Alternate history scenarios, ideas, general questions and miscellaneous points

"Future history is pure speculation." I wouldn't go that far. We can project certain things based on current trends.

And using past trends and situations as proof that certain things are at least possible because they already happened once; for example, it's a lot easier to argue that a civil war in a future society could happen when you can point to the many, many, many instances of civil war in recorded human history and almost always find at least one whose instigating circumstances resemble if not match the ones you're considering for said future society.

Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 23rd 2022 at 12:06:23 PM

I'm surprised I don't see that many alternate history works with a successful Republic of China. It's either a PRC, which gets worse than OTL, or a China that is more evenly split between the PRC and ROC. Or a China that remains monarchical, if constitutional.

Same. I mean, it has a massive impact on East Asian geo-politics in the second half of the twentieth century if the ROC is in control of the mainland.

The Korean War would probably still happen... but would turn out very differently. The UN forces had the North Koreans pretty decisevly beat until McArthur announced his intention to cross the Yalu and continue the fight in the PRC which prompted Mao to send in his troops. A Nationalist controlled China would be much less likely to intervene on anyone's side and that would give the UN forces the advantage.

This would in turn change the US's policy of containment vis-a-vis "International Communism" and without the threat of Communist controlled China they're less likely to maintain the troop levels in both Japan and Korea (which would be unified under the South most likely). Any conflict in Vietnam is more likely to be viewed as a purely internal conflict (thought a Nationalist China would probably still stick their oar in on that. Why break centuries long tradition).

Really the big question mark in this scenario is how are Sino-American relations? I'm going to assume that given their internal conflicts with the Chinese Communist Party the Nationalists would be hostile to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact but that's not going to automatically translate into friendly relations with the US. Especially given Chiang Kai-Shek was not that happy with his treatment by other Allied Leaders during WWII (though on the other hand you could use a closer relation with the US as the divergence point that allowed the Nationalists to get better logistical support that allowed them to win againt the Communists). But even if Sino-American relations are outright hostile a three-way conflict between the US, the USSR and the ROC would still have a vastly different geopolitical landscape replacing the Cold War.

My image is that the ROC under Chiang was moribund due to corruption among its various regional military commanders, especially as they took the brunt of the fighting against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Part of the reason Mao and the CCP were victorious by 1949 was that they garnered public support from disaffected civilians who were living under heavily corrupted regimes that were more akin to regional warlords.

I mean that's how it happened in our world, but it need not be like that in works that focus on changes in history.

But honestly, it's weird how a scenario that could fundamentally the world, is not explored that much. Like we have all these Nazi and CSA victories, but it seems that something as big as a different turn out in the Chinese Civil War is just left out.

It's probably just the regular old Euro-Amero centrism now that I think about it.

I do remember Alternate History Hub doing a video about this idea — I think Cody's conclusion was that it actually wouldn't change a lot from our current world at least in terms of the geopolitical situation, except maybe Korea gets united under Rhee in the 1950s. The biggest difference he noted was that there wouldn't have been a Cultural Revolution that did so much damage to China's historical heritage.

Edited by megarockman on Mar 1st 2022 at 1:30:27 PM

This is one case where I think Cody was a bit under done, mostly because I don't think he adequately explored the knock-on effects. As long as China remains neutral or even outright friendly (unlikely but I think you could massage your Point of Divergence to make it plausible) that's going to vastly shift the US foreign policy. Mostly because the threat of an expanded sphere of influence for communism becomes a more distant, hypothetical issue and its failure in China would make it seem that it seem easier to beat.

Well, Born stellar, I think the task falls to you. Why don't you write something up and open a thread on it?

To be honest, I'm not much of a person who's up for that much debate on the finer points of AH. I like to look at the debates for inspiration for worldbuilding.

But, really in all my searches of AH debate, I do find it odd how certain topics are sort of just not explored much even when they are quite recent.

Edited by Bornstellar on Mar 10th 2022 at 5:38:12 AM

An idea that intrigues me, but is well beyond my depth trying to develop, so here it is if anyone wants it:

In the 1920s, Russian avant-garde wins out over what would become Socialist Realism and becomes the official state-approved art style of the Soviet Union. Consequently, when the CIA uses its own art sponsorship programs to promote the US as a contrasting and more sophisticated cultural centre, it focuses on more traditional art forms in reaction against Russia's modernist/futurist aesthetics.

