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Alternate History General Discussion

I find it interesting that Mark Ashton doesn’t appear in more British political Alternate History’s.

Now the reasoning is probably three fold; One LGSM and the whole movement has only really come out into the mainstream in the last five years thanks to Pride, two EuroCommunists aren’t as chaotic as Militant/Trot folks like Nellist or Hatton or similarly chaotic folks like Tatchell and three his death in 1987 due to HIV at about 27 probably puts people off.

Shame because if there’s any character who could provide a unifying force for a relatively successful Left Wing party outside of Labour in Britain, then it’s probably Mark Ashton.
I gave him a nod in my story The Fall of the Forts, my entry for the February vignette challenge.
 
I gave him a nod in my story The Fall of the Forts, my entry for the February vignette challenge.
It was a good nod.

I think Ashton seems like a fella who should appear in more Late 20th Century/Early 21st Alternate Histories. It’s a travesty that we haven’t got Ashton lead RESPECT-Green alliance versus Blair or something else.
 
I think ISOTs can be great if well written (speaking as someone who has written one :p )

I think what @Elektronaut alludes to is that they are often an excuse for a wank, with a small group of people from the present day wreaking havoc on the past (which I suppose goes back to Mark Twain). But that's not necessarily the case. @iainbhx 's Azure Main series is an excellent illustration in even how what seems like an obvious massive temporal disparity is not going to result in lazily colouring in the map one colour if it's handled realistically, as well as showing off the story-fodder gimmick of famous people from different time periods meeting.
 
I want a loving description of what a MOAB does to a legion.
How about a snarky comment on how the Social War became a lot less sociable after Apache helicopters decimated Marius’s mules. Then something, something about how America is the res publica the captured Marius wanted this whole time.
 
There are some good ISOTs, but I think the ASB subgenre that's universally bad is the Person ISOT, since they're all about removing the good bits of the ISOT genre (culture-shock interactions between the past and future) in favour of the bad bits (epic future guy pwns the past) with a side-helping of armchair general.

The only remotely good one I've seen was a Mazda mini-TL about a modern-day lad ending up in the body of an Ulster Unionist in the Sixties, and that was drawing much more from Life On Mars then the internet form of the genre.
 
There are some good ISOTs, but I think the ASB subgenre that's universally bad is the Person ISOT, since they're all about removing the good bits of the ISOT genre (culture-shock interactions between the past and future) in favour of the bad bits (epic future guy pwns the past) with a side-helping of armchair general.

The only remotely good one I've seen was a Mazda mini-TL about a modern-day lad ending up in the body of an Ulster Unionist in the Sixties, and that was drawing much more from Life On Mars then the internet form of the genre.
I don't like "Person ISOT" as phrasing because surely the whole point of an ISOT is "it's like time travel, but rather than just one bloke as has been traditional since HG Wells and Mark Twain, it's an area"?

It's like TLIA Unspecified Period of Time.

Not having a go at you, I used to get annoyed on the other place with people using phrasing like "Abraham Lincoln ISOT to the Battle of Cannae".
 
There are some good ISOTs, but I think the ASB subgenre that's universally bad is the Person ISOT, since they're all about removing the good bits of the ISOT genre (culture-shock interactions between the past and future) in favour of the bad bits (epic future guy pwns the past) with a side-helping of armchair general.

I've always wanted to, in a setting with time/dimensional travel make one where an ISOT munchkin and his empire are the villains of the piece. (And yes, I know Guns of the South kind of already did this)
 
There are some good ISOTs, but I think the ASB subgenre that's universally bad is the Person ISOT, since they're all about removing the good bits of the ISOT genre (culture-shock interactions between the past and future) in favour of the bad bits (epic future guy pwns the past) with a side-helping of armchair general.

The only remotely good one I've seen was a Mazda mini-TL about a modern-day lad ending up in the body of an Ulster Unionist in the Sixties, and that was drawing much more from Life On Mars then the internet form of the genre.
I've said this before, but I really want to see a Person ISOT where the person knows what's going to happen but is a miserable failure anyway because being an AH nerd is terrible training for leading a nation.
 
I've said this before, but I really want to see a Person ISOT where the person knows what's going to happen but is a miserable failure anyway because being an AH nerd is terrible training for leading a nation.

from-jesus-time-who-are-asking-but-how-do-you-make-this-electricity-modern-guy-replies-i-dont-know
 
I've said this before, but I really want to see a Person ISOT where the person knows what's going to happen but is a miserable failure anyway because being an AH nerd is terrible training for leading a nation.

Kirov actually is sort of like this with Volkov, the closest it has to a non-historical villain. Becomes leader of a carved out warlord state, builds weapons with foreknowledge...

...and brings the ire of both the Allies and Axis due to his reach exceeding his grasp. Definitely the best subplot in the WW2 arc.
 
I've said this before, but I really want to see a Person ISOT where the person knows what's going to happen but is a miserable failure anyway because being an AH nerd is terrible training for leading a nation.

Mazda's aforementioned TL comes pretty close, in that our protagonist has barely any idea about NI politics, but I haven't read enough to work out of he fails completely at everything or just the early stuff.
 
I've always wanted to, in a setting with time/dimensional travel make one where an ISOT munchkin and his empire are the villains of the piece. (And yes, I know Guns of the South kind of already did this)

I tried that once. It wasn't easy to have the bad guys be likable, but bad, if you kept them as POV characters.

Chris
 
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