Alternate History General Discussion

[Steve Brinson]

Something about it just sounds jackbooty.

I think part of it might be that the only place most people hear 'column' as an organizational term is in the couplet 'fifth column', which evokes either scary revolutionaries or scary authoritarians spreading conspiracy theories about scary revolutionaries to justify purges and crackdowns.

 

[Geordie]

I think "this must be an AH because the terms are different" is a pretty common trope. I can't remember a specific example of me doing it but I know I have.

I used "Nokias" as a catch-all term for mobile phones in Let Them Talk. My thought process was that in another world they could have nailed the leap to smartphones, and thus "done a Hoover".

I know @Mumby has used "velocipede" instead of "motorbike". Others may have done similar, but I remember that one.

 

[Coiler]

I used "Nokias" as a catch-all term for mobile phones in Let Them Talk. My thought process was that in another world they could have nailed the leap to smartphones, and thus "done a Hoover".

This makes me want to do a setting where phones in general are called "Bells" or "Tele-Bells". Both from the dominant company name and the noise they make when ringing....

 

[Qaz_plm]

you are so wrong that all you can do is hurl insults, rather than reasonable arguments.

This seems rather uncalled for

 

[Elektronaut]

This seems rather uncalled for

It's a complete non-sequitur to what was in the actual post but I think - I think? - it was addressing a general point which clearly the author feels strongly about.

At the risk of being called a Crass Old Dude, I don't think adults should give much of a shit what any random 14 year-old on the internet thinks about any subject, (Within reason; a firm and vocal extreme view might get refered to Prevent in the UK, but I assume the person in question wasn't British) but I think for actual teenagers arguing with people online and being exposed to other points of view is kind of a formative experience.

I'm not sure there is any way to argue someone down who thinks there's a biblical warrant to murder gay people a la Putin's Russia. It's just a sign of a totally disordered worldview. If they're 14 then hopefully they'll grow out of it (and their presumed wider parental/community-fostered religious fundamentalism) at some stage.

 

[Qaz_plm]

It's a complete non-sequitur to what was in the actual post but I think - I think? - it was addressing a general point which clearly the author feels strongly about.

Yeah I got that part but like he could have just said something like “He’s 14 it’s not worth arguing.” without going “You’re a supreme fool of the highest degree so even if you’d try to debate them all you could is hurl insults” especially when Christian’s only ‘hurled insult’ is saying the kid approves of homophobic policies in Russia.

At the risk of being called a Crass Old Dude, I don't think adults should give much of a shit what any random 14 year-old on the internet thinks about any subject,but I think for actual teenagers arguing with people online and being exposed to other points of view is kind of a formative experience.

I agree with you on this and so does Christian

I'd be much more critical and harsher if I didn't soon learn that said author was just entering his teenage years.

My main thing was Chris seemed really rude for a unprompted reason and I sorta thought maybe he'll elaborate if I pointed it out

 

[Charles EP M.]

I think his point was the teenager, being a teenager, would view it that way.

 

[Von Callay]

I think his point was the teenager, being a teenager, would view it that way.

That was how I read it as well, 'his convictions.'

 

[varyar]

A few weeks ago, a non-AH friend I happened to subject to "Making up fictional naval and military orders of battle is my new mini-hobby" rambling suggested the works of Avalanche Press. I got a handful based on either Plan Z or a "WW2" centered around a surviving German Empire, and finished the first one today. The Long War - Plan Z is an expansion for Avalanche's "The Long War" AH setting that - well, as it says on the tin, it's about Plan Z. It's a fairly short book (47 pages, and most of them focused on rules and battle scenarios), but I enjoyed it. First, it's upfront about how much of a grandiose fantasy Plan Z was in terms of German's industrial and financial limits, and the imbalance between the German and British fleets even in a scenario where the author tips the scales in Berlin's favor, but big navies go BOOM! so just roll with it. Second, it's refreshingly anti-Wehraboo - for instance, it frequently points out the often-significant design flaws in Nazi warships; likewise it avoids the lead paint-guzzling you often see in these scenarios and has a larger Royal Navy built up in response. The AH 'meat' is only 9 pages, but it's a good entry level book for this kind of thing.

Next up is Ships of Plan Z, which goes into more detail on the ships that would make up the Uber-Kriegsmarine.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

I think his point was the teenager, being a teenager, would view it that way.

Exactly!

Chris

 

[Delta Force]

A few weeks ago, a non-AH friend I happened to subject to "Making up fictional naval and military orders of battle is my new mini-hobby" rambling suggested the works of Avalanche Press. I got a handful based on either Plan Z or a "WW2" centered around a surviving German Empire, and finished the first one today. The Long War - Plan Z is an expansion for Avalanche's "The Long War" AH setting that - well, as it says on the tin, it's about Plan Z. It's a fairly short book (47 pages, and most of them focused on rules and battle scenarios), but I enjoyed it. First, it's upfront about how much of a grandiose fantasy Plan Z was in terms of German's industrial and financial limits, and the imbalance between the German and British fleets even in a scenario where the author tips the scales in Berlin's favor, but big navies go BOOM! so just roll with it. Second, it's refreshingly anti-Wehraboo - for instance, it frequently points out the often-significant design flaws in Nazi warships; likewise it avoids the lead paint-guzzling you often see in these scenarios and has a larger Royal Navy built up in response. The AH 'meat' is only 9 pages, but it's a good entry level book for this kind of thing.

Next up is Ships of Plan Z, which goes into more detail on the ships that would make up the Uber-Kriegsmarine.

