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534. During the American Civil War, the Union commits what would arguably be considered a 'war crime' using 'biological' weapons in the form of disease-ridden blankets.
HOWEVER, the recipients of the blankets take some care to disinfect and cleanse the items a bit first, so the disease doesn't hit them as hard.
It DOES mutate, however, and it is virulent enough to wipe out a good chunk of industrialized Union society. The Civil War drags into a stalemate, even as the South becomes infected with several strains of the disease.
Within ten years, the former United States of America is reduced to a tenth of its former population, with former slaves and native peoples having the most robust resistance to the outbreaks...
535. During the Second World War, Captain Charles B. McVay, USN, disobeys a direct order to take his vessel --(CA-35) U.S.S. Indianapolis into harm's way, and utilizes a safer and more secure route to meet up with Task Force 95.
Due to a signal miscommunication between the Indianapolis and the rest of Task Force 95, she was sunk with all hands by 'friendly fire'. The resulting tragedy spurs serious innovation into the refinement of IFF technology, and sparks many conspiracy theories...
...The Indianapolis had brought the supplies necessary to put together a nuclear device to Tinian.
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536- Hitting upon an idea that people shold play together rather than apart, TSR decrees that their various campaign settings take place upon different continents upon a single gigantic planet than in different realities or dimensions, with planescape and spelljammer as noted exceptions (taking place on the planes or in space respectively). Fans of different settings regularly "take one another on" as best they can, with beloved iconics of each setting leading massive armies in an attempt to become the dominant power on the planet. In terms of the campaign settings and source materials themselves, few are mad enough to attempt to invade an entire continent nearly a world away instead focusing on local concerns, and while the respective pantheons of each setting are a bit larger (although a few tricky and powerful deities often masquerade as other gods on other continents), the world itself is quite stable and sees much adventuring.
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537. Putting a bit more of his "a" material into the script, the decision to keep the controversial Richard Pryor out of the film Blazing Saddles does not come to fruition. However, a pair of ad-libbed scenes in the film are truly offensive to viewers, despite their hilarity, and the film becomes a cult hit more so than widely adopted by the movie going public. Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor turn their collective nose up at Hollywood, and create a collection of comedy records that are as hilarious as they are offensive and bitingly critical of race relations. While Harlem Nights is created, Hear No Evil, See No Evil is not, and Gene Wilder becomes more interested in stand up comedy and radio shows, not making appearances in TV shows and the like.
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538. John Lennon decides to stay in that night.
539. Neville Chamberlain decides that Hitler is a conniving little weasel, and gears his country for war.
540. Jim Henson goes to the doctor.
541. Elizabeth I decides to marry one of her many suitors.
542. The executives at NBC decide that Star Trek is worth as much funding and support that they can provide.
Oof, didn't see that. Same page, even. Heh.
Ahem. Well, clearly only an intelligent, not to mention devastatingly handsome individual could come up with such an idea, so congratulations! ;)
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543. In 701 B.C.E, Sennacherib chooses to have his army take a few days to dig wells, instead of relying on the tainted water left to his army in the siege of Judah. Without the cholera epidemic in his ranks, the Assyrians handily reduce the Jews to slavery, and quell the rebellion. The Jews do not credit their monotheistic sky god with the victory, and sensibly adopt the religion of their conquerors.
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After the Battle of Ankara, the Italian sea powers leave the remnants of the Ottoman armies to Timur's tender mercies, instead of ferrying them to safety in Europe. Timur is therefore able to complete the destruction of Ottoman power before his death, and the ultimate collapse of the Timurids several decades later leaves behind a thoroughly Balkanized Anatolia.
Not so much an alternate history based on a decision, but based on an alternate outcome. Carl von Clausewitz lives long enough to finish his book, "On War". While his work still tends to be rather badly misunderstood, it is less so in the alternate time line than our own. As one of the results of this WW1 is changed when Germany negotiates for peace shortly after the failure of their initial offensive.