This might require a fundamentally less authoritarian faction to win the Russian Civil War, but I'm also delighted by the surreal mental image of Stalin-or-equivalent filling Soviet cities with countless statues of himself, and every last one of them is gloriously and oppressively cubist.

I think all what this requires is Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili having a different taste of culture.

I'm just going to go ahead and say it, Noaqiyeum, you have a strange and delightful imagination.

Maybe so, but the rest of his regime would look rather different by extension. :P Totalitarian architecture as a concept suggests that minimalist neoclassical monumental edifices have a specific appeal to autocrats, which is mired in a feedback loop of form and interpretation (is there some kind of meaning inherent in the look which appeals to certain mentalities, or is it a result of idealising and emulating earlier governments who always seem to be ultimately inspired by Rome, or is this just looking for patterns and mashing together unrelated styles based on who used them?), but still.

At the very least, one would expect a state which chooses to endorse styles whose artists value independence and willingness to experiment, to then struggle to keep them under its control.

Thank you!

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Mar 12th 2022 at 9:13:52 AM

Reminds me of the Confederacy of Anarchist States from S.S.D.D. The founder of the nation basically gave everyone license to vandalize statues of Anarchist leaders.

Can I get some constructive feedback for this attempt at constructing a plausible scenario for C&C Red Alert's alternate history?

A scenario that I have in mind is one in which England gets the Ruritaniatreatment in which its portrayed as being super poor and stuck in the past. England would be an absolute monarchy or otherwise have nobles who possess as much power as they did in the far past. People would be dressed as if they are from Tudor times or even Medieval times, since I imagine that even in the 19th century England was still rich compared to other nations of its time, so having it be stuck in the 19th century (as other nations are when portrayed like this) would still be not poor enough.

Our heroes would come from a country that would be considered Third World in our world. They would be looking for Anglo-Saxon artifacts that hold actual power. And while the English natives would serve as a sort of antagonistic role, ultimately the Big Bad would come from another nation considered Third World in our nation, thus mirroring the role taken by Big Bads in Indiana Jones type films. Which is to say that while the natives of the setting may play a role in the antagonists forces, ultimately the antagonist comes from a nation that would be considered on the same level more or less as the protagonists home nation (so USA vs Germany, or USA vs USSR as in the Indiana films).

If one should need a reason for why England is like this, it could be explained as having the Spanish Armada firmly beat it, and leading to England having gotten stuck with puppet kings for years. The Isle of Wight could even serve as an alt-Gibraltar in that Spanish forces still hold the island as a base for centuries to come. One could even give England the Banana Republic treatment in that you end up with it becoming a republic as it overthrows the Spanish backed regime, but it gets taken over by a dictator who's friendly to interests that serve what would be third world nation in our world, but not this one.

In my contemplation of a few alt-history and future history scenarios, I've come to wonder... How much potential for becoming a regional power does a Central Asian Union actually have, assuming that everything goes right for such a union to become as sustainable as its local material resources and potential human capital allow, from resolving the worst of whatever disputes exist between the prospective members to fixing the most crucial problems that afflict them?

I don't know enough about the states represented there to offer a conclusion based on them alone, but I did have this image of them convincing Mongolia to join.

I did a bit of research on Mongolia and its history and economy for my MBA; it's a very mineral-rich country that has had some struggles in recent times with diversifying its economy, as a disproportionately-high amount of its wealth is derived from mining operations, most of them controlled by foreign countries. This was worsened by the fall of the Soviet Union, as it lead to the dismantling of much of the industry that the Soviet government had based there. With this in mind, if Mongolia was brought on board, I could see them leveraging their access to resources to pool with the other states' resources and perhaps re-establish their industries; their close proximity with Russia and China can only help with trade.

As for becoming a regional power, though (to attempt to answer your actual question), it's hard to say. That'd probably depend a lot on the people in charge. IIRC, most states in Central Asia are run by autocrats - including the infamously batshit dictators of Turkmenistan like Niyazov - and my instincts tell me that a union of states run by autocrats would be inherently unstable and unreliable, as autocrats are inclined to put their own hide first. These are just cursory thoughts, though.

