What TL ideas do you have that will probably never see the light of day?

omnidirectional

Declan said:
A mafia/organized crime figure in charge of a robust and large criminal enterprise decides to throw his hat in the ring of politics.

(This person is from an Anglophone country and you'll see why I specified later).

He uses his influence to get elected as MP first. With some cunning politicking(and using his mob) he quickly ascends in stature in Parliament; avoiding law enforcement and assassination attempts from rival criminals. Eventually, he sees the opportunity and strikes while the iron is hot, getting selected by parliament as Prime Minister(though on an interim basis).

However, he and his underlings get to work . They perform what amounts to silent self-coup. The snap elections he calls are rigged in his favour with MPs who swear loyalty to him behind close doors getting a majority in Parliament.
The country then descends into a sort of tin-pot quasi dictatorship(similar to how Mugabe ruled).

His criminal enterprise ipso facto dissolves as it merges with state institutions under his watch. Instead of schemes, he just loots the treasury.

Eventually, under international pressure due to his human rights records, he gives up power years later. But not before getting a blanket pardon for him and all his cronies from the ceremonial president for all prior crimes.

The new democratic government investigates his prior government and reveals not only human rights abuses, but that he was the head of a criminal organization.
But his pardon means there is nothing that can be done.

As for his legacy, he is known by a simple moniker as result of the revelations about his past: the Crime Minister.
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Ronald Kray of the Kray Twins (the smooth night club owner one, not the psycho with glasses one) might work for this
 

lukedalton

The XI battle of Isonzo is a succes for the italian army that achieve his breakthrough of the Hapsburg line (almost happened), it's basically a reverse Caporetto with Cadorna going down in history as a controversial but succesfull military leader that (despite his own many many many many many fault) suceeded in bring vitory to Italy.
The war end earlier, fascism takeover will not happen and Rome get all the territory promised...WW2 happen between the Entente (UK-France-Italy plus little allies) and an alliance of revanchist and very authoritarian nation (Germany, fascist Russia, Japan, Turkey and some other)
 
Flavius Iulius Maiorianus

Flavius Iulius Maiorianus

Aluma said:
The Baseline - The Most Probable World

Basically the idea was for me to start a collaborative timeline beggining as far back as our records reach(going by Wikipedia that'd be the 21th century BC, which is fitting since we're in the 21th century AD) and diverge from it from the get go

The divergence being - whenever something happens, what we arbitrarily consider the most likely outcome to be takes place, regardless of how it went OTL

This does not mean a world without twists and turns, where nothing surprising happens to both in-universe people and ourselves, but it is nonethless one where what we believe to make the most sense as the authors take place

No plot armour, no extremely streaks of luck or incredibly unlucky events, everything happens with a logical set up even if people in universe can not understand what is going on as it happens

Of course since we cant tell which people would exist and not exist after the first POD and going with OCs would have the same effect of pretty much inventing everything without any connection to history anymore the way I would go about it is keep all the cast of the people and historical characters from our world even if its the belief of many that they shouldnt exist in such a world, as to make continuing using the OTL framework possible and also make this timeline - the "Default Reality" - a "true" version of our world in which what is likely and "makes sense" went accordingly

This all in theory would take place under my arbitration while many different authors contribute, one day at a time(as far back as the wiki has records of individual days), year by year, decade by decade, century by century

We'd all follow these lists chronologically intentionally keeping ourselves from using our knowledge of the future to play pretend we're going in blindly, till the entire history of mankind as we have access to has been rewriten from the start of agriculture all the way to the modern day

Then, likely after years of effort, we'd take a look and see the utterly alien would we collectively created and bask on the fact that would be the baseline if there was one and our world is the alien one


...so why dont I start this project?

Well I'm busy, I have many other works I intend to finish, that would take an insane amount of work and as aforementioned years of effort that would require community engagement as well as people not being pissed off at my creative decisions while leading such a undertaking, none of which I'm confident I could count on

So for now that is on the backburner like many other ideas I have, possibly forever, though I would like to make it someday
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I would absolutely love to work on this if you ever start it, just to see how different our world would be without "ASB" events.

I was also thinking of writing a timeline in which the Habsburgs don't get Spain but do much better in Hungary in the 1520s instead. Various butterflies create a very different New World with different colonies, along with a different Europe.
 
Aluma

Aluma

Flavius Iulius Maiorianus said:
I would absolutely love to work on this if you ever start it, just to see how different our world would be without "ASB" events.
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That'd be an honour
I adore your work and I consider you one of the best commenters on this site, specially in regards to ancient history
Flavius Iulius Maiorianus said:
I was also thinking of writing a timeline in which the Habsburgs don't get Spain but do much better in Hungary in the 1520s instead. Various butterflies create a very different New World with different colonies, along with a different Europe.
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I misread that for a sec as
Habsburgs don't get Spain who does much better in Hungary in the 1520s
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España-Hungria would be something else :p
 
Flavius Iulius Maiorianus

Flavius Iulius Maiorianus

Aluma said:
I adore your work and I consider you one of the best commenters on this site, specially in regards to ancient history
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Thank you! You're also a rather great commenter. It would be a great honor to do a colab with you. Unfortunately, I am also pretty lazy.
Aluma said:
España-Hungria would be something else
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It would indeed be a sight to see. It would be a cool one-shot, where Hungary and Spain are held in a personal union and have to fight the Ottomans.
 