Could anyone like Coke-si?? Anywhere??147. People decide that they like New Coke.I have yet to come across such a bizarre reality in all of the universes I've visited... *hops into another Slider portal*
I've heard it goes great with Scotchka.
Not so much an alternate history based on a decision, but based on an alternate outcome. Carl von Clausewitz lives long enough to finish his book, "On War". While his work still tends to be rather badly misunderstood, it is less so in the alternate time line than our own. As one of the results of this WW1 is changed when Germany negotiates for peace shortly after the failure of their initial offensive.
This might have had a huge impact on the Second World War. All of the pressures that existed to bring about the third reich would have still existed under that scenario. However, the U.S. wouldn't have been drawn into the war and would not have become a super-power. Military thinking wouldn't have advanced as it did at the U.S. Academies due to the slaughter lines in WWI and we probably wouldn't have reinstated sniper training. Plus, the military buildup we had from 1920 to 1935 wouldn't have happened. When WWII broke out we would have held out longer before joining (there is no way that Roosevelt would have handled Pearl Harbor as he did) and when we did join we would have been a far less effective ally.
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280. The historic vote in 1894 goes the other way, and Brooklyn does not become a borough of New York. They remain an independent city, and development of said city continues in the other direction until Brooklyn annexes almost half the townships of Long Island. Eventually the entire island is referred to as Brooklyn.
That's horrible... I don't even want to think about it.
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548.
In 1969, 14-year-old Polish national Tomasz Wieczor is arrested trying to escape the Soviet Bloc into Germany and is briefly imprisoned. After his release the following year, Wieczor, further disillusioned with Communist rule and inspired by his love of bootleg American movies, joins a capitalist resistance cell. In December of 1970, huge increases in the price of food spark riots in cities in northern Poland. After dozens of rioting civilians are killed by Polish and Soviet troops, a member of Wieczor's cell firebombs the office of Polish Communist leader Władysław Gomułka, killing him, and leading to a years-long bloody conflict between the Soviet-backed Polish government and Western-backed rebels. With clandestine aid from the CIA, the rebels finally prevail in 1979, and the now 24-year-old Wieczor becomes the youngest member of the new parliament. Over the following decades, Wieczor becomes renowned for his effortless charm, roguish good looks, and sharp political acumen, and he quickly rises through the ranks of the new Polish government. After helping to preside over the 1987 treaty dissolving the Soviet Union (along with United States Vice President Jerry Brown, British Prime Minister James Callaghan, and new Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev), Wieczor is appointed Ambassador to the United States. In 1999, Wieczor runs for Prime Minister, and is elected in a landslide, becoming Poland's most popular Prime Minister to date.
If Wieczor had successfully crossed the border into Germany, he would have taken the train to Paris and gotten a job working as a busboy and janitor. Under the threat of deportation, he would have sold all of his possessions, bought a forged passport under the name of Pierre Thomas, and flown across the Atlantic to live with relatives in Louisiana. Unsatisfied with life in the American South, he would have traveled cross-country (surviving a nearly-fatal car crash in the process), eventually ending up in San Francisco, California, where he would eventually become a street vendor selling small American flags and cheaply made Chinese toy birds. During the 1980s, he would expand his business to include first a restaurant, and then a very successful denim wholesaler. At some point during the early 1990s, he would become an American citizen, change his name, and devote his life and considerable wealth to becoming a famous actor, a goal which he accomplished, in a way, a decade later. But that's a story for another day.
280. The historic vote in 1894 goes the other way, and Brooklyn does not become a borough of New York. They remain an independent city, and development of said city continues in the other direction until Brooklyn annexes almost half the townships of Long Island. Eventually the entire island is referred to as Brooklyn.That's beautiful.. I can't stop thinking about it.
fify
fify280. The historic vote in 1894 goes the other way, and Brooklyn does not become a borough of New York. They remain an independent city, and development of said city continues in the other direction until Brooklyn annexes almost half the townships of Long Island. Eventually the entire island is referred to as Brooklyn.That's beautiful.. I can't stop thinking about it.
You're not the boss of me.
