So if the Axis won WWII, the Federation would have never existed?

[Sci]

Let's go with the presumption made in "The City on the Edge of Forever" that Edith Keeler's pacifism led to the United States either not becoming involved in World War II, or becoming involved too late.

Under such a scenario, my suspicion would be that the Third Reich would have conquered the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, etc., and would have eventually come to dominate the Kingdom of Italy; Fascist Italy would become a client state of the Reich. I think that the Reich and the Soviet Union would have ended up going to war as they did in the real world, but that it would have ended up devastating but not destroying both sides, since the Germans would no longer have had their resources tied up fighting a war on two fronts. Eventually, they would have had to come to terms with one-another.

Meanwhile, the Japanese Empire would have had free reign in most of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Australia would have been attacked, and either had some of its territory seized or have come to an agreement to become a Japanese client state. Japan would have turned its attention to the United States; an already-reduced (because of domestic pacifism) Pacific Fleet would presumably have been destroyed, and the Japanese may well have decided to target the West Coast (which was a constant fear of Americans at the time). This may or may not have eventually coincided with German attacks from the East Coast, possibly leading to a version of what was seen in ENT's "Storm Front" -- an East Coast occupied by the Nazis, a puppet government put in place in Washington, the populace subject to Nazi propaganda.

Whether or not the United States was ever completely conquered or the invasions repelled, I think this would have reduced the United States to a third-rate military power. It would not have been a major factor in international politics going ahead.

From there, then, we'd have three major empires vying for power -- the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, and the Empire of Japan. Eventually, this would have ignited into another major war.

I suspect that it is impossible to predict technological development in such a counterfactual history. Early space program successes may have been replicated, given the successes of the Soviet Union and of captured Nazi scientists who worked for the U.S. after the war. Atomic weapons would likely have been developed, if a few years later. I suspect that without the United States and United Kingdom, the miraculous advances in computing and telecommunications we've had in the last fifty years would have been severely delayed, or gone undeveloped. So, probably either no Internet and Web, or a much more primitive Internet and Web. Personal computers would likely be more primitive.

Add to this the significant loss of skilled and brilliant scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs, etc, as a result both of the wars, and of the subsequent genocidal campaigns brought about through a Nazi victory.

So I think it's probably fair to say that by 15 April 2063, Zefram Cochrane, even if he still exists, would not have had the infrastructure--not the economic infrastructure, not the educational infrastructure not the military infrastructure of a former major military power--available to him to either conceive of or build the Phoenix. As such, there would have been no warp flight, and the T'Plana-Hath would not have landed in Bozeman, Montana, to make First Contact.

Indeed, if Vulcan survey vessels were monitoring Earth during that timeframe, they would likely have concluded that a world dominated by three mass-murdering totalitarian states would be best avoided.

No First Contact in 2063? No United Earth. No United Earth, no Nathan Samuels and Jonathan Archer to push for a Coalition of Planets. Also no one to help the Syrannites overthrow V'Las, restore the original teachings of Surak, combat Vulcan imperialism, or uncover Romulan agents influencing the Vulcan government.

The recent novel DTI: Forgotten History by Christopher L. Bennett features an alternate timeline in which Earth does not become a player on the interstellar scene in the 22nd Century. By the 23rd Century, Vulcan has become a militant, imperialistic state that has conquered the Romulans, while the Andorians and Klingons have united in opposition to Vulcan. The quadrant is ravaged by war.

So, yeah, without Earth to serve as the "honest broker" who brings Vulcan, Andor, and Tellar together--who helps Vulcan return to its roots and end its neo-imperialist government; who mediates conflicts between Vulcan and Andor and between Andor and Tellar; who prevents wars of aggression based on false intelligence; who pushes for a Coalition of Planets; who uncovers Romulan manipulations and then fights a war against Romulus--it seems fairly clear that there's no Federation.

[Timo]

Meanwhile, the Japanese Empire would have had free reign in most of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Hmm...

If Edith Keeler delayed or prevented US involvement in WWII, that necessarily means she delayed or prevented the attack against Pearl Harbor, and/or other Japanese aggressions against US possessions such as the Philippines. She could not have held back her country in face of such offensives.

