What alternate history ideas you wish they were used more often?

Stretch

Donor
Crazy Boris said:
I don’t see people try alternate secessions for American Civil War scenarios

Instead of a slaveocrat southern secession, why not an abolitionist northern secession or for something really fun, have the west split off for some reason
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Ooooh, this has given me an idea: the Mormons somehow break Deseret off, then Southern religious groups also decide to rebel with the idea of a religious slave nation (basically the Vatican, but bigger with slavery justified as a right for those who follow the Good Book)
 
mr morbius

mr morbius

Anything about the Polish Districtal Fragmentation (Rozbicie Dzielnicowe) peroid
like it was such an epic tale of constant backstabbing and every rival was in somw way distinct, and it could be SO EASILY altered without the need for far fetched changes, yet I have not seen anyone do any timeline like that.
I mean at one point there were twenty statelets in former Polish Territories, not to mention Czechs and (to a lesser extent) Hungarians vying for the Throne and the occasional Germanic incursion.

Like, the story just writes itself. And nobody is using it, instead making ,,what if senator poopenfarty II of Longisiana won a second term in 1920 (he dies 2 month in and nothing realisticly changes but somehow it devolves into WW4 Between Eurasia and Bidens Hyperborea by 2011)" or the ,,good" Old ,,what if grmany won wordwar2"
 
Mildtryth

Mildtryth

mr morbius said:
Anything about the Polish Districtal Fragmentation (Rozbicie Dzielnicowe) peroid
like it was such an epic tale of constant backstabbing and every rival was in somw way distinct, and it could be SO EASILY altered without the need for far fetched changes, yet I have not seen anyone do any timeline like that.
I mean at one point there were twenty statelets in former Polish Territories, not to mention Czechs and (to a lesser extent) Hungarians vying for the Throne and the occasional Germanic incursion.

Like, the story just writes itself. And nobody is using it, instead making ,,what if senator poopenfarty II of Longisiana won a second term in 1920 (he dies 2 month in and nothing realisticly changes but somehow it devolves into WW4 Between Eurasia and Bidens Hyperborea by 2011)" or the ,,good" Old ,,what if grmany won wordwar2"
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That just might be because most of us aren't Polish and don't know much about that stuff.
 

Mikestone8

BELFAST said:
Hard to say. depends on what point it becomes more trouble to keep slaves than the profit they can generate. The Boll weevil
will hit cotton production hard and lead to people wanting to get rid of their slaves.
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Or hire them out to tradesmen or others in town. Maybe the South gets more industrial using their cheap labour.
 
mr morbius

mr morbius

Mildtryth said:
That just might be because most of us aren't Polish and don't know much about that stuff.
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Fair enough, but not an excuse to the dozens of Polish AltHist writers who could do that but instead write ,,what if Poland Had Nukes and Lazers in WW2" jerk-off fuel (either Ironic or, dear god, Unironic)
And seriously , it's not all that complex - it follows the usual ,,if X won then system Y would be implemented" : if the Localists won then Poland is lost, perhaps this time forever.
If Mieszko Stary won then it would probably be a loose confederation of statelets that would collapse after his death or get invaded by the Germans. Władysław II would probably centralize his power and essentialy rebirth the country 1.5 centuries early - HOWEVER the main issue is the lack of the Second Piasts (Władysław Łokietek and Kazimierz the Great) who essentialy turned Poland from a third rate country into a Major local power and set the scene for the Polish Lithuanian Union, alongside the (untilatly fruitless) plans to create a sort-of Royal Federation with the Hungarians and Czechs by marrying into their royal families (unfortunatly the Pope sent them all on crusades against ottomans and they all died, so fuck you Vatican for that) - but in General a shift from Petty wars against Brandenburgia or the Paegans or local conflicts over Silesia, and into Eastern Politics - leaving Silesia in Czech (later Austrian) hands and sealing the fate of Outer Pomorania, but also bringing in a challange to the Muscovites, filling in the vacum left when the Post-Mongol states began collapsing.
Without all that it could leave a Far Weaker / Nonexistent Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, and that already has large implications for the Future...
 
Mildtryth

Mildtryth

mr morbius said:
Fair enough, but not an excuse to the dozens of Polish AltHist writers who could do that but instead write ,,what if Poland Had Nukes and Lazers in WW2" jerk-off fuel (either Ironic or, dear god, Unironic)
And seriously , it's not all that complex - it follows the usual ,,if X won then system Y would be implemented" : if the Localists won then Poland is lost, perhaps this time forever.
If Mieszko Stary won then it would probably be a loose confederation of statelets that would collapse after his death or get invaded by the Germans. Władysław II would probably centralize his power and essentialy rebirth the country 1.5 centuries early - HOWEVER the main issue is the lack of the Second Piasts (Władysław Łokietek and Kazimierz the Great) who essentialy turned Poland from a third rate country into a Major local power and set the scene for the Polish Lithuanian Union, alongside the (untilatly fruitless) plans to create a sort-of Royal Federation with the Hungarians and Czechs by marrying into their royal families (unfortunatly the Pope sent them all on crusades against ottomans and they all died, so fuck you Vatican for that) - but in General a shift from Petty wars against Brandenburgia or the Paegans or local conflicts over Silesia, and into Eastern Politics - leaving Silesia in Czech (later Austrian) hands and sealing the fate of Outer Pomorania, but also bringing in a challange to the Muscovites, filling in the vacum left when the Post-Mongol states began collapsing.
Without all that it could leave a Far Weaker / Nonexistent Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, and that already has large implications for the Future...
Click to expand...

