History Main / AlternateHistoryWank

* The various ''Strangerverse'' timelines from Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom ''invoke'' this trope. The entire point of the timeline is to have a certain country that will eventually end up covering the entire Earth. The story itself is that a time traveler from the future came to the past and gave AppliedPhlebotinum to a major historical figure that will help his country in doing this task. Examples include:

There is a certain degree of TruthInTelevision here; certain nations or causes ''have'' apparently been BornLucky or have become implausibly dominant global powers, and certain periods have essentially been dominated by one particular group or cause. The United States in particular is sometimes said to embody the closest thing to this in RealLife; Bismarck is often ([[BeamMeUpScotty falsely]]) quoted as saying "there is a special providence that protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." At the height of the British Empire, 20% of the world's population was governed by a small island off the coast of Northern Europe. UsefulNotes/TheProphetMuhammad was an illiterate man not born into nobility, yet he founded the world's second-largest religion with a holy book considered the finest work in its entire language[[note]]OK, if you're Muslim, you would say that God Himself wrote it[[/note]], and an empire that spanned from Portugal to Afghanistan. The skills and achievements of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat might seem like implausibly fanciful tales were they not real. The unification and creation of the nation and idea of China was, in some senses, the work of a single man, UsefulNotes/QinShiHuangdi. And the Mongol Empire lasted for over 150 years and, at its height, spanned 20% of the world's land. However, what separates these situations from a typical case of this trope (apart from actually happening) is that not everything was perfect for them. The United States hasn't always had good fortune, with [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar the civil war over slavery which killed about 800,000 people]] being a particular nadir, the British Empire was at times fiercely hated and resisted by a large number of its subjects and fell apart after the country went bankrupt during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII,[[note]]at which point India was the only colony that actually turned a profit anyway[[/note]], Muhammad was persecuted by pagans for years and his empire took centuries to reach full height, Alexander had his personal screw-ups and his realm disintegrated after he died, ''every'' pan-Chinese Empire fell apart at some point, and the Mongol Empire was too big to administer effectively and split into four separate khanates before eventually collapsing.

* ''The Silent Stars Go By'' by Creator/JamesWhite has as its point of divergence an Irish emissary from the King of Tara visiting Roman Alexandria in the mid-1st-century CE and recognizing the potential of Hero of Alexandria's real-life "aeolipile" primitive steam engine. Ireland / Tara has an industrial revolution and becomes the most powerful nation of the next millennium.

* Exactly how it happened isn't shown, but in ''Literature/TheHighCrusade'', [[spoiler:'''Israel''' manages to take over the world. This is rather amusing when they run into an interstellar empire ruled by the descendants of would-be Crusaders.]]

** Ming-3 is merely one example of this trope in the ''GURPS Infinite Worlds'' setting, which is loaded with such examples. '''Aztec Earth''', '''Roman Earth''', '''Japanese Earth''', '''Islamic Earth''', the list goes on. One other notable example is the self-explanatory [[StupidJetpackHitler "Reich-5"]].

** By modern AH standards, the Nazis and Japanese conquering the USA by 1947 is rather unrealistic (even Hitler himself, in his long-term plans, thought conquering the USA would not be possible for the Germans until TheEighties). In fairness, though, Dick did not have access to much of the data about WWII that was still classified when he wrote the novel in TheSixties but has become common knowledge.

* A mild example in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series. The Soviet Union never became a world superpower in this universe, and so '''China''' became the communist opponent to the United States in the Cold War, which wouldn’t end until the Resource Wars kicked off in 2052, during which China invaded Alaska and the US annexed Canada as a result. It's ultimately irrelevant to the games themselves because after fifteen years of the Resource Wars, eleven years of the subsequent Sino-American War, and then the Great War lasting about [[NukeEm two hours]], there's [[AfterTheEnd not a whole lot left of either power]].

* ''WebOriginal/AtlasAltera'' could be considered a wank for the concept of diversity itself, but also for all the stateless nations today -- this world has dozens of Australian Aboriginal and Native American states, not to mention the rest of the world. In terms of religion, pretty much every religion other than Christianity and Islam gets wanked (and even Islam spreads further than in our world, being the majority in several states in South America, Australia, and Papua).

