Anyone Like Alternate History Speculation?

[Dayton3]

I've always been fascinated by it.

In particular, I'm fascinated by what might've occurred had the Cold War ended in a short, large scale conventional war (with only a couple of nuclear weapons used) around the 1990 time frame.

I've been interested how such a Third World War might've effected the Star Trek franchise and American politics.

For example:

In my alternate history, neither Deep Space Nine or Voyager were made. ST:TNG lasted 8 seasons instead of seven while a ST:TNG spinoff featured Riker commanding a giant advanced starship being sent into the Delta Quadrant to seek out and take on the Borg.

Likewise, instead of the "end of the Cold War" inspired Star Trek:The Undiscovered country, the last OS movie featured Kirk along with Captains Sulu and Chekov (and all the rest of the gang) fending off a surprise Klingon invasion of the Federation (inspired by World War III)

As far as politics?

As the heroic leader of the U.S. during World War III, President George H.W.Bush manages to win reelection two years later in 1992 and goes on to serve 8 years total.

With his Dads support, JEB Bush wins the governorship of Florida in 1994 (he nearly did in the real timeline instead of being defeated and winning in 1998).

But, in 1996, Senator Al Gore and his running mate, former Senator Sam Nunn defeat former Bush Secretary of State James Baker and Gore becomes the 43rd president.

But the U.S. slips into a sustained economic slowdown in 1996 and this persists until 1999, severely damaging the Gore presidency.

In 2000, President Gore loses to the Republican nominee, JEB Bush who goes on to serve for two full terms.

In 2008, an almost unknown Democratic Senator named Barack Obama is elected president................

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I prefer my alternate history to not be a Bush family masturbatory fantasy where they have to rescue the country from Gorebot and the Antichrist, but yeah, I enjoy it.

 

[Dayton3]

I prefer my alternate history to not be a Bush family masturbatory fantasy where they have to rescue the country from Gorebot and the Antichrist, but yeah, I enjoy it.

Hey it only gives the Bush family four more years in the presidency than they've had already.

And second order counterfactuals take over with Obama being elected (previous pattern reasserts itself).

 

[stj]

Try Remembrance Day by Brendan DuBois. Avoid Branch Point by Mona Clee.

 

[Lord Garth]

Actually, I am interested in Alternate History. I like to look at what would have happened if X happened instead of Y and how much could have changed because of it.

 

[Lowdarzz]

If you want to read an interesting alternate history of the the United States but also encompassing the rest of the world then I would recommend Harry Turtledoves Timeline-191 series. It runs from the end of the Civil War, the south won, through World War II.

In order:

Second Civil War: 1881-1882
How Few Remain

The Great War: 1914-1917
American Front
Walk in Hell
Breakthroughs

American Empire: 1918-1941
Blood and Iron
The Center Cannot Hold
The Victorious Opposition

Settling Accounts: 1941-1945
Return Engagement
Drive to the East
The Grapple
In at Death

At this point I'm not sure whether he is going to continue the series.

 

[Dayton3]

Harry Turtledove is good but I think he makes a classic alternate history mistake.

He veers way too far from the "change" event.

Most serious alternate history tries to remain as close to the change event as possible

 

[Canadave]

^ Turtledove is also atrocious when it comes to writing exposition in any format longer than a single novel. That's why I lost interest in that series of books.

Anyway, the computer game World in Conflict actually revolves around a Third World War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which culminates in a Soviet sneak attack on Seattle.

 

[Lowdarzz]

Harry Turtledove is good but I think he makes a classic alternate history mistake.

He veers way too far from the "change" event.

Most serious alternate history tries to remain as close to the change event as possible

I understand where you're coming from but honestly I think this series is extremely realistic as the history of the Confederacy mirrors that of Germany from World War I on. The massive reparations forced by the United States, then eventual creation of death camps aimed at blacks.

The entire series is based of the premise that General Lee's order 191 was not found by an incredibly lucky union solider wraped in some cigars. Without finding those orders the Union under McClellen would not have been able to intercept the Army of Northern Virgina and force the battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg) to take place. The narrow Union victory gave Lincoln enough clout to pass the Emancipation Proclimation effectively turning the Civil War into a moral war.

This had the intended effect of keeping the English and the French from officially recognizing the Confederacy and lending aid. The aristocracy of these two countries were more than willing to give recognition as they sympathized with the plight of the southern plantation owners and were desperate for thier cotton supplies at the time as Eygpt had not yet stepped up. Unfortunately for them public opinion in England and France was decidedly anti-slavery and the passage of the proclimation further cemented popular opinion the the Union was fighting for the right cause.

All of this is changed if those orders were never found.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm personally not a fan of alternate history because it involves too much speculation and what-ifs. Some things happen because of lots of factors (so remove some factors and it stays the same), but, even if things change, it's a butterfly effect (who knows what could be the result). Because of this, alternate history is fiction, not history. You can make up whatever you want.

 

[Mallory]

In particular, I'm fascinated by what might've occurred had the Cold War ended in a short, large scale conventional war (with only a couple of nuclear weapons used) around the 1990 time frame.

Read Arc Light by Eric L. Harry. It's pretty much is dedicated to exactly your premise.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

I like Turtledove as well, but I haven't read his Civil War stuff except for The Guns Of The South. I've read all of the Worldwar books, though, as well as The Two Georges, which he co-wrote with Richard Dreyfus. (I asked him once, "How much did Dreyfus really write?" The answer I got was "Quite a bit, actually.")

