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What's the most Cringeworthy Alternate History you've ever read?

Geedubs said:
From what I remember about Maoism Third Worldism, the core argument is something to the effect of: the working-class in the first world benefit from the extracted wealth of colonialism & imperialism too much to hold any real revolutionary potential under the current geopolitical system. As such, communism can only be built in the third world, and will only be built in the imperial core after it has been overthrown by a united effort of the communist third world.
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IIRC in practice leads to declaring the sun belt as "not real america" but in a good way.
 
Maoism Third Worldism seems like odd a term to me, then I'm Cold War brained, so this must be a post Cold War term at least in meaning. Otherwise I can see why Maoism could be consider popular, it doesn't rely on the need of political alliances of Marxist-Leninism, even if they were for the short term.

How in terms of a story, there's a lot things you would have to grapple with for a Third World Centric nation. If it's the Cold War proper, then it depends on the region. Some areas have to deal with the lid on newfound nationalism get blown open as the colonial Empires start to recede, what happens politically with whatever a system a colonial overlord left in place, assuming they did so in the first place. Where does x nation sit in terms of the gaze of the Superpowers. Mind you it's always best to look at both the Soviet Union and the U.S as accidental Superpowers as far as the Cold War goes, these are great powers stumbling into an international stage they've never been apart of outside of a group of semi-relatives not the only two dancers on the stage.
 
I mostly asked because when I asked if anyone remembered an old comparatively non-cringe "Europeans agree to decolonize Americas etc by returning to Europe, demographic clusterfucks in Europe ensue" timeline* I was advised that it was more of a third world-Maoist thing

* I'm not exactly above reading the odd "why if it isn't the consequences of our own collective actions"
 
Rockit said:
IIRC in practice leads to declaring the sun belt as "not real america" but in a good way.
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Sunbelt Thesis.

Basically says the Sunbelt has the *most* revolutionary potential because it has a lot of industry still and a very large non-white population.

I would say that idea was come up with at a certain time that is passing. Since the nadir of the seventies and eighties and the second destruction of the black bourgeois as a class by the state, the African American community has been able to form a distinct middle and upper class again. That's why people talk about the slight tilt towards Republicans among African Americans. Some of those small buissness owners like low taxes. Thus you cannot treat entire races in America as political blocs with the same material conditions.

The Sunbelt Thesis was generally paired to both the nadir of the American left and the second nadir of American race relations. It was heavily influenced (not totally) by Settlers by J. Sakai which is where you get the idea of "no white working class."

Needless to say I think a lot of Maoism Third Worldism is correct (not totally) but I think J. Sakai and Settlers was mostly wrong (not totally).
 
You ever felt that somebody's modern headcanon for an alternate history mod is extremely milquetoast? Because for me that's any Kaiserreich headcanon that sees a return to not just the status quo before the war, but the status quo of OTL.
 
Terra Allias said:
You ever felt that somebody's modern headcanon for an alternate history mod is extremely milquetoast? Because for me that's any Kaiserreich headcanon that sees a return to not just the status quo before the war, but the status quo of OTL.
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I've seen the same thing with TNO headcanons. So much of it is either OTL but Russia and China aren't a threat to American hegemony, or the start of TNO but the OFN is larger.
 
I have deep respect for alternate history mods that set their PoD far in the past but the game starts far later so they have the freedom to do nearly anything. Yeah so this EU4 mod asks the question "What if Carthage won against Rome?" but as the game starts in 1444 Carthage has already semi-collapsed, the Hellenic Pantheon has what is basically a Pope now, the Ostrogoths worship their own Tower of Babel and a fractured Italy has formed its own HRE. Oh and Christianity is a weird sect hanging out in the Arabic desert.
 
Terra Allias said:
You ever felt that somebody's modern headcanon for an alternate history mod is extremely milquetoast? Because for me that's any Kaiserreich headcanon that sees a return to not just the status quo before the war, but the status quo of OTL.
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I mean most peoples headcanon's are based off milquetoast scenarios to be fair.
 