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

* '''The Eastern Roman Empire''' (better known to most as the '''Byzantine Empire'''), and the '''Malwa''' Empire before its collapse in the ''Literature/BelisariusSeries''. {{Justified}} in that they're both being aided by supercomputers from the future to advance technologically. The point of the series is a series of geeky military thought experiments inside some truly epic war novels, rather than an attempt to build a complete and plausible alternate-history timeline.

** ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron'' (1936-1948): "What if the Nazis won WWII?" "What if Poland or France defeated Germany all by itself?" "What if the United States embraced Communism?"

** By modern AH standards, the Nazis and Japanese conquering the USA by 1947 is rather unrealistic (even Hitler himself, in his long-term plans, thought conquering the USA would not be possible for the Germans until TheEighties). In fairness, though, Dick did not have access to much of the data about UsefulNotes/WW2 that has become common knowledge since then but was still classified in TheSixties when he wrote the novel.
** Interestingly, this trope is also used by the book-within-a-book ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy''. The aftermath of World War 2 in that story has Britain and America splitting the world instead, with the USSR being a nonentity. And the British Empire, thanks to the authoritarian leadership of Churchill, would eventually beat the Americans. It could be that Dick realized the certain futility of what he was doing with the book itself, and so lampshaded it by introducing the book-within-a-book. It's also played for a certain amount of irony as well; notice how, aside from the Allies winning the war, almost the exact opposite of what Amendsen proposes as happening in ''The Grasshopper Lies Heavy'' happened in the actual world. It was the Soviet Union, not Britain, that became America's post-war Cold War opponent. Far from ruling Britain like a warlord, Churchill was kicked out of office barely two months after German's defeat. Far from the British Empire getting stronger and stronger, his replacements began the process of dismantling it. And so on.

In AlternateHistory fandom jargon, a "Wank" is when a single nation, culture, political theory, or other group is singled out and advantaged in a story, typically disproportionately and at the expense of its contemporaries. As if the story was written by a nationalist masturbating to his nation's fictional triumph. Perhaps the British Empire has [[AmericaIsStillAColony not just kept the American colonies]], but expanded deep into Latin America as well. Perhaps the [[ExpandedStatesOfAmerica Greater United States]] rules its entire continent. Perhaps Rome, the Mongols, or ThoseWackyNazis managed to win it all and now [[TakeOverTheWorld dominate the globe]]. In short, the point of divergence that created the {{alternate history}} has also created a "Republic Of MarySue" of one sort or another.

Therefore, there can be disagreement about what precisely constitutes an Alternate History Wank. Some maintain that for a timeline to qualify as a Wank it has to be fundamentally implausible or even invoke AlienSpaceBats ''after the point of divergence''; for example a timeline where an AlienInvasion attacks all the other countries while inexplicably leaving Romania alone. For others, the timeline just has to show [[CreatorsPet clear signs of favoritism]] towards one nation; for example, a timeline where Romania becomes the central dominating power of Europe because the leaders and generals of other nations inexplicably [[IdiotBall become complete idiots]] when dealing with Romania, which conversely is blessed with personnel who are tactical geniuses and never make a wrong move, ever. MassTeleportation of a country through time (called "ISOT") very often results in a wank, since moderns have the benefits of advanced technology and hindsight when sent back in time.

In either case, it is usually quite clear upon reading that regardless of the in-universe justifications offered, the real reason the Wanked empire is doing so well is that the author prefers them and is overtly arranging things to work out in their favour. As such, there are several common results or indicators that suggest that a Wank might be taking place. Firstly, in keeping with the above points about favouritism, the reader might get a sense that the nation in question is BornLucky: everything always goes its way, when an issue turning against it just once would have disastrous consequences. In our Romania example, it might be that {{Contrived Coincidence}}s always seem to work out in Romania’s favour, otherwise-intelligent people completely fail to spot Romania’s obvious plans until it’s too late, and so forth. The inverse of a Wank is a "Screw" -- essentially, giving a certain nation the IdiotBall or TraumaCongaLine. A Wank for one nation is often a Screw for others at the same time.

Another indicator is that individual nations tend to be assimilated into large multinational power blocs, with the end result in extreme cases being that [[SpaceFillingEmpire the entire world is divided between two or three super-empires]] -- all of which are dominated by one main national or cultural group (which, perhaps not coincidentally, is usually that which [[CreatorProvincialism the author finds it easiest to identify with and[=/=]or write about]]). In our example, while it might plausibly be possible for Romania to become a dominant European power, a scenario in which it rules all of Eurasia is probably a Wank. Such empires might also be implausibly long-lasting, with little or no sign of the kinds of stresses that tend to vex large empires in real life (such as internal rebellions, difficulties of long-range governing, intercultural friction, etc.)

** ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings'' (takes place 769-1453): "What if the Mongol Empire never fell?" "What if a native empire united India?" "What if a [[TitleDrop Crusader King]] succeeding in Christianizing the Levant?" and so on.
*** The '''Aztec Empire''' in the ''Crusader Kings II'' DLC ''Sunset Invasion'', where the Aztecs launch a full invasion of Europe in the 1250s after reverse-engineering captured Viking longships from Vinland. Note that the Aztec Empire was [[NewerThanTheyThink founded in 1427]]; this, combined with other impossibilities, leads to its inclusion being mocked by diehard history simulation fans. Overall, the scenario is ''supposed'' to be silly, its main purpose is to make life in western Europe harder, as the region is usually more peaceful due to being distanced from the Mongols and religious conflicts.

** ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron'' (takes place 1936-1948): "What if the Nazis won WWII?" "What if Poland or France defeated Germany all by itself?" "What if the United States embraced Communism?"

In AlternateHistory fandom jargon, a "Wank" is when a single nation, culture, political theory, or philosophy is singled out and advantaged in a story, typically disproportionately and at the expense of its contemporaries. The term is a crude reference to the idea of a nationalist masturbating to his nation's fictional triumph. Perhaps the British Empire has [[AmericaIsStillAColony not just kept the American colonies]], but expanded deep into Latin America as well. Maybe the [[ExpandedStatesOfAmerica Greater United States]] rules its entire continent. Maybe Rome, the Mongols, or ThoseWackyNazis managed to win it all and now [[TakeOverTheWorld dominate the globe]]. In short, the point of divergence that created the {{alternate history}} has also created a "Republic Of MarySue" of one sort or another.

"Bad guy" empires tend to be the most chosen for wank status. For every "Rome never falls" timeline there seem to be at least three "USSR and/or Nazi Germany takes over the world". Another way this trope comes about is when one historically significant person is suddenly killed or spared in this alternate timeline, leading to changes that are, at best, questionable. Such as "if UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar was not assassinated, Rome would develop steam-powered technology and bring the barbarians to their knees". And that is a relatively ''tame'' example.

Therefore, there can be disagreement about what precisely constitutes an Alternate History Wank. Some maintain that for a timeline to qualify as a Wank it has to be fundamentally implausible or even invoke AlienSpaceBats ''after the point of divergence''; for example a timeline where an AlienInvasion attacks all the other countries while inexplicably leaving Romania alone. For others, the timeline just has to show [[CreatorsPet clear signs of favoritism]] towards the author’s preferred nation; for example, a timeline where Romania becomes the central dominating power of Europe because the military leaders, diplomats, and politicians of the other nations inexplicably [[IdiotBall become complete idiots]] when dealing with Romania, which conversely is blessed with leaders who are tactical geniuses and never make a wrong move, ever. MassTeleportation of a country through time (called "ISOT") very often results in a wank, since moderns have the benefits of advanced technology and hindsight when sent back in time.

In either case, however, it is usually quite clear upon reading that regardless of the in-universe justifications offered, the real reason the Wanked empire is doing so well is that the author obviously prefers them and is overtly arranging things to work out in their favour. As such, there are several common results or indicators that suggest that a Wank might be taking place. Firstly, in keeping with the above points about favouritism, the reader might get a sense that the nation in question is BornLucky: everything always goes its way, when an issue turning against it just once would have disastrous consequences. In our Romania example, it might be that {{Contrived Coincidence}}s always seem to work out in Romania’s favour, otherwise seemingly intelligent people completely fail to spot Romania’s obvious plans until it’s too late, and so forth. The inversion of a Wank is a "Screw" -- essentially, giving a certain nation the IdiotBall or otherwise turning them into the story's ButtMonkey. A Wank for one nation can often be a Screw for others at the same time.

Another indicator is that individual nations tend to be assimilated into large multinational single-state power blocs, with the end result in extreme cases being that [[SpaceFillingEmpire the entire world is divided between two or three super-empires]] -- all of which are dominated by one main national or cultural group (which, perhaps not coincidentally, is usually that which [[CreatorProvincialism the author finds it easiest to identify with and[=/=]or write about]]). In our example, while it might plausibly be possible for Romania to become a dominant European power, a scenario in which it rules all of Eurasia is probably a Wank. Such empires might also be implausibly long-lasting, with little or no sign of the kinds of stresses that tend to vex large empires in real life (such as internal rebellions, difficulties of long-range governing, intercultural friction, etc.)

