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

Dragonriders of Pern much like the Darkover series involved a lost colony as I recall, there was even a expedition that shows up to the planet looking for them doesn't find them where the colonists were supposed to be and then leaves without bothering looking at the rest of the planet to see if they had moved elsewhere on the planet.
 
An Independent in 2000 is hilariously cringey, about a super-politician being elected president in 2000.

Sadly, it looks like its author is trying to add more realism to it. So it's probably going to end up a lot less hilariously stupid, and more just boringly stupid.
 
Indicus said:
Sadly, it looks like its author is trying to add more realism to it. So it's probably going to end up a lot less hilariously stupid, and more just boringly stupid.
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Alternate history overall, especially what @SpanishSpy calls the "online tradition", tends to be too self-serious for its own good, and one of the biggest factors (besides the TL format being dry by nature) is the focus on "realism".
 
I found another case.

Kim Robinson usually is good writer, but her "The years of rice and salt",even if good written,sucks as AH.
She wonted european wiped out and leave only China and muslims,so she made black death with 100% mortality,but she forget 3 things -

1.in OTL Poland and partially Czech remained almost untoched.Nobody knew why, but they still should survive
2.Black death attacked muslim countries, too - if it would be that bad, they would all die,too.
3.Silk road would take illnes to China ,and kill them,too.

So,with black death with 100% mortality there would be no riceand salt, only corn in Americas.In her scenario,world would be ruled by Aztecs and Incas, not China and muslims,like in her story.
 
Yeah, making the plague more deadly isn't that tough.

If septicemic plague winds up the most spread variety, for example, well, it's gonna be nasty, because that baby has a kill rate that is somewhere near 99.99%.

Or pneumatic plague, which is also highly fatal, and unlike most other versions of the plague, directly contagious.
 
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ATP said:
She wonted european wiped out and leave only China and muslims,so she made black death with 100% mortality,but she forget 3 things -

1.in OTL Poland and partially Czech remained almost untoched.Nobody knew why, but they still should survive
2.Black death attacked muslim countries, too - if it would be that bad, they would all die,too.
3.Silk road would take illnes to China ,and kill them,too.

So,with black death with 100% mortality there would be no riceand salt, only corn in Americas.In her scenario,world would be ruled by Aztecs and Incas, not China and muslims,like in her story.
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Notably, saying that The Years of Rice and Salt is bad alternate history is different from saying "specifically the butterfly event that wiped out the population of Europe was implausible as written." Plenty of alternate history stories have begun with things as weird and outlandish as "highly specific plague wipes out population of western/central/parts-of-eastern Europe."

It sounds like the 'alternate' premise here is that some time around 1400, an absurdly lethal strain of the bubonic plague emerges within Europe, one so deadly that it actively tends to burn out if it has to travel too far. It can transmit overland from one village to the next over long distances, but if you're trying to cross the open steppes of Central Asia with it, you'll very likely die before reaching anyone else to be infected. If you try to travel with it in a ship, there's a high likelihood that you'll be obviously infected before you arrive, and that the ship will get quarantined by terrified port authorities who don't want to die- or that the ship's crew will simply lack the physical strength to operate their vessel. You're probably right that realistically such a plague would spread to all of Eurasia before burning itself out, but, again, acceptable break from reality given that the real point here is to write the story "history with no Europeans."

Also, note that it's not inherently incompatible with the narrative to have pockets of survivors in, say, Poland. It's just that the Polish or Czech or whoever survivors are going to be totally overwhelmed demographically and logistically by Muslims moving in from the south and east, due to the huge amount of emptied-out land and social disruption caused by the disease.

I'm sure there were Native American tribes that were, individually, largely untouched by any given pandemic that swept the New World, too... but it didn't save them.
 
There's a certain point where a plague is so virulent it actually hinders its own ability to spread because all of its carriers die before they can reach anyone else.

Also; Kim wanted to write about the Muslim and Chinese worlds without the influence of Christian Europe; so he spared them from the plague. It's a narrative thing.

I'm sure if you want to write a story where both the Muslim and Christian worlds snuff it and leave East Asia and Native America as the sole inheritors of the Earth; you can do that.
 