Axslashel said:
I have deep respect for alternate history mods that set their PoD far in the past but the game starts far later so they have the freedom to do nearly anything. Yeah so this EU4 mod asks the question "What if Carthage won against Rome?" but as the game starts in 1444 Carthage has already semi-collapsed, the Hellenic Pantheon has what is basically a Pope now, the Ostrogoths worship their own Tower of Babel and a fractured Italy has formed its own HRE. Oh and Christianity is a weird sect hanging out in the Arabic desert.
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Christianity shouldn't exist with such a PoD.
 
Somebody-Someone said:
Christianity shouldn't exist with such a PoD.
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The Father cares not for the machinations of mere mortals. The Son will be born the same no matter what. :thonk: And it isn't even called christianity, it is called Evangelos.

Also, Islam also exists but is limited to Yemen and the horn of Africa. And there is a jewish exile kingdom in Albania. And a tiny greek kingdom on the western coast of India.
 
Axslashel said:
I have deep respect for alternate history mods that set their PoD far in the past but the game starts far later so they have the freedom to do nearly anything. Yeah so this EU4 mod asks the question "What if Carthage won against Rome?" but as the game starts in 1444 Carthage has already semi-collapsed, the Hellenic Pantheon has what is basically a Pope now, the Ostrogoths worship their own Tower of Babel and a fractured Italy has formed its own HRE. Oh and Christianity is a weird sect hanging out in the Arabic desert.
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On the flip side I once read someone ruminating on what would happen if Carthage had won the Punic war. After some thought they came to the conclusion that one major difference to the OTL would be that the HRE would be called the Holy Carthaginian Empire instead.
 
Somebody-Someone said:
Christianity shouldn't exist with such a PoD.
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Depends on what you mean by Christianity. Yeshua bin Yosef, or someone very similar to him in theological outlook, could easily have come to be in that timeline, and begun a religious movement that eventually split from Judaism. The shape, tone, and content of that religion, and whether it would even be kind of recognizable in its historical context without a Roman occupation of Judea, are completely unpredictable and would likely be unrecognizable to otl, but "weird sect hanging out in the desert" seems quite likely if it exists at all.
 
Susano said:
I was about to point out the same but then I thought, hell, with that PoD Ostrogoths shouldn't exist.
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TBF, I think the only reason they are called that is because they live in Hungary and Bohemia while the other Germanics live in Germany. And I was also wrong. They are just called East Germanic not Ostrogoths.

EDIT: The weirdest thing that immediately stood out for me was that somehow the Suebi managed to get to Iberia despite a unified and centralised Gaul existing.
 
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Susano said:
I was about to point out the same but then I thought, hell, with that PoD Ostrogoths shouldn't exist.
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The simple answer is that they don't, but there's an Ostgermanic cultural and religious group, loosely centred around the Danube (the united Ostgermanic nation, if it forms, is called "Donova").
 
It's neat that each colony is perfectly proportioned with zero overlap, concern for geography, or any of the concerns that you'd expect real colonization to produce.

Very good, truly the world's smartest alt-history map maker. Lmao.
 
Once again.

The cold conflict between AH.com mods and ASB have returned once again after years of hibernation.
 
Mister Anemone said:
Once again.

The cold conflict between AH.com mods and ASB have returned once again after years of hibernation.
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Ian and Calbear will never cease having their perfect image for how the board should work, in all its rather grim Spherical Cow glory, collide with how it actually works. And they will never cease responding with peevish resentment and a great deal of passive-aggressive swipes at the people they find much too silly.
 
Mazeka said:
What happened this time?
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> Mods decide to ban ASB in PolChat
> Some, including me, argued various reason of why the ban is unacceptable (my reason is that it allowed user to exploit a loophole to post an ASB scenario that involved bringing an modern day nation to the past...which could cause some whining that could verge on issues that are relegated to PolChat).
> Then one user posted directly of Kick and Bans section of how restrictive it is, causing Cal to response to the post with...yeah, sheer hatred of ASB in the site that could have been purged years ago if it wasn't for various reasons.

So...yeah.
 
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