Colin Powell becomes the first African-American President of the United States, and immediately refocuses international and domestic attention on economic matters. This has the effort of buoying the markets and the Great Recession is forestalled for two more years until the 'housing bubble' bursts in a much more dramatic fashion. Given efforts he made to try and prevent the collapse, he's seen in a much more positive light, and business makes greater strides in recovery faster, and government oversight is not relaxed.
Hillary Clinton tries to run against Colin Powell, but is soundly defeated in the 2012 election...
If memory serves, part of the set-up for the divergent timeline in the novel "World War Z" involved Colin Powell deciding to run for president in 2008, with Howard Dean as his running mate. Powell & Dean win the election, and President Powell is a major factor in holding the United States together during the zombie war.
549) Bill Clinton dies of 'a heart attack' while in the Oval Office. The subsequent investigation reveals that it was caused by 'extreme activity' and the relationship between him and several interns at the White House is revealed.
Al Gore takes over the White House, and when he is presented with reports of a terrorist build-up in Afghanistan, uses a bit too much force. The leader of the terrorists, a one Osama bin Laden, is killed during the attack by Navy SEALS, but the conflict bleeds over into Pakistan, who attack and capture several Special Forces units.
Backed into a corner, he does not get re-elected. John McCain, a veteran who had personal experience with captivity, is elected President. His first order of business is to bring the captured troops home.
Pakistan attempts to fling a nuke at US forces during a bout of ensuing instability as a result. They miss, and it was a wide enough margin of error that India presumes it was an attack against their nation.
A limited exchange occurs, leaving a good chunk of the populated subcontinent smoking, and Pakistan ceases to exist as a political entity, being absorbed by India, China, and Afghanistan. The horrors of the exchange bring ALL of the nuclear powers to the table to discuss comprehensive and immediate disarmament talks.
550. Bison Pox existed in prehistory. Westward expansion in North America happens anyway, but the natives aren't utterly crushed and marginalized.
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551
Jesse Presley, twin brother of Elvis Presley, survives childbirth. The twins both share a love of and aptitude for music, and begin playing country-influenced rock and roll music as "The Presley Brothers." However, due to the proliferation of similar acts during the 1950s, the Presleys, while able to get signed to Sun Records, never become a massive hit, scoring only one #1 single (1957's "All Shook Up").
Despite their lack of major successes, the Presley Brothers sell enough records to continue touring throughout the 1960s. After a brief hiatus during the late 1970s and early 80s, the brothers experience a resurgence in popularity during the late 80s and early 90s, finding a new audience in both fans of country music and the burgeoning indie rock scene.
The new millennium brings unprecedented popularity for the Presleys as they are rediscovered by the internet generation, culminating in their induction in 2013 to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in which presenter Jack White cites their "quiet, yet enduring influence on generations of young rock musicians." Despite Jesse's death in 2014 at the age of 78, Elvis Presley still plays his and his brother's songs to packed houses in the rock clubs of Beale Street.
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552
In 1996, facing pre-production issues and writer's block, director George Lucas realizes that he needs help with his new film, and decides to bury the hatchet with producer Gary Kurtz and bring him on to his latest film, titled Star Wars: The Beginning. Kurtz revises Lucas' script, removing or changing several B-plots and characters, also nixing Lucas' planned title change to "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace."
After a year of revisions, and with Kurtz on board, Lucas then turns to long-time friend and collaborator Steven Spielberg, fresh from the success of his film The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and asks him to direct. Spielberg accepts, and filming begins late in 1997.
Star Wars: The Beginning is released in May of 1999 to great fanfare. The film follows the story of Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Cole Hauser), and also features Ray Park as Sith Knight Darth Maul (voiced by Peter Serafinowicz), Morgan Freeman as Jedi Knight Mace Windu, and Charlize Theron as the fiery young Naboo senator Padme Amidala.
Following the commercial and critical success of The Beginning, two more "prequel" films are released: 2002's Star Wars: The Gathering Storm (written & produced by Kurtz and Lucas, and directed again by Spielberg), and 2005's Star Wars: The Blackened Mantle (written by Lucas & Kurtz, produced by Kurtz & Spielberg, and directed by up-and-coming sci-fi director Joss Whedon).