There is a certain degree of TruthInTelevision here; certain nations or causes ''have'' apparently been BornLucky or have become implausibly dominant global powers, and certain periods have essentially been dominated by one particular group or cause. The United States in particular is sometimes said to embody the closest thing to this in RealLife: Bismarck is often ([[BeamMeUpScotty falsely]]) quoted as saying "there is a special providence that protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." At the height of the British Empire, 20% of the world’s population was governed by a small island off the coast of Northern Europe. UsefulNotes/TheProphetMuhammad was an illiterate man not born into nobility, yet he founded the world's second-largest religion with a holy book considered the finest work in its entire language[[note]]OK, if you're Muslim, you would say that God Himself wrote it[[/note]], and an empire that spanned from Portugal to Afghanistan. The skills and achievements of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat might seem like implausibly fanciful tales were they not real. The unification and creation of the nation and idea of China was, in some senses, the work of a single man, UsefulNotes/QinShiHuangdi. And the Mongol Empire lasted for over 150 years and, at its height, spanned 20% of the world's land. However, what separates these situations from a typical case of this trope (apart from actually happening) is that not everything was perfect for them; the United States hasn’t always had good fortune, with [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar the civil war over slavery which killed about 800,000 people]] being a particular nadir, the British Empire was at times fiercely hated and resisted by a large number of its subjects and eventually fell after the country went bankrupt during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII,[[note]]at which point India was the only colony that actually turned a profit anyway[[/note]], Muhammad was persecuted by pagans for years and his empire took centuries to reach full height, Alexander had his personal screw-ups and his realm disintegrated after he died, ''every'' pan-Chinese Empire fell apart at some point, and the Mongol Empire was too big to administer effectively and split into four separate khanates before eventually collapsing.

* A staple of most of Creator/ParadoxInteractive's Grand Strategy games.
** A lot of ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'' {{After Action Report}}s take this form, as it takes place in the colonial era. "What if England took over all of the Americas?" "What if the Spanish completely took over Africa?" "What if Asian countries colonized Australia?" and so on.
** ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron'' takes place during the late Industrial Era, near the beginning of World War II, and makes for several great possibilities, such as the classic "What if the Nazis won the war?" or "What if the United States embraced Communism?"
*** "What if Mosley took over the UK and made it fascist?" "What if France and the UK rebuffed Germany's early expansion?" "What if Stalin never completed the Great Purge?" "What if Japan never invaded China?" "What if the Spanish Civil War turned out in favor of the Republicans?" "What if Poland or France stopped the blitzkrieg, or even preemptively declared war on Germany and launched their own?"
** ''VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun'' takes place toward the end of the Colonial Era and through the Industrial Era, featuring several events such as the American Civil War, Scramble for Africa, and culminating in World War I, and all associated possible alternate futures.
** ''VideoGame/CrusaderKingsII'' lives and breathes this trope, to the point where you have your pick of several starting eras, and can change the starting date to send things in a different direction (such as, famously, Munster conquering all of Ireland starting in 1066, a scenario commonly referred to as [[VideoGame/RuneScape Tutorial Island]] by fans).
*** The '''Aztec Empire''' in the non-canon DLC Sunset Invasion, where the Aztec Empire manages to launch a full invasion of Europe in the 1250s after reverse-engineering captured Viking longships from Vinland. Note that the Aztec Empire was [[NewerThanTheyThink not founded until 1427]]; this, combined with other impossibilities, leads to its inclusion being mocked by diehard history simulation fans. Overall, the scenario is ''supposed'' to be silly, acting mostly as a handwavy mechanic to balance how easy it was to start in western Europe, far away from invading Mongols and likely distanced from the Islamic factions.
* The ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron IV'' mod ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysofEurope'' plays with this -- it is done straight before and during World War II for the Axis powers (mostly because [[AnthropicPrinciple it would be hard to pull off a crushing Axis victory without it]]), but the moment the Axis won, the timeline stopped giving them breaks (at least for Germany; what has been hinted about Japan thus far suggests they're doing better), to the point that some slight wankish moments later on (such as Spain and Portugal uniting into a fascist Iberian Union) are direct counter-reactions to how badly Germany screws things up and the Reich appears to be on the brink of collapse by the start-date -- 1962, less than two decades after WWII ended.

