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Least favorite alt-history story?

Reginald Maulding SIed into 1866 Carol I of Romania’s body,being revolted by just everything in 19th Century Romanian politics and having to constantly remind people that no,Romania can’t back France against its war with Prussia just because Romania really love France and could they please stop being so bigoted,even Bismarck is calling them out
"For God's sake bring me a large Scotch. What a bloody awful country."
 
It depends. Any historical figure, good or bad, operated within a framework that dictated what they could or couldn't do. From our point of view, FDR should have declared war on Nazi Germany on 1939 or attacked Japan in 1940 ... perhaps even made far more obvious preparations for war in 1941; from their point of view, it was politically impossible to do anything of the sort. And that's in a decent state. If the SI is in Hitler's body and he decides not to launch the war, or carry out mass slaughter and genocide, or anything else along those lines, there's a good chance he'll be killed by his own subordinates.

If it was done well, it might teach a lot about real history. But it would have to be done very well.
Gonna try to save you some time right now Chris. I am never going go engage in discussion with you so don't bother trying with me.
 
Baen shut down its discussion forum yesterday, over concerns that some of the stuff posted in it crossed the line into legally actionable hate speech.

It’s been brought to my attention by some helpful folks that speech not everyone agrees with, and that may have become unlawful speech, has occurred on Baen’s Bar. In order to fully investigate those serious allegations, and any violations of the Bar “no hitting” rule, we will be taking a break from the Bar as of noon February 16th, and encourage all our readers to enjoy their lawful conversations elsewhere for the time being.
 
I don't follow any specific SI pieces but expect I'd find "I'm an expert on the period and will make things much better" to be somewhat less interesting than "What the fuck is going on and man am I going to screw this up."


The best historical SI one I've read was the Bomber Harris one which was both heavy on details and occasionally trippy a'la Life on Mars.

Unfortunately I think it turned out the author was problematic but he may have just had a beef with Ian
 
Baen shut down its discussion forum yesterday, over concerns that some of the stuff posted in it crossed the line into legally actionable hate speech.

Finding out Kratman was saying "Trump should form his own party and also an attached militia so the police & army know they'll be shot at if they mess with it" was... not surprising at all, really. The bit where he says "and those violent blacks & hispanics should be the front-line shocktroops" did catch me out though
 
Finding out Kratman was saying "Trump should form his own party and also an attached militia so the police & army know they'll be shot at if they mess with it" was... not surprising at all, really. The bit where he says "and those violent blacks & hispanics should be the front-line shocktroops" did catch me out though
It's less surprising when you see that his reasoning is that law enforcement wouldn't dare stop them, because as we all know the police is incredibly lenient with non-white protesters.
 
Oh yeah, it's just "we should recruit THOSE people for the front because they're so inherently good at being violent" is not a thing I've come across in militia rants before
One is reminded of how early 20th-century European powers considered some of their colonial subjects "martial races" and used them accordingly as cannon fodder.
 
Ad Astra per Aspera is annoying for the following reasons (besides the 1984 in Space Elements) :
  • several more centuries of colonialism in Africa and Asia, and the American conquest of South America after the American conquest of parts of Africa/Asia (even though Brazil could well develop nukes)
  • The American Empire having 1950s culture when a US which didn't participate in *WW1 and only really mobilized in *WW2 would have a very different culture
  • the Soviet Union, Henry Ford etc. appearing well after the POD
  • the Ottomans surviving to *WW2 not affecting a lot of things (*Soviet Central Asia, Israel, Pakistan etc.)
  • The effects of Russia's victory in the R-J war never being fleshed out, smaller things like the Second Balkan Wars too
 
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Ad Astra per Aspera is annoying for the following reasons (besides the 1984 in Space Elements) :
  • several more centuries of colonialism in Africa and Asia, and the American conquest of South America after the American conquest of parts of Africa/Asia (even though Brazil could well develop nukes)
  • The American Empire having 1950s culture when a US which didn't participate in *WW1 and only really mobilized in *WW2 would have a very different culture
  • the Soviet Union, Henry Ford etc. appearing well after the POD
  • the Ottomans surviving to *WW2 not affecting a lot of things (*Soviet Central Asia, Israel, Pakistan etc.)
  • The effects of Russia's victory in the R-J war never being fleshed out, smaller things like the Second Balkan Wars too

Yeah, my issue with Rvbomally's work is that they both blend together and are almost always dystopic. I don't know why, but that's my feeling on it.
 
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