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Mental Omega said:
There's a certain point where a plague is so virulent it actually hinders its own ability to spread because all of its carriers die before they can reach anyone else.
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Remember--the plague is generally a vector disease, one thing that gives it a surprising longevity even today. Any individual plague outbreak is likely to be brief and deadly--but another outbreak can follow as long as immune or resistant vectors carry the disease.
 
Space Oddity said:
Remember--the plague is generally a vector disease, one thing that gives it a surprising longevity even today. Any individual plague outbreak is likely to be brief and deadly--but another outbreak can follow as long as immune or resistant vectors carry the disease.
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Given that we're all still here, clearly the Pneumatic Plague isn't quite good enough at spreading to kill off an entire continent.
 
Mental Omega said:
There's a certain point where a plague is so virulent it actually hinders its own ability to spread because all of its carriers die before they can reach anyone else.

Also; Kim wanted to write about the Muslim and Chinese worlds without the influence of Christian Europe; so he spared them from the plague. It's a narrative thing.

I'm sure if you want to write a story where both the Muslim and Christian worlds snuff it and leave East Asia and Native America as the sole inheritors of the Earth; you can do that.
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That is why it is cringeworthy - author wanted christian Europe out,so he wiped us in stupid way.
When he could achieve the same in normal wat - dor example, just let muslim defeat Ffanks in 730AD. They could do that - and we would have muslim Europe.
 
ATP said:
That is why it is cringeworthy - author wanted christian Europe out,so he wiped us in stupid way.
When he could achieve the same in normal wat - dor example, just let muslim defeat Ffanks in 730AD. They could do that - and we would have muslim Europe.
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The Ummayyuds neither were able to nor even wanted to take over France at Tours.
 
ATP said:
That is why it is cringeworthy - author wanted christian Europe out,so he wiped us in stupid way.
When he could achieve the same in normal wat - dor example, just let muslim defeat Ffanks in 730AD. They could do that - and we would have muslim Europe.
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Yeah. I consider "Muslims win at Tours" -> "Muslim Europe" timeline to be mainly the province of either:

1) Bad right-wing Western timeline writers (who I know for a fact write in English) doing it to fantasize about how terrible it would be if Europe were Muslim and how this proves Muslims are evil, OR

2) Bad right-wing Muslim timeline writers (who are probably writing in Arabic or whatever) doing it to fantasize about how great it would be if Europe were Muslim and how this proves Westerners are evil.

[I don't know if (2) is actually A Thing, but since people have been writing mediocre AH fanfic to vindicate their own civilization as they know and love it at least since some Roman wrote a timeline where Alexander the Great decides to invade Italy before going east and is somehow defeated by the early/mid-era Roman Republic... I assume that (2) is A Thing, somewhere.]
 
Simon_Jester said:
[I don't know if (2) is actually A Thing, but since people have been writing mediocre AH fanfic to vindicate their own civilization as they know and love it at least since some Roman wrote a timeline where Alexander the Great decides to invade Italy before going east and is somehow defeated by the early/mid-era Roman Republic... I assume that (2) is A Thing, somewhere.]
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The 'some Roman' who did that was Livy. Yes, that Livy.
 
Coiler said:
Alternate history overall, especially what @SpanishSpy calls the "online tradition", tends to be too self-serious for its own good, and one of the biggest factors (besides the TL format being dry by nature) is the focus on "realism".
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While that is a good point for sure, in this case my issue is more that I enjoyed the sheer insanity of An Independent in 2000. It was so bad it was good. Now, it's not. It's just bad.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Notably, saying that The Years of Rice and Salt is bad alternate history is different from saying "specifically the butterfly event that wiped out the population of Europe was implausible as written." Plenty of alternate history stories have begun with things as weird and outlandish as "highly specific plague wipes out population of western/central/parts-of-eastern Europe."
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It's like a higher-brow version of the haywire killer satellites in the Seventh Carrier series that wipe out jet aircraft and allow for the reenactment of World War II that Albano wanted to write. Is it the most plausible? No, although at least it's on firmer ground than the outright science fiction gimmick of that. Is the author's intent very clear, and does it work in the sense of setting up the story to follow? Yes.
 
