Alternate History General Discussion

[Yokai Man]

Broke: Goering instead of Hitler

Woke: Hugenberg instead of Hitler

Excuse me what the froke: Horst Wessel instead of Hitler in a timeline where the Teutons defeat Alexander Nevsky and everything from Prussia to Ukraine is part of “Teuchland”

Liviu Radu’s The Modifiers is sure something

I’m gonna talk about it some more but first I have to reread a fourth time to make sense of some of the world and the timeline of the book because hoy boy

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I do wish that, in alternate history, there would be more stories where Robespierre and Napoleon actually interacted. They were contemporaries, Napoleon having respected him greatly for quite a while due to Napoleon seeing him as providing the type of leadership France was in need of, and even when he got real bitter at Saint-Helena, he still thought of him better than the other revolutionaries.

So it does seem disappointing that there aren't any stories where they interacted, here is the kind of man Robespierre warned would take over if the government didn't have a firm grip on the situation, yet was the one his little brother commended as a great patriot. Certainly the dynamics would be interesting, not exactly the first time someone the revolutionaries put their faith in turning out to be different than they expected, coughPichegrucough.

The First Republic is very badly served in alternate history generally. If the Revolution happens at all, it tends to fail earlier, or bloodier, or end up in a much more successful Bourbon Restoration. Napoleonic timelines fare a little better, though they tend to fall in to either hagiography or The Corsican Ogre (when, of course, his worst and most unforgivable crimes were in Haiti- crimes merrily supported by Britain, Spain and America.)

Napoleon is also treated as an inevitable ruler or leader of a failed coup d'etat. His prominence was incredibly unlikely (even assuming he survived his brushes with death through the 1790s, there were something like a dozen other generals approached to lead Brumaire!) but it also assumes that the only outcome for the French Revolution was a crown, or Cromwell, or both.

I would really love to see a good timeline about a Republican victory, ideally with a minimum of fratricide- messy, bloody, still tainted by the Terror, yes, but exploring what France would look like if all those fascinating figures had made it through the decade.

What would feminism look like if des Gouges and Roland and Theriancourt had successfully built a political space for armed women citizens in the greatest power in Europe? What would modern conceptions of race look like if L'Ouverture's Department of Saint-Domingue had drifted uneasily onward as a quasi-satellite republic of the Western Hemisphere, uneasily pretending to be part of France? What about the little nationalisms of Europe, with that fascinating paradox that the French Republic that was quashing its own regional identities was now the great hope of the Irish, the Poles and Jews throughout Europe's ghettos?

I'm not saying a surviving First Republic would be utopian, far from it. But the lazy assumption that it had to fail, and/or had to be a bloody hellscape is a cliche that should have lost popularity when the Scarlet Pimpernel did.

 

[Christian]

What would feminism look like if des Gouges and Roland and Theriancourt had successfully built a political space for armed women citizens in the greatest power in Europe?

I’m not too sure Madame Roland and de Gouges would be the ones taking much credit. From what I’ve read, Madame Roland wasn’t really that much of a feminist, and de Gouges was kind of irrelevant at the time. I would think that the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, people like Pauline Leon or Theroigne de Mericourt would be the more noticeable ones on the whole women taking up arms thing.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I’m not too sure Madame Roland and de Gouges would be the ones taking much credit. From what I’ve read, Madame Roland wasn’t really that much of a feminist, and de Gouges was kind of irrelevant at the time. I would think that the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, people like Pauline Leon or Theroigne de Mericourt would be the more noticeable ones on the whole women taking up arms thing.

Leon! I can't believe I didn't think of her! And 'Theriancourt' is a bizarre half-remembered take on 'Theroigne de Mericourt.'

I stand by de Gouges as an excellent propagandist of her cause, and Roland as the one who probably exercised the most direct power- though she was, as you say, not a great advocate of feminism in the same way as the others.

 

[Coiler]

Since my interest in automotive history has risen again, I should note that...

