What alternate history ideas you wish they were used more often?
- Thread starter Gar48
- Start date
I'm not really saying I don't want Carthage to win but the people surviving to at least similar to Assyrians in the Modern day
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It'd be interesting to see an "East is West"-style timeline which doesn't center around the Roman Empire for once.
Technically the original East is West had Europe under a massive Holy Roman Empire so it meets @Zillian's criteria in a roundabout way
There's Shattered Dragon, its pretty good despite not developing into a full on TL
Ali becomes Calife and the result of this for Islam, whether there will be civil war like in OTL and its influences in the future. Perhaps with Islam having a similar situation as Japan with the head of the religion having to be someone from Muhammad's family. New strands outside the sunni and shia. Persia is not conquered by Islam with the Caliphate conquering Egypt but not the Persian Empire.
I would like more about Ethiopia.
Iberia unified in the 12th century by Leon (Alfonso or his heir). No HRE with italy or germany unifying before because of this. Italy does not unify.
I would like more about Ethiopia.
Iberia unified in the 12th century by Leon (Alfonso or his heir). No HRE with italy or germany unifying before because of this. Italy does not unify.
Even weirder: a TL where the schism happens as normal but hereditary Sunni caliphates are butterflied and replaced with byzantine electoral ones. Imagine centuries of sectarian struggles over expanding the franchise and weird quasi-Roman adult adoptions!
Japan-related TLs usually focus on the Sengoku or Meiji eras, which is disappointing since there's a lot of PODs regarding the Emishi and the area today known as the Tohoku region in earlier times. The Emishi were basically a collection of Japonic-speaking peoples (including refugees from Izumo, the most powerful non-Yamato state of early Japan) alongside at least one Emishi tribe who were Ainu speakers. The Yamato used both military and diplomatic methods to conquer them, and the latter produced many of northern Honshu's leading clans like the Abe clan, Oshu Fujiwara, and the Andou clan. All of these clans were descended from Emishi rulers coopted by the Yamato, and they ruled semi-independently with just as many links to China, Korea, or northern Tungusic and Ainu peoples as they had with Japan. Hiraizumi, capital of the Oshu Fujiwara, was once among the largest cities of Japan.
The Andou clan, successors of the Oshu Fujiwara, are just as interesting but are even more obscure (English language sources are lacking). They held the title "Ezo kanrei" and thus nominal rulers of "Ezogashima" (essentially Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kurils) and controlled the large city of Tosa (some sources call it Tosaminato) that like Hiraizumi, was an important gateway to China, Korea, Manchuria, and the northern islands. They were also of Emishi origins and their descendent clans like the Akita are unique in not claiming descent from Emperor Jimmu. Their armies at times included many Ainu (both Honshu Ainu and Hokkaido Ainu) and their navy was supposedly one of the strongest in the Kamakura era. They seem to never have quite made it since one of their leaders was too aggressively Buddhist and provoked decades of Ainu rebellions that coincided with several divisions within the clan (which the Kamakura shogunate/Hojo clan could not resolve with their own intervention which would lead to their fall several years later). While they were still powerful and wealthy in the early Muromachi era, their clan ended up fairly fragmented and newer clans rose to take many of their former positions. Tosa was destroyed by a tsunami and later silted up.
To me this seems like this area had the best chance to keep Japan divided and foster a unique culture that is one part Sino-Japanese, one part indigenous (the Oshu Fujiwara for instance were genetically Japanese, but at one point treated their dead like the Ainu). To me it seems plausible that such a state could extend to include Hokkaido and maybe even further--perhaps a Mongol-ruled Ezo with the Andou clan as hereditary rulers?
The Andou clan, successors of the Oshu Fujiwara, are just as interesting but are even more obscure (English language sources are lacking). They held the title "Ezo kanrei" and thus nominal rulers of "Ezogashima" (essentially Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kurils) and controlled the large city of Tosa (some sources call it Tosaminato) that like Hiraizumi, was an important gateway to China, Korea, Manchuria, and the northern islands. They were also of Emishi origins and their descendent clans like the Akita are unique in not claiming descent from Emperor Jimmu. Their armies at times included many Ainu (both Honshu Ainu and Hokkaido Ainu) and their navy was supposedly one of the strongest in the Kamakura era. They seem to never have quite made it since one of their leaders was too aggressively Buddhist and provoked decades of Ainu rebellions that coincided with several divisions within the clan (which the Kamakura shogunate/Hojo clan could not resolve with their own intervention which would lead to their fall several years later). While they were still powerful and wealthy in the early Muromachi era, their clan ended up fairly fragmented and newer clans rose to take many of their former positions. Tosa was destroyed by a tsunami and later silted up.
