The Great and Grand Alternative History Discussion Thread.

A variant I've considered is what if Henry's elder brother, Arthur hadn't died? Henry would never have been king, never have married Catherine and never have sought an annulment. As for Arthur, who knows what kind of king he would have been?

edited 7th May '16 1:06:12 PM by tricksterson

Bumping this to posit alternate 2016 elections. Gonna avoid the obvious whatifHilarywon? because it smacks of wankery to me although if you want to go ahead.

What if instead of running as a Republican Trump had gone third party ala Perot?

What if Sanders had gone third party either from the beginning or after he lost to Clinton?

What of they'd both gone third/fourth party?

edited 1st Mar '17 3:27:11 PM by tricksterson

Uh... why is this thread in OTC and the actual history thread in Yack Fest?

On the idea of a 4-way 2016 election. here's an interesting take on one made on Reddit before the elections.

France did claim huge chunks of North America. But the problem is [prepare for broad, sweeping generalization that was true often enough to have its effect]: French emigrants to N.A. were disproportionately single men involved in pursuits like trapping. More often than not they married Indian women, and their descendants got absorbed right back into the local tribes. English emigrants, on the other hand, were disproportionately self-contained families, largely farmers, and hungry for land as a result.

So there are reasons it made sense for France to sell Louisiana other than power politics. And farther north, even a victory at the Plains of Abraham might not have kept New France going in the long run; demographics were already voting against them. I don't think that alternate scenario would change any of the above factors.

edited 9th Mar '17 9:13:16 AM by Jhimmibhob

What of: if the Hapsburg Emperor or Prussian King had accepted the Frankfurt Constitution and the Frankfurt Parliament became the government of 19th century Germany?

Unfortunately the Republicans didn't lose control of the Senate so whoever Republicans put together would get in fully. My own spec on running mates would be that Hillary would still pick Caine because why wouldn't she? I doubt that Trump or Sanders would get anyone who still wanted a political career in either major party. I think Sanders would run Green and have Stein as his mate and Trump would go with Palin. The big question would be who would the Republicans pick in the absence of Trump? I'm thinking Cruz who would have the full backing of the RTCs. But who would he have as his running mate? A fellow fanatic like Pence or a ticket balancing moderate like Kasich?

edited 12th Mar '17 4:45:13 PM by tricksterson

Another one: what if the marriage between Phillip II and Mary I had produced an heir or more? aside from the union of the English and Spanish crowns and probably preventing the infamous inbreeding of the Spanish Austrias, which would have been the religious and political consequences in the long run?

Well, Mary Stuart would probably have received a much friendlier (and less deadly) asylum from Philip & Mary's heir than Elizabeth provided. One can easily see her getting reinstalled to the Scottish throne on English-friendly terms, if not as an outright puppet. But eventually, something like the union of the English and Scottish crowns would still have happened—to which nation's advantage depends on whether the Stuarts or the Hapsburg-Tudors petered out first.

It's anybody's guess whether something like the Cromwells and the Restoration would still have happened in a Catholic England. But who knows? Under a sterner, less democratic Spanish influence, maybe English social pressures would've built up and eventually erupted in a French-style revolution.

edited 27th Apr '17 12:55:53 PM by Jhimmibhob

It would have depended on how the Spanish would have handled the English and Scottish crowns, if they had gone for the route of the Viceroyalty, then they wouldn't have that many problems with handling Britain; had they gone for the Dutch route then you can bet that you would have rebellions at the drop of a hat.

Speaking of them, without English support, I'll guess that the eighty years war might have ended differently, maybe even the Thirty Years War could have been avoided or shortened if the Habsburgs had a more unified front and any successor of Phillip might had achieved the goal of Charles I.

The US politics website 538 has recently published a Clinton wins the 2016 election by just enough not to drag change any congress race What If?.

Weirdly enough it apparently does change the result of the UK 2017 general election, for some reason.

Silver's apparently become... rather attached, shall we say, to the idea that Trump's presidency is the one and only factor explaining why right-populists in europe are weakening and sees fit to invert the trend by pretending him not being POTUS makes May look better.

edited 20th Jul '17 5:10:13 PM by IFwanderer

What if Huey Long had not been assassinated and run for President as either a Democrat or a third party candidate in 1936?

edited 15th Sep '17 9:35:01 AM by tricksterson

What if, after 9/11, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announces they will rebuild the original World Trade Center but stronger, safer, and according to 21st century building codes?

Honestly, on the historical scale, that seems relatively anecdotal. I don't think it would change much, if anything.

What do you mean exactly?

That’s essentially what they did.

In a figurative sense, I assume?

Well, no, in a pretty literal sense.

Honestly, I'm not sure what your idea actually is.

I assume they mean rebuilding it as new Twin Towers, rather than as just the one tower. Which... yeah, wouldn't really change a whole lot.

Indeed. Except that rebuilding the Twin Towers probably would've caused a LOT of controversy.

They are rebuilding a second tower. It's just not going well.

Yeah. And it looks like shit.

So your alternate history proposal is, essentually, 'what if the design for Two World Trade Center was different'?

No, what I meant is what if they rebuilt the original World Trade Center complex the way it was before 9/11, but updated with modern technology and safety features. From the Twin Towers, the Sphere, the smaller buildings and so on.