We'll Meet Again

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'We'll Meet Again', written by 037771, is a long running alternate timeline residing on Alternatehistory.com, also home to Decades of Darkness and Alternate History: The Series.

The idea came from the sheer amount of timelines on the website in question that have America stay in the British Empire and everything is thus rosy. Here it isn't. It's horrific.

The timeline is written as a series of extracts from historical books, internet news pages, photos and quotes. It begins with Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts sending a letter to Benjamin Franklin...only the letter gets lost in the post, with Franklin unable to alert the Sons of Liberty to the dangers of possible British reprisals. Franklin is, by not sending the letters contents back to the Sons, still accepted by London high society and, in a series of riots, double-crossing, scares and oneupmanship, America is kept British...just. In this the timeline diverges visibly within a few years of the POD, and enormously by the turn of the 18th century. The timeline started with its POD in 1770, and has now progressed to (at the latest, given chapters are thematic) 1865. The whole thing can be read here

Not to be confused with the stock phrase We Will Meet Again.

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Tropes used in We'll Meet Again include:

• Affably Evil - Valerian Joseph.
• All Germans Are Nazis - Averted. They're Classicists instead.
• Alternate History
• A Million Is a Statistic - The death tolls of the Great Wars, the World Wars, and the three dozen Genocides that the timeline contains justify this.
• Anyone Can Die
• Badass Army - First the British, then the Germans and Russians.
• Balkanize Me
• Black and Grey Morality
• Blood Knight - Louis Lazare Hoche, Wu Fumei.
• Bolivian Army Ending - How the Decemberists choose to go.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys - Averted: the French in this timeline fight and fight hard for as long as possible, against often ridiculous odds.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder - General Zhang against the Qing Dynasty; Valerian Joseph to Montgomery Blair; Bismarck to anyone in his way.
• Colonel Badass - 'Commando' Tranchant.
• Crapsack World
• Curb Stomp Battle - The Ottoman visit to Venice.
• Cynical Mentor - Lord Londonderry (a.k.a Castlereagh) to Edward Bismarck.
• Deadly Gas - Chemical warfare is invented shockingly early in this timeline.
• Death Is Dramatic - Mary III is captured by Classicists, stripped by the commanding officer, raped while others laugh and then bayoneted in the neck.
• Deus Ex Nukina - Clearly, as judged from the previews of future events in the timeline, this option is used rather regularly.
• Disproportionate Retribution - The Classicist habit of executing anyone who is remotely Royal in conquered lands.
• Dirty Communists - The Classicists are an analogue of this. Their actual ideology is inspired by the Roman Republic.
• Divided States of America - This is how Britain solves her little American set of problems early on in the timeline.
• Drowning My Sorrows - 'Cheongju', or Korean rice-wine. Sold by the tonne in Japan and Hokkaido, effectively transforming vast swathes of an already shell-shocked population into alcoholics.
• Et Tu, Brute? - Subverted: Erhard, when being approached by a similar amount of knife-wielding senators, remarks that the main conspirator could hardly be a Brutus because he never really liked him...
• Everybody's Dead, Dave - This is how the faux-Stuart restorationists attempts in Britain end up.
• Evil Chancellor - Bismarck and Bonaparte.
• Final Speech - Lord Byron leading the Greek Rebel Army at Thermopylae.
• For Want of a Nail - The whole timeline is practically an argument for the importance of an efficient postal service.
• Full-Circle Revolution - Spain from King Ferdinand to Jose de San Martin, combined neatly with a Reign of Terror.
• Heroic Sociopath - King Louis XVII of France. Will do anything for his country, including leading men personally on the front lines, taking huge risks, shooting people who dissent and massacring enemy prisoners.
• Hobbes Was Right
• Hopeless War - The Buto War
• Inferred Holocaust - Heavily inferred, particularly with the introduction of 'Lingualism', i.e. 'heavily' discriminating against people who speak a different language...
• In Medias Res - The story starts with a look back from a contemporary historian at all the carnage contrasted with all technological progress that has occurred since the beginning of the 19th Century.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople) / Call a Rabbit a Smeerp - Guerilla's are 'Cobards', tanks are 'Cars', British troops are, in South America, 'Lobsters'. Oh and the 'United British Empire' is just all territories in North America that owe crown allegiance.
• Kill It with Fire - Common Classicist tactic when facing urban resistance.
