During the Second World War, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had a bad dream of Japan losing the war and being destroyed by atomic hellfire. Knowing that Japan lost, he tells like-minded officers in the Japanese military to consider a different plan, a plan that would surely change the world as we see it.
Thomas Diana's At The Edge of the Abyss, is a scrapbook story originally written in French and is available both in print and online, with the first two parts already online, and the third and final volume being produced as of this writing.
Tropes include:
- Abdicate the Throne: Puyi gives up power, abolishes the monarchy, and let Zhang Xueliang, who was rescued from Chiang, become Manchuria's first president.
- Alternate History Wank: downplayed. For Japan, it only keeps Taiwan after the war. However, this is played straight at the Western Bloc during the Cold War, as they were able to defeat Castro's Cuba and North Vietnam due to Japanese help. The Soviets annex Iranian Azerbaijan.
- Balkanize Me: India was partitioned into Hindustan, Pakistan, Bengal, Sikkim, Kashmir, the Indian Princely States of the Deccan, and Dravidistan. Subverted with China, where Mao managed to conquer most of the mainland except Manchuria.
- Decisive Battle: attempted by the Japanese navy to force America to back off from the Pacific. It partially works for their favor, but the Americans were still persistent.
- Elvis Lives: The fate of Subhas Chandra Bose is still being debated, with many impostors coming out claiming they were Bose.
- Government in Exile: The Kuomintang becomes this because Japan still held Formosa. And they engage in drug trafficking.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Germany attempted this after Operation Valkyrie, but the Allies refused, knowing that the new non-Nazi German Republic is little better than the previous Third Reich.
- In Spite of a Nail: The Allies still win World War II, but the manner of the defeat of the Axis is different.
- The Korean War still happens, with similar results.
- The Soviet Union still falls.
- Nixon still resigns due to the Pentagon Papers.
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto dreaming of a collapsed Japan forced him to act and devise a face-saving plan for his country. He was not alone.
- Military Coup: Several occur in the story.
- Japanese hardliners like Tojo attempt a coup against Hirohito, but it was stopped.
- Operation Valkyrie succeeds and Ludwig Beck becomes the new leader of Germany.
- Manchukuo experiences a military coup as well, ending the monarchy and turning it into a republic.
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo: zigzagged. While Japan was not nuked, the 1951 nuclear test by Japan still triggered anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan. This taboo is broken in Vietnam by America, where it was used against the North Vietnamese.
- Who Shot JFK?: Averted with John F. Kennedy surviving but killing Jacqueline Kennedy instead. He and his brother Robert deduced that a mafia syndicate was responsible and Lyndon B. Johnson was arrested for being accused as an accomplice. A series of murders of mob leaders occurred in the 1970s and some claim that John F. Kennedy did it as revenge. However, the innocence or guilt of the murdered mobsters were still being debated today.
