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Least favorite alt-history story?

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.
vivere Militare Est somehow has all of mainland India lost, and most of Africa- and even with the Nazis and Imperial Japanese around, the American far right (outside of the Klan) doesn’t feature as an actual occultist threat (William Dudley Pelley or an occultist *American-fascist group)

Also, TTL’s culture/society was never really explored
 
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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
How about how the POD for his ~spooky, dystopian~ TL is literally the implementation of Radical Reconstruction.
 
How about how the POD for his ~spooky, dystopian~ TL is literally the implementation of Radical Reconstruction.
Well, that's a big red flag right there.

I read that TL years ago and for a time corresponded with rvbomally a fair bit. If memory serves, the chain of logic is not "black people getting rights -> space dystopia."

Rather his emphasis is on the fact that in order to achieve radical reconstruction the US government must use the Army to a much greater extent than it did in OTL. This leads to the military having a much larger role in American politics, eventually becoming something akin to a Latin American military junta. It is this much more authoritarian country that becomes a world power by that universe’s version of the Cold War.

I’m certain the more knowledgeable could poke holes in that logic, and there’s a fair argument that it’s problematic, but I never got the impression it was a deliberately racist screed.
 
I read that TL years ago and for a time corresponded with rvbomally a fair bit. If memory serves, the chain of logic is not "black people getting rights -> space dystopia."

Rather his emphasis is on the fact that in order to achieve radical reconstruction the US government must use the Army to a much greater extent than it did in OTL. This leads to the military having a much larger role in American politics, eventually becoming something akin to a Latin American military junta. It is this much more authoritarian country that becomes a world power by that universe’s version of the Cold War.

I’m certain the more knowledgeable could poke holes in that logic, and there’s a fair argument that it’s problematic, but I never got the impression it was a deliberately racist screed.
Also, the issue with the US gaining so many colonies was that it was never in the US’ interest to do so
 
Also, the issue with the US gaining so many colonies was that it was never in the US’ interest to do so
TTL’s US is a culturist entity that seeks to forcibly Christianize and Civilize hundreds of millions natives in its African and Asian colonies and is mentioned to deport millions of Japanese to the Amazon, Mexicans to Canada etc.

Also all the directors' surnames are either AngloAmerican or German even though Italian and PolishAmericans are 8% of the population, never mind forcibly assimilated Africans or Asians from the not-colonies and it is mentioned the Philippines was the most loyal/assimilated colony
 
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I read that TL years ago and for a time corresponded with rvbomally a fair bit. If memory serves, the chain of logic is not "black people getting rights -> space dystopia."

Rather his emphasis is on the fact that in order to achieve radical reconstruction the US government must use the Army to a much greater extent than it did in OTL. This leads to the military having a much larger role in American politics, eventually becoming something akin to a Latin American military junta. It is this much more authoritarian country that becomes a world power by that universe’s version of the Cold War.

I’m certain the more knowledgeable could poke holes in that logic, and there’s a fair argument that it’s problematic, but I never got the impression it was a deliberately racist screed.

Putting it like that, it sounds like he was trying to be edgy.
 
Tripartite Alliance Earth may require a butterfly genocide but at least it was though out and avoided pointless stereotypes and cliches even though it was written in the early 2000s
 
I do still enjoy some of the scenarios from the Oneshot Thread, but in retrospect the recurring theme of "ooga booga ebil new states that want to kill everyone because they all subscribe to ideologies that in real life would barely convince a drunk Trotskyite" both gets old real fast and have pretty unfortunate implications, given that the implication seems to be that all revolutions are pure evil and end in doom.

A lot of rvbomally's stuff makes sense when you realise that his vision of the platonic ideal of worldbuilding is Warhammer 40,000.
 
I do still enjoy some of the scenarios from the Oneshot Thread, but in retrospect the recurring theme of "ooga booga ebil new states that want to kill everyone because they all subscribe to ideologies that in real life would barely convince a drunk Trotskyite" both gets old real fast and have pretty unfortunate implications, given that the implication seems to be that all revolutions are pure evil and end in doom.

A lot of rvbomally's stuff makes sense when you realise that his vision of the platonic ideal of worldbuilding is Warhammer 40,000.
Also his obsession with continuing colonialism/ exiled govts in Africa/ white settler populations is kind of annoying
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Also his persistent use of *Communism as a enemy ideology even with PODs long predating 1900
 
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Also the “realistic” redo of Ad Astra Per Aspera that I shall not name due to being even cringier than the inspiration
 
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