ATP said:
That is why it is cringeworthy - author wanted christian Europe out,so he wiped us in stupid way.
When he could achieve the same in normal wat - dor example, just let muslim defeat Ffanks in 730AD. They could do that - and we would have muslim Europe.
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The Years Of Rice And Salt might be many things, but I'd hardly call it "cringeworthy". Robinson wanted to explore a world where Europe was a backwater, and so engineered as situation to bring that about at an interesting time. Is it a super technical 1000% diamond hard realistic set up? Not really, but it's just a plot device - the plague happens "offscreen" and it's not the focus of the story. None of the Jati members ever suffer from the plague, and we only learn about it either second hand or after the fact. Moreover, IIRC centuries later some characters discuss how its virulence and lethality were way outside the normal boundaries.

But like...the plague is literally the least interesting aspect of the story. The Years Of Rice And Salt is like this mega deep dive into a completely alien world and history, seen from the eyes of a handful of characters who reincarnate throughout the centuries. It's much more interested in examining those characters, how they fit into their times, and how their beliefs evolve over a thousand years. The plague only exists to knock Europe off the geopolitical board - a Muslim invasion and occupation of Europe would result in a wildly different world than one where Muslims slowly-but-surely repopulate a heavily depopulated Europe.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Yeah. I consider "Muslims win at Tours" -> "Muslim Europe" timeline to be mainly the province of either:

1) Bad right-wing Western timeline writers (who I know for a fact write in English) doing it to fantasize about how terrible it would be if Europe were Muslim and how this proves Muslims are evil, OR

2) Bad right-wing Muslim timeline writers (who are probably writing in Arabic or whatever) doing it to fantasize about how great it would be if Europe were Muslim and how this proves Westerners are evil.

[I don't know if (2) is actually A Thing, but since people have been writing mediocre AH fanfic to vindicate their own civilization as they know and love it at least since some Roman wrote a timeline where Alexander the Great decides to invade Italy before going east and is somehow defeated by the early/mid-era Roman Republic... I assume that (2) is A Thing, somewhere.]
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Pretty sure (2) is not a thing, given the fact that I know most of the devs for Bayt al-Hikmah and "fantasizing about how great it would be if Europe were Muslim and how Westerners are all evil" would be the last thing I'd describe them as.

EDIT: BaH admittedly has the Ummayad victory PoD at Toulouse 11 years earlier, but that's slightly beside the point I'm making. :V
 
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Space Oddity said:
The 'some Roman' who did that was Livy. Yes, that Livy.
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I believe you, but couldn't remember and figured it'd be a pain in the ass to find with a Google search.

Hakazin said:
Pretty sure (2) is not a thing, given the fact that I know most of the devs for Bayt al-Hikmah and "fantasizing about how great it would be if Europe were Muslim and how Westerners are all evil" would be the last thing I'd describe them as.
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Well, good on them if so I guess? Maybe I'm being too cynical due to small reference pools, and cool things are happening in the world where I don't see them?
 
Honestly it seems like the quarantine efforts of Milan and Poland(the actual reason those places weren't as hard hit while other areas less hard hit more benefited from being simply remote, less populated and having less trade connections to the rest of Europe such as isolated parts of the low countries, remote alpine villages and apparently much of the basque country) would have been even more effective if the plague The Years of Rice and Salt was actually so deadly and other areas that had been hard hit might have of had any unknowing plague bearers reach them because they died before they could reach there to spread the death.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Yeah. I consider "Muslims win at Tours" -> "Muslim Europe" timeline to be mainly the province of either:

1) Bad right-wing Western timeline writers (who I know for a fact write in English) doing it to fantasize about how terrible it would be if Europe were Muslim and how this proves Muslims are evil, OR

2) Bad right-wing Muslim timeline writers (who are probably writing in Arabic or whatever) doing it to fantasize about how great it would be if Europe were Muslim and how this proves Westerners are evil.

[I don't know if (2) is actually A Thing, but since people have been writing mediocre AH fanfic to vindicate their own civilization as they know and love it at least since some Roman wrote a timeline where Alexander the Great decides to invade Italy before going east and is somehow defeated by the early/mid-era Roman Republic... I assume that (2) is A Thing, somewhere.]
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Funnily enough, I'm one of the lead devs for a HoI4 mod that's timeline is exactly the opposite of those and it's a mixture of left-wing Western and Muslim timeline writers, and the main plot course that the world isn't exactly much better just because Europe isn't the hegemon, as there are still genocides and extractive colonies and the likes in the timeline. (And also Tours wasn't really that huge of a battle, relative to something like the Battle of Toulouse, for example.
 
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