As I say above, odds are good there’ll be a long-term move away from grimdark and towards more hopeful or gentle stuff.
See the rise in popularity of ‘cosy games’ IRL, only magnified.
The Death of Russia - TL
- Thread starter Sorairo
- Start date
As I say above, odds are good there’ll be a long-term move away from grimdark and towards more hopeful or gentle stuff.
See the rise in popularity of ‘cosy games’ IRL, only magnified.
Probably doesn’t get made.
Not sure.
Hard to tell with butterflies leading to different comics. Odds are good, for instance, the Civil War comic won’t happen.
I could certainly see realistic shooters being butterflied away - Modern Warfare type games would likely be seen as tasteless. Shoot-em-ups would likely stay in the Boomer Shooter model.
Exactly, a big portion of the population just went through an extremely traumatic process, escapism and coziness would be highly requested
In the wake of the 4/10, what artists or bands should try to perform for the 11th Anniversary of Live Aid which is held on July 13?
Exactly. IRL, the world is in a bad way and escapism and coziness are on the rise. It’ll be even more so here.
Given the current overexploitation in OTL of "let's code the villains as Nazis so that there is no doubt that they are the villains, even though it doesn't make any sense that they are Nazis" I have no doubt that in TTL this phenomenon will occur with the Russian Nazbols.
We can expect that "National Salvation Front" will be the name of many evil political parties in fiction, just as "National Salvation" will become a cursed term.
Even if I'm skeptical about it being influenced to such an exaggerated degree as has been proposed in other posts (where it's stated that just under 90% of the fiction would be completely rewritten to embed the events of 2RCW in it) it's equally Certainly cultural influence will exist.
We can expect that "National Salvation Front" will be the name of many evil political parties in fiction, just as "National Salvation" will become a cursed term.
Even if I'm skeptical about it being influenced to such an exaggerated degree as has been proposed in other posts (where it's stated that just under 90% of the fiction would be completely rewritten to embed the events of 2RCW in it) it's equally Certainly cultural influence will exist.
My brother in Christ, it took a nuclear bomb to take down the awful islamist government.
WELL DONE @Sorairo !!!! Loved this TL but brought me sadness to every single chapters.
Argentina's debt crisis is going to be even worse here without a doubt.
Has Argentina even by 2022 recovered from that fully? So for the country there will be really hard times.
Not that I know of.
And speaking of debt, I wonder how the IMF and the World Bank are going to have to face the fact that even more countries are going to default on their loans thanks to the shenanigans of this TL. Maybe there's more pressure to get some of them forgiven for the sake of economic stability? Might be too optimistic of me though.
Yep I honestly thought that the last one going to be released Next Year after new years
Well, now the dose of grimdark fandom that I promised...
GOT in TDOR
For this to work, the following assumptions must be made:
1) ALL characters will exist in their most dishonest, stupid, evil iteration, or the grimdarkest possible combination of all these characteristics.
2) ALL the characters will be compulsive liars, hypocrites of the worst kind, and in general the worst people that can exist. No one is saved.
3) Far from Essos being blissfully ignorant of Westeros, Essos HATES Westeros with all his soul. This is to the extent that they are united in a "Free Cities Treaty Organization" (or something similar) solely to counterbalance Westeros.
4) Planetos is reversed, so now Essos is to the West and Westeros is to the East, so the map is the same just reversed. Kingslanding is where Saint Petersburg is, not London. This is because the author thought that the resemblance to Russia would not be obvious enough otherwise.
5) Some of the points are intended more as answers to OTL fandom theories than for any other reason. Others are references to the development of 2RCW, or are based on my (very negative) view of Westeros. Let's say there is 50% OTL, 50% TTL.
6) Nothing that is described here is intended to represent my real political opinions in any way.
That cleared up, let's talk about the points that I think will occur.
-Aerys “Mad King” will symbolize the Soviet administration. This means that all the atrocities that he did in the OTL Canon are true and real, as well as that he in turn committed additional ones that will represent those that the USSR did.
He will physically resemble Stalin, and he will have died of old age and infirmities rather than murder, but he will still be suspected of murder. No one remembers him fondly, at least until the Westeros Civil War begins, at which point his successors will be so brutal that the population will remember him fondly. He's the reason everyone in Essos hates Westeros.
