, huge Peter Tsouras-fans, which is great.

 

[Lt. H. DuBois]

Yeah, I do listen to them. They're quite great at going on a lot of interesting tangents. Also, huge Peter Tsouras-fans, which is great.

Ha you've even got what I think is a Galactic Heroes pfp, which I think is what Max uses as well. I'm not familiar with the show but I remember him mentioning it.
Such a hidden gem of a channel. Not sure how I feel about this binge of ww2 era propaganda movies they've been on, but per usual the episodes always veer wildly into the hinterlands so can't complain

 

[ostronaut]

Any good recommendations for Cold War gone hot shit? Just finished Team Yankee and I was suprised how weak the writing was considering the reviews. Half of the novel feels like notes, I'm honestly suprised you can make WWIII sound this fucking dry.

 

[grump]

modern 'mainstream' pop althistory is basically infested now with the same wokeshit that crept into other areas of entertainment and is just an excuse to rewrite historical stories with no really interesting twist other than the historical figures swapped out with stronk womyn and minorities.

Case in point For all Mankind.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

Ha you've even got what I think is a Galactic Heroes pfp, which I think is what Max uses as well. I'm not familiar with the show but I remember him mentioning it.
Such a hidden gem of a channel. Not sure how I feel about this binge of ww2 era propaganda movies they've been on, but per usual the episodes always veer wildly into the hinterlands so can't complain

LoGH is probably the best anime ever made and certainly the BEST space opera (DS9 is close second, ngl). Anyway, you should check out the video they did about Konpeki no kantai. That show in itself is absolutely hilarious.

 

[JJLiautaud]

(DS9 is close second, ngl).

Honestly Babylon 5 was better. Seasonss 1-4 were pure kino and season 5 while inconsistent had some really good hits.

 

[Lt. H. DuBois]

LoGH is probably the best anime ever made and certainly the BEST space opera (DS9 is close second, ngl). Anyway, you should check out the video they did about Konpeki no kantai. That show in itself is absolutely hilarious.

Yeah that's the Deep Blue Sea episode right? The only one Max ever did all by himself. Yes it was amusing but without the two man dynamic it does kind of lose something. Though interesting to see how Japs can view alternate WW2.
I've seen exactly one episode of Heroes, as a teen a friend DEMANDED I watch one with him, I'm just not a big Jap cartoon guy, especially when it's in Japanese.
For their short story submission event I put one through, though unfortunately it was not cool enough to be featured. I think they're doing another at some point, but as with anything with those guys it's likely a long while out

 

[General Emílio Médici]

LoGH is probably the best anime ever made and certainly the BEST space opera (DS9 is close second, ngl). Anyway, you should check out the video they did about Konpeki no kantai. That show in itself is absolutely hilarious.

It didn't click for me until Lt. H. DuBois commented on it. It's the Yamamoto time travel one right? I remember seeing some of it because it sounded fascinating but I also remember not ever finding the full thing with subtitles. It's one of those animes to only ever get a limited release and little spread. Both a manga and a anime actually but I don't much enjoy manga, comics never much fit with me.

I know that it has Pearl Harbor be better with Yamamoto making a point to have the ambassadors deliver the declaration of war BEFORE the attack starts as part of his plans. I wonder if someone finally got around to putting the whole thing online with subtitles.

I also know it featured the I-400 which is pretty kino. The krauts really hog the limelight for superweapons in WW2 so it's nice to see other wacky projects from the war get featured. Submarine Aircraft Carriers. What a concept.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

I also know it featured the I-400 which is pretty kino. The krauts really hog the limelight for superweapons in WW2 so it's nice to see other wacky projects from the war get featured. Submarine Aircraft Carriers. What a concept

The smaller ones weren't terrible since it gave them a scout plane without risking a surface ship, and these planes caused the US to waste a fuckton of time and paranoia based on the minimal damage they did like trying to start a forest fire. Arguably they were underutilized.

The big ones (the ones that had more than one seaplane) were absolutely shite because they took an age and a half to dive i.e. pretty easy to sink.