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Alt History ideas, rec and general discussion thread

Alane1 said:
I've been kicking around the idea of a fifth or sixth century the discovery of what's now Newfoundland by the Irish or some other group from the British isles with the result of low level migration to coastal north America the end result the settlers forming of scattered tiny states along the coastal areas of Canada and the American northeast but I've always been leerily for several reasons from how little is known about that period of time in northern Europe and the Americas and the general butterfly effect that would likely result from such a thing on world history.

Some thoughts I had was it approaching with the earlier periods as being more legendary with chronicles written much later than the events events being recorded and archeological evidence.
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Someone's actually written something along those lines actually.
 
King Washington said:
What are you talking about? There is no "year zero" type event in Reds.
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Not in the Peruvian sense, but to be honest I wasn't entirely paying attention to that discussion in the cringe thread. But I am under the impression that there's a difference between OTL and TTL America beyond the flag people simp for
 
Idea; The 6 February 1934 Crisis results in the fascist/far-right rioters storming the French Parliament when the major fascist/far-right groups who participated miraculously co-operate, resulting in a coup and the installation of a fascist regime in France- albeit one more akin to Spain than Germany or Italy (as this is a coalition of fascists, monarchists, conservatives a la Franco's regime).

How does this change history?
 
Terran Allias said:
Not in the Peruvian sense, but to be honest I wasn't entirely paying attention to that discussion in the cringe thread. But I am under the impression that there's a difference between OTL and TTL America beyond the flag people simp for
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And I wasn't even talking about Year Zero. I was simply talking about changing names and labels, like how Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad, and Nizhny Novgorod was renamed into Gorky.
 
EBR said:
Idea; The 6 February 1934 Crisis results in the fascist/far-right rioters storming the French Parliament when the major fascist/far-right groups who participated miraculously co-operate, resulting in a coup and the installation of a fascist regime in France- albeit one more akin to Spain than Germany or Italy (as this is a coalition of fascists, monarchists, conservatives a la Franco's regime).

How does this change history?
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Well, France and Germany probably still fight it out over their unsettled grievances from WW1. Beyond that, I'm not sure.
 
ScottishMongol said:
Well, France and Germany probably still fight it out over their unsettled grievances from WW1. Beyond that, I'm not sure.
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Yeah, I don't see the same ideology preventing conflict between France and Germany. The question is how it plays out- I have trouble seeing Fascist France declaring war on Germany to protect Poland for instance. For that matter I have trouble seeing Britain declaring war on Germany without France or the USA backing it up. That mean Hitler has a free hand in Eastern Europe before he ends up fighting France, or that an actively rearming Fascist France confronts him early.
 
EBR said:
Yeah, I don't see the same ideology preventing conflict between France and Germany. The question is how it plays out- I have trouble seeing Fascist France declaring war on Germany to protect Poland for instance. For that matter I have trouble seeing Britain declaring war on Germany without France or the USA backing it up. That mean Hitler has a free hand in Eastern Europe before he ends up fighting France, or that an actively rearming Fascist France confronts him early.
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I think they might ally with Italy first, before Hitler is even allowed to invade Czechoslovakia.
 
Fascist France would probably straight up annex the Saarland and ignore any referendums to be held there. Depending on how lucky they feel, they may well decide to roll over Germany while they have the guaranteed upper hand to carve out a nice chunk of West Elbian territory as a protectorate. Might well try to get Poland to join in from the East, given that Poland held irredentist claims there.
 
I think a fascist France would be a lot more assertively anti-Hitler than OTL's France and as has been said, I think an alliance between France and Italy is likely, which means Anschluss is less likely to happen. I actually think a long European war would be avoided entirely.
 
I seriously doubt that a long European war would be avoided. The Soviet Union would still be there and would basically be the lightning rod for further fascist agression. If anything, I'd guess that the war following a fascist takeover in France would be longer, worse and probably end with Soviet domination of most of Europe.

Britain would be very wary of Fascist France, given that it would have hegemonic ambitions in Europe and the British really didn't want to deal with a hostile continent.

Like I wouldn't be surprised if warfare has broken out by early 35 and Europe descends into a messy slaughterhouse while the various fascist powers try to gobble up territory and establish vassals.
 
Yeah, a fascist France would attack Germany over the Anschluss alongside Poland and Italy and then probably couldn't help finlandizing it (Saarland to France, East Prussia and Upper Silesia to Poland, possibly an independent Bavarian Kingdom), at which point Britain's going to freak out over Napoleonic deja vu. Probably they'd pump money and guns into Spain to keep Franco from power, and God only knows what happens when Stalin comes knocking vis a vis the Baltic states.

It'd be an interesting scenario. Probably ending with a Red Europe.
 
I agree that it's unlikely to prevent a long European war, just result in a different one. One wonders if Britain would support Nazi Germany against Fascist France- if simply because Hitler seems less scary than whoever's running France ITTL.
 
If we assume, and maybe this is a big if, that a Fascist France will not tolerate a remilitarisation of the Rhineland or a return of the Saar, then Germany is going to be in a bad spot, militarily, and the economic clock is going to run down on the Nazi leadership. There won't be many opportunities to make any gains if the French are serious about keeping Germany down.