-I think Rhaegar Targaryen will be the leader of the equivalent of hard-line communists. In this case, he decided to stage a coup to assume the throne and try to crush the Noble Alliance, failing and being killed in the process as per canon. Naturally, the author will go into all kinds of gory detail about how he kidnapped Lyanna and subjected her to all kinds of sexual degradations as part of her attempts to "show strength" to convince the Starks to submit.
-Petyr Baelish will symbolize the Apparatchiks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who reinvented themselves to become oligarchs.
In this case, that means he was Aerys II's Councilor of the Coin, as well as directly responsible for tearing the kingdom's economy to shreds solely to enrich himself without caring that he was screwing over the entire country in the process.
Naturally, given who he represents, and how stupid the inhabitants of Westeros are, this means that he was deemed the most appropriate person to be in charge of transferring the royal assets to the various nobles.
-Contrary to what has been previously said, the Starks are the ones who will embrace the Westerosi version of the Nashi rhetoric about racial supremacy, and that they are the master race and everyone else is invaders that must be exterminated.
This will be because, based on the canon, and taking for granted the fandom that OTL Westeros is going through a brutal ethnic and racial conflict, the Starks are the clan that has placed the most emphasis on emphasizing that they are descended from the First Men. instead of being Andals, Rhoynar, or any other combination.
Consequently, as the Starks become radicalized, their doctrine will begin to drift into the belief that they, as First Men, are the only ones who have a right to live in Westeros, while everyone else is "traitors and scum" who deserve to be exterminated.
-In contrast, the Lannisters will become the equivalent of Anpilov's Bolsheviks. This will be because, as the members of Red Russia did in the Russian Civil War, who were mostly former members of the Soviet Government, the Lannisters had served under the Targaryens (the Soviets) for centuries loyally and with all their prosperity. stems from this fact.
Consequently, they will be the ones leading the “red” faction, which is even more appropriate considering that they use red banners. Furthermore, Martin TTL will be able to justify representing the Lannister “Aryans” as leaders of the “Communist” faction as an attempt to poke fascists and white supremacists in the eye.
-Robert Baratheon will be the TTL version of Boris Yeltsin: risen to power by popular outcry due to the excesses of the Targaryens, he will soon reveal himself as an incompetent drunkard for whom the position is too big for him. In addition, he is surrounded by advisors from the Lannister and Stark factions who manipulate him at will for their own profit. The funny and sad thing is that Robert Baratheon doesn't even need to be rewritten much to fit him into this role.
Of course, it will be his death, along with the destruction of Kingslanding by wildfire as part of Robert's attempts to prevail over the rival factions that are manipulating him, that will cause the crisis that leads to the Civil War.
-Renly and Stannis Baratheon will symbolize the surviving Russian government of Pushkingrad, so when the crisis occurs and Robert/Yeltsin dies, they will flee to Pentos (which here will be a westerosi enclave like Kaliningrad) and unsuccessfully try to reclaim the Iron Throne without anyone paying attention to them.
-The Far Eastern Kingdom will exist in the North and will be created by the equivalent of the High Sparrow, which means savage purges of anyone who does not adhere to his brand of faith (I am of the opinion that the High Sparrow was NOT a legitimate reformer , and yes another disgusting being hungry for power).
Naturally, this small kingdom will soon find its existence very seriously threatened by the fact that the Wildlings (who in this version will look very similar to North Koreans) immediately launch a genocidal war of aggression against them. War that ends in the Wildlings being defeated and Yi Ti invading the lands beyond the Wall to force them into submission.
-Dragons are the equivalent of weapons of mass destruction, so each faction will have several that they inherited, along with their riders, during the conflict.
-If we are going to take the fandom nonsense about the hypothetical ethnic conflict seriously (that in GOT OTL nobody gave a damn), the problem will be real and of course very grimdark. The Targaryen Kingdom will have been actively persecuting all ethnic minorities, deporting populations on a whim, and threatening to use weapons of war to force everyone to keep their heads down. As a result, race relations will be horrible, which in turn will have the obvious consequences that:
-Dorne will be the country that will be equivalent to Ukraine, the Baltics and Belarus. They unilaterally declare their independence, but the new Stark-Lannister Government refuses to recognize them and invades, threatening to deploy their dragons if anyone from Essos dares to stop them.
