History TabletopGame / GURPSAlternateEarths

* ForWantOfANail: The reason Rome falls apart: Since the west European provinces have had access to New World staple crops like maize and potatoes for a long time, they're no longer dependent on Egyptian grain, so the economy and politics disintegrate fast.

* TechnologyLevels: A slight aversion. The Republican Alliance essentially leapfrogged the TechTree when they developed jet engines without propeller engines; the current limiting factor in aircraft speed is that the available airframe technology isn't up to handling the speed that their engines can pull.

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: Better than with those silly humans.

* JokeLevel: This world is mainly there to make it clear that alternate universes don't ''have'' to make sense, and nobody on Homeline is even going to ''try'' explaining just how the hell this world came about. The consensus is that the gods think it's funny.

John Trastamara (the son of Ferdinand I of Castille and Isabella II of Aragon – yes, ''[[UsefulNotes/ChristopherColumbus that]]'' Ferdinand and Isabella) survives to inherit the throne in place of his sister [[RoyallyScrewedUp Joanna the Mad]]. Hence, no united Habsburg empire. The way history develops is... odd: Charles II and Louis XVI prevent revolutions which otherwise would have lead to more democracy and the creation of republics, increased missionary activity from Portugal (who finds its continental designs frustrated) causes Japan to remain open to Western influences and technology from the 16th century on, and at the end, the whole democratic phase is somehow skipped, since the world transforms into a typical cyberpunkish society where nothing else counts but how rich you are.

* JustTheFirstCitizen: Boris Gromov, head of the Russian Dominate.

''GURPS Alternate Earths'' is (as you may have guessed) a ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' sourcebook (well, rather two books, but they're both covered here) about AlternateHistory -- or rather, alternate timelines which the characters may visit in one campaign, or live in from the start. Describes twelve timelines (six in each book) in loving detail. They were later made a part of the ''TabletopGame/InfiniteWorlds'' unified GURPS setting.

UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla marries the daughter of J.P. Morgan, gains financial support to take out Edison, and can realize all his cool inventions.

* TechnologyLevels: A slight aversion. The Republican Alliance essentially leapfrogged the TechTree when they developed jet engines without propeller engines; the current limiting factor in aircraft speed is because the available airframe technology isn't up to handling the speed that their engines can pull.
* WeAreStrugglingTogether:
** Austria is a bit of a mess...
** ...But [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified the rebels]] know that they can't afford to [[DividedWeFall hang separately]], and currently the liberals are keeping everyone together and mostly civilized.

* AlternateHistoryWank: For the CSA, Germany and arguably the US progressives and the United Indian Republic.

* VestigialEmpire: The Austrian Triple Monarchy survived the Great War, but none of its internal problems were fixed, and now it's a heavily-subsidized drag on the German economy that's slowly edging towards final collapse.

* AlternateHistoryWank: Averted; the setting gets too weird to say that any power is wanked up. For some times, the Bourbons.

* AlternateHistoryWank: Mongols, Aztecs, Songhay, and Iroquois.

Ming China doesn't scrap its [[CoolShip treasure fleet]] after the 15th century voyages of Zheng He, and starts to, almost accidentally, expand - first into Vietnam, India, and Arabia, then Africa, and later into Europe when [[SirFrancisDrake the lackeys]] of their bandit [[ElizabethI queens]] and kings start to become a nuisance... and there's no end, it seems...

* ActionGirl: In the US, women serve in all branches of the military.
** DarkActionGirl: They also commit as many violent crimes as men do.

* NukeEm: The nazis didn't hesitate to level Denver, Dallas, St. Louis and Omaha in 1950 and Pittsburgh, Atlanta, San Antonio, Salt Lake City and Calgary in 1976 when the Americans started an uprising.

* UsefulNotes/JapaneseChristian: In this reality Japan is almost entirely Christian, having converted in the 16th century.
** ChristianityIsCatholic: In great part thanks to above and Japan also being by far the world's most powerful nation, almost 50% of total world population are Catholic - rising to 90% with the elites.

* SpaceFillingEmpire: Japan, of course. How much? The eastern half of Asia (incl. India), the Pacific islands and Madagascar, and the western bit of North America.

[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne-Robert-Jacques_Turgot,_Baron_de_Laune Baron Turgot]] manages to reform France without unduly upsetting the royalty, which prevents UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution - and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution as well, since he won't support republican rebels against a fellow king. In 1984, the Thirteen Colonies are still economically repressed and confined east of the Appalachians. Meanwhile, the Quadruple Alliance of Britain, Spain, France, and Austria remains watchful against the Russian Dominate, the revolutionary force that expelled the Tsar six years earlier and threatens to do the same to the other crowned heads of Europe.