If France is the aggressor, which would depend on what its political situation is like, then it won't be a long war at all. A march through the undefended Rhineland is a big blow in itself, and with possible other fronts to contend with, Nazi Germany won't last all that long, certainly not 6 years.

Would the USSR join a war to support Nazi Germany against a league of fascist states? No, that's just not something Stalin would do, at least not at the outset and not unless it looked like Poland was about to crumble.
Would the British Empire join a war to support the Nazis? It's maybe slightly more likely than the USSR, but not a given and it'd be deeply unpopular.
 
How does SV feel about military intervention? Because I decided that if wanted the UAS I mentioned earlier to not come off as wish fulfilment, then I need it to have character flaws, and that probably comes up if it's a military super power competing with other nations. As such they may have an aggressive foreign policy in order to spread the milk toast revolution
 
Terran Allias said:
How does SV feel about military intervention? Because I decided that if wanted the UAS I mentioned earlier to not come off as wish fulfilment, then I need it to have character flaws, and that probably comes up if it's a military super power competing with other nations. As such they may have an aggressive foreign policy in order to spread the milk toast revolution
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Interventions are bad in an utilitarian, rather than deontological way.

That is, there is nothing per se wrong with using military power to end oppression, brutality, torture, etc. The problem is, it usually doesn't work out. As experience over the last two decades has shown again and again, the usual outcome is one of the country being even worse off than before the intervention, no matter how well intended said intervention might have been.
 
Susano said:
Interventions are bad in an utilitarian, rather than deontological way.

That is, there is nothing per se wrong with using military power to end oppression, brutality, torture, etc. The problem is, it usually doesn't work out. As experience over the last two decades has shown again and again, the usual outcome is one of the country being even worse off than before the intervention, no matter how well intended said intervention might have been.
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Makes sense, even if things shake out the best case scenario would be a very flawed democracy that toes the line of it's patron. The end result would be kind of like the Warsaw Pact where SV's ideal country is surrounded by less than free puppet regimes that get invaded if they step out of line
 
Joyeux said:
Would the USSR join a war to support Nazi Germany against a league of fascist states? No, that's just not something Stalin would do, at least not at the outset and not unless it looked like Poland was about to crumble.
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Invade and annex Poland while the rest of the world is busy watching the France vs Germany fight maybe?
 
Susano said:
Interventions are bad in an utilitarian, rather than deontological way.

That is, there is nothing per se wrong with using military power to end oppression, brutality, torture, etc. The problem is, it usually doesn't work out. As experience over the last two decades has shown again and again, the usual outcome is one of the country being even worse off than before the intervention, no matter how well intended said intervention might have been.
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The bigger issue is that frankly states very rarely intervene for humanitarian reasons as opposed to realpolitik couched in whatever justification seems handy. Those interests in turn make it hard to get a state able to be a disinterested observer, on top of the difficulty of convincing a foreign power to commit to the long and painful process of state buildiing.


The NATO intervention in Kosovo was fairly positive in its overall impact, just to give one example, and Afghanistan would have been much less of a shitshow had Bush et al not been obsessed with Iraq 2: Electric Boogaloo. From history I'd say that US intervention in the Middle East would have probably been welcomed post WWI as far better than Sykes Picot (there was ironically, a survey suggesting that the Arabs had a much more positive view of a possible US Mandate in Syria and Palestine than France or Britain, since the US talked a good game about self determination and had no imperial interests in the region) but of course neither Wilson or the public were prepared to put US boots on the ground "over there" and Britain & France put their foots down.
 
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Alane1 said:
I've been kicking around the idea of a fifth or sixth century the discovery of what's now Newfoundland by the Irish or some other group from the British isles with the result of low level migration to coastal north America the end result the settlers forming of scattered tiny states along the coastal areas of Canada and the American northeast but I've always been leerily for several reasons from how little is known about that period of time in northern Europe and the Americas and the general butterfly effect that would likely result from such a thing on world history.

Some thoughts I had was it approaching with the earlier periods as being more legendary with chronicles written much later than the events events being recorded and archeological evidence.
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At least it wouldn't be another awful Vinland scenario!

And Irish society was pretty interesting at the time, from what little I know of it. It would be interesting to see what kind of daughter society you made in the Americas.

Shaithan said:
I seriously doubt that a long European war would be avoided. The Soviet Union would still be there and would basically be the lightning rod for further fascist agression. If anything, I'd guess that the war following a fascist takeover in France would be longer, worse and probably end with Soviet domination of most of Europe.

Britain would be very wary of Fascist France, given that it would have hegemonic ambitions in Europe and the British really didn't want to deal with a hostile continent.

Like I wouldn't be surprised if warfare has broken out by early 35 and Europe descends into a messy slaughterhouse while the various fascist powers try to gobble up territory and establish vassals.
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A France that took a more aggressive stance on German breaches of the ToV would certainly be better liked by Belgium and Italy, but its relations with Britain and the US (who wanted a recovered German economy they could trade with) would tank. Oh, and the British still hadn't forgiven the French for Napoleon. A major cause of the post-Versailles dysfunction is that Lloyd George became extremely concerned about the French gaining hegemony over Europe and started trying to undermine France and perceived French allies like Poland. A France that is opposing British ideas about what should happen on the continent is... Very vulnerable. An Anglo-German alliance is a nightmare scenario for France.