If anything, the Japanese would have had less success in the Pacific... Although if Stalin were tied up with a German advance that in turn was not burdened by a second front, then Japan might opt to advance against Siberia despite the disasters of 1939. The elimination of western Europe as a colonial power would not have made Australia or the Pacific particularly vulnerable as long as the US remained a factor - and Edith could not plausibly have succeeded if Japan did move against the US.

OTOH, the events of ST:FC were such touch-and-go that any tiny disturbance, such as the absence of "Magic Carpet Ride" from the history of popular music, could have spelled total disaster. It probably doesn't take much to prevent the formation of the Federation if a timeline meddler really sets his or her heart to it.

Timo Saloniemi

[captcalhoun]

there's two big flaws in that.

1. the Germans could never have invaded Britain because they didn't have the naval capability to lift troops across the Channel and they couldn't mount an air-only invasion without destroying the RAF and they singularly failed to do that in our reality and any attempt at a sea-borne invasion without air dominance over the channel would've left the ReichsMarine at the bottom of the sea, even without factoring in the Royal Navy's capacity to whup ass.

2. the Japanese couldn't have invaded Hawaii because they lacked the fleet capacity to get that far across the Pacific with enough troops.

so, i know what you're going to say: oh, but given enough time they could've built more ships.

nah, the Germans would've had the British bombing the shit out of every port and shipyard going and the Americans would've woken up and smelled the sake before the Japanese got a big enough fleet and whupped ass too, assuming Britain and the Sovs hadn't already spanked the Germans and diverted their forces to the Pacific theatre.

oh, yeah, cuz everyone forgets that Britain had interests in the Far East and was fighting out there too. it's just that, understandably, Germany was the bigger threat. remove that and Britain goes to war on Japan.

[Timo]

1. the Germans could never have invaded Britain

That would never have stopped Hitler. After all, he had already done three impossible things before breakfast - conquering Poland in a couple of weeks, taking Norway, and defeating France. He was famous for doing the impossible until reality caught up with him. And sheer daring would have handed him Britain on a platter, as the nation had no defenses to speak about - only an air force and a fleet, which could easily have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or poorly commanded (this sort of thing is what gave him Norway and France, after all).

2. the Japanese couldn't have invaded Hawaii because they lacked the fleet capacity to get that far across the Pacific with enough troops.

Rather, they distributed and diluted that capacity because they thought in terms of feints and silly schemes. Plus, the scenario presupposes that Edith Keeler was undermining US policy of aggression, meaning Japan wouldn't have been in such a stranglehold in terms of steel and coal and oil.

it's just that, understandably, Germany was the bigger threat. remove that and Britain goes to war on Japan.

Which scenario involved "removing Germany" again? The supposition seems to be that Britain would be removed instead.

Timo Saloniemi

[MacLeod]

It's easy to talk hypotheticals. Even in the UK had managed to stave off invasion, it would have o divert resources away from elsewhere in the world. Possible allowing Japan to conquer places like Australia. A Potential victory in the middle east.

So Both Japan and Nazi Germany continue to rise in power. The US gears to war too late. Perhaps as well as delaying the US entry into WWII the lend-lease act is never passed.

[Temis the Vorta]

Deimos Anomaly wrote:

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Man, the Space Reich would make the Terran Empire look like Dr. Evil's "margarine of evil".

The Space Reich is the Terran Empire.



To play the what-if game, I'm with the school of thought that says if the democracies got knocked out and it came down to the Axis vs Commies, the Commies win in the end. Let's not forget that the Axis nations would have had a large population of surly underlings. With Communism as the only viable alternative, they all become Commies. The Axis nations can't fight the whole damn world.

But that leads to a dilemma, because the Terran Empire doesn't seem remotely communist. No, the Terran Empire is a result of the triumph of the Nazis and eventual takeover of their global empire by the most dynamic and enterprising of the subject nations - Americans. The Terran Empire is Nazism, as reinvented by Americans. No loyalty, no self-discipline, no taste in clothing. Every day is a new opportunity to elevate your position through back-stabbing and mayhem. Shit, I've worked places like that.

So, where does the timeline where the Commies triumph lead? To the Federation, natch!

[MacLeod]

From memory and it has been several years since I watch COTEF, but it wasn't so much conquest that allowed Nazi Germany to win, but the delayed US involvement allowed them to develop the A-Bomb first.