I've been thinking about picking up Jo Walton's Ha'penny and Farthing, which I think are also WWII-era alternate histories, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[Sephiroth]

the game Turning point:fall of liberty hinged on what if Winston Churchill had been killed in '35 when he got hit by a car in NYC, it had the United States going to war with ONLY Japan after Pearl Harbor (without Churchill, England didn't have a charismatic enough leader to convince the U.S. to get acticve in the European theatre) and the game is set in '53 with the Nazi's invading the U.S. (with weapons and equipment that were on the "drawing board" in '45)

 

[Candlelight]

A world without September 11 would be a very interesting place.

And I don't mean having 2x September 10s to make up for the gap...

 

[RJDiogenes]

I like Turtledove as well, but I haven't read his Civil War stuff except for The Guns Of The South. I've read all of the Worldwar books, though, as well as The Two Georges, which he co-wrote with Richard Dreyfus. (I asked him once, "How much did Dreyfus really write?" The answer I got was "Quite a bit, actually.")

That was a good book. Very underrated. I also liked his alternate American history where the Americas were populated by Neandertals rather than American Indians; I think the stories were collected in a book called A Different Flesh.

I don't really see the Cold War erupting into conflict around 1990; the internal situation in the Soviet Union had been degrading for too long at that point. What interests me more is a nuclear exchange at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There definitely could have been an exchange of nukes between the US and Russia at that point that would have caused some serious devastation. The US would have gotten through it, but the Soviet Union would have likely collapsed in internal conflict as the member states took advantage of the situation to secede. Today's world would be completely unrecognizable.

In a similar vein, I wonder what would have happened if Kennedy had lost in 1960. Kennedy was an inspiration to the rebellious youth of the 60s; without him, they would have had more to rebel against, but lacked that inspiration-- how would that have changed the face of the Civil Rights movement, the Anti-War movement, the Women's Lib movement, et cetera?

In terms of Star Trek, I always did wonder what would have happened if they had not canceled TNG, but had just allowed it to evolve. Let Picard move on, put Riker in the captain's chair, introduce new characters, and so on. How long would it have lasted?

 

[FordSVT]

I'm personally not a fan of alternate history because it involves too much speculation and what-ifs. Some things happen because of lots of factors (so remove some factors and it stays the same), but, even if things change, it's a butterfly effect (who knows what could be the result). Because of this, alternate history is fiction, not history. You can make up whatever you want.

I agree, which I believe is the point Dayton3 was trying to make about veering too far from the change. You can speculate what would occur in the immediate days and months and maybe a few years after the change occurred because many of the prime motivators are still in place, but decades and centuries? Pure fantasy.

 

[Dayton3]

In particular, I'm fascinated by what might've occurred had the Cold War ended in a short, large scale conventional war (with only a couple of nuclear weapons used) around the 1990 time frame.

Read Arc Light by Eric L. Harry. It's pretty much is dedicated to exactly your premise.

Arc Light is a great book in my opinion.

Another great one.

Children of Apollo.

Instead of killing the Apollo program after the moon landings, President Nixon seizes upon the manned space program as a way to strain the Soviet economy.

So he plows more and more resources into extra Apollo missions and expanded technology.

 

[Canadave]

I like Turtledove as well, but I haven't read his Civil War stuff except for The Guns Of The South. I've read all of the Worldwar books, though, as well as The Two Georges, which he co-wrote with Richard Dreyfus. (I asked him once, "How much did Dreyfus really write?" The answer I got was "Quite a bit, actually.")

That was a good book. Very underrated. I also liked his alternate American history where the Americas were populated by Neandertals rather than American Indians; I think the stories were collected in a book called A Different Flesh.

I don't really see the Cold War erupting into conflict around 1990; the internal situation in the Soviet Union had been degrading for too long at that point. What interests me more is a nuclear exchange at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There definitely could have been an exchange of nukes between the US and Russia at that point that would have caused some serious devastation. The US would have gotten through it, but the Soviet Union would have likely collapsed in internal conflict as the member states took advantage of the situation to secede. Today's world would be completely unrecognizable.

In World in Conflict, it was presented rather plausibly. In 1989, the Politburo decides to threaten Western Europe with invasion in order to force them to send aid, but this plan fails and the Soviets end up forcing an actual invasion. After a time, NATO regroups and receives reinforcements from the USA, fighting the Soviets to a stalemate in France. It's not long after this that the Soviets launch their sneak attack on the American west coast.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Alternate Histories I'd be interested in:

1) What if the US never won Independence from the UK.
2) What if Hitler developed nukes first and Germany and Japan won WW2.
3) What if the British Empire never fell.
4) What if John McCain won the 2008 presidential election.
5) What if 9/11 never happened.
6) What if we never invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.
7) What if Scotland and England never unified under the acts of union!
8) What if Argentina won the Falklands war.
9) What if Guy Fawkes succeeded in blowing up the houses of parliament.
10) What if the Roman Empire never fell!

 

[Dayton3]

My alternate history for the Cold War basically starts with Gorbachev's chief rival, Romanov managing to outmanuever Gorby and become the new Soviet leaders.

Romanov was known for being far more hardline than Gorbachev or any of the other possible politiburo contenders.

Instead of just sitting by in 1989 while the Berlin Wall is torn down, the Soviets basically pull a repeat of Tiannemenn Square in Berlin.