• La Résistance - The 'Cobards', Cowards in Spanish, and the 'Marauders', their English (and only called Marauder's in England) equivalents.
• Manifest Destiny - The Russians exhibit this with their move toward Slavophilia after being driven from Europe.
• Mega Corp - The Hudson Bay Company, the Honorable East India Company, the Royal Philippines Company...
• Mexico Called. They Want Texas Back. - Mexico, as part of the rebellious Carolinian Confederation, is set to gain a lot when the Confederation invades the loyal Texas, setting thousands of men against a few at the Alamo and losing
• My Country, Right or Wrong - Tomas Zumalacarregui for Spain, until he finally realises the leadership of his nation is corrupt and incompetent, and surrenders to the French, who install him as a puppet in balkanized Spain.
• Nietzsche Wannabe - Orest Kiprensky, a.k.a Ogonyov.
• Noble Demon - Edward Spencer-Churchill
• No Koreans in Japan - Oh so subverted.
• Obfuscating Stupidity - King Cheoljong through and through. Uses the tactic to ascend to the Korean throne, then murder his rivals and try and make his nation great once more.
• Officer and a Gentleman - Edward Lyons, to the point that he has to be dragged away from a battle everyone knows he'll lose...
• Old Shame - To 037771.
• Omnicidal Maniac - Ogonyov.
• One Nation Under Copyright - India under the HEIC
• Polish Jews - Caught up in The Frenzy, Poland's large Jewish population bands together in armed groups to fight off vicious persecution and begin to dream of their own, separate homeland.
• Psychopathic Manchild - Richard Gardner.
• Punch Clock Villain - Some of the troops the Brazilians deploy in the Third Great War, and afterwards in Angola. Set down in societies that downright encourage violence and oppression, these men rape and massacre their way through native villages, and yet back home would be considered entirely reasonable men.
• Queen Vicky - Subverted. The woman that does get crowned in Britain, Mary III, is a wild hedonist, fully taking after her father, the historical George IV.
• Reassigned to Antarctica - Edward Spencer-Churchill to Venezuela. One of the better punishments for him...
• Rightful King Returns - Boy King John II returning to London from Boston.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something - Louis XVII by far, Alexanders I and II of Russia, Georges III and IV of Great Britain, Ferdinand VII of Spain.
• Scenery Gorn - Perpignan.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here - Garibaldi when he realises all is lost, and Lazare Hoche when he realises he cant fight to lose in the first place and fights in Russia instead.
• Soundtrack Dissonance - Think about it. Listen to Vera Lynn's song, and you'll have the tone of the timeline. That is, if you think that the song isn't about hope at all, but loss.
• Invisible to Gaydar - Peter Cornelius.
• Stuff Blowing Up - Key London landmarks being blown apart to slow the Classicist invasion down.
• The Chessmaster - Jose de San Martin, Louis XVII, Edward Bismarck...
• The Eternal Churchill - Not just one, but a whole dynasty influencing the course of British history. A mixed lot, from anti-semitic Edward Spencer-Churchill, to the defiant, prescient Winston S. Churchill. Better yet, the last one has a politically more important brother.
• The Empire - Too many to count.
• The Federation - The British Empire.
• The Kingdom - France on the surface.
• The Napoleon - Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, genius general and eventual Chief Minister of France, son of the one we're familiar with, who also makes some big appearances in the timeline. If you find this confusing, you're not the only one.
• The Shinsengumi
• The Tokyo Fireball - London. Repeatedly.
• Trapped in Containment - Japan after the Buto War.
• Vestigial Empire - Subverted by Royal Spain. After losing everything except the Phillipines, it seems to become an influential power in East- and Southeast Asia and colonizing West Australia.
• Villain with Good Publicity - Napoleon Charles Bonaparte when he smashes the German Classicists repeatedly and takes Italy for the Kingdom of France and is still permitted to massacre whole minorities within the conquered territories.
• Watching Troy Burn - This is how Edward, formerly Otto, Bismarck ends up in the UK. Given the increased amount of general violence and social upheaval in contrast with OTL, sort of a mainstay ITTL.
• We Have Reserves - The Russians and the Chinese who constantly make war upon each other on this premise...hilarity ensues.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist - The Prime Minister the Duke of Bearsden, whenever he thinks about the abolition of slavery. Subverted with almost everyone else in the timeline.
• Xanatos Gambit - Ranjit Singh and the whole Great Indian Insurrection.
• You Shall Not Pass - Lord Byron fighting to the end, as King, at Thermopylae
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters - French peace activists to Louis XVII. Subverted with German Classicist guerilla fighters everything - no-one likes them, not even their command.