Twin City Lines

North Korea Unilaterally Surrenders

The basics are that starvation and dysfunction get so bad the government just suddenly gives up. The world gets no notice, just suddenly at noon one day the government shuts down completely, all government workers go home, including all border guards, police, and military, after lowering all flags and replacing them with plain white flags and announcing it on TV, radio, and the Internet.
 
sarsenapati

sarsenapati

Twin City Lines said:
North Korea Unilaterally Surrenders

The basics are that starvation and dysfunction get so bad the government just suddenly gives up. The world gets no notice, just suddenly at noon one day the government shuts down completely, all government workers go home, including all border guards, police, and military, after lowering all flags and replacing them with plain white flags and announcing it on TV, radio, and the Internet.
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Surrenders to whom though?
 

Eadspel

I've got a lot of thoughts and a few docs milling around for a "reasonable" Britwank TL. Starting with a few PoDs in the Napoleonic Wars and essentially using the power of hindsight and a little weight of the levers of fate to kneecap any state which might pose a threat to the Empire, ensuring the heydays of Pax Britannia extend into the 21st century.
 

Beatriz

Gone Fishin'
Eadspel said:
I've got a lot of thoughts and a few docs milling around for a "reasonable" Britwank TL. Starting with a few PoDs in the Napoleonic Wars and essentially using the power of hindsight and a little weight of the levers of fate to kneecap any state which might pose a threat to the Empire, ensuring the heydays of Pax Britannia extend into the 21st century.
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B_Munro had a map
 

Tsar Nicholas The Cringe

Twin City Lines said:
North Korea Unilaterally Surrenders

The basics are that starvation and dysfunction get so bad the government just suddenly gives up. The world gets no notice, just suddenly at noon one day the government shuts down completely, all government workers go home, including all border guards, police, and military, after lowering all flags and replacing them with plain white flags and announcing it on TV, radio, and the Internet.
Click to expand...

I don't think the Kims have the capacity for, you know, self-reflection and humility. I think a revolt by some disaffected youths is a far more likely option.
 

Rafi_T

It’s a bit of a setup, but I’ll highlight the big part:

1) JFK and LBJ are elected to the senate much earlier (1947/1941, respectively)
2) They win the 1956 presidential election. (LBJ/JFK)
3) They trade places in 1960 (JFK brings up his Addison’s disease, and LBJ agrees because they get along)
4) Dallas still happens (Don Yarborough’s governor)
5) LBJ selects RFK as his running mate in ‘64 (both because Rockefeller is the nominee, and LBJ and RFK get along better than IOTL)
6) No Korea/Vietnam
7) Nixon was never Senator (he’s a behind the scenes powerbroker trying to wrest the party away from Rockefeller-Romney)
8) After more than a decade of trying, he’s the ‘72 nominee (dog that caught the car)
9) He pulls the same stunts from Watergate, except in the public sector
10) Jimmy Carter (elected Governor and US Representative in 1966) is RFK’s VP
11) RFK, not wanting to deal with Nixon’s ratfucking, decides that if he wins the election, he’ll refuse to swear in, handing the Presidency to Carter on day one.
12) RFK wins in a nail biter, be announced that he won’t serve as president for 4 more years (something about it not feeling right to serve longer than his brother.
13) Nixon’s ratfucking comes out, and now Carter has to deal with prosecuting Nixon. (No Chennault affair, but all the other things from the White House Plumbers show on HBO like the stuff with Dita Beard and hosting the RNC in San Diego stuff happens and is prosecuted.) (Maybe she grows a conscience or realizes Nixon won’t win, so there’s no use going down with him.)

This gave me ideas for 2 TLs, one focusing mostly on Carter’s prosecution of Nixon (and what a ‘73-‘81 presidency could look like), and the other a much broader scopes TL where a successful Carter gets to shape the presidency and the Democratic Party much more than IOTL, and so you get the following presidencies: Carter ‘73-‘81, Michael Harrington (as a leftist backlash against Carter’s centrism) ‘81-‘85, Bill Blythe III (Clinton IOTL, and a return to Southern Moderates) ‘85-‘93, Al Gore ‘93-2001, and Ted Turner ‘01-‘05.)
 
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Eadspel

Texas Bulldog

Texas Bulldog

A future history timeline idea I had, but i'll probably never make:
-Nuclear war between USA-China
-The former Soviet republics create a democratic federation
Badabing Badaboom, Pax Slavica
 
Ogrebear

Ogrebear

A timeline where NBC accepts the original pilot for Star Trek and Jeffrey Hunter carries on as Captain Pike. They want a cerebral sci-fi show.

None of the OTL regular cast except Nimoy are in it.

The Bridge is a lot more grey and military:
star-trek-the-cage-screenshot.png


The show goes for three seasons before Hunter wants out and a new Captain is found - James Doohan as...
 
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