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Overdone tropes you actually enjoy?

SpudNutimus

SpudNutimus

I make maps and things.
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he/him
What are some overdone tropes and bits of alternate history which you think actually deserve to be as popular as they are? Concepts which are commonly seen in amateur work but nonetheless still valuable on their own at face value without too much additional subversion or finicking. I'll start with some of mine:
  1. American Cuba (but ONLY when done properly and fleshed out instead of just "Cuba is a state now, let's never mention it again")
  2. Texas remains an independent nation (once again, ONLY when done properly, for example portraying it as a late-stage slave power or petrostate instead of just "look how cool independent Texas is!")
  3. Socialist uprisings in the Gilded Age United States (these are more of a stretch than "Teddy Roosevelt never takes office and everything stays terrible" as they're often portrayed, but they can still be interesting and well-done)
  4. Newborn United States falls apart after a failed Constitutional Convention
  5. Victorious Confederacy turns into a mainland Haiti
  6. Texas and/or California are admitted to the Union as/split into multiple smaller states
  7. American Baja California/Sonora (as opposed to all of Northern Mexico or, God forbid, all of Mexico)
  8. Unified state of Dakota
  9. State of Franklin/Frankland/East Tennessee after the American Civil War
  10. State of Sequoyah (something of a stretch but not impossible)
  11. American purchase of Greenland
 
SpudNutimus said:
Victorious Confederacy turns into a mainland Haiti
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May be enjoyable from a 'moral of the story', revenge factor, or overall 'Django Unchained' fantasy aspect of the idea. But it can't be done with any realism without injecting major altering factors in CSA demography to get that demography more Haitian like, via things like racially selective plagues hitting white people, a massive revival of trans-Atlantic slave trade that the maritime powers don't mind somehow, or CSA planter-ocracy getting so overbearing on white non-slaveowners or small landholders to cause major white flight, so pretty much ASB developments.
 
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SpudNutimus said:
What are some overdone tropes and bits of alternate history which you think actually deserve to be as popular as they are? Concepts which are commonly seen in amateur work but nonetheless still valuable on their own at face value without too much additional subversion or finicking. I'll start with some of mine:
  1. American Cuba (but ONLY when done properly and fleshed out instead of just "Cuba is a state now, let's never mention it again")
  2. Texas remains an independent nation (once again, ONLY when done properly, for example portraying it as a late-stage slave power or petrostate instead of just "look how cool independent Texas is!")
  3. Socialist uprisings in the Gilded Age United States (these are more of a stretch than "Teddy Roosevelt never takes office and everything stays terrible" as they're often portrayed, but they can still be interesting and well-done)
  4. Newborn United States falls apart after a failed Constitutional Convention
  5. Victorious Confederacy turns into a mainland Haiti
  6. Texas and/or California are admitted to the Union as/split into multiple smaller states
  7. American Baja California/Sonora (as opposed to all of Northern Mexico or, God forbid, all of Mexico)
  8. Unified state of Dakota
  9. State of Franklin/Frankland/East Tennessee after the American Civil War
  10. State of Sequoyah (something of a stretch but not impossible)
  11. American purchase of Greenland
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We must allow a respite in hatred for the humble wikibox.
Genuinely, the really author-y althist people seem to think that all wikiboxes are an inherent menace to artistic integrity, but I think it's a really fun and readable way to get across information, especially if done well - you can be very dynamic with them, some of @Callan's work comes to mind.


also forgive me but it feels like people have been lampshading the alliance winning in 83 more than we've made timelines with the alliance winning in 83. probably just an element of when specifically i entered the community
 
Kimkatya said:
also forgive me but it feels like people have been lampshading the alliance winning in 83 more than we've made timelines with the alliance winning in 83. probably just an element of when specifically i entered the community
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I feel that way about WW2 and American Civil War AH, it is certainly the most prevalent out there in FLESHSPACE but I feel like there's still a lot of possibilities as far as online works go that haven't been explored. It's one thing to say that you wish there was more from insert less done time period / setting here, fair enough, but people sometimes act as though the WW2/ACW market is saturated when there's plenty of room for more good AH.
 
Kimkatya said:
also forgive me but it feels like people have been lampshading the alliance winning in 83 more than we've made timelines with the alliance winning in 83. probably just an element of when specifically i entered the community
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I think in general a lot of overdone ideas have become so widely seen as overdone that as a result we rarely see them done.
  • Gaitskell surviving
  • Callaghan calling a late 1978 GE
  • Maggie going over Westland
  • Labour winning in 1992
To name a few UK politics ones that I've seen discussed for under five posts more than I've seen anything substantive.

Thande said:
I feel that way about WW2 and American Civil War AH, it is certainly the most prevalent out there in FLESHSPACE but I feel like there's still a lot of possibilities as far as online works go that haven't been explored. It's one thing to say that you wish there was more from insert less done time period / setting here, fair enough, but people sometimes act as though the WW2/ACW market is saturated when there's plenty of room for more good AH.
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And on this note, I don't feel I've seen an avoided or failed American Revolution in AH circles anywhere near as much as I've seen it done in the mainstream. From a pop AH perspective it seems almost like the third runner following in terms of AH ideas, the Stargate behind WW2s Star Wars and the ACWs Star Trek. Online however it feels more like if it is a third place its more akin to any of the other SPFL teams after the Old Firm.
 
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RyanF said:
And on this note, I don't feel I've seen an avoided or failed American Revolution in AH circles anywhere near as much as I've seen it done in the mainstream. From a pop AH perspective it seems almost like the third runner following in terms of AH ideas, the Stargate behind WW2s Star Wars and the ACWs Star Trek. Online however it feels more like if it is a third place its more akin to any of the other SPFL teams after the Old Firm.
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Maybe vague awareness of the existence of "For Want of a Nail" puts people off doing it 'seriously' in online AH circles? I'm only reading that for the first time now and it does feel strangely anachronous to have such a detailed, well-researched and scrapbook style TL on the subject published in the 1970s.
 
Thande said:
Maybe vague awareness of the existence of "For Want of a Nail" puts people off doing it 'seriously' in online AH circles? I'm only reading that for the first time now and it does feel strangely anachronous to have such a detailed, well-researched and scrapbook style TL on the subject published in the 1970s.
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That itself would be a bizarre reason, because of all the implications of the Thirteen Colonies remaining part of the British Empire its a very specific interpretation to be penciled into. Especially once that megacorp run by the wacky neighbour on Seinfeld gets started.
 
Oddball national leaders, provided they're handled in detailed, researched, restrained ways. I liked A World Of Laughter A World Of Tears and Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire in spite of their softness and quibbles, and given how OTL has often shaken out, actually prefer the "strange" ones over "the guy who came in third in that year's primary/leadership election".
 
Thande said:
Maybe vague awareness of the existence of "For Want of a Nail" puts people off doing it 'seriously' in online AH circles? I'm only reading that for the first time now and it does feel strangely anachronous to have such a detailed, well-researched and scrapbook style TL on the subject published in the 1970s.
Click to expand...
And an obsession with election tables rivalling any wikibox timeline. Incidentally making it a good example of wikibox timelines done right.
 
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