Things that look like alternate history but aren't

[RyanF]

Maglev railway bridge to Doggerland, constructed 2036

I agree more with the sentiment in the original Tweet.

"I've seen things our kid wouldn't believe..."

 

[Thande]

Maps produced in the aftermath of WW1 (in this case 1921) are always good for this.

 

[Charles EP M.]

The Beatles in Hamburg 1960 looking like a photoshop for a timeline where the 60s got angrier and the 'Fierce Five' are off to do some hard rocking about how it is down in the Mersey no-go.

 

[LSCatilina]

Portrait of Sir Winston Churchill wearing a British uniform and a French Adrian helmet.

 

[Hendryk]

After a short stint in French politics, former banker Emmanuel Macron embraced a successful career in K-pop.

 

[Redolegna]

After a short stint in French politics, former banker Emmanuel Macron embraced a successful career in K-pop.

He plays percussions and has replaced cymbals with frying pans.

 

[Meadow]

This is a real promotional image at Liverpool Street at the moment, it looks like not just AH but a shit AH from a timeline where Britain is the same but isn’t a monarchy, and someone asked “how would British brands look if they had a king?”

I think it’s really quite accurate for that, see also how flags of AH monarchies often can’t move for crowns despite few such flags having crowns on. Sort of the platonic opposite of the “communist flags always look like the newly-communist nation’s flag, even though very few communist countries kept national symbols or old flags on their new one” phenomenon.

 

[Coiler]

This.

 

[Geordie]

The band of the Scots Guards (and other military units in the background), stranded on the platform at Farnborough Main after their transport was seized by the Workers' Revolutionary Council.

 

[Thande]

The different uniform philosophies of guards on the Indian-Chinese border always make it look like the result of one or more ISOTs to me.

 

[Hendryk]

For some reason lost to memory, the Sea Lion became a potent religious symbol in China...

Acquired political overtones...

And was eventually weaponized by a shady demagogue.

 

[Charles EP M.]

If you didn't know Brits work as astronauts but just not for us, this doesn't look real - not helped by how the UK Space Agency logo is so clearly 2000s in its design and a little too similar to the British Rocket Group logo in 2005 Doctor Who

 

[Thande]

For some reason lost to memory, the Sea Lion became a potent religious symbol in China...

Acquired political overtones...

And was eventually weaponized by a shady demagogue.

I do still have the photos off the original thread saved, including @Burton K Wheeler 's Iraq tour.

 

[LSCatilina]

Jean-Luc Mélenchon (bearing his very best "evil twin" staches) defending the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992

 

[Warthog]

Jean-Luc Mélenchon (bearing his very best "evil twin" staches) defending the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992

Awesome

 

[Indicus]

Portrait of Joseph Stalin put up on Tiananmen Gate to commemorate his death. Looks very much like a timeline where the USSR incorporated China.

 

[Callan]

This is, in fact, a prototype train built for the London Underground in 1986 that led to the development of Tube Stock that still runs on the Central Line to this day. But seeing a tube train in any livery other than the London Underground's famous red, white and blue design feels extremely AH. This could very easily be the stock for a Metro system built for Birmingham, Manchester or one of the other English cities that at various points had London-like Tube networks proposed for them.

 

[RyanF]

This is, in fact, a prototype train built for the London Underground in 1986 that led to the development of Tube Stock that still runs on the Central Line to this day. But it could very easily be the eighties stock for a Metro Line build for Birmingham, Manchester or one of the other English cities that at various points had London-like Tube networks proposed for them.

The livery reminiscent of that one Picc-Vic artist conception, though I believe the actual proposed rolling stock for that project bore more of a resemblance to what would come later for Merseyrail.

 

[Callan]

The livery reminiscent of that one Picc-Vic artist conception, though I believe the actual proposed rolling stock for that project bore more of a resemblance to what would come later for Merseyrail.

I didn't even think of that - yeah, it does!

Was honestly thinking myself more of an ATL where more English cities around the turn of start of the 20th century get underground lines influenced by the Deep-level tube lines, reminiscent of the Glasgow Subway.

 

[Bonniecanuck]

This is, in fact, a prototype train built for the London Underground in 1986 that led to the development of Tube Stock that still runs on the Central Line to this day. But seeing a tube train in any livery other than the London Underground's famous red, white and blue design feels extremely AH. This could very easily be the stock for a Metro system built for Birmingham, Manchester or one of the other English cities that at various points had London-like Tube networks proposed for them.

Another transit one that came to mind for me was the authentic Paris Metro Guimard entrance at Square Victoria-OACI in Montreal. The signboard is a bit of a giveaway but the environment works for anything from a French North America AH to a Paris that embraced skyscrapers outside La Défense.