-The Ironborn and the Arryn will be the equivalent of the Caucasians, and therefore subject to repeated extermination attempts by the Starks, as well as Lannister attacks to make them submit and fight for Greater Westeros. They will also be the ones to supply the "Islamists" who destroy cities with dragons.
So in essence the war goes like this:
-Robert tries to assert himself against the Stark and Lannister factions that try to impose themselves on him, until finally there is a coup in which Robert is killed and Kingslanding is destroyed by wildfire.
-Renly and Stannis flee to Pentos and try to claim the continued rule of the Baratheon Kingdom, but no one cares.
-The Stark and Lannister-controlled Westeros National Salvation Government (WNSG) is proclaimed, which immediately begins to saber-rattle demanding that "the lands that belong to us" be returned to them. Also they did the "minorities for food" deal.
-Dorne is invaded by this WNSG without anyone giving a damn, because for some reason everyone decides that it IS VERY IMPORTANT to support up the WNSG at any cost "because economy".
-For poorly explained reasons (it's Martin we're talking about) the WNSG economy will start to collapse out of nowhere. History will try to imply that this is the cause of the coalition government's eventual split, even if it is painfully obvious that it is actually the other way around. (That is, the economy is collapsing because the rulers are more busy fighting each other than anything else.)
-Finally, the WNSG becomes two governments facing each other: Casterly vs Winterfell. As previously noted, the Starks will embody the Nashi faction while the Lannisters will be the Communist faction.
-Immediate start of massive and systematic purges of any "traitors" and "sympathizers" of the other group, as well as the flight of westerosis to Essos...
-...where they are greeted with long faces and doors closed in their faces, because Essos "operates" on the belief that "karmic retribution" is a thing, so Essos considers that the Westerosis have it well deserved that mess.
-Increasingly detailed and lurid descriptions of every possible and imaginable war crime perpetrated by both sides as part of their attempts to take over the government of Westeros. This includes, but is not limited to, the invasion and occupation of Braavos, the war between the Northern Kingdom and the Wildlings, the attempted extermination of the Dornishmen, and the invasion and occupation of Dorne and the Iron Islands.
-Essos finally decides to intervene to support Dorne. Not because they give a damn about Dorne, of course, but because they think it will wear Westeros down and cause the government to collapse.
-Sanctions are also being imposed on Westeros, which in a realistic setting shouldn't mean anything, but since "it's all economics" here, the Westeros economy is starting to sink faster than a lead submarine.
-In some even more poorly explained way, the entire economy of Essos begins to be dragged to the ground as a result of this. This will happen despite the fact that Westeros was an environment completely disconnected from the Essos economy, so in principle it would not have to be affected by this situation.
-It is in this environment that Euron the Ironborn, the local version of Osama Bin Laden, destroys a city that is the scene of fighting between the Stark and Lannister factions by using one of the dragons that he stole in the chaos caused by the war.
-This causes the nuclear holocaust of 4/10 to break out: the Lannisters launch their dragons to destroy the Starks, while the Starks, under the toxic influence of Ramsay Bolton and Catelyn Tully, have decided that they are going to launch the "Brandon Plan" ”: the total extermination of all non-First Men westerosis by deploying their dragons as part of this plan.
-The reason for this would be that Robb Stark read "The Deeds of Azor Azhai" and decided that Azor Azhai was right in trying to exterminate all the followers of the Big Other. (This particular part would be included by Martin as an attempt to expose how ridiculous the “Barkashov was inspired by Turner Diaries” theory is.)
-Collapse of Westeros leaving the Northern Kingdom, Dorne and the Ironborn as the only survivors. Ironically, Aegon Targaryen of the Golden Company is crowned King of the Kingdom of Westeros after the end of the war.
Of course, I think the expected fandom reactions will be very similar to OTL anyway, so we'll get that:
-The fandom will side with the Starks anyway and will believe that their evils are propaganda within the universe and that it is impossible for them to be that bad. This is because Martin will write the story so that the Starks are seen as likable.
-The Lannisters will be equally hated, but for wanting to restore such an evil regime and not for the atrocities they committed in their attempts to do so.