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on May 3rd 2022 at 5:09:32 PM

The Turkic states of Central Asia — which are what I had been talking about originally, but I did later decide to have Mongolia join in this union, along with Uyghuristan (which manages to gain independence from the PRC following a massive civil war that overthrew the CCP) — do have an abundance of resources of their own, from valuable mineral and fossil fuel reserves to hydroelectric potential (not only to fulfill all the union's needs, but possibly export to neighboring countries). There's also a bit of shared history and cultural heritage born of Central Asia being conqured by the medieval Mongols, a significant number of whom essentially went native and becoem the Turco-Mongols and went on to found several successor states to the Mongol Khanates.

And for the record, the scenario assumes that the dictatorships would one by one fall to domestic revolutions that eventually succeed in democratizing their respective countries.

As extraction economies, it's doubtful they'll be able to become much of a regional powerhouse. They're landlocked, (and would be the largest landlocked country) so they'd need to rely on their neighbors to get access to the big markets overseas. They may have a decent economy and possibly a decent military, but they won't actually have much power in the region not dictated by their neighbor states without a deep-water port to sell their extracts from.

Also states with extraction economies tend to struggle a lot more with authoritarianism, and if the resources-derived income dries up, it doesn't end well.

I did actually consider getting around the landlockedness of those countries by expanding the concept from "Central Asian union" to "Turkic union", adding fellow Turkic states Azerbaijan (which can connect to Central Asia via the Caspian Sea) and Turkey (which has ports that lead to the open sea). The sole major knot in that is that Armenia has terrible relations with both of those countries due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Armenian genocide denial, respectively; there has to be a peaceful resolution to the former that both sides is convinced is "fair" to themselves and a cessation of the latter before Armenia could become amicable enough to either lease a geopolitical corridor connecting Turkey and Azerbaijan or even opt to join the otherwise all-Turkic union to reap the full benefits of the Central Asian exports.

Or they could just destroy Armenia again and build a corridor through it anyway.

I mean it's a violent and awful solution, but it's certainly a plausible one. A couple issues I can think of are that Turkey and Azerbaijan both have pretty strong national identities, so would be unlikely to give up sovereignty easily, and the exclave nature of their positioning combined with the fact that getting goods to the sea from there would involve putting them on a train, putting them on a boat, sailing, putting them on a second train, then putting them on a boat in Turkey would probably very quickly make the power center be in Turkey, despite the de jure capital probably being somewhere in Uzbekistan, Karakalpakstan, or the likes.

Having read about the Japanese samurai who went to Mexico and Spain, I feel like an interesting idea would be having the settlement of Japanese in Mexican California. One could take the idea of Japan converting to Christianity due to some leader gaining aid from the Spaniards, and then having the Spanish work to conquer California much earlier then in our world (1542 or somewhere soon after), and then you could have somewhere done the line a very large amount of Japanese immigration to (Alta) California and establishing strong trade and cultural relations. It would probably lead to settlement in the Pacific Northwest too. So, you'd have a mix of Japanese, Mexican, and Spanish culture across the West Coast. I'd be pretty cool, I think.

And with the Phillipines, you'd also end up with a large amount of Filipino influence on the West Coast too, especially if Mexico managed to keep up tight relations with that part of the world. Fun Fact: Filipinos were perhaps the first Asians to reach North America in the Post-Colombian era.

Edited by Bornstellar on May 5th 2022 at 7:50:47 AM

Well that has me imagining a Wild West setting where samurai and ninja are present.

I thought you were making up a name with Karakalpakstan, but nope, it's real, albeit it's an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan.

I deliberately avoided mentioning the violent solution because:

1. It's too easy.
2. It would require me to come up with a plausible explanation for why this didn't simply turn the Turkic states into pariahs the same way that's happened to Russia with its invasion of Ukraine.
3. I don't want to resort to that unless I specifically want the Turkic union's governments to be portrayed as run by the same kind of authoritarian dictators that currently do.

Edited by MarqFJA on May 6th 2022 at 12:43:49 PM