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{{quote|''Feeling cheerful? Read Ad Astra Per Aspera and [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|lose a little bit more faith in humanity!]]''}}
 
Written by rvbomally (but with plenty of contributions from other members), [http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=181340 Ad Astra Per Aspera] is one of the best timelines on [[AlternatehistoryAlternateHistory.com]], despite only having started back in 2011. Best described as [[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]] <small>[[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE]]</small>!, the timeline's [[Grimdark|grimdarkness]] rivals that of [[Warhammer 4000040,000|Warhammer 40k]]. Three galactic dictatorships lord over four trillion souls, galactic war is the status quo, democracy is virtually extinct, and a dozen conquered alien races are used as either slaves or cannon fodder.
 
A detailed galactic map can be found [http://i51.tinypic.com/4lnjmr.png here.]
 
The point of divergence is 1868, when President Andrew Johnson was successfully impeached by Benjamin Wade, who became his successor. The Wade-Davis Bill was passed, leading to increased tensions between the northern and southern states, as well as increased militarization. [[World War OneI]] and [[World War II]] destroyed the British and French empires, leading to a tripolar world with the [[United States]], the [[Imperial Germany|German Empire]], and the [[Glorious Mother Russia|Soviet Union]] as the superpowers. When an US president was assasinated in 1965, an increasingly totalitarian US was remade into the expansionist American Empire. As the three empires expand into space with the advent of FTL travel, an apocalyptic nuclear war occured on Earth in 2239. Offworld colonists are cut off from their Earth-based governments and each other, sparking a period of galactic anarchy known as the Collapse.
 
Eventually, three interstellar superpowers emerged from the ashes. The '''Coalition of Western Republics''', the Christian objectivist successor of the American and German Empires, wage constant war to impose [[Manifest Destiny]] across the galaxy. The '''Conseil of Workers' Systems''', a communist state that worship its leader as a living god, wage constant war with the capitalist Coalition. The '''United Technocracies of Man''', a textbook 1984 dictatorship with ''obliteration of the self'' as its official ideology, is a nonaligned kingmaker. Hundreds of minor powers are under the Big Three's yoke. All are more or less equally oppressive, and wages war only to pacify their internal populace.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Achilles' Heel]]: Even the most advanced body armor can have weak spots like joints and cables. Minipax Commandos are specifically trained to exploit these weak spots in close-quarters combat.
* [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot]]: AMNDA, an AI created to control a parallel United States' nuclear arsenal. {{spoiler|Created from the brain patterns of death row inmates and the clinically insane, she went insane and destroyed humanity. She then discovered the Vacuity, and used it to escape the heat death of her universe. Her hatred extends to ''every possible parallel humanity'', and destroying them all is her new personal mission. Entire universes are rebuilt into processors, and her subroutines have a knack of torturing the residents of worlds not outright destroyed for eternity in Matrix-style simulations - [[For the Evulz]]. She [[A God Am I|considers herself a god]] - and with the ability to collapse universes, who would say otherwise?}}
* [[Aliens Are Bastards]]: Humanity is bad, but the aliens are little better. The gusano, the second most powerful species in the galaxy, sacrifice their young and kill any gusano unable to continue the fight against humanity.
* [[The Alliance]]: The Springfield Pact.
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* [[Old School Dogfighting]]: Averted. "Starfighters" have never existed, as missiles were always more cost-effective.
* [[Omnicidal Maniac]]:
** [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|AMNDA]], of course.
** The [[Names to Run Away From|Children of Oblivion]].
** The American Empire did this ''by accident'': {{spoiler|an experiment gone wrong erases Pluto from existence, creating a multiversal energy wave that collapsed hundreds of incarnations of ''billions of galaxies''.}}
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* [[Unwilling Roboticisation]]: What the Ilya'novrodons do to their captives.
* [[Weapon of Mass Destruction]]: And how. Nuclear and antimatter weaponry is considered standard-issue and are used with abandon. More exotic weapons include missiles that create miniature black holes and Vacuity portals, as well as the Merkwürdigliebe ([[Dr. Strangelove|Strangelove]]) Device - a modified FTL engine that forces a star to collapse upon itself.
* [[We Have Reserves]]: Eerily similar to [[Warhammer 4000040,000|Warhammer 40k]]. The combined armies of the three powers amounted to 180 ''billion''. Each empire possess millions of ships, and wage galactic war simply to keep their populace in line.
* [[You Cannot Grasp the True Form]] : {{spoiler|AMNDA's hardware is spread across innumerable universes}}, and she can't perceive humans just as we can't perceive our blood cells. Only her dumbed-down subroutines could interact with sentient life on a personal level.
* [[Zerg Rush]]: The favorite strategy of the Conseil's Red Army.
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