-The Dornishmen and Ironborn will be ridiculed as treasonous cowards whose acts caused the Westerosi Empire to fracture and eventual fall by breaking away solely out of selfishness.
-There will be very bitter debates about whether Robb Stark based on "The Exploits of Azor Azhai" is stupid or not, and whether that implies that TTL Martin supports conspiracy theories or not.
-There will be long and boring debates about how the economy of Westeros could have been saved, and the unanimous conclusion will be that many problems would have been avoided if Aegon Targaryen had been restored from the beginning.
-There will be a lot of fanfics that will basically be 95% about how a Stark victory would have somehow translated into an era of peace and prosperity. To which it will help that these fanfics will insist on decanonizing the Starks as genocidal madmen and attributing those plans to the Lannisters.
GOT in TDOR
For this to work, the following assumptions must be made:
1) ALL characters will exist in their most dishonest, stupid, evil iteration, or the grimdarkest possible combination of all these characteristics.
2) ALL the characters will be compulsive liars, hypocrites of the worst kind, and in general the worst people that can exist. No one is saved.
3) Far from Essos being blissfully ignorant of Westeros, Essos HATES Westeros with all his soul. This is to the extent that they are united in a "Free Cities Treaty Organization" (or something similar) solely to counterbalance Westeros.
4) Planetos is reversed, so now Essos is to the West and Westeros is to the East, so the map is the same just reversed. Kingslanding is where Saint Petersburg is, not London. This is because the author thought that the resemblance to Russia would not be obvious enough otherwise.
5) Some of the points are intended more as answers to OTL fandom theories than for any other reason. Others are references to the development of 2RCW, or are based on my (very negative) view of Westeros. Let's say there is 50% OTL, 50% TTL.
6) Nothing that is described here is intended to represent my real political opinions in any way.
That cleared up, let's talk about the points that I think will occur.
-Aerys “Mad King” will symbolize the Soviet administration. This means that all the atrocities that he did in the OTL Canon are true and real, as well as that he in turn committed additional ones that will represent those that the USSR did.
He will physically resemble Stalin, and he will have died of old age and infirmities rather than murder, but he will still be suspected of murder. No one remembers him fondly, at least until the Westeros Civil War begins, at which point his successors will be so brutal that the population will remember him fondly. He's the reason everyone in Essos hates Westeros.
-I think Rhaegar Targaryen will be the leader of the equivalent of hard-line communists. In this case, he decided to stage a coup to assume the throne and try to crush the Noble Alliance, failing and being killed in the process as per canon. Naturally, the author will go into all kinds of gory detail about how he kidnapped Lyanna and subjected her to all kinds of sexual degradations as part of her attempts to "show strength" to convince the Starks to submit.
-Petyr Baelish will symbolize the Apparatchiks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who reinvented themselves to become oligarchs.
In this case, that means he was Aerys II's Councilor of the Coin, as well as directly responsible for tearing the kingdom's economy to shreds solely to enrich himself without caring that he was screwing over the entire country in the process.
Naturally, given who he represents, and how stupid the inhabitants of Westeros are, this means that he was deemed the most appropriate person to be in charge of transferring the royal assets to the various nobles.
-Contrary to what has been previously said, the Starks are the ones who will embrace the Westerosi version of the Nashi rhetoric about racial supremacy, and that they are the master race and everyone else is invaders that must be exterminated.
This will be because, based on the canon, and taking for granted the fandom that OTL Westeros is going through a brutal ethnic and racial conflict, the Starks are the clan that has placed the most emphasis on emphasizing that they are descended from the First Men. instead of being Andals, Rhoynar, or any other combination.
Consequently, as the Starks become radicalized, their doctrine will begin to drift into the belief that they, as First Men, are the only ones who have a right to live in Westeros, while everyone else is "traitors and scum" who deserve to be exterminated.
-In contrast, the Lannisters will become the equivalent of Anpilov's Bolsheviks. This will be because, as the members of Red Russia did in the Russian Civil War, who were mostly former members of the Soviet Government, the Lannisters had served under the Targaryens (the Soviets) for centuries loyally and with all their prosperity. stems from this fact.
