Thanks for all the shared memories, which are bringing back a lot of mine.
Theodore Roosevelt schooling Woodrow Wilson was pretty awesome.
I remember feeling a little guilty about that one - but on the other hand, it was fun to write, and TTL would have brought out the absolute worst in Wilson.
... unlike many "better worlds" I've seen here, Male Rising was more than simply better results from a similar system -- it rewrote the modern world entirely.
This was one of the things that I didn't have in mind at the beginning, but became clear as the story progressed. Our modernity is the product of certain events and ideologies, and if those change, then so does the modern global system. And the ways modernity would change ITTL became clearer as I realized who would be shaping it... and as I learned how late a development Westphalian statehood really was in much of the world.
I also enjoyed the mention of In taberna quando sumus and the death of Ibrahim Abacar.
There's nothing that says "1930s German empire" like hippies in Central Africa reciting the Carmina Burana.
And Ibrahim, yes. A million may be a statistic, but every one of them is a tragedy.
And the poor wandering Hungarian finally realising he's found a home.
Bet you've never seen the Jews in Uganda trope done quite that way.
I'm actually re-reading TTL from the start, so I'm rediscovering a lot of wonderful moments as I go, but I think for me it's a choice between that glorious literary excerpt which gave birth to the Mutanda-verse and George V's speech on his India visit. The former because it is the absolute high point of a work rich in literary goodness, and the latter because it encapsulates perfectly what you said earlier about people listening to their better natures.
The Stars That Bore Us has been a continuing inspiration, and in general, the literary excerpts have been fun to write. (They're also one reason why the Malêverse would need considerable editing if I ever decide to publish it - I doubt I could get away with the three Flashman parodies in a commercial format.)
"Let the slavers know fear" and the Muslim civil rights hymn in the first couple updates still give me chills, but my favourite piece of this timeline is still the marriage under fire at the siege of Sarajevo. Human decency and happiness amidst brutality hits all the spots for me.
I hadn't planned to write more than the one scene with Merjema, but that wedding begged to be written.
By 2015, BTW, the place where it happened is one of the spots that tour guides always point out.
I loved the way you created so many memorable and empathy inducing characters whose personality was so distinct from one another. That, and the redeemed villians.
Redeemed villains... Felton? Köhler? Franz Joseph, even? I can think of a few more who might straddle the line, along with others unredeemed.
My favorite moment? Probably the Longstreets and the Tubmans working together fight racism.
Longstreet did some of that even IOTL, but here, of course, he could do more than just fight a rearguard action. And the Tubman arc certainly ended up becoming one of my favorites.
One of the morals of the story, I would venture to guess at, is something like: good ideas cause people to do good things which inspire new, better ideas to begin the cycle again. Progress is a pump that must be primed, whether by Great People or the inspired masses, or it simply doesn't happen.
I'll join Falecius in hitting the "like" button for this. Civilization requires maintenance.
I can't say for sure it is my very favorite of all, but I will name what was the very first that convinced me this TL was special and going really great places:
Installment #3
Which is named in the list of canon posts "Paulo Abacar in the aftermath of the conquest of Sokoto" but is really all about his marriage to Aisha.
That one was a very formative moment in the story. TTL was, from the beginning, going to be about a revolutionary Afro-Brazilian state in West Africa, but my original idea was for Abacar to totally overwrite the Sokoto Caliphate. That changed when I did my homework and learned that Usman dan Fodio and his daughter had already taken Sahelian Islam in many of the directions Abacar would need it to go, and that the Caliphate was a foundation rather than an obstacle. That turned Aisha and the Nana Asma'u from footnotes into major characters, opened the door to Belloism, and paved the way for what Sarah Child would call "those annoying Abacar women": Sarah herself, Adeseye, Funmi, Mélisande, and ultimately Laila.
It would have been interesting if the first generation could have met Laila. Ideas can produce some very unintended consequences.