To this day, George Lucas is remembered as an exemplary filmmaker (Howard the Duck nonwithstanding), and the magic of Star Wars is brought to a whole new generation of passionate fans.
553- Yoshiuki Tomino receives the green light for Char's Counterattack immediately after Z Gundam finishes. The movie is about 20 minutes longer and focuses slightly less on Char and Amuro's rivalry and more on the ending of the overall UC storyline, with just about every character from previous works making a cameo- Noa Hathaway, Gyunei Guss, Quess Paraya and their storylines are dropped in favor of these older characters. The deaths of both of the main characters is a bit less ambiguous, although still not directly shown, and the Universal Century is considered to be over once the psychommu saves the earth.
Gundam ZZ, V Gundam, and most other UC series do not exist in their current form, as ideas from these and other shows, as Wing Gundam, Gundam 00 and others, are woven into the main storyline as other "centuries" that exist after the Universal Century ends.
553
In 1955, eccentric inventor Emmett "Doc" Brown first conceives of a time travel mechanism, and vows to see it put to use. Thirty years later, in 1985, after stealing a shipment of plutonium from a group of Libyan rebels, Brown is able to complete his time machine. Unfortunately, before Brown is able to test his time machine, the Libyans catch up with him and gun him down. However, Brown's assistant, high school student Martin "Marty" McFly is able to escape to 1955 in Brown's time machine.
While in 1955, McFly encounters his parents, and attempts to convince them to begin a relationship by breaking into the house of his father, George McFly, donning a haz-mat suit, and torturing the elder McFly with the songs of Van Halen played at high volume. During this exchance, Marty refers to himself as "Darth Vader," a reference to the 1977 film Star Wars.
After a series of important events, George McFly and Lorraine Baines begin their relationship, and their future son returns to 1985 to find Emmett Brown still alive.
In the intervening time period, filmmaker George Lucas independently conceives of the name "Darth Vader," as he had in the unaltered timeline. George McFly, who had been writing a novel based on his experiences in 1955, takes notice, and sues Lucasfilm, embroiling McFly and Lucas in an eight-year-long legal battle. In the end, Lucas and McFly reach a settlement in which Lucas is able to retain the rights to the name "Darth Vader" as it pertains to his three released Star Wars films, but is disbarred from future use of the name, while McFly is acknowledged as the originator of the name, and is able to publish his bestselling novel, A Match Made In Space. Lucas and McFly both retire as wealthy men.
That is, until Marty McFly alters the timeline again...
Man, bad/classic movies really do seem to feature in a lot of mine. Starting to wonder if I have some unresolved issues I need to work out...
554
R.A Salvatore, when coming up with a sidekick for Wulfgar, creates a gnome by the name of Alvyn.
555
During the Great Plague, the citizens of London discover that it is flea infested rats that spread the plague, and begin killing them instead of cats and dogs.
556
Nicolaus Copernicus's views and the heliocentric model is widely accepted, even promoted, by the population and the church.
557: Osama bin Laden, seeing the apparent success of the IRA's political arm Sinn Fein with the 'Good Friday Accords', develops a political branch of Al-Qaeda. This branch is so successful that they manage to unify Afghanistan (and later, Pakistan) in a mutual defense pact.
Rather than engaging in a follow-up attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, money from illicit opium harvesting is instead used to raise the standard of living of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Such peace does not last as Russia's resurgent nationalist movement goads the nation into another land war in Afghanistan.
Pakistan does not hesitate, and several key Russian cities are turned to ash even as Pakistan loses most major population centers.
End result: A far weaker Russia, a series of smoking craters in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and every aid agency on the planet attempting to mitigate the disaster...
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557: Osama bin Laden, seeing the apparent success of the IRA's political arm Sinn Fein with the 'Good Friday Accords', develops a political branch of Al-Qaeda. This branch is so successful that they manage to unify Afghanistan (and later, Pakistan) in a mutual defense pact.