In the parlance of AlternateHistory fandom, a "Wank" is where a single nation, culture, political theory, or philosophy is singled out and advantaged, typically disproportionately at the expense of its contemporaries; the term is a crude reference to the idea of the nationalist masturbating over his nation's fictional triumph. Perhaps the British Empire has not just kept the American colonies, but expanded deep into Latin America as well. Maybe the Greater United States rules our world's Canada and Mexico. Maybe Rome, the Mongols, or ThoseWackyNazis managed to win it all and now [[TakeOverTheWorld dominate the globe]]. In short, the point of divergence that created the {{alternate history}} has also created a "Republic Of MarySue" of one sort or another.

This treatment is really popular for famous empires, though "bad guy" empires tend to be the most popular for wank status. For every "Rome never falls" timeline there seem to be at least three "USSR and/or Nazi Germany takes over the world". Another way this trope comes about is when one historically significant person is suddenly killed or spared in this alternate timeline, leading to changes that are, at best, questionable. Such as "if UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar was not assassinated, Rome would develop steam-powered technology and bring the barbarians to their knees". And that is a relatively ''tame'' example.

It should be noted that the success of a nation or cause is not, by itself, an indicating factor, even if that nation or cause was largely unsuccessful in RealLife. Indeed, exploring what might have happened had unsuccessful groups or ideologies been more successful is arguably the whole ''point'' of Alternate History. An Alternate History where, say, Romania becomes a central dominating power of Europe is not in and of itself an Alternate History Wank, because there are some hypothetical conditions where such a scenario might have plausibly come about and been maintained, and an author might examine such a scenario in a realistic and likely fashion.

Therefore, there can be some disagreement about what, precisely, constitutes an Alternate History Wank. Some maintain that for a timeline to qualify as a Wank it has to be fundamentally implausible or even invoke AlienSpaceBats ''after the point of divergence''; for example a timeline where, say, Romania becomes the central dominating power of Europe because aliens arrive on the planet and attack all the other countries in Europe while inexplicably leaving Romania alone. For others, the timeline just has to show [[CreatorsPet clear signs of favoritism]] towards the author’s preferred nation; for example, a timeline where Romania becomes the central dominating power of Europe because the military leaders, diplomats, and politicians of the other nations inexplicably [[IdiotBall become complete idiots]] when dealing with Romania, which conversely is blessed with leaders who are tactical geniuses and never make a wrong move, ever. MassTeleportation of a country through time (called "ISOT") very often results in a wank, since moderns have access to more advanced technology, and most importantly have the benefit of hindsight when sent back in time.

In either case, however, it is usually quite clear upon reading the timeline that regardless of the in-universe justifications that are being offered, the only real reason the empire that is the centre of the Wank is doing so well is that the author obviously prefers them and is overtly arranging things to work out in their favour. As such, there are several common results or indicators that suggest that a Wank might be taking place. Firstly, in keeping with the above points about favouritism, the reader might get a sense that the nation in question is BornLucky: everything always goes its way, when an issue turning against it just once would have disastrous consequences. In our Romania example, it might be that {{Contrived Coincidence}}s always seem to be working out in Romania’s favour, otherwise seemingly intelligent people completely fail to spot Romania’s obvious plans until it’s too late, and so forth. The inversion of a Wank is a "Screw" -- essentially, giving a certain nation the IdiotBall or otherwise turning them into the story's ButtMonkey. A Wank for one nation can often be a Screw for other nations at the same time.

Another indicator is that individual nations tend to be assimilated into large multinational single-state power blocs, with the end result in extreme cases being that [[SpaceFillingEmpire the entire world is divided between two or three super-empires]] -- all of which tend to be dominated by one main national or cultural group (which, perhaps not coincidentally, is usually that which [[CreatorProvincialism the author finds it easiest to identify with and[=/=]or write about]]). This tends to result in a situation where, as with the page image, the map of the world can essentially be shaded with two or three colours. In our example, while it might plausibly be possible for Romania to become a dominant European power, a scenario that results in a world where the entire part of the map incorporating Europe, Asia, and the Middle East is a monolithic entity with no internal borders, which is shaded one colour on the map and all of which might as well be simply called ‘Romania’ makes it likely that a Wank is taking place. Such empires might also be implausibly long-lasting, with little or no sign of the kinds of stresses that tend to vex large empires in real life (such as supply lines, internal opposition, regional differences, etc.).