Also, considering how poorly Fascists tend to run economies, I don't expect a Fascist France to be stronger economically than democratic France was in OTL. So like OTL, Germany can time their pushes with France having an economic crisis and then the French have to pick between fighting (and probably worsening relations with the UK) and tanking their economy, or by making a tactical retreat and letting Germany have a small win while planning their revenge tomorrow.

A France that is more assertive and aggressive could avoid WW2, but its geopolitical and demographic problems don't go away and the British won't magically become more understanding. So with what is likely to be a very turbulent internal situation and a miss-managed domestic economy, the regime would have a difficult needle to thread.

Susano said:
Interventions are bad in an utilitarian, rather than deontological way.

That is, there is nothing per se wrong with using military power to end oppression, brutality, torture, etc. The problem is, it usually doesn't work out. As experience over the last two decades has shown again and again, the usual outcome is one of the country being even worse off than before the intervention, no matter how well intended said intervention might have been.
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I mean... The interventions of the last two decades have for the most part been colossally miss-managed.

That said, I suspect that intervening to stop state oppression isn't exactly a military task. Not wholly. Once the armed forces of the problem state are broken, the problem of reconstruction is more a job of policework. Highly specialized international policework probably best done by an impartial international organization.

fasquardon
 
fasquardon said:
At least it wouldn't be another awful Vinland scenario!

And Irish society was pretty interesting at the time, from what little I know of it. It would be interesting to see what kind of daughter society you made in the Americas.
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I was thinking that the main intial groups would be groups from Ireland and Celtic Britain places like the old North, Dumnonia, wales, as well as the other Briton kingdoms that would eventually fall.

One of the things I find of interest and might make use of if I do eventually go head with it the idea of such a early settlement is is that long cyst burials were apparently common among the Britons and Picts often with white quartz stones were placed in the graves while the Irish apparently at least between 400 AD and 800 apparently still buried their dead in mounds especially those of their ancestors with such mounds also serving as legal territorial boundary markers while Irish clerics would be generally buried in church graveyards.
 
Alane1 said:
I've been kicking around the idea of a fifth or sixth century the discovery of what's now Newfoundland by the Irish or some other group from the British isles with the result of low level migration to coastal north America the end result the settlers forming of scattered tiny states along the coastal areas of Canada and the American northeast but I've always been leerily for several reasons from how little is known about that period of time in northern Europe and the Americas and the general butterfly effect that would likely result from such a thing on world history.

Some thoughts I had was it approaching with the earlier periods as being more legendary with chronicles written much later than the events events being recorded and archeological evidence.
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I read something like this in AH.com, with the premise of Saint Brendan's voyage across the Atlantic being true.
 
fasquardon said:
A France that took a more aggressive stance on German breaches of the ToV would certainly be better liked by Belgium and Italy, but its relations with Britain and the US (who wanted a recovered German economy they could trade with) would tank. Oh, and the British still hadn't forgiven the French for Napoleon. A major cause of the post-Versailles dysfunction is that Lloyd George became extremely concerned about the French gaining hegemony over Europe and started trying to undermine France and perceived French allies like Poland. A France that is opposing British ideas about what should happen on the continent is... Very vulnerable. An Anglo-German alliance is a nightmare scenario for France.

Also, considering how poorly Fascists tend to run economies, I don't expect a Fascist France to be stronger economically than democratic France was in OTL. So like OTL, Germany can time their pushes with France having an economic crisis and then the French have to pick between fighting (and probably worsening relations with the UK) and tanking their economy, or by making a tactical retreat and letting Germany have a small win while planning their revenge tomorrow.

A France that is more assertive and aggressive could avoid WW2, but its geopolitical and demographic problems don't go away and the British won't magically become more understanding. So with what is likely to be a very turbulent internal situation and a miss-managed domestic economy, the regime would have a difficult needle to thread.
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That's why I think that Fascist France would basically jump at the chance to carve off parts of Germany. The Ruhr Valley is extremely valuable and if it can be repurposed to produce for France, that'll help them. And even in '34 there would be enough material to justify a much harsher line on Germany. Like occupying the Rhineland, annexing the Saarland and preparing for an invasion across the Rhine. I think Fascist France would be aware that they're on a timer regarding to dealing with Germany in a manner that neutralizes Germany as a potential threat, so they'd probably prioritize it. Also, nothing gets the population invested in a new regime like a short, victorious war that hammers a hated national enemy flat.

Fascist France also isn't going to make some of the decisions regarding the army that the civilian government of France did, given that what the civilian government of France feared, namely the army not wanting to accept a social democrat government has already come to pass and thus military spending will be increased. And while it would be robbing Peter to pay Paul, France has colonies it can bleed for money and resources and the problems probably won't cook up quickly enough to stop them from trying to rearrange Europe to their desires.
 
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