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Alternate History Wank: Difference between revisions

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Alternate History Wank (view source)

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== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Code Geass (Anime)|Code Geass]]'' is a weird case. '''Britannia''' rules half the world, but not the British Isles. Japan, despite being a Britannian colony, seems to have been one of the last non-superpower country and its independence is treated as central to world politics, thanks to its large deposites of [[Mineral MacGuffin|Sakuradite]].
 
 
== Film ==
* '''Canada''' in ''[[CSA: Confederate States of America]]''. In this alternate history, that nation refused to hand over its escaped American slaves because it was the right thing to do and suffered with a walled US/Canadian border called the Cotton Wall. Furthermore, for this national choice, Canada reaps the great prize of all the artists of African descent (and several whites as well, including a certain [[Mark Twain|Samuel Clemens]]) that would have enriched American culture with Rock music, Motown and many others now feed Canadian culture. As a result, Canada becomes the pop culture centre of the world. The CSA itself is the same way, it's built on such a silly amount of historical fallacies that it's nearly impossible to take seriously. Though it makes rather silly [[Rule of Cool]] assumptions such as having Lincoln attempt to escape the CSA's forces by the Underground Railroad, it pales in comparison to having the CSA annex the entire North, along with large parts of South America to form a "tropical empire", and then there's the whole thing about a slave-owning society surviving into the modern day without collapsing into a third world country. Despite the CSA being isolated from the rest of the world and culturally stagnant, its economy still runs fairly well.
 
 
== Literature ==
* '''The Angevin and Polish empires''' of Randall Garrett's [[Lord Darcy (Literature)|Lord Darcy]] mysteries. The stories are set in an alternate timeline where most of the Northern Hemisphere is divided between two great ruling powers: the Anglo-French Empire, which extends over most of Western Europe (except Italy) and the Americas and is ruled by the Plantagenets; and the Polish Empire, which has conquered virtually all of Eastern Europe. The timeline splits in 1199, when Richard the Lion-Hearted ''doesn't'' die from the crossbow bolt at the siege of Chalus-Chabrol, but recovers, repairs his ways, and goes on to be a great king... Oh, and did we mention that these books take place in the 20th century, and that both empires are still going? Sure, it doesn't look anywhere near modern, but that's just because they use [[Magitek]] instead of normal tech.
* '''The Domination of Draka (South Africa)''' in S. M. Stirling's series on [[The Draka]]. The premise is that a colony in OTL's South Africa gains independence from Britain around when the United States of America did in our timeline, upholds [[Complete Monster|horrific ideals]] within its borders (including slavery), and manages to take over the world by the end of the series (Yes, sadly the image chosen for this very page was ''just the beginning'' of the wankitude). This is handled in such a way that it made the [[Wall Banger (Darth Wiki)/Literature|Wallbanger page for literature]] -- the civilized nations of the world [[Idiot Ball|just ignore the threat of a large, slave-holding, militaristic empire until it's too late]]. Let's just say that one [[Fix Fic]] that was intended to make [[The Draka]] less of a [[Villain Sue]][[Mary Suetopia|topia]] ''still'' started in the mid-20th century with [[Anthropic Principle|them having almost all of Africa and a good chunk of the Middle East...]]
* '''The Roman Empire''' in the Slaveworld novels. The empire never fell, sparing the world from [[The Dark Ages]], resulting in a [[Crap Saccharine World]] free from pollution and [[And I Must Scream|social unrest]].
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*** There is a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] (if that can even be called a battle) described in one of the novels that has a British ironclad stopping an American convoy heading for Ireland, protected by a new American ironclad. The American captain is itching for a fight, so he pretends that the tiny cannon that the British warship fires ''to the side'' in order to get the Americans to respond counts as an act of aggression and blows the British ship away with 2 volleys. Oh, and nothing bad happens to him as a result of this. There is a total of three battles described in the books that result in the British gaining the upper hand: one where they accidentally attack a Southern town instead of a Northern outpost, one where a Highlander regiment takes a fort in New York, and one where a British ironclad sinks an American one. That's it. The rest are all [[Curb Stomp Battle|Curb Stomp Battles]] for the Americans.
** To be honest, the entire series begins to move away from [[Alternate History Wank]] and into [[Unfortunate Implications]] territory.
* In Norman Spinrad's ''[[The Iron Dream (Literature)|The Iron Dream]]'', a post-apocalyptic '''Nazi style Germany''' conquers the world and begins to expand to the stars. (It's [[Deconstruction|ridiculous on purpose]].)
* In a way, '''Poland''' after the first set of ''[[The Cross Time Engineer (Literature)|The Cross Time Engineer]]'' novels, although {{spoiler|it would be more accurate to say, "Conrad Stargard's Army Empire"...}}
* Possibly the [[Ur Example]] is ''Napoléon et la conquête du monde 1812-1832'' by Louis Geoffroy in 1832, which - as the title suggests - had '''Napoleon''' act slightly differently in the 1812 invasion of Russia with the result that he conquers the entire planet by 1832.
* The '''Confederate States of America''' in ''[[How Few Remain]]'' by [[Harry Turtledove]]. Having defeated the Union in the civil war, they extend their border to the Pacific, defeat the United States a second time and then abolish slavery, all in the course of a year. However, the trope is effectively averted in the rest of the series, which demonstrates the disadvantages the country would suffer (inferior industrial base and population available for the army compared to the USA, for example) and sees the Confederacy getting crushed in the First World War.
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* In the ''[[GURPS]]'' tabletop gaming supplement ''GURPS Alternate Earths 2'', one of the settings is an alternate 19th century in which '''Ming China''' rules practically the entire world.
** Ming-3 is merely one example of this trope in the ''GURPS Infinite Worlds'' setting, which is loaded with such examples. '''Aztec Earth''', '''Roman Earth''', '''Japanese Earth''', '''Islamic Earth''', the list goes on. One other notable example is the self-explanatory [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|"Reich-5"]].
*** For the curious, Reich 1 has the US and Germany fighting a pre-nuke [[World War III]] in 1951. Reich-2 has [[Love Dodecahedron|a five-way rivalry between the US, Germany, Japan, Russia and Britain]], Reich-3 has '''the Axis''' preparing to wipe a besieged "Fortress America" off the map, and Reich-4 has the victorious '''Nazis''' trying to maintain order [[After the End|after they beat the US in the 1950s and "won" a Pyrrhic nuclear war with Japan in 1979]]. Reich-5 has the same divergence point as [[The Man in Thethe High Castle]], but has managed to become ''even worse''. Oh, and thanks to a blunder by Homeliners, one of their Stupid Jetpacks is now alternate history-hopping.
** We also have a minor [[Deconstruction]] in [[Multiversal Conqueror|Centrum's]] universe: There, [[The House of Normandy|Prince William the Aetheling]] didn't die in a ship crash, allowing him to unite the British Isles and start the empire far, far ahead of schedule, effectively skipping the [[High Middle Ages]] and going directly to [[The Renaissance]], with the '''Angevin Empire''' leading the whole way. The ''cultural ideals'', however, did not evolve to fit with the tech level, with their feudalistic leanings eventually leading to a [[World War III|full-scale nuclear and biological war]]. By the time the survivors somehow managed to pull their act together, they've evolved into a completely different society as a backlash.
 