Consequently, they will be the ones leading the “red” faction, which is even more appropriate considering that they use red banners. Furthermore, Martin TTL will be able to justify representing the Lannister “Aryans” as leaders of the “Communist” faction as an attempt to poke fascists and white supremacists in the eye.
-Robert Baratheon will be the TTL version of Boris Yeltsin: risen to power by popular outcry due to the excesses of the Targaryens, he will soon reveal himself as an incompetent drunkard for whom the position is too big for him. In addition, he is surrounded by advisors from the Lannister and Stark factions who manipulate him at will for their own profit. The funny and sad thing is that Robert Baratheon doesn't even need to be rewritten much to fit him into this role.
Of course, it will be his death, along with the destruction of Kingslanding by wildfire as part of Robert's attempts to prevail over the rival factions that are manipulating him, that will cause the crisis that leads to the Civil War.
-Renly and Stannis Baratheon will symbolize the surviving Russian government of Pushkingrad, so when the crisis occurs and Robert/Yeltsin dies, they will flee to Pentos (which here will be a westerosi enclave like Kaliningrad) and unsuccessfully try to reclaim the Iron Throne without anyone paying attention to them.
-The Far Eastern Kingdom will exist in the North and will be created by the equivalent of the High Sparrow, which means savage purges of anyone who does not adhere to his brand of faith (I am of the opinion that the High Sparrow was NOT a legitimate reformer , and yes another disgusting being hungry for power).
Naturally, this small kingdom will soon find its existence very seriously threatened by the fact that the Wildlings (who in this version will look very similar to North Koreans) immediately launch a genocidal war of aggression against them. War that ends in the Wildlings being defeated and Yi Ti invading the lands beyond the Wall to force them into submission.
-Dragons are the equivalent of weapons of mass destruction, so each faction will have several that they inherited, along with their riders, during the conflict.
-If we are going to take the fandom nonsense about the hypothetical ethnic conflict seriously (that in GOT OTL nobody gave a damn), the problem will be real and of course very grimdark. The Targaryen Kingdom will have been actively persecuting all ethnic minorities, deporting populations on a whim, and threatening to use weapons of war to force everyone to keep their heads down. As a result, race relations will be horrible, which in turn will have the obvious consequences that:
-Dorne will be the country that will be equivalent to Ukraine, the Baltics and Belarus. They unilaterally declare their independence, but the new Stark-Lannister Government refuses to recognize them and invades, threatening to deploy their dragons if anyone from Essos dares to stop them.
-The Ironborn and the Arryn will be the equivalent of the Caucasians, and therefore subject to repeated extermination attempts by the Starks, as well as Lannister attacks to make them submit and fight for Greater Westeros. They will also be the ones to supply the "Islamists" who destroy cities with dragons.
So in essence the war goes like this:
-Robert tries to assert himself against the Stark and Lannister factions that try to impose themselves on him, until finally there is a coup in which Robert is killed and Kingslanding is destroyed by wildfire.
-Renly and Stannis flee to Pentos and try to claim the continued rule of the Baratheon Kingdom, but no one cares.
-The Stark and Lannister-controlled Westeros National Salvation Government (WNSG) is proclaimed, which immediately begins to saber-rattle demanding that "the lands that belong to us" be returned to them. Also they did the "minorities for food" deal.
-Dorne is invaded by this WNSG without anyone giving a damn, because for some reason everyone decides that it IS VERY IMPORTANT to support up the WNSG at any cost "because economy".
-For poorly explained reasons (it's Martin we're talking about) the WNSG economy will start to collapse out of nowhere. History will try to imply that this is the cause of the coalition government's eventual split, even if it is painfully obvious that it is actually the other way around. (That is, the economy is collapsing because the rulers are more busy fighting each other than anything else.)
-Finally, the WNSG becomes two governments facing each other: Casterly vs Winterfell. As previously noted, the Starks will embody the Nashi faction while the Lannisters will be the Communist faction.
-Immediate start of massive and systematic purges of any "traitors" and "sympathizers" of the other group, as well as the flight of westerosis to Essos...
-...where they are greeted with long faces and doors closed in their faces, because Essos "operates" on the belief that "karmic retribution" is a thing, so Essos considers that the Westerosis have it well deserved that mess.
