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Overdone tropes you actually enjoy?

SpudNutimus said:
  • 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)
  • Newborn United States falls apart after a failed Constitutional Convention
  • Victorious Confederacy turns into a mainland Haiti
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Does anyone know of timelines where these tropes are done well?
RyanF said:
Callaghan calling a late 1978 GE
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To be fair, I hadn't heard of it being done in a timeline before I did it in Decades of Discontent*.

*Which absolutely will be resumed, eventually.
 
Venocara said:
Does anyone know of timelines where these tropes are done well?
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For the second one, Planita13's A More Imperfect Union is pretty interesting. For the third one, hopefully my own timeline Death of Dixie could be considered decent if/when I finish it (although calling it a true mainland Haiti is a stretch, since the state in question is barely majority-black and still has major political influence from cooperative whites).
 
I like switching up the religions of different countries (i.e. what if Iran was Sunni, India was Shia Muslim, China became Manichaean, Nordic Paganism survived, Catholic England+America, Protestant France etc.) along with making some countries communist/fascist when they weren't IOTL. Not wanks though, I like to keep things realistic.
 
1. "Mirror world" when you switch domination by an OTL state with either domination by another state or culture, or conversely complete mosaicisation. E.g : United Europe under Rome vs. Balkanized China, surviving Byzantine Empire means hopelessly backwater western Europe, united medieval India means reverse colonisation, etc. When it's well done, it can be a good literary or reflection device.

2. AH as utopia or "better history". There's a long-lasting trend of opinion stressing that AH ought to be realistic in the sense bias or preferences shouldn't show too much, that it's distracting when the author pushes for a specific golden path. And yeah, if it's done poorly, without a bit of nuance, it can be annoying.
But on the other hand, why AH shouldn't be used as a philosophical device as much as other genres? Maybe an ur-classic as Renouvier's Uchronie isn't particularly realistic with Romans surviving by stopping Christianity and only gradually "civilizing" it as an anti-clerical Protestantism, but it's also a great reflection (along with "a story within a story" device) on the guy own perception and understanding of time, choice and agenda of people.
 
To no one's surprise, mine is communist Americas. That used to be pretty novel but there's been quite a few, some good, some bad, to the point you often see ones that bring nothing new to the table, but I still get a little thrill at people being willing to consider the possibility. Sometimes they even explore the depths of leftist history in the US rather than copy paste tropes about those damn commies!
 
Like I said, I think a balkanized America after the Articles of Confederacy would be interesting.

I also like the idea of China remaining split mainly between north and south somewhere before the OTL Mongol invasion. Imagine having a North and South China that develops different culture, language, identity, and politics. The surrounding countries and people like Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Steppe Nomads and such, will have to form or change alliances between these two nations claiming to be the real ruler of the middle kingdom, and we could see surrounding proxy wars.
 
Nyvis said:
To no one's surprise, mine is communist Americas. That used to be pretty novel but there's been quite a few, some good, some bad, to the point you often see ones that bring nothing new to the table, but I still get a little thrill at people being willing to consider the possibility. Sometimes they even explore the depths of leftist history in the US rather than copy paste tropes about those damn commies!
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Ditto, with general alternate leftisms and socialist Europes. I think Kasierreich is equal parts to blame for the creation of shoddy ones (and for a gross misunderstanding of syndicalism, but, we digress!), but also to thank for inspiring the creation of genuinly good ones. Similarly, there's a lot of very... questionable German Council Republic timelines out there, but the ones that hit the mark right really hit the mark right.

Edit: Something something, "Hit the Reichsmark"
 
I'm a big fan of Balkanize Me! in alternate history, where big countries that are assumed to irreversibly large and potential global hegemons are broken up into warring factions or oil-rich statelets (USA, Brazil, Canada, Russia, China, India-Pakistan)

I enjoy the squeeing of disgust from nationalists of those countries, almost as much.

I also enjoy it when Britain is an also-ran in the race for Empire, but keeps just a few European exclaves for me, please.
 
Nyvis said:
To no one's surprise, mine is communist Americas. That used to be pretty novel but there's been quite a few, some good, some bad, to the point you often see ones that bring nothing new to the table, but I still get a little thrill at people being willing to consider the possibility. Sometimes they even explore the depths of leftist history in the US rather than copy paste tropes about those damn commies!
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It's too bad the "X becomes communist/socialist" cliché isn't done that well, mostly as you pointed out because it's made with a total lack of interest onto what was actually the radical or leftist realities of the time and place. Like okay, you want to do a reverse October Revolution with your Germany wins WW1 timeline, great, and you want to end up with a socialist France instead/in addition of Russia, swell. But there's so much opportunities in taking a slight interest in local politics rather than slap a communard or syndicalist label and call it a day.