So we have to assume events played out in Europe as they did up until the end of 1941. So Britian wasn't invaded, and the Nazi advance into Russia had become bogged down in the winter.

So 1942 is when things change, the US id not enter the war. Either Pearl Hasrbor was attacked but the peace movement was able to prevent a decleration of war and continued to try the diplomatic route or the US and Japan were still in talks and there was no attack until sometime in 1942.

So there was no manhattan project by the allies to develop the A-Bmb, and the delay allowed the Nazi's to get ahead in their development of it. Along with the V2 and maybe a V3 (ICBM) it allowed the Nazi's to nuke cities like London, Moscow, New York, Washington DC. Which forces the allies to the peace table.

[Timo]

Let's not forget that the Axis nations would have had a large population of surly underlings. With Communism as the only viable alternative, they all become Commies. The Axis nations can't fight the whole damn world.

The thing is, the Communists also had a huge population of downtrodden underlings, many of whom thought that going Nazi would be a splendid way to escape from the Russian rule of terror. It's not that one system or the other would have been better or worse for the in-between people, in absolute terms - it's just that any competing system was automatically better than the current one in offering at least some hope of an eventually brighter future.

Polarization of the world because one player gains in power is by no means a given. Earth has experienced several periods of history where one or two absolutely dominant powers emerged on a continent-wide scale or better (e.g. China has been doing that for some two millennia in a row now), and smaller players nevertheless continued their game as usual in the immediate geographical, economical or political vicinity. A Nazi victory might have jolted the world, but as for making it more uniform...

Timo Saloniemi

[sonak]

Timo wrote:

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The thing is, the Communists also had a huge population of downtrodden underlings, many of whom thought that going Nazi would be a splendid way to escape from the Russian rule of terror. It's not that one system or the other would have been better or worse for the in-between people, in absolute terms - it's just that any competing system was automatically better than the current one in offering at least some hope of an eventually brighter future.

Polarization of the world because one player gains in power is by no means a given. Earth has experienced several periods of history where one or two absolutely dominant powers emerged on a continent-wide scale or better (e.g. China has been doing that for some two millennia in a row now), and smaller players nevertheless continued their game as usual in the immediate geographical, economical or political vicinity. A Nazi victory might have jolted the world, but as for making it more uniform...

Timo Saloniemi

you're overlooking something-Communism has potentially universal appeal. Anyone can be a Communist.

Nazism is inherently limited because of its racialist/Ubermensch nonsense. It could NEVER have appeal to Blacks, Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, gays, feminist women, etc.

in a global contest between the two, the Commies have a wider base of support.

[Timo]

Not really, not in the Nazi Germany vs. USSR contest. Communism in the Soviet Union was highly exclusive and discriminatory, especially so in the war years; OTOH, Nazis were happy to accept everybody who'd join their war effort, even if they did a little ethnic slaughtering at one sector of a front while the ethnic group in question was fighting the Soviets for them at another.

A military alliance in this context of a contest would not be an ideological one. Churchill allied with the Devil because the Beelzebub was about to overrun his country; he'd have done the reverse in the reverse situation, and so would everybody else. Let's not forget that Hitler immediately won allies to his cause whenever he drove out a comparable danger from another direction. Stalin was but one such danger: Norway was about to be occupied by Britain and well knew it, lending a bit of legitimacy to a local Nazist movement, while the Balkan nations directly benefited from Hitler sorting out longstanding issues between them. It's not that Hitler would have been a solution: it's that, combined with the fact that Hitler was coming anyway, an alliance made a great deal of sense.

None of these alliances and arrangements really had a significant ideological element to them - it just obviously followed that after a deal was made, those with Nazi sympathies had a position of power in the ally nation. But perhaps tellingly, while there existed Nazi factions in several nations, and the war gave them disproportionate powers, no nation demonstrated a comparable increase of Communist sympathies due to the war or volunteered to join fates with the USSR. The "universal appeal" of Communism hit its lowest bottom at the time...

Timo Saloniemi

[sonak]

Timo wrote:

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Not really, not in the Nazi Germany vs. USSR contest. Communism in the Soviet Union was highly exclusive and discriminatory, especially so in the war years; OTOH, Nazis were happy to accept everybody who'd join their war effort, even if they did a little ethnic slaughtering at one sector of a front while the ethnic group in question was fighting the Soviets for them at another.

