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

That's more a matter of better technology/means than simple bloodthirstiness. I imagine if you took all the brutality meted out any European power in Asia over the 200-400 years it had been going on for (what we did to Africa and the Americas is each a whole book of fuck on its own) and squeezed it into the 80 year window Japan was an Imperial power, the results in terms of bodies and suffering would be about the same, or still behind the curve.

One thing I do know is that more than a few British and Dutch held much, much more of a grudge towards Japan than the Americans did/allowed.

Edit:
I think a problem with cringe in alternate history is that, if your starting point for a TL is the destination eg dystopian hellhole you think will make a good story or setting, working backwards is invariably going to get cringe. God knows i'm guilty of it (eg my asinine 'FDR Morgenthau Plan'd all of Europe" idea)
 
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notbirdofprey said:
Considering the Dutch policy of occasionally just deciding to wipe out the population of entire islands to grow spices (for a year or two before the price of whatever they decided to grow this time crashed) I'm also somewhat skeptical that even fucking imperial Japan could manage to be notably worse.
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It was during the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands, and while it was absolutely a crime against humanity, it happened between 1609 to 1622 and was ''localized''. So in the mind of the Indonesian peoples at the time of Indonesian independance, the widespread occupation and exaction of the Japanese occupier would have been much more marking.
 
Hendryk said:
Another day, another thread at AH.com about keeping the colonial order going forever. By a member named Britaniaphile of all things.

WI Decolonisation doesn't happen/No Cold War

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My Reply?

If there is no decolonization, sooner or later there is going to be demand for representation in governance (especially where the metropole is beating the drum of universal franchise/meritocracy/Rights of Man).

UK PM being decided by the Raj's vote? Campaigning in FrancAfrique the only way to win in Paris? Senators from the PI in DC? That might work, is it the idea?

(Yes, Canada-tier Responsible Government AKA pro-forma Personal Unions are another option... but without a hereditary Head of State even that is off the table)
 
Why the hell do some insist that colonial powers rule forever? Do they honestly think European rule was all that benevolent? Or that it would be good for the locals?
 
I'm having flashbacks to years ago SB when some arch conservatives lamented that the Europeans hadn't brutally maintained a hold on Africa until they were 'read' (said poster's orientalism deemed Asia 'sufficiently civilised' to do decolonisation)
 
Saint_007 said:
Why the hell do some insist that colonial powers rule forever? Do they honestly think European rule was all that benevolent? Or that it would be good for the locals?
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Probably due to the chaos following decolonization in many African countries and lack of knowledge about how things were actually run in the land outside the few shinning cities for the European elite.
 
The Laurent said:
The solution for the chaos and negative outcomes is frankly for the Europeans to lose even harder and more decisively, honestly?
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Not really, the absolute best outcome (outside of never being colonized in the first place) would have been a devolution into independence started in the early 1900, with creation of infrastructure and services to prepare the new country to run itself. Give a generation of local peoples the skill and experience to make the transition more seamless.

EDIT: One of the problem is that in many colonies, outside of the port-city, there was little infrastructure not related to ressource-extraction. Meaning that many country, when gaining independence, were more or less ''soft-locked'' into keeping the same economic model that they had while under colonial rule. Add that many of the country's wealth was exported to Europe or in the hands of transient or external Europeans, meaning that internal investment was limited upon independence.
 
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Undeadmuffin01 said:
Not really, the absolute best outcome (outside of never being colonized in the first place) would have been a devolution into independence started in the early 1900, with creation of infrastructure and services to prepare the new country to run itself. Give a generation of local peoples the skill and experience to make the transition more seamless.
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...we know how that ends, though?

All of those, "We're teaching the natives how to run themselves correctly" turned out to be excuses to slow-walk independence and sabotage any movements that might oppose the country it came from.

I was talking about, "Reasonable outcomes that theoretically could have happened with changed circumstances" not, "But what if the colonizers get hit by mind control rays."
 
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The Laurent said:
...we know how that ends, though?