 
== Videogames ==
* ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'' fell hard into this trope. Guardia, a kingdom that stood for a ''thousand years,'' defeated Magus and his army, and is now defended by Crono, Marle, and Lucca who are mighty time traveling heroes... is taken down by '''Porre''' on the southern continent, in the span of less than 15 years.
** We don't really know the extent of the changes caused by their time travel. It might very well be that the elements from ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'' gave an unfair advantage over natural magic from ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'', especially when trained in their use by Dalton. If they had elements at all. We also don't know the order some of the events happen, so Lucca's death could very well have happened prior to the war ever starting, and Crono & Marle (and maybe Lucca) would not likely have the capabilities to stand up to a total army, especially if they had superior training in their abilities.
* A lot of ''[[Europa Universalis]]'' [[After Action Report|After Action Reports]] take this form. This subsequently applies to other [[Paradox Interactive]] grand strategy games such as ''[[Hearts of Iron]]'' or ''[[Victoria an Empire Under The Sun]]''. It really depends on the player's ultimate aims and skill, however. And sometimes the AI inadvertantly makes the unlikeliest nations into powerhouses (a unified, westernised India by the mid-16th century, for example)
* Similar to the [[Paradox Interactive]] grand strategy examples, ''[[Rise of Nations]]''' Risk-esque "Conquer The World Campaign" often results in this trope.
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** Correction: All world-scale strategy games have this as a campaign objective. It is made worse in the [[Total War]] games by the fact that many large and historically powerful factions ''start'' the campaign with imperial overstretch; they have too much land to protect with too few troops, their treasury does not allow for rapid buildup, and they are often at war with many other nations straight away. It is invariably easier (if slower) to win the campaign by starting as a small and insignificant nation, directly invoking this trope.
* ''[[Home Front]]'', [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|while not technically an alternate history yet]], qualifies anyway. The backstory involves the current '''North Korea''', in just 15 years, becoming powerful enough to conquer half of the continental United States. Not forgetting Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Brunei, East Timor and Papua New Guinea.
* ''[[Freedom Fighters (Videovideo Gamegame)|Freedom Fighters]]'' might qualify as this. The point of divergence is 1945: '''Russia''' drops The Bomb on Berlin, instead of the USA dropping it on Japan. As a result, Russia takes over the world.
 
 
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** [[United States of Ameriwank]] ('''USA''')''
** ...[http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php/timelines/the_strangerverse and many more].
* Averted in the timeline [[Fear, Loathing and Gumbo Onon Thethe Campaign Trail Seventy Two'72]], where the alternate candidate getting in leads to a deadlocked presidential election. The setup is an alternate Democrat facing Nixon in the 1972 presidential election, but it takes some...surprising twists and turns.
 
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