** Thanks to an alliance with the Catholic Church, careful devolution of power to local viceroys, and the use of mass media, subjects of the Spanish Empire see their monarch as this.
** The book's narration, meanwhile, considers Austria's liberal monarch to be this. He's making some enemies at home, though.

* {{Kaiserreich}}: Prussia never formed into UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany (Austria's Emperor is technically the Holy Roman Emperor, but only in name), but it still acts a lot like this. It's the most formidable land power in the Five Thrones, able to go toe-to-toe with the Russian Dominate.
* TheLancer: With its experiments in free-market economics and the elimination of royal privileges, Austria is seen as this by the other European powers.

* CorruptBureaucrat: Most of the bureaucracy are this. It simply doesn't pay to be honest while the Middle Kingdom burns, and preparing for the imperial examinations requires money - which often comes with strings attached.

* {{Pirate}}: Everyone's doing it. Except for the Scandinavians (no surprise), the [[LongList Moors, Chinese, Malay, Yanomami, Hanse Germans, Gujarati and Nihonese]] are also into it.

An eccentric 9th century Muslim scholar refutes the pagan Greek philosophers using rationalism. In combination with an Arab printing press and an oil-powered Industrial Revolution, the Muslims become the prime power in the world and develop science and technology at a breakneck pace. The first man lands on the moon in 1434, and in the present time (1683 AD), the world has reached an age of progress far beyond that of Homeline. However, a secular, rationalist movement known as the Jamahiriya ("Republic") has recently taken over much of Talentis (the New World) in a lightning bid for power, and an apocalyptic war may be at hand.

* AnarchyIsChaos: Averted. The Umma (territory not governed by a caliphate) has no sovereign government (although local government still exists in many places), but is a very peaceful place - and in many ways ''more'' restrictive and orderly than in the Caliphates.

* SpaceFillingEmpire: The Bulgarian Caliphate covers our Russia, southeastern Europe, and the north and west of North America / Talentis.

* WeAreStrugglingTogether: Austria is a bit of a mess...
** TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified: ... but the rebels know that they can't afford to [[DividedWeFall hang separately]], and currently the liberals are keeping everyone together and mostly civilized.

The Carthaginians discover America in 600 BC, so the Old World diseases hit America two millennia earlier (and the New World crops do the same to Europe); in addition, the lower technological development of the newcomers prevents outright conquest. The Roman Empire falls apart after Nero, and the various barbarians make sure Europe never recovers. Then the Aztecs (who have rebuilt their population) start the Industrial Revolution.
* AlternateHistoryWank: Mongols, Aztecs and Iroquois.

* IstanbulNotConstantinople: Manhattan Island is known as Manannan here (named after the Celtic sea god by the Irish refugees who founded it).

* InSpiteOfANail: Most {{egregious}} example. The Aztec people (aka the Tenochca) still exists although history diverged more than two thousand years before them. [[{{Lampshading}} Lampshaded]] in that Homeline cliologists have no idea why they exist in that timeline either.

* ShoutOut: The picture shows a CSA officer named [[GoneWithTheWind "Butler"]] looking much like Creator/ClarkGable.

* {{Jesus}}: May have been pardoned by the emperor, if he lived at all.

* PenalColony: [[TheOtherRainForest Oregon Country]] (which has hosted such luminaries as Jeremy Bentham and [[Creator/GeorgeOrwell Eric Blair]]) is where the British Empire sends its troublemakers.

* VestigialEmpire: The Songhay Empire, directly descended from the African provinces of Rome. Slightly subverted in that it's still a power player in geopolitics.

John Trastamara (the son of Ferdinand I of Castille and Isabella II of Aragon – yes, ''[[ChristopherColumbus that]]'' Ferdinand and Isabella) survives to inherit the throne in place of his sister [[RoyallyScrewedUp Joanna the Mad]]. Hence, no united Habsburg empire. The way history develops is... odd: Charles II and Louis XVI prevent revolutions which otherwise would have lead to more democracy and the creation of republics, increased missionary activity from Portugal (who finds its continental designs frustrated) causes Japan to remain open to Western influences and technology from the 16th century on, and at the end, the whole democratic phase is somehow skipped, since the world transforms into a typical cyberpunkish society where nothing else counts but how rich you are.

* BalkanizeMe: The SovietUnion, which is no more.

* TheFifties: Even about twenty years later, the world is still much like this. (UsefulNotes/WorldWarII was avoided; the war which brought down the SovietUnion was shorter and more one-sided, thus less upsetting for the world.)

''GURPS Alternate Earths'' is (as you may have guessed) a ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' sourcebook (well, rather two books, but they're both covered here) about AlternateHistory -- or rather, alternate timelines which the characters may visit in one campaign, or live in from the start. Describes twelve timelines (six in each book) in loving detail.

* JapaneseChristian: In this reality Japan is almost entirely Christian, having converted in the 16th century.