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Alternate History General Discussion

Discussions on rather sensitive topics like colonialism or revolution can be pretty bad in alternate history. I mean, jeez, I read threads on if colonialism can be more humane and it quickly degenerated into arguments and pointing out that the Japanese and Chinese could be plenty brutal imperialists themselves.

Answer seems to be, no, can’t be more humane since all of replies were “A little less shitty than what they actually were.”

Every month or more often on the Other Place there's a thread on how a white settler majority country could arise in Africa, how apartheid could survive and be nicer etc. It's very odd.

I tend to reply with some history and stats as why this would be inherently unstable, unsustainable, but back of my mind is a voice saying "why do people keep postulating this"
 
Weird question, "how would a white majority country arise" - we know how it happens, "appalling levels of genocide and disease". (Or a lot of Europeans go settle a place few of the natives want to go to, but why, when land nobody's going to already is land that sucks to live on?)

  1. Football clubs in the capital with rich, powerful owners and a lot of crazy fans.
  2. A coup of some kind where the team owners join forces with the plotters, providing them with manpower, money, and a sense of popular support to help spook the existing regime.
  3. The team owners then become cabinet ministers, and being far better administrators than the junior officer plotters, kind of worm their way to power. Whether it's a formal deposing or something more outwardly acceptable can vary, but you get the idea.
  4. There you have it, your team owners cabal.
  5. In the fragmented country, the cabal is incapable of projecting power outside the capital. However, their opponents don't (initially) have the resources for a costly urban attack.
  6. Sports is used as a flag-rally, and hooligans make good goons.

Let's throw in regional power bases - i.e. the hooligans support their local big team and the clubs have economic interests where they're based - for a "federal system" that's less politely referred to as 'carved up by warlords'. Escape From Manchester United.
 
Weird question, "how would a white majority country arise" - we know how it happens, "appalling levels of genocide and disease". (Or a lot of Europeans go settle a place few of the natives want to go to, but why, when land nobody's going to already is land that sucks to live on?)

This is as good an example as any of how a lot of the people who ask these kinds of questions don't seem to be able to really internalize, for lack of a better word, the mechanics at work. I'm not blaming them (not everyone can be knowledgeable about/interested in systems) but it does make for a shallower discussion, and I think it's exacerbated by how much easier it is to just ask another question about another divergence than try to figure it out yourself through knowledge of that system (in this case, massive demographic changes.)
 
Not on quite the same level I think but I do remember when musing about a Wales that got its independence in the early 20th century and how you could get it to be majority Welsh speaking, and trying to think what went differently for central and eastern European countries, and suddenly realising one major factor is "they did become independent, and generally spent a decade or so on (sometimes mutual) ethnic cleansing afterwards" and going "oh fuck, what have I been doing".
 
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I’ll say that unreliable narrator stuff works when there is stuff showing that said narrator might be wrong. Just saying that the person is biased and not showing anything that proves it makes it seem like the author is just covering their ass or trying to make their work seem more complex than it actually is.
That's fair, and I think the writing to date has demonstrated that the narrator's knowledge, capabilities and competencies are limited.

Hmm, that sounds unkind.

The narrator's knowledge, capabilities, and competencies are constrained and capped.

The thing's 90% written, so I'd sure hope so, anyway. If not, that's why we have second drafts.
 
On the subject of Wales, I'm thinking it's a weirdly good location for a resistance stronghold in a Nazi German-occupied Britain, or at least an acceptable one for what's inherently going to be a soft setting. Good terrain and a coastline that lets it be easily resupplied from across the Atlantic.
 
I am bemused that some of my readers occasionally mix up, "Narrator/protagonist doesn't know/is wrong about something" with "Author didn't do the research and I need to point out that he is wrong."

I think it was Stirling who said the technical term for a reader who can't distinguish between a characters ideology and the author's values is a "moron"
 
Well, it depends. There are plenty of writers who put their own values into a central character's ideology, where the character is essentially a mouthpiece for the author.

Yeah, if you give one character thousands of pages explaining his ideology and acting on that ideology helps make things better within the narrative and the only people who disagree are proven wrong within the narrative, then any attempts to hide behind 'it's the character not the author' rings pretty hollow.

I don't think it's over reading to think that for instance Terry Pratchett strongly agrees with Sam Vines's opinions on how to police a city given the narrative demonstrates his methods working.
 
Not on quite the same level I think but I do remember when musing about a Wales that got its independence in the early 20th century and how you could get it to be majority Welsh speaking, and trying to think what went differently for central and eastern European countries, and suddenly realising one major factor is "they did become independent, and generally spent a decade or so on (sometimes mutual) ethnic cleansing afterwards" and going "oh fuck, what have I been doing".
I remember thinking of an idea for an alternate history story inspired by Gwenno Saunders stuff in which in the story Irish-Scottish alliance battle England over there ‘historic’ claims to Wales and Cornwall. This had Wales become a Welsh Majority Country, though mainly because so much war and conflict as happened that any with any ties outside of Wales have jumped ship, leaving this weird Neutral Nation of Wales etc.
 
Well, it depends. There are plenty of writers who put their own values into a central character's ideology, where the character is essentially a mouthpiece for the author.

Quite true.

More complex for writers of dystopias, but the more words the character gets, the more one asks..
 
So Stirling uses that quote, but I've usually seen it attributed as originally either Larry Niven or Robert A. Heinlein.

It was Niven, IIRC.

A lot of the problem comes from having to put yourself in the character's headspace, to present his thinking as his own without letting him be too self-aware (as a dickhead/idiot who knows he is a dickhead/idiot is not a convincing character). Do a good job of it and someone will assume you're actually stating your own opinions, do a bad job and someone will say you're an idiot instead <sigh>.

Chris
 
Stirling could have a completely clean record of statements in his outside the book work (he doesn't, but I don't really want to dwell on that), and the Draka (because this is really what a lot of the controversy was unsurprisingly about) would still come across as creepy mega-Sues.

Even if it wasn't his intention, they still end up with viewpoint characters who, when not living in luxury palaces and taking part in saucily delicious lesbianism, are out easily conquering the world with their superweapons and skill that easily exceeds their drooling, inept opponents. A reader can look at that and be easily forgiven for having suspicions about the author.
 
People here have mentioned that, a problem with people's assumptions about colonialism was that, if if they were run by good people, then it would stop being exploitative and be good for them, ignoring the larger issue that it was made to exploit, not to benefit its inhabitants.

Are there any alternate history stories that explore that? Any stories in general that explores a good person, at least by the standards of the time, who cares about the inhabitants and tries to make their lives better, but the very nature of colonialism negates any possible good or makes any good done insignificant?
 
Stirling could have a completely clean record of statements in his outside the book work (he doesn't, but I don't really want to dwell on that), and the Draka (because this is really what a lot of the controversy was unsurprisingly about) would still come across as creepy mega-Sues.

Even if it wasn't his intention, they still end up with viewpoint characters who, when not living in luxury palaces and taking part in saucily delicious lesbianism, are out easily conquering the world with their superweapons and skill that easily exceeds their drooling, inept opponents. A reader can look at that and be easily forgiven for having suspicions about the author.

I think it is fairly clear, from the text, that the Draka are not the good guys (even if, in the first book, their enemies are literal Nazis). They are a cancer and I think part of the point was how easy it was to do nothing, until the cancer grew to the point it couldn't be stopped.
 
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