558:
Osama bin Laden drops out of college in 1979 after only one semester in order to pursue his passion of association football. Though he remains a particularly devout Sunni Muslim, he is not exposed to the writings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (and his ideas of jihad and spiritual purification) as an impressionable teenager.
After a long and solid (though not stellar) career as a centre forward for Arsenal F.C, bin Laden retires from football in 1999 and devotes his life to philanthropy and charity work. Bin Laden dies of kidney failure in 2015, but his name lives on in both the Bin Laden Foundation (a charitable organization for British Muslim youth) and as the answer to several pub sports trivia questions.
559: At the end of the 'Great War', Gen. Arthur Currie (Commander of the Canadian Corps) and Gen. John Monash (Commander of the Australian Corps) are placed in charge of the combined forces of the British Empire, and train their men incessantly on the lessons learned from the 'Great War'.
Through demobilization and unit reduction, these freshly trained men are crucial in bolstering the strength of the faltering 'White Army' in Russia, and the conflict rages on until the early 1930s. With more strength conserved, they finally manage to eke out a victory in 1933.
With the Communist base of power mostly shattered, there is little support in Germany for fascism, and Germany takes another twenty years to dig itself out of the debt incurred by the 'Great War'.
With the defeat of the Communists, the Second League of Nations as envisioned by Woodrow Wilson at the end of the 'Great War' comes into being as a functional international entity, and several of the territorial disputes that led into the Second World War in our reality do not come to pass.
Japan, for example, is recognized as a world power for its efforts with the White Army, and trade booms, with the United States slow to recover from the Great Depression and workers rights at an all-time low.
560- Due to a leaked script, fans protest loudly at Lulu not being a playable character in Final Fantasy X-2. The character of Paine is scrapped, and Lulu is put in in her place, making the game series a bit more popular than it is currently, resulting in a bump in goth gaming fashions, a popular manga(and numerous adult doujinshi) and a sequel that becomes one of the last games released for the PS2.
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534. During the American Civil War, the Union commits what would arguably be considered a 'war crime' using 'biological' weapons in the form of disease-ridden blankets.HOWEVER, the recipients of the blankets take some care to disinfect and cleanse the items a bit first, so the disease doesn't hit them as hard.
It DOES mutate, however, and it is virulent enough to wipe out a good chunk of industrialized Union society. The Civil War drags into a stalemate, even as the South becomes infected with several strains of the disease.
Within ten years, the former United States of America is reduced to a tenth of its former population, with former slaves and native peoples having the most robust resistance to the outbreaks...
I would add in that one of the strains starts a breaking down the mental functions of the infected, reducing them to a predatory state with little cognitive function besides the need to feed....zombie apocalypse. The infection spreads easily but those with immunity or resistance are sought after to keep the disease from spreading beyond "The Barrier", a huge wall that sections off much of the southern US from the rest.
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561. Bugs Bunny follows his better judgment and takes a left turn at Albuquerque. This leads him to northern New Mexico, where he gets friendly with the local rabbits, most all of which have the Plague up there . Lacking the resistances of the natives, Bugs dies horribly a few weeks later, and the phrase "What's Up, Doc?" instead becomes remembered not as a line of comedy, but as a disrespectful jab which Senator Joe McCarthy takes on a whim at suspected communist-sympathizer Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, and the phrase goes down in history as the embodiment of Cold War stupidity, American anti-intellectualism in general, and the uncertainty of life in the shadow of the Bomb.
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563. (Have we made it this far without this one?) Either Napoleon or Thomas Jefferson decides that the Louisiana Purchase is not worth it.
As a result, France and Spain/Mexico remain powers in western North America for many years afterward, and the Oregon Territory becomes part of Canada.
Further result: This means that there is no Oregon Trail game. Tens of thousands of American children don't get into computer games in the 1980s.
Further result: The USA does not become a global superpower.
562. Tribes all over the world decide agriculture is for nerds.
NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!
Charles II fails to reclaim the throne during the English Civil War. What happens next?
Charles II fails to reclaim the throne during the English Civil War. What happens next?
that is up to you to flesh out.