• What little car AH exists unsurprisingly tends to be very rivet counter-y.
• Car AH is extremely tough in my eyes. It's one of the most deterministic, tied-to-macroeconomics industries[1] there is, so changes without bigger alternations to overall society are tough (not impossible, but tougher) to make. And I have this feeling, and maybe it's just the rivet counter side, that if there are changes, they come across as just shuffling names around.

[1]For instance, one of the most underappreciated reasons the British-owned car industry collapsed was that the domestic market, especially after competition from Ford and GM, was just too small.

 

[napoleon IV]

The First Republic is very badly served in alternate history generally. If the Revolution happens at all, it tends to fail earlier, or bloodier, or end up in a much more successful Bourbon Restoration. Napoleonic timelines fare a little better, though they tend to fall in to either hagiography or The Corsican Ogre (when, of course, his worst and most unforgivable crimes were in Haiti- crimes merrily supported by Britain, Spain and America.)

Napoleon is also treated as an inevitable ruler or leader of a failed coup d'etat. His prominence was incredibly unlikely (even assuming he survived his brushes with death through the 1790s, there were something like a dozen other generals approached to lead Brumaire!) but it also assumes that the only outcome for the French Revolution was a crown, or Cromwell, or both.

I would really love to see a good timeline about a Republican victory, ideally with a minimum of fratricide- messy, bloody, still tainted by the Terror, yes, but exploring what France would look like if all those fascinating figures had made it through the decade.

What would feminism look like if des Gouges and Roland and Theriancourt had successfully built a political space for armed women citizens in the greatest power in Europe? What would modern conceptions of race look like if L'Ouverture's Department of Saint-Domingue had drifted uneasily onward as a quasi-satellite republic of the Western Hemisphere, uneasily pretending to be part of France? What about the little nationalisms of Europe, with that fascinating paradox that the French Republic that was quashing its own regional identities was now the great hope of the Irish, the Poles and Jews throughout Europe's ghettos?

I'm not saying a surviving First Republic would be utopian, far from it. But the lazy assumption that it had to fail, and/or had to be a bloody hellscape is a cliche that should have lost popularity when the Scarlet Pimpernel did.

You see a similar thing with the Russian Revolution. Most timelines I've seen which feature the Russian Revolution have the end result be either Stalinism or the Whites winning the Civil War/Romanov Restoration (basically Stalin, Crown, or Kornilov as an ending). And the small number of timelines which end with a left-wing alternative to the Bolsheviks winning or the Bolsheviks without Stalinism tend towards hagiography. I'll borrow from your post and say that I'd love to see a timeline where the Revolution is successful, which is still messy, bloody, and tainted but which explores what Russia would look like if all these fascinating figures had made it.

 

[Christian]

You see a similar thing with the Russian Revolution. Most timelines I've seen which feature the Russian Revolution have the end result be either Stalinism or the Whites winning the Civil War/Romanov Restoration (basically Stalin, Crown, or Kornilov as an ending). And the small number of timelines which end with a left-wing alternative to the Bolsheviks winning or the Bolsheviks without Stalinism tend towards hagiography. I'll borrow from your post and say that I'd love to see a timeline where the Revolution is successful, which is still messy, bloody, and tainted but which explores what Russia would look like if all these fascinating figures had made it.

Something that interests me in the question of a successful French Revolution is how much The Terror would be emphasized or de-emphasized in this other world. Lots of people love to talk about how brilliant leaders won their war or revolution, but nobody seems to mention things like Caesar committing horrific atrocities in Gaul or Napoleon also committing his fair share of heinous shit in Egypt and other places. So perhaps we can say that any excess violence during the revolution would probably not be talked about that much as examples of extreme actions followed by victory tend to make it seem justifiable.