Note that [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools none of this is necessarily or automatically a bad thing]]. Sometimes a plausible timeline with a purposefully maximized British Empire can be informative and entertaining, or valuable for some artistic purpose. Sometimes it's just a matter of [[RuleOfCool doing something fun and entertaining]]. It just may require a lot of WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief.

Note also that there is a certain degree of TruthInTelevision here; certain nations or causes ''have'' apparently been BornLucky or have become implausibly dominant global powers, and certain periods have essentially been dominated by one particular group or cause. The United States in particular is sometimes said to embody the closest thing to this in RealLife: Bismarck is often ([[BeamMeUpScotty falsely]]) quoted as saying "there is a special providence that protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." At the height of the British Empire, 20% of the world’s population was governed by a small island off the coast of Northern Europe. The world's second most spoken native language nowadays is that of a diminutive square of land like Spain. The achievements of UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat might seem like the stuff of implausibly fanciful tales had they not actually happened. The unification, and in some sense, the creation, of the nation and the idea of China was, in some sense, the work of a single man, UsefulNotes/QinShiHuangdi. And the Mongol Empire lasted for over 150 years and, at its height, spanned 20% of the surface of the world. However, what separates these situations from a typical case of this trope (aside from the fact that they really happened) is that not everything was perfect for them; the United States hasn’t always had good fortune, with [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar the civil war over slavery which killed about 800,000 people]] being a particular nadir, the British Empire was at times fiercely hated and resisted by a large number of its subjects and eventually fell after the country went bankrupt during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII,[[note]]at which point India was the only colony that actually turned a profit anyway[[/note]] the Spanish Empire was trapped in an unmanageable list of highly costly wars from its beginning to its very end,[[note]]Not only its kings declared bankruptcy ''several times'', the whole empire often found itself entirely living off its gold and silver mines[[/note]] Alexander had his personal screw-ups and his empire disintegrated after his death, ''every'' pan-Chinese Empire fell apart at some point, and the Mongol Empire was too big to administer effectively and split into four separate khanates before eventually collapsing.

* Possibly the UrExample is ''Literature/NapoleonAndTheConquestOfTheWorld'' (''Napoléon et la conquête du monde 1812-1832'') by Louis Geoffroy in 1832, which - as the title suggests - had '''UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte''' act slightly differently in the 1812 invasion of Russia with the result that he conquers the entire planet by 1832. Never mind that Napoleon was ''dead'' by 1821 (and that he died of cancer, so military success would not have prevented this).

* ''Literature/AtomicRoulette'' by Andrzej Pilipiuk has '''Polish Second Republic'''. A time traveller goes back to the '30s, provides the Polish government with all possible knowledge about the war to come (as one of the characters notes, the sole map of deployment of the German army before the Invasion of Poland was more than enough) and ''all possible know-how for the next century''. By the early '60s, Poland is the leader in modern technology. The action takes place somewhere in the 2000s, where it's the only superpower in the world, Germany is a rump state with industry on the level of some African country, France and Britain as "punishment" for their inactivity against Germany were razed and now have food revolts and constant shortages on a daily basis, America is lagging behind with technology and industrial development (courtesy of Polish spies) and a sizable chunk of Africa is painted red and white (going as far as the Polish army stabilizing Somalia and succeeding). It also won against a [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar rebellion]] in Polish Indochina. Oh, and there are no atomic weapons in this world aside from Polish ones, as everyone involved in the Manhattan Project or any atomic research was murdered by Poles. Hell, thanks to the time traveller's data, they killed everyone involved with development of anything important, making research of any other country lag behind considerably, while Poland itself leads in very futuristic techs (red mercury, AI research and stuff like that). A wank to end all wanks.

* '''The Roman Empire''' in the Slaveworld novels. The empire never fell, sparing the world from TheDarkAges, resulting in a CrapsaccharineWorld free from pollution and [[AndIMustScream social unrest]].
* '''The Roman Empire''' again in Kirk Mitchell's ''Germanicus'' trilogy (''Procurator; The New Barbarians; Cry Republic''). The division point is in the distant past compared to the time of the books, and is the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate -- Pilate frees him instead of having him crucified, thus Christianity never rose, the Roman Empire never fell. It holds most of Western Europe and has provinces in North America and Africa. The Serican Empire (Chinese) hold much of Asia, and are making inroads into the Americas. The Aztecae control South America and southwest North America.

