Remove ads

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

I wonder what sort of brainworm would people need to be to hear "Hey, let's destroy all heavy industry of Europe and force them all into substance living" and think that is somehow a good idea.

Like, what makes people think that France, Spain, Britain, et. al. would not declare their eternal resistance upon hearing that? What would even make USSR agree to such plan?
 
Just because this is the cringeworthy alternate history thread doesn't mean that we have to make our own.

The Morgenthau Plan while ultimately flawed was for Germany specifically. Neither Morgenthau or anyone else called for it to be applied to Europe as a whole. That's a stupid extrapolation that doesn't fit the interests or objectives of anyone involved. And frankly given that the Plan was itself immediately hyped up by Nazi propagandists the very idea just feels like Nazi wankery meant to portray the Axis losing in the worst light possible. If I saw a timeline with that premise I would immediately write it off as written by fascists. It's a deeply ill-conceived idea.

So let's not, ok? The thread is about documenting inane ideas, not producing them. There is no world in which the US is benefited by deindustrializing Europe as a whole. Nor one when it's able to implement such a policy even if it wanted to.
 
Last edited:
Critical support for Comrade Roosevelt to enact the Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of Oppressed Nations against the European imperialist core
 
Last edited:
I did intend for it to be a horrendously bad idea.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to assume 'Türkiye loses the war of independence and gets subject to the maximum partition between the great powers and ethnic groups' as an ATL is inherently cringe; both because of the obvious horrendous imperialism and because, looking at a map, it doesn't look very sustainable even by the standards of carving up places?

Edit: ^ Because I've seen a few stupid people whining, due to recent events, that Türkiye is still a major player and starting the stages of revenge fantasies through ATLs. So very cringe.
 
Last edited:
Question about Romanov succession: Was the rift between Tsar Nikolai II and the Vladimirovich branch really that bad?

Reading the Wikipedia page on Grand Duke Vladimir (grain of salt), it seems they got banished after Kirill married his first cousin.
 
As I understand it, Kiril's mother was very unsubtle about how much she'd prefer the succession to favour her husband, and then her son; especially before Alexei's birth and after Michael's marriage disqualified him as regent should 'something' happen to Nicholas.

She also, like a lot of the Romanovs apparently (even the German ones), despised Alexandra for any number of reasons, so Nicky took offence to that.
 
So Been non-seriously thinking about running an American Technate Quest where for whatever reason during the mid 1800's, a movement supporting the US going full technocratic takes power. As part of it, I had the sillly idea that the pro-worker faction decides that the best way to make supporting them sound pro-american was to make use of roman icons. More exactly...they would have used a symbol that

1: Represented how alone a worker was but a twig that would be snapped.
2: Together as a bundle they could withstand that which would snap them alone
3: Together they posssed an imperium that they could not alone. A Imperium they could use to chop away at those who dont give then a fair deal.

And if any of you by this point havent gotten the hint, they be using the Fasces, which is actually used in quite a few places in US symbols. Also yes, I DID just construct a valid reason to make the fasces a symbol of socialism.
 
Upon a cross of Trumpism, my first major work on AH, was just a poorly written, thought out and researched progwank that basically went as follows: "Trump is a bigger buffoon than IOTL, Democrats save the world after Maddow gets in, and once the Republicans are defeated for good, the world joins hands and does the Kumbaya"

It was easily the biggest pile of dogshit that came out of my brain.
 
Hal Jordan said:
Upon a cross of Trumpism, my first major work on AH, was just a poorly written, thought out and researched progwank that basically went as follows: "Trump is a bigger buffoon than IOTL, Democrats save the world after Maddow gets in, and once the Republicans are defeated for good, the world joins hands and does the Kumbaya"

It was easily the biggest pile of dogshit that came out of my brain.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

But we forgive you because it was clearly written in response to Upon a Cross of Globalism, which...

*shudders*
 
King Washington said:
I... ah... don't think China is going to be in any position to economically prosper less come anywhere close to usurping Imperial Japan in the not very "Co" Prosperity Sphere
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Maybe it's old lore, but isn't the leader of China's plan to build up China in the sphere so they can beat Japan later? Unless something changed, I thought of him get far enough to turn China into a regional power, then his successors forget the "beat Japan" part. I just think China absorbing yet another foreign conquerer is funny.
 
Last edited:
Terra Allias said:
Maybe it's old lore, but isn't the leader of China's plan to build up China in the sphere so they can beat Japan later? Unless something changed, I thought of him get far enough to turn China into a regional power, then his successors forget the "beat Japan" part. I just think China absorbing yet another foreign conquerer is funny.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
He's also a collaborator, that's inherently going to constrain his perspective. His goals aren't necessarily terrible but just because he wants something does not mean that it's the right move for China. China sufficiently building themselves up that they could peacefully leave the Co-Prosperity sphere is enormously unlikely.

Let's not forget the fundamental dynamics here, people love to whitewash decolonization but a shit ton of European states fought enormously hard to preserve their colonies. And that was a world where bad PR over atrocities could (theoretically) cause a backlash and thus governments at least tried to cover up their worst actions. TNO is not nearly such a restrained world and the state in question is one of the worst, we are after all talking about Imperial Japan. Peaceful equitable coexistence with the kind of regime that makes Manchuria just isn't possible if you're a colonial asset. Pan-Asian rhetoric or no.
 
Last edited:
Hal Jordan said:
For my new Sufficient Velocity Timeline: Future of the world by Hal Jordan, here's a list of Presidents:
**United States of America**
47. Donald Trump/J.D Vance, R, Jan 2025- Oct 2025
48. J.D Vance/Glenn Youngkin, Oct 2025-2029
49. Gretchen Whitimer/Andy Beshear, D, 2029-2037
50. Glenn Jacobs/Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R 2037-2045
51. David Holt/Jaymi Sterling, R, 2045-2053
52. Jaymi Sterling/,Mallerie Stromswold, R, 2053-2061
53. Sarah McBride/Justin J. Pearson, D, 2061-2063
**2063: SECOND BUSINESS PLOT, UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OVERTHROWN, MARTIN AMHAUSER, CEO OF ORION, TAKES POWER**
*Union of American Technocratic Republics*
54. Martin Amhauser/Christina Rodriguez, nonpartisan, 2063-2099
55. Christina Rodriguez/James Ross, nonpartisan, 2099-2157
WIP
TLDR- Trump dies not even a year into his second term. Vance is a shitty president and loses in a landslide to Whitimer, who wins re-election in 2032. Republicans select Knox County Mayor and future Tennessee governor Glenn Jacobs, WWE's Kane, who runs on a MAGA-lite protectionist, socially libertarian and non-interventionist platform that moves the Republicans away from the far-right Christian nationalist culture war stuff and more towards a socially moderate-conservative and "Trump Economics" platform. His successors David Holt and Jaymi Sterling continue this trend. Sarah McBride becomes the first transgender president of the United States, but her administration is short lived as economic, geopolitical and environmental crises result in the Second Business Plot, the toppling of the federal government, which is then by a Corporate Oligarchial Technocracy with only modicums of the old Republic. The Union of American Technocratic Republics is basically an inverse Soviet Union, with Amhauser being a Lenin type and Rodriguez being a Stalin type.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

What happens in the year 2157? Does the regime ever collapse or does some other asshole take over?
 
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top