 

[Charles EP M.]

the end result be either Stalinism or the Whites winning the Civil War/Romanov Restoration

There's an odd beat in Doctor Who books about the alt-Earth from Inferno, that the Whites won with Stalin as one of them. I don't know how that's meant to work (and probably it's just a throwaway joke)

 

[Christian]

On alternate history concerning the French Revolution, what are some ways you can imagine the government, as in the one with the Committee of Public Safety at the helm, succeed? It seems like a big problem at the time was that any transfer of power was bound to be painful as the August coup, Thermidor, Brumaire and many others showed that the revolutionaries had hardly any idea how to peacefully transfer power.

Perhaps we can think of, maybe if Fabre d'Eglantine never got caught up in that East India scandal which dragged Danton and his campaign of indulgency down with him? Before it came to light about his rather dodgy connections with someone performing something very illegal, the Convention was very receptive to his ideas of lightening their iron grip while Robespierre was defending him as a good patriot and was at least somewhat receptive of his idea of investigating any unjust imprisonments. Maybe some circumstances can push Danton and Desmoulins campaigning over to the summer of 1794? Certainly a lot of possibilities to think of and is not that well explored by any measure.

 

[Time Enough]

I'll borrow from your post and say that I'd love to see a timeline where the Revolution is successful, which is still messy, bloody, and tainted but which explores what Russia would look like if all these fascinating figures had made it.

I've always been interested in exploring either the Workers Opposition, Nikolai Bukharin and the Right Opposition or Alexander Bogdanov being able to push there visions in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the trials and tribulations that occur (because no matter what, there still would probably be blood).

 

[OwenM]

There's an odd beat in Doctor Who books about the alt-Earth from Inferno, that the Whites won with Stalin as one of them. I don't know how that's meant to work (and probably it's just a throwaway joke)

I think that's sort of what Ill Bethisad has happen although it's been a while.

 

[Creekmench]

Speaking of the French Revolution, there should be a timeline written about Sieyes's constitution being implemented fully without Napoleon, wearing its dead skin and conjuring up a new crown.

I think the trend to write about despotism and monarchy in TLs is that it's easier to sketch out the plot with one path rather than many.

 

[Gary Oswald]

Speaking of the French Revolution, there should be a timeline written about Sieyes's constitution being implemented fully without Napoleon, wearing its dead skin and conjuring up a new crown.

There's an article on precisely that situation due up on the front page in a few days if anyone wants the historical background.

 

[Coiler]

Honest curious question:

What do you think the most influential purely online piece of alternate history is/was?

(The definition I'm using isn't that strict, and basically means it originally started off as just a posting on the internet of some kind, even if it was self-published later)

 

[Charles EP M.]

If Gordon Banks Had Played seems to be one of the biggies

 

[Creekmench]

For All Time?

 

[Jared]

Of the classic online timelines/works, yes, For All Time and What If Gordon Banks Had Played have been quite influential. For All Nails also had an influence in style, if not so much in content - a lot of later timelines were influenced directly or indirectly by the style of that timeline.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Which was the first online timeline to do the "excerpts from in-universe books" thing?

 

[Coiler]

TLs as a whole have a few distinct styles and I've seen the precedents for most of them.

-The now mostly subsided "date and events on that date" style, which is a more literal "timeline".

-The "in-universe books/snippets, sometimes with character vignettes" style.

-The "pure exposition, frequently with wikiboxes" style.

And of course there's plenty of combinations of those three.

For the few high-profile attempts to write "AH as a Genre", I've likened some of Turtledove's books to being almost Larry Bond-ish in their structure, to the point where I once only half-snarkily called one "a technothriller without technology or thrills." I'd definitely say there's a kind of continum/spectrum, and it'd probably go something like this.

"AH as a setting"/conventional narrative->Bond/Turtledove broad-scope narrative->In-setting books/Snippets->Pure exposition->date and events TL.

 

[Jared]

Which was the first online timeline to do the "excerpts from in-universe books" thing?

It's an idea which has occurred independently several times. I used it in Decades of Darkness and wasn't consciously emulating anyone when doing so, but I think it had been used earlier in timelines that I wasn't aware of when starting DoD. Certainly it had been done in print AH earlier; Sobel's book For Want of a Nail, for instance.