A military alliance in this context of a contest would not be an ideological one. Churchill allied with the Devil because the Beelzebub was about to overrun his country; he'd have done the reverse in the reverse situation, and so would everybody else. Let's not forget that Hitler immediately won allies to his cause whenever he drove out a comparable danger from another direction. Stalin was but one such danger: Norway was about to be occupied by Britain and well knew it, lending a bit of legitimacy to a local Nazist movement, while the Balkan nations directly benefited from Hitler sorting out longstanding issues between them. It's not that Hitler would have been a solution: it's that, combined with the fact that Hitler was coming anyway, an alliance made a great deal of sense.

None of these alliances and arrangements really had a significant ideological element to them - it just obviously followed that after a deal was made, those with Nazi sympathies had a position of power in the ally nation. But perhaps tellingly, while there existed Nazi factions in several nations, and the war gave them disproportionate powers, no nation demonstrated a comparable increase of Communist sympathies due to the war or volunteered to join fates with the USSR. The "universal appeal" of Communism hit its lowest bottom at the time...

Timo Saloniemi

you're talking about the WWII contest specifically, though. I'm referring to a Cold War afterwards, when Stalin is long gone. The Nazis will be limited in looking for allies by their racial supremacy beliefs.

[T'Girl]

sonak wrote:

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you're talking about the WWII contest specifically, though. I'm referring to a Cold War afterwards, when Stalin is long gone. The Nazis will be limited in looking for allies by their racial supremacy beliefs.

The Nazi's were allied with Spain (Franco), so that opens up all of Latin America as possible allies (join the winning team). They also had Japan, so there's another, fairly large group.The United States had a Nazi party before the war, although Hitler apparently didn't get along with it's leader. I'm not sure if Canada had it own Nazi party, perhaps under a different name?

There was also a connection with certain Arab groups, don't know if that rose to "allied" status. The modern middle eastern Batha party is basically the Nazis under a different name.

So the Nordic/Aryan Nazis would/might have been at the top of the pecking order, but there was plenty of room for others.

[barnaclelapse]

sonak wrote:

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Actually I tend to think that the Nazis would have been very interested in Space. But they would have been interested in it in terms of conquest. Nazi ideology needed enemies and war-Jews, Communists, etc. So if they succeeded in becoming the dominant power on Earth, what's next for them, other than to go out into Space looking for aliens to make war upon and conquer?

So it would be more like the mirror universe Terran Empire than the UFP.

It would have been mighty, mighty interesting to see what would have had happened had the Nazis met The Borg.

[Timo]

...They organize a bold preemptive strike, but royally screw it up by underestimating the enemy and splitting their forces, and only get their act together again by massively reorganizing during a long withdrawal - and when they have been basically fought back to the edges of the Sol system, their leader makes wild promises of superweapons that will change everything?

Only, in the best Trek tradition, those superweapons will give them their victory...

Timo Saloniemi

[sonak]

T'Girl wrote:

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The Nazi's were allied with Spain (Franco), so that opens up all of Latin America as possible allies (join the winning team). They also had Japan, so there's another, fairly large group.The United States had a Nazi party before the war, although Hitler apparently didn't get along with it's leader. I'm not sure if Canada had it own Nazi party, perhaps under a different name?

There was also a connection with certain Arab groups, don't know if that rose to "allied" status. The modern middle eastern Batha party is basically the Nazis under a different name.

So the Nordic/Aryan Nazis would/might have been at the top of the pecking order, but there was plenty of room for others.

right, but the point is that Nazism was an inherently supremacist/hierarchical ideology. Under it, for example, Slavic peoples were to serve as nothing more than slave labor for the Third Reich. And what about Blacks in Africa or in the U.S.? Which way do you think they're going to go?

So again, yes the Nazis had many potential allies, but Communism was an egalitarian universalist ideology(in theory if rarely in practice), while Nazism in theory and in practice was radically inegalitarian and supremacist. The Communists just have greater mass appeal if they can get their act together.

Remember also, that Communism can be democratic,(again in theory) which gives it more propaganda appeal. Nazism by its very nature is antidemocratic.