564. Due to poor marketing from Nintendo and more aggressive marketing from Atari, the Nintendo Entertainment System does well, but not as well as needed to make the 4th generation Super Nintendo a sure thing for American audiences. The big two of Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis becomes big four with Turbo Grafix 16 and a lower-priced Neo-Geo gaining bigger parts of the video gaming market, which is more eclectic with slightly more expensive individual games. As a result, the future genre schism forms between home gamers and arcade gamers, not by system. Neo Geo more aggressively defends their IP and refuses to allow ports to other systems, being the only system to allow interaction between a home machine and an arcade machine.
565. Due to a louder and more aggressive Yoshiuki Tomino railing against not just poor treatment by Bandai, but also encouraging other mangaka to be more suspicious of companies approaching them about bringing their creations to the TV screen, anime has a much smaller television presence, focusing instead on OVAs, which have a considerably higher amount of input from the series creator/does not force the writer to speed up or slow down production of their work. Most OVAs are considered to be either side stories or alternate reality versions of the original work, and so more outlandish stories with only thin connections to the original work are created.
566. Lionel Richie never leaves the Commodores. His normally solo songs become hits associated with the group, and vice versa. The group wins a Grammy for Nightshift, as in our current reality, but the vocals of Richie are remembered, despite Walter Orange and others essentially ghostwriting the song.
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567. Due to a surge of completionist-based nostalgia at the wizards of the coast office, the sorcerer is replaced with the psionicist in Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 at release. This makes the 3.0 book unusually long and the system takes a bit more time to learn due to increased mathematics, but the increased effort put into the class results in a tighter point based system for psionic effects. Attack and defense modes are dropped in exchange for a grappling-type mechanic for psionic combat. Hennet becomes the iconic psionicist instead or sorcerer as psionic "magic" becomes the domain of dragons in a correlation to the dark sun campaign setting, and in pathfinder Seoni becomes the iconic psionicist instead of sorcerer with her tattoos focusing her mind instead of restraining her sorcery.
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568. Taking the rancid turn of partisan politics in the first 4 years of the Clinton Presidency as an omen of things to come, voters (moderate Republicans, in particular) turn out in force for Bob Dole, and the more civil GOP he represents, in the 1996 election, electing him President and rebuffing both the rising tide of Lee Atwater-style hatemongering, and Bill Clinton's brand of "neoliberal" Democrats.
20th-Century American politics ends on a note of confused and uncomfortable harmony, with a "could be worse, could be better" economy, and no sex scandals in sight (Viagra is introduced to the public with Wilford Brimley as spokesman). Rush Limbaugh's career fades into oblivion without a reliable target.
With President Dole as the incumbent, there is no room for George W Bush in the 2000 Election, and Al Gore beats President Dole by a small but reasonable margin by running on a platform of environmentalism, futurism (appealing to younger and smarter voters by invoking his daughter Kristen and her work on the Futurama staff, resulting in some truly cool campaign ads), and of course, "It's The Economy, Stupid." The Dole Presidency is remembered much like the Gerald Ford Presidency - not exciting, not particularly effective, but a welcome antidote to the "poison politics" associated with the Clinton years.
The September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks are either nipped in the bud, or handled the same way the Timothy McVeigh attacks were handled. The Military-Industrial Complex and its neoconservative political agents whine about wanting to "finish the job" in Iraq and invading Afghanistan, but it doesn't happen; the people don't want war, President Gore doesn't want war, President Dole's isolationist attitude toward the late-90s Balkans crisis deprives the MIC of what would otherwise have been an excuse for believing that regime change can be effectively achieved by war. The issue is raised to a sufficiently high profile that (somewhat and within tight limits) honest discussions are had of American foreign and military policy. President Gore, himself a Vietnam veteran with none of the ready-made sling-and-arrow wounds of John Kerry, weakly addresses the lingering scars of the Vietnam War, Jerry Lembke and his book The Spitting Image become prominent, and rather than a decade of war for America, the '000s becomes a decade of painful but sincere reflection on America's wars, and American militaristic culture is weakened dramatically and permanently.