Norman Friedman has several books on various ship projects.

 

[Qaz_plm]

Exactly!

Chris

Ah my apologies

 

[Coiler]

Have a very strange military AH divergence: So in the World War II buildup, the US Coast Guard gets "coastal defense" large ground formations. It keeps these postwar, and thus becomes the third American service to have large land components. In the Cold War, they get plopped in Denmark, Hokkaido, and other areas believed to be vulnerable to Soviet Naval Infantry.

(Debating what role they'd play in Vietnam. I'm thinking either "just more conventional infantry", "deployment in coastal areas and observing would-be infiltrators by sea", or "cupcake units that don't go and that people try to join knowing they won't go to Vietnam." )

 

[Talwar]

Have a very strange military AH divergence: So in the World War II buildup, the US Coast Guard gets "coastal defense" large ground formations. It keeps these postwar, and thus becomes the third American service to have large land components. In the Cold War, they get plopped in Denmark, Hokkaido, and other areas believed to be vulnerable to Soviet Naval Infantry.

(Debating what role they'd play in Vietnam. I'm thinking either "just more conventional infantry", "deployment in coastal areas and observing would-be infiltrators by sea", or "cupcake units that don't go and that people try to join knowing they won't go to Vietnam." )

I gather there is a Port Security Unit - maybe its analogue secures port facilities in countries such as South Korea and South Vietnam, fending off saboteurs or spooks but also taking on policing duties like anti-smuggling measures?

 

[M_Kresal]

Reading this month's Audible History newsletter, I noted with some irony it promoting an alternate history full-cast comedy called Space: 1969. Might have to use a spare credit and give it a listen for the blog.

 

[Steve Brinson]

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)

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.

More than a bit late and not quite the same, but there's a neat short story along those lines in the collection Broken Stars. It's called "The Snow of Jinyang" - the climax of the story is the time-traveller, who's set himself up as a nobleman in Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms-era China, being betrayed by his own would-be assistant to the army besieging his city because he's clearly more interested in his own goals than actually working in the best interest of the people he's ostensibly serving.

 

[Coiler]

My current rivet-counting AH obsession is looking at the payload capacity/range/engine power/efficiency of various never-were transport aircraft and wondering how they'd fit into the world of charters and freight hauling.

 

[varyar]

A few weeks ago, a non-AH friend I happened to subject to "Making up fictional naval and military orders of battle is my new mini-hobby" rambling suggested the works of Avalanche Press. I got a handful based on either Plan Z or a "WW2" centered around a surviving German Empire, and finished the first one today. The Long War - Plan Z is an expansion for Avalanche's "The Long War" AH setting that - well, as it says on the tin, it's about Plan Z. It's a fairly short book (47 pages, and most of them focused on rules and battle scenarios), but I enjoyed it. First, it's upfront about how much of a grandiose fantasy Plan Z was in terms of German's industrial and financial limits, and the imbalance between the German and British fleets even in a scenario where the author tips the scales in Berlin's favor, but big navies go BOOM! so just roll with it. Second, it's refreshingly anti-Wehraboo - for instance, it frequently points out the often-significant design flaws in Nazi warships; likewise it avoids the lead paint-guzzling you often see in these scenarios and has a larger Royal Navy built up in response. The AH 'meat' is only 9 pages, but it's a good entry level book for this kind of thing.

Next up is Ships of Plan Z, which goes into more detail on the ships that would make up the Uber-Kriegsmarine.

I finished Ships of Plan Z and also The Second Great War (a world where WWI ends in 1916 when President Wilson somehow gets everyone to agree to a peace treaty they all hate). Dear friends, I want to tell you the latter book is the more interesting one, because we're all probably bored with WW2 but BIGGER scenarios. But I can't.

I'm willing to accept sometimes you just have to go 'this scenario is implausible, but let's see how it might go' /stares awkwardly at his own SLP book.

The Second Great War is just weird, man. It's a lot of 'the author thinks this idea is really cool' (it's 1940 but everyone still uses airships and has primitive helicopters instead of fixed wing planes in any significant numbers, for example) with a bit of 'I am not a crank but this economic ideology is waaay better than the one the bad guys use' and a references to how the African and Asian subjects of the German Empire are a lot better off than Africans and Asians in the other colonial empire /insert nervous-collar-tugging gif. Also a couple of obvious digs at Donald Trump (the book came out in 2017) such as "Make Italy Great Again" which are fine but kind of dated in the Year of Our Lord 2022 and hopefully remain so in the Year of Our Lord 2024. Anyway, if you really want to read a short book where Austria-Hungary and Germany are social democratic liberal democracies allied to most of the small states of Europe (also the Ottoman Empire) banging sticks with Fascist France, Still Tsarist Russia and MIGA Mussolini Land, go for it, I guess?

Fleets of the Second Great War - Imperial German Navy is a lot better, but I'm not quite done with it yet, so I can't really give a recommendation. I ordered the Russian counterpart and really look forward to the not-yet-published Austria-Hungary book.

Ships of Plan Z is worth a look, at any rate. It threads the needle between 'let's look at what Germany wanted to build' and 'a lot of this stuff was just absurd - hello, H-class battleships - and probably would not have matched Allied ships in battle' - a good foundation for anybody who wants to do a history of the Kriegsmarine in your standard 'Reich Triumphant' timeline.

 

[Delta Force]

Has anyone done a timeline in which Stalin rules for longer?

 

[Venocara]

Has anyone done a timeline in which Stalin rules for longer?

Off of the top of my head there is The North Star is Red and Twilight of the Red Tsar.