All of those, "We're teaching the natives how to run themselves correctly" turned out to be excuses to slow-walk independence and sabotage any movements that might oppose the country it came from.

I was talking about, "Reasonable outcomes that theoretically could have happened with changed circumstances" not, "But what if the colonizers get hit by mind control rays."
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Fair enough
 
Undeadmuffin01 said:
Not really, the absolute best outcome (outside of never being colonized in the first place) would have been a devolution into independence started in the early 1900, with creation of infrastructure and services to prepare the new country to run itself. Give a generation of local peoples the skill and experience to make the transition more seamless.
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India's status as a comparative 'success story' is often credited to having a civil service with relatively high 'native' participation for a generation (Partition was a bad call not least because all Pakistan got was an outsized segment of the Indian Army), so this tracks.
 
Hendryk said:
Another day, another thread at AH.com about keeping the colonial order going forever. By a member named Britaniaphile of all things.

WI Decolonisation doesn't happen/No Cold War

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There's an update to the "timeline":
Here is the first timeline I have yet but don't worry more is coming

1945
The long telegram fails to reach the USA

1947
Stalin is assassinated with a liberal figure taking over and easing relations between the ussr and the west

1948
The Soviet puppet governments in Eastern Europe are allowed freedom from the ussr

1950
A revolt in Uganda leads to the British giving equal rights to all citizens France quickly follows

1956
Suez Crisis Britain and France manage to make Nasser back Down

1958
The first imperial conference is held for 15 days in London,Cape Town,Cairo,Singapore,Hong Kong,Ottawa and Canberra

1962
India is given independence with the promise of low tariffs and close relations with Britain
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I must admit, I would enjoy the British Empire being de facto dictated from West Africa though, since all subjects now have equal rights, including voting rights.
 
hydra1234 said:
There's an update to the "timeline":

I must admit, I would enjoy the British Empire being de facto dictated from West Africa though, since all subjects now have equal rights, including voting rights.
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Ah but the trick is to give equal rights to citizens. You just restrict citizenship itself to white settlers and voilà! The Algerian solution.
 
Hendryk said:
Ah but the trick is to give equal rights to citizens. You just restrict citizenship itself to white settlers and voilà! The Algerian solution.
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Kind of blows as a means of keeping lids on revolts though.

That said? I reiterate, either full equality within Empires involves heavily devolved and likely well subsidized 'Responsible Government' or legislative reapportionments that would leave the proverbial tail wagging the dogs that are the British and French metropoles within a generation on the outside. The numbers do not work out for other solutions if we are talking about hanging onto Africa and the like.
 
I think a point that is often overlooked with these 'imperial federation aborts decolonization' arguments is that the best example of something like this happening - the latter Roman Empire - did see significant horizontal equalization (as in the provinces became as powerful or more powerful than Italy) but also saw increased vertical inequality (as in the elites as a social class became richer at the expense of the rest of society). The problem is that I'm not sure the same process can occur in a modern context because of the hardening of national and other non-localized forms of identity.
 
king of hybrids said:
The Eugenics Wars of the Kelvinverse
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... Wait a minute, nothing about the border situations actually changed outside of the Americas except Europe pushing into Africa and the names and colors of some of the others getting shifted a bit? Really? Even the internal borders are still exactly the same, and Europe has apparently taken great effort to only conquer along them.
 
king of hybrids said:
The Eugenics Wars of the Kelvinverse
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How are you gonna have a khanate that doesn't include Mongolia?

Also, why is all of not colonized Africa "caliphates" in the second image? Generally the further south you go the less muslims there are. Was there some mass conversion or conquest, or does the author think that brown = muslim?
 
Being generous, it could have been dominated by East African Muslims from Somalia or Tanzania, perhaps with the backing of North Africans fleeing European advances.

"Khanate" is just a bad pun.

Personally I like how no borders moved in Asia despite obvious coups in Central Asia and Australasia and East Asia now being framed as a "Resistance", presumably against the superhuman dictators that haven't done any expansion. EDIT: squinted at a box it's resistance against East Asia's own superhuman dictator(s) but still, Khan, buddy, what are you doing.
 
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