To me this seems like this area had the best chance to keep Japan divided and foster a unique culture that is one part Sino-Japanese, one part indigenous (the Oshu Fujiwara for instance were genetically Japanese, but at one point treated their dead like the Ainu). To me it seems plausible that such a state could extend to include Hokkaido and maybe even further--perhaps a Mongol-ruled Ezo with the Andou clan as hereditary rulers?
They were fairly successful in the late Republic and early Empire and apparently even displaced Berber speakers in some areas, but increasingly assimilated to either Roman or Berber culture by the late Empire until they vanished sometime after the 6th century. My idea was to give them Malta.
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I guess that reason is same why there is so few of TLs about India or pre-colonial Africa. People just have not enough of knowledge and there is hard to find information. It would be indeed intresting to read such TLs but since most of AH.com users and many other websites and majority of authors are Americans and Europeans them have easier to write about North America or Europe. Even at best outside of that is write colonial or post-colonial Africa or 20th century Asia.
Anything about Margaret Tudor, IOTL Queen of Scotland! She's fascinating and I'd love PODs about her
I tend to really like stories that are set in the age of exploration. Because you have enormous freedom to shape centuries with a few simple decisions. Spain cannot conquer the Incas and Aztecs, France becomes super powerful. The Portuguese colony in Canada succeeds and with that Portugal does not colonize Brazil, the German company successfully colonizes Venezuela and now we have a German colony for the first time, France wins the dispute with Portugal for the colonization of Brazil and with that has the colony which produces the most gold and diamonds in the americas, spain colonizes louisina with a large population preventing an advance towards the pacific coast, the english colonizes south america, sweden colonizes part of north america,maybe china or japan colonize the east coast of america. It has so many possibilities and unfortunately it's usually more or less the same thing. This is not impacting only the American continent, but the rest of the world.
One thing that I find strange in the stories is a hyper focus on north america in this period, i was reading a story with the romans going to america and they go from england to the new world (colonizing the usa of course). When it makes more sense they used the African current which is softer and not violet, reaching +- in the Amazon and to the south we have South America and to the north the Caribbean.
One thing that I find strange in the stories is a hyper focus on north america in this period, i was reading a story with the romans going to america and they go from england to the new world (colonizing the usa of course). When it makes more sense they used the African current which is softer and not violet, reaching +- in the Amazon and to the south we have South America and to the north the Caribbean.
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This recent fare is what is far, far more common:
Algeria becomes the French Australia
Say the French decided to use Algeria (or at least the parts less inhabited by the 'indigénes') as a dump fort he malfaisants -- Socialists, Anarchists, urban vagrants, the homeless etc. some time after 1860 (i.e. when the French have largely consolidated their rule over Algeria). At some point...
www.alternatehistory.com
-----in addition to this, I could even take, with interest, a a scenario where Algeria becomes a resource-extraction colony/protectorate of France, or possibly some other Europeans, but the Euros never get it in their head to try to make it a *colony of settlement* or proclaim it *an integral part of the metropolis/homeland*
....and when I proposed that idea explicitly, https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...rotectorate-not-settlement-department.479155/
...it seemed like fellow board members (here and on SHWI back in the day) had an inability to understand, compute, or grok the idea.
Now to be fair, among the limited number of responders here on AH.com, one of them was Lusitania, whose stock in trade seems to be "but it couldn't be different from OTL!" and "I'll show you how knowledgeable I am by telling you all the good, strong, inevitable reasons things had to be the way they were, when they were, where they were"
It would be interesting to see Ferdinand of Aragon put his grandson Ferdinand von Habsburg as king of Castile and Aragon together with the reaction of Charles. Another thing would be to see how Spain develops with Ferdinand Habsburg at the helm, perhaps Spain will start an early centralisation and unification.
mickeymouse
Donor
Agreed! It’s such an interesting PoD that I’d love to see more of.
I think another interesting one to explore would be a scenario where Ferdinand’s son with Germaine of Foix lives to adulthood and inherits Aragon over Juana and Charles.
I've yet to see a TL where Privthiraj Chauhan manages to beat back Muhammed of Ghur at the second battle of tarain or chases down and kills him at the first battle leading to India remaining free from Muslim rule for the foreseeable future(Okay this goes for basically any Indian POD, but I find this one very interesting as its the closest equivalent India has to the battle of Hastings) and that leads to a few interesting consequences for India.
The 'Rajputs'(Not the word Privthiraj would have used to describe himself but lets use it for simplicities sake) remain as the major military force in the North of India , while Privthiraj himself was never more than many of powerful Rajputs Kings it is probable that while he might not do something as dramatic as uniting all of India under his rule, he carves out a fairly large empire in Rajasthan due to his previous military successes with it probable being that he takes over Kanauj the old Imperial capital of Harsha due to both having beef with its King for not supporting him against Ghur, and being his son in law.