It is also a time of economic growth, as the humdrum Dole economy becomes more like the go-go Clinton economy. Whether their motives be fair or foul, the Republican Party attacks President Gore's occasional turns to Clintonian "neoliberalism" enough that it gains a semi-legitimate reputation as "the party of fiscal responsibility and prudent economic caution," turning them (partly) away from running on Nixon's despicable Southern Strategy. Evangelical Christians, while still heavily pandered to by state-and-local politicans such as George W Bush, lack a single strong leader figure and see much of their their clout and energy rot on the vine as they slip closer to their status in the 1970s as GOP "ankle-biters." The Kyoto Protocol goes through without a hitch, sparing the planet and all life on it from massive amounts of carbon emissions, and TIME Magazine's 2001 Person of the Year cover shows President Gore lovingly cradling a globe. All in all, the world is a better place.
Charles II fails to reclaim the throne during the English Civil War. What happens next?
That's not how the Civil War worked. The Civil War was Parliament's uprising against Charles I, culminating in the king's trial and execution in 1649.
Charles II reclaimed the throne in a much more civilised manner, essentially being invited back from exile, as part of the Restoration in 1660.
569. Edward VIII, instead of meekly abdicating the throne, took his lead from Henry VIII and declared that he was marrying Wallis Simpson, come what may. While this caused political turmoil in the short term, an American Queen Consort helped persuade the USA to enter WWII earlier than without, shortening the war to the point that it was won before nuclear arms were fully developed. As a side effect, George VI and Elizabeth II never came to the throne and lived lives of relative obscurity (as possible as that is in the Royal Family!)
Boudicca succeeds in driving the Roman Empire out of the British Isles, eventually leading to the Celts being established as a regional and, later, world power.
In the modern era, Americans debate whether or not Cernunnos would have accepted gay sailors, with druids and mythology experts weighing in to support both sides of the argument. Historians debate whether or not Boudicca would have accepted modern feminism. Yet, for some strange reason, everyone is certain Brigid was a lesbian and have been for centuries, resulting in lesbians not being part of the gay rights movement because their rights were already protected. Trans people also are not part of the gay rights movement, in large part to the fact that they're met with general apathy by most of American culture and generally ended up with rights simply because no one in power cared enough to bother trying to deny those rights when the issue was finally brought up.
Christianity remains a minority population, and due in a large part to a long history of antagonism between Christians and druids, is generally viewed as a religion that encourages terrorism. Muslims are still viewed the same way as in the real world.
Unfortunately, the Native Americans have nothing they can contribute to this, since they were successfully eradicated by the Celt population over a century ago.
201] In 2009 (20th Anniversary of Rifts), Kevin Siembieda finally caves to fan pressure and allows Rifts to be converted into other settings. With the rush of people wanting to convert the setting to other systems, everything from d20 to Savage Worlds, and even the obscure Battlelords of the 23rd Century systems, KS becomes a prince among the RPG community. Palladium Sales go through the roof, the Rifts movie is finally completed, RiftsCon buys out GenCon, and role-playing spreads like wild fire through society, Rifts main book is translated into 92 languages, and the Rifts Campaign Setting is played in almost every country.
I was reading through this thread and found this from 2012.
it's almost as if he knew it would happen!
201] In 2009 (20th Anniversary of Rifts), Kevin Siembieda finally caves to fan pressure and allows Rifts to be converted into other settings. With the rush of people wanting to convert the setting to other systems, everything from d20 to Savage Worlds, and even the obscure Battlelords of the 23rd Century systems, KS becomes a prince among the RPG community. Palladium Sales go through the roof, the Rifts movie is finally completed, RiftsCon buys out GenCon, and role-playing spreads like wild fire through society, Rifts main book is translated into 92 languages, and the Rifts Campaign Setting is played in almost every country.I was reading through this thread and found this from 2012.
it's almost as if he knew it would happen!
The basic idea was being batted around far earlier than '09. Better late than never I suppose. :)