-Increasingly detailed and lurid descriptions of every possible and imaginable war crime perpetrated by both sides as part of their attempts to take over the government of Westeros. This includes, but is not limited to, the invasion and occupation of Braavos, the war between the Northern Kingdom and the Wildlings, the attempted extermination of the Dornishmen, and the invasion and occupation of Dorne and the Iron Islands.
-Essos finally decides to intervene to support Dorne. Not because they give a damn about Dorne, of course, but because they think it will wear Westeros down and cause the government to collapse.
-Sanctions are also being imposed on Westeros, which in a realistic setting shouldn't mean anything, but since "it's all economics" here, the Westeros economy is starting to sink faster than a lead submarine.
-In some even more poorly explained way, the entire economy of Essos begins to be dragged to the ground as a result of this. This will happen despite the fact that Westeros was an environment completely disconnected from the Essos economy, so in principle it would not have to be affected by this situation.
-It is in this environment that Euron the Ironborn, the local version of Osama Bin Laden, destroys a city that is the scene of fighting between the Stark and Lannister factions by using one of the dragons that he stole in the chaos caused by the war.
-This causes the nuclear holocaust of 4/10 to break out: the Lannisters launch their dragons to destroy the Starks, while the Starks, under the toxic influence of Ramsay Bolton and Catelyn Tully, have decided that they are going to launch the "Brandon Plan" ”: the total extermination of all non-First Men westerosis by deploying their dragons as part of this plan.
-The reason for this would be that Robb Stark read "The Deeds of Azor Azhai" and decided that Azor Azhai was right in trying to exterminate all the followers of the Big Other. (This particular part would be included by Martin as an attempt to expose how ridiculous the “Barkashov was inspired by Turner Diaries” theory is.)
-Collapse of Westeros leaving the Northern Kingdom, Dorne and the Ironborn as the only survivors. Ironically, Aegon Targaryen of the Golden Company is crowned King of the Kingdom of Westeros after the end of the war.
Of course, I think the expected fandom reactions will be very similar to OTL anyway, so we'll get that:
-The fandom will side with the Starks anyway and will believe that their evils are propaganda within the universe and that it is impossible for them to be that bad. This is because Martin will write the story so that the Starks are seen as likable.
-The Lannisters will be equally hated, but for wanting to restore such an evil regime and not for the atrocities they committed in their attempts to do so.
-The Dornishmen and Ironborn will be ridiculed as treasonous cowards whose acts caused the Westerosi Empire to fracture and eventual fall by breaking away solely out of selfishness.
-There will be very bitter debates about whether Robb Stark based on "The Exploits of Azor Azhai" is stupid or not, and whether that implies that TTL Martin supports conspiracy theories or not.
-There will be long and boring debates about how the economy of Westeros could have been saved, and the unanimous conclusion will be that many problems would have been avoided if Aegon Targaryen had been restored from the beginning.
-There will be a lot of fanfics that will basically be 95% about how a Stark victory would have somehow translated into an era of peace and prosperity. To which it will help that these fanfics will insist on decanonizing the Starks as genocidal madmen and attributing those plans to the Lannisters.
I will disagree about the anime and JRPG's I mentioned through, the Zeigeist at the time had a lot of dark shit even in OTL(so would not be suprised if it escalates into out and out grimdark), and the combination of both the lost decade AND the Russian nightmare could scar generations of authors. Not to mention that some plans I alluded to(ie: FFVII scrapped plans of "following up" Aerith death by having half of the party getting nuked, the "human extinction interpretation" of the ending) were thought of OTL.
That said, just because I mentioned some stuff being more grimdark dosen't mean noblebright stories won't exist. I can see plenty of anime remain escapist even if darker, but the grimdark stuff will catch more attention and more escapist stuff will fly under the radar until the mid 2000s, that's when there would be more pushback..
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It would have to be entirely the latter. Very, very few Iranians want the Qajars back because they were a huge failure that brought Iran to the heels of the foreign powers, while the Pahlavis made Iran somewhat of a strong, independent, modernized power. However, many Iranians won't want a Shah at all. I would think the Artesh could get the Pahlavis back in to some extent, but it's also entirely possible that managing whatever coalition of Iranian society they mobilized to win the war would preclude such a move.