As Ghur didn't penetrate that deeply into India all things considered the immediate consequences of his actions are likely to be fairly muted in the rest of the subcontinent but when I said that India would remain free of Muslim Rule, I wasn't quite telling the truth. Sindh had been conquered by the Ummayad Caliphate all the way back in the 8th century and had been under Muslim Rule for centuries. Considering Privthiraj and the other Hindu King's completely disinterest in reconquering it, I could see it growing as a independent muslim realm on the very edge of the Islamic world under one of Ghur's generals(He had no sons and his realms were divided between his slave generals) and as one of the dynasties that later ruled over Sindh followed Shiaism it could rise as a bastion of Shiaism in a predominantly Sunni world.
Both Jainism and Buddhism which went under significant decline after the Muslim Invasion due to their bad habit of burning down monasteries and temples(The great university of Nalanda is likely to survive here), Jainism in particular was still very popular in Gujarat as opposed to Buddhism whose primary patron the Pala Empire had fallen and been replaced by the Hindu Sena's 30 years before the battle. The vast majority of the Norths Hindu Temple Towns also avoid destruction. Lastly neither Hindi or Urdu which had significant Persian Influence likely don't arise in the same form that we know today, though as I don't speak either language I don't know what could potentially replace them aside from maybe a form of Hindi with far less Persian loan words
The 'Rajputs'(Not the word Privthiraj would have used to describe himself but lets use it for simplicities sake) remain as the major military force in the North of India , while Privthiraj himself was never more than many of powerful Rajputs Kings it is probable that while he might not do something as dramatic as uniting all of India under his rule, he carves out a fairly large empire in Rajasthan due to his previous military successes with it probable being that he takes over Kanauj the old Imperial capital of Harsha due to both having beef with its King for not supporting him against Ghur, and being his son in law.
As Ghur didn't penetrate that deeply into India all things considered the immediate consequences of his actions are likely to be fairly muted in the rest of the subcontinent but when I said that India would remain free of Muslim Rule, I wasn't quite telling the truth. Sindh had been conquered by the Ummayad Caliphate all the way back in the 8th century and had been under Muslim Rule for centuries. Considering Privthiraj and the other Hindu King's completely disinterest in reconquering it, I could see it growing as a independent muslim realm on the very edge of the Islamic world under one of Ghur's generals(He had no sons and his realms were divided between his slave generals) and as one of the dynasties that later ruled over Sindh followed Shiaism it could rise as a bastion of Shiaism in a predominantly Sunni world.
Both Jainism and Buddhism which went under significant decline after the Muslim Invasion due to their bad habit of burning down monasteries and temples(The great university of Nalanda is likely to survive here), Jainism in particular was still very popular in Gujarat as opposed to Buddhism whose primary patron the Pala Empire had fallen and been replaced by the Hindu Sena's 30 years before the battle. The vast majority of the Norths Hindu Temple Towns also avoid destruction. Lastly neither Hindi or Urdu which had significant Persian Influence likely don't arise in the same form that we know today, though as I don't speak either language I don't know what could potentially replace them aside from maybe a form of Hindi with far less Persian loan words
Heraclitus converting the Byzantine Empire to Islam
Now, I dont believe in that story(wheter he truly converted on it or was just testing like he claimed he was) and that succeeding is full on ASB
But I would still love to see it, be on the Writers Forum or the ASB one
Like imagine the Rashidun Caliphate not only crushing Persia and being as successful as IOTL, but also having the Eastern Roman Empire willingly joining it with Heraclitus himself leading the conquest of Europe under prophet Muhammed
Likewise I would find a ASB where not only King John truly converted to Islam but also brought England under it completely hilarious, come on its a Muslim British Empire in the making!
Heck I'd give extra points if both happened in the same timeline with either another king being called John accepting the way the winds are blowing after the Byzie-Arab Empire took over most of Europe or its just THE King John who somehow didnt get butterflied away because Allah say so
Now, I dont believe in that story(wheter he truly converted on it or was just testing like he claimed he was) and that succeeding is full on ASB
But I would still love to see it, be on the Writers Forum or the ASB one
Like imagine the Rashidun Caliphate not only crushing Persia and being as successful as IOTL, but also having the Eastern Roman Empire willingly joining it with Heraclitus himself leading the conquest of Europe under prophet Muhammed
Likewise I would find a ASB where not only King John truly converted to Islam but also brought England under it completely hilarious, come on its a Muslim British Empire in the making!
Heck I'd give extra points if both happened in the same timeline with either another king being called John accepting the way the winds are blowing after the Byzie-Arab Empire took over most of Europe or its just THE King John who somehow didnt get butterflied away because Allah say so
While not a full timeline Sarthaka did make a map of that actually.
Also, I have to agree, the idea of a Muslim British Empire with roughly the same colonisation/borders would be hilarious. It would also give us a Muslim United States, if United States were to exist.