* The '''[[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany Kaiserreich]]''' AND '''the [[{{Eagleland}} United States of America]]''' in Robert Conroy's ''1901'', accompanied by gratuitous (and historically inaccurate) use of AllGermansAreNazis tropes and general StupidEvil by the Germans. In 1901, any European nation attempting to fight America would be instantly set upon by the other Great Powers of Europe; by this point, the alliance systems that led to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI were already largely in place, and such a clear violation of American historical neutrality, even after the US's war with the decaying remains of the Spanish empire, would be an easy pretext for war-not to mention that Germany's navy at the time was substantially weaker than the Royal Navy (which was easily the most powerful Navy on the planet and would remain the largest until 1944), precluding the sort of overseas invasion that Conroy portrays.
** It should be noted, though, that the novel is based on perfectly real German Empire plans to fight war against USA in late XIX century. Both nations earlier barely avoided war over Samoa (due to (un)convenient hurricane, that disabled both sides squadrons), and German Navy actually made plans from 1899 to 1906 to attack America, land an army and took over Boston - all to force US to give Philippines and Puerto-Rico over to Germany.
* Creator/HarryHarrison's ''Stars and Stripes Forever''. This features the British Empire declaring war on the United States after the Trent Affair, which somehow results in '''the Union and Confederacy''' conveniently patching up their differences and teaming up on Britain (even managing, at one point, to mount a land invasion of the British Isles).

* Turtledove is most often a fan of '''Germany'''-ruled Earths, be it '''Nazi''' (''In the Presence of Mine Enemies'', ''Shtetl Days'', ''Ready for the Fatherland'', ''The Last Article'') or '''Imperial''' (''Curious Notions'', ''Uncle Alf'').
* The '''Byzantine Empire''' in ''Agent of Byzantium'' series of short stories by Turtledove. Turtledove is in his element here, as he holds a [=PhD=] in Byzantine history. In this version, Prophet Mohammed, rather than starting Islam, becomes a Christian saint (not too far from the reality, in some sense--Islam and Christianity are much more closely related theologically than one might expect, and Islam was at least initially treated as just another Christian heresy) and consequently, no crippling military threat from the East to Byzantine /Empire materialized.

* ''Atomic roulette'' by Andrzej Pilipiuk has '''Polish Second Republic'''. A time traveller goes back to the '30s, provides the Polish government with all possible knowledge about the war to come (as one of the characters notes, the sole map of deployment of the German army before the Invasion of Poland was more than enough) and ''all possible know-how for the next century''. By the early '60s, Poland is the leader in modern technology. The action takes place somewhere in the 2000s, where it's the only superpower in the world, Germany is a rump state with industry on the level of some African country, France and Britain as "punishment" for their inactivity against Germany were razed and now have food revolts and constant shortages on a daily basis, America is lagging behind with technology and industrial development (courtesy of Polish spies) and a sizable chunk of Africa is painted red and white (going as far as the Polish army stabilizing Somalia and succeeding). It also won against a [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar rebellion]] in Polish Indochina. Oh, and there are no atomic weapons in this world aside from Polish ones, as everyone involved in the Manhattan Project or any atomic research was murdered by Poles. Hell, thanks to the time traveller's data, they killed everyone involved with development of anything important, making research of any other country lag behind considerably, while Poland itself leads in very futuristic techs (red mercury, AI research and stuff like that). A wank to end all wanks.

* One of the parallel worlds in ''The Worldfan'' duology presents us with a ModernMayincatecEmpire. Apparently, in this world, all the disparate native peoples of the Americas recognized the threat posed by Europeans. They banded together and drove the invaders out. Unified, they formed a powerful empire but had no way of crossing the oceans until a geological cataclysm reformed Beringia landbridge between North America and Asia, allowing hordes of Native Americans to pour into Eurasia. Apparently, no nation could stand against them, resulting in all of Europe and Asia coming under Native American control. Australia remained out of reach, and Africa did the same thing as the Native Americans and banded together to resist the invasion. How all those different and warring cultures could band together so seamlessly isn't stated.