Although the biggest offender might be in the lot of Italian socialist republics where it's basically summarized as "it's communist now, except in the south" where you'd at least expect a "oooh, are we pulling a North/South Vietnam parallel?", or how Spain's XIXth communalist movement get scrapped for a poor rendition of stalinist/trotskist/anarchist Spain (pick your choice)
Lilitou said:
Ditto, with general alternate leftisms and socialist Europes. I think Kasierreich is equal parts to blame for the creation of shoddy ones (and for a gross misunderstanding of syndicalism, but, we digress!),
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An hundred times this.
 
LSCatilina said:
It's too bad the "X becomes communist/socialist" cliché isn't done that well, mostly as you pointed out because it's made with a total lack of interest onto what was actually the radical or leftist realities of the time and place. Like okay, you want to do a reverse October Revolution with your Germany wins WW1 timeline, great, and you want to end up with a socialist France instead/in addition of Russia, swell. But there's so much opportunities in taking a slight interest in local politics rather than slap a communard or syndicalist label and call it a day.

Although the biggest offender might be in the lot of Italian socialist republics where it's basically summarized as "it's communist now, except in the south" where you'd at least expect a "oooh, are we pulling a North/South Vietnam parallel?", or how Spain's XIXth communalist movement get scrapped for a poor rendition of stalinist/trotskist/anarchist Spain (pick your choice)
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A lot of this is just people only reading English language sources, and non academic ones at that. Which sometimes is good enough on subjects the English language history community cares a lot about and provided a lot of accessible material for but just isn't going to cut it if you're trying to map an alternate path for a non English speaking country.

This is also why I don't write much of anything. I know I don't know enough and I don't have the patience to change that so I just vibe.
 
Nyvis said:
A lot of this is just people only reading English language sources, and non academic ones at that. Which sometimes is good enough on subjects the English language history community cares a lot about and provided a lot of accessible material for but just isn't going to cut it if you're trying to map an alternate path for a non English speaking country.

This is also why I don't write much of anything. I know I don't know enough and I don't have the patience to change that so I just vibe.
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I'd say I care less about timelines being thoroughly researched and worked as a simili-academic work (if people can pull it, it's wonderful, but it's time and energy consuming) than people *trying* to look it up a bit, even if it means simplifying or remodelling an issue to fit the narrative so far, that's perfectly fine.

Honestly, I think trying can make the difference in successfully using a classical and overused trope, or not. From what I see on this thread, it's pretty much the general idea : nobody really minds clichés as a whole, if there's a bit of something thought over.
 
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Ricardolindo said:
This one is implausible, though, as Denmark was never ready to sell Greenland.
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there’s a cool genre called alternate history, where you can change circumstances and have different things happen, adjusting levels of plausibility dependent on different factors than what actually occured, i dont know if you’ve heard of it
 
Nyvis said:
A lot of this is just people only reading English language sources, and non academic ones at that. Which sometimes is good enough on subjects the English language history community cares a lot about and provided a lot of accessible material for but just isn't going to cut it if you're trying to map an alternate path for a non English speaking country.

This is also why I don't write much of anything. I know I don't know enough and I don't have the patience to change that so I just vibe.
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So, two things:
1. Reading proper academic sources feels like someone breaking into your skull with a hand-held lemon juicer
2. Part of the reason I never write anything is a constant anxiety panic on the nature of international affairs being bigger than anyone can comprehend - there is never going to be a point at which someone can point and say “I now know enough to write the illustrious depths of this socio-economic situation applied to politics”. There has to be a point at which one has to calm down. My point is not inherently opposed to yours, but the minute we treat alternate history like the academic study of history is the minute our horse gets too high and our already inaccessible genre gets nigh impossible to find amateur footing in.
 
Kimkatya said:
So, two things:
1. Reading proper academic sources feels like someone breaking into your skull with a hand-held lemon juicer
2. Part of the reason I never write anything is a constant anxiety panic on the nature of international affairs being bigger than anyone can comprehend - there is never going to be a point at which someone can point and say “I now know enough to write the illustrious depths of this socio-economic situation applied to politics”. There has to be a point at which one has to calm down. My point is not inherently opposed to yours, but the minute we treat alternate history like the academic study of history is the minute our horse gets too high and our already inaccessible genre gets nigh impossible to find amateur footing in.
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Well sure. But my point is also that on topics not covered by more accessible sources in English language, the AH community tend to either do the in depth research or fall woefully short with little in between, not that every AH work should be an academic study.
 
Kimkatya said:
Reading proper academic sources feels like someone breaking into your skull with a hand-held lemon juicer
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Understood.
But a lot of academic history and archeology papers have maps and diagrams one can work from, whether one reads the text or not.

(As a semi-former academic, even in my own field, I look at the pictures / graphs etc in a paper first, and only go to the text if it seems like it will be very useful)
 
Ricardolindo said:
This one is implausible, though, as Denmark was never ready to sell Greenland.
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Kimkatya said:
there’s a cool genre called alternate history, where you can change circumstances and have different things happen, adjusting levels of plausibility dependent on different factors than what actually occured, i dont know if you’ve heard of it
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The problem, though, is that Danes were overwhelmingly opposed to selling Greenland when it was rumored that the United States wanted it in 1947 and I don't see how we could change that.
 
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