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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: Alternate Histories
Thread: Alternate Histories This thread is 4 pages long: 1 2 3 4 · NEXT»
bort
bort


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
posted June 25, 2002 04:16 PM

Alternate Histories

Something of a "what-if" game.  There are a number of pivotal events that have determined which of the legs of the (as Pratchett would put it) trousers of time our particular Earth has gone through.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I'll occasionally wonder what's down the other leg.  A few examples:

Battle of Normandy : Rather than establishing a beachhead, the allies suffer a stunning defeat.  The Soviet Union clearly comes out on top in the European front, capturing all of Germany instead of just half and then turns its attention to capturing many of the lands occupied by Japan.  The cold war "winner" still starts with a "U.S." but no longer ends with an "A"

US Civil War : The south is not defeated.  The phrase "the south shall rise again" never comes into vogue among those whose family tree doth not fork.  The Western hemisphere, rather than being dominated by the US, is caught in a balance-of-power situation similar to the one that Europe faced around this time, with the USA, CSA (Confederate States), Mexico and Canada all jockeying for position.  Russia either keeps Alaska or sells it to Canada.  When World War I starts, the Western hemisphere is not left more or less untouched, presumably Canada and the US would have sided with England/France while Mexico and CSA would have sided with Germany.  Although I still think that England/France would have defeated Germany, it would NOT have been the total victory that it was, which, interestingly enough, probably would have prevented World War II (no Treaty of Versailles).

Crusades : When the Pope gets up and says "Let us go and capture the holy land," the nobles reply "And the horse you rode in on!"  European rennaisance never occurs, either the Islamic world or China becomes the dominant power in the colonial era (probably Islam, since China was pretty isolationist).

Mr. Rampithicus leaving the tree : Mr. Rampithicus doesn't have a fight with Mrs. Rampithicus, so when he leaves the tree he isn't already angry and violent.  When Mr. Sabre Toothed Tiger attacks Mr. Rampithicus, he doesn't have the surge of adrenalin to fight it off.  Instead of apes becoming the sentient species of Earth, some feline creature that looks remarkably like Hello Kitty does.  Instead of the utopia that we live in now, there is only war in the grim, dark future of Hello Kitty.

Disagree?  Have others?  What do you think could have been?

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arachnid
arachnid


Promising
Famous Hero
posted June 25, 2002 06:02 PM

Quote:

US Civil War : The south is not defeated.  The phrase "the south shall rise again" never comes into vogue among those whose family tree doth not fork.  The Western hemisphere, rather than being dominated by the US, is caught in a balance-of-power situation similar to the one that Europe faced around this time, with the USA, CSA (Confederate States), Mexico and Canada all jockeying for position.


I think Britain was trying to side with the confederation during the war. Now if Britain went over and helped fight with them things sure would be different.
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Oldtimer
Oldtimer


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Please leave a message after..
posted June 25, 2002 11:42 PM

What if? Read Harry Turtledove he writes alot of alternative history stories from the south surviving the civil war to alternate ww1 and ww2.

But what if the Native Americans had discovered gunpowder and metalworking, how different would the world be if the Americas where never conquered, and the incas, mayans, aztecs and navajo had technological equality or superiority to the european invaders.
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arachnid
arachnid


Promising
Famous Hero
posted June 26, 2002 12:52 AM

what if the earth really was flat and columbus sailed right of it
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bort
bort


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
posted June 26, 2002 04:01 AM

Quote:

But what if the Native Americans had discovered gunpowder and metalworking, how different would the world be if the Americas where never conquered, and the incas, mayans, aztecs and navajo had technological equality or superiority to the european invaders.


Or, better yet, what if the europeans tried to conquer the native americans with smallpox, only to be confronted by something that makes ebola look like a runny nose that all of the natives were immune to.

I think the main problem that the incas faced wasn't so much the technology but that they were undergoing some sort of political upheaval when the conquistadors arrived.

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The_Gootch
The_Gootch


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
posted June 26, 2002 05:42 PM

OT, even if the Indians had superior technology, the Europeans had better diseases.

Half of those populations were wiped out by a single cough.

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RMS
RMS


Responsible
Legendary Hero
-ing yummy foods
posted June 27, 2002 03:45 AM

...who is Mr. Rampithicus?
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bort
bort


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
posted June 27, 2002 03:47 PM

Quote:
...who is Mr. Rampithicus?