You know, in the TL i'm sketching out (haven't gotten around to actually writing it), the Mongols don't rise and Henry II ends up reunifying Poland - what do you think would be the consequences of this happening for Poland?
 

Ekg

Crazy Boris said:
I don’t see people try alternate secessions for American Civil War scenarios

Instead of a slaveocrat southern secession, why not an abolitionist northern secession or for something really fun, have the west split off for some reason
Click to expand...
In A more imperfect union TL by @Planita13 you see a flawed USA divided North and south by the slavery issue, but with a prosperous Ohio country nation chilling on the Northwest. I suppose you can elaborate on this and imagine each of the two rump USA antagonize this powerhouse or try to ally with to triumph on the other one
 

Tupolev0247

Pedro Carlos de Bourbon as King of Rio de la Plata. The idea is that the British, after failing with the invasions, later decide to take advantage of the early chaos and the feelings of independence to place him as king in exchange for some concessions.
 
mr morbius

mr morbius

Mildtryth said:
You know, in the TL i'm sketching out (haven't gotten around to actually writing it), the Mongols don't rise and Henry II ends up reunifying Poland - what do you think would be the consequences of this happening for Poland?
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First off, since he dosen't die that means Henry Rogatka never rises to the Silesian throne. If you don't know he was a complete lunatic who ruined the area, locked bishops in cages and sometimes gambled entire cities away to gain some spare change. He completly ruined silesia, leading to its later fragmentation. If he came to power of a unified Poland but his dad had the chance to raise him then I can see 2 scenarios :

1. He becomes a somewhat decent guy / ruler. Poland focuses on dynastic issues in Czechia and maybe Hungary, also fights Brandenburgers and might end the Teutonic order in its crib.
2. It collapses back into warlordism after his death. The politics are reshuffled so it's not clear as to what even happens next, although familiar faces might return from exile and try to reclaim their thrones (to varying degrees of success)
 

Rufus

A TL where the bourgeoisie as we know it never rose to prominence, because it’s the aristocracy that starts building factories and owning businesses. I don’t know how this might come about, and what could convince the aristocracy to go beyond just living off their land, but it would certainly lead to a very different social order. Imagine if the Houses of Habsburg, Bourbon, Hohenzollern or Romanov didn’t just own land, but also owned controlling shares in various corporations, trusts, industrial conglomerates etc. Imagine if Renault or Citroen were owned by the French royal family (be it Bourbon or Bonaparte or whoever else), or Krupp by the Hohenzollerns. I wonder if this might actually be beneficial to workers, since aristocrats would probably not be quite as focused on mere profit maximization compared to regular, non-noble businessmen and investors. In some ways such an arrangement would be a continuation of feudalism, where a large part of the population works directly for the aristocracy in some form.
 
Domz

Domz

Having the Byzantines survive the 1453 siege of Constantipole. The last Palaiologos Emperors were all fairly competent emperors and they were actually gaining ground in Southern Greece the decade prior the collapse (thanks to Constantine XI's campaigns before becoming king). The 1453 siege overall was a close-run affair too, contrary to popular perceptions. Romaboo Ramblings has an excellent video regarding this topic.
 

Lalli

Domz said:
Having the Byzantines survive the 1453 siege of Constantipole. The last Palaiologos Emperors were all fairly competent emperors and they were actually gaining ground in Southern Greece the decade prior the collapse (thanks to Constantine XI's campaigns before becoming king). The 1453 siege overall was a close-run affair too, contrary to popular perceptions. Romaboo Ramblings has an excellent video regarding this topic.
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I can't see Constantinople surviving with that late POD. Even if Constantine XI gets enough of help to repulse Ottomans, they will return later or Constantinople would become vassal of Venice. Of course that would be intresting TL but Byzantine not rise anymore.
 

Tupolev0247

early extinction of the Habsburgs, the idea being that Charles VI and his brother Joseph I die around 1704/5. How do you think it will affect the war of the Spanish succession and how it would affect the rest of Europe?
 
mr morbius

mr morbius

Enigmajones said:
Never seen it, but I would like to see a TL where Green Ukraine comes into existence.
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Well, the Poles were able to form the Jaxa country in the Far East, so I could see several scenarios :
1. similar thing happens but its some Kossack nobleman and not a Pole ; eventualy Green Ukraine is either subdued (and annexed) by Russia or becomes a Chinese puppet state.
2. Becomes independent durring the Russian Civil War and is either squashed by Bolsheviks in 1922 or remains under Western-Japanese patronage until getting annahilated in '45 when the Soviets come knocking (unless WW2 goes diffrently due to some Far Eastern troops being butterfiled away). I could see it developing a sort of identity if they survive the 20's, but it will be diffrent depending on what ideology they adopt - generic authoritarianism, Republicanism, Fascism (or some other similar ideology) etc.
 

PenSinadequate

Well i'm new here and i'm not acclimated enough on the site to see if these ideas have been commonly used (I doubt it) so here they are. Firstly, a TL where New England secedes during the war of 1812 and forms the New England Confederacy and my slightly more developed TL where an attempt to create a georgist community in the late 1800s a ala fairhope, alabama slowly manifests into a full blown Cascadian independence movement on a georgist plank
 
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