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Interesting PODs not commonly used

lerk

Well-known member
I posted a thread like this on AH.com, and I want to see SLP's ideas.

One idea I've thought about is an Arab Maghreb Union, which can happen in a plausible way if you can somehow find a way to prevent the Western Sahara dispute.
 
I’m surprised the numerous attempts on Bush (junior or senior) aren’t used more often. Same goes for Grant winning his third term, the Swadeshi Movement becoming more explicitly anti-colonial and revolutionary after the Partition of Bengal, and Che evading the Bolivians.

For the deep cut POD’s, there is a world where David Lewis stayed in the UK and became a high-ranking member of the Labour Party.
 
I've never seen a surviving Yugoslavia which ends up liberalizing TL, nor have I seen a TL where Burma's ethnic conflicts aren't as severe and they just become a mini-India.
 
What if (a version of) WW1 started earlier over one of the other possible flashpoints like Fashoda, Morocco, the Russo-Japanese War escalating, one of the earlier Balkan Wars, the Italians in Libya, the Portuguese Revolution, etc. etc. Or indeed what if Franz Ferdinand survives but a WW1-like war starts in 1915 or 1916 over something else?
 
A few communist PoDs I rarely see used:

Considering how central a figure Stalin is in the imagination of non-ML folks I haven't seen any serious attempts at writing about a USSR without Stalin. Or Lenin living for that matter!

Soviet victory in the Soviet-Polish War would have major consequences for the interwar period.

For that matter, any number of PoDs leading to a different/more effective German Communist Party. Paul explores this in his Commie Hitler TL but that isn't really the focus.
 
Korean war goes nuclear or is won by South/North more decisively.

Yeah it's surprising how underutilized the Korean War is considering that IMO it was basically the most consequential conflict of the Cold War. But I'd chalk that up to AH.com not really knowing much about East Asia as well as the fact that the war is mostly ignored in popular Western history. I would tackle this but my desktop background is literally Kim Jong-un so it might not be perceived well here.
 
What if (a version of) WW1 started earlier over one of the other possible flashpoints like Fashoda, Morocco, the Russo-Japanese War escalating, one of the earlier Balkan Wars, the Italians in Libya, the Portuguese Revolution, etc. etc. Or indeed what if Franz Ferdinand survives but a WW1-like war starts in 1915 or 1916 over something else?

When I've finished my current Russia-New Zealand thing (and resumed posting the buffer updates for it), I'd love to be able to properly explore a more general earlier Great War arising out of the Great Game or some equivalent flashpoint in the late 1880s-1890s - before the alliance blocs solidify into their historical patterns, before the historical leaders/rulers come in, and while the relative strengths of the Great Powers are subtly or not so subtly different to where they would be 2 decades later.

If it involves Leopold II running a govt-in-exile from the Congo, before being hacked to bits by the locals, even better.

Its one of those potentially massive in scope projects though.
 
I'd love to see more Labour Stay In Government in the 1950s TLs. The easiest way of achieving this - as others have said - would be to delay the 1951 election to 1952/53 (if you can).
Probably only possible in wartime situation..as during WW2
 
I'd love to see more Labour Stay In Government in the 1950s TLs. The easiest way of achieving this - as others have said - would be to delay the 1951 election to 1952/53 (if you can).
I suppose one of the issues with that is figuring out what Labour does in power that isn’t purely in reaction to domestic and international events outside of its direct control. Continuity was really the watchword of the ‘51 manifesto and, beyond a few minor points of tinkering, the policies needed to meet the challenges the party identifies are much the same as they had been previously.
 
Successful assassination of Bismarck, May 1866?
One of the Austrian gunners at the Battle of Königgrätz is marginally luckier and the cannonball which in our timeline barely missed them instead kills Wilhelm I, von Moltke, and Bismarck, who were all right next to each other. Crown Prince Frederick was also about as well although I don't remember if he was with the group at the time.
 
1. Instead of braving the Kachin Mountains and returning to China, V Corps of the Chinese Expeditionary Force retreated into India;
2. No Battle of Peleliu;
3. MacArthur either dies or was incapacitated some time after Seoul was liberated, his successor (let's go with Ridgway) didn't see the need to drive all the way to the Yalu and instead stops at Pyongyang;
4. 1st Battalion, 7th Air Cavalry was destroyed at Ia Drang Valley after a CAS mishap resulting in a blue-on-blue incident that wiped out the battalion command element in the heat of battle;
5. General William Garrison cancels the 3rd October 1993 mission to capture Omar Salad Elmi Mohamed Hassan Awal;

Marc A
 
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