Well, unless I spelled it wrong (very likely) or have forgotten my paleontology (pretty likely), Mr. Rampithicus was the ancestor of Mr. Austrolophithicus who was the ancestor of the Homo habilis and Homo erectus (what were the  people who came up with that name THINKING??) and so forth.

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Thunder
Thunder


Responsible
Famous Hero
posted June 27, 2002 04:48 PM

That Europe was able to conquer America wasn't so much due to guns as it was due to naval power and seamanships. The fact that there are so much coastal countries ensured that. It was largely due to their ships that Vikings were such a terror during medieval times. Ships also provided better trade routes and thus better economy.
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Oldtimer
Oldtimer


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Supreme Hero
Please leave a message after..
posted June 27, 2002 10:20 PM

But with the supposition that NATIVE Americans had equal to or greater technology than the europeans would make the sea power issue less important.  The large empires would surely have shore batteries to fire upon the invaders attacking towns, so the europeans would have to land at undefended points and try to fight battles on strange lands thousands of miles from any supply lines.

Columbus sails to the new world, is captured by natives who have better guns, they have his maps and ships, they see all of the things that spain has to offer.  The are tired of battling each other for resources so go on a massive ship building program.  

Meanwhile the europeans never hear back from Columbus and it takes 30 years to get money together to try again.  The new explorers are met upon the high seas by the Mayan fleet and are quickly subdued.  The Mayans sacrifice the newcomers to their gods in thanks of the new ships and wealth that they brought.  

Europe is still ignorant of the Americans, but the Mayans and Aztecs join forces and create a new empire which begins to subdue the continant.  As war is like to do this increases the technological advances and a by product of this is medicine, for some people who contacted the europeans became sick and the doctors now have new treatments to stop the plague of diseases that the europeans bring.
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bort
bort


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
posted June 27, 2002 11:01 PM

I'm not sure if you'd even need equal/superior technology, you'd just need more hostile natives.  If (especially the North Americans) had come up with an early policy of shoot the pale-face on sight, Europe would never have figured out how profitable the New World could be.  Just think:

Inca #1 : Hmm, there appear to be white men landing on the shore.
Inca #2 : Let's greet them, trust them, and reveal to them how much of this soft shiny metal we have.
Inca #1 : Well, that's a good plan, but I think we should let them wander into the jungle, shoot them with these wonderful poison arrow frog weapons, study their boom-sticks, make a huge leap forward technologically as a result, build ships, sail east, start colonies, make treaties with their leaders, break said treaties and herd them onto tiny plots of land that nobody wants.
Inca #2 : Capital idea!  That's why you're Inca #1 and I'm lowly Inca #2.

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bort
bort


Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
posted October 19, 2002 07:33 PM

Here's a question for y'all.  It's been brought up in other threads - notably the Attack Iraq/Osama Bin Laden types of threads that Britain and France should have tried to stop Hitler earlier, rather than doing all the appeasement and whatnot that Chamberlin is mocked for now.  People bring it up in comparison to Saddam Hussein with the argument of do something now or pay later.  My question is, could Britain and France have stopped Hitler earlier even if they had wanted to?  We saw how effective France's army was against the German attack and that was fighting on their home soil.  Britain did an absolutely incredible job of defending themselves and holding out during the Battle of Britain, but did they actually have the resources to, say deploy a bunch of troops to Poland to repel or drive out Hitler's army?  Just idle curiousity, I don't know enough about army strengths at the particular time in history.

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Celfious
Celfious


Promising
Legendary Hero
From earth
posted October 19, 2002 07:52 PM

Revolutionary war?

So, the emporer's doing his thing, expanding his asset's, trying to make the empire better.. Send's out the guy's to expand a colony 1000 mile's away.

What if these rebelious prick's never tried to take the power?
I dont think thered be a "personel" difference but the planet would be different.

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privatehudson
privatehudson


Responsible
Legendary Hero
The Ultimate Badass
posted October 19, 2002 11:08 PM bonus applied.
Edited By: privatehudson on 19 Oct 2002

OOOOOOOOOOOOO my favourite subject

Bort - Yes the british and French could (and should) have stopped hitler prior to 1939. Germany took 5-6 years to rebuild from 1933 as she had been in a major financial crisis at the time of Hitler coming to power. When Hitler retook the Rhineland (whithout a fight and against the versailles treaty), his army was miniscule (versailles had reduced it to 30,000 men) and contained almost no tanks or motorised vehciles. They had no air force when he took charge and the navy was down to a fragment of that that fought at jutland in 1916.

Britain in the 1930's, though financially troubled had an army almost entirely mechanised (the BEF of 1940 was completely mechanised) and with the french support could have smashed the german army of 1936. The french still maintained a large army and could have also fielded enough troops alone to crush Germany. One of the main reasons for this not going ahead was that with russia promoting communism throughout europe the fear was that a crushed germany would rise again as a communist state. Considering what actually happened though this may not have been such a bad risk to take. By the time of Hitler either taking the sudetanland (followed by all of 1930's czechosolvakia) or Austria, hitler was prepared much more for war, having trained the army and increased both it and the navy to suitable sizes.

And to go back a bit:

Normandy: Interesting as the Allies had done all they could to ensure victory there following the debacle of Dieppe (where thousands of canadians were killed or wounded proving that attacking fortified costal towns was suicide). Clearly though russia, though it could not expect to be beaten in 1944 would have had a tougher time - To take an example in December 1944 when the battle of the bulge began the german forces facing the americans there had more tanks than was on the entire eastern front. Like I said they could never have won (eg take moscow) in 1944, but with the west free of allies the east would have been much more difficult. One of the factors being prior to d-day the west was used to refit shattered divisions or create new ones, many of whom were elite units (a quick glance at the divisions in the west on or before d-day showed a high proportion of SS, Panzer and Parachute units). Without the complications of fighting there these units would have been extremely effective in stalling or even halting the russian steamroller.

US civil war - Old timer is right the likely events of a southern "victory" (ie forcing the north to recognise their independance) was most likely to come with the support of European nations, something unlikely to please the north! Britain largely didn't because the south never quite came as close as we would have liked them to to winning before the emancipation proclomation which denounced slavery (mainly because it would be hypocrtical to fight a fellow anti slave nation while being allied with a pro slave nation - YES we outlawed slavery long before america!)

Crusades - hmmmmmmm yes Islam might have become powerful, but it is also interesting to note that islam was not really united at all until and because of the crusades.



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Wolfman
Wolfman


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Insomniac
posted October 20, 2002 12:30 AM

This is Interresting.
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privatehudson
privatehudson


Responsible
Legendary Hero
The Ultimate Badass
posted October 20, 2002 12:45 AM
Edited By: privatehudson on 19 Oct 2002

Uhmmm yeah sorry for that I do wargaming so the What if scenarios feature heavily in the hobby. I kinda get to know a lot of the stuff discussed here through the magazines.

Oh and I neglected to answer one of borts points earlier. In 1939 it would have been next to impossible to deploy the british army into poland, but what could have been done was france could of made an attempt to invade germany. Indeed this did happen half heartedly, but was not followed through as the french were reluctant to attack without british support and the british were unable to send the BEF in time.
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2XtremeToTake
2XtremeToTake


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted October 20, 2002 04:14 AM

if the Womens Suffrage never happened......Who would be president of americanow?
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Athimus_Phaeni
Athimus_Phaeni


Famous Hero
Final Fantasy Fan
posted October 20, 2002 04:54 AM

A bit 'fantastic':

What if Adam had been gay or Eve lesbian?
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2XtremeToTake
2XtremeToTake


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted October 20, 2002 04:58 AM

hmm.....well, Then there would be alot of Half-Human half-Animal Hybrids......So what would i be...???
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Athimus_Phaeni
Athimus_Phaeni


Famous Hero
Final Fantasy Fan
posted October 20, 2002 05:27 AM

Quote:

hmm.....well, Then there would be alot of Half-Human half-Animal Hybrids......So what would i be...???


What???? Are you human?? That dark cloak is incredible! I thought you were something like a mix between a angel, a devil, a cerberus, a knight, a duck, a bird, a phoenix,... with very shiny eyes!
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But I won't be
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Of the